The Tech Talks Daily Podcast: Recent Episodes
Neil C. Hughes
Fed up with tech hype and buzzwords? Looking for a tech podcast where you can learn and be inspired by real-world examples of how technology is transforming businesses and reshaping industries?
Keep informed of the latest business and tech trends by listening to stories of other people in your field and how they are overcoming challenges with emerging technologies. Learn from the guest's actionable tips, and lessons learned to obtain greater clarity and how you can leverage technology.
In this daily tech podcast, Neil interviews tech leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, futurists, technologists, thought leaders, celebrities. I have also teamed up with Citrix and its Citrix Ready partners to reveal how they are solving problems together while building the future of work.
We discuss how tech trends such as AI, machine learning, 5G, IoT, AR, VR blockchain, crypto, and digital transformation strategies are already reshaping our world.
Guests from every industry educate listeners through sharing their road to success, startup stories, and how technology transformed their business and life. Join me for a daily dose of optimism and motivation as I prove that technology really does work best when it brings people together.
What happens when an AI agent is compromised, manipulated, or simply does something nobody expected, but already has permission to access your most sensitive systems?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Geoffrey Mattson, CEO of SecureAuth, about why securing enterprise AI requires businesses to think beyond protecting models and start paying much closer attention to identity, authorization, access control, and what AI agents are actually allowed to do.
Geoffrey argues that AI agents present a different security challenge from traditional software. Conventional applications can be tested against relatively predictable behavior. AI models are far less deterministic, particularly when prompt injection, excessive permissions, unexpected behavior, and autonomous actions enter the equation.
His advice is to assume an agent could behave unpredictably and control what happens when it attempts to access a database, execute a financial transaction, call an API, or interact with another business system.
We discuss what this means as companies race to introduce agentic AI. Geoffrey shares examples of employees granting AI tools permissions without fully understanding what they have approved, along with agents gathering information that creates unexpected privacy and compliance problems.
This creates a difficult challenge for CIOs and CISOs. Boards want AI adoption because of its potential competitive value, while employees increasingly depend on AI tools to do their jobs. Simply blocking agents is unlikely to work. Security teams instead need mechanisms that allow innovation while controlling what those agents can access.
Geoffrey explains why Zero Trust becomes particularly relevant here. Rather than authenticating a user or agent once and assuming it remains trustworthy, enterprises need to continually evaluate whether an action should be permitted at that specific moment.
This leads to the concept of continuous authorization. Geoffrey explains how identity security is moving from asking "Who are you?" toward understanding intent, behavior, context, and authority for individual actions. This becomes increasingly important when one AI agent can create sub-agents, which can then create additional agents and pass permissions down the chain.
We also discuss why agentic AI is exposing years of accumulated security debt. Many of the underlying problems are familiar: excessive privileges, inconsistent access controls, incomplete Zero Trust implementations, and systems that trust identities for too long. AI agents amplify those weaknesses because they can operate at machine speed.
Geoffrey describes this as combining the unpredictability of humans with the power of machines.
For CIOs, CISOs, security architects, identity teams, and business leaders deploying agentic AI, this conversation offers practical questions to ask before connecting agents to enterprise resources. What can the agent access? What authority does it have? Can that authority be reduced as tasks are delegated? Is every important action evaluated independently? And can access be revoked immediately when behavior changes?
The goal is not to prevent organizations from using AI agents. It is to create a security layer that gives developers and employees room to experiment while ensuring agents only have the authority they need at the moment they need it.
As autonomous AI becomes part of the enterprise workforce, identity alone may no longer be enough. Businesses increasingly need to understand intent, control authority, and continuously decide whether the next action should be allowed.
Companies are spending billions on GPUs, data centers, foundation models, and AI infrastructure. But what happens when the network connecting all of it cannot keep up?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome back Avi Freedman, co-founder and CEO of Kentik, five years after our previous conversation. Avi has been operating large-scale networks since the 1990s, including more than a decade at Akamai, and brings a rare combination of founder experience and hands-on knowledge of how the internet actually works.
We discuss why network performance is becoming an important factor in determining the return companies receive from their AI investments. If organizations cannot move data efficiently to models or deliver inference reliably to users and applications, expensive compute infrastructure can sit waiting while performance suffers and costs increase.
Avi explains what technology leaders should measure to determine whether their network is helping or hindering AI workloads. This includes establishing performance baselines, synthetic testing across cloud and AI providers, understanding dependencies across the digital supply chain, and using observability to identify what changed when performance deteriorates.
The conversation also examines network intelligence and why collecting telemetry alone is not enough. Organizations need to connect network data with the applications and users affected, understand historical behavior, determine which problems matter, and give network teams enough context to act quickly.
Agentic AI introduces another opportunity. Avi explains how AI agents can increasingly perform the work of experienced network engineers by monitoring baselines, investigating alerts, troubleshooting problems, and recommending actions. But fully autonomous networks remain some distance away. Most enterprises currently want humans deciding whether significant production changes should be made.
That leads us into governance. As businesses give AI systems access to increasingly important infrastructure, credentials, permissions, guardrails, and oversight become major considerations. Avi warns about ungoverned AI systems gaining proxy access to corporate infrastructure and explains why companies need clear boundaries around what agents can see and do.
We also revisit a lesson from decades of internet infrastructure: individual components will fail. Rather than attempting to create networks that never fail, businesses should design for resilience through redundancy, over-provisioning, monitoring, and architectures capable of continuing when something inevitably breaks.
For founders, CIOs, CTOs, network engineers, and infrastructure leaders building around AI, Avi offers practical advice on observability, network resilience, autonomous operations, AI infrastructure, and knowing when networking expertise should be developed internally or brought in from elsewhere.
And we finish somewhere unexpected: how CEOs can use AI to make better decisions by explicitly asking it to disagree with them. Avi explains why turning AI from a sycophantic assistant into an argumentative colleague can expose weaknesses in an idea, improve communication, and help leaders test their thinking.
AI may be transforming software, compute, and business operations, but none of it works without connectivity. As AI becomes part of the operational backbone of the enterprise, understanding the network underneath it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.
Is AI really causing widespread job losses, or are a small number of announcements creating a much larger narrative?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Marvin Pohl, chief data scientist and cofounder of Clarecast, about AI layoffs, quiet restructuring, predictive workforce intelligence, and the responsibility that comes with forecasting company growth.
Marvin's career began in physics and physical chemistry. After completing his PhD in Germany, he worked at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley before moving into data science at BASF. He describes how his role changed as generative AI entered the workplace. Initially, he encouraged skeptical colleagues to understand what language models could do. Today, he often finds himself warning people against accepting confident AI answers without checking the evidence.
Clarecast was founded by Marvin, Jonathan, and CEO Bradley Taylor. The company combines employment profiles, job postings, technology adoption, stock information, industry data, and other signals to forecast how businesses may develop. Marvin says Clarecast covers over four million US companies and produces company-level forecasts extending 18 months.
We discuss Clarecast's report on "quiet restructuring." The report considers whether AI-related workforce contraction may appear through slower hiring, unfilled positions, internal reorganization, automation, and the creation of new AI-related roles rather than widespread mass layoffs.
Marvin says fewer than 100 companies in Clarecast's database had publicly attributed layoff announcements to AI. He describes this as a small proportion of the companies being analyzed and says projected US workforce growth appeared broadly flat rather than approaching a sudden collapse.
However, Marvin is careful about what those findings can prove. The report presents a hypothesis, its model outputs are estimates, and correlation does not establish causation. Companies can change their hiring for many reasons, while employment data often takes time to reflect what has happened.
Many of the AI-related announcements included in Clarecast's early analysis were also less than six months old. Marvin says a reliable assessment of whether companies followed through will require additional time because job postings, employment profiles, and reported headcount do not update immediately.
We also discuss how Clarecast plans to apply its company intelligence to sales prospecting. Marvin argues that poorly personalized AI outreach is reducing response rates. Clarecast wants to help businesses identify a smaller number of companies that are showing signals of genuine need, allowing sales teams to spend additional time on relevant and personalized communication.
How should business leaders use predictive intelligence without turning a probability into a predetermined outcome? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
What happens when an AI agent is authorized to make a payment, but nobody can verify the wider agreement behind it?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Zor Gorelov of Blue Language Labs about the infrastructure businesses may need as AI agents move from answering questions to negotiating, approving, purchasing, coordinating, and settling commercial activity.
Many current business processes depend on human coordination. People reconcile spreadsheets, chase signatures, confirm deliveries, review exceptions, and resolve disagreements between systems. This work often remains invisible because employees absorb the ambiguity through emails, calls, and follow-up.
Agent driven business changes the speed and volume of those interactions. One agent making an isolated payment can be handled as a software transaction. Several agents coordinating dependent actions across companies, banks, suppliers, platforms, and customers creates a much larger infrastructure problem.
Zor argues that authorization answers only part of the question. An agent may have permission to pay, but every participant also needs to understand what the payment covers, which conditions apply, who can approve changes, what evidence confirms delivery, and when funds should be captured, refunded, or settled.
Blue Language Labs is developing an open source protocol designed to structure those commitments. Blue Documents represent machine executable agreements containing participants, permissions, obligations, conditions, and the current state of a business process.
Blue Mandates provide agents with revocable authority. A business can define spending limits, permitted actions, and thresholds requiring human approval. The meeting notes include the example of a restaurant operator allowing an agent to accept smaller bookings automatically while requiring approval for catering orders involving over 20 people.
Blue Timelines provide an append only, hash linked record of actions, approvals, and changes. The aim is to give participants an independent history they can use when resolving disputes, instead of relying on conflicting emails or records controlled by one company.
Zor brings the concept to life through a travel package assembled by an AI agent. The agent identifies a boutique hotel with spare inventory, a restaurant with available tables, and a local guide with unused capacity. Each business defines its terms, the agent assembles the offer, and the participants approve their roles.
The customer purchases one package. Payment can be authorized at the beginning and captured according to agreed conditions as the hotel, restaurant, and guide confirm fulfillment. If one participant declines or fails to deliver, predefined rules determine whether the agent finds a replacement, changes the package, or triggers a cancellation.
We also consider how Blue differs from traditional workflow systems, agent orchestration tools, and blockchain smart contracts. Blue is designed for coordination across separate businesses without requiring every participant to join one company platform or use global blockchain consensus.
The opportunity could be especially valuable for smaller companies. Agents may allow several independent businesses to combine inventory, services, and expertise into offers they could not create individually. Adoption will depend on whether businesses, banks, and customers trust the protocol, accept shared definitions, and retain meaningful control.
What would need to be written into a machine executable agreement before your organization could rely on another company's AI agent? Listen to the conversation and share your thoughts with me.
What separates an embedded finance partnership that changes customer behavior from an integration nobody would miss?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Rory Herriman, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Operations Officer for Zip's US business. Rory works across product, technology, operations, and business strategy, giving him a broad view of what happens after the API connection is complete and real customers begin using the service.
Rory challenges a common understanding of embedded finance as placing one financial product inside another company's experience. Customers rarely wake up wanting embedded finance. They want to complete a purchase, manage their money, or solve a practical problem without an unnecessary interruption.
The real test is whether the two businesses create something together that neither could provide independently. Rory calls this derived product market fit. Both products may succeed separately, but the combined experience must generate additional value for the customer if the partnership is going to last.
Technology integration is only one part of the work. As businesses add customers and partners, they create new customer journeys, compliance obligations, servicing models, governance requirements, and operational processes. Rory argues that this complexity grows exponentially rather than linearly.
This changes how technology teams should approach architecture. Instead of creating another custom integration for every opportunity, each partnership should contribute reusable capabilities to a wider platform. APIs, shared services, configuration tools, support processes, and governance models can then serve the growing ecosystem.
We also discuss what partnership conversations reveal. Rory sees customer journey discussions during the first meeting as a positive sign. A conversation dominated by revenue division or integration mechanics may indicate that the participants have not established why the customer needs the combined service.
His internal test is refreshingly simple. If the company launched the capability and removed it several months later, would the customer notice? If the answer is no, the partnership may have created technical activity without meaningful customer value.
AI also enters the discussion. Rory believes AI can move financial services toward adaptive experiences where the product responds to the customer's circumstances. This offers opportunities for personalization and automated servicing, but it also increases the importance of responsible design, governance, customer consent, and clear accountability.
For leaders building one-to-many embedded finance models, Rory's advice is to begin with the customer journey, establish alignment on values and service expectations, and build platforms that become stronger with each partnership.
Would your customers miss the financial services you are embedding, or are they simply another feature occupying space in the journey? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
What happens to creator loyalty when somebody delivers the work, attracts an audience, and then waits weeks to be paid?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Rob Israch, President at Tipalti, about the payment infrastructure supporting the creator economy. Platforms may be able to add thousands of creators quickly, but the systems behind onboarding, tax collection, approvals, global payouts, communication, and reconciliation often struggle to keep pace.
Rob cites research suggesting 87 percent of creators have experienced late payments. For a creator, payment is a direct test of whether a platform values their contribution. Delays, incorrect amounts, limited payment methods, or receiving funds in the wrong currency can damage trust and encourage successful creators to take their audiences elsewhere.
This makes the payout experience part of creator retention. A platform may offer excellent creative tools and attractive commercial opportunities, but those benefits are easily undermined when creators have to chase payment updates or submit the same information repeatedly.
Global growth adds another layer of difficulty. Rob explains that payment teams may need to account for approximately 26,000 rules, varying tax identification requirements, local payment methods, currency preferences, fraud checks, and screening against over five sanctions databases. If the correct information is not collected during onboarding, payment errors can increase by two or three times.
The resulting problem concerns the complete workflow. Creator information must be collected securely, tax details validated, payment recipients screened, approvals completed, funds delivered through the preferred method, and every transaction reconciled with accounting systems. Creators also need timely communication when a payment is attempted, completed, delayed, or rejected.
We discuss how automation can connect those stages and reduce the manual work that causes errors. Rob also describes practical roles for AI, including more responsive onboarding, automated fraud detection, tax validation, and immediate answers to payment-status questions.
These capabilities can reduce support requests while giving finance teams more time to examine performance, risk, and growth. They also provide creators with something remarkably valuable: confidence that they will be paid accurately and kept informed when a problem occurs.
Should creator payments remain a finance process, or should platforms treat them as part of the creator experience and retention strategy? Listen to the conversation and share your thoughts with me.
What happens when an enterprise AI agent can retrieve thousands of data points but cannot understand the customer, decision, or business moment in front of it?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome back Boris Bialek, Vice President of Industries and Global Field CTO at MongoDB. We examine why the enterprise AI conversation has become more professional as organizations move beyond demonstrations and begin putting agentic systems into production.
Boris argues that many companies do not have a shortage of data. Their problem is turning scattered data into information and then into usable knowledge. A bank balance is data. A complete view of a customer's relationship with the bank is information. Recognizing that the customer is currently researching a mortgage and may need assistance within the next 20 seconds is knowledge.
This distinction leads to Boris's concept of a knowledge garden. Structured records, unstructured content, live signals, conversations, and business context are organized around a customer or outcome. Different departments can access the parts relevant to their work while AI agents receive the context needed to respond quickly.
We also discuss integration debt. Boris recalls one system that required 18 seconds to assemble a customer view and says many enterprises are working with approximately 40 primary data sources. An agent can spend so much time coordinating access across APIs, caches, and applications that the business problem becomes secondary.
Trust becomes equally important once an AI agent can act. Boris introduces two measures: the agent confidence score and the business risk score. The first evaluates whether an agent's output appears reliable based on its data, behavior, and context. The second considers the consequences of allowing that decision to proceed automatically.
Together, these scores can help organizations decide which actions should pass automatically, which need further machine validation, and which should reach a human reviewer. Boris also explains why data lineage and complete audit trails must be designed into production systems from the beginning.
For teams beginning this work, his advice is practical. Choose one business outcome, connect two or three relevant data sources, create a working prototype, and involve business and technical leaders in the same conversation. The goal is to demonstrate how data, context, confidence, risk, and human review work together before expanding the system.
Does your organization have an AI data problem, or does it have a knowledge and context problem? Listen to the conversation and share your thoughts with me.
What happens when a warehouse management system believes stock is present, but nobody can find it on the warehouse floor?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Oana Jinga, co-founder of Dexory, who oversees the company's commercial strategy and product roadmap. Dexory has developed autonomous mobile robots capable of scanning inventory at heights of up to 18 meters while creating a continuously updated digital view of warehouse operations.
The company says its robots have scanned one billion locations across 12 countries. Its customers include Maersk, DHL, Samsung, GE Appliances, Stellantis, GXO Logistics, and C.H. Robinson. However, the real story goes beyond the size of the robot or the number of locations scanned. It concerns what businesses can do once they have accurate information about their physical operations.
Oana explains why warehouses often become data blind spots. Businesses usually know what entered the facility and what eventually left, but stock movements, damaged items, misplaced pallets, and inefficient use of space can remain difficult to track between those events.
Dexory's robots scan approximately 10,000 to 12,000 pallet locations per hour. Oana recalls one customer discovering around £1.5 million in stock it had considered lost or written off. Other scans have revealed repeated pallet movements and potential opportunities to recover around 10% of warehouse capacity through better organization.
We also discuss why visibility alone does not create business value. Dexory initially gave users large volumes of information, only to discover that extensive lists of problems could overwhelm warehouse teams. Its platform now prioritizes the actions requiring attention, helping users concentrate on a manageable number of issues each day.
Oana explains why physical AI faces different challenges from software operating entirely within digital systems. Warehouses change constantly as people, vehicles, stock, temporary obstacles, damaged areas, and local working practices alter the environment. Robots and AI systems therefore require current physical data rather than relying on an old floor plan or assumptions recorded in another system.
For companies considering warehouse robotics, Oana recommends starting with the operational problem. Leaders should observe how work happens, speak with employees about bottlenecks, define the result they want, and appoint an internal owner responsible for adoption. A robot sent to collect stock from an empty or incorrect location cannot complete its task, regardless of how capable its software may be.
We also consider the future of warehouse work. Oana argues that robots can remove repetitive inventory walks and manual counting, allowing employees to interpret data, investigate problems, and improve operations. She also shares her experience as one of the few women in robotics a decade ago and explains why visible female role models can make the sector feel accessible to a wider group of people.
Could physical AI help your warehouse teams make better decisions, or would inaccurate data and unclear ownership prevent the technology from delivering value? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
What can Formula One and football teach businesses about building customer relationships that continue long after a single event?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Ben Lewis, Vice President of Marketing at Infobip, about the company's work with AI-powered sports companions and what those experiences can teach customer experience leaders in every industry.
Ben explains how Infobip worked with TGR Haas F1 Team to create RaceMate, an AI companion available through WhatsApp and Apple Messages for Business. Fans can access team information, driver histories, race schedules, trivia, personalized content and interactive experiences without downloading another application.
We also discuss PitchMate, Infobip's conversational companion for global football fans. It remembers a fan's preferred team, can deliver personalized schedules and match information, and supports quizzes and other interactive features across an extended tournament.
For me, one of the most useful lessons is the decision to meet fans inside messaging channels they already use. We have all downloaded an application for a conference, flight or one-off event, used it for several days and then forgotten it exists. RaceMate and PitchMate allow the conversation to remain available in the same place someone would message a friend.
Ben also explains why Infobip measures success through returning users, conversation duration and the number of interactions rather than relying solely on clicks. TGR Haas F1 Team is currently using RaceMate to grow its fan community and provide useful content rather than constantly pushing merchandise.
The same thinking can apply far beyond sports. We discuss travel companies contacting customers during unresolved claims, healthcare providers sending poorly timed automated messages and brands promoting products without recognizing that a customer is already involved in a dispute. Connected data can help prevent these disjointed experiences.
Our conversation closes with practical advice for businesses adopting agentic AI. Ben recommends connecting customer data with campaigns, testing carefully, establishing guardrails and defining when an AI agent should transfer a conversation to a person.
Are businesses investing too much in new customer applications when the better experience could already live inside WhatsApp, RCS or Apple Messages for Business? Please share your thoughts with me.
Late payments have become so common that many businesses simply accept them as part of commercial life. But should they?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Pat Bermingham, founder and CEO of Adflex, about why late payments continue to cost the UK economy an estimated £11 billion every year, why thousands of businesses fail because of cash flow pressures, and how technology could help change payment behavior rather than simply respond to it.
Pat argues that late payments are rarely an administrative accident. In many industries they have become an informal financing mechanism, allowing larger organizations to protect their own cash flow while placing increasing financial pressure on smaller suppliers. Construction is one example, but the challenge extends across many sectors where long supply chains and uneven bargaining power make delayed payments the norm rather than the exception.
We discuss why new government proposals to strengthen payment regulations represent progress, while also examining why legislation alone cannot solve a structural problem that has developed over decades.
Instead, Pat believes technology can play a much bigger role.
He explains how virtual commercial cards and Straight Through Processing (STP) allow buyers to access extended finance while suppliers receive payment far more quickly, without introducing additional friction into the payment process. Rather than forcing suppliers to accept card payments directly, the technology automates the process behind the scenes while improving reconciliation, increasing visibility and supporting healthier cash flow across the supply chain.
The conversation also explores why many organizations still rely on fragmented payment systems created through years of acquisitions and disconnected technologies. Modernizing payment infrastructure can reduce delays, improve operational efficiency and help businesses build stronger supplier relationships rather than treating late payment as a normal business practice.
Pat also shares how an earlier career as a music producer shaped his thinking about technology. Watching digital innovation transform music production helped him recognize how technology can simplify complex processes while also creating new business models that challenge established industries.
For finance leaders, procurement teams, CIOs and business owners, this episode provides practical insights into improving cash flow, strengthening supplier relationships, modernizing payment processes and preparing for a future where prompt payment becomes both a commercial advantage and an increasing regulatory expectation.
Changing payment legislation is important. Changing payment behavior is what will ultimately strengthen businesses, protect suppliers and create more resilient supply chains.
Most AI conversations begin with productivity. Joanna Pachnik thinks that's the wrong place to start.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Joanna Pachnik, founder of Blueclip, about why AI is changing far more than the speed of work. It's changing how businesses create value, what customers are willing to pay for, and what competitive advantage will look like over the next decade.
Drawing on her experience leading global supply chain transformation projects at Ernst & Young and Mars before founding Blueclip, Joanna argues that knowledge is becoming increasingly accessible through AI. Research, analysis and reports that once took weeks and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars can now be produced in hours. That doesn't eliminate the need for expertise. It changes what expertise is worth.
Rather than paying for information alone, organizations increasingly want implementation, measurable outcomes and practical experience that AI cannot easily replicate. Joanna explains why unique industry knowledge, benchmarking, practical experience and genuine human relationships may become more valuable as AI becomes more capable.
We also discuss why so many enterprise AI initiatives struggle to deliver meaningful results. Joanna believes the technology is rarely the biggest obstacle. The real problem is poor data, undocumented processes and organizations trying to automate before building the foundations AI depends upon. Her advice is simple: prepare your data, document your processes, create a company knowledge layer, then introduce AI one use case at a time.
The conversation also explores why AI should be viewed as a business transformation initiative rather than an automation project. Instead of accelerating existing processes, companies should ask whether those processes should exist at all. AI creates an opportunity to redesign how organizations operate, continuously improve decision-making and move people toward higher-value work.
We also examine the importance of human oversight. Joanna believes AI should begin with people reviewing and guiding its outputs before gradually taking on more responsibility in carefully selected scenarios. Human accountability remains essential, particularly when AI supports material business decisions.
For business leaders navigating AI strategy, digital transformation and enterprise innovation, this conversation offers practical advice on creating long-term value instead of chasing short-term AI hype. It explains why the companies that succeed will not necessarily be those using the most AI, but those prepared to rethink how they create value, organize knowledge and redesign their businesses around new possibilities.
The future belongs to organizations that see AI as more than another productivity tool. It belongs to those willing to transform how they work, how they serve customers and how they create lasting business value.
What happens behind the scenes when you dial 911, and is the infrastructure ready for AI, satellite messaging, video, and precise location data?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by John Snapp, VP of Technology at Intrado. John has spent around 23 years working with cellular, location, and 911 technologies. He explains how a mobile emergency call is located, routed through a dedicated network, and directed to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point.
We discuss where AI can provide practical support inside emergency communications. Translation can help telecommunicators understand callers without waiting for an interpreter. Real-time transcription can capture details and suggest established procedures. AI voice agents can also handle suitable nonemergency inquiries, giving trained staff additional time for calls where lives may be at risk.
John is clear that emotional emergency calls still demand human understanding and authority. AI can supply information, identify possible synthetic voices, and reduce administrative work, but trained telecommunicators remain responsible for interpreting the situation and directing the response.
Our conversation also examines the infrastructure beneath these capabilities. Legacy 911 networks were designed largely for voice and limited amounts of data. Next Generation 911 introduces IP connectivity capable of carrying text, images, video, and richer location information. John explains how this foundation has made satellite texting possible and why similar capabilities were far slower to introduce using older networks.
Moving to NG911 creates its own problems. Different vendors can comply with the same technical standard while implementing it differently. Calls may also need to move between modern and legacy call centers, making interoperability testing between jurisdictions a major part of deployment.
We also consider cloud resilience, local survivability, connectivity diversity, telephony denial of service attacks, AI generated swatting calls, and the danger of adopting automation before establishing governance. John recommends starting with lower-risk areas such as quality assurance and nonemergency calls, communicating openly about AI use, and expanding only after teams understand the operational impact.
As emergency communications become richer and increasingly connected, how should public safety agencies balance faster innovation with the reliability and human judgment every caller depends on? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
When organizations review their cybersecurity posture, printers are rarely the first systems that come to mind. Yet they often account for around 20% of network endpoints while receiving, storing, processing, and transmitting sensitive business information every day.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome back Jim LaRoe, CEO of Symphion, to discuss why printers and other connected IoT devices have become one of the most overlooked areas of enterprise cybersecurity and why AI-powered attacks are raising the stakes for organizations that continue to ignore them.
Jim explains how many businesses continue to treat printers as simple office equipment rather than Linux-based network devices with privileged access to email systems, file servers, identity services, and critical business workflows. Because responsibility for these devices often sits between procurement, managed print providers, IT operations, and security teams, they can easily fall outside normal cybersecurity processes.
We discuss how the threat landscape has changed over the past year as AI enables attackers to automate reconnaissance, credential theft, lateral movement, and ransomware deployment. Jim explains why organizations adopting Zero Trust principles also need to rethink how they secure and manage connected endpoints that have traditionally been overlooked.
The conversation also explores certificate lifecycle management, cyber hygiene, firmware management, endpoint visibility, and why unsupported devices can introduce unnecessary risk into modern enterprise environments.
For organizations managing hundreds or even thousands of printers across multiple locations, Jim explains why protecting these endpoints does not need to create additional operational burden. Instead, security should become an ongoing operational program that continuously monitors devices, detects configuration drift, applies security controls, and helps organizations maintain compliance without disrupting critical business workflows.
We also discuss the governance challenge many organizations face. Before companies can reduce risk, someone needs to own it. That means establishing accountability, assigning budget, understanding which devices exist across the business, and recognizing that printers and IoT devices deserve the same attention as servers, laptops, and other managed endpoints.
If you're responsible for cybersecurity, IT infrastructure, risk management, or digital transformation, this episode offers practical advice on protecting forgotten endpoints, strengthening Zero Trust strategies, improving endpoint visibility, and reducing the hidden risks that AI-powered attackers are increasingly looking to exploit.
Sometimes the biggest cybersecurity vulnerability isn't the system you forgot to patch. It's the one you forgot was connected in the first place.
What happens to digital asset ownership when the cryptography proving that ownership can no longer be trusted?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Yoon Auh, cofounder of BOLTS Technologies, about quantum computing, blockchain security, and the need for crypto agility. Yoon brings an unusual perspective to the subject. Before moving into applied cryptography, he spent years building and operating high performance trading systems at firms including Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Geode Capital, and Magnetar Capital.
Yoon explains that blockchain ownership ultimately depends on digital signatures and public keys. Most major blockchain systems use variants of elliptic curve cryptography because it has historically offered speed, compact signatures, and dependable protection. However, sufficiently powerful quantum computers could eventually challenge the mathematics supporting that protection.
The risk does not begin when such a quantum computer arrives. Yoon describes how attackers can collect encrypted traffic today, store it, and attempt to decrypt it later. This creates an immediate concern for governments, financial institutions, and businesses holding information that must remain private for many years.
We also discuss QFlex, the post quantum ready API developed by BOLTS Technologies. The company describes its approach as cryptographic logistics, allowing different cryptographic methods to be selected at the transaction level. Yoon argues that a small payment and a multimillion dollar asset transfer should not automatically receive identical protection, particularly when stronger cryptography may require additional processing, storage, and cost.
Another concern is uncertainty around the available post quantum algorithms. Yoon explains that cryptographic methods can survive years of examination before a weakness is discovered. His argument is that organizations need the ability to change algorithms quickly if one becomes vulnerable, rather than making a permanent choice and hoping it survives every new attack.
The conversation also examines digital asset sovereignty. Who decides how a transaction is protected: the platform, the protocol, or the asset holder? BOLTS Technologies believes that choice should return to the holder, while QFlex aims to provide that control without hard forks, network downtime, or protocol changes. The interview also covers the company's research background and its pilot work with the Canton Foundation.
Yoon closes with a lesson from his trading career. Backup and failover exercises often failed because they were treated as occasional events. His advice is to make exceptional processes routine, ensuring that the organization has already practiced changing systems before the moment arrives when it has no other option.
Should digital asset holders control the cryptography protecting every transaction, or should platforms continue making that decision for them? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
What prevents a successful AI experiment from becoming a dependable production system that delivers measurable business value?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Ed Macosky, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Boomi, about AI pilot purgatory, integration, governance, model selection, token costs, and the technical skills businesses may need as adoption grows.
Ed leads Boomi's product and engineering teams while also using AI tools inside his own organization. That gives him a view from both sides: creating technology for enterprise customers and applying it within active product development workflows.
He believes many AI pilots begin with the wrong question. Teams become interested in the latest model or feature before defining the business problem they want to solve. The experiment may work during a demonstration, then fail when it encounters real data, access controls, security policies, and production systems.
Placing company information inside a data lake and adding a language model does not automatically create a business application. The system must access current data reliably, respect employee permissions, connect with existing applications, and operate within governance rules that security teams can approve.
Ed recommends beginning with a defined business opportunity and establishing the access required to support it. Existing APIs can already provide authentication, permissions, and governance. MCP can offer another route into enterprise systems, but those connections still require security, monitoring, and management.
Team alignment also matters. An AI center may be racing to test models while an integration center concentrates on a different set of priorities. When those groups fail to coordinate, the pilot lacks the connectivity and automation required to become part of a production workflow.
The discussion then turns toward fragmentation. Every technology wave produces new vendors, frameworks, and specialist tools. Early experimentation benefits from variety, but mature companies can eventually find themselves maintaining a complicated collection of products held together with custom code and, occasionally, the digital equivalent of duct tape.
Ed does not recommend placing every function with one provider. He does argue for enough consolidation and abstraction to prevent experimentation from creating years of technology debt. Governance and observability should also work horizontally across different environments, including platforms such as SAP, Salesforce, and several AI model providers.
That becomes increasingly important as businesses introduce autonomous agents. Leaders need to know which agents exist, what systems they can access, what actions they can take, and how each decision is recorded. AI gateways and agent control towers can provide a wider view across otherwise separate technology environments.
Ed also introduces the idea of the frontier engineer. A prompt engineer concentrates on communicating effectively with a model. A frontier engineer understands how the model works, including its logic, mathematics, algorithms, and suitability for different workloads.
He does not believe every company needs a large team of these specialists. However, he argues that enterprises need at least one person capable of assessing vendor claims and deciding whether a frontier model, specialist model, or open weight model fits a particular workload.
Cost creates another reason to examine model selection. Sending every employee request or agent task to the most capable frontier model can become expensive. Some repeatable workloads may run on open weight models inside the company's cloud or hardware environment, giving finance teams greater cost certainty.
Boomi is developing Boomi Prompt to route requests according to their complexity and requirements. A simple factual request might go directly to an API. A forecasting task may use a smaller model. A difficult analytical request could be sent to a frontier model.
Ed uses the weather as a helpful example. Retrieving next Tuesday's forecast does not require a language model when a public weather API can return the answer directly. Asking a model to perform every form of automation wastes tokens, computing power, energy, and money.
The episode closes with practical advice for CIOs. Avoid starting with a broad objective such as agentifying the entire business. Choose a department, identify a small number of tasks, define the expected return, and work backward. Once the team proves value and understands the operating requirements, it can repeat the process elsewhere.
Could intelligent routing, stronger integration, and clearer business outcomes finally move enterprise AI beyond pilot purgatory? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
What must happen before a business can trust AI agents to detect and resolve operational problems without waiting for human intervention?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Josh Clay, Regional Vice President of Solution Engineering for Dynatrace in the UK, about autonomous operations, AI observability, fragmented telemetry, business outcomes, and the growing pressure to control token and data costs.
Josh has spent much of his 11 years at Dynatrace discussing the road toward autonomous operations. The earliest version involved reducing the time organizations spent inside IT war rooms. He remembers calls with 30 or 40 people attempting to establish which team was responsible for an incident. He jokingly calls this the "mean time to innocence."
Modern observability reduced many of those investigations from several hours to between 30 and 60 minutes. Agentic AI creates the possibility of going further by identifying a problem, understanding its cause, and resolving it before the customer experience is affected.
That ambition also introduces risk. Josh cites Dynatrace research showing that 52% of respondents view security, privacy, and compliance concerns as barriers to AI adoption. He believes many organizations still lack full observability across their existing technology environments, making autonomous agents harder to supervise.
Josh shares a warning from Alex Hibbert of Storia Group: AI can amplify existing technology problems. If telemetry is fragmented, data quality is poor, or teams cannot see how services depend on one another, adding autonomous agents may increase the speed and scale of the resulting failure.
Trust therefore depends on visibility. Josh describes observability as a control plane for agentic AI because it can show what an agent is doing, why it made a decision, and what happened afterward. Defined guardrails and real time information can give leaders confidence without asking them to surrender control blindly.
The adoption figures show how early this work remains. Josh says 50% of businesses have AI operating in limited production use cases, often performing one isolated task. Only 23% describe their deployments as connected across the wider organization.
We discuss how observability has progressed beyond technical monitoring. An airport can measure whether technology changes improve e-gate availability and passenger processing times. A bank can examine whether application performance affects mortgage completion rates. These connections allow leaders to measure AI through business results rather than relying entirely on response times and infrastructure metrics.
Reliable agents also need suitable data. Dynatrace says AI agents operating with deterministic data can work 12 times more accurately and three times faster while using two and a half times fewer tokens. These remain company findings, but they demonstrate why context and causality can affect cost as well as reliability.
Fragmented telemetry creates another barrier. Logs may sit in one platform, front end monitoring in another, and metrics or traces somewhere else. Attempting to reconstruct every relationship for an AI agent can become expensive and difficult.
Josh recommends bringing observability data into a connected environment where relationships between services, cloud resources, traces, metrics, and logs are already understood. He also warns against collecting information simply because it exists. Data hoarding increases ingestion costs and can introduce personal information into systems without a clear business need.
The conversation then moves toward AI FinOps. Leaders want to know what agents cost, how many tokens they consume, and whether those costs produce a measurable return. Josh describes a Dynatrace proof of concept that identified potential annual savings just below £250,000 within one small environment.
That example reinforces a recurring concern. Organizations are racing to place AI into production, then moving to the next project without reviewing whether the previous environment is appropriately sized or financially efficient.
Josh hopes companies will develop a more pragmatic view of AI as another enterprise tool. That means establishing agreed methods for deployment, monitoring, cost management, incident response, and measuring business results.
Could observability provide the confidence businesses need to move from isolated AI experiments toward autonomous operations? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
How can businesses secure AI agents that read sensitive information, update systems and communicate with other agents on behalf of employees?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Sachin Nayyar, founder and CEO of Saviynt, about AI agent identity security and the controls businesses need before autonomous systems enter production.
Saviynt manages over 100 million identities for over 700 customers. Sachin explains how enterprise identity has expanded beyond employees to include partners, applications, machines and autonomous AI agents.
An AI agent creates a different access problem because it is both an identity and an application. It can receive permissions, access information and perform actions, but its behavior can also be governed through software while it is being developed and while it is operating.
Sachin uses an HR copilot to demonstrate why context matters. Two employees can ask the same question about salaries but should receive different answers based on their roles, locations and applicable policies. Those decisions must be evaluated while the request is being processed without creating delays that make the system unusable.
The risk grows when an agent crosses from one technology environment into another. An agent built within Microsoft may need to access Salesforce, ServiceNow, Jira or another external system. Sachin warns businesses never to solve this problem by giving an agent a permanent administrative account.
We discuss Zuma, Saviynt's identity security platform for AI agents and non-human identities. Sachin describes a four-part framework beginning with agent discovery and a central registry. Every agent should then receive one accountable human owner, temporary access for its assigned task and policy enforcement while it acts.
Ownership becomes especially important when an employee leaves. Saviynt's approach begins an automated reassignment process and blocks actions if an agent attempts to operate without a current owner. The relevant security team can then investigate before allowing further activity.
Sachin also explains why identity controls should enter the development process rather than being added after deployment. Saviynt is working with LangChain and other agent development platforms to make identity policies available while AI agents are being built.
The conversation also covers Saviynt's partnership with Zscaler. Zscaler provides inline enforcement, while Saviynt contributes identity information about the agent, its owner, existing permissions and expected behavior.
Sachin closes with an optimistic argument. Because businesses can place security controls into the code and enforce them while agents act, AI workloads may eventually become better governed than traditional human access.
Could every AI agent inside your business be traced to one accountable owner, one approved purpose and a limited set of temporary permissions? Please share your thoughts with me.
What becomes possible when enterprise computer vision no longer depends on expensive GPU infrastructure?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Glenn Jocher, founder and CEO of Ultralytics, about YOLO26, CPU inference, edge AI, open vocabulary vision, deployment economics, and the practical work required to move computer vision from a promising pilot into production.
Glenn's route into AI began inside the U.S. intelligence community. He worked with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency on particle physics applications, attempting to detect and track antineutrinos.
Antineutrinos are extraordinarily difficult to detect because they pass through almost everything. Glenn describes them as the perfect spy. While searching for better detection methods, he discovered that computer vision researchers were solving similar problems with images.
His original attempt to transfer those techniques into particle physics did not succeed. However, the work introduced him to a field where the technology could create a visible effect on everyday life. That led him toward open source development and eventually the YOLO models for object detection, classification, segmentation, and tracking.
Glenn believes computer vision research has historically placed too much attention on small gains in accuracy while overlooking deployment economics. A model can perform impressively inside a laboratory and still remain unsuitable for a factory, warehouse, store, vehicle, drone, or medical environment.
Price, latency, power consumption, data privacy, and deployment speed can determine whether the technology is commercially useful. This led Glenn and Ultralytics toward smaller models capable of running close to where images and video are generated.
YOLO26 continues that approach with architectural changes designed specifically for CPU inference. Glenn says the model can process camera streams in real time at 30 frames per second and run across Intel CPUs, AMD CPUs, and lower power devices such as Raspberry Pi computers.
This matters because specialist GPUs can increase the equipment cost and power requirements of a computer vision project. Running inference on existing CPUs or edge hardware can make deployment economically possible across larger numbers of cameras and locations.
The scale already involved is difficult to comprehend. Glenn says Ultralytics models now process approximately three billion inference jobs each day, equivalent to around 30,000 every second. These jobs include images, videos, and collections of images being analyzed to detect, segment, or track objects.
He attributes the platform's maturity to thousands of mistakes and bugs corrected through a rapid feedback cycle. New models are released, users report problems and request features, and the team incorporates that information into later versions.
We also discuss the respective roles of cloud and edge infrastructure. Glenn sees cloud platforms continuing to provide the computing power required for training, while computer vision inference often belongs at the edge. Local processing can reduce latency, control operating costs, and keep sensitive video or medical information closer to where it was created.
The smallest YOLO model is approximately three megabytes, according to Glenn. That allows it to reach mobile phones, vehicles, drones, battery powered devices, and other environments where a large language model would be impractical.
Open vocabulary vision provides another development. Traditional object detection models are trained to recognize a fixed collection of objects. If a model learns to detect dogs and the user later wants it to detect cats, retraining can cause it to forget earlier knowledge unless both categories appear in the new training data.
Glenn explains how promptable models can identify common everyday objects from text or visual instructions without additional training. A user could request a person wearing a blue shirt and white shoes, for example, and the system could search an image for that description.
That flexibility could benefit businesses whose requirements change regularly. It reduces the need to create and label a new data set every time the company wants the model to recognize another common object.
The range of current applications is already extensive. Glenn describes YOLO being used across robotics, parking, industrial safety, PPE detection, warehouses, aviation, security, traffic management, food quality, and manufacturing.
Some of his favorite examples involve environmental problems. One company uses YOLO with underwater vehicles to identify and recover plastic from the ocean. Other applications detect smoke and fire early enough to support forest fire response.
For leaders considering computer vision, Glenn recommends beginning with a defined problem and measurable outcome. A manufacturing company may want to reduce defects, but it still needs labeled examples showing the model what acceptable and defective products look like.
He advises testing the idea through a limited pilot, measuring the return, and expanding only when the evidence supports further investment. Computer vision has become easier to deploy, but practical problems involving data, cameras, integration, reliability, and operating conditions still separate a demonstration from a production system.
Could CPU inference and open vocabulary models make computer vision practical for processes your organization previously considered too expensive? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
Useful Links Ultralytics website Ultralytics Platform
What can private companies learn from government caseworkers about adopting automation and using data more effectively?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with David Turner, General Manager and Senior Vice President of Government Services at Equifax Workforce Solutions, about public sector automation, data modernization, and the people responsible for delivering social services.
The conversation begins with a surprising finding from an Equifax Government Services study of over 500 U.S. government employees. Every respondent expected efficiency to improve during the following year, while 95% believed automation would free time for higher value, human centered work.
David explains why government employees may be more receptive to modernization than many people assume. Caseworkers operate under rising demand, staffing pressures, changing policy, and limited budgets. When technology removes repetitive administration or supplies information faster, they can see an immediate connection between the tool and the person waiting for support.
We discuss how the meaning of automation has changed inside social services. A few years ago, it might have meant entering information into an online portal. Today, integrated connections can search data sources behind the scenes and return verified information during the caseworker's existing process.
David describes continuous evaluation, which can identify when circumstances within a caseload have changed. Instead of searching every case for a possible update, a worker can direct attention toward the people whose income, address, or employment data indicates that further review may be needed.
Income verification provides another example. Equifax says it can return income information in under one second, helping prevent the delays created when an applicant must leave the process to find a document. Those pauses matter when an eligibility decision already involves several stages and numerous external systems.
The gig economy makes this work harder. Applicants may receive income from employment, contract work, digital platforms, and several side projects. Agencies need access to a fuller income picture without sending people back toward paper forms and manual verification.
David also shares what Equifax has learned through its Day in the Life program. The team spends time with caseworkers to understand their processes, policy restrictions, and information constraints. He believes public sector leadership can remain closely connected to employees in the field because many agency executives previously performed those roles themselves.
AI introduces further possibilities. David discusses how data and AI could eventually identify signs that someone who has left an assistance program may be experiencing financial difficulty again. Community groups, food banks, or other services could potentially offer support before that person returns to crisis. Such a system would also require careful decisions around consent, privacy, accuracy, and responsibility.
The central lesson is refreshingly human. Technology creates value when it removes administrative pauses and gives experienced caseworkers additional time to understand someone's circumstances.
Could public sector automation teach private companies how to connect technology investment with human outcomes? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
What happens when an AI experiment becomes a production service that your employees, customers, and daily operations depend upon?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Brian Klingbeil, Chief Strategy Officer at Ensono, about AI infrastructure resilience, operational dependency, FinOps, legacy modernization, and the growing pressure to prove that enterprise AI investments are producing meaningful returns.
Brian has been speaking with major enterprises through Ensono's Executive Advisory Council. Three years ago, many participants were experimenting with proofs of concept. Today, they are being asked to present AI projects that are already in production, approaching production, or demonstrating a clear return through productivity, lower risk, service quality, or financial results.
That progression creates a new problem. When an AI model begins supporting product delivery, customer service, logistics, software development, or internal operations, it becomes part of the company's operating infrastructure. Leaders must then ask familiar IT questions about availability, monitoring, security, incident response, disaster recovery, ownership, and cost.
Brian believes FinOps often provides the first warning. Token consumption can be difficult for CFOs and business leaders to interpret, particularly when hundreds of agents are operating across different models. Ensono's internal platform has produced around 1,000 agents, prompting questions about which are effective, which are expensive, and who should carry the cost.
We discuss why chargeback and showback could change employee behavior. When AI spending is absorbed by a central corporate budget, teams may have little reason to question whether an expensive model is suitable for a routine task. When the cost reaches their departmental budget, the decision can look very different.
Architecture also matters. Brian recommends systems that are loosely coupled and tightly integrated. Companies should be able to replace a model, provider, FinOps tool, or service as the market changes, while still connecting each component closely enough to deliver useful business outcomes.
That creates a genuine tradeoff. Providers such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic can offer specialist capabilities that businesses may want to use. Avoiding every provider specific feature can limit what the technology delivers, while becoming too dependent on one provider can make future change expensive and disruptive.
The conversation then turns toward legacy technology. Brian argues that many systems described as outdated still process airline reservations, banking transactions, insurance claims, government services, and other high volume workloads. Turning them off without suitable replacements would create far bigger problems than the word "legacy" suggests.
AI can change the modernization decision. Ensono worked with Markerstudy Group to analyze six million lines of RPG code running on an IBM i platform. The resulting plan identified applications that should move elsewhere while preserving workloads that still benefited from the platform's reliability and transaction processing capabilities.
Brian treats migration as one possible part of modernization. AI tools can document old code, support modern development environments, and allow younger developers to work with established platforms without immediately beginning a lengthy and expensive replacement program.
We also discuss Ensono's use of AI operations. Brian says the company reduced mean time to repair by 50% while processing approximately 50,000 tickets each month. The example shows how AI value can be measured through service quality and operational performance rather than relying entirely on direct revenue.
The result is a balanced conversation about moving quickly while building enough control to keep AI dependable. Organizations need space for experimentation, but production services also require ownership, budgets, recovery planning, and people who know what to do when something fails.
If one AI model or provider disappeared tomorrow, how much of your business would stop working? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
What happens when an autonomous AI agent makes a financial decision using inaccurate, outdated, or poorly synchronized data?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Marcin Kaźmierczak, cofounder of RedStone Oracles and Credora Ratings, about why verifiable data is becoming so important to financial AI agents. RedStone originally developed its oracle infrastructure to supply smart contracts with reliable information from hundreds of sources. The same principles are now being applied as AI agents begin analyzing markets, recommending allocations, processing payments, and executing trades.
Marcin explains what a blockchain oracle does and why smart contracts cannot independently access real world information. RedStone aggregates, cleans, and distributes financial data, including asset prices, liquidity, volatility, and market capitalization. According to Marcin, its network currently secures over $10 billion in total value locked and has operated for six years without a mispricing or downtime event.
The discussion then moves into agent driven finance. AI agents can process information and act at considerable speed, but that speed introduces problems when the underlying information is delayed or the model hallucinates. Marcin describes the synchronization challenge created when an oracle updates every five seconds while an agent makes decisions every second.
One example captures the risk. An AI trading agent reportedly generated $200,000 over three months before losing $250,000 in two transactions. Marcin explains how Credora Ratings can add financial risk context by rating assets and strategies from D to A. Companies can then instruct an agent to operate only within an approved risk range.
We also discuss tokenized assets, the growing interest from major financial institutions, and why blockchain networks offer an attractive operating environment for autonomous finance. Marcin shares practical advice for leaders, including speaking with experienced implementers, testing agents in closed environments, identifying likely failure scenarios, and creating response policies before introducing real money.
What evidence would you require before trusting an AI agent with a financial decision? Listen to the episode and share your answer with me.
What if a restaurant could identify a margin problem while the ingredients were still being unloaded, rather than discovering it several weeks later?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with David Cantu, CEO of Craftable, about AI restaurant back-office technology, margin intelligence, inventory management, purchasing, invoice automation, and the continuing importance of human hospitality.
David has spent decades working in restaurants and technology. He describes an industry dealing with staffing difficulties, rising leases, food inflation, lower traffic, and relentless margin pressure. David cites a National Restaurant Association study indicating that 40% of restaurateurs were not profitable during the previous year.
Craftable connects purchasing, recipe management, inventory, accounting, sales data, and analytics. The company says its platform is used by over 10,000 restaurants, hotels, and venues.
David argues that useful hospitality AI should automate the work that keeps managers, chefs, and operators away from guests. This includes producing sales forecasts, suggesting orders, planning preparation, identifying invoice anomalies, and comparing projected labor with actual requirements.
The conversation becomes particularly practical when David describes a restaurant receiving a ribeye that has increased in price by 20%. If the dish is a popular, high-margin menu item, that vendor increase can quickly reduce its profitability.
Craftable's Invoice AI can detect the change when the invoice is received. The operator can then consider running a higher-priced chef's special, promoting another steak, reviewing the menu price, or adjusting future orders. Waiting until month-end reconciliation would explain the lost margin but leave no opportunity to recover it during service.
We also discuss the difference between AI intelligence and operator knowledge. AI can examine large volumes of information, but an experienced restaurateur understands the atmosphere, the team, the guests, and what is happening at that particular moment.
David believes AI recommendations need to show their work. Managers should be able to inspect how a sales forecast, suggested order, staffing plan, or trend was calculated. Transparency helps people assess the recommendation without forcing them to search through another large analytics report.
Craftable is also testing how to measure whether a recommended action produced a result. If a manager coaches a server with unusually high complimentary items or promotes a menu category with falling attachment rates, the platform can examine whether that action affected sales or margins.
David is skeptical of hospitality AI added as a promotional layer without being built into the daily workflow. At industry conferences, he has seen vendors attach language models to existing products while offering little operational value.
His hope for restaurant AI is highly human. He wants technology reducing administrative pressure while employees welcome guests, serve meals, develop their teams, and create the warm experiences that define hospitality.
Which restaurant decision could protect profitability if the operator received the right information before the next service began? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
Why do so many enterprise AI initiatives begin with impressive demonstrations but struggle to produce measurable business value?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Dom Selvon, CTO and value partner at Valliance, about enterprise AI ROI, outcome-based consulting, build versus buy decisions, proprietary data, ontologies, and governance.
Valliance is an AI-native consultancy that charges against client outcomes rather than hours worked. Dom explains why his "value partner" title is deliberate. The company begins by identifying the financial or operational result a client wants and connects its own compensation with achieving that result.
Dom argues that many AI initiatives begin without a clear definition of success. The pressure to adopt AI is real, but companies frequently select technology before agreeing on the business problem, desired outcome, or measurement.
He identifies three recurring mistakes. The first is framing the project around AI rather than the business need. The second is failing to establish a metric and baseline before work begins. The third is using a consulting model that rewards billable time without connecting payment to the client's result.
We also discuss how generative AI is changing traditional build versus buy decisions. Companies historically bought software because custom development was slow, expensive, and difficult to maintain. Coding agents can now reduce the time and cost required to create software for specific internal needs.
Dom does not believe SaaS will simply disappear. However, vendors selling convenience, workflow wrappers, or integration glue face new competition from customers who can create similar capabilities themselves. He argues that stronger SaaS positions will depend on assets a model cannot easily regenerate, including proprietary data, networks, regulatory standing, and deep workflow adoption.
This leads to a wider discussion about competitive advantage. When companies have access to similar models, generated code begins to converge. Dom believes lasting differentiation comes from company data, institutional knowledge, connected systems, employee experience, and the semantic context surrounding that information.
Dom explains why ontologies matter to enterprise AI. Raw data tells an agent what is stored in a particular field. An ontology describes the customers, orders, contracts, payments, relationships, and business rules represented by that data. This context allows people and agents to reason about information in a way that reflects how the company actually works.
Governance also needs to be designed from the beginning. Dom argues that security, permissions, accountability, and compliance allow successful pilots to expand without forcing the business to rebuild everything later.
How can leaders tell when AI is genuinely being adopted? Dom offers a surprisingly simple signal: people stop talking about AI. The technology becomes part of ordinary Monday morning work, and employees focus on completing the task rather than explaining the tool.
Has your company defined the business result, measurement, proprietary context, and governance required to turn AI enthusiasm into operational value? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
What does a modern contact center need to deliver when the person reaching out may already feel anxious, embarrassed, and unsure where to turn?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Chris Lovell, service delivery lead for StepChange Debt Charity's contact center and product owner for its Genesys Cloud platform.
StepChange supports hundreds of thousands of people facing financial hardship each year. Chris explains that approximately 40% of its clients receive Universal Credit, over 60% rent their homes, and many are dealing with an additional vulnerability alongside debt.
That context makes the first interaction especially important. People may have delayed asking for support while their financial position became harder to manage. A failed call, long queue, unnecessary transfer, or request to repeat their story can increase stress at the moment they need reassurance and practical help.
Before adopting Genesys Cloud, StepChange relied on fragmented contact center technology that experienced regular technical problems and outages. The charity also lacked detailed insight into why clients were making contact at different stages of their journey.
People could enter the wrong queue, wait to speak with an advisor, and then discover they needed another team. The technology also affected employees. Chris says frontline colleagues eventually stopped proposing improvements because they did not believe the existing platform could support them.
StepChange migrated to Genesys Cloud in four weeks through a three-phase delivery. The team began with lower-risk services, increased the size and complexity during the second phase, and moved the core debt advice operation during the third.
Chris says the migration was completed without downtime. The initial objective was to reproduce the existing service on a stable cloud platform before introducing further capabilities. This sequencing gave the team time to correct early issues and adjust training before the largest group of advisors moved across.
We discuss how improved intent capture and routing helped one team reduce misrouted calls by 60%. Clients reached the right advisor sooner, avoided repeated explanations, and could move toward a suitable debt solution faster. Advisors also began conversations in the right place instead of apologizing for delays or correcting the journey.
Chris argues that contact center success cannot be judged through efficiency alone. StepChange examines whether clients understand their options, complete the advice journey, activate a sustainable plan, and continue toward becoming debt free.
The circumstances remain difficult for many clients. Chris says approximately 28% are still in a negative budget after receiving advice, with an average monthly shortfall of around £600. Some conversations require time, empathy, and experienced human support.
Around 85% of StepChange advice journeys now happen online. Digital access can offer privacy and flexibility, while advisors remain available for the emotional and complicated moments where a person needs reassurance.
We also consider future plans for WhatsApp, web messaging, connected journeys, and AI-powered advisor support. Chris advises leaders to begin with genuine customer behavior rather than selecting a technology and searching for somewhere to use it.
How can your contact center remove unnecessary effort while preserving the conversations where people most need to feel heard? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
What does it really take to build an AI-ready enterprise when your data is fragmented, teams operate in silos, and years of technology decisions have created complexity that no large language model can magically fix?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Raymon Ohmori, Senior Principal Software Engineer at Valiantys, and Jiecheng Dong, Senior Software Engineer at Valiantys, about the work that goes into enterprise AI adoption and why successful AI transformation begins long before companies deploy agents, copilots, or autonomous workflows.
Using Valiantys' work with Mercedes as a case study, Raymon and Jiecheng explain how modernizing software delivery and connecting data across teams can create the foundation required for AI systems to deliver meaningful business value. We discuss why fragmented data, organizational silos, poor governance, and unclear business problems continue to prevent many companies from moving beyond AI pilots.
The conversation examines what it means to become AI-ready in practice. Jiecheng explains why enterprises need performant, structured, and queryable data rather than simply feeding huge volumes of information into large language models. Raymon shares why businesses must begin with real problems, stakeholder needs, and clearly defined outcomes to justify the cost of AI and successfully move projects into production.
We also discuss the growing role of agentic AI and autonomous workflows in software engineering. How should engineering teams prepare AI agents to become active participants in software development? What tools, context, permissions, governance, and observability do these systems need to operate effectively? And why might treating an AI agent more like a new colleague than another software tool help teams think differently about deployment?
Raymon and Jiecheng also share their perspectives on AI-assisted software development and developer productivity. As AI becomes increasingly capable of writing code, the role of the software engineer is shifting toward architecture, system design, requirements gathering, trade-off evaluation, and translating business needs into technical specifications. We also discuss the challenge facing junior developers and why companies still need to create pathways for new engineering talent.
Finally, we examine the practical steps CIOs, CTOs, and engineering leaders can take today to build more connected, AI-enabled enterprises. From improving data ownership and governance to identifying costly problems that AI can realistically solve, this conversation offers a practical guide for companies trying to move from AI experimentation to production systems that deliver measurable value.
Where is your company on its AI journey? Are fragmented data, organizational silos, and unclear business problems preventing your AI projects from reaching production, or have you found effective ways to turn experimentation into measurable results? Share your thoughts with me.
Useful Links Valiantys Website: https://www.valiantys.com/ Valiantys LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/valiantys/
What happens when AI moves beyond writing emails and summarizing meetings and starts influencing who gets hired, promoted, and paid?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with David Lloyd, Chief AI Officer at Dayforce, about why HR is becoming one of the highest-stakes environments for artificial intelligence and how companies can introduce AI while protecting employee data, maintaining human accountability, and preparing for growing regulatory scrutiny.
HR systems contain some of the most sensitive information companies hold, from salaries and performance records to benefits and personal data. At the same time, AI is increasingly being introduced across recruitment, workforce management, compensation, performance, and employee experience. David explains why this combination creates enormous opportunities but also places greater responsibility on employers to understand how AI systems operate and how decisions are made.
A major theme throughout our conversation is the role of AI governance. David challenges the assumption that governance slows innovation, arguing that the right processes can help companies evaluate AI ideas quickly while reducing the risk of introducing systems that lack appropriate data, transparency, or regulatory safeguards.
Dayforce recently achieved ISO/IEC 42001 certification for AI management systems and NIST AI Risk Management Framework attestation. David explains what independent validation means in practice and why companies evaluating AI vendors should ask for evidence of how systems are governed, tested, monitored, and audited.
We also discuss the principle of "AI by choice." David argues that CIOs and HR leaders should never discover that a new AI capability has suddenly been activated across hundreds of employees without their knowledge. Companies need visibility into where AI is being used, what data employees can provide to models, and whether customer information is being used to train external AI systems.
The conversation examines AI literacy and why HR leaders need to become comfortable with the technology themselves before guiding employees through changes to jobs and working practices. Employees are already experimenting with AI, sometimes through personal tools outside approved company systems. Rather than ignoring this behavior, David explains why companies should provide safe environments where people can learn while establishing clear rules around sensitive data.
Human accountability remains central as AI takes on more responsibility. David discusses why people using AI should remain accountable for its outputs and why human oversight matters when technology influences decisions involving recruitment, compensation, performance, and careers.
For CEOs, CHROs, CIOs, HR technology leaders, and anyone responsible for enterprise AI, this conversation provides practical guidance on responsible AI adoption, employee data, AI bias, model monitoring, regulatory compliance, vendor selection, and building AI governance that can stand up to scrutiny.
The lesson is that governance does not have to be a brake on AI adoption. Done well, it can give companies the structure and confidence to move faster, make better decisions about where AI belongs, and continue using the technology when regulators, employees, customers, and boards start asking harder questions.
- https://www.dayforce.com/
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/dayforce/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/dtlloyd/
What separates an impressive agentic AI demonstration from a deployment that produces measurable business value across an entire company?
In this episode, I speak with Frank Theisen, Vice President of IBM Technology across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, about how businesses can move AI agents beyond isolated pilots and into the processes where work actually happens.
Frank believes the conversation has changed considerably. Most large companies are deploying some form of AI, yet many still struggle to demonstrate a significant commercial return. The difference comes from connecting AI with end-to-end business processes rather than creating another assistant that sits outside the systems employees use every day.
IBM has attempted to prove this internally through its "client zero" approach, using its own technology across human resources, IT, procurement, sales and software development before taking those practices to customers. The company reports that AI, automation and hybrid cloud have contributed to $4.5 billion in productivity gains over three years.
Frank explains how IBM's AskHR service handles common employee inquiries and helps managers complete administrative tasks without learning how to operate several separate enterprise applications. IBM reports that AI now resolves 94 percent of common HR requests automatically, while similar work is taking place across IT support and procurement.
The discussion then turns to orchestration. As companies acquire agents from multiple software providers, the problem becomes far larger than creating individual assistants. Businesses need to understand how agents communicate, which systems they can access, what identities they use and who remains accountable for their actions.
Frank expects the number of applications, agents and non-human identities to grow rapidly. Without orchestration and governance, companies risk recreating the same application sprawl they have spent years attempting to reduce, this time with software capable of making decisions and generating additional code.
Data presents another barrier. Publicly trained models rarely contain the proprietary information that gives a company its commercial advantage. That information remains distributed across databases, applications, mainframes and cloud services. Frank argues that enterprises need a governed, federated way to bring AI to their data without repeatedly copying everything into another repository.
We also discuss digital sovereignty across Europe and the Middle East. Frank describes sovereignty as a matter of control across data, operations and technology. Companies need to decide which workloads require isolation, which regulations apply and where dependence on one provider could limit their future choices.
Wimbledon provides a timely example of these principles in practice. IBM Bob helped modernize the tournament's digital platform by mapping and migrating approximately 15,000 articles, videos, photographs and related metadata. IBM says work that would traditionally require four or five specialists over several months was completed by one engineer within four weeks, with the assets themselves extracted in 47 minutes.
Frank closes with three practical priorities. Understand where AI could affect the business, determine how successful use cases can be automated across complete processes, then address security, governance and provider dependence before expanding them.
If your company already has dozens of AI pilots, should the next investment create another agent or coordinate the ones you already have? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
How quickly should an AI investment begin producing measurable business results?
In this episode, I speak with Monica Kumar, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Extreme Networks, about the growing pressure on technology leaders to prove that AI investments are producing financial and operational value.
The conversation draws on Extreme Networks' State of AI for Networking 2026 report, based on a global survey of 200 C-level executives and vice presidents of IT. The findings suggest that enterprise AI has entered a far less forgiving phase. Experimentation continues, but executives increasingly want evidence that deployments are reducing costs, improving productivity or creating better user experiences.
The most striking result is the speed now expected. Some 57 percent of respondents said they expect measurable AI impact within weeks or sooner, compared with 16 percent in the previous year. Projects that once might have received six or 12 months to demonstrate value may now face questions within 30 or 60 days.
Monica explains why these demands are changing which AI projects receive attention. Leaders are looking for use cases connected with existing operational problems, where results can be measured and communicated clearly. This makes enterprise networking an interesting test case.
AI workloads depend on network compute, bandwidth, availability and access to current data. According to the research, 92 percent of respondents said AI is increasing demands on network compute and bandwidth. A fragmented or outdated network may therefore limit the performance of the AI applications running across it.
The network can also provide an early opportunity to show what AI produces in practice. Monica discusses performance monitoring, predictive analysis, troubleshooting, compliance checks, capacity planning and security. These are repetitive, data-heavy activities where improvements can be measured in time saved, fewer support tickets and better service availability.
A case from Middlesbrough College brings those claims into focus. The college reports that firmware tracking fell from as much as five hours each week to approximately five minutes, while the time spent troubleshooting decreased by around 90 percent. For a small network team, the value comes from giving people additional capacity without asking them to monitor every device or event manually.
We also discuss why AI capabilities work better when embedded within normal business systems rather than added as another standalone tool. If an AI service remains outside the daily workflow, employees must move between platforms, transfer information and interpret the result themselves. Integrated AI can monitor the network, identify anomalies, recommend action and automate routine work within the environment where the team already operates.
Monica also warns that the quality of AI depends heavily on its data. Before investing in another model or application, businesses need accurate, current and well-managed information. They must also examine whether their network has the capacity to support additional workloads and whether employees understand how to use AI responsibly.
If executives expect AI results within weeks, are businesses selecting the right use cases, or simply imposing unrealistic deadlines on complicated technology programs? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
Could the disaster recovery plan designed to protect your company make a ransomware incident even worse?
In this episode, I speak with Darren Thomson, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for EMEA at Commvault, about Resilience Operations, commonly known as ResOps, and why cyber recovery now requires security, infrastructure, identity and data teams to work from one coordinated plan.
Darren argues that many companies are accepting a difficult reality. Even with considerable investment in prevention and detection, a breach may eventually succeed. That does not make cybersecurity controls any less necessary, but it means recovery can no longer be treated as a secondary activity managed by another department.
The problem is that security operations and infrastructure teams have traditionally worked toward different objectives. Security specialists concentrate on identifying and stopping threats. Infrastructure teams protect data, maintain backups and restore systems after outages. During a cyberattack, a successful recovery requires both sets of expertise.
A backup administrator may be able to restore data quickly, but a forensic specialist must establish whether that data is clean. Without that confirmation, the company risks restoring malware and restarting the incident.
Darren explains why a conventional disaster recovery plan may be particularly dangerous during ransomware. These plans were commonly designed for physical failures such as a lost data center. Data would be copied from one location to another so operations could continue. If the source data is infected, however, fast replication can carry the malware into the recovery environment.
This is where ResOps enters the discussion. Darren describes it as an operating model rather than a product. It combines established practices from security and infrastructure management into a continuous program for testing, learning and improving recovery. Individual technology projects may come from the program, but resilience itself never reaches a final completion date.
AI adds pressure on both sides. Criminals can use it to create faster and more effective attacks, while defenders can use machine learning to inspect large volumes of information, detect patterns and identify the newest clean recovery point. Companies must also protect AI systems as they would any other business application, including the models, data repositories and identities connected with them.
Darren offers one practical starting point for CIOs and CISOs: Mean Time to Clean Recovery, or MTCR. This measures how long it takes to restore an application and its data with evidence that both are free from compromise.
Before measuring MTCR, leaders must define their minimum viable company. These are the systems and services the business cannot operate without. Once that list exists, teams can test how long a verified clean recovery would take and replace assumptions with evidence.
The initial answer may be uncomfortable. Teams may know how to restore an application without knowing whether the backup is clean. Security may know how to inspect the system but lack an established workflow with the recovery team. Darren sees those gaps as the starting point for a useful ResOps program because they provide everyone with a shared problem and a measurable objective.
If your most important systems disappeared today, how long would it take to bring the minimum viable company back using verified clean data? Listen to the episode and share your answer with me.
Why can we track a meal traveling across town almost minute by minute, yet an international parcel can seemingly disappear between checkout and delivery?
In this episode, I speak with Dieter Van Putte from Crossborder Global, a division of Bnode that provides global commerce and logistics services. Dieter oversees technology and operations across Landmark Global and Apple Express, giving him a close view of what happens when retailers attempt to sell and deliver products across international markets.
Dieter explains why cross border delivery remains so difficult to track despite years of investment in supply chain technology. A domestic shipment may involve one main carrier, but an international order can pass between warehouses, road carriers, airports, airlines, customs authorities and final-mile delivery companies. Each participant may record events differently, operate at a different level of technical maturity or provide information at a different speed.
We discuss why the customer rarely sees this complexity. They simply expect to know when their order will arrive, what duties and taxes they must pay, plus what will happen if the product needs to be returned. When retailers cannot provide those answers, the problem quickly becomes one of trust rather than logistics alone.
Dieter also describes the less visible cost of manual reconciliation. Teams can spend hours checking carrier websites, comparing rates, reviewing spreadsheets, correcting customs information and translating inconsistent tracking events. Mistakes create further work through delayed parcels, billing disputes, customer inquiries and complaints. The direct labor cost matters, but the effect on repeat purchases and customer reviews may prove even more expensive.
Our conversation then turns to the role of automation and AI. Dieter explains how technology can support product classification, customs documentation, landed-cost calculations and exception handling. We also examine logistics control towers, which combine data from multiple parties to provide an end-to-end view of an order. With enough reliable information, these systems can detect patterns, predict delays and recommend or initiate corrective action before the customer is affected.
There is plenty of promise here, but good software cannot remove every customs rule, carrier handoff or data-quality problem. Retailers still need the right partners, accurate product information and a clear understanding of the promise they are making at checkout.
Could better use of data finally make international delivery feel as dependable as domestic shipping, and what would need to change first? Listen to the conversation and share your thoughts with me.
Do you need to understand code before you can build a technology company or lead a team of developers?
Five years after our previous conversation, I welcome Sophia Matveeva back to the podcast. Sophia is the founder of Tech for Non-Techies, where she helps founders and business professionals understand how technology products are created, tested, managed and turned into commercial ventures.
A great deal has changed since we last spoke. Generative AI tools can now turn a written description into a working prototype within hours. For someone who has spent years believing a lack of coding experience disqualified them from building a technology business, that removes a significant barrier.
Sophia believes this is the best time yet to be a non-technical founder, although her reasoning goes beyond AI-assisted coding. Research into billion-dollar technology companies shows that non-technical founders now make up a much larger share of founding teams than they did a decade ago. Many of these businesses sell technology to other companies, where commercial knowledge, customer relationships and an understanding of industry problems matter enormously.
We discuss where AI belongs in the founder journey. Sophia recommends using tools such as Lovable or Replit to create a simple test product, show it to potential customers and learn whether people would use or pay for the idea. This allows founders to test their assumptions before committing substantial money to development.
The boundary appears when that prototype becomes a real product. Once software stores customer information, processes payments or supports a commercial service, security and technical architecture cannot be treated as optional details. Sophia argues that professional developers are still needed to inspect the code, prepare the product for production and address problems a non-technical founder may not know exist.
Her point is simple. AI can help a founder reach the testing stage sooner and at a lower cost. It cannot tell someone with no engineering experience whether the generated code is safe, maintainable or ready to support paying customers.
Sophia also shares what she learned from managing her first development team. After raising investment, she attempted to compensate for her technical insecurity by taking a coding course and becoming involved in work she did not fully understand. The result was micromanagement, constant interruptions and frustrated developers.
A better approach begins with business priorities. Founders should explain what customers want, ask developers about effort and tradeoffs, agree on what will be delivered during the next work cycle, then give the team the space required to complete it. They should also allow time for technical debt, the less visible maintenance work that prevents hurried development from creating larger problems later.
We finish with advice for any business leader who wants greater technology fluency. Sophia recommends joining product meetings, contributing customer knowledge and building relationships with technical colleagues who want to understand the commercial side of the company. Neither side needs to become the other. They need enough shared language to make better decisions together.
If AI has removed the cost of testing many technology ideas, what is stopping you from finding out whether yours could work? Listen to the episode, try Sophia's exercise and share your experience with me.
What happens when an AI agent begins influencing business decisions without fully understanding the systems, processes and dependencies behind them?
In this episode, I speak with Bert van der Zwan, CEO of Bizzdesign, about the gap between enterprise AI expectations and the results many companies are seeing in practice. Bert has spent more than 25 years in software and SaaS leadership, including executive roles at Webex, Bynder, Twinfield and Unit4.
Bert offers a candid assessment of the current AI market. He believes AI will have a lasting effect on businesses and society, but argues that expectations for near-term financial returns have become inflated. Many companies are spending money on tools and experimentation without reducing costs, consolidating software or producing new revenue.
That does not mean experimentation is a mistake. Bert sees it as a necessary stage. The harder question is how companies move from a growing collection of pilots to AI capabilities that can operate dependably inside the business.
One barrier is fragmented organizational context. Large enterprises have often grown through a combination of internal expansion and acquisitions, leaving behind disconnected applications, inconsistent data definitions and processes that cross several departments. An AI system working with only part of that picture may make a fast decision, but that does not make it a good decision.
Bert argues that AI needs an authoritative view of how the enterprise works. Systems, processes, ownership, dependencies, approval status and policy restrictions must be visible and consistently defined. Without that shared context, AI may reproduce existing silos or make them worse.
We also discuss the risks boards and technology leaders should consider as AI agents become involved in operational decisions. These include unreliable data, unclear accountability, legal exposure, weak governance and an incomplete view of the process being changed. Human oversight remains necessary, particularly when an automated decision could affect customers, employees or major investments.
Bert then introduces the idea of "bespoke from the cloud." Traditional SaaS products were built around largely standardized interfaces and workflows. AI-assisted development could make software far easier to personalize around individual customers and use cases. This may give users greater control, but it could also challenge long-term software contracts and the economics that have supported the SaaS market.
For leaders trying to connect AI spending with business results, Bert recommends beginning with visibility and a clearly defined outcome. Every initiative should be judged by whether it reduces costs, increases revenue or shortens the time required to deliver value.
If AI depends on understanding how a company actually works, have businesses invested enough in creating that shared understanding before adding agents to their operations? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
Can you still trust an incoming phone call when AI can imitate a familiar voice, personalize the conversation and target information specifically to you?
In this episode, I speak with Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, about how artificial intelligence is changing phone fraud and why the personal devices carried by employees are becoming part of the corporate attack surface.
Alex explains how YouMail uses data from its consumer call-protection service to identify scam behavior, understand the type of fraud taking place and connect those patterns with the phone numbers involved. Advances in large language models have improved this analysis, but the same technology is also helping criminals build far more convincing campaigns.
Generic robocalls are being replaced by personalized conversations designed to extract information, impersonate trusted people and manipulate victims. Fraudsters can use AI throughout the attack chain, from identifying targets and analyzing stolen data to generating dialogue and adapting an approach during the call. Alex argues that attackers have adopted these capabilities faster than many defenders expected because successful fraud produces an immediate financial return.
The conversation also examines why voice biometrics can no longer be treated as sufficient proof of identity. As voice-cloning tools improve, companies may need to combine multiple forms of authentication and move sensitive communications into trusted applications. A call received through a banking app, for example, could give the customer greater confidence that the caller really represents their bank.
For businesses, the risk extends beyond company-managed technology. Attackers can identify where someone works, learn about their role and contact them through a personal phone that may sit outside corporate monitoring. An employee's private number can therefore provide another route into the business through impersonation and social engineering.
Alex also makes a persuasive case for collecting less personal data. Personalization can improve a service, but every additional piece of information becomes something an attacker might obtain during a breach. His advice is to identify the minimum information needed to deliver the intended experience rather than gathering data simply because it may prove useful later.
Despite the seriousness of the threat, Alex offers evidence that coordinated action can produce results. He has seen brand-impersonation campaigns reduced from tens of millions of calls each month to around 100,000 through monitoring, disruption and cooperation between businesses and telecommunications providers.
If AI is making fraudulent calls harder to recognize, should businesses stop treating the telephone network as a trusted communication channel by default? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
Why do AI agents and applications look impressive in demos but struggle when companies try to deploy them in production?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Nikunj Bajaj, co-founder and CEO of TrueFoundry, about why enterprise AI has become a systems problem, what companies need to move AI from proof of concept to production, and how better infrastructure can improve reliability, governance, security, observability, and cost control.
Before founding TrueFoundry, Nikunj worked at Meta on conversational AI systems serving more than a billion users and contributed to the company's internal machine learning platforms. He explains how developers at Meta could concentrate on solving business problems while infrastructure handled logging, monitoring, deployment, and governance by default. In many enterprises, the same journey from an AI idea to a production application can still take weeks or months.
Nikunj argues that increasingly capable AI models are not necessarily the biggest barrier to enterprise adoption. The harder challenge is building reliable systems around them. Companies need to know what happens when a model becomes unavailable, how an agent is behaving, which data it can access, how much it is costing, when a human should intervene, and whether there is a kill switch when something goes wrong.
We discuss why AI proofs of concept often fail when exposed to real users. Controlled demonstrations rarely reproduce production conditions such as unexpected prompts, malicious actors, heavy workloads, model outages, latency, and dependencies between multiple components. Even when individual parts of a system perform reliably, combining them can create failure rates that businesses cannot accept for mission-critical workflows.
The conversation also examines the infrastructure required as companies introduce multiple AI models and agents. Nikunj explains the roles of model gateways, MCP gateways, and agent gateways, and how bringing these components together through an AI gateway can give enterprises a control plane for observing and governing AI traffic.
Cost is another major challenge. Nikunj explains why sending every request to the most powerful model can waste significant amounts of money when smaller or cheaper models could produce comparable results for simpler tasks. Intelligent model routing can help companies balance quality, latency, availability, and price. He shares how organizations using this approach have reduced model costs by as much as 75 to 80 percent in some production environments.
We also discuss what reliable multi-agent systems require in practice. Companies need clearly defined boundaries for what agents can do, escalation routes to other agents or people, safeguards against infinite agent loops, and complete audit trails of interactions and decisions.
For CIOs, CTOs, AI engineering teams, platform leaders, and companies trying to move generative AI and agentic AI into production, this conversation provides a practical guide to the infrastructure decisions that determine whether AI applications remain impressive prototypes or become reliable business systems.
The next stage of enterprise AI will not be defined by models alone. Companies that can connect, observe, govern, secure, and control their AI applications while managing costs will be better positioned to turn experimentation into dependable production systems.
What if the biggest barrier to better customer service isn't how quickly employees work, but how much time they lose coordinating with everyone else?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Kevin Yang, Head of AI at Front, about why customer conversations are becoming a valuable source of business intelligence, how AI can improve work across entire teams rather than simply making individuals faster, and the hidden coordination costs affecting customer operations.
Kevin brings a unique perspective to the conversation. Before joining Front following its acquisition of his AI voice-of-customer company, Syllable, he spent 15 years as an entrepreneur. While building an office food delivery business, he experienced firsthand how customer conversations could reveal problems that traditional surveys and dashboards failed to identify. By analyzing customer feedback at scale, his team could connect specific issues directly to retention, account growth, and referrals.
Today, AI makes it possible for companies to analyze enormous volumes of customer conversations and turn unstructured feedback into intelligence that can inform decisions across product development, sales, marketing, and customer success.
Kevin shares how Front analyzes conversations to understand why deals are lost, why customers leave, and which topics are associated with higher sales conversion rates. The result is a feedback loop that helps companies direct product investment toward problems customers genuinely care about while giving sales and marketing teams a clearer understanding of the conversations that influence buying decisions.
But the episode also challenges the assumption that giving every employee an AI assistant will transform productivity.
Front's Coordination Tax research found that teams can spend almost three hours coordinating work for every hour spent solving customer problems. When a single customer request requires input from sales, finance, support, operations, or external systems, employees can lose time to emails, Slack messages, meetings, handoffs, and information searches.
Kevin explains why making one person faster does little to solve this problem if the rest of the workflow remains fragmented. The bigger opportunity is to use AI across end-to-end processes, automatically handling research and analysis while allowing people to concentrate on work requiring judgment, empathy, relationships, and human decision-making.
We also discuss the growing use of AI agents in customer operations and why governance becomes harder as companies move from experimenting with one agent to managing many. Kevin outlines the need to measure whether agents follow processes correctly, understand customer satisfaction, identify where failures occur, and continuously improve the knowledge and guidance available to AI systems.
For business and technology leaders considering where to apply AI, Kevin offers a practical starting point. Map the work your teams perform into three categories: tasks AI can automate, tasks AI can support with human review, and tasks that should remain human. This helps companies focus investment where AI performs well rather than forcing automation into customer interactions that depend on empathy, context, and relationships.
For anyone responsible for customer experience, AI strategy, operations, or digital transformation, this conversation provides practical ideas for turning customer conversations into business intelligence, reducing coordination friction, designing better workflows, and introducing AI agents with greater visibility and oversight.
The opportunity is not simply to make individuals work faster. It is to redesign how work moves across the organization so employees spend less time coordinating and more time solving the problems that matter to customers.
What happens when your next customer is represented by an AI agent that can research products, compare prices, evaluate suppliers, negotiate terms, and make purchasing decisions?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Ian Kahn, Partner and Customer and Commercial Excellence Platform Leader at PwC, about the rise of the Intelligent Customer Edge and why companies need to rethink how they sell, market, price, serve customers, and compete as artificial intelligence changes the buying process.
Much of the enterprise AI conversation has focused on helping employees become more productive. Ian argues that this overlooks a much bigger change already taking place. Customers are using AI to research products, compare alternatives, evaluate pricing, and make decisions. In some consumer and business markets, AI agents are already being given permission to make routine purchases.
Companies are no longer selling only to people. They increasingly need to serve customers whose AI agents expect accurate product information, transparent pricing, availability, service history, and performance data that can be discovered, verified, and understood by machines.
This creates a serious problem for companies operating with fragmented front offices.
Marketing, sales, pricing, commerce, and customer service have traditionally operated as separate functions, each with its own technology, data, processes, incentives, and performance measures. Customers do not experience companies through those internal structures. They expect consistent information and relevant experiences across the entire relationship.
Ian explains why adding AI to each department independently will not solve this problem. Companies risk making existing processes faster without improving the customer experience or business performance. Instead, he argues that leaders need to reconsider the operating model behind the entire customer journey.
The Intelligent Customer Edge is PwC's approach to bringing these commercial functions together into a connected system centered on the customer. Powered by proprietary company data and AI, the system can continuously learn from customer interactions, support real-time decisions, and help companies respond to changing customer needs.
We also discuss the idea of the commercial brain and why proprietary data could become one of the most valuable competitive advantages available to companies adopting AI.
Most businesses already possess customer records, transaction histories, operational information, market signals, service interactions, and other data their competitors cannot access. Yet much of that information remains fragmented across systems and departments.
Ian explains how connecting these sources can create an intelligence layer that informs pricing decisions, marketing activity, sales opportunities, service interactions, and the moments that matter throughout the customer relationship.
For CEOs, chief customer officers, marketing leaders, sales executives, CIOs, and technology teams, the conversation offers an important lesson about AI transformation. The companies achieving meaningful results are not starting with the technology. They begin with customer outcomes and redesign the work, decisions, workflows, and operating models required to achieve them.
Human judgment remains an important part of that model. AI can process large amounts of information, identify patterns, provide recommendations, and handle routine tasks consistently. People continue to bring judgment, creativity, empathy, relationship-building, and strategic decision-making to customer interactions where trust and context matter.
Ian argues that the goal is not to choose between people and AI. Companies need to design customer systems that use the strengths of both, determining where automation can improve speed and consistency and where people can create greater customer and commercial value.
Trust, governance, explainability, and accountability also become more important as AI agents are given greater authority. Rather than treating guardrails as barriers to adoption, Ian explains why companies should design controls into AI-enabled customer processes from the beginning.
The conversation also examines the cost of waiting. Customers are already adopting AI, and businesses that continue relying on fragmented front-office operations risk falling behind competitors capable of responding faster, providing better information, and creating more relevant customer experiences.
Ian offers practical advice for companies deciding where to begin. Start with the customer journey. Understand how customer behavior is changing, identify where friction exists, determine how AI could improve the experience, and establish clear measures for customer outcomes and business value before investing heavily in new technology.
For business and technology leaders under pressure to deliver growth, improve margins, control costs, and demonstrate returns from AI investment, this conversation provides a practical framework for redesigning the front office, using proprietary data more effectively, preparing for AI agents as buyers, and creating better customer experiences.
Your customers are already using AI. Some AI agents are already making purchasing decisions. The question for companies is whether their customer systems, data, commercial models, and operating structures are ready to compete for business when the buyer on the other side of the transaction is no longer always human.
Why are companies investing heavily in AI, analytics, and data platforms while business leaders still struggle to see what is happening across their operations quickly enough to make confident decisions?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Massimo Merlo, Vice President for UK, Iberia, and Italy at Elastic, about why the next stage of enterprise AI adoption will depend less on who deploys the most advanced models and more on which companies can give people and AI systems access to relevant, trusted, and secure information when decisions need to be made.
Massimo describes the problem as a lack of decision-grade visibility. Most large companies are not short of data. They have spent decades building data platforms, analytics systems, dashboards, cloud infrastructure, and reporting tools. Yet information remains fragmented across departments and applications, insights arrive too late, and employees often struggle to find the small amount of information that matters among enormous volumes of data.
The result is a growing gap between having information and being able to act on it.
Massimo explains why simply adding an AI model to this environment does not solve the underlying problem. If an AI system is connected to fragmented, outdated, poorly governed, or irrelevant information, it can produce convincing answers without providing reliable business outcomes. The quality of an AI model matters, but the context available to that model increasingly determines whether AI becomes a useful business asset or an operational liability.
This leads to one of the biggest technology conversations emerging around enterprise AI: context engineering.
Massimo explains how context engineering provides AI systems with the relevant data, tools, permissions, organizational knowledge, and guardrails required to complete a task safely. Rather than sending ever-larger volumes of information to AI models, companies need infrastructure capable of retrieving the right information and making it available at the moment a person or software agent needs to act.
Fraud detection provides a practical example. An AI agent evaluating a transaction needs more than access to a powerful model. It requires customer history, behavioral patterns, company risk thresholds, permissions, compliance requirements, and the ability to recognize activity that falls outside normal behavior. Without that context, the system could block legitimate customers or approve fraudulent transactions while presenting its decision with complete confidence.
We also discuss why digitally mature companies can still struggle with real-time decision-making. Massimo shares lessons from Elastic's work with organizations including Reed, the Met Office, and Rightmove, explaining why having sophisticated technology systems does not automatically make a company context mature. Information can still remain trapped between applications, teams, and databases, preventing employees and AI agents from seeing the complete picture when it matters.
The conversation challenges another long-standing enterprise technology habit: adding more dashboards.
Massimo explains why dashboards often provide visibility into what has already happened without helping people decide what to do next. Companies can continue adding reporting layers while employees become overwhelmed by information and remain unable to identify the actions that will improve customer experience, productivity, security, or business performance.
A healthcare example demonstrates what becomes possible when companies solve this problem. Massimo shares how CogStack at King's College Hospital brought together unstructured patient information during the COVID-19 pandemic and made it searchable using natural language processing. Clinicians could find relevant information without waiting for technical teams to build new queries or systems, helping medical professionals access information when patient decisions needed to be made.
For CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, data leaders, and technology teams trying to improve AI ROI, Massimo offers practical advice on where to begin. Do not start with another model, tool, or dashboard. Start with a business decision or workflow that is currently too slow, unreliable, or difficult to execute.
Identify what information that decision requires, where the data is stored, who or what system needs access to it, which permissions should apply, and where information currently becomes delayed or disconnected. That process can reveal the visibility gaps preventing companies from turning their existing data and AI investments into measurable results.
We also examine why search and retrieval are becoming infrastructure concerns for companies introducing AI agents. As software agents begin making recommendations and taking actions across business systems, their performance will depend on whether they can securely retrieve relevant information at scale.
For business and technology leaders facing pressure to demonstrate returns from AI investment, this conversation provides a practical framework for improving enterprise search, context engineering, AI agent reliability, real-time operational visibility, and decision-making.
The companies that gain the greatest value from AI may not be those collecting the most data or deploying the most models. They will be the companies capable of finding what matters, understanding its context, and getting trusted information to people and AI systems quickly enough to act on it.
That is where better visibility can become better decisions, stronger productivity, and business growth.
What if one of the biggest obstacles to digital transformation isn't your technology stack, but the agreements connecting it all together?
Recorded live at Docusign Momentum in London, this episode continues my conversations from the show floor by looking at one of the most overlooked challenges facing modern organisations. Companies have spent years investing in CRM platforms, ERP systems, HR software and cloud infrastructure, yet many of the agreements linking those systems together still rely on manual processes, email chains and static documents.
Joining me is Stéphane Barberet, President of EMEA at Docusign. Having spent more than three decades helping organisations across Europe use technology to improve the way they work, Stéphane shares why he believes agreements have become one of the biggest blind spots in enterprise transformation and how AI is beginning to change that.
We discuss why organisations are starting to view agreements as business intelligence rather than administrative paperwork, where businesses unknowingly lose value after contracts have been signed, and why removing friction from everyday workflows often delivers greater returns than simply introducing another AI tool.
Stéphane also explains why organisations across financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and many other industries are all asking the same questions about AI, how leaders should approach adoption without trying to automate everything at once, and why measurable business outcomes matter far more than launching ambitious AI programmes.
Throughout our conversation, we also explore how executives should measure success, what separates organisations making genuine progress from those still experimenting, and why the future of AI may be one where the technology becomes almost invisible, quietly improving the way businesses operate every day.
After spending the day speaking with customers, executives and attendees at Momentum, one message kept coming back to me. The organisations creating the greatest value from AI aren't chasing the latest trend. They're solving meaningful business problems, building trust and helping their people spend more time on work that truly matters.
Where do you see the biggest opportunities to remove friction from the way your organisation works? I'd love to hear your thoughts after listening and continue the conversation.
Why are companies spending heavily on AI tools while struggling to show meaningful improvements in productivity, revenue, or business performance?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Matt Cloke, Chief Technology Officer at Endava, about what it takes to become an AI-native business, why deploying thousands of AI licenses does not amount to an AI transformation, and how companies can move from experimentation to measurable business outcomes.
Matt has played a central role in Endava's own adoption of artificial intelligence and the development of Dava.Flow, the company's methodology for applying AI throughout the technology delivery lifecycle. With more than 11,000 employees and clients operating across multiple industries, Endava has treated itself as "client zero," testing AI internally before advising other companies about how to introduce it across their operations.
Matt shares the story of a CEO who proudly told him that his company had completed its AI transformation after purchasing 10,000 licenses for an AI tool. Twelve months later, the business had seen little return on its investment and returned for help understanding what becoming AI-native actually required. The story captures one of the biggest problems with enterprise AI adoption today: buying technology is easy, but changing how people think about problems, redesign workflows, and create business value is much harder.
We discuss why Matt believes becoming AI-native is primarily a mindset. Rather than treating AI as another application added to the technology stack, employees should become curious about where AI can improve existing processes, remove unnecessary work, and create new ways of delivering value.
Matt also explains his idea that AI works best when it becomes invisible. Instead of requiring employees to constantly interact with chatbots and standalone AI applications, software agents can operate inside existing workflows, monitor information, prepare responses, identify problems, and bring people into the process when human judgment is required.
His own use of AI agents provides a practical example. While attending meetings that prevented him from monitoring email for several days, Matt used agents to review incoming messages, redirect requests, identify urgent communications, and prepare draft responses. Rather than handing complete control to automation, he determined which actions required approval and where AI could operate independently.
This leads to a wider discussion about human oversight and accountability. Matt argues that managing AI agents may increasingly resemble managing teams. Leaders do not inspect every decision made by every employee, but they establish responsibilities, controls, escalation points, and circumstances where intervention is required. Companies introducing agentic AI need similar approaches to supervision.
We also examine two mistakes Matt frequently sees companies make. The first is treating AI adoption as a software rollout, buying tools for employees and expecting productivity gains to appear automatically. The second is creating centralized AI centers of excellence and expecting a small group of specialists to determine how every department should use the technology.
Matt argues that employees closest to business processes are often best placed to identify opportunities for improvement. At Endava, the legal team runs monthly AI hackathons to redesign its own workflows, supported by technology specialists but led by people who understand the work itself.
For companies operating in payments, financial services, and other regulated industries, the conversation turns to reliability, auditability, traceability, and risk. Matt explains how Dava.Flow allows companies to translate regulatory requirements and operational controls into policies that AI systems must follow and demonstrate throughout the delivery process.
Rather than searching for a single killer AI application, Matt recommends examining end-to-end business workflows. Companies can map how information moves between employees, departments, and systems, identify unnecessary handoffs and manual processes, and determine where AI agents can improve speed, cost, and performance without replacing entire technology platforms.
Leadership is another major theme throughout the episode. Matt believes the companies that achieve meaningful results from AI will be led by executives who personally use the technology, understand its capabilities, and demonstrate the behaviors they expect from their workforce.
He shares how Endava brought senior leaders from legal, technology, people, and other business functions together to build software agents themselves. The experience changed how executives thought about technology investments, including one leader realizing that an existing vendor contract might no longer be necessary because the company could build the required capability internally.
For CIOs, CTOs, technology leaders, and business executives under pressure to demonstrate returns from AI investment, this conversation provides practical lessons on becoming AI-native, redesigning workflows, managing software agents, maintaining human accountability, operating AI in regulated industries, and moving beyond technology adoption toward measurable business value.
The companies that succeed with AI may not be those buying the most tools or making the biggest announcements. They will be the ones whose leaders understand the technology, whose employees rethink how work gets done, and whose AI systems quietly become part of everyday business operations.
What happens when AI makes employees more productive today but gradually weakens the expertise companies will depend on tomorrow?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Dr. Margaret Cunningham, VP of Security and AI Strategy and Field CISO at Darktrace, about cognitive tech debt, the growing risk that companies are gaining short-term efficiency from AI while unintentionally weakening critical thinking, technical expertise, problem-solving ability, and human judgment.
Margaret brings a rare combination of experience to this conversation. With a PhD in Applied Experimental Psychology and a career spanning behavioral science, cybersecurity, privacy, human-centered security, and AI strategy, she examines technology adoption through the lens of how people actually think, learn, develop expertise, and make decisions.
She explains cognitive tech debt by comparing it with the technical debt familiar to software teams. Companies can introduce technology quickly and enjoy immediate improvements in speed and output, only to discover weaknesses underneath those gains later. With AI, the debt may accumulate in people. Employees can appear highly productive while outsourcing the difficult cognitive work required to build judgment, recognize patterns, understand failures, and develop genuine expertise.
We discuss emerging evidence that over-reliance on AI is already affecting professional skills. Software engineers may become less capable of diagnosing problems in code they did not create themselves. Medical professionals can lose decision-making capabilities when they become dependent on automated systems. Across knowledge work, deep reading and sustained concentration are increasingly being replaced by summarization, generation, and superficial review.
Margaret describes the current period as the "bridge years," when AI systems are becoming increasingly capable but people still need to maintain the expertise required to recognize mistakes, question recommendations, recover from failures, and understand when automation should not be trusted. Companies cannot safely abandon human skills before technology can reliably perform those responsibilities without supervision.
The conversation also challenges one of the most repeated promises surrounding enterprise AI adoption: that automation will remove routine work and allow employees to concentrate on higher-value activities. Margaret argues that companies have done a poor job of defining which tasks people genuinely want to give up and which skills they need to preserve. Some of the repetitive, slow, and difficult work being automated may be exactly where people develop pattern recognition, creativity, and professional judgment.
This creates a serious challenge for cybersecurity teams and other high-stakes professions. If employees become reviewers of AI-generated outputs rather than practitioners developing expertise through experience, where will the next generation of senior engineers, security analysts, doctors, researchers, and technical specialists come from?
Margaret explains why leaders need to understand which AI techniques are being used for different business problems rather than treating every form of artificial intelligence as interchangeable. Large language models, machine learning systems, behavioral analytics, and other technologies have different strengths and limitations. Knowing what questions to ask requires domain expertise, creating a difficult paradox for companies that may be automating away the very experience needed to govern these systems responsibly.
We also examine the human consequences of AI adoption. Technical specialists who enjoy solving difficult problems can lose motivation when meaningful work is replaced by reviewing machine-generated outputs. Companies may struggle to understand who owns decisions made through collaboration between humans and AI, while younger employees could lose access to the experiences that previously helped people progress from beginners to experts.
Margaret offers practical advice for business and technology leaders deciding how quickly to introduce AI across their workforce. Companies can identify the skills they need to preserve, create opportunities for employees to practice difficult cognitive work, use simulations and training to maintain expertise, ask teams which aspects of their jobs give them purpose, and resist pressure to automate every task simply because the technology exists.
The message is not anti-AI. Margaret sees enormous potential for artificial intelligence in scientific research, cybersecurity, productivity, and solving difficult problems. But realizing those benefits requires a more intentional relationship between people and machines.
For business leaders, CISOs, technology teams, AI practitioners, and anyone concerned about the future of human expertise, this conversation provides a practical framework for recognizing cognitive tech debt, deciding what should and should not be automated, preserving critical thinking skills, and building healthier forms of human-AI collaboration.
AI can make people faster. The bigger question is whether companies can capture those productivity gains without losing the human capabilities they will need when the technology gets something wrong.
What happens to blockchain networks, digital assets, and the wider internet when quantum computers become powerful enough to break the cryptography protecting them?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Bruno Martins, Chief Technology Officer of the Algorand Foundation, about what quantum computing means for blockchain security, why post-quantum cryptography is becoming a technology priority, and how enterprises should evaluate blockchain infrastructure for payments, digital assets, identity, and other business applications.
Bruno brings experience from across several major blockchain ecosystems, including Consensys and IOHK, alongside a background in applied cryptography, key management systems, enterprise blockchain development, and software engineering. His perspective provides a useful view of how the blockchain industry has changed from experimental projects and speculative use cases toward platforms expected to support real financial transactions and business operations.
We begin with the quantum threat itself. Bruno explains why the cryptographic systems protecting blockchains, financial infrastructure, communications, messaging platforms, and much of the internet could eventually become vulnerable to sufficiently powerful quantum computers.
While the exact timeline remains uncertain, he argues that waiting for a cryptographically relevant quantum computer to arrive before beginning migration would leave companies with too little time to update infrastructure, applications, wallets, accounts, and user behavior. The conversation examines why post-quantum security is not simply a future technology problem. Large digital ecosystems can take months or years to migrate, and businesses need time to understand their cryptographic dependencies, introduce new standards, educate users, and build systems capable of adopting new security methods without disrupting existing operations.
Bruno shares how Algorand has been working on post-quantum security for several years, including the deployment of Falcon signatures for state proofs and plans to introduce quantum-resistant account types and additional protections across consensus and network communications. We discuss why cryptographic agility may be more important than simply replacing existing cryptography with newer algorithms that have not yet experienced decades of testing in real-world systems.
This leads to one of the most valuable technical lessons in the episode. Moving directly from classical cryptography to post-quantum cryptography introduces its own risks because newer cryptographic methods may later reveal weaknesses. Bruno explains why hybrid approaches, where digital assets and accounts can be protected by both established and quantum-resistant cryptography, could provide a more responsible path for institutions managing long-lived systems and valuable assets.
We also examine how enterprises should evaluate blockchain platforms. With thousands of networks competing for developers, users, and institutional adoption, Bruno argues that businesses need to look beyond market attention and transaction speed. Throughput, decentralization, security, programmability, finality, operational risk, and the ability to trust the state of a ledger all influence whether blockchain infrastructure is suitable for real business operations.
Payments provide a practical example. Companies issuing payment products backed by stablecoins need confidence that transactions are final and cannot later be reorganized or reversed by the underlying network. Bruno explains why instant finality can reduce operational uncertainty and risk for companies building financial applications on public blockchain infrastructure.
The conversation also turns to AI agents and agentic commerce. If autonomous software agents begin negotiating, purchasing services, exchanging value, and conducting transactions with other agents, they will need payment rails, identity systems, trusted counterparties, and ways to establish ownership and accountability. Bruno explains why stablecoins, digital identity, decentralized finance, and blockchain infrastructure could become increasingly relevant as AI systems begin participating directly in economic activity.
Throughout the episode, Bruno offers a balanced assessment of the blockchain industry itself. He discusses the problems created by technical fragmentation, competing standards, thousands of networks, and ecosystem tribalism. Greater cooperation between blockchain communities, particularly around wallets, hardware, cryptographic standards, and post-quantum security, could make it easier for enterprises and developers to build applications that work across ecosystems.
For technology leaders, security professionals, blockchain developers, and anyone responsible for long-lived digital infrastructure, this conversation provides a practical introduction to quantum threats, post-quantum cryptography, cryptographic agility, blockchain finality, stablecoins, and the technical questions companies should ask before choosing distributed infrastructure.
The quantum threat may not arrive tomorrow, but migrating complex systems takes time. The companies and technology platforms preparing today will be in a much stronger position to protect digital assets, maintain trust, and continue operating when current cryptographic standards eventually need to change.
What if companies rushing to deploy AI agents are overlooking the basic problem that much of their business data is still trapped inside PDFs, emails, attachments, spreadsheets, and paper documents?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Sylvestre Dupont, co-founder and CEO of Parseur, about why successful AI adoption begins with making business data usable, why traditional automation can often outperform more sophisticated AI systems, and how he built a profitable global technology company with six employees across six countries without venture capital funding.
Sylvestre introduces the concept of data liquidity, the ability to move information from the documents and systems where it is trapped into the applications, workflows, and AI systems that can put it to work. Companies may have years of valuable operational data, but if that information remains buried inside what Sylvestre calls "digital concrete," even the most advanced AI models will struggle to produce useful results.
The conversation examines why structured data extraction has become increasingly important as companies invest in AI agents, copilots, and automated workflows. Sylvestre explains that better models alone cannot compensate for incomplete, inaccessible, or poorly structured information. Before businesses can expect AI to automate complex processes or support better decisions, they need reliable ways to collect, structure, and move data between systems.
We also challenge the assumption that every business problem now requires an AI solution. Sylvestre explains why AI should be treated as one tool among many and why deterministic automation remains the better option for repetitive processes where accuracy, consistency, and explainability matter. Parseur itself combines AI-powered document processing with template-based extraction and traditional workflow automation, using each approach where it performs best.
Drawing on Parseur's experience processing more than 100 million documents annually, Sylvestre describes the different stages companies move through as they mature their automation strategies. Some begin by manually uploading documents and downloading extracted data. Others automate document ingestion and connect information directly to accounting platforms, CRM systems, and other business applications. The most advanced companies add exception handling and human review processes for situations where automation cannot reliably complete the task.
Data privacy and security are another major part of the discussion. Sylvestre shares the questions technology leaders should ask before sending sensitive company information to AI-powered platforms, including where data is stored and processed, whether customer information is used to train AI models, how deletion requests are handled, and whether vendors genuinely understand the regulations and security standards they claim to follow.
For founders and bootstrapped entrepreneurs, Sylvestre also shares an alternative perspective on building technology companies. Parseur has remained profitable, globally distributed, and customer-funded rather than pursuing the venture capital model of rapid expansion. Sylvestre explains why he prefers customers to determine the company's priorities, how asynchronous communication supports a team operating across multiple time zones, and why building a sustainable business can offer founders greater control over product decisions and company culture.
This conversation offers practical lessons for technology leaders deciding where AI belongs in their operations, operations teams trying to reduce repetitive manual work, and founders questioning whether venture capital is the only route to building a successful global software company.
The message throughout the episode is simple: AI can be extremely useful, but companies still need reliable data, appropriate technology choices, strong privacy practices, and well-designed business processes. Sometimes the smartest technology strategy begins by solving the boring problems first.
Why do companies continue spending heavily on cybersecurity technology while human behavior, poor governance, and skills shortages leave them exposed to attacks?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Phil Chapman, Cybersecurity Subject Matter Expert at Firebrand Training, about what more than two decades in the Royal Air Force, signals intelligence, counterterrorism, threat intelligence, and cybersecurity education taught him about defending companies in an increasingly complex threat environment.
Phil's career provides a fascinating perspective on how intelligence skills developed in military and national security environments can be applied to modern cyber defense. After 23 years in the RAF, including work supporting organizations such as GCHQ and the NSA, training intelligence analysts, and working in counterterrorism, Phil moved into technology training and cybersecurity education. Today, he helps companies understand their cybersecurity training needs while supporting people building careers in an industry that continues to need new talent.
A major theme throughout our conversation is Phil's belief that cybersecurity is fundamentally about people. Technology matters, but expensive security products cannot compensate for employees who do not recognize threats, executives who misunderstand their responsibilities, or companies that treat security awareness as an annual compliance exercise.
Phil explains threat intelligence in practical business terms, examining the relationship between threats, vulnerabilities, business assets, and risk. We discuss why insiders remain one of the biggest security concerns facing companies, including malicious employees and the far more common problem of accidental actions such as clicking phishing links, sharing sensitive information, or sending data to the wrong recipient.
The arrival of generative AI is making these problems harder to manage. Phil discusses how criminals are using AI to create more convincing phishing campaigns, deepfakes, social engineering attacks, and other forms of cybercrime. At the same time, employees are introducing new risks by using AI tools without understanding what happens to company data or whether appropriate policies and controls are in place.
But this episode is also about opportunity. Phil challenges the stereotype that cybersecurity careers are only for highly technical people sitting behind multiple screens writing code. He explains the different career paths available across cybersecurity engineering, threat intelligence, incident response, security operations, governance, risk, compliance, and analysis, and why skills from customer service, the military, data analysis, writing, communications, and other professions can transfer successfully into cyber roles.
For anyone considering a career change or trying to enter the technology industry, Phil offers practical advice on where to begin. Rather than chasing advanced certifications or trying to become an ethical hacker immediately, he recommends building a strong foundation, understanding networks and operating systems, staying current with the news, developing analytical thinking, and remaining curious about how criminals adapt world events and new technologies to create attacks.
We also discuss cybersecurity apprenticeships and why alternative routes into technology careers could help companies develop talent while giving people of different ages and professional backgrounds access to an industry they may previously have considered out of reach.
Finally, Phil explains why cybersecurity professionals cannot focus only on today's threats. AI is already changing both attack and defense strategies, while quantum computing is forcing companies to examine cryptography, data protection, and long-term security planning. His message to business leaders and technology professionals is clear: buying more technology will not solve every security problem. Companies need informed leadership, better governance, continuous learning, practical training, and people who understand how threats evolve.
This conversation offers business leaders a clearer understanding of cyber risk, provides technology teams with practical ideas for improving security awareness, and offers anyone considering a cybersecurity career a realistic view of the opportunities, skills, and pathways available through training and apprenticeships.
What separates the founders who build category-defining companies from the thousands of startups that never make it through the venture capital funnel?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Keval Desai, founder and General Partner of Shakti, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in AI and space technology companies from inception. Drawing on his experience backing companies including Canva, The RealReal, and Gatik, Keval shares how he evaluates founders before the rest of the market recognizes their potential and why the venture capital industry needs to confront some uncomfortable truths about startup funding and successful exits.
Keval introduces Shakti's "toothbrush" investment philosophy, an idea he first encountered through Larry Page at Google. The principle is simple: can a product or service become something used frequently by millions or even billions of people? He explains why this question helps investors distinguish impressive technology from businesses capable of creating lasting value, particularly at a time when thousands of AI startups are competing for capital and attention.
But identifying a large market is only part of the equation. Keval shares three characteristics he has observed in exceptional founders. They can describe a future that others cannot yet see, attract talented people before they have money or resources, and execute at a speed that continually surprises those around them. His stories from meeting Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins and The RealReal founder Julie Wainwright offer a rare look at what investors can learn from founders at the earliest stages of company building.
We also discuss Keval's thesis that AI is taking the economy into a new Imagination Era. As AI becomes increasingly capable of handling specialized tasks such as coding, analysis, and production, he believes human value will move toward imagination, judgment, taste, and the ability to combine technologies into products and services people actually want. For founders, employees, and business leaders, this raises important questions about education, careers, and what it means to build a company as access to technical capabilities becomes dramatically cheaper.
Keval also compares the arrival of open-source AI models such as DeepSeek to the role Linux played in the development of the commercial internet. He explains why falling inference costs could lower barriers to building AI companies and create opportunities for a new generation of startups, while also examining what this could mean for today's dominant AI companies and the industry's economics.
The conversation then turns to one of the biggest problems facing venture capital. The number of startups receiving funding has grown dramatically, yet the number of technology companies reaching public markets has remained relatively static. Keval explains why venture capital can scale dollars but cannot simply manufacture more category leaders, and why founders need to decide early whether venture capital is actually the right source of funding for the business they want to build.
We also examine the commercial opportunities emerging from space technology. Keval believes the SpaceX IPO could play a similar role for space commerce to Amazon's IPO for e-commerce, by demonstrating viable business models and encouraging entrepreneurs to build new companies in communications, energy, manufacturing, infrastructure, robotics, and services beyond Earth.
Finally, Keval offers an optimistic counterargument to fears that AI will leave younger workers without meaningful careers. He explains why he believes Gen Z's status as the first AI-native generation could become an advantage, why technical careers are changing rather than disappearing, and why the ability to apply AI to problems across healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, finance, and other industries could create opportunities far beyond Silicon Valley.
This conversation offers founders a practical framework for evaluating ideas, choosing investors, understanding venture economics, and building companies in the age of AI. It also provides investors and technology leaders with a broader perspective on open-source AI, space commerce, the future of work, and where the next generation of category-defining companies could come from.
What if the most valuable business intelligence in your organisation has been hiding inside your contracts all along?
Recorded live at Docusign Momentum in London, this episode explores why enterprise AI is at an inflection point. After years of focusing on what AI can create, the conversation is shifting towards how AI can help organisations understand the information they already have, remove friction from everyday work, and make better business decisions.
Joining me is Allan Thygesen, CEO of Docusign. While many people still associate Docusign with electronic signatures, Allan explains why the company's vision has expanded far beyond that single moment in the agreement process.
Every business runs on agreements, from customer contracts and supplier relationships to employee onboarding and partnerships. The real opportunity, he argues, is transforming those agreements from static documents into business intelligence that helps organisations improve performance, reduce risk and uncover value that has often remained hidden for years.
We discuss why decades of historical agreements are becoming increasingly valuable in the age of AI, how organisations are using agreement intelligence to shorten sales cycles from days to hours, and why understanding the context behind agreements can be just as important as the agreements themselves.
Allan also shares his perspective on the rise of agentic AI, explaining why trust, governance and compliance will ultimately determine how quickly organisations allow AI to take on greater responsibility. Rather than viewing AI as another standalone tool, he explains why the future lies in connecting trusted data and workflows across the systems businesses already use every day.
Throughout our conversation, we also explore why Docusign continues to build an open ecosystem through partnerships with companies including Anthropic, Harvey, Legora, OpenAI, Google, Salesforce, SAP and Thomson Reuters, enabling organisations to work with agreement intelligence wherever work already happens.
After spending the day at Momentum hearing from customers like Harvey, Legora, Experian and AON, executives and attendees, one theme kept emerging. The organisations creating the greatest value from AI are not necessarily adopting the most AI. They're using it to remove friction, improve decisions and help people focus on work that genuinely benefits the business.
Does your organisation still think of contracts as administrative files, or are they becoming a strategic source of business intelligence? I'd love to hear your thoughts after listening and continue the conversation.
What happens when your customers stop searching through pages of Google results and start asking ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI platforms which companies they should trust?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Kathleen Lucente, founder and CEO of Red Fan Communications, about zero-click search, AI-mediated discovery, and why producing more content is unlikely to solve the growing challenge of brand visibility in AI-generated answers.
Kathleen argues that content is what a company says about itself, while authority is built through what credible third parties say about it. As buyers increasingly use large language models to research companies, compare vendors, and make purchasing decisions, earned media, analyst relations, customer reviews, executive visibility, original research, and consistent brand messaging are becoming increasingly important signals of trust.
But building brand authority cannot be completed in a few weeks or solved by purchasing another AI visibility tool.
Kathleen explains why companies appearing prominently in AI-generated answers often earned that position through years of reputation building. We discuss her seven-part framework for measuring brand authority across earned media, company recognition, reviews, entity coherence, content authority, social authority, and technical readiness, as well as how marketing leaders can identify where their companies are falling behind competitors.
The conversation also examines what the rise of generative engine optimization, answer engine optimization, and AI search means for traditional SEO and content marketing strategies. Kathleen explains why SEO still matters but can no longer carry the entire burden of brand discovery, and why marketing, communications, sales, customer success, and executive leadership must work together to build the credibility signals that influence both people and AI systems.
We also discuss how companies can measure reputation and connect communications programs to tangible business outcomes. Kathleen shares examples of original research and earned media opening doors to new customers, generating conversations with major publications, and creating commercial opportunities that traditional sales efforts had struggled to reach.
Drawing on more than 30 years of experience helping B2B technology companies through IPOs, acquisitions, funding rounds, and periods of rapid growth, Kathleen explains why reputation often acts as invisible insurance for a business. Companies may not recognize its value until a deal, crisis, leadership change, or major transaction puts trust under pressure.
Finally, Kathleen shares practical advice for B2B technology leaders who want their companies to become trusted authorities in the age of AI search. From auditing how your brand appears across multiple sources to refreshing customer reviews, developing credible executive voices, strengthening analyst relationships, and creating original data that journalists and industry leaders want to reference, this conversation offers a practical roadmap for companies trying to become visible in AI-generated answers.
Is your company still trying to win the AI search battle by producing more content, or are you investing in the reputation and third-party credibility that will influence how both people and AI systems perceive your brand? Share your thoughts with me.
What happens when an industry managing more than $150 trillion is still held back by decades-old systems, manual work, disconnected data, and highly paid experts spending hours on tasks AI could complete in seconds?
In this episode, I speak with Markus Ruetimann, a member of the Experion Technologies Advisory Board and former Global Chief Operating Officer with more than three decades of experience in institutional asset management, alongside Siraj Alimohamed, Global Head of Data and AI at Experion Technologies.
We begin with a simple question. What does an asset manager actually do with our pensions, savings, and investments every day? Markus takes us through the investment process, from research and stock selection to portfolio construction, trading, settlement, performance analysis, and regulatory reporting. Along the way, we examine where time, money, and expertise are being lost.
Siraj then explains composable AI through one of the clearest analogies I have heard. Think of building with Lego bricks rather than creating every solution from scratch. Companies can create reusable AI agents for research, risk monitoring, compliance, portfolio analysis, trade execution, and reporting, all operating on a shared data and governance foundation.
We discuss how this model can change the economics of AI adoption. Siraj shares examples of AI reading hundreds of broker reports in seconds, freeing hundreds of analyst hours, reducing portfolio review cycles from days to hours, improving trade execution quality, identifying settlement risks before trades fail, and accelerating regulatory reporting.
The conversation also tackles one of the most common reasons companies delay AI projects: "our data isn't ready." Siraj argues that waiting for perfect data can become an excuse for inaction. His advice is to identify two or three measurable use cases, prove their value within weeks, and use those results to build confidence and secure further investment.
But technology is only part of the story. Markus explains why AI adoption in asset management is also a cultural and organizational challenge. Companies must decide which processes to automate, which to support with AI, and where human judgment must remain firmly in control.
The message from both guests is refreshingly practical. Start small, start with a real business problem, connect AI systems through a common data foundation, and give skilled people more time to make better decisions.
Can composable AI help asset managers respond faster, reduce costs, improve investor returns, and make better use of human expertise, or will legacy systems and cultural resistance continue to slow progress? Listen to the conversation and share your thoughts.
Have you ever wondered whether the biggest competitive advantage in wealth management is no longer investment performance alone, but the ability to turn information into action faster than everyone else?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome Bob Pisani, Chief Technology Officer at Addepar, a platform that helps investment professionals manage and analyze more than $9 trillion in assets globally. Our conversation explores why modern wealth management has become a technology challenge just as much as a financial one, and why firms that continue relying on fragmented legacy systems risk falling behind in an industry where speed, data quality, and client expectations are changing faster than ever.
Bob explains how wealth advisors have historically spent far too much of their day moving between disconnected systems, stitching together spreadsheets, and trying to answer client questions using incomplete information. While that may once have been acceptable, today's investors expect near real-time visibility into their portfolios, along with personalized guidance that reflects rapidly changing market conditions. That changing expectation places an enormous premium on time, making technology one of an advisor's most valuable assets.
Our discussion explores why successful AI initiatives begin long before deploying a model. Data quality, governance, and creating a trusted source of truth remain the foundations that determine whether AI produces reliable insights or simply accelerates poor decisions. Bob shares how Addepar approaches this challenge by bringing together fragmented financial data, standardizing it across hundreds of custodians, and creating the conditions where AI can produce meaningful, actionable intelligence rather than more noise.
We also look at practical examples of AI already improving advisor productivity today. From summarizing portfolio performance and analyzing complex alternative investment documents to introducing intelligent agents that reduce operational workload, Bob explains how AI is freeing experienced professionals to spend less time gathering information and more time building trusted client relationships.
One of my favorite moments in our conversation comes when we discuss predictive intelligence. Instead of waiting for advisors to search for answers, AI is beginning to surface opportunities, risks, and client conversations before anyone even knows which questions to ask. That represents a fundamental change in how financial advice can be delivered, moving from reactive reporting toward proactive guidance that is grounded in trusted data.
We also address one of the biggest questions surrounding AI in financial services. Will technology replace human advisors? Bob offers a thoughtful perspective, arguing that while AI can automate repetitive work and accelerate decision-making, qualities such as judgment, precision, trust, and human relationships remain impossible to automate. Those are the characteristics clients ultimately value most when making important financial decisions.
As our conversation draws to a close, Bob shares why he believes the gap between firms embracing AI and those delaying modernization will widen rapidly. The organizations investing today in clean data, modern platforms, and AI-ready operations will be better positioned to serve clients, attract talent, and compete in an increasingly fast-moving market.
Can wealth management continue to rely on yesterday's technology in an AI-driven world? And if time has become the industry's most valuable asset, how is your business making the most of it? I'd love to hear your thoughts after listening.
Have you ever stopped to think about what really powers the AI revolution? While the conversation often focuses on the latest models, chips, and applications, the real story may lie in something far less visible: the energy systems and digital architecture that make it all possible.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome Sadiq Syed, Senior Vice President of Digital Energy Software at Schneider Electric, to discuss why the future of electrification depends as much on software as it does on hardware. As demand for AI continues to grow at an extraordinary pace, data centers are consuming increasing amounts of electricity, putting pressure on aging grids and exposing the limitations of traditional approaches to energy management.
During our conversation, Sadiq explains why electrification alone cannot deliver global decarbonization goals. Without intelligent software capable of monitoring, predicting, and optimizing energy usage, businesses risk wasting valuable resources while struggling to meet rising demand. We discuss why AI may ultimately become the technology that helps solve the energy challenges it has helped create, using continuous analytics and predictive intelligence to improve efficiency across complex environments.
We also examine the growing regulatory pressure. With more than a thousand energy-related regulations introduced around the world in recent years, compliance has become part of everyday operations rather than an occasional reporting exercise. Sadiq explains why organizations should stop viewing compliance as an administrative burden and instead see it as an opportunity to build trust, strengthen resilience, and improve operational performance.
Another area we explore is digital resilience. Whether supporting hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, or mission-critical data centers, modern infrastructure depends on uninterrupted operations. Sadiq shares why cybersecurity, predictive maintenance, unified operational visibility, and connected digital platforms are becoming central to maintaining uptime while helping organizations make better use of limited energy resources.
The conversation also turns to people. As experienced engineers retire and younger generations enter the workforce with very different expectations, organizations face an urgent challenge: modernizing the tools they provide. We discuss how intuitive digital platforms can reduce complexity, shorten training time, attract the next generation of technical talent, and make daily operations easier to manage.
Throughout our discussion, one message remains consistent. The future of sustainable infrastructure is built on the combination of electrification, automation, and intelligent software. From AI-enabled operational insights to connected energy management platforms, technology is becoming the foundation that allows businesses to balance performance, sustainability, regulatory requirements, and resilience in an increasingly unpredictable world.
Is the biggest challenge facing AI actually an energy challenge? And if software is becoming the foundation for modern electrification, how prepared is your organization for what comes next? I'd love to hear your thoughts after listening.
How is AI changing the way we choose hotels, and what does that mean for the businesses trying to deliver unforgettable guest experiences?
In this episode, I speak with Frank Pitsikalis, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy and Chief Marketing Officer at Agilysys, about how AI is changing hospitality from the very first search through to every interaction a guest has during their stay.
Travel planning is already changing. More travelers are turning to AI assistants instead of traditional search engines or online travel agencies, asking detailed questions about destinations, dining, activities, and experiences. That creates both an opportunity and a challenge for hotels. If AI is recommending experiences rather than simply rooms, hospitality businesses need technology behind the scenes that can actually deliver on those promises.
Frank explains why connected systems have become the foundation for modern hospitality. For many years, hotels invested in individual systems for reservations, restaurants, spas, golf courses, and guest services. While each application may have worked well on its own, they often failed to share information in meaningful ways. As AI becomes more capable, those disconnected systems become increasingly difficult to work around.
We also explore how leading hospitality brands are changing the way they measure success. Rather than focusing solely on room occupancy, many are now looking at total guest spend across dining, wellness, entertainment, and other services. Frank explains how better use of guest data helps properties create more personalized experiences while also improving operational performance and profitability.
Another fascinating part of our discussion centers on personalization. We talk about what genuine one-to-one guest experiences look like when AI helps staff understand preferences, dietary requirements, previous visits, and even customer sentiment before every interaction. Rather than replacing hospitality professionals, AI is giving them the information they need to create memorable experiences that feel thoughtful and genuinely personal.
Throughout our conversation, Frank returns to a simple but powerful idea. Technology works best when it disappears into the background, allowing people to focus on serving people. AI may be changing how guests discover, book, and experience travel, but hospitality will always be judged by how people are made to feel.
If you work in hospitality, customer experience, or enterprise technology, this conversation offers a practical look at how connected data, AI, and operational excellence are coming together to redefine the guest journey.
As AI becomes part of every stage of travel, is your business building the connected experiences that today's guests increasingly expect?
What does responsible AI actually look like once you move beyond the headlines and start deploying it inside highly regulated businesses?
In this episode, I speak with Richa Kaul, Founder and CEO of Complyance, about one of the biggest challenges facing enterprise AI today: building systems that people can trust. As companies race to adopt AI across every part of the business, governance, risk management, and compliance are no longer back-office functions. They are becoming central to every conversation about innovation.
Richa shares the personal experiences that inspired her to build Complyance, from her work in public sector technology and legal AI to her long-standing passion for data privacy. We discuss why trust has become one of the defining themes of enterprise AI and why businesses must think beyond their own AI initiatives to also understand the risks introduced by third-party vendors.
One of the most interesting parts of our conversation focuses on the difference between compliance and risk. Rather than viewing compliance as a box-ticking exercise or a cost center, Richa explains why AI has brought risk discussions directly into the boardroom. Business leaders are now asking deeper questions about how customer data is handled, how AI decisions are governed, and what safeguards need to exist before new technologies are deployed at scale.
We also explore how AI is changing governance itself. Traditional compliance has often relied on manual reviews and simple pass-or-fail checks, but Complyance is applying agentic AI to introduce greater context and human-like judgment into governance workflows. Richa explains how that approach is helping reduce manual effort while allowing teams to focus on higher-value risk decisions rather than repetitive administrative work.
Our conversation also covers practical advice for companies introducing AI into regulated environments. From evaluating third-party vendors and defining acceptable risk thresholds to adopting emerging AI standards and maintaining transparency throughout the process, Richa offers thoughtful guidance for leaders trying to balance innovation with accountability.
Along the way, we also discuss Complyance's recent $20 million Series A investment led by Google Ventures and what that recognition means for the company's mission to modernize governance, risk, and compliance with AI.
If your business is investing in AI while trying to strengthen trust, transparency, and responsible innovation, this episode offers a timely look at how governance is evolving alongside the technology itself.
As AI becomes embedded into more business processes, how is your company building trust while still giving teams the freedom to innovate?
What if the biggest obstacle to successful AI adoption isn't the technology at all, but the state of your data and the way work gets done inside your business?
In this episode, I speak with Jim Spignardo, Director of Cloud Strategy & AI Enablement at ProArch, about why so many AI initiatives struggle to deliver lasting value and what business leaders should be doing before deploying the next AI tool.
After more than 25 years working across networking, cloud, cybersecurity, and enterprise technology, Jim has seen plenty of technology trends come and go. His perspective on AI is refreshingly grounded in experience rather than headlines. Instead of focusing on the latest models or features, he explains why data governance, business processes, and user adoption remain the biggest factors in determining whether AI succeeds or fails.
One of the topics that stood out for me was Jim's definition of AI enablement. Rather than viewing AI as another application to deploy, he argues that real value comes from embedding AI into everyday workflows and helping people rethink how work is performed. That means identifying repetitive tasks, improving decision making, and creating measurable outcomes that executives can clearly understand.
We also discuss why many businesses are carrying years of technical debt into their AI initiatives. Poor data quality, outdated processes, and unclear ownership can all limit the effectiveness of AI, regardless of how advanced the underlying technology may be. Jim explains why companies that invest time in cleaning and governing their data today will be far better positioned to build reliable AI systems tomorrow.
Another fascinating part of our conversation focuses on ProArch's own AI adoption journey with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Rather than attempting a company-wide rollout overnight, Jim describes a phased approach built around real use cases, structured training, internal champions, and measurable success. It's a practical roadmap that many technology leaders could adapt inside their own businesses.
We also tackle one of the biggest concerns surrounding AI: jobs. Jim believes AI should be viewed as a way to augment people rather than replace them, allowing employees to spend less time on repetitive administrative work and more time applying creativity, expertise, and critical thinking where it delivers the greatest business value.
If you're responsible for technology strategy, cloud transformation, or AI adoption, this conversation offers practical advice on avoiding common mistakes while building a stronger foundation for long-term success.
How prepared is your business for enterprise AI, and have you addressed the data, governance, and cultural challenges before expecting AI to deliver measurable results?
What if the biggest advantage of building a global team has very little to do with reducing costs?
In today's episode, I speak with Nicolas Bivero, CEO of Penbrothers, about what it really takes to build high-performing distributed teams in an AI-driven world. Having spent decades working across Asia and helping businesses build remote teams in the Philippines, Nicolas offers a refreshingly practical perspective on hiring, culture, leadership, and why execution matters far more than simply moving work offshore.
Too often, discussions around remote hiring focus on labor arbitrage. Nicolas explains why that way of thinking misses the bigger opportunity. We explore how access to outstanding talent, around-the-clock operations, business resilience, and long-term team building are changing the way companies think about global workforces. Rather than treating remote employees as external resources, he shares why successful businesses invest in making them a genuine part of the company from day one.
Our conversation also examines why the first 90 to 180 days are so important when bringing new people into a business. Nicolas explains how structured onboarding, clear expectations, regular communication, and cultural understanding create stronger relationships and better outcomes for both employers and employees. We also discuss the role his Hypercare framework plays in helping bridge the gap between companies and their distributed teams, particularly when leaders are hiring internationally for the first time.
Culture is another major theme throughout our discussion. We talk about why company culture cannot be left to chance when people are working across different countries and time zones. Nicolas shares practical examples of how businesses can build trust, create a sense of belonging, and strengthen employee engagement, even when teams rarely meet face to face.
Of course, no conversation about the future of work would be complete without discussing AI. Nicolas offers an honest assessment of how AI is changing hiring, productivity, and the skills companies now value. Rather than viewing AI purely as a replacement for people, he explains how it is helping employees become more capable while also creating demand for entirely new roles. At the same time, he acknowledges that businesses are still learning where AI fits best and why there is no universal playbook yet.
If you're leading a growing business, managing distributed teams, or wondering how AI is changing global hiring, this episode is packed with practical lessons from someone who has spent years helping companies build successful international teams.
What lessons have you learned about building culture, trust, and performance across distributed teams, and how is AI changing the way your business approaches hiring and collaboration?
Have public sector organizations reached the point where AI is no longer an experiment but an operational necessity?
In this episode, I welcome Carmen Taglienti, CTO of Insight Public Sector, to discuss why AI is moving beyond chatbots and pilots to become part of the everyday workflows that support government services. As budgets tighten and expectations continue to rise, public sector teams are under pressure to deliver more for citizens without increasing resources. Carmen explains why this moment represents a turning point and how AI is helping agencies rethink the way they operate.
We talk about the rise of agentic AI and why the next generation of AI is focused on completing real work rather than simply answering questions. Carmen shares how governments are beginning to automate permitting, citizen inquiries, service requests, and internal processes while keeping people involved where oversight and accountability remain essential.
Our conversation also looks at why trust remains one of the biggest barriers to AI adoption. Whether it is employees using AI in the workplace or citizens interacting with AI-powered public services, confidence must be earned through transparency, governance, and consistent outcomes. Carmen explains why operational security, AI governance, and established frameworks are becoming as important as the technology itself.
Drawing on her experience teaching AI and cybersecurity at Northeastern University and leading AI strategy programs at Wake Forest University, Carmen also shares how higher education is preparing students for a workplace where AI will become part of almost every role. Rather than avoiding these tools, she argues that the next generation needs practical experience using them responsibly to solve real business problems.
We also discuss why smaller, specialized AI deployments may prove more effective than large agency-wide platforms, how procurement teams are adapting to a rapidly changing AI market, and what successful AI adoption actually looks like inside public sector organizations.
If you've been wondering what AI adoption really looks like beyond the headlines, this conversation offers practical insight into how governments are balancing innovation, compliance, security, and citizen trust while building services for the future.
How do you see AI changing the relationship between governments and the citizens they serve over the next few years? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
What keeps the digital world running safely behind the scenes, and why are so many organizations only now discovering that one of their most important security foundations is becoming increasingly difficult to manage?
In this episode, I sit down with Lakshmi Hanspal, Chief Trust Officer at DigiCert, to demystify Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and explain why it quietly powers almost every secure digital interaction we rely on each day. From online banking and cloud services to connected devices, APIs and AI systems, PKI is the technology that verifies identities, protects communications and helps ensure the information we exchange can be trusted.
Our conversation is inspired by DigiCert's latest PKI Modernization research, which surveyed senior IT and security leaders to understand how organisations are managing digital trust in an increasingly connected world. The findings reveal a growing gap between awareness and execution. While most leaders recognize the importance of digital trust, only 34% report having full visibility into their digital certificates, leaving many vulnerable to outages, operational disruptions, and unnecessary risk.
Lakshmi explains why certificate management has become so fragmented over the years, how machine identities now outnumber human identities by a significant margin, and why AI is adding another layer of complexity as autonomous systems communicate at unprecedented scale. We discuss why spreadsheets and disconnected management tools are no longer sufficient, and why many organizations are moving towards centralized PKI management with greater automation and policy enforcement.
We also look ahead to two challenges that are rapidly moving up the boardroom agenda. The first is establishing trust in AI-generated content through stronger verification, digital signatures, and cryptographic provenance. The second is preparing for a future in which quantum computing could eventually undermine today's encryption standards, making cryptographic agility an important business capability rather than simply a technical consideration.
If you've ever wondered what lies behind the secure websites, applications, and digital services you use every day, this conversation offers a practical introduction to one of the internet's most important foundations while explaining why modernizing digital trust has become a business priority rather than simply an IT project.
How prepared is your organization for the next generation of digital trust? I'd love to hear your thoughts and whether PKI modernization is already part of your security strategy.
What does meaningful engagement look like in today's classroom? And as AI becomes part of everyday teaching, how can technology help teachers inspire curiosity without adding even more pressure to an already demanding profession?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Jon Neale, Growth Director for UK and Ireland at Kahoot!, and one of the UK's most respected voices in education technology. With more than a decade in the classroom before moving into EdTech, Jon brings the perspective of someone who understands both the realities teachers face every day and the opportunities that technology can create when it is used with purpose.
Our conversation begins by exploring why student engagement has become more challenging in a world filled with digital distractions. Jon explains why gamification should never be confused with entertainment and how thoughtfully designed learning experiences can encourage participation, collaboration, and confidence without turning education into a competition.
We also discuss how Kahoot! has evolved far beyond the classroom quiz that many people know. Today's platform helps teachers create interactive lessons, collaborative learning experiences, and personalised activities that support learners across schools, higher education, workplace learning, and professional development.
AI is another major focus of our discussion. Jon shares practical examples of how teachers are using AI to enhance existing lesson materials, generate engaging classroom activities, personalise learning, and identify where students may need extra support before small learning gaps become bigger challenges. Rather than replacing educators, AI is helping teachers spend more time doing what drew them into the profession in the first place: teaching.
We also explore one of the biggest challenges facing education today, teacher workload. Jon explains why successful technology adoption starts with confidence rather than features, and why professional development plays such an important role in helping educators choose the right tool for the right situation instead of feeling overwhelmed by an endless stream of new platforms.
Whether you're a teacher, school leader, learning and development professional, or simply interested in how AI is changing education, this episode offers practical insight into how technology can create richer learning experiences while keeping people firmly at the centre of education.
As classrooms continue to change, what do you think will have the greatest impact on learning: AI itself, or the teachers who know how to use it well?
What if the biggest barrier to successful AI isn't the model itself, but the lack of context behind every decision your teams make? As AI agents become more capable, how do organisations ensure they understand the people, projects, documentation, and history that shape real work?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, recorded at Team '26, I'm joined by Taroon Mandhana, CTO of AI and Teamwork at Atlassian. His responsibilities span engineering for products including Jira, Confluence, Loom, and Trello, alongside the company's AI strategy and the development of Rovo. Our conversation explores why Atlassian believes AI should become a teammate rather than simply another chatbot.
Taroon explains why enterprise context has become one of the most valuable assets in the AI era. While today's foundation models continue to improve at an incredible pace, they still lack the organisational knowledge that human teams naturally accumulate over time. Atlassian's Teamwork Graph aims to bridge that gap by connecting people, projects, documentation, code, goals, and conversations into a living knowledge network that AI agents can use to produce more accurate, relevant outcomes.
We also discuss why Atlassian has chosen an open approach, making its Teamwork Graph available through technologies such as MCP rather than limiting it to its own AI products. Taroon shares why interoperability will become increasingly important as businesses adopt multiple AI platforms and why organisations should be free to use the agents that best suit their needs without losing access to valuable business context.
Another fascinating part of our conversation focuses on how Atlassian's own engineering teams are changing the way they build software. Smaller teams, tighter collaboration, AI-assisted development, and faster iteration cycles are allowing products to move from concept to release in weeks rather than months. Taroon explains how AI is changing both software development and the structure of engineering teams themselves.
We also examine where AI should take ownership of work inside platforms like Jira, where human judgement remains essential, and why successful organisations are treating AI adoption as an ongoing product journey rather than a one-time technology deployment.
If your business is looking beyond isolated AI experiments and wondering how to build AI into everyday work, this conversation offers valuable insight into the role context, openness, and organisational change will play in the next generation of enterprise software.
As AI becomes part of every workflow, what do you think will become the real competitive advantage: better models, or better organisational knowledge?
What happens when customer service moves beyond answering questions and starts anticipating needs, coordinating actions, and resolving problems with AI? And what does that mean for the future of the contact center?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Jonathan Barouch, Vice President and General Manager of Contact Center at Zendesk, to discuss the company's vision for the next generation of customer experience following the integration of Local Measure into the Zendesk platform.
Jonathan explains why the contact center is entering a new chapter, where AI is becoming part of every interaction rather than existing as a standalone feature. We discuss the announcements from Relate 2026 and how Zendesk is bringing together customer service, voice, automation, and AI to create a more connected experience for both customers and agents.
A major part of our conversation focuses on the acquisition and integration of Local Measure. Jonathan shares why bringing enterprise voice capabilities into the Zendesk platform creates new opportunities for organisations looking to modernise their contact centres without adding unnecessary complexity. Rather than treating voice as a separate channel, Zendesk is building an experience where every customer interaction contributes to a complete understanding of the customer journey.
We also discuss how AI is changing the day-to-day reality for contact center teams. Instead of replacing people, Jonathan explains how AI can remove repetitive work, surface the right information at the right time, and allow agents to spend more time solving problems that require empathy, judgement, and human conversation.
Looking further ahead, we examine what the future of Contact Center as a Service could look like as AI agents become increasingly capable. Jonathan shares his perspective on how businesses should prepare for this shift, where automation fits alongside human expertise, and why success will depend on creating experiences that customers genuinely value rather than simply reducing costs.
If your organisation is rethinking customer service, investing in AI, or planning the next stage of its contact center strategy, this conversation offers practical insight into where the industry is heading and what business leaders should be thinking about today.
What role do you think AI should play in customer service? Where should businesses draw the line between automation and the human touch?
What happens when a company best known for garage door openers decides to compete with the biggest names in smart home technology? Can a business built on hardware reinvent itself as an AI-powered software company without losing the trust that made it successful in the first place?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome Jeff Meredith, CEO of Chamberlain Group, to discuss one of the more fascinating business transformations happening in the technology sector. Chamberlain Group has spent more than 70 years building products that millions of homeowners rely on every day. Under Jeff's leadership, the company has expanded that heritage into intelligent access, creating a connected ecosystem through the myQ platform that now serves more than 15 million users worldwide.
Jeff shares why leaving a successful career at Lenovo to join what many dismissed as "a garage door company" became the biggest leadership challenge of his career. Rather than following the comfortable route, he chose what he describes as the hardest path, helping reshape an established manufacturer into a technology business built around software, data, AI, and recurring customer relationships.
Our conversation looks at what it really takes to attract software engineers, AI specialists, and data scientists into a company with an industrial heritage. Jeff explains why interesting problems often matter more than fashionable brands, and how Chamberlain Group's combination of trusted hardware, millions of existing customers, and ambitious software projects created an environment that appealed to top technical talent.
We also spend time discussing leadership. Jeff believes the best leaders teach rather than direct, preferring to stand at the whiteboard alongside colleagues instead of issuing instructions from the corner office. He speaks openly about mistakes he made when joining the business, why vulnerability has strengthened trust across the organisation, and why admitting when you're wrong can become a strength rather than a weakness.
Looking ahead, Jeff explains how AI could reshape intelligent access, moving beyond notifications to systems that understand patterns, recognise context, and help people secure their homes and businesses in smarter ways. Instead of viewing AI as technology searching for a purpose, he believes access control offers one of its most practical everyday applications.
From leadership philosophy and organisational change to connected homes, AI, and the future of intelligent access, this conversation offers valuable lessons for anyone leading transformation inside an established business.
What part of Jeff's story resonated most with you? Is the biggest challenge in business transformation changing the technology, or changing the mindset of the people building it?
What happens when the biggest AI security risk isn't the technology itself, but the people using it?
In this episode, I sit down with Cormac Whelan, CEO of Nitro Software, to discuss why organizations need to rethink their approach to AI adoption. With research showing that 68% of C-suite executives are bypassing approved AI tools in favor of their own, we explore how an "ask forgiveness, not permission" culture is creating new security and compliance challenges for businesses around the world.
Cormac shares why successful AI adoption begins with business outcomes rather than the latest model or headline-grabbing announcement. Drawing on his experience leading Nitro and previously building an AI company acquired by Apple, he explains why AI should be an enabler rather than the destination, and why organizations that focus on trust, transparency, and practical business value will ultimately pull ahead.
Our conversation also looks at why documents, contracts, PDFs, and e-signatures have become some of the most overlooked parts of the enterprise AI conversation. As AI systems increasingly interact with sensitive business information, protecting document workflows is becoming just as important as securing networks and endpoints.
We also discuss how European privacy standards are becoming a competitive advantage rather than simply another compliance requirement, how to separate genuine AI innovation from expensive security theater, and why AI should quietly improve the way people work instead of becoming the center of attention.
If you're trying to balance AI innovation with security, governance, and business value, this conversation offers practical advice without getting lost in the hype. After listening, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is your organization focusing on outcomes first, or is it still chasing the latest AI headline?
What if the biggest weakness in cybersecurity isn't the technology, but the way defenders communicate with each other?
Cybercriminals openly exchange techniques, vulnerabilities, and attack methods, constantly learning from one another. Meanwhile, many organizations remain reluctant to share details of breaches, investigations, or lessons learned. In this episode, I sit down with Lee Sult, Chief Investigator at Binalyze, to discuss why that imbalance is creating an advantage for attackers and what the industry can do to change it.
Drawing on almost two decades in digital forensics and incident response, including work with Palantir, law enforcement agencies, and government organizations, Lee explains why cybersecurity should learn from industries such as aviation and emergency services, where every major incident becomes an opportunity for everyone to improve. We discuss why incident response needs to move beyond reacting to alerts, how proactive threat hunting can reduce attacker dwell time, and why repeatable investigation processes are becoming just as important as the security tools themselves.
We also explore the growing influence of AI, not because it is making attackers dramatically smarter, but because it is lowering the barrier to entry and increasing the volume of attacks security teams must handle. Lee shares why automation is becoming essential for investigators, how organizations can move from hours to minutes when responding to threats, and why cybersecurity is steadily becoming a boardroom issue rather than simply an IT concern.
If cybersecurity is truly an information war, what would happen if defenders became just as collaborative as the attackers they face every day? After listening, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Should organizations be more open about cyber incidents if it helps strengthen security for everyone?
What happens when a consulting company decides that adding AI to existing workflows isn't enough?
In this episode, Mal Vivek, CEO and co-founder of zeb, joins me to discuss the launch of Substrate, an AI-native operating architecture that challenges many assumptions about enterprise consulting, software delivery, and AI adoption.
Rather than layering AI onto legacy processes, zeb made the bold decision to scrap its own operating model and rebuild the company from the ground up with AI at its core. The result is Substrate, a system designed to learn from every project it completes, continuously improving through a Plan, Execute, Evaluate operating loop while helping organizations move from experimentation to measurable business outcomes.
Our conversation goes far beyond another AI product announcement. Mal explains why so many organizations remain trapped in what she calls "pilot purgatory," investing heavily in AI without producing measurable returns. We discuss why treating AI as an assistant often limits its potential, and why businesses may need to rethink their organizational structures, workflows, and even leadership models if they want AI to become part of their operational foundation.
We also explore one of the most talked-about aspects of zeb's business model: a 100 percent outcome guarantee. Instead of charging for time or software licenses, zeb only gets paid when agreed business outcomes have been delivered. That raises interesting questions about accountability, risk, and whether the traditional consulting model still makes sense in an era where AI can dramatically compress delivery timelines.
Mal also shares why zeb gives customers ownership of their own version of the Substrate engine instead of locking them into a traditional SaaS subscription, how AI changes the relationship between technology vendors and their customers, and why she believes future organizations will become flatter, faster, and increasingly focused on builders rather than management layers.
If you're a technology leader trying to move beyond AI proofs of concept, or a business executive searching for a practical path to measurable AI value, this conversation offers plenty of fresh thinking on what AI-native organizations could look like over the next few years.
Can businesses continue adapting yesterday's operating models for tomorrow's technology, or is it time to rebuild from the ground up? I'd love to hear where you stand after listening to this episode.
Can organizations really call themselves AI-ready if their data foundations still have gaps?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Dave Shuman, Chief Data Officer at Precisely, to discuss the findings from the company's latest State of Data Integrity and AI Readiness Report. Drawing on insights from more than 500 senior IT leaders across the US and Europe, Dave explains why many organizations are confident in their AI readiness while simultaneously identifying infrastructure, data quality, and governance as their biggest obstacles.
Our conversation focuses on what Dave describes as the AI data integrity gap, the growing disconnect between ambitious AI initiatives and the quality, consistency, and context of the data powering them. We explore why successful AI projects often perform well in controlled pilot environments before struggling when deployed at scale, and why many organizations continue to underestimate the importance of data lineage, semantic layers, governance, and observability.
Dave also shares why he believes data governance and AI governance should be treated as a single discipline rather than separate initiatives. We discuss how businesses can move beyond vanity metrics such as token usage and agent counts to focus on outcomes that genuinely matter, including revenue growth, cost reduction, customer experience, and risk management.
As the conversation turns to the future of agentic AI, Dave offers a practical perspective on what autonomous systems will require of organizations and why trust in data will become increasingly important as AI assumes greater responsibility behind the scenes.
If your organization is investing heavily in AI and looking for measurable business value, this episode offers a timely reminder that successful AI strategies begin long before the first model is deployed. They begin with data integrity. Based on Precisely's latest research, Dave explains why companies making progress are focusing less on the latest AI tools and more on laying the foundations that enable those tools to deliver reliable outcomes.
What role does data integrity play in your organization's AI strategy, and are you confident your data is truly AI-ready?
How prepared are businesses for a new wave of attacks targeting the apps, APIs, and AI systems now powering digital growth?
In this episode, I speak with Richard Meeus from Akamai Technologies about the latest findings from Akamai's State of the Internet report, with a focus on apps, APIs, and DDoS activity across EMEA.
Richard explains why APIs have become such an attractive target for attackers, especially as AI adoption accelerates. We discuss the sharp rise in API abuse, the growing use of automation to industrialize attacks, and why many organizations still lack visibility into the APIs exposing sensitive data.
We also examine the rise in layer 7 DDoS attacks, how attackers are combining multiple techniques to distract defenders, and why sectors such as retail and manufacturing are facing growing pressure. Richard also shares his view on the geopolitical forces shaping DDoS activity and why hacktivist groups continue to use these attacks as a public statement.
Another major theme is the security risk around AI chatbots. As more organizations deploy chatbots to improve customer service, Richard explains how overly helpful AI systems can expose data, respond to prompt injection attempts, or create new blind spots if the right controls are missing.
But this conversation is not all about risk. Richard also explains why AI can help defenders strengthen visibility, improve testing, analyze logs faster, and support more proactive security strategies.
So, as businesses race to adopt AI and modern digital services, are they paying enough attention to the APIs and infrastructure sitting underneath it all? Share your thoughts.
What happens when AI agents start talking to customers more often than humans do?
In this episode, I'm joined by Robert Gerstmann, co-founder and Chief Evangelist at Sinch, to discuss what may be the biggest shift in business communications since SMS transformed how organizations connected with customers. As someone who helped build Sinch from a bootstrapped startup into a global communications platform serving enterprises worldwide, Robert offers a unique perspective on where customer engagement is heading next.
Our conversation traces the evolution of business communications from the early days of SMS and feature phones to today's world of conversational AI, rich messaging, voice agents, and intelligent engagement platforms. Robert explains why communication networks are evolving from simple connectivity infrastructure into intelligent conversation platforms that support increasingly sophisticated customer interactions.
We explore Sinch's prediction that AI agents could increase conversation volumes by three to five times across industries and discuss what that means for businesses that are already struggling with fragmented customer data, disconnected systems, and rising customer expectations. Robert shares why many organizations remain unprepared for the scale and complexity of AI-powered interactions and why getting the data foundation right is becoming a business priority.
The conversation also examines the surprising resurgence of voice. While messaging has dominated much of the discussion of the digital customer experience in recent years, Robert explains why AI is giving voice a new purpose. As voice interactions become more natural, contextual, and responsive, organizations are beginning to see voice not as a legacy channel but as a vital part of delivering high-quality customer experiences.
We also discuss the growing importance of trust, authentication, and verified communications in an era of deepfakes, spoofed identities, and synthetic content. Robert explains how technologies such as RCS and verified messaging are helping organizations build confidence while creating richer and more engaging customer experiences.
Along the way, we explore why personalization at scale is becoming the new battleground for customer attention, why relevance now matters more than volume, and how businesses can avoid becoming digital noise in increasingly crowded inboxes.
If you're interested in AI, customer experience, communications technology, or understanding how businesses will engage customers in the years ahead, this conversation offers valuable insights from someone helping shape the future of global communications. What role do you think AI-powered conversations will play in the future of customer engagement?
What happens when a single lost network packet can disrupt hours of manufacturing?
Recorded at Cisco Live, this episode features John Hoenemier, Director of Network Security Operations at GlobalFoundries, one of the world's leading semiconductor manufacturers. While most people think about microchips only when they buy a smartphone, laptop, car, or connected device, the reality is that modern life depends on a vast ecosystem of manufacturing facilities operating around the clock with extraordinary levels of precision.
During our conversation, John explains why semiconductor manufacturing is one of the most demanding operational environments in the world. Production runs continuously throughout the year, and even minor disruptions can have significant consequences. In this environment, the network serves as the digital nervous system of the factory floor, connecting equipment, systems, data, and people in real time.
We discuss the challenges of maintaining resilience in an environment where downtime is rarely an option. John shares how visibility, observability, security, and automation have become increasingly important as manufacturing operations grow more connected and more dependent on digital infrastructure. The conversation explores what happens when connectivity is interrupted and why reliability remains one of the most important measurements of success.
We also examine the growing role of AI, operational intelligence, and unified management platforms. John explains why bringing together data from multiple systems is helping teams make faster decisions and why technologies such as Cisco Cloud Control are generating so much interest among infrastructure leaders.
Along the way, we discuss cybersecurity, identity management, observability, and the unique realities of protecting highly distributed manufacturing environments. Despite operating in a very different industry, many of the challenges GlobalFoundries faces are remarkably familiar to technology leaders everywhere: balancing innovation with reliability, improving visibility, and finding ways to manage increasing complexity.
What stood out most was the reminder that behind every AI application, cloud service, connected device, and modern technology platform sits a manufacturing ecosystem that must operate with extraordinary consistency and precision.
As industries become increasingly connected, how important will resilient digital infrastructure become to the products and services we rely on every day?
What does it take to deliver reliable connectivity to a floating city carrying thousands of guests across the world's oceans?
Recorded at Cisco Live, this episode features Diogo Almeida, Head of IT Infrastructure at AIDA Cruises, and Amine Belhad, IT Network Architect at AIDA Cruises. Together, they share what happens behind the scenes to keep one of Europe's leading cruise fleets connected while supporting everything from guest services and entertainment to restaurants, healthcare facilities, security systems, and operational technology.
Most travelers think of a cruise ship as a vacation destination. The reality is far more complex. Each vessel operates like a self-contained city at sea, complete with data centers, wireless networks, hospitality systems, broadcast infrastructure, retail operations, medical facilities, and connectivity requirements that extend far beyond the ship itself.
During our conversation, Diogo and Amine explained how guest expectations have evolved dramatically in recent years. Travelers now expect the same digital experiences they enjoy at home, whether that's streaming content, staying connected with family, accessing onboard services through mobile applications, or remaining productive while traveling. Meeting those expectations requires a resilient technology foundation capable of operating in one of the most challenging environments imaginable.
We discuss the architecture supporting AIDA's fleet, the role of automation in managing complex environments, and how standardization has helped improve operational consistency across multiple ships. The conversation also explores how connectivity supports both guest experiences and business operations, from check-in processes and shore excursions to entertainment systems and day-to-day vessel management.
Looking ahead, we examine how AI, predictive analytics, and greater visibility into infrastructure performance could help identify issues before they impact guests or crew. As digital services become increasingly important to the cruise experience, proactive operations are becoming just as important as connectivity itself.
What stood out throughout this discussion was the scale of what happens behind the scenes. Most passengers never see the technology supporting their vacation, but it plays a role in almost every aspect of their experience from the moment they arrive at the terminal until they return home.
As customer expectations continue to rise, how can organizations deliver increasingly connected experiences while operating in environments where reliability matters more than ever?
Recorded at Cisco Live, this episode features Mark Rodrigue, Senior Network Engineer at Room & Board. This furniture retailer has built its reputation around design expertise, long-term customer relationships, and personalized service. While many retailers focus on transactions, Room & Board takes a different approach, helping customers make decisions about products they may live with for years or even decades.
During our conversation, Mark explains how technology is helping the company meet customers wherever they are. Whether someone visits a showroom, works with a designer remotely, or schedules a virtual consultation from home, the goal remains the same: deliver a consistent experience that feels personal, thoughtful, and easy.
We discuss how customer expectations have changed in recent years and why retailers must support both physical and digital experiences without compromising quality. Mark shares how Room & Board expanded from thinking about dozens of retail locations to supporting a workforce that can effectively serve customers from almost anywhere.
The conversation also explores the realities of running modern IT operations with a lean team. Mark explains how a small group of engineers supports networking, wireless connectivity, security, collaboration tools, and business operations across the company. We discuss the value of visibility, the role of automation, and why reducing operational complexity allows teams to spend more time supporting business outcomes rather than managing infrastructure.
Looking ahead, we examine the growing role of AI in IT operations. Rather than viewing AI as a replacement for skilled professionals, Mark sees agentic technologies as digital coworkers that can help teams find information, handle routine tasks, and accelerate troubleshooting. The result is more time spent focusing on customers, employees, and strategic priorities.
What stood out throughout this discussion was a simple philosophy: the best technology is often the technology nobody notices. When systems work as intended, customers can focus on designing their homes, employees can focus on helping them, and technology quietly does its job in the background.
As customer expectations continue to evolve, how can organizations leverage technology to deliver better experiences without losing the human connection customers value most?
What happens when one of the world's largest enterprise software companies declares that it is no longer a software company, but an AI company?
At SAP Sapphire, I caught up with James Bates, Head of Customer Advisory at SAP UK & Ireland, to discuss the company's vision for what it calls the Autonomous Enterprise and why this year's event felt different from any SAP conference before it. From standing-room-only AI sessions to bold declarations from SAP leadership, there was a clear sense that the conversation around AI has moved beyond experimentation and into the world of measurable business outcomes.
In our conversation, James explained why so many organizations remain stuck in what he described as the experimentation phase of AI, despite years of investment and countless pilot projects. We explored why successful AI initiatives begin with business outcomes rather than technology choices and why data, governance, and process context have become the foundations of enterprise AI success.
We also examined some of the standout announcements from Sapphire, including SAP's AI Agent Hub, the growing role of Joule as a new interface for work, and the company's expanding ecosystem of partnerships with organizations including Anthropic, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google Cloud, Palantir, and Mistral. James shared why SAP believes the future lies in combining large language models with business context, process knowledge, and trusted enterprise data.
The discussion also touched on real-world examples that demonstrate how AI agents are beginning to transform customer experiences, automate complex workflows, and support employees across finance, supply chain, and customer-facing operations. Rather than replacing people, James sees AI assistants and agents working alongside employees, removing repetitive tasks and helping teams focus on higher-value activities.
We also explored the challenge many business leaders continue to wrestle with: how to balance autonomy with governance. As AI agents become more capable, maintaining visibility, accountability, and control becomes increasingly important. James shared why governance, trusted data, and strong business processes must remain at the center of every AI strategy.
If you've been wondering whether enterprise AI is finally moving beyond the hype cycle and into meaningful business transformation, this conversation offers a fascinating perspective from the heart of SAP's AI strategy and its vision for the future of work. What role do you think AI agents will play inside your organization over the next few years? Share your thoughts.
How do healthcare organizations continue innovating while protecting some of the most sensitive data in existence?
Recorded at Cisco Live, this episode features Kevin Ludwig, Associate Vice President of Information Technology at XiFin, and Jeff Kronlage, CEO of CrossConnect Engineering.
Together, they provide a behind-the-scenes look at the technology infrastructure supporting healthcare billing, laboratories, pharmacies, and medical providers, where reliability, security, and automation all play a central role in keeping critical processes moving.
During our conversation, Kevin explains how XiFin helps healthcare organizations process and validate complex billing workflows while reducing manual intervention wherever possible. With healthcare providers facing growing financial pressure, improving efficiency has become increasingly important, but never at the expense of security or data protection.
We explore how cyber threats continue to shape decision-making across healthcare technology and why organizations are looking beyond traditional security architectures. Kevin and Jeff share their experience as one of the earliest adopters of Cisco's smart switching technology, discussing how distributed security models can simplify operations, reduce complexity, and help teams manage growing demands without constantly adding new layers of infrastructure.
The conversation also examines AI adoption inside healthcare environments. While organizations are eager to benefit from automation and AI-powered capabilities, Kevin explains why guardrails, governance, and customer trust remain top priorities. We discuss the balance between innovation and risk, the importance of observability, and how teams are approaching AI with both enthusiasm and caution.
Along the way, Jeff offers an insightful perspective on reducing decades of accumulated technical debt, challenging long-standing assumptions about network security, and creating simpler ways to manage increasingly complex environments. What emerges is a discussion about much more than technology. It's a conversation about trust, responsibility, and helping healthcare organizations deliver better outcomes through smarter systems and better operational decisions.
If you're interested in healthcare technology, cybersecurity, AI adoption, or the future of enterprise infrastructure, this episode provides valuable insights from leaders working at the intersection of all four.
As healthcare becomes increasingly connected and data-driven, how should organizations balance innovation, security, and trust?
What does it take to move from AI experimentation to real business impact?
Recording during Google Cloud Summit London 2026 at Tobacco Dock, I had the opportunity to speak with Maureen Costello, Vice President for UKI and Sub-Saharan Africa at Google Cloud, about one of the biggest shifts currently taking place across technology and business. After years of discussion around generative AI, the focus is now turning toward agentic AI and how organizations can put these capabilities to work in practical, measurable ways.
Maureen offered a fascinating view from the front line of AI adoption, sharing how businesses across financial services, retail, government, and other sectors are beginning to move beyond pilots and proof-of-concept projects. We discussed how AI is helping organizations improve customer experiences, increase productivity, strengthen decision-making, and create new opportunities for growth. From helping banks tackle financial crime and deliver smarter customer services to supporting government departments in modernizing public services, the conversation is filled with examples that bring the technology to life.
We also explored why the UK is so well positioned for the next chapter of AI adoption. With world-class research, exceptional talent, and ambitious investment across both the public and private sectors, Maureen believes the UK has a genuine opportunity to remain at the forefront of AI innovation. She also explained why skills development, data readiness, security, governance, and trust will play such an important role as organizations begin introducing AI agents into everyday workflows.
What I particularly enjoyed was discussing the human side of this transition. As AI becomes embedded into business operations, how should leaders prepare their teams? What separates organizations that achieve meaningful outcomes from those that struggle to move beyond the early excitement? And how can businesses strike the right balance between innovation, responsibility, and long-term value?
Whether you're following the announcements from Google Cloud Summit London, building your own AI strategy, or simply trying to understand where this technology is heading next, this conversation offers valuable insight into one of the most talked-about topics in business today.
What role do you think agentic AI will play inside your organization over the next 12 months, and are businesses finally moving from curiosity to meaningful adoption?
What does strategy look like when the technology industry seems to change every few months?
Recorded at Cisco Live, this episode features Ammar Maraqa, Cisco's Chief Strategy Officer, whose role spans corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, venture investments, technology incubation, strategic partnerships, and long-term planning. Few people have a broader view of where the technology industry is heading and how companies can position themselves for what comes next.
During our conversation, Ammar shares why he believes many organizations are thinking about AI the wrong way. Rather than viewing it as a productivity tool or cost-saving exercise, he argues that AI represents a much deeper shift in how work gets done, how organizations operate, and how leaders should think about growth.
We explore Cisco's approach to strategy in an era defined by constant disruption, including why the company focuses on testing assumptions rather than repeatedly changing direction. Ammar also explains how Cisco uses a combination of building, acquiring, partnering, investing, and incubating to accelerate innovation and stay close to emerging technologies.
The discussion also examines what Cisco learns from engaging with startups, entrepreneurs, venture investors, customers, and partners around the world. From advances in AI infrastructure and silicon to agent orchestration, observability, security, and enterprise adoption, Ammar shares the themes he believes deserve the closest attention from business leaders today.
We also discuss one of the biggest challenges facing organizations: the growing gap between what AI is capable of and what companies are actually prepared to adopt. Ammar explains why infrastructure, data, security, workflow redesign, and organizational change remain essential ingredients for success, regardless of how powerful the underlying models become.
Along the way, he offers insights into business model disruption, the future of enterprise software, and why some companies successfully reinvent themselves while others struggle to adapt.
If you're interested in strategy, innovation, AI adoption, or the forces shaping the next decade of enterprise technology, this conversation provides a thoughtful perspective from someone helping guide one of the industry's most influential companies through a period of extraordinary change.
How often does your organization challenge the assumptions behind its strategy, and would those assumptions still hold true if you were making them today?
Can technology and AI genuinely improve lives at scale, or are we still spending too much time talking about potential rather than outcomes?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Hala Hanna, Executive Director of MIT Solve, as the organization marks its tenth anniversary. Over the last decade, MIT Solve has supported more than 500 innovators, helped solutions reach hundreds of millions of people worldwide, and connected founders with the funding, partnerships, and mentorship needed to turn ideas into lasting impact.
Hala shares why the world is not suffering from a shortage of innovation. Instead, she argues that the real challenge is connecting talented problem-solvers with the resources and relationships that help ideas grow beyond the pilot stage. Drawing on lessons from nearly 30,000 applications and 100 innovation challenges, she explains why proximity to a problem often leads to better solutions and why founders with lived experience frequently outperform expectations.
We also discuss the growing conversation around AI for good and how MIT Solve separates meaningful impact from marketing hype. Hala outlines the practical tests her team uses when evaluating AI-powered solutions and shares inspiring examples from healthcare, education, agriculture, and public services. From improving cancer diagnostics in underserved communities to digitizing centuries of public records and helping farmers access data through simple mobile devices, these stories show how technology can create tangible value when designed with people at the center.
Another fascinating part of our conversation focuses on women in technology. With 64% of MIT Solve's supported teams led by women, Hala explains why this outcome is less about special treatment and more about removing barriers that have traditionally limited access to opportunity. We explore how open innovation challenges, diverse judging panels, and recognizing lived experience as expertise can help surface talent that conventional funding models often miss.
Hala also offers a refreshing perspective on the future of AI, arguing that the next chapter should focus on inclusion, local relevance, and community ownership rather than simply building larger models and more infrastructure. Her examples of AI being used to preserve endangered languages and strengthen local sovereignty offer a powerful reminder that technology can support culture and identity as well as economic growth.
If you've ever wondered what happens when innovation, purpose, and practical action come together, this conversation provides plenty of reasons for optimism. What role do you think technology should play in creating a fairer and more inclusive future?
What happens when software can be built and shipped faster than ever, but trust becomes the real challenge?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Dean Hickman-Smith, Chief Revenue Officer at Testlio, to discuss why software quality has become a boardroom issue in the age of AI.
As organizations race to release new features, deploy AI-powered experiences, and automate development workflows, the question is no longer whether software ships successfully. The question is whether customers can trust what they receive.
Dean explains why human testers remain an essential part of the software development process, even as automation and AI continue to advance. We explore the limitations of synthetic testing environments, the growing importance of cultural context and demographic representation, and why real-world user experiences often expose problems that automated systems miss.
From voice interfaces and regional dialects to accessibility and personalization, the conversation highlights the growing complexity of delivering reliable digital experiences.
We also discuss the rising business risks associated with poor software quality. While cybersecurity often dominates headlines, Dean argues that failed updates, inaccurate AI responses, poor customer experiences, and software outages can be equally damaging to brand reputation and customer loyalty. He shares insights from Testlio's work with global organizations and explains why human insight continues to complement AI-driven testing rather than compete with it.
The conversation also looks ahead to a future where AI-generated code becomes increasingly common. Will software testing become fully automated, or will specialist human expertise become even more valuable? Dean offers his perspective on how AI, automation, and human judgment can work together to create better digital experiences while helping organizations avoid costly mistakes.
If your organization is building AI-powered products, managing customer-facing applications, or trying to balance speed with quality, this episode offers practical insights into why software testing remains one of the most important parts of the development process.
What role do you think humans will play in software testing as AI continues to advance? Share your thoughts.
What happens when a camera company starts thinking less about lenses and specifications and more about how people actually capture and share their lives?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I spoke with Max Richter from Insta360 about the company's journey from pioneering 360-degree cameras to building a much broader ecosystem of hardware, software, AI tools, and creator-focused workflows. While many people still associate Insta360 with immersive 360 content, the company has steadily expanded into action cameras, wearable cameras, webcams, creator tools, and enterprise applications that reach far beyond social media.
Our conversation explored how Insta360's philosophy of "shoot first, frame later" challenged traditional assumptions about photography and video creation. Rather than worrying about angles, framing, or missing a moment, users can focus on the experience itself and decide later how they want to tell the story. That approach has helped shape products that are now used everywhere from family vacations and sports adventures to construction sites, virtual tours, education, and live broadcasting.
We also discussed the growing role of artificial intelligence in the creative process. Instead of replacing creativity, Insta360 is using AI to remove many of the technical hurdles that often prevent people from sharing the content they capture. From automated editing and intelligent reframing to enhanced low-light performance and future cloud-based experiences, AI is becoming an important part of making professional-quality content creation accessible to a much wider audience.
A major focus of our discussion was Luna, Insta360's new pocket gimbal camera developed in partnership with Leica. Max explained why this launch represents an important step for the company as it expands further into the creator market. Combining premium imaging capabilities, advanced stabilization, AI-powered features, and a highly portable design, Luna reflects Insta360's belief that creators increasingly care about the entire workflow, from capture through editing and publishing, rather than camera specifications alone.
We also explored an increasingly common question: if modern smartphones are so capable, why would anyone need a dedicated camera? Max shared his perspective on why purpose-built devices still matter for travelers, vloggers, filmmakers, and everyday users who want a more immersive and intentional way to capture life's moments.
From AI-powered storytelling and creator workflows to the future of wearable cameras and intelligent imaging, this conversation offers an interesting look at how one company is trying to shape the next chapter of visual content creation.
How do you think AI will change the way we capture, edit, and share our stories over the next few years?
What happens when a company focused on drug discovery and life sciences encounters a data problem that nobody else seems able to solve?
Recorded at the IT Press Tour in Boston, this episode explores the fascinating story behind Paradigm4 and how a challenge in large-scale biomedical research ultimately led to the creation of flexFS, a cloud-native filesystem designed to tackle some of today's biggest data infrastructure challenges.
Joining me on the podcast is David Freund from Paradigm4, who shares how the company was originally founded to help scientists work with enormous datasets in fields such as genomics, bioinformatics, and precision medicine. As researchers began working with population-scale datasets such as the UK Biobank, the team discovered that existing storage technologies either couldn't deliver the performance they needed, lacked the functionality required, or became prohibitively expensive at scale. Our conversation explores the moment Paradigm4 realized it would need to build its own solution, why traditional approaches to cloud storage often struggle under modern analytics workloads, and how flexFS emerged from a real-world customer problem rather than a technology trend. David also explains why object storage has become such an attractive foundation for modern infrastructure, while discussing the challenges of latency, performance, and cost that still need to be addressed.
We also discuss why many organizations investing heavily in AI infrastructure may be overlooking one of the biggest constraints on performance. While much of the industry conversation focuses on GPUs and compute power, David argues that data access, movement, and management are becoming equally important considerations as AI workloads continue to grow.
Along the way, we touch on cloud independence, resilience, large-scale analytics, and why flexibility across cloud providers is becoming an increasingly important requirement for enterprise technology leaders. Whether you're working in AI, life sciences, cloud infrastructure, or enterprise data management, this episode offers an interesting perspective on how customer problems can sometimes lead to entirely new categories of technology.
Could the next major AI bottleneck be data rather than compute? And are organizations paying enough attention to the infrastructure feeding their most important workloads? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
How do you keep millions of people streaming a World Cup match without buffering, outages, or delays? And what happens behind the scenes when a retailer suddenly experiences a surge of traffic during Black Friday or Cyber Monday?
Recording this episode at the IT Press Tour in Boston, with the FIFA World Cup dominating conversations across the city, I sat down with Rob Clifford, Vice President of Sales for the Americas at IO River, to discuss one of the least visible but most important parts of our digital world. While most people simply expect websites, streaming platforms, and applications to work, an enormous amount of infrastructure sits behind every click, stream, and transaction.
Rob explains why organizations are increasingly moving beyond reliance on a single content delivery network and embracing a multi-edge approach. We discuss the challenges of managing multiple providers, how IO River is helping enterprises simplify that complexity, and why the company believes a new control layer is needed to improve performance, resilience, and cost management across the edge.
The conversation also explores IO River's recent $20 million funding round, the rise of edge decoupling, and how the company is working with major broadcasters preparing for the huge traffic demands of the World Cup. Rob also shares how retailers can avoid costly downtime during peak shopping events and why AI is creating a new generation of challenges and opportunities for edge infrastructure.
If you've ever wondered what happens behind the scenes when millions of people watch the same sporting event, shop online during a major promotion, or access cloud services around the world, this episode offers an accessible look at the technology making it all possible.
What role do you think edge infrastructure will play as AI, streaming, and digital experiences continue to scale? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
How do you double the size of a major sporting venue, rebuild its technology foundation, and still deliver a seamless experience for hundreds of thousands of fans?
Recording from Cisco Live, I spoke with Robert Nichols, Principal Technical Architect for the Cincinnati Open, about the enormous undertaking behind one of the most respected tournaments in professional tennis. As an ATP Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 event, the Cincinnati Open recently completed a $260 million expansion that increased the campus from 20 to 40 acres, all while working against a deadline that could not be moved.
Our conversation explores what happens behind the scenes when nearly 300,000 visitors arrive expecting every aspect of the event to work flawlessly. From ticket scanning and connectivity to food service, hospitality, broadcasting, security, and crowd management, every part of the operation depends on infrastructure that most fans never think about.
Robert explains how the team approached modernization without losing the qualities that have made the tournament special for generations. Accessibility, proximity to the players, and a welcoming atmosphere remain central to the Cincinnati Open experience, even as the venue continues to grow.
We also discuss occupancy analytics, connected cameras, wireless networking across 40 acres, and how data helps organizers make better operational decisions throughout the tournament. Along the way, Robert shares insights into the scale of planning required to support one of the largest events in professional tennis.
Looking ahead, we examine how AI and automation could influence the future of live events, helping organizers improve operations while keeping the focus firmly on the fan experience.
Whether you're interested in sports, technology, operations, or large-scale event management, this episode offers a rare look at what it takes to deliver an event watched by millions worldwide.
What part of a live sporting event do you think requires the most coordination behind the scenes?
How prepared is your organization for threats that move faster than people can respond?
At Cisco Live, I sat down with Bhaskar Jayakrishnan, Senior Vice President of Engineering for Cisco Customer Experience, to discuss a reality facing technology leaders everywhere: attackers are increasingly operating at machine speed while many organizations are still relying on processes designed for a very different era.
Our conversation explores what Cisco describes as the defense velocity gap and why traditional approaches to patching, remediation, and risk management are becoming harder to sustain as environments grow more complex. Bhaskar explains how organizations are shifting from reactive security practices toward more continuous approaches that focus on visibility, resilience, and operational readiness.
We also discuss one of the biggest long-term challenges facing the industry: quantum computing. While many organizations still view quantum threats as a future problem, Bhaskar explains why preparations need to begin now, particularly when it comes to crypto agility and the risks associated with "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks.
Another major theme throughout our discussion is AI. Bhaskar shares lessons learned from Cisco's own experience deploying AI across a workforce of more than 20,000 employees and explains why successful adoption often depends less on the technology itself and more on data quality, workflow design, and organizational trust.
Along the way, we explore resilience, modernization, automation, and what it takes to prepare an organization for a future where both opportunities and threats are arriving faster than ever before.
If you're trying to understand how cybersecurity, AI, and quantum computing are reshaping the responsibilities of today's technology leaders, this conversation offers practical insights from someone helping organizations tackle those challenges every day.
Are today's security and operational models ready for a world moving at machine speed, or is it time for a completely different approach?
What happens when the technology keeping essential services running fails at the worst possible moment?
When most people think about workplace technology, they picture laptops, smartphones, and office software. But for millions of workers maintaining power networks, repairing infrastructure, supporting emergency services, managing transport systems, and operating in remote environments, technology has a very different job to do. It has to work every single time, often in conditions where failure is simply not an option.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Alex Gittins from Getac about the changing world of field operations, rugged computing, and the growing role of Edge AI in supporting the deskless workforce.
Alex explains why rugged technology is far more than placing a consumer device inside a protective case. From extreme temperatures and harsh weather to vibration, dust, poor connectivity, and demanding working environments, true rugged devices are engineered from the ground up to support people working where most technology struggles.
We also discuss the often-overlooked reality that around 80% of the global workforce operates away from a desk. These workers are increasingly dependent on digital tools to receive work orders, access mapping systems, capture field data, complete inspections, and communicate with central teams in real time.
The conversation also turns to Edge AI and its growing importance for frontline teams. Rather than relying on constant connectivity and cloud processing, Edge AI enables workers to access intelligence directly on their devices. Whether identifying damaged assets through image recognition, guiding inspections, reducing paperwork, or supporting faster decision-making, AI is becoming a practical tool for improving efficiency and safety in the field.
Alex also shares how customer expectations are changing. Organisations are no longer buying devices in isolation. Instead, they are involving technology providers much earlier in the process to help design complete solutions that can support future operational requirements.
From defence roots to modern field operations, this episode offers a fascinating look at the technology helping keep critical services running behind the scenes. How will AI, connectivity, and rugged computing continue to reshape the future of work for the billions of people who never sit behind a desk?
What will the enterprise of the future actually look like, and which technologies deserve attention beyond the hype cycle?
In today's episode, I sit down with Yaad Oren, Global Head of SAP Research & Innovation and Managing Director of SAP Labs US, for a fascinating conversation about the technologies that could shape business over the next decade.
Leading SAP's global research and innovation efforts, Yaad works at the intersection of academia, startups, venture capital, and enterprise technology, identifying emerging technologies before they reach the mainstream. His team explores everything from next-generation AI and voice interfaces to quantum computing, robotics, future data platforms, and new cloud architectures.
We discuss why voice AI could become the primary interface for enterprise software, allowing employees to interact with business systems as naturally as they would with a colleague. Yaad also explains how quantum computing is already showing promise in complex supply chain optimization challenges and why robotics is moving beyond manufacturing floors into logistics, inspection, hospitality, and customer-facing environments.
The conversation also explores one of the less talked about drivers of innovation: the role universities play in shaping the technologies businesses will eventually depend on. Yaad shares how SAP works closely with academic institutions around the world to identify breakthroughs while they are still emerging from research labs, long before they become commercial products.
We also discuss SAP's vision for the autonomous enterprise, where AI assistants orchestrate teams of specialized agents across finance, supply chain, sales, and operations. Rather than replacing decision-makers, these systems are designed to automate routine work and allow people to focus on higher-value activities.
Perhaps most importantly, Yaad offers practical advice for business leaders trying to prepare for the next wave of innovation without chasing every trend. His message is clear: build a strong data foundation, stay informed about emerging technologies, and create a culture that is willing to experiment.
If you've ever wondered what technologies might shape enterprise software five to ten years from now, this episode offers a rare glimpse into the research, partnerships, and ideas that are already influencing that future. What emerging technology do you believe will have the biggest impact on your industry over the next decade? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
What happens when your AI ambitions collide with the reality of your infrastructure?
Across boardrooms everywhere, agentic AI has quickly moved from experimental projects to strategic priority. The excitement is easy to understand. Business leaders see opportunities to automate workflows, improve decision-making, and increase productivity. Yet behind the headlines and product announcements sits a less visible challenge that many organizations are only beginning to understand.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Abby Strong, Chief Market Officer and Chief Customer Officer at Cribl, about the growing gap between AI ambition and operational readiness. Drawing on new research conducted with Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, Abby shares why so many organizations are struggling to move AI initiatives from pilot projects into production environments.
The findings paint a fascinating picture. While almost every business leader surveyed views agentic AI as strategically important, only a small percentage believe they currently have both the strategy and infrastructure required to support it. At the heart of the challenge is data. As AI agents interact with systems, applications, and services, telemetry volumes are increasing at rates that many organizations never anticipated. In some cases, data volumes have doubled or tripled, creating unexpected infrastructure costs and operational complexity.
Abby explains why telemetry, observability, and data management have become central to AI success. We discuss why AI systems are only as effective as the quality, accessibility, and context of the data available to them. She also shares real-world examples of how organizations are wrestling with growing infrastructure demands, rising costs, governance requirements, and the challenge of proving meaningful return on investment.
Our conversation also examines the growing importance of visibility into AI activity. As enterprises deploy large language models and AI agents across their environments, security and observability teams are facing entirely new questions around monitoring, governance, compliance, and cost control. How do you establish a baseline when the technology itself is evolving so quickly? How do you maintain trust when AI systems generate vast numbers of automated queries and interactions?
Abby offers a balanced perspective on what comes next. Rather than replacing existing systems overnight, many organizations are adding AI capabilities onto current workflows while gradually rethinking how work gets done. The result is a period of transition where businesses must support today's operations while preparing for a future that looks very different.
If you're trying to understand why infrastructure readiness may become one of the biggest factors in AI success, this conversation provides valuable context. Are organizations focusing too much on AI models and not enough on the data foundations that support them? And what happens when the cost of AI adoption extends far beyond the AI tools themselves?
Can businesses still rely on cybersecurity strategies that were designed for a very different threat environment?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Matt Knell from ESET about why many managed service providers and businesses are being forced to rethink what effective cybersecurity looks like in 2026. As cybercriminals become faster, more sophisticated, and increasingly powered by AI, many of the approaches that once provided reassurance are struggling to keep pace.
Matt shares why the idea of "good enough" security is becoming increasingly difficult to defend. While endpoint protection remains an important part of any security strategy, he explains why technology alone is no longer enough. Organizations must continually review, update, and strengthen their defenses rather than assuming that yesterday's protections will be sufficient tomorrow.
Our conversation explores the lasting impact of ransomware and the lessons businesses continue to learn from high-profile incidents. From major retailers to global manufacturers, attacks are creating operational disruption, financial losses, and reputational damage on a scale that few organizations would have imagined a decade ago.
We also discuss one of the industry's most persistent challenges: the cybersecurity skills gap. Finding experienced security professionals remains difficult, while retaining talent has become equally challenging. Matt explains how managed detection and response services are helping MSPs extend their capabilities without having to build and maintain large security operations teams.
AI naturally plays a major role in the discussion. While cybersecurity vendors use AI to improve threat detection and response, attackers are also leveraging the technology to accelerate and sophisticate phishing campaigns, social engineering, and other forms of cybercrime. Matt explains why businesses must remain realistic about both opportunities and risks.
Another theme throughout the episode is the growing expectation that cybersecurity should be treated as a business issue rather than purely an IT concern. Regulations, cyber insurance requirements, supply chain scrutiny, and customer expectations are all increasing pressure on organizations to demonstrate stronger security practices and greater resilience.
We also discuss ESET PRIVATE and why more organizations are seeking security services tailored to their specific operational needs. Rather than relying on a standard package, many businesses are looking for solutions that align with their industry requirements, compliance obligations, risk profile, and long-term objectives.
Finally, Matt reflects on the conversations emerging from ESET's recent partner conference and shares his perspective on the topics shaping cybersecurity priorities for the coming year. AI, resilience, compliance, and business education continue to dominate discussions as organizations look for practical ways to strengthen their defenses.
If you're an MSP, IT leader, business owner, or anyone responsible for protecting digital operations, this episode offers a timely look at the challenges facing organizations today and the steps many are taking to prepare for what comes next.
Is your organization still relying on security strategies designed for yesterday's threats, or have you adapted to today's cyber risks?
Have we become so used to data breaches that we no longer stop to think about what they actually mean for the people affected?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Simon Pamplin, CTO at Certes, about why cybercrime remains one of the biggest threats facing businesses and consumers alike. While headlines about ransomware attacks and data breaches appear almost every day, Simon argues that too many organizations are still treating cybersecurity as a technology problem rather than a business risk with real human consequences.
Our conversation begins with a simple but powerful question. Why are so many companies still focused on protecting networks when attackers are really after the data itself? Simon explains why traditional perimeter-based security approaches are struggling in a world where information moves between cloud environments, devices, applications, and partners far beyond the boundaries organizations once controlled.
We also discuss the personal cost of cybercrime. Behind every breach announcement are real people whose financial records, personal details, healthcare information, and digital identities may have been exposed. Simon shares why the impact often extends far beyond resetting a password, creating financial, emotional, and reputational consequences that can last for years.
Another major theme is the growing concern about quantum computing and the rise of harvest-and-decrypt attacks. While fully realized quantum computing may still be in the future, cybercriminals are already collecting encrypted data with the expectation that future technology will eventually unlock it. Simon explains why businesses need to think about protecting sensitive information today rather than waiting for tomorrow's threats to become reality.
The conversation also examines the growing pressure from regulations such as GDPR, DORA, and NIS2. With larger penalties and increased regulatory scrutiny, organizations are facing greater accountability for how they handle and protect customer information. Simon argues that trust has become one of the most valuable assets a business can possess and one of the easiest to lose.
Of course, no cybersecurity discussion would be complete without addressing AI. We explore how AI is making attacks faster, cheaper, and more accessible while also creating opportunities for defenders. Simon shares his thoughts on why businesses must rethink long-held assumptions and prepare for a future in which cybercriminals can automate many techniques that once required significant expertise.
Throughout our discussion, Simon returns to a consistent message. Attackers target data because it has value. Organizations that focus their efforts on protecting that data, wherever it travels, will be in a far stronger position than those relying solely on traditional defenses.
If you are responsible for cybersecurity, risk management, compliance, or digital transformation, this episode offers a timely discussion of what businesses should prioritize as threats continue to evolve. Customer trust becomes harder to earn and easier to lose.
When the next breach makes headlines, will it simply be another news story, or will it be a reminder that every piece of stolen data belongs to a real person whose life could be affected?
What is the office actually for?
It's a question that many organizations are still wrestling with as they balance flexibility, collaboration, employee expectations, and business performance. At Cisco Live, I sat down with Christian Bigsby, Senior Vice President of Workplaces at Cisco, to discuss how the role of the workplace is changing and why measuring success by attendance alone may no longer make sense.
Christian shares how Cisco has rethought the relationship between people, place, and technology, bringing together teams that traditionally operated separately to create a more connected workplace experience. Rather than focusing on how many employees are in the office, the conversation centers on the outcomes that become possible when people come together with purpose.
We explore how hybrid work has reshaped workplace strategy, why employee experience has become a business priority, and how organizations can create environments that support collaboration, innovation, learning, and culture. Christian also explains why flexibility should not be viewed as a perk but as an important part of helping employees do their best work.
The conversation also looks at the growing role of AI in workplace operations. From forecasting occupancy and improving space utilization to helping organizations make smarter decisions about resources and services, AI is helping workplace leaders respond to a level of variability that traditional operating models were never designed to handle.
Along the way, Christian offers thoughtful insights on leadership, trust, organizational culture, and why the future workplace may have more in common with a dynamic service than a fixed location.
If you've ever wondered whether the future of work is about where people work, how they work, or why they come together in the first place, this conversation offers plenty to think about.
What do you believe makes a workplace valuable in 2026, attendance, experience, outcomes, or something else entirely?
What happens when the newest users on your network aren't people at all?
At Cisco Live, I sat down with Aruna Ravichandran, SVP and CMO for AI, Networking, and Collaboration at Cisco, to discuss a shift that could change how organizations think about networks, operations, and AI over the coming years.
For decades, enterprise networks have been built around human behavior. People work predictable hours, take holidays, and generally follow familiar patterns. AI agents are different. They work continuously, analyze information around the clock, and increasingly act as digital teammates that can help organizations monitor, troubleshoot, and improve operations at a scale that would be impossible for humans alone.
During our conversation, Aruna explained why AI is no longer just an application discussion. As organizations deploy more digital teammates, networks must support a new type of user that never sleeps, never stops learning, and can help identify issues before employees even arrive at work. We explore Cisco's vision for AgenticOps, the role of Cisco Cloud Control as a unified command center, and how AI-driven operations are helping reduce complexity for teams already overwhelmed by alerts, dashboards, and operational overhead.
Aruna also shared her perspective on one of the biggest challenges facing the industry today: trust. While the technology is advancing rapidly, organizations need confidence that their digital teammates can make reliable recommendations and support critical operations without removing human oversight. That balance between automation and accountability sits at the heart of Cisco's approach.
We also discuss why domain expertise still matters in the age of AI, how Cisco is drawing on decades of networking experience to build purpose-built models, and why the next few years may see every IT professional supported by an expanding team of digital coworkers.
If you've been wondering how AI will move beyond chat interfaces and become part of everyday operations, this conversation offers an interesting look at where networking, automation, and AI are heading next.
How many digital teammates do you think you'll be working alongside in the next few years, and what tasks would you trust them to handle first?
Useful LInks
- Anurag Dhingra's blog
- DJ Sampath's blog
- Aruna's LinkedIn post re. The AgenticOps stats she mentioned
- Press Release
Have you ever wondered whether the skills that build a company are the same skills needed to scale it?
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Hadi Moussa, the newly appointed CEO of Oyster, the global employment platform helping businesses hire, pay, and support talent in more than 180 countries. The conversation comes at a fascinating moment for the company, following founder Tony Jamous' decision to step into the Executive Chairman role and hand over the CEO position from a place of strength rather than necessity.
What makes this leadership transition particularly interesting is that it challenges many assumptions about founder succession. Rather than waiting for investor pressure, market turbulence, or burnout, Tony recognized that the next chapter of Oyster's growth required a different operational skill set. Hadi shares what he learned from a succession process that centered on mission alignment, alongside leadership assessments, case studies, and extensive feedback.
We also explore Hadi's own journey from Lebanon to leadership positions at Facebook, Airbnb, Deliveroo, Coursera, and now Oyster. His personal experience of leaving home to pursue opportunity has given him a deep connection to Oyster's mission of making global employment accessible regardless of geography.
The discussion moves beyond leadership transitions and into the future of work itself. As artificial intelligence reshapes hiring, productivity, and workforce structures, Hadi explains why he believes there is a real risk that AI could concentrate opportunity within a handful of established technology hubs. He shares Oyster's vision of using technology to more broadly distribute opportunity, enabling companies to access talent wherever it exists while maintaining trust, compliance, and human support.
We also discuss what businesses continue to underestimate about managing distributed teams at scale. From culture and communication to trust and compliance, Hadi argues that remote work success requires far more than technology alone. Companies must be intentional about how they build relationships, create alignment, and support employees across borders and time zones.
For founders and business leaders, this episode offers thoughtful lessons on self-awareness, leadership evolution, and knowing when a company's needs may outgrow the strengths that originally built it. It is a conversation about growth, opportunity, and the difficult decisions required to put mission ahead of personal attachment.
How should leaders know when it is time to pass the baton, and can AI help create a more globally distributed future of work rather than concentrating opportunity in a few select places? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
Are organizations investing enough in cybersecurity, or are they simply spending more money while falling further behind?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Martyn Ditchburn, CTO in Residence for EMEA at Zscaler, about the findings from the company's latest Ripple Effect Report and what it reveals about the growing gap between cybersecurity investment and true organizational resilience.
Drawing on insights from more than 1,700 IT leaders across 14 countries, Martyn explains why many organizations are still struggling to adapt to a threat landscape that is evolving faster than their security strategies. While cyber resilience budgets continue to rise, many leaders admit their approach remains too inward-looking, leaving critical vulnerabilities across supply chains, cloud environments, third-party ecosystems, and emerging AI deployments.
We explore why shadow AI is rapidly becoming the new shadow IT challenge, with employees adopting AI-powered tools faster than governance frameworks can keep pace. Martyn discusses how AI is quietly being embedded into countless business applications, creating visibility and security challenges that many organizations have yet to recognize fully.
The conversation also examines the growing importance of supply chain resilience. As businesses become increasingly dependent on external providers, cloud platforms, and interconnected digital services, traditional security perimeters continue to disappear. Martyn shares why third-party risk remains one of the biggest blind spots in modern cybersecurity programs and how organizations can better understand their expanding attack surface.
Agentic AI is another major focus of our discussion. As AI systems move beyond assisting users and begin taking autonomous actions, security teams face entirely new challenges around identity, governance, accountability, and risk management. Martyn explains why many organizations are racing ahead with adoption while still lacking the guardrails needed to manage these emerging technologies safely.
We also discuss lessons from previous technology shifts, including cloud computing and shadow IT, and why history keeps repeating itself when innovation outpaces security planning. Martyn offers practical advice on limiting risk, reducing blast radius through segmentation, and treating AI agents as digital identities that require the same controls and oversight as human users.
As organizations pursue AI-driven growth and competitive advantage, are they building resilience into their foundations or creating new risks they cannot yet see? And in a world where AI is becoming embedded in everything, how can security leaders stay ahead of threats that are evolving faster than ever before?
At Cisco Live, I sat down with Papi Menon, Vice President of Product Management at Outshift by Cisco, to explore one of the most ambitious ideas emerging in the AI world today.
While much of the industry remains focused on larger models and individual AI agents, Outshift is asking a different question. What happens when millions of AI agents need to collaborate across organizations, platforms, and industries?
Papi joined me to explain the thinking behind Outshift, Cisco's emerging technology and incubation group, and the work they're doing to help shape the next era of AI. Our conversation explored concepts such as the Internet of Agents, the Internet of Cognition, and AGNTCY, an open-source initiative designed to create the foundations for agent-to-agent collaboration at scale.
We discuss why connecting AI agents is only the first step, why shared intent and shared context could become as important as connectivity itself, and how organizations may need entirely new infrastructure to support an increasingly agent-driven future. Papi also shares his perspective on the challenges of interoperability, governance, trust, and security as AI systems become more autonomous and interconnected.
The discussion moves beyond today's AI headlines and into the bigger questions facing the technology industry. If the internet connected people and systems, what infrastructure will be needed to connect intelligence itself? And what role can open standards play in ensuring that future remains collaborative rather than fragmented?
Whether you're a technology leader, developer, strategist, or simply curious about where AI is heading next, this conversation offers a fascinating glimpse into how Cisco is thinking about the future of agentic computing and the foundations that may underpin the next major platform shift in technology.
How do you think AI agents will collaborate in the future, and should that future be built on open standards or closed ecosystems?
Can businesses embrace AI without surrendering control over their data, technology choices, and future direction?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Sachin Agrawal, Managing Director of Zoho UK, to discuss one of the biggest challenges facing organizations today. As AI adoption accelerates, many leaders are finding themselves caught between the pressure to innovate and the responsibility to maintain trust, transparency, and control.
Sachin shares his perspective on what separates successful AI adoption from costly experimentation. Drawing on his experience leading Zoho's growth in the UK, he explains why organizations achieving the best results are focusing on clearly defined business outcomes rather than chasing headlines or reacting to fear of missing out. We discuss how AI is already improving customer service, sales operations, application development, and decision-making, while also highlighting the importance of digital maturity as a foundation for meaningful AI success.
A major theme throughout our conversation is the growing concern around black-box AI systems. Sachin explains why transparency, explainability, and contextual intelligence are becoming increasingly important for businesses operating in regulated environments. We explore how organizations can build trust by keeping AI close to the systems where their data already resides, thereby creating more auditable, accountable outcomes.
The discussion also turns to digital sovereignty, a topic that has rapidly moved from technical teams into boardroom conversations. Sachin outlines the different dimensions of sovereignty, including data residency, infrastructure, model choice, intelligence ownership, and vendor flexibility. As geopolitical tensions, regulatory expectations, and concerns about technology concentration grow, organizations are taking a closer look at how dependent they want to become on a small number of technology providers.
We also examine whether AI will strengthen the dominance of major technology firms or create new opportunities for diverse software providers. Sachin argues that while the largest players may own much of the underlying infrastructure, customers are increasingly focused on practical outcomes, transparency, and flexibility rather than simply choosing the biggest platform.
Along the way, we discuss cloud fragmentation, governance, responsible AI adoption, data privacy, and the importance of challenging AI rather than unquestioningly trusting its outputs. Sachin offers practical advice for leaders who want to balance innovation with accountability while maintaining independence in an increasingly interconnected technology environment.
As AI continues to reshape business software and digital operations, how can organizations remain agile without sacrificing control? And what role will digital sovereignty play in determining who succeeds in the next era of enterprise technology?
What happens when the weakest link in your technology supply chain becomes the entry point for a national security incident?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome back Haydn Brooks, CEO and founder of Risk Ledger, to discuss why supply chain security has moved from an IT concern to a boardroom and government priority. As organizations race to adopt AI, connect more systems, and depend on increasingly complex ecosystems of vendors, partners, cloud providers, and third-party services, the attack surface continues to expand in ways many businesses still struggle to understand.
Haydn explains why supply chains remain one of the largest blind spots in cybersecurity, despite years of warnings and a growing list of high-profile incidents. We explore how attackers increasingly target smaller suppliers that lack the resources and expertise of larger enterprises, using them as stepping stones to reach critical infrastructure, government agencies, and major corporations.
The conversation also examines how AI is reshaping the risk equation. As organizations rapidly integrate AI tools, APIs, and third-party models into existing technology stacks, many are creating new forms of concentration risk. What happens when multiple services rely on the same AI provider? And how can businesses maintain visibility over technology dependencies that are constantly evolving?
Haydn shares his perspective on why collaboration and information sharing have become far more common across the cybersecurity community, and why security leaders are beginning to recognize that defending against modern threats requires collective action rather than isolated efforts. We also discuss accountability, resilience, and why organizations must move beyond simply identifying risk and develop the ability to understand the impact of incidents when they occur.
Along the way, Haydn offers practical advice for security leaders, explains why now is the time to reassess supply chain security strategies, and shares insights into Risk Ledger's international expansion as the company grows its presence in the United States.
As AI accelerates innovation and organizations become increasingly interconnected, are businesses truly prepared for the risks that come with that progress? And could an overlooked supplier become the starting point for the next major cybersecurity crisis?
Have you ever stopped to think about the technology powering almost every text box you interact with online?
Whether you're applying for a job, drafting a legal contract, publishing content, or updating a website, there's a good chance a rich text editor is quietly working behind the scenes. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I caught up with Fredrik Danielsson, Product Manager at TinyMCE, to discuss how one of the internet's most widely used editing platforms is evolving for the AI era.
Frédéric shares the remarkable story behind TinyMCE, a tool that traces its roots back to the early days of the web and has played a role in creating much of the internet's human-generated content. From the days of hand-coded websites and Flash applications to today's AI-powered content workflows, we explore how the company has continually adapted to changing developer and user needs.
Our conversation focuses on the launch of TinyMCE AI and why the company believes artificial intelligence belongs inside the content creation experience rather than in a separate chatbot window. We discuss the hidden productivity costs of constantly switching between applications, copying and pasting content between AI assistants and business tools, and why bringing AI directly into the editor creates a more natural and efficient workflow.
We also examine the growing challenges around AI governance, content ownership, compliance, and accountability. As organizations race to adopt AI tools, how can they maintain visibility into which content was AI-assisted, who made changes, and how information flows through the business? Frédéric explains why features such as revision history, track changes, and audit trails may become increasingly important as regulations and expectations mature.
Along the way, we discuss context-aware AI, model flexibility, developer experience, and the future of content creation. Frédéric also shares his thoughts on why AI adoption is becoming more natural for everyday users and what the next phase of AI-powered productivity could look like as these tools become deeply embedded in the software people already use.
If AI is changing how we create, edit, review, and collaborate on content, what happens when the editor itself becomes the smartest participant in the room? And how will that reshape the way we work over the next few years?
Have you ever wondered why political campaigns can send millions of text messages but still struggle to have meaningful conversations with voters?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Tom Carroll, Co-Founder of Convos, a startup rethinking how political campaigns communicate through SMS. While political texting has become a standard part of modern campaigning, Tom argues that the industry has spent years solving the problem of message delivery while largely ignoring what happens when voters actually respond.
We explore how Convos is building a conversational SMS infrastructure that helps campaigns manage thousands of voter interactions simultaneously. Rather than focusing solely on message volume, the platform analyzes replies, identifies sentiment and alignment, prioritizes urgent conversations, and helps campaigns understand what voters are really talking about. Tom shares how this approach is helping campaigns move beyond one-way broadcasts and toward genuine engagement at scale.
During our conversation, we discussed why traditional political texting often breaks down once campaigns begin receiving large volumes of replies, how AI-powered conversational systems can help manage those interactions responsibly, and why transparency remains essential when introducing AI into political communications. Tom also explains how Convos uses campaign-approved knowledge bases and multiple validation checks to reduce misinformation and maintain message consistency.
We also examine the broader implications of conversational AI in politics, from voter education and turnout efforts to balancing automation with authenticity. Tom shares examples of how campaigns have used conversational SMS to answer voter questions, provide election information, and create opportunities for meaningful engagement without overwhelming campaign staff.
As AI continues to influence how organizations communicate with large audiences, this conversation offers an interesting look at how technology can help people listen at scale rather than talk louder.
What role should AI play in political engagement, and where should the line be drawn between helpful voter communication and automated persuasion? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
How do you move beyond AI experimentation and start building systems that can genuinely reason, act, and create value across an enterprise?
Recorded at Adobe Summit in Las Vegas, this episode features Daniel Sheinberg, who leads cross-portfolio product initiatives for Adobe's Customer Experience Orchestration business.
Daniel is at the center of Adobe's AI and agentic strategy, helping shape how some of the world's largest organizations think about the next generation of customer experiences.
During our conversation, Daniel cuts through the hype surrounding agentic AI and explains what actually separates an AI assistant from an AI agent.
We explore how advances in reasoning, memory, context awareness, and tool usage are enabling systems that can move beyond generating content to actively helping organizations achieve business goals. Daniel shares practical examples of how enterprises are using these capabilities to personalize customer journeys at a level that would have been impossible with traditional workflows.
We also discuss the rise of AI-powered brand concierges, including how are using agentic experiences to create more meaningful customer interactions.
Daniel explains why context is becoming one of the most valuable assets in enterprise AI, how businesses can prepare their data and systems for agentic workflows, and why governance, trust, and brand intelligence will play such an important role in successful deployments.
If you're trying to understand where AI is heading next, what customer experience orchestration really means, and how businesses can safely deploy agentic AI at scale, this conversation offers a valuable look at both the opportunities and the challenges ahead.
What does better analytics actually mean when your mission is protecting the planet?
At SAS Innovate, I sat down with John Blackwell, Director of Strategic Analytics at The Nature Conservancy, to explore how data, AI, and marketing intelligence are helping one of the world's largest conservation organizations raise more money, operate more efficiently, and ultimately direct more resources toward protecting land, water, and ecosystems across more than 80 countries.
In this episode, John explains how analytics has become a critical part of modern conservation strategy. With fundraising supporting everything from habitat protection to climate resilience projects, improving donor retention and increasing fundraising efficiency directly impacts how much work The Nature Conservancy can do around the world. John shares how the organization improved donor retention by 10 percent and increased year-over-year giving by 30 percent by moving away from siloed systems and toward a more connected, data-driven approach.
We discuss how analytics helps identify long-term donor potential, personalize supporter journeys, optimize fundraising asks, and create a clearer 360-degree view of donor engagement across email, direct mail, telemarketing, and digital channels. John also explains why personalization in the nonprofit world requires a very different balance than in commercial marketing. Trust and authenticity matter just as much as performance metrics.
The conversation also explores how AI is quietly changing the way nonprofit analytics teams operate. From speeding up model development to improving feature selection and identifying rare high-value donor opportunities through synthetic data generation, John shares where he sees AI creating immediate practical value without compromising the human voice of the organization.
What stood out most to me is how this is ultimately a story about efficiency creating impact. The more effective The Nature Conservancy becomes at fundraising and donor engagement, the more money can go directly toward conservation rather than operational overhead.
And in a world where every nonprofit is competing for attention, funding, and trust, analytics may quietly become one of the most important tools available for protecting the future of our planet.
So, as organizations continue investing in AI and analytics, are they focusing enough on the real-world outcomes those technologies can help create?
What happens when one of the world's fastest-growing travel platforms decides the future of business travel will be built around AI from the ground up? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Navan co-founder and CTO Ilan Twig to discuss how the company is reshaping travel, payments, and expense management through AI-native systems designed for the real world, not just polished demos.
What immediately stood out during our conversation was Ilan's mix of technical obsession and relentless focus on user experience. This is someone who isolated himself for months to truly understand the mechanics of large language models before most companies had even worked out what ChatGPT meant for their business. That curiosity now powers Navan's AI strategy, where conversational interfaces are replacing what Ilan calls the old "forms and tables" model of software interaction.
We explored how Navan's AI assistant, Ava, is already handling thousands of real-world travel support conversations every day, with customer satisfaction scores that rival those of human agents. During major disruption events like Storm Fern and the Heathrow airport fire, Ava scaled instantly, resolving huge volumes of customer requests without the delays and staffing nightmares that traditionally overwhelm travel providers.
But this conversation goes much deeper than travel. Ilan shared his thoughts on why the software industry is moving toward conversational, context-aware interfaces, why most businesses still misunderstand what agentic AI actually means, and how Navan is building proprietary models trained on its own travel data to outperform larger, generic frontier models. We also discussed trust, hallucinations, AI supervision layers, and why companies must stop treating AI as a magic trick and start measuring it against hard business outcomes.
There is also a fascinating human side to this episode. From building a company through market turbulence, investor skepticism, and geopolitical uncertainty, to challenging accepted thinking since his school days, Ilan's story reflects the mindset of someone who genuinely believes technology should solve real problems rather than create headlines.
If you have been wondering where AI moves beyond hype and starts delivering measurable operational value, this conversation offers a rare look behind the curtain from someone building these systems at scale every single day.
Useful Links
- Connect with Ilan Twig
- Learn more about Navan
- Check out blog posts by Navan
- Follow Navan on LinkedIn
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What happens when AI systems stop acting like assistants and start acting like autonomous decision-makers inside your business? And if those systems are pulling information from fragmented, inconsistent, and poorly governed data environments, how much trust can organizations really place in the outcomes?
In today's episode, I'm joined by Terry Dorsey for a fascinating conversation about the growing gap between AI ambition and enterprise reality. Terry brings decades of experience spanning enterprise architecture, business intelligence, operations, healthcare, utilities, manufacturing, and defense. Long before AI became the headline topic dominating every boardroom conversation, he was already working deeply in semantic modeling, natural language systems, and the architectural foundations that modern AI now depends on.
At the center of our discussion is the new AI Trust Gap report from Denodo, which reveals why so many organizations are struggling to move AI projects from experimentation into reliable production environments. We explore why live data matters so much in an agentic AI world, why "more data" often creates more confusion instead of clarity, and how inconsistent business meaning across systems quietly undermines AI trust inside large organizations.
Terry explains why many enterprises are still operating on architectures originally designed for historical reporting and analytics, while now expecting those same environments to support autonomous AI systems making real-time operational decisions. From semantic sprawl and duplicated business logic to governance failures and fragmented security models, we unpack the hidden technical debt that AI is now exposing at scale.
The conversation also takes a deeper philosophical turn as we discuss why enterprise meaning itself may become the future control plane for AI. Terry shares why provenance, explainability, and semantic consistency are no longer optional concerns reserved for compliance teams, they are becoming foundational requirements for trustworthy AI systems capable of operating autonomously.
We also discuss why governance cannot be bolted on after deployment, how logical data management helps organizations reduce duplication and maintain operational trust, and why the companies that succeed with agentic AI will not necessarily be the fastest movers, but the ones building stable and reusable architectural foundations beneath the surface.
If your organization is rushing toward AI adoption while wrestling with siloed systems, disconnected data, and growing governance concerns, this episode offers a much-needed reality check. Because, as Terry explains, the future competitive advantage may have less to do with the AI model itself and far more to do with the architecture, meaning, and trust frameworks supporting it.
Useful Links
- Terry Dorsey LinkedIn
- Denodo LinkedIn
- Denodo Website
- The AI Trust Gap Report — global survey of 850 executives that explores why organizations are investing heavily in AI, but many still can't fully trust the data behind it.
- O'Reilly's The Rise of Logical Data Management, by Christopher Gardner — explains what's necessary to enable true self-service data access and 24/7 AI-ready data.
- The Enterprise AI and Data Management Glossary — glossary that helps ensure both technical and non-technical professionals can make informed decisions, optimize strategies, and align on best practices for digital transformation.
- The ROI of Using the Denodo Platform alongside the Modern Data Lakehouse — Drawing on interviews with numerous global enterprises and applying a comprehensive ROI methodology, this study, conducted by independent analyst Veqtor8, found that by using Denodo alongside their data lakehouse, they realized considerable benefits.
- Agentic AI Manifesto — a blueprint for credible autonomy at enterprise scale. Denodo's standard for the next era of trusted, autonomous enterprise AI.
What does AI transformation actually look like inside one of the world's largest engineering organizations?
At Team '26 in Anaheim, I recently sat down with Jason Andrews to unpack how Cisco transformed decades of fragmented tooling, disconnected workflows, and spreadsheet-driven operations into a unified system of work built around Jira, Confluence, Jira Service Management, automation, and AI-ready workflows.
And honestly, this conversation felt refreshingly practical.
Jason oversees engineering operations across Cisco Networking, a business unit with around 22,000 engineers and product managers representing roughly $40 billion in annual revenue. So when he talks about transformation, this isn't theory. This is operational change happening at enterprise scale.
We discuss how Cisco consolidated more than 85 Jira instances, reduced tooling spend by 54%, and accelerated reporting by 40x while creating a far more scalable engineering organization. But as Jason explains throughout the conversation, the real challenge was never the technology itself. It was getting teams to rethink how they wanted to work moving forward rather than simply migrating years of technical debt into modern systems.
One of the strongest themes in this episode is the difference between transformation and migration. Jason explains why organizations often fail when they focus only on moving systems rather than changing workflows, behaviors, and operational culture at the same time.
We also dive deep into AI adoption inside engineering organizations. Jason shares how Cisco is already seeing significant productivity gains from AI-assisted development, why organizational context matters so much for enterprise AI success, and why he believes the industry is still massively underestimating how much structured data and workflow consistency AI systems actually require.
Along the way, we unpack scenario planning in the AI era, why annual planning cycles are becoming increasingly fragile, and how leaders can move from rigid long-term roadmaps toward more agile operational playbooks capable of adapting to constant disruption.
There's also a fascinating discussion around the so-called "SaaS apocalypse," the limits of AI-generated software, and why Jason believes humans will remain central to enterprise operations for years to come, especially in organizations managing millions of lines of legacy code and decades of accumulated institutional knowledge.
If your organization is currently navigating modernization, operational complexity, AI adoption, or large-scale systems transformation, this episode is packed with lessons learned from the front lines of enterprise change.
And perhaps most importantly, Jason offers a reminder that AI alone is not the strategy. The real opportunity comes from reducing friction, improving context, and helping teams spend more time solving meaningful problems instead of manually stitching systems together.
What Happens When AI Starts Protecting the Power Grid Before Humans Even Spot the Problem?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Kaitlyn Albertoli, co-founder and CEO of Buzz Solutions, about how AI, drones, and computer vision are changing the way utilities inspect and maintain power infrastructure. As weather events become more frequent and energy demand continues to rise from EV adoption, renewable energy growth, and AI-driven data centers, utilities are under growing pressure to modernize systems that were built decades ago.
Kaitlyn explains how utilities once relied on crews walking transmission lines with binoculars and handwritten notes before moving toward helicopter inspections and aerial imaging. Today, autonomous drones and aircraft can capture hundreds of thousands of inspection images every year. The real challenge now is turning that mountain of visual data into useful action before damaged equipment leads to outages, fires, or safety risks. We discuss how Buzz Solutions processes enormous image datasets in hours instead of weeks, helping utilities identify damaged insulators, corrosion, vegetation risks, and failing components before they become larger problems.
We also talk about the people behind the infrastructure. Kaitlyn shares why AI should support frontline workers rather than replace them, especially as utilities face an estimated shortage of thousands of skilled linemen over the next several years. The conversation covers balancing false positives with missed detections, reducing operational data silos, and why partnerships with companies like Skydio and Esri are helping utilities connect inspection workflows more effectively.
Kaitlyn also shares how Buzz Solutions is expanding into solar inspections, where AI can detect damaged or underperforming panels before warranties expire and energy production quietly drops over time. Alongside the technology discussion, she reflects on how competing in the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials shaped the resilience and mindset she now brings to building a fast-growing AI company.
From wildfire prevention and storm recovery to renewable energy operations and autonomous inspections, this episode looks at how AI is quietly becoming part of the infrastructure keeping modern society running.
As utilities modernize aging systems under growing environmental and operational pressure, can AI help prevent the next major outage before it happens?
What happens when the cybersecurity industry stops debating whether agentic AI is a future problem and starts treating it as a present-day reality?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Tim Freestone to unpack the biggest shift coming out of this year's RSA Conference. After attending RSA for more than two decades, Tim describes 2026 as the year the energy returned to the cybersecurity world, driven by one unavoidable topic: agentic AI.
We explore why the conversation has rapidly evolved from curiosity to urgency, and why organizations are suddenly confronting an uncomfortable truth. AI agents are already operating inside businesses, often without visibility, governance, or control. Tim explains how shadow AI is spreading faster than many leadership teams realize, with employees experimenting with autonomous tools that connect directly to company data and external AI models.
Our conversation also looks at the growing gap between visibility and control. Security teams may be discovering agents across their networks, but stopping risky behavior is an entirely different challenge. Tim argues that companies focusing purely on infrastructure are already falling behind, and that the real battleground is now the data layer itself. We discuss why data governance, audit trails, and access controls are becoming central to the future of cybersecurity strategy.
Tim also shares his thoughts on state-sponsored AI threats, the rise of autonomous espionage operations, and why open-source AI models present a completely new level of risk for defenders. At the same time, he offers practical advice for IT and security leaders trying to figure out where to start amid the noise, complexity, and endless flood of new tools entering the market.
If your organization is trying to understand how AI changes cybersecurity, governance, compliance, and risk management, this conversation offers a clear look at what security leaders are actually worried about right now, and why the next 12 months may redefine how companies think about protecting data altogether.
Useful Links
- Connect with Tim Freestone
- Learn More About Kiteworks
- Data Security and Risk Report
- Kiteworks Substack
- Kiteworks LinkedIn Newsletter
Please check the partners of the Tech Tech Talks Network
- Learn more about the NordLayer Browser
- Visit Denodo.com
What if some of the most important applications of AI today have nothing to do with productivity, marketing, or enterprise automation, and everything to do with helping people survive crisis, displacement, and uncertainty?
In this episode, recorded at, I sit down with André Heller Pérache to explore how technology originally designed for customer service has evolved into humanitarian infrastructure supporting refugees and displaced communities around the world.
André shares the story behind Signpost, a global digital initiative from the International Rescue Committee that now operates across roughly 30 countries and 25 languages, helping register more than 20 million users while supporting over 500,000 digital social work consultations.
But this conversation goes much deeper than technology.
We discuss what happens when trusted information becomes as important as food, shelter, or medical support during times of crisis. André explains how Signpost was born from the realization that vulnerable communities were already living digitally through smartphones, WhatsApp, Facebook, and social platforms while much of the humanitarian sector still relied on traditional offline systems.
We also explore the responsible use of AI in high-stakes environments where mistakes can have real-world consequences for refugees, families, and vulnerable populations. André shares why the IRC sees AI as one of the humanitarian sector's biggest bets at a time when armed conflict, climate disasters, and shrinking budgets are putting enormous pressure on aid organizations globally.
From misinformation and trust to reducing cognitive burden and scaling empathy through technology, this episode offers a powerful reminder that behind every AI conversation are ultimately human beings searching for dignity, safety, clarity, and hope.
What if the future of AI is not one all-knowing assistant, but an entire workforce of specialized agents working together behind the scenes?
Recorded st Zendesk Relate, this episode features a fascinating conversation with Shashi Upadhyay about where enterprise AI is really heading, and why many businesses are still underestimating the scale of operational change required to make agentic AI work.
Shashi explains why Zendesk views AI agents as a new form of digital labor rather than simply another software feature. Instead of building one giant general-purpose assistant, Zendesk is developing coordinated networks of specialized agents designed for specific business functions such as billing, collections, refunds, returns, employee service, and industry-specific workflows across sectors like healthcare, banking, and e-commerce.
We also go behind the curtain inside Zendesk itself. Shashi shares how the company has transformed internally from a traditional seat-based SaaS business into an organization focused on measurable outcomes such as automation rates, customer satisfaction, and successful resolutions. He also discusses how AI is changing software development itself, enabling smaller engineering teams to move dramatically faster while reshaping how products are designed and built.
The conversation explores some of the biggest themes emerging across the AI industry right now, including outcome-based pricing, AI trust and guardrails, resolution learning loops, embedded AI, and the growing shift toward agent-to-agent interactions where personal AI assistants may eventually negotiate directly with enterprise AI systems on behalf of consumers.
We also discuss the fears many people have around jobs and automation. Rather than predicting catastrophic job loss, Shashi argues there is still enormous unmet demand for better service experiences, and that AI may ultimately allow businesses to finally deliver the level of customer experience people have wanted for years.
If you're trying to understand where enterprise AI moves next after copilots and chatbots, this conversation offers a clear and thought-provoking look at the systems, workflows, and cultural shifts already reshaping the future of work.
What if the cybersecurity industry has spent decades fighting the wrong battle?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Benny Czarny, founder and CEO of OPSWAT, to discuss why he believes the traditional "detect and respond" model is no longer enough in a world where AI is accelerating cyber threats faster than security teams can react.
Benny joined me to discuss his new book, Cybersecurity Upside Down, which combines personal stories from building OPSWAT with a bold argument for rethinking how organizations approach cyber defense altogether. His central belief is simple but provocative: detection-based security has trapped the industry in a losing cycle in which attackers need to succeed only once, while defenders are forced into a constant state of reaction.
During our conversation, Benny explained how his thinking evolved after realizing that even layering dozens of antivirus engines and sandboxing technologies still failed to stop malicious files reliably. That realization ultimately pushed him toward a prevention-first philosophy built around Deep Content Disarm and Reconstruction, or CDR. Rather than trying to determine whether a file is malicious, the approach assumes files may already be dangerous and regenerates clean, safe versions before they ever reach users or systems.
We also explored how generative AI is changing the cybersecurity landscape in ways many organizations still underestimate. Benny shared why AI is dramatically reducing the time required to create malware, weaponize exploits, and scale attacks, effectively giving even inexperienced attackers capabilities once reserved for nation states or advanced cybercriminal groups. He also raised concerns that AI data lakes could become contaminated with malicious content, creating entirely new risks for organizations rushing to deploy large language models without securing the data feeding them.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the discussion was the psychology and culture within cybersecurity teams. Benny argued that the industry often celebrates visible incident response activity while undervaluing quiet prevention. In a world dominated by alerts, dashboards, and SOC metrics, truly preventing attacks can almost appear invisible, despite potentially delivering far greater security outcomes.
We also talked about the sectors Benny believes are most exposed today, including energy, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure operators that still rely heavily on reactive security models while facing growing operational and regulatory complexity. He explained why some industries are advancing faster than others and why compliance mandates could become a major catalyst for broader prevention-first adoption.
Beyond cybersecurity itself, this episode also offered a fascinating look into Benny's entrepreneurial journey, what he learned building OPSWAT over two decades, how AI helped him research and structure his book, and why he is now even producing a cybersecurity-focused TV series called Into the Breach, designed to make complex security concepts easier for wider audiences to understand.
This conversation challenges many of the assumptions the cybersecurity industry has normalized for years. Whether you work in security, IT leadership, compliance, or want to understand how AI is reshaping digital risk, this episode offers a very different perspective on what modern cyber resilience could look like in practice.
What happens when customer service stops being a department and starts becoming an autonomous operational system?
Recorded live at, this conversation with Tom Eggemeier goes far beyond chatbots, copilots, and AI hype cycles. Instead, we explore why Zendesk believes the future of enterprise service will be built around what it calls an "autonomous service workforce," where AI agents, human experts, workflows, analytics, governance, and orchestration layers all work together as one continuously learning system.
Tom shares how Zendesk transformed its own internal operations using AI, achieving more than 60% autonomous resolution rates while simultaneously increasing customer satisfaction. We also discuss why the company is shifting away from measuring ticket deflection and toward measuring actual resolutions, what the Forethought acquisition means for Zendesk's long-term AI strategy, and why governance, permissions, and operational trust may become more important than the AI models themselves.
But this episode is about much more than software. Tom explains why he believes the next phase of enterprise AI will fundamentally reshape workflows, organizational structures, and even the role humans play inside modern businesses. We unpack the rise of specialized AI agents, why AI-to-AI interactions could soon outnumber human interactions, and why many organizations are underestimating the operational redesign required to make agentic AI work at scale.
We also discuss the hidden risks of fragmented AI systems, why disconnected tools continue to drain businesses, and how companies can balance autonomy with human oversight and empathy.
If you've been wondering where enterprise AI is really heading beyond the headlines, this conversation offers a fascinating look at how one of the biggest players in customer experience is attempting to redefine service itself.
What happens when AI intelligence becomes commoditized?
That is the question sitting at the heart of this episode recorded live at Team '26 in Anaheim, where I sat down with Sherif Mansour to unpack one of the biggest shifts happening in enterprise technology right now.
For years, the AI conversation has focused on models, prompts, and raw capability. But according to Sherif, the real competitive advantage may no longer come from the intelligence itself. It comes from context. The workflows, relationships, decisions, knowledge, and operational history that exist inside an organization.
In this conversation, Sherif takes me deep inside Atlassian's biggest AI announcements around Rovo, Teamwork Graph, AI-powered workflows, and the company's broader vision for what happens when AI moves beyond isolated copilots and starts operating across the flow of work itself.
We explore why Atlassian believes organizational context is becoming the defining moat in enterprise AI, why the company is opening Teamwork Graph through MCP and external integrations, and how the industry is rapidly shifting from AI experimentation toward real operational execution.
Sherif also myth busts some of the biggest misconceptions surrounding AI adoption today. We discuss the difference between automation and orchestration, why humans still remain central to decision-making, and how enterprises can avoid adding complexity while still moving quickly in the AI era.
Along the way, we discuss real-world examples ranging from Formula One race strategy and procurement workflows through to AI-powered onboarding, engineering productivity, and the growing role of agentic systems inside large organizations.
One of the most fascinating parts of the discussion centers around the evolution of enterprise software itself. Atlassian no longer sees AI as a standalone assistant sitting in a chat window. Instead, the vision is for AI to become deeply embedded into workflows, helping teams coordinate work, surface insights, and accelerate decision-making in real time.
Sherif also shares why he believes the next major platform battle will not be over who owns the smartest AI model, but over who owns the operational context surrounding that intelligence.
If you're trying to separate real enterprise AI progress from the hype cycle, this episode offers a thoughtful and refreshingly honest look at where things may actually be heading next.
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is organizational context becoming the real competitive advantage in AI? And how prepared is your business for a future where humans and AI agents increasingly work side by side?
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What if the biggest limitation holding AI back isn't the model, the data center, or the algorithm, but the fact that most physical objects in the world still cannot communicate digitally?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Richard Price, CTO and co-founder of Pragmatic Semiconductor, to explore why AI systems remain "half blind" to the physical world and what happens when everyday objects finally become intelligent, connected, and verifiable data sources.
Richard shared how Pragmatic Semiconductor is taking a radically different approach to chip design by creating flexible, ultra-thin semiconductors built specifically for item-level intelligence. Rather than competing directly with traditional silicon, Pragmatic is designing lightweight, low-cost electronics that can integrate directly into packaging, labels, healthcare patches, wearable devices, and products that conventional chips cannot support economically or physically.
During our conversation, we unpacked why the long-promised "Internet of Everything" has remained frustratingly out of reach for so many years. Richard explained that while silicon has powered decades of incredible innovation, scaling connectivity to billions or even trillions of everyday objects introduces major cost, energy, and sustainability challenges. Pragmatic's flexible semiconductor technology aims to solve that by reducing manufacturing complexity, lowering environmental impact, and enabling intelligence directly at the edge.
We also discussed how embedding intelligence at the item level could reshape supply chains, sustainability initiatives, healthcare systems, and even consumer trust. From reducing food waste through smarter logistics to enabling wearable healthcare sensors with entirely new form factors, Richard painted a picture of a future where physical products can actively communicate their identity, condition, and history in real time.
One of the most fascinating parts of the conversation centered on how businesses should prepare for this shift. As edge intelligence grows, organizations may need to rethink traditional cloud-heavy architectures and start designing systems in which decisions occur closer to the object itself. Richard explained how this could reduce latency, lower energy usage, and unlock entirely new categories of connected products.
We also explored the sustainability side of semiconductor manufacturing at a time when AI infrastructure and hyperscale data centers are drawing increasing scrutiny for their energy and environmental impact. Richard shared how Pragmatic's thin-film manufacturing approach uses fewer chemicals, less water, and lower-temperature processes, while opening the door to more environmentally conscious digital infrastructure.
Toward the end of the episode, Richard offered insight into some of the most exciting real-world applications already emerging, including healthcare patches, wearable sensing technologies, AR and VR devices, and electronics that could eventually conform to the human body itself. It is the kind of conversation that makes you rethink what a semiconductor can actually be.
If you've ever wondered what comes after smartphones and smart devices, this episode offers a fascinating look at how flexible electronics could quietly become the foundation for the next generation of connected intelligence.
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What happens when an Air Force engineer with experience in intelligence, venture capital, and deep tech startups starts applying quantum-inspired computing to some of the hardest problems in aerospace and defense?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Nathan Mason, VP of Strategic Growth at BQP, to unpack how quantum-inspired software is already helping organizations solve massive computational challenges without waiting years for fully mature quantum hardware.
Nathan shared his fascinating career journey from military service after 9/11 through the intelligence community, business school, venture investing, and ultimately into the world of advanced simulation and optimization. He emphasized how data-driven thinking shaped his approach to high-stakes decision making and why gut instinct alone no longer suffices in an era driven by AI, complex systems, and operational risk. His insights provide valuable guidance for those interested in careers at the intersection of tech and aerospace.
We also explored a question many business leaders are asking right now: what does "quantum in practice" actually look like today? Nathan explained how BQP is applying quantum-inspired approaches on existing CPUs and GPUs to improve simulation accuracy, accelerate modeling workloads, and help aerospace organizations make faster, smarter engineering decisions without simply throwing more hardware at the problem. This shows the tangible progress already happening, inspiring the audience with real-world impact.
The discussion also tackled the commercial realities behind deep tech innovation. Nathan spoke candidly about the funding challenges facing startups working in quantum and defense technologies, emphasizing that moving beyond theory into operational deployment is difficult but achievable. This perspective encourages the audience to see obstacles as opportunities for innovation and persistence.
Toward the end of the episode, Nathan shared thoughtful advice for students, engineers, and professionals looking to build careers in AI, aerospace, quantum, and defense. His message was simple but powerful: stay curious, keep learning, and never underestimate how a single conversation can completely change your career trajectory.
If you've ever wondered how quantum computing moves from science fiction headlines into real-world business value, this episode offers a practical and honest perspective on how quantum-inspired software is already making a difference in aerospace and defense industries today.
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What happens when AI stops being a feature and starts reshaping the very craft of design itself?
Live from, I sat down with Charlie Sutton for a conversation that went far beyond product interfaces and pixels. As Atlassian unveiled its latest AI ambitions around agents, context, and the Teamwork Graph, Charlie offered a fascinating look at the human side of that transformation and why design may become even more important as AI becomes embedded into the way we work.
Charlie shared how Atlassian approaches design at scale across products like Jira, Confluence, Loom, and Rovo, explaining why every interaction should feel intentional and cohesive, even when built by hundreds of people across dozens of teams. But this conversation quickly moved into much bigger territory. We explored how AI is changing the relationship between designers, developers, and business teams, and why the traditional barriers between idea and execution are rapidly disappearing.
One of the most thought-provoking parts of the discussion centered around democratization. Charlie argued that while AI tools have dramatically lowered the floor for creativity, they have also raised the ceiling for what users now expect from software experiences. Anyone can prototype an app today, but expectations around quality, coherence, trust, and usability are climbing just as quickly.
We also unpacked the growing shift from prompting AI to delegating work to AI agents. Charlie explained why assigning work to agents increasingly resembles managing human teammates, from defining goals and success criteria to understanding strengths, limitations, and context. That naturally led us into a deeper conversation about trust, transparency, and why users must always feel they can "pop the bonnet" and understand what AI systems are doing on their behalf.
Another major theme throughout the episode was context. Charlie shared why Atlassian sees organizational context as one of the defining challenges of the AI era and how the Teamwork Graph is helping connect people, projects, conversations, and knowledge across the company. He compared this moment to the first time many of us used Google search and suddenly realized the scale of what was possible.
We also discussed how AI adoption is unfolding differently from previous technology waves. Instead of adoption trickling down from hardcore technical users, Charlie is seeing rapid experimentation from marketing, HR, and design teams looking to reduce repetitive work and communicate ideas more effectively. Even his own mother, he joked, has become an AI power user before he has.
From AltaVista nostalgia and Ask Jeeves memories to serious conversations about the future of human creativity, this episode captures a rare and honest perspective on where design, collaboration, and AI may be heading next.
How will organizations balance personalization with shared experiences as AI becomes embedded into every workflow, and what role will human creativity play when everyone suddenly has access to the same powerful tools?
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What happens when one of the most iconic teams in Formula One decides to rethink how work gets done behind the scenes completely?
Last year, Atlassian Williams Racing made headlines when Atlassian entered Formula One as both title partner and technology partner. At the time, many people saw the partnership as another high-profile sponsorship deal. But over the last twelve months, something much bigger has been unfolding inside the Williams organization.
At Team '26 in Anaheim, I sat down with Andrew Boyagi and Matt Harman to unpack how AI, data, workflows, and organizational transformation are reshaping life both at the factory and on the grid. This conversation goes far beyond racing.
Matt explains how Williams is reducing the time between "idea to track," compressing development cycles so upgrades arrive at race weekends weeks earlier than before. One striking example involves reducing front wing lead times by a factor of three through parallel workflows and better collaboration, allowing performance gains to reach the circuit three race weekends sooner.
Andrew shares how Atlassian's system-of-work philosophy is being applied in one of the most data-intensive environments on earth. We explore how tools like Jira, Confluence, Loom, Rovo, and Teamwork Graph are helping engineers, strategists, operations teams, and factory staff make faster decisions with less operational friction.
We also discuss how AI is changing engineers' roles, why organizational context matters more than raw intelligence, and how Formula One teams balance human instinct with AI-driven precision in race strategy decisions. Matt offers fascinating insight into how AI helps teams process decades of historical race data in real time while still relying on human judgment in critical moments.
Along the way, we explore the cultural transformation underway at Williams, including the shift away from endless meetings toward faster, outcome-focused collaboration. Matt explains how tools like Loom and Confluence are helping teams make decisions more efficiently while spreading knowledge more effectively across specialist departments.
Andrew also reveals some eye-opening metrics from the partnership so far. Since rolling out Atlassian's Teamwork Collection, teams have reportedly increased throughput by 83%, while low-value meetings have been reduced by 863 hours in a single month across 200 people.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this episode is that Formula One may actually be a perfect reflection of the challenges facing every modern business. As Andrew puts it during our conversation, Formula One is ultimately "an enterprise performance problem," just operating at 300 kilometers an hour with millions of people watching every weekend.
If you've ever wondered what enterprise transformation looks like when milliseconds matter, this episode offers a fascinating look inside one of the most ambitious AI and workflow transformation journeys happening anywhere in business today
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What happens when the biggest innovation in housing isn't a luxury tower or another short-term rental app, but a platform built specifically for everyone caught in between?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Ezra Gershanok, co-founder of Ohana, to unpack how his team is quietly reshaping the overlooked middle-term housing market.
For years, people relocating for internships, new jobs, temporary projects, or extended travel have faced two bad choices. Either pay eye-watering hotel and Airbnb rates for months at a time or lock themselves into inflexible long-term leases they never really wanted.
Ezra experienced this firsthand while relocating during his time at McKinsey, while his co-founder faced similar frustrations at Apple. Instead of accepting the problem as unavoidable, they built a marketplace around trust, flexibility, and human connection.
What struck me throughout our conversation was how Ohana sits at the crossroads of technology, real-world problem solving, and changing work culture. The company has already processed more than $37 million in payments over the past year, with average booking values around $8,000 and average stays approaching 80 nights.
Those numbers completely change the economics and psychology of online marketplaces. These are no longer casual weekend bookings. These are high-trust decisions involving real money, real relocation stress, and real human relationships.
We explored how Ohana uses AI behind the scenes while deliberately keeping the customer experience deeply human. Hosts and guests are introduced on live match calls. Security deposits are held in escrow. Support teams actively facilitate trust between both sides.
Ezra shared how the company uses AI to scale communication and operational workflows without replacing human interaction, something that feels increasingly rare in today's race toward automation.
The conversation also touched on how employer partnerships with companies like OpenAI, Palantir Technologies, and Oracle are creating predictable housing demand for interns and new hires moving into expensive cities like New York City and London. Ezra explained why the platform initially gained traction among Chinese international students and how those same network effects are now accelerating growth in London.
We also discussed the practical side of building a startup with no-code tools like Bubble, scaling globally with a tiny core team, balancing community standards with rapid growth, and why execution still matters more than ideas. Ezra offered refreshingly honest insights about persistence, operational discipline, and why solving an underserved problem often matters far more than building flashy technology.
This episode is a fascinating look at how AI can actually support more meaningful human experiences instead of replacing them. It is also a conversation about trust, housing, modern mobility, and the growing realization that the way we live and work no longer fits neatly into old systems.
So how will platforms like Ohana shape the future of temporary living as work becomes increasingly global, flexible, and distributed?
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At Google Cloud Next in Las Vegas, I sat down with Granville Valentine to talk about one of the biggest shifts happening in business technology right now, the move from isolated AI experiments to orchestrated, production-scale agentic systems.
Granville leads Google Cloud's AI Go-to-Market organization across North America, working directly with major enterprises on adopting Gemini, customer experience AI, and multi-agent workflows. That puts him right at the center of how businesses are actually deploying AI in the real world, and where many are still getting stuck.
In this conversation, we explore why so many companies discovered in 2025 that standalone chatbots were failing to deliver measurable ROI, and how orchestration-based AI systems are changing that. Granville explains why the future belongs to multi-agent workflows built around business outcomes rather than technology demos, with different agents collaborating around customer experience, commerce, upselling, support, and personalization.
We also discuss the rise of proactive "digital concierges" that unify search, commerce, maps, personalization, and customer service into a single intelligent journey rather than the fragmented app experiences consumers are used to today. Granville shares practical examples from companies like The Home Depot and explains how businesses are using Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience to create more natural and effective customer interactions.
Another major theme in this episode is data. We explore how cross-cloud connectivity and universal context engines are helping organizations query data across multiple cloud environments without moving everything into a single platform first, dramatically reducing friction for companies trying to build agentic workforces.
The conversation also touches on generative media, from video and image creation to interactive shopping experiences, and how businesses are using these tools to drive real engagement, customer retention, and revenue growth rather than simply producing flashy content.
Most importantly, this episode cuts through the hype and focuses on execution. Granville explains why businesses need to stop thinking about AI as a standalone feature and start thinking about it as an operating model built around outcomes, experimentation, and continuous learning.
Are businesses finally ready to move from AI experimentation to the agentic enterprise?
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What happens when AI growth collides with the physical limits of power, materials, and global supply chains?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Matt Kelly, CTO and Vice President of Technology and Standards at the Global Electronics Association, about the growing pressure on AI infrastructure and the supply chains that support it.
Drawing on insights from thousands of member organizations across manufacturing, automotive, and electronics, Matt offers a practical look at what business and technology leaders should really be preparing for in 2026 and beyond.
Our conversation begins with the shift from cost optimization to resilience and system-level performance. Matt explains why the old procurement mindset of chasing the lowest-cost supplier is rapidly being replaced by what he calls confidence-based sourcing. In a world shaped by geopolitical disruption, pandemic aftershocks, and surging demand for AI, organizations are discovering that cheap sourcing means little if critical components fail to arrive on time.
We also discuss why dual sourcing has evolved from a procurement strategy into a business continuity requirement. Matt shares real-world examples of how something as small as a missing capacitor can prevent the delivery of million-dollar AI infrastructure systems. That single point of failure has pushed resilience metrics such as recovery time, geographic diversity, and validated backup suppliers into boardroom discussions. Another major focus of the episode centers on AI infrastructure itself.
While many conversations around AI focus on software models and automation, Matt argues that the true bottleneck may soon become power availability. From server cooling and energy consumption to sustainable hardware design and material shortages, the industry now faces challenges that stretch far beyond compute performance alone. Matt also explains why fully localized supply chains remain unrealistic for the electronics industry. Instead, he advocates for a balanced model that combines trusted global partnerships with strategic regional sourcing for critical components and security-sensitive technologies.
One of the strongest takeaways from this conversation is that AI infrastructure must now be approached as a system problem. Silicon design, packaging, thermal management, power delivery, sustainability, and supply chain strategy cannot be treated as separate conversations.
As organizations race to scale AI capabilities over the next few years, are business leaders truly prepared for the infrastructure realities sitting behind the AI boom, or are we about to discover that resilience and energy matter just as much as innovation itself?
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What happens when the pace of AI innovation collides with the realities of semiconductor development?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Faraj Aalaei, CEO of Cognichip and a semiconductor industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience spanning engineering, venture capital, and two successful IPOs. Faraj joins me to discuss why the future of artificial intelligence may depend on radically rethinking how chips are designed, manufactured, and scaled.
Cognichip is developing the world's first Artificial Chip Intelligence (ACI®) to reimagine chip design. Founded by experts from Amazon, Google, Apple, Aquantia, Synopsys, and KLA, the company tackles high cost and inaccessibility in chip development, enabling hardware to evolve as quickly as software innovation.
Backed by $93 million in total funding from Seligman Ventures, SBI Investment, Mayfield, Lux Capital, and Candou Ventures, Cognichip's ACI® reduces design cycles by 50%, cuts development costs by 75%, and optimizes power, performance, and efficiency. ACI® accelerates innovation and broadens access to semiconductor technology by making it easier, more affordable, and accessible to a broader range of innovators
Faraj explains how the semiconductor industry now faces a growing bottleneck. While AI software can evolve at remarkable speed, chip development often still takes between three and five years and costs more than $100 million. That mismatch is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain as demand grows for specialized AI hardware, edge computing systems, and next-generation infrastructure.
Our conversation also explores the geopolitical and economic shifts reshaping the semiconductor industry. Faraj shares his perspective on the emerging concept of "Pax Silica," the growing effort by governments to restructure global chip supply chains and reduce reliance on China. While many policymakers see this as a matter of national security and resilience, Faraj warns there may also be unintended consequences, including rising AI infrastructure costs, engineering shortages, and slower innovation cycles.
One of the most interesting parts of our discussion centers on the idea that AI itself may become the missing scaling factor for semiconductor development. Instead of relying solely on larger engineering teams and longer development cycles, Cognichip believes AI-designed chips could dramatically accelerate innovation and make advanced hardware development accessible to far more companies and researchers.
Faraj also reflects on his career journey from entrepreneur to investor and back again, sharing lessons from decades spent helping build the modern semiconductor ecosystem. From supply chain realities to the growing pressure on engineering talent, this episode offers a rare insider perspective on the technologies quietly powering the entire AI economy.
As AI systems continue to demand faster, more specialized hardware, are we reaching the limits of traditional chip development, and could AI itself become the tool that reshapes the future of semiconductors?
What happens when a country moves from cash-only transactions to instant digital payments that work for everyone?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Steve Haley, Director of Market Development at The Mojaloop Foundation, to discuss how open and interoperable payment systems are helping reshape financial inclusion across Africa and other emerging markets.
For many listeners in Europe or North America, instant payments and digital banking are often taken for granted. But Steve explains how millions of people around the world still live in economies where cash dominates daily life, and where even those with mobile money accounts remain disconnected from the wider financial system. In some countries, people have even been forced to carry two phones because competing mobile payment providers could not communicate with each other.
Our conversation focuses heavily on Liberia, where the Liberian Inclusive Instant Payments System was deployed in just 73 business days. Built using Mojaloop technology in partnership with the Central Bank of Liberia, ThitsaWorks, and AfricaNenda, the system now allows interoperable mobile money transfers between major operators, including MTN and Orange Liberia.
Steve shares why this matters far beyond convenience. Removing barriers between providers means people no longer need money trapped across separate accounts, merchants can accept digital payments more easily, and governments can distribute payroll and public payments through faster and more transparent systems.
We also discuss how mobile wallets are helping expand account ownership across Liberia, which now exceeds 50 percent according to World Bank data, and why interoperability may become the missing piece that transforms access into meaningful financial participation.
Another fascinating part of our discussion centers on the future of cross-border payments in Africa. Steve explains how many transactions between neighboring African countries still route through systems in the United States, increasing both cost and complexity. He believes interoperable instant payment systems across the continent could dramatically lower those barriers and unlock new levels of regional trade.
This episode offers a thoughtful reminder that digital transformation is not always about the latest AI model or enterprise software platform. Sometimes it is about giving people the ability to send money, pay merchants, receive salaries, and participate in the economy with the same ease many of us already expect every day.
So how different would life feel if digital payments finally became accessible to everyone, regardless of where they live or who they bank with?
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How do AI agents safely access the data they need without exposing the business to risk?
In this episode, I speak with Alex Gallego, CEO and founder of Redpanda, about why streaming data is becoming such an important foundation for enterprise AI. Redpanda began as a high-performance streaming data platform, but the company is now building what it calls the Agentic Data Plane, a governed access layer designed to connect AI agents with enterprise data and systems.
Alex shares the story behind Redpanda's journey, from solving a personal engineering frustration to powering mission-grade systems for some of the world's largest organizations. We discuss why many enterprises are racing toward agentic AI while still lacking the permissions, controls, context, and observability needed to make agents safe in production.
One of the standout moments in our conversation is Alex's comparison between hiring AI agents and forgetting to onboard them. Businesses are deploying accounting agents, coding agents, customer success agents, and security agents, yet many still lack a reliable way to decide what those agents can access, what actions they can take, and how to prove what happened when something goes wrong.
We also talk about explainability, agent transcripts, and why enterprises need a full record of agent behavior across complex chains of activity. Alex explains how this matters in regulated sectors such as banking, where organizations may need to prove that an AI agent is acting helpfully and responsibly, and in manufacturing, where a faulty agent action could affect months of production.
Alex also shares Redpanda's work with NVIDIA Vera, where benchmarks showed 5.5 times lower latency and 73% higher throughput. For business leaders, that means faster systems, lower costs, better customer experiences, and the ability to monitor agent behavior in real time.
This conversation is a practical look at what enterprise AI needs next.
Speed matters, but governance, trust, and control may decide which companies can move AI agents from experiments into real operations. So, are we ready to give AI agents access to the enterprise, or do we first need to learn how to manage them like part of the workforce?
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What happens when AI moves beyond experimentation and becomes part of the creative process itself?
At Google Cloud Next in Las Vegas, I sat down with Albert Lai to explore how AI is transforming the media and entertainment industry from content creation and production to personalization, localization, and audience engagement.
Albert works across Google Cloud, Google, and the wider Alphabet ecosystem to help media organizations rethink how they create and distribute content using cloud infrastructure, multimodal AI, and agentic workflows. And one thing became very clear in this conversation, the industry has moved beyond asking "What if?" and is now firmly focused on production-scale execution and measurable business outcomes.
We discuss why media companies are fighting a growing battle for audience attention, and how AI is helping them create content more efficiently while also unlocking the value hidden inside vast archives of existing material. Albert explains why the conversation has shifted from simply producing more content to maximizing what already exists, and how AI is helping organizations rediscover and reimagine decades of footage, audio, and intellectual property.
The conversation also explores one of the biggest themes emerging at both Google Cloud Next and NAB Show, the rise of agentic AI workflows. Albert shares how media companies are using orchestrated AI systems to streamline complex production processes, support editors and creators inside existing workflows, and improve everything from localization and dubbing to monetization and personalization.
We also dive into real-world examples, including how companies like Avid Technology are integrating Google AI directly into production environments, and how Indonesian media company MTech used Google Cloud AI tools to create and distribute a 26-episode animated series with measurable improvements in production speed, cost efficiency, and audience engagement.
This is not a conversation about replacing creativity. It is about augmenting it.
If you work in media, content, streaming, sports, publishing, or simply want to understand how AI is changing storytelling itself, this episode is packed with practical insight and real-world examples.
How will AI change the stories we create, and the way audiences experience them?
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- Google Cloud Next 26
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What does real ROI from AI and analytics actually look like in the fast-food industry?
At SAS Innovate, I sat down with David Gardner, Senior Director of Analytics at Boddie-Noell Enterprises, the largest franchise operator of Hardee's in the United States, to explore how a 60-year-old family business is transforming itself through data, forecasting, and AI. This is a company processing around 40 million transactional records every single day across more than 300 restaurants, where even shaving a few seconds off a drive-thru experience can have a measurable impact on customer satisfaction and revenue.
What makes this conversation so interesting is how grounded it is in operational reality. David shares how the company moved from relying on spreadsheets, summarized reports, and gut instinct toward real-time analytics powered by SAS. One of the standout stories involves extending breakfast hours. Operational teams initially resisted the idea, convinced it would create chaos in the kitchen. But once David dug into the transactional data, the numbers told a very different story. Breakfast sales during the extended hours were growing dramatically, proving the demand was real and helping the business make a decision based on evidence rather than instinct.
We also discuss how analytics is helping optimize labor scheduling, forecasting, payroll, inventory planning, and customer throughput at scale. David explains how his team can now analyze profitability hour by hour for every restaurant in the business, helping local managers make faster and more informed decisions. With forecasting accuracy improving to within fractions of a percentage point, the business can plan more effectively in an industry facing inflation, labor pressures, delivery app disruption, and shifting customer habits.
Another major theme is accessibility. David talks about the importance of data democratization and making analytics understandable for non-technical teams. Restaurant managers are not data scientists, and they should not need to be. The goal is to put insights directly into their hands in a way that is simple, actionable, and easy to understand. AI is now becoming part of that journey too, acting as what David describes as a mentor for newer managers, helping them identify opportunities, improve operations, and get up to speed faster.
We also explore how customer behavior has changed dramatically with the rise of delivery platforms like DoorDash and Uber Eats, creating entirely different purchasing patterns compared to traditional in-store diners. Through analytics, the company can better understand those differences and optimize everything from promotions to staffing and menu strategy.
What stood out most to me is that this is not a story about flashy AI demos or abstract transformation projects. It is about using analytics to solve practical business problems in real time while quietly improving the customer experience behind the scenes.
Because at the end of the day, customers do not care about dashboards or machine learning models. They care about getting good food quickly, accurately, and consistently. The technology only matters if it helps deliver that outcome.
So as businesses continue chasing AI opportunities, are they focusing on the use cases that actually move the needle, or getting distracted by the hype?
Useful Links
- Connect with David Gardner
- Learn More About Boddie-Noell Ent.
- Catchup With What You Missed at Google Cloud Next
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What happens when the excitement around AI collides with the reality of deploying it inside a business?
At SAS Innovate, that question came up repeatedly, and in this episode, I sit down with Manisha Khanna, global product marketing lead for AI at SAS, to unpack why so many organizations are still struggling to move from AI pilots to meaningful business outcomes. While headlines continue to celebrate the rapid rise of generative AI and agentic systems, Manisha brings a far more practical perspective shaped by working directly with enterprises trying to operationalize AI at scale.
One of the most striking parts of our conversation centers on why AI projects continue to stall. According to Manisha, the biggest problems are not weak models or lack of ambition. Instead, organizations are running into unpredictable inference costs, operational complexity, governance challenges, and internal resistance to change. She explains why many companies still approach AI as a technology purchase rather than a transformation strategy, and why governance built in from the beginning can actually accelerate adoption rather than slow it down.
We also spend time exploring what agentic AI really means beyond the hype. Manisha shares why SAS chose supply chain as the launch point for its first industry-packaged agent and how agentic systems differ from copilots by acting more like coworkers than assistants. Rather than simply providing recommendations, these systems can actively participate in business workflows, helping organizations move from monthly optimization cycles to near real-time decision-making.
Another major theme is the growing importance of governance and accountability. As organizations deploy AI into regulated industries and customer-facing environments, the focus is shifting away from "whose model is best" toward "who is deploying the best use cases responsibly." Manisha explains why governing the use case itself matters more than obsessing over model benchmarks, and why companies that bolt governance on afterward create friction for themselves later.
The conversation also touches on where AI is already delivering measurable value today. From customer complaint management in banking to aircraft maintenance support systems powered by retrieval-augmented generation, we discuss how organizations are seeing success when AI augments existing workflows rather than attempting wholesale disruption overnight.
What stood out most for me is how often the human side of AI came back into focus. Manisha repeatedly emphasized that leadership communication, employee trust, and organizational readiness are just as important as the technology itself. If leaders position AI purely as a cost-cutting tool, fear and resistance follow. But when AI is framed as a way to empower people and improve outcomes, adoption becomes much easier.
As organizations continue to implement AI and agentic systems, the biggest question is no longer whether the technology works, but whether businesses are ready to lay the foundations needed to make it succeed.
Useful Links
- Connect with Manisha Khanna
- SAS Blog
- SAS Innovate
Please check the partners of the Tech Tech Talks Network
- Denodo
- Learn more about the NordLayer Browser
What happens when cybercrime becomes as easy to access as a subscription service, and what does that mean for every business connected to the internet today?
In this episode, I sit down with SentinelOne AI and Cloud Security Evangelist Chris Hosking to unpack a shift that feels both inevitable and deeply unsettling. The rise of what Chris describes as an AI threat market is changing the rules of engagement.
Cybercrime is no longer limited to highly skilled operators working in isolation. Instead, it has evolved into a thriving ecosystem where tools, services, and even AI-powered attack kits are bought and sold with alarming ease. As Chris explains during our conversation, "cyber crime is quite an ecosystem… the dark web has always been a place for cyber criminals to meet and to sell their wares."
We explore how AI has accelerated this shift, lowering the barrier to entry to the point where attacks can be launched for as little as £35. That democratization of cybercrime is already having real-world consequences.
Chris shares how individuals without deep technical expertise are now able to orchestrate sophisticated attacks using AI assistance, and why that surge in accessibility is driving both the volume and impact of cyber incidents. It also reframes a common misconception. Smaller businesses are not flying under the radar.
In fact, many are being targeted precisely because of weaker defenses, with attacks increasingly automated and opportunistic. The conversation also moves into more complex territory, where organized cybercrime and nation-state activity begin to overlap.
Chris highlights how governments and criminal groups are drawing from the same AI marketplaces, blurring the lines between financial motivation and geopolitical intent. The implications stretch far beyond corporate risk, touching on critical infrastructure and everyday services that people rely on. It raises a difficult question about preparedness in a world where attacks are faster, more frequent, and harder to predict.
At the same time, there is a practical thread running through this discussion. Chris challenges the instinct to immediately invest in more tools and instead encourages leaders to look inward first.
From improving basic security hygiene to using AI to reduce manual workload and noise, there are tangible steps organizations can take right now. The goal is not perfection, but resilience in an environment where, as Chris points out, incidents are becoming a regular occurrence rather than a rare event.
This episode offers a clear-eyed look at where cybersecurity is heading, without the hype or fear-driven narratives. It is a conversation about scale, speed, and the uncomfortable reality that the threat landscape has changed in ways many organizations are still catching up with.
So as AI continues to reshape both innovation and risk, how prepared is your organization for a world where anyone can launch an attack with a few prompts and a subscription?
Useful Links
- SentinalOne Blog
- Connect with Chris Hosking
Please check the partners of the Tech Tech Talks Network
- Denodo
- Learn more about the NordLayer Browser
What happens when the race to deploy AI starts to outpace the ability to control it?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Ken Englund from EY to unpack findings from the latest 2026 Technology Pulse Poll, and the conversation quickly moves beyond theory into something many leaders will recognize from their own organizations. There is a growing tension between speed and oversight, a "velocity paradox" Ken describes, in which businesses are accelerating AI adoption while governance struggles to keep up.
The numbers behind that story are hard to ignore. A large majority of tech leaders are prioritizing speed to market over careful vetting, while more than half of AI initiatives are happening outside formal IT oversight. For anyone responsible for security, compliance, or risk, that gap raises immediate concerns. But as Ken explains, it is not as simple as labeling this as reckless behavior. Much of this activity is driven by real innovation happening closer to the business, where teams are experimenting, solving problems, and creating value quickly.
We spend time breaking down what that looks like in practice. From the rise of shadow AI tools to the growing risk of sensitive data exposure, there is already evidence that the consequences are beginning to show. At the same time, nearly every executive surveyed sees autonomous AI as central to future competitiveness, which means slowing down is not really an option either.
One of the most useful parts of the conversation focuses on what organizations can actually do about it. Ken shares practical insight into why architecture matters more than ambition, how companies should think about optionality in a fast-moving AI ecosystem, and why observability is becoming a missing layer in many deployments. We also get into the reality of measuring AI value, where the conversation is shifting from promised returns to the often-overlooked cost side, including token usage and uncontrolled spending across departments.
There is also a broader discussion around leadership and culture. Governance frameworks may exist on paper, but the real challenge lies in operationalizing them across a business that is already moving at speed. Add in geopolitical pressures, evolving regulations, and the complexity of deploying AI globally, and it becomes clear why many organizations feel overwhelmed.
This episode is not about slowing innovation down. It is about understanding where things are breaking, what leaders are getting wrong, and how to build a path forward that balances progress with accountability.
So, as AI budgets continue to rise and autonomous systems become part of everyday operations, how will your organization close the gap between ambition and control, and are you already further along that path than you realize?
Useful Links
- Ernst & Young Technology Pulse Poll
- Connect with Ken Englund on LinkedIn
- Follow on LinkedIn
Please check the partners of the Tech Tech Talks Network
- Learn more about the NordLayer Browser
- Visit Denodo.com
What happens when your financial advisor is no longer limited by time, availability, or even geography, but is always there when you need them, ready to listen, respond, and guide you in real time?
At Citi's announcement at Google Cloud Next 2026, I sat down with Joe Bonanno, Head of Wealth Intelligence, and Karolina Belwal, Global Head of Data Intelligence and Automation for Citi Wealth, to unpack what could become a defining shift in how wealth management is delivered.
The launch of Citi Sky, built in partnership with Google Cloud and powered by Google DeepMind, is not another digital feature layered onto an existing app. It signals a move toward an always-on, conversational, and highly personalized experience that blends human expertise with AI-driven intelligence.
What stood out in our conversation was how grounded this initiative is in real-world client behavior. Joe explained how traditional engagement models, whether phone calls, emails, or app notifications, often feel disconnected from what clients actually need in the moment.
Life events, changing market conditions, and personal priorities rarely align with scheduled interactions. Citi Sky attempts to close that gap by being present at the exact moment a client has a question, whether that is late at night, between meetings, or during a moment of financial uncertainty.
Karolina brought that point to life with a simple but relatable example. As a working parent, she highlighted how difficult it can be to connect with an advisor during the day. Citi Sky allows clients to engage on their own terms, asking questions when it suits them, in a way that feels natural and responsive. That shift from scheduled interaction to on-demand conversation could change how people think about financial guidance altogether.
Under the hood, the technology is just as ambitious. Built on Gemini models through Google's enterprise agent platform, Citi Sky combines real-time voice, video, and multilingual capabilities into a single experience. But what makes it interesting is how it moves beyond reacting to questions.
The system can anticipate needs, surface insights, and even guide advisors by identifying which clients may require attention during market events. In Joe's words, it becomes a teammate, one that can scale expertise across hundreds of clients while maintaining a sense of personalization.
There is also a broader implication here for the industry. Wealth management has long relied on relationships built over time, supported by human intuition and experience. Citi is not replacing that model, but it is extending it. Advisors are still central, yet their reach is amplified by AI that handles routine interactions, summarizes conversations, and provides context before the next client meeting even begins.
Of course, this raises familiar questions around trust, governance, and the role of AI in financial decision-making. Citi is clearly aware of that tension, emphasizing secure data foundations, regulatory compliance, and the importance of embedding its Chief Investment Office's institutional knowledge directly into the system. This is not positioned as a generic AI assistant, but as a reflection of Citi's own expertise, delivered through a new interface.
What I found most compelling, though, was how both Joe and Karolina kept returning to the human side of the story. Yes, this is about agentic AI and advanced models. Still, it is also about reducing friction, improving access, and helping people answer a simple but powerful question: Am I financially okay?
As Citi Sky rolls out to Citigold clients in the U.S., it will be fascinating to see how customers respond and how competitors react. If this model gains traction, it could reshape expectations far beyond wealth management and into every corner of financial services.
As we move into the next phase of AI-driven client engagement, are we ready to trust a system that listens, understands, and acts on our financial lives in real time, and how much of that responsibility are we willing to share?
Useful Links
- Learn More About Citi Sky, the AI-Powered Member of the Citi Wealth Team.
- Connect with Joseph V. Bonanno Jr.
- Connect with Karolina Belwal
Please check the partners of the Tech Tech Talks Network
- Learn more about the NordLayer Browser
- Visit Denodo.com
Are businesses really making progress with AI, or are many still stuck using it for the digital equivalent of making phone calls on a smartphone?
In this episode, I sit down with Alison Kay, VP / Managing Director AWS UKI, to unpack what is actually happening behind the headlines of AI adoption across the UK.
On paper, the numbers look strong. Around 64% of UK businesses are now using AI, a sharp rise from the previous year. But when you look closer, the story shifts. Only one in four organizations have moved into more advanced use cases, where real productivity gains, efficiency improvements, and innovation start to show up in meaningful ways.
So what is holding everyone back?
In our conversation, Alison shares insights from AWS research and her work with organizations ranging from major enterprises like Barclays and the BBC to fast-moving startups. We explore why skill shortages are slowing progress, why many companies struggle to move beyond basic use cases, and how governance and trust are becoming central to scaling AI responsibly.
We also spend time breaking down the rise of agentic AI, a term that is starting to appear everywhere. Instead of simply generating answers, these systems are beginning to take action, writing code, testing software, and working alongside humans to dramatically accelerate delivery timelines. Alison shares a powerful example where a project that might have taken 40 engineers over two years was completed by six engineers in just 76 days with the support of AI agents.
Along the way, we look at real-world examples from companies like Trainline and Evri, showing how AI is already reshaping customer experience and operational efficiency in ways that go far beyond theory.
This episode is a must-listen for business leaders trying to understand where AI is delivering real value today, where the biggest gaps still exist, and how to move from experimentation to meaningful transformation.
So if your organization is already using AI, the real question becomes this, are you using it to improve what you already do, or are you ready to rethink how your business operates entirely?
Useful Links
- Connect with Alison Kay
- Unlocking the UK's AI Potential" report.
Please check the partners of the Tech Tech Talks Network
- Learn more about the NordLayer Browser
- Visit Denodo.com
What if one of the most influential figures in modern technology had almost ignored the opportunity that would define his career?
In this episode, I sit down with Werner Vogels, Chief Technology Officer at Amazon, to explore the story behind Amazon Web Services as it marks its 20th anniversary, and how a near-dismissed phone call turned into a front-row seat to one of the biggest shifts in computing history.
Werner takes me back to the early days when Amazon was still seen as "just a bookstore," and shares what he discovered when he first stepped inside what he calls Amazon's "technology kitchen." What he found was a company solving problems at a scale that commercial software simply could not handle, forcing them to build everything themselves. That mindset would go on to shape everything from Dynamo to the foundations of modern cloud infrastructure.
We also unpack the thinking behind one of the most important shifts in enterprise technology, the move from upfront licensing to pay-as-you-go. It sounds obvious now, but at the time it challenged how the entire industry operated, giving businesses the ability to experiment, scale, and take control of their own costs in ways that were not possible before.
Looking ahead, Werner offers a refreshing perspective on AI and what he describes as a developer renaissance. While many headlines focus on replacement, he sees AI as a tool that amplifies human capability, placing even greater importance on curiosity, ownership, and collaboration. It is a reminder that while tools will continue to evolve, responsibility and decision-making still sit firmly with the people using them.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone building, leading, or investing in technology. It connects the dots between past, present, and what comes next, showing how today's AI wave echoes the same patterns that shaped the cloud revolution.
So as we look toward the next era of computing, the question is simple, are we ready to think at the scale required to build what comes next?
Useful Links
- Connect with Werner Vogels
Please check the partners of the Tech Tech Talks Network
- Learn more about the NordLayer Browser
- Visit Denodo.com
Can faster access to real-world data actually change patient outcomes, or are we still too reliant on controlled clinical trials to see the full picture?
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Alex Asiimwe, Executive Director of Epidemiology at Gilead Sciences, to explore a topic that doesn't get enough attention in the AI conversation, real-world evidence.
While much of the industry focuses on AI in drug discovery or diagnostics, Alex brings a different perspective, one rooted in what happens after treatments reach real patients in the real world. As he explains, clinical trials may be the gold standard, but they are still controlled environments. Real-world evidence is where we begin to understand how treatments perform across diverse populations, healthcare systems, and everyday conditions.
What stood out in our conversation is just how messy and fragmented that real-world data can be. Much of it is not collected for research purposes, which means it takes months, sometimes up to a year, to clean, structure, and analyze before it can inform decisions. Alex shares how AI is beginning to change that, not by replacing human expertise, but by automating the most time-consuming parts of the process. If that timeline can be cut in half, the impact is immediate.
Faster evidence means faster decisions, and in healthcare, delays in evidence can directly affect patient outcomes.
We also explore what Alex describes as the "analytics gap," the disconnect between where data exists and where insights are actually generated. Today, much of the evidence used in drug development still comes from limited datasets, often from a single country or region. Yet the treatments themselves are global. That mismatch creates blind spots, particularly in low and middle-income countries where data is often unstructured, fragmented, or simply not accessible. AI has the potential to standardize and unlock that data, helping to create a more complete and representative view of patient populations worldwide.
Of course, the challenges are not just technical. Trust, governance, and politics all play a role in whether data can be shared and used effectively. Alex is clear that the biggest barrier is not the science or the analytics, it is building trust between organizations, governments, and communities. Without that, even the most advanced AI models cannot deliver meaningful outcomes.
This conversation also touches on the importance of collaboration, not just between healthcare organizations and technology providers like SAS, but across the global ecosystem. Alex highlights how partnerships, open standards, and shared frameworks can help close the analytics gap and accelerate progress in areas like HIV prevention, where understanding real-world patient behavior is critical.
As we wrap up, one message comes through clearly. AI is not a miracle solution, and it will not transform healthcare overnight. But when applied to the right parts of the workflow, especially around data preparation and evidence generation, it can create measurable, meaningful change.
So as healthcare leaders look to move beyond pilots and into real impact, the question becomes, are we focusing on the right problems, and are we ready to open up the data needed to solve them?
Useful Links
- Connect with Dr. Alex Asiimwe
- OHDSI – Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics
Please check our partners of Tech Tech Talks Network
Learn more about the NordLayer Browser
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome back Dennis Woodside, CEO of Freshworks, to unpack the growing conversation around the so-called SaaS-pocalypse and what it really means for the future of software businesses.
There is no shortage of dramatic headlines suggesting SaaS is under threat, but Dennis offers a far more practical perspective. He explains that this is less about the collapse of software and more about a major reset in how software is judged, bought, and valued. As AI changes customer expectations, businesses are no longer willing to pay for incremental features or vague AI claims.
They want clear outcomes, measurable ROI, and platforms that can prove they belong inside an AI-augmented tech stack. We discuss how the traditional seat-based pricing model is shifting toward consumption, outcomes, and usage-based models.
Dennis shares why software companies without a strong AI strategy risk being squeezed out. At the same time, those with mission-critical systems of record and deep workflow intelligence are better positioned to thrive. He explains why deterministic software still matters in a world obsessed with generative AI and why the future belongs to platforms that combine trusted operational data with secure, embedded AI experiences.
Dennis also shares how customers are changing the way they evaluate software, with many now using tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini to compare vendors, analyze RFPs, and arrive at buying decisions far earlier in the sales process. This shift is forcing software vendors to rethink marketing, product design, and customer engagement from the ground up.
We also explore the balance between governance and experimentation, why AI adoption must happen from both the top down and bottom up, and why speed, not just cost reduction, is becoming the real business driver.
Dennis shares examples of how organizations are redesigning workflows, accelerating engineering output, and freeing up high-value talent from repetitive work. As he puts it, most companies are no longer asking if they need AI; they are asking how fast they can make it part of everything they do.
If you have been wondering whether the SaaS model is broken or simply evolving into something smarter, this conversation offers a sharp and realistic look at what comes next.
How is your business thinking about durability in an AI-first world, and are you building to last or simply building to grow?
Useful Links
- Connect with Dennis Woodside on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Freshworks
- Refresh 2026 Event
- Follow on LinkedIn
Visit the Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
How much of your working day is actually spent doing meaningful work, and how much is lost chasing emails, searching for documents, sitting in meetings, and trying to remember where that one important conversation happened?
At Google Cloud Next in Las Vegas, I sat down with Yulie Kwon Kim, Vice President of Product for Google Workspace at Google, to talk about how AI is changing the way billions of people work every day.
Yulie leads the products many of us rely on constantly, Gmail, Google Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and newer tools like Google Vids. At this year's event, she introduced Workspace Intelligence, a major step forward in how AI works inside those everyday tools.
Instead of acting like a disconnected assistant, Workspace Intelligence understands your context across emails, meetings, files, and organizational knowledge to help create documents, prioritize inboxes, take meeting notes, and automate the repetitive work that quietly drains productivity.
We explore what Workspace Intelligence actually is, how it differs from third-party AI tools, and why context matters just as much as model capability. Yulie explains why being a truly AI-first enterprise requires more than powerful models, it needs grounded context, governance, and security that people can trust.
We also discuss one of the biggest concerns for business leaders: how to adopt AI without creating new risks around data security and access control. Yulie shares how Google approaches governance inside Workspace and why existing permissions and protections remain central to how AI operates.
This conversation also touches on something bigger, the shift from individual productivity to shared organizational intelligence, where knowledge moves from living inside one person's head to becoming something the entire company can benefit from. If AI could remove one frustrating task from your workday tomorrow, what would you choose first?
Useful Links
- Connect with Yulie Kwon Kim, Vice President of Product for Google
- Google Cloud Next 26
Visit the Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
What happens when one of the world's most heavily regulated industries starts moving at AI speed?
At Google Cloud Next in Las Vegas, I sat down with Sid Nadella, Director of Financial Services and Market Leader at Google Cloud, to talk about how AI is reshaping banking, wealth management, and capital markets from the inside out.
With more than 20 years of financial services experience, including a long career at Goldman Sachs, Sid brings a rare perspective on how traditional institutions are balancing innovation with regulation, trust, and zero tolerance for error. We explore why the industry is moving beyond simple AI pilots and into what he calls the "doing era," where agentic AI is helping firms move from static dashboards and fragmented workflows toward intelligent systems that can reason, anticipate, and act in real time.
Sid shares where he sees the biggest business impact today, from fraud detection and risk management to operational efficiency and unlocking new growth. We also discuss real-world examples from firms like Citi Wealth, Citadel, Scotiabank, and Starling Bank, and why the real opportunity lies in building the right foundations first: governance, compliance, observability, and strong data access across increasingly complex environments.
We also tackle one of the biggest concerns around AI adoption, the fear that it replaces people. Sid explains why the real story is augmentation, helping teams remove repetitive work and focus on better decisions, stronger customer relationships, and higher-value outcomes.
If you work in financial services, enterprise technology, or simply want to understand what agentic AI looks like beyond the headlines, this is a conversation packed with practical insight.
How close is your organization to becoming truly agentic?
Useful Links
- Connect with Sid Nadella, Director of Financial Services and Market Leader at Google Cloud.
- Google Cloud Next 26
Visit the Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
What happens when AI starts moving faster than the people meant to control it?
In this episode, I'm joined by Bernard Montel, Field CTO EMEA at Tenable, for a timely conversation about the AI risks many organizations may be underestimating. Bernard believes we are heading toward a defining AI accident and that the first major incident may come through speed, scale, and unintended consequences rather than a malicious attack.
We talk about why so many companies feel pressure to adopt AI at pace, while visibility, governance, and control struggle to keep up. Bernard describes this moment as "driving faster than we can steer," and explains why shadow AI, overprivileged identities, cloud misconfigurations, and exposed AI projects are already creating real business risk.
The conversation also looks at agentic AI and why giving systems the ability to take action changes the security equation. A chatbot giving a wrong answer is one problem. An AI agent making flawed decisions, leaking data, or interacting with industrial systems is something very different.
Bernard also shares why AI can become a distraction from the security basics that still matter, including cloud security, identity, exposure management, and vulnerability remediation. Attackers may be using AI to move faster, but many of the weaknesses they exploit remain painfully familiar.
We also discuss Tenable's new agentic AI framework, announced during RSA, and how the company is using AI to help security teams respond at machine speed while reducing exposure across IT, cloud, OT, identity, and AI environments.
For business and security leaders, this episode offers a clear warning and a practical takeaway. AI adoption is no longer a future conversation, but control, governance, and exposure management need to move with it.
How prepared is your organization for an AI incident caused by accident rather than attack? Share your thoughts.
Useful Links
- Connect with Bernard Montel, Field CTO EMEA at Tenable
- Learn More About Tenable
Visit the Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
What if the smartest climate technology strategy isn't about inventing something new, but rethinking the buildings we already spend 90% of our lives in?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Ben Stapleton, Chief Executive Officer of US Green Building Council California, or USGBC California, to discuss why buildings sit at the center of sustainability, resilience, and community well-being. From energy use and air quality to wildfire resilience and climate justice, Ben makes a compelling case that the built environment may be one of the most practical places to create real change.
Ben and his team launched the California Building Performance Hub, a platform designed to help building owners, operators, and policymakers understand how to improve building performance through policy guidance, technical resources, rebates, and even an AI-powered assistant trained on building codes and compliance pathways. We discuss how this platform is helping accelerate California's move toward healthier, lower-energy, high-performance buildings and why AI is becoming a useful sidekick rather than a replacement for human expertise.
Our conversation also moves beyond technology and into something far more human: community. Ben shares how sustainability only works when people feel they have both awareness and agency. From helping low-income communities understand electrification and indoor air quality, to taking a "BuildSMART Trailer" filled with real building materials into neighborhoods so people can touch and understand the future of their homes, this episode is a reminder that climate progress starts with education and trust.
We also talk about wildfire resilience in California, where simple low-cost building decisions can dramatically reduce fire risk while also improving energy efficiency and health outcomes. Ben explains why many of the solutions already exist, and why the challenge is often less about invention and more about implementation, policy, and long-term thinking.
For business leaders, public sector teams, and anyone thinking about the future of cities, this episode offers a fresh perspective on sustainability as both a financial and human opportunity. Healthier buildings create healthier people, and healthier people create stronger businesses.
Is the future of climate action already built around us, and are we finally ready to look up and see it? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Useful Links
- Connect with Ben on LinkedIn
- CA Building Hub
- USGBC California
- Follow USGBC California on LinkedIn
Visit the Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
How is AI really changing professional services work today, beyond the demos, predictions, and LinkedIn hype?
In today's episode, I'm joined by DJ Paoni, CEO of Certinia, and Jay Laabs, CEO of Spaulding Ridge, to discuss how AI is already being used inside services organizations to improve project delivery, resource planning, workforce optimization, and client outcomes.
DJ shares what a hybrid workforce of people and AI agents looks like in practice. Rather than thinking of AI as a search bar, he explains why services firms should think of agents as specialized colleagues that can handle repeatable tasks, draft project blueprints, support configuration work, and help teams deliver faster without losing the human judgment clients still rely on.
Jay brings the adoption reality from the consulting front line. He explains why the biggest barrier is rarely the technology itself, but the processes, incentives, data models, and cultural habits wrapped around it. The most successful firms are moving away from broad experimentation and focusing on specific business problems where AI can deliver clear ROI.
We also discuss the risks of rushing in without a plan. From disconnected AI agents creating a "spaghetti web" across the enterprise to teams automating broken workflows, DJ and Jay share practical warnings for leaders who want AI to create value without adding another layer of complexity.
This episode offers a clear look at what is working, what is failing, and what needs to change as professional services firms rethink billable hours, project economics, and the role of human expertise in an AI-enabled workplace.
Are services firms ready to measure success by outcomes rather than hours, and what will that mean for the future of consulting?
How much revenue is lost because the systems behind pricing, quoting, billing, and finance still do not talk to each other properly?
In today's episode, I'm joined by Tina Kung, CTO and Co-Founder of Nue, the quote-to-revenue platform helping AI and SaaS companies rethink how they sell, bill, and grow. Tina brings more than two decades of experience across enterprise software, CPQ, billing, and revenue operations, with previous roles at Oracle, Zuora, SteelBrick, and Salesforce.
Tina shares the story behind Nue and why she saw a growing gap between the systems that handle selling and the systems that manage revenue. As SaaS companies move from traditional subscriptions into usage-based pricing, credit burn-down models, product-led growth, partner channels, and enterprise sales, the old way of stitching together tools with manual work and spreadsheets starts to break down.
We discuss how AI is changing go-to-market operations and why transaction-level intelligence matters. Tina explains how Nue connects quoting, billing, usage, and revenue data into a single system, then applies AI so teams can understand what is happening, spot opportunities, and take action faster.
One of the standout stories is OpenAI, which rolled out Nue in just eight weeks to support the rapid growth of its ChatGPT Enterprise business. Tina shares what that process revealed about the speed of modern AI companies and why flexible revenue infrastructure is now a serious advantage.
We also talk about the rise of agentic AI in revenue operations, from creating quotes and orders to handling subscription changes and surfacing upsell opportunities. As the SaaS model comes under pressure from AI, Tina offers a practical view of what needs to change behind the scenes for companies to stay competitive.
If SaaS is entering a new chapter, are your revenue systems ready for how customers now buy, use, and pay for software?
Can AI really remove emotion from investing, or does human judgment still matter most when money is on the line?
In today's episode, I'm joined by Jack Fu, Founder and CEO of Draco Evolution, a company using AI, quantitative models, and decades of market experience to help investors make smarter and more disciplined decisions.
Jack's journey began during the 2008 financial crisis while working as a financial advisor at Union Bank of California, where watching investors lose life-changing amounts of money completely reshaped how he thought about risk, discipline, and long-term wealth creation.
That experience led him to focus on one simple principle: avoiding big losses matters just as much as chasing returns. From managing assets for family offices and institutional clients to leading major investment operations across the Asia-Pacific region, Jack built his career around protecting capital first and helping investors stay in the market long enough to benefit from long-term growth.
We explore how Draco Evolution is bringing institutional-level investment tools to everyday investors through AI-powered ETFs and a more dynamic approach to portfolio management. Jack explains how ETFs actually work, why they have become such a popular choice for investors, and the important difference between investing in AI companies and using AI itself to manage investment decisions.
We also discuss the future of robo-advisors and why the next generation will move far beyond static questionnaires and occasional portfolio rebalancing. Jack shares why he believes the future lies in systems that adapt continuously to market conditions and investor behavior, creating something far more personal and responsive.
From algorithmic trading and AlphaGo to today's world of agentic AI, Jack offers a practical perspective on how technology is changing finance without replacing human oversight. He also shares why investors should treat AI as an enhancement tool rather than blindly trusting every recommendation.
If you've ever wondered how AI is changing investing, what makes AI-driven ETFs different, or how to stay disciplined in unpredictable markets, this conversation offers plenty of insight. How much would you trust AI to help manage your financial future, and where would you still want a human in the loop?
What does it actually take to move from AI experiments and pilot projects to real business outcomes that customers can feel?
At Adobe Summit in Las Vegas, I sat down with Neil Letchford, Vice President of Digital Engineering at Virgin Atlantic, to talk about how the airline is doing exactly that. While many organizations are still debating ROI, governance, and where agentic AI fits into the customer journey, Virgin Atlantic has already launched an AI concierge that is actively helping customers book holidays, find answers faster, and create a smoother travel experience from the first search to stepping onboard the aircraft.
Neil shared how a proof of concept built in just two months evolved into a live multi-agent system that now helps customers plan trips, book holidays, and move seamlessly between digital channels and human support when needed. We talked about the importance of "knowledge over data," why observability and model evaluation matter when deploying AI at scale, and how the team built trust internally by focusing on real customer pain points rather than chasing shiny technology trends.
What stood out most was how Virgin Atlantic has kept its famously human customer experience at the center of every decision. This is not automation for the sake of efficiency. It is about using AI to strengthen relationships, preserve brand personality, and create better outcomes for both customers and the business. From personalized holiday planning to agent-to-agent interactions that may soon redefine travel booking, this conversation offers a practical look at what happens when AI moves beyond theory and starts delivering value today.
If you want to understand what agentic AI looks like in the real world, and why the companies moving early may gain a serious advantage, this is an episode you do not want to miss. What would AI need to do in your business before you would trust it to take the lead?
Useful LInks
- Connect with Neil Letchford
- Learn more about Adobe Brand Concierge
- Check out Virgin AI Concierge
Visit the Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
How has streaming changed from simply delivering video to becoming one of the most important business engines behind sports, media, and customer engagement?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Filippo de Salazar, who leads the Brightcove team following its acquisition by Bending Spoons, to talk about how the company is evolving and where the future of streaming is heading next. With more than 20 years in the industry and powering over a billion streams every week, Brightcove has become the invisible backbone behind many of the broadcasters, publishers, sports networks, and enterprise video experiences we all rely on without ever thinking about the technology behind them.
Filippo shares how the past year has accelerated Brightcove's product velocity, with major releases including AI capabilities, live 4K, live DRM, and automation tools that help customers move faster without compromising reliability. While the business has gained speed, he explains that Brightcove's focus on stability and customer obsession remains unchanged, especially when customers depend on mission-critical video workflows that leave no room for failure.
We also unpack how AI is moving beyond hype and creating measurable value for broadcasters today. From automatically detecting live sports highlights and clipping them for instant social sharing, to improving ad placement relevance, generating live captions, and translating content into more than 70 languages, AI is reshaping both operational efficiency and revenue generation. Filippo explains how tools like Brightcove's Universal Translator and Metadata Optimizer are helping broadcasters unlock ROI that simply was not possible before.
Our conversation also covers personalized streaming, fan engagement, cloud-native automation, and the rise of FAST channels. We discuss why sports audiences now expect low latency, instant highlights, and highly personalized viewing experiences, and how broadcasters must balance those expectations with the realities of infrastructure costs and monetization pressure. Filippo also shares why discoverability has become one of the biggest battlegrounds in streaming, with some viewers spending more time searching for content than actually watching it.
Looking ahead, Filippo outlines the three trends he believes will define the next phase of streaming: intelligent automation, stronger monetization discipline, and managing fragmented viewing behaviors across live, subscription, ad-supported, and FAST environments. As media companies try to unify these experiences without adding complexity, platforms like Brightcove are becoming increasingly central to how modern video businesses operate.
What does the future of streaming really look like when AI, automation, and personalization all collide, and are broadcasters ready for what comes next?
Useful Links
- Connect with Filippo de Salazar
- Learn more about Brightcove following its acquisition by Bending Spoons
Visit the Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
What happens when the biggest breakthrough in AI isn't a flashy new tool, but finally getting rid of 450 spreadsheets?
Recording live from Qlik Connect, I sat down with Ed Dunger from HelloFresh to talk about what operational transformation actually looks like inside one of the world's most complex supply chain environments. Because when your business depends on forecasting demand, managing perishable food, coordinating deliveries, and making sure customers receive the right box at the right time, small inefficiencies quickly become expensive problems.
Ed leads operational technology and analytics enablement across global teams at HelloFresh, covering everything from forecasting through to final-mile logistics. In this conversation, he shares how the company moved away from hundreds of disconnected Google Sheets and manual processes toward a near real-time, data-driven operating model that gives teams faster, clearer, and more reliable decision-making.
We talk about the practical reality of replacing over 450 spreadsheets, building trust in the data, and creating systems that operational teams actually want to use. Ed explains why this was a two to three year journey rather than an overnight transformation, and how early wins, like predicting waste before it happened, helped build confidence across the business.
We also explore how HelloFresh is using predictive AI to improve exception management when deliveries fail. From triggering recovery boxes faster to improving customer communication when something goes wrong, the focus is not on AI for the sake of AI, but on solving real problems that directly affect customer experience.
There is also a valuable lesson here for any business trying to move from experimentation to operational reality. Start small, build trust gradually, and focus on solving one problem well before trying to transform everything at once.
So as more organizations race to adopt AI, are we sometimes overlooking the simple operational fixes that create the biggest impact? And is real transformation less about the technology itself, and more about how people learn to trust it?
Join me for a practical and honest conversation from Qlik Connect, and let me know your thoughts. Are you still managing around old processes, or are you building systems people can truly rely on?
Visit the Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
How do you turn complex regulatory data into something customers can actually use, trust, and act on?
Recording live from Qlik Connect, I sat down with Robin Astle, Head of Qlik Analytics at Reconomy Group, to explore how data is becoming far more than an internal reporting tool. In Robin's world, it has become a product in its own right, helping some of the world's largest retailers manage compliance, reduce costs, and make smarter sustainability decisions.
Robin works across Valpak, a business at the center of environmental compliance and packaging regulation, supporting over 100 enterprise customers across the UK, Europe, and the US. From packaging taxes and recycling targets to government submissions and sustainability reporting, the amount of data involved is enormous, and the stakes are high.
In our conversation, Robin shares how the Valpak Insight Platform evolved from manual SQL extracts and spreadsheets into a fully scaled cloud-based analytics platform ingesting millions of rows of data every day. We discuss how that transformation helped reduce onboarding from weeks to days, created up to 90% time savings on CSR and analytics requests, and helped customers reduce compliance costs by up to 15%.
We also explore the launch of PackChat, which uses natural language queries to help customers interact with compliance and packaging data without needing deep technical knowledge. Robin explains why context is everything when dealing with environmental regulations, and why building trust in the data model is essential before AI can deliver real value.
There is also a bigger conversation here around how businesses can use data to serve customers directly, not just support internal teams. From OEM partnerships and cloud automation to scaling AI-powered services across global markets, Robin shares what it takes to turn data into a revenue-generating service.
So as more organizations look to unlock value from the information they already hold, are we still thinking too narrowly about what data can do? And could your greatest untapped product actually be the data sitting inside your business today?
Join me for a fascinating conversation from Qlik Connect, and let me know your thoughts. Are you still using data for reporting, or are you starting to think about it as a product?
Visit the Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
How do you turn powerful AI technology into something customers actually trust, adopt, and use?
Recording live from Qlik Connect, I sat down with Mary Kern, Vice President of Analytics Product Go-To-Market at Qlik, to explore one of the most overlooked challenges in enterprise AI today. Not building the technology, but making it real for the people expected to use it every day.
Because while AI innovation is moving at incredible speed, many organizations are still struggling with a much more practical question. How do you move from exciting product announcements and pilot projects to real adoption, measurable outcomes, and business value?
In our conversation, Mary shares how Qlik is approaching that challenge by shifting the focus away from shiny features and toward outcomes that matter. We discuss why agentic AI is creating so much excitement, why customers are often much closer to operationalizing it than they realize, and how years of investment in data quality, governance, and analytics are now becoming the foundation for what comes next.
We also talk about the growing importance of trusted data and context, especially as AI moves from generating insights to influencing decisions and actions. Mary explains why simply adding a large language model on top of existing systems rarely works, and why organizations need to think more carefully about how AI is trained, governed, and integrated into the environments where people already work.
There is also a refreshingly honest conversation around cost, experimentation, and imperfection. Mary makes the case that organizations should start now, even if the data is not perfect, because using AI often reveals where the real gaps are and what needs to improve next.
So as businesses look ahead to the next 12 months, what will separate those who successfully scale AI from those still stuck in pilot mode? And are we spending too much time talking about the technology, and not enough time understanding how people will actually use it?
Join me for a candid conversation from the heart of Qlik Connect, and let me know your thoughts. Is your organization closing the gap between AI capability and real adoption, or is that still the biggest challenge?
What if the reason most AI projects fail has less to do with the technology and more to do with how the work itself is designed?
Recording live from Qlik Connect, I sat down with Nick Magnuson, Head of AI at Qlik, for a conversation about the gap between AI ambition and operational reality. Because while many organizations are still focused on models, tools, and the race to deploy new capabilities, the real challenge often sits somewhere much less glamorous. Workflow design, trusted data, and making sure AI fits the way a business actually runs.
Nick brings more than two decades of experience in machine learning and predictive analytics, and in this conversation, he shares why so many AI initiatives fail before they ever create value. His view is refreshingly direct. Most failures are not technology failures at all. They are workflow failures, where teams try to force AI into the business without first understanding the outcomes they are trying to achieve.
We also explore the rise of agentic AI and what it means when systems move from generating insights to taking action. Nick explains why governance becomes even more important in that world, how organizations can balance speed with control, and why trusted data has to move beyond being "good enough for reporting" to becoming reliable enough for decisions and automated execution.
There is also a strong discussion around openness, portability, and the growing risk of vendor lock-in. As enterprises build more complex AI ecosystems, flexibility is becoming a strategic advantage, especially for organizations trying to scale without creating expensive dependencies they will regret later.
For mid-market businesses with limited resources, Nick also shares a practical path to production. A reminder that operationalizing AI does not require massive teams or unlimited budgets, but it does require clarity, discipline, and a focus on the right problems first.
So as the next wave of enterprise AI moves from experimentation to execution, what will separate the organizations that scale successfully from those still stuck in pilot mode? And are we asking the wrong questions by focusing on more AI, instead of better AI?
Join me for a thoughtful conversation from the heart of Qlik Connect, and let me know your view. Is workflow design the missing piece in your AI strategy?
What does it really take to turn AI from a flashy experiment into something that creates measurable business value?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Angela Virtu from American University's Kogod School of Business to talk about what business leaders should actually be paying attention to as AI moves into a new phase in 2026. This conversation goes far beyond the usual headlines about bigger models and faster tools.
Angela brings a rare mix of academic leadership and hands-on startup experience, which means she understands both the technical side of AI and the hard business questions around adoption, trust, and ROI.
One of the most interesting parts of our discussion centered on how American University's Kogod School of Business became one of the first AI-first business schools. Angela shared how that shift was never really about chasing hype. It was about recognizing a real change in the workplace and preparing students for jobs, workflows, and expectations that are already being shaped by AI.
From faculty training to culture change, she explained how transformation only works when leadership is willing to support experimentation and accept that some ideas will fail before the right ones take hold.
We also spent time unpacking where businesses stand right now in the AI adoption cycle. After years of pilots and proof-of-concept projects, many companies are under pressure to show results. Angela offered a refreshingly honest take on why so many AI projects stall and why adoption alone is a weak metric. Instead, she argued that companies need to tie AI initiatives to clear business problems and existing KPIs. Whether that means customer support resolution times, employee productivity, or operational efficiency, the point is simple. AI needs to earn its place.
Another thread running through this episode is governance. As AI becomes more deeply embedded inside organizations, the conversation is shifting toward oversight, accountability, and trust.
Angela explains why the strongest governance models are often shared across the company rather than locked inside one team. She also discusses the need for closed systems, stronger communication, and honest disclosure when businesses use AI in customer-facing environments. That part of the conversation feels especially timely as more brands try to balance innovation with customer expectations.
We also looked ahead at what is coming next, from model orchestration and vertical AI to the rise of physical world models and even the possibility of AI agents becoming a customer audience in their own right. It is one of those episodes that will give business leaders, technologists, educators, and curious listeners plenty to think about.
If you are trying to understand where AI strategy is headed in 2026, and how to separate real value from noise, this episode is for you. What did you make of Angela's views on governance, ROI, and the next phase of AI adoption, and where do you think businesses are still getting it wrong? Share your thoughts with me.
Useful Links:
- Connect with Angela Virtu
- Kogod School of Business
Visit the Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
What actually separates AI that delivers real value from AI that never makes it past the demo stage?
Recording live from Qlik Connect, I sat down with Ryan Welsh, Field CTO of Generative AI at Qlik, to get a grounded, practitioner-led view of what it really takes to make AI work inside a business. While the industry has spent the past few years racing to experiment, build, and deploy new capabilities, many organizations are still struggling to turn that progress into capabilities people use every day.
In our conversation, Ryan cuts through the noise and explains why so many AI initiatives fail. Not because the models aren't powerful enough, but because they're not designed to fit into real workflows. He shares why context is far more than just a buzzword and how getting the right data, in the right place, at the right time, enables AI to deliver meaningful outcomes.
We also explore the growing shift toward agentic AI and the responsibilities that come with it. From designing systems that can act autonomously while remaining under control to understanding where humans need to stay involved, Ryan offers a practical view of how organizations can move forward without introducing unnecessary risk.
There's also a refreshing honesty around where we are right now. After a wave of investment and expectation, many companies struggled to see immediate value from AI. But as Ryan explains, that period is changing, with more organizations finding ways to scale what works and move beyond isolated use cases.
So, as businesses look ahead, what does it really take to move from experimentation to execution? And are we focusing too much on building more AI rather than the right AI for how our organizations actually operate?
Join me for a candid conversation from the heart of Qlik Connect, and let me know your thoughts. Are you seeing AI deliver real outcomes in your business, or is it still stuck in the demo phase?
Useful Links
- Connect with Ryan Walsh on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Qlik.
- Follow on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
Visit the May Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
What does it really take to move beyond AI experimentation and build something a business can rely on?
Recording live from Qlik Connect, I sat down with James Fisher, Chief Strategy Officer at Qlik, to unpack what's actually changing as AI moves from hype into real-world execution. Because while many organizations have spent the past few years exploring use cases and running pilots, the harder challenge is now in front of them. Turning that early momentum into something scalable, governed, and aligned with business outcomes.
In our conversation, James offers a candid view of where companies are getting this wrong. He describes a period of what he calls "AI madness," where everything became a potential use case, but very little translated into measurable value. Now, he sees a shift toward more focused, outcome-driven thinking, where success depends on understanding the user, the data, and the specific problem being solved.
One of the most thought-provoking moments comes when James challenges the idea of having an AI strategy at all. Instead, he argues that AI should be embedded directly into the broader business strategy, shaping how decisions are made, how processes operate, and how organizations compete.
We also explore the realities that many businesses are only just beginning to face. The complexity of data access and governance, the growing pressure around cost and sustainability, and the risks of vendor lock-in in a rapidly evolving AI ecosystem. James shares why openness and flexibility are becoming critical, and why some of the same patterns seen in previous technology waves are starting to repeat themselves.
So as organizations look ahead to the next 12 to 24 months, what will separate those that successfully operationalize AI from those that remain stuck in cycles of experimentation? And are we focusing too much on the technology, and not enough on the business problems it's meant to solve?
Join me for a grounded and strategic conversation from the heart of Qlik Connect, and let me know your thoughts.
Are you still experimenting with AI, or are you starting to embed it into the core of how your business operates?
Useful Links
- Learn more about Qlik.
- Follow on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
Visit the May Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
What happens when your AI agents start making decisions faster than your security team can even see them?
In this episode, I sit down with Sunil Agrawal, Chief Information Security Officer at Glean, to unpack a shift already underway in enterprises. With predictions that 40 percent of enterprise applications will include autonomous AI agents by the end of 2026, we are moving from human-led workflows to machine-to-machine interactions at a scale most organizations are not fully prepared for.
Sunil brings a rare perspective, blending more than 25 years of cybersecurity experience with an inventor's mindset shaped by over 40 patents. What stood out to me in our conversation is how quickly the traditional security model is becoming outdated. As he explained, "autonomous agents break those assumptions because they operate across tools, varying permissions and data sources with alarming speed and autonomy." This creates what he calls the "autonomy gap," in which the CIO's drive for speed collides with the CISO's need for visibility and control.
We explore how that tension is playing out in real organizations today, and why so many are already falling behind. Nearly half of businesses still lack the AI-specific controls needed to prevent untraceable incidents, and the risks are not always what you might expect. Sunil argues that the first major rogue-agent incident is unlikely to be a malicious attack. Instead, it will come from confusion: a well-intentioned system taking the wrong action in the wrong context, with consequences that ripple across the business.
The conversation then turns practical. Sunil breaks down his AWARE framework, a structured way to introduce real-time guardrails that evaluate intent, context, and risk before an agent takes action. Rather than relying on static policies, this approach focuses on continuous runtime enforcement, where systems are constantly assessed based on behavior rather than assumptions.
What I found particularly valuable is how this moves beyond theory into something leaders can act on today. From starting with tightly scoped use cases to investing in full observability, this episode offers a clear roadmap for balancing innovation with accountability. As Sunil put it, organizations that succeed will not be the ones that move fastest, but the ones that prove trust at scale.
So how do you embrace the productivity gains of autonomous AI without opening the door to invisible risk, and are your current security models ready for a world where the "user" is no longer human?
Useful Links
- Connect with Sunil Agrawal on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Glean
- Follow Glean on LinkedIn
Visit the Tech Talks Network Sponsor NordLayer Browser
What does it actually take to move AI from experimentation into something a business can depend on every single day?
Recording live from the show floor at Qlik Connect in Florida, I sat down with Qlik CEO Mike Capone to cut through the noise and get to the reality behind enterprise AI in 2026. Because while the headlines are still dominated by rapid innovation and new capabilities, many organizations are quietly facing a different challenge. They are struggling to turn AI ambition into measurable outcomes.
In our conversation, Mike shares what he is hearing from customers around the world and why so many companies remain stuck in cycles of pilots and proof of concepts. We talk about the growing pressure from boards and leadership teams to move faster, and why that urgency is often leading to what he calls a "ready, fire, aim" approach that fails to deliver real business value.
We also explore one of the biggest themes emerging at Qlik Connect this year. The shift toward agentic AI. But rather than focusing on the hype, Mike breaks down what this actually means inside a real enterprise workflow, where insights are not just generated but turned into decisions and actions. He also explains why getting the data foundation right is no longer optional, and how poor data quality can quickly turn AI from an opportunity into a risk.
From data trust and governance to the challenges of operating across increasingly complex regulatory environments, this episode offers a clear view of what it takes to build AI systems that are reliable, scalable, and grounded in real business context.
So as organizations look ahead to the next 12 to 24 months, what will separate those that successfully operationalize AI from those that remain stuck in pilot mode? And are we focusing too much on building more AI, rather than building better AI?
Join me for a candid conversation from the heart of Qlik Connect, and let me know where you stand on this shift. Are you seeing real progress, or are the same challenges holding things back?
How are brands supposed to deliver AI-powered customer experiences when their data is scattered across systems that were never designed to work together?
In this episode, I sit down with Peter Bell, VP EMEA Marketing at Twilio, to unpack one of the most important AI topics that still does not get enough attention outside technical circles, Model Context Protocol, or MCP. While many conversations about AI remain stuck on model hype, chatbots, and the latest product launch, Peter brings the discussion back to something far more practical. If businesses want AI to deliver real outcomes in customer service, marketing, and brand engagement, they first need a reliable way to connect large language models to the right data, in the right systems, with the right controls in place.
That is why this conversation matters. Peter explains how MCP could become one of the biggest unlocks for enterprise AI by creating a standard way for LLMs to access information across fragmented tools like CRM platforms, marketing systems, and other business applications. Instead of forcing every company to build custom integrations from scratch, MCP creates a more consistent path for connecting models to the context they need. For me, that is where this episode really earns its place, because it moves the AI conversation away from vague ambition and toward the plumbing that actually makes useful AI possible.
We also talk about why first-party data remains so important, especially as businesses try to create customer experiences that feel seamless, personal, and trustworthy. Peter makes the point that public models may be useful for general knowledge, but brands cannot rely on generic internet-trained systems to solve precise business problems. If you want AI to support travel bookings, customer service, or commerce journeys, you need specific data, strong governance, and a much clearer understanding of the problem you are trying to solve. That sounds obvious, but it is still where many AI projects fall apart.
Another part of our conversation focuses on trust, which feels especially relevant right now. From scams and impersonation to consumer fatigue and poor automation, brands are under pressure to move faster without losing credibility. Peter shares how Twilio is thinking about branded calling, RCS, conversational AI, and voice experiences that feel modern without becoming intrusive or robotic. We also discuss why too many companies still automate too broadly, too quickly, without defining the actual use case first.
What I enjoyed most here was Peter's balanced view. He is optimistic about where AI is heading, but he is also realistic about the work still required to get there. This is not a conversation about AI magic. It is about data access, governance, trust, brand experience, and the standards that may quietly shape the next phase of AI adoption far more than the flashy headlines.
So if you have been hearing more people mention MCP and wondering why it matters, or if you are trying to understand what needs to happen before enterprise AI can move from promise to practical value, this episode will give you plenty to think about. Is Model Context Protocol the missing layer that finally helps AI connect with the real world of business data?
What does it actually take to make AI work inside a real business, where messy data, human judgment, and operational risk all collide?
In this episode, I sit down with Matt Fitzpatrick, CEO of Invisible Technologies, to talk about why the biggest barrier to enterprise AI is not model quality, it is everything that comes before the model ever gets to work.
Since stepping into the CEO role in January 2025, Matt has moved quickly, raising $100 million and expanding Invisible's footprint across major cities including New York, San Francisco, DC, Austin, London, and Poland. But this conversation is far less about headlines and far more about what happens in the trenches of AI adoption, where companies are trying to move from pilots and PowerPoint promises to systems that actually deliver results.
A huge theme throughout our discussion is data readiness. Matt makes a compelling case that most businesses are still dealing with fragmented systems, inconsistent records, and information spread across disconnected tools. That reality makes it incredibly hard to deploy AI in a way that creates trust and value.
We talk about SwissGear, where Invisible used its Neuron platform to clean and structure 750 scattered tables in just one week, a task that could have taken a large engineering team months or longer. We also discuss why that kind of work matters so much, because once the data foundation is fixed, companies can start making better decisions on forecasting, operations, and planning with a level of confidence that simply was not there before.
We also spend time on Invisible's human-in-the-loop approach, which I think will resonate with a lot of listeners trying to cut through the noise around job displacement and agentic AI. Matt argues that the real opportunity is not replacing people, but giving them better tools to handle repetitive work while preserving room for human expertise, judgment, and oversight.
He shares examples from commercial credit workflows, healthcare, and sports analytics, including a fascinating story about the Charlotte Hornets using AI to turn broadcast footage into detailed tracking data. What stood out to me was how practical his perspective felt.
This was not theory. It was about building systems around how organizations actually work, rather than expecting businesses to reshape themselves around a generic AI product.
Another part of the conversation that deserves attention is governance. As boards rush to understand agentic AI, Matt explains why trust, standards, and responsible deployment are now driving buying decisions just as much as raw capability.
We talk about privacy in healthcare, the risks of scaling autonomous systems without mature governance, and why enterprise adoption still trails consumer AI by a wide margin. That gap between excitement and execution may be one of the most important stories in AI right now.
If you are wondering why so many AI projects never make it into production, or what it will take for enterprise AI to finally deliver on its promise, this episode is packed with insight. It is a conversation about data, deployment, governance, and the role humans will continue to play as AI becomes part of everyday business operations.
After listening, I would love to know where you stand, is the future of AI really about bigger models, or is it about making AI fit the messy reality of how work gets done?
In this episode, I speak with Bert Van Hoof, CEO of Willow, about how AI is starting to reshape the built world in ways that go far beyond smart dashboards and efficiency reports. Bert brings decades of experience from the front lines of digital infrastructure, including his time at Microsoft, where he helped create Azure Digital Twins and Smart Places.
Today at Willow, he is focused on a much bigger idea, using AI to help buildings, campuses, hospitals, airports, and other complex environments operate with greater intelligence, lower waste, and better outcomes for the people who rely on them every day.
One of the most interesting parts of our conversation is how Bert explains the shift from passive building software to active management systems. For years, many digital twin and smart building tools were good at showing what had already happened. But operators do not need another screen full of charts.
They need systems that can connect live data, static records, spatial context, and operational history to help them make better decisions in real time. That is where Willow comes in, creating a digital foundation where AI can reason across everything from HVAC and air quality to occupancy, refrigeration, maintenance history, and even energy usage patterns.
We also unpack why this matters right now. Energy costs remain under pressure, sustainability goals are getting harder to ignore, and many organizations are still stuck with fragmented systems that do not talk to each other.
Bert shares how AI can help move building teams from reactive maintenance to predictive performance, spotting issues earlier, cutting downtime, reducing waste, and extending the life of expensive assets.
He also explains why the future of building operations will depend on a stronger data foundation, operational AI copilots, and systems that can support an aging workforce while making these roles more appealing to the next generation.
What stood out for me was how practical this all became once we moved past the buzzwords. This was not a conversation about futuristic hype. It was about real examples, from occupancy-based HVAC control in offices and campuses to leak detection in schools, vaccine refrigeration monitoring, and hospital environments where downtime can carry enormous consequences.
Bert makes a strong case that buildings are no longer just static structures. They are living operational environments filled with signals, systems, and opportunities that have been hiding in plain sight.
We also touch on the wider picture, including what Bert learned from smart cities and energy grid modernization, and how those lessons now apply to commercial real estate, airports, research labs, and higher education campuses.
There is a real sense that the physical world is entering a new chapter, one where AI starts to bridge the gap between digital intelligence and real-world action.
If you have ever wondered what AI looks like when it leaves the screen and starts improving the places where people work, heal, travel, learn, and live, this episode will give you plenty to think about. As always, I would love to know what you think, are buildings finally ready to become truly responsive, and what opportunities or risks do you see ahead?
What does it really take to build the next generation of AI companies when the hype around scale begins to fade and real-world impact takes center stage?
In this episode, I sit down with David Blumberg, founder and managing partner at Blumberg Capital, to unpack what he believes will define the next wave of AI startups. With a track record that includes being the first investor in companies like Nutanix, Braze, and DoubleVerify, David brings a perspective shaped by decades of identifying breakout innovation early. But what stood out most in our conversation was his belief that 2026 marks a turning point where intelligence moves beyond experimentation and becomes operational.
We explore what that shift actually means in practice. David explains how AI is evolving from systems that generate insights into systems that take action, and why that distinction matters for founders, investors, and enterprise leaders alike. He shares how the most compelling startups today are not simply layering AI onto existing products, but embedding it deeply into workflows across industries like finance, security, and supply chain. These are companies built on proprietary data and real operational context, designed to make decisions with precision rather than simply process information.
Our conversation also challenges some widely held assumptions about success in the AI space. David makes it clear that scale alone will not separate winners from the rest. Instead, the focus is shifting toward accuracy, reliability, and domain expertise. Founders who have lived the problems they are solving, rather than approaching them from the outside, are far more likely to build something defensible and lasting. It is a subtle shift, but one that could redefine how value is created in the years ahead.
There is also a broader discussion about where investment is flowing and why. With the vast majority of companies Blumberg Capital now evaluates being rooted in AI, the bar for differentiation is rising fast. David offers insight into what his team is really looking for in founders entering this next cycle, and how startups can stand out in an increasingly crowded field.
So as AI moves from promise to execution, and from experimentation to real-world outcomes, the question becomes harder to ignore. Are we ready to rethink how we measure success in the AI era, and what kind of companies will truly earn their place at the top?
How do we talk about artificial intelligence without ignoring the very human consequences it can have on our mental health?
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Ragy Girgis, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University, to unpack a topic that has quietly moved from the fringes of academic discussion into mainstream headlines. You have probably seen the term "AI psychosis" appearing more frequently, often surrounded by speculation, fear, or misunderstanding. But what does it actually mean, and how should we be thinking about it as these technologies become part of everyday life?
Ragy brings a clinical and deeply considered perspective to the conversation. He explains that what we are seeing is not AI creating entirely new delusions out of thin air, but something more subtle and arguably more concerning. Large language models can reflect and reinforce ideas that already exist within a person's mind. For someone already vulnerable, that reinforcement can push a belief from uncertainty into absolute conviction. That shift, even if small, can have life-altering consequences. It raises uncomfortable questions about how persuasive technology interacts with fragile mental states.
We also explore the comparison many people make with older internet rabbit holes, and why this new generation of AI tools feels different. There is something about conversational systems that mimic human interaction so convincingly that they can blur the line between reflection and validation. Ragy introduces a powerful analogy rooted in the story of Narcissus, which reframes the issue in a way that feels both timeless and unsettling. It is not about an external voice planting ideas, but about a mirror that becomes impossible to look away from.
But this conversation is not about fear. It is about responsibility and awareness. We discuss practical steps that could help reduce risk, from how AI systems communicate their limitations, to the role of families and clinicians, and even the responsibility of tech companies to invest in research around early warning signs. There is a sense that we are only at the beginning of understanding this phenomenon, and that the decisions made now will shape how safely these tools evolve.
So as AI continues to move closer to us, speaking in our language and responding in real time, how do we make sure it supports human wellbeing rather than quietly amplifying our most vulnerable moments?
Useful Links
- Connect with Dr. Ragy Girgis, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University
- Time Magazine Article
Visit the May Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
Why are so many AI projects failing to deliver real business value, despite the hype and investment? In this episode, I sit down with Jay Litkey, SVP of Cloud & FinOps at Flexera, to explore the growing gap between AI ambition and measurable results.
We discuss why findings from PwC reveal that only a small percentage of CEOs are seeing both revenue growth and cost savings from AI, and why the issue often comes down to a lack of clear outcomes, financial discipline, and governance rather than the technology itself. Jay shares what organizations are getting wrong, why many are stuck in experimentation mode, and what it really means to go back to basics in 2026.
The conversation also reframes FinOps for the AI era, moving beyond cost control to a model that connects AI usage directly to business value, aligns finance with engineering, and introduces the guardrails needed to scale responsibly. If you are investing in AI or planning your next move, this episode offers a clear lens on how to turn potential into performance.
Useful Links
- Connect with Jay Litkey from Flexera
- Learn More About Flexera
Visit the May Sponsors of Tech Talks Network and learn more about the NordLayer Browser.
How do you bring people together to do better work when everything around them feels increasingly complex, distributed, and uncertain?
In today's episode, I sat down with Jessica Guistolise from Lucid Software, and what struck me straight away was her belief that work has always been a group project, even if many organizations still behave as though it is not.
Jessica shared how much of the friction we experience at work comes from misalignment, unclear expectations, and a lack of shared understanding. When teams are spread across time zones, systems, and now AI-powered workflows, those gaps only widen. Her perspective is simple but powerful. When people can actually see the work, rather than interpret it through documents, meetings, or assumptions, something shifts. Conversations become clearer, decisions become faster, and collaboration starts to feel human again.
We also explored how visual collaboration platforms like those from Lucid Software are helping teams move away from scattered tools and disconnected workflows toward a more unified way of working. Jessica described it as having everything on one workbench, where teams can brainstorm, plan, and execute without constantly switching context.
What really stayed with me was her focus on inclusivity in collaboration. Not everyone contributes in the same way, and visual environments can create space for different thinking styles, whether someone is outspoken, reflective, or somewhere in between. That idea of creating a shared language across teams, roles, and even personalities feels increasingly relevant in a world where communication often breaks down.
Of course, no conversation right now would be complete without talking about AI. Jessica offered a refreshingly honest view. There is uncertainty, and there should be. But rather than avoiding it, she believes leaders need to make AI visible, map how it is used, define where human judgment matters, and encourage teams to experiment openly.
One of the most interesting ideas she shared was reframing mistakes as early learnings. When teams feel safe to test, fail, and share what they discover, progress accelerates. When fear or blame enters the picture, everything slows down.
We also touched on AI literacy and what it really means in practice. For Jessica, it comes down to clarity. Clear workflows, clear guardrails, and clear expectations about accountability. AI might assist, but humans remain responsible for outcomes. That mindset, combined with leadership that actively participates in experimentation, creates an environment where people feel confident stepping forward rather than holding back.
This conversation left me thinking about how many organizations are still trying to layer AI onto unclear processes and expecting better results. Jessica's message is that clarity comes first, then technology can amplify it.
So if work really is a group project, are we giving our teams the visibility and confidence they need to succeed, or are we still asking them to figure it out in the dark?
What happens when the very pricing model meant to speed up AI adoption ends up slowing it down?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Sameet Gupte, CEO and co-founder of EvoluteIQ, to discuss a part of the enterprise AI story that still doesn't get enough attention.
While so much of the conversation around AI focuses on models, copilots, and the latest agentic promises, Sameet brings the discussion back to a business reality that every enterprise leader understands. If the economics do not work, adoption stalls. And if success in a pilot makes the final rollout even more expensive, something has gone wrong long before the board signs off on scale.
Sameet argues that many organizations are still trapped by legacy pricing structures built for an earlier generation of automation. Per-user and per-bot pricing may look manageable at the pilot stage.
Once a company tries to expand automation across departments, processes, and geographies, the numbers can quickly stop making sense. That creates what many now call pilot purgatory, where a company proves something can work, but cannot justify taking it any further. It is a problem rooted in incentives, procurement, and fragmented technology stacks, and it is one that CFOs are watching very closely.
What I found especially interesting in this conversation is how Sameet frames the issue. He believes most enterprises do not actually have an automation problem. They have an orchestration problem.
In other words, the challenge is rarely a lack of tools. It is getting all the systems, workflows, approvals, data flows, and legacy infrastructure to work together to produce a clean business outcome. That idea changes the conversation from buying isolated features to rethinking the process as a whole.
We also discuss why outcomes-based pricing is increasingly resonating with enterprise buyers. Sameet explains why predictable costs, transparent commercial models, and shared accountability are helping move automation conversations out of innovation teams and into the CFO's office.
For public companies and large global enterprises, that matters. Leaders want fewer surprises, fewer overlapping vendors, and a much clearer line between spend and return.
There is also a broader theme running through this episode about where the market is heading next. Sameet sees real urgency around vendor consolidation, enterprise simplification, and the need to rethink how AI is introduced into the business. His view is that companies need to pause, define what they actually want AI to do, and then choose tools that fit the business, rather than reshaping the business around the latest platform pitch.
If you are trying to make sense of AI adoption beyond the hype, this conversation offers a practical and timely perspective on pricing, scale, and what real transformation could look like inside the enterprise.
After listening, do you think the future of enterprise AI will be shaped as much by commercial models as by the technology itself, and what are you seeing in your own organization?
Useful Links
- Connect with Sameet Gupte, CEO and co-founder of EvoluteIQ
- Learn More About EvoluteIQ
How many bad customer experiences does it take before someone walks away for good? In my conversation with Amitha Pulijala, we explore why the answer might be fewer than most businesses are prepared for, and what that means for anyone investing in AI-powered customer experience.
New research from Cyara reveals a stark reality. Twenty-eight percent of consumers will abandon a brand after just one poor interaction, and nearly half will do the same after only two or three. That leaves very little room for error at a time when more organizations are introducing AI into customer journeys, often at speed and at scale.
Amitha, who leads product strategy in the AI and CX space, brings a grounded perspective shaped by years of working with large enterprises and complex contact center environments. What stood out in our discussion is how the real challenge is no longer about whether AI can handle customer interactions. In many cases, it already can. The issue is whether customers trust it enough to let it try.
We unpack the growing perception gap: 73 percent of consumers still believe human agents resolve issues faster, even though AI systems can deliver near-instant responses. That disconnect often comes down to past experiences, from bots that fail to understand context to systems that trap users in frustrating loops with no clear way out. There is also a clear line that customers draw around where AI belongs.
Routine, high-volume tasks such as password resets or appointment confirmations are widely accepted. But when conversations shift toward financial security, healthcare, or legal advice, expectations change. People want human judgment involved and reassurance that the outcome is reliable.
What makes this conversation particularly relevant is the generational divide shaping expectations. Younger users are far more open to AI-led interactions, provided they work seamlessly. Older generations remain more cautious, often preferring the certainty of speaking with a human. That creates a design challenge for businesses trying to serve everyone without alienating anyone.
Throughout the episode, Amitha emphasizes that trust is built through experience, not intention. That means testing AI systems in real-world conditions, monitoring how they perform over time, and ensuring that when things do go wrong, the transition to a human feels smooth and informed rather than abrupt and frustrating.
This is not a conversation about replacing humans with machines. It is about understanding where AI can add speed and efficiency, where it should support human agents, and where it should step back entirely. The organizations getting this balance right are not the ones deploying AI the fastest, but the ones validating it most carefully before customers ever see it.
As businesses race to embed AI at every touchpoint, a bigger question emerges. Are we building systems that customers actually trust, or are we creating new points of friction that push them away?
Useful Links
- Connect with Amitha on LinkedIn
- Survey Data
- Cyara Website
- Follow Cyara on LinkedIn
What does it really take to move AI from endless experimentation into something that creates real business value? In this episode, I sat down with Tom Alexander, Head of Innovation and Transformation at CrossCountry Consulting, to talk about why so many organizations still struggle to turn AI ambition into meaningful outcomes.
Tom works closely with executive and CFO teams that are either unsure where to begin or frustrated that early AI efforts have not delivered what they hoped for. We talked about why this is rarely just a technology issue. In many cases, the real blockers are ownership, change management, weak alignment across the business, and a failure to connect AI initiatives to the problems that matter most.
One of the big themes in our conversation was the need to treat AI as an enterprise-wide program rather than a collection of isolated tools. Tom shared how leaders can focus on business processes first, identify where automation can genuinely improve performance, and avoid getting distracted by hype. We also unpacked the growing accountability challenge around AI, including who should own it, how stakeholders can align, and why strong foundations in data, governance, and training matter so much.
This episode is packed with practical takeaways for anyone trying to make sense of AI adoption inside a business. If you are trying to figure out where to start, how to scale, or how to avoid another stalled initiative, there is a lot in here for you. After listening, I would love to hear your thoughts. How is your organization approaching AI, and where do you think most businesses are still getting it wrong?
Useful Links
- CrossCountry website
- Connect with Tom Alexander on LinkedIn
- Field Notes podcast
Is the endpoint still just a device, or has it quietly become one of the most important control points in modern enterprise security? Recording live from IGEL Now And Next in Miami, I sat down once again with Darren Fields for what has become an annual check-in on how fast the industry is really changing. And this time, the conversation feels very different.
Over the last 12 months, the discussion has moved well beyond traditional endpoint management. From global supply chain pressure driven by AI demand to rising hardware costs and unpredictable refresh cycles, the assumptions that once shaped endpoint strategy are starting to fall apart. Darren shares how organizations are now being forced into difficult decisions, absorb rising costs, delay investment, or rethink the model entirely.
We also explore how that shift is changing the conversation at the leadership level. What was once seen as a procurement decision is increasingly being reframed as a resilience strategy. Extending hardware life, reducing dependency on supply chains, and maintaining operational continuity are becoming just as important as performance and cost.
Security, of course, sits at the center of it all. With the majority of breaches still originating at the endpoint, Darren highlights how organizations are starting to rethink where they focus their efforts. Rather than focusing solely on data centers and cloud environments, there is growing recognition that control, visibility, and enforcement must occur at the edge.
The conversation also touches on the reality of modern cyber threats. From constant attack attempts to incidents that leave organizations offline for weeks, the challenge is no longer just restoring systems but restoring access. And that shift has major implications for how recovery and continuity are designed moving forward.
We also look at the growing convergence of IT and OT, the role of contextual access, and the balancing act between stronger security and user experience. With organizations at very different stages of their journey, there is no single path forward, but there is a clear sense that change is already underway.
So as the pace of technology, risk, and demand continues to accelerate, one question remains. Are organizations adapting fast enough, or are they still relying on models that no longer reflect the world they are operating in?
What do you think, are we finally seeing a shift toward treating the endpoint as a strategic priority, or is there still a gap between awareness and action?
What does it really take to move from talking about Zero Trust… to actually making it work in the real world?
Recording live from IGEL Now And Next in Miami, I caught up with John Walsh for what has now become something of a tradition, our third conversation together, and one that reflects just how much has changed in the last 12 months.
When we last spoke, the focus was on securing the edge and rethinking security through a preventative lens. This time, the conversation has expanded from IT to OT, from devices to platforms, and from theory to real-world implementation across manufacturing floors, healthcare environments, and government organizations.
John shared how IGEL is increasingly being adopted as a global standard across both IT and operational environments, bringing new challenges and new insights. From kiosks and signage on factory floors to shared workstations in hospitals, the need for persona-based and now context-aware access is becoming far more than a technical concept. It is shaping how organizations think about identity, risk, and control at scale.
We also explored how the idea of the "adaptive secure desktop" is evolving beyond traditional VDI thinking. Instead of static devices, the focus is shifting toward environments that respond dynamically to the user, their role, their location, and the level of risk in that moment. It raises an important question. How do you deliver that level of control without introducing friction for the user?
AI inevitably entered the conversation, but not in the way many might expect. Rather than focusing on features, John highlighted the acceleration of threat velocity. The time between vulnerability discovery and exploitation is shrinking rapidly, and with AI amplifying that speed, traditional detection and response models are struggling to keep up. The implication is clear. Security strategies need to shift toward prevention and control, not just reaction.
We also touched on emerging challenges around agentic AI, non-human identities, and the need to apply Zero Trust principles beyond people to machines. As organizations begin to explore these new models, questions around identity, access, and guardrails are becoming more complex and more urgent.
And throughout the conversation, one theme kept coming back and reducing complexity while increasing control. Whether it is through immutable operating systems, centralized policy enforcement, or contextual access, the goal is to simplify the environment while strengthening security outcomes.
As organizations continue their journey toward modernization, one question remains: Are we still layering new technology onto old models, or are we ready to rethink how access, identity, and control are delivered from the ground up?
What do you think, is Zero Trust finally becoming real at the endpoint, or is there still a gap between strategy and execution?
How long would it actually take your organization to recover every endpoint after a major cyber incident?
Recording live from IGEL Now And Next in Miami, I sat down with James Millington to explore a question that most businesses think they've answered, but rarely have. Because when you move beyond theory and start mapping out the real process, the numbers tell a very different story.
James shared examples from real organizations that tried to calculate recovery at scale. One estimated it would take over 5,000 person-hours to rebuild their estate. Another believed they could recover quickly, until they realized the scale of their environment made that assumption unrealistic. It raises a deeper question. Are we focusing too much on recovery and not enough on resilience?
The conversation quickly moved into what James calls the "endpoint recovery gap." While most organizations have invested heavily in data center resilience, failover environments, and backup strategies, far fewer have a clear plan for reconnecting users when endpoints are compromised. And without a working endpoint, even the most advanced infrastructure becomes inaccessible.
We also explored why so many organizations continue to rely on reimaging devices as a primary recovery strategy, despite the time, complexity, and operational disruption it creates. In many cases, it's not just slow. It's impractical at scale. And perhaps more concerning, some organizations still admit to having no defined plan at all.
One of the most memorable moments in the conversation came through a simple analogy. For years, we've been carrying the weight of outdated endpoint strategies, even though the solution has been sitting in front of us. Just like it took thousands of years to put wheels on a suitcase, the shift toward simpler, more resilient models often requires a moment of realization before change actually happens.
As application delivery continues to move toward SaaS, DaaS, and cloud environments, the role of the endpoint is also being redefined. Analysts are now calling for a move toward immutable, non-persistent endpoints that reduce attack surface and enable faster recovery. But as James points out, the real challenge is not awareness. It's an action.
As organizations continue to invest in security, infrastructure, and AI, one question remains: Are we still planning for recovery from failure, or are we finally designing systems that avoid it in the first place?
What do you think, are businesses ready to rethink endpoint strategy, or are we still carrying the baggage of the past?
What does it actually take to rethink the endpoint in a world shaped by AI, Zero Trust, and the growing convergence of IT and operational technology?
Recording live from IGEL Now and Next in Miami, I sat down with Matthias Haas to unpack what he describes as a genuine transformation moment for enterprise computing. This wasn't a conversation about incremental change. It was about challenging long-held assumptions around devices, security models, and how work is delivered in modern organizations.
Matthias shared how the idea of the "adaptive secure desktop" is moving beyond traditional thinking around VDI and desktop delivery. Instead of treating endpoints as static devices, the focus is shifting toward dynamic, context-aware environments that respond to who the user is, where they are, and what they need access to in that moment. It raises an important question for any organization. Are we still designing for devices, or for outcomes?
We also explored the growing complexity that comes with flexibility. With multiple ways to deliver applications across SaaS, DaaS, browsers, and local environments, there's a real risk of recreating the same fragmented systems companies are trying to move away from. Matthias offered insight into how orchestration, policy enforcement, and centralized management can help bring order to that complexity without adding friction for users.
Another key theme was the shift from static security models to continuous, contextual decision-making. As organizations move toward Zero Trust, the ability to evaluate risk in real time becomes essential. But that raises a delicate balance. How do you strengthen security without slowing people down? And how do you ensure that the user experience doesn't become the casualty of tighter controls?
The conversation also touched on the challenges of bringing IT and OT environments together. While the opportunity to unify these worlds is significant, the realities are far more complex. Different risk tolerances, legacy systems, and operational priorities all come into play. Matthias offered a candid perspective on what it will take to make that convergence work in practice, not just in theory.
So as enterprises continue to rethink their infrastructure in an AI-driven world, one question keeps coming up. Are we simply layering new technology onto old models, or are we ready to fundamentally change how the endpoint fits into the bigger picture?
What do you think, are organizations truly ready to embrace adaptive, context-driven computing, or are we still holding on to outdated ways of working?
How do you rebuild an entire industry that most people accept as slow, fragmented, and frustrating?
In this episode, I sit down with Dan Lifshits, co-founder of Dwelly, to explore how AI is being used to rethink the rental market from the inside out. What struck me most in this conversation is how Dwelly isn't approaching property management as a software layer you simply bolt on. Instead, they are acquiring rental agencies and rebuilding the operating model itself, embedding AI into every workflow, from tenant communication to maintenance coordination and rent collection. It is a very different mindset, and one that challenges how many businesses think about digital transformation.
Dan brings a fascinating perspective shaped by his time competing in high-growth environments at companies like Uber and Gett. We talk about what those years taught him about scaling complex, operational businesses and how those lessons now apply to one of the largest and least digitized sectors in the economy. There is a clear parallel between ride-hailing and rentals, both are fragmented, both rely on two-sided marketplaces, and both have historically depended on manual processes that struggle to scale. As Dan explains, "long-term residential rentals ticks very similar boxes" to ride-hailing, which makes it ripe for reinvention.
We also spend time unpacking what an AI-powered rollup actually means in practice. This is where the conversation becomes particularly interesting for founders and business leaders. Rather than selling software into traditional businesses and hoping for adoption, Dwelly takes control of both the operations and the technology. That allows them to redesign workflows, remove bottlenecks, and deliver a more consistent experience for landlords and tenants alike. The result is a model where a single operator can manage hundreds, even thousands, of properties with a level of service that would have been impossible just a few years ago.
Of course, there are bigger implications here too. If this model works at scale, it raises questions about how many other service industries could be rebuilt in a similar way. It also highlights the growing role of venture-backed rollups, particularly with firms like General Catalyst backing this approach as a new investment category. But it is not without challenges. Changing operational behavior, integrating acquisitions, and maintaining service quality while scaling fast are all complex problems that cannot be solved by technology alone.
This episode left me thinking about where the real value in AI sits. Is it in the tools themselves, or in the willingness to rethink how a business actually operates? And if AI can transform something as established as property management, which industries are next in line for the same kind of reinvention?
I would love to hear your thoughts. Are AI-powered rollups the future of service industries, or do they introduce a new set of risks we are only beginning to understand?
How are businesses supposed to grow when technology is moving faster than regulation, customer expectations keep shifting, and AI is changing the rules in real time?
In this episode, I sat down with Derya Matras, Vice President of EMEA at Meta, to talk about what growth really looks like for businesses operating in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa right now.
This was a fascinating conversation because it went far beyond the usual talking points around AI and advertising. Derya brought a broader view of the pressure many businesses are under today, from macroeconomic uncertainty and political complexity to changing consumer behavior, tighter margins, and the need to adapt to a world where AI is now part of everyday decision making.
What really stood out to me was her point that this moment is about far more than adopting new tools. It is about culture, leadership, and having the discipline to know what you are actually trying to achieve.
Derya spoke about the importance of having a clear North Star goal, getting the foundations right, and making sure businesses are not simply adding AI into broken systems or unclear strategies. Because as she put it, AI can make everything more powerful, but it can also amplify mistakes. That is such an important point, especially at a time when so many companies are racing to show they are doing something with AI without always knowing what success should look like.
We also explored how Meta sees its role in supporting growth across Europe's digital economy. Derya shared insights into how Meta's platforms are helping businesses of all sizes reach customers in ways they simply could not do on their own.
For large companies, that may mean better measurement, faster optimization, and more personalized engagement. But for smaller businesses, the stakes can be even higher. She shared examples that brought those numbers to life, including entrepreneurs using Instagram and WhatsApp to reach global markets, support their families, and create jobs in ways that would have been out of reach just a few years ago.
Another part of the conversation I found especially interesting was the tension between innovation and regulation in Europe. Derya was honest about how complicated and fragmented the environment has become, and how that complexity can slow progress or delay the rollout of new products.
At the same time, she made a strong case that Europe still has a real opportunity ahead if it can find the right balance. That balance matters not only for big tech companies, but for startups, small businesses, creators, and the wider economy that increasingly depends on digital tools to compete and grow.
We also talked about creativity, measurement, AI assistants, wearables, and even how these technologies are beginning to shape life at home as much as at work. It all made for a conversation that felt very current, but also deeply practical.
So as AI becomes woven into advertising, business operations, and everyday life, are organizations truly building the foundations they need to benefit from it, or are they still chasing the next shiny thing? And what do you think Europe needs to get right to make sure innovation and opportunity can keep moving forward?
What happens when AI ambition starts moving faster than the infrastructure built to support it?
In this episode, I spoke with Lee Caswell, SVP of Product and Solutions at Nutanix, about the latest Enterprise Cloud Index and what it tells us about where enterprise IT really is right now. There is no shortage of AI headlines, product launches, and promises about what comes next, but this conversation gets behind the noise and into the operational reality that many business and technology leaders are now facing. As Lee explained, AI is not arriving in isolation. It is pulling containers, data strategy, hardware decisions, governance, and application modernization along with it.
One of the biggest themes in our conversation was the growing link between AI workloads and container adoption. Lee made the point that applications still sit at the top of the org chart, and infrastructure exists to serve them.
As more AI-enabled applications are built by developers who favor containers and Kubernetes-based environments, enterprises are being pushed to rethink how they support those new workloads.
We talked about why containers are becoming such an important part of modern application strategy, how they help organizations handle distributed AI use cases, and why many businesses are trying to balance speed and flexibility without giving up the resilience and control they have spent years building into their infrastructure.
We also spent time on the less glamorous side of AI adoption, but arguably the part that matters most. Shadow AI, data sovereignty, unpredictable token costs, and infrastructure readiness are all becoming board-level issues.
Lee shared why so many organizations are realizing that AI cannot simply be layered onto existing systems without deeper changes underneath. New hardware, new software, new governance models, and a more consistent approach across edge, on-prem, private cloud, and public cloud environments are all part of the picture now.
What I enjoyed most about this conversation was that it never framed AI as magic. It framed it as work. Real work that demands better architecture, sharper oversight, and faster decision-making from IT teams that are already under pressure.
So if your organization is racing to adopt AI, are you also building the foundation needed to support it responsibly, and where do you think the biggest risk sits right now? Share your thoughts with me.
How far can we trust research that is generated without asking a single human being?
In this episode, I sat down with Jordan Harper from Qualtrics to unpack one of the most talked-about developments at the Qualtrics X4 Summit, synthetic research. It is a topic that sparks curiosity, excitement, and a fair amount of skepticism in equal measure. And honestly, that tension is exactly why this conversation matters.
Jordan brings a rare mix of scientific thinking and real-world technology experience, which makes him well placed to cut through the hype. We explored what synthetic panels actually are, and just as importantly, what they are not.
While many assume this is simply about asking a large language model for answers, the reality is far more nuanced. The approach Jordan and his team are building is grounded in how humans respond to surveys, trained on vast datasets to reflect the inconsistencies, biases, and unpredictability that make human insight valuable in the first place.
What stood out throughout our conversation was the idea that synthetic research should be seen as additive rather than a replacement. It offers speed, flexibility, and the ability to test ideas quickly, but it does not replace the depth and lived experience that only real people can provide. In fact, some of the most interesting insights come from comparing synthetic responses with human ones, revealing patterns, biases, and even blind spots in traditional research methods.
We also got into the practical side of things. From controlling for issues like survey fatigue and social desirability bias, to experimenting with question design in ways that would be difficult with human respondents, synthetic research opens up new ways of working. At the same time, it raises important questions about validation, trust, and where to draw the line when decisions carry real-world consequences.
For me, this episode is about perspective. In a world where AI is accelerating everything, it can be tempting to look for shortcuts. But as Jordan explains, the real value comes from using these tools thoughtfully, alongside human insight rather than in place of it.
So as this technology continues to evolve, how should researchers and business leaders strike that balance? And where could synthetic research help you ask better questions before you make your next big decision?
What does customer experience really mean when every company claims to put the customer first?
In this episode, I sat down with Jeannie Walters, founder of Experience Investigators, to unpack why so many organizations talk about customer experience yet struggle to turn it into something that drives real business outcomes. With more than two decades of hands-on work across industries, Jeannie brings a perspective that cuts through the noise and focuses on what actually works inside complex organizations.
Our conversation took place at the Qualtrics X4 Summit, where one theme kept resurfacing. While AI dominated headlines, there was a noticeable shift back toward strategy, discipline, and accountability.
Jeannie has been making that case for years. As she explained, customer experience cannot sit on the sidelines as a reporting function or a collection of metrics. It has to become a daily business discipline, one that shapes decisions across leadership, operations, and culture.
We explored the thinking behind her new book, Experience Is Everything, and the patterns she has seen repeated across organizations. Leaders invest in tools, gather feedback, and build dashboards, yet still struggle to connect those efforts to outcomes like retention, revenue, and long-term trust. Jeannie argues that the missing piece is often clarity.
What does customer-centric actually mean for your organization? What are you trying to achieve, and how will you measure success in a way that matters to the business? Without those answers, even the best technology will fall short.
There were also some honest reflections on AI. While it is accelerating everything, it also raises the stakes. Customers are becoming more aware of how their data is used, and trust is becoming harder to earn and easier to lose. That creates both an opportunity and a risk.
Organizations that treat customer experience as a strategic priority can use AI to strengthen relationships, while those that treat it as a cost center may simply scale poor experiences faster.
What stood out most in this conversation was the shift from theory to action. From redefining teams that were stuck reporting on metrics to empowering them to lead business change, Jeannie shared practical examples of how mindset, strategy, and execution come together. It is a reminder that customer experience is not owned by one team. It is something that either shows up in every interaction or not at all.
So as AI continues to reshape how businesses operate, are we using it to deepen trust and deliver better experiences, or are we simply amplifying what already exists? And where does customer experience truly sit inside your organization today?
What does a great patient experience really look like when people are at their most vulnerable?
In this episode, I sat down with Stanford Health Care's SVP and Chief Patient Experience and Operational Performance Officer, Alpa Vyas, to explore how one of the world's leading healthcare organizations is rethinking the human side of care.
From the outside, healthcare is often seen as a system of processes, technology, and clinical outcomes. But as Alpa explains, every interaction sits within a deeply emotional moment in someone's life, where fear, uncertainty, and complexity collide. That reality shapes everything.
Our conversation goes back to the early days of Stanford's transformation, where Alpa recognized a gap that many organizations still struggle with today. Improvement efforts were underway, systems were being optimized, yet the patient voice was largely absent. Inspired by design thinking principles from Stanford's own d.school, her team began with empathy as the foundation. That shift changed the direction of everything that followed, from how feedback was gathered to how decisions were made across the organization.
We also explored the role of technology, and where it truly fits. There is often a temptation to lead with AI or automation, but Alpa brings the focus back to culture, behavior, and trust. Technology, including platforms like Qualtrics, became powerful once the right questions were being asked and the right mindset was in place.
Moving from delayed paper surveys to real-time feedback transformed not only how quickly issues could be addressed, but how patients felt heard. One story stood out where a patient received a follow-up call before even leaving the parking lot, a simple moment that redefined their perception of care.
We also touched on "Operation Blue Sky," an initiative that looks beyond traditional surveys to capture insight from call recordings, messages, and other unstructured data sources. It opens the door to a future where healthcare providers can anticipate problems before they happen and intervene at the right moment. That raises important questions around pace, trust, and readiness, especially in an industry that has good reason to move carefully.
This episode is ultimately a conversation about balance. Between innovation and responsibility, between efficiency and empathy, and between data and human connection. So how do we ensure that as healthcare becomes more advanced, it also becomes more human? And what lessons from this journey could apply far beyond healthcare?
What happens when customer experience stops being a soft metric and starts becoming a direct driver of revenue, retention, and real-time action?
In this episode, I sat down with Jeff Gelfuso, SVP and Chief Product and Experience Officer at Qualtrics, during X4 Summit in Seattle to talk about how AI is changing the way businesses understand and improve customer relationships. Jeff shared how his role sits at the point where product, experience, and business outcomes meet, helping customers use Qualtrics in ways that are both practical and measurable.
One of the biggest themes in our conversation was the shift from simply listening to customers to actually doing something in the moment. For years, many companies have relied on surveys, dashboards, and reports that told them what had already gone wrong. Jeff explained how that model is changing fast. With AI, organizations can now understand signals as they happen and trigger action before a poor experience turns into churn, frustration, or lost revenue.
We talked about examples from brands like Marriott and TruGreen, and this is where the conversation became especially interesting. In TruGreen's case, AI-powered analysis helped reveal that service quality, not price, was the real reason customers were leaving. That kind of insight changed the conversation from guesswork to financial impact. When one point of retention can mean $10 million in annual revenue, experience suddenly becomes a boardroom issue, not just a customer service metric.
Jeff also offered a refreshingly clear view on agentic AI. Instead of treating it as another layer of hype, he described it as a way to turn experience data into action, using context to help businesses close the loop faster and with greater precision. That means moving beyond smarter dashboards and toward systems that can surface priorities, recommend next steps, and help teams act without getting buried in complexity.
Another standout part of the discussion was how Qualtrics is helping customers move beyond pilot purgatory. Jeff was candid that meaningful AI progress still takes work, focus, and the discipline to solve the right problems first. The companies seeing real value are not trying to do everything at once. They are identifying specific use cases, tying them to real business outcomes, and building from there.
What I enjoyed most about this conversation was how clearly Jeff connected technology to human experience. Yes, there was plenty of discussion around AI, automation, and context, but at the heart of it all was something much simpler. Better experiences build stronger relationships, and stronger relationships drive loyalty, trust, and growth.
So if your business is still treating experience as a nice-to-have instead of a measurable driver of performance, what might you be missing right in front of you? I would love to hear your thoughts after listening.
What does it really mean to lead in AI when the headlines are loud, the claims are endless, and the real signals are often buried under hype?
In this episode, I sit down with Ed White from Clarivate to make sense of one of the most important questions in technology right now, who is actually leading the AI innovation race, and what does the data really tell us?
Ed leads the Clarivate Centre for IP and Innovation Research, where his team analyzes enormous volumes of intellectual property and innovation data to understand where technology is heading, who is building it, and which ideas are likely to shape the future. That matters because AI is no longer a side story inside tech. It is becoming an economic issue, a business issue, and increasingly a geopolitical one too.
Our conversation centers on fresh Clarivate research showing that AI patent filings passed 1.1 million overall by 2025, with growth accelerating at a pace that is hard to ignore. Ed helps unpack what that actually means in practical terms.
I found this especially interesting because the report does not simply point to the familiar names everyone already talks about. It also highlights academic institutions, automotive companies, and businesses working behind the scenes with far less noise.
What I enjoyed most about this discussion is that Ed brings a rare mix of technical depth and real clarity. He does not just throw out huge numbers and leave them hanging there. He explains what they mean for investors, enterprise leaders, governments, and anyone trying to understand where this market is heading next.
We also get into one of the biggest tensions in AI today, the balance between speed and assurance. That part really stayed with me. In a market obsessed with moving fast, Ed makes a strong case that trust, explainability, and usability may end up shaping who actually wins.
This is a conversation about much more than patents. It is about power, strategy, timing, and how innovation spreads across borders, industries, and institutions. If you want to cut through the noise and hear a more data-led view of the AI race, this episode will give you plenty to think about.
As always, I would love to hear what stood out to you most after listening, so please share your thoughts with me. When you look at the AI race today, do you think the real leaders are the companies making the most noise, or the ones quietly building for the long term?
What does it really take to move AI from impressive demos into the hands of the people who keep the world running every day?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Kriti Sharma, CEO of IFS Nexus Black, to explore a side of AI that rarely gets the spotlight. While much of the conversation around artificial intelligence focuses on chatbots and copilots, Kriti is working in environments where failure is not an option. Manufacturing plants, energy grids, airlines, and field service operations all depend on precision, experience, and consistency. What struck me early in our conversation was how she reframes the entire AI debate. The challenge is not building the technology, it is building trust in it.
Kriti's journey into AI began long before it became a boardroom priority. From building her first robot as a teenager to advising global organizations and policymakers, she has always focused on solving real problems rather than chasing trends. That perspective carries through into her work today, where she spends time on factory floors wearing safety gear alongside engineers and technicians.
It is a hands-on approach that reveals something many leaders miss. People do not adopt AI because it is advanced. They adopt it when it solves a problem they recognize in their day-to-day work.
One of the most interesting themes we explored was the widening gap between what AI can do and how quickly organizations are ready to use it. Kriti described how that gap plays out on the ground, especially among deskless workers who make up the majority of the global workforce.
In these environments, the conversation is far less about replacing jobs and far more about preserving knowledge, improving consistency, and helping people perform at their best. When a veteran worker with decades of experience walks out the door, that expertise often leaves with them. AI, when designed well, can help capture and share that knowledge across an entire workforce.
We also discussed how IFS Nexus Black is tackling what many describe as "pilot purgatory," where companies experiment with AI but struggle to deploy it at scale. Kriti shared how building solutions alongside customers, rather than handing over generic tools, leads to faster adoption and measurable results.
Real-world examples brought this to life, including how industrial AI is helping organizations move from reactive firefighting to proactive decision-making, reducing downtime and improving operational performance in ways that directly impact the bottom line.
As our conversation moved toward the future, Kriti offered a clear message for leaders. The best way to prepare for AI is to start using it. Not as a novelty, but as a daily tool that can amplify how work gets done. The organizations that encourage experimentation and share those learnings across teams are the ones most likely to see real impact.
So as AI continues to evolve at pace, the question is no longer whether the technology is ready. It is whether organizations and their people are ready to meet it halfway, and what happens if they are not?
How are global payment systems quietly shifting beneath our feet, and what does that mean for businesses trying to grow across borders?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Stuart Neal, CEO of Boku, to unpack a transformation that many consumers barely notice but every global business feels.
Payments have long been dominated by familiar names like Visa and Mastercard, yet Stuart explains how that dominance is slowly being challenged by a surge in local payment methods. From mobile wallets in emerging markets to direct carrier billing in places where credit cards are far from universal, the way people pay is becoming far more fragmented, and far more local.
What stood out for me in this conversation was the geopolitical and economic dimension behind it all. Stuart highlighted how events like the pandemic and even global conflicts have pushed governments and central banks to rethink their reliance on external payment networks.
When entire payment systems can be switched off overnight, it forces countries to consider building their own infrastructure. That shift is not only about sovereignty, it is about control over financial ecosystems, consumer behavior, and ultimately economic stability.
We also explored what this means for businesses still operating with a card-first mindset. While card payments are not disappearing, their relative share is being overtaken by a growing ecosystem of alternative methods. That creates both opportunity and complexity.
Companies now face the challenge of integrating hundreds of payment options across multiple markets, each with its own regulations, currencies, and customer expectations. Stuart offered a candid view that for most organizations, building this infrastructure alone is unrealistic, which is why aggregation platforms like Boku are stepping in to bridge that gap.
The conversation then turned toward the future, particularly the rise of agentic AI and what Stuart described as the "last mile problem" in payments. While AI may soon handle discovery and purchasing decisions, the moment of payment still requires trust, authentication, and verification. That friction is not a flaw, it is a safeguard, and it raises important questions about how seamless commerce can really become.
We also touched on subscription fatigue, cross-border expansion, and the lessons global brands like Microsoft and Netflix have learned about meeting customers where they are. One thing became clear throughout our discussion. If you ignore local payment preferences, you are effectively turning away a large portion of your potential audience.
So as payment methods continue to evolve and diversify, are businesses ready to rethink their assumptions about how money moves, or will they risk being left behind in a world that is becoming increasingly local at scale?
What does it really take to turn a massive AI infrastructure investment into actual business value?
In this episode, I'm joined by Alex Bouzari, founder and CEO of DDN, for a conversation that gets right to the heart of where AI infrastructure is heading next. There is a lot of noise in the market about faster chips, larger models, and bigger data centers, but Alex argues that the real story has changed. According to him, GPUs are no longer the main constraint. The true bottleneck now lies in the data layer, where data is moved, cached, served, and managed across increasingly complex AI environments.
That shift matters because many organizations are still thinking about AI in terms of hardware acquisition. Buy more GPUs, add more power, build more capacity. But as Alex explains, that mindset misses the bigger picture.
If your data architecture cannot keep pace, those expensive systems stall, efficiency drops, and the return on investment quickly becomes shaky. It was a timely discussion, especially as NVIDIA's Rubin platform points toward rack-scale AI factories where compute, networking, storage, and offload all need to work together as one operational system.
One part I found especially interesting was Alex's focus on measuring efficiency. He argued that the future winners in AI will not simply be the companies with the most hardware. They will be the ones who think like industrial operators, measuring cost per token, rack utilization, time-to-value, and power consumption per unit of intelligence output. That is a very different conversation from the hype cycle, and it is one that business leaders need to hear. AI value is no longer about showing that something can work. It is about proving that it can work predictably, securely, and economically at scale.
We also talked about DDN's collaboration with NVIDIA, the role of BlueField-4 DPUs, and why inference performance now depends on intelligent memory architecture and data movement just as much as raw compute. Alex shared how DDN is helping customers reach up to 99 percent GPU utilization and reduce time to first token for long context workloads. Those numbers are impressive on their own, but what matters most is what they represent—better throughput, lower waste, and AI systems that move from science project to production reality.
There is also an important leadership lesson running through this conversation. DDN has been profitable for over a decade, powers more than one million GPUs worldwide, and has built its business by staying close to real customer pain points. Alex speaks with the kind of clarity that comes from building through constraints rather than simply talking around them.
If AI factories are going to define the next phase of enterprise technology, how should leaders rethink infrastructure, efficiency, and value creation before they invest in the next wave, and what do you think?
Are employees really ready for AI in the workplace, or are we moving faster than people can realistically keep up?
In this episode, I'm joined by David Evans, Chief Product Strategist at GoTo, to explore what is actually happening inside organizations as AI becomes part of everyday work. There is a growing assumption that businesses are already well on their way, with employees confidently using AI tools and leaders rolling out strategies at pace. But David brings a more measured view, backed by research and real-world insight, that suggests the picture is far more complex.
One of the biggest themes in our conversation is the gap between expectation and reality. Many companies assume that younger employees, particularly Gen Z, naturally understand how to use AI in a professional setting. David challenges that idea directly. He explains that while familiarity with technology is high, the ability to apply AI effectively, responsibly, and in a business context is something that every generation is still learning. Without clear guidance, training, and governance, organizations risk creating confusion rather than progress.
We also talk about how AI is quietly becoming embedded in everyday workflows. Instead of replacing roles outright, it is helping people shift their focus toward higher-value work. That shift is already visible in areas like customer support, where contact centers are evolving through smarter automation, better tools for agents, and a growing acceptance of remote and distributed teams. David shares what this could look like over the next year, and why the balance between human and machine will remain central to delivering good experiences.
Another area we explore is the growing need for integration. Many organizations are dealing with fragmented communication tools, rising costs, and increasing complexity. David explains why there is a clear move toward unified platforms that bring communication, collaboration, and AI together in a more cohesive way. That includes the rise of conversational AI, with tools like AI receptionists becoming easier to deploy and more widely trusted.
Of course, none of this happens without challenges. Security, data privacy, and the risks associated with shadow IT and generative AI are becoming more visible. David outlines how technology providers are responding, and what leaders need to think about as they balance innovation with responsibility.
This conversation offers a grounded look at where workplace AI is heading, cutting through assumptions and focusing on what leaders need to understand right now.
So as AI becomes part of the fabric of everyday work, are organizations doing enough to support their people, or are they expecting too much too soon?
How can companies be drowning in customer data and still struggle to make better decisions?
In this episode, I speak with Jochem van der Veer, CEO and co-founder of TheyDo, about a problem that many business leaders quietly recognize but rarely solve. Organizations are investing heavily in customer experience and AI, yet the results often fall short. There is more data than ever before, more dashboards, more reporting, and still a disconnect between insight and action.
Jochem offers a refreshing perspective shaped by his work with global brands like Ford, Atlassian, Cisco, and Home Depot. He explains that the issue is not a lack of data, but a lack of alignment.
Teams operate in silos, each working with their own version of the truth, which leads to fragmented decisions that make sense internally but fail from the customer's point of view. It is not intentional, but the outcome is the same. A disconnected experience that slows progress and creates hidden costs across the business.
We spend time unpacking what this looks like in practice. Many customer experience teams are still focused on collecting and reporting data rather than influencing decisions. Insights travel up the organization, often reaching senior leadership, but rarely translate into meaningful action. That gap, as Jochem describes it, turns customer experience into a cost center rather than a driver of growth.
What makes this conversation particularly relevant right now is the role of AI. While AI has made it easier to process vast amounts of unstructured data, it has also exposed how unprepared many organizations are to act on it.
Jochem shares how experience intelligence is emerging as a new way of thinking, one that connects customer feedback, operational data, and business outcomes into a single, actionable view. It shifts the focus from understanding what happened to deciding what to do next.
We also explore the partnership between TheyDo and PwC, and how combining structured frameworks with journey management technology can help organizations move from strategy to execution. From reducing wasted investment to identifying the real root causes behind customer issues, there is a clear opportunity to rethink how decisions are made.
This episode challenges some widely held assumptions, including the idea that customer experience is a standalone function. Instead, it is becoming a capability that needs to be embedded across the entire organization.
So as AI continues to accelerate the pace of business, are companies ready to move beyond reporting and finally turn customer insight into meaningful action?
What happens when financial markets stop reacting to data and start reacting to narratives in real time?
In this episode, I'm joined by Wilson Chan, CEO and founder of Permutable AI, to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping the way financial institutions interpret the world around them. Wilson brings a rare perspective, combining years of experience as a trader with a deep background in computer science, and it shows in the way he describes this shift.
We talk about how markets are moving away from traditional quant models and toward AI-native systems that can reason over vast amounts of unstructured global information. That includes everything from policy changes and geopolitical events to the subtle ways narratives form and spread across media.
What stood out to me in this conversation is how Wilson challenges the idea that markets are driven purely by fundamentals. Instead, he argues that perception and reality are increasingly intertwined.
If enough people believe a story, that belief can influence price movements just as much as financial performance. Permutable AI is built on this idea, scanning hundreds of thousands of articles in real time to identify how narratives evolve and impact commodities, energy markets, and currencies. It's a fascinating shift that raises important questions about how investors separate meaningful insight from noise.
We also explore the role of vertical LLMs and why generic AI models fall short in financial environments. Wilson explains how embedding financial relationships and ontology directly into models creates outputs that are structured, traceable, and ready for decision-making. That focus on explainability and auditability becomes even more important as AI systems take on greater responsibility. If something goes wrong, understanding why it happened is what maintains trust, and without that, adoption quickly stalls.
There's also a broader conversation here about where all of this is heading. From multi-agent systems replacing traditional analytics stacks to the ambition to build a full-world simulator for capital markets, it feels like we are at the early stages of something much bigger. But at the same time, Wilson is honest about the challenges, from integration hurdles to the human skills gap that continues to hold many organizations back.
So if markets are now shaped by narratives, AI reasoning, and real-time global signals, how should business leaders and investors rethink their decision-making in the future?
What does customer experience look like inside a company most people associate with switches, infrastructure, and engineering rather than surveys, empathy, and brand perception?
In this episode, recorded at the Qualtrics X4 event in Seattle, I sit down with Jerome Boissou, Head of Global Customer and Brand Experience at Legrand. Jerome has been with the company for 28 years and now leads a customer experience program designed to help Legrand better understand a customer base that is changing fast.
This matters because Legrand is no longer serving only its traditional markets. The company now operates across a huge product portfolio, serves commercial buildings as well as residential markets, and plays a significant role in areas such as data centers and hospitality.
At the heart of our conversation is Legrand's "Best Of Us" program, which was originally launched in 2018 and then revamped in 2021. Jerome explains that the original focus was on personas and journey mapping, but the company soon realized it needed a more quantitative approach too. What followed was a broader strategy built around three connected pillars: customer satisfaction, customer centricity, and brand equity. Rather than treating customer experience as a dashboard exercise, Legrand is using those pillars to improve business performance, spread customer knowledge internally, and help teams understand what different customer groups really want, expect, and struggle with.
One of the strongest themes in this conversation is that feedback without action creates frustration. Jerome is very clear on that point. He explains how Legrand built a "close the loop" process, then went further with what the company calls a "customer room" process. That means identifying pain points and weak signals, routing them to the right internal teams, tracking them with KPIs, and making sure action follows. He shares that 100 percent of detractors are meant to be handled through that closed-loop approach, and that around 80 percent of pain points can be solved as quick wins. That is a refreshing reminder that customer experience only matters when it changes something.
We also talk about the scale of measuring experience in a global B2B organization. Legrand runs yearly relational surveys for both direct and indirect customers, covering around 50 different personas, and supplements that with transactional surveys across 17 touchpoints. These include digital interactions, training, product launches, and post-case feedback from call centers.
Jerome explains how Qualtrics became a key part of making that global program work, helping Legrand roll out surveys worldwide and giving teams a way to analyze feedback more easily and consistently.
Of course, this being a tech podcast recorded at X4, we also get into AI. But what stood out to me is that Jerome does not talk about AI as a magic layer dropped on top of everything. He talks about context. In fact, context becomes one of the defining ideas in our conversation. Capturing feedback is useful, but understanding the environment around that feedback is what allows better decisions to happen. For Jerome, that is where AI becomes more useful, especially when it is trained within the reality of Legrand's complex markets rather than operating as a generic tool.
Another part of this episode I found especially interesting is how Legrand brings employees into the customer experience process. Jerome shares an example of sending the same surveys to employees and asking them to answer from the customer's point of view.
By comparing employee perception with actual customer feedback, Legrand can spot gaps, adjust training, and help teams build more empathy. In one case, factory teams thought customers were far less satisfied than they really were, simply because the internal metrics they saw every day focused only on pressure and output.
Reframing that with real customer satisfaction data, including a product quality satisfaction score of around 95 percent, helped restore pride and perspective.
This episode is really about something bigger than surveys or software. It is about how a global company can embed customer thinking into the culture, make people feel part of the process, and use data in a way that stays human. Jerome makes a strong case that customer experience in B2B is not separate from performance. It shapes brand perception, trust, internal alignment, and ultimately business outcomes.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. How is your organization making sure customer feedback leads to action rather than just another report?
What does it take to turn millions of customer interactions into meaningful relationships instead of missed opportunities?
In this episode, recorded live at the Qualtrics X4 Summit in Seattle, I sit down with James Bauman, Senior Director and Head of Experience, Analytics, and Insights at TruGreen. James leads customer experience, analytics, and retention strategy across a business that manages around 60 million customer touchpoints every year. And as he explains, that scale creates both opportunity and risk.
At the center of our conversation is a challenge he describes as the "leaky bucket." TruGreen was investing heavily in acquiring customers, but too many were slipping away due to inconsistent experiences and missed moments. The real question became how to understand what customers actually need, when they need it, and how to respond in a way that builds trust and long-term loyalty.
We explore how TruGreen built an omnichannel customer experience program designed to listen across every interaction, from digital channels to service calls, and connect that feedback with real customer behavior. But what stood out to me was how they moved beyond simply collecting feedback and into taking action in the moment.
That's where AI agents come in. Rather than relying solely on traditional follow-up processes, TruGreen is now embedding AI directly into customer check-ins and surveys. These agents respond in real time, using context from the customer's history and recent interactions to provide relevant, immediate support. It changes the experience from something reactive to something far more responsive.
The impact has been significant. James shares how AI agents are now addressing around 51% of customer concerns upfront and cutting escalations by more than 30%. At the same time, they are freeing up human teams to focus on the conversations that truly require empathy and relationship-building, rather than spending time on repetitive follow-ups that may never get a response.
We also talk about the reality behind making this work. There's no shortcut. The speed of implementation came from the groundwork TruGreen had already put in place, building a strong data foundation and connecting systems across the business. Without that, the AI would lack the context needed to be useful.
James also challenges some of the common narratives around AI. It's not something you can simply switch on and expect instant results. But it's also far from hype when applied thoughtfully. In his experience, AI agents can deliver real value, both in customer outcomes and business performance, when they are placed in the right moments and supported by the right data.
For me, this conversation is a reminder that customer experience is shifting. It's moving away from slow feedback loops and into something far more immediate, where businesses can listen, understand, and act in real time.
And I'd love to hear your perspective. Are you seeing AI agents genuinely improve customer experience in your organization, or are you still trying to figure out where they fit?
What does it really take to move from AI hype to something that actually works inside a business?
In this episode, I sit down with Shibani Ahuja, SVP of Enterprise IT Strategy at Salesforce, to talk about why so many enterprise AI projects stall long before they deliver real value. While the market is full of noise around agents, copilots, and automation, Shibani makes the case that the real issue is often much simpler and much harder at the same time. Design. She explains why model capability alone will never rescue poor architecture, weak governance, or unclear data ownership.
Our conversation goes well beyond the usual agentic AI headlines. Shibani shares what she learned from speaking with hundreds of C-suite leaders over the past year, and why many early enterprise AI conversations were too focused on models instead of ecosystems. We unpack the difference between predictive, generative, and agentic AI, why trusted data means more than having lots of information, and how Salesforce's own internal journey revealed conflicting knowledge, governance gaps, and the importance of determinism in enterprise settings.
I also loved Shibani's perspective on the human side of this transformation. We talk about why successful organizations are framing agents as a capacity multiplier rather than a headcount story, how to bring employees along through visible wins and shared learning, and why the best starting point is often a simple, boring use case that removes pain for frontline teams. She also shares her thoughts on the eight design principles for the agentic enterprise, the myths that frustrate her most, and what will separate the leaders from the laggards over the next 18 to 24 months.
This is a conversation for anyone feeling pressure to do something with AI, but wanting a clearer view of what meaningful progress actually looks like. Are businesses building the right foundations for an agentic future, or are too many still mistaking experimentation for strategy? Have a listen and let me know your thoughts.
How is AI reshaping our relationship with work, and what does that mean for the tools we rely on every day?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Cory McElroy, Vice President of Commercial Product Management at HP. Our conversation begins with a reflection on one of the most famous garages in technology history. The original HP garage in Palo Alto is often described as the birthplace of Silicon Valley, and standing there recently reminded me how far the industry has come since those early days.
But as Cory explains, we may be entering another turning point. The nature of work has shifted rapidly in just a few years. Hybrid work is now the norm for millions of people, and expectations around workplace technology have changed with it. Employees no longer see technology as a basic productivity tool. They expect it to adapt to them, reduce friction, and help them focus on meaningful work.
Cory shares insights from HP's Work Relationship Index, which highlights a striking reality. Only around 20 percent of employees say they have a healthy relationship with work. That number sounds concerning at first, but it also points to an opportunity. When organizations provide the right tools and experiences, employees become more productive, more creative, and more likely to stay.
A big theme throughout our conversation is the growing role of AI directly on devices. Running AI locally on PCs changes how people interact with technology. Tasks that once took hours, such as analyzing documents or extracting insights from data, can now happen almost instantly. In some internal deployments at HP, employees reported saving up to four hours each week.
We also talk about the hardware innovations that are emerging in response to this shift. Cory explains how new devices like the HP EliteBook X and the EliteBoard reflect a rethink of the PC itself. The EliteBoard, for example, integrates a full PC inside a keyboard, allowing users to connect to any display and instantly access desktop-level performance. It is a design that reflects the flexibility people now expect from modern workspaces.
Looking ahead, Cory believes the next few years will bring even bigger change. Devices will increasingly understand context, connect seamlessly with other tools, and respond to natural language requests. Instead of jumping between multiple applications to complete a task, users may simply ask their device to assemble information and produce the outcome they need.
So as AI becomes embedded into the devices we use every day and work continues to evolve, what would a truly frictionless workday look like for you, and how will your relationship with technology change as a result?
How do you secure a modern business when identities no longer belong only to employees, but also to partners, machines, applications, and increasingly AI agents?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Paul Zolfaghari, President of Saviynt, to unpack why identity security has moved from a background IT function to one of the defining challenges facing modern enterprises. Over the past decade, the identity problem has expanded far beyond the traditional office worker logging into internal systems. Today's organizations must manage access across a vast digital ecosystem that includes contractors, suppliers, customers, APIs, machines, and now autonomous AI agents.
Paul explains how this shift has fundamentally changed the way security leaders think about identity governance. The challenge is no longer limited to preventing unauthorized access from outside attackers. Instead, companies must manage the complex question of who, or what, should have access to specific data, systems, and processes at any given moment. When thousands of employees, partners, and automated systems interact across multiple cloud platforms, the complexity grows rapidly.
We also explore how the rise of non-human identities is reshaping the security landscape. Machines, software services, and AI agents now operate alongside human employees inside enterprise environments. In many cases, these digital identities are already beginning to outnumber people. As AI agents gain the ability to gather information, adapt to context, and take actions autonomously, organizations must rethink how access permissions are granted, monitored, and governed.
Another theme that emerged during our conversation is the idea that identity security is not only about protection. While it clearly sits within the cybersecurity domain, Paul argues that identity governance also acts as a business enabler. When the right people and systems can access the right information at the right time, organizations operate more efficiently and collaborate more effectively across complex supply chains and partner ecosystems.
We also discussed findings from Saviynt's CISO AI Risk Report, which highlights a growing concern among security leaders. AI adoption is accelerating rapidly, often moving faster than the governance frameworks designed to manage it. This creates a challenge for organizations trying to adopt AI responsibly while maintaining visibility and control over how these technologies interact with enterprise systems.
With more than 600 enterprise customers and a recent $700 million growth investment backing its expansion, Saviynt is operating in a market that many investors now view as one of the defining layers of modern digital infrastructure. Identity, in many ways, is becoming the control plane for how businesses operate in an AI driven world.
Looking ahead, Paul believes organizations must begin preparing for a future where digital identities dramatically outnumber human employees. That shift will require new approaches to governance, visibility, and control.
So as AI adoption accelerates and businesses continue expanding across cloud platforms and digital ecosystems, one question becomes impossible to ignore. Is identity security ready to serve as the foundation for how organizations operate in the next decade?
How prepared are organizations for a world where today's encrypted communications could be quietly stored and cracked years from now? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Nate Jenniges, Senior Vice President and General Manager at BlackBerry, to talk about why the conversation around quantum computing is moving from academic curiosity to operational reality.
For many leaders, quantum threats still feel distant, something for researchers and cryptographers to worry about. But as Nate explained, governments and adversaries are already capturing encrypted data today with the expectation that it can be decrypted later when quantum capabilities mature.
This idea of "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks completely changes the timeline for security planning. If sensitive information needs to remain confidential for five, ten, or even twenty years, the exposure may already have started. That means the challenge is no longer theoretical. It is becoming a strategic issue that boards, CISOs, and government leaders must begin addressing right now.
One of the most interesting parts of our conversation focused on something many people rarely think about. Metadata. While encryption protects the content of a message or phone call, the surrounding patterns often reveal just as much. Who spoke to whom, how often, from where, and at what time can tell a surprisingly detailed story. With modern analytics and AI tools, these patterns can expose command structures, business relationships, or crisis response activity even if the message itself remains encrypted.
Nate explained why this is becoming a frontline issue in the emerging post-quantum era. As organizations integrate AI into communication platforms, new forms of metadata are emerging from model interactions, system queries, and inference activities. That means protecting communications requires a broader view than simply upgrading encryption algorithms.
We also explored how governments and highly regulated sectors are preparing for this shift. BlackBerry today operates in a very different space than many people remember, focusing on identity-verified, mission-critical communications used by governments and institutions that cannot afford uncertainty. These systems are designed to operate during the moments that matter most, whether that involves cyber incident response, national security coordination, or emergency response to climate-related events.
Another theme that stood out was the leadership challenge behind quantum readiness. Nate believes organizations should avoid treating quantum as a separate security initiative. Instead, it should be integrated into the technology refresh cycles that companies already manage, including hardware updates, software upgrades, and certificate renewals. The organizations that begin asking the right questions today will avoid scrambling later when regulatory expectations tighten and deadlines arrive.
By the end of our conversation, one message became very clear. The first real defense in the post-quantum era may not come from stronger encryption alone. It may come from understanding and controlling the communication patterns and metadata that surround every digital interaction.
As quantum computing research accelerates and governments begin setting deadlines for post-quantum security readiness, the question becomes increasingly hard to ignore. Are organizations truly prepared for the communications challenges that the next decade may bring?
Why are employees still drowning in administrative work despite years of digital transformation, new software platforms, and constant promises that technology will make work easier?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore that question with Jason Spry from Ricoh Europe. What begins as a discussion about a new Ricoh research report quickly turns into a much broader conversation about how modern workplaces actually operate day to day. The findings are striking. Employees across Europe are losing an average of 15 hours every week to routine administrative tasks. That is time spent searching for documents, reentering data across systems, preparing reports manually, and navigating layers of disconnected tools.
For many organizations, this creates a strange contradiction. Leadership teams often believe that new platforms and software will simplify workflows, yet many employees feel the opposite. The tools designed to make work easier sometimes create additional layers of complexity. Jason shares his perspective from nearly three decades in document processing and outsourcing, explaining how years of digital initiatives have often resulted in systems stacked on top of one another rather than genuinely simplified workflows. The result is a fragmented experience where finding the latest version of a document or locating the right information for a meeting can consume far more time than it should.
We also discuss the hidden risks behind these inefficiencies. When documents are scattered across systems or poorly managed, the consequences go beyond frustration. Ricoh's research shows that many organizations have experienced compliance breaches or near misses because important documents were missing, misfiled, or simply impossible to locate at the right moment. Jason explains why governance, visibility, and consistent document management are becoming increasingly important in a world where decisions rely on accurate information.
Another theme that runs throughout this conversation is the idea of marginal gains. Small inefficiencies like searching for files, reentering data, or preparing documents for meetings might seem trivial in isolation. Yet when they happen hundreds of times across a workforce, they add up to a serious productivity drain. Jason compares it to the concept of improving performance by one percent at a time. Removing even a few of these micro frustrations can transform how people experience their workday.
Naturally, we also talk about automation and AI. But Jason offers a refreshing perspective here as well. Rather than starting with the technology, he argues that organizations should begin by identifying the real pain points employees face. That often means speaking directly with the people doing the work and asking what frustrates them most. Once those challenges are clear, automation and intelligent document management tools can start delivering results quickly, sometimes within weeks rather than years.
By the end of the conversation, it becomes clear that solving the admin overload problem does not always require massive transformation projects. Often the answer lies in simplifying processes, connecting systems more intelligently, and removing the small friction points that slow everyone down.
So I am curious. How much time do you think your organization loses to administrative work each week, and what simple changes could give employees that time back?
How do you build trust in a business environment where security reviews, compliance demands, and vendor risk checks can slow everything down just when companies are trying to move faster?
In this episode, I sit down with Adam Markowitz, CEO and co-founder of Drata, to talk about why trust has become one of the most important business conversations in tech. Adam brings a fascinating perspective to the table. Before building Drata, he worked on NASA's space shuttle program, and today he leads a company that has grown rapidly by helping organizations rethink compliance, governance, risk, and assurance through automation and AI. What stood out to me in this conversation was how clearly he framed the real issue. Compliance may have been where many companies started, but trust is the bigger story. In a world shaped by cloud services, third party vendors, and constant security scrutiny, old point in time audits and reactive processes are starting to look painfully outdated.
We also talked about Drata's acquisition of SafeBase and what that says about the direction of the market. Adam explained how security and GRC teams have too often been treated as back office functions, expected to stay quiet and keep the company out of trouble. But he sees things very differently. He argues that these teams can actively help close deals, accelerate revenue, and remove friction from the buying process. That shift matters because trust now plays a direct role in business growth. If customers can quickly get answers to security questions and understand how a company manages risk, sales cycles move faster and security teams stop being bottlenecks at the final stage of a deal.
Another part of the conversation that really stayed with me was Adam's view on AI. He sees it as both a tailwind and a test. AI is helping automate highly manual GRC workflows, improve continuous compliance monitoring, and support newer frameworks tied to AI risk itself. At the same time, he is realistic about the pressure this puts on businesses. AI may introduce fresh concerns, but it also shines a harsher light on issues that have been around for years, things like access creep, weak controls, and data integrity problems. That honesty gave this discussion a lot of weight because it moved beyond hype and focused on what companies actually need to do.
We also touched on Drata's momentum as a business, from opening a new San Francisco headquarters to expanding globally and moving further into the enterprise market. But even there, Adam kept coming back to culture, discipline, and a deep understanding of the customer problem. For me, that was the thread running through the whole episode. Trust is not a side issue. It is part of how modern companies grow, compete, and prove they can be relied on.
If your business still sees compliance as a checkbox exercise or a cost center, this conversation will give you plenty to think about. Where do you see the relationship between trust, security, and growth heading next, and what did this episode make you question about the way your own organization handles compliance? Share your thoughts with me.
]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-(--header-height)" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "effc95df-294b-4192-9cc6-00e1eb5e3a7e" data-testid= "conversation-turn-1" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn="user"> ]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "request-WEB:25e8c325-0da6-411e-9e0d-dec02898c751-0" data-testid= "conversation-turn-2" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> What happens when the most frustrating part of customer service, waiting on hold, repeating yourself, and fighting your way through endless phone menus, finally starts to disappear?
In this episode, I sit down with Neil Hammerton, CEO and co-founder of Natterbox, to talk about how AI is reshaping customer experience in ways that feel practical rather than theatrical. We begin with a conversation about the gap between what customers have tolerated for years and what they expect now. Whether it is a bank that still puts you through layers of outdated IVR menus or a service team that answers straight away and solves the issue, those experiences stay with us. Neil makes the case that voice is far from dead. In fact, he believes voice is becoming one of the most exciting places to apply AI, especially when businesses want faster, more human interactions at scale.
What I found especially interesting was Neil's view that AI should be treated like a new employee. That means training matters. Tone matters. Context matters. If businesses want AI assistants and agents to succeed, they have to teach them how the organization works, how conversations should sound, and when a human needs to step in. We talk about the difference between using AI for simple triage and using it to complete tasks end to end, from handling password resets to helping callers outside office hours or during spikes in demand. Neil also shares why the smartest path is rarely a giant leap. It is usually a series of smaller, lower-risk steps that build confidence and real results over time.
We also get into one of the biggest concerns hanging over every AI conversation right now, whether these tools are replacing people or helping them do better work. Neil's answer is refreshingly balanced. In many cases, AI is taking care of the repetitive jobs that frustrate staff and slow down service, while freeing human agents to handle the conversations where empathy, judgment, and experience still matter most. That shift can improve customer experience while also making work more rewarding for the people on the front line.
There is also a strong message here for business leaders who are still stuck in pilot mode, testing AI without ever quite moving forward. Neil explains why smart pilots need clear goals, good training data, and realistic expectations. He also shares how Natterbox is using AI internally, including producing board packs in a fraction of the time, while still keeping people involved to check, challenge, and refine the output.
This episode is a thoughtful look at where customer experience is heading next, and why the future probably belongs to businesses that know when to let AI lead, when to keep humans in the loop, and how to blend both into something customers actually value. What are your thoughts on the balance between AI efficiency and human connection in customer service, and where do you think businesses are still getting it wrong?
How do you turn trillions of user interactions into meaningful decisions without drowning in data?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Todd Olson, co-founder and CEO of Pendo, to talk about the future of product-led organizations and why AI is reshaping how software companies grow, build, and compete.
Pendo tracks trillions of product usage events to help organizations understand how customers actually interact with their software. That level of data sounds powerful, but it also raises a challenge many teams face today. How do you turn massive data sets into clear signals that teams can act on without falling into analysis paralysis?
Todd explains how Pendo approaches this problem by organizing product data around real user journeys, feature adoption, and areas where people drop off. Instead of leaving teams buried in dashboards, the goal is to surface insights that matter. Increasingly, AI is helping by acting as a kind of embedded analyst that highlights the patterns product teams should focus on.
Our conversation also revisits the idea behind Todd's book, The Product-Led Organization. When it was published around the time of the pandemic, it argued that great products should do much of the heavy lifting traditionally done by sales or support teams. Looking back now, Todd believes the core idea remains intact. AI simply accelerates the model by allowing companies to experiment faster and scale product-driven experiences with far fewer people.
But that shift is also creating tension in the software industry. We talk about the so-called reckoning in SaaS economics and the growing debate around whether AI will make traditional software companies obsolete. Todd offers a more measured perspective. While AI allows anyone to prototype software quickly, the companies that survive will still be the ones solving difficult problems, navigating compliance requirements, and building products that customers trust.
Another theme we explore is geography and innovation. Pendo is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, far from the usual coastal tech hubs. Todd shares how building outside Silicon Valley has shaped the company's culture, talent strategy, and mindset. There are advantages to being close to the center of the AI boom, but there is also value in building away from the echo chamber.
We also spend time unpacking the rise of AI-assisted development and the trend many people call "vibe coding." Todd believes AI will dramatically reshape product teams, but he also pushes back against the idea that humans will disappear from the development process. Engineers will still need to review code, teach AI systems best practices, and ensure security and reliability.
One of the most interesting moments in our conversation comes near the end when Todd shares a belief that originality will become one of the most valuable assets in the age of AI. As automated content and automated code become easier to generate, he believes people will increasingly value craft, taste, and original thinking.
So in a world where AI can generate almost anything with a prompt, the real question becomes far more human. What problems are actually worth solving?
If you care about the future of software, product strategy, and how AI is reshaping the economics of building companies, this is a conversation that offers plenty to think about.
And after listening, I would love to hear your perspective. As AI becomes embedded in every product and workflow, do you believe originality and craft will become the true differentiators in the software industry?
Have you ever contacted customer support with a simple request, only to find yourself trapped in a loop of scripted chatbot responses that never actually solve the problem? It's an experience many of us know all too well.
AI has made customer service more conversational over the last few years, yet there is still a gap between answering a question and actually resolving an issue. That gap is exactly where today's conversation begins.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I spoke with Mike Szilagyi, SVP and General Manager of Product Management at Genesys Cloud, about a new chapter in AI-powered customer experience. Genesys has announced what it describes as the industry's first agentic virtual agent built on Large Action Models, or LAMs. While Large Language Models have dominated the conversation around AI for the past few years, they have largely focused on generating responses, retrieving knowledge, or answering questions. What they have struggled with is execution.
Mike explained how Large Action Models take the next step. Rather than simply telling a customer how to solve a problem, these systems can plan and execute the steps needed to complete a task. Imagine contacting an airline after a sudden flight cancellation.
Instead of navigating multiple menus or repeating information to a human agent, an agentic virtual assistant could understand your situation, check alternative flights, apply airline policies, and complete the rebooking process across several systems. In other words, the AI moves from conversation to action.
We also explored how Genesys approached the design of this technology with enterprise governance in mind. From explainable decision paths and audit logs to guardrails that ensure every automated action can be traced and understood, the goal is to make autonomous AI trustworthy inside complex organizations. Mike also shared insights into Genesys' partnership with Scaled Cognition and how integrating specialized models helps deliver reliable execution in real-world customer service environments.
Perhaps most interesting was our discussion about the human role in this evolving contact center landscape. As automation begins to handle routine and multi-step workflows, human agents are free to focus on situations that require empathy, judgment, and expertise. That shift raises interesting questions about how organizations design customer experiences in the years ahead.
So how will customers respond when virtual agents move beyond answering questions and begin resolving problems on their behalf? And once one brand delivers that experience, will it quickly become the expectation?
Useful Links
- Connect with Mike Szilagyi
- Learn more about Genesys
- Genesys Agentic Virtual Agent Powered by LAMs for Enterprise CX
- Follow on LinkedIn
]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-(--header-height)" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "616a78a9-936c-48a2-92f7-e1bbd7029cf6" data-testid= "conversation-turn-1" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn="user"> ]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "request-WEB:6d125332-007b-4d80-9352-ebefa0828121-0" data-testid= "conversation-turn-2" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> How do global companies make confident decisions when supply chains are constantly disrupted by tariffs, geopolitical tension, shifting consumer demand, and unpredictable global events?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Dr. Ashwin Rao, EVP of AI and R&D at o9 Solutions, to talk about how artificial intelligence is changing the way organizations plan, forecast, and respond to uncertainty. Ashwin brings a fascinating mix of experience to the conversation. After earning a PhD in mathematics and computer science, he spent fifteen years on Wall Street working on derivatives trading strategies at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley before moving into the world of enterprise technology. Today, he operates at the meeting point between business and academia as both a senior AI leader and an adjunct professor at Stanford University.
Our conversation begins with Ashwin's unusual career path and how those early experiences in finance shaped the way he thinks about risk, decision making, and real world AI deployment. The journey from theoretical mathematics to trading floors and eventually into Silicon Valley offers an interesting lens on how analytical thinking can travel across industries and still remain highly relevant.
We then move into the work happening at o9 Solutions, where AI is helping organizations make smarter decisions across supply chain planning, demand forecasting, and inventory management. In a world that Ashwin describes using the acronym VUCA, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, businesses are under pressure to react faster and make better informed decisions. He explains how enterprise AI platforms can connect fragmented data across departments and create a more complete view of the business.
One example he shares brings the concept down to earth. Even predicting how many bananas a grocery store should stock on any given day requires analyzing internal sales trends alongside external signals such as weather, social media trends, and economic conditions. Machine learning systems can now process those signals in real time and continuously update forecasts so businesses can respond quickly to changes.
We also explore the rise of neuro- and symbolic AI, a concept Ashwin believes represents the next stage in enterprise decision-making. Rather than relying only on large language models, this approach blends the structured reasoning of symbolic systems with the pattern recognition of neural networks. The result, he suggests, feels less like a chatbot and more like having an expert coach embedded inside the decision-making process.
Along the way, we also discuss why many organizations still struggle to embed AI successfully. Technology is only one piece of the puzzle. Ashwin believes the toughest obstacle is organizational change management, bringing teams together, connecting data across silos, and helping leaders guide their organizations through transformation.
If you have ever wondered how AI moves beyond chatbots and into the systems that quietly power global supply chains, this conversation offers a thoughtful and practical perspective.
So, how prepared is your organization to make decisions in a world defined by volatility and uncertainty, and could AI become the trusted partner that helps guide those choices?
Useful Links
- Ashwin's blog
- Ashwin's LinkedIn
- o9 Solutions Website
- o9 LinkedIn
What does it take to design a data center for a world where the technology inside it may change several times before the building even opens?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Jackson Metcalf, Principal at Gensler, to talk about how AI is forcing a complete rethink of data center design. Jackson has spent nearly two decades working on critical facilities, and in our conversation he explains how the shift from traditional cloud workloads to dense AI environments is changing everything from building form and cooling strategy to long-term infrastructure planning.
What struck me most in this conversation is the sheer mismatch in timescales. Data centers can take two and a half to three years to design and build, while chip and GPU roadmaps are evolving in cycles of months. Jackson explains why that means designing for a fixed end state no longer makes sense. Instead, the future may belong to facilities built with flexibility at their core, spaces that can be reconfigured, upgraded, and even conceptually rebuilt over time rather than treated as static assets.
We also talk about what hyper-flexibility actually means in practice. This is not just a buzzword. It is about designing buildings with enough structural and engineering headroom to support very different cooling and power models over their lifespan. As AI workloads push cabinet densities to levels that would have sounded impossible only a few years ago, the need for plug-and-play mechanical and electrical infrastructure becomes far more than a design preference. It becomes essential.
Another fascinating part of the conversation centers on sustainability. Jackson shares why durable, well-built structures can create long-term environmental value, even in an industry often criticized for its energy demands. We discuss embodied carbon, adaptive reuse, and why a high-quality building may have a much better second life than something built purely for short-term speed. That leads into a wider conversation about repositioning underused real estate, from former industrial facilities to vacant office buildings, as potential digital infrastructure.
We also get into the growing energy challenge behind AI. With demand for power rising fast, and the US grid under increasing pressure, many operators are now weighing options such as on-site natural gas generation while waiting for cleaner long-term alternatives to mature. Jackson offers a thoughtful perspective on the tension between urgent infrastructure needs and environmental responsibility, as well as the uncertainty surrounding future energy roadmaps.
Looking further ahead, I ask Jackson what will define a successful data center campus in the years to come. Will it be raw megawatts, adaptability, carbon intensity, location strategy, or something else entirely? His answer opens up a much bigger conversation about whether these buildings can become more connected to the communities around them, and what role they may play in a future where digital infrastructure is no longer hidden in the background, but central to how society functions.
So if AI is pushing data center design to extremes, how do we build facilities that are ready for what comes next without becoming obsolete almost as soon as they open? And what does sustainable, adaptable digital infrastructure really look like in practice?
How close are we to the moment when quantum computing moves from scientific curiosity to real-world infrastructure? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Christian Weedbrook, Founder and CEO of Xanadu, a company pushing the boundaries of what quantum computers might soon achieve.
Xanadu has taken an unconventional route in the race to build practical quantum systems. Instead of relying on electronic approaches used by many others in the field, the company builds quantum computers using photonics, effectively computing with particles of light. Christian explains why this matters and how working with photons could unlock advantages in energy efficiency, scalability, and networking as quantum machines grow into large data center–scale systems.
The conversation also arrives at a fascinating moment for the company. Xanadu has announced plans to go public through a SPAC deal that values the company at around $3.1 billion. Christian shares what that milestone means, not only for Xanadu but for the broader quantum ecosystem. According to him, the excitement surrounding quantum computing is no longer limited to research labs. Governments, enterprise partners, and investors are increasingly paying attention as the technology edges closer to commercial relevance.
One of the most engaging parts of our conversation is Christian's own journey into the world of quantum physics. Before earning a PhD in photonic quantum computing, he began as a film student who admits he once dreamed of becoming a filmmaker. That winding path eventually led him into physics and entrepreneurship, where he founded Xanadu in 2016 with a mission to make quantum computers useful and accessible to everyone.
We also discuss PennyLane, the open-source quantum programming framework developed by Xanadu that has quietly become one of the most widely used tools in the quantum developer community. Now taught in universities across more than 30 countries, PennyLane plays an important role in building the next generation of quantum talent.
Christian also shares a realistic timeline for where the industry stands today. Quantum computers already exist, but they remain smaller than what is needed for commercial breakthroughs. Xanadu's roadmap points toward large-scale quantum data centers by the end of the decade, systems capable of tackling problems in drug discovery, materials science, logistics, and finance that traditional computers struggle to simulate.
For enterprise leaders listening today, the message is clear. The quantum future is closer than many people assume, and organizations that begin exploring use cases now will be far better prepared when these systems mature.
So how should businesses prepare for a computing paradigm based on the mathematics of quantum physics rather than traditional software logic? And what lessons can founders learn from a journey that began with filmmaking ambitions and led to building one of the most ambitious quantum companies in the world? Let's find out together.
How can companies invest heavily in AI and still struggle to see meaningful returns?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Thomas Scott, CEO of Wrike, to unpack a growing tension many organizations are facing right now.
Artificial intelligence adoption is accelerating rapidly across the workplace, yet the structures needed to support it are struggling to keep pace. Wrike's latest research into the "Age of Connected Intelligence" reveals that more than 80 percent of employees are already using AI at work. Yet fewer than half have received any formal training, guidance, or governance around how these tools should be used.
That gap between enthusiasm and enablement is creating a new workplace phenomenon that many leaders are only just beginning to notice.
Shadow AI. When employees cannot find approved tools that solve their problems quickly, they often turn to unapproved applications or personal accounts instead. Wrike's data shows that 42 percent of workers admit they have already done this. For organizations handling sensitive data, intellectual property, or regulated information, that trend raises serious questions about security, compliance, and trust.
Thomas explains why this pattern is not surprising. Whenever a new technology emerges, the builders and experimenters move first. They explore possibilities, test new tools, and discover productivity gains long before formal policies or training frameworks arrive. The challenge for leadership teams is learning how to harness that momentum without letting experimentation turn into fragmentation.
We also explore one of the most overlooked barriers to AI return on investment. Integration. Many employees are now juggling multiple AI tools every week, yet those systems rarely communicate with one another or connect deeply into the core business platforms where real work happens. As a result, context gets lost, workflows become fragmented, and organizations end up running expensive pilots that never scale into meaningful transformation.
Thomas introduces the idea of connected intelligence as a possible solution. Instead of deploying AI tools in isolation, companies need systems that understand context across projects, teams, and workflows. When AI can access structured data, shared history, and operational context, it becomes far more capable of supporting real decision making rather than simply generating isolated outputs.
Our conversation also explores how leaders can move beyond scattered experimentation and start building structured AI adoption across their organizations.
Thomas argues that the most successful companies start with highly specific problems, empower small groups of motivated builders, and maintain strong executive involvement throughout the process. AI transformation is rarely driven by technology alone. It requires people, process, and leadership alignment working together.
So if your organization has already deployed AI tools but still struggles to see real impact, perhaps the question is not whether you are using AI. The real question might be whether those tools are truly connected to the work your teams are trying to do every day.
How should businesses rethink infrastructure when applications, data, and users are increasingly spread across thousands of locations?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Mark Cree, President and Chief Operating Officer at Scale Computing, to talk about why the future of enterprise infrastructure is moving closer to where data is actually created.
This conversation was recorded following the 66th edition of The IT Press Tour, where some of the most interesting conversations in enterprise infrastructure centered on what happens when businesses move away from oversized, monolithic stacks and start focusing on practical, distributed solutions. From retail stores and airports to remote industrial sites, the edge is becoming a critical part of modern IT strategy.
Mark shares how Scale Computing has spent years building an edge-first platform designed to run critical workloads reliably across everything from a single location to tens of thousands of distributed sites.
Mark also reflects on his own journey through the technology industry, which includes founding companies acquired by Cisco and NetApp, working as a venture capitalist, and leading major storage initiatives at AWS. That experience gives him a unique perspective on how enterprise infrastructure has evolved, particularly as organizations reconsider the balance between centralized cloud environments and local processing closer to users and devices.
During our conversation, we explore why edge computing is becoming increasingly important for AI workloads, especially when large volumes of data are generated outside traditional data centers. Mark explains how processing information locally can reduce costs, improve performance, and enable entirely new use cases, from monitoring customer behavior in retail environments to running intelligent systems in remote locations.
We also talk about the ongoing reassessment happening across enterprise IT teams following major industry shifts, including changes in the virtualization market and growing concerns around vendor lock-in. Mark explains how Scale Computing is positioning itself as a flexible alternative by combining virtualization, containerization, networking, and security into a platform designed specifically for distributed environments.
Looking ahead, Mark shares his perspective on where enterprise infrastructure is heading over the next five years. As smaller AI models become more capable and organizations seek greater control over their data and systems, the role of edge platforms may become even more important.
Instead of relying solely on massive centralized environments, companies may find new value in distributing intelligence closer to the places where real-world activity happens.
So as organizations rethink how they deploy applications, manage data, and control infrastructure, is the next big shift in enterprise IT happening right at the edge? And how prepared is your organization for that change?
How can organizations use AI to transform hiring while still protecting the human element at the heart of work?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Mahe Bayireddi, co-founder and CEO of Phenom, to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping the way companies attract, hire, and develop talent.
Our conversation comes at an interesting moment for the company, following the announcement that Phenom has acquired Be Applied, an AI-driven cognitive assessment platform designed to validate candidate and employee capabilities at scale. The move follows an earlier acquisition of Included, an AI-native people analytics platform focused on delivering deeper workforce insights and faster decision making.
Mahe shares how Phenom's long-term mission to help a billion people find the right job is evolving as AI becomes embedded throughout the HR lifecycle. From candidate discovery to onboarding and internal mobility, organizations are now experimenting with automation, personalization, and intelligent workflows that aim to improve both productivity and employee experience.
One theme that runs throughout our discussion is how AI adoption in HR varies dramatically depending on geography, regulation, and industry. In Europe, regulatory frameworks are shaping how companies deploy automation. In the United States, state-level policies introduce additional complexity. Meanwhile, organizations across Asia are often approaching AI with entirely different priorities. As a result, many global companies are experimenting carefully, introducing AI into specific business units or regions before rolling it out more broadly.
We also talk about a challenge that has caught many HR teams by surprise: the growing issue of fraudulent candidates and identity manipulation in the hiring process. As job applications become easier to submit and remote work expands global talent pools, organizations must rethink how they validate candidate identity and credentials. Mahe explains how AI-driven fraud detection tools can help highlight suspicious patterns while still keeping humans in the loop for final decisions.
Another important point raised in the conversation is the need to preserve humanity in the workplace while introducing intelligent automation. While AI can dramatically improve efficiency across recruiting and workforce planning, Mahe believes HR leaders must be careful to ensure technology strengthens human potential rather than reducing people to data points in a system.
Looking ahead, we discuss how organizations can begin adopting AI responsibly by starting small, focusing on high-impact areas, and building guardrails that reflect regional regulations and company culture. For many companies, the most successful path forward will involve testing AI within specific workflows, measuring outcomes quickly, and scaling what works.
So as artificial intelligence becomes a central part of hiring, workforce planning, and employee development, the big question for leaders is this. Can organizations use AI to create faster, smarter talent decisions while still keeping people at the center of the workplace experience?
How does a CISO turn cybersecurity from a technical conversation into a business conversation that boards actually care about?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Thom Langford, EMEA CTO at Rapid7 and a former CISO, to explore what he calls the second phase of cybersecurity leadership. For years, the industry worked hard to secure a seat at the boardroom table. In many organizations, that mission has largely succeeded. But as Thom explains, gaining access was only the first step. The real challenge now is communicating security in a way that drives meaningful business decisions.
Thom shares why many CISOs still approach board conversations in the same way they did a decade ago, even though boardroom awareness of cybersecurity has changed dramatically. Today, many boards include members with cybersecurity knowledge or direct security experience. That means security leaders can no longer rely on technical jargon, complex frameworks, or compliance language to make their case.
One of the most interesting insights from our conversation is the disconnect between how CISOs frame risk and what boards are actually focused on. While security teams often lead with risk reduction, boards tend to think in terms of revenue growth and operational costs. Thom argues that security leaders must learn to translate cybersecurity into the language of profit and loss if they want their message to resonate at the executive level.
We also explore how traditional security tools such as risk frameworks, audits, and compliance standards can sometimes create distance rather than clarity in board discussions. Instead of helping executives understand security priorities, these models can obscure the real question boards are trying to answer. How secure are we, and what does that mean for the business?
Another area we discuss is the growing role of tabletop exercises. Thom explains why these simulations are becoming one of the most effective ways for CISOs to demonstrate the real-world impact of security decisions. By walking executives through a realistic incident scenario, leaders can see how security, operations, legal teams, and business priorities intersect during a crisis.
Looking ahead, Thom believes the most successful CISOs will increasingly need to think like business leaders rather than purely technical specialists. Communication skills, relationship building, and understanding the organization's financial priorities may prove just as important as deep technical expertise.
So if cybersecurity leaders have already earned their place in the boardroom, the next question becomes much more interesting. Are they speaking the language the board actually understands, or are they still trying to solve business problems using only security vocabulary?
What if the next big shift in personal audio is not about blocking the world out, but staying connected to it?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Nicole from Shokz to talk about why open-ear headphones are suddenly everywhere, and why this category is moving from niche curiosity to everyday essential. For years, the audio market was obsessed with sealing users off from the outside world. Now the conversation is changing. More people want to hear their music, podcasts, and calls without losing awareness of traffic, fellow commuters, colleagues, or the world happening around them.
Nicole helps unpack what open-ear audio actually means in simple terms, and why it is resonating with runners, commuters, parents, office workers, and anyone trying to balance comfort, safety, and sound quality. We talk about the cultural shift behind this rise, from growing health and fitness habits to the way hybrid work and always-on lifestyles have changed how people use earbuds throughout the day.
We also get into why Shokz has become one of the defining brands in this space. Long before open-ear audio became a trend, Shokz was investing in bone conduction, open-ear design, and the kind of product research needed to make this category work in real life. Nicole shares how years of persistence, technical innovation, and consumer education helped the company move from specialist player to category leader.
During our conversation, we explore how real-world behavior shapes product design. That means thinking beyond audio specs and focusing on how headphones actually fit into daily life. Whether someone is running in the rain, commuting to work, wearing glasses, sitting in an office, or trying to stay aware while walking the dog, those everyday moments are shaping the next generation of audio devices.
Nicole also talks me through some of Shokz's latest product thinking, including the OpenDots One and the OpenFit Pro. From compact clip-on designs that feel almost like wearable accessories to new approaches around noise reduction in open-ear listening, this episode looks at how the category is becoming more sophisticated and more versatile without losing the awareness that made it appealing in the first place.
Looking ahead, we discuss whether open-ear audio will live alongside sealed earbuds as part of a two-device lifestyle, or whether it could eventually become the default choice for more people. We also touch on what comes next, from smarter audio experiences to the role AI and even connected glasses could play in the future of listening.
So if you have been seeing the phrase open-ear audio more often and wondering what all the fuss is about, this conversation will bring it to life. Are open-ear headphones simply having a moment, or are we watching a bigger shift in how people want to hear the world around them?
What happens when the real bottleneck in artificial intelligence is no longer training models, but actually running them at scale?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Satyam Srivastava from d-Matrix to explore a shift that is quietly reshaping the entire AI infrastructure landscape. While much of the early AI race focused on training ever larger models, the next phase of AI adoption is increasingly defined by inference. That is the moment when trained models are deployed and used to generate real-world results millions of times a day.
Satyam brings a unique perspective shaped by years of experience in signal processing, machine learning, and hardware architecture, including time spent at NVIDIA and Intel working on graphics, media technologies, and AI systems. Now at d-Matrix, he is helping design next-generation computing architectures focused on one of the biggest challenges facing the AI industry today: efficiently running large language models without overwhelming data centers with unsustainable power and infrastructure demands.
During our conversation, we explored why the industry underestimated the infrastructure implications of inference at scale. While training large models grabs headlines, the real operational pressure often comes later when those models must serve millions of queries in real time. That shift places enormous strain on memory bandwidth, energy consumption, and data movement inside modern data centers.
Satyam explains how d-Matrix identified this challenge years before generative AI exploded into the mainstream. Instead of focusing on training hardware like many AI startups at the time, the company concentrated on inference efficiency. That decision is becoming increasingly relevant as organizations begin to realize that simply adding more GPUs to data centers is not a sustainable long-term strategy.
We also discuss the growing power constraints surrounding AI infrastructure, and why efficiency-driven design may be the only realistic path forward. With electricity supply, cooling capacity, and semiconductor availability all becoming limiting factors, the industry is being forced to rethink how AI systems are architected. Custom silicon, purpose-built accelerators, and heterogeneous computing environments are now emerging as key pieces of the puzzle.
The conversation also touches on the geopolitical and economic importance of AI semiconductor leadership, and why the relationship between frontier AI labs, infrastructure providers, and chip designers is becoming increasingly strategic. As governments and companies compete to maintain technological leadership, the question of who controls the hardware powering AI may prove just as important as the models themselves.
Looking ahead, Satyam shares his perspective on how the role of engineers will evolve as AI infrastructure becomes more specialized and energy-aware. Foundational engineering skills remain essential, but the next generation of engineers will also need to think in terms of entire systems, combining software, hardware, and AI tools to build more efficient computing environments.
As AI continues to move from research labs into everyday products and services, are organizations prepared for the infrastructure shift that comes with an inference-driven future? And could efficiency, rather than raw computing power, become the defining metric of the next phase of the AI race?
Have you noticed how every week brings a new headline about AI driven fraud, yet it still feels hard to tell what is real risk and what is noise?
In this Tech Talks Daily episode, I'm joined by Tommy Nicholas, CEO of Alloy, for a candid conversation that cuts through the fear driven commentary and gets into what fraud teams are actually dealing with right now.
We start with a simple but important distinction that gets blurred all the time. Tommy separates classic "fraud," where institutions take the hit, from "scams," where individuals are manipulated into handing over money or access. That framing changes how you think about solutions, accountability, and where AI is making things worse.
Tommy also shares why he believes fraud losses are often massively underreported. It is not because people are trying to hide the truth, it is because organizations rarely have a single, clean view of losses across every product line and channel.
Add messy labeling, split ownership across teams, and reporting becomes a best effort estimate rather than an objective number. That reality matters if you're building board level narratives, budgets, or risk models on top of survey data.
From there, we talk about what organizations are getting right. Tommy argues there is no magical "undetectable" attack that forces teams to give up, but there is a very real breakdown happening in old fallbacks, especially human review of images and video.
The bigger shift he sees is banks and fintechs finally pushing for consistent tooling across every channel, web, mobile, branch, call center, support tickets, because fraud does not respect internal org charts.
We then get into why Alloy's AI Assistant is an interesting signal for where agentic AI is heading in regulated work. Tommy explains that agents are only useful when they have rigorous context, strong sources of truth, and clear workflows.
Otherwise they guess, and "looks good" is not the same as "safe to run in production." He also lays out where agents can genuinely outperform humans, like scaling investigations during sudden surges, while keeping processes auditable and repeatable.
We close by looking ahead at agentic commerce, and why Tommy thinks the breakt
hrough will arrive through weird, emergent behavior rather than a neat protocol roll out.
When you listen back, do you think the next big leap in fraud prevention will come from better models, better data, or better operational discipline, and what would you bet on if your own customers were the ones on the line?
Have you ever bought a ticket to a show and wondered why the experience still feels strangely disconnected, with one app for ticketing, another for marketing, another for refunds, and a dozen spreadsheets held together by late nights and good intentions?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Ritesh Patel, co-founder of Ticket Fairy, to talk about the technology behind live events and why it has lagged behind other industries in some surprisingly familiar ways. Ritesh makes the case that most organizers are operating more like creative founders than corporate operators, building "mini cities" for a weekend with tiny teams, tight budgets, and very little margin for error. That reality shapes every technology decision, and it explains why fragmented tools and siloed data can become a hidden tax on the business.
Ritesh walks me through Ticket Fairy's full stack approach, bringing ticketing, marketing, CRM, logistics, and payments into a single system, and why unifying data changes the economics of running an event. We dig into practical examples that go beyond vague AI talk, including how small workflow fixes can speed up entry, improve the on-site experience, and even translate into real revenue uplift once you multiply time savings across thousands of attendees.
We also get into where AI agents and large language models are already finding a foothold in events, particularly around unstructured documents like artist specs, supplier agreements, and operational paperwork that can swallow hundreds of hours. Ritesh shares why "AI-native" should mean more than a writing assistant in a text box, and what it looks like when AI becomes an extension of a lean events team, including a prototype voice agent designed to handle common ticket-holder questions without creating new support bottlenecks.
If you're interested in the real business mechanics of events, and how SaaS, payments, data, and AI can quietly shape everything from entry lines to repeat attendance, this conversation offers a fresh way to think about an industry that touches all of us, even when we don't think of it as a tech story.
And as a bonus, Ritesh leaves a music recommendation that sent me back to an album I had not played in years, Burial's Untrue, with "Archangel" as the track to start with. After listening, tell me this, where do you think unified data and practical AI will make the biggest difference in live experiences over the next couple of years, on the promoter side or the fan side, and why?
Have you ever looked at a global hiring plan and wondered whether you are building a team, or accidentally buying a bundle of hidden fees, legal risk, and avoidable stress?
In this episode, I'm joined by Oksana Petrus from Alcor, where she leads customer success and operations, helping tech companies build and scale engineering teams across Eastern Europe and Latin America.
If you have ever tried to expand beyond your home market, you know the promise is real, access to great talent, broader coverage across time zones, and the chance to build faster. But the reality can get messy quickly once contracts, compliance, culture, and cost assumptions collide.
Oksana brings a sharp perspective because she has seen both sides. Earlier in her career she worked as a lawyer with outsourcing providers, so she understands how pricing structures and contracts can create surprises once a team is already in motion.
We talk about why so many leaders start out thinking outsourcing will be simple, then discover they cannot clearly see what they are paying for, who is actually doing the work, or how much of the spend is going to overhead.
We also discuss the growing challenge of trust in recruiting, especially as AI tools make it easier to fake profiles, inflate experience, and even perform better in interviews than the person behind the screen can deliver on the job.
Oksana shares how teams are responding with stronger verification, background checks, and a more transparent operating model so hiring managers can feel confident about who they are bringing in.
We also dig into the real cost of global scaling, and why "salary charts" are only the starting point. Oksana explains how benefits, taxes, local customs like a 13th salary, currency controls, and even language realities can derail budgets and slow hiring if teams do not have local insight. The result is often frustration on both sides, candidates lose momentum, managers lose time, and projects drift.
Culture comes through as a theme too, and not in a vague, feel good way. We talk about how different regions communicate, how expectations need to be set early, and why "challenge culture" can be a strength when leaders welcome it.
Oksana shares an example of a CTO who came to value Eastern European teams precisely because they questioned decisions and offered alternatives that improved outcomes.
If you are a founder, CTO, or business leader thinking about scaling an engineering team this year, this episode is a practical look at what tends to go wrong, why it gets expensive, and how to build a smarter path forward without overcommitting too early.
Where do you think the line is between smart global expansion and taking on complexity before your business is ready for it, and what has your own experience taught you?
How can a world that produces more than enough food still leave millions of people struggling to put a healthy meal on the table?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Jordan Schenck, CEO of Flashfood, about the growing paradox at the heart of our global food system. Grocery prices are climbing, families everywhere are making harder choices at the checkout, and food banks are seeing rising demand. Yet at the same time, vast quantities of perfectly edible food never make it onto a plate.
Jordan shares the startling scale of the problem. In North America alone, billions of pounds of edible food are thrown away every year, including huge volumes from grocery stores themselves.
Fresh produce, meat, and dairy often end up discarded even though they remain safe and nutritious to eat. The result is a system where food waste and food insecurity grow side by side, despite a supply chain that already produces far more calories than the world needs.
Flashfood is attempting to change that equation with a simple but powerful idea. Through its marketplace app, the company partners with grocery retailers to sell surplus food at steep discounts before it reaches the landfill.
Shoppers gain access to fresh groceries at far lower prices, while retailers recover value from inventory that might otherwise be lost. What emerges is a rare triple win for shoppers, grocers, and the environment.
During our conversation, Jordan explains how consumer behavior, retail expectations, and supply chain logistics have shaped today's food waste problem. She also shares how technology and data are beginning to shift the system in a different direction.
Flashfood is now working with more than two thousand grocery partners across North America and serving over a million users, using data and AI to help retailers price surplus inventory more effectively and move products before they are discarded.But the story behind Flashfood is also personal.
Jordan reflects on her earlier experiences at Impossible Foods and as founder of the beverage brand Sunwink, and how those roles helped her see both the strengths and weaknesses inside modern food production.
Over time, she began to question whether the industry truly needed more products on shelves, or whether the bigger opportunity lay in fixing the inefficiencies that already existed.
Our discussion touches on the psychology of grocery shopping, the economics of surplus inventory, and the cultural expectations that lead retailers to overstock shelves in the first place.
We also explore why many consumers are more open to buying discounted food than retailers once believed, particularly as the cost of living continues to rise.
Perhaps most encouraging of all is the idea that solving food waste does not require entirely new supply chains or radical lifestyle changes. Sometimes it simply requires connecting the dots between food that already exists and the people who need it most.
Is 2026 the year AI finally has to prove it is worth the investment?
In this episode, I'm joined by Chris Riche-Webber, VP of Business Intelligence and Analytics at SmartRecruiters, to explore why so many AI and agentic AI initiatives stall after the pilot phase and what separates the projects that scale from the ones that quietly disappear. With Gartner predicting that more than 40 percent of agentic AI programs could be cancelled by 2027, Chris brings a pragmatic, data-led perspective on what is really happening inside organizations as the hype meets operational reality.
We talk about the fundamentals that have not changed despite the new technology. Influence, clearly defined problems, measurable impact, and adoption still determine success, yet they are often overlooked in the rush to deploy the latest tools. Chris explains why "good vibes" are no longer enough in front of a CFO, how to baseline outcomes properly, and why ownership of results is one of the most common missing pieces in enterprise AI programs.
A big part of the conversation focuses on what Chris calls the "agent washing" problem. Just as products are sometimes marketed with fashionable labels that do not reflect their real value, many solutions are being positioned as agentic without delivering true autonomy or business outcomes. We discuss how leaders can cut through the noise by asking better questions, aligning technology to specific use cases, and recognizing when simple automation is the right answer.
Trust, adoption, and measurable ROI emerge as the three signals that determine whether an AI initiative survives. Chris shares a clear framework for defining these signals in a way that is consistent, comparable over time, and meaningful to the executive team. We also explore how connecting talent decisions to revenue, productivity, and retention changes the conversation, especially in the context of SmartRecruiters' broader SAP ecosystem and the opportunity to link people data directly to business performance.
This is a conversation about moving from experimentation to accountability, from buying narratives to solving real problems, and from technology-first thinking to outcome-first leadership.
So as the window for easy wins closes and the demand for proof of value grows, will your AI strategy be remembered as a pilot that generated excitement or as an initiative that delivered measurable business impact?
What if the real AI race in 2026 isn't about building bigger models, but about where decisions are made, how fast they happen, and whether they deliver measurable value?
In this episode, I'm joined by John Bradshaw, Director of Cloud Computing Technology and Strategy at Akamai, to unpack his predictions for the next phase of cloud, AI inference, and the economics that will shape enterprise technology over the next 12 months. As organizations move beyond experimentation, John explains why the boardroom conversation has shifted from capability to return on investment, and how spiraling compute demands are forcing leaders to rethink the balance between performance, cost, and innovation.
We explore why this new financial scrutiny is not slowing AI adoption, but refining it. John shares how inefficient GPU workflows, centralized inference, and poorly aligned architectures are being challenged by a more disciplined approach that pushes intelligence closer to the edge. This shift is not only about latency and performance. It is about building scalable, value-driven platforms that can support real-time decision-making, agentic workloads, and global user experiences without breaking traditional IT budgets.
Trust is another major theme throughout our conversation. From the rise of everyday AI agents that quietly handle routine tasks to the growing importance of secure, resilient inference pipelines, John outlines how low-latency edge infrastructure, local processing, and hybrid cloud models will redefine reliability for both enterprises and consumers. We also discuss the smart home backlash following recent outages, and why the next generation of connected products will be designed to work even when the network does not.
The episode also looks at the future of streaming, where consolidation, intelligent content delivery, and AI-driven personalization are reshaping both the user experience and the economics behind the platforms. Behind the scenes, orchestration is emerging as a defining capability, with multiple models and services working together to validate outputs, reduce hallucinations, and create more dependable AI systems.
This is a conversation about moving from possibility to production, from experimentation to accountability, and from centralized architectures to distributed intelligence.
So as AI becomes embedded in every workflow and every customer interaction, will the winners be the companies with the biggest models, or the ones that know exactly where their AI should live, how it should be orchestrated, and how it proves its value every single day?
What happens when AI moves from a standalone tool to a teammate that works inside the flow of your organization?
In this episode, I'm joined by Mick Hodgins, General Manager for EMEA at Notion, to explore how the idea of a connected AI workspace is reshaping the way teams collaborate, make decisions, and measure productivity. With a career that includes more than a decade at Google scaling growth across multiple countries, Mick brings a unique perspective on what it takes to build technology businesses across diverse markets and why this moment in AI feels fundamentally different from previous waves of innovation.
We talk about Notion's journey from a flexible, block-based collaboration platform to an AI-native workspace where context is the real differentiator. Mick explains why AI performs better when it understands how work actually happens, and how embedding agents directly into shared workflows allows teams to move from prompting tools to orchestrating outcomes. From automated reporting and knowledge management to self-improving agent loops that learn from their own performance, the conversation brings to life how organizations are already using AI to remove the "work around the work" and focus on higher-value thinking.
A major theme throughout the discussion is return on investment. In a world where many companies are still stuck in pilot mode, Mick shares how leaders can reframe ROI around productivity, speed, and the elimination of repetitive tasks rather than treating AI as a single project with a fixed payback period. We also explore how roles, org structures, and hiring priorities are beginning to shift as agents become extensions of team capability rather than experimental add-ons.
Because Mick leads the EMEA region, we also dive into the differences in adoption between the US and Europe, from regulatory considerations and cultural attitudes to the growing strength of the European startup ecosystem. It's a balanced view that recognizes both the caution and the creativity emerging across the region.
This is ultimately a conversation about friction. What happens to an organization when coordination overhead disappears, when reporting builds itself, and when knowledge stays current without human intervention?
So as AI agents move from novelty to infrastructure, are businesses ready to redesign how work gets done, and what becomes possible when teams stop managing tasks and start compounding impact?
*]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "request-WEB:927f9cca-7aa3-47be-8fb7-33bf01261dc7-6" data-testid= "conversation-turn-14" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> Is your cloud foundation ready for the explosion of AI workloads, or are you about to scale technical debt at the speed of innovation? In this episode, I'm joined by Apurva Kadakia, Global Head of Cloud and Partnerships at Hexaware, an AI-first transformation company helping enterprises modernize the core systems that will determine whether their AI strategies succeed or stall. With a front-row seat to large-scale cloud programs across industries, Apurva explains why so many organizations that "moved to the cloud" still find themselves unprepared for what comes next, and why modernization-led migration has become a business priority rather than a technology upgrade.
We unpack the real warning signs that cloud environments are not fit for AI, from monolithic architectures and spiraling compute costs to hidden integration complexity and security gaps that only surface at scale. Apurva introduces the idea of "clarity before cloud," a structured approach to understanding sprawling application estates, identifying what truly matters to the business, and matching each workload to the right modernization path using the five R's. It's a conversation that moves beyond theory into the practical decisions leaders need to make now if they want to avoid being locked out of future innovation.
The role of AI inside the transformation journey is another major theme. Rather than treating AI as a destination, Apurva shares how AI-led and human-perfected assessment models are already accelerating application discovery, classification, and migration planning, completing the majority of the heavy lifting while keeping human judgment firmly in control. We also explore why governance cannot be an afterthought, and how a dedicated Cloud Transformation Office can drive adoption, reskilling, stakeholder alignment, and data readiness without slowing delivery.
Looking ahead to a world of agentic systems and rapidly multiplying cloud workloads, this episode offers a clear message. The organizations that win will not be the ones that adopted cloud first, but the ones that modernized with intent.
So as AI moves from experimentation to enterprise scale, are your applications, your architecture, and your operating model truly ready to support it, or is now the moment to rethink your path before the next wave hits?
What if the biggest transformation in hospitality isn't happening in the dining room, but in the kitchen you never see?
In this episode, I'm joined by James Pool, Chief Technology and Operations Officer at Middleby, a company quietly powering more than a hundred brands across commercial foodservice and food processing. With more than three decades spent accelerating how food is cooked, prepared, and delivered at scale, James offers a rare look inside the technology, automation, and connected platforms reshaping how some of the world's most recognizable restaurant and retail brands operate.
We explore what the connected, IoT-enabled kitchen actually looks like in practice, and why James prefers to think of it as digital automation for the entire restaurant. From front-of-house energy optimization to automated food safety reporting and real-time equipment intelligence in the back, the conversation reveals how data is being used to reduce waste, improve uptime, simplify training, and ultimately increase profitability at the store level. This isn't about adding more screens or more complexity, it's about removing friction from every step of the operation.
James also shares how Middleby is bringing together a vast portfolio of technologies, from rapid-cook ovens and ventless kitchens to robotics and AI-driven service insights, into a single harmonized experience. That integration is opening the door to new formats such as ghost kitchens and non-traditional locations, where food can be prepared almost anywhere without the constraints that once defined a commercial kitchen. Along the way, we discuss how brands like Yum! Brands, Dunkin', Domino's, and Kroger are balancing speed, consistency, cost control, and customer experience in an environment where every investment must prove its return.
The episode also takes us inside Middleby's Innovation Kitchens around the world, where operators can experiment with layouts, workflows, and equipment in real conditions before committing capital in the field. It's a powerful reminder that the future of hospitality is being prototyped long before it reaches the high street.
So as automation, AI, and real-time analytics move from the factory floor into the heart of the restaurant, is the smart kitchen becoming the most important competitive advantage in foodservice, and are brands ready to rethink how their entire operation is designed around it?
In this episode, I'm joined by Ansel Stein, Vice President of Operations at Crisis24, and the leader behind AiiA powered by Palantir, an intelligence platform built to help executives cut through noise and make better calls in uncertain conditions.
Ansel's background spans more than two decades across analysis, diplomacy, and high-stakes advisory work, including supporting U.S. national security priorities. Today, he's applying that same discipline to the private sector, helping organizations turn overwhelming streams of information into judgment leaders can actually use.
We talk about what "intelligence" really means in this context, and why it's different from collecting more data or running another monitoring program. Ansel breaks down the thinking behind the AiiA President's Brief, inspired by the kind of concise, high-rigor briefings senior government leaders rely on, and explains how that model translates into business decision-making without losing context or nuance. If you have ever felt buried by alerts, headlines, and competing narratives, this conversation puts language around that problem and offers a practical alternative.
We also address the concerns many leaders have about AI, privacy, and the fear of being tracked. Ansel is clear on boundaries, what data AiiA uses, why open-source intelligence matters, and how governance needs to be designed upfront if trust is going to hold. From structured analytic techniques and scenario planning to the idea that risk and opportunity often sit side by side, this episode is a look at how organizations can move from reacting to anticipating, without handing accountability over to a machine.
If your team is trying to shorten the time from signal to decision while still protecting trust, what would it look like to treat intelligence as a leadership habit rather than a crisis tool, and are you ready to build that muscle before the next disruption hits?
How did a routine request from the FBI turn into a decade-long legal battle that helped reshape modern privacy law and ultimately inspire a new kind of mobile network?
In this episode, I sit down with Nicholas Merrill, founder of Phreeli and one of the most influential yet often under-recognized figures in the fight for digital rights. Long before privacy became a mainstream talking point, Nick was running an internet service provider that powered major global brands. That journey took a dramatic turn in 2004 when he became the first person to challenge the constitutionality of a National Security Letter under the Patriot Act, living under a gag order for years while the case unfolded. What followed was a deeply personal and professional transformation that led him to question whether litigation and legislation alone could ever keep pace with the scale of modern surveillance.
We explore how that experience pushed him toward a third path, building privacy directly into technology itself. From launching the Calyx Institute and developing privacy-focused Android software to raising a multi-million-dollar endowment for digital rights, Nick has spent decades turning principles into practical tools. Now, with Phreeli, he is taking that philosophy into one of the most data-hungry industries of all, mobile telecoms, reimagining what a carrier looks like when it is designed to know as little about its customers as possible.
Our conversation also tackles the shifting balance of power between governments and corporations in the data economy, and why the distinction between the two is becoming increasingly blurred. Nick explains the trade-offs involved in building a privacy-first operator in a heavily regulated market, the cryptographic thinking behind Phreeli's double-blind architecture, and why he believes consent and personal agency should sit at the center of the digital experience.
This is a story about resistance, resilience, and the belief that technology can be used to restore choice rather than quietly remove it. It is also a timely reminder that privacy is not an abstract concept for activists and engineers, but something as familiar as closing the curtains in your own home.
So after three decades on the front lines of this debate, what does Nick think most of us still misunderstand about our digital rights, and what single shift in mindset could change how we all approach privacy in the connected world?
Have you noticed how every week brings a new headline about AI driven fraud, yet it still feels hard to tell what is real risk and what is noise?
In this Tech Talks Daily episode, I'm joined by Tommy Nicholas, CEO of Alloy, for a candid conversation that cuts through the fear driven commentary and gets into what fraud teams are actually dealing with right now.
We start with a simple but important distinction that gets blurred all the time. Tommy separates classic "fraud," where institutions take the hit, from "scams," where individuals are manipulated into handing over money or access. That framing changes how you think about solutions, accountability, and where AI is making things worse.
Tommy also shares why he believes fraud losses are often massively underreported. It is not because people are trying to hide the truth, it is because organizations rarely have a single, clean view of losses across every product line and channel.
Add messy labeling, split ownership across teams, and reporting becomes a best effort estimate rather than an objective number. That reality matters if you're building board level narratives, budgets, or risk models on top of survey data.
From there, we talk about what organizations are getting right. Tommy argues there is no magical "undetectable" attack that forces teams to give up, but there is a very real breakdown happening in old fallbacks, especially human review of images and video.
The bigger shift he sees is banks and fintechs finally pushing for consistent tooling across every channel, web, mobile, branch, call center, support tickets, because fraud does not respect internal org charts.
We then get into why Alloy's AI Assistant is an interesting signal for where agentic AI is heading in regulated work. Tommy explains that agents are only useful when they have rigorous context, strong sources of truth, and clear workflows.
Otherwise they guess, and "looks good" is not the same as "safe to run in production." He also lays out where agents can genuinely outperform humans, like scaling investigations during sudden surges, while keeping processes auditable and repeatable.
We close by looking ahead at agentic commerce, and why Tommy thinks the breakt
hrough will arrive through weird, emergent behavior rather than a neat protocol roll out.
When you listen back, do you think the next big leap in fraud prevention will come from better models, better data, or better operational discipline, and what would you bet on if your own customers were the ones on the line?
How do you prepare an entire generation for a world where AI is already shaping how we work, create, and solve problems?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Dr. Tara Nattrass, Chief Innovation Strategist for Education at Lenovo, for a grounded and thoughtful conversation about what responsible AI integration really looks like in K–12 classrooms.
Tara brings more than 25 years of experience inside school districts, including serving as Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning in Arlington Public Schools, so this isn't a theory-led discussion. It's informed by lived experience.
We explore how the conversation has shifted over the past 18 months. AI has been present in schools for years through adaptive software and analytics, but the arrival of generative and now agentic AI tools has accelerated everything. As Tara explains, the debate is no longer about whether AI should be in schools. It's about how to approach it responsibly, strategically, and in ways that genuinely improve learning outcomes.
A big theme in our conversation is AI literacy. Tara breaks this down in practical terms, moving beyond technical understanding to include critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and the ability to evaluate risk and bias. She shares real examples of students designing AI tools to solve problems in their communities, shifting the focus from passive consumption to active creation.
We also talk about infrastructure readiness. Many school systems have bold ambitions around AI, but there is often a gap between vision and technical capability. AI-ready devices, intelligent infrastructure, cybersecurity, and data governance all play a role in making innovation sustainable rather than experimental.
Lenovo's approach, as Tara describes it, centers on building education ecosystems rather than simply refreshing hardware. There is also a careful balance to strike between innovation, privacy, and inclusion. From hybrid AI models to questions around where data is stored and who can access it, schools are navigating complex decisions. Tara shares how Lenovo partners with districts, policymakers, and organizations such as ISTE and ASCD to align infrastructure, professional learning, and governance frameworks.
Looking ahead, we discuss what will separate school systems that truly benefit from AI from those that simply layer new tools onto old teaching models. Vision, educator upskilling, cybersecurity, and rethinking assessment all feature prominently in her answer. If you are working in education, technology leadership, or policy, this conversation offers a practical view of how AI-ready classrooms are being built today and what still needs to happen next.
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. How is AI reshaping learning in your organization, and are you ready for what comes next?
What does autonomous IT really look like when you move beyond the slideware and start wiring systems together in the real world?
At Dynatrace Perform in Las Vegas, I sat down with Pablo Stern, EVP and GM of Technology Workflow Products at ServiceNow, to unpack exactly that. Pablo leads the teams focused on CIOs and CISOs, building the workflows and security products that sit at the heart of modern IT organizations. From service desks and command centers to risk and asset management, his remit is clear: enable AI to work for people, not the other way around.
We began with ServiceNow's deepening multi-year partnership with Dynatrace. While the announcement made headlines, Pablo was quick to point out that the real story starts with customers. This collaboration is rooted in a shared goal of helping joint customers reduce outages, improve SLA adherence, and shrink mean time to resolution. The vision of autonomous IT operations is not about hype. It is about connecting observability data with deterministic workflows so that insight can evolve into coordinated, system-level action.
Pablo walked me through the maturity curve he sees emerging. First came AI-powered insight, summarizing data and surfacing signals from noise. Then came task automation, drafting knowledge articles, paging teams, triggering predefined playbooks. The next step, and the one that excites him most, is orchestrated autonomy. That means stitching together skills, agents, and workflows into systems that can drive end-to-end outcomes. It is a journey measured in years, not months, and it depends as much on digitizing process and building trust as it does on technology.
We also explored root cause analysis, still one of the biggest time drains in IT. By combining Dynatrace's AI-driven observability with ServiceNow's workflow engine, enterprises can automate forensic steps, correlate events faster, and shorten the time spent on major incident bridges where teams debate ownership. Even incremental improvements in accuracy can save hours when incidents strike.
Trust, of course, remains central. Pablo was candid that full self-healing systems are still some distance away. What we will see first is relief automation, controlled failovers, scripted actions suggested by machines but approved by humans. Over time, as confidence grows and processes become fully digitized, the balance will shift.
Beyond the technology, a consistent theme ran through our conversation. Outcomes have not changed. Enterprises still want higher availability, faster resolution, better employee experiences. What is changing is the how. ServiceNow is reimagining its platform to deliver those outcomes at a much higher standard, not through incremental tweaks, but through rethinking workflows for an AI-first world.
From design partnerships with banks building pre-flight change checks, to internal teams acting as the toughest customers, this was a grounded, practical conversation about where autonomous operations are headed and what it will take to get there.
If you are a CIO, CISO, or IT leader wondering how to move from theory to execution, this episode offers a clear-eyed look behind the curtain.
What happens when nearly half of organizations admit they have no AI-specific security controls, yet AI-driven data leaks are accelerating at the same time?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I spoke with Aayush Choudhry, CEO and co-founder of Scrut Automation, about what he sees as a blind spot in the cybersecurity industry. While much of the market continues to design tools for Fortune 500 enterprises with deep pockets and large security teams, Aayush argues that the real existential risk sits with the 99 percent of businesses that cannot survive a serious breach.
Aayush brings a founder's perspective shaped by firsthand pain. Before launching Scrut, he and his co-founder experienced the grind of managing compliance and security as a cloud-native startup trying to sell into enterprises. They were outsiders to GRC and security at the time, forced to learn from first principles. That experience became the foundation for Scrut Automation, a modern GRC platform built specifically for small and mid-sized companies that cannot afford six-month implementations, armies of consultants, or half-million-dollar tooling budgets.
We explore why treating compliance and security as separate functions increases risk for smaller organizations. In the mid-market, the same small team is often responsible for both. When compliance is handled as a box-ticking exercise and security as a separate technical discipline, gaps emerge. Scrut's approach converges governance, risk, and security signals into a unified layer that translates hundreds of technical alerts into context-aware risks that actually matter to the business.
Our conversation also tackles AI complacency. Using the classic confidentiality, integrity, and availability framework, Aayush outlines what minimum viable AI security hygiene looks like in practice. That includes ensuring AI agents are not over-privileged compared to the humans they represent, placing guardrails around sensitive data fed into models, and extending supply chain security thinking to agentic integrations. For resource-constrained teams, these are not theoretical concerns. They are daily realities.
Perhaps most compelling is his view that AI can act as a force multiplier for small teams. By embedding accumulated expertise into agents trained on anonymized patterns and edge cases, Scrut aims to democratize security know-how that would otherwise require multiple full-time analysts. The goal is simple but ambitious: make enterprise-grade security outcomes accessible without enterprise-grade headcount.
If you are leading a small or mid-sized business and wondering how to balance growth, compliance, and AI risk without breaking the bank, this conversation offers a candid look from the trenches.
How do you build enterprise software for the companies that keep the world turning, while also building a leadership culture where people can actually thrive?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I spoke with Kerrie Jordan, Chief Marketing Officer and SVP at Epicor, about her journey from studying literature to helping shape cloud ERP strategy at a global software company serving more than 20,000 customers worldwide. Kerrie's story is a reminder that there is no single path into technology leadership. Sometimes the foundations are laid in unexpected places, through storytelling, creativity, and a deep curiosity about people.
Kerrie shares how her early career in product lifecycle management opened her eyes to the human side of software. Interviewing customers and writing case studies showed her that behind every system implementation is a personal story, a career milestone, or a business trying to survive and grow. That perspective still shapes how she approaches product and marketing today at Epicor, a company recently recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises for the third consecutive year.
But this conversation goes far beyond market recognition. We talk openly about burnout, resilience, and the reality of leading through pressure. Kerrie reflects on the importance of protecting time, creating space to reconnect, and building a culture where empathy is practiced, not just discussed. Her view of leadership is grounded in communication, psychological safety, and being tough on problems rather than people.
Mentorship is another thread running throughout our discussion. Kerrie explains why powerful mentorship is not passive. It requires vulnerability, preparation, and a willingness to hear difficult advice. A single phrase from a mentor early in her career, "stick-to-itiveness," continues to shape how she approaches hard problems today.
We also explore the future of women in manufacturing and technology. Kerrie highlights the need for intentional change across education, early career development, and leadership visibility. She believes technology, particularly AI, can expand access, enable upskilling, and introduce flexibility that supports long-term career growth. At the same time, she makes a simple but powerful point. Women in tech want the same thing as anyone else: the space and autonomy to do their jobs well.
From customer co-innovation and community-driven product roadmaps to inclusive leadership under commercial pressure, this episode offers a candid look at what it really takes to lead in enterprise technology today.
If you are building products, leading teams, or questioning your own next career step, I think you will find something in Kerrie's story that resonates.
Why do so many of us feel busy all day, yet struggle to point to the meaningful work we actually completed?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Tomás Dostal Freire, CIO of Miro, to unpack a challenge that quietly drains modern organizations. Tomás brings experience from companies like Google, Netflix, and Booking.com, and now leads both IT and business acceleration at Miro. His focus is simple but ambitious. Move beyond AI experimentation and rethink how work itself gets done.
We explore new research revealing that for every hour of creative work, employees lose up to three hours to meetings, admin, emails, and maintenance tasks. That ratio is more than an inconvenience. It affects decision-making speed, employee satisfaction, and ultimately a company's ability to compete. Tomás argues that future candidates will choose employers based on how much unnecessary internal work they are expected to tolerate. In other words, reducing busy work is quickly becoming a talent strategy.
One of the biggest culprits? Context switching. With dozens of browser tabs open and information scattered across tools, teams spend more time stitching together fragments than making decisions. Tomás describes how duplication of work, outdated systems, and a lack of shared context quietly erode momentum. AI, he believes, should not create more noise or another standalone tool. It needs to be embedded where collaboration already happens.
We discuss the difference between single-player AI moments, where individuals use tools in isolation, and multiplayer AI collaboration, where shared context allows teams to move faster together. At Miro, this philosophy has shaped what they call an AI Innovation Workspace, a shared canvas where human insight and AI assistance coexist in real time.
Tomás also shares practical advice for leaders who want to reclaim creative time. Start by identifying tasks you dislike doing that could easily be handled by someone junior. That list often reveals what AI can already automate. Then focus on building transferable skills like cognitive agility and first-principles thinking, rather than chasing every new tool.
If you are wrestling with burnout, fragmented workflows, or wondering how AI can genuinely improve collaboration without overwhelming teams, this conversation offers a grounded, optimistic perspective. And yes, we even add a Beatles classic to the Spotify playlist along the way.
How do you protect millions in revenue during your busiest hour of the year when your entire business depends on digital performance?
At Perform 2026, I caught up with Alex Hibbitt, Engineering Director responsible for the customer platform at Storio Group, to unpack what happens when observability moves from an engineering afterthought to a board-level priority. Storio Group was formed from the merger of Photobox and Albelli, bringing together multiple brands and five separate e-commerce platforms into one unified customer journey. That consolidation created opportunity, but it also exposed risk, especially during peak trading from Black Friday through Black Sunday and into the Christmas rush.
Alex shared what it really looks like when downtime is non-negotiable. At peak, Storio's platform can generate up to 1.5 million euros per hour. A single poorly timed incident is not simply a technical problem, it is a direct threat to revenue and customer trust. Before partnering with Dynatrace, the team was relying heavily on centralized logging, processing over a billion log lines a day and depending on engineers to manually interpret signals. It was reactive, labor intensive, and left too much to chance.
What stood out for me was how cultural change led the transformation. Rather than imposing a new tool from the top down, Alex and his team built a maturity model engineers could relate to, created internal champions, and framed observability as risk management and business protection. The result was a reported 65 to 70 percent reduction in log costs, a 50 percent drop in mean time to detect overall, and up to 90 percent improvement for the most severe incidents.
We also explored how unifying logs, metrics, and traces into a single AI-driven platform helped Storio move from reactive firefighting to proactive detection. During one Black Sunday alone, three major issues were identified early enough to avoid an estimated 4.5 million euros in potential impact.
This conversation goes beyond tooling. It is about protecting customer experience, safeguarding revenue during peak demand, and building an engineering culture that embraces change. If your organization is wrestling with cloud costs, fragmented monitoring, or the pressure to deliver flawless digital performance under load, there are some powerful lessons here.
]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-(--header-height)" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "3c98e6f5-1dbf-46a0-be22-7f5411922664" data-testid= "conversation-turn-1" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn="user"> ]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "request-WEB:d2d484c3-b4bf-41d3-90b0-9faafbd8dc01-0" data-testid= "conversation-turn-2" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> How do you design financial infrastructure that keeps running when the unexpected hits, whether that is a regional outage, a regulatory shift, or a sudden spike in digital demand?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Katsutoshi Itoh from Sony and Masahisa Kawashima from NTT, both representing the IOWN Global Forum, to unpack how photonics-based networks could change the foundations of digital finance. Speaking with me from Kyoto, they share how the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network vision is moving beyond theory and into practical, finance-specific use cases.
Financial institutions are under constant pressure to deliver uninterrupted services while meeting ever tighter compliance standards. Yet as we discuss, many existing architectures still rely on asynchronous data replication and layered resilience added after the fact. On paper, it works. In a real disruption, gaps quickly appear. Itoh and Kawashima explain how synchronous replication over ultra-low latency optical networks can reduce the risk of data loss while simplifying disaster recovery and lowering operational complexity.
We also explore the role of Open All-Photonic Networks and why reducing packet forwarding layers can dramatically cut latency and infrastructure costs. Instead of concentrating compute and storage in dense urban data centers, photonics enables distributed computing across regions while maintaining deterministic performance. That shift opens the door to improved resilience, better infrastructure utilization, and new approaches to scaling without constant over-provisioning.
Sustainability sits alongside resilience in this conversation. Rather than treating energy efficiency as a compromise, the IOWN vision distributes power demand geographically, making better use of locally available renewable energy and reducing concentrated load pressures. It is a subtle but important rethink of how infrastructure supports broader societal goals.
Looking ahead, we consider what this could mean for digital banking platforms, AI-driven risk management, and cross-border financial services. If infrastructure limitations fall away, institutions can design services around business needs rather than technical constraints.
If you are curious about how photonics could underpin the next generation of financial services, this episode offers a grounded and thoughtful perspective. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts after listening.
Have you ever wondered why "compliance" still gets treated like a slow, spreadsheet-heavy chore, even though the rest of the business is moving at machine speed?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Matt Hillary, Chief Information Security Officer at Drata, to talk about what actually changes when AI and automation land in the middle of governance, risk, and compliance. Matt brings a rare viewpoint because he lives this day-to-day as "customer zero," running Drata internally while also leading IT, security, GRC, and enterprise apps.
We get practical fast. Matt shares how AI-assisted questionnaire workflows can turn a 120-question security assessment from a late-afternoon time sink into something you can complete with confidence in minutes, then still make it upstairs in time for dinner. He also explains how automation flips the audit dynamic by moving from random sampling to continuous, full-population checks, using APIs to validate evidence at scale, without hounding control owners unless something is actually wrong.
We also talk about what security leadership really looks like when the stakes rise. Matt reflects on lessons from his time at AWS, why curiosity and adaptability matter when the "canvas" keeps changing, and how customer focus becomes the foundation of trust. That theme runs through the whole conversation, including the idea that the CISO role is steadily turning into a chief trust officer role, where integrity, transparency, and credibility under pressure matter as much as tooling.
And because burnout is never far away in security, we dig into the human side too. Matt unpacks how automation can reduce cognitive load, but also warns about swapping one kind of pressure for another, especially when teams get trapped producing endless dashboards and vanity metrics instead of focusing on the few measures that actually reduce risk.
To wrap things up, Matt leaves a song for the playlist, Illenium's "You're Alive," plus a book recommendation, "Lessons from the Front Lines, Insights from a Cybersecurity Career" by Asaf Karen, which he says stands out for how it treats the human side of security leadership. If you're thinking about modernizing compliance in 2026 without losing the human element, his parting principle is simple and powerful: be intentional, keep asking why, and spend your limited time on what truly matters.
So where do you land on this shift toward continuous trust, do you see it becoming the default expectation for buyers and auditors, and what should leaders do now to make sure automation reduces pressure instead of quietly adding more? Share your thoughts with me, I'd love to hear how you're approaching it.
Can designing for human error become the strongest cybersecurity strategy in an AI-accelerated world?
In this episode, I sit down with Yaz Bekkar, Principal Consulting Architect for Barracuda XDR and a member of the company's Office of the CTO, to explore why the speed introduced by AI is changing the risk equation for every organization. As automation allows teams to move faster, it also means small mistakes can scale at machine speed. Yaz argues that resilience in 2026 is no longer about trying to prevent every incident. It is about anticipating failure, containing the blast radius, and recovering quickly without bringing the business to a standstill.
Our conversation challenges one of the most persistent narratives in security, the idea that people are the weakest link. Yaz explains why safeguarding the workforce begins with reshaping the environment they operate in. When the secure option is also the easiest and fastest path, risky shortcuts begin to disappear. From secure defaults and least-privilege access to paved-road workflows for administrators, he shares practical examples of how organizations can reduce complexity, limit exposure, and support better decisions under pressure.
We also tackle the limits of annual compliance training and the cultural shift required to build real cyber resilience. Yaz makes the case for continuous, bite-sized practice embedded into everyday work, from three-minute phishing simulations that teach without blame to short, hands-on misconfiguration drills for technical teams. The result is stronger habits, faster response times, and a security posture designed for real human behavior rather than ideal conditions.
If AI is accelerating both innovation and risk, how do leaders move from a prevention-only mindset to resilient operations that protect business continuity when controls fail? And what would change in your organization if every system was designed with the assumption that someone, somewhere, will eventually make a mistake?
At Davos this year, some of the biggest names in tech sent a clear signal. AI is no longer a novelty. It is no longer a proof-of-concept exercise. As Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind suggested, AI will shape more meaningful work. And Satya Nadella of Microsoft was even more direct. AI only matters if it improves real outcomes for people.
So what does that look like inside the enterprise?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Andrew Boyagi, Customer CTO at Atlassian, to unpack how the conversation has shifted from experimentation to execution. Developers, in many ways, are the perfect lens for understanding this moment. Over the last two decades, their role has expanded far beyond writing code. They now own products, infrastructure, operations, and business outcomes. AI is simply the next chapter in that evolution.
Andrew argues that AI will not replace engineers. It will raise expectations. As intelligent tools absorb repetitive work, the real value moves up the stack. System design. Architectural thinking. Reviewing and refining AI-generated output and orchestrating solutions that solve genuine business problems. And through it all, humans remain firmly in the loop.
We also explore what this means for leadership, why mindset is starting to matter more than technical skill alone, how organizations can avoid layering AI on top of broken processes. And why the companies pulling ahead are treating AI as a strategic discipline, not a feature upgrade.
This is a conversation grounded in reality. It speaks to product leaders, CTOs, CIOs, and anyone asking a simple but powerful question. If we are investing in AI, what are we actually getting back? And before we close, we look ahead to Team '26 and the themes Andrew and his team are already working on.
If this year has been about proving value, what will the next chapter demand from enterprise leaders? As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Are you seeing proof of value in your organization yet, or are you still working through the pilot phase?
]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-(--header-height)" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "9168b9fb-9cc7-4a32-9cf3-0f12c0141fb6" data-testid= "conversation-turn-5" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn="user"> ]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "request-69932a54-73c0-8395-979c-6bc9e24ea9ee-0" data-testid= "conversation-turn-6" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> After stepping off stage from moderating a panel, a Senior Frontend Developer from Capgemini waited to say hello. She asked for a quick photo, and within minutes, we were deep in conversation about hackathons, women in tech, mentoring, and the pride she felt watching Egypt host a platform of this scale.
Her name is Alaa Ali Kortoma, and what began as a quick introduction turned into her very first podcast appearance.
In today's episode, you will hear directly from someone on the ground in Cairo about what AI Everywhere means to her, to Egypt, and to a generation of more than 750,000 graduates entering the workforce each year. We talk about bridging the gap between academia and industry, shrinking the distance between startups and investors, and why she believes AI represents opportunity rather than replacement.
If AI really is everywhere, it should look like a possibility. It should look like inclusion. It should look like young women mentoring at hackathons. It should look like national strategies focused on responsible adoption and skills development.
So let me beam your ears to Cairo and introduce you to Alaa Ali Kortoma.
And after spending three days at AI Everything MEA, what does AI Everywhere mean to me?
It is not hype. It is not a headline. It is policymakers embedding AI into public services. It is engineers building Arabic language models tailored to local needs. It is healthcare systems using AI to detect disease earlier. It is investors listening to founders. It is young professionals investing in themselves.
One phrase from this conversation will stay with me long after the microphones were turned off. Proud and full of possibility.
Over the last decade, I have seen technology stories unfold across continents, but Cairo reminded me why I started this podcast in the first place. Technology becomes powerful when it connects people. When it builds confidence. When it proves that innovation is not reserved for a select few regions.
AI is often framed as a Silicon Valley or East Asia story. What I witnessed in Egypt suggests something broader is taking shape. Capital is flowing differently. Partnerships are forming across Africa and the Middle East. Talent is visible. Voices are confident.
So if AI can thrive beside the Nile, if it can empower graduates in Cairo to see opportunity rather than threat, then perhaps AI really is everywhere.
The final question is this. What does AI Everywhere look like where you are, and what role are you playing in shaping it?
Wherever you are listening from, I would love to hear your story too.
In this episode, I'm joined by Bill Briggs, CTO at Deloitte, for a straight-talking conversation about why so many organizations get stuck in what he calls "pilot purgatory," and what it takes to move from impressive demos to measurable outcomes.
Bill has spent nearly three decades helping leaders translate the "what" of new technology into the "so what," and the "now what," and he brings that lens to everything from GenAI to agentic systems, core modernization, and the messy reality of technical debt.
We start with a moment of real-world context, Bill calling in from San Francisco with Super Bowl week chaos nearby, and the funny way Waymo selfies quickly turn into "oh, another Waymo" once the novelty fades. That same pattern shows up in enterprise tech, where shiny tools can grab attention fast, while the harder work, data foundations, APIs, governance, and process redesign, gets pushed to the side.
Bill breaks down why layering AI on top of old workflows can backfire, including the idea that you can "weaponize inefficiency" and end up paying for it twice, once in complexity and again in compute costs. From there, we get into his "innovation flywheel" view, where progress depends on getting AI into the hands of everyday teams, building trust beyond the C-suite, and embedding guardrails into engineering pipelines so safety and discipline do not rely on wishful thinking.
We also dig into technical debt with a framing I suspect will stick with a lot of listeners. Bill explains three types, malfeasance, misfeasance, and non-feasance, and why most debt comes from understandable trade-offs, not bad intent. It leads into a practical discussion on how to prioritize modernization without falling for simplistic "cloud good, mainframe bad" narratives.
We finish with a myth-busting riff on infrastructure choices, a quick look at what he sees coming next in physical AI and robotics, and a human ending that somehow lands on Beach Boys songs and pinball machines, because tech leadership is still leadership, and leaders are still people.
So after hearing Bill's take, where do you think your organization is right now, measurable outcomes, success theater, or somewhere in between, and what would you change first, and please share your thoughts?
Useful Links * Connect With Bill Briggs * Deloitte Tech Trends 2026 report * Deloitte The State of AI in the Enterprise report
Perform 2026 felt like a turning point for Dynatrace, and when Steve Tack joined me for his fourth appearance on the show, it was clear this was not business as usual.
We began with a little Perform nostalgia, from Dave Anderson's unforgettable "Full Stack Baby" moment to the debut of AI Rick on the keynote stage. But the humor quickly gave way to substance. Because beneath the spectacle, Dynatrace introduced something that signals a broader shift in observability: Dynatrace Intelligence.
Steve was candid about the problem they set out to solve. Too much focus on ingesting data. Too much time spent stitching tools together. Too many dashboards. Too many alerts. The real opportunity, he argued, is turning telemetry into trusted, automated action. And that means blending deterministic AI with agentic systems in a way enterprises can actually trust.
We unpacked what that looks like in practice. From United Airlines using a digital cockpit to improve operational performance, to TELUS and Vodafone demonstrating measurable ROI on stage, the emphasis at Perform was firmly on production outcomes rather than pilot projects. As Steve put it, the industry has spent long enough in "pilot purgatory." The next phase demands real-world deployment and real return.
A big part of that confidence comes from the foundations Dynatrace has laid with Grail and Smartscape. By combining unified telemetry in its data lakehouse with real-time topology mapping and causal AI, Dynatrace is positioning itself as the engine behind explainable, trustworthy automation. When hyperscaler agents from AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud call Dynatrace Intelligence, they are expected to receive answers grounded in causal context rather than probabilistic guesswork.
We also explored what this means for developers, who often carry the burden of alert fatigue and fragmented tooling. New integrations into VS Code, Slack, Atlassian, and ServiceNow aim to bring observability directly into the developer workflow. The goal is simple in theory and complex in execution: keep engineers in their flow, reduce toil, and amplify human decision-making rather than replace it.
Of course, autonomy raises questions about risk. Steve acknowledged that for now, humans remain firmly in the loop, with most agentic interactions still requiring checkpoints. But as trust grows, so will the willingness to let systems self-optimize, self-heal, and remediate issues automatically.
We closed by zooming out. In a market saturated with AI claims, Steve encouraged listeners to bet on change rather than cling to the status quo. There will be hype. There will be agent washing. But there is also real value emerging for those prepared to experiment, learn, and scale responsibly.
If you want to understand where AI observability is heading, and how deterministic and agentic intelligence can coexist inside enterprise operations, this episode offers a grounded, practical perspective straight from the Perform show floor.
What happens when the noise around AI starts to drown out the actual business value it is meant to deliver?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Adam Field, Chief AI and Product Officer at Tungsten Automation, fresh from the conversations unfolding at Davos.
While headlines continue to celebrate agentic AI and sweeping automation claims, Adam offered a grounded perspective shaped by decades of experience turning AI pilots into measurable, ROI-driven deployments. His view is simple. The hype cycle may be accelerating, but many organizations still struggle with the fundamentals.
Adam described a common boardroom dynamic. "What do we want? AI. What do we want it to do? We're not sure." That pressure to move fast often collides with a deeper reality. Software has shifted from deterministic to probabilistic. Leaders who grew up expecting the same inputs to always produce the same outputs now face systems that behave differently by design. Measuring value in that environment requires a different mindset.
One of the most compelling ideas in our conversation was Adam's concept of "boring AI." While splashy announcements about replacing hundreds of employees grab attention, he argues that real returns often come from quieter use cases. At Tungsten Automation, that means intelligent document processing, extracting trusted, AI-ready data from the 80 percent of enterprise information that is unstructured. Contracts, invoices, transcripts, compliance paperwork. The work may not trend on social media, but it saves time, improves accuracy, and fits directly into daily workflows.
We also explored accountability. AI can compress output, but it concentrates responsibility. When generative tools make architectural or compliance decisions, the liability does not shift to the model. Organizations remain accountable for privacy, ethics, and customer trust. Adam shared his own experience rebuilding a legacy application in days using AI code generation, only to discover licensing and compliance nuances that required human judgment. The lesson was clear. AI amplifies capability, yet human oversight remains essential.
For leaders searching for signals that an AI strategy will actually deliver long-term returns, Adam pointed to two patterns from the small percentage of projects that succeed. First, integration into daily workflows drives adoption. Second, partnering with trusted vendors often reduces risk compared to attempting everything in-house. In a world flooded with open-source experiments and "X is dead" headlines, discipline and focus still matter.
Tungsten Automation has spent four decades evolving alongside automation technologies, previously known as Kofax. Today, the company applies large language models and agentic workflows to transform unstructured data into decision-ready insights across finance, logistics, banking, and insurance. It is a reminder that the future of AI may be less about replacing people and more about removing friction so humans can do the work they were actually hired to do.
So as AI investment continues to grow and pressure for returns intensifies, the question becomes harder to ignore. Are we chasing the headlines, or are we building systems that quietly deliver value where it counts?
Useful Links
- Connect with Adam Field
- Learn more about Tungsten Automation
- Upcoming Events
How do you build a $30 million ARR business with just three people and a fleet of AI agents doing the heavy lifting?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I connected with Amos Joseph, CEO of Swan AI.
From the moment we joked about AI notetakers silently observing our conversation, it was clear this discussion would go beyond surface-level automation talk. Amos is attempting something bold. He is building what he calls an autonomous business, one designed to scale with intelligence rather than headcount.
Amos has already built and exited two B2B startups using the traditional growth-at-all-costs model. Raise early, hire fast, expand the vision, chase valuation. This time, he is rewriting that script entirely. Swan AI is built around ARR per employee, human-AI collaboration, and what he describes as scaling employees rather than scaling the org chart. With more than 200 customers and only three founders, Swan is already testing whether AI agents can run real go-to-market operations autonomously.
We explored why over 90 percent of AI implementations fail and why grassroots experimentation consistently outperforms executive mandates. Amos argues that companies looking outward for AI solutions before understanding their internal bottlenecks are simply scaling chaos. The organizations that succeed start with process clarity, define what humans should do versus what should be automated, and then allow AI to execute within that structure. It is a powerful reminder that becoming AI-native has less to do with tools and more to do with operational self-awareness.
We also unpacked the difference between automation and agentic AI. Traditional automation follows deterministic steps coded in advance. Agentic AI shifts decision-making power to the model itself. The AI decides what to do next, introducing statistical reasoning rather than predefined logic. That shift in agency changes everything about how workflows operate and how leaders think about control.
Perhaps most fascinating is how Swan generates pipeline entirely through LinkedIn. No paid ads. No outbound. Amos has built an AI-driven engine that creates content, monitors engagement, qualifies prospects, and nurtures relationships at scale. It is an experiment in trust-based distribution powered by agents, not marketing budgets.
This conversation reframes what growth can look like in an AI-native world. If scaling no longer equals hiring, and if every employee becomes a manager of AI agents, what does leadership look like next? How do founders build organizations that amplify human zones of genius rather than bury them under coordination overhead?
If you are questioning long-held assumptions about team size, growth, and AI adoption, this episode will give you plenty to think about.
Is Bitcoin still just a digital store of value, or is it quietly evolving into the financial engine of a new on-chain economy?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Callan Sarre, Co-Founder of Threshold Labs, to explore what happens when the world's most recognized crypto asset stops sitting idle and starts becoming programmable capital. We recorded against the backdrop of a sharp market correction that wiped out value across crypto and traditional assets alike, making for a timely and honest conversation about volatility, maturity, and why Bitcoin's next chapter may be defined by utility rather than price speculation.
Callan explains how the rise of ETFs and institutional flows is reshaping ownership, while decentralized infrastructure is working to ensure users can still access the asset's underlying power.
At the heart of our discussion is tBTC, a trust-minimized bridge that moves native Bitcoin into DeFi without handing control to centralized custodians. Callan breaks down how Threshold's decentralized custody model works in practice and why removing single points of failure matters in a post-FTX world. We also explore the behavioral barriers that have kept long-term holders from putting their BTC to work, the real risks behind Bitcoin yield strategies, and the infrastructure required to make these tools accessible to a broader audience through familiar Web2-style experiences.
The conversation also takes a global turn as we look at why Asia is accelerating Bitcoin innovation, how regulation is driving institutional adoption in Western markets, and what the shift from DAO-led governance to a lab execution model reveals about the realities of building at scale.
Looking ahead five years, Callan paints a picture of an integrated on-chain financial system where Bitcoin can be borrowed against, deployed, and settled instantly across shared liquidity rails, while still preserving the principles that made it attractive in the first place.
So if Bitcoin becomes productive capital and the majority of financial activity moves on-chain, what does that mean for traditional finance, for long-term holders, and for the next wave of builders? And are we ready for a world where the most secure monetary asset also becomes the most composable?
What actually happens when AI stops being a cloud-only experiment and starts running on desks, in labs, and inside real teams trying to ship real work?
In this episode, I sit down with Logan Lawler, Senior Director at Dell Technologies, to unpack how AI workloads are really being built and supported on the ground today. Logan leads Dell's Precision and Pro Max AI Solutions business and hosts Dell's own Reshaping Workflows podcast, giving him a rare vantage point into how engineers, developers, creatives, and data teams are actually working, not how marketing slides suggest they should be.
We start by cutting through the noise around AI PCs. At every conference stage, Logan breaks down what genuinely matters when choosing hardware for AI work. CPUs, GPUs, NPUs, memory, and software stacks all play different roles, and misunderstanding those roles often leads teams to overspend or underspec. Logan explains why all AI workstations qualify as AI PCs, but not all AI PCs are suitable for serious AI work, and why GPUs remain central for anyone doing real model development, fine-tuning, or inference at scale.
From there, the conversation shifts to a broader architectural rethink. As AI workloads grow heavier and data sensitivity increases, many organizations are reconsidering where compute should live. Logan shares how GPU-powered Dell workstations, storage-rich environments, and hybrid cloud setups are giving teams more control over performance, cost, and data. We explore why local compute is becoming attractive again, how modern GPUs now rival small server setups, and why hybrid workflows, local for development and cloud for deployment, are becoming the default rather than the exception.
One of the most compelling parts of the discussion comes when Logan connects hardware choices back to business reality. Drawing on real-world examples, he explains how teams use local AI environments to move faster, reduce cloud costs, and avoid getting locked into architectures that are hard to unwind later. This is not about abandoning the cloud, but about being intentional from the start, mainly as AI usage spreads beyond developers into marketing, operations, and everyday business roles.
We also step back to reflect on a deeper challenge. As AI becomes easier to use, what happens to critical thinking, curiosity, and learning? Logan shares a candid perspective, shaped by his experiences as a parent, technologist, and podcast host, raising questions about how tools should support rather than replace thinking.
If you are trying to make sense of AI PCs, local versus cloud compute, or how teams are really reshaping workflows with AI hardware today, this conversation offers grounded insight from someone living at the center of it. Are we designing systems that genuinely empower people to think better and build faster, or are we sleepwalking into decisions we will regret later? How do you want your own AI workflow to evolve?
Useful Links
- TLDR AI newsletter and the Neurons.
- The Reshaping Workflows podcast
- Connect with Logan Lawler
- Follow Dell Technologies on LinkedIn
What does it really take to move AI from experimentation into something enterprises can trust, scale, and rely on every day?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Rob Lay, CTO and Solutions Engineering Director for Cisco UK and Ireland, recorded in the run-up to Cisco Live EMEA in Amsterdam. As agentic AI dominates conference agendas on both sides of the Atlantic, this conversation steps away from model hype. It focuses on the less glamorous, but far more decisive layer underneath it all: infrastructure.
Rob explains why the biggest constraint on scaling AI agents in production is no longer imagination or ambition, but the readiness of the environments those agents run on. We talk about how legacy technical debt, latency, fragmented networks, and disconnected security tools can quietly undermine AI investments long before leaders see any return. As organizations move out of pilot mode and into real execution, those cracks become impossible to ignore.
A big part of the discussion centers on why AI changes the relationship between network, compute, and security teams. Traditional silos struggle to keep up as autonomous systems make decisions at machine speed. Rob shares how Cisco is approaching this shift through tighter integration across the stack, with security designed directly into the network rather than bolted on later. When AI agents act independently, routing everything through centralized chokepoints does not hold up.
We also explore how operational complexity is evolving. Tool sprawl is already overwhelming many IT leaders, and agent sprawl is clearly coming next. Rob outlines Cisco's platform strategy, including how agent-driven operations, human oversight, and context-aware automation are shaping a new approach to day-to-day resilience. This leads into a wider conversation about digital resilience as a business issue, where visibility, assurance, and learning from incidents matter more than static continuity plans that only get tested once a year.
For European leaders in particular, data sovereignty and control remain at the forefront. Rob explains how Cisco is responding with flexible deployment models, local data residency options, and air-gapped environments that support AI innovation without forcing customers into a single rigid operating model.
We close by looking at where enterprises are actually seeing value today, where expectations are still running ahead of reality, and what leaders attending Cisco Live should really be listening to as announcements roll in. If you are responsible for infrastructure, security, or technology strategy in an AI-driven organization, this conversation offers a grounded view of what needs to be ready before agents can truly deliver on their promise.
As AI-powered systems start to move faster than most roadmaps anticipated, are you confident the foundations underneath them are ready to keep up, and what would you change if you were starting that journey today?
Useful Links
- Connect with Rob Lay
- Cisco Live
- Follow Cisco on LinkedIn
What does it really take to move enterprise AI from impressive demos to decisions that show up in quarterly results?
One year into his role as Senior Vice President, Americas Consulting, Neil Dhar sits at the intersection of strategy, capital allocation, and technology execution. Leading the firm's Americas business and a team of close to 100,000 consultants, he has a front-row view into how large organizations are reassessing their AI investments.
From global healthcare leaders like Medtronic to luxury retail brands such as Neiman Marcus, the conversation has shifted. Early proofs of concept helped executives understand what was possible. Now the focus is firmly on proof of value and on whether AI can drive growth, competitiveness, and measurable return.
In this episode, I speak with Neil Dhar about what has changed in the boardroom over the past year and why ROI has become the central question.
Drawing on more than three decades in finance and private equity, including senior leadership roles at PwC, Neil explains why AI is increasingly being treated as a capital allocation decision rather than a technology experiment.
Every dollar invested has to earn its place, whether through productivity gains, operational improvement, or new revenue opportunities. Vanity projects no longer survive scrutiny, especially when boards and investors expect results on a much shorter timeline.
We also explore how IBM is applying these same principles internally. Neil shares how the company has identified hundreds of workflows across the business, prioritized those with the strongest economic impact, and used AI and automation to drive large-scale productivity gains. The result is a potential $4.5 billion in annual run rate savings by 2025, with those gains being reinvested into innovation, people, and future growth.
It is a candid look at what happens when AI strategy, leadership accountability, and disciplined execution come together inside a global organization.
If you are a business leader trying to separate real value from hype, or someone wrestling with how to justify AI spend beyond experimentation, this conversation offers a grounded perspective on what enterprise AI looks like when it is treated as a business decision rather than a technology trend.
Are you ready to rethink how AI earns its place inside your organization, and what proof of value really means in 2026?
Useful Links
- Connect With Neil Dhar
- IBM Institute for Business Value, "The Enterprise in 2030" study
- Learn More About IBM Consulting
How Do Marketplaces Turn AI Ambition Into Scalable, Trusted Enterprise Reality? That is the question I explore in this episode with Julie Teigland, Global Vice Chair for Alliances and Ecosystems at EY, someone who sits right at the intersection of enterprise demand, technology platforms, and the ecosystems that increasingly power modern AI adoption.
As organizations race to deploy AI at scale, many are discovering that the real challenge is not a lack of tools, but the complexity of choosing, integrating, governing, and standing behind those decisions with confidence.
Julie explains why marketplaces are becoming a powerful mechanism for reducing friction in this process, helping enterprises move beyond experimentation toward AI solutions that are trusted, scalable, and aligned with real business outcomes. We talk about how marketplaces can collapse complexity, curate choice, and bring much needed clarity to leaders who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of AI options available today.
Julie also shares how EY approaches this challenge through its "client zero" mindset, turning the lens inward and treating EY itself as the first marketplace customer.
By doing so, EY stress tests governance, security, and integration at real enterprise scale, serving tens of thousands of clients, running hundreds of thousands of servers, and processing hundreds of millions of transactions every day. That internal experience shapes how EY helps clients navigate trust, accountability, and cross-vendor integration risks, particularly as AI becomes more embedded into workflows and decision-making.
We also explore how strong alliances with cloud leaders like Microsoft and SAP are shaping how AI solutions are vetted, standardized, and deployed across industries, as well as how regulation, particularly in Europe, is influencing a shift toward responsibility by design.
This conversation goes beyond technology to focus on orchestration, trust, and outcomes, and why marketplaces are evolving from simple app stores into something far more strategic for enterprise AI.
If you are trying to understand how ecosystems, governance, and marketplaces can help turn AI from isolated projects into sustained business value, this episode offers a thoughtful and grounded perspective.
I would love to know what resonated with you most. How do you see marketplaces shaping the future of AI adoption inside your organization?
Useful LInks
- Connect With Julie Teigland
- Learn More About EY
As someone who spends a lot of time covering AI announcements, product launches, and conference stages, it is easy to forget that most AI today is still built for desks, screens, and digital workflows.
Yet the reality is that the vast majority of the global workforce operates in the physical world, on roads, construction sites, depots, and job sites where mistakes are measured in injuries, collisions, and lives lost. That gap between where AI innovation happens and where real risk exists is exactly why I wanted to sit down with Amish Babu, CTO at Motive.
In this episode, I speak with Amish about what it truly means to build AI for the physical economy. We unpack why designing AI for vehicles, fleets, and safety-critical environments is fundamentally different from building AI for emails, documents, or dashboards.
Amish explains why latency, trust, and reliability are non-negotiable when AI is embedded directly into vehicles, and why edge AI, multimodal sensing, and on-device compute are essential when milliseconds matter. This is a conversation about AI that has to work perfectly in messy, unpredictable, real-world conditions.
We also explore how Motive approaches AI as a full system, combining hardware, software, and models into a single platform built specifically for life on the road. Amish shares how AI can help prevent collisions, support drivers in the moment, and create measurable safety and operational outcomes for fleets operating across transportation, construction, energy, and public sector environments. Along the way, we challenge common misconceptions around AI in vehicles, including the idea that it is about surveillance rather than protection, or that all AI systems are created equal when lives are on the line.
If you are interested in how AI moves beyond productivity tools and into high-stakes environments where safety, accountability, and trust matter most, this episode offers a grounded and practical perspective from someone building these systems every day. I would love to hear your thoughts on this one. How do you see the role of AI evolving as it moves deeper into the physical world?
Useful Links
- Connect with Amish Babu
- Learn More About Motive
- How Motive's AI works: Real-time edge intelligence, humans-in-the-loop, and continuous improvement.
*]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "54141b02-3c0e-46be-b764-c57b8d9d7ccc" data-testid= "conversation-turn-28" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Jinsook Han, Chief Agentic AI Officer at Genpact, to unpack one of the most misunderstood shifts in enterprise AI right now.
Many organizations feel confident about the value AI can deliver, yet only a small fraction are able to move beyond pilots and into autonomous operations that actually scale. Genpact's Autonomy By Design research puts hard data behind that gap, and Jinsook explains why optimism often races ahead of readiness.
We explore why agentic AI changes the rules entirely. When AI systems begin to act, decide, and adapt on behalf of the business, familiar operating models start to strain.
Jinsook makes a compelling case that agentic AI cannot be treated like another software rollout. It demands a rethink of data, governance, roles, and even how teams define work itself. The shift from tools to teammates alters expectations for people across the organization, from frontline operators to the C-suite, and exposes just how unprepared many companies still are.
Governance is a major theme throughout the conversation, but not in the way most leaders expect. Rather than slowing progress, Jinsook argues that governance must become part of how work happens every day.
She shares how Genpact approaches agent certification, maturity, and oversight, using vivid analogies to explain why quality and alignment matter more than simply deploying large numbers of agents. We also dig into why many governance models fail, especially when they rely on committees instead of lived understanding.
Upskilling sits at the heart of this transformation. Jinsook walks through how Genpact is training more than 130,000 employees for an agentic future, starting with executives themselves. The focus is not on abstract learning, but on proving that today's work looks different from yesterday's. Observability, explainability, and responsible AI are woven into this approach, with command centers designed to monitor both agent performance and health, turning early signals into opportunities rather than panic.
This conversation goes well beyond hype. It is about readiness, responsibility, and the reality of building autonomous systems that still depend on human judgment. As organizations rush toward agentic AI, are they truly prepared to change how decisions are made, how people work, and how accountability is defined, or are they still treating AI as a faster hammer rather than a new kind of teammate?
Useful Links * Connect with Jinsook Han * Learn More about Genpact
What happens when leaders are confident about AI, but the people expected to use it are not ready?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Caroline Grant from Slalom Consulting to explore one of the most persistent tensions in enterprise AI adoption right now. Boards and executives are spending more, moving faster, and expecting returns sooner than ever, yet many organizations are struggling to translate that ambition into outcomes that scale.
Caroline brings fresh insight from Slalom's latest research into how leadership, culture, and workforce readiness are shaping what actually happens next.
We unpack a clear shift in ownership for AI transformation, with CTOs and CDOs increasingly leading organizational redesign rather than HR. That change reflects how deeply AI now cuts across technology, operations, and business models, but it also introduces new risks.
Caroline explains why sidelining people teams can create blind spots around skills, incentives, and trust, especially as roles evolve and uncertainty grows inside the workforce. The result is what Slalom describes as a growing AI disconnect between executive optimism and day-to-day reality.
Despite the noise around job losses, the data tells a more nuanced story. Many organizations are creating new AI-related roles at a pace, yet almost all are facing skills gaps that threaten progress. We talk about why reskilling at scale is now unavoidable, how unclear career paths fuel employee distrust, and why focusing only on technical capability misses the human side of adoption.
Caroline also challenges assumptions about skill priorities, warning that deprioritizing empathy, communication, and change leadership could undermine effective human-AI collaboration.
We also dig into ROI expectations, with most UK executives now expecting returns within two years. Caroline shares why that ambition is achievable, where it breaks down, and why so many organizations remain stuck in pilot mode. From governance and decision rights to culture and leadership behavior, this conversation goes beyond tools and platforms to examine what separates experimentation from fundamental transformation.
As AI becomes a test of leadership as much as technology, how are you closing the gap between vision and execution within your organization, and are you building a workforce that can keep pace with change rather than resist it?
- Connect With Caroline Grant from Slalom Consulting
- The Great AI Disconnect: Slalom's Insights Survey
- Learn More About Slalom
Is the browser quietly becoming the most powerful and dangerous interface in modern work?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Karim Toubba, CEO of LastPass, to unpack a shift that many people feel every day but rarely stop to question.
The browser is no longer just a window to the internet. It has become the place where work happens, where SaaS lives, and increasingly, where humans and AI agents meet data, credentials, and decisions. From AI-native browsers to prompt-based navigation and headless agents acting on our behalf, the way we access information is changing fast, and so are the risks.
Karim shares why this moment feels different from earlier waves like SaaS adoption or remote work. Today, more than ever, productivity, identity, and security collide inside the browser.
Shadow AI is spreading faster than most organizations can track, personal accounts are being used to access powerful AI tools, and sensitive data is being uploaded with little visibility or control. At the same time, attackers have noticed that the browser has become the soft underbelly of the enterprise, with a growing share of malware and breaches originating there.
We also explore the rise of agentic AI and what happens when software, not people, starts logging into systems. When an agent books travel, pulls data, or completes workflows on a user's behalf, traditional authentication and access models start to break down.
Karim explains why identity, visibility, and control must evolve together, and why secure browser extensions are emerging as a practical foundation for this next phase of computing. The conversation goes deep into what users do not see when AI browsers ask for access to email, calendars, and internal apps, and why convenience often masks long-term exposure.
Throughout the discussion, Karim brings a grounded perspective shaped by decades in cybersecurity, from risk-based vulnerability management to enterprise threat intelligence. Rather than pushing fear, he focuses on realistic steps organizations and individuals can take, from understanding what data is being shared, to treating security teams as partners, to using tools that bring passwords, passkeys, and authentication into one trusted place as browsing evolves.
As AI reshapes how we search, work, and make decisions, the question is no longer whether the browser matters. It is whether we are ready for it to act as the front door to both our productivity and our risk, so are you securing your browser for the future you are already using today?
- Connect with Karim Toubba
- LastPass Threat Intelligence, Mitigation, and Escalation (TIME) team page
- Phish Bowl Podcast
What really happens when AI helps teams write code faster, but everything else in the delivery process starts to slow down? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined once again by returning guest and friend of the show, Martin Reynolds, Field CTO at Harness.
It has been two years since we last spoke, and a lot has changed since then. Martin has relocated from London to North Carolina, gaining back hours of his working week. Still, the bigger shift has been in how AI is reshaping software delivery inside modern enterprises.
Our conversation centers on what Martin calls the AI velocity paradox. Development teams are producing more code at speed, often thanks to AI coding agents, yet testing, security, governance, and release processes are struggling to keep up. The result is a growing gap between how fast software is written and how safely it can be delivered.
Martin shares research showing how this imbalance is already leading to production incidents, hidden vulnerabilities, and mounting technical debt.
We also dig into why this AI-driven transition feels different from previous waves, such as cloud, mobile, or DevOps. Many of the same concerns around security, trust, and control still exist, but this time, everything is happening far faster. Martin explains why AI works best as a human amplifier, strengthening good engineering practices while exposing weak ones sooner than ever before.
A significant theme in the episode is visibility. From shadow AI usage to expanding attack surfaces, Martin outlines why security teams are finding it harder to see where AI is being used and how data is flowing through systems. Rather than slowing teams down, he argues that the answer lies in embedding governance directly into delivery pipelines, making security automatic rather than an afterthought.
We also explore the rise of agentic AI in testing, quality assurance, and security, where specialized agents act like virtual teammates. When well-designed, these agents help developers stay focused while improving reliability and resilience throughout the lifecycle.
If you are responsible for engineering, platform, or security teams, this episode offers a grounded look at how to balance speed with responsibility in an AI-native world. As AI becomes part of every stage of software delivery, are your processes designed to safely absorb that change, or are they quietly becoming the bottleneck?
Useful Links
- Learn More About Harness
- The State of AI in Engineering
- The State of AI Application Security
- EngineeringX
- Follow Harness on LinkedIn
- Connect With Martin Reynolds
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What really happens to a business when payments stop working, even for a few minutes?
I recorded this episode live at Dynatrace Perform in Las Vegas, inside the Venetian, surrounded by engineers, operators, and business leaders all wrestling with the same uncomfortable reality. Payment outages are no longer rare edge cases. They are becoming a routine operational risk, and the cost is far higher than many organizations realize.
To unpack that shift, I sat down with Victoria Ruffo, Software Engineering Team Lead at FreedomPay, for a grounded and practical conversation about resilience, observability, and what failure actually looks like in modern commerce.
Victoria explains how FreedomPay supports merchants by orchestrating every part of the payment journey through a single platform, from terminal management to remote updates and even on-device advertising.
If you have checked into a hotel and noticed a payment terminal quietly branded "Secured By FreedomPay," there is a good chance you have already interacted with her team's work. That real-world exposure gives her a clear view of what happens when systems fail and why customers are far less patient than businesses often assume.
We talk about new research from FreedomPay, Dynatrace, and Retail Economics that puts a stark number on the issue. $44.4 billion in U.S. retail and hospitality revenue is at risk every year due to payment disruptions. But as Victoria points out, the most alarming insight is not the headline figure. It is the gap between how long customers are willing to wait and how long outages actually last.
Most consumers abandon a purchase after seven minutes, while many disruptions stretch on for hours. In those early minutes alone, the majority of revenue is already gone.
The conversation moves beyond statistics into lived experience. From lunch breaks cut short by declined payments to stadiums losing an entire event's worth of revenue in a single outage, Victoria shares why these failures are not abstract technical issues. They directly affect staff wages, customer loyalty, and long-term brand trust.
We also explore why cash-only backups and outdated terminals no longer reflect how people actually pay, and why uneven investment in resilience leaves many merchants dangerously exposed.
AI plays a central role in the discussion, but not in the way hype cycles often suggest. Victoria is clear that FreedomPay is not using AI to touch cardholder data or write payment code. Instead, tools like Dynatrace Intelligence help teams detect issues faster, identify patterns humans might miss, and move from reaction to anticipation. That shift, she argues, is where real value shows up, especially when seconds and minutes matter.
If you care about payments, customer experience, or the hidden connection between technical failure and business impact, this episode offers a timely reminder that outages do not have to be catastrophic if organizations plan for them properly.
As consumers grow less patient and systems grow more complex, are your payment platforms designed to absorb disruption, or are they quietly waiting to fail at the worst possible moment?
Useful Links
- Connect With Victoria Ruffo
- Learn More About Freedom Pay
- Whitepaper Payment Resilience in an Uncertain World
- Learn More About Dynatrace Perform
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Josh Haas, co-founder and co-CEO of Bubble, to unpack why the next phase of software creation is already taking shape. We talk about how the early excitement around AI-powered code generation delivered fast demos and instant gratification, but often fell apart when teams tried to turn those experiments into durable products that could grow with a business.
Josh takes us back to Bubble's origins in 2012, long before AI hype cycles and trend-driven development. At the time, the idea was simple but ambitious: give more people the ability to build genuine software without spending months learning traditional programming. That early focus on visual development now feels timely again, especially as builders wrestle with the limits of black-box AI tools that hide logic until something breaks.
We spend time on where vibe coding struggles in practice. Josh explains why speed alone is never enough once customers, payments, and sensitive data are involved. As he explains, most product requirements only surface after users arrive, and those edge cases are exactly where opaque AI-generated code can become risky. If you cannot see how your system works, you cannot truly own it, secure it, or fix it when something goes wrong.
The conversation also digs into Bubble's hybrid approach, blending AI agents with visual development. Rather than asking builders to trust an AI, Bubble's model unquestioningly emphasizes clarity, auditability, and shared responsibility between humans and machines. Josh explains how visual logic makes software behavior explicit, helping teams understand rules, permissions, and workflows before they cause real-world problems.
I learn how this mindset has helped Bubble-powered apps process over $1.1 billion in payments every year, a level of scale that leaves no room for guesswork.
We also explore Bubble AI Agent, where conversational AI meets visual editing, and why transparency and control matter more than flashy demos. From governance and rollback logs to builder accountability, this episode looks at what it actually takes to build software that survives beyond the first launch.
If you are building with AI or thinking about how software development is changing, this episode offers a grounded perspective on what comes after the hype fades. As AI tools become more powerful, the real question is whether they help you understand your product better over time, or slowly disconnect you from it.
Which path should builders choose right now?
Useful Links
- Connect with Josh Haas
- Learn More About Bubble
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
How do you turn a developer-first product into a growth engine without losing trust, clarity, or focus along the way?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Sanjay Sarathy, VP of Developer Experience and Self Service at Cloudinary, for a grounded and thoughtful conversation about product-led growth when developers sit at the center of the story. Sanjay operates at a rare intersection. He leads Cloudinary's high-volume self-service motion while also caring for the developer community that fuels adoption, advocacy, and long-term loyalty. That dual perspective, part business, part builder, shapes everything we discuss.
Our conversation picks up on a theme I have been exploring across recent episodes. When technical work is explained clearly, whether that is security, performance, or reliability, it stops being background noise and starts supporting growth. Sanjay shares how Cloudinary approached this from day one, starting with founders who were developers themselves and carried a deep respect for developer trust into the company's DNA. Documentation that reflects reality, platforms that behave exactly as promised, and support that shows up early rather than as an afterthought all play a part.
What stood out to me was how early Cloudinary invested in technical support, even before many traditional growth motions were in place. That decision shaped a self-service experience that still feels human at scale. With thousands of developer sign-ups every day and millions of developers using the platform, Sanjay explains how trust compounds into referrals, word of mouth, and sustained adoption.
We also dig into developer advocacy and why community is rarely a single thing. Developers gather around frameworks, tools, workflows, and shared problems, and Cloudinary has learned to meet them where they already are rather than forcing them into a single branded space. From React and Next.js users to enterprise advisory boards, feedback loops become part of the product itself.
As AI reshapes how software is built and developer tools become more crowded, Sanjay offers a clear-eyed view on what separates companies that grow steadily from those that burn bright and stall. Profitability, experimentation with intent, and the discipline to double down on what works all feature heavily in his thinking. It is a conversation rooted in experience rather than theory.
If you care about product-led growth, developer trust, or building platforms that scale without losing their soul, this episode offers plenty to think about. As always, I would love to hear your perspective too. How do you see developer communities shaping the next phase of product growth, and where do you think companies still get it wrong?
Useful Links
- Connect with Sanjay Sarathy
- Learn more about Cloudinary
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What happens when the rush toward AI collides with the messy reality of enterprise data that was never designed for it?
That is exactly where this episode with Kevin Dattolico from Syntax begins. Before we even hit record, we were swapping stories about music, travel, and a certain farewell concert that set the tone for a conversation that was both grounded and unexpectedly human. But once we got going, the discussion quickly shifted to one of the biggest blind spots I keep hearing about at tech conferences around the world. AI ambition is running far ahead of data readiness.
Kevin leads Syntax across the Americas, working with organizations that rely on SAP, Oracle, and complex cloud environments to run their businesses. In our conversation, he shares why many AI initiatives stall or quietly reset the moment they touch real production data. Proofs of concept can look impressive in isolation, but once AI starts interacting with live operational systems, the cracks appear. Inconsistent data, duplicated records, missing context, and governance gaps all surface at once. The result is confusion, unpredictable outputs, and a growing realization that the issue is rarely the model itself.
We dig into why ERP data has traditionally been trusted, while unstructured data across emails, documents, sensors, and logs often tells a very different story. Kevin explains where the real friction shows up when companies try to bring those worlds together, and why assumptions about data quality tend to break long before the technology does. It is a refreshingly honest look at what usually goes wrong first, and why leaders are often blindsided even after years of investment.
One of the strongest themes in this episode is the shift Kevin sees from AI-first thinking toward a data-first mindset. That does not mean abandoning AI spend. It means rebalancing priorities so those investments actually deliver outcomes the business can stand behind. We talk about what consolidation, cleansing, and transformation look like at enterprise scale, especially for organizations carrying decades of technical debt and fragmented systems.
The conversation also takes a thoughtful turn around governance, trust, and leadership. Kevin shares how the role of the chief data officer is changing from gatekeeper to enabler, and why modern governance has to support speed without sacrificing accountability. Along the way, he reflects on the risks of pushing ahead with weak data foundations, particularly in regulated industries where the cost of getting it wrong can be operational, reputational, or worse.
And then there is the moment that caught me completely off guard. When I asked Kevin to look back on his career and reflect on someone who made a difference, his answer led to one of the most moving stories I have heard in thousands of interviews. It is a reminder that behind every transformation story, there are people who quietly shape the path forward.
If you are wrestling with AI expectations, data reality, or simply wondering whether everyone else feels just as overwhelmed by this shift, this episode will resonate. The challenges Kevin describes are far more common than most leaders admit, and the opportunities for those who get the foundations right are real.
So as AI continues to dominate boardroom conversations, are you confident your data is ready to support the decisions you are asking it to make, or is it time to pause and rethink what sits underneath it all?
Useful Links
- Connect with Kevin Dattolico
- Learn more about Syntax
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
Why do today's most powerful AI systems still struggle to explain their decisions, repeat the same mistakes, and undermine trust at the very moment we are asking them to take on more responsibility?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Artur d'Avila Garcez, Professor of Computer Science at City St George's University of London, and one of the early pioneers of neurosymbolic AI.
Our conversation cuts through the noise around ever-larger language models and focuses on a deeper question many leaders are now grappling with. If scale alone cannot deliver reliability, accountability, or genuine reasoning, what is missing from today's AI systems?
Artur explains neurosymbolic AI in clear, practical terms as the integration of neural learning with symbolic reasoning. Deep learning excels at pattern recognition across language, images, and sensor data, but it struggles with planning, causality, and guarantees. Symbolic AI, by contrast, offers logic, rules, and explanations, yet falters when faced with messy, unstructured data. Neurosymbolic AI aims to bring these two worlds together, allowing systems to learn from data while reasoning with knowledge, producing AI that can justify decisions and avoid repeating known errors.
We explore why simply adding more parameters and data has failed to solve hallucinations, brittleness, and trust issues. Artur shares how neurosymbolic approaches introduce what he describes as software assurances, ways to reduce the chance of critical errors by design rather than trial and error. From self-driving cars to finance and healthcare, he explains why combining learned behavior with explicit rules mirrors how high-stakes systems already operate in the real world.
A major part of our discussion centers on explainability and accountability. Artur introduces the neurosymbolic cycle, sometimes called the NeSy cycle, which translates knowledge into neural networks and extracts knowledge back out again. This two-way process opens the door to inspection, validation, and responsibility, shifting AI away from opaque black boxes toward systems that can be questioned, audited, and trusted. We also discuss why scaling neurosymbolic AI looks very different from scaling deep learning, with an emphasis on knowledge reuse, efficiency, and model compression rather than ever-growing compute demands.
We also look ahead. From domain-specific deployments already happening today to longer-term questions around energy use, sustainability, and regulation, Artur offers a grounded view on where this field is heading and what signals leaders should watch for as neurosymbolic AI moves from research into real systems.
If you care about building AI that is reliable, explainable, and trustworthy, this conversation offers a refreshing and necessary perspective. As the race toward more capable AI continues, are we finally ready to admit that reasoning, not just scale, may decide what comes next, and what kind of AI do we actually want to live with?
Useful Links
- Neurosymbolic AI (NeSy) Association website
- Artur's personal webpage on the City St George's University of London page
- Co-authored book titled "Neural-Symbolic Cognitive Reasoning"The article about neurosymbolic AI and the road to AGI
- The Accountability in AI article
- Reasoning in Neurosymbolic AI
- Neurosymbolic Deep Learning Semantics
Why does healthcare keep investing in new technology while so many clinicians feel buried under paperwork and admin work that has nothing to do with patient care?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Dr. Rihan Javid, psychiatrist, former attorney, and co-founder and president of Edge. Our conversation cuts straight into an issue that rarely gets the attention it deserves, the quiet toll that administrative overload takes on doctors, care teams, and ultimately patients. Nearly half of physicians now link burnout to paperwork rather than clinical work, and Rihan explains why this problem keeps slipping past leadership discussions, even as budgets for digital tools continue to rise.
Drawing on his experience inside hospitals and clinics, Rihan shares how operational design shapes outcomes in ways many healthcare leaders underestimate. We talk about why short-term staffing fixes often create new problems down the line, and how practices that invest in stable, well-trained remote administrative teams see real improvements. That includes faster billing cycles, fewer errors, and more time back for clinicians who want to focus on care rather than forms. What stood out for me was his framing of workforce infrastructure as a performance driver rather than a compliance box to tick.
We also dig into how hybrid operations are becoming the default model. Local clinicians working alongside remote admin teams, supported by AI-assisted workflows, are now common across healthcare. Rihan is clear that while automation and AI can remove friction and cost, human oversight still matters deeply in high-compliance environments. Trust, accuracy, and patient confidence depend on knowing where automation fits and where human judgment must stay firmly in place.
Another part of the discussion that stuck with me was Rihan's idea that stability is emerging as a better success signal than raw cost savings. High turnover may look efficient on paper, but it quietly limits a clinic's ability to grow, retain knowledge, and improve patient outcomes. We unpack why consistent administrative support can influence revenue cycles, satisfaction, and long-term resilience in ways traditional metrics often miss.
If you're a healthcare leader, operator, or technologist trying to understand how AI, remote teams, and smarter operations can work together without losing trust or care quality, this conversation offers plenty to reflect on. As healthcare systems rethink how work gets done behind the scenes, what would it look like if stability and clinician well-being were treated as core performance measures rather than afterthoughts, and how might that change the future of care?
Useful Links
- Connect with Dr. Rihan Javid
- Edge Health
- Rinova AI
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-(--header-height)" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "b1254d76-9782-4038-9aa8-382a2395255e" data-testid= "conversation-turn-13" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn="user"> ]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "80196f3d-a0ce-44b9-917e-9b4df5d25b93" data-testid= "conversation-turn-14" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> Why do small business leaders keep buying more software yet still feel like they are drowning in logins, dashboards, and unfinished work?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Jesse Lipson, founder and CEO of Levitate, to unpack a frustration I hear from business owners almost daily. After years of being pitched yet another tool, many leaders now spend hours each week troubleshooting software instead of serving customers. Jesse brings a grounded perspective shaped by decades of building SaaS companies, including bootstrapping ShareFile before its acquisition by Citrix, and what stood out to me immediately was how clearly he articulates where the current software model has broken down for small businesses.
We talk about why adding more apps has not translated into better outcomes, especially for teams without dedicated specialists in marketing, finance, or sales. Jesse explains how traditional software often solves only part of the problem, leaving owners to become accidental experts in accounting, marketing strategy, or customer communications just to make the tools usable. From there, our conversation shifts toward what he believes will actually matter as AI adoption matures. Rather than chasing full automation or shiny new dashboards, Jesse argues that the real opportunity lies in blending intelligence with human guidance, allowing AI to work quietly behind the scenes while people remain the face of authentic relationships.
A big part of our discussion centers on trust and connection in an AI-saturated world. Jesse shares why customers have become incredibly good at spotting automated communication and why relationship-based businesses cannot afford to lose the human element. We explore how AI can act as a second brain, helping business owners remember details, follow up at the right moments, and show up more thoughtfully, without crossing the line into impersonal automation that turns customers away. His examples, from marketing emails to customer support, make it clear that technology should support better relationships rather than replace them.
We also look ahead to what small businesses should realistically focus on as AI evolves. Jesse offers practical guidance on getting started, from everyday use of conversational AI, to building internal documentation that allows systems to work more effectively, and eventually moving toward agent-based workflows that can take on real operational tasks. Throughout the conversation, he keeps returning to the same idea, that AI works best when it helps people become the kind of business leaders they already want to be, more present, more consistent, and more human.
If you are a founder, operator, or small business leader feeling overwhelmed by tools that promise productivity but deliver friction, this episode offers a refreshing reset. As AI becomes more capable and more embedded in daily work, the real question is not how many systems you deploy, but whether they help you build stronger, more genuine relationships, so how are you choosing to use AI to support the human side of your business rather than bury it?
Useful Links * Connect with Jesse Lipson * Connect with Jesse on X * Learn more about Levitate
What happens when power, rather than compute, becomes the limiting factor for AI, robotics, and industrial automation?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Ramesh Narasimhan from Nyobolt to unpack a challenge that is quietly reshaping modern infrastructure. As AI training and inference workloads grow more dynamic, power demand is no longer predictable or steady. It can spike and drop in milliseconds, creating stress on systems that were never designed for this level of volatility. We talk about why data center operators, automation leaders, and industrial firms are being forced to rethink how energy is delivered, managed, and scaled.
Our conversation moves beyond AI headlines and into the less visible constraints holding progress back. Ramesh explains how automation growth, particularly in robotics and autonomous mobile robot fleets, has exposed hidden inefficiencies. Charging downtime, thermal limits, and oversized systems are eroding productivity in warehouses and factories that aim to run around the clock. Instead of expanding physical footprints or adding redundant capacity, many operators are questioning whether the energy layer itself has become outdated.
One of the themes that stood out for me is how energy has shifted from a background utility to a board-level concern. Power density, resilience, and cycle life are now discussed with the same urgency as compute performance or sensor accuracy. Ramesh shares why executives across logistics, automotive, advanced manufacturing, and AI infrastructure are starting to see energy strategy as a direct driver of uptime, cost control, and competitive advantage.
We also explore the industry-wide push toward high-power, high-uptime operations. As businesses demand systems that can stay online continuously, the pressure is on energy technologies to respond faster, charge quicker, and occupy less space. This raises difficult questions about oversizing infrastructure for rare peak loads versus designing smarter systems that can flex in real time without waste.
If you are building or operating AI clusters, robotics platforms, or industrial automation at scale, this episode offers a clear-eyed look at why energy systems may be the next major bottleneck and opportunity. As power becomes inseparable from performance, how ready is your organization to treat energy as a strategic asset rather than an afterthought?
What happens when artificial intelligence starts accelerating cyberattacks faster than most organizations can test, fix, and respond?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Sonali Shah, CEO of Cobalt, to unpack what real-world penetration testing data is revealing about the current state of enterprise security. With more than two decades in cybersecurity and a background that spans finance, engineering, product, and strategy, Sonali brings a grounded, operator-level view of where security teams are keeping up and where they are quietly falling behind.
Our conversation centers on what happens when AI moves from an experiment to an attack surface. Sonali explains how threat actors are already using the same AI-enabled tools as defenders to automate reconnaissance, identify vulnerabilities, and speed up exploitation. We discuss why this is no longer theoretical, referencing findings from companies like Anthropic, including examples where models such as Claude have demonstrated both power and unpredictability. The takeaway is sobering but balanced. AI can automate a large share of the work, but human expertise still plays a defining role, both for attackers and defenders.
We also dig into Cobalt's latest State of Pentesting data, including why median remediation times for serious vulnerabilities have improved while overall closure rates remain stubbornly low. Sonali breaks down why large enterprises struggle more than smaller organizations, how legacy systems slow progress, and why generative AI applications currently show some of the highest risk with some of the lowest fix rates. As more companies rush to deploy AI agents into production, this gap becomes harder to ignore.
One of the strongest themes in this episode is the shift from point-in-time testing to continuous, programmatic risk reduction. Sonali explains what effective continuous pentesting looks like in practice, why automation alone creates noise and friction, and how human-led testing helps teams move from assumptions to evidence. We also address a persistent confidence gap, where leaders believe their security posture is strong, even when testing shows otherwise.
We close by tackling one of the biggest myths in cybersecurity. Security is never finished. It is a constant process of preparation, testing, learning, and improvement. The organizations that perform best accept this reality and build security into daily operations rather than treating it as a one-off task.
So as AI continues to accelerate both innovation and attacks, how confident are you that your security program is keeping pace, and what would continuous testing change inside your organization? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Useful Links
- Connect with Sonali Shah
- Learn more about Cobalt
- Check out the Cobalt Learning Center
- State of Pentesting Report
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What happens when AI stops talking and starts working, and who really owns the value it creates?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Sina Yamani, founder and CEO of Action Model, for a conversation that cuts straight to one of the biggest questions hanging over the future of artificial intelligence.
As AI systems learn to see screens, click buttons, and complete tasks the way humans do, power and wealth are concentrating fast. Sina argues that this shift is happening far quicker than most people realize, and that the current ownership model leaves everyday users with little say and even less upside.
Sina shares the thinking behind Action Model, a community-owned approach to autonomous AI that challenges the idea that automation must sit in the hands of a few giant firms. We unpack the concept of
Large Action Models, AI systems trained to perform real online workflows rather than generate text, and why this next phase of AI demands a very different kind of training data. Instead of scraping the internet in the background, Action Model invites users to contribute actively, rewarding them for helping train systems that can navigate software, dashboards, and tools just as a human worker would.
We also explore ActionFi, the platform's outcome-based reward layer, and why Sina believes attention-based incentives have quietly broken trust across Web3. Rather than paying for likes or impressions, ActionFi focuses on verifying real actions across the open web, even when no APIs or integrations exist. That raises obvious questions around security and privacy.
This conversation does not shy away from the uncomfortable parts. We talk openly about job displacement, the economic reality facing businesses, and why automation is unlikely to slow down. Sina argues that resisting change is futile, but shaping who benefits from it remains possible. He also reflects on lessons from his earlier fintech exit and how movements grow when people feel they are pushing back against an unfair system.
By the end of the episode, we look ahead to a future where much of today's computer-based work disappears and ask what success and failure might look like for a community-owned AI model operating at scale.
If AI is going to run more of the internet on our behalf, should the people training it have a stake in what it becomes, and would you trust an AI ecosystem owned by its users rather than a handful of billionaires?
Useful Links
- Connect with Sina Yamani on LinkedIn or X
- Learn more about the Action Model
- Follow on X
- Learn more about the Action Model browser extension
- Check out the whitelabel integration docs
- Join their Waitlist
- Join their Discord community
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What does it really take to remove decades of technical debt without breaking the systems that still keep the business running?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Pegasystems leaders Dan Kasun, Head of Global Partner Ecosystem, and John Higgins, Chief of Client and Partner Success, to unpack why legacy modernization has reached a breaking point, and why AI is forcing enterprises to rethink how software is designed, sold, and delivered.
Our conversation goes beyond surface-level AI promises and gets into the practical reality of transformation, partner economics, and what actually delivers measurable outcomes.
We explore how Pega's AI-powered Blueprint is changing the entry point to enterprise-grade workflows, turning what used to be long, expensive discovery phases into fast, collaborative design moments that business and technology teams can engage with together.
Dan and John explain why the old "wrap and renew" approach to legacy systems is quietly compounding technical debt, and why reimagining workflows from the ground up is becoming essential for organizations that want to move toward agentic automation with confidence.
The discussion also dives into Pega's deep collaboration with Amazon Web Services, including how tools like AWS Transform and Blueprint work together to accelerate modernization at scale.
We talk candidly about the evolving role of partners, why the idea of partners as an extension of a sales force is outdated, and how marketplaces are reshaping buying, building, and operating enterprise software. Along the way, we tackle some uncomfortable truths about AI hype, technical debt, and why adding another layer of technology rarely fixes the real problem.
This is an episode for anyone grappling with legacy systems, skeptical of quick-fix AI strategies, or rethinking how partner ecosystems need to operate in a world where speed, clarity, and accountability matter more than ever.
As enterprises move toward multi-vendor, agent-driven environments, are we finally ready to retire legacy thinking along with legacy systems, or are we still finding new ways to delay the inevitable?
Useful Links
- Connect with Dan Kasun
- Connect with John Higgins
- Learn more about Pega Blueprint
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What does it really take to move AI from proof-of-concept to something that delivers value at scale?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Simon Pettit, Area Vice President for the UK and Ireland at UiPath, for a grounded conversation about what is actually happening inside enterprises as AI and automation move beyond experimentation.
Simon brings a refreshingly practical perspective shaped by an unconventional career path that spans the Royal Navy, nearly two decades at NetApp, and more than seven years at UiPath. We talk about why the UK and Ireland remain a strategic region for global technology adoption, how London continues to play a central role for companies expanding into Europe, and why AI momentum in the region is very real despite the broader economic noise.
A big part of our discussion focuses on why so many organizations are stuck in pilot mode. Simon explains how hype, fragmented experimentation, and poor qualification of use cases often slow progress, while successful teams take a very different approach. He shares real examples of automation already delivering measurable outcomes, from long-running public sector programs to newer agent-driven workflows that are now moving into production after clear ROI validation.
We also explore where the next wave of challenges is emerging. As agentic AI becomes easier for anyone to create, Simon draws a direct parallel to the early days of cloud computing and VM sprawl. Visibility, orchestration, and cost control are becoming just as important as innovation itself. Without them, organizations risk losing control of workflows, spend, and accountability as agents multiply across the business.
Looking ahead, Simon outlines why AI success will depend on ecosystems rather than single platforms. Partnerships, vertical solutions, and the ability to swap technologies as the market evolves will shape how enterprises scale responsibly. From automation in software testing to cross-functional demand coming from HR, finance, and operations, this conversation captures where AI is delivering today and where the real work still lies.
If you're trying to separate AI momentum from AI noise, this episode offers a clear, experience-led view of what it takes to turn potential into progress. What would need to change inside your organization to move from pilots to production with confidence?
Useful Links
- Learn more about Simon Pettit
- Connect with UiPath
- Follow on LinkedIn
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
*]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "72e2f87d-7178-4c4c-8917-454a147e9ed3" data-testid= "conversation-turn-14" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> What happens when speed, scale, and convenience start to erode trust in the images brands rely on to tell their story?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I spoke with Dr. Rebecca Swift, Senior Vice President of Creative at Getty Images, about a growing problem hiding in plain sight, the rise of low-quality, generic, AI-generated visuals and the quiet damage they are doing to brand credibility. Rebecca brings a rare perspective to this conversation, leading a global creative team responsible for shaping how visual culture is produced, analyzed, and trusted at scale.
We explore the idea of AI "sloppification," a term that captures what happens when generative tools are used because they are cheap, fast, and available, rather than because they serve a clear creative purpose. Rebecca explains how the flood of mass-produced AI imagery is making brands look interchangeable, stripping visuals of meaning, craft, and originality. When everything starts to look the same, audiences stop looking altogether, or worse, stop trusting what they see.
A central theme in our discussion is transparency. Research shows that the majority of consumers want to know whether an image has been altered or created using AI, and Rebecca explains why this shift matters. For the first time, audiences are actively judging content based on how it was made, not just how it looks. We talk about why some brands misread this moment, mistaking AI usage for innovation, only to face backlash when consumers feel misled or talked down to.
Rebecca also unpacks the legal and ethical risks many companies overlook in the rush to adopt generative tools. From copyright exposure to the use of non-consented training data, she outlines why commercially safe AI matters, especially for enterprises that trade on trust. We discuss how Getty Images approaches AI differently, with consented datasets, creator compensation, and strict controls designed to protect both brands and the creative community.
The conversation goes beyond risk and into opportunity. Rebecca makes a strong case for why authenticity, real people, and human-made imagery are becoming more valuable, not less, in an AI-saturated world. We explore why video, photography, and behind-the-scenes storytelling are regaining importance, and why audiences are drawn to evidence of craft, effort, and intent.
As generative AI becomes impossible to ignore, this episode asks a harder question. Are brands using AI as a thoughtful tool to support creativity, or are they trading long-term trust for short-term convenience, and will audiences continue to forgive that choice?
Useful Links
- Connect with Dr. Rebecca Swift on LinkedIn
- VisualGSP Creative Trends
- Follow on Instagram and LinkedIn
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What actually happens when a company loses control of its own voice in a world full of channels, platforms, and constant noise?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Joshua Altman, founder of beltway.media, to unpack what corporate communication really means in 2026 and why it has quietly become one of the most misunderstood leadership functions inside modern organizations. Joshua describes his work as a fractional chief communications officer, a role that sits above individual campaigns, tools, or channels and focuses instead on perception, trust, and consistency across everything a company says and does.
Our conversation starts by challenging the assumption that communication is something you "turn on" when a product launches or a crisis hits. Joshua explains why corporate communication is not project-based and not owned by marketing alone. It touches internal updates, investor messaging, brand signals, packaging, email, social platforms, and even the tools teams choose to use every day. If it communicates with internal or external audiences and shapes how the company is perceived, it belongs in the communications function. When that function is missing or fragmented, confusion and noise tend to fill the gap.
We also explored why communication has arguably become harder, not easier, despite the explosion of collaboration tools. Email was meant to simplify work, then Slack was meant to replace email, and now AI assistants are transcribing every meeting and surfacing more content than anyone can realistically process. Joshua makes a strong case for simplicity, clarity, and focus, arguing that organizations need to pick channels intentionally and use them well rather than spreading messages everywhere and hoping something lands.
Technology naturally plays a big role in the discussion. From the shift away from tape-based media and physical workflows to the accessibility of live global collaboration and affordable computing power, Joshua reflects on how dramatically the workplace has changed since he started his career in video news production. He also shares a grounded view on AI, where it adds real value in speeding up research and reducing busywork, and where human judgment and storytelling still matter most.
Toward the end of the conversation, we get into ROI, a question every leader eventually asks. Joshua offers a practical way to think about it, starting with the simple fact that founders, operators, and technical leaders get time back when they no longer have to manage communications themselves. From there, alignment, clarity, and consistency compound over time, even if the impact is not always visible in a single metric.
As organizations look ahead and try to make sense of AI, platform shifts, and ever-shorter attention spans, are we investing enough thought into how our companies actually communicate, or are we still mistaking volume for clarity?
Useful Links
- Connect with Joshua Altman
- Learn more about beltway.media
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What if your AI systems could explain why something will happen before it does, rather than simply reacting after the damage is done?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Zubair Magrey, co-founder and CEO of Ergodic AI, to unpack a different way of thinking about artificial intelligence, one that focuses on understanding how complex systems actually behave. Zubair's journey begins in aerospace engineering at Rolls-Royce, moves through a decade of large-scale enterprise AI programs at Accenture, and ultimately leads to building Ergodic, a company developing what he describes as world models for enterprise decision making.
World models are often mentioned in research circles, but rarely explained in a way that business leaders can connect to real operational decisions. In our conversation, Zubair breaks that gap down clearly. Instead of training AI to spot patterns in past data and assume the future will look the same, world-model AI focuses on cause and effect. It builds a structured representation of how an organization works, how different parts interact, and how actions ripple through the system over time. The result is an AI approach that can simulate outcomes, test scenarios, and help teams understand the consequences of decisions before they commit to them.
We explored why this matters so much as organizations move toward agentic AI, where systems are expected to recommend or even execute actions autonomously. Without an understanding of constraints, dependencies, and system dynamics, those agents can easily produce confident but unrealistic recommendations. Zubair explains how Ergodic uses ideas from physics and system theory to respect real-world limits like capacity, time, inventory, and causality, and why ignoring those principles leads to fragile AI deployments that struggle under pressure.
The conversation also gets practical. Zubair shares how world-model simulations are being used in supply chain, manufacturing, automotive, and CPG environments to detect early risks, anticipate disruptions, and evaluate trade-offs before problems cascade across customers and regions. We discuss why waiting for perfect data often stalls AI adoption, how Ergodic's data-agnostic approach works alongside existing systems, and what it takes to deliver ROI that teams actually trust and use.
Finally, we step back and look at the organizational side of AI adoption. As AI becomes embedded into daily workflows, cultural change, experimentation, and trust become just as important as models and metrics. Zubair offers a grounded view on how leaders can prepare their teams for faster cycles of change without losing confidence or control.
As enterprises look ahead to a future shaped by autonomous systems and real-time decision making, are we building AI that truly understands how our organizations work, or are we still guessing based on the past, and what would it take to change that?
Useful Links
- Connect with Zubair Magrey
- Learn more about Ergodic AI
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What does it actually take to build trust with developers when your product sits quietly inside thousands of other products, often invisible to the people using it every day?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Ondřej Chrastina, Developer Relations at CKEditor, to unpack a career shaped by hands-on experience, curiosity, and a deep respect for developer time. Ondřej's story starts in QA and software testing, moves through development and platform work, and eventually lands in developer relations. What makes his perspective compelling is that none of these roles felt disconnected. Each one sharpened his understanding of real developer friction, the kind you only notice when you have lived with a product day in and day out.
We talked about what changes when you move from monolithic platforms to API-first services, and why developer relations looks very different depending on whether your audience is an application developer, a data engineer, or an integrator working under tight delivery pressure. Ondřej shared how his time at Kentico, Kontent.ai, and Ataccama shaped his approach to tooling, documentation, and examples. For him, theory rarely lands. Showing something that works, even in a small or imperfect way, tends to earn attention and respect far faster.
At CKEditor, that thinking becomes even more interesting. The editor is everywhere, yet rarely recognized. It lives inside SaaS platforms, internal tools, CRMs, and content systems, quietly doing its job. We explored how developer experience matters even more when the product itself fades into the background, and why long-term maintenance, support, and predictability often outweigh short-term feature excitement. Ondřej also explained why building instead of buying an editor is rarely as simple as teams expect, especially when standards, security, and future updates enter the picture.
We also got into the human side of developer relations. Balancing credibility with business goals, staying useful rather than loud, and acting as a bridge between engineering, product, marketing, and the outside world. Ondřej was refreshingly honest about the role ego can play, and why staying close to real usage is the fastest way to keep yourself grounded.
If you care about developer experience, internal tooling, or how invisible infrastructure shapes modern software, this conversation offers plenty to reflect on. What have you seen work, or fail, when it comes to earning developer trust, and where do you think developer relations still get misunderstood?
Useful Links
- Connect with Ondrej Chrastina
- Learn more about CK Editor
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
If artificial intelligence is meant to earn trust anywhere, should banking be the place where it proves itself first?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Ravi Nemalikanti, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Abrigo, for a grounded conversation about what responsible AI actually looks like when the consequences are real.
Abrigo works with more than 2,500 banks and credit unions across the United States, many of them community institutions where every decision affects local businesses, families, and entire regional economies. That reality makes this discussion feel refreshingly practical rather than theoretical.
We talk about why financial services has become one of the toughest proving grounds for AI, and why that is a good thing. Ravi explains why concepts like transparency, explainability, and auditability are not optional add-ons in banking, but table stakes. From fraud detection and lending decisions to compliance and portfolio risk, every model has to stand up to regulatory, ethical, and operational scrutiny. A false positive or an opaque decision is not just a technical issue, it can damage trust, disrupt livelihoods, and undermine confidence in an institution.
A big focus of the conversation is how AI assistants are already changing day-to-day banking work, largely behind the scenes. Rather than flashy chatbots, Ravi describes assistants embedded directly into lending, anti-money laundering, and compliance workflows. These systems summarize complex documents, surface anomalies, and create consistent narratives that free human experts to focus on judgment, context, and relationships. What surprised me most was how often customers value consistency and clarity over raw speed or automation.
We also explore what other industries can learn from community banks, particularly their modular, measured approach to adoption. With limited budgets and decades-old core systems, these institutions innovate cautiously, prioritizing low-risk, high-return use cases and strong governance from day one. Ravi shares why explainable AI must speak the language of bankers and regulators, not data scientists, and why showing the "why" behind a decision is essential to keeping humans firmly in control.
As we look toward 2026 and beyond, the conversation turns to where AI can genuinely support better outcomes in lending and credit risk without sidelining human judgment. Ravi is clear that fully autonomous decisioning still has a long way to go in high-stakes environments, and that the future is far more about partnership than replacement. AI can surface patterns, speed up insight, and flag risks early, but people remain essential for context, empathy, and final accountability.
If you're trying to cut through the AI noise and understand how trust, governance, and real-world impact intersect, this episode offers a rare look at how responsible AI is actually being built and deployed today. And once you've listened, I'd love to hear your perspective. Where do you see AI earning trust, and where does it still have something to prove?
Useful Links
- Connect with Ravi Nemalikanti
- Learn more about Abrigo
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What really happens after the startup advice runs out and founders are left facing decisions no pitch deck ever prepared them for?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Vijay Rajendran, a founder, venture capitalist, UC Berkeley instructor, and author of The Funding Framework, to discuss the realities of company building that rarely appear on social feeds or investor blogs. Vijay has spent years working alongside founders at the sharpest end of growth, from early fundraising conversations through to the personal and leadership shifts that scaling demands. That experience shapes a conversation that feels refreshingly honest, thoughtful, and grounded in lived reality.
We explore why building something people actually want sounds simple in theory yet proves brutally difficult in practice. Vijay explains how timing, learning velocity, and the willingness to adapt often matter more than stubborn vision, and why many founders misunderstand what momentum really looks like. From there, the discussion moves into investor relationships, not as transactional events, but as long-term partnerships that require founders to shift their mindset from defense to evaluation. The emotional and psychological dynamics of fundraising come into focus, especially the moments when founders underestimate how much power they actually have in shaping those relationships.
A big part of this conversation centers on leadership identity. Vijay breaks down the messy transition from being the "chief everything officer" to becoming a true chief executive, and why the most overlooked stage in that journey is learning how to enable others. We talk about the point where founders become the bottleneck, often without realizing it, and why this tends to surface as teams grow and decisions start happening outside the founder's direct line of sight. The plateau many companies hit around scale becomes less mysterious when viewed through this lens.
We also challenge some of the most popular startup advice circulating online today, particularly around fundraising volume, pitching styles, and the idea that persistence alone guarantees outcomes. Vijay shares why treating fundraising like enterprise sales, focusing on alignment over volume, and listening more than pitching often leads to better results. The conversation closes with practical reflections on personal growth, co-founder dynamics, and how leaders can regain clarity during periods of pressure without stepping away from responsibility.
If you are building a company, leading a team, or questioning whether you are evolving as fast as your business demands, this episode will likely hit closer to home than you expect. And once you've listened, I'd love to hear what resonated most with you and the leadership questions you're still sitting with after the conversation.
Useful Links
- Connect with Vijay Rajendran
- The Funding Framework Startup Pitch Deck
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What happens when decades of clinical research experience collide with a regulatory environment that is changing faster than ever?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Dr Werner Engelbrecht, Senior Director of Strategy at Veeva Systems, for a wide-ranging conversation that explores how life sciences organizations across Europe are responding to mounting regulatory pressure, rapid advances in AI, and growing expectations around transparency and patient trust.
Werner brings a rare perspective to this discussion. His career spans clinical research, pharmaceutical development, health authorities, and technology strategy, shaped by firsthand experience as an investigator and later as a senior industry leader.
That background gives him a grounded, practical view of what is actually changing inside pharma and biotech organizations, beyond the headlines around AI Acts, data rules, and compliance frameworks.
We talk openly about why regulations such as GDPR, the EU AI Act, and ACT-EU are creating real pressure for organizations that are already operating in highly controlled environments. But rather than framing compliance as a blocker, Werner explains why this moment presents an opening for better collaboration, stronger data foundations, and more consistent ways of working across internal teams.
According to him, the real challenge is less about technology and more about how companies manage data quality, align processes, and break down silos that slow everything from trial setup to regulatory response times.
Our conversation also digs into where AI is genuinely making progress today in life sciences and where caution still matters. Werner shares why drug discovery and non-patient-facing use cases are moving faster, while areas like trial execution and real-world patient data still demand stronger evidence, cleaner datasets, and clearer governance.
His perspective cuts through hype and focuses on what is realistic in an industry where patient safety remains the defining responsibility.
We also explore patient recruitment, decentralized trials, and the growing complexity of diseases themselves. Advances in genomics and diagnostics are reshaping how trials are designed, which in turn raises questions about access to electronic health records, data harmonization across Europe, and the safeguards regulators care about most.
Werner connects these dots in a way that highlights both the operational strain and the long-term upside. Toward the end, we look ahead at emerging technologies such as blockchain and connected devices, and how they could strengthen data integrity, monitoring, and regulatory confidence over time. It is a thoughtful discussion that reflects both optimism and realism, rooted in lived experience rather than theory.
If you are working anywhere near clinical research, regulatory affairs, or digital transformation in life sciences, this episode offers a clear-eyed view of where the industry stands today and where it may be heading next. How should organizations turn regulation into momentum instead of resistance, and what will it take to earn lasting trust from patients, partners, and regulators alike?
Useful Links
- Connect with Dr Werner Engelbrecht
- Learn more about Veeva Systems
- Viva Summit Europe and Viva Summit USA
- Follow on LinkedIn
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What happens when an industry that has barely changed for generations suddenly finds itself at the center of one of the biggest shifts in modern work?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Kate Hayward, UK Managing Director at Xero, for a conversation about how accounting is being reshaped by technology, education, regulation, and changing expectations from clients and talent alike.
Kate describes this moment as the largest reorganization of human capital in the history of the profession, and as we talk, it becomes clear why that claim is gaining traction.
We explore how AI is shifting accountants away from pure number processing and toward higher-value advisory work, without stripping away the deep financial understanding the role still demands.
Kate shares why so many practices are reporting higher revenues and profits, and how technology is acting as a catalyst for rethinking long-standing workflows rather than simply speeding up broken ones.
We also dig into research showing that pairing AI with financial education strengthens analytical thinking while leaving core calculation skills intact, a useful counterpoint to the more dramatic headlines about machines replacing people.
Our conversation moves into the practical reality of how firms are using tools like ChatGPT today, from scenario planning to preparing for difficult client conversations, while also discussing where caution still matters, particularly around data security and core financial workflows.
Kate also explains how government initiatives such as Making Tax Digital and the digitization of HMRC are changing client expectations and deepening the relationship between accountants and the businesses they support.
We also spend time on the future of the profession, including how hiring strategies are evolving, why problem-solving and communication skills are becoming just as valuable as technical knowledge, and why private equity interest in accounting is accelerating digital adoption across the sector.
Kate rounds things out by sharing how Xero is thinking about product design in 2026, what users can expect next, and why keeping the human side of the profession front and center still matters.
So as accounting moves further into an AI-assisted, digitally native future, how do firms balance efficiency, trust, identity, and long-term relevance, and what lessons can other industries take from this moment of change?
Useful Links
- Follow Kate Hayward on LinkedIn
- Accounting and Bookkeeping Industry Report
- Xero Website
- Follow on LinkedIn, Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram
What does sales leadership actually look like once the AI experimentation phase is over and real results are the only thing that matters?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Jason Ambrose, CEO of the Iconiq backed AI data platform People.ai, to unpack why the era of pilots, proofs of concept, and AI theater is fading fast. Jason brings a grounded view from the front lines of enterprise sales, where leaders are no longer impressed by clever demos. They want measurable outcomes, better forecasts, and fewer hours lost to CRM busywork. This conversation goes straight to the tension many organizations are feeling right now, the gap between AI potential and AI performance.
We talk openly about why sales teams are drowning in activity data yet still starved of answers. Emails, meetings, call transcripts, dashboards, and dashboards about dashboards have created fatigue rather than clarity.
Jason explains how turning raw activity into crisp, trusted answers changes how sellers operate day to day, pulling them back into customer conversations instead of internal reporting loops. The discussion challenges the long held assumption that better selling comes from more fields, more workflows, and more dashboards, arguing instead that AI should absorb the complexity so humans can focus on judgment, timing, and relationships.
The conversation also explores how tools like ChatGPT and Claude are quietly dismantling the walls enterprise software spent years building. Sales leaders increasingly want answers delivered in natural language rather than another system to log into, and Jason shares why this shift is creating tension for legacy platforms built around walled gardens and locked down APIs.
We look at what this means for architecture decisions, why openness is becoming a strategic advantage, and how customers are rethinking who they trust to sit at the center of their agentic strategies.
Drawing on work with companies such as AMD, Verizon, NVIDIA, and Okta, Jason shares what top performing revenue organizations have in common.
Rather than chasing sameness, scripts, and averages, they lean into curiosity, variation, and context. They look for where growth behaves differently by market, segment, or product, and they use AI to surface those differences instead of flattening them away. It is a subtle shift, but one with big implications for how sales teams compete.
We also look ahead to 2026 and beyond, including how pricing models may evolve as token consumption becomes a unit of value rather than seats or licenses.
Jason explains why this shift could catch enterprises off guard, what governance will matter, and why AI costs may soon feel as visible as cloud spend did a decade ago. The episode closes with a thoughtful challenge to one of the biggest myths in the industry, the belief that selling itself can be fully automated, and why the last mile of persuasion, trust, and judgment remains deeply human.
If you are responsible for revenue, sales operations, or AI strategy, this episode offers a clear-eyed look at what changes when AI stops being an experiment and starts being held accountable, so what assumptions about sales and AI are you still holding onto, and are they helping or quietly holding you back?
Useful Links
- Follow Jason Ambrose on LinkedIn
- Learn more about people.ai
- Follow on LinkedIn
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Keith Zubchevich, CEO of Conviva, to unpack one of the most honest analogies I have heard about today's AI rollout.
Keith compares modern AI agents to toddlers being sent out to get a job, full of promise, curious, and energetic, yet still lacking the judgment and context required to operate safely in the real world. It is a simple metaphor, but it captures a tension many leaders are feeling as generative AI matures in theory while so many deployments stumble in practice.
As ChatGPT approaches its third birthday, the narrative suggests that GenAI has grown up. Yet Keith argues that this sense of maturity is misleading, especially inside enterprises chasing measurable returns. He explains why so many pilots stall or quietly disappoint, not because the models lack intelligence, but because organizations often release agents without clear outcomes, real-time oversight, or an understanding of how customers actually experience those interactions.
The result is AI that appears to function well internally while quietly frustrating users or failing to complete the job it was meant to do.
We also dig into the now infamous Chevrolet chatbot incident that sold a $76,000 vehicle for one dollar, using it as a lens to examine what happens when agents are left without boundaries or supervision.
Keith makes a strong case that the next chapter of enterprise AI will not be defined by ever-larger models, but by visibility. He shares why observing behavior, patterns, sentiment, and efficiency in real time matters more than chasing raw accuracy, especially once AI moves from internal workflows into customer-facing roles.
This conversation will resonate with anyone under pressure to scale AI quickly while worrying about brand risk, accountability, and trust. Keith offers a grounded view of what effective AI "parenting" looks like inside modern organizations, and why measuring the customer experience remains the most reliable signal of whether an AI system is actually growing up or simply creating new problems at speed.
As leaders rush to put agents into production, are we truly ready to guide them, or are we sending toddlers into the workforce and hoping for the best?
Useful Links
- Connect with Keith Zubchevich
- Learn more about Conviva
- Chevrolet Dealer Chatbot Agrees to Sell Tahoe for $1
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Imran Nino Eškić and Boštjan Kirm from HyperBUNKER to unpack a problem many organisations only discover in their darkest hour. Backups are supposed to be the safety net, yet in real ransomware incidents, they are often the first thing attackers dismantle. Speaking with two people who cut their teeth in data recovery labs across 50,000 real cases gave me a very different perspective on what resilience actually looks like.
They explain why so many so-called "air-gapped" or "immutable" backups still depend on identities, APIs, and network pathways that can be abused. We talk through how modern attackers patiently map environments for weeks before neutralising recovery systems, and why that shift makes true physical isolation more relevant than ever. What struck me most was how calmly they described failure scenarios that would keep most leaders awake at night.
The heart of the conversation centres on HyperBUNKER's offline vault and its spaceship-style double airlock design. Data enters through a one-way hardware channel, the network door closes, and only then is information moved into a completely cold vault with no address, no credentials, and no remote access. I also reflect on seeing the black box in person at the IT Press Tour in Athens and why it feels less like a gadget and more like a last-resort lifeline.
We finish by talking about how businesses should decide what truly belongs in that protected 10 percent of data, and why this is as much a leadership decision as an IT one. If everything vanished tomorrow, what would your company need to breathe again, and would it actually survive?
Useful LInks
- Connect with Imran Nino Eškić
- Connect With Boštjan Kirm
- Learn More about HyperBUNKER
- Lear more about the IT Press Tour
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What happens when the AI race stops being about size and starts being about sense?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Wade Myers from MythWorx, a company operating quietly while questioning some of the loudest assumptions in artificial intelligence right now. We recorded this conversation during the noise of CES week, when headlines were full of bigger models, more parameters, and ever-growing GPU demand. But instead of chasing scale, this discussion goes in the opposite direction and asks whether brute force intelligence is already running out of road.
Wade brings a perspective shaped by years as both a founder and investor, and he explains why today's large language models are starting to collide with real-world limits around power, cost, latency, and sustainability. We talk openly about the hidden tax of GPUs, how adding more compute often feels like piling complexity onto already fragile systems, and why that approach looks increasingly shaky for enterprises dealing with technical debt, energy constraints, and long deployment cycles.
What makes this conversation especially interesting is MythWorx's belief that the next phase of AI will look less like prediction engines and more like reasoning systems. Wade walks through how their architecture is modeled closer to human learning, where intelligence is learned once and applied many times, rather than dragging around the full weight of the internet to answer every question. We explore why deterministic answers, audit trails, and explainability matter far more in areas like finance, law, medicine, and defense than clever-sounding responses.
There is also a grounded enterprise angle here. We talk about why so many organizations feel uneasy about sending proprietary data into public AI clouds, how private AI deployments are becoming a board-level concern, and why most companies cannot justify building GPU-heavy data centers just to experiment. Wade draws parallels to the early internet and smartphone app eras, reminding us that the playful phase often comes before the practical one, and that disappointment is often a signal of maturation, not failure.
We finish by looking ahead. Edge AI, small-footprint models, and architectures that reward efficiency over excess are all on the horizon, and Wade shares what MythWorx is building next, from faster model training to offline AI that can run on devices without constant connectivity. It is a conversation about restraint, reasoning, and realism at a time when hype often crowds out reflection.
So if bigger models are no longer the finish line, what should business and technology leaders actually be paying attention to next, and are we ready to rethink what intelligence really means?
Useful Links
- Connect with Wade Myers
- Learn More About MythWorx
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What happens when we finally admit that stopping every cyberattack was never realistic in the first place?
That is the thread running through this conversation, recorded at the start of the year when reflection tends to be more honest and the noise dial is turned down a little. I was joined by returning guest Raghu Nandakumara from Illumio, nearly three years after our last discussion, to pick up a question that has aged far too well. How do organizations talk about cybersecurity value when breaches keep happening anyway?
This episode is less about shiny tools and more about uncomfortable truths. We spend time unpacking why security teams still struggle to show value, why prevention-only thinking keeps setting leaders up for disappointment, and why the conversation is slowly shifting toward resilience and containment. Raghu is refreshingly direct on why reducing cyber risk, rather than chasing impossible guarantees, is the only metric that really holds up under boardroom scrutiny.
We also talk about the strange contradiction playing out across industries. Attackers are often using familiar paths like misconfigurations, excessive permissions, and missing patches, yet many organizations still fail to close those gaps. The issue, as Raghu explains, is rarely a lack of tools. It is usually fragmented coverage, outdated processes, and a talent pipeline that blocks capable people from entering the field while claiming there is a skills shortage.
One of the most practical parts of this conversation centers on mindset. Instead of asking whether an attacker got in, Raghu argues that leaders should be asking how far they were able to go once inside. That shift alone changes how success is measured, how teams prepare for incidents, and how pressure-filled P1 moments are handled when boards want answers every fifteen minutes.
We also touch on how legal action, public claims campaigns, and customer lawsuits are changing the stakes after a breach, forcing executives to rethink how they frame cyber investment. From there, Raghu shares how Illumio has been working with Microsoft to strengthen internal resilience at massive scale, and why visibility and segmentation are becoming harder to ignore.
This is a conversation about realism, responsibility, and growing up as an industry. If cybersecurity is really about safety and not slogans, what would you want your organization to stop saying, and what would you rather hear instead?
Please feel free to upload the podcast. Here are also the links we discussed on the call:
Useful Links
- Connect with Raghu Nandakumara on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Learn more about Illumio
- Lateral Movement in Cyberattacks
- Illumio Podcast
- Follow on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What really happens inside an organization when a cyber incident hits and the neat incident response plan starts to fall apart?
That question sat at the heart of my return conversation with Max Vetter, VP of Cyber at Immersive. It has been a big year for breaches, public fallout, and eye-watering financial losses, and this episode goes beyond headlines to examine what cyber crisis management actually looks like when pressure, uncertainty, and human behavior collide. Max brings a rare perspective shaped by years in law enforcement, intelligence work, and hands-on cyber defense, and he is refreshingly honest about where most organizations are still unprepared.
We talked about why written incident response plans tend to fail at the exact moment they are needed most. Cyber incidents are chaotic, emotional, and non-linear, yet many plans assume calm decision-making and perfect coordination. Max explains why success or failure is often defined by the response rather than the initial breach itself, and why leadership, communication, and judgment matter just as much as technical skill. Real-world examples from major incidents highlight how competing pressures quickly emerge, whether to contain or keep systems running, whether to pay a ransom or risk prolonged downtime, and how every option comes with consequences.
One idea that really stood out is Max's belief that resilience is revealed, not documented. Compliance and audits may tick boxes, but they rarely expose how teams behave under stress. We explored why organizations that rely on annual tabletop exercises often develop a false sense of confidence, and how that confidence can become dangerous when decisions are made quickly and publicly. Max shared why the best-performing teams are often the ones that feel less certain in the moment, because they question assumptions and adapt faster.
We also dug into the growing role of crisis simulations and micro-drills. Rather than rehearsing a single scenario once a year, Immersive focuses on repeated, realistic practice that builds muscle memory across technical teams, executives, legal, and communications. The goal is not to predict the exact attack, but to train people to think clearly, collaborate across functions, and make defensible decisions when there are no good options. That preparation becomes even more important as cyber incidents increasingly spill into supply chains, manufacturing, and the physical world.
As public scrutiny rises and consumer-led legal action becomes more common after breaches, reputation and response speed now sit alongside forensics and recovery as business-critical concerns. This episode is a candid look at why cyber crisis readiness is a discipline, not a document, and why assuming you will cope when the moment arrives is a risky bet.
So if resilience only truly shows itself when everything is on the line, how confident are you that your organization would perform when the pressure is real and the clock is ticking?
Useful Links * + Connect with Max Vetter on Linkedin + Learn more about Immersive Labs + Follow on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What happens when the web browser stops being a passive window to information and starts acting like an intelligent coworker, and why does that suddenly make security everyone's problem?
At the start of 2026, I sat down with Michael Shieh from Mammoth Cyber to unpack a shift that is quietly redefining how work gets done.
AI browsers are moving fast from consumer curiosity to enterprise reality, embedding agentic AI directly into the place where most work already happens, the browser. Search, research, comparison, analysis, and decision support are no longer separate steps. They are becoming one continuous workflow.
In this conversation, we talk openly about why consumer adoption has surged while enterprise teams remain hesitant. Many employees already rely on AI-powered browsing at home because it removes ads, personalizes results, and saves time.
Inside organizations, however, the same tools raise difficult questions around data exposure, credential safety, and indirect prompt injection. Once an AI agent starts reading untrusted external content, the browser itself becomes a new attack surface.
Michael explains why this risk is often misunderstood and why the real danger is not internal documents, but external websites designed to manipulate AI behavior.
We dig into how Mammoth Cyber approaches this challenge differently, starting with a secure-first architecture that isolates trusted internal data from untrusted external sources. Every AI action, from memory to model connections to data access, is monitored and governed by policy. It is a practical response to a problem many security teams know is coming but feel unprepared to manage.
We also explore how AI browsers change day-to-day work. A task like competitive analysis, which once took days of manual research and document comparison, can now be completed in minutes when an AI browser securely connects internal knowledge with external intelligence. That productivity gain is real, but only if enterprises trust the environment it runs in.
We touch on Zero Trust principles, including work influenced by Chase Cunningham, and why 2026 looks like a tipping point for enterprise AI browsing. The technology is maturing, security controls are catching up, and businesses are starting to accept that blocking AI outright is no longer realistic.
If you are curious to see how this works in practice, Mammoth Cyber offers a free Enterprise AI Browser that lets you experience what secure AI-powered browsing actually looks like, without putting your organization at risk. I have included the link so you can explore it yourself and decide whether this is where work is heading next.
So, as AI browsers become the new workflow hub for knowledge workers everywhere, is your organization ready to secure the browser before it becomes your most exposed endpoint, and what would adopting one safely change about how your teams work?
If you want to see what an enterprise-grade AI browser looks like when security is built in from day one, Mammoth Cyber is offering free access to its Enterprise AI Browser.
It gives you a hands-on way to experience how agentic AI can automate real work inside the browser while keeping internal data isolated from untrusted external sources. You can explore it yourself and decide whether this is how your organization should be approaching AI-powered browsing in 2026.
Useful Links
- Learn more about the Mammoth Enterprise Browser and try it for free
- Connect with Michael Shieh on LinkedIn
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What happens when engineering teams can finally see the business impact of every technical decision they make?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Chris Cooney, Director of Advocacy at Coralogix, to unpack why observability is no longer just an engineering concern, but a strategic lever for the entire business. Chris joined me fresh from AWS re:Invent, where he had challenged a long-standing assumption that technical signals such as CPU usage, error rates, and logs belong only in engineering silos. Instead, he argues that these signals, when enriched and interpreted correctly, can tell a much more powerful story about revenue loss, customer experience, and competitive advantage.
We explored Coralogix's Observability Maturity Model, a four-stage framework that guides organizations from basic telemetry collection to business-level decision-making. Chris shared that many teams stall on measuring engineering health without connecting that data to customer impact or financial outcomes. The conversation became especially tangible when he explained how a single failed checkout log can be enriched with product and pricing data to reveal a bug costing thousands of dollars per day. That shift, from "fix this tech debt" to "fix this issue draining revenue," fundamentally changes how priorities are set across teams.
Chris also introduced Olly, Coralogix's AI observability agent, and explained why it is designed as an agent rather than a simple assistant. We discussed how Olly can autonomously investigate issues across logs, metrics, traces, alerts, and dashboards, enabling anyone in the organization to ask questions in plain English and receive actionable insights. From diagnosing a complex SQL injection attempt to surfacing downstream customer impact, Olly represents a move toward democratizing observability data far beyond engineering teams.
Throughout our discussion, a clear theme emerged. When technical health is directly tied to business health, observability stops being a cost center and becomes a competitive advantage. By giving autonomous engineering teams visibility into real-world impact, organizations can make faster, better decisions, foster innovation, and avoid the blind spots that have cost even well-known brands millions.
So if observability still feels like a necessary expense rather than a growth driver in your organization, what would change if every technical signal could be translated into a clear business impact, and who would make better decisions if they could finally see that connection?
Useful LInks
- Connect with Chris Cooney
- Learn more about Coralogix
- Follow on LinkedIn
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What does real AI transformation look like when leaders stop chasing prototypes and start demanding outcomes they can actually measure?
That question sat at the center of my conversation with Alex Cross, Chief Technology Officer for EMEA at CI&T, alongside Melissa Smith, as we unpacked why so many organizations feel stuck between AI ambition and business reality. There is no shortage of excitement around AI, but there is growing skepticism too, especially from leadership teams who have seen pilots come and go without clear return. This episode focuses on how CI&T is addressing that gap head on.
Alex shared how CI&T frames its work as AI-enabled transformation rather than simply layering AI tools onto existing processes. The distinction matters.
Instead of using AI to speed up broken workflows, CI&T reshapes how work gets done so AI becomes part of value creation itself. We explored a standout example from ITAU, the largest bank in Latin America, where deep modernization work helped deliver gains that most executives only ever see in strategy decks.
Productivity rose sharply, digital launch cycles collapsed from years to months, customer satisfaction jumped, and the commercial impact reached hundreds of millions in uplift. These are the kinds of results that change boardroom conversations.
A big part of how CI&T gets there is its proprietary Flow platform. Alex explained how Flow gives clients a day-one AI environment, removing the heavy upfront cost and complexity that often slows momentum. Instead of spending months building platforms before any value appears, teams can move from proof of concept to production in as little as six to eight weeks.
Flow also plays a second role that many AI programs miss, acting as a measurement layer so performance, efficiency, and ROI are visible rather than assumed.
We also talked about why partnerships matter when execution is the goal. CI&T works closely with hyperscalers like AWS and Databricks, combining native tools with its own codified expertise. That combination has helped the company achieve an unusually high success rate in bringing AI initiatives to production, a challenge many organizations still struggle with. For Alex, the difference comes down to a relentless focus on production readiness and collaboration between business and technology teams from day one.
Looking ahead, the conversation turned to CI&T's expansion across EMEA and what the company's 30th year represents. Rather than chasing every new trend, the focus is on productizing services around real client problems, whether that is legacy modernization, efficiency, or growth. The goal is to bridge strategy and execution in a way that feels practical, fast, and accountable.
If you are leading AI initiatives and wondering why progress feels slower than the hype suggests, this episode offers a grounded perspective from the front lines. So, as organizations head into another year of bold AI plans, the real question becomes this. Are you building faster caterpillars, or are you ready to do the harder work required to turn ambition into something that can truly scale?
Useful Links
- Connect with Alex Cross
- Connect With Melissa Smith
- Learn more about CI&T
- Follow CI&T on LinkedIn and YouTube
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What does AI-led transformation actually look like when it moves beyond pilots, hype, and slide decks and starts changing how work gets done every day?
That question framed my conversation with Venk Korla, CEO of HGS, at a time when many organizations feel both excited and exhausted by AI. Boards want results, teams are buried in proofs of concept, and leaders are under pressure to show progress without breaking trust, budgets, or operations. This episode cuts through that tension and focuses on what it takes to turn ambition into outcomes.
Venk shared how HGS thinks about what he calls intelligent experiences, where customer interactions are directly connected to operational follow-through. Instead of treating AI as a front-end layer or a chatbot add-on, HGS links context, data, and fulfillment so the experience continues after the conversation ends. We talked through practical examples, from airlines proactively rebooking stranded passengers before they queue at a desk, to healthcare providers guiding patients step by step before and after surgery with timely, relevant messages. In each case, the value comes from anticipation and execution, not novelty.
A big part of our discussion centered on why so many AI initiatives stall. Venk described how organizations often chase technology first, launching pilots without redesigning the underlying process. HGS takes a different route through what they call Realized AI, embedding AI into specific workflows with clear ownership and measurable goals. The focus is on outcomes such as faster processing, higher compliance, and improved customer satisfaction, all proven within a ninety day proof of value. It is a disciplined approach that favors repeatability over experimentation theater.
We also spent time on cloud strategy, an area where expectations and reality often collide. Venk was candid about why simple lift-and-shift migrations fail to deliver value. Without re-architecting applications to take advantage of elasticity and serverless compute, cloud spend can grow while performance stalls. He shared how a FinOps mindset, combined with application redesign, helped one client dramatically improve load speeds while reducing costs, reinforcing the idea that transformation requires structural change, not surface movement.
Ethics and trust were another thread running through the conversation. Venk emphasized that AI systems are only as reliable as the data, governance, and oversight behind them. Human-in-the-loop design remains central at HGS, ensuring accountability, empathy, and confidence for both customers and employees working alongside AI. This balance between automation and human judgment came up again when we discussed their software-as-a-surface model, where AI and people work together in a carefully orchestrated way, with pricing tied to resolved outcomes rather than activity alone.
As the pace of change continues to accelerate, this episode offers a grounded perspective on how to move forward without getting lost in noise. If you are leading transformation and feeling pressure to show progress, the real challenge may not be choosing the right tool, but deciding which outcomes truly matter and redesigning work around them.
As AI, cloud, and customer experience continue to converge, are you building systems that look impressive in demos or that deliver predictable results when it counts?
Useful Links
- Connect with Venk Korla
- Learn more about HGS
- Follow on LinkedIn
What if the biggest breakthrough in weight management is not a new diet, but finally seeing how your body responds in real time?
That question sat at the center of my conversation with Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer, CEO and co-founder of Signos, a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and AI-powered health platform built to help people manage weight by understanding their metabolism. January is when motivation is high and the wellness noise is loud, but it is also when a lot of people realize how hard it is to stick with generic advice that does not fit real life. This episode is about why personalization matters, how metabolic signals can change the way you think about food and exercise, and what happens when health technology shifts from reporting the past to guiding the next decision.
Sharam explained how Signos pairs a CGM with an AI-driven experience that turns glucose data into practical actions. The point is not to force people into rigid rules or extreme restrictions. Instead, it is about learning how your body reacts to everyday choices, then using that feedback to reduce spikes, improve consistency, and build habits you can actually live with. We talked about simple interventions, like changing the order of foods in a meal, timing movement more intelligently, and spotting patterns that would otherwise stay invisible.
Two personal stories brought the conversation to life. Sharam shared how he lost 25 pounds while increasing his calorie intake, which challenges a lot of assumptions people carry into weight loss. He also shared a story from his family life, where his wife's deep sleep increased from roughly 20 minutes a night to around 60 minutes after focusing on glucose stability, even while total sleep time remained limited during the intense period of raising young kids. It is the kind of detail that hits home for anyone who has ever tried to make healthier choices while exhausted and stretched thin.
We also explored why FDA clearance matters for Signos and what that could mean for mainstream access. Over-the-counter availability reduces friction, can lower cost, and opens the door to broader adoption, including potential FSA and HSA eligibility. Looking ahead, Sharam shared a vision that goes beyond weight management, connecting metabolic health to the long arc of prevention and chronic conditions where insulin resistance plays a role.
If you have ever felt like you are doing all the "right" things and still not seeing results, this episode will make you rethink what "right" even means. And if you could finally see your metabolism in real time, would it change how you approach food, sleep, exercise, and the habits you want to keep this year?
Useful Links
- Connect with Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer
- Learn more about Signos
- Instagram, Facebook, X and YouTube
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What if your website could spot its own problems, fix them, and quietly make more money while you focus on building your business?
That question sat at the heart of my conversation with Aviv Frenkel, co-founder and CEO of Moonshot AI, and it speaks to a frustration almost every founder and digital leader recognizes. Traffic is expensive, attention is fragile, and even small issues in design or flow can quietly drain revenue for months before anyone notices. Traditional optimization often means long cycles, internal debates, and teams juggling analytics, design tools, and testing platforms while hoping the next experiment moves the needle.
Aviv's perspective is shaped by lived experience. Before building Moonshot AI, he ran an e-commerce company that had plenty of visitors but disappointing conversion. Like many founders, he watched teams guess at fixes, wait weeks for tests to run, then struggle to link effort to outcome. Moonshot AI was born from that frustration, with a simple ambition. Let the website diagnose what is broken, generate solutions, test them, and deploy the winner automatically, without the need for a dedicated growth team.
In our discussion, Aviv explained how Moonshot focuses on front-end experience and site performance, spotting issues such as unclear value propositions, poorly placed calls to action, or confusing mobile navigation. The platform generates its own design, copy, and code variants, runs live tests, and then rolls out what actually works. The results are hard to ignore. Brands across beauty, fashion, jewelry, and consumer electronics are seeing revenue per visitor lift by thirty to fifty percent within months. One small change to a mobile navigation menu at Hugh Jewelry led to a fifty seven percent increase in revenue per visitor, which is the kind of outcome that gets leadership teams paying attention.
We also talked about momentum behind the company itself. A recently announced ten million dollar seed round has given Moonshot AI the resources to scale engineering and go-to-market teams at a time when demand is accelerating fast. But beyond funding and growth charts, what stood out most was Aviv's longer-term view. As more people turn to AI assistants and agents instead of traditional search, websites need to be structured so machines can understand them as clearly as humans. Moonshot is already optimizing for that future, preparing sites for an agent-driven web where the customer might be an algorithm as much as a person.
Aviv also shared his personal journey, moving from a successful career as a tech journalist and TV host into the far more humbling world of building companies. Rejection, uncertainty, and hard lessons came with the territory, but so did clarity. His guiding idea, inspired by Jeff Bezos, is a minimum regret mindset, choosing the harder path now to avoid looking back later and wondering what might have been.
So as AI moves from tools that assist to systems that act, and as websites become active participants in growth rather than static assets, the big question becomes this. Are you still relying on slow, manual optimization cycles, or are you ready to let your website start improving itself, and what does that shift mean for how you build and scale in the years ahead?
Useful Links
- Connect with Aviv Frenkel
- Learn More About Moonshot AI
- Follow on LinkedIn
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What happens when decades of supply chain planning collide with AI, volatility, and a world that no longer moves at a predictable pace?
That question sat at the heart of my conversation with Piet Buyck, a serial entrepreneur whose career spans early optimization engines, cloud-era planning systems, and now AI-driven decision environments. Speaking from Antwerp just days before the holidays, Piet brought a calm, grounded perspective shaped by years inside organizations operating under real commercial pressure. His journey includes building Garvis, an AI-native planning platform later acquired by Logility, which itself became part of Aptean. That arc alone tells a story about consolidation, scale, and where modern planning is heading.
We spent time unpacking ideas from Piet's book, AI Compass for Supply Chain Leaders, particularly his view that planning drifted too far into abstract numbers and away from real-world context. Long before AI became a boardroom obsession, he saw how centralized models created distance between decisions and reality. When disruption arrives, whether through pandemics, tariffs, or geopolitical tension, that distance becomes costly. Piet shared vivid examples of how slow, spreadsheet-heavy processes fail precisely when speed and clarity matter most.
One thread that kept resurfacing was data. Many leaders believe their data is "good enough" until volatility exposes blind spots. Piet pushed the conversation further, explaining that AI's value goes beyond crunching clean datasets. It can move understanding across silos, surface the reasons behind decisions, and make context visible without endless meetings. That idea of explainable, collaborative AI came up repeatedly, especially as a counterpoint to opaque automation that creates confidence without understanding.
We also tackled the human side. There is anxiety around skills erosion and entry-level roles disappearing, but Piet's view was more nuanced. AI shifts where time and energy go, away from gathering information and toward judgment, fairness, and accountability. In his eyes, the real challenge for leaders is choosing the right scope. Projects that are too small fade into irrelevance, while those that are too big stall under their own weight.
As we looked ahead, Piet reflected on how leadership itself may change as data becomes accessible to everyone. Authority based on instinct alone becomes harder to defend when assumptions are visible. The leaders who thrive will be those who can explain direction clearly, connect data to purpose, and bring people with them.
So after hearing how planning, AI, and leadership are converging in real organizations today, how do you see the balance between human judgment and machine intelligence playing out in your own world, and are we truly ready for what that shift demands?
Useful Links
- Connect with Piet Buyck
- The AI Compass for Supply Chain Leaders Book
- Logility Website
- Follow on LinkedIn
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
Today's episode is a conversation with Bret Kinsella, recorded while he was in Las Vegas for CES and preparing to step onto the AI stage. Bret brings a rare combination of long-term perspective and hands-on experience.
As General Manager of Fuel iX at TELUS Digital, he operates generative AI systems at a scale most enterprises never see, processing trillions of tokens and delivering measurable business outcomes for global organizations. That vantage point gives him a clear view of both the promise of generative AI and the uncomfortable truths many teams are still avoiding.
Together, we unpack why generative AI breaks so many of the assumptions security teams have relied on for decades. Bret explains why these systems are probabilistic rather than deterministic, and how that single shift creates what he calls an unbounded attack surface.
Users are no longer limited to predefined buttons or workflows, and outputs are no longer constrained to a fixed database. The same prompt can succeed or fail depending on subtle changes, which makes single-pass testing and checkbox compliance dangerously misleading. If you have ever wondered why an AI system feels safe one day and unpredictable the next, this conversation offers a grounded explanation.
We also explore why focusing on the model alone misses the real risk. Bret makes a strong case that the model is only one part of a much larger system shaped by system prompts, connected data sources, tools, and guardrails. Change any one of those elements and behavior shifts. This is why automated, continuous red teaming has become unavoidable.
Bret shares how Telus Digital's Fortify AI attack model uncovered hundreds of vulnerabilities in hours, far beyond what human teams could realistically surface on their own. Yet automation is not the end of the story. The final decisions still depend on people who understand context, trade-offs, and business impact.
Throughout the discussion, we return to a simple but uncomfortable idea. AI safety is not something you bolt on after deployment. It demands a different mindset, broader testing, repeated validation, and ongoing human judgment. For leaders moving from experimentation to real-world deployment, this episode is a clear-eyed look at what responsible progress actually requires.
So, as more organizations rush to deploy agents and autonomous systems in 2026, are we truly prepared for software that learns, adapts, and occasionally surprises us, and what does that mean for how you test and trust AI inside your own business?
Useful Links
- Connect with Bret Kinsella
- Telus Digital Website
- Fuel iX
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What does it actually take to move beyond AI pilots and turn enterprise ambition into real productivity gains?
That question sat at the center of my conversation with Olivia Nottebohm, Chief Operating Officer at Box, and it is one that every boardroom seems to be wrestling with right now. AI conversations have matured quickly.
The early excitement has given way to harder questions about return, trust, and what changes when software stops assisting work and starts acting inside it.
Olivia brings a rare vantage point to that discussion, shaped by leadership roles at Google, Dropbox, Notion, and now Box, where she oversees global go to market, customer success, and partnerships at a time when AI is becoming embedded in everyday operations.
We talked about why early adopters are already seeing productivity lifts of around thirty seven percent, while others remain stuck in experimentation. The difference, as Olivia explains, is rarely the model itself. Strategy matters more.
Teams that treat AI as a chance to rethink how work flows through the organization are pulling away from those that simply layer automation on top of broken processes. This is where unstructured content, often described as dark data, becomes a competitive asset rather than a liability. When that information is curated, permissioned, and ready for agents to use, entire workflows start to look very different.
A large part of our discussion focused on AI agents and why 2026 is shaping up to be the year they move from novelty to necessity. Agents are already joining the workforce, taking on tasks that used to require multiple handoffs between teams. That shift brings speed and autonomy, but it also raises new questions about trust.
Olivia shared why governance has become one of the biggest blind spots in enterprise AI, especially when agents act independently or interact across platforms. Her perspective was clear. Without strong security, permissioning, and oversight, the risks grow faster than the rewards.
We also explored why companies using a mix of models and agents tend to see stronger returns, and how Box approaches this with a neutral, customer choice driven philosophy while maintaining consistent governance.
From the five stages of enterprise AI maturity to the idea of a future agent manager role, this conversation offers a grounded look at what AI at scale actually demands from leadership, culture, and operating models.
So as investment accelerates and AI becomes part of the fabric of work, the real question is this. Are organizations ready to redesign how they operate around agents, data, and trust, or will they keep experimenting while others pull ahead, and what do you think separates the two?
Useful Links
- Connect with Olivia Nottebohm
- The State of AI in the Enterprise Report
- Becoming an AI-First Company
- Follow on LinkedIn
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
What happens when the systems we rely on every day start producing more signals than humans can realistically process, and how do IT leaders decide what actually matters anymore?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Garth Fort, Chief Product Officer at LogicMonitor, to unpack why traditional monitoring models are reaching their limits and why AI native observability is starting to feel less like a future idea and more like a present day requirement. Modern enterprise IT now spans legacy data centers, multiple public clouds, and thousands of services layered on top. That complexity has quietly broken many of the tools teams still depend on, leaving operators buried under alerts rather than empowered by insight.
Garth brings a rare perspective shaped by senior roles at Microsoft, AWS, and Splunk, along with firsthand experience running observability at hyperscale. We talk about how alert fatigue has become one of the biggest hidden drains on IT teams, including real world examples where organizations were dealing with tens of thousands of alerts every week and still missing the root cause. This is where LogicMonitor's AI agent, Edwin AI, enters the picture, not as a replacement for human judgment, but as a way to correlate noise into something usable and give operators their time and confidence back.
A big part of our conversation centers on trust. AI agents behave very differently from deterministic automation, and that difference matters when systems are responsible for critical services like healthcare supply chains, airline operations, or global hospitality platforms. Garth explains why governance, auditability, and role based controls will decide how quickly enterprises allow AI agents to move from advisory roles into more autonomous ones. We also explore why experimentation with AI has become one of the lowest risk moves leaders can make right now, and why the teams who treat learning as a daily habit tend to outperform the rest.
We finish by zooming out to the bigger picture, where observability stops being a technical function and starts becoming a way to understand business health itself. From mapping infrastructure to real customer experiences, to reshaping how IT budgets are justified in boardrooms, this conversation offers a grounded look at where enterprise operations are heading next.
So, as AI agents become more embedded in the systems that run our businesses, how comfortable are you with handing them the keys, and what would it take for you to truly trust them?
Useful Links
- Connect with Garth Fort
- Learn more about LogicMonitor
- Check out the Logic Monitor blog
- Follow on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, and YouTube.
Alcor is the Sponsor of Tech Talks Network
Are we asking ourselves an honest question about who really owns automation inside a business anymore?
In my conversation with Darin Patterson, Vice President of Market Strategy at Make, we explore what happens when speed becomes the default requirement, but visibility and structure fail to keep up.
Make has become one of the breakout platforms for teams that want to build automated workflows without writing code, and now, with AI agents joining the mix, the stakes feel even higher. Darin talks candidly about the tension between empowerment and chaos, especially in organizations that embraced no-code tools fast and early, only to discover that automation can quietly turn into sprawl if left unchecked.
What struck me most is how strongly Darin challenges the idea that documentation alone can save modern IT teams. He argues that traditional monitoring tools and workflow documentation are breaking down under the weight of constant iteration.
That's where Make Grid comes in. Make Grid creates an auto-generated, real-time visual map of a company's automation ecosystem, something Darin describes as a turning point for governance.
He explains why this matters now, not later. As companies deploy AI into processes that used to be owned by specialists, Grid provides a shared lens for understanding what is running, who built it, and where dependencies exist. It's an answer to a problem many IT leaders are reluctant to admit publicly, that automation systems often grow faster than oversight systems ever could.
Darin also offers a refreshingly grounded take on the psychology of ambitious teams. He talks about the need to prevent "no-code anarchy," a phrase I've heard whispered at conferences, but rarely unpacked with clarity.
His view is simple, trust teams to build, but give them shared maps, guardrails, and governance that don't slow them down. That balance between autonomy and oversight becomes even more meaningful when AI is introduced into workflows that touch security, IT performance, and cross-team accountability.
Make Grid attempts to solve that balance by showing the automation architecture visually, even when internal documentation has gone stale.
So here's the question I want to leave you with, if AI agents can now design, connect, and deploy workflows across an organization, what role will visual governance play in keeping businesses both fast and accountable? And what does good oversight look like when humans are no longer the only builders in the system?
Useful Links
- Learn more about Make
- Connect with Darin Patterson
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
Was 2025 the year the games industry finally stopped talking about direct-to-consumer and started treating it as the default way to do business?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Chris Hewish, President at Xsolla, for a wide-ranging conversation about how regulation, platform pressure, and shifting player expectations have pushed D2C from the margins into the mainstream. As court rulings, the Digital Markets Act, and high-profile battles like Epic versus Apple continue to reshape the industry, developers are gaining more leverage, but also more responsibility, over how they distribute, monetize, and support their games.
Chris breaks down why D2C is no longer just about avoiding app store fees. It is about owning player relationships, controlling data, and building sustainable businesses in a more consolidated market. We explore how tools like Xsolla's Unity SDK are lowering the barrier for studios to sell directly across mobile, PC, and the web, while handling the operational complexity that often scares teams away from global payments, compliance, and fraud management.
We also dig into what is changing inside live service games. From offer walls that help monetize the vast majority of players who never spend, to LiveOps tools that simplify campaigns and retention strategies, Chris shares real examples of how studios are seeing meaningful lifts in revenue and engagement. The conversation moves beyond technology into mindset, especially for indie and mid-sized teams learning that treating a game as a long-term business needs to start far earlier than launch day.
Here in 2026, we talk about account-centric economies, hybrid monetization models running in parallel, and the growing role of community-driven commerce inspired by platforms like Roblox and Fortnite. There is optimism in these shifts, but also understandable anxiety as studios adjust to managing more of the stack themselves. Chris offers a grounded perspective on how that balance is likely to play out.
So if games are becoming hobbies, platforms are opening up, and developers finally have the tools to meet players wherever they are, what does the next phase of direct-to-consumer really look like, and are studios ready to fully own that relationship?
Useful Links * + Connect with Chris Hewish on LinkedIn + Learn more about Xsolla + Follow on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook
Thanks to our sponsors, Alcor, for supporting the show.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Kiren Sekar, Chief Product Officer at Samsara, to unpack how AI is finally showing up where it matters most, in the frontline operations that keep the global economy moving. From logistics and construction to manufacturing and field services, these industries represent a huge share of global GDP, yet for years they have been left behind by modern software. Kiren explains why that gap existed, and why the timing is finally right to close it.
We talk about Samsara's full-stack approach that blends hardware, software, and AI to turn trillions of real-world data points into decisions people can actually act on. Kiren shares how customers are using this intelligence to prevent accidents, cut fuel waste, digitize paper-based workflows, and scale expert judgment across thousands of vehicles and job sites. The conversation goes deep into real examples, including how large enterprises like Home Depot have dramatically reduced accident rates and improved asset utilization by making safety and efficiency part of everyday operations rather than afterthoughts.
A big part of our discussion focuses on trust. When AI enters physical operations, concerns around monitoring and surveillance surface quickly. Kiren walks through how adoption succeeds only when technology is introduced with care, transparency, and a clear focus on protecting workers. From proving driver innocence during incidents to rewarding positive behavior and using AI as a virtual safety coach, we explore why change management matters just as much as the technology itself.
We also look at the limits of automation and why human judgment still plays a central role. Kiren explains how Samsara's AI acts as a force multiplier for experienced frontline experts, capturing their hard-won knowledge and scaling it across an entire workforce rather than trying to replace it. As AI moves from pilots into daily decision-making at scale, this episode offers a grounded view of what responsible, high-impact deployment actually looks like.
As AI continues to reshape frontline work, making jobs safer, easier, and more engaging, how should product leaders balance innovation with responsibility when their systems start influencing real-world safety and productivity every single day?
Useful Links
- Connect with Kiren Sekar
- Learn more about Samsara
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What if airlines stopped thinking in terms of seats and schedules and started designing for the entire journey instead?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Somit Goyal, CEO of IBS Software, to talk about how travel technology is being rebuilt at its foundations. Since we last spoke, AI has moved from experimentation into everyday operations, and that shift is forcing airlines to rethink everything from retailing and loyalty to disruption management and customer trust. Somit shares why AI can no longer sit on the edge of systems as a feature, and why it now has to be embedded directly into how decisions are made across the business.
We discuss the growing gap between legacy airline technology and rapidly rising traveler expectations, and why this tension has become a defining moment for the industry. For Somit, travel tech is no longer back office infrastructure. It is becoming the operating system for customer experience and revenue. That shift changes how airlines think about retailing, moving away from selling flights toward curating outcomes across a multi day journey that includes partners, servicing, and real time operational awareness. The conversation also explores why agility now matters more than scale, and how airlines are approaching this transformation without breaking what already works.
A major part of this episode focuses on IBS Software's deep co-innovation partnership with Amazon Web Services. Somit explains why this is far more than a cloud hosting arrangement, covering joint R&D, shared roadmaps, and AI labs designed to help airlines build modern retailing capabilities faster. We also unpack what "AI first" really means in practice, how intelligence is reshaping offer creation, pricing, order management, and disruption handling, and why responsible AI must be treated as a product rather than a legal safeguard.
We also spend time on loyalty, one of the industry's most stubborn challenges. Somit outlines why converging reservations and loyalty systems is such a powerful unlock, how it enables real time personalization instead of generic segmentation, and why loyalty should evolve from a points ledger into an experience engine that delivers value before, during, and after a trip.
As airlines race toward 2026, the big question is no longer whether transformation will happen, but who will move with enough clarity and trust to earn long-term loyalty. In a world where AI knows more about travelers than ever before, how do airlines use that intelligence to create better outcomes without crossing the line, and are they ready to rethink the journey from end to end?
Useful Links
- Connect with Somit Goyal
- Learn more about IBS Software
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What happens when a podcast stops being something you listen to and becomes something you physically show up for?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I wanted to explore a different kind of tech story, one rooted in community, endurance, and real human connection. I was joined by Sam Huntington, a Business Development Officer at Wells Fargo, who has quietly built something special at the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship, and cycling through his podcast and community project, Hill Climbers.
Sam's story starts far from a studio. It begins on a bike, moving through Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and eventually Austin, where chance conversations on group rides turned into friendships, business relationships, and eventually a podcast. We talk about why endurance sports and startups share the same mental terrain, the moments when you want to quit, and how those moments often define the outcome. Sam explains how Hill Climbers evolved from recorded conversations into weekly rides, live podcast tapings, and in person events that bring founders, investors, and operators together without name badges or pitch decks.
We also dig into what makes Austin such a magnetic place for founders right now, and why community building outside Silicon Valley feels different when it is built around shared effort rather than curated networks. Sam shares lessons learned from taking a podcast offline, including the early weeks when hardly anyone showed up, the temptation to stop, and the persistence required to build momentum. There is a refreshing honesty in how he describes growing something slowly, resisting shortcuts, and letting trust compound over time.
This conversation is also a reminder that meaningful networks are rarely built through algorithms. They are built through shared experiences, discomfort, friendly competition, and showing up consistently when no one is watching. Whether you are a founder, an investor, or someone trying to build a community of your own, there is something grounding in hearing how relationships form when work is not the opening line.
As more of our professional lives move online, are we losing the spaces where real connection happens, and what would it look like for you to build community around a shared passion rather than a job title?
Userful Links
- Connect with Sam Huntington
- Hill Climbers Website
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What happens to patient care when hospital systems suddenly go dark and clinicians are forced back to pen and paper in the middle of a crisis?
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I speak with Chao Cheng-Shorland, Co-founder and CEO of ShelterZoom, about a problem that many healthcare leaders still underestimate until it is too late. As ransomware attacks, cloud outages, and system failures become more frequent, electronic health record downtime has shifted from a rare incident to a recurring operational risk with real consequences for patient safety, staff wellbeing, and hospital finances.
Chao explains why traditional disaster recovery plans fall short in live clinical environments and why returning to paper workflows is no longer viable for modern healthcare teams. We discuss how EHR downtime can stretch from hours into weeks, how reimbursement delays and cash flow pressure compound the damage, and why younger clinicians are often unprepared for manual processes they were never trained to use. The conversation also explores the mindset shift now taking place among CIOs and CISOs, as resilience moves from a compliance checkbox to a survival requirement.
At the heart of the discussion is ShelterZoom's SpareTire platform and the thinking behind treating uninterrupted access to clinical data as a baseline rather than a backup. Chao shares how the idea emerged directly from hospital conversations, why an external, always-available system is essential during cyber incidents, and how ShelterZoom's tokenization roots shaped a design focused on security without disruption. We also look at how rising AI adoption is changing the threat landscape and why many healthcare organizations are reordering priorities to secure continuity before rolling out new AI initiatives.
As we look toward 2026, this episode offers a grounded view of how healthcare organizations must rethink downtime tolerance, data governance, and operational readiness in a world where digital outages can quickly become clinical emergencies. If downtime is now inevitable rather than hypothetical, what does real resilience look like for hospitals, and are healthcare leaders moving fast enough to protect patients when systems fail?
Useful Links
- Connect with Chao Cheng-Shorland
- Learn more about ShelterZoom
Tech Talks Daily is Sponsored by Denodo
Is your website still the front door to your business, or has AI already quietly changed where customers first meet your brand?
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Dominik Angerer, Co-founder and CEO of Storyblok, to unpack how content, search, and discovery are shifting in an AI-first world. As search behavior moves away from blue links toward direct answers inside tools like ChatGPT and Google summaries, Dominik explains why many businesses are seeing traffic decline even while signups and conversions continue to grow.
We explore how AI is reshaping the role of content management systems, from automation and orchestration to personalization at scale. Dominik shares why consistency now matters more than volume, how outdated content can actively harm brand visibility inside AI answers, and why the technical foundations built for SEO still play a major role as generative search takes hold. This conversation also dives into headless CMS architecture, why separating content from presentation has become even more valuable, and how structured, well maintained content gives AI systems something reliable to work with.
Dominik also introduces the idea of joyful content, a belief that better tools lead to better work and ultimately better experiences for audiences. From AI-powered support workflows to personalized retail and loyalty experiences, he shares real examples of how forward-looking teams are already using content as an active system rather than a static archive. As businesses look toward 2026 and rethink how they show up across websites, apps, agents, and answer engines, this episode offers a grounded look at what needs to change and where to start.
As AI becomes the place people go for answers rather than search results, how are you rethinking your content strategy, and what will you do differently after hearing this conversation?
- Connect with Dominik Angerer
- Learn more Storyblok
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What happens when the push for smarter crypto wallets runs headfirst into the reality that everything on a public blockchain can be seen by anyone?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I wanted to take listeners who may not live and breathe Web3 every day and introduce them to a problem that is becoming harder to ignore. As Ethereum evolves and smart accounts unlock new wallet features, the surface area for risk grows at the same time. That is where privacy-first Layer 2 solutions enter the conversation, not as an abstract idea, but as a practical response to very real security and usability concerns.
My guest is Joe Andrews, Co-founder and President at Aztec Labs. Joe brings an engineering mindset shaped by years of building consumer-facing applications and deep privacy infrastructure. Together, we unpack why privacy and security can no longer be treated as separate topics, especially as Ethereum rolls out more advanced account features. Joe explains how privacy-first Layer 2 networks act as an added line of defense, reducing exposure to threats that come from fully transparent balances, identities, and transaction histories.
We also talk about what Aztec actually is, often described as the Private World Computer, and why that framing matters. Joe shares learnings from Aztec's public testnet launch earlier this year, what surprised the team once thousands of nodes were running in the wild, and how the community has stepped up in ways the company itself could not have planned for. There is also an honest discussion about the UK crypto scene, the missed opportunities, and the quiet resilience of builders who continue to ship despite regulatory uncertainty.
As we look ahead, Joe outlines what comes next as Aztec moves closer to enabling private transactions on a decentralized network, and why the next phase is less about theory and more about real people using privacy in everyday interactions. If you are curious about how privacy-first Layer 2 solutions fit into Ethereum's roadmap, or why privacy might be the missing piece that finally makes smart wallets usable at scale, does this conversation change how you think about the future of crypto, and where would you like to see this technology go next?
Useful Links
- Connect with Joe Andrews
- Learn more about Aztec Labs
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What happens when the systems designed to make life easier quietly begin shaping how we think, decide, and choose?
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Jacob Ward, a journalist who has spent more than two decades examining the unseen effects of technology on human behavior. From reporting roles at NBC News, Al Jazeera, CNN, and PBS, to hosting his own podcast The Rip Current, Jacob has built a career around asking uncomfortable questions about power, persuasion, and the psychology sitting beneath our screens.
Our conversation centers on his book The Loop: How A.I Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back, written before ChatGPT entered everyday life. Jacob explains why his core concern was never about smarter machines alone, but about what happens when AI systems learn us too well. Drawing on behavioral science, newsroom experience, and recent academic research, he argues that AI can narrow our sense of possibility while convincing us we are gaining freedom. The result is a subtle tension between convenience and control that many listeners will recognize in their own digital lives.
We also explore the idea of AI companies behaving like nation states, accumulating talent, influence, and authority without the checks that usually accompany that kind of power. Jacob reflects on the speed of AI deployment, the belief systems driving its biggest champions, and why individual self control is unlikely to be enough. Instead, he makes the case for systemic responses, cultural guardrails, and a renewed focus on protecting human skills that cannot be automated away.
There is room for optimism here too. We talk about where AI genuinely helps, from medicine to scientific discovery, and how leaders can hold hope and skepticism at the same time without slipping into hype or fear. From preserving entry level work as a form of apprenticeship to resisting the urge to outsource thinking itself, this episode offers a thoughtful look at what staying human might mean in an age of intelligent machines.
Jacob has also appeared on shows like The Joe Rogan Experience, This Week in Tech, and The Don Lemon Show, but this conversation strips things back to fundamentals. How much choice do we really have, and what are we willing to give up for frictionless answers?
If AI is quietly closing the loop around our decisions, what does fighting back actually look like for you, and where do you think that line between help and influence should be drawn?
Useful Links
- Connect With Jacob Ward
- Check out his website and book
- The Rip Current Podcast
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How is HR changing when AI, economic pressure, and rising employee expectations all collide at once?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Simon Noble, CEO of Cezanne HR, to unpack how the role of HR is evolving from a traditional support function into something far more closely tied to business performance. Simon shares why HR is increasingly being judged on outcomes like retention, capability building, and readiness for change, rather than policies, processes, or cost control. Yet despite that shift, many HR leaders still find themselves pulled back into a compliance-first mindset as budgets tighten, skills shortages persist, and new legislation raises the stakes.
We explore how AI fits into this picture without stripping the humanity out of HR. Simon is clear that AI should automate administration and free up time, rather than replace human judgment or empathy. Used well, it removes friction from onboarding, compliance, and everyday queries, giving HR the space to focus on culture, leadership, and long-term talent development. Used poorly, it risks adding noise without value. The difference, he argues, comes down to data. Without clean, consolidated data, AI simply cannot deliver meaningful insight, no matter how advanced the technology appears.
The conversation also looks inward at Cezanne HR's own growth journey. Simon describes rapid expansion as chaos with better branding, and explains why maintaining culture, trust, and clarity becomes harder, yet more important, as teams scale. From onboarding new employees to ensuring a consistent customer experience, the same principles apply internally as they do for customers using HR technology.
We also touch on trust, transparency, and the growing focus on areas like pay transparency, data responsibility, and employee confidence in how their information is handled. As expectations continue to rise, HR's credibility increasingly rests on accuracy, fairness, and the ability to turn insight into action.
As HR steps closer to the center of business strategy, what mindset shift is needed to move from reacting to change toward actively shaping it, and how prepared is your organization to make that leap?
Useful Links
Connect with Simon Noble
Learn more about Cezanne HR
Tech Talks Daily is Sponsored by Denodo
What does it really mean when AI moves from answering questions to making decisions that affect real people, real money, and real outcomes?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Joe Kim, CEO of Druid AI, for a grounded conversation about why agentic AI is becoming the focus for enterprises that have moved beyond experimentation. After years of hype around generative tools, many organizations are now facing a tougher question.
Can AI be trusted to take action inside core business processes, and can it do so with the accuracy, security, and accountability that enterprises expect?
Joe brings a rare perspective shaped by decades leading large-scale enterprise software companies, including his time as CEO of Sumo Logic. He explains why Druid AI deliberately avoids positioning itself as a generative AI company, and instead focuses on systems that can make decisions, trigger workflows, and complete tasks inside regulated, high-stakes environments. We unpack why accuracy thresholds matter when AI touches billing, healthcare, admissions, or compliance, and why security and governance are no longer secondary concerns once AI is allowed to act.
We also talk about scale and proof. Druid AI now supports over 120 million conversations every month, a figure that keeps climbing as enterprises move agentic systems into production. Joe shares how those conversations translate into measurable business outcomes, from operational efficiency to revenue growth, and why many AI initiatives fail to reach this stage. His "5 percent club" philosophy cuts through the noise, focusing on the small number of use cases that actually deliver return while most others stall in pilots.
The conversation also explores why higher education has become a surprising pressure point for AI adoption, how outdated systems contribute to student churn, and how conversational agents can remove friction at moments that decide whether someone enrolls, stays, or leaves. We close by looking ahead at Druid AI's next chapter, including new platform capabilities designed to make building and deploying agents faster without sacrificing control.
As more enterprises demand results instead of promises, are we ready to judge AI by the decisions it makes and the outcomes it delivers, and what should that accountability look like in your organization?
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Where do you see agentic AI delivering real value today, and where do you think the risks still outweigh the rewards?
What does it really mean when AI moves from answering questions to making decisions that affect real people, real money, and real outcomes?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Joe Kim, CEO of Druid AI, for a grounded conversation about why agentic AI is becoming the focus for enterprises that have moved beyond experimentation. After years of hype around generative tools, many organizations are now facing a tougher question. Can AI be trusted to take action inside core business processes, and can it do so with the accuracy, security, and accountability that enterprises expect?
Joe brings a rare perspective shaped by decades leading large-scale enterprise software companies, including his time as CEO of Sumo Logic. He explains why Druid AI deliberately avoids positioning itself as a generative AI company, and instead focuses on systems that can make decisions, trigger workflows, and complete tasks inside regulated, high-stakes environments. We unpack why accuracy thresholds matter when AI touches billing, healthcare, admissions, or compliance, and why security and governance are no longer secondary concerns once AI is allowed to act.
We also talk about scale and proof. Druid AI now supports over 120 million conversations every month, a figure that keeps climbing as enterprises move agentic systems into production. Joe shares how those conversations translate into measurable business outcomes, from operational efficiency to revenue growth, and why many AI initiatives fail to reach this stage. His "5 percent club" philosophy cuts through the noise, focusing on the small number of use cases that actually deliver return while most others stall in pilots.
The conversation also explores why higher education has become a surprising pressure point for AI adoption, how outdated systems contribute to student churn, and how conversational agents can remove friction at moments that decide whether someone enrolls, stays, or leaves. We close by looking ahead at Druid AI's next chapter, including new platform capabilities designed to make building and deploying agents faster without sacrificing control.
As more enterprises demand results instead of promises, are we ready to judge AI by the decisions it makes and the outcomes it delivers, and what should that accountability look like in your organization?
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Where do you see agentic AI delivering real value today, and where do you think the risks still outweigh the rewards?
Useful Links
Connect with Joe Kim, CEO of Druid AI.
Druid AI Website
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The world is building data centers, identity rails, and AI policy stacks at a speed that makes 2026 feel closer than it is.
In this conversation, Rajesh Natarajan, Global Chief Technology Officer at Gorilla Technology Group, explains what it takes to engineer platforms that remain reliable, secure, and sovereign-ready for decades, especially when infrastructure must operate outside the safety net of constant cloud connectivity.
Raj talks about quantum-safe networking as a current risk, not a future headline. Adversaries are capturing encrypted traffic today, betting on decrypting it later, and retrofitting quantum-safe architecture into national platforms mid-lifecycle is an expensive mistake waiting to happen.
He also highlights the regional nature of AI infrastructure, Southeast Asia prioritizing sovereignty, speed, and efficiency, Europe leaning on regulation and telemetry, and the U.S. betting on raw cluster scale and throughput.
Sustainability at Gorilla isn't a marketing headline, it's an engineering requirement. If a system can't prove its environmental impact using telemetry like workload-level PUE, it isn't labeled sustainable internally.
Gorilla applies the same rigor to IoT insight per unit of energy, device lifecycles, and edge-level intelligence placement, minimizing data centralization without operational justification.
This episode offers marketers, founders, and technology leaders a rare chance to understand what national-scale resilience looks like when platform alignment breaks first, not technology.
Remembering that decisions must be reversible, explicit, and measurable is the foundation of how Gorilla is designing systems that can evolve without forcing rushed compromises when uncertainty becomes reality.
Useful links:
Connect with Dr Rajesh Natarajan Gorilla website
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What makes live events feel personal in an age of algorithms making the calls?
That's the tension marketers are living in right now. Ben Kruger, Chief Marketing Officer at Event Tickets Center, sits at the center of this shift. He has spent 20 years shaping server-side systems and performance marketing strategies, including a decade of persistence chasing a role at Google before landing a position in New York just as eCommerce demand went into overdrive during the pandemic.
Now, at ETC, he runs marketing for more than 130,000 live events simultaneously. It's a scale that forces automation to step in. The industry moves in real time, resellers update prices by the hour, artists trend globally overnight, weather can shift demand before a stadium gate opens. Ben credits Google's AI tools and internal models as a competitive advantage, but he also talks openly about the risks. The early excitement of automation gave way to skepticism after seeing unaligned promises from new platforms and unpredictable campaign behavior in tools that remove control from brands.
There's a well-rounded argument to explore here. On one side, AI enables a small team to do the work of thousands, writing content at a volume no human team could deliver alone. On the other, removing risk from campaigns, or removing channel-level choices from advertisers, can reduce trust and increase low-quality creative output. Advantage+ tools that make placement decisions automatically, without brand input, might scale reach, but can reduce clarity of intent and control of outcomes. Some CMOs see that as smart acceleration, others see it as an overcorrection that creates opacity and dependency on platforms optimizing for their own incentives.
And somewhere in the middle is the opportunity. ETC's approach shows a future where repetition in rapid testing generates sharper insight, where lean teams move faster, where humans stay in the loop to validate outcomes, and where creativity stays grounded in audience understanding, economics, and transparency. Marketers listening to Ben will hear someone who wants experimentation, control, clarity, and long-term audience trust to exist side by side.
Useful links:
Connect with Ben Kruger on LinkedIn Event Tickets Center website
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What does it really take to build software that can grow from a single line of code to millions of users a day without losing its soul along the way?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Alex Gusev, CTO at Uploadcare, for a wide-ranging conversation about scale, simplicity, and why leadership in technology starts with people long before it gets anywhere near frameworks or tooling. Alex has spent two decades building server-side systems, often inside small teams, and has seen firsthand how early decisions echo through a company's future, for better and for worse.
We talk openly about the realities of early-stage engineering, including why shipping imperfect code is often the only way to survive, how technical debt should be taken on deliberately rather than by accident, and why knowing when to slow down and clean things up is one of the hardest leadership calls to make. Alex shares his belief that simplicity is the strongest ally in high-load environments, and how over-engineering, often inspired by copying the playbooks of much larger companies, creates fragility instead of strength.
Our conversation also digs into his continued faith in Ruby on Rails, a framework that divides opinion but still plays a central role in many successful products. Alex reframes the debate around speed, focusing less on raw performance metrics and more on how quickly teams can build, adapt, and maintain systems over time. It's a practical view shaped by real-world trade-offs rather than theory.
Beyond code, we explore why Alex puts people ahead of technology and process, and how creating psychological safety inside teams leads to better decisions, lower churn, and smarter use of limited resources. He also reflects on personal experiences that reshaped his approach to leadership, the growing tech scene in Kyrgyzstan, and why he finds as much inspiration in Dostoevsky as he does in engineering blogs.
If you've ever questioned whether modern engineering culture has overcomplicated itself, or wondered how to balance ambition with sustainability as your product grows, this episode offers plenty to think about. Where do you think your own team is adding complexity without realizing it, and what might change if you started with people first?
Useful Links
- Connect with Alex Gusev
- Learn more about Uploadcare
Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo
If you have ever opened Candy Crush over the holidays without thinking about the design decisions behind every swipe, this episode offers a rare look behind the curtain.
I sit down with Abigail Rindo, Head of Creative at King, to unpack how accessibility has evolved from a well-meaning afterthought into a core creative and commercial practice inside one of the world's most recognizable gaming studios.
With more than 200 million people playing King's games each month, Abigail explains why inclusive design cannot be treated as charity or compliance, but as a responsibility that directly shapes product quality, player loyalty, and long-term growth.
One of the moments that really stayed with me in this conversation is the data. More than a quarter of King's global player base self identifies as having an accessibility need. Even more players benefit from accessibility features without ever labeling themselves that way. Abigail shares how adjustments like customizable audio for tinnitus, reduced flashing to limit eye strain, and subtle interaction changes can quietly transform everyday play for millions of people. These are not edge cases. They are everyday realities for a massive audience that lives with these games as part of their daily routine.
We also dig into how inclusive design sparks better creativity rather than limiting it. Abigail walks me through updates to Candy Crush Soda Saga, including the "hold and drag" mechanic that allows players to preview a move before committing. Inspired by the logic of holding a chess piece before placing it, this feature emerged directly from player research around visibility, dexterity, and comfort. It is a reminder that creative constraints, when grounded in real human needs, often lead to smarter and more elegant solutions.
Beyond mechanics and metrics, this conversation goes deeper into storytelling, empathy, and team culture. Abigail explains why inclusive design only works when inclusive teams are involved from the start, and how global storytelling choices help King design worlds that resonate everywhere from Stockholm to Antarctica.
We also talk about live service realities, blending quantitative data about what players do with qualitative insight into why they do it, especially when a game has been evolving for more than a decade.
What does it actually mean to prove who we are online in 2025, and why does it still feel so fragile?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Alex Laurie from Ping Identity to talk about why digital identity has reached a real moment of tension in the UK.
As more of our lives move online, from banking and healthcare to social platforms and government services, the gap between how identity should work and how it actually works keeps widening.
Alex shares why the UK now feels out of step with other regions when it comes to online identity schemes, and how heavy reliance on centralized models is slowing adoption while weakening public trust.
We spend time unpacking the practical consequences of today's verification systems. Age checks are regularly bypassed, fraud continues to grow, and users are often asked to hand over far more personal data than feels reasonable just to access everyday services.
At the same time, public pressure around online safety is rising fast. That creates an uncomfortable push and pull between tighter controls and the expectation of fast, low-friction access.
Alex makes the case that this tension exists because the underlying approach is flawed, and that proving something simple, like age, should never require revealing an entire digital identity.
From there, the conversation turns to decentralized identity and why it is gaining momentum globally. Instead of placing sensitive data into large centralized databases, decentralized models allow individuals to hold and present verified credentials on their own terms.
For me, this reframes digital identity as a right rather than a feature, and opens the door to systems that feel more privacy-aware, inclusive, and resilient. We also explore how agentic AI could play a role here, helping people manage, present, and protect their credentials intelligently without adding complexity or new risks.
With fresh consumer research from Ping Identity informing the discussion, this episode looks closely at where trust, privacy, and identity are heading next, and why the choices made now will shape how we prove who we are online for years to come. Are we finally ready to rethink digital identity, and if so, what does that mean for all of us?
What does it really mean to keep humans at the center of AI when agentic systems are accelerating faster than most organizations can govern them?
At AWS re:Invent, I sat down with Michael Bachman from Boomi for a wide-ranging conversation that cut through the hype and focused on the harder questions many leaders are quietly asking.
Michael leads technical and market research at Boomi, spending his time looking five to ten years ahead and translating future signals into decisions companies need to make today. That long view shaped a thoughtful discussion on human-centric AI, trust versus autonomy, and why governance can no longer be treated as an afterthought.
As businesses rush toward agentic AI, swarms of autonomous systems, and large-scale automation, Michael shared why this moment makes him both optimistic and cautious. He explained why security, legal, and governance teams must be involved early, not retrofitted later, and why observability and sovereignty will become non-negotiable as agents move from experimentation into production.
With tens of thousands of agents already deployed through Boomi, the stakes are rising quickly, and organizations that ignore guardrails today may struggle to regain control tomorrow.
We also explored one of the biggest paradoxes of the AI era. The more capable these systems become, the more important human judgment and critical thinking are.
Michael unpacked what it means to stay in the loop or on the loop, how trust in agentic systems should scale gradually, and why replacing human workers outright is often a short-term mindset that creates long-term risk. Instead, he argued that the real opportunity lies in amplifying human capability, enabling smaller teams to achieve outcomes that were previously out of reach.
Looking further ahead, the conversation turned to the limits of large language models, the likelihood of an AI research reset, and why future breakthroughs may come from hybrid approaches that combine probabilistic models, symbolic reasoning, and new hardware architectures. Michael also reflected on how AI is changing how we search, learn, and think, and why fact-checking, creativity, and cognitive discipline matter more than ever as AI assistants become embedded in daily life.
This episode offers a grounded, future-facing perspective on where AI is heading, why integration platforms are becoming connective tissue for modern systems, and how leaders can approach the next few years with both ambition and responsibility.
Useful Links
- Learn More About Boomi
- Connect with Michael Bachman
- Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo
What does responsible AI really look like when it moves beyond policy papers and starts shaping who gets to build, create, and lead in the next phase of the digital economy?
In this conversation recorded during AWS re:Invent, I'm joined by Diya Wynn, Principal for Responsible AI and Global AI Public Policy at Amazon Web Services. With more than 25 years of experience spanning the internet, e-commerce, mobile, cloud, and artificial intelligence, Diya brings a grounded and deeply human perspective to a topic that is often reduced to technical debates or regulatory headlines.
Our discussion centers on trust as the real foundation for AI adoption. Diya explains why responsible AI is not about slowing innovation, but about making sure innovation reaches more people in meaningful ways. We talk about how standards and legislation can shape better outcomes when they are informed by real-world capabilities, and why education and skills development will matter just as much as model performance in the years ahead.
We also explore how generative AI is changing access for underrepresented founders and creators. Drawing on examples from AWS programs, including work with accelerators, community organizations, and educational partners, Diya shares how tools like Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Q are lowering technical barriers so ideas can move faster from concept to execution.
The conversation touches on why access without trust falls short, and why transparency, fairness, and diverse perspectives have to be part of how AI systems are designed and deployed.
There's an honest look at the tension many leaders feel right now. AI promises efficiency and scale, but it also raises valid concerns around bias, accountability, and long-term impact. Diya doesn't shy away from those concerns. Instead, she explains how responsible AI practices inside AWS aim to address them through testing, documentation, and people-centered design, while still giving organizations the confidence to move forward.
This episode is as much about the future of work and opportunity as it is about technology. It asks who gets to participate, who gets to benefit, and how today's decisions will shape tomorrow's innovation economy. As generative AI becomes part of everyday business life, how do we make sure responsibility, access, and trust grow alongside it, and what role do we each play in shaping that future?
Useful Links
- Connect With Diya Wynn
- AWS Responsible AI
Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo
What does it really mean to support developers in a world where the tools are getting smarter, the expectations are higher, and the human side of technology is easier to forget?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Frédéric Harper, Senior Developer Relations Manager at TinyMCE, for a thoughtful conversation about what it takes to serve developer communities with credibility, empathy, and long-term intent. With more than twenty years in the tech industry, Fred's career spans hands-on web development, open source advocacy, and senior DevRel roles at companies including Microsoft, Mozilla, Fitbit, and npm. That journey gives him a rare perspective on how developer needs have evolved, and where companies still get it wrong.
We explore how starting out as a full-time developer shaped Fred's approach to advocacy, grounding his work in real-world frustration rather than abstract messaging. He reflects on earning trust during challenging periods, including advocating for open source during an era when some communities viewed large tech companies with deep skepticism. Along the way, Fred shares how studying Buddhist philosophy has influenced how he shows up for developers today, helping him keep ego in check and focus on service rather than status.
The conversation also lifts the curtain on rich text editing, a capability most users take for granted but one that hides deep technical complexity. Fred explains why building a modern editing experience involves far more than formatting text, touching on collaboration, accessibility, security, and the growing expectations around AI-assisted workflows. It is a reminder that some of the most familiar parts of the web are also among the hardest to build well.
We then turn to developer relations itself, a role that is often misunderstood or measured through the wrong lens. Fred shares why DevRel should never be treated as a short-term sales function, how trust and community take time, and why authenticity matters more than volume. From open source responsibility to personal branding for developers, including lessons from his book published with Apress, Fred offers grounded advice on visibility, communication, and staying human in an increasingly automated industry.
As the episode closes, we reflect on burnout, boundaries, and inclusion, and why healthier communities lead to better products. For anyone building developer tools, managing technical communities, or trying to grow a career without losing themselves in the process, this conversation leaves a simple question hanging in the air: how do we build technology that supports people without forgetting the people behind the code?
Useful Links
- Connect with Frédéric Harper
- Learn More About TinyMCE
Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo
What does it really take to build a fintech company that quietly fixes one of the most frustrating problems SMEs face every day?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Pierre-Antoine Dusoulier, the Founder and CEO of iBanFirst, for a candid conversation about entrepreneurship, timing, and why cross-border payments have remained broken for so long.
Pierre-Antoine's story begins in London, where his early career as an FX trader felt like a compromise at the time, yet quietly gave him a front-row seat to inefficiencies most people accepted as normal. That experience would later shape two companies and a very clear point of view on how money should move across borders.
Pierre-Antoine walks through his first venture, Combeast.com, one of France's earliest FX brokerages for retail investors, and what he learned from selling it to Saxo Bank and staying on to run Western European operations. That chapter matters, because it exposed the gap between how sophisticated FX markets really are and how poorly SMEs are served when FX and payments are bundled together inside traditional banks. Out of that frustration, IbanFirst was born in 2016 with a simple idea: treat cross-border payments as a specialist discipline, not a side feature.
Today, IbanFirst serves more than 10,000 clients across Europe and processes over €2 billion in transactions every month. We dig into why growth has continued while many fintechs have slowed, from a product designed to be used daily, to proactive sales, to a new generation of CFOs and CEOs who expect the same clarity and speed at work that they get from consumer fintech tools.
Pierre-Antoine explains how real-time FX rates, payment tracking using SWIFT GPI, and multi-entity account management change the day-to-day reality for SMEs trading internationally.
We also talk about Brexit, and how being rooted in continental Europe created an unexpected opening. Pierre-Antoine shares why expanding into the UK, including the acquisition of Cornhill, made sense, and why London's payments ecosystem still stands apart in scale and depth. Along the way, he is refreshingly open about the heavy investment required in compliance, trust, and regulation, and why nearly a third of IbanFirst's team focuses on operations and oversight.
Looking ahead, Pierre-Antoine lays out a bold vision for the SME payments market, predicting a future where specialists replace banks in much the same way fintech reshaped consumer money transfers. As cross-border trade grows and currency volatility becomes a daily concern, his perspective raises an interesting question for anyone running an international business today:
if specialists already exist, why keep relying on systems that were never designed for how SMEs actually operate?
Useful Links:
- Connect with Pierre-Antoine Dusoulier
- Learn more about iBanFirst,
Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo
What happens when artificial intelligence moves faster than our ability to understand, verify, and trust it?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Alexander Feick from eSentire, a cybersecurity veteran who has spent more than a decade working at the intersection of complex systems, risk, and emerging technology. Alex leads eSentire Labs, where his team explores how new technologies can be secured before they quietly become load-bearing parts of modern business infrastructure.
Our conversation centers on a timely and uncomfortable reality. AI is being embedded into workflows, products, and decision-making systems at a pace most organizations are not prepared for.
Alex explains why many AI failures are not caused by malicious models or dramatic breaches, but by broken ownership, invisible dependencies, and a lack of ongoing verification. These are not technical glitches. They are organizational blind spots that quietly compound risk over time.
We also explore the ideas behind Alex's recently published book on trust and AI, which he made freely available due to the speed at which real-world AI failures were already overtaking theory.
From prompt injection and model drift to the dangers of treating non-deterministic systems as if they were predictable software, Alex shares why generative AI requires a fundamentally different security mindset. He draws a clear distinction between chatbot AI and embedded AI, and explains the moment where trust quietly shifts away from humans and into systems that cannot take accountability.
The discussion goes deeper into what trust actually means in an AI-driven organization. Alex argues that trust must be earned, measured, and monitored continuously, not assumed after a successful pilot. Verification becomes the real work, not generation, and leaders who fail to recognize that shift risk scaling errors faster than they can contain them. We also talk about why he turned his book into an AI advisor, what that experiment revealed about the limits of models, and why human responsibility cannot be automated away.
This is a grounded, practical conversation for leaders, technologists, and anyone deploying AI inside real organizations. If AI is becoming part of how decisions get made where you work, how confident are you that someone truly owns the outcome?
Useful Links
- Connect with Alexander Feick
- Learn more about eSentire
- Check out the book On Trust and AI
Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo
How much value do your developers actually get to deliver in a typical week, and how much of their time is quietly lost to meetings, context hunting, and process drag?
I'm joined by Phil Heijkoop, Global Practice Head of Developer Experience at Valiantys, for a conversation that cuts through the hype surrounding AI and asks a harder question about why so many engineering teams still struggle to see meaningful returns.
Phil argues that most organizations are only unlocking a small fraction of a developer's true contribution, not because of a lack of talent, but because process drag slowly squeezes out deep, focused work. AI, he explains, does not fix this by default. Without the right foundations in place, it simply accelerates the wrong work at scale.
We explore the long shadow cast by the "move fast and break things" mindset and why that philosophy becomes risky inside regulated, enterprise environments where resilience and trust matter more than speed alone. Phil shares what he sees when organizations chase shiny new tooling while ignoring technical debt, unclear standards, and fragile workflows.
From protecting uninterrupted time for deep work to automating manual friction points and setting shared guardrails, he outlines how teams can realistically unlock three to five times more output before AI even enters the picture. Only then, he says, does AI act as a multiplier rather than a source of chaos.
The conversation also digs into developer experience as a business lever, not a perk, and why leadership clarity, cultural trust, and consistent standards matter as much as tooling choices. We discuss the growing risks in the software supply chain, the sustainability of open source dependencies, and what recent high-profile retirements signal for enterprise teams that depend on them.
If AI is accelerating your organization in the wrong direction, what foundational changes would you need to make today to ensure it amplifies value instead of friction, and how honest are you willing to be about what is really slowing your teams down?
Useful Links
- Connect with Phil on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Phil's work
- Valiantys Website
Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo
*]:pointer-events-auto [content-visibility:auto] supports-[content-visibility:auto]:[contain-intrinsic-size:auto_100lvh] scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "def199fe-2658-438c-b89a-9cbf28ae44e7" data-testid= "conversation-turn-2" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> What happens when the future of money stops being about speculation and starts being about people, ownership, and agency?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Dr. Friederike Ernst, co-founder of Gnosis, to unpack a conversation that goes far beyond crypto price cycles or technical hype. This is a thoughtful discussion about where blockchain is heading and, just as importantly, where it could go wrong if we are not paying attention.
Friederike has spent more than a decade building foundational infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, from smart wallets to decentralized exchanges and blockchain networks that quietly power large parts of Web3. But as she explains, the industry is now standing at a fork in the road.
One path leads to blockchain becoming a silent backend upgrade for banks and incumbents, improving efficiency while keeping power centralized. The other path is far more ambitious, using blockchain to return ownership, control, and financial agency to everyday people.
We talk about why financial infrastructure, despite working reasonably well for many of us in Europe, remains deeply inefficient, expensive, and exclusionary at a global level.
A major theme of this episode is usability. Friederike is clear that technology only matters if it improves real lives. She explains why early blockchain products asked too much of users and how that is now changing, with experiences that feel as simple as using a neobank or debit card while preserving true ownership under the hood.
The goal is not to make everyone a crypto expert, but to make financial tools that work seamlessly while remaining genuinely user-owned.
We also explore the darker possibilities. Like any powerful technology, blockchain can be used to empower or to control. Friederike does not shy away from the risks of surveillance, social scoring, and misuse, and she argues that the real battle ahead is cultural, not technical. Values like privacy, free expression, and personal agency need to be defended openly, or the technology will be shaped without public consent.
As we look toward 2026, this conversation offers a refreshing reminder that the future of money is still being written. The question is whether it will be owned by communities or quietly absorbed by the same institutions we already rely on.
After listening to this episode, where do you think that future should land, and what choices are you willing to make to influence it?
Useful Links * Connect With Dr. Friederike Ernst * Learn More about Gnosis
Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Stuart Thompson, President of ABB's Electrification Service Division, to explore the intersection of industrial sustainability, energy security, and cutting-edge technology. As industries face growing energy demands and climate targets, Stuart explains how companies can modernize their infrastructure to drive efficiency, reduce carbon footprints, and stay ahead of the energy curve. Navigating the Industrial Sustainability Challenge We start by addressing the urgent need for industries to rethink their energy and carbon strategies. Stuart highlights the significant role of construction and manufacturing in global energy-related emissions, stressing that many businesses are still behind on their 2030 sustainability targets. We dive into the emerging shift from capital expenditure (CapEx) to operational expenditure (OpEx) models, such as predictive maintenance, to maximize value from existing assets. Asset Modernization Stuart explains how asset modernization—upgrading intelligent components like switchgear within existing infrastructure—can dramatically improve efficiency and reduce carbon without the need for costly, full-scale replacements. He also shares examples, including Intel's semiconductor upgrades and Jadal Steel's success in Oman, demonstrating how targeted upgrades can meet sustainability goals while boosting productivity. Smarter Energy Management with AI and AR We explore how AI and augmented reality (AR) are transforming service delivery and operational intelligence. Stuart discusses how AI-powered predictive maintenance helps companies anticipate failures and optimize energy management, while AR facilitates remote assistance for faster issue resolution. He also touches on how these technologies contribute to energy savings and carbon reduction by automating service reports and enabling real-time visibility into asset performance. BESS as a Service: Solving the Energy Security Trilemma One of the key innovations Stuart highlights is ABB's Battery Energy Storage as a Service (BESSaaS), a solution designed to solve the "energy trilemma" of security, cost, and sustainability. With on-site battery storage and AI-driven energy trading, businesses can bypass slow grid connections, ensure energy security, and even turn their energy storage into a profit center. This model is already making waves in industries ranging from data centers to manufacturing. A Glimpse into the Future: ABB's Investment in Asset Management Tech As we look to the future, Stuart reveals ABB's upcoming investment in asset management technology, set to be announced globally in early December 2025. This exciting move will have a significant impact on major customers like the London Underground and Saudi Electric Commission, further cementing ABB's role as a leader in energy innovation. Don't miss this episode, where we discuss the latest trends in industrial sustainability, energy security, and technology's pivotal role in shaping a greener, more efficient future. Useful Links * Connect with Stuart on Linkedin * Learn more about ABB
Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo
Are we finally treating water risk like a board-level issue, rather than a line item that only shows up when something breaks? In this episode, I'm joined by Emilio Tenuta, SVP and Chief Sustainability Officer at Ecolab, to unpack why water has become a strategic variable for business, right alongside energy and carbon. Ecolab works with customers across more than 40 industries in more than 170 countries, so Emilio has a front row seat to how quickly the conversation is changing. Why water risk feels different in 2025 One of the most useful parts of this conversation is how Emilio frames water as "hyperlocal." A company can publish a global target, but the real pressure shows up basin by basin, site by site, community by community. We also discuss the misconception that water is primarily an operational concern. The knock-on effects show up in uptime, expansion plans, permitting, reputation, and the social license to operate. Emilio points to disclosure data that puts real money behind the issue. CDP has estimated water-related supply chain risks at $77 billion across responding companies, which helps explain why boards are paying closer attention. Where AI meets water and energy AI is a catalyst in two directions at once. It can help organizations measure, predict, and reduce waste, but it also drives demand for more data centers, more power, and more cooling. We examine the tension many people are whispering about: building digital capacity in places already facing water stress. Emilio's view is pragmatic: the answer is responsible innovation, coupled with transparency on how water is used and how impacts are managed. That takes us into Ecolab's push toward digital visibility and real-time control, because you cannot improve what you cannot see. From "site to chip" cooling and smarter stewardship Emilio shares that Ecolab's 3D TRASAR Technology for direct-to-chip liquid cooling is designed to protect high-performance servers by monitoring coolant health indicators in real time and translating that data into actionable steps for operators. We also discuss what happens when AI is applied to the water side of the data center equation. Ecolab and Digital Realty have described a pilot across 35 US data centers to reduce water use by up to 15% and avoid up to 126 million gallons of potable water withdrawn annually. To round things out, we discuss circularity as a business strategy, the role of collaboration through efforts like the Water Resilience Coalition, and why Ecolab's Watermark Study is worth reading if you want a pulse check on water stewardship and public sentiment. So after listening, where do you land on the big question: is AI going to become a stress test for local water systems, or a tool that finally helps us run them better, and why? Useful Links:
- Connect with Emilio Tenuta
- Learn more Ecolab
- Follow Ecolab on Linkedin
Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Yuyu Zhang to unpack a shift that many developers can feel but struggle to articulate.
Yuyu's journey spans academic research at Georgia Tech, building recommendation systems that power TikTok and Douyin at global scale, and leading the Seed-Coder project at ByteDance, which reached state-of-the-art performance among open source code models earlier this year.
Today, he is part of Codeck, where the focus has moved beyond AI assistance toward autonomous coding agents that can plan, execute, and verify real engineering work.
Our conversation begins with a simple but revealing observation. Most AI coding tools still behave like smarter autocomplete. They help you type faster, but they do not own the work.
Yuyu explains why that distinction matters, especially for teams dealing with complex systems, tight deadlines, and constant interruptions. Autonomy, in his view, is not about replacing engineers. It is about giving them back their flow.
We explore Verdent, Codeck's autonomous coding agent, and Verdent Deck, the desktop environment designed to coordinate multiple agents in parallel. Instead of one AI reacting line by line inside an editor, these agents operate at the task level.
They plan work with the developer upfront, execute independently in safe environments, and validate their output before handing anything back. The result feels less like using a tool and more like managing a small engineering team.
Yuyu shares how parallel agents change both speed and predictability. One agent can implement a feature, another can write tests, and another can investigate logs, all without stepping on each other. Just as important, he walks through the safeguards that keep humans in control.
Explicit planning, permission boundaries, sandboxed execution, and clear, reviewable diffs are all designed to address the very real concerns engineering leaders have about letting autonomous systems near production code.
The discussion also turns personal. Having worked on some of the highest-scale systems in the world, Yuyu reflects on why developers lose momentum. It is rarely about raw ability. It is about constant context switching. His goal with Verdent is to preserve mental focus by offloading interruptions and letting engineers return to work with clarity rather than cognitive fatigue.
We close by looking ahead. The definition of a "good developer" is changing, just as it has many times before. AI is not ending programming. It is reshaping it, pushing human creativity, judgment, and design thinking to the foreground while machines handle the repetitive churn.
If autonomous coding agents are becoming colleagues rather than helpers, how comfortable are you with that future, and what would you want to stay firmly in human hands?
How do you move faster with AI and cloud innovation without losing control of security along the way? Recorded live from the show floor at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, this episode of Tech Talks Daily features a timely conversation with Kimberly Dickson, Worldwide Go-To-Market Lead for AWS Detection and Response Services. As organizations race to adopt agentic AI, modernize applications, and manage sprawling cloud environments, Kimberly offers a grounded look at why security must still sit at the center of every decision. Kimberly explains how her role bridges two worlds at AWS. On one side are customers dealing with prioritization fatigue, fragmented security signals, and growing pressure to do more with fewer resources. On the other hand, there are the internal service teams building products like Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Inspector, and AWS Security Hub. Her job is to connect those realities, shaping services based on what customers actually struggle with day to day. That perspective sets the tone for a conversation focused less on hype and more on practical outcomes. We unpack how AWS thinks about security culture at scale, from infrastructure and encryption through to threat intelligence gathered across Amazon's global footprint. Kimberly shares how AWS uses large-scale honeypots to observe attacker behavior in real time, feeding that intelligence back into detection services while also working with governments and industry partners to take down active threats. It is a reminder that cloud security is no longer just about protecting individual workloads, but about contributing to a safer internet overall. The conversation also dives into new announcements from re:Invent, including the launch of AWS Security Hub, extended threat detection for EC2 and EKS, and the emergence of security-focused AI agents. Kimberly explains how these tools shift security teams away from manual investigation and toward faster, higher-confidence decisions by correlating risks across vulnerabilities, identity, network exposure, and sensitive data. The goal is clear visibility, clearer priorities, and remediation that fits naturally into existing workflows. We also explore how AWS approaches security in multi-cloud and hybrid environments, why foundational design principles still matter in an AI-driven world, and how open standards are helping normalize security data across vendors. Kimberly's reflections on re:Invent itself bring a human close to the episode, highlighting the pride and responsibility felt by teams building systems that millions of organizations depend on. As AI adoption accelerates and security teams are asked to keep pace without slowing innovation, what would it take for your organization to move faster while still trusting the foundations you are building on?
How do you capture every moment of a golf tournament spread across hundreds of acres, tens of thousands of shots, and dozens of players competing at the same time? That question sits at the heart of this conversation recorded at AWS re:Invent, where I sat down with Eric Hansen, VP of Product at the PGA Tour, and Elaine Chiasson, who leads the global golf team at AWS, to unpack how data and AI are reshaping the way fans experience the game.
Eric explains why modern professional golf has more in common with Formula 1 than most people realize. Every ball struck, every position on the leaderboard, and every shift in momentum generates data that needs to be processed instantly. With more than thirty thousand shots across a single tournament and only a fraction of them shown on traditional broadcasts, the PGA Tour faces a constant challenge. How do you give fans context, insight, and a sense of presence when most of the action is never seen on screen?
Elaine shares how AWS has helped the Tour build the foundation to answer that question. From migrating decades of video and shot data into the cloud to applying generative AI for automated commentary, language translation, and real time insights, this partnership goes far beyond infrastructure. Together, they are experimenting with automated camera switching, AI driven production workflows, and personalized fan experiences that surface the right information at the right moment, whether you are following the leaderboard or a single favorite player.
The conversation also digs into trust and accuracy. Eric walks through how the PGA Tour validates AI generated commentary to ensure it stays aligned with the sport's standards, while Elaine highlights why operational discipline and governance matter just as much as innovation. They explore what hyper personalization looks like inside the PGA Tour app, how global broadcasts could evolve, and why the long term opportunity lies in making every shot matter for every fan.
As live sports move toward a future shaped by data, automation, and AI agents working behind the scenes, this episode offers a clear look at what that transformation really involves. So as golf continues to blend tradition with technology, what kind of fan experience do you want to see next, and how comfortable are you with AI calling the shots?
Useful Links
- Connect with Eric Hansen, VP of Product at the PGA Tour.
- Connect with Elaine Chiasson
- Learn more about AWS and PGA Tour
Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo
How do you make sense of an industry that is changing at a pace few predicted, especially with SIGNAL London still fresh in our minds and Twilio unveiling the next stage of its vision for customer engagement? That question sits at the heart of today's conversation with Peter Bell, VP of Marketing for EMEA at Twilio, who joined me to unpack what the past year has taught both companies and consumers about AI's role in shaping modern experiences.
Peter begins by grounding everything in a single, striking shift. Only a year ago, AI-powered search barely registered in global traffic. Today it accounts for around a fifth of all searches. That leap signals a broader behavioral shift as consumers move instinctively toward conversational interfaces, which, in turn, leaves brands with a clear message. The clock has moved on. AI is no longer a nice-to-have. It is a direct response to how people now choose to discover, question, and buy.
Our conversation turns to the gap between customer expectations and the experiences they receive. Peter discusses why brands often struggle to integrate channels, data, and AI coherently. He explains how first party data has become the anchor for any serious AI strategy, why generic public models cannot solve brand-specific tasks, and why the most successful teams start with simple, tightly scoped problems. A password reset may not sound glamorous, yet it is the kind of focused use case that teaches teams how to govern data, automate safely, and build confidence in the process.
We also spend time on branded calling, RCS, and the evolution of voice. Peter breaks down what modern messaging now looks like and why trust sits at the center of every interaction. His explanation of Conversational Relay shows why natural voice exchanges finally feel within reach after years of frustration with rigid IVR systems. The thread running through all of this is clear. Consumers want speed and clarity, but they want reassurance too, and brands need to honor both sides of that equation.
Later in the conversation, Peter makes one of the episode's most compelling points. Brand visibility has become harder, not easier, because much of the early research now occurs within AI tools. Buyers form opinions long before they speak with a sales rep. That shift explains why so many B2B companies are returning to high-impact brand channels, whether that is F1 sponsorships or other standout moments that keep them in the initial consideration set.
We close with the topic that Peter believes will define the next stage of enterprise AI. Model Context Protocol. MCP has emerged as a quiet breakthrough, enabling LLMs to access data across CRM systems, files, and other software through a standard protocol. This removes one of the biggest blockers in AI projects: the practical challenge of connecting disparate data to a model built for a specific purpose. As Peter puts it, MCP gives companies a realistic way to make the special-purpose models that deliver reliable ROI.
It is a wide-ranging conversation shaped by SIGNAL London's announcements, the evolving customer journey, and a year in which AI moved from curiosity to expectation. I would love to know what part stood out most to you. Are you seeing the same shifts Peter describes in your own business, and how are you preparing for the year ahead?
Useful Links
- Interact with the Inside the Conversational AI Revolution report.
- Learn more about the Signal event
- Connect with Peter Bell, VP of Marketing for EMEA at Twilio.
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Why do smart people still click when every instinct tells them they should pause first? That question sits at the heart of this conversation with Denny LeCompte, CEO of Portnox and a rare cybersecurity leader who brings a background in cognitive psychology to identity, trust, and human error. It is a discussion that pulls back the curtain on the habits, shortcuts, and blind spots that shape our decisions long before a breach becomes a headline. Denny explains why people rely on benevolence cues, confirmation biases, and loss aversion, and then shows how attackers weaponize each. He explains why training alone cannot fix human fallibility and why a different design mindset is needed if we want security people can actually live with. Through clear examples and thought-provoking analogies, he describes how teams can build environments that remove opportunities for mistakes rather than punishing people for being human. We also explore what Zero Trust really means beyond marketing-speak. Denny cuts through the noise and frames it as a mindset shift rather than a product category. He draws on real conversations with CISOs to explain why passwordless adoption moves slowly and why the next wave of identity risk will come from AI agents operating within networks. It is a future in which the line between human and machine identity blurs, requiring access control to evolve just as quickly. Later, Denny shares a personal story about a mentor who influenced his views, then explains Portnox's unified access control approach as organizations retire VPNs and passwords. His main point: security only works when systems reflect human nature, removing friction and helping people make safe choices. Every policy and workflow is a decision that impacts security outcomes. What part of Denny's perspective made you reconsider your habits? Useful Links * Connect with Denny LeCompte, CEO of Portnox * Learn more about Portnox
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Have you ever wondered what it takes to run technology for one of the largest commercial real estate companies in the world? That question shapes my conversation with Yao Morin, Global CTO at JLL, as we look at how AI is changing the places where we work, shop, and gather.
Real estate may seem traditional from the outside, yet inside JLL the pace is intense. With more than 5 billion square feet under management and huge volumes of daily activity, the pressure on property teams is real and the limits of manual work are easy to see.
Yao explains how this reality led to the creation of Property Assistant, JLL's new AI solution built on JLL Falcon. Falcon acts as the company's enterprise AI foundation, giving teams a secure and scalable way to use data across global operations. She describes how the platform hides complexity so developers and property teams can work with AI without thinking about which model sits behind it.
We talk through everyday examples, like overcrowded meeting rooms and confusing layouts, that the assistant can flag and address through recommendations drawn from live sensor data.
The assistant goes far beyond space planning. It helps teams understand rising tenant concerns, patterns in work orders, and hidden risks before they grow into larger operational issues.
Yao sees AI as a partner that handles heavy data processing so people can focus on the messy, human context. That balance is central to how JLL builds its tools, and she explains why this approach gives property teams more confidence and clarity in fast-changing environments.
We also explore how AI is influencing the future design of buildings. As hybrid work, flexible retail, and rising industrial needs continue to shift demand, AI can gather layouts, analyze usage, and offer guidance at a speed traditional methods cannot match.
This creates a continuous feedback loop that helps teams adjust space before frustrations grow. For Yao, it is a way to bring real-time understanding into a sector that once relied on long cycles and guesswork.
Security surfaces often in our conversation. Yao details how Falcon enforces monitoring, privacy controls, and consistency across the company, which is vital when working with sensitive client data across many regions. A centralized platform allows JLL to invest deeply in safeguards rather than spreading risk across scattered tools. She highlights how trust sits at the center of the brand and why it shapes every AI decision they make.
As we shift toward the future, Yao shares how JLL is expanding its pipeline to more than fifty AI assistants aimed at productivity, client insight, and sustainability. She gives examples of tools that adjust energy usage and support portfolio planning, offering a view into how AI will support both performance and environmental goals. It is clear that AI has moved from experimentation to daily use inside JLL, with real business impact already taking shape.
The episode closes with a powerful reflection on leadership and representation. Yao talks openly about her own journey, the weight of visibility, and how she learned to turn moments of feeling out of place into motivation. She explains why active sponsorship matters, why belonging is a measurable business priority, and how diverse viewpoints reduce blind spots in product design. Her message is heartfelt, practical, and filled with hope for the next generation of leaders.
As you listen, I would love to know which part of Yao's story stays with you. Do you see AI changing your own workplace or the spaces you pass through every day? And how do you think better representation shapes the products we build? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
Useful Links
Connect With Yao Morin
Learn more about JLL
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Did you ever stop and wonder how many hours you lose each week hunting for files, tabs, links, or half-written ideas scattered across your apps? It is a familiar frustration, and it sits at the center of today's conversation with Dropbox VP of Engineering, Josh Clemm. Josh has spent two decades building products shaped around scale, personalisation, and clarity, and he brings that mix of experience to Dropbox's push into AI and knowledge management.
In this episode, Josh shares stories from his time at LinkedIn and Uber, including the surprising Krispy Kreme promotion that took down Uber Eats across the globe and triggered a major rethink of architecture and resiliency. That experience shaped his belief that chaos often teaches the most. It also sets the stage for why he sees AI fluency as a leadership requirement rather than a trend.
You will hear how Dropbox is approaching internal experimentation, why context rot and work slop are real problems inside companies, and why the empty chat box often creates more anxiety than opportunity.
Josh walks through the thinking behind Dropbox Dash, a standalone AI powered knowledge layer that connects all of your cloud apps, understands their content, and turns search into something sharper and faster. He explains why context aware AI is the next leap, how Dash builds knowledge graphs across apps, and why the future of AI might look less like single player workflows and more like tools that sit inside the flow of teamwork.
It is a wide ranging conversation that moves from engineering history to the practical steps behind building AI products that feel useful rather than overwhelming. So here is the question that sits underneath everything Josh shared. What would your day look like if your information finally made sense without you having to chase it?
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What does learning look like when technology shifts faster than most university systems can adapt? That question shaped my conversation with Rob Telfer, who leads education strategy for D2L across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Rob returned to the show with a clear view of how AI is transforming higher education and why so many institutions are struggling to keep pace with expectations from students, employers, and society.
Rob opened by laying out the reality universities face today. Financial strain, fluctuating enrolment, employer demands changing at speed, and a generation of learners preparing for roles that may not even exist yet. Against that backdrop, he described AI as the biggest catalyst the sector has seen in decades and explained how it has already reshaped academic policy, assessment models, and daily teaching practice.
We explored practical examples of where AI is already creating meaningful change. Rob shared how D2L is helping institutions introduce adaptive learning, on demand student support, and content creation tools that reduce the pressure on educators. These are not speculative ideas. They are used by universities serving tens of thousands of learners, improving accessibility, easing workloads, and giving students faster, more personal support.
The conversation moved to employability, a worry at the centre of almost every higher education debate. Rob explained how curriculum design needs to shift from theory first to skill first, and how deeper collaboration between academia and industry can help close widening gaps. He described why AI should be woven through the learning experience rather than bolted on at the end, and how that alignment can shape graduates who are confident with the tools they will soon use in the workplace.
A striking theme came from the mismatch between student behaviour and institutional policy. Many students use AI daily, even where guidance is unclear or restrictive. Rob argued that ignoring the reality only pushes students into the shadows. Universities that teach responsible use, clear evaluation methods, and prompt literacy will better prepare their learners for the world they are about to enter.
We ended by looking ahead to 2026. Rob believes the institutions that thrive will be the ones that act with intent, create clear AI policies, invest in meaningful technology, and keep human connection at the centre of learning. Those that resist or delay may find themselves struggling to compete in a sector where expectations rise quickly and alternatives for learners continue to grow.
If you work in education or care about the future of learning, Rob's insights offer a candid, practical view of what must change. Which of his observations resonates most with your own experience, and how should universities evolve from here? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Useful Links * + Connect with Rob Telfer on LinkedIn + Learn more about D2L + Follow on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook
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*]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "request-WEB:221c7553-c733-4456-a06c-c66c0626b35b-7" data-testid= "conversation-turn-16" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> How do you guide a workforce through the fastest shift in technology most of us have seen in our careers? That question shaped my conversation with David Martin from BCG, who works at the intersection of talent, culture, and AI. He joined me from New York and quickly painted a clear picture of what is really happening inside global enterprises right now.
We started with the widening split between AI fluent teams and those stuck in endless pilots. David explained why the organizations getting results are the ones doing fewer things with far greater ambition. Many others scatter energy across small use cases, save minutes instead of hours, and never reach a scale where value becomes visible.
Training surfaced early as one of the biggest gaps. Not surface level workshops, but the deeper hands-on learning that helps people change how they work. David described why frontline teams lag behind, why engineers still miss major capabilities, and how leadership behaviour dramatically affects adoption. Curiosity and communication play a bigger role than most expect.
We explored the move from isolated AI experiments to real workflow transformation. David shared examples from engineering, customer service, and operations where companies are finally seeing measurable results. He also explained why agents remain underused, with hesitation, data quality, and unfamiliarity still slowing progress. Shadow AI added another layer, with half of workers already using tools outside corporate systems.
The conversation returned often to people. David outlined BCG's 10-20-70 rule, showing why technology is never the main bottleneck. Culture, roles, and process make or break outcomes. Leaders who provide clarity and a sense of direction see faster adoption. Those who remain hesitant create uncertainty that spreads across teams almost instantly.
As we looked toward 2026, David shared cautious optimism. He sees huge potential in areas like healthcare and sustainability, along with a wave of workflow redesign that will reshape daily work. His own learning habits are simple, from podcasts to regular reading, and driven by a desire to set a strong example for his children as they grow into a world shaped by AI.
If you want a grounded view of where AI is genuinely delivering change, this conversation offers rare clarity. What resonates with you most from David's perspective, and how will you approach your own learning in the year ahead? I would love to hear your thoughts.
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Did you know that when many people hear "Orange," they still ask if it involves SIM cards? That was the perfect place to begin my conversation with Sahem Azzam, President for IMEA and Inner Asia at Orange Business.
Once we cleared that up, it opened the door to a much richer story about what enterprise innovation looks like across one of the fastest-moving regions on the planet.
Sahem joined me from Dubai, a city that has become a living case study for what happens when a region refuses to think small. As we compared notes from Gitex Global, it became clear that what is happening across the Middle East is not a short burst of enthusiasm.
It is a deliberate long-term shift driven by young populations, bold government ambition, and a willingness to adopt new technologies before anyone else. Sahem explained how this appetite for speed is shaping the region's digital transformation and how Orange Business is supporting it through cloud, connectivity, cybersecurity, digital integration, and large-scale smart city programmes.
He shared practical stories that peeled back the curtain on cognitive city design, energy optimisation, and the pressure on enterprises to simplify sprawling hybrid IT environments. What stood out was how often the conversation returned to value. Better user experiences, lower costs, and new revenue paths.
Everything Orange Business builds must deliver one of those outcomes. Sahem talked through platformization, why unified infrastructure matters, and how enterprises can reduce complexity in an age where cloud, security, networking, and AI all collide at once.
We also discussed the growing focus on responsible AI and the shared need for transparency. Sahem spoke about data ownership, trusted models, and the careful guardrails that must sit behind every AI deployment.
The rise in cyber threats is making this more important than ever, and he offered a candid look at how Orange Cyberdefense approaches modern security through an integrated view of infrastructure, operations, and risk.
What gave this conversation a personal edge was Sahem's final reflection on learning. After years at Stanford, London Business School, and Harvard, he still sees human experience as the most valuable teacher.
Listening to people, sharing problems, comparing perspectives. Events like Gitex remind him that optimism is contagious and that the future of the region will be shaped by collaboration as much as technology.
If you want a grounded view of digital transformation from someone living it every day, this conversation is a rare window into both the opportunities and the tension behind innovation at scale. Have you seen the same momentum in your own region, and how do you stay ahead of the pace of change? I would love to hear your thoughts.
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Did you ever walk into a conference session thinking you were ready for the week, only to realise the announcements were coming so fast that you almost needed an agent of your own to keep up? That was the mood across Las Vegas, and it was the backdrop for my conversation with Madhu Parthasarathy, the general manager for Agent Core at AWS.
He has spent the week at the centre of AWS's wave of agentic AI news, working on the ideas that are already moving from keynotes and demos into the hands of real enterprise teams. Sitting down with him offered a rare moment of clarity among the noise, and his calm take on what actually matters helped bring the bigger picture into focus.
Madhu talked through the thinking behind Agent Core and why he believes 2026 will be the year enterprises finally begin shifting from prototypes to production-scale agents. He walked me through the two areas customers keep coming back to, trust and performance, and why the new policy framework and agent evaluations could remove long-standing barriers to deployment.
His examples were grounded in real behaviour he is seeing inside large companies, whether that is internal support workloads, developer productivity, meeting preparation, or customer-facing flows designed to reduce the friction between intent and outcome.
We also explored the deeper shift introduced by Nova Forge, including the idea of blending enterprise data with model checkpoints to create domain-specific agents that can work with greater accuracy and context. Madhu explained why there will never be a one-size-fits-all model and how choice remains central to AWS's agentic AI approach.
My guest also reflected on how infrastructure changes, such as Trainium three ultra servers and expanded Nova model families, are shaping the pace at which companies can experiment, evaluate, and adopt emerging capabilities.
Trust surfaced again and again in our conversation. Madhu was clear that non-deterministic systems also introduce concerns, which is why action boundaries and guardrails are becoming as important as model quality. He described the excitement he is seeing from customers who now feel they have workable ways to give agents responsibility without handing over the keys entirely.
As he put it, this is the moment where confidence begins to grow because the guardrails finally meet the expectations of enterprise leaders.
We closed with the topic many people have been whispering about all week, modernization. Madhu reflected on AWS Transform, the push to help organisations move away from legacy architectures far faster than before, and the impact that agentic systems will have as they support full stack migrations across Windows environments and custom languages.
Madhu cuts through the noise with a grounded view of reliable autonomy, multi-agent orchestration, policy-driven safety, and the shift toward agents as true collaborators.
The question now is where you see the biggest opportunity. How might these agent-based systems change your workflows, and what would it take for you to trust them with the tasks you never seem to have time for? I would love to hear your thoughts.
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Have you ever wondered how an idea that begins with two friends in a pub ends up shaping conversations about health all over the world? That was on my mind as I met Graham Link & Timothy Gnaneswaran from Movember on the show floor at AWS re:Invent.
Their story has grown far beyond the mustache that everyone recognises. What started with a simple gesture of support has become a movement that now reaches millions, raises vast sums through a global fundraising platform, and backs projects focused on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health, and suicide prevention. Hearing them describe how that original spark grew into something this wide and long lasting gave the conversation a real sense of depth.
Recording in the middle of re:Invent added its own flavour. AI news filled the halls, yet Timothy and Graham were there speaking with engineers and builders about something deeply human. Their booth stopped people in their tracks, offered barbershop shaves, and created space for personal stories.
They talked openly about how Movember built its own platform to handle sixty to eighty million dollars in four weeks, how it must stay resilient every minute, and how AWS has supported them for more than a decade. They also shared how technology shapes the work behind the scenes, whether it is clinical quality registries, digital conversations tools, or new research paths that explore how AI might support healthier behaviours.
What stayed with me most was the honesty about the tensions they face. Men are still reluctant to talk about their health. Loneliness is rising. Social platforms create new openings and new barriers at the same time. They see how AI can help someone begin a difficult conversation, yet they are clear about the risks when people rely on tools that were never designed for mental health support.
They also talked about the patterns they see across different regions, the sobering statistics in the major markets where they operate, and how younger audiences now gather in gaming communities rather than traditional spaces.
Movember knows it needs technology to reach scale, but it never wants to lose the human connection at the heart of its mission. What part of their story stands out most for you, and where do you think technology can genuinely help shape the next chapter of men's health?
Did you know a single Formula 1 car produces 1.1 million data points every second from hundreds of sensors? That number alone sets the tone for this conversation with Ruth Buscombe, an F1 strategist, analyst, and F1TV presenter whose work sits at the meeting point of engineering precision and real time storytelling.
We met at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, and her insights into how much pressure, judgment, and creativity are wrapped inside each decision brought the sport to life in a fresh way for anyone who has ever stared at a dashboard of metrics and wondered what really matters.
This discussion goes far deeper than split times and tyre choices. Ruth explains how AWS and F1 are rethinking race strategy through real time insights and cloud compute, from TrackPulse and root-cause analysis all the way to predictive graphics that let commentary teams spot a race-defining moment before it happens.
She also reflects on the sport's changing culture, the growth of new fan communities, and the shift from old telemetry to modern systems that process millions of data points every second. Her stories from the paddock at Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, and F1TV help frame just how intense the job can be when 12,000ths of a second separate pole from second place.
There are moments in this conversation that remind us that F1 strategy is as much about human pattern recognition as it is about machine intelligence, and that the strongest engineers find ways to absorb pressure without losing their instinct.
What stood out most was how clearly Ruth links F1 to decision making in every industry. Whether she is talking about marginal gains, pattern detection, or the discipline needed to separate noise from signal, her examples make perfect sense to both race fans and tech leaders.
She shares how AWS tools allow broadcasters and engineers to interpret scenarios instantly, why the sport needed to move past manual diagnosis, and how new tools even help verify whether a driver's mistake came from a small steering slide or a split-second shift error.
Her passion is infectious and her explanations cut straight to the heart of what makes the blend of live racing and cloud computing work so well. As you listen, think about how your own team makes choices under pressure and ask yourself one last question. If you were in the garage making a call with the whole world watching, which signals would you trust and how fast could you act?
Useful Links:
- Connect with Ruth
- Sign up to Ruth's Newsletter
- AWS Insights
Have you ever wondered how a company with nearly a million associates across continents keeps everyone learning, aligned, and prepared for constant change? That question sat at the heart of my conversation with Victor Arguelles, the VP of Global Learning Design and Development at Marriott International.
Victor began his career as a high-school educator, and it is clear that this early experience shapes his entire approach to enterprise learning. He brings the empathy and discipline of the classroom into a global operation where cultural nuance, business complexity, and operational scale collide every day.
Across our conversation, Victor opens up about what digital transformation in learning actually looks like behind the curtain at Marriott.
Rather than focusing on tools alone, he explains how mindset, process, and cultural confidence dictate success. He talks about the delicate balance between global standardization and local relevance, and how Marriott validates learning experiences to understand how change will feel for associates before any deployment begins. It becomes clear that the company's commitment to people first is not a slogan, it is the foundation of the entire learning strategy.
Victor also shares how Marriott is using partners and platforms to reimagine training in a way that fits into the flow of work. He describes how digital adoption tools have reduced training seat time by as much as 60 percent and given associates real support inside the tools they use every day. This shift has created confidence, improved performance, and given teams more time with guests, which he considers the most meaningful return on investment of all.
Looking ahead, Victor reflects on the role AI will play in learning, from measurement to content creation, and how emerging tools could eventually provide adaptive, contextual support in real time.
If you are a tech or business leader trying to understand how large enterprises truly modernize learning, this conversation offers a grounded and human view of what it takes. And as Victor looks toward 2026 and beyond, he shares why he believes the next wave of learning innovation will be shaped by AI, data, and a deeper understanding of behavior inside the flow of work.
What stood out to you in his approach, and how do you see the future of enterprise learning evolving? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Have you ever wondered how an industry known for delays and uncertainty suddenly starts operating with the pace of a tech company? That thought stayed with me as I spoke with Eppie Vojt, the Chief Digital and AI Officer at West Shore Home. His team is bringing applied AI into home remodeling in a way that feels practical, grounded, and surprisingly human.
Eppie explains how a strong data foundation allowed them to introduce agentic systems without the usual chaos. Those systems now handle scheduling, permitting, forecasting, and communication in the background. The result is a level of certainty that customers rarely experience in remodeling. When someone signs a project, they already know the installation date. Hours of operational work happen silently, and that alone changes the entire experience.
We also talk about the culture that made this possible. Instead of forcing new tools onto teams, leadership encouraged small experiments and curiosity. That simple move flipped the mood internally. Departments began approaching Eppie with ideas rather than waiting to be pushed. The rollout was gradual, giving people time to shift into more valuable work without fear or disruption.
Looking ahead, Eppie sees huge potential in letting customers start their journey in different ways. Tools like photogrammetry and digital twins could help people get early pricing guidance without a full in-home visit. It reflects a bigger change across physical industries as AI becomes something that quietly supports accuracy, safety, and convenience.
If you care about real AI adoption rather than hype, this one offers a clear view into what works. I'd love to hear what stood out to you after listening.
Useful Links
- Connect with Eppie Vojt on LinkedIn
- Learn more about West Shore in this video
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What does it really mean to run a company that aims to be "good" before it ever thinks about becoming "great"? That was the question sitting with me as I sat down with Appfire's CEO, Matt Dircks. The conversation took us straight into the heart of modern leadership, purpose, and the realities of running a global SaaS business during a period of change.
Matt has led organisations through rapid growth, mergers, cultural resets, and shifting market expectations. What stood out in our discussion was how open he is about the parts of leadership that are messy. He talked about transparency, dealing with hard decisions, and the challenge of building a culture where people feel safe enough to be honest without losing accountability. His philosophy is grounded in something simple. You cannot scale trust unless you behave in ways that earn it every day.
We explored how Appfire is evolving beyond its acquisition roots, expanding from Atlassian aligned tools into cross platform solutions that support enterprises across Microsoft, Salesforce, GitHub and more. Matt explained why the company is investing heavily in new AI native products and why being close to customers is becoming a priority as their needs become more complex. He also shared how openness, active communication, and a willingness to be challenged guide the way he leads through uncertainty.
The more we talked, the clearer it became that Appfire's next chapter is a blend of product innovation, cultural maturity, and a renewed focus on service. Matt's story offers a useful lens for anyone wrestling with questions about values, growth, and the human side of technology. What does a "good company" look like in practice, and how does that shape the road to long term success?
I'd love to hear what resonated with you, so let me know your thoughts.
Useful Links * Connect With Matt Dircks on LinkedIn * Learn more about Appfire * The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't by Robert I. Sutton * Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
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What happens when AI adoption surges inside companies faster than anyone can track, and the data that fuels those systems quietly slips out of sight? That question sat at the front of my mind as I spoke with Cyberhaven CEO Nishant Doshi, fresh from publishing one of the most detailed looks at real-world AI usage I have seen. This wasn't a report built on opinions or surveys. It was built on billions of actual data flows across live enterprise environments, which made our conversation feel urgent from the very first moment.
Nishant explained how AI has moved out of the experimental phase and into everyday workflows at a speed few anticipated. Employees across every department are turning to AI tools not as a novelty but as a core part of how they work. That shift has delivered huge productivity gains, yet it has also created a new breed of hidden risk. Sensitive material isn't just being uploaded through deliberate actions. It is being blended, remixed, and moved in ways that older security models cannot understand. Hearing him describe how this happens in fragments rather than files made me rethink how data exposure works in 2025.
We also dug into one of the most surprising findings in Cyberhaven's research. The biggest AI power users inside companies are not executives or early career talent. It is mid-level employees. They know where the friction is, and they are under pressure to deliver quickly, so they experiment freely. That experimentation is driving progress, but it is also widening the gap between how AI is used and how data is meant to be protected. Nishant shared how that trend is now pushing sensitive code, R&D material, health information, and customer data into tools that often lack proper controls.
Another moment that stood out was his explanation of how developers are reshaping their work with AI coding assistants. The growth in platforms like Cursor is extraordinary, yet the risks are just as large. Code that forms the heart of an organisation's competitive strength is frequently pasted into external systems without full awareness of where it might end up. It creates a situation where innovation and exposure rise together, and older security frameworks simply cannot keep pace.
Throughout the conversation, Nishant returned to the importance of visibility. Companies cannot set fair rules or safe boundaries if they cannot see what is happening at the point where data leaves the user's screen. Traditional controls were built for a world of predictable patterns. AI has broken those patterns apart. In his view, modern safeguards need to sit closer to employees, understand how fragments are created, and guide people toward safer workflows without slowing them down.
By the time we reached the end of the interview, it was clear that AI governance is no longer a strategic nice-to-have. It is becoming a daily operational requirement. Nishant believes employers must create a clear path forward that balances freedom with control, and give teams the tools to do their best work without unknowingly putting their organisations at risk. His message wasn't alarmist. It was practical, grounded, and shaped by years working at the intersection of data and security.
So here is the question I would love you to reflect on. If AI is quickly becoming the engine of productivity across every department, what would your organisation need to change today to keep its data safe tomorrow? And how much visibility do you honestly have over where your most sensitive information is going right now? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Useful Links
- Connect with Cyberhaven CEO Nishant Doshi on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Cyberhaven
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Why does it feel as though every headline about the future of work points to AI pushing entry-level roles off a cliff? That question stayed with me as I sat down with Robin Adda, a long-time learning and development leader, bestselling author, and one of the most balanced voices I have heard on skills, technology, and the workplace. Robin argues that AI can protect white-collar roles rather than erode them, and hearing him explain why immediately shifted the tone of the conversation.
From the start, Robin talks about how traditional training models have failed to keep pace with reality. Companies know the skills gap is widening, yet many still rely on broad, generic programmes that miss what people actually need. His journey toward building SkillsAssess grew out of that frustration. He realised that training without insight only scratches the surface, and employees end up going through motions instead of growing in ways that matter.
Inside organisations, the picture is even more complicated. Robin describes teams that want to move forward but have no clear road map, along with job seekers who struggle with basic digital tasks long before they reach more advanced expectations. Opportunity exists, yet people often cannot reach it because they lack a personal starting point. His work focuses on bridging that divide by giving individuals clarity and giving leaders accurate visibility into their workforce.
We also talk about the emotional weight behind all of this. Anxiety around AI is everywhere, especially for people who feel their role is drifting into uncertainty. Robin has seen organisations handle this well by focusing on clear information rather than vague reassurance. When people understand what they need to learn and why, their fear gradually shifts into something more constructive.
Another area that stood out was his emphasis on human strengths. As routine work moves to AI systems, qualities like curiosity, communication, and thoughtful decision making become even more valuable. Robin explains how behavioural profiling and tailored learning pathways can help companies build stronger teams rather than rely on technology to smooth every challenge.
By the end of our conversation, I found myself thinking differently about the future of work. Robin's perspective is grounded in decades of watching technology rise, fall, and rise again. He sees AI as a chance to rethink employability rather than fear the disruption. In his view, if we use these tools wisely, we can build a workforce that is more confident, more adaptable, and more resilient.
So here is the question I want to leave you with. If learning could finally become personal, and if AI could help people understand their own potential instead of replacing it, what would that change for you and your organisation? And how would it reshape the way you think about your career? I would love to hear your thoughts.
- Find out more at https://skillsassess.ai and by following the SkillsAssess' LinkedIn
- Listen to Robin and key industry guests on the SkillsAssess podcast - When Skills Matter
- Connect with Robin directly on LinkedIn
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Have you ever wondered what it looks like when an enterprise finally breaks free from spreadsheet-driven decision paralysis and lets AI take the wheel? That was the question at the back of my mind as I sat down with Bianca Anghelina, the founder of Aily Labs.
In our conversation, Bianca explains how her career inside large global enterprises shaped her view of the world. She saw first hand how companies could gather astonishing amounts of data but struggled to translate it into choices that actually mattered.
That friction pushed her to imagine something bolder, a decision intelligence platform that could remove the hand-stitched chaos of manual analysis and replace it with real-time clarity. She shares how she took the leap during an uncertain moment in 2020, trusting the idea that disruption often grows during difficult periods. Hearing her describe that early stage reminded me how many founders take quiet risks long before the public sees any success.
What stood out most was the simplicity of her philosophy. Every company will eventually use AI, but only the ones that rewire their culture and everyday routines will turn it into measurable value. Bianca talks about the shift from pilots to production, the widening gap between firms that run AI at scale and those still treating it as a side project, and how leaders need to rethink their role if they want to see material financial impact.
She also shares how Aily Labs uncovered a hundred million dollars in opportunities instantly for one enterprise, and how their AI agents connect previously isolated functions to solve resource allocation, supply chain shocks, and board-level scenarios in minutes instead of months.
We also look ahead. Bianca outlines her vision for fully autonomous decision-making agents and the long path toward an operating model where strategy, execution, and action flow through a single intelligent layer. Her optimism about where this can lead Fortune 500 organisations over the next five years left me thinking about how quickly boardrooms will need to adapt.
At the same time, she grounds that vision in her own story, acknowledging the mentors and supporters who helped her grow from corporate leader to founder.
If you are wrestling with the business case for AI, or trying to understand why so many firms still struggle to get past experimentation, this episode offers a clear window into what happens when AI is built into the centre of how an enterprise thinks. It is a rare mix of founder story, practical insight, and a glimpse of the future.
What part of Bianca's thinking resonates most with your own experience, and how do you see decision intelligence reshaping leadership teams in the years ahead? Let me know your thoughts.
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Is AI quietly pushing us to work alone when creativity has always thrived on collaboration? I'm joined by Joseph "Coop" Cooper, co-founder of Nullshot, to unpack a different vision for how AI should support creators, builders, and teams. And before any Interstellar fans get too excited, this is not the cinematic space explorer navigating wormholes; this is a serial entrepreneur building something very real on Earth, where conversations turn into working applications in real time.
Coop shares how his journey from modding video games as a child to launching multiple ventures across crypto and developer tools shaped his belief that current AI tools lean too heavily towards individual productivity. He explains the thinking behind Nullshot's jam rooms, where multiple people can co-create with AI in a shared space, instead of building in isolation. We explore how this model encourages quieter voices to contribute, removes the pressure of pitching ideas, and replaces it with live prototypes that speak for themselves.
Alongside the enthusiasm for this collaborative future, Coop also addresses the tougher questions around ownership, fair credit, and how contributions should be recognised without being gamed. There is an honest discussion about whether AI-powered creation lowers barriers for everyone or risks shifting too much power towards the platforms that control it. The balance between opportunity and risk feels central to what Nullshot is attempting to achieve.
As teams, founders, and creators look for better ways to bring ideas to life together, this conversation offers a grounded look at what shared AI creation could mean in practice. Are we ready to move from solo prompts to collective building, and what might that shift say about how we define creativity in the next phase of digital work?
What do you think, could collaborative AI change the way your team builds, and how would you feel about sharing ownership in a live creative space?
Useful Links
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Is the UK quietly slipping into the role of a cautious observer while other nations shape the future of AI with greater confidence and intent?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Rav Hayer, Managing Director at ThoughtWorks and Head of BFSI, to explore why our approach to AI regulation may be slowing progress at a time when momentum matters.
We move beyond the headlines of multi-billion pound investment announcements and look at what is really happening on the ground for business leaders trying to innovate in an environment shaped by uncertainty, shifting guidance, and risk aversion.
Throughout our conversation, Rav shares his perspective on how this climate is affecting founders, scaleups, and established enterprises alike. We examine why so much British innovation still finds its way overseas, and what that says about ownership, long-term competitiveness, and the confidence gap holding many organisations back.
I also ask Rav to compare the UK's position with regions such as Singapore, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia, where proactive regulation is being used to encourage innovation rather than create friction. Together, we unpack the hidden costs of ambiguity, from time lost in legal interpretation to talent being drawn away from building meaningful progress at home.
We close the episode on a more human note as Rav reflects on his personal journey, the role his parents played in shaping his work ethic, and the values that continue to guide his leadership today.
As the UK weighs protection against progress, should we continue to step carefully, or is it time to show greater conviction and direction in our AI strategy? I would love to hear your thoughts on where that balance should sit. What do you think, and how should the UK move forward from here?
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What happens when a seasoned finance leader steps into the world of enterprise software and decides to rebuild the financial close with AI at its core?
In my conversation with Darren Heffernan, CEO of Trintech, we look at the shifts taking place inside the office of the CFO and how automation is reshaping a discipline that has relied on spreadsheets and manual routines for generations. Darren's story spans public practice, GE Capital, and twenty years inside Trintech, which gives him a rare view of both the pressure inside finance teams and the opportunities created when workflow, data, and intelligence finally come together.
Across our discussion, Darren explains how Trintech has spent decades refining the financial close by embedding intelligence directly inside the workflow rather than bolting it on. He talks through real examples of AI identifying exceptions, writing rules, scanning volumes of transactions, and reaching back to a human for review so the outcome remains transparent and traceable. His point is that trust and clarity matter as much as speed, especially in a profession where regulators, auditors, and boards expect every action to be explainable. It is a reality check for anyone comparing providers claiming to deliver AI without the decades of grounding needed to understand how finance actually works.
We also talk about the human side of transformation. Darren believes the people who learn to work with AI will thrive, and he pushes back against the idea that automation threatens finance roles. Instead, he sees a future where agents and humans collaborate while accountants focus on judgment, interpretation, and value.
His reflections on leadership, mentorship, humility, and the maturity that comes from doing almost every role inside a company add a personal texture to the story. It is clear that his philosophy of making time count is not a slogan, it is a way of working that shapes how Trintech designs its products and how teams support customers.
As we look toward 2026, Darren shares his view on the next frontier in finance. He describes a future where AI powered workflows not only detect issues but take action, improve continuously, and still respect the need for control. His message is simple.
Finance runs on trust, and AI must strengthen that trust, never weaken it. So how should leaders approach this moment, and what might the financial close look like once AI becomes a reliable partner rather than a confusing buzzword? I would love to hear what you think.
What happens when a leader realises that the success of every major initiative, from AI projects to return to office plans, rests on something far deeper than strategy or tools? In my conversation with Phil Gilbert of Irresistible Change, we look at why culture is the deciding factor behind whether transformation takes root or quietly falls apart. Phil has spent a career inside some of the most complex organisations on the planet, and his work at IBM showed that change only becomes real when people want it, when they feel part of it, and when they see its value in their daily work.
Across our conversation, Phil explains how he approached transformation inside a company with nearly four hundred thousand employees without forcing anyone into compliance. Instead of relying on memos or mandates, he treated change like a young startup that needed to earn believers. He focused on proof rather than persuasion, clarity rather than slogans, and an understanding that people respond to meaning, autonomy, and trust. It is a refreshing contrast to the typical corporate playbook that often leans on pressure rather than participation.
We talk through the mindset shifts that helped him rebuild a culture at scale, including treating change like a product with a clear value proposition. Phil shares stories from inside IBM and reflects on why the same lessons now apply across industries. Today's workforce is more informed, more selective, and less willing to accept top down directives that lack substance. His view is that leaders who miss this reality are the ones left wondering why their carefully crafted strategies never quite land the way they expected.
Phil's new book, Irresistible Change, digs into these ideas in detail. Our conversation gives a taste of that thinking and offers practical insight for anyone wrestling with transformation in their own organisation. Culture shapes the outcome of every big shift, whether leaders acknowledge it or not. So how can organisations build change that people choose to be part of, and what might be possible if more leaders approached transformation this way? I would love to hear your thoughts.
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What happens when your entire market disappears overnight? That was the reality facing LoopUp when the pandemic transformed the way the world communicates.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Steve Flavell, co-CEO of LoopUp, to talk about how his company turned disruption into a defining moment of reinvention.
LoopUp began in 2003 with a mission to make conference calls less painful. For over a decade, the company grew steadily, even going public on the London Stock Exchange in 2016. But when Teams and Zoom became household names during the pandemic, LoopUp's core business all but vanished.
Faced with that challenge, Steve and his team made a bold pivot, moving into global cloud telephony for Microsoft Teams. That shift didn't just save the company, it transformed it into what Steve now calls the world's most multinational telco, providing enterprise voice services in 136 countries.
Steve shares what it took to steer through that transformation, from managing fivefold surges in traffic to building a scalable global service model. He also reflects on the leadership lessons learned along the way, including the power of persistence, transparent communication, and the strength of his 22-year co-founder partnership with Michael Hughes.
This is a story of resilience, clarity, and strategic courage. For any founder or business leader who's ever faced a market shock or wondered how to evolve when everything changes, Steve's journey offers an honest and inspiring roadmap for rebuilding stronger than before.
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What happens inside a transformation program when every decision must withstand scrutiny, every dependency carries weight, and every undocumented rule inside a legacy system can change the outcome of an entire initiative? That was the starting point for my conversation with Adebimpe Ibosiola, a specialist who has spent her career working in regulated industries where nothing is ever as simple as it looks on paper.
In a space where leaders often feel pressure to modernize at speed, she argues that the real progress comes from slowing down long enough to understand the truth of the systems, people, and cultures already in place.
During the discussion, Adebimpe shared how many organisations walk straight into failure because they begin with visions instead of diagnosis. She explained how hidden logic in old systems, variations in compliance interpretation, and the invisible labour teams carry out daily can derail the best-intentioned roadmap.
Her view is that transformation only becomes possible when leaders commit to technical truth-finding and accept that legacy platforms often contain valuable intelligence worth translating rather than discarding.
It was eye-opening to hear how she decodes behavioural quirks in systems, aligns teams around shared language, and builds processes where correct behaviour becomes the easiest path.
We also spoke about the human journey that accompanies digital change. Adebimpe sees emotional resilience, micro wins, and psychological safety as core components of sustainable progress in any regulated environment.
Her approach blends structure with empathy, especially when teams feel pressure from audit requirements or fear of missteps. She also offered powerful reflections on why collaboration is the real competitive advantage for future professionals and how diversity strengthens decision-making in high-stakes environments.
This conversation stays with you because it reframes transformation through honesty, clarity, and human understanding rather than slogans or promises of fast fixes. It also highlights an emerging truth. Regulated industries are moving toward a future shaped by people who can translate across technology, regulation, and culture rather than those who see transformation as a tooling exercise.
What stood out to you in Adebimpe's perspective? And where do you think regulated organisations should begin if they hope to create change that actually lasts? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Connect with Adebimpe Ibosiola on LinkedIn
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Why do entire organisations invest millions building resilient data centres yet leave their endpoints exposed to outages that can last days? That question kept coming back to me during my conversation with James Millington of IGEL at the Now and Next event, because it highlights a gap that most IT leaders still underestimate.
James walked me through the reality he sees every day. Companies have high availability strategies for their servers, cloud platforms, and networks, yet the devices workers rely on remain the weakest point. When ransomware or system failure hits, the response often involves scrambling for spare laptops, calling suppliers, and hoping inventory exists. As James pointed out in our chat, many firms quietly rely on a handful of unused machines sitting in a cupboard. That approach might have worked a decade ago, but today's threat landscape exposes every delay.
Our discussion centred on IGEL's dual boot approach, a fresh way to recover access within minutes by placing IGEL OS alongside Windows on the same device. Instead of waiting hours or even weeks to rebuild machines, organisations can simply switch to a secure environment that restores access to cloud apps, collaboration tools, and virtual desktops. James shared stories of analysts admitting no comparable solution exists, and of customers having light bulb moments as they calculated the true cost of endpoint recovery. The theme running underneath it all was simple. You cannot coordinate your crisis response unless your people have a working device in their hands. Everything else depends on that.
This episode also reflects a wider shift in how organisations think about resilience. Leaders are beginning to question old assumptions about failover, preparation, and what it takes to keep people productive when attacks or outages strike. The conversations I heard throughout Now and Next showed that businesses are realising the endpoint is no longer a peripheral concern. It is the gateway to every service that keeps a company running. When that gateway fails, everything slows.
James also shared lighter moments from his journey. His career began as a DJ, something he has circled back to at IGEL events, and it was fascinating hearing how skills from that era still show up in his approach to communication and timing. It reminded me how varied experiences shape the leaders driving today's conversations around security, SaaS evolution, Zero Trust, and the growing overlap between IT and operational technology.
So here is my question for you. As cyber risks rise and downtime becomes harder to tolerate, how ready do you feel for the disruption that begins at the endpoint? I would love to hear your thoughts.
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What happens when a founder who built a billion dollar company during a global crisis steps into the centre of industrial AI and begins reshaping how entire organisations think and work? That question sat at the heart of my conversation with Somya Kapoor, CEO of IFS Loops, recorded live on the show floor at IFS Industrial X Unleashed.
Somya's journey carries a level of grit and perspective that shines through every answer. She shared how surviving the Gulf War as a child shaped her instinct to take on the hardest problems in technology. That mindset not only guided her early career at SAP, ServiceNow, and other enterprise giants, it also laid the foundation for Loops, the agentic platform she co-founded in 2020 with a simple scribble on a notepad that eventually grew into one of the most significant acquisitions in the IFS ecosystem.
Her stories about early rejections, the wave of scepticism around AI in the early days, and the first customer conversations held on Zoom during lockdown reveal the human side behind a platform many now take seriously across the industrial world.
Across the episode, Somya explained in plain terms what makes IFS Loops so different. The platform connects data across systems using natural language, helps redesign processes that used to be locked inside individual applications, and introduces digital workers that remove the grunt work from everyday operations. She brought the technology to life with examples that landed with real clarity. From supplier order handling to complex field service tasks, and the now famous Kodiak Gas case where thousands of hours were saved each year, she showed how agentic workflows change what is possible for industrial companies who have spent decades wrestling with fragmented data and rigid processes.
We also talked about the importance of keeping people at the centre of AI driven change. Somya was clear that amplification, not replacement, is the story that matters. The shift requires new skills, new supervision models, and a thoughtful approach to adoption. Her reflections on change management, the energy she felt from customers at the event, and the speed at which leaders now want to move painted a picture of an industry that feels very different from the early days of AI excitement. The hesitation has faded. Curiosity has taken over. Action is starting to follow.
Somya closed with a message aimed at every leader who might still be watching from the sidelines. The technology is real, adoption is accelerating, and the window to learn, experiment, and adapt is narrowing. She believes this is the moment for teams to decide whether they want to lead or be led by others who are moving faster.
As you listen to this conversation, I'd love to hear what stood out for you. Do you feel the same shift in confidence and urgency around industrial AI that Somya described? Let me know your thoughts.
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Have you ever wondered what happens when the browser stops being a simple window to the web and starts becoming the control point for how AI touches every part of enterprise life? That was the starting point for my conversation with Michael Shieh, founder and CEO of Mammoth Cyber.
What followed was a detailed look at why the browser is turning into the foundation of enterprise AI and why the shift is arriving faster than many expect.
Michael shared why employees already spend most of their working lives inside a browser and how this makes it the natural place for AI to support decisions, speed up routine work, and act as the interface between people, applications, and data. But we also spoke about the uncomfortable reality behind that convenience.
When consumer AI browsers rush ahead with features that harvest data or request wide-reaching permissions, the trade off between speed and governance becomes harder to ignore. Michael explained how this gap leaves security teams unable to see where sensitive data is being sent or how shadow AI creeps into daily workflows without oversight.
During our conversation he broke down what makes an enterprise AI browser different. We talked about policy controlled access, device trust, identity federation, and the safeguards that protect AI from hazards like indirect prompt injection. Michael also described how the Mammoth team built a multi layer security model that monitors what the AI can view, what it cannot view, and how data moves across applications in real time. His examples of DLP at the point of use, low friction controls for workers, and granular visibility for security teams showed how the browser is becoming the new enforcement boundary for zero trust.
We also covered the growing tension between traditional access models like VPNs or VDI and the faster, lightweight deployment Mammoth is offering to large enterprises. Hearing Michael explain how some customers replaced heavy remote access stacks in weeks made it clear that this is more than a new product category. It hints at an early move toward AI shaped workflows running directly at the endpoint rather than through centralised infrastructure. As he looked ahead to the next few years, Michael shared why he expects the browser to operate as a kind of operating system for enterprise AI, blending native AI agents, web apps, and policy controls into a single environment.
This episode raises an important question. If the browser becomes the place where AI reads, writes, and interprets information, how should enterprises think about identity, trust, and control when the pace of AI adoption accelerates again next year? I would love to hear your thoughts.
What happens when a former NHL player who once faced Wayne Gretzky ends up running a global data company that sits at the center of the AI boom? That question kept coming back to me as I reconnected with Mike McKee, the CEO of Ataccama, seven years after our last conversation. So much has shifted in the world since then, yet the theme that shaped this discussion felt surprisingly grounded. None of the big promises of AI can take hold unless leaders can rely on the data sitting underneath every system they run.
Mike brings a rare mix of stories and experience to this theme. His journey from the ice to the C suite feels like its own lesson in discipline, teamwork, and patience, and he openly reflects on the way those early years influence how he leads today. But the heart of this conversation sits in the reality he sees inside global enterprises. Everyone is racing to build AI powered services, yet the biggest blockers are messy records, inconsistent metadata, long forgotten databases, and years of quality issues that were never addressed. It is a blunt problem, and Mike explains why the companies winning with AI right now are the ones treating data trust as a foundation rather than an afterthought.
Across the discussion, he shares stories from organisations like T Mobile and Prudential, where millions of records, thousands of systems, and vast volumes of structured and unstructured data must be monitored, understood, and governed in real time. Mike walks through how teams build confidence in their data again, why quality scores matter, and how automation now shapes everything from compliance to customer retention. What stood out most is how quickly the expectations have shifted. Boards and CEOs now treat data as a strategic asset rather than an operational chore, and entire roles have emerged above the chief data officer to steer these programmes.
This episode is also a reminder that AI progress is never only about models or GPUs. Mike pulls back the curtain on why organisations struggle to measure AI readiness, how they can avoid bottlenecks, and what it takes to prioritise the work that actually moves the needle. His point is simple. Without trustworthy data, AI remains a promise rather than a practical tool. With it, businesses can act with confidence, respond faster, and make decisions that genuinely improve outcomes for customers and employees.
So as AI reaches deeper into systems everywhere, how should leaders rethink their approach to data trust, governance, and quality? And if you have been on your own journey with data challenges, where have you seen progress and where are you still stuck? I would love to hear your thoughts.
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What happens when a former Microsoft leader walks away from tech, immerses himself in personal wellbeing, and accidentally discovers one of the biggest blind spots in the global spa, salon, and wellness industry? That question sat with me as I spoke with Sudheer Koneru, founder and CEO of Zenoti, who has shaped one of the most influential platforms powering beauty, wellness, and fitness operations in more than fifty countries.
This conversation takes an interesting path. Sudheer began his career inside Microsoft during its high-growth era, then built and exited a successful enterprise software company, only to step away from the industry entirely. Those two quiet years focused on health and family revealed something surprising.
The spa and salon sector he was engaging with as a customer lacked modern tools, consistent experiences, and operational systems that could help both staff and guests thrive. That realisation moved him from passive observation into building Zenoti, a platform designed for large brands with multi location operations. Today, Zenoti supports more than twelve thousand businesses and processes millions of bookings each year.
Across our discussion, Sudheer explained why staff turnover shapes guest trust far more than most of us realise. He shared the emotional aspect of returning customers wanting familiar faces, the operational pressure this creates, and the measurable business impact when those connections are lost.
We also talked about the role of AI. Unlike many narratives that focus on automation replacing creativity, Sudheer was clear that AI is strengthening the personal side of the industry. He described how tools like Zeni and Hyperconnect reduce missed calls, increase upsells, support new staff with real context, and free human teams to offer better on site care.
Hearing how Zenoti has grown as a profitable unicorn while staying selective about its customer base added another layer. Sudheer credits this discipline as one of the company's strongest decisions, along with a willingness to focus on brands that truly benefit from the platform's depth.
As the wellness and beauty sectors move further into AI supported operations, the question becomes whether businesses can adopt new capabilities without losing the warmth and familiarity that keep guests returning. After listening, how do you feel about AI supporting personal service industries, and where do you see the right balance landing? I would love to hear your thoughts.
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What happens when enterprise AI moves faster than the data foundations meant to support it? That question guided my conversation with Sumit Mehra, CTO and Co-Founder of Tredence, who joined me while travelling between customer meetings on the US West Coast. Sumit has a clear view of what is coming next, and he believes we are entering a phase he calls data Darwinism.
In his view, the next stage of AI advantage will not be won by the companies with the most models or the flashiest demos, but by those with the strongest data habits. Clean, governed, connected data is now the primary fuel for autonomous decision systems, and the enterprises that fail to address this will struggle to move past surface level gains. As we unpacked this shift, it became obvious how much of the real work in AI has only just begun.
Over the years, Tredence built a reputation for solving the last mile of analytics by bringing insights out of slide decks and into the hands of the people doing the work. Sumit described that early chapter with a sense of pride, but he was quick to point out that another transition is already here.
With agents now influencing and making decisions across supply chains, forecasting, and customer experience, enterprises are moving from reviewing insights to reviewing decisions. That shift demands stronger data platforms, tighter governance, and a cultural adjustment that many organisations are still wrestling with. Sumit spoke openly about how teams need support to trust agent driven outcomes, and how the leadership layer plays a major role in closing the long standing divide between business and technical groups.
Our discussion also moved into the rise of real time decision systems, the move toward unified data platforms, and how vertical AI is reshaping expectations inside industries that rely on precision. Whether it was supply chain visibility, marketing personalisation, or the growing need for credible governance models, Sumit emphasised that organisations can no longer rely on siloed data or fragmented strategies.
As Tredence expands deeper into regulated industries through its acquisition of Further Advisory, the work ahead touches everything from finance to healthcare. It left me thinking about how ready most companies truly are for this next phase, where every agent is only as reliable as the data beneath it. Where do you stand on data Darwinism, and how prepared do you think your own organisation is for what comes next?
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What happens when AI becomes the centre of how we shop, yet trust still determines whether any of it works? That question shaped my conversation with Romain Fouache, CEO of Akeneo, who joined me to unpack the latest consumer data on AI driven shopping experiences.
Retail giants might be setting the pace, but the real story sits in how everyday shoppers feel about these new tools. Akeneo's recent research caught my attention when it revealed that eighty four percent of consumers who acted on an AI recommendation were satisfied with the purchase. The appetite is clearly there, yet trust remains fragile, especially when only forty five percent feel confident in AI powered suggestions and even fewer enjoy their chatbot interactions. Romain sees this moment as both a turning point and a warning, one that demands honest conversations about transparency and product data.
As we worked through the findings, Romain explained why good AI depends entirely on high quality product information and why poor data is still the biggest threat to customer confidence. He argued that brands can reduce friction, improve discovery, and deliver more relevant experiences by grounding their AI tools in reliable product knowledge rather than guesswork. He also spoke about why many chatbots continue to miss the mark. The issue is less about the technology and more about the lack of strong product foundations beneath it. When recommendations go wrong, trust erodes quickly, and rebuilding that trust will require clear communication about how data is used and why certain suggestions appear. I found his view on privacy particularly interesting, especially his belief that better intent based interactions could lower the industry's dependence on invasive data collection.
Looking ahead to 2026, Romain shared why he expects conversational shopping to become a primary way people browse and evaluate products. He believes the shift away from keyword driven search is already happening and that smaller retailers should not feel outpaced by the largest platforms. With the right product experience strategy, he says, AI opens new opportunities for global reach and category diversification.
The conversation also touched on why product experience, rather than product data alone, will determine the brands that build loyalty in an increasingly competitive environment. It left me wondering how ready businesses truly are for a world where product information must be accurate, real time, and aligned with the way AI tools interpret customer intent. What do you think matters most for building trust in AI powered shopping?
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What happens when events become the most human channel in a world increasingly shaped by AI? That thought set the tone for my conversation with Muhammad Younas, founder and CEO of vFairs, who has spent years helping organisations design in-person, virtual, and hybrid experiences at a remarkable scale.
With more than fifty thousand events delivered and over one hundred million attendees served, he has a front row view of how event technology is changing and why the next wave will look very different from what planners have relied on until now. Rather than fearing the impact of AI, Muhammad sees a near future where mundane tasks fade into the background and planners focus on strategy, creativity, and connection.
Throughout the discussion, Muhammad returned to a simple idea. Every event is unique, and technology should adapt to that reality rather than forcing people into rigid templates. He believes the next chapter of event tech will focus on specialised workflows that understand industry needs, whether that is a job fair, a healthcare gathering, a global town hall, or a conference that carries an entire community's voice.
He also sees events becoming one of the most important expressions of first party marketing as digital channels get louder and harder to trust. When people choose to attend, they bring intent, time, and attention, and no online algorithm can replace that.
We also explored why virtual events and webinars continue to grow long after the urgent push of the pandemic. Muhammad explains that these formats thrive because they offer reach, convenience, and year round value. They generate content that fuels engagement far beyond the event itself, and they remove the barriers that keep global audiences locked out of traditional venues.
Meanwhile, vFairs keeps pushing forward, from smart matchmaking on trade show floors to tools that help planners capture meaningful connections and follow through on them. In an era driven by AI, he argues that events will matter even more because they protect the authenticity and human contact that many feel is slipping away.
Muhammad's own story, from running hundreds of events himself to building a platform chosen by global brands, adds a human layer to all this technology. It raises an important question. As AI reshapes the work behind the scenes, how will event planners and organisations reimagine the experiences people value most? I would love to hear what you think.
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What does it say about the future of work when AI competency starts to feel as expected as basic reading? That question sat with me throughout my latest conversation with Artem Kroupenev, VP of Strategy at Augury, who returns to the show with a perspective that lands with fresh clarity.
Workforce costs remain high, industries are shifting, and the job market continues to reset its foundations. In that environment, Artem argues that AI literacy is no longer something ambitious candidates use to stand out. It is becoming a baseline expectation that employers will quietly assume. The way we talk about skills is changing, and the speed of that shift matters.
Across our discussion, Artem reflects on how this transition is unfolding inside factories and industrial operations, where Augury has spent the last decade building predictive machine health systems. He describes a world where AI takes on tasks, not entire roles, and where the real opportunity for workers sits in judgment, collaboration, and the kind of problem solving that software cannot replicate.
He highlights patterns from the SOPH 2025 data that show strong confidence across manufacturing leaders, yet also reveal a gap between optimism and real capability. It paints a picture of an industry moving quickly, yet still learning how to measure and translate AI value into outcomes people can trust.
What struck me most was how Artem links mindset to readiness. Individuals who treat AI as a companion in their daily workflow, rather than a novelty to test occasionally, start building the fluency that future roles will quietly demand.
Employers who approach AI simply as a tool upgrade often overlook the harder work of reshaping processes, KPIs, and expectations. And the organisations that fail to adapt risk widening the gap between AI empowered and AI hesitant teams, something Artem believes will show up in hiring, competition, and long term viability.
This conversation looks beyond the usual headlines about automation and considers what the next five years might actually feel like for people joining the workforce or leading teams through change. If AI becomes as expected as reading and writing, what does that mean for education, career paths, and employer responsibility? I would love to hear your view.
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What does resilience look like when your business depends on keeping data, apps, and infrastructure running flawlessly in a world that never sleeps? At IGEL's Now & Next event in Frankfurt, I sat down with Sush Kajaria from Nutanix to explore how the company is helping organizations simplify their cloud strategies and strengthen their endpoint environments through modern virtualization and prevention-first security.
Our discussion looked at how IT teams are adapting to an increasingly complex technology stack, where workloads are spread across hybrid and multicloud environments. Sush Kajaria explains how partnerships with companies like IGEL are creating more seamless integration between data centers and the edge, giving IT leaders the control and visibility they need to protect business continuity. We also explored how automation, unified management, and secure access are helping enterprises reduce costs without sacrificing flexibility or performance.
The conversation moved beyond infrastructure to address the human side of digital transformation. We discussed how hybrid work, evolving compliance requirements, and AI adoption are reshaping how IT teams operate, forcing leaders to rethink how they deliver secure and consistent experiences to employees everywhere. Nutanix's story is one of constant reinvention, driven by a clear mission to make enterprise IT invisible while keeping operations resilient and efficient.
As organizations look ahead to 2026, this episode offers a grounded look at what it takes to balance innovation with reliability. How can IT leaders simplify their infrastructure without losing control, and what role will partnerships like IGEL and Nutanix play in defining the next chapter of enterprise resilience?
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Have you ever wondered what it looks like when a global professional services firm commits over one billion dollars to AI and expects it to reshape the way its people work across every corner of the business? That question sat with me as I spoke with Russ Ahlers, Chief Information Officer at BDO USA, and someone who has spent three decades building technology foundations that hold up some of the most complex operations in the industry. This conversation goes straight into the reality of enterprise AI programs, the human decisions behind them, and the scale required to turn strategy into day to day transformation.
Russ shares how BDO is approaching AI as a global effort rather than a series of disconnected projects. He explains how the firm's five year investment is designed to upgrade core systems, bring automation into areas that slow teams down, and build intelligent capabilities that support professionals across audit, tax, and advisory. I was interested in how he balances ambition with governance, and he offers a grounded view on why AI only delivers real value when firms focus on data quality, security, and practical use cases that free people to do higher value work.
What stood out is Russ's long view. His time leading BDO International's IT strategy shaped the way he thinks about scale, convergence, and consistency. Across this episode he reflects on the lessons learned from supporting member firms worldwide, the importance of shared standards, and the cultural shift needed for AI to land with impact across a large workforce. His perspective is shaped by years of integrating new firms into the BDO network, where technology adoption and organisational change must move together.
This episode is a chance to understand how a major global organisation is building its future on intelligent systems, why long term investments matter, and how leaders think about readiness, risk, and opportunity when the stakes are high. It also speaks to something more personal. Russ talks about the mindset behind modern IT leadership, the importance of curiosity, and the practical realities of running an innovation program that touches every part of the enterprise.
Where do you stand on the idea of a billion dollar AI commitment, and what questions would you want answered before making a move like that? I would love to hear what you think.
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]:pointer-events-auto [content-visibility:auto] supports-[content-visibility:auto]:[contain-intrinsic-size:auto_100lvh] scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "request-WEB:742e9866-c0c2-4dd5-9a5d-a4d6d43ed055-7" data-testid= "conversation-turn-16" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn= "assistant"> ]:pointer-events-auto [content-visibility:auto] supports-[content-visibility:auto]:[contain-intrinsic-size:auto_100lvh] scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "request-WEB:742e9866-c0c2-4dd5-9a5d-a4d6d43ed055-8" data-testid= "conversation-turn-18" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> What does it really take to build an AI ready network in 2025? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Vikas Butaney from Cisco and Ali Tehrani from Presidio to unpack the biggest announcements from Cisco's Partner Summit and discuss how their collaboration is helping enterprises modernise networks for the AI era. Together, we explore how businesses can move faster, strengthen security, and simplify operations while adapting to a world of continuous data flow and intelligent automation.
Vikas shares how Cisco's strategy is built around three customer imperatives: AI ready data centers, future proof workplaces, and digital resilience. He talks about how Cisco is weaving these priorities into new innovations such as secure routers with five times the throughput, Wi Fi 7 access points, and unified dashboards that bring Catalyst Center and Meraki together for a single view of the network. He also introduces AI Canvas, a multiplayer workspace that allows NetOps and SecOps teams to collaborate in real time, showing what it looks like when AI becomes part of the operational fabric rather than an add on.
Ali joins the conversation with the partner's perspective, explaining how Presidio brings Cisco's architecture to life through the last mile of execution. He describes how the Cisco Unified Branch initiative uses AI workflows and branches as code to deliver zero touch rollout across thousands of sites. By combining automation, golden configuration templates, and telemetry driven SLAs, Presidio helps customers reduce deployment times from weeks to minutes while maintaining consistent performance and security.
Throughout our discussion, we compare AI for networking, where AI helps to run and optimise the network, with networking for AI, which provides the infrastructure to power high volume AI workloads. We talk about how Cisco is building security directly into the network with Access Manager, simplifying IoT segmentation, and preparing for a post quantum world.
If you want to learn more about Cisco's announcements and vision for the AI era, check out these resources:
- The Presidio and Cisco Partnership
- Cisco Supercharges its Secure Enterprise Network Architecture for the AI Era
- Unlocking the AI Era: How Cisco is Delivering on its Vision for a Secure, Simplified, and Scalable Network
- From Fragmented to Future Ready with Unified Branch: Powering IT in the AI Era
This episode offers a clear, inside look at how Cisco and Presidio are shaping the next generation of secure, intelligent networks. So, how ready is your organisation for this new era of AI driven connectivity?
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What if the real weakness in enterprise cybersecurity isn't the cloud or the network, but the endpoint sitting on every desk? In this episode, Klaus Oestermann, CEO of IGEL Technology, joins me at the Now and Next event in Frankfurt to discuss why he calls the endpoint the forgotten link in digital transformation.
Klaus explains how decades of detect and mitigate thinking have left enterprises vulnerable, and why it is time to move toward a prevention-first security model that stops attacks before they start. He shares how IGEL's dual boot architecture allows organizations to recover thousands of devices in minutes, and why prevention-first design can deliver measurable ROI with an average 62 percent reduction in endpoint IT costs and more than 900,000 dollars in annual savings.
During our conversation, Klaus also reflects on the surge in ransomware across critical sectors and why governments and enterprises alike are rethinking their endpoint strategies. He talks about how IGEL has become an essential part of modern Zero Trust frameworks, protecting sectors like healthcare, manufacturing, and public services, while partnering with leading technology providers to build stronger, integrated defenses.
We also explore how those savings can be reinvested into Zero Trust, AI innovation, and new layers of defense, as well as how IGEL is helping secure critical national sectors from healthcare to manufacturing. From Audi's factory floors to government agencies, Klaus outlines a future where resilience begins at the endpoint, not the data center.
Do you think enterprises are ready to make that shift? I would love to hear your thoughts after the episode.
Useful Links * + Connect with Klaus Oestermann on LinkedIn + Learn more about IGEL + Follow on LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube
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What if filing your taxes was as effortless as asking your AI assistant a question? For millions of people, the annual ritual of gathering receipts, logging into confusing portals, and racing against deadlines remains one of life's most dreaded tasks. But what if that stress could disappear completely, replaced by a real-time financial ally working quietly in the background?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, Neil sits down with Snir Yarom, Chief Technology Officer at Taxfix, to explore how the Berlin-based fintech is redefining the relationship between people and their money. Snir shares how Taxfix has become truly AI native, embedding intelligence into every layer of its product, technology, and culture. This transformation is not about adding AI features, but about rethinking how products are designed, developed, and delivered in an era where customer expectations evolve faster than most companies can keep up. Snir explains how his teams are using AI to supercharge productivity, accelerate discovery, and even code 40 percent faster while maintaining human oversight and trust at the core.
The conversation also dives into Snir's vision for the future of tax and personal finance, an always-on AI assistant that continuously optimizes your finances rather than showing up once a year to tally the damage. He discusses the concept of product market fit collapse in the age of AI and how legacy companies risk falling behind when they fail to adapt at the same pace that technology evolves. From governance and transparency to human in the loop systems, Snir outlines how Taxfix is balancing innovation with accountability in one of the world's most regulated industries.
As AI reshapes finance, the question isn't whether it will change how we manage money, but how far that change can go while keeping human trust intact. Could your next tax return be filed without you even noticing? Listen in, then share your thoughts, would you trust an AI to manage your taxes from start to finish?
Useful Links:
Connect With Snir Yarom on LinkedIn
Learn more about us Taxfix here
https://medium.com/taxfix
https://www.instagram.com/teamtaxfix/ https://www.facebook.com/taxfix.de/
https://github.com/taxfix
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What if the real story of AI isn't about chatbots or copilots at all, but about what happens when intelligence becomes part of the infrastructure of how work gets done? That's the idea driving this conversation with Vahid Taslimi, CEO and co-founder of Zenphi, who joins me from Melbourne, Australia, to discuss how his team is quietly redefining the way organizations think about automation.
Vahid believes the real potential of AI lies not in flashy interfaces or generative tools, but in its ability to act as an invisible layer that powers everyday business operations. He explains how Zenphi is embedding AI into workflow automation for companies across sectors—from Gordon Food Service, which uses AI to manage access reviews and reduce shadow IT, to Action Behavior Centers in the US, where AI ensures compliance in sensitive healthcare processes. In each case, the focus is on operational AI that improves efficiency, accuracy, and decision-making without exposing organizations to unnecessary risk.
We also talk about the importance of starting small, proving value, and scaling sensibly, echoing lessons learned from the early days of SaaS adoption. Vahid shares his views on how to move from AI experiments to enterprise-wide deployment, how to build compliance and governance into every layer, and why the future of automation depends on empowering non-developers to shape their own workflows. His no-code approach is enabling HR, finance, and operations teams to experiment safely with AI, achieving compounding gains without depending entirely on IT departments.
Throughout our chat, Vahid brings to life the concept of "AI as infrastructure" with grounded stories and practical insights. He also reflects on how Zenphi balances innovation with reliability, ensuring that even regulated industries can integrate AI responsibly. As he puts it, sometimes the smartest systems are the ones you never see.
So how close are we to a world where AI is simply part of the background of every business process? And what will it take for companies to trust AI at the infrastructure level rather than the interface?
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What can leadership in Formula One teach the rest of us about business transformation? In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Seb Sheppard, whose career has taken him from flying helicopters in the Royal Navy to leading engineering teams in Formula One and steering post-merger integrations across multiple industries. His story isn't just one of impressive career shifts but of understanding what truly drives high performance—people, trust, and focus.
Seb shares how growing up in Chile and working across different cultures taught him the value of clear communication and empathy in leadership. He explains why protecting technical teams from distractions can often be the most productive thing a leader can do, and how wellbeing initiatives work best when driven by employees themselves rather than top-down policies. Drawing on his time at Alpine F1, he also reveals the delicate balance between cost control and performance improvement, describing how he helped grow the engineering team by a third while staying within strict budget limits.
Our conversation also explores the human side of mergers and acquisitions. Seb discusses why integration efforts often fail when companies overlook culture and people, and how proactive communication—long before an announcement is made—can make the difference between success and attrition. He also speaks about the evolving relationship between technology and leadership, explaining how AI can be embraced without losing the human element that drives creativity and trust.
If you're a leader facing constant change, this episode is a masterclass in adaptability, humility, and practical wisdom. You'll come away with lessons from both the skies and the racetrack that apply directly to your own teams and projects.
Connect with Seb Sheppard at www.sebsheppard.com or on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/sebsheppard.
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How do you secure a world where trusted internal traffic now travels over the public internet? That's the question I put to Doug Merritt, CEO of Aviatrix, in this thought-provoking conversation recorded for Tech Talks Daily. Doug brings decades of experience from his time leading Splunk and other major technology players, and he now finds himself at the forefront of reshaping how enterprises think about cloud security.
We discuss why the cybersecurity landscape is more treacherous than ever, especially as AI accelerates both defense and attack capabilities. Doug explains why the old "castle and moat" mindset no longer applies in the age of cloud workloads, where perimeters are atomized and workloads are ephemeral. He outlines how identity, endpoint, and network security form a three-legged stool—yet too many organizations focus on one leg while neglecting the others.
Doug also shares why embedding protection directly into the network fabric changes the rules for defending the cloud, and how his team at Aviatrix is helping companies close dangerous visibility gaps. We explore the rise of agentic AI, the growing sophistication of lateral movement attacks, and why even trusted identities can pose risk in distributed environments. As we look to the future, Doug argues that the path forward is clear: build on strong foundations, simplify the noise, and make network visibility a first-class citizen in enterprise defense.
What do you think—are most organizations ready to shift from bolted-on tools to truly embedded cloud security? I'd love to hear your thoughts after listening.
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Every software team, no matter its size or sophistication, has wrestled with the same quiet threat, technical debt. But what if the issue isn't just messy code or outdated frameworks, but something more human? That's the question Ernesto Tagwerker, Founder and CEO of OmbuLabs.ai, has been asking as he works at the intersection of AI, developer experience, and legacy modernization.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, Ernesto joins me from Philadelphia to unpack why technical debt is so misunderstood and why the term has drifted far from Ward Cunningham's original metaphor. He argues that many teams treat it as a one-off cleanup task when, in reality, it's a living health issue that must be managed continuously. As he explains, "Every time you have to work around messy code, you're paying interest. And if later never comes, that interest piles up until progress grinds to a halt."
We explore how AI is changing the way engineers think about remediation and developer experience (DX). Ernesto shares how OmbuLabs.ai uses AI agents to automate parts of the Rails upgrade process, scanning codebases for deprecations and generating actionable plans for clients. But his caution is clear, these tools are only as smart as the people orchestrating them. When used carelessly, they can generate invisible layers of new debt just as fast as they resolve the old.
Ernesto also reflects on research from Google that reveals how "technical debt" varies wildly between teams and projects. He explains why leadership alignment is vital, how recurring surveys can help identify developer pain points, and why organizations should measure "technical health" rather than chase the unrealistic goal of zero debt. We discuss the cultural shift required for long-term success and why allocating even 10 to 20 percent of each sprint to DX improvements can dramatically reduce burnout and turnover.
Finally, Ernesto offers his take on the future. AI will continue to automate repetitive work and surface smarter insights, but human oversight remains non-negotiable. In his words, "AI agents are only as good as their human operator."
This conversation goes beyond code reviews and sprint retrospectives. It's about redefining what progress means in software development, healthier systems, happier developers, and smarter collaboration between humans and machines.
Listen now to hear how Ernesto Tagwerker and OmbuLabs.ai are rethinking technical debt, DX, and AI-driven engineering for the decade ahead.
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What if business intelligence didn't stop at answering what happened, but could finally explain why? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit back down with Alberto Pan, Chief Technology Officer at Denodo, to unpack how DeepQuery is redefining enterprise AI through reasoning, transparency, and context.
We explore how DeepQuery functions as an AI reasoning agent capable of performing open-ended research across live, governed enterprise data. Instead of relying on pre-built dashboards or static reports, it builds and executes multi-step analyses through Denodo's logical data layer, unifying fragmented data sources in real time. Alberto explains how this semantic layer provides the business meaning and governance that traditional GenAI tools lack, transforming AI from a surface-level Q&A system into a trusted analytical partner.
Our conversation also digs into the bigger picture of explainable AI. DeepQuery reports include a full appendix of executed queries, allowing users to trace every insight back to its source. Alberto breaks down why this level of auditability matters for enterprise trust and how Denodo's support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) opens the door to more interoperable, agentic AI systems.
As we discuss how DeepQuery compares with RAG models and data lakehouses, Alberto offers a glimpse into the future of business intelligence—one where analysts become guides for AI-driven research assistants, and decision-makers gain faster, deeper, and more transparent insights than ever before.
So what does the rise of reasoning agents like DeepQuery mean for the next generation of enterprise AI? And how close are we to a world where AI truly understands the why behind the data? Tune in and share your thoughts after listening.
Useful Links
-
Connect with Alberto Pan on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Denodo
- Stories of Your Life and Others book that Alberto shared for our Amazon list
- O'Reilly's The Rise of Logical Data Management book
- Follow on LinkedIn and Twitter
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For years, many businesses believed that Apple devices were inherently secure. That illusion has faded. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Adam Boynton, Senior Security Strategy Manager at Jamf, about why visibility across macOS and iOS is no longer a luxury but a necessity.
Adam explains how Jamf has evolved from device management to full Apple-native security intelligence, protecting over 75,000 organizations and more than 32 million devices. He shares how attackers no longer target individual operating systems but entire ecosystems, exploiting the gaps between how Apple secures its platforms and how enterprises actually monitor them.
From real-world cases to lessons learned at Jamf's annual JNUC conference, Adam describes how telemetry provides security teams with the truth about what's really happening on their endpoints, enabling them to transition from reactive incident response to proactive defense.
Our conversation covers everything from the architectural blind spots that traditional Windows-centric tools can't see to the rise of AI-driven analysis that turns complex forensic investigations into minutes-long processes. We also explore how Jamf's partnerships, such as those with Elastic, are creating an open and integrated future for enterprise security, blending deep Apple signals with cross-platform context.
For anyone still clinging to the myth that macOS or iOS "just work" without attention to security, this episode is a wake-up call. Adam outlines practical advice on patching, mobile hygiene, and zero trust, while revealing how Jamf's latest innovations are quietly making the most secure way the easiest way for users.
Listen to hear how Jamf is redefining modern Apple security, turning management, identity, and protection into a seamless whole, and why accurate visibility—not assumptions—is now the objective measure of cybersecurity readiness.
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There was a time when a computer science degree almost guaranteed a fast track into a well-paid career. But that promise is slipping. In today's Tech Talks Daily episode, I reconnect with Hans de Visser, Chief Technology Officer at Mendix, to discuss why recent graduates are finding it more challenging than ever to secure their first role in technology, and what they can do about it.
Hans brings decades of experience in software engineering and low-code innovation, and his perspective on today's market is both sobering and optimistic. We discuss new research indicating a sharp decline in junior developer openings since 2024 and explore how the rapid rise of AI has altered the hiring equation.
The expectation now is that young developers arrive fluent in automation, generative AI, and multidisciplinary tools —skills that few university programs can thoroughly teach. Yet, as Hans points out, this doesn't mean opportunity has vanished. It just looks different.
Our conversation unpacks what this new reality means for aspiring developers. Hans explains how Mendix evaluates candidates by testing their ability to think critically about AI-assisted code rather than generate it.
He explains why graduates must master both traditional software foundations and modern tools, such as low-code platforms and agile applications. And he offers advice on building a mindset of lifelong learning, staying curious, experimenting with new tools, and understanding how AI can amplify rather than replace human creativity.
For anyone feeling disheartened by the tightening job market, Hans offers balance and hope. He believes that as the definition of software developer evolves, new hybrid roles will emerge at the intersection of business, creativity, and technology. The graduates who will thrive are those who treat AI as a collaborator, not a competitor.
Listen to this episode to hear how Mendix is helping redefine what it means to build software in the age of AI, and why today's tech graduates may need to think less about securing a single job title and more about creating a career that never stops learning.
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What does cybersecurity look like beyond Earth's atmosphere? That's the question at the heart of this conversation with Kristiina Omri, Vice President of Special Programs at CybExer Technologies, and Aare Reintam, the company's COO.
We met in Tallinn on the eve of the Software Defined Space Conference to explore how Estonia, in collaboration with the European Space Agency, is helping define the future of space cybersecurity through the world's first Space Cyber Range.
The story begins unexpectedly—with a childhood memory of marmalade in a tube, the same kind sent to Soviet astronauts in orbit.
For Aare Reintam, that small detail became the first spark of fascination with space, one that decades later evolved into CybExer's partnership with ESA. Together they've created a digital testing environment where satellites, ground stations, and communication protocols can be stress-tested for cyber resilience long before launch.
It's a bold move in an era when satellites underpin everything from GPS and precision farming to air travel and climate observation, yet often rely on decades-old technology vulnerable to attack.
Kristiina Omri explains how the Space Cyber Range replicates real-world missions, allowing engineers and analysts to train under simulated attack conditions that feel indistinguishable from their actual control systems.
The range combines the precision of digital twins with the competitive intensity of cyber exercises, preparing teams for threats that can ripple from orbit to everyday life on Earth.
The conversation covers everything from the growing space-debris crisis to the global shortage of cybersecurity professionals, and the urgent need to blend space engineering with cyber education.
We also discuss the deeper strategic implications. What happens when quantum computing enters the battlefield? How should Europe prepare for the convergence of cyber and kinetic threats in orbit? And what lessons can be learned from Estonia's leadership in NATO cyber defense as it extends that expertise to the stars?
By the end of the discussion, one theme stands out clearly: the future of cybersecurity is no longer confined to our planet. From digital twins to orbital trust networks, CybExer Technologies and the European Space Agency are proving that the next frontier for cyber readiness lies in space itself.
In this episode, I sit down in Tallinn with Madis Võõras, Head of the Estonian Space Office at Enterprise Estonia, to unpack how Estonia is carving out a real role in the European space sector through brains, code, and smart partnerships.
Madis explains how his team connects Estonian companies with the European Space Agency, brings public investment back into the local economy, and uses space projects as a launchpad for globally competitive products and services. He shares why Estonia's sweet spot is software, how the country's digital public infrastructure became a reference point for European programs, and why the next wave of value will come from data, cybersecurity, and rapid deployment rather than rockets alone.
We also talk about what it takes to build a space economy in a market of 1.3 million people. Madis walks through lessons from early contracts, the rise of an Earth observation data hub, and a business incubator that has already helped dozens of founders move from idea to revenue. He is candid about the gaps too, including the need for more hardware depth and the reality that international cooperation is the fastest route to scale. From optical communications between Tallinn and Helsinki to the practical use of AI inside satellite programs, you will hear a pragmatic roadmap rather than hype.
If you want a grounded look at how space policy meets startup grit, and why collaboration with the European Space Agency is a catalyst rather than a finish line, this conversation is for you. What should Estonia prioritize next to punch above its weight in the global space economy, and where do you see the biggest opportunities for software and AI in space services? Share your thoughts and join the discussion.
What role does cybersecurity play when the battlefield extends beyond Earth's atmosphere? In this special episode recorded live in Tallinn for the fifth anniversary of the Software Defined Space Conference, I sit down with Kalev Koidumäe, CEO of the Estonian Defence and Aerospace Industry Association, to explore how software and security are transforming the future of space and defense.
Kalev shares how Estonia, a nation of just 1.3 million people, has built global credibility through innovation, collaboration, and cyber resilience. From the lessons of the 2007 state-level cyberattack to the country's integration of space technologies within NATO's defense framework, Estonia has developed a model that combines agility with strategic foresight.
Our conversation spans everything from the evolution of Estonia's space sector to its growing ecosystem of AI-driven defense technologies, autonomous systems, and satellite solutions. Kalev also explains how lessons from the war in Ukraine are reshaping Europe's defense landscape and accelerating the need for resilient, software-defined systems.
What makes this discussion particularly fascinating is the balance Estonia maintains between national sovereignty and international cooperation. Kalev explains how the country's reserve army model, cyber education initiatives, and public-private partnerships have created an ecosystem where innovation is both strategic and deeply rooted in civic responsibility. It's a blueprint for how smaller nations can play a meaningful role in global security through ingenuity and collaboration.
As the world navigates an era of heightened geopolitical tension and rapid technological advancement, this discussion offers a glimpse into how small nations can make a big impact in securing both cyberspace and outer space.
So what can larger nations learn from Estonia's approach to innovation, readiness, and cyber defense? And how might software continue to redefine the future of space security? Share your thoughts after listening.
Artificial intelligence has changed how we think about service, but few companies have bridged the gap between automation and genuine intelligence. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Puneet Mehta, CEO of Netomi, to discuss how customer experience is evolving in an age where AI doesn't just respond but plans, acts, and optimizes in real time.
Puneet has been building in AI long before the current hype cycle. Backed by early investors such as Greg Brockman of OpenAI and the founders of DeepMind, Netomi has become one of the leading platforms driving AI-powered customer experience for global enterprises. Their technology quietly powers interactions at airlines, insurers, and retailers that most of us use every day. What makes Netomi stand out is not its scale but the philosophy behind it.
Rather than designing AI to replace humans, Netomi built an agent-centric model where AI and people work together. Puneet explains how their Autopilot and Co-Pilot modes allow human agents to stay in control while AI accelerates everything from response time to insight generation. It is an approach that sees humans teaching AI, AI assisting humans, and both learning from each other to create what he calls an agentic factory.
We explore how Netomi's platform can deploy at Fortune 50 scale in record time without forcing companies to overhaul existing systems. Puneet reveals how pre-built integrations, AI recipes, and a no-code studio allow business teams to roll out solutions in weeks rather than months. The focus is on rapid time-to-value, trust, and safety through what he calls sanctioned AI, a framework that ensures governance, transparency, and compliance in every customer interaction.
As our conversation unfolds, Puneet describes how this evolution is transforming the contact center from a cost center into a loyalty engine. By using AI to anticipate needs and resolve issues before customers reach out, companies are creating experiences that feel more personal, more proactive, and more human.
This is a glimpse into the future of enterprise AI, where trust, speed, and empathy define the next generation of customer experience. Listen now to hear how Netomi is reimagining the role of AI in service and setting new standards for how businesses build relationships at scale.
What if the biggest barrier to AI adoption isn't the technology itself, but our ability to learn, adapt, and reskill? That question sits at the heart of my conversation with Sagar Goel, Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group, who leads the firm's global work on digital workforce development and reskilling.
Speaking from Singapore, Sagar brings a rare combination of data, strategy, and humanity to the discussion on how AI is reshaping the global workforce—and why the frontline is struggling to keep up.
Drawing on BCG's latest "AI at Work" research, Sagar reveals a surprising trend: frontline AI usage has stalled at around 50 percent for the first time. He explains why many companies are still approaching AI as a tool rollout rather than a behavioral and cultural shift. According to him, employees often don't know where or how to use AI effectively, leadership support is lacking, and training programs are too shallow to spark genuine adoption. The result is a productivity paradox—AI potential without real impact.
Sagar also unpacks another counterintuitive finding: leaders are more worried than their teams about losing their jobs to automation. He attributes this to leaders' heightened awareness of structural disruption and their own vulnerability in adapting mid-career. Meanwhile, countries across the Global South are outpacing the US in AI adoption, driven by youthful populations, economic necessity, and a hunger for differentiation in tight job markets.
Throughout the discussion, Sagar draws a clear line between upskilling and reskilling—two terms often used interchangeably but representing distinct needs. Upskilling, he explains, should embed AI fluency into daily workflows from the CEO down, while reskilling must redeploy people into new, higher-value roles as automation accelerates. He cites IKEA's decision to retrain 8,000 call center staff into design consultants as a model example of turning disruption into opportunity.
We close with a candid reflection on leadership responsibility in the age of AI. For Sagar, the message is simple but profound: if skills don't show up on your balance sheet, they won't show up in your business performance. As the half-life of skills shrinks to five years, he urges CEOs to integrate workforce readiness directly into strategy, or risk being outpaced by those who do.
This episode is a grounded, data-driven look at what it truly takes to prepare people—not just machines—for an AI-driven world.
What if your cybersecurity strategy could become your biggest sales advantage? In this episode, I sit down with Taylor Hersom, Founder and CEO of Eden Data, to explore how startups can transform compliance from a box-ticking exercise into a true growth engine. Taylor's journey is remarkable: a former Deloitte executive who quit his job the week before the world shut down, launched Eden Data on Upwork with just $16, and went on to build one of the fastest-growing cybersecurity advisory firms, now recently acquired by Riveron. His story blends grit, reinvention, and a deep understanding of how trust has become the real currency of modern business.
We talk about how to safeguard customer data in an AI-first world and why shadow AI has become the new shadow IT problem for many companies. Taylor explains why cybersecurity can no longer sit in the IT department alone, sharing examples of how marketing and customer experience leaders are now leveraging security as a differentiator to win contracts and customer loyalty. He also opens up about the human side of cyber risk, why most breaches stem from simple mistakes, and how gamifying awareness training can be more effective than annual compliance videos no one remembers.
As AI rapidly reshapes the digital landscape, Taylor shares his perspective on what future global standards for AI security could look like and how leaders can bake compliance and security into their products from day one. His view is clear: the next generation of successful startups will treat cybersecurity as both a foundation and a brand promise. How ready are you to make trust part of your growth strategy? And how will your business adapt as cybersecurity becomes not just a requirement, but a competitive edge? Share your thoughts after listening.
What happens when early-stage founders realise their go-to-market strategy just isn't working? Do they double down on outdated advice or take a fresh look at how modern buyers actually engage?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Richard Lowry, founder of Springboard IQ, to unpack how he's helping startups rebuild broken GTM strategies in just seven days through a crowdsourced, operator-led model that challenges everything we think we know about growth.
Richard explains how Springboard IQ brings together six active operators to co-create a go-to-market blueprint that's fast, focused, and grounded in the realities of today's market. This approach delivers practical strategy and design rather than execution, giving founders clarity on where to focus their time and energy.
As Richard puts it, founders should save their passion for the demo because that's where it really matters. The conversation explores why technical founders often mis-hire sales talent, why relying on outdated accelerator advice can derail growth, and why many teams hit a "GTM wall" long before real scale begins.
We also discuss why the future of GTM might look very different from the digital-first strategies of the past. As inboxes flood with automated outreach and AI-generated content, Richard believes human-led activation through curated events, community experiences, and even spontaneous moments of connection will define the next era of startup growth. It's a conversation that blends practical lessons, honest stories (including one involving a soup kitchen in Lisbon), and a call to bring the human element back to how we sell, connect, and grow.
So, could a crowdsourcing strategy from active operators be the smarter way for startups to go to market? And in an era of AI-saturated noise, will the next big differentiator simply be showing up in person? I'd love to hear your thoughts after you listen.
What happens when a world-class badminton player trades the court for the courtroom and then the boardroom? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Tom Dunlop, CEO and co-founder of Summize, to explore how a former Great Britain athlete became one of the most forward-thinking leaders in legal technology.
Tom shares how his journey from sport to law to entrepreneurship shaped his leadership philosophy and his belief in "high agency," the mindset of taking ownership, driving action, and leading from the front. We talk about how that outlook helped him transform the traditional image of legal work into something faster, smarter, and more collaborative through Summize's AI-powered Contract Lifecycle Management platform. Rather than forcing users to adopt new software, Summize integrates directly into tools people already use like Teams, Slack, Outlook, and Word, embedding contract management seamlessly into everyday workflows.
We also explore Tom's reflections on brand building in a historically conservative industry, the mental shift from risk-averse lawyer to decisive founder, and why he believes legal leaders should embrace innovation as a way to strengthen their role at the boardroom table. His story is as much about personal reinvention as it is about technological disruption, revealing how determination, discipline, and curiosity can reshape even the most traditional professions.
So, how do you balance precision with risk when you move from legal advisor to entrepreneur? And what lessons from sport, law, and leadership can help us all perform better in the fast-changing world of work? I'd love to hear your thoughts after listening.
What if the key to creating cleaner, faster, and more efficient cities isn't building new infrastructure, but rethinking how we move what we already have? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Richard Savoie, co-founder of Adiona, whose AI-powered logistics platform is transforming how goods travel through urban environments.
Richard's background as a patent-holding engineer and mentor in the medical device field gives him a unique perspective on precision, quality, and human-centered design. At Adiona, he applies that same discipline to logistics, helping delivery networks run smarter, leaner, and more sustainably. His FlexOps platform uses AI to optimise routes, model EV fleet conversions, and create digital twins of operations so companies can reduce emissions and increase efficiency—without replacing the people who make it all work.
In our conversation, Richard shares why he believes in a humanistic approach to AI that empowers drivers, dispatchers, and warehouse workers instead of automating them out of existence. We also explore how Adiona's scenario modelling helps global brands like Coca-Cola and Australia Post cut costs while meeting 2030 sustainability goals, and what the future might hold as AI and robotics begin to converge for last-meter delivery.
So, could the next big sustainability breakthrough come from reimagining the routes that already exist? And how might AI reshape the logistics networks that keep our world moving? I'd love to hear your thoughts after listening.
*]:pointer-events-auto [content-visibility:auto] supports-[content-visibility:auto]:[contain-intrinsic-size:auto_100lvh] scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "request-WEB:f7086228-abd7-42a8-a9ab-e753048fd331-1" data-testid= "conversation-turn-4" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> What if the key to unlocking real AI transformation isn't a new enterprise platform or an executive directive, but something much simpler: listening to the innovators already inside your company?
That's the idea behind AppDirect CTO Andy Sen's philosophy on bottom-up AI adoption. In this episode, we talk about why the most effective AI strategies often begin at the grassroots level, led by curious employees who experiment first and ask for permission later.
Andy explains how AppDirect built a culture of AI experimentation by giving employees a secure "digital playground" to test ideas, measure results, and scale what works. From developers using AI to write half of the company's new code to non-technical staff building internal tools, AppDirect's approach has driven measurable productivity gains while cutting costs and improving efficiency. Rather than dictating from the top, leaders are encouraged to ask questions, support innovation, and apply a "yes, but" mindset that modifies solutions for governance and compliance instead of shutting them down.
As organizations everywhere wrestle with how to scale AI responsibly, Andy offers a fresh take on balance by empowering employees to build while ensuring security and oversight. We also explore the rise of developer-focused platforms like devs.ai, which allow teams to safely create agentic solutions across different large language models.
So, are your employees already innovating with AI while leadership lags behind? And what might your business discover if you stopped trying to control AI adoption and started observing where it's already thriving? Let me know your thoughts after listening.
What if artificial intelligence could help you find, value, and buy an online business in minutes instead of months? That's the idea behind Lauren AI, Flippa's new proprietary deal origination tool designed to make mergers and acquisitions accessible for everyone, not just the elite few. In this conversation, Blake Hutchison, CEO of Flippa, returns to share how the company is using AI to democratize business ownership for what he calls "the 99%."
Blake explains how Lauren AI indexes over five million digital businesses weekly, analyzing everything from revenue models and tech stacks to traffic and growth potential. Using natural language prompts, it builds a hyper-specific buyer mandate and surfaces opportunities tailored to each individual's skills, goals, and budget. What used to cost thousands of dollars in retainer fees for M&A analysts can now be achieved with a few clicks and a $1.99 outreach. For Blake, it's about eliminating friction in the acquisition process while giving everyday entrepreneurs access to real, data-driven deal flow.
The conversation also explores Flippa's new partnership with SeedLegals and the launch of "Flip and Raise." This initiative helps UK founders perform a Delaware Flip, reincorporating their business in the US so they can raise capital directly from Flippa's network of 75,000 accredited investors. The result is a more connected global marketplace, where cross border deals are not just possible but encouraged.
Across the episode, Blake reflects on his mission to lower the barriers to entrepreneurship, his belief in AI as an enabler of ownership, and the early examples of global deals made possible by the platform. He also shares a personal moment of gratitude for his wife, whose leap of faith from San Francisco to Melbourne mirrors the kind of courage he sees in founders every day.
This episode captures the spirit of modern entrepreneurship, tech enabled, global, and deeply human. It's a story of how AI is quietly reshaping one of the most traditional areas of business, turning mergers and acquisitions into something anyone, anywhere, can take part in.
]:pointer-events-auto [content-visibility:auto] supports-[content-visibility:auto]:[contain-intrinsic-size:auto_100lvh] scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "request-WEB:10addf79-0df3-4a03-b4b8-e2faa2c2f404-2" data-testid= "conversation-turn-4" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> What happens when the ancient magic of theatre meets the disruptive energy of artificial intelligence? In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Emmy-nominated producer and 440 Media founder Jeffery Keilholtz to unpack how AI is reshaping entertainment, licensing, and the very soul of live performance. From his time leading Broadway Licensing Global, home to thousands of acclaimed titles including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child*, Jeffery brings a rare blend of creative and commercial insight to one of the most transformative moments in entertainment history.
Our conversation explores how live entertainment faces twin challenges of visibility and scarcity in a digital age. As Jeffery explains, the rise of ChatGPT has changed how people search, discover, and decide what to see, forcing a shift from SEO to AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization. Yet even as AI floods the world with abundance, theatre's scarcity, that irreplaceable "live, local, urgent" energy, is becoming more precious than ever. Together we examine how AI can simultaneously empower and endanger creative industries, from copyright battles worth billions to the promise of smarter audience engagement and new paths to discover hidden works.
Jeffery also shares his framework for balancing technology and artistry, urging creators to stay nimble like a blade of grass. He argues that surviving this era of AI-driven disruption requires humility, flexibility, and a renewed belief in human connection. It's a powerful reminder that the heartbeat of theatre, and perhaps of creativity itself, still belongs to people gathered together in the same room, sharing something that can never be replicated by a machine.
How do you see AI reshaping the arts and entertainment world? Is it an existential threat to creativity or the tool that will help artists reach new heights? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
What happens when classrooms become laboratories for artificial intelligence? As AI tools find their way into schools, from lesson planning to student assessments, educators and parents are wrestling with how to balance innovation and security.
In this conversation, I sit down with Jurgita Lapienytė, Chief Editor at Cybernews, to unpack how AI adoption in education is reshaping learning, privacy, and the safety of our youngest digital citizens.
Jurgita brings a rare dual perspective as both a technology journalist and a mother. We explore how AI's growing influence could improve access to knowledge while eroding fundamental cognitive skills if introduced too early or without balance. She compares today's reliance on AI to the way GPS changed navigation, convenient but potentially disorienting when overused.
Together, we look at how schools can encourage analog learning before turning to technological shortcuts and why teacher training is crucial for building true tech readiness.
But beneath the excitement lies a darker reality. With 82 percent of K-12 schools hit by cyber incidents in the last 18 months, education is fast becoming one of the most targeted sectors. Jurgita explains how AI is supercharging attacks from phishing to deepfakes and why schools must view data protection as an essential part of innovation rather than an afterthought.
We discuss the growing risks around student data, the ease with which even innocent photos can be exploited, and why privacy policies need a complete rethink before more AI tools enter the classroom.
This episode isn't about rejecting technology, it's about using it responsibly. Jurgita's insights remind us that AI's value in education depends on how thoughtfully it's implemented and how prepared we are to protect the people it's meant to serve.
So what does a secure classroom really look like in the age of AI, and how can schools, policymakers, and parents work together to create one? I'd love to hear your thoughts, how should we balance innovation with safety in our children's digital future?
What happens when simplicity meets AI on the world's biggest tech stage? In this episode, recorded live at GITEX Global in Dubai, I sit down with Sohaib Zaheer, Senior Vice President and General Manager at DigitalOcean, to talk about how the company is staying true to its founding vision of accessibility and simplicity while entering the age of AI.
For years, DigitalOcean has been known as the cloud that "speaks the language of builders," empowering developers and startups to innovate without unnecessary complexity. Now, with the launch of its Gradient AI platform and Cloudways Copilot, the company is bringing that same philosophy to AI development, helping teams go from idea to production-ready agents without huge DevOps teams or fragmented toolchains.
Sohaib explains how DigitalOcean's unified stack is making AI agent development faster, easier, and more transparent. We discuss the startling statistic that 95% of AI projects never make it past the prototype stage, and explore how Gradient AI aims to change that through agent templates, debugging tools, and built-in guardrails. We also look under the hood at AI inferencing, GPU optimization, and why performance and cost efficiency still matter as much as cutting-edge innovation.
If you have ever wondered how AI can become truly accessible, or how simplicity might just be the next big breakthrough, this conversation offers a grounded, real-world perspective from one of the most down-to-earth leaders in cloud technology. Recorded live on the show floor at GITEX Global, this episode is a reminder that great tech is not about hype, it is about helping people build, test, and create with confidence.
*]:pointer-events-auto [content-visibility:auto] supports-[content-visibility:auto]:[contain-intrinsic-size:auto_100lvh] scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" tabindex="-1" data-turn-id= "3b89a0d4-1208-4a43-8b72-eeb56809deac" data-testid= "conversation-turn-18" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn= "assistant"> I'm taking you behind the scenes of GITEX Global with someone who lives and breathes the energy that makes this event what it is. Daniela Muente, Global Marketing Director at GNX, joins me to share how the world's largest technology showcase comes together, what drives its incredible growth, and why Dubai has become such a powerful crossroads for innovation.
GITEX Global isn't just another tech conference. It's where conversations about AI, sustainability, smart cities, cybersecurity, and digital transformation collide with real-world solutions and human stories. With more than 6,800 companies and over 200,000 attendees from across the globe, Daniela explains how her team brings this massive ecosystem to life every year—curating an experience that connects startups, enterprises, governments, and everyday innovators under one roof.
In this episode, Daniela reflects on how storytelling, community, and purpose shape the identity of GNX. We discuss how the event celebrates diversity in technology, why the Middle East is fast becoming a global tech hub, and what it takes to orchestrate an event that captures the imagination of the world.
Deepfakes used to be a niche curiosity. Today they have become a sophisticated tool for manipulation, persuasion, and exploitation. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Aleksander Gorkowienko, Head of Penetration Testing at Risk Crew, to examine how artificial intelligence has transformed deepfakes from playful face swaps into full-scale multimedia attacks designed to deceive even the most vigilant among us.
Aleksander explains how we have entered the age of Deepfakes 2.0, where fake video, audio, images, and text merge to create hyper realistic digital experiences. These aren't the crude social media edits of a few years ago. They are now weaponized as tools for emotional manipulation, exploiting fear, urgency, and trust to trick victims into transferring money, sharing data, or compromising systems. Aleksander walks through real world examples of how criminals build these illusions, using stolen digital footprints to impersonate executives, family members, and trusted colleagues in live video calls.
We discuss how AI's accessibility has accelerated this problem. With free tools and moderate computing power, almost anyone can now create a convincing fake offline. Aleksander shares how this ease of creation erodes trust online, making it harder to distinguish truth from fabrication. He also reveals how attackers rely less on technology itself and more on psychology, engineering scenarios that push people into acting before thinking.
From a defense standpoint, Aleksander offers clear, actionable insights. He talks about the importance of multi factor verification, context based awareness, and fostering what he calls "streetwise vigilance" in the digital world. He compares it to walking through a city at night; you wouldn't flaunt your valuables, so why overshare online? We explore how organizations can conduct training and simulations to teach employees to pause, question, and verify before reacting.
This episode is a timely warning for every business and individual operating in a world where reality can be faked in seconds. Aleksander's rule of thumb is simple but powerful: never trust a single source of information. Cross check, slow down, and think before you act. Because in the age of AI deception, trust must be earned every time.
Listen now to hear Aleksander's firsthand perspective on how deepfakes are changing cybersecurity and what we can all do to stay one step ahead.
What if artificial intelligence could help end world hunger? In this special episode recorded live from GITEX Global in Dubai, I sit down with Magan Naidoo, Chief Data Officer at the United Nations World Food Programme, to discuss how data and AI are transforming humanitarian work at scale.
Magan paints a powerful picture of the global food security crisis, where hundreds of millions of people face hunger across more than 80 countries. He explains how the World Food Programme is using technology to predict food shortages, optimise supply chains, and deliver aid faster and more effectively. Behind every algorithm sits a simple goal: getting food to those who need it, when they need it most.
We explore how AI models are helping the organisation make sense of enormous datasets, identifying patterns that humans alone could not process quickly enough. From predicting drought-related crop failures to reducing the cost of food delivery through smarter routing, Magan reveals how data-driven decisions are saving both time and lives. He also shares the organisation's commitment to ethical AI, strong data governance, and privacy protection in every region they operate.
As the only UN agency with a formal AI strategy, the World Food Programme is setting a benchmark for how large-scale institutions can use technology responsibly and effectively. Magan's story highlights the importance of trust, collaboration, and resilience in a mission where failure is not an option.
Could AI truly be the key to solving one of humanity's oldest challenges? And what lessons can every organisation learn from how the World Food Programme blends compassion with computation? Tune in, then share your thoughts.
This week has reminded me why I love what I do. I have spoken with people from the US, China, Dubai, Bulgaria, and South Africa, and even discovered that one of this show's regular listeners had made the journey from the Netherlands to be here at GITEX Global. Over five sessions on the AI Stage, I have covered everything from autonomous cars to how AI could help the UN World Food Programme tackle hunger. We have explored how Serbia achieved tenfold growth through AI and how new tools can now verify misinformation simply by checking a video link.
But beneath all the tech talk, what has stood out most to me is how technology connects people. In a world that often feels divided, it is refreshing to see how collaboration and shared curiosity can still bridge cultures and spark ideas. It is those moments, when technology brings people together, that remind me why this podcast exists.
That spirit of connection is exactly what inspired my quick chat with Iancho Dimitrov from Living Homes, a company based in Dubai but shaped by global perspectives. Originally from Bulgaria, Iancho and his team are building what they call an "AI-native intelligent home," a home that does not just automate switches but truly understands its inhabitants. From monitoring wellbeing and improving sleep to creating safe, supportive spaces for families across generations, Living Homes is redefining what it means to live smart.
So while this conversation might be short, it captures something powerful. It is proof that innovation is not only about hardware or software, it is about empathy, understanding, and the shared drive to build a better way of living. In a week where the world gathered in one city to imagine the future, Iancho's vision is a reminder that technology works best when it feels human.
What if the next generation of computing was not something you held or wore, but something you looked through? In this special episode recorded live from GITEX Global in Dubai, I speak with Roman Axelrod, founder of EXPANCEO, a deep tech company creating AI-powered smart contact lenses designed to merge augmented reality, biosensing, and what he calls digital superpowers.
Roman explains how his company moved from an ambitious idea to becoming the first deep tech unicorn in the Gulf region, now valued at more than 1.3 billion dollars.
Over the past five years, his team of physicists and engineers in Dubai has built more than fifteen prototypes and secured a wide range of patents, all aimed at developing what they see as the ultimate interface for AI-driven computing. These lenses can display digital images, measure biological signals such as glucose and intraocular pressure, and may one day eliminate the need for screens altogether.
He reflects on the early days of disbelief, when even friends told him to give up, and how perseverance became the deciding factor. For Roman, success meant proving that deep tech innovation is possible outside Silicon Valley. He shares how Dubai's ecosystem, low taxation, and access to world-class talent helped make that vision real. His story offers practical insight for founders who are told their ideas are impossible until they can show a working prototype.
We also explore what this means for the future of human-computer interaction. Roman believes these lenses will help us communicate directly with intelligent systems, turning science fiction into everyday life. His message to entrepreneurs is simple: be stubborn, stay curious, and keep building.
Could AI contact lenses redefine computing itself? Listen to the conversation and share your thoughts.
What if the real breakthrough in AI isn't the model itself, but the data that gives it knowledge? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Edo Liberty, founder and Chief Scientist of Pinecone, to unpack how vector databases have quietly become the backbone of modern AI infrastructure.
We explore why retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) works so effectively out of the box, and why fine-tuning large models often adds complexity without real-world value. Edo shares how Pinecone's research revealed that different models—from OpenAI to Anthropic—require differently structured context to perform well, a discovery that's reshaping how enterprises think about AI implementation.
As the former Director of Research at Yahoo and AWS, Edo offers a grounded perspective on where the real innovation is happening. He explains how the shift from traditional data structures to vector representations is redefining how machines "know" and retrieve information, creating smarter, context-aware systems.
We also touch on his recent transition to Chief Scientist, his excitement for returning to hands-on research, and why he believes the convergence of AI and data represents the defining technological shift of our lifetime.
So, what does it mean for developers, business leaders, and anyone building with AI when knowledge becomes an accessible layer of infrastructure? Can we build systems that truly "know" as humans do?
Join the conversation, and after listening, I'd love to hear your thoughts—do you think the future of AI lies in the models or in the data that feeds them?
What happens when an AI strategy meets the real-world complexity of healthcare, law, and finance? That's the challenge at the heart of my conversation with Mark Sherwood, CIO of Wolters Kluwer, a global leader in professional information services. With over three decades in technology leadership across Microsoft, Symantec, and Nuance, Mark brings a rare combination of enterprise depth and hands-on pragmatism to the AI discussion.
Mark explains why cloud-native architecture and data governance are the twin foundations of trustworthy AI. He shares how Wolters Kluwer is embedding AI across highly regulated industries—from helping doctors access life-saving insights through natural language queries to giving tax and legal professionals faster, more accurate guidance on complex regulations. Behind the innovation lies a disciplined approach: governing data, managing risk, and building confidence in AI systems that must meet the highest standards of accuracy and compliance.
We also explore how to build high-trust, low-friction partnerships between IT and business teams to prevent shadow IT while accelerating digital transformation. Mark offers candid insights into the rise of AI agents, the emerging risks of quantum security, and why he believes that high-quality data is the most valuable currency in digital transformation. His philosophy is simple: speed means nothing without trust, and trust starts with clean, well-governed data.
From cloud transformation to the future of AI regulation, this episode offers a grounded look at how global enterprises can scale responsibly in an era where innovation often outruns policy. So as AI becomes inseparable from how professionals think and work, how do we balance speed with stewardship? And are we truly ready for the ethical, technical, and quantum frontiers ahead? Share your thoughts after the episode.
What does it take to build AI that enterprises can actually trust? That's the question I explored with Nirankush "Kush" Panchbhai, Senior Vice President of Platform Fundamentals at ServiceNow, in a conversation about AI governance, human-centered design, and how the company's AI Control Tower is reshaping enterprise adoption.
Kush describes the AI Control Tower as an "air traffic controller" for AI agents, a central command center that provides visibility, accountability, and governance across every part of an organization's AI ecosystem. It embeds compliance, legal, and risk workflows directly into the development process, replacing endless approval cycles with automated guardrails that accelerate innovation rather than slow it down. The result is a system where humans remain firmly in control, supported by transparent, explainable AI that acts as a teammate rather than a tool.
We also discuss how ServiceNow is helping enterprises move beyond the "POC palooza" of pilot projects that never scale. By treating AI agents as members of a digital workforce—with performance tracking, retraining, and measurable ROI—companies can finally connect investment to real outcomes. Governance, in this context, isn't a constraint; it's a catalyst for confidence and adoption.
At its core, ServiceNow's philosophy is about taking the work out of work, not the human out of work. From password resets to process automation, AI is freeing employees to focus on creative, high-value problem-solving while building trust through transparency and accountability.
As organizations begin managing both human and digital workforces, one question lingers: can AI governance truly become the accelerator that turns trust into enterprise-scale transformation? And what does it take to ensure AI always serves people, not the other way around? Share your thoughts after the episode.
What if the biggest sustainability challenge in tech isn't hardware or cloud emissions, but the invisible mountain of unused data sitting in storage? That's the question driving my conversation with Piero Gallucci, Vice President and General Manager for NetApp UK and Ireland, as we discuss how single-use data is quietly shaping the environmental and financial footprint of enterprise IT.
Piero explains that 38 percent of stored data is never used again, yet it continues to consume energy and resources indefinitely. He describes how this digital hoarding—often driven by regulatory caution and the overvaluation of data—has become one of the most overlooked contributors to emissions in modern infrastructure. With the rise of AI accelerating data growth by an estimated 50 percent, the challenge is no longer simply about capacity but responsibility. Through examples such as Aston Martin Formula One and the NFL, Piero outlines how NetApp is helping organizations identify unused data, automate lifecycle policies, and design intelligent, energy-efficient infrastructure that supports both innovation and sustainability.
We also explore the tension between AI adoption and environmental impact. As enterprises rush to train new models, Piero argues that smarter data governance, not bigger datasets, is the key to sustainable AI. He highlights the importance of educating teams on the true cost of data—both financial and environmental—and why leaders must build intentional strategies that align performance with purpose.
NetApp's vision is clear: make data management as sustainable as it is powerful. But as AI reshapes how we store and use information, can the tech industry finally balance digital growth with environmental stewardship? And what would your company look like if every byte of data had to justify its existence? Share your thoughts after the episode.
What if the next big leap in business AI isn’t generative at all, but predictive? That’s the question at the heart of my conversation with Zohar Bronfman, CEO and co-founder of Pecan AI, a company helping business teams forecast outcomes with precision and turn historical data into future insights.
Zohar explains why he believes predictive AI will deliver far greater enterprise value than the generative models dominating headlines. He points to research showing that most generative AI projects fail to produce ROI, while predictive systems built on a company’s own data can directly improve revenue, reduce churn, and guide smarter decisions. With Pecan’s no-code platform, marketing and operations teams can now create predictive models without needing data scientists—bridging the gap between technical expertise and business execution.
Through stories like Little Spoon’s, a direct-to-consumer baby food brand that used Pecan AI to identify and retain at-risk customers, Zohar illustrates how predictive analytics turns data into real business impact. He also shares common mistakes companies make when implementing AI—starting with unclear objectives and misaligned resources—and why success depends on defining the problem before choosing the tool.
Looking ahead, Zohar envisions predictive AI as the backbone of every organization, shifting business intelligence from reactive analysis to proactive action. As companies move beyond dashboards and toward dynamic decision-making, predictive insights may soon become as fundamental as spreadsheets.
So, if your company could anticipate every challenge before it happened, how different would your strategy look? And are business leaders finally ready to treat predictive AI as core infrastructure rather than a passing trend? Share your thoughts after the episode.
What happens when artificial intelligence meets the everyday heroes of local government? That’s the question driving my conversation with Justin Dennis, co-founder and COO of Urban SDK, a geospatial AI company helping more than 250 North American cities make faster, safer, and smarter decisions.
Justin shares how a Smart Cities Challenge from the U.S. Department of Transportation inspired him to co-found Urban SDK in 2018, and why he believes the future of public safety depends on replacing manual data collection with real-time intelligence. From traffic fatalities to hurricane recovery, he explains how the company’s HALO platform gives local leaders and emergency responders the insights they need to act before crises escalate. In a single platform, they can identify dangerous road zones, predict high-risk intersections, coordinate clean-up operations, and rebuild infrastructure based on data rather than guesswork.
We also explore how AI is quietly reshaping government operations, from disaster management to traffic enforcement. Justin discusses the challenges of introducing cutting-edge technology into systems that still rely on spreadsheets and siloed workflows. Yet his optimism is clear. He believes governments are beginning to embrace AI not as a buzzword but as a practical tool to save time, resources, and lives. As one Florida community recently reported a 40 percent drop in traffic fatalities, the impact is already measurable.
Urban SDK’s story is about technology meeting public service with purpose. So as we enter another year of rapid AI progress, how can data-driven insights continue to empower local leaders to protect citizens and improve quality of life? And what could your city achieve if every decision were powered by real-time intelligence? Share your thoughts after the episode.
Agentic AI is only interesting when it leaves the lab and takes responsibility for real outcomes. In this episode, I reconnect with Raj Koneru, Founder and CEO of Kore.ai, to talk about what that shift looks like inside large enterprises. Raj has been building conversational systems long before chatbots became dinner table conversation, and he is clear about where the action is now. Understanding intent is table stakes. The next frontier is planning, reasoning, and executing tasks through agents that can work across departments, respect policies, and prove their value in minutes, not months.
We walk through how Kore.ai frames the stack. There is a layer below the line, where chips, data centers, clouds, and model providers keep advancing at speed. Above the line is where business value shows up. That is where companies design, deploy, and manage agents for customer service, employee productivity, and process automation. Raj describes Kore.ai as the operating system for that upper layer. The goal is simple to say and hard to deliver. Let teams build agents without writing code, plug into whichever models and clouds they prefer, and keep control through governance, security, and measurement.
Interoperability runs through this conversation. Kore.ai partners with Microsoft, AWS, and G42’s Inception so customers can pick the environment that suits them. Vendor lock-in is a real anxiety for leaders. Raj’s answer is to be model agnostic, data agnostic, and cloud agnostic, while conforming to open standards. That way, enterprises spend their energy on the agents themselves rather than on maintaining a platform. It is a pragmatic view that reflects what I keep hearing on conference floors.
Scale brings its own lessons. At Kore.ai’s volume, latency, accuracy, and security are non-negotiable, and governance is a daily practice rather than a slide in a deck. Raj talks candidly about no-code democratization, where a business user can assemble an agent for a focused task, then graduate to more complex workflows when ready. We also touch on the rise of on-device models in smartphones and where the boundary sits between quick local tasks and heavier actions that still rely on hosted models.
If you care about agentic AI that does real work, this one is worth your time. Raj shares a thoughtful take on collaboration, standards, and why leaders should read widely, question everything, and start building with what is available today. Links are in the show notes.
In this episode, Mike Baker, Vice President and Global CISO at DXC Technology, says the cyber industry has been focusing on the wrong side of AI. He believes too many companies use it only to block threats instead of studying how criminals use it to scale phishing, bypass defenses, and deploy adaptive malware.
Attackers are learning faster than ever, and security teams must catch up. Mike argues that defenders need to think differently and use AI as both protection and opportunity.
He shares how DXC is already doing this. The company has brought autonomous AI agents into its security operations through a partnership with 7AI. These agents process alerts that used to require hours of human effort. The result is faster detection, less burnout, and more time for analysts to investigate real threats. By cutting manual work by more than eighty percent, DXC has shown how AI can make cybersecurity teams stronger, not smaller.
Zero Trust remains a core part of DXC’s strategy. Mike calls it a journey that never ends. It needs cultural change, constant learning, and leadership that keeps security invisible to end users. AI now plays a role here too, improving identity checks and spotting access issues in real time. Yet, he reminds us, AI still needs people in the loop for oversight and judgment.
We also talk about supply chain risks. Too many companies still treat risk assessments as one-time tasks. Mike pushes for continuous monitoring and close collaboration with suppliers. He closes the conversation on a hopeful note. AI will not replace people in cybersecurity, he says. It will make their work more meaningful and more effective if used with care and common sense.
What happens when the future of teamwork collides with the power of AI? That’s the question at the heart of this episode as Tiffany from Atlassian joins me from Barcelona during Team 25, where Atlassian is showcasing how AI-powered collaboration is redefining how work gets done.
We talk about how Atlassian’s mission to unleash the potential of every team is coming to life through its bold decisions, from sunsetting data center products to expanding its multi-cloud partnerships with Google. Tiffany offers a front-row view of how Atlassian’s evolving cloud platform is designed to help customers work smarter while enabling secure, scalable innovation across some of the world’s most complex enterprises.
The conversation also uncovers the thinking behind the teamwork graph, Atlassian’s powerful data intelligence layer that connects billions of work objects to create truly personalized AI experiences. Tiffany shares how companies like Royal Caribbean and Mercedes-Benz are already seeing measurable performance gains and how AI is becoming a real teammate that unifies knowledge, connects tools, and drives better outcomes. We discuss what it means to build a “system of work,” why flexibility and context matter, and how Atlassian’s open approach allows teams to build custom systems tailored to their own culture and workflows.
Beyond the technology, this is a story about continuous learning, adaptability, and human-centered progress. Tiffany’s reflections on learning from the toughest customers, embracing change, and reimagining the browser as an active workspace reveal how Atlassian is blending AI with empathy and purpose. As AI becomes inseparable from teamwork, what steps will you take to unleash what your team can do next? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
As AI tools race into every corner of software development, a simple question keeps coming back to me. Will AI replace human testers, or will it force us to rethink what great testing looks like in the first place. In today’s conversation, I talk with Santiago Komadina Geffroy, a Software Engineer at Jalasoft and an educator with Jala University, about what changes, what stays, and what teams should do next.
Santiago shares how his day job and teaching intersect. He points to a gap he sees often. Engineers are experimenting with large language models without fully understanding how they work, which leads to overconfidence and avoidable rework. He argues for clearer interaction patterns between tools and people. Think less about magic prompts and more about protocols, context sharing, and agent to agent collaboration. That shift frees testers to do the thinking work that AI still struggles with, from exploratory testing and usability judgment to spotting the weird edge cases that only show up when real humans use real products.
We also get into bias and ethics. AI is only as fair as the data it learns from, and that matters in healthcare, finance, and hiring where a mistake can carry life changing consequences. Santiago calls for stronger education around data quality, authorship, privacy, and environmental impact, not as a side note but as part of how engineers are trained. He believes governance helps teams move faster with fewer regrets when they take AI into production.
Security sits in the mix too. Many AI tools need deep system access. If compromised, they can distort results or leak sensitive information. Santiago is candid about the limits of any single safeguard. He recommends a culture of shared responsibility where engineers understand when to call in security specialists and how to design workflows that keep humans in the loop for consequential decisions.
We close with what Jalasoft has learned from building with AI inside a nearshore model in South America. More thinking time. Smaller, controllable scopes. Clear lines between routine automation and human judgment. The headline is simple. AI will change testing. Human testers will remain at the heart of quality.
Here’s the thing. Most of us still picture a hotel lobby with a counter, a queue, and someone typing furiously while we wait after a long flight. In this episode, I sit with Richard Valtr, founder of Mews, to ask whether that scene is quietly fading. Backed by Tiger Global, Goldman Sachs, and Battery Ventures, Mews recently raised 75 million dollars to scale an AI-powered platform that already processes more than 10 billion dollars in payments each year. Richard argues the real bottleneck in hospitality isn’t software. It’s mindset. If hotels rethought workflows around guests rather than systems, the front desk would feel less like a checkpoint and more like a welcome.
Richard shares the origin story of building for hoteliers as well as guests, and why the property management system should function like a central nervous system. He explains how automation handles the repetitive pieces of check-in so staff can actually look people in the eye and start a conversation. That’s the promise of AI here. Not gimmicks, but orchestration across bookings, payments, inventory, and service so the boring parts disappear into the background and the human parts come forward.
We also talk about underused tech. Richard uses a memorable comparison for many hotel platforms that have Ferrari-level capability but get driven like Volvos. The data is there. The intent to serve is there. What’s missing is the leadership confidence to rewire the stack, measure outcomes, and keep pushing. When that happens, hotels stop thinking only in terms of rooms and start monetizing the full journey. Daybeds, coworking passes, last-mile upgrades, spa time after back-to-back meetings. AI can surface the right offer at the right moment without turning the experience into a sales pitch.
By the end, Richard paints a picture of hospitality where screens fade, transactions happen on the guest’s time, and every interaction feels more personal precisely because the admin has been taken out of the way. If you want a grounded view of how AI will change hotels without stripping away the reason we love staying in them, this conversation is a helpful place to start.
When a company quietly builds world-class storage and virtualization software for twenty years, it usually means they have been too busy solving real problems to shout about it. That is what makes euroNAS and its founder, Tvrtko Fritz, such an interesting story. In this episode, I reconnect with Tvrtko after meeting him on the IT Press Tour in Amsterdam to learn how his company evolved from “NAS for the masses” into a trusted enterprise alternative in a market filled with bigger names.
Tvrtko shares how euroNAS began with a simple idea that administrators should not have to battle complex infrastructure to keep systems running. Over time, that belief shaped a complete platform covering hyper-converged virtualization, Ceph-based storage, and instant backup and recovery. He recalls the story of a dentist who lost a full day of work waiting for a slow restore, which inspired euroNAS to create instant recovery that restores in seconds rather than hours. We also discuss how their intuitive graphical interface has turned Ceph from a daunting project that once took a week to set up into something that can be configured in twenty minutes. That change has opened advanced storage to universities, managed service providers, and enterprises handling petabyte-scale workloads.
We also tackle a topic that many in IT are thinking about right now: VMware. With licensing changes frustrating customers, Tvrtko explains how euroNAS has become the quiet plan B for many organizations seeking stability and control. Its perpetual per-node licensing model removes the pressure of forced subscriptions, while tools such as the VM import wizard make migration faster and less painful. What stands out most is that Tvrtko still takes part in customer support himself, using real conversations to guide product development and keep the company close to the people who depend on it.
Looking ahead, Tvrtko outlines how euroNAS is growing through partnerships with major hardware vendors and through its expanding role in AI infrastructure, where demand for scalable storage continues to rise.
The conversation highlights the value of engineering-led companies that build with care, focus on reliability, and give customers genuine ownership of their systems. If you want to understand what practical innovation looks like in enterprise storage, this episode will remind you why simplicity still wins.
AI hype has been loud for three years, but most leaders still tell me the real work begins after the demo. That was the starting point for my conversation with Christina Ellwood, co-founder of AI Realized, a community built to help enterprises move from pilots to production with less noise and more results.
Christina has a calm, practical way of explaining why progress has accelerated from a tiny fraction of companies in production to roughly one in five this year, and why many of the remaining blockers have little to do with model choice and everything to do with people, policy, and permission to ship.
We talk about the messy middle between a proof of concept and a live service that customers can rely on. According to Christina, the most complex problems are organizational. Teams need upskilling, guardrails, and clear deployment guidelines to ensure effective execution. Legal and brand risk create hesitation. Boards want more substantial evidence and better controls. That is where leadership shows up in a very human way.
The skill she hears most often from successful program leads is humility. No one knows everything here, and the leaders who admit that, invite challenge, and keep learning are the ones getting to value without creating chaos. I loved her point that cross-organisational leadership is fast becoming the hidden superpower as AI connects systems and workflows that used to sit in separate silos.
We also look forward to the 2025 AI Realized Summit, scheduled for November 5 in San Francisco. Attendance is intentionally capped at 500 to maintain high-quality conversation and genuine networking. Expect Fortune 2000 use cases across multiple industries, a healthy mix of predictive and generative work, and practical talk on small language models, multi-model strategies, and running models inside your security perimeter.
Eric Siegel will keynote on combining predictive analytics with generative techniques, and you will hear from executives at companies including Amazon, Audible, Red Hat, and Zscaler. Christina highlights one example from Fandom that combines predictive ad targeting with generative tools to enhance brand safety and suitability, a trend I expect to see repeated throughout the day.
If you are leading AI programs and need fewer slogans and more proof, this episode will feel like a deep breath. We explore how to move faster while staying responsible, why smaller and multi-model setups are gaining traction, and how to build confidence with your board without overpromising.
Finance leaders know the struggle of managing endless spreadsheets, juggling data from every corner of the business, and trying to plan for a world that changes by the hour. In this episode, I talk with Julio Martínez, Co-Founder and CEO of Abacum, about how his team is helping finance professionals move from reactive reporting to confident, real-time decision making.
Abacum was recently named the fastest growing tech company in Spain by Deloitte after increasing revenue by 6,733 percent in just four years. Julio shares the story behind that growth and explains how finance teams are transforming from back-office operators into true strategic partners. He describes how Abacum’s platform helps CFOs and FP&A teams create accurate forecasts, automate manual work, and build scenario models that answer “what if” questions in minutes instead of days.
We also talk about the role of AI in finance and why current large language models are not yet reliable enough for quantitative use cases. Julio discusses the need for precision, the importance of a human in the loop, and how new hybrid approaches are shaping the future of financial planning.
From Barcelona to New York, his journey reflects the global rise of data-driven finance and the growing strength of Spain’s startup ecosystem. Julio also leaves listeners with a thoughtful recommendation, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, a book that continues to inspire him to stay grounded amid rapid change.
If you want to understand how technology is redefining financial planning and how strong foundations can fuel extraordinary growth, this conversation with Julio offers a rare look inside the engine of one of Europe’s fastest-rising tech companies.
What happens when a CTO and a CIO of a global tech company sit down together to talk about AI? That’s the starting point of today’s episode, where I’m joined by Jeremy Ung, CTO at Blackline, and Sumit Johar, the company’s CIO. Rather than chasing the hype, we focus on what AI really means for executive decision making, governance, and business outcomes. Both leaders open up about how their partnership is blurring the traditional lines between product and IT, and why the board is demanding answers on topics that once sat deep in the technology stack.
Jeremy and Sumit explain why AI is not just another SaaS subscription and why expectations have changed so dramatically. For decades, technology was seen as predictable, a rules-based engine that followed instructions without error. AI feels different because it speaks, reasons, and sometimes makes mistakes. That human-like experience is what excites employees, but it is also what unsettles them. This is where education and governance come in, helping teams learn how to question, verify, and trace AI outputs before they make critical decisions. We also explore how AI agents are beginning to work across tools like SharePoint and email, raising new compliance and security questions that CIOs and CTOs must answer together.
The conversation turns to AI sprawl, a problem that mirrors the SaaS explosion of a decade ago. With new AI tools emerging every week, enterprises risk overlapping investments and fragmented initiatives. Sumit shares how Blackline uses two governance councils to keep projects aligned. One is dedicated to risk, pulling in voices from legal, security, and privacy. The other is focused on transformation, evaluating whether requests for new AI capabilities make sense, or whether they duplicate what already exists. The signal that sprawl is taking root, he says, is when requests for tools suddenly jump from a few each month to a dozen.
We also tackle the build versus buy dilemma. Budgets haven’t magically increased just because AI is hot. Jeremy argues that building only makes sense when it reinforces a company’s core advantage. Everything else should be bought, integrated, and kept flexible so that organizations can pivot as the AI landscape changes. Both leaders stress that trust, auditability, and value delivery must sit at the center of every investment decision.
Zeta Global’s CTO, Chris Monberg talks about building AI that helps brands grow with repeatable, scalable programs without losing the spark that makes a brand feel human.
Zeta’s promise is simple to say and hard to do. Help marketers deliver better results with less waste by pairing strong data, clear identity, and practical AI inside the Zeta Marketing Platform.
What stood out first was Chris’s view of design as a contact sport. He hires builders who live in the work, and he still enjoys rolling up his sleeves himself. That mindset shows up in how Zeta approaches AI for marketing.
Rather than shouting for the next click, he wants systems that perceive intent and context. He described an early lesson from retail floors in Seattle. The best experience came from people who noticed a customer’s posture and pace before speaking.
Empathetic design translates that awareness into algorithms that understand latent signals and respond with care, not noise.
We also dug into a tension many leaders feel. Automation is exciting, but nobody wants generic content. Chris answered with a practical frame. Give marketers a way to create a personal “super agent” that learns from their choices, their brand voice, and the paths they take through the platform.
Offload the repetitive chores, keep creative control, and grow pride of ownership. That pride matters because it breeds adoption. When teams feel the system reflects them, they keep using it and keep improving it.
Another thread was trust. In Chris’s words, the market still underestimates what these tools can do, partly because users are unsure where the value comes from.
Zeta is leaning into transparency so teams can see how decisions are made and how results tie back to their inputs. Data and identity are the moat, but privacy and compliance are the foundation.
He was candid about the weekly grind of meeting new regulatory needs region by region. That operational discipline shapes how Zeta decides to build, buy, or partner. Acquisitions must make sense on day one and integrate fast, with people as the primary asset.
Chris also spoke directly to younger builders who feel stuck. There are no shortcuts. The only way through is work, curiosity, and a willingness to learn in public. He sees small teams pushing new protocols and patterns forward, and he wants more marketers and technologists to join that frontier with clear eyes and a bias for doing.
We closed on culture. Zeta Live in New York brings sports and tech onto the same stage, and there is a reason. When the wider world pays attention, ideas travel further.
If you care about marketing that respects customers and still moves the needle, this episode will give you a practical blueprint. It is about AI that makes room for people, systems that earn trust, and a product leader who still enjoys getting a little grease under his nails.
I invited Michael Reitblat, CEO and founder of Forter, to unpack a reality many retailers are living with every day. Fraud is no longer a side issue. It shapes conversion rates, customer loyalty, and the bottom line. Michael argues that if you remove the fear of fraud, you unlock growth. That sounds bold, but his lens is practical. Replace guesswork with instant, consistent decisions and you improve both security and the checkout experience.
Here’s the thing. False declines feel like fraud in disguise. When good customers get blocked, they do not return. Michael explains how Forter uses real-time signals to say yes or no within the transaction, without adding friction. The promise is simple. If a buyer is genuine, let them through. If it is fraud, stop it and cover the chargeback. It is a clean model that puts accountability on the platform, not the merchant.
We also talk about what happens when AI agents start buying on our behalf. If software is placing orders, refunding items, or filing disputes, identity and intent become fluid. Michael walks through how trust platforms need to reason about behavior across accounts, devices, and sessions. The goal is confidence at the moment of purchase without slowing anyone down.
Michael shares how Forter’s scope has expanded from blocking bad actors to enabling smart, business-wide decisions about customers. That means recognizing loyal buyers even if they shop across regions and brands, and spotting synthetic identities that mimic human patterns. It also means measuring success by approvals and lifetime value, not only by stopped attacks.
Let me explain why this matters. Retailers are caught between two pains. Ease up and you invite chargebacks. Tighten controls and you lose revenue from good customers. Michael’s point is that trust should be a growth lever. If the system is confident, the checkout stays smooth on web and mobile. If the system is unsure, it can ask for the least painful extra step rather than send a blanket decline.
We close with practical guidance for leaders. Treat trust as a product. Give teams shared visibility into decisions. Align incentives so fraud, payments, product, and marketing are working from the same truth. Michael’s vision is a world where anyone can transact with ease because fraud has been priced out of the experience. That is a conversation worth having, and one retailers can act on today.
Here’s the thing. “Smart” has been the buzzword for years, but Richard Leurig argues we’re on the cusp of something bolder. In our conversation, the Accruent president drew a clear line between buildings filled with connected systems and buildings that can sense, decide, and act without a person staring at a dashboard all day.
Richard shared a retail story that sticks. By wiring refrigeration units with sensors and training models on billions of telemetry points, his team can spot failures 48 to 72 hours before lettuce wilts or milk spoils. That time window turns panic calls at 3 a.m. into planned daytime fixes. It cuts waste, protects revenue, and keeps customers from walking into empty shelves.
The bigger idea is a shift from many panes of glass to no pane of glass. Instead of asking people to wrangle alerts, AI agents coordinate HVAC, security, and maintenance, then dispatch the right technician with the right part only when one is truly needed. That is the road to self-healing facilities.
Practicalities that matter now
Let me explain why this resonates across industries. Whether you run a hospital, a university, a factory, or a grocery chain, you’re wrestling with aging infrastructure and short supply of skilled workers. Richard sees the same pattern everywhere. Teams need guidance at the point of work, not another report. Natural language agents that answer plain questions and walk users through a task are winning hearts because they remove friction.
Return-to-office adds another layer. Hybrid work has made space usage lumpy. Richard outlined how linking lease data, occupancy, and booking behavior helps leaders decide what to close, reshape, or scale. It also changes floor plans. When people do come in, they want project rooms and collaboration zones, not endless rows of cubicles.
Retrofit is the sleeper story. You don’t need a skyline of brand-new towers to get smarter. Low-cost sensors and targeted integrations are making older buildings more responsive than most people expect. That opens the door for progress without nine-figure capex.
Energy, sustainability, and proof
Boards want less energy spend and real emissions progress. The quickest wins are often hiding in plain sight. Richard walked through HVAC control that follows people, sunlight, and weather rather than fixed schedules. Lights that turn off when a room is empty are yesterday’s news. Cooling only where teams are actually working is today’s play.
He also flagged a coming wave on factory floors. Many legacy motors and line components quietly draw more power than they should. Clip-on sensors can spot out-of-tolerance behavior so maintenance can fix the energy hog instead of replacing an entire line. That is the kind of operational change that lowers bills and supports sustainability targets with data, not slogans.
Richard’s timeline is refreshingly near term. He believes a large slice of the built environment will show real autonomy in three to five years. Not theory. Not demos. Everyday operations that quietly handle themselves until a human is truly required.
If this conversation sparks an idea for your sites, stores, labs, or campuses, I want to hear how you’re approaching it. What feels possible this quarter, and what still feels out of reach?
What if the biggest weakness in cybersecurity isn’t a missing tool, but a cultural blind spot? That’s the perspective of Dan Jones, Senior Security Advisor at Tanium, who joined me on Tech Talks Daily to share why he believes cybersecurity is fundamentally a people problem dressed up as a technology problem.
Dan brings nearly three decades of experience in cyber operations, including leading cyber defence strategy for the UK Ministry of Defence. His career has shown him that technology alone doesn’t secure organisations—it’s the people at the front line, their leadership, and their ability to make the right decisions under pressure. He argues that while new tools flood the market every year, the make-or-break factor remains the same: how teams are led, supported, and empowered.
In our conversation, Dan explains why leadership is often the overlooked part of cybersecurity, how culture shapes security outcomes, and why automation should be embraced not as a threat to jobs but as a way to give people time back for higher-value decision making. He shares examples from both military and enterprise contexts, showing how organisations succeed or fail based not on what tools they buy, but on how well they bring their people along for the journey.
We also dig into one of today’s hottest debates: the role of AI in cybersecurity. While many fear AI will displace jobs, Dan insists those fears are rooted in culture, not reality. He draws parallels to past industrial shifts, making the case that automation and orchestration are stepping stones that prepare teams for an AI-powered future—one where human judgment still sits firmly at the centre.
This is a timely reminder for every leader and practitioner that cybersecurity is about more than firewalls and code. It’s about trust, training, and people working together with the right tools at the right time. And yes, it’s also about taking five minutes to brew a proper cup of tea—a lesson Dan believes says a lot about leadership and reflection.
If you’ve ever wondered whether your organisation is focusing too much on tools and not enough on culture, this episode will make you stop and think.
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Some interviews stick because they take a noisy topic and bring it back to reality. This was one of them. I spoke with Erin Gajdalo, CEO of Pluralsight, about what it actually takes to upskill a workforce in an AI era that seems to change by the week. We compared boardroom intent with day-to-day practice, and Erin was refreshingly clear about both.
Pluralsight began more than twenty years ago in classrooms, moved online as the market shifted, and now supports Fortune 500 teams with expert-led courses, hands-on labs, and the admin tools leaders need to measure progress at scale. The thread running through the whole story is simple: people learn by doing, and companies get value when that learning maps to real work.
We talked about AI in her own workflow first. Erin uses it to draft presentations, crunch data, and speed up research, then pushes that mindset across the company through focused sprints where every department experiments and reports back. That culture piece matters.
Pluralsight’s latest research found that 61 percent of respondents still think using generative AI is “lazy,” which drives employees to adopt tools in the shadows and exposes the business to avoidable risk. Her answer is clear guidance, safe environments to practice, and permission to test without fear of failure.
The payoff shows up in real examples. One financial services firm raised prompt engineering efficiency by 20 percent and saved 1,600 hours in three months by pairing assessments with prescriptive learning paths and hands-on practice.
We also explored the fear that keeps people quiet. Layoff headlines travel faster than case studies, and that skews the mood inside many teams. Erin makes a straightforward case. Treat AI as an assistant that improves standard and repetitive tasks, protect the business with clear policies, then invest in education for everyone, not only engineers.
Close the confidence gap with data. Baseline skills, prescribe learning, measure proficiency, and tie improvements to actual tasks. When leaders show their own work and give teams room to try things, adoption follows.
The conversation finished on the future. Technical skills will keep evolving, but the standout advantage will be a willingness to learn and the soft skills that carry ideas from prototype to production.
Erin also shared a personal goal that resonated with me. She would love a private breakfast with Serena Williams to talk about Serena Ventures and backing founders from underrepresented groups. It fit the theme of the episode. Talent is everywhere. Opportunity appears when someone opens a door and stays long enough to help you through it.
If you want the full story, including how Pluralsight is updating its platform for scale and how leaders can reduce “shadow AI” without slowing innovation, you can find their research and resources at Pluralsight.com.
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Here’s the thing. We have had brilliant ideas in Web3 for years, along with better tooling and plenty of enthusiasm, yet adoption still feels slower than it should be.
In my conversation with Maciej Baj, founder of t3rn, we got under the skin of why that is and what it might take to change the pace. His starting point is simple to state and hard to deliver at scale: make cross-chain interactions feel seamless for users and predictable for developers. If you can do that, the door opens to practical products rather than experiments that only the bravest try.
Maciej describes t3rn as a universal execution layer for cross-chain smart contracts, and the phrase matters because it changes how we think about interoperability. Instead of stitching together a mess of bridges and oracles, t3rn lets a contract access state and data across multiple chains from one place. Today it is mapped to the EVM for broad compatibility, but the design is chain agnostic by intent. That choice is less about tribal loyalties and more about meeting developers where they already build while keeping the door open to other ecosystems as the market evolves.
Trust shows up in the details, and atomic execution is one of those details that changes behavior. If a multi-chain transaction cannot complete in full, it reverts. No half-finished transfers. No manual recovery adventures. This mirrors what smart contracts already offer on a single chain, which means developers can reason about outcomes without inventing fresh playbooks for every hop. It also reassures users, who care less about the plumbing and more about knowing that funds either arrive or return.
Cost matters too. t3rn has been engineered for cost-efficient token movement across chains, which sounds mundane until you price a complex strategy that touches multiple venues. Lower friction makes new use cases economical. Maciej outlined a few that caught my eye. Trading algorithms that read and act on signals from multiple chains without duct tape. Simpler asset movement across ecosystems that do not share a wallet culture or UX conventions.
Agent-driven executors that can watch for arbitrage or rebalance a portfolio without constant human oversight. The theme is the same throughout. Reduce the number of hoops and you increase the number of people willing to try something new.
We also looked ahead. t3rn is preparing an integration with hyperliquid and rolling out a builder program to widen the ecosystem on top of its execution layer. An SDK is on the way so the community can help bring in new chains faster, rather than waiting for a core team to do all the heavy lifting. There is a governance track forming as well, aimed at giving the community more say in integrations and priorities. None of this guarantees success, but it signals a path from protocol to platform.
I left the conversation with a clearer view of why interoperability still matters in 2025. The multi-chain world is not going away. Users move between ecosystems. Developers deploy to several environments at once. Liquidity, identity, and logic already live in many places. A universal execution layer that is reliable, cost aware, and easy to build on is the kind of boring-sounding foundation that ends up changing behavior.
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When we think about what separates winning traders from those who struggle, we usually picture strategies, indicators, or a bit of insider know-how. But what if the biggest edge has been sitting on your desk all along? In this episode, I sit down with Eddie Z, also known as Russ Hazelcorn, the founder of EZ Trading Computers and EZBreakouts. With more than 37 years of experience as a trader, stockbroker, technologist, and educator, Eddie has built his career around one mission: helping traders cut through noise, avoid expensive mistakes, and get the tools they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving market.
Eddie breaks down the specs that actually matter when building a trading setup, from RAM to CPUs to data feeds, and exposes which so-called “upgrades” are nothing more than overpriced fluff. We also dig into the rise of AI-powered trading platforms and bots, and what traders can do today to prepare their machines for the next wave. As Eddie points out, a lagging system or a missed feed isn’t just an inconvenience—it can be the difference between a profitable trade and a costly loss.
Beyond the hardware, we explore the broader picture. Rising tariffs and global supply chain disruptions are already reshaping the way traders access technology, and Eddie shares practical steps to avoid being caught short. He also explains why many experienced traders overlook their machines as a “secret weapon” and how quick, targeted fixes can transform reliability and performance in under an hour.
This conversation goes deeper than specs and gadgets. Eddie opens up about the philosophy behind the EZ-Factor, his unique approach that blends decades of Wall Street expertise with cutting-edge technology to simplify trading and help people succeed. We talk about his ventures, including EZ Trading Computers, trusted by over 12,000 traders, and EZBreakouts, which delivers actionable daily and weekly picks backed by years of experience.
For traders looking to level up—whether you’re just starting out or managing multiple screens in a professional setting—this episode is packed with insights that can help you sharpen your edge. Eddie’s perspective is clear: the right machine, the right mindset, and the right knowledge can make trading not only more profitable, but, as he likes to put it, as “EZ” as possible.
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Most conversations about AI are still caught up in the spectacle. We see demos, marvel at copilots, and argue about the latest big model. But what happens when you strip away the hype and focus on AI that simply works? That is exactly the perspective Olga Lagunova brings to this episode. As Chief Product and Technology Officer at GoTo, she has one goal in mind: make AI useful, practical, and almost invisible.
Olga believes the real test of AI is whether it integrates seamlessly into workflows. In her view, the most powerful AI is the kind that feels almost boring because it is just part of how work gets done. During our conversation she explains how GoTo is embedding AI into its platform so that small and midsize businesses can benefit without needing data scientists on staff or large budgets to experiment. We explore the difference between AI for SMBs and AI for enterprises, and why simplicity and trust matter more than shiny features.
Our discussion also goes deeper into agentic AI, where tools are no longer just assistants but are taking on tasks in the background. Olga highlights how GoTo balances this shift with guardrails, governance, and human-in-the-loop oversight to ensure that efficiency never comes at the cost of security. We also unpack the classic build versus buy dilemma, why shadow AI is becoming a real risk for companies, and how leaders can measure ROI in a way that proves value both immediately and over time.
If you are tired of the hype and want to understand how AI is quietly reshaping the backbone of business operations, this episode with Olga Lagunova will give you a grounded and forward-looking perspective.
I wanted this conversation to do two things at once. First, ground the hype in real practice. Second, show how a small country can punch well above its weight by connecting industry, academia, and government with purpose. With Chantelle Kiernan from IDA Ireland and Stephen Flanagan from Eli Lilly and Company, we explored what digital transformation really looks like on the factory floor in Ireland, why talent is the engine behind it, and how cross-sector collaboration is turning ideas into measurable outcomes.
Ireland’s manufacturing base employs hundreds of thousands and fuels exports, yet what stands out is the shared mindset. The shift toward Industry 5.0 puts people at the center while using digital, disruptive, and sustainable technologies to rethink production. Eli Lilly’s experience shows how a digital-first culture changes everything. New sites start paperless by default. Established plants raise their game through micro-learning, data-driven problem solving, and champions who model the behavior. The message is simple. Technology only sticks when people see clear value and have the skills to act on it.
From pilots to site-wide change Here’s the thing. The strongest wins come from a strategic, site-wide approach rather than isolated pilots. Maturity assessments across pharma sites in Ireland revealed common patterns, shared bottlenecks, and repeatable opportunities. That insight helps teams justify investment, sharpen ROI arguments, and accelerate adoption without slowing production. Reinvestment in legacy facilities becomes a long-term advantage when you connect equipment, data, and people with a clear plan.
This is where Ireland’s ecosystem shows its class. Purpose-built centers like Digital Manufacturing Ireland, NIBRT, IMR, and I-FORM give teams a place to test before they invest. Indigenous tech SMEs sit at the same table as global pharma leaders and large tech firms, which means collaboration moves faster. When 50 percent or more of new R&D projects cite academic partnerships, you know something healthy is happening.
Skills, STEM, and the mindset shift Upskilling came through as the decisive enabler. IDA Ireland supports companies with skills needs analysis and access to training. Universities co-create relevant courses. Micro-credentials and immersive apprenticeships build confidence on the shop floor. Stephen’s point about micro-learning hit home. People learn best when they can apply knowledge to a problem they care about, right now. That keeps momentum high and spreads digital competence across teams without waiting on giant projects.
Barriers still exist. Defining ROI, coping with regulatory complexity, and balancing change with daily production are real challenges. Culture is the swing factor. Leaders who set the tone, create space for experiments, and reward progress see faster results. GenAI is already shifting attitudes by improving personal productivity, which naturally opens minds to operational use cases like predictive maintenance, knowledge capture, and quality improvements.
What comes next If the last decade was about connecting machines, the next decade will be about connecting knowledge. Expect smarter, greener, and more multidisciplinary manufacturing. AI will sit alongside advanced materials and sustainable design. The most resilient sites will combine agile infrastructure with strong learning cultures, so they can absorb change rather than resist it. Ireland’s model of collaboration gives a useful signal. When industry, government, and academia align around shared outcomes, the runway gets longer and the takeoff gets smoother.
This episode is about the practical choices that make transformation real. Strategic assessments. Shared R&D spaces. Cohorts of digital champions. And a relentless commitment to skills. It is a story of steady progress that scales, and a reminder that the future belongs to teams who can learn faster together.
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What does it really mean to future-proof financial data? That’s the question at the heart of my conversation with George Rosenberger, General Manager of NYFIX at Broadridge.
George has spent his career moving through every corner of the capital markets, from trading desks to broker-dealers, and now into the software side where he oversees order routing, post-trade matching, and the adoption of new AI tools. His perspective is uniquely positioned between the history of financial markets and their rapidly accelerating future.
This discussion takes inspiration from Broadridge’s fifth annual Digital Transformation and Next Gen Technology study, which collected insights from more than five hundred technology and operations leaders across financial services.
The survey highlights both the progress and the pressure points facing the industry. Forty-one percent of leaders still cite data security as a major hurdle, and while cloud, AI, and cybersecurity dominate the technology stack, a third of firms still lack security built into their core systems.
George explains why this gap persists, how legacy platforms complicate modernization, and what steps firms can take to extract value from old infrastructure while preparing for what’s next.
We also explore the irony that many organizations overestimate their digital maturity. Generative AI adoption has surged from forty to seventy-two percent in a year, but governance, compliance, and data quality concerns remain.
George stresses the importance of measuring outcomes, not just intentions, and shares how Broadridge is approaching AI responsibly through initiatives like its Algo Copilot, which helps traders make sharper decisions.
If you’re curious about how financial services can strengthen cybersecurity, reduce technical debt, and rethink data strategy as a true engine of innovation, this episode offers both a candid reality check and a roadmap. The speed of change is staggering, but with the right strategy, leaders can build resilience and stay ahead in a digital-first world.
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What does it take to deliver personalized financial guidance to more than 140 million people every single day? That is the question I put to Wan Agus, Head of Engineering at Intuit Credit Karma, in this episode of Tech Talks Daily.
Most of us open the Credit Karma app to check our credit score, look at a loan option, or browse for a better credit card. What we rarely consider is the technology running behind the curtain. Wan revealed that his teams are powering more than 60 billion daily AI predictions to understand members’ needs, protect their privacy, and guide them toward the right financial choices. He explained why accuracy is everything in fintech. A misplaced recommendation can mean more than a poor customer experience; it can damage someone’s credit score and hold back their progress.
Our conversation also looked at what happened after Intuit acquired Credit Karma. Two very different tech stacks had to be brought together, and identity systems had to be unified so members could move seamlessly between Credit Karma and products like TurboTax. Wan compared the process to playing two complex board games at once, where success depends on strategy and collaboration.
We also explored how Credit Karma is blending traditional AI with generative AI. From early chatbot experiments to today’s Wallet Analyzer and Tax Advisor, Wan shared how his teams decide when to push forward with new tools and when to slow down to ensure safety and trust. He also gave us a glimpse into the future, where agent-to-agent technology could bring open banking-style transparency to the U.S.
So how do you scale personalization without losing trust? And what can every business leader learn from Credit Karma’s balance between speed, culture, and responsibility? I would love to hear your thoughts after listening.
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AI is quickly moving from boardroom buzzword to boardroom headache. Enterprises are waking up to the fact that bringing large language models in-house is not just about performance or cost, but about control, accountability, and trust. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Octavian Tanase, Chief Product Officer at Hitachi Vantara, to unpack what this shift really means for business and technology leaders.
Octavian explains why governance has become the defining challenge of the AI era. Companies are under pressure not only to innovate but also to meet new regulatory demands and maintain trust with customers. That requires more than patching together tools or hoping for transparency from public AI providers. It means creating governance frameworks that deliver traceability, auditability, and explainability as standard practice, not as afterthoughts.
We explore why vector databases may need something like a time-machine capability to document when and how information is added, giving enterprises a provable audit trail. This level of accountability supports both internal oversight and external compliance, turning abstract AI ethics debates into real operational requirements.
Our conversation also turns to the role of infrastructure. Hitachi Vantara’s VSP One, with its tagline “One Data Platform, No Limits,” has been built to simplify data complexity across block, file, and object storage while providing a unified foundation for AI workloads. Octavian shares how this unified approach helps enterprises run compliant, explainable, and efficient AI across hybrid environments that span both on-premises and the cloud.
This isn’t just a story about technology, but about the future of trust in digital business. If AI remains a black box, its value will always be limited. If it becomes explainable, traceable, and accountable, it can transform not only efficiency but also relationships with customers, regulators, and partners.
So, how can leaders strike the right balance between governance and innovation without slowing down progress? Octavian leaves listeners with a forward-looking perspective on what the next few years of enterprise AI will demand, and why those who build on strong governance today may end up with the most resilient advantage tomorrow.
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What if the way we store data is shaping the planet’s future? That thought has been on my mind ever since attending the IT Press Tour in Amsterdam, where I first connected with today’s guest. With global data creation forecast to hit 510 zettabytes by 2030, and data centers already consuming staggering amounts of power, the conversation is no longer about whether change is needed but about how we approach it.
Joining me on the podcast is Nicholas Stavrinou, co-founder of CompressionX, a company rethinking lossless compression. Nicholas shares how a mathematical paradox in a university notebook grew into a technology that promises faster, cheaper, and more sustainable data storage. His story takes us from leather-bound journals and napkin sketches to a working product that is already helping users cut their digital footprints by more than 90 percent.
In our discussion, Nicholas explains why compression deserves a seat at the sustainability table, especially as AI and enterprise workloads generate unprecedented volumes of cold data that simply sit idle in storage. We talk about the real costs of data growth, from spiraling cloud bills to the hidden environmental toll of cooling data centers, and we explore whether smarter compression could give businesses an edge while also reducing emissions.
Nicholas and his team are also taking this message beyond theory. After the IT Press Tour, they are heading to Big Data LDN at Olympia London, where Compression X will be presenting in the Data for Good theatre at 2:40pm on Wednesday, September 24, and welcoming visitors at stand G58. It’s a reminder that sustainable infrastructure isn’t just about grand new facilities or green energy projects; sometimes it starts with rethinking something as humble as a file format.
As you listen, ask yourself: could compression be one of the simplest yet most overlooked ways to make digital life more efficient, affordable, and sustainable?
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I recorded this episode at Barracuda TechSummit25 in Alpbach, Austria, a mountain village that looks like a postcard and hosts some of the most grounded security conversations you will hear all year.
My guest is Richard Flanders, Commercial Director at Aura Technology, a managed service provider on the south coast of England that supports public sector organisations and tightly regulated commercial clients. Richard arrived as part of Barracuda’s Partner Advisory Board, which means he spends as much time feeding customer reality back into product teams as he does comparing notes with peers in the hallway.
We talk through his first TechSummit experience and why the event’s focus on hands-on engineering matters for MSPs who live in the weeds of configuration, policy, and response. Richard shares early thoughts on Barracuda’s secure edge service and the continued maturation of XDR, but the heart of our chat is the pressure he sees on customers. Compliance is no longer a side quest. ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials Plus, supply chain reporting, and new European rules are shaping budgets and expectations. Boards want proof. Auditors want evidence. Buyers want to know a supplier chose fit-for-purpose tools. That makes documentation, contracts, and the ability to show your working as important as the tech itself.
We also get into the human side. In a world that loves point solutions, many teams are tired of alert noise and tool sprawl. Richard explains why a single, coherent view helps his engineers move faster and train better, and why MSPs are leaning into prevention-focused workflows rather than waiting for the next fire. He is candid about the conversations no one enjoys, like end-of-life systems that keep a legacy app alive, and the need for tougher stances when risk sits outside an acceptable boundary.
AI comes up too, without the hype. Aura is hiring a Head of AI and Automation, standing up a private AI platform, and committing to ship a handful of small, useful apps for customers in the year ahead. The lens is productivity and safety, with an emphasis on teaching teams how to question outputs and rethink everyday tasks. Add in security awareness training, phishing simulations, and tabletop exercises, and you start to see a culture shift from annual tick-boxes to regular, lived practice.
There is a lovely moment of serendipity in here as well. Richard’s first conversation on day one was with another partner from Pune, the same city where Aura runs its network operations. They swapped ideas on automation and integration that might never have surfaced on a video call. That is the value of getting people in a room together, especially when the room happens to be carved into the side of a mountain.
If you work with an MSP, this episode will help you ask better questions. If you are an MSP, you will recognise the balance Richard describes. Pick the right controls for the risks you actually face. Prove what you do. Keep training. And give your teams a single place to see what matters, so the next incident stays small.
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I recorded this conversation at Barracuda TechSummit25 in Alpbach, Austria, where the mountains feel close enough to touch and the discussions get very real very quickly.
My guests are Adam Khan, VP of Global Security Operations at Barracuda XDR, and Eric Russo, Director of SOC Defensive Security. Together they run the teams that watch, interpret, and act when attacks move across email, identity, network, cloud, and endpoints.
Their keynote used the language of sport to make sense of modern defense, and it worked. You will hear why football tactics map cleanly to security, how roles and formations translate to controls and playbooks, and why a strong back line matters when the opposition moves the ball quickly.
Here is the thing that stood out for me. Integrated defense is not a slogan. When Adam and Eric talk about Extended Detection and Response, they are describing a practical way to join signals, add context, and trigger action without waiting for a human to click through ten consoles. XDR gives analysts one source of truth, connects events that would otherwise sit in separate tools, and shortens the time between a suspicious signal and an action that contains it. That is how you turn alert fatigue into something manageable, and it is how small teams hold their own against fast, multi-step attacks.
The analogies make it easier to picture. In football, a defense tracks runners, closes passing lanes, and communicates constantly. In security, that means correlating identity with network flows and endpoint behavior, then deciding who picks up the threat and how to press. The Home Alone reference takes it further. Imagine Kevin’s improvised defenses as point tools scattered around a house. Now add a single screen that shows every door, every window, and which trap fires next. That is the plain-English version of XDR that anyone can understand.
We also unpack real incidents that their teams have faced, without naming names. You will hear how attackers chain steps across layers, and how automated responses isolate systems, lock accounts, and cut off command and control before damage spreads. The lesson is simple. Visibility gives you options. Automation buys you time. People make the right calls when they can see the whole pitch.
If you work in security, this episode gives you a clear view of what good looks like. If you are a business leader, it offers a way to measure progress that goes beyond tool counts and budget lines. And if you enjoy a metaphor that lands, football and Home Alone might be the clearest explanation of XDR you will hear all year.
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I recorded this conversation in Alpbach, Austria, a village that looks like a postcard and hosts a very serious tech gathering.
TechSummit25 is Barracuda’s deeply technical event, and it shows. The rooms are packed with solution architects, product managers, and engineers comparing notes with customers who run these systems every day. It is the kind of environment where product direction and real-world pain points meet over a coffee, then head straight into a lab to test an idea.
My guest today is Neal Bradbury, Chief Product Officer at Barracuda, who leads engineering, product management, and the operations teams that keep services running around the clock. Fresh from a session titled “Secured today, secured tomorrow,” Neal breaks down what that promise means in practice. We explore why Barracuda is doubling down on a platform approach with Barracuda One, how a single dashboard helps teams see posture and value in one place, and why consolidation matters when alerts and tools pile up faster than teams can respond.
We also talk about the balance between immediate protection and longer-term planning. Neil explains how quarterly releases and shared services underpin the roadmap, how zero trust network access moves from theory to deployment as VPNs fade, and how managed vulnerability services help organizations find risks they did not know they had. He shares why service providers are shifting toward vCIO and vCISO models, how value reporting answers the board’s simplest question about where the budget goes, and why response time is the measure that keeps coming up in every conversation.
Secured today, secured tomorrow The headline theme is simple enough. Know where you stand right now, then set a clear plan for the next year. Barracuda One aims to cut noise and show whether tools are configured properly. The same view rolls up alerts across email, network, and application security, and for MSPs it stretches across all customers. That single source of truth is designed to reduce swivel-chair work and make decisions faster.
We dig into the reality of tool sprawl and alert fatigue. A recent study Barracuda commissioned points to teams carrying too many point solutions, with slower responses and misconfigurations as the cost. Neal’s answer is convergence without ignoring specialist depth. Product groups keep shipping, while shared AI and threat protection services raise the floor across the portfolio. That approach feeds directly into XDR, where integrations with tenants, firewalls, and endpoints help shrink the gap between detection and action.
AI sits in the background of all of this. Neal describes it as a reckless intern that needs guardrails. In practice that means setup wizards that cut deployment time, incident response that can pull a bad message from twenty tenants in one sweep, and ML-driven triggers that fire automated remediation when patterns line up. The aim is clear. Let machines handle the routine work at machine speed, so people can focus on decisions and the weird edge cases attackers love to try.
What listeners will take away If you run security day to day, you will hear practical direction rather than slogans. Consolidated dashboards exist to show posture, not just counts. Value reporting exists to explain outcomes to a board, not to pad a slide deck. Managed services rise in importance because many organizations need strategy as much as tools, and that includes smaller enterprises that outsource large parts of their stack.
For leaders planning the next quarter, the emphasis on zero trust and managed vulnerability services will stand out. For operators, the XDR and SOAR focus is about shaving minutes into seconds, connecting identity with network and endpoint events, and giving analysts room to breathe. And for anyone curious about how product roadmaps form, conferences like this one offer a candid loop between feedback and action that you rarely see on a press release.
By the time we wrap, Alpbach’s quiet streets feel like an unlikely place to discuss ransomware, posture, and platform design. Yet that contrast makes the conversation land even harder. Secure today, plan for tomorrow, and give your team the visibility to do both.
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In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Todd Grabowski from Johnson Controls to unpack the physics, products, and design choices shaping the next generation of data center cooling. It’s a practical conversation that moves from chips and compressors to water, power, and land constraints, and what it really takes to keep modern infrastructure reliable at scale.
Todd brings three decades of experience to the table and a front-row view of how Johnson Controls and the York brand have kept their focus on energy efficiency, reliability, and sustainability for more than a century. That longevity matters when the market is moving fast. He explains why cooling now sits alongside power as the defining constraint for data centers, and why roughly forty percent of a facility’s energy can be spent on cooling rather than computation. If you lead technology, finance, or facilities, that single number should focus the mind.
Todd walks through Johnson Controls’ YVAM platform and the York magnetic bearing centrifugal compressor at its core, with real numbers on what that means in practice.
Consuming around forty percent less energy than typical cooling devices of the past five years and operating in ambient conditions up to fifty-five degrees Celsius, it is designed for the reality of hotter climates and denser loads. The naval pedigree of the driveline is a nice twist, since it was originally built for quiet and high-reliability conditions long before hyperscale data centers needed the same.
Sustainability threads through the entire discussion. Todd lays out how the company holds itself to internal targets while engineering solutions that reduce customer resource use. We talk about closed-loop designs that do not consume water, careful refrigerant choices with ultra-low global warming potential, and product footprints that consider carbon impact from the start. It is a useful reminder that sustainability is a systems problem, not a single feature on a spec sheet.
I was especially interested in the three resources Todd says every modern cooling strategy must balance. Land, because you need somewhere to reject heat. Power, because every watt pulled into cooling is a watt not used for compute. Water, because many regions are already under stress and consumption cannot be the answer. Good design weighs these factors against the climate, the workload profile, and the operational model, then standardizes wherever possible so the same unit can run efficiently in Scandinavia or Dubai without special tweaks.
We also dig into what AI means internally for Johnson Controls. It is showing up in manufacturing lines, speeding up design cycles, and improving the fidelity of compressor and heat transfer models. That translates into quicker time to market and more confidence in performance envelopes. On the market side, Todd is clear that demand has not softened. If anything, efficiencies tend to unlock more use cases, and the net effect is more workloads and continued pressure on facilities to cool them well.
If your team is wrestling with when to adopt liquid cooling, how to reduce PUE through smarter chiller choices, or how to plan for climate variability across a global footprint, this episode offers an honest, grounded view from someone who has shipped the hardware and lived with its trade-offs. It also doubles as a quiet celebration of engineering craft. The kind that rarely makes headlines, yet underpins everything we build in the AI age.
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I’ve spent years talking about endpoint security, yet printers rarely enter the conversation. Today, that blind spot takes center stage. I’m joined by Jim LaRoe, CEO of Symphion, to unpack why printers now represent one of the most exposed corners of the enterprise and what can be done about it.
Jim’s team protects fleets that range from a few hundred devices to tens of thousands, and the picture he paints is stark. In many organizations, printers make up 20 to 30 percent of endpoints, and almost all of them are left in a factory default state. That means open ports, default passwords, and little to no monitoring.
Pair that with the sensitive data printers receive, process, and store, plus the privileged connections they hold to email and file servers, and you start to see why attackers love them.
We trace Symphion’s path from a configuration management roots story in 1999 to a pivot in 2015 when a major printer manufacturer invited the company behind the curtain. What they found was a parallel universe to mainstream IT. Brand silos, disparate operating systems, and a culture that treated printers as cost items rather than connected computers.
Add in the human factor, where technicians reset devices to factory defaults after service as second nature, and you have a recipe for recurring vulnerabilities that never make it into a SOC dashboard.
Jim explains how Symphion’s Print Fleet Cybersecurity as a Service tackles this mess with cross-brand software, professional operations, and proven processes delivered for a simple per-device price. The model is designed to remove operational burden from IT teams. Automated daily monitoring detects drift, same-day remediation resets hardened controls, and comprehensive reporting supports regulatory needs in sectors like healthcare where compliance is non-negotiable. The goal is steady cyber hygiene for printers that mirrors what enterprises already expect for servers and PCs, without cobbling together multiple vendor tools, licenses, and extra headcount to operate them.
We also talk about the hidden costs of DIY printer security. Licensing multiple management platforms for different brands, training staff who already have full plates, and outages caused by misconfigurations all add up. Jim shares real-world perspectives from organizations that tried to patch together a solution before calling in help. The pattern is familiar. Costs creep. Vulnerabilities reappear. Incidents push the topic onto the CISO’s agenda. Symphion’s pitch is straightforward. Treat print fleets like any other class of critical infrastructure in the enterprise, and measure outcomes in risk reduction, time saved, and fewer surprises.
If you are commuting while listening and now hearing alarm bells, you are not alone. Think about the printers scattered across your offices and clinics. Consider the data that passes through them every day. Then picture an attacker who finds default credentials in minutes and uses a printer to move across your network.
Tune in for a fast, practical look at a risk hiding in plain sight, and learn how Symphion’s Print Fleet Cybersecurity as a Service can help you close a gap that attackers know too well.
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Marketing teams used to have a simple enough job: follow the click, count the conversions, and shift the budget accordingly. But that world is gone. GDPR, iOS restrictions, and browser-level changes have left most attribution models broken or unreliable. So what now?
In this episode, I sat down with Fredrik Skansen, CEO of Funnel, to unpack how marketing intelligence actually works in a world where data is partial, journeys are fragmented, and the old models don’t hold. Since founding Funnel in 2014, Fredrik has grown the company into a platform that supports over 2,600 brands and handles reporting on more than 80 billion dollars in annual digital spend. That scale gives him a front-row seat to the questions every CMO and CFO are asking right now.
Fredrik explains why last-click attribution didn’t just become inaccurate. It became misleading. With tracking capabilities stripped down and user signals disappearing, the industry has had to move toward modeled attribution and real-time optimisation. That only works if your data is clean, aligned, and ready for analysis. Funnel’s platform helps structure campaigns upfront, pull data into a unified model, apply intelligence, push learnings back into the platforms, and produce reporting that makes sense to the wider business. This isn’t about dashboards. It’s about decisions.
We also talk about budget mix. Performance channels may feel safe, but Fredrik points out they are also getting more expensive. When teams bring brand and mid-funnel activity back into the measurement framework, the picture often changes. He shares how Swedish retailer Gina Tricot grew from 100 million to 300 million dollars in three years, in part by shifting spend to brand and driving demand earlier in the customer journey. That move only felt safe because the data supported it.
AI adds another layer. With tools like Perplexity reshaping search behavior and the web shifting from links to answers, click-throughs are drying up. But it’s not the end of visibility. Content still matters. So does structure. The difference is that now your reader might be an AI model, not a human. That requires a rethink in how brands approach discoverability, authority, and engagement.
What makes Funnel interesting is that it doesn’t stop at analytics. The platform feeds insight back into action, reducing waste and creating tighter loops between teams. It also works for agencies, which is why groups like Havas use it across 40 offices through a global agreement. If you're tired of attribution theatre and want to understand what marketing measurement looks like when it’s built for reality, this episode gives you a clear, usable view.
Listen in, then tell me which decision you're still guessing on. Because marketing can be measured. Just not the way it used to be.
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I invited Egil Østhus to unpack a simple idea that tends to get lost in release day pressure. DevOps gets code to production quickly, but users experience features, not pipelines. Egil is the founder of Unleash, an open source feature management platform with close to 30 million downloads, and he argues that the next step is FeatureOps. It is a mindset and a set of practices that separate deployment from release, so teams can place code in production, light it up for a small cohort, learn, and only then scale out with confidence.
Here is the thing. Controlled rollouts, clear telemetry, and fast rollback reduce risk without slowing teams down. Egil explains how FeatureOps connects engineering effort to business outcomes through gradual exposure, full stack experimentation, and what he calls surgical rollback. Instead of ripping out an entire release when one part misbehaves, teams can disable the offending capability and keep the rest of the value in place. It sounds straightforward because it is, and that is the point. Less drama, more learning, better results.
We also talk about culture. When releases repeatedly disappoint, trust between product and engineering frays. Egil shares examples where Unleash helped a hardware and software company move from blame to shared ownership by making rollout plans visible and collaborative. Another client, an ERP vendor, discovered that early feedback from a small group of users allowed them to ship a leaner version that met the need without months of extra scope. That is how FeatureOps saves money and tempers expectations while still delighting customers.
AI enters the story too. Code is shipping faster, but reliability can wobble when autogenerated changes move through pipelines. Egil sees feature management as a practical control plane for this new reality. Feature flags provide a real time safety net and, if needed, a kill switch for AI powered functionality. Teams can keep experimenting while protecting users and brand equity.
If you want to move beyond release day roulette, this episode offers a practical playbook. We cover privacy first design, open source flexibility, and why metadata from FeatureOps will help leaders study how their organizations truly build. To learn more, visit getunleash.io or search for Unleash in your favorite tool, then tell me how you plan to measure your next rollout’s impact.
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I invited Atalia Horenshtien to unpack a topic many leaders are wrestling with right now. Everyone is talking about AI agents, yet most teams are still living with rule based bots, brittle scripts, and a fair bit of anxiety about handing decisions to software. Atalia has lived through the full arc, from early machine learning and automated pipelines to today’s agent frameworks inside large enterprises. She is an AI and data strategist, a former data scientist and software engineer, and has just joined Hakoda, an IBM company, to help global brands move from experiments to outcomes. The timing matters. She starts on the 18th, and this conversation captures how she thinks about responsible progress at exactly the moment she steps into that new role.
Here’s the thing. Words like autonomy sound glamorous until an agent faces a messy real world task. Atalia draws a clear line between scripted bots and agents with goals, memory, and the ability to learn from feedback. Her advice is refreshingly grounded. Start internal where you can observe behavior. Put human in the loop review where it counts. Use role based access rather than feeding an LLM everything you own. Build an observability layer so you can see what the model did, why it did it, and what it cost.
We also get into measurements that matter. Time saved, cycle time reduction, adoption, before and after comparisons, and a sober look at LLM costs against any reduction in FTE hours. She shares how custom cost tracking for agents prevents surprises, and why version one should ship even if it is imperfect. Culture shows up as a recurring theme. Leaders need to talk openly about reskilling, coach managers through change, and invite teams to be co creators. Her story about Hakoda’s internal AI Lab is a good example. What began as an engineer’s idea for ETL schema matching grew into agent powered tools that won a CIO 100 award and now help deliver faster, better outcomes for clients.
There are lighter moments too. Atalia explains how she taught an ex NFL player the basics of time series forecasting using football tactics. Then she takes us behind the scenes with McLaren Racing, where data and strategy collide on the F1 circuit, and admits she has become a committed fan because of that work.
If you want a practical playbook for moving from shiny demos to dependable agents, this episode will help you think clearly about scope, safeguards, and speed. Connect with Atalia on LinkedIn, explore Hakoda’s work at hakoda.io, and then tell me how you plan to measure your first agent’s value.
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Here’s the thing. Connecting thousands of devices is the easy part. Keeping them resilient and secure as you grow is where the real work lives. In this episode, I sit down with Iain Davidson, Senior Product Manager at Wireless Logic, to unpack what happens when connectivity, security, and operations meet in the real world. Wireless Logic connects a new IoT device every 18 seconds, with more than 18 million active subscriptions across 165 countries and partnerships with over 750 mobile networks. That reach brings hard lessons about where projects stall, where breaches begin, and how to build systems that can take a hit without taking your business offline.
Iain lays out a simple idea that more teams need to hear. Resilience and security have to scale at the same pace as your device rollouts. He explains why fallback connectivity, private networking, and an IoT-optimised mobile core such as Conexa set the ground rules, but the real differentiator is visibility. If you cannot see what your fleet is doing in near real time, you are guessing. We talk through Wireless Logic’s agentless anomaly and threat detection that runs in the mobile core, creating behavioural baselines and flagging malware events, backdoors, and suspicious traffic before small issues become outages. It is an early warning layer for fleets that often live beyond the traditional IT perimeter.
We also get honest about risk. Iain shares why one in three breaches now involve an IoT device and why detection can still take months. Ransomware demands grab headlines, but the quiet damage shows up in recovery costs, truck rolls, and trust lost with customers. Then there is compliance. With new rules tightening in Europe and beyond, scaling without protection does not only invite attackers. It can keep you out of the market. Iain’s message is clear. Bake security in from day one through defend, detect, react practices, supply chain checks, secure boot and firmware integrity, OTA updates, and the discipline to rehearse incident playbooks so people know what to do when alarms sound.
What if you already shipped devices without all of that in place? We cover that too. From migrating SIMs into secure private networks to quarantining suspect endpoints and turning on core-level detection without adding agents, there are practical ways to raise your posture without ripping and replacing hardware. Automation helps, especially at global scale, but people still make the judgment calls. Train your teams, run simulations, and give both humans and digital systems clear rules for when to block, when to escalate, and when to restore from backup.
I left this conversation with a simple takeaway. Growth is only real if it is durable. If you are rolling out EV chargers, medical devices, cameras, industrial sensors, or anything that talks to the network, this episode gives you a working playbook for scaling with confidence. Connect with Iain on LinkedIn, explore the IoT security resources at WirelessLogic.com, or reach the team at hello@wirelesslogic.com.
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Here's the thing. Most enterprise AI pitches talk about scale and speed. Fewer talk about trust, tone, and culture. In this conversation with Inflection AI's Amit Manjhi and Shruti Prakash, I explore a different path for enterprise AI, one that combines emotional intelligence with analytical horsepower, enabling teams to ask more informed questions of their data and receive answers that are grounded in context.
Amit's story sets the pace. He is a three-time founder, a YC alum, and a CS PhD who has solved complex problems across mobile, ad tech, and data. Shruti complements that arc with a product lens shaped by real operational trenches, from clean rooms to grocery retail analytics.
Together, they built BoostKPI during the pandemic, transforming natural language into actionable insights, and then joined Inflection AI to help refocus the company on achieving enterprise outcomes. Their shared north star is simple to say yet tricky to execute. Make data analysis conversational, accurate, and emotionally aware so people actually use it.
We unpack Inflection's shift from Pi's consumer roots to privacy-first enterprise tools. That history matters because it gives the team a head start on EQ. When you combine a deep well of human-to-AI conversations with modern LLMs, you get systems that explain, probe, and adapt rather than dump charts and call it a day.
Shruti breaks down what dialogue with data looks like in practice. Think back-and-forth exchanges that move from "what happened" to "why it happened," then on to "where else this pattern appears" and "what to do next," all grounded in an organization's language and values. Amit takes us under the hood on deployment choices and ownership. If a customer wants on-prem or VPC, they get it. If they're going to fine-tune models to their vernacular, they can. The model, the insights, and the guardrails remain in the customer's control.
I enjoyed the honesty around adoption. Chasing AGI makes headlines, but it rarely helps a merchandising manager spot an early drop in lifetime value or a CX lead understand churn risk before quarter end. The duo keeps the conversation grounded in everyday questions that drive numbers and reduce meetings. They describe a path where EQ and IQ come together to form what Shruti calls contextual intelligence, and where brands can trust AI agents to assist without losing ownership or voice.
If you care about making data useful to more people, and you want AI that sounds like your company rather than a generic assistant, this one is for you. We cover startup lessons, the reality of cofounding as a couple during lockdowns, and how Inflection is working with large enterprises to bring conversational analysis to real workloads. It is a grounded look at where enterprise AI is heading, and a timely reminder that technology should elevate humans, not replace them.
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Here’s the thing. Payments only look simple from the outside. In this Tech Talks Daily episode, I sit down with Roberto “Reks” Kafati, CEO and co-founder of DEUNA, to unpack how a scrappy one-click checkout idea grew into an intelligent payments infrastructure that now touches a large slice of Mexico’s online economy.
Reks explains why Latin America’s high decline rates aren’t just an inconvenience but a growth killer, and how DEUNA’s early focus on orchestration and checkout opened the door to something bigger. When a region routinely sees more than four out of ten online transactions knocked back, the bar for reliability sits in a different place. That practical problem set the stage for what came next.
Athia, Real-Time Decisions, and 638 Signals per Transaction DEUNA’s pivot point came when merchants asked a fair question. With all this payment data flying through the system, what should we do with it? The answer is Athia, DEUNA’s AI-powered layer that watches every transaction and feeds merchants real-time insight, routing choices, and suggested actions.
It is not another dashboard you promise to check and then ignore by Friday. It is a reasoning engine that sits on top of 638 data points per transaction and turns mess into movement. That is how you recover revenue without punishing good customers with extra friction, how you avoid surprise fees from networks, and how you protect recurring revenue when a processor wobbles. Reks walks us through results that speak plainly.
Ramped merchants saw conversion lift from the original one-click experience. The infrastructure tier recovers meaningful GMV and trims fees. Enterprise clients report double-digit ROI and stick around for the compounding effect.
Building Through Adversity and Betting on the Right Layer What resonated most was the human story behind the metrics. DEUNA was born in the first months of the pandemic, shaped by the shock that hit real-world businesses when revenue fell off a cliff and marketplaces became a lifeline with strings attached. Reks shares an unvarnished look at a tough 2023, the kind of year founders rarely talk about on record.
Revenues dipped, deals went sideways, life got complicated. The team chose resilience and doubled down on a two-year vision. That bet is paying off. Over the past twenty-four months the company has grown at a pace that would bend a chart, and the focus has shifted from commoditizing orchestration to productizing intelligence. Put simply, earn trust at checkout, then make the data work for the merchant in real time.
Agentic Commerce, US Expansion, and What Comes Next We also look forward. If chat interfaces begin to mediate more buying decisions, merchants will need infrastructure that can think, not just connect endpoints. That is the territory DEUNA calls intelligent infrastructure, and it is where Athia operates every day.
The company is now in active conversations with major US retailers, confident after winning head-to-head enterprise evaluations. Reks frames the opportunity without hype. If you can see acceptance trends by processor, by country, by card type, and act in the moment, you keep customers, protect margins, and avoid death by a thousand false declines. If you cannot, competitors will gladly welcome your frustrated shoppers.
If you care about the real mechanics of growth, this conversation is for you. We talk conversion lift, recovered revenue, and the gritty bits of building a payments company that merchants actually rely on. We also talk about the days that test your resolve and the tenth day that reminds you why you started.
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I sat down with Leo de Araujo, Head of Global Business Innovation at Syntax Systems, to unpack a problem every SAP team knows too well.
Years of enhancements and quick fixes leave you with custom code that nobody wants to document, a maze of SharePoint folders, and hard questions whenever S/4HANA comes up. What does this program do. What breaks if we change that field. Do we have three versions of the same thing. Leo’s answer is Syntax AI CodeGenie, an agentic AI solution with a built-in chatbot that finally treats documentation and code understanding as a living part of the system, not an afterthought.
Here’s the thing. CodeGenie automates the creation and upkeep of custom code documentation, then lets you ask plain-language questions about function and business value. Instead of hunting through 40-page PDFs, teams can ask, “Do we already upload sales orders from Excel,” or “What depends on this BAdI,” and get an instant explanation. That changes migration planning. You can see what to keep, what to retire, and where standard capabilities or new extensions make more sense, which shortens the path to S/4HANA Cloud and helps you stay on a clean core.
We also talk about how this is delivered. CodeGenie runs on SAP Business Technology Platform, connects through standard APIs, and avoids intrusive add-ons. It is compatible with SAP S/4HANA, S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition through RISE with SAP, and on-premises ECC. Security comes first, with tenant isolation for each customer and no custom code shared externally or used for AI model training. The result is a setup that respects enterprise guardrails while still giving developers and architects fast answers.
Clean core gets a plain explanation in this episode. Build outside the application with published APIs, keep upgrades predictable, and innovate at the edge where you can move quickly. CodeGenie gives you the visibility to make that real, surfacing what you actually run today and how it ties to outcomes, so you can design a migration roadmap that fits the business rather than guessing from stale documents.
Leo also previews the Gen AI Starter Pack, launching September 9. It bundles a managed, model-flexible platform with workshops, use-case ideation, and initial builds, so teams can move from curiosity to working solutions without locking themselves into a single provider. Paired with CodeGenie and Syntax’s development accelerators, the Starter Pack points toward something SAP leaders have wanted for years, a practical way to shift from in-core customizations to clean-core extensions with much less friction.
If you are planning S/4HANA, balancing hybrid and multi-cloud realities, or simply tired of tribal knowledge around critical programs, this conversation is for you. We get specific about how CodeGenie works, where it saves time and cost, and how Syntax is shaping a playbook for AI that helps teams deliver results they can trust.
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Drew Allen, CEO of Grace Technologies, shares real stories from the floor, the ideas shaping safer plants, and why culture matters more than slogans. Drew’s background stretches from a family line linked to Samuel Morse to teenage years in China to global business development at 3M. That range shows up in how he leads. He listens, he moves fast, and he expects teams to work on things that matter. In his world that means saving electricians from shocks and arc flash while helping manufacturers modernize without losing their soul.
Grace started with mechanical and analog products, then took the hard road into fully digital systems. The shift took time and patience. Today their platform brings sensors, AI, and cloud tooling into maintenance and safety. The example that stuck with me is a proximity band for electricians. It lights, beeps, and vibrates as a worker approaches live voltage. At TriCity, that band prevented three near misses in a three month pilot.
A fourth incident still ended in a hospital visit and a costly outage because the worker left the band in his car. Another apprentice nearly placed a hand on a live bus bar until the band told him something was wrong. These moments remind you that technology can change a day and a life.
Drew’s take on culture is refreshingly direct. Values are not a poster. They are a filter for who you hire. He looks for customer obsession, ownership, curiosity, and candid communication. Then he pairs that with high expectations and real care. Autonomy comes with accountability. Impact matters. If someone does not want to work on meaningful problems, this is not their place. It sounds firm. It also explains why the company keeps earning top workplace recognition while raising the bar on performance.
We also talked about Maple Studios, the startup incubator Drew launched in Davenport, Iowa. He sees gaps in the industrial ecosystem. Fewer big exits. Slow adoption cycles. Founders stuck inside large companies. Maple gives them tools, space, and hard feedback so they can iterate faster and build things factories will actually deploy. His advice is simple. Ship, learn, and repeat. Do customer reviews early. Expect a thousand small gotchas. Move through them rather than pretending they will not appear.
Looking ahead, Drew expects robotics to accelerate for a very practical reason. Companies cannot find enough people. Dangerous work will be automated. He imagines maintenance tasks shifting toward humanoid robots, with machines designed so robotic agents can service them. He also references GM’s self healing language to point at a coming blend of sensing, prediction, and automated repair.
On AI, he shares Satya Nadella’s challenge. Measure productivity and GDP impact rather than hype. The promise is there. The scoreboard will tell the story.
If you work in industrial tech, this conversation lands close to home. You will hear how to bring digital tools into legacy environments, how to design for safety from the start, and how to keep teams motivated without losing kindness. You will also catch an open invitation.
Drew wants to partner with builders who care about this space. If that is you, reach out to him on LinkedIn or visit graceport.com. And if you are curious about the band that vibrates before a bad day begins, this episode is a good place to start.
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I spoke with Kalai Ramea at a timely moment. We recorded this conversation during a heatwave in the UK, which made her work at Planette AI feel very real. Kalai calls herself an all-purpose scientist, with a path that runs through California climate policy, Xerox PARC, and now a startup focused on the forecast window that most people ignore. Not tomorrow’s weather. Not far-off climate scenarios. The space in between. Two weeks to two months out, where decisions get made and money is on the line.
Kalai explains Planette AI’s idea of scientific AI in plain words. Instead of learning from yesterday’s weather patterns and hoping the future looks the same, their models learn physics from earth system simulations. Ocean meets atmosphere, energy moves, and the model learns those relationships directly. That matters in a warming world where history is a shaky guide. It also shortens time to insight. Traditional models can take weeks to run. If the output arrives after the risky period has passed, it is trivia. tte AI is building for speed and usefulness.
The value shows up in places you can picture. Event planners deciding whether to green-light a festival. Airlines shaping schedules and staffing. Farmers choosing when to plant and irrigate. Insurers pricing risk without leaning only on the past. Kalai shared a telling backcast of Bonnaroo in Tennessee, where flooding forced a last-minute cancellation. Their system showed heavy-rain signals weeks ahead. That kind of lead time changes outcomes, budgets, and stress levels.
From Jargon To Decisions What I appreciate most about this story is the focus on access. Too many forecasts live in papers that only specialists read. Kalai and team are working to strip away jargon and deliver answers people can act on. Will it rain enough to trigger a payout. Will a heat threshold be crossed. Will the next month bring the kind of wind that matters for grid operations. The delivery matters as much as the math. NetCDF files might work for researchers, but a map, a simple number, or a chat interface is what users reach for when time is short.
There is also a financial thread running through this work. Climate risk now shapes crop insurance, carbon programs, and balance sheets. Parametric insurance is growing because it is simple. Set a threshold. If it hits, the policy pays. Better medium-range signals make those products fairer and more useful. Kalai describes Planette AI’s role as a baseline layer others can build on, a kind of AWS for climate intelligence. That framing fits. No single company will build every app in this space. A reliable core makes the rest possible.
Kalai’s path ties it all together. Policy taught her how decisions get made. PARC sharpened her instincts for practical AI. PlanetteAI is the result. If you care about planning beyond next week, this episode will give you a new way to think about forecasts and the tools that power them. I will add the blog link Kalai shared in the show notes. In the meantime, if you are in agriculture, travel, energy, or insurance, ask yourself a simple question. What would you change if you had a trustworthy signal three to eight weeks ahead.
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During the IT Press Tour, I had the pleasure of speaking with Weimo Liu, CEO and co-founder of PuppyGraph, and hearing firsthand how his team is rethinking graph technology for the enterprise.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, Weimo joins me to share the story behind PuppyGraph’s “zero ETL” approach, which lets organizations query their existing data as a graph without ever moving or duplicating it.
We discuss why graph databases, despite their promise, have struggled with mainstream adoption, often because of complex pipelines and heavy infrastructure requirements. Weimo explains how PuppyGraph borrows from his time at TigerGraph and Google’s F1 engine to build something new: a distributed query engine that maps tables into a logical graph and delivers subsecond performance on massive datasets. That shift opens the door for use cases in cybersecurity, fraud detection, and AI-driven applications where latency and accuracy matter most.
We also unpack the developer experience. Instead of rewriting schemas or reloading data every time requirements change, PuppyGraph allows teams to define nodes and edges directly from existing tables. That design lowers the barrier for SQL-focused teams and accelerates time to value. Weimo even touches on the role of graph in reducing AI hallucinations, showing how structured relationships can make enterprise AI systems more reliable.
What struck me most in our conversation is how PuppyGraph’s playful branding belies its serious engineering depth. Behind the “puppy” name lies a distributed engine built to scale with today’s data volumes, backed by strong early adoption and a team that listens closely to customer needs. Whether you’re exploring graph for cybersecurity, AI chatbots, or supply chain analytics, this discussion offers a glimpse of how the next generation of graph tech might finally break free from its niche and go mainstream.
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When I invited Or Eshed, CEO and co-founder of LayerX Security, onto Tech Talks Daily, I wanted to challenge a blind spot most teams carry into work each day. We talk about phishing, ransomware, and endpoint controls, yet we skip the place where employees actually live online. The browser. That quiet tab bar has become the front door to identities, payments, SaaS, and now AI. Or calls it a different operating system in its own right, and once you hear his examples of how extensions can intercept cookies, mimic logins, or even meddle with AI chats, the penny drops fast.
Here’s the thing. Blocking extensions across the board no longer fits how people work. Developers, marketers, sales teams, and support agents all lean on extensions for real productivity gains. Or’s argument is simple. If the business depends on extensions, security has to meet people where they are with continuous, risk-based controls inside the browser itself. That means assessing code, permissions, ownership changes, and live behaviors, not relying on a static allow list that grows and grows while attackers slip through the cracks.
We also unpack Extensionpedia, LayerX’s free resource that lets anyone look up the risk profile of a specific extension. It is part education, part early warning system, and it serves a wider mission to raise the floor for everyone. Or shares how a technology alliance with Google has helped the team analyze extensions at serious scale, and why better data beats clever slogans in a space where signals change hour by hour.
Malicious Extensions, AI Shortcuts, And The Culture Shift Security Needs One of the standout moments is a real-world story that starts at home and ends inside a corporate network. A spouse installs a screen-recording extension on a personal device, the browser profile syncs at work, and suddenly corporate credentials and sensitive sessions are mirrored to an untrusted machine. No shadowy APT needed. Just everyday sync doing exactly what it was designed to do. It is messy, human, and exactly why policy needs to be paired with continuous visibility in the browser.
We explore the gray zone where productivity tools collide with privacy. Password managers, VPN helpers, and AI-everywhere extensions promise convenience, yet they can scrape data across SaaS apps or sync credentials in ways security leaders never intended. Or’s advice is refreshingly pragmatic. Assume extensions are staying. Instrument the browser, score risk in real time, and adapt access based on what an extension actually does, not what it claims on a store page.
Looking ahead, Or sees the browser taking an even bigger role as email, SaaS, and AI agents converge in one place. With AI companies building their own browsers, the last mile of user interaction gets denser, faster, and more valuable to protect. If 99 percent of enterprise users already run at least one extension, the task is clear. Know which ones are in play, understand how they behave, and keep policy dynamic. If this conversation sparks a rethink of your own approach, check your extensions in Extensionpedia, and then consider what modern, in-browser controls would look like in your environment. After this episode, you may never look at that tidy row of icons the same way again.
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I invited Laura Desmond, CEO of Smartly, to make sense of what feels like the biggest shake-up in marketing since the mobile era. She has led through every cycle I can remember, from the early internet to the rise of social, and she sees AI changing the rules faster than any previous wave. Across our conversation we unpack how AI is rewriting creative work, buying, and measurement, while forcing brands to rebuild trust with clear rules on data, models, and creator rights.
Here’s the thing. Attention is shorter, and the thumb moves fast. Most people give an ad about two seconds, and video is taking over the feed. Laura expects video to account for three quarters of digital ads by 2026, which tracks with what I am seeing across every platform. Smartly is betting on that shift with tools that turn Shorts or TikToks into personalized CTV spots, and bring CTV signal back into social. The goal is simple to say and hard to pull off. Show every person something that feels made for them, then learn from the response and improve the next piece of creative in near real time.
We also talk about why the ground is moving under search. A growing number of people, especially younger users, skip the front page of Google and ask an AI assistant instead. That changes how discovery works, how queries appear, and where ad products live. Laura thinks we are heading toward campaigns that cut across search, social, retail media, and CTV as one flowing video-first effort, with creative and media stitched together by software rather than teams tossing files over the wall.
Results matter, and Laura shared two proof points I kept coming back to. Smartly’s platform has been validated by PwC for a 13 percent ROI lift across clients. The same study confirmed time savings that add up to 42 minutes a day for hands-on users. That reclaimed time funds the work that actually moves the needle, like faster A/B tests, sharper creative decisions, and better budget moves across channels. We also dig into conversational ads. In a recent test with Boots, Smartly’s format delivered roughly four times the return on investment versus business as usual, which speaks to how fast query-style interactions are shaping expectations.
Trust sits in the middle of all this. Laura is clear that responsible AI is table stakes. Brands need controls to tune or override generated assets, clarity on data sources and model choice, and a stance on creator rights before any content goes live. Her view of AI is creative first. Automate the tedious parts. Keep people in charge of taste, tone, and brand. Use the feedback loop to learn faster, not to replace the team.
We close on where this all leads. Expect brand experiences that blur physical and digital without losing the human spark. Stadiums full, stores buzzing, and at the same time richer virtual touchpoints, snackable video, and one-to-one conversations that feel helpful rather than creepy.
If this is your world, Laura is hosting Smartly’s ADVANCE on September 17 in Brooklyn, and it looks set to be a real working session for marketers who want results, not theater. You can find details here: https://bit.ly/4fRgWEE.
Tune in if you want a candid, practical map for where creative, media, and AI are heading next, and how to measure what matters while keeping your brand worthy of trust.
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What does it take to map the oceans when most of the world’s seabed remains unseen and unmapped? That’s the question I explored with Mike Liddell from Fugro, a company using technology to reveal what lies beneath the waves.
In our conversation, Mike explained why surveying the ocean is like “working in heavy fog on a roller coaster” and how traditional tools like light and radio signals are useless underwater. Instead, sonar, robotics, and increasingly AI are stepping in to make sense of this hidden world.
Mike described the huge scale of the challenge, from mapping areas larger than major cities to supporting offshore wind farms that power our clean energy transition.
With labour shortages and younger generations less willing to spend months at sea, Fugro is shifting to remote operations centres and uncrewed surface vessels. These new approaches not only widen the talent pool but also cut fuel use dramatically—by as much as 95 percent compared to older ships.
What really struck me was the pace of change. A few years ago, offshore vessels struggled with internet speeds reminiscent of dial-up modems.
Today, satellite systems like Starlink make real-time collaboration between sea and shore possible. Add in AI that can process data at the edge and make instant decisions about where and how to collect information, and you begin to see how marine surveying is entering a new era.
This episode is a glimpse into that frontier and into how technology is reshaping the way we understand and care for our blue planet.
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Here’s the thing. Generative AI for visuals has shifted from a party trick to everyday craftwork, and few people sit closer to that shift than Ofir Bibi, VP of Research at Lightricks.
In this conversation, I wanted to understand how a company famous for Facetune, Photoleap, and Videoleap is building for a future where creators expect speed, control, and choice without a headache. What I found was a story about building core technology that serves real creative workflows, not the other way around.
Ofir traces Lightricks’ journey from clever on-device tricks that made small screens feel powerful to today’s foundation models running in the cloud. The constant thread is usability. Making complex editing feel simple requires smart decisions in the background, and that mindset has shaped everything from their early mobile apps to LTX Studio, the company’s multi-model creative platform. Across the last three years, generative features moved from novelty to necessity, and that reality forced a bigger question: when do you stop stitching together other people’s models and start crafting your own?
That question led to LTXV, an open-source video generation model designed for speed, efficiency, and control. Ofir explains why Lightricks built it from scratch and why they shared the weights and trainer with the community. The result is a fast feedback loop where researchers, developers, and even competitors try ideas on a model that runs on consumer-grade hardware and can generate clips faster than they can be watched. The new LTXV 2B Distilled build continues that push toward quicker iteration and creator-friendly control, including arbitrary frame conditioning that suits animation and keyframe-driven workflows.
We also talk about the changing data diet for training. Quantity is out. Quality and preparation matter. Licensed, high-aesthetic datasets and tighter curation produce models that understand prompts, motion, and physics with fewer weird edges. That discipline shows up in the product too. LTX Studio blends Lightricks tech with options from partners like Google’s Veo and Black Forest Labs’ Flux, then steers users toward the right model for the job through thoughtful UI. If you want the sharpest single shot, you can choose it. If you want fast, iterative tweaks for storytelling, LTXV is front and center.
Looking ahead, Ofir sees a near future where models become broader and more multimodal, while creators and enterprises ask for local and on-prem options that keep data closer to home. That makes efficiency a feature, not a footnote. If you care about the craft of making, not just the spectacle, this episode offers a grounded view of how AI can actually serve creators. It left me convinced that speed and control are the real differentiators, and that open source can be a very practical way to get both.
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Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to experiments in labs or one-off pilot projects. For many enterprises, it is becoming the backbone of how they operate, innovate, and compete. But as companies race to deploy AI, the biggest challenge is not whether the technology works, but whether the foundations exist to scale it safely and effectively.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Christian Buckner, Senior Vice President of Data and AI Platform at Altair, a company known for combining rocket science with data science. Christian unpacks the concept of an AI Fabric, a framework that harmonizes enterprise data and embeds AI directly into a universal model. Rather than scattered tools and isolated projects, the AI Fabric acts as a living system of intelligence, helping organizations move faster, make better decisions, and unlock new kinds of automation.
We talk about how global enterprises from automotive suppliers to petrochemical giants are already using Altair’s technology to improve safety, optimize production, and cut costs. Christian shares examples including a transportation company that boosted revenue by $50 million in its first year of AI-driven dynamic pricing and a healthcare provider that saved $17 million in analysis time using knowledge graphs for drug discovery.
The conversation also explores the hype and the risks around AI agents. While it is easy to spin up a proof of concept with a Python library, Christian explains why real enterprise impact requires governance, monitoring, and infrastructure to make agents trustworthy and sustainable. He likens it to building HR systems for AI, where agents need onboarding, oversight, and performance evaluation to operate alongside humans.
We also touch on Altair’s acquisition by Siemens and what this means for the future of industrial AI. By integrating Altair’s data and AI expertise with Siemens’ deep industrial systems, enterprises can add intelligence without ripping out existing infrastructure. The result is not about replacing workers but enabling them to become what Christian calls “10x employees,” augmented by AI tools and agents that multiply their effectiveness.
For anyone curious about how AI will change product design, operations, and enterprise decision-making, this episode offers a rare inside look at the technology foundations being built today. You can learn more at altair.com/ai-fabric.
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What if meetings stopped draining your time and instead became engines for action? That’s the question driving Christoph Fleischmann, CEO of Arthur AI, and the conversation in today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily. Christoph has spent his career at the intersection of human potential and technology, and now he’s leading a company that wants to change how enterprises actually get work done.
Arthur AI isn’t another tool to add to the stack. It’s a digital co-worker—an intelligent presence that joins meetings, captures knowledge, and keeps teams aligned across time zones and formats. Whether in XR spaces, on the web, or through conversational interfaces, Arthur AI blends real-time and asynchronous collaboration. The aim is to replace endless, inefficient meetings with something more dynamic: an environment where humans and AI collaborate side by side to deliver outcomes.
This conversation goes beyond theory. Christoph shares how Fortune 500 companies are already using Arthur AI to align global strategies, manage complex transformations, and modernize learning and development programs. He explains how their platform is built on enterprise-grade security and a flexible, LLM-agnostic architecture—critical foundations for companies wary of vendor lock-in or compliance risks.
We also touch on the cultural shift of inviting AI to take a real seat at the table. From interviewing and project management to knowledge sharing, Arthur AI represents a new category of work experience, one where digital co-workers support people rather than replace them.
For leaders tired of meetings that go nowhere and knowledge trapped in silos, this episode offers a glimpse of what smarter, faster collaboration looks like at scale. Could the blueprint for the future of digital work already be here?
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Here’s the thing. Most enterprise AI talk today starts with chatbots and ends with glossy demos. Meanwhile, the data that actually runs a business lives in rows, columns, and time stamps. That gap is where my conversation with Vanja Josifovski, CEO of Kumo AI really comes alive. Vanja has spent two and a half decades helping companies turn data into decisions, from research roles at Yahoo and Google to steering product and engineering at Pinterest through its IPO and later leading Airbnb Homes. He’s now building Kumo AI to answer an old question with a new approach: how do you get accurate, production-grade predictions from relational data without spending months crafting a bespoke model for each use case?
Vanja explains why structured business data has been underserved for years. Images and text behave nicely compared to the messy reality of multiple tables, mixed data types, and event histories. Traditional teams anticipate a prediction need, then kick off a long feature engineering and modeling process. Kumo's Relational Foundation Model, or RFM, flips that script. Pre-trained on a large mix of public and synthetic data warehouses, it delivers task-agnostic, zero-shot predictions for problems like churn and fraud. That means you can ask the model questions directly of your data and get useful answers fast, then fine-tune for another 15 to 20 percent uplift when you’re ready to squeeze more from your full dataset.
What stood out for me is how Kumo removes the grind of manual feature creation. Vanja draws a clear parallel to computer vision’s shift years ago, when teams stopped handcrafting edge detectors and started learning from raw pixels. By learning directly from raw tables, Kumo taps the entirety of the data rather than a bundle of human-crafted summaries. The payoff shows up in the numbers customers care about, with double-digit improvements against mature, well-defended baselines and the kind of time savings that change roadmaps. One customer built sixty models in two weeks, a job that would typically span a year or more.
We also explore how this fits with the LLM moment. Vanja doesn’t position RFM as a replacement for language models. He frames it as a complement that fills an accuracy gap on tabular data where LLMs often drift. Think of RFM as part of an agentic toolbox: when an agent needs a reliable prediction from enterprise data, it can call Kumo instead of generating code, training a fresh model, or bluffing an answer. That design extends to the realities of production as well. Kumo’s fine-tuning and serving stack is built for high-QPS environments, the kind you see in recommendations and ad tech, where cost and latency matter.
The training story is another thread you’ll hear in this episode. The team began with public datasets, then leaned into synthetic data to cover scenarios that are hard to source in the wild. Synthetic generation gives them better control over distribution shifts and edge cases, which speeds iteration and makes the foundation model more broadly capable upon arrival.
If you care about measurable outcomes, this episode shows why CFOs pay attention when RFM lands. Vanja shares examples where a 20 to 30 percent lift translates into hundreds of thousands of additional monthly active users and direct revenue impact. That kind of improvement isn’t theory. It’s the difference between a model that nudges a metric and a model that moves it.
By the end, you’ll have a clear picture of what Kumo AI is building, why relational data warrants its own foundation model, and how enterprises can move from wishful thinking to practical wins. Curious to try it yourself? Vanja also points to a sandbox where teams can load data and ask predictive questions within a notebook, then compare results against in-house models. If your AI plans keep stalling on tabular reality, this conversation offers a way forward that’s fast, accurate, and designed for the systems you already run.
When VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 launched in June, it marked more than just another release. It was the clearest signal yet that Broadcom is betting big on the modern private cloud. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Prashanth Shenoy, who leads marketing and learning for the VCF division at Broadcom, to discuss what the launch means for enterprises and how those themes are playing out live at VMware Explore in Las Vegas.
Prashanth shares how VCF 9.0 was designed to help enterprises operate private clouds with the same simplicity and scale as public hyperscalers, while keeping sovereignty, security, and cost predictability front and center. He explains why this release is more than an infrastructure update. It’s a shift toward a workload-agnostic, developer-centric platform where virtual machines, containers, and AI workloads can run side by side with a consistent operational experience.
We also unpack Broadcom’s headline announcements at the show. From making VCF an AI-native platform to embedding private AI services directly into the foundation, the message is clear: the AI pilots of the past are moving into production, and Broadcom wants VCF to be the default home for enterprise AI. Another major theme is cyber compliance at scale, with VCF now offering continuous enforcement, rapid ransomware recovery, and advanced security services that address today’s board-level concerns.
But perhaps the biggest takeaway is the momentum. Nine of the top ten Fortune companies are now running on VCF, more than 100 million cores have been licensed, and dozens of enterprises—from global giants to mid-sized insurers—are on stage at VMware Explore sharing their adoption stories. The so-called “cloud reset” that Prashanth has written about is not just theory. Companies are rethinking their cloud strategies, seeking cost transparency, avoiding waste, and building resilient, AI-ready private clouds.
This conversation highlights how Broadcom is doubling down on VCF with a singular focus, a massive R&D commitment, and a clear vision of where private cloud is headed. If you want to understand why private AI, developer services, and cyber resilience are now central to enterprise strategy, this is a conversation worth hearing.
At VMware Explore in Las Vegas, the buzz wasn’t just about generative AI, but about where and how it should run. My guest is Tasha Drew, Director of Engineering for the AI team in the VMware Cloud Foundation division at Broadcom, who has been at the center of this conversation. Fresh off the main stage, where she helped debut VMware’s new Private AI Services and Intelligent Assist for VMware Cloud Foundation, Tasha joins me to unpack what these announcements mean for enterprises grappling with privacy, cost, and integration challenges.
Tasha explains why private AI is resonating so strongly in 2025, outlining the three pillars that define it: protecting sensitive intellectual property, managing regulated or high-value data, and ensuring role-based control of fine-tuned models. She shares how organizations often start their AI journey in the public cloud, but as experimentation turns to production, cost pressures, data compliance, and proximity to data drive them toward private AI.
We also dive into VMware’s own evolution toward building an AI-native private cloud platform. Tasha highlights the journey from deep learning VMs and Jupyter notebooks to full AI platform services that empower IT teams to deliver models efficiently, save money, and accelerate deployment of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) applications. She introduces Intelligent Assist for VMware Cloud Foundation, an AI-powered guide that helps teams navigate complex deployments with context-aware support and step-by-step instructions.
Beyond the technology, Tasha reflects on the broader ecosystem shifts, from partnerships with NVIDIA and AMD to the role of Model Context Protocol (MCP) in breaking down integration barriers between enterprise systems. She believes MCP represents a turning point, enabling seamless workflows between platforms that historically lacked incentive to work together.
This conversation captures a pivotal moment where private AI is moving from theory into enterprise adoption. For leaders weighing their next move, Tasha provides both the strategic framing and the technical insight to understand why private AI has become one of the most talked-about forces shaping enterprise IT today.
Factories don’t usually make headlines at tech conferences, but what Audi is doing inside its production labs is anything but ordinary. At VMware Explore in Las Vegas, I sat down with Dr. Henning Löser, Head of the Audi Production Lab, to talk about how the automaker is reinventing its factory floor with a software-first mindset.
Henning leads a small team he jokingly calls “the nerds of production,” but their work is changing how cars are built. Instead of replacing entire lines for every new piece of technology, Audi has found a way to bring the speed and flexibility of IT into the world of industrial automation. The result is Edge Cloud 4 Production, a system that takes virtualization technology normally reserved for data centers and applies it directly to manufacturing.
In our conversation, Henning explained why virtual PLCs may be one of the biggest breakthroughs yet. They look invisible to workers on the line but give maintenance teams new transparency and resilience. We explored how replacing thousands of industrial PCs with centralized, virtualized workloads not only reduces downtime but also cuts energy use and simplifies updates. And yes, we even discussed the day a beaver chewed through one of Audi’s fiber optic cables and how redundancy kept production running without a hitch.
This episode is about more than smart factories. It’s about how an industry known for heavy machinery is learning to think like the cloud. From scalability and sustainability to predictive maintenance and AI-ready infrastructure, Audi is showing how the car of the future starts with the factory of the future. If you’ve ever wondered how emerging technologies like virtualization and private cloud are reshaping the shop floor, this is a story you’ll want to hear.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Jane Ostler from Kantar, the world’s leading marketing data and analytics company, whose clients include Google, Diageo, AB InBev, Unilever, and Kraft Heinz. Jane brings clarity to a debate often clouded by headlines, explaining why AI should be seen as a creative sparring partner, not a rival. She outlines how Kantar is helping brands balance efficiency with inspiration, and why the best marketing in the years ahead will come from humans and machines working together.
We explore Kantar’s research into how marketers really feel about AI adoption, uncovering why so many projects stall in pilot phase, and what steps can help teams move from experimentation to execution. Jane also discusses the importance of data quality as the foundation of effective AI, drawing comparisons to the early days of GDPR when oversight and governance first became front of mind.
From Coca-Cola’s AI-assisted Christmas ads to predictive analytics that help brands allocate budgets with greater confidence, Jane shares examples of where AI is already shaping marketing in ways that might surprise you. She also highlights the importance of cultural nuance in AI-driven campaigns across 90-plus markets, and why transparency, explainability, and human oversight are vital for earning consumer trust.
Whether you’re a CMO weighing AI strategy, a brand manager experimenting with new tools, or someone curious about how the biggest advertisers are reshaping their playbooks, this conversation with Jane Ostler offers both inspiration and practical guidance. It’s about rethinking AI not as the end of creativity, but as the beginning of a new partnership between data, machines, and human imagination.
The enterprise network is under pressure like never before. Hybrid environments, cloud migrations, edge deployments, and the sudden surge in AI workloads have made it increasingly difficult to keep application connectivity secure and reliable. The old model of device-by-device, rule-based network management can’t keep up with today’s hyperconnected, API-driven world.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Kyle Wickert, Field Chief Technology Officer at AlgoSec, to discuss the future of network management in the age of platformization. With more than a decade at AlgoSec and years of hands-on experience working with some of the world’s largest enterprises, Kyle brings an unfiltered view of the challenges and opportunities that IT leaders are facing right now.
We talk about why enterprises are rapidly shifting to platform-based models to simplify network security, but also why that strategy can start to break down when dealing with multi-vendor environments. Kyle explains the fragmentation across cloud, on-prem, and edge infrastructure that keeps CIOs awake at night, and why spreadsheets and manual change processes are still far too common in 2025. He also shares why visibility, intent-based policies, and policy automation are becoming non-negotiable in reducing risk and friction.
Kyle doesn’t just talk theory. He shares a real-world case study of a European financial institution that automated policy provisioning across firewalls and cloud infrastructure, integrated it with CI/CD pipelines, and reduced its change rejection rate from 25% to 4%. It’s a compelling example of how the right approach to network management can deliver measurable improvements in agility, security, and business satisfaction.
AI is rapidly becoming part of the healthcare system, powering everything from diagnostic tools and medical devices to patient monitoring and hospital operations. But while the potential is extraordinary, the risks are equally stark. Many hospitals are adopting AI without the safeguards needed to protect patient safety, leaving critical systems exposed to threats that most in the sector have never faced before.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Ty Greenhalgh, Healthcare Industry Principal at Claroty, about why healthcare’s AI rush could come at a dangerous cost if security does not keep pace. Ty explains how novel threats like adversarial prompts, model poisoning, and decision manipulation could compromise clinical systems in ways that are very different from traditional cyberattacks. These are not just theoretical scenarios. AI-driven misinformation or manipulated diagnostics could directly impact patient care.
We explore why the first step for hospitals is building a clear AI asset inventory. Too many organizations are rolling out AI models without knowing where they are deployed, how they interact with other systems, or what risks they introduce. Ty draws parallels with the hasty adoption of electronic health records, which created unforeseen security gaps that still haunt the industry today.
With regulatory frameworks like the UK’s AI Act and the EU’s AI regulation approaching, Ty stresses that hospitals cannot afford to wait for legislation. Immediate action is needed to implement risk frameworks, strengthen vendor accountability, and integrate real-time monitoring of AI alongside legacy devices. Only then can healthcare organizations gain the trust and resilience needed to safely embrace the benefits of AI. This is a timely conversation for leaders across healthcare and cybersecurity. The sector is on the edge of an AI revolution, but the choices made now will determine whether that revolution strengthens patient care or undermines it.
You can learn more about Claroty’s approach to securing healthcare technology at claroty.com.
In November, Alex Adamopoulos, CEO of Emergn, joined me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about transformation fatigue and why so many well-intentioned change programs leave people drained rather than inspired. This time, he’s back with a sharper question: if traditional transformation is broken, what actually works? His answer is refreshingly direct. Product thinking is strategic thinking, and it belongs everywhere in the enterprise, not just in product teams.
In our conversation, Alex explains why HR, finance, and even legal teams now need product strategy skills as much as engineers or designers. He introduces Praxis, Emergn’s newly launched platform that rebrands their long-standing VFQ approach and now embeds product thinking across entire organizations. With its AI-powered coach Stella, Praxis is designed to support continuous learning while helping teams make better day-to-day decisions.
We also discuss why outcomes, not deliverables, have become the accurate measure of digital success. Alex likens it to leaders constantly returning to their boards like entrepreneurs on Shark Tank, demonstrating incremental value before securing the next round of support. This shift in accountability changes how teams plan, learn, and invest.
Another essential thread is the link between burnout and broken transformation models. Alex recently co-authored a paper with Harvard professor Amy Edmondson on “Breaking the Failure Cycle,” and he shares how adopting a product mindset can help organizations move past fatigue by focusing on outcomes, embracing uncertainty, and avoiding the endless reinvention trap.
Whether you’re in a global enterprise grappling with AI adoption or a smaller company rethinking strategy, this episode is a reminder that transformation is not a program but a continuous practice. Product thinking offers a practical path forward, one that makes strategy executable, measurable, and, most importantly, sustainable.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, Neil sits down with Sean Li, co-founder and CEO of Magic Labs, to explore the intersection of crypto wallets, artificial intelligence, and the future of autonomous finance.
Sean shares how Magic Labs has already onboarded over 50 million crypto wallets by pioneering simple login methods using email and SMS. Now, with Magic Newton, Sean is pushing into new territory where AI agents could securely manage digital assets on our behalf. From AI "concierges" executing investment strategies to cryptographic policy engines enforcing trust and control, the vision is clear: a financial internet where humans set the intent and machines handle the execution.
We discuss the challenges of today’s fragmented crypto experience, how smart wallets and AI could abstract away complexity, and why Sean believes everyone with an email address will eventually have multiple agents acting on their behalf. You'll also hear why he compares this shift to building a digital institution or constitution for autonomous finance.
Whether you're a developer, investor, or simply crypto-curious, this episode offers a fascinating look at where Web3, AI, and programmable trust may be heading next.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined for the third time by Justin Banon, the founder of Boson Protocol. A lot has changed since his last appearance. What started as a bold idea to decentralize e-commerce has now evolved into an ambitious, AI-first infrastructure aiming to redefine how we buy, sell, and interact with value itself.
Justin walks us through the evolution of Boson. It began as a system for peer-to-peer digital and physical commerce, aiming to remove intermediaries like Amazon from the process. The next step was Fermion, a protocol designed specifically for high-value assets such as luxury goods, fine art, and real estate. Now, Boson is launching the Metasystem, a full-scale framework designed for what Justin calls “agentic commerce,” where AI agents transact on behalf of users.
We talk about what that future looks like. Imagine an AI that not only shops for you but negotiates, verifies, and settles transactions securely. Justin predicts that in just a few years, these agents will outnumber human buyers and sellers by orders of magnitude. Boson’s mission is to build the decentralized rails for that world while avoiding the centralization traps of today’s tech giants.
One particularly fascinating moment is our discussion of the Dolce & Gabbana glass suit. Purchased during the last bull run, this million-dollar piece of digital-physical fashion was not just fractionalized through Fermion but transformed into an AI persona called Dolce Lorien. This character now leads a gamified community campaign, rewarding participants with fractional ownership. It’s luxury meets sci-fi, wrapped in Web3 narrative.
We also dig into what decentralized infrastructure really means for legacy brands. With Fermion, companies can reclaim the secondary market, verify resales, reconnect with past buyers, and turn their customer base into a true community. This isn’t just resale with a twist. It’s a new type of programmable loyalty system.
Justin shares how AI doesn’t just enable commerce. It also supports his own personal growth. He reveals how he uses tools like ChatGPT and Speechify to create custom audio courses for niche subjects, walking through the woods while absorbing AI-generated masterclass-level insights.
For those tired of seeing tech platforms control value creation while users are left with little ownership, this episode offers a glimpse of a different future. One where AI works directly for you. One where commerce is flexible, open, and fair. One where the infrastructure is built to stay that way.
What do you do when your technical brilliance doesn’t translate into clear, compelling communication? That’s where Salvatore Manzi comes in. With a background in business communication and a career spent coaching leaders across tech, finance, and global policy, Salvatore helps bold thinkers bring clarity and connection to even the most complex ideas.
In this episode, we talk about the communication challenges that many technical leaders face—especially when speaking to non-technical stakeholders. Whether you’re leading a product team, presenting in a high-stakes board meeting, or trying to assert your voice in a fast-paced discussion, Salvatore offers practical strategies that go far beyond public speaking tips. His insights are grounded in two decades of real-world experience, from coaching TEDx speakers and United Nations delegates to guiding SVPs through business model pivots and helping raise hundreds of millions in funding.
We explore how data-driven leaders can use storytelling without compromising accuracy, how to manage energy and presence when nerves kick in, and what leadership looks like when you lean more analytical than charismatic. Salvatore shares a refreshing take on body language, framing it not as performance but as a tool for genuine alignment between your message and your intention.
We also dig into the nuance of communicating uncertainty—how to be honest and credible without losing influence. For anyone in a technical role looking to lead more effectively, this episode is packed with insight. Salvatore’s mission is to help people speak with clarity and lead with authenticity. After this conversation, you may just find yourself doing both a little differently.
The global pet industry has long been riddled with problems. From low-welfare breeding practices to online scams, the darker side of pet rehoming often goes unchecked. But what if there was a way to combine animal protection with a sustainable, profitable business model?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Axel Lagercrantz, co-founder and CEO of Pet Media Group, the company behind platforms like Pets4Homes in the UK and Lancaster Puppies in the US. Axel shares the story of how two friends with backgrounds in finance and tech came together to rethink what ethical pet ownership and commerce should look like. Since 2018, PMG has been working to remove anonymity and reduce fraud across pet marketplaces by embedding ethical standards directly into their platform’s infrastructure.
We explore how PMG uses custom-built AI to scan tens of thousands of images every day for signs of mistreatment, as well as to flag suspicious documentation and chat messages. Axel explains why ID verification, device fingerprinting, and real-time fraud detection are essential to maintaining user trust, especially in a high-emotion, high-value market like pets.
He also talks through the company’s expansion model, which focuses on acquiring local leaders and embedding PMG’s standards from the ground up. With operations now spanning six countries and a 50 percent EBITDA margin, PMG’s approach proves that protecting animals and scaling a business are not mutually exclusive goals.
What stands out most is Axel’s clarity of purpose. PMG isn’t trying to digitize pet sales for convenience alone. The mission is to create a global infrastructure that prioritizes the welfare of animals and builds lasting trust between buyers and responsible breeders.
If you care about technology that delivers real-world impact, this conversation will change how you think about one of the most overlooked parts of the digital economy.
As AI tools become increasingly embedded in the workplace, the future of work hangs in a delicate balance between automation and opportunity. In this episode, J.D. Seraphine, founder and CEO of Raiinmaker, joins Neil to challenge the dominant narrative of AI-driven job loss. Instead, he offers a bold vision—one where technology enhances human creativity, not replaces it.
J.D. shares how Raiinmaker is merging Web3 and AI to build platforms that reward human contribution, decentralize value, and give people a voice in shaping the future of artificial intelligence. We explore what it means to create ethical, human-led AI systems, how businesses can support young workers through upskilling and mentorship, and why the biggest challenge may not be employee readiness—but leadership inertia.
From entry-level displacement to data ethics, from complementary currencies to AI-generated video training, this conversation goes far beyond the hype. J.D. also speaks candidly about the real risks ahead—alongside the unprecedented potential for a new kind of economic empowerment.
David Hawig never set out to work in blockchain. He began his career in health tech, drawn to the potential of scaling impactful solutions. But it was the promise of a more transparent and user-controlled internet that ultimately led him to the Web3 Foundation, where he now serves as Director of Ecosystem Development and Investor Relations.
In our conversation on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, David shares why Web3 is not just a trend or buzzword, but a complete rethink of how digital systems should function. He describes a world where users own their data, can verify transactions without relying on central authorities, and can move between services without friction. To David, the Web3 movement is not about hype or speculation. It's about enabling a future where the internet is built on truth, not trust.
At the heart of the Web3 Foundation’s work is Polkadot, a protocol designed to solve the scalability and interoperability challenges that plague many early blockchain networks. David explains that Polkadot’s sharded infrastructure allows workloads to be split across participants in a trustless way. This setup not only enables more transactions but positions the ecosystem to support millions of users as mainstream adoption accelerates.
That acceleration, he argues, is already happening. Thanks to new regulations like the Clarity Act and Genius Act in the US, enterprise adoption is becoming a reality. Where Web3 once attracted only startups and crypto-native communities, today major companies, including sports brands and entertainment groups, are actively building in the space. Unlike earlier efforts that felt more like PR stunts, these companies now see tangible benefits. Web3 can deliver faster, cheaper, and more flexible digital services, available 24/7, with no lock-in to single vendors.
David is especially passionate about removing the barriers that have made Web3 feel intimidating to the average user. While early blockchain projects often demanded technical knowledge and wallet key management, he sees a future where users interact with Web3 products as easily as they would a mobile app. Behind the scenes, cryptography and decentralization are doing the heavy lifting, but from the user’s perspective, the experience is seamless.
One area David is particularly excited about is decentralized storage. As more businesses realize the risks of relying on centralized cloud giants, alternatives are emerging that offer both cost advantages and greater control. He sees this as a critical part of the broader shift toward self-sovereign infrastructure.
When asked if large corporations truly understand the scale of the disruption ahead, David is cautious but optimistic. Many established players, he says, still underestimate how quickly network effects can take hold. Once enough users and companies move into Web3 ecosystems, the old models will no longer be competitive. Whether it's financial services, social media, or identity management, the shift toward user-owned infrastructure will be difficult to reverse.
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, David points to the upcoming Jam upgrade as a major milestone. This next evolution of the Polkadot network is designed to dramatically improve scalability, supporting not just crypto-native transactions but also broader use cases in gaming, ticketing, payments, and more. The goal is clear: create a robust, low-cost, interoperable infrastructure capable of supporting millions of users across different networks and applications.
Before signing off, David leaves listeners with a recommendation. He suggests reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, a book he returns to often when reflecting on motivation and purpose. It’s a fitting choice for someone working at the edge of one of the most transformative shifts in modern tech.
The Web3 Foundation is not just funding protocols or building tools. It's laying the groundwork for a future where the internet belongs to everyone. And if David’s predictions are right, that future may arrive faster than we think.
When most people think of Wikipedia, they picture an endless scroll of human-readable pages. But there’s another side to this ecosystem, one designed not just for people but also for machines. It’s called Wikidata, and if you haven’t heard of it, that’s exactly why this conversation matters.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Lydia Pintscher, Wikidata Portfolio Manager at Wikimedia Deutschland, for a deep look into how structured, open data is quietly powering civic tech, cultural preservation, and knowledge equity across the globe.
Wikidata is the backbone that helps turn static knowledge into something living, adaptable, and scalable. With over 117 million items, 1.65 billion semantic statements, and more than 2.34 billion edits, it's become one of the largest collaborative datasets in the world. But it’s not just the size that makes it impressive. It’s what people are doing with it. Lydia shares how volunteers and developers are building tools for everything from investigative journalism to public libraries, all without needing deep pockets or proprietary infrastructure.
This isn’t big tech. It’s a global, grassroots movement making open data work for the public good. We explore how tools like Toolforge and the Wikidata Query Service lower the barrier to entry, allowing civil society groups to build sophisticated applications that would otherwise be out of reach. Whether it’s helping connect citizens to government services or preserving disappearing languages, the use cases are multiplying fast.
Lydia also reflects on how Wikidata fosters a sense of purpose for contributors, offering a rare example of what many call the good internet, where collaboration outweighs competition and building something meaningful beats chasing virality.
If you’re curious about where open knowledge is headed, how structured data can be a force for social impact, or why Wikidata might be the most important project you’ve never fully explored, this episode offers a window into a future where machines help humans build something better, together.
What does it take to make AI actually work at enterprise scale? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Ryan Steelberg, CEO of Veritone, to unpack the very real challenges and opportunities that come with bringing artificial intelligence into complex industries like media, law enforcement, and government.
Ryan has been building AI solutions long before it became headline news. He co-founded Veritone in 2014 with a mission to solve the unstructured data problem. Think audio, video, and other media that doesn't fit neatly into rows and columns. Now, Veritone isn’t just talking about AI. It’s powering more than 3,000 clients across sectors with real applications that drive measurable ROI.
We get into what it means to work with unstructured data at scale, and how Veritone processed over 58 million hours of media in 2024 alone. Ryan explains why traditional enterprises struggle to operationalize AI and how Veritone has evolved from a platform company into a creator of end-user applications designed for impact. This includes ad optimization for ESPN and video redaction for law enforcement.
What’s especially compelling is Veritone’s growing footprint in high-barrier sectors like federal defense and law enforcement. Ryan talks through what it took to become a prime contractor for the U.S. Air Force and Defense Logistics Agency, how Veritone adapted its stack for secure deployments, and why the key to adoption in these sectors isn’t just tech. It’s trust and proximity to mission-critical outcomes.
We also discuss the company’s push into the $17 billion global training data market through the Veritone Data Repository. Ryan shares why VDR is gaining traction fast and how it positions the company as a key partner for the next generation of AI models.
This isn’t a story of hype or futuristic promises. It’s a grounded look at what it really takes to scale AI in some of the most demanding enterprise environments. Whether you’re deep in the AI world or still figuring out where your business fits, Ryan’s perspective is honest, strategic, and full of lessons you can apply right now.
Is the future of finance programmable? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Ryan Galvankar, founder of Plaza Finance, to explore how programmable derivatives and on-chain bonds are reshaping the way we think about risk, leverage, and asset management in crypto.
Plaza Finance isn’t just another DeFi protocol. Since launching its core system on Base in April 2025, the team has introduced two standout tokens: bondETH and levETH. These programmable derivative tokens split Ethereum into customizable risk profiles, allowing both institutional and retail investors to choose their exposure with precision. Under Ryan’s leadership, Plaza has already attracted over 600,000 testnet users, $2 million in early deposits, and $2.5 million in pre-seed funding.
Ryan explains why this matters. Today’s DeFi tools tend to sit at either extreme—ultra-safe or wildly speculative. Plaza aims to bridge that gap with products that reflect the diversity of traditional finance, yet remain liquid and composable across Ethereum's ecosystem. He also shares why Ethereum staking plays a central role, and how integrations with lending platforms and cross-chain bridges will make these tokens even more powerful.
But Ryan doesn’t stop at structured investing. He also launched OptFun, an ultra-short-term options trading platform that hit nearly $1 billion in trading volume within a month. It appeals to crypto natives seeking high-volatility speculation in a fair, on-chain environment.
Together, these two platforms reflect what Ryan sees as a split in the future of DeFi: one track of thoughtful, long-term financial products that institutions will trust, and another track of high-speed, high-risk experimentation for users who live for volatility. He also gives his take on the rise of tokenized real-world assets, AI-generated portfolios, and what it will take to truly decentralize the next generation of finance.
Whether you’re deep into DeFi or still watching from the sidelines, this conversation sheds light on a pivotal moment where programmable finance is becoming real, and access to tailored financial tools is expanding faster than ever.
What if proving your right to work, rent, or even open a bank account didn’t require digging out your passport or waiting weeks for manual verification? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Hamraj Gulamali, Head of Legal and Compliance at Zinc, to talk about how digital identities are changing the way we think about employment, data ownership, and trust.
Hamraj brings a unique perspective to the conversation. A barrister-turned-startup leader, he now sits at the centre of one of the UK’s most forward-thinking background check platforms. Zinc’s mission is simple but ambitious: to make employment identity verification faster, safer, and fairer. But as Hamraj points out, this shift isn’t just about convenience. It’s about control.
We discuss how digital IDs are already helping automate background checks, reduce onboarding delays, and improve accuracy in high-volume hiring environments. Hamraj explains why placing ownership of work identity back in the hands of individuals has the potential to unlock wider applications—from renting a home to streamlining banking processes.
But there’s also friction. Some industries face structural and cultural resistance. Others fear the cost of digital transformation or worry about public trust. Hamraj unpacks why regulators have both helped and hindered progress. He shares his view on the UK’s Trust Framework, the Online Safety Act, and why transparency, retention policies, and robust cybersecurity are essential for building public confidence.
As we look ahead, Hamraj offers a clear vision for how verified digital IDs could simplify everyday tasks, slash manual admin, and reduce the compliance burden across multiple sectors. This episode cuts through the noise to offer a calm, informed, and practical take on one of the most overlooked shifts in how we live and work.
Whether you’re in HR, tech, compliance, or just tired of carrying your passport across town on your first day of work, this conversation will get you thinking about what needs to happen next.
What does it take to build intelligent systems that are not only AI-powered but also secure, scalable, and grounded in real-world needs?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Srinivas Chippagiri, a senior technology leader and author of Building Intelligent Systems with AI and Cloud Technologies. With over a decade of experience spanning Wipro, GE Healthcare, Siemens, and now Tableau at Salesforce, Srinivas offers a practical view into how AI and cloud infrastructure are evolving together.
We explore how AI is changing cloud-native development through predictive maintenance, automated DevOps pipelines, and developer co-pilots. But this is not just about technology. Srinivas highlights why responsible AI needs to be part of every system design, sharing examples from his own research into anomaly detection, fuzzy logic, and explainable models that support trust in regulated industries.
The conversation also covers the rise of hybrid and edge computing, the real challenges of data fragmentation and compute costs, and how teams are adapting with new skills like prompt engineering and model observability. Srinivas gives a thoughtful view on what ethical AI deployment looks like in practice, from bias audits to AI governance boards.
For those looking to break into this space, his advice is refreshingly clear. Start with small, end-to-end projects. Learn by doing. Contribute to open-source communities. And stay curious.
Whether you're scaling AI systems, building a career in cloud tech, or just trying to keep pace with fast-moving trends, this episode offers a grounded and insightful guide to where things are heading next. Srinivas's book is available on Amazon under Building Intelligent Systems with AI and Cloud Technologies, and you can connect with him on LinkedIn to continue the conversation.
AI is finding its way into almost every corner of customer service, but is it really what customers want? According to Kinsta’s recent survey, the answer is overwhelmingly no. An incredible 93 percent of respondents said they would rather speak to a human than an AI chatbot when they need support. Nearly half even said they would cancel a service if it relied solely on AI-driven support.
In this episode, Roger Williams, Community Manager at Kinsta, breaks down the story behind those numbers and explains why his team continues to invest heavily in human-first support. Kinsta has built its reputation on 24/7 access to real engineers who understand the complexities of WordPress hosting, resulting in a 98 percent customer satisfaction score and consistently high ratings on platforms like G2 and Trustpilot.
Roger shares how Kinsta blends human expertise with AI tools in a way that enhances, rather than replaces, the customer experience. He talks about the role empathy plays in building trust, the importance of empowering support staff to own conversations, and why support should be viewed as an opportunity to strengthen relationships rather than just a cost to be reduced.
We also discuss the growing perception that AI in support is more about saving money than improving service, how business leaders can avoid falling into that trap, and what the future of open web hosting could look like as AI capabilities mature. Whether you are in tech leadership, run a customer-facing team, or simply value a good support experience, this conversation offers insights that go beyond the AI hype and focus on what truly matters to customers.
In a business climate shaped by rapid technological disruption, shifting geopolitical landscapes, and evolving customer expectations, strategy cannot remain static. JD Carter, Chief Strategy Officer at Vasion, believes the key to success lies in constantly aligning vision with execution while adapting to market realities in real time.
In this conversation, JD shares how his role involves continuously monitoring external signals such as technology shifts, regulatory changes, and economic pressures, then translating those insights into operational action. We explore his approach to looking beyond the company vision by breaking it down into achievable missions that link long-term goals with day-to-day work across cross-functional teams.
A major focus of the discussion is AI readiness and how organisations can move beyond hype to real impact. JD outlines a five-stage process for becoming AI-ready, starting with digitising and centralising documents and data, followed by cleaning and structuring information for use with large language models. He explains how automating repetitive workflows, modernising infrastructure, and ensuring interoperability across systems such as ERP and HR platforms create the foundation for orchestrated automation at scale. Governance and access controls complete the picture, ensuring that AI deployment meets both internal and regulatory standards.
We also look at how Vasion balances short-term market needs with a long-term platform vision. JD describes how leveraging the company’s market-leading print infrastructure products supports current growth, while investing in R&D drives the development of a multi-product SaaS platform designed to integrate AI across the enterprise. A customer-first mindset shapes every decision, from pricing to product development, with continuous engagement through advisory boards, surveys, and direct conversations ensuring that partner strategies align with customer priorities.
To illustrate these principles in action, JD shares how Vasion responded to market demand for system-generated print job support by developing a SaaS-based output automation product. This pivot addressed a gap created by ERP and EMR vendors moving customers to the cloud and positioned Vasion at the start of its multi-product journey.
We discuss the signals leaders should watch to keep strategy relevant, including shifts in customer behaviour, the pace of technology adoption, and internal friction that may indicate misalignment. JD likens strategy to a GPS system, with vision as the destination and constant recalibration required to navigate roadblocks and changing conditions.
The conversation closes with a focus on embedding strategic agility into company culture. JD explains Vasion’s Missions of Aspirational Performance system, which connects corporate values directly to execution by breaking down strategic goals into work that individuals can see contributing to the bigger picture. He also shares his personal three-pronged approach to continuous learning, combining formal education, informal learning, and mentor-driven guidance.
This episode offers practical insight for leaders navigating uncertainty, balancing present-day demands with future opportunity, and embedding adaptability into the DNA of their organisations.
MariaDB is a name with deep roots in the open-source database world, but in 2025 it is showing the energy and ambition of a company on the rise. Taken private in 2022 and backed by K1 Investment Management, MariaDB is doubling down on innovation while positioning itself as a strong alternative to MySQL and Oracle. At a time when many organisations are frustrated with Oracle’s pricing and MySQL’s cloud-first pivot, MariaDB is finding new opportunities by combining open-source freedom with enterprise-grade reliability.
In this conversation, I sit down with Vikas Mathur, Chief Product Officer at MariaDB, to explore how the company is capitalising on these market shifts. Vikas shares the thinking behind MariaDB’s renewed focus, explains how the platform delivers similar features to Oracle at up to 80 percent lower total cost of ownership, and details how recent innovations are opening the door to new workloads and use cases.
One of the most significant developments is the launch of Vector Search in January 2023. This feature is built directly into InnoDB, eliminating the need for separate vector databases and delivering two to three times the performance of PG Vector. With hardware acceleration on both x86 and IBM Power architectures, and native connectors for leading AI frameworks such as LlamaIndex, LangChain and Spring AI, MariaDB is making it easier for developers to integrate AI capabilities without complex custom work.
Vikas explains how MariaDB’s pluggable storage engine architecture allows users to match the right engine to the right workload. InnoDB handles balanced transactional workloads, MyRocks is optimised for heavy writes, ColumnStore supports analytical queries, and Moroonga enables text search. With native JSON support and more than forty functions for manipulating semi-structured data, MariaDB can also remove the need for separate document databases. This flexibility underpins the company’s vision of one database for infinite possibilities.
The discussion also examines how MariaDB manages the balance between its open-source community and enterprise customers. Community adoption provides early feedback on new features and helps drive rapid improvement, while enterprise customers benefit from production support, advanced security, high availability and disaster recovery capabilities such as Galera-based synchronous replication and the MacScale proxy.
We look ahead to how MariaDB plans to expand its managed cloud services, including DBaaS and serverless options, and how the company is working on a “RAG in a box” approach to simplify retrieval-augmented generation for DBAs. Vikas also shares his perspective on market trends, from the shift away from embedded AI and traditional machine learning features toward LLM-powered applications, to the growing number of companies moving from NoSQL back to SQL for scalability and long-term maintainability.
This is a deep dive into the strategy, technology and market forces shaping MariaDB’s next chapter. It will be of interest to database architects, AI engineers, and technology leaders looking for insight into how an open-source veteran is reinventing itself for the AI era while challenging the biggest names in the industry.
In this episode, I am joined by Charles Southwood, Regional Vice President, Denodo Technologies, a company recognised globally for its leadership in data management. With revenues of $288M and a customer base that includes Hitachi, Informa, Engie, and Walmart, Denodo sits at the heart of how enterprises access, trust, and act on their data. Charles brings over 35 years of experience in the tech industry, offering both a long-term view of how the data landscape has evolved and sharp insights into the challenges businesses face today.
Our conversation begins with a pressing issue for any organisation exploring generative AI: data reliability. With many AI models trained on vast amounts of internet content, there is a real risk of false information creeping into business outputs. Charles explains why mitigating hallucinations and inaccuracies is essential not just for technical quality, but for protecting brand reputation and avoiding costly missteps. We explore alternative approaches that allow enterprises to benefit from AI innovation while maintaining data integrity and control.
We also examine the broader enterprise pressures AI has created. The promise of reduced IT costs and improved agility is enticing, but how much of this is achievable today and how much is inflated by hype? Charles shares why he believes 2025 is a tipping point for achieving true business agility through data virtualisation, and what a virtualised data layer can deliver for teams across IT, marketing, and beyond.
Along the way, Charles reflects on the industry shifts that caught him most by surprise, the decisions he would make differently with the benefit of hindsight, and the one golden rule he would share with younger tech professionals starting their careers now.
This is a conversation for anyone who wants to understand how to harness AI and advanced data integration without falling into the traps of poor data quality, overblown expectations, or short-term thinking.
In the movies, Tony Stark’s JARVIS is the ultimate AI assistant, managing schedules, running simulations, controlling environments, and anticipating needs before they are voiced. In reality, today’s AI agents are still far from that vision. Despite 2025 being heralded as the year of agentic AI, the first offerings from major players have been underwhelming. They can perform tasks, but they remain a long way from the seamless, hyper-intelligent assistants we imagined.
In this episode, Dr. Robert “Bobby” Blumofe, CTO at Akamai Technologies, joins me to explore what is really holding AI assistants back and what it will take to build one as capable as a top human executive assistant. Bobby argues that the leap forward will not come from chasing ever-larger models but from optimization, efficiency, and integrating AI with the right tools, infrastructure, and processes. He believes that breakthroughs in model efficiency, like those seen in DeepSeek, could make capable agents affordable and viable for everyday use.
We break down the spectrum of AI agents from simple, task-specific helpers to the fully autonomous, general-purpose vision of JARVIS. Bobby shares why many of the most valuable enterprise applications will come from the middle ground, where agents are semi-autonomous, task-focused, and integrated with other systems for reliability. He also explains why smaller, specialized models often outperform “ask me anything” LLMs for specific business use cases, reducing cost, latency, and security risks.
The conversation covers Akamai’s role in enabling low-latency, scalable AI at the edge, the importance of combining neural and symbolic AI to achieve reliable reasoning and planning, and a realistic five-to-seven-year timeline for assistants that can rival the best human EAs. We also look at the technical, social, and business challenges ahead, from over-reliance on LLMs to the ethics of deploying highly capable agents at scale.
This is a grounded, forward-looking discussion on the future of AI assistants, where they are today, why they have fallen short, and the practical steps needed to turn fiction into reality.
Multi-agent AI systems are moving from theory to enterprise reality, and in this episode, Babak Hodjat, CTO of AI at Cognizant, explains why he believes they represent the future of business. Speaking from his AI R&D lab in San Francisco, Babak outlines how his team is both deploying these systems inside Cognizant and helping clients build their own, breaking down organisational silos, coordinating processes, and improving decision-making.
We discuss how the arrival of optimized, open-source models like DeepSeek is accelerating AI democratization, making it viable to run capable agents on far smaller infrastructure. Babak explains why this is not a “Sputnik moment” for AI, but a powerful industry correction that opens the door for more granular, cost-effective agents. This shift is enabling richer, more scalable multi-agent networks, with agents that can not only perform autonomous tasks but also communicate and collaborate with each other.
Babak also introduces Cognizant’s open-sourced Neuro-AI Network platform, designed to be model and cloud agnostic while supporting large-scale coordination between agents. By separating the opaque AI model from the fully controllable code layer, the platform builds in safeguards for trust, data handling, and access control, addressing one of the most pressing challenges in AI adoption.
Looking ahead, Babak predicts rapid growth in multi-agent ecosystems, including inter-company agent communication and even self-evolving agent networks. He also stresses the importance of open-source collaboration in AI’s next chapter, warning that closed, proprietary approaches risk slowing innovation and eroding trust.
This is a deep yet accessible conversation for anyone curious about how enterprise AI is evolving from single, monolithic models to flexible, distributed systems that can adapt and scale. You can learn more about Cognizant’s AI work at cognizant.com and follow Babak’s insights on LinkedIn.
AI adoption in the tech sector has reached a tipping point, and the latest EY Technology Pulse poll offers a fascinating look at just how quickly things are moving. In this episode, I’m joined by Ken Englund, Partner at EY, to unpack the survey’s findings and what they reveal about the next two years of AI in enterprise. Conducted with 500 senior tech executives from companies with more than 5,000 employees, the poll focuses on AI agents, autonomous deployments, and the shifting priorities that are shaping investment strategies.
Ken shares why half of the respondents expect more than 50% of their AI deployments to be fully autonomous within 24 months, and why optimism around AI’s potential remains high. He also explains a notable shift away from last year’s heavy focus on large language models toward applied AI and agentic systems designed to handle real-world business workflows. While 92% of tech leaders plan to increase AI spending in 2026, the investment isn’t solely about technology—it’s about competitiveness, customer experience, and strategic alignment.
One of the more surprising takeaways is the human side of the equation. Despite headlines predicting widespread job losses, only 9% of respondents anticipate layoffs in the next six months, down from 20% last year. Instead, companies are balancing upskilling existing staff with bringing in new AI talent, with roles emerging in areas like MLOps, AI product management, and forward-deployed engineering.
Ken and I also dive into the growing weight of governance, data privacy, and security. With autonomous agents becoming more embedded in core operations, boards, CFOs, and audit teams are taking a closer look at trust frameworks without wanting to slow innovation. The conversation highlights a critical inflection point: most companies are still in the “automating existing workflows” phase, but the real breakthroughs will come when AI enables entirely new business models.
This episode is a snapshot of a sector in rapid evolution—where enthusiasm is tempered by lessons learned, and where the road from pilot to production is still full of challenges. You can read the full EY Technology Pulse poll here.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Steve Corbesero, Jr., Senior Director of Products and Solutions at MachineQ, a Comcast Company, about the findings from their new Lab of the Future survey. Conducted with Censuswide, the study gathered insights from more than 400 U.S.-based lab professionals, revealing both the opportunities and persistent pain points shaping modern laboratory operations.
Steve unpacks why nearly 60% of labs still face unplanned downtime from equipment failures, missed calibration schedules, and asset location issues. We discuss how manual monitoring remains the norm for over half of labs surveyed, and why 14% have no monitoring system in place at all. Despite these challenges, there’s a clear appetite for change, with 85% planning to adopt IoT solutions and 87% intending to integrate AI and machine learning into their workflows over the next two years.
Our conversation explores the operational impact of disconnected systems, the risks of relying on spreadsheets, and the role of real-time monitoring in preventing costly disruptions. Steve shares practical examples of how IoT and AI are already helping labs shift from reactive to proactive management, from anomaly detection that reduces alert fatigue to intelligent data summaries that give lab managers actionable insights without hours of manual analysis.
We also talk about the barriers holding some labs back from adoption, including pilot purgatory, budget constraints, and integration challenges. Steve offers his perspective on how future-ready labs will differentiate themselves—by embracing connected infrastructure, unifying data, and embedding AI into both scientific and operational workflows.
If you want to understand what’s really happening inside modern labs, and how emerging technology can transform efficiency, productivity, and innovation, this episode offers a clear, data-backed view of the road ahead.
Electric vehicles promise a cleaner future, but battery performance remains one of the biggest bottlenecks. In this episode, Tim Holme, co-founder and CTO of QuantumScape, takes us inside the company’s mission to build a new generation of solid-state lithium-metal batteries that could change the game for EVs and beyond.
Tim explains why the industry has been stuck with incremental improvements to lithium-ion for decades and why replacing the graphite anode with lithium metal could unlock longer range, under-15-minute charging, and improved safety. He shares how QuantumScape’s ceramic separator prevents the dendrite formation that has held back lithium-metal designs, and why this innovation can make batteries both more energy-dense and safer, even under extreme conditions.
We also discuss the company’s recent “COBRA” manufacturing breakthrough, which has increased separator production speed by roughly 200 times. This leap is key to scaling production for automotive partners like Volkswagen’s PowerCo and Murata. Tim outlines how QuantumScape is approaching commercialization through a capital-light licensing model, avoiding the pitfalls that have caused other U.S. battery innovations to be commercialized overseas.
Beyond electric vehicles, Tim sees untapped potential for solid-state batteries in grid-scale storage and at EV charging stations, where they could buffer demand and reduce grid strain. He also reflects on the global battery race, why careful partner selection is essential for protecting IP, and how the U.S. can maintain leadership in next-generation energy storage.
Whether you are interested in battery chemistry, clean tech innovation, or the business of scaling breakthrough hardware, Tim offers a rare look at the science, strategy, and partnerships shaping the future of energy storage.
Tax season scams are nothing new, but David Maimon is tracking a worrying evolution. As head of Fraud Insights at SentiLink and a professor of fraud intelligence at Georgia State University, David has been studying how organised crime groups are now blending stolen identities with generative AI and deepfake technology to outpace traditional security measures. In this conversation, he explains how identities from some of the least likely victims, including death row inmates, are being exploited to open neobank accounts, set up fake businesses, and run sophisticated bust-out schemes with a low risk of detection.
David breaks down how these operations work, from creating synthetic identities using stolen Social Security numbers to manufacturing convincing documents and faces that can pass liveness checks. He reveals the telltale signs his team uncovered, such as shared physical addresses, legacy email domains, and consistent digital fingerprints that point to coordinated fraud rings. With tools like DeepFaceLive, Avatarify, and cloned voices now being deployed to bypass authentication, he warns that the gap between criminal innovation and institutional defences can be as wide as 7 to 12 months.
We also explore why financial institutions struggle to detect these scams early, and why layered verification, combining real-time checks with historical identity analysis, is essential. David shares the threats on the horizon, from increasingly realistic AI-generated images to voice cloning attacks, and stresses the need for both technological solutions and public awareness to slow the momentum of these schemes.
Whether you work in banking, cybersecurity, or simply want to protect your own identity, this episode offers a rare look inside the tactics, tools, and vulnerabilities shaping the next wave of financial fraud. And yes, there is still time at the end for a great book recommendation and a classic Tom Petty track.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Annelise Osborne, Chief Business Officer at Kadena, former Wall Street executive, and author of From Hoodies to Suits: Innovating Digital Assets for Traditional Finance. Annelise brings more than two decades of leadership experience in finance, real estate, and digital assets, and she has spent her career bridging the worlds of institutional finance and emerging blockchain technology.
Our conversation begins with her personal journey from commercial mortgage-backed securities to the frontlines of blockchain innovation. She shares how a regulatory task force invitation led her to deep-dive into ICOs back in 2017, sparking her fascination with the potential of blockchain to modernize financial markets. That curiosity eventually became a career shift, culminating in her work at Propellr, ARCA Labs, and now Kadena.
We explore the key themes of her book, which seeks to break down the language barriers between “hoodies” (tech innovators) and “suits” (traditional finance professionals). Annelise makes the case for clear regulation, continuous education, and interoperability as the three essential pillars for mainstream blockchain adoption.
She’s candid about the misconceptions that persist in traditional finance and explains why payment solutions, tokenization, and back-office efficiencies are the practical entry points for institutions.
Annelise also gives a behind-the-scenes look at Kadena’s blockchain infrastructure, from its proof-of-work security model and low gas fees to its plans for EVM compatibility and Web2-like user experiences. She highlights real-world use cases in sports fan engagement, product lifecycle tracking, and on-chain lending, illustrating how DeFi and TradFi can merge under regulated frameworks.
Throughout the discussion, one theme is constant: the importance of finding the right partners, speaking each other’s language, and staying curious in a fast-changing industry. Whether you’re a finance professional, a blockchain developer, or simply interested in where digital assets are headed, Annelise’s insights offer a grounded yet forward-looking perspective on the future of finance.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I chat with Andy Wilson, Senior Director at Dropbox, to explore how AI is quietly but fundamentally changing how we work. Andy offers a deep dive into Dropbox Dash, an AI-powered search and knowledge management tool designed to cut through digital noise and reclaim the one thing most professionals are running out of: time.
We unpack how Dash is solving the growing problem of content sprawl by integrating with over 60 SaaS platforms, offering AI-driven answers instead of just links. Andy describes it best: the internet lets you search all of human knowledge, but good luck finding that one deck from last quarter in your company’s Google Drive. Dash aims to fix that. And it’s already doing so for teams like McLaren F1, who use the platform to coordinate high-stakes race weekends with precision and security.
We also discuss how Dropbox is adopting AI internally, from the acquisition of Reclaim.ai to enhancing virtual-first collaboration with intelligent scheduling and governance tools. For Dropbox, AI isn’t a novelty. It’s becoming the backbone of how distributed teams work better together. Andy likens it to having a personalized chief of staff, helping you prioritize, organize, and even remind you when to take a break.
Our conversation also touches on Andy’s creative roots at the BBC and Aardman, and how those experiences shaped his product thinking today. He shares real examples of how Dropbox supports content creators and knowledge workers alike, including feedback tools like Dropbox Replay and user-generated storytelling workflows powered by simple file request features.
If you're wrestling with digital overload, managing hybrid teams, or just wondering how AI can actually help without taking over, this episode is for you. Andy paints a grounded, human picture of the future of work, one where AI supports creativity and restores clarity, not chaos.
Customer service used to be seen as a cost center. Something to manage, streamline, and, if possible, outsource or automate. But what happens when AI shifts that narrative entirely?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Ryan Peterson, Chief Product Officer at Concentrix, to unpack how customer service is being reimagined as a revenue-driving engine. With 430,000 advisors handling millions of calls for brands across every major industry, Concentrix isn’t theorizing about the future. They’re building it.
Ryan shares how blending human empathy with AI efficiency is creating faster resolutions, stronger loyalty, and in some cases, serious bottom-line results. One example saw upsell revenue rise from $500,000 to $1.6 million per month simply by supporting human agents with smart, context-aware AI assistants.
We also talk about the evolution of the agent’s role. Far from replacing jobs, AI is creating a new class of specialists called agent engineers. These are people responsible for maintaining, optimizing, and guiding AI systems that now work alongside human teams. This shift is opening doors for deeper personalization, real-time translation, and richer customer engagement across channels and geographies.
Ryan also gives us a behind-the-scenes look at Concentrix’s award-winning IX...Low Platform, which was recently named Intelligent Personal Assistant of the Year. Supporting over 7,000 AI agents and offering robust security and integration capabilities, the platform is designed for scale and resilience. It's not just handling simple FAQs. From legal contract analysis to proactive service interventions, these AI agents are transforming how enterprise support works.
We close with a forward-looking conversation about hyper-personalization, ethical AI integration, and the long-term role of trust in CX strategy. Ryan’s optimism is clear, but it’s grounded in metrics, use cases, and a deep understanding of what businesses actually need to deliver meaningful customer experiences.
If you're curious about what customer service looks like when AI and humans collaborate effectively, or what it takes to move from handling complaints to driving conversion, this is the conversation you’ll want to hear.
If you've ever used IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, or Rider, you've probably already felt the impact of JetBrains. But what happens when one of the world’s most trusted software development toolmakers starts asking whether developers should completely rethink their identity?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I caught up with Kirill Skrygan, the CEO of JetBrains. Kirill’s story is something many developers will admire. He joined JetBrains as a junior developer back in 2010 and steadily worked his way through the ranks. Along the way, he helped launch new products, led remote development during the pandemic, and is now steering the company into the AI era.
This isn’t just about adding AI features to tools. Kirill is challenging long-held assumptions about what it means to be a software engineer. He believes we’re entering a new chapter where non-technical creators will build their own tools, and where proactive AI agents will help maintain and even update code automatically. It’s a bold vision, but one grounded in practical experience and responsibility.
JetBrains creates intelligent software development tools trusted by over 15 million users and 88 Fortune Global Top 100 companies.
We explored how AI is lowering the barrier to software creation, what that means for traditional developers, and why Kirill believes the shift won’t devalue their skills but rather evolve them. He shared insights into JetBrains' own AI agent, Junie, which is already being used in production environments. He also talked about Kineto, their no-code platform designed for a new generation of creators, including those who want to build apps without a computer science background.
There’s also an honest discussion around the friction points of this new wave, especially when non-engineers build tools that later need to be secured and maintained. Kirill didn’t shy away from the complexity of that challenge, but he’s optimistic that the industry can solve it.
Toward the end of the conversation, we reflected on JetBrains’ role as an independent company that doesn’t chase hype or rely on VC funding. That independence gives them the freedom to build what developers actually need, rather than what might look good on a press release.
This episode is a thoughtful look at the future of software development, leadership from inside the codebase, and the evolving relationship between humans and AI in one of tech’s most foundational professions. If you’re a developer, CTO, product manager, or simply curious about how AI is changing the craft of coding, this one’s worth your time.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I caught up with Raj Samani, Chief Scientist at Rapid7, to unpack the rapidly evolving world of ransomware. Raj has been on the front lines of cybercrime response for years and has seen firsthand how these attacks have professionalized. Gone are the days of casual ransomware notes asking for a few hundred dollars. Today, these groups operate like fully formed businesses with help desks, R&D teams, and carefully designed extortion models.
We talked about how ransomware has become a reputational risk issue more than just a technical one. Raj shared that CEOs are often more concerned about data being exfiltrated and leaked to the press than they are about systems being locked down. It’s no longer just about recovering files. It’s about trust, public perception, and the long tail of brand damage.
One of the most revealing parts of our discussion was how these attacks typically unfold. Raj walked me through real-world scenarios where criminals have remained inside networks for months, even years, before launching their final payload. He also described how careful planning, coordinated strike days, and threat intelligence can disrupt an attacker’s kill chain before irreversible damage is done.
We explored the uncomfortable truth that many organizations still fall victim to basic attacks because of poor cyber hygiene. While the threat landscape is becoming more sophisticated with the use of zero-day vulnerabilities and social engineering, many breaches still happen through exposed RDP ports or convincing phishing attempts.
Raj also offered candid insights into the ethics and complexities of ransomware negotiations, why outright banning payments may backfire, and what companies should do in the first few hours after discovering they’ve been hit. He made it clear that cybersecurity is no longer just an IT issue. It affects everything from supply chains to public services and daily life.
Is your organization prepared for the moment when ransomware moves from IT’s concern to the boardroom’s crisis?
n this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Mohib Yousufani, a senior partner at PwC who leads growth, turnaround, and digital transformation initiatives for Fortune 500 companies. Mohib brings a sharp focus on value creation, helping business leaders move beyond technology hype to deliver measurable outcomes through thoughtful digital strategies.
Our conversation begins with a hard truth: many companies are confusing technology adoption with business outcomes. Mohib shares how organizations often rush to embrace the latest AI trends or automation tools without first identifying the core problems they need to solve. That misalignment, he explains, is why many digital transformation efforts stall or fail to scale beyond pilot mode.
Mohib breaks down PwC’s approach to digital transformation, which begins by translating enterprise ambition into actionable plans. We explore how aligning business unit goals, operating models, and leadership behavior is critical to successful implementation. He also offers a candid view of why so many projects suffer from process debt and legacy friction, often ignoring the people and culture dynamics that are central to lasting change.
One of the most powerful parts of our discussion centers on how to evaluate ROI. Instead of focusing solely on cost savings, Mohib suggests expanding the lens to include revenue growth, time to market, risk mitigation, and strategic agility. He shares a compelling success story involving a CPG company that used AI and data science to optimize trade promotions and pricing, resulting in a three percent revenue lift and two percent margin expansion.
We also talk about leadership’s role in setting the tone. Culture, Mohib emphasizes, acts as a multiplier. Without executive alignment and clear behavioral modeling, even the most sophisticated tools won’t deliver the promised value.
If your organization is rethinking digital strategy, this episode is packed with insights to help you move from experimentation to real business impact. Are you building digital solutions that scale beyond buzzwords?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Fred Helou, founder and CEO of Vagaro, a platform reshaping how service-based businesses in the beauty, wellness, and fitness sectors operate in a digital world. What began as an idea sparked by a frustrating haircut booking experience during a business trip to Korea has evolved into a platform used by over 250,000 professionals worldwide.
Fred walked me through his journey from developing the concept in 1999 to officially launching Vagaro in 2009 after being laid off during the financial crisis. Along the way, he navigated shifting technology trends, from desktop tools to mobile apps and now artificial intelligence. At its core, Vagaro has always aimed to be a digital assistant for its users, allowing solopreneurs and large enterprises alike to focus on their craft while automation handles the rest.
Our conversation explored how AI is quietly transforming the day-to-day operations of small businesses. From writing emails and responding to reviews to answering customer chats and booking appointments in real time, Vagaro’s AI tools are making it easier for service providers to grow without hiring additional staff. Fred outlined a future where professionals simply set goals for their schedule and let AI optimize bookings, promotions, and customer engagement around the clock.
What stood out was Fred’s commitment to enhancing—not replacing—the human experience. He spoke candidly about the irreplaceable role of the hairdresser or personal trainer and why no one wants scissors near their neck managed by a robot. Instead, the platform empowers professionals with enterprise-grade tools once out of reach for smaller operators.
Fred also shared how his experience growing up during the Lebanese Civil War shaped his resilience as a founder. That perspective has influenced Vagaro’s long-term approach to product development, culture, and navigating uncertainty.
As AI evolves from assistance to autonomy, how is your business preparing to scale without losing the human touch that sets it apart?
In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Andy Bell, Head of Data Product Management at Precisely, to explore a challenge that many organizations continue to underestimate: the role of data integrity in AI strategies. With only 12 percent of businesses expressing confidence in the quality of their AI data, it's clear that the rush to implement AI is often outpacing the readiness of the data that supports it.
Andy and I unpack what happens when enterprises leap into generative or agentic AI without addressing foundational data issues. From hallucinations to bias to unreliable outputs, the risks are significant. As we discussed, these risks don’t just impact models — they erode trust with customers and complicate accountability, especially in regulated industries where traceability is non-negotiable.
We then explored the power of third-party data enrichment and how it can offer much-needed context that internal datasets often lack. Andy shared real-world examples, including how a major delivery company saved 65 million dollars by optimizing address accuracy and how San Bernardino County used Precisely’s wildfire risk models to improve emergency planning. These aren’t abstract use cases — they show measurable business value.
Andy also introduced the Precisely Data Link program, a solution designed to make it easier to connect, manage, and query multiple third-party datasets. With persistent IDs and flexible delivery methods through APIs, managed services, and platforms like Snowflake and Databricks, Precisely is helping organizations speed up time to value while reducing integration headaches.
Looking ahead, Andy shared how Precisely is building AI capabilities that allow users to query third-party data using natural language. This shift aims to make complex data interactions more intuitive and accessible to business users who may not be data engineers.
If data is the fuel for AI, then the quality and context of that data will define the road ahead. Is your organization doing enough to ensure its data can be trusted by the AI it deploys?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Joseph Landes, co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Nerdio, to explore how one conversation at a Microsoft conference led to a billion-dollar cloud automation company. From his 23-year career at Microsoft to building a fully remote team now supporting over five million users, Joseph’s story blends strategic risk-taking with deep industry insight.
We unpacked how Nerdio grew from a startup idea in 2018 to a company that just secured 500 million dollars in Series C funding. Joseph walked me through the early days of building the business alongside co-founder Vadim Vladimirsky and how they focused on simplifying Microsoft Azure for IT professionals and MSPs. Their goal was clear: make cloud management easier, faster, and more cost-effective through automation and policy-driven governance.
But this episode wasn’t just about cloud optimization. We also dug into Nerdio’s fully remote culture and the intentional design behind it. Joseph shared how initiatives like appointing city mayors, launching the Nerdio Break Room, and hosting an annual global kickoff have helped maintain a strong sense of community and accountability across 350 remote employees.
We also discussed why Nerdio does not compete with Microsoft. It enhances and extends Microsoft’s products, helping customers navigate Azure complexity while staying aligned with Microsoft's fast-changing roadmap. This customer-centric strategy, coupled with deep product knowledge and agility, has been key to Nerdio’s ability to scale without losing focus.
Looking ahead, Joseph shared his perspective on why AI and continuous cost optimization will shape the future of enterprise IT. He made a strong case for simplifying IT operations, empowering professionals, and turning savings into reinvestment opportunities.
In an era of complexity and noise, Nerdio’s growth story is a reminder of what can happen when you combine deep platform expertise with a culture that truly listens.
How is your organization turning cloud complexity into an advantage rather than a barrier?
The training room is changing, and it's not going back. In this episode, I sat down with Phil Friedman, the founder and CEO of CGS Inc., to explore how AI, avatars, and immersive simulations are rewriting the playbook on workplace training. With over four decades at the helm of CGS—a company he built from scratch after immigrating to the US—Phil brings a perspective shaped by both technological evolution and global business experience.
The heart of our conversation centered on Cicero, CGS’s AI-driven platform that blends artificial intelligence with extended reality to create dynamic, real-time role-play simulations. Far from just another e-learning tool, Cicero tackles one of the biggest blind spots in workforce development today: soft skills. From objection handling in medical device sales to flight attendant training and fast-food onboarding, the platform is being used to scale training faster, cheaper, and more effectively than traditional classroom or online methods ever could.
What really stood out was how Phil views this as a moment of acceleration rather than disruption. AI isn’t here to replace human trainers or eliminate roles; it's a tool that can deepen learning and speed up how people acquire both interpersonal and job-specific skills. In a world where young workers are more comfortable with gaming engines than whiteboards, the immersive, responsive nature of AI-powered simulations offers a natural fit.
Phil shared compelling stories from industries like healthcare, aviation, and fast food, where training time has been slashed from months to days. But more than the metrics, it’s the idea that training can now adapt in real time, simulate unpredictable human behavior, and offer meaningful feedback immediately that points to where we’re headed next.
As AI and XR technologies converge, what will it mean when every employee can have a personalized, just-in-time coach at their fingertips?
When we think about gene editing, the conversation often feels trapped between scientific journals and ethical debates too complex for public forums. In this episode, I spoke with Neal Baer, a rare voice who bridges both worlds.
Known to many as an award-winning television showrunner for series like ER, Law & Order SVU, and Designated Survivor, Neal is also a Harvard-trained physician and co-director of the Media, Medicine, and Health program at Harvard Medical School. His latest project brings all of that experience together in a new collection of essays that explores the promise and peril of CRISPR gene-editing technology.
Neal takes us on a journey that begins with his time as a medical resident treating a young sickle cell patient, and leads to a much broader conversation about science, ethics, and storytelling. We discuss how CRISPR is already being used to cure diseases like sickle cell, and how companies are now exploring gene edits that promise permanent reductions in cholesterol. But the real power of this discussion is not just in what CRISPR can do, but in what we still don’t fully understand about its long-term impact.
The conversation moves into difficult territory—unintended mutations, germline editing, the risk of pathologizing human diversity, and the slippery slope of “enhancement” where only those with access can benefit. Neal raises critical questions about the social cost of deciding which conditions should be “fixed” and who gets to make that call. We also dive into the lack of political and regulatory oversight, and why a global framework, not just scientific advancement, is urgently needed.
This episode offers a powerful reminder that the future of CRISPR shouldn’t be left solely to researchers or startups. It demands wide engagement, from classrooms to policymaking, and inclusive voices that challenge how we define progress.
How should we decide what counts as improvement when the very definition of being human is at stake?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcomed back Sumit Johar, CIO at BlackLine, for a timely conversation about how AI is transforming finance operations from the inside out. When we last spoke earlier this year, AI was still in the early stages of enterprise experimentation. Just a few months later, everything has shifted.
Sumit shared how AI has moved well beyond pilot programs and into a space where business leaders themselves are actively requesting implementations. What stood out in our conversation was how this change has reshaped the relationship between CIOs and CFOs. The skepticism is fading, and a stronger sense of collaboration is emerging as both sides work together to drive transformation, align strategies, and reimagine outcomes.
We explored the growing need for CIOs to be “multilingual”—not in the linguistic sense, but in their ability to navigate both technology and business. It’s no longer enough to speak in code or technical jargon. CIOs must understand finance workflows, end-to-end processes, and the operational pressures CFOs face every day. This alignment is critical when evaluating how and where to deploy AI.
Sumit also unpacked some of the core challenges around AI integration, including data quality, long-term sustainability, security, and ethical use. Unlike previous SaaS waves, AI adoption carries more complex risk vectors. Demos might impress, but real-world deployments demand rigorous controls, responsible governance, and the right culture.
The conversation covered the ongoing build versus buy dilemma, why it’s context-specific, and how BlackLine approaches those decisions with long-term scalability in mind. Sumit also shared how internal councils and cross-functional collaboration have helped guide AI strategy across the organization.
If you’re leading digital transformation or building the next phase of AI integration in your finance or IT teams, this episode offers clear, experience-driven insights.
What’s your organization doing to prepare for AI not as a concept, but as a day-to-day operational reality?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Boris Bialek, VP and Field CTO at MongoDB, for a conversation that moved well beyond databases. As AI continues to accelerate across sectors, MongoDB is positioning itself at the intersection of modern data architecture and intelligent application development. Boris shared how his team is simplifying AI adoption for enterprises, with a clear focus on real-world outcomes, developer productivity, and global inclusion.
We began by exploring MongoDB’s recent acquisition of Voyage AI. This move extends MongoDB's native capabilities into vector search, embeddings, and re-rankers, allowing developers to build AI-powered applications more efficiently. Boris explained how MongoDB is removing the complexity from AI integration by providing a unified API, collapsing what used to be 18 disconnected tools into a streamlined developer experience.
But the discussion wasn’t just about technology. Boris brought a passionate focus to the issue of financial inclusion. We talked about how AI can enable alternative credit scoring for the 27 percent of adults globally who remain unbanked. By analyzing behavioral signals such as mobile payment histories or utility data, AI can help unlock microcredit opportunities for individuals and small businesses in underserved regions. Boris shared use cases from PicPay in Brazil, M-Pesa in Africa, and Proxtera in Singapore, each demonstrating how AI and MongoDB are enabling new forms of digital trust.
We also tackled the organizational and technical hurdles to enterprise AI adoption. From fears about hallucinations to managing constant model updates, Boris described how MongoDB is building systems that prioritize transparency, auditability, and scale. With its document model and integrated tooling, MongoDB offers a stable foundation for companies navigating fast-moving AI transformations.
For developers, the platform now includes learnmongodb.com and quick-skill badges designed to make AI approachable and hands-on. And with the upcoming release of Boris’s new book, there’s more to come on how businesses can move from pilot experiments to production-grade solutions.
How is your organization rethinking its data strategy to make AI work at scale?
When we think about innovation in technology, power grids rarely enter the spotlight. Yet, they are the foundation for everything from artificial intelligence to electric vehicles and data centers.
In this episode, I spoke with Adrian Guggisberg, President of the Electrification Distribution Solutions Division at ABB, to unpack the evolving role of electrical power distribution in a world shifting rapidly toward digital infrastructure and clean energy.
Adrian joined me from Zurich to share how ABB is helping grid operators navigate an increasingly complex landscape. With rising pressure from extreme weather, surging energy demand, and growing decentralization of power sources, the traditional grid model is being challenged on multiple fronts. We explored recent high-profile outages like the Heathrow disruption and the cascading blackouts in Spain and Portugal, and what these incidents reveal about systemic vulnerabilities.
What stood out was Adrian’s clear message that resilience is no longer optional. He walked me through how switchgear plays a vital role in controlling flow, isolating faults, and restoring power with precision. Rather than waiting for outages to happen, ABB is championing a smarter, decentralized approach that supports microgrids and localized decision-making. The transition to intelligent infrastructure requires investment, digital tools, and collaboration across public and private sectors.
We also discussed the cultural and political shift required to truly modernize the grid. Adrian pointed out that while grid operators understand the urgency, public awareness and policymaker support will be key to driving progress. His optimism came through clearly, especially when he talked about ABB’s purpose in powering a more sustainable future.
If energy is the backbone of society, then conversations like this are the starting point for building something stronger. What would a smarter grid mean for the communities and industries you serve?
In a digital-first world where cybersecurity often dominates headlines, the conversation around physical security can sometimes feel like an afterthought. But what if technology could bring a new level of intelligence, proactivity, and efficiency to protecting real-world environments? In this episode, I sat down with Ryan Porter, co-founder and CEO of LVT, to learn how his team is reshaping physical security through innovation rooted in both technology and field experience.
What began in Ryan’s garage as a way to monitor construction projects through live video has evolved into a powerful enterprise platform used by 30 of the Fortune 50. LVT provides mobile security units equipped with cameras, lights, solar power, and edge-based AI capabilities that don't just observe but actively deter criminal behavior. From parking lots to retail environments, and even the Super Bowl, LVT’s presence is being felt wherever safety is at risk.
Our conversation uncovered how LVT’s approach differs from traditional reactive security models. Rather than reviewing footage after incidents happen, LVT creates controlled environments designed to prevent events before they occur. This shift toward deterrence, combined with a visible and multi-sensory presence, is producing measurable results. In cities like Paducah and Opelika, LVT’s Access Task Force program contributed to a ten percent reduction in citywide crime.
We also explored how the company overcomes the challenges of deploying AI in environments with limited power and bandwidth. By running intelligent models on edge devices, LVT delivers real-time insights in places that lack the infrastructure for heavy cloud computing. The result is a system that delivers value instantly, improves business intelligence, and enhances community safety.
This is not just about technology for its own sake. It is about building systems that serve people, keep environments secure, and foster collaboration between businesses, law enforcement, and local communities.
How are you using technology to create safer, smarter spaces in the real world?
In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I connected with Brittany Christenson, CEO of AidKit, to explore how cutting-edge technology is being used not to disrupt markets or chase margins, but to deliver real, measurable social impact. AidKit is a public benefit corporation building infrastructure that helps vulnerable communities access aid quickly, securely, and with dignity.
While many tech conversations orbit around scale and efficiency, Brittany brings a different kind of energy, one grounded in values, user empathy, and purpose-built innovation. She shared how AidKit’s journey began as a nonprofit initiative during the pandemic, evolved into a for-profit startup to attract engineering talent, and most recently achieved B Corp certification, reinforcing its long-term commitment to balancing people, planet, and profit.
We discussed what dignity and equity look like in real-world software experiences, and how user-centric design can transform burdensome forms and gatekeeping processes into streamlined, accessible interfaces that actually work for people in need. Aidkit doesn’t stop at technology. Their model also includes multilingual support, advisory councils made up of program beneficiaries, and robust fraud prevention tools that protect both funds and privacy.
One of the standout takeaways was how Brittany views trust and transparency as core features, not afterthoughts. Governments rely on Aidkit to deliver programs with high stakes and public scrutiny, and that trust is earned through a combination of technical competence, clear communication, and reliable systems. AidKit is already supporting over 200 agencies and nonprofits, has processed more than half a million applications, and recently surpassed 330 million dollars in aid disbursements, including nine million dollars in a single week.
This conversation is not just about scaling a social impact startup. It is about leading with conviction, refusing to compromise mission for growth, and using the best of what technology offers to serve communities with care.
How can your tech strategy support social outcomes without losing sight of the people it's built for?
When we talk about the future of enterprise software, AI is front and center. But behind the buzzwords, real transformation is happening in how businesses plan, execute, and deliver professional services. In this episode, I sat down with Raju Malhotra, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Certinia, to explore how AI is shifting from theory to practice in high-scale environments.
Certinia, a native ISV on Salesforce, is helping global tech and service firms like Cisco, Siemens, and PwC automate their services operations. With over two million users and six million active projects, the platform isn’t just adding AI for the sake of it. It’s embedding it directly into workflows to solve tangible business challenges. Raju shares a clear framework for understanding how different types of AI are being implemented. Predictive AI is already deeply integrated into enterprise processes. Generative AI is gaining traction for simplifying content and communication. Agentic AI, the most recent frontier, enables digital agents to complete complex tasks independently within enterprise guardrails.
What stood out in our conversation was the emphasis on outcomes over features. Raju makes a compelling case for starting every technology decision by understanding the customer's goals. Certinia’s approach avoids chasing trends for the sake of headlines. Instead, the focus is on delivering results like improved margins, higher resource utilization, and smarter project delivery.
We also discussed Certinia's early adoption of Salesforce’s Agent Force and how their team works closely with Salesforce engineering to align on AI strategy. Rebranding their ERP Cloud to Financial Management Cloud was another move that reflects their sharper focus on services-centric financials, rather than trying to be everything to everyone.
There’s a clear message in this conversation. Innovation in AI must be matched with investment in performance, latency, scale, and user experience. For any tech leader navigating the AI landscape, Raju’s insights provide a grounded, real-world guide.
How are you aligning your AI investments with measurable business outcomes?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I had the opportunity to sit down with Amanda Hamilton, patron and director at the National Association of Licensed Paralegals (NALP). While many of our discussions often focus on cutting-edge technology and digital transformation, today’s conversation tackled a very different kind of disruption, one happening quietly in the legal industry.
The legal landscape in the UK has shifted dramatically over the last decade, particularly following the 2013 legal aid cuts. This policy change left many without affordable access to legal representation. Amanda walks us through how the paralegal profession stepped in to fill that gap, providing legal support at lower costs while still maintaining high standards of professionalism and care. What stood out was how NALP functions as a voluntary regulatory body, offering credibility and structure to a sector that otherwise lacks statutory regulation.
We also explore how AI and digital tools are reshaping legal work. Amanda offers a grounded view on where technology helps and where it still cannot replace human expertise. From virtual hearings during the pandemic to the efficiency gains through email and digital collaboration, the legal profession is gradually adapting. Amanda stresses the importance of using technology thoughtfully, especially in situations where personal judgment and contextual understanding are critical.
Another important theme was transparency and trust. The National Paralegal Register is a public tool that allows individuals and employers to verify the qualifications and membership levels of licensed paralegals. Amanda believes this kind of openness is vital to building awareness and confidence in the services paralegals can offer.
So, whether you're exploring legal tech, building new professional services, or facing legal challenges yourself, this conversation sheds light on the growing role of paralegals in today’s evolving legal system.
How is your industry approaching transparency, training, and the impact of emerging technologies?
What if the average UK tech worker could reclaim almost an entire workday each week without extra hours simply by harnessing AI tools like ChatGPT and robotic process automation more effectively?
In this episode, I sit down with Oliver Latham from Pearson’s Enterprise Learning and Skills division, to unpack research revealing how intelligent automation frees tech professionals from repetitive tasks and opens space for creative strategic collaboration.
Instead of fuelling fears of mass job losses, the data reveals a more optimistic human‑centred view of how AI will reshape roles, reshuffling responsibilities rather than replacing people.
Oliver and I discuss which tasks are most ripe for automation, for example code refactoring to backup procedures, and how that shift could alleviate the UK’s tech skills shortage by letting workers focus on high impact projects. We weigh potential challenges too and note that organisations will need to rethink job design, invest in upskilling power skills such as communication and learning agility and build a culture of continuous development.
As we look ahead we explore how large language models and robotic process automation differ in their impact across roles, why learning cultures must evolve to deliver micro learning at the point of need alongside robust credentials and how teams can reorganise around a new division of labour that includes both human and AI agents. Oliver offers practical advice for tech leaders wondering where to start and how to maintain agility as change accelerates.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by AI hype or are curious how automation could give you back precious hours each week, this conversation offers fresh perspectives on AI’s real value in tech.
How would you redesign your job if you had an extra day each week, what would you stop doing and what would you start?
What if the biggest leap forward for small businesses wasn’t about selling more, but reclaiming time?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with John Waldmann, CEO and co-founder of Homebase, to unpack how AI isn’t just a Silicon Valley toy for large enterprises but a lifeline for the millions of small businesses keeping local economies afloat. John explains how Homebase’s newly launched AI Assistants are transforming everyday operations, automating hiring, scheduling, and admin tasks that once drained hours from already stretched owners and managers.
But this is more than a tech play. John shares why he’s spent his career championing small business owners, and how Homebase is designed with them, not just for them. We explore how generative AI and real-time personalization are lowering the barrier of entry to entrepreneurship, and why small businesses might actually be outpacing the big players in adopting AI with creativity and speed.
From the realities of running a restaurant to designing software that respects the nuances of hourly work, John’s perspective offers a refreshing reminder that the goal of AI isn’t to replace people. It is to give them more space to do what makes their business special.
Could AI finally tilt the playing field in favour of small businesses? And are we doing enough to ensure that human-first values stay at the centre of this technological shift?
Listen in, then let us know how you see AI transforming the small business landscape in your world.
What if the key to global access to high-quality education isn't policy reform or private investment, but open source software? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Scott Anderberg, CEO of Moodle, to explore how one of the world’s most widely used learning platforms is quietly transforming education in ways that extend far beyond the classroom.
Scott’s journey is anything but linear. From helpdesk support in Denver to leading online education efforts across the US, UK, and Australia, his international experience has shaped a clear mission: to make education more accessible, more inclusive, and more creative. His role at Moodle aligns perfectly with that goal.
We discuss what open source really means in the context of education and why it continues to be misunderstood. Scott explains how Moodle’s global community of developers and educators contributes everything from security-tested code to deeply localised customisations that enable learning to happen anywhere, even in places without electricity. Projects like MoodleBox and the Inventorium for at-risk students in Australia reveal the power of local innovation when built on flexible, open platforms.
Scott also outlines Moodle’s measured approach to AI, focusing on what delivers actual value. Rather than embedding generative tools for novelty, they’ve released an AI subsystem that allows the community to experiment and share what works. This model not only encourages innovation but also respects the diverse regulatory, cultural, and economic environments their users operate within.
Throughout the conversation, we explore the myths that often discourage adoption of open source solutions. Security, support, and scalability are frequently raised, but Scott shows how Moodle’s global ecosystem consistently challenges those assumptions. Innovation doesn’t have to be proprietary or top-down. In fact, when communities co-create solutions, the results are often more resilient and more relevant.
We close with a powerful reflection on the importance of diversity in both tech and education. While some organisations are becoming hesitant to talk about inclusion, Scott argues that now is the time to stand firm. Education is about connection, and you cannot truly connect people if only a narrow group is included in the conversation. Open platforms like Moodle make it possible to include everyone, not just in theory but in practice.
So can open source help us rebuild education in a way that is genuinely inclusive and globally relevant? Or are there still barriers that need to be broken? I’d love to hear your thoughts. What role should open platforms play in shaping the next chapter of learning?
In this episode, I sit down with Robin Smith, Chief Technology Officer at TravelPerk, to hear how one of Europe’s fastest-growing travel platforms is blending automation with empathy in a sector built on unpredictability.
Robin shares how that continuity has shaped his view of disruption, from the rise of web and mobile booking to the rapid acceleration of cloud platforms and now AI. He explains why staying rooted in a single mission has helped him stay curious and open to change in a way frequent job hopping never could.
We explore how TravelPerk is positioning itself as a consumer-grade experience built with business-grade rigour, serving mid-market companies that want seamless travel and expense tools without compromising on policies, duty of care, or integrations. Robin unpacks why large enterprises often lag in tech adoption and how nimble, decentralised teams are setting a new benchmark for innovation in corporate travel.
The conversation dives into AI’s growing role in travel, from Yokoy’s AI driven expense automation to the company’s internal enablement strategy powered by its partnership with 9x. But Robin also reminds us of something easy to forget amid all the hype: 31 percent of travelers still pick up the phone when disruption hits. The appetite for AI is growing, but human connection isn’t going away.
We also look at the invisible complexity behind making global travel feel simple, from airline add ons and multi country compliance to supporting collaborative group travel in a post pandemic world. Robin shares why the real challenge isn’t building software, it’s hiding the machinery behind a product that “just works.”
As we round off the conversation, Robin offers advice to engineers and product leaders hoping to follow a similar path. His takeaway is refreshingly honest: ignore most advice, and fall in love with the problem. It’s not about replicating someone else's journey. It’s about staying curious and building your own.
So, will AI ever fully automate travel bookings or is the human touch still too valuable to leave behind? And what does building resilience look like when the rules of travel keep changing? Tune in and let me know what you think.
What happens when the world’s most popular AI tools become ad platforms? That’s the question I put to Aaron Goldman, CMO of Mediaocean, in a candid conversation about the future of advertising, search, and AI-native experiences.
Aaron brings over two decades of industry insight to the table, sharing his perspective on how platforms like ChatGPT are becoming the next digital frontier, not just for consumer interaction but for ad monetization. As generative AI shifts from novelty to utility, the implications for marketers are profound. Google, Meta, OpenAI, and Perplexity are all experimenting with ways to integrate advertising without disrupting user experience. But what happens when the interface you trust for recommendations also serves you tailored promotions?
We explore how AI can shape embedded ads, personalize intent-driven marketing, and even facilitate transactions within the prompt itself. Aaron also reflects on the rise of AIO (AI Optimization), what it means for traditional paid search, and how agencies must adapt to tools like Model Context Protocol to stay relevant.
This episode isn’t just about platforms and protocols. It’s about empathy, creativity, and critical thinking in a world increasingly automated by algorithms. If AI becomes your co-pilot, how do you stay in the driver’s seat?
So what do you think? Will AI advertising be a seamless leap forward or the start of a trust crisis? Let me know your thoughts after the episode.
In this thought-provoking conversation, I’m joined by Kate O’Neill, author, speaker, and founder of KO Insights, to explore how leaders can make meaningful, human-centered decisions in a time of rapid AI adoption and organisational change.
Known as the “Tech Humanist,” Kate has helped everyone from Google and IBM to city governments navigate the evolving relationship between emerging technologies and the human experience.
We discuss what it really means to create a future that aligns tech innovation with human values. Rather than racing ahead with AI for its own sake, Kate argues that every organisation needs to start by clearly articulating its strategic purpose in three to five words. From there, technology should be implemented to serve people, not just processes.
Kate shares insights from her latest book What Matters Next, including how to define ethical acceleration, how to lead through tech transformations without breaking cultural trust, and why asking “should we?” is more important than “can we?” when it comes to deploying agentic AI. She also breaks down why traditional efficiency metrics fall short when applied to human work, and how business leaders can shift towards more meaningful measures of success.
We also reflect on real-world case studies, from Apple's design clarity to Duolingo's missteps in announcing its AI-first strategy. And in a world where many are using AI to automate hiring, content creation, and even strategy, Kate reminds us that wisdom, nuance, and empathy are still irreplaceable.
So what does ethical acceleration look like in practice? And as businesses lean into automation, are we keeping the human experience at the centre or just chasing what’s technically possible?
I’d love to hear your take on this. Is your organisation leading with purpose or with pressure? Let’s continue the conversation.
In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Ed Nabrotzky, CEO of Dot AI, to find out how a new generation of asset tracking technology is reshaping what’s possible in logistics, operations, and enterprise strategy. Ed brings decades of experience as an executive and innovator in RF and IoT systems, and now leads Dot Ai at the intersection of artificial intelligence, patented hardware, and cloud-powered platforms.
With global supply chains facing continued pressure from disruptions, tariffs, and rising customer expectations, Dot Ai is offering something many enterprises are still chasing: real-time visibility with context. But what sets Dot AI apart from other asset tracking providers is its full-stack approach, which combines AI, RFID, Bluetooth, and proprietary hardware to deliver predictive insights across the entire supply chain.
During our conversation, Ed explained how Dot AI’s model moves visibility from a passive reporting tool to an active intelligence layer for the business. He also shares the story behind their recent $175 million distribution agreement with Würth Industries, and what that level of demand signals about where the market is headed.
We also explore the company’s upcoming product rollouts, including ZiM Bridge, new IoT trackers, and a cloud platform built to scale. But what stands out most is Ed’s broader vision for the sector. Drawing from past ventures and academic research, he reflects on what it takes to build resilient, tech-forward operations in a world increasingly shaped by automation, connectivity, and real-time data.
How do we turn all that complexity into something simple and actionable? And what can other founders, tech leaders, and supply chain decision-makers learn from the Dot AI playbook?
As always, I’ll leave you with a question. As AI increasingly penetrates the physical world, are we doing enough to make our systems not only more innovative but also more transparent and accountable? Let me know your thoughts.
What happens when you bring together a practicing monk, a seasoned tech entrepreneur, and an AI education pioneer? In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Prashant Raizada, the driving force behind Lumi Network, to explore how we can build a workforce ready for the AI era, not just in skills, but in mindset and purpose.
Prashant shares how his journey from global banking and McKinsey to founding five startups worth over $2 billion eventually led him to education technology. But Lumi is not just another edtech venture. It's a mission-driven platform focused on upskilling the current and future workforce through human-AI collaboration, regional transformation initiatives like the Scale Up North East campaign, and a clear-eyed view of what education should look like in a rapidly changing world.
We talk about the need to rethink our approach to curriculum design, the limits of traditional university models, and why collaboration between industry, academia, and government isn’t just helpful, it’s urgent. Prashant explains why AI isn’t a threat to humans but an amplifier of our abilities when used with intention. And he shares how Lumi's "Quest" programme trains participants in collaborative problem-solving while subtly building the 12 essential skills for thriving in an AI-powered economy.
We also tackle the bigger picture: why education has often been overlooked in AI investment conversations, and what needs to change for the sector to finally unlock the $10 trillion opportunity ahead of it. Prashant doesn't shy away from the challenges but makes a compelling case for why the UK could become a global exporter of a scalable, human-centric education model.
So, what would it take to scale this nationally? And if we’re serious about upskilling 7.5 million people by 2030, who’s going to deliver it? Prashant believes startups like Lumi could be a central part of the answer and the time to act is now.
Could meaningful AI education be the missing piece in our national skills strategy? And what does real collaboration between humans and machines actually look like in practice? Let us know your thoughts after listening.
Is innovation failing because we're starting in the wrong place?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Colin Scott, Senior Vice President of DownSelect at Innventure, to challenge the default tech-first mindset that dominates R&D and corporate innovation. Instead of asking what a technology can do, Innventure flips the question: what real-world problem needs to be solved? It's a market-first philosophy, not a pitch deck philosophy, and it's led to some fascinating outcomes.
Colin walks us through Innventure's DownSelect process, a trademarked, multi-stage approach for evaluating early-stage innovation through the MATCH framework: Market, Advantage, Timeline, Capital, and High Value.
The result? Out of over 150 evaluated opportunities, just four companies have cut, including PureCycle Technologies, AeroFlexx, and Rafinity. That 5 percent conversion rate isn't a bug; it's a feature. It's the design. Colin explains why prioritising unmet strategic needs over flashy prototypes leads to better long-term outcomes for customers, partners, and the technology itself.
We also explore how Innventure fosters creative tension inside teams through something they call "Tigger Time," a framework that assigns roles for optimists and sceptics to surface risks and possibilities early in the process. It's a smart way to turn internal disagreement into forward momentum.
So, how do you approach innovation in your organisation? Are you starting with the technology or the need? Please let me know your thoughts after listening.
When AI enters the boardroom, it tends to arrive with big promises: productivity, automation, efficiency. But for Francesco Brenna, Global Leader of AI Integration Services at IBM Consulting, the real opportunity isn’t just faster workflows—it’s rebuilding how business gets done from the ground up. In this episode, recorded in the heat of a New York summer, Francesco joined me to unpack what agentic AI really means for enterprise leaders and why “doing AI right” is about more than picking the latest model.
We began by breaking down the term agentic AI, which Francesco defines as the shift from passive assistants to intelligent agents that can actually execute work, not just suggest how to do it. That might sound subtle, but it’s a huge leap. And it’s not one companies can take by simply layering AI on top of broken or inefficient processes. Instead, IBM is helping its clients rethink entire workflows, starting not with the tech stack, but with the business outcome.
Francesco explains why data readiness is still the number one challenge. While many companies have talked about modernizing their data foundations, few have done it in a way that supports grounded, contextual, reliable AI agents. He introduces the idea of “data products” as a way to anchor agent behavior in the right context, feeding into IBM’s three-layer model: user experience, orchestration, and data.
We also explored the growing role of standards like Model Control Protocol (MCP), which could make secure integration with legacy systems more realistic at scale. Francesco highlights how IBM is addressing access control, security, and governance to ensure agentic systems are not only powerful but also trustworthy and accountable.
There’s plenty here for enterprise leaders wondering how to move AI projects out of pilot mode. From real examples in customer service, insurance, and pharma, to IBM’s internal strategies for employee upskilling, Francesco shares what early success looks like and why hackathons, hands-on experience, and human-centered design are critical.
Voice has always been a powerful way to connect with customers, but until recently, voice AI struggled to deliver the kind of seamless experience we associate with great service. That is starting to change. In this episode, I catch up with Sam Richardson from Twilio to discuss the renewed momentum behind voice AI and what it means for the future of customer experience.
Sam explains why voice is gaining relevance again. It is not just because the technology has improved, but because customers still prefer natural conversations when solving problems.
According to Twilio’s research, more than half of customers want to know when they are speaking to a bot, while nearly half do not mind as long as their issue gets resolved. That balance is important. It is not about deception. It is about resolving problems efficiently without losing the human touch.
We talked about the balance between automation and empathy. Sam emphasizes the importance of escalation paths. When a customer is frustrated, repeating themselves, or directly asking for a person, they should be able to reach one. Without that, companies risk creating what he calls “reality privilege,” where only premium customers receive human support. Voice AI should serve everyone, not create unfair divides.
Sam also shared how Twilio is helping businesses adapt without replacing everything. Using API-based tools, companies can integrate voice AI into existing systems. That flexibility matters, especially since 96 percent of Twilio customers are building custom customer experience solutions to fit their specific environments. This is especially relevant in industries like hospitality, retail, and automotive.
The early results are promising. Some companies are seeing a 60 to 70 percent increase in call containment and a noticeable drop in contact volume. Customer satisfaction scores have not suffered. Still, Sam is realistic. Long-term impact takes time to measure. The key is testing thoroughly, choosing the right solution, and tracking how customers actually feel.
When we talk about cybersecurity, it’s often easy to think in terms of firewalls, passwords, and high-profile breaches. But what happens when the vulnerability isn’t within your own systems but somewhere deep in your third or fourth-tier supply chain? In this episode, I spoke with Ben Edwards from Bitsight about the unseen infrastructure propping up much of the global digital economy and the new risks emerging from it.
Our conversation begins by challenging the assumption that larger technology providers are automatically safer. Bitsight’s research reveals that scale often introduces complexity and a larger attack surface, which can make it even harder to stay secure. In fact, UK supply chains are now around 10 percent larger than the global average, reflecting a more advanced digital economy but also introducing more room for hidden weaknesses.
One of the most sobering parts of the discussion focused on geopolitics. Around 30 percent of UK and US supply chains rely on Chinese military-linked companies like Huawei and China Telecom. That’s not just a cybersecurity concern. It’s a geopolitical time bomb. Ben broke down the ripple effects that potential restrictions or bans could have, including costs, infrastructure overhauls, and widespread operational disruption.
Then there are the “hidden pillars,” smaller vendors like Aptiv and Yardi, which may not be household names but play disproportionately influential roles in sectors like aerospace, education, and real estate. Their obscurity makes them dangerous single points of failure, especially when regional dependencies form without anyone noticing.
The bottom line? End-to-end supply chain visibility remains elusive. Shadow IT, employee workarounds, and a constantly shifting tech landscape mean organizations must approach cybersecurity as an ongoing process, not a checklist. Ben urges companies to continually assess the criticality of their providers and, just as importantly, understand their own role in others’ ecosystems.
If you’re curious about how internet balkanization, AI, and outsourcing are shaping the next phase of cybersecurity strategy, this episode will give you a lot to think about. Y
IT support is changing fast, and the old service desk model is starting to feel like a relic from another era. In this episode, I spoke with Samuele Gantner, Chief Product Officer at Nexthink, about what comes next and what companies need to do now to prepare for it. With Nexthink sitting at the forefront of Digital Employee Experience (DEX) technology, Samuele offers a grounded, thoughtful look at what a "ticketless" future might look like.
One of the boldest predictions shared is a 90 percent reduction in IT support tickets by 2027. That is not marketing spin. It's a vision rooted in practical shifts toward proactive support, real-time observability, and AI-powered automation. Samuele explains how organizations can move away from reactive models by embracing intelligent agents that solve problems before a ticket is even raised. Instead of asking employees to fix things themselves, IT support is quietly transforming into something far more sophisticated and intuitive.
We talked about what drives this change, from millennial and Gen Z expectations to the technological leap enabled by large language models and automation. Samuele breaks down why old attempts at self-service failed and how today's AI agents are finally equipped to handle objective complexity with empathy, scale, and context.
He also shares examples that bring this future to life, including a retailer that avoided a costly outage through predictive alerts, a healthcare provider saving millions through experience-driven device refreshes, and an energy firm preventing disaster in a virtual desktop environment. These are not theoretical case studies. They are live proof that DEX is not just buzz. It works.
We also explored what skills IT teams need to thrive in this shift. It is not all about tech. Emotional intelligence, cross-functional collaboration, and a proactive mindset are just as important. Whether you're a CIO or a support engineer, there is something here that will challenge how you think about IT's role in the business.
AI is racing ahead, but for industries like life sciences, the stakes are higher and the rules more complex. In this episode, recorded just before the July heatwave hit its peak, I spoke with Chris Moore, President of Europe at Veeva Systems, from his impressively climate-controlled garden office. We covered everything from the trajectory of agentic AI to the practicalities of embedding intelligence in highly regulated pharma workflows, and how Veeva is quietly but confidently positioning itself to deliver where others are still making announcements.
Chris brings a unique perspective shaped by a career that spans ICI Pharmaceuticals, PwC, IBM, and EY. That journey taught him how often the industry is forced to rebuild the same tech infrastructure again and again until Veeva came along. He shares how Veeva’s decision to build a life sciences-specific cloud platform from the ground up has enabled a deeper, more compliant integration of AI.
We explored what makes Veeva AI different, from the CRM bot that handles compliant free text to MLR agents that support content review and approval. Chris explains how Veeva’s AI agents inherit the context and controls of their applications, making them far more than chat wrappers or automation tools. They are embedded directly into workflows, helping companies stay compliant while reducing friction and saving time. And perhaps more importantly, he makes a strong case for why the EU AI Act isn’t a barrier. It’s a validation.
From auto-summarising regulatory documents to pulling metadata from health authority correspondence, the real-world examples Chris offers show how Veeva AI will reduce repetitive work while ensuring integrity at every step. He also shares how Veeva is preparing for a future where companies may want to bring their LLMs or even run different ones by geography or task. Their flexible, harness-based approach is designed to support exactly that.
Looking ahead to the product’s first release in December, Chris outlines how Veeva is working hand-in-hand with customers to ensure readiness and reliability from day one. We also touch on the broader mission: using AI not as a shiny add-on, but as a tool to accelerate drug development, reach patients faster, and relieve the pressure on already overstretched specialist teams.
Chris closes with a dose of humanity, offering a book and song that both reflect Veeva’s mindset, embracing disruption while staying grounded. This one is for anyone curious about how real, applied AI is unfolding inside one of the world’s most important sectors, and what it means for the future of medicine.
What does modern cybersecurity look like when you're leading a federally regulated financial institution serving Canadians from coast to coast?
In this episode, recorded at Cisco Live last month, I sat down with Shawn Spurko, VP of Information and Cybersecurity at Innovation Federal Credit Union. Based in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, but now operating across the country, Shawn Spurko has played a key role in building a security posture that treats laptops as offices and supports a workforce no longer tethered to physical locations.
Shawn Spurkoshares his journey from service desk and web design to becoming a cybersecurity leader, and offers a refreshingly grounded view of how to approach regulation, zero trust, and digital maturity. He explains how Innovation CU’s move from a provincial to a federal charter transformed their compliance obligations and how solutions like Cisco Secure Access enabled them to scale security seamlessly for a hybrid workforce.
We explore why transparent, user-friendly security is no longer optional and how mature implementations of SWG, ZTNA, DLP, and management tunnels are quietly solving problems before users even notice them. Shawn Spurkoalso opens up about the practical realities of working with tools that are constantly evolving, and how his team reviews every new feature not just for capability but for how it maps to regulatory controls like Canada’s OSFI B-13.
This episode is a masterclass in modern cyber strategy, but it’s also a reminder that the goal isn't complexity, it’s making things work, everywhere, all the time.
So, as the cybersecurity landscape continues to shift and regulators tighten expectations, how are you designing systems that work for both users and auditors? And what lessons can we all learn from financial services as we navigate this new world of anywhere access?
In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Alberto Prado, Head of Digital and Partnerships for R&D at Unilever, to explore how one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies is reimagining innovation using AI. And not just in theory or in labs. This is technology already transforming the stuff most of us use every single day.
From Dove body wash to Knorr stock cubes, Unilever products reach more than 3.4 billion people globally. That scale makes their R&D choices deeply relevant to how we live. What stood out in this conversation is how deeply integrated AI has become across their research efforts. This isn’t about one flashy pilot project. Unilever currently runs over 400 AI initiatives across areas like microbiome science, biotechnology, and next-generation materials. Each one is focused on improving product performance, making items more sustainable, or creating personalized experiences for consumers.
Alberto shared how Unilever’s decades-long microbiome research is being accelerated through machine learning and high-performance computing. With over 30 terabytes of data and more than 100 patents, the company now holds one of the largest collections of human microbiome data in the world. That insight has directly influenced products like Dove and Vaseline and has led to innovations like the POND’S Microbiome Analyzer, which offers personalized skincare recommendations within an hour.
In the field of biotechnology, Unilever is working with partners like Arzeda to create enzymes that outperform traditional cleaning agents, all while being more sustainable. A great example is the breakthrough behind RhamnoClean technology in Sunlight dishwashing liquid. By mimicking natural fermentation processes, Unilever can now produce bio-based surfactants that clean effectively, reduce water use, and are kinder to the planet.
We also discussed how AI-driven virtual testing is replacing thousands of physical prototypes. This shift is helping Unilever rapidly develop new products like the Wonder Wash laundry detergent and Knorr’s Zero Salt Cube. Alberto explained how digital models can simulate everything from stain removal in different wash cycles to how a cube holds together without salt, long before any physical version is made.
And then there’s the R&D Assistant, Unilever’s own AI-powered co-pilot built in partnership with Microsoft. It connects over 150,000 scientific documents from across a century of research, letting scientists query insights in natural language. For Unilever’s 5,000 researchers, it’s not just a time saver. It’s changing how they discover, collaborate, and innovate.
This episode is a window into how legacy companies can drive transformation from within. Innovation isn’t just happening in new industries or through startup culture.
Sometimes it’s happening inside a washing machine cycle or a bottle of shampoo. So the question is, what can other large-scale enterprises learn from the way Unilever is scaling AI across its entire product development ecosystem?
What does it take to build a $100 billion cybersecurity company in today’s cloud-first, AI-infused world? And how do you balance relentless technological change with the practical realities of compliance, risk, and leadership? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Sumedh Thakar, CEO of Qualys, during his visit to the UK for the company’s QSC conference. From starting out as one of Qualys’ first engineers to leading the company through a new era of risk-centric cybersecurity, Sumedh brings a unique blend of technical insight and lived experience.
We discuss why compliance remains such a challenge for enterprises, how the conversation is shifting from attack surfaces to risk surfaces, and why many businesses are overwhelmed by security signals but underwhelmed by strategic clarity. Sumedh shares his view on the growing importance of the Risk Operations Center (ROC) and how AI is complicating risk profiles in new and unpredictable ways. He also reflects on the future of cloud security and why the market remains wide open for innovation, even as it becomes more crowded.
Beyond the tech, Sumedh opens up about his personal journey from Pune to Silicon Valley, how a threatened farm purchase changed his life, and why leadership is ultimately a game of time, trust, and communication. He leaves us with a powerful book recommendation, Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, which he credits with transforming his leadership style and helping him build stronger relationships across the board.
Are we thinking about risk in the right way or simply throwing money at the latest acronyms? And how do you build a meaningful legacy in cybersecurity without losing sight of the human side?
Join the conversation and let me know what resonated with you most.
Are we preparing people as quickly as we’re preparing machines? That’s the uncomfortable question at the heart of Coursera’s 2025 Global Skills Report, and the starting point for my conversation with Nikolaz Foucaud, Coursera’s Managing Director for EMEA.
As the UK jumps more than 20 spots in global skills rankings and countries like Singapore and Denmark widen the gap with lifelong learning cultures, we explore why mindset may be as important as access when it comes to reskilling for an AI-driven economy.
Nikolaz explains how the newly introduced AI Maturity Index reflects the growing urgency around workforce readiness and why governments and employers need to stop thinking in degrees and start investing in micro-credentials that reflect what learners and businesses actually need. We also unpack the gender gap in AI learning, the alarming lack of growth in cybersecurity skills, and why economic pressure often drives the highest levels of completion and success.
As institutions, employers, and individuals try to catch up with the pace of technological change, what will it take to build a learning culture that keeps momentum? And are we measuring the right things when we talk about readiness? Let me know what you think.
What happens when AI moves from experimental tool to everyday shopping assistant? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Liva Ralaivola, Head of the Criteo AI Lab, to unpack how artificial intelligence is reshaping the way we discover, compare, and purchase products online.
Speaking to me from the south of France, Liva shares insights from Criteo’s latest consumer research, revealing that 91 percent of shoppers expect AI-personalised recommendations within the next two years. We explore why that shift is happening so quickly, what it means for retailers, and the challenges of balancing innovation with transparency. From price comparisons to budget planning and dynamic creative generation, shoppers are already using AI tools in ways that few could have predicted even a year ago.
We also discuss the complexity of integrating AI into retail environments, where business constraints, stock levels, and customer expectations vary dramatically. Liva highlights how Criteo is tailoring deep learning models to improve relevance, optimise campaigns, and support ethical outcomes. He also explains why AI is not yet plug-and-play, and why collaboration between AI specialists and business teams is key to unlocking real value.
Looking ahead, Liva shares his thoughts on how data may evolve into a kind of personal currency, with users controlling what they share and how much personalisation they receive. From AI wallets to loyalty programs driven by interaction history, the landscape is changing fast—and businesses need to be ready.
So what’s your take? Are consumers ready to control their own data in exchange for more relevant experiences? And how should retailers rethink personalisation in an age of growing privacy expectations? Let me know your thoughts and join the conversation.
How do we prepare for a world where AI agents work together, networks think for themselves, and quantum teleportation is no longer just science fiction? I recently caught up once again with Vijoy Pandey, SVP and GM of Outshift by Cisco, live at Cisco Live in San Diego, for a wide-ranging conversation about what comes next at the edge of AI and quantum innovation.
We begin with Cisco’s evolving quantum strategy and the recent unveiling of its Quantum Network Entanglement chip, a research prototype capable of generating 200 million entangled photons per second over standard telecom infrastructure.
Vijoy explains how this chip, along with new research at Cisco’s lab in Santa Monica, brings us closer to distributed quantum computing by connecting compute nodes and scaling quantum capabilities beyond the lab. Even more interestingly, these quantum foundations are already demonstrating value in classical use cases, such as eavesdropping detection and real-time coordination.
Our conversation also explores the momentum behind agentic AI. Rather than single prompts triggering single outputs, the future lies in distributed ecosystems of intelligent agents that work together to solve complex business problems.
Vijoy introduces Cisco’s vision for the Internet of Agents, supported by an open-source collective called AGNTCY. It is designed to help diverse agents communicate, collaborate, and operate with trust and transparency across cloud environments and organizational boundaries.
Throughout our conversation, Vijoy focuses on the practical impact rather than hype. From network automation and SRE workflows to use cases in cybersecurity and infrastructure management, he highlights how these technologies are being applied in real-world scenarios, not just theorized. His team at Outshift is building the connective tissue that brings these innovations to life inside the enterprise.
So what do you think? Are quantum networking and AI agents a part of your roadmap? And what steps can businesses take today to ensure they are building on trustworthy, open, and scalable foundations? Join the conversation and share your perspective.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Candice DeVille, co-founder and CEO of AI Copilot, who joined me remotely from the serene gardens of Osaka Castle in Japan, where tech meets tradition in one of the most unexpected podcast backdrops we've had.
Candice is on a mission to redefine how small and medium-sized businesses approach AI, treating it not as a trend but as a practical strategy for growth and efficiency. Throughout our conversation, she draws on decades of experience in marketing, media, and digital strategy to explain how SMEs can move away from fear-driven stagnation or scattered adoption and toward a structured, ROI-focused roadmap.
We explore the practical challenges that come with implementing AI, from dealing with siloed data and low AI literacy to helping teams embrace change. Candice explains why many organizations fail at AI not because of the tools, but because they overlook the human element. Creating a team of AI champions, especially outside of traditional IT roles, can unlock powerful opportunities by tapping into the unique insights held across the business.
A standout moment in our discussion is a case study involving a maintenance company that used AI to automate debt collection. The result wasn't just improved cash flow but something far more personal: their CFO regained two full days per week and used that time to spend with his family. It's a simple example of AI driving real outcomes for both business performance and quality of life.
We also discuss common traps like shiny object syndrome, lack of planning, and the hype around agents. Candice encourages business leaders to first get their data in order, take a phased approach, and resist the urge to solve everything at once. Her advice is clear: start with what matters, measure impact, and build from there.
So how do you turn AI into a business advantage without overwhelming your team or your budget? And how can you ensure that your approach to technology actually enhances the human side of work?
Let’s find out.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Syed Zaeem Hosain, Founder and Chief Evangelist at Aeris.
This conversation comes at a critical moment. Deloitte’s 2024 Cyber Threat Trends Report reported a 400 percent surge in IoT malware attacks across industries. Forrester has gone further, warning that a major IoT breach could disrupt a large class of devices by 2025. With the stakes higher than ever, my guest shares his vision for protecting a hyperconnected world.
We explore the growing risks in sectors like healthcare, energy and transportation, where compromised devices could have serious real-world impact. He also explains why IoT security can no longer be treated as an afterthought and how Aeris is tackling the problem with AI-powered solutions like IoT Watchtower, designed to detect and respond to threats at scale.
He also addresses the shifting regulatory landscape, from the EU's NIS2 Directive to the upcoming Cyber Resilience Act. These frameworks are beginning to push organisations toward stronger protections and greater accountability. But are they moving fast enough?
My guest outlines where he believes the future of IoT security is heading and what enterprises need to do now to avoid being caught off guard. From embedded AI to next-generation cellular infrastructure, this is a conversation that connects the dots between innovation, risk and responsibility.
So how prepared is your organisation for the coming wave of IoT threats? Are we securing what matters most, or sleepwalking into a preventable crisis?
Let me know what you think. Is IoT security finally getting the attention it deserves, or are we still too focused on convenience over caution? Join the conversation and share your thoughts.
Check out the Internet of Things for Business book.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Gus van Rijckevorsel, the energetic new CEO of Ultra, who's on a mission to redefine how we access, experience, and value games. Speaking from the sunny backdrop of Nice, Gus shares why now is the moment for Europe to stop playing catch-up and start leading the charge in shaping the future of on-chain gaming, digital ownership, and platform sovereignty.
Backed by a fresh $12 million in funding, Ultra is not trying to be a better version of Steam. It wants to be something entirely different. Gus pulls no punches on the complacency of today's dominant platforms. He explains why Ultra's "super app" approach, blending social interaction, gameplay, creator tools, and blockchain infrastructure, is uniquely positioned to serve today's evolving gamer. This includes not just players, but watchers, creators, and earners.
We explore what makes Europe the perfect launchpad for Ultra's ambitions. From its dynamic tech ecosystem to the growing urgency around digital sovereignty, Gus argues this is no longer just a business case. It is a political and strategic necessity. He outlines how Web3 can quietly enhance gaming without overwhelming users, and why the traditional idea of play-to-earn needs a serious rethink. For Gus, recognition and reputation matter more than speculative tokens.
We also discuss what success looks like for Ultra. For Gus, this is not a gradual climb. It will either be massive or it will not exist at all. Along the way, he shares his personal story of being drawn back into the world of company building after vowing never to do it again. And why this particular "unpolished diamond" was impossible to ignore. So is it finally time for a European challenger to rewrite the rules of gaming? Can a platform that puts value creation at its core break through the dominance of established players?
Let me know your thoughts. Is Ultra the fresh start gaming needs, or is the market simply too entrenched to shift? Join the conversation and tell us what you think.
What if the songs we love and the artists behind them could finally be compensated fairly, across every platform, every play, and every country? In today’s episode, I sit down with Michael Huppe, President and CEO of SoundExchange, to unpack how this music tech nonprofit is challenging the very foundations of how royalties are calculated and distributed.
Michael shares how SoundExchange, which has now distributed over $12 billion to artists and rights holders, is not just administering royalties but actively shaping the policies and technologies that govern the future of music. We explore their groundbreaking use of AI for fraud detection and royalty matching, as well as the advocacy behind the American Music Fairness Act, a long-overdue effort to ensure artists are paid for terrestrial radio plays, a right still denied in the US but granted nearly everywhere else.
The conversation turns toward the growing tension between innovation and creator protection in the age of generative AI.
Michael discusses how SoundExchange is balancing these forces by backing ethical standards like the Human Artistry Campaign and lobbying for policies that prioritize consent, credit, and compensation. He also touches on fascinating use cases for AI in music, such as voice localization, signature sound licensing, and even resurrecting voices of beloved artists like Randy Travis.
We also discuss SoundExchange’s vision for the future, one where its expertise in large-scale, data-driven payouts could help solve the thorny question of compensating artists whose works are used to train generative AI models. From indie musicians to global superstars, the impact of this work is vast, nuanced, and increasingly urgent.
So, how do we build a future where technology and creativity can coexist and both thrive? And who’s making sure the voices behind our favourite tracks aren’t lost in the noise of innovation?
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Are we doing enough to protect artists in the digital era? Let me know
After meeting on the IT Press Tour, I enjoyed a conversation with Michael Wu, President and General Manager of Phison US, about the revolutionary advances in AI-enabled storage technology.
We begin by exploring Phison's AdaptivePlus platform and its integration with StoreOne's AI solution, making AI training more accessible and affordable for businesses. We also discuss the technical innovations behind their storage-based AI acceleration, including their new E28 controller and Pascari SSDs.
Finally, we discuss the future of AI workloads and how Phison's technology is preparing to handle models with up to 2 trillion parameters. This episode is packed with insights for IT leaders, business executives, and anyone interested in the intersection of storage technology and artificial intelligence.
In a candid conversation with Zendesk CTO Adrian McDermott, it's become clear that enterprise AI has reached a pivotal moment. We're witnessing the end of AI theater and the emergence of practical platforms delivering real business value. "We're moving from chapter one to chapter two of the application of generative AI," McDermott explains. "It's not just party tricks anymore - it's platforms. And we're really building things that have value and meaning." The Rise of Platform Thinking The shift from isolated AI features to comprehensive platforms marks a significant evolution in enterprise technology. Companies are no longer satisfied with flashy demonstrations - they demand measurable outcomes and clear ROI. This transformation is evident in Zendesk's new resolution platform, which integrates multiple AI capabilities into a cohesive system. The New Economics of AI Implementation Zendesk has pioneered outcome-based pricing for AI agents in the customer experience industry - a significant departure from traditional seat-based pricing models. This approach aligns vendor success directly with customer outcomes. "You should really be able to run a model that would prove and predict the ROI upfront," McDermott notes, highlighting the increasing sophistication of AI implementation. Customers now expect vendors to demonstrate clear business value before deployment. Voice: The Critical Escalation Channel Despite predictions of voice's decline, it remains crucial in an AI-first world. McDermott explains: "In a world of automation, the escalation channel is voice, and you need it to be tightly integrated." The future of voice in customer service is being reimagined through: * Seamless integration with AI systems * Warm handoffs between digital and voice channels * Enhanced context preservation across interactions * Real-time analytics and support
The Resolution Platform Framework Zendesk's resolution platform represents a comprehensive approach to customer service, incorporating: * Customer-facing AI agents * Agent copilot systems * Automated content generation * Continuous analysis and quality assurance * Unified governance and measurement
Looking Ahead: The iPhone Moment? McDermott poses a crucial question: "Are we building Windows Mobile on top of generative AI, or is there innovation and disruption to come?" This reflection suggests we're still in early stages, with significant disruption ahead. Key Takeaways 1. Enterprise AI has matured beyond demonstrations to delivering measurable outcomes 2. Platform approaches are replacing point solutions 3. Voice remains critical in an AI-first service strategy 4. Economic alignment between vendors and customers is essential 5. Continuous innovation and adaptation are necessary
The shift from AI theater to practical platforms marks a new era in enterprise technology. Organizations must now focus on building comprehensive, outcome-driven AI strategies rather than chasing individual features or capabilities.
As AI continues to dominate headlines and crypto continues to evolve behind the scenes, the real story may lie in their convergence.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Dan Kim from Coinbase to discuss how these two technologies are shaping the future of digital commerce and development.
Dan leads the Coinbase Developer Platform, a project focused on simplifying blockchain development for millions of developers worldwide. He shared how the platform abstracts away complexity through familiar SDKs and APIs, removing the need for deep blockchain expertise. This isn’t just about making it easier to code on-chain. It’s about opening the door for new kinds of applications, many of which are being driven by AI.
We dug into the emerging concept of "agentic commerce," where AI agents can autonomously carry out transactions using blockchain infrastructure. These agents are now capable of acting on our behalf, making purchases and managing digital assets within defined parameters. This shift is already changing how developers think about building tools for e-commerce, travel, and digital services.
Dan also discussed the evolving role of creators in this new landscape. Blockchain technology combined with AI is creating new ways to monetize content, build applications, and launch experiences without relying on traditional platforms. He even shared a personal example—his own AI-powered music project that turns complex crypto topics into relatable Top 40 tracks.
From the reawakening of HTTP’s long-forgotten 402 payment code to the real-world implications of AI agents handling financial transactions, this conversation revealed just how quickly things are moving. For developers and business leaders alike, the fusion of AI and crypto is no longer speculative. It’s here, and it’s changing how we interact, build, and pay.
What happens when a customer service platform stops thinking like a vendor and starts operating like a partner? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Andrew Lawson, EVP and GM for Zendesk Europe, to explore how the company is redefining the future of customer experience through AI, innovation, and a customer-first mindset.
Zendesk may be a global name, but its European roots and strategic growth across the continent tell a story of evolution. From its founding in Copenhagen to becoming a powerhouse that supports over 100,000 customers globally, Zendesk has remained focused on one thing: being the best in customer service. Andrew and I unpack how this commitment translates into real-world outcomes, from faster resolution times to dynamic partnerships with top UK brands like Tesco, Next, and Liberty London.
One of the standout themes of our discussion is the company’s investment in Agentic AI, designed to handle up to 80 percent of customer interactions while leaving high-touch cases to human agents. We also dive into Zendesk’s outcome-based pricing model, a shift that aligns success with resolution rather than licenses or agent seats. Andrew offers insights into why this change reflects a broader market expectation for ROI-driven platforms.
We also touch on the company’s five acquisitions over the last 18 months, including Local Measure, and how these moves strengthen Zendesk’s capabilities in the CCAS space and deepen integrations with platforms like AWS Connect. As AI continues to shape customer and employee experiences, the conversation explores not just the technology but also the challenges, especially around execution, platform stability, and cybersecurity.
So, what should business leaders be doing right now to balance rapid AI adoption with responsible deployment? How are enterprise expectations evolving in the face of economic pressure and customer demand? And what does it mean to lead in customer service when the rules are changing fast? Tune in to hear Zendesk’s perspective from the frontlines of transformation.
In a world where payments have evolved from a back-office utility into a strategic business driver, how do you build a platform that truly puts control back into the hands of merchants? On this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Dwaine Thomas, CIO of PXP, to explore how the company is transforming the payment landscape with its next generation platform, PXP Unity.
PXP has been a force in fintech for over 30 years, processing over €30 billion in payments annually for some of the world’s most recognised retail, hospitality, entertainment, and online gaming brands. But rather than rely on legacy systems, PXP has gone all in on greenfield development with PXP Unity, a fully API driven orchestration platform that enables merchants to plug into the services they need without the complexity of managing the entire payment stack.
Dwaine walked me through how Unity empowers businesses with real-time data aggregation, smart routing, and complete transparency, all delivered through an intuitive interface. He also shared how the platform supports seamless scaling during high-demand periods, like Black Friday, and provides merchants with both control and automation to optimise payment performance across channels.
What stood out was the clear shift in mindset. Sixty-four percent of merchants now view payments as a growth enabler, not just a necessity. With Unity, merchants gain the flexibility to adapt strategies on the fly, personalise the payment experience, and align payments with broader business goals.
We also explored the growing role of AI in PXP’s roadmap, from driving development efficiencies to enabling future use cases like AI agents within payment flows. As regulation evolves, Dwaine highlighted how initiatives like the FCA’s AI sandbox point to a more proactive and structured approach to innovation in the payments space.
So how can enterprises unlock new value from their payments infrastructure? How do you build for performance, resilience, and adaptability in equal measure? And what happens when payments become central to customer experience and brand loyalty? Tune in to hear how PXP is answering those questions with technology that is both powerful and practical.
What happens when you stop thinking of satellites as data collectors and start thinking of them as data analysts? That is precisely the shift we explore in today's episode of Tech Talks Daily with Michael Bartholomeusz, CEO of NOVI.
Traditionally, Earth observation has relied on satellites to capture massive volumes of raw data, which is then transmitted back to Earth for processing. However, this model presents several significant challenges: cost, latency, and complexity. NOVI is flipping this model on its head. Instead of sending terabytes of data back down, their satellites analyze it in orbit and only transmit the results. That means smaller data packets, faster insights, and drastically reduced costs.
Michael and I dig into how NOVI's space-based edge computing infrastructure is opening new opportunities in defense, agriculture, mining, and more. With multiple sensors onboard each satellite and a proprietary AI processing platform, NOVI enables organizations to fuse and process Earth observation data in real time. It is a shift from intelligence as a feature to intelligence as the foundation.
We also discussed NOVI's evolving roadmap as it transitions from Department of Defense projects to a dual-use model that includes commercial services. Their commercial constellation is set to launch in early 2026 aboard SpaceX Transporter missions, and the company is already onboarding early adopters who are building custom inference models in preparation for this launch.
What stands out in this conversation is NOVI's goal of democratizing Earth observation. Their open-access platform enables users to retain full ownership of their data, marking a significant departure from the closed systems that currently dominate the industry. Lower cost, faster processing, and open access could change who benefits from space data and how.
So, what does it take to process AI in orbit? How do we reimagine satellites as part of the compute layer, not just the sensor layer? And what happens when access to real-time Earth intelligence becomes available to more than just governments and large enterprises? Listen in to find out.
Just two years ago, the launch of GPT-4 required the support of hundreds of experts, intensive computing power, and vast coordination. Today, that same process could be executed by a team of five. That is not an exaggeration. It is a signal of just how rapidly AI development is accelerating. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Gagan Tandon, Managing Director of AI & Data Services at TELUS Digital Solutions, to explore what is behind this extraordinary shift.
From the evolution of AI chip design to the efficiency gains from smarter algorithms and open-source tools, Gagan offers a clear and grounded look at how AI training has become more accessible and less resource-intensive. But the bigger question is, what can we do with that efficiency? For Gagan, the answer lies in impact. Whether it is addressing bottlenecks in global supply chains, enhancing diagnostics in healthcare, or reducing fraud in financial services, these advances in AI development are not just theoretical. They are opening new doors for innovation across industries.
We also explored how TELUS Digital Solutions supports enterprise transformation through its Fuel iX platform, which helps organisations transition from GenAI pilots to scalable, secure, ethical, and practical production systems. Gagan shared examples of how large-scale transformation can be approached with agility, especially when AI is aligned to specific business outcomes rather than simply layered on top of existing systems.
This conversation goes far beyond model training. It is about what's next in AI operationalization, what business leaders should prioritize when it comes to adoption, and how to avoid common pitfalls as technology continues to evolve faster than many are prepared for.
So how did we go from 300 engineers to five? What should enterprises be doing right now to take advantage of this momentum? And how can we make sure that efficiency does not come at the cost of responsibility? Join us as we explore the answers.
When I last spoke with Gaurav Kapoor five years ago, we were in the thick of a global pandemic. Remote work was still a novelty for many, AI was a distant concept for most businesses, and regulatory frameworks were trying to keep pace with the speed of technological change. Fast forward to today, and the conversation around AI and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) has shifted dramatically. This made it the perfect time for a long-overdue catch-up.
In this episode, I welcomed back Gaurav, Vice Chairman and Co-founder of MetricStream, to discuss the changing face of GRC in an AI-driven world. AI has now reached a level of ubiquity that places it alongside electricity and Wi-Fi as a foundational layer of both business and everyday life. But with that integration comes risk, and with risk comes the need for smarter, more adaptive governance.
Gaurav shared how AI is no longer just about efficiency gains. It is becoming embedded into the fabric of enterprise risk frameworks, from real-time regulatory monitoring to predictive analytics and risk forecasting. We talked about the impact of the current political climate, including policy shifts following President Trump’s return to office and how deregulation narratives are colliding with the complexity of global compliance expectations.
This was not just a theoretical discussion. Gaurav broke down real-world use cases that show how large enterprises are navigating everything from redundant compliance testing to emerging threats discovered through AI-driven analysis. He also spoke candidly about the challenges ahead, how companies can fall behind if they wait too long to modernize their frameworks, and what is at stake when they fail to build trust into their AI systems.
So how do you evolve GRC in an age where the pace of change is relentless? What role does AI really play in risk leadership today? And how can companies move from reactive to proactive without losing control? Join me as we explore the next chapter of GRC with one of its leading voices.
In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Matt Dawes, Head of Enterprise Sales at HALOS, to explore the fast-moving world of security technology and how body-worn cameras are rapidly transforming the way businesses approach accountability, staff safety, and incident response.
HALOS is rethinking body-worn video with a fresh approach that doesn’t stop at hardware. From their subscription-based service model to a real-time AI-powered backend system, their tech stack is designed to meet the growing demands of both frontline teams and the organizations supporting them. During our conversation, Matt shared how the company’s origins during the COVID-19 period shaped its purpose and culture and how it has scaled across the UK, Ireland, and the US following its Series A funding in early 2024.
We explored how HALOS uses AI for proactive threat detection and fall detection, which is still under development, and how their cloud-based platform, Vault, plays a critical role in evidence management and seamless integration with broader security ecosystems. Matt also shared insights into how their system is already making an impact in sectors such as retail, where the focus isn’t solely on theft prevention but also on ensuring frontline workers feel supported and protected against a backdrop of increasing aggression and workplace incidents.
One of the standout aspects of the conversation was HALOS’ pricing model, which offers all features, including panic alerts and live streaming, under one monthly subscription. This structure eliminates the hidden costs that often hinder full deployment, allowing clients to scale their coverage without compromise.
So, how is the security technology space evolving? What role does AI play in improving situational awareness? And how can tech leaders ensure their investment protects people on the ground? Please tune in to hear how HALOS is positioning itself at the intersection of innovation and frontline security.
How do we bridge the skills gap in UK manufacturing while pushing the boundaries of automation technology? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Mark Gray, UK and Ireland Country Manager at Universal Robots, to explore how collaborative robots, or cobots, are rewriting the rules for companies big and small. Universal Robots, founded by three university professors in Denmark about twenty years ago, brought the world its first cobot and recently celebrated a landmark achievement with the sale of its 100,000th unit worldwide.
Mark unpacks how this milestone reflects a shift in how industries from aerospace to pharmaceuticals now approach automation. He shares how the company’s easy-to-deploy cobots help tackle the tasks that many workers prefer to avoid, focusing on the dirty, dangerous, and repetitive jobs, freeing human talent for higher-value work. But this conversation goes deeper than robot arms on production lines. Mark’s passion lies in addressing the UK’s well-documented skills shortage, a topic that resonates with manufacturers across the country.
He explains why Universal Robots is investing in free technical training courses for apprentices, aiming to equip young people with practical robotics skills and inspire fresh interest in engineering and manufacturing careers. Based in Sheffield, Mark also reveals how the city’s industrial heritage and its connections with institutions like the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre help nurture a vibrant robotics ecosystem, attracting startups and fostering local innovation.
We discuss the growing adoption of cobots by small and medium-sized enterprises, the impact of labour shortages on automation strategies, and how businesses can begin their journey without overhauling entire production lines at once. From practical roadshows to free line-walk audits, Mark outlines the resources available for any company curious about automation.
Whether you’re a manufacturing leader looking for ways to future-proof operations or a young listener intrigued by robotics as a career, this episode shows how thoughtful investment in skills and technology can shape a more productive and resilient future for the UK and beyond.
Could cobots be the missing link between today’s workforce challenges and tomorrow’s manufacturing success? Let’s find out.
Here’s the link to the Kraftwerk video
How do you keep complex digital experiences running smoothly when every layer, from networks to cloud infrastructure to applications, can break in ways that frustrate customers and burn out IT teams? This question is at the heart of my conversation recorded live at Cisco Live in San Diego with Patrick Lin, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Observability at Splunk, now part of Cisco.
In this episode, Patrick explains how observability has evolved far beyond simple monitoring and is becoming the nerve centre for digital resilience in a world where reactive alerts no longer cut it. We unpack how Splunk and Cisco ThousandEyes are now deeply integrated, giving teams a single source of truth that connects application behaviour, infrastructure health, and network performance, even across systems they do not directly control.
Patrick also shares what these two-way integrations mean in practice: faster incident resolution, fewer blame games, and far less time wasted chasing false alerts. We explore how AI is enhancing this vision by cutting through the noise to detect real anomalies, correlate related events, and suggest root causes at a speed no human team could match.
If your business depends on staying online and your teams are drowning in disconnected data, this conversation offers a glimpse into the next phase of unified observability and assurance. It might even help quiet the flood of alerts that keep IT professionals awake at night.
How is your organisation tackling alert fatigue and rising complexity? Listen in and tell me what strategies you have found that actually work.
What happens when education stops being about a rigid curriculum and starts focusing on what genuinely sparks a child’s curiosity? This question sits at the heart of my conversation with Amir Nathoo, the founder and CEO of Outschool, a fast-growing online learning platform now trusted by over a million families worldwide.
In this episode, Amir shares the personal journey that inspired him to challenge the tired one-size-fits-all approach still dominant in classrooms today. We explore how Outschool’s unique mix of small group of live classes, diverse topics, and independent educators is giving children the freedom to pursue what excites them most — whether that’s coding through Minecraft, exploring anatomy in the quirkiest ways imaginable, or tackling future-focused skills that schools often ignore.
We also examine the broader shifts driving parents to supplement or even replace traditional schooling. From the rise of unschooling and passion-led learning to the potential (and limits) of AI tutors, Amir paints a picture of what more flexible, personalised education could mean for the next generation’s readiness for jobs that don’t even exist yet.
If you’ve ever questioned whether the current system is enough to prepare your kids for the world they’ll inherit, this one’s for you. How do you see the balance between human teachers and AI shaping up in education? Join the conversation and let me know your thoughts.
How do you measure success when your AI is learning faster than your own business processes can keep up? That’s the question I set out to answer in my conversation with SparkBeyond, a company that has spent the past decade transforming how enterprises harness AI.
From crawling GitHub code in a modest garage experiment to driving measurable performance gains for global firms, SparkBeyond has charted a path that mirrors the rapid evolution of AI itself. In this episode, I explored how their focus has shifted from discovering hidden performance drivers in customer data to building agentic AI systems that actively close feedback loops and optimize themselves continuously.
SparkBeyond brings the rigor of operational excellence into the world of AI agents, a space still notorious for inefficiencies and inconsistent results. Agentic AI isn’t just the next shiny term; it represents a practical step forward from passive prediction to autonomous decision-making.
Listening to examples like automated troubleshooting for large consumer electronics companies made it clear that this technology is already reshaping daily operations that once consumed countless human hours. We also dug into the realities behind the hype.
While some companies have scaled back their experiments, SparkBeyond stays grounded by tying every agent’s performance to the same KPIs a human would carry, providing clear ROI and minimizing guesswork.
Sagie Davidovich shared thoughtful insights into why verifiability determines where agents thrive first. Digital tasks, high-frequency work, and software development stand out as the front runners.
It’s hard to argue when you see the rise of coding assistants transforming entire workflows at breakneck speed. But the conversation didn’t shy away from the challenges either, from handling biases baked into LLMs to the obstacles of applying agents in the physical world.
SparkBeyond’s upcoming open-source agent optimizer promises to accelerate adoption while keeping the human benchmarks in sight.
This episode gave me a front-row seat to the next frontier of AI where systems aren’t static but in a constant state of learning and improvement. If your organization still treats AI like a bolt-on experiment, this discussion may push you to rethink how deeply it should be woven into your daily operations. How ready is your business for an AI that never stops optimizing?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Jim Douglas, CEO of Instabug, to unpack the hidden world of mobile app development and the hurdles developers face every time you tap an icon on your phone.
Mobile apps live in unpredictable conditions, surrounded by millions of device variations and users who are quick to abandon any app that fails to deliver a flawless experience.
Our discussion begins with a deep dive into why mobile apps remain so vulnerable to user churn. Jim shares a striking figure that 56 percent of users will delete an app after a single crash, a statistic that keeps many developers up at night.
He explains how Instabug’s platform provides a layer of mobile observability powered by AI, which helps catch problems early and offers real insights into how real people interact with apps. Instead of guessing why a user is frustrated, developers gain clear visibility through session replays and in-app surveys that reveal what KPIs alone cannot show.
Jim also outlines how Instabug aims to push mobile development into a future where self-healing apps become reality. He describes Smart Resolve, a feature that already helps automate issue resolution, marking a first step toward a world where apps can detect and fix their own bugs.
This evolution frees up development teams to invest their energy in innovation rather than repetitive troubleshooting. We look ahead to upcoming changes in the mobile ecosystem, touching on expectations for iOS 19, improvements in power management using AI, and the possibility that voice interfaces will soon play a bigger role in how we interact with our phones.
This conversation is a must-listen for anyone building or using mobile apps who wonders why some apps feel polished while others crash and burn. Are self-healing apps closer than we imagine, and how will that reshape the daily work of developers and the experiences we all take for granted? Join us to find out.
How are small businesses influencing the future of financial technology at a scale few can match?
In this episode, I sit down with Jameson Trautman, Head of Product for Small Business at Chase for Business. With two decades shaping payment solutions for entrepreneurs, he opens up about how a team inside one of the largest financial institutions stays flexible enough to build smarter tools, quicker payments, and more practical customer insights while serving millions of small business owners across the country.
What I found particularly interesting was how Chase for Business keeps innovation moving without disrupting the stability its clients expect. Jameson pulls back the curtain on how phased testing and piloting help fine-tune new products, ensuring they truly solve day-to-day challenges before reaching a national audience. He talks through the fine line between empowering owners with rich data and overwhelming them with information that does little to drive better decisions.
We also explore the development of Chase’s customer insights platform and how it shifts from static reports to timely, useful signals that guide business owners through cash flow hurdles and growth opportunities. Jameson highlights the real-world use of artificial intelligence, sharing where it lifts weight off small businesses and where human judgment still plays a key role.
Another compelling part of our conversation is the candid discussion about fraud prevention and why smarter authentication must protect customers without blocking their vital operations like payroll and supplier payments. Jameson’s explanation shows how balancing risk management with speed has become a daily focus for product teams handling payments at scale.
When did you last pause to consider what it takes to turn daring ideas from a lab into reality?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I spend time with Mike Otworth, Executive Chairman of Innventure, whose career reveals what happens when breakthrough technology leaves the safety of research and collides with real-world demands.
Mike's view offers an honest look at what changes when you match influential inventions with a team that moves quickly and welcomes a little discomfort.
We begin with Mike's unexpected transition from working on Capitol Hill to joining a group of brilliant scientists in Florida. That twist of fate shaped his life's direction and planted the seed for what later became Innventure.
He explains how they tackle a problem that many overlook: big companies often create advanced solutions but lack the speed or drive to launch them effectively. His answer was to build an organization that runs on agility, quick learning, and a firm belief that course corrections are normal, not failures.
One idea that sticks is what Mike calls "adaptive strategic positioning." In plain English, it means leaders must remain flexible and innovative enough to adjust their direction as soon as reality reveals something new. For founders juggling investors and product timelines, this can feel uncomfortable, yet it remains a necessary task. He also shares why he looks for "athletes" rather than box-ticking hires.
For Mike, mindset beats a perfect CV every time. He seeks individuals who bring determination, resilience, and an appetite for new challenges, regardless of their starting point.
We also explore how team culture can't be built with beanbags and table football alone. Real innovation teams keep an eye on the big goal and value shared wins more than individual credit.
Mike also discusses giving every team member a stake in the outcome, ensuring everyone rows in the same direction. He gives a heartfelt nod to Dr. John Scott, a mentor whose sharp mind and honest opinions shaped his knack for spotting which tech has a chance in the market.
This episode is more than another story of startup life. It's a clear window into how leadership must evolve as a company grows from a scrappy experiment to a trusted player. Mike's reflections on when to step back and let new leaders steer add a layer of honesty that many founders rarely share.
If you enjoy hearing how a few bold decisions can ripple through entire industries, this chat offers plenty to chew on. Expect thoughtful lessons about courage, flexibility, and what it takes to build a company where every person is trusted to run with an idea and find a way forward. For anyone curious about early-stage success beyond the headlines, settle in and hear how Mike and Innventure prove that speed, trust, and the right people still matter most.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Nathan Thomas, Director of Innovation, Ricoh Europe, who oversees innovation across Ricoh Europe. Nathan joined me to unpack new findings from Ricoh’s study of thousands of workers and business leaders across Europe.
We discussed why some countries are advancing in terms of workplace productivity while others struggle to keep pace. Spain, for example, stands out for its high productivity, which Nathan attributes to cultural changes and experiments, such as shorter working weeks and a stronger focus on employee well-being.
Meanwhile, the UK and Ireland lag, with many companies still relying on legacy systems and being slow to adopt new work habits. Nathan highlighted that only about a quarter of UK employees feel adequately equipped to work together efficiently, a statistic that raises fundamental questions about how businesses can better support their people.
Our conversation turned to the slow progress many companies face in embracing AI and automation. Nathan explained that uncertainty and poor understanding of how these tools work remain huge roadblocks. He emphasized that real results emerge when companies have a plan, not just when they plug in a tool without considering how it integrates with their data and workflows. T
This is where Ricoh aims to help by providing a complete workplace platform that goes far beyond what people still assume about Ricoh and its legacy as a print company. Nathan described how Ricoh Spaces brings together workplace management, process automation, sensor technology, and more into one connected experience that helps people work smarter and stay focused.
What stood out for me was Nathan’s approach to staying informed. He spoke about watching full-length talks online, listening to audiobooks, and reading broadly to keep ideas fresh. His mindset demonstrates how curiosity can inform better decisions, especially in an era of rapidly changing technology.
If you're trying to tackle productivity challenges in your workplace, this episode offers real insights into what holds teams back and what might propel them forward. After hearing from Nathan, I am even more convinced that culture, clear plans, and openness to new ways of working can transform any workplace. How prepared is your company to take that next step?
When was the last time you truly paused to consider how far artificial intelligence has come and where it’s heading next? On today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I dive into this fast-moving frontier with Mo Cherif, Vice President of Generative AI and Innovation at Sitecore. This conversation explores what 2025 holds for agentic AI and why this technology is poised to completely reshape the marketing landscape. Agentic AI isn’t just an iteration of automation; it’s a rethinking of how AI can operate independently, plan, reason, and collaborate with humans to create experiences that are more tailored and impactful than ever before.
In our chat, Mo shares how Sitecore, in collaboration with Microsoft, has launched the Martech industry’s first AI Innovation Lab, an ambitious initiative designed to give marketers a real-world playground to prototype and validate AI-driven solutions without the fear of wasted time or sunk cost. As Mo explains, so many marketing teams are eager to embrace AI but hesitate when it comes to proving ROI and finding the right entry point. The Lab strips away that uncertainty by pairing businesses with experts and offering a safe, agile space to experiment and co-create.
We unpack how agentic AI is transforming traditional customer journeys into instant, hyper-personalized interactions. Picture a world where a single conversation with a chatbot handles discovery, decision-making, and purchase, all while retaining every piece of context for a seamless experience. Mo explains why context and governance are critical pillars that organisations need to master to harness this new era of AI without compromising brand integrity.
Mo also paints a picture of the future where AI co-pilots are not an add-on but an integral part of daily workflows, taking the tedious tasks off human plates and freeing teams to focus on innovation, storytelling, and strategy. It’s a future where businesses don’t just talk about digital transformation, they live it, powered by AI that works alongside humans, not in their place.
If you’ve been wondering how to start your own journey with agentic AI, this conversation offers practical insights and a glimpse into Sitecore’s vision of brand-aware, goal-driven AI. How ready is your organisation to rethink its content operations and customer engagement for this new reality? Tune in and ask yourself, are you prepared to lead in the age of agentic AI?
Recorded amidst the buzz of the IT Press Tour in Palo Alto, this episode explores the evolving world of data intelligence through a candid conversation with Amanda R. Lee, Vice President, Marketing Analyst & Public Relations, DDN.
Sitting under the California sun, I had the opportunity to unpack how DDN is helping some of the most data-intensive organizations navigate massive volumes of information while transforming raw data into real-time insights that power breakthroughs in AI, autonomous driving, healthcare research, and financial services.
Throughout our chat, we tackled the convergence of AI, edge computing, and smart infrastructure, a theme that stood out prominently at Dell Technologies World and echoes DDN’s longstanding vision. What fascinates me is hearing how the industry is finally aligning with a reality that companies like DDN have been addressing for years. Amanda Lee offered vivid examples of how infrastructure stories connect directly to human impact, whether it’s accelerating life-saving medical research, enabling fraud detection at lightning speed, or supporting climate models that help us better understand our world.
We also explored the human side of innovation. Amanda’s passion for lifting women in tech shines through as she shares actionable steps leaders can take to transform mentorship into meaningful sponsorship, ensuring representation translates into voice and value within organizations.
She also opens up about how AI has become her creative co-pilot across PR, social, customer advocacy, and investor relations. Her perspective on blending AI’s speed with human nuance reminds us that while technology keeps evolving, genuine communication still hinges on empathy, context, and authenticity.
Finally, in a world where data sovereignty and trust are front-of-mind, especially in Europe. Amanda outlines how DDN balances performance with protection to earn customer confidence.
How can organizations protect their most valuable asset, data, while harnessing its true potential through AI-driven insights? These are the questions I set out to answer on the recent IT Press Tour in Silicon Valley.
In my latest conversation at the Santa Clara offices of Cohesity, I sat down with Sanjay Poonen, President and CEO, to discuss how this company has positioned itself at the heart of the AI era with a modern data cloud built for speed, security, and intelligence.
From my early days interviewing Cohesity’s technical minds to now hearing directly from Sanjay about the company’s transformation, it is clear that Cohesity’s mission to shield, manage, and unlock data value is gaining momentum like never before.
This episode takes you deep into the company’s evolution. We explore how Cohesity started by reinventing traditional backup and recovery, then scaled through bold leadership, culminating in its significant acquisition of the NetBackup business from Veritas. Sanjay walks me through how this move instantly propelled Cohesity to market leadership in data security and cyber resilience, serving over 13,000 organizations worldwide across various sectors, including healthcare, finance, government, and retail.
We also examine how Cohesity is using AI not only to help clients recover from cyber threats but to mine vast troves of live and backup data for powerful, real-time business insights. Sanjay explains the partnership with NVIDIA and how Cohesity’s patented retrieval augmented generation capabilities are setting new benchmarks for generative AI applications within backup environments. For businesses grappling with data sovereignty and the increasing return to on-premises solutions, Sanjay shares how Cohesity’s innovations balance local compliance requirements while leveraging cloud agility.
What resonated most with me was Sanjay’s candid perspective on leadership during rapid growth and mergers, from uniting thousands of employees under a shared culture to maintaining a relentless customer-first mindset. If you have ever wondered how a company can become a real force in both AI and cybersecurity, this conversation is filled with insights, real-world examples, and a clear vision for how Cohesity plans to shape the next generation of data management.
Are you ready to rethink how your organization secures and activates its data in an AI-driven future? Tune in and discover what lies ahead on this data-powered journey.
Listener Notes
Here is a link to the 5-minute video that Sanjay referenced in our conversation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrKdyaWpIG4
Have you ever paused to think about how the humble login has quietly become one of the most vulnerable points in cybersecurity? In this episode, I spoke with Matt Caulfield, Vice President of Identity Products at Cisco, to understand why identity is now the prime target for attackers and how Duo is evolving to meet that threat head-on.
Matt explained how Duo, once known primarily for multi-factor authentication, is now stepping forward as a complete identity access management solution. He broke down why so many traditional tools built for productivity alone are no longer fit for today’s threat landscape, where attackers use everything from simple phishing to advanced AI-driven social engineering to gain a foothold through identity misuse.
We explored Duo’s shift toward security as the default. Matt described how features like passwordless logins and proximity verification combine user convenience with stronger defences, making it easier for people to stay protected without feeling burdened by endless prompts and complex checks. He also shared how the identity routing engine helps organisations untangle years of layered identity systems, giving security teams a unified front door to safeguard every user, app and device.
Finally, Matt offered a glimpse into the future, where the rise of AI agents will multiply the number of digital identities tenfold, raising fresh questions about how to verify, control and trust these new virtual coworkers. It is a conversation that puts identity right at the heart of modern security and shows why getting this right could be the biggest step we take in stopping breaches before they even begin.
Where do you see identity playing the biggest role in your security plans? Join the discussion and share your thoughts with me.
Have you ever wondered what happens when cutting-edge network technology meets the rugged frontlines of wildlife conservation? In this episode, I sat down with Sophie Maxwell, the driving force behind the Connected Conservation Foundation, to understand how digital infrastructure and real-time data are changing the odds for endangered species and local communities across more than a dozen countries.
Sophie walked me through the journey from a desperate battle to protect rhinos in South Africa’s Sabi Sand Nature Reserve to a global blueprint now safeguarding elephants, gorillas, and countless other species in landscapes as remote as Namibia and Papua New Guinea. She explained how early experiments with network connectivity, sensors and satellite imagery grew into robust systems that give conservation teams live visibility across vast, rugged reserves — the same technology helping rangers detect poachers before they strike, monitor ecosystem health, and manage human-wildlife conflict more intelligently.
This conversation shed light not only on the hardware and software powering this revolution but also on how it uplifts the people living closest to these protected places. Sophie shared how Cisco’s Networking Academy is training a new generation of protected area technicians, offering communities meaningful careers that keep vital technology running and wildlife safe. It’s a story that flips the usual narrative of technology replacing people and shows instead how it can amplify human impact where it’s needed most.
Looking ahead, we discussed how advancements in AI and satellite imaging could unlock an even sharper understanding of changing landscapes, climate impacts, and species migration patterns, driving better conservation decisions at scale. For Sophie, what surprises her most isn’t just the power of each new tool, but the way combining them turns data into actionable insight, trust and resilience for ecosystems and local people alike.
If you’ve ever doubted that networks and sensors could help save a rhino or an elephant, or questioned whether technology can truly serve nature rather than exploit it, this episode will make you think again. What role do you see for digital innovation in addressing our planet’s most urgent environmental challenges? Join the conversation and share your thoughts.
Talking wireless at Cisco Live brings you face to face with what tomorrow’s connectivity looks like, and my recent chat with Matt McPherson, Enterprise Wireless CTO at Cisco, and Jerome Henry, standards guru and author, did precisely that. When two people this deep in the trenches start describing how our networks cope with thousands of devices at concerts, hospitals, or homes brimming with smart gadgets, it hits you how invisible yet vital great wireless is.
Matt walked me through how Cisco’s approach has evolved over the years, from the early days when the solution to every problem was to throw more bandwidth at it to now, where Wi-Fi 7 serves as a smarter, more reliable safety net. His stories about the transition from Wi-Fi 5 and 6 to what we have now made it clear that what happens above our heads is anything but simple, yet the result for us should feel seamless.
Jerome gave this technical backdrop a human touch by explaining the decisions that went into the new standard. His book, Wi-Fi 7 In Depth, pulls back the curtain on what drives choices in protocols and frequency use. We discussed why multilink operation, which people often hear about, is just one piece of a puzzle that addresses real-time performance and lower waiting times, even in areas where radio waves become unstable quickly.
One part that stood out was Matt describing what happens when a venue like Cisco Live fills up with people. Walls go up, exhibitors build stands, and thousands of bodies, each mostly water, flood the space. That messes with signals, but Wi-Fi 7’s new scheduling tools help keep things running smoothly despite the chaos.
We could not ignore the current buzzword either. AI is being folded into the wireless playbook more deeply than most realize. Cisco has been using AI quietly to manage channels and power levels for years, but now, these tools can learn and adjust without requiring an engineer to intervene. For businesses juggling a flood of devices and constant pressure to operate leanly, this is more than helpful; it is becoming a standard practice.
Then there is Cisco Spaces. Jerome and Matt explained how this feature helps companies understand how their offices are utilized. Knowing exactly where an access point is located is more than trivia; it grounds everything from location tracking to indoor maps. Add in new chips that can measure tiny distances with great precision, and you get navigation tools that know exactly where your phone is yet respect your privacy by keeping control of the user.
Throughout, one message was repeated: wireless is getting smarter, so humans do not need to babysit it. AI handles routine decisions. Security layers keep new traffic safe. Automation reduces the time spent hunting for issues or second-guessing configurations.
Whether it is robots moving in a warehouse, nurses paging each other without drops, or a teenager streaming games while someone else hops on a video call, the backbone is ready to keep up.
Before we wrapped up, I asked both guests what excites them most. Jerome wants the day to come when connectivity works without fuss or expert intervention. Matt added that Cisco’s goal is to ensure companies can support a growing array of devices without needing a vast team of specialists monitoring every light and graph.
If you want to see how this new chapter unfolds, watch the sessions from Cisco Live, pick up Wi-Fi 7 In Depth for a real peek behind the scenes, and maybe keep an eye out for Jerome’s next book. I have my copy ready for the flight home, and after this conversation, I know we will have plenty more to talk about next year.
What does it take to future-proof the modern workplace? For Softcat, one of the UK’s top IT infrastructure providers, it started with reimagining their own headquarters in London.
In this episode, I speak with Thomas Rowley, Chief Technologist for Networking and Connectivity at Softcat, about the real-world challenges of managing a high-density office and how the company turned to Cisco to create a more intelligent, responsive environment.
As more employees returned to the office, Softcat began to notice a hidden problem. Rising CO2 levels were affecting the comfort and productivity of their teams. Rather than treat it as a facilities issue, they tackled it head-on with technology. Working with Cisco, they rolled out a combination of access points, collaboration tools, and Meraki sensors that transformed their workspace into a data-informed, adaptive environment.
But this story isn’t just about devices. It’s about inspiration too. A visit to Cisco’s Experience Center opened Softcat’s eyes to what was possible, not just in terms of hardware, but in how unified tech strategies can drive better decisions. That visit ultimately sparked the idea for their own internal innovation space, showcasing how operational excellence can become a cultural value, not just a technical outcome.
Thomas also shares insight into the evolving role of connectivity in hybrid work, how Softcat supports over 1,500 salespeople with scalable IT solutions, and why the partnership with Cisco continues to shape their global ambitions. From sustainability to scalability, this episode offers a practical look at how two leading tech firms collaborate to solve problems that many businesses are only just beginning to understand.
If your office still treats infrastructure as an afterthought, this conversation might change your mind. Are your workplace systems ready to handle both people and performance?
As AI continues to dominate the conversation at Cisco Live, the infrastructure needed to support this transformation often gets overshadowed. That’s why I was eager to visit the Panduit booth and explore the physical backbone enabling the shift from cloud to on-prem. I sat down with several Panduit experts including Renee Lang, Mason Khan, Vince, and Mike to understand how their high-density power, fiber, and sustainability solutions are equipping organizations for the AI-powered future.
This episode goes beyond surface-level hype to focus on real-world preparation. Renee opened our discussion by highlighting the shift in customer questions this year. AI may be driving the vision, but enterprises are still asking how to take that first step. From gradual upgrades to strategic power planning, the conversation is about progress, not perfection. We looked at how Panduit is helping customers implement solutions today that will still support their goals tomorrow.
Mason shared how Panduit’s high-density power units are evolving to meet the surging demands of AI servers, with advanced features like cybersecurity compliance and automatic orientation. Vince then walked me through the game-changing concept of fault-managed power. With the ability to deliver significant power safely over long distances using standard pathways, this technology could reshape how we power devices in smart campuses, data centers, and industrial spaces.
Finally, Mike brought it all together by showing how fiber infrastructure ties these innovations into a cohesive strategy. His insights into structured cabling and reflective polishing offered practical takeaways for engineers trying to stay ahead of the AI curve.
This episode captures the customer conversations, unexpected use cases, and future-facing solutions that make events like Cisco Live so valuable. What steps are you taking now to prepare your infrastructure for the next wave of transformation?
Walking the show floor at Cisco Live, it’s impossible to ignore the rising volume of conversations around network resilience. But what does resilience actually look like in today’s distributed, AI-driven enterprise environment? To explore this, I sat down with Patrick Quirk, President and GM of Opengear, right at their booth near the center of the event.
In our conversation, Patrick explained how Opengear has become a platform focused on proactive infrastructure management. As AI workloads expand into both data centers and edge environments, network reliability is now a critical part of business operations. Patrick shared how their approach with the phrase "First Day. Worst Day. Every Day." helps ensure continuity even in the most challenging conditions.
What stood out during this discussion was Opengear’s impact in practical situations. From supporting major retailers during service disruptions to helping organizations recover quickly from incidents similar to the CrowdStrike event, they deliver more than basic monitoring. We also discussed Lighthouse, their fleet management platform, and how it enables zero-touch provisioning at scale. This concept clearly resonated with many attendees at the event.
Patrick also talked about findings from a Cisco report that estimated global losses from network outages reached 160 billion dollars last year. He explained how attitudes are shifting at the leadership level. Network resilience is no longer treated as a secondary concern. Risk mitigation, compliance, and consistent service delivery are now at the core of business conversations.
Whether you're managing thousands of switches or preparing your infrastructure for the growing demands of AI, this episode provides insights that apply directly to today's connected world. How are you preparing your network to stay up and running when it matters most?
Earlier this year, I spoke with Dennis Woodside, CEO of Freshworks, about why speed and ROI matter more than ever in AI adoption. Today, we continue that conversation—this time from the IT frontline.
In this episode, I’m joined by Ashwin Ballal, CIO of Freshworks and a 30-year tech industry veteran with a track record of driving transformation across global enterprises. From his days leading intelligence and data strategy at KLA to his role as CIO at Medallia, Ashwin knows what it takes to modernize without overcomplicating.
We explore:
- The real impact AI is having inside IT teams and where the hype still outweighs reality
- Why simplifying IT environments is becoming a strategic priority for CIOs
- How AI is being used to augment, not replace, human capability
- The pressure to deliver measurable outcomes with fewer resources—and what leaders are doing about it
Ashwin also shares a candid view on upskilling, internal adoption, and how CIOs can keep innovation moving forward while managing complexity and cost.
This conversation is released in time for Freshworks’ ‘Refresh’ event and ties into broader industry trends around operational efficiency, human-centered AI, and IT’s changing role in business strategy.
If you're a CIO, tech leader, or just trying to cut through the noise around AI in the enterprise, this one’s worth your time.
Customer service has undergone significant changes in just a few years. We’ve moved from clunky chatbots with limited menus to sophisticated AI agents that understand, respond, and solve problems in real-time. But we’re now standing on the edge of something even bigger.
In today’s episode, I spoke with Matthias Goehler, EMEA CTO at Zendesk, about what the next wave of AI-powered customer experience looks like and how businesses can prepare for it.
According to Matthias, up to 80 percent of customer interactions can now be automated with modern AI tools. This is not the frustrating automation many remember. We’re talking about orchestrated systems where multiple AI agents work together.
One agent might interpret a customer’s request, another retrieves information, while others take care of backend integrations. The goal is not to deflect but to resolve quickly, clearly, and with the consistency that customers expect.
This shift is also reshaping internal support. Zendesk’s Employee Experience Suite brings the same AI capabilities used for customer service into HR and IT workflows. Employees now have access to fast, intelligent support that mirrors the consumer-grade service they’re used to in their personal lives.
Crucially, we explored what this means in a European context. With strict privacy regulations, Zendesk has developed tools that enable businesses to see precisely how AI decisions are made. Matthias explained how AI reasoning controls ensure transparency, maintain trust, and allow for complete visibility into what the AI is doing and why.
We also looked ahead. What happens when AI agents not only support us but begin to represent us? What if a customer reaches out, not through a human, but through their virtual assistant? That future may not be far off.
Is your organization ready for this shift in how service is delivered and experienced?
Most of the noise around AI focuses on developers, creatives, and knowledge workers. But what about everyone else? The nurses, store associates, logistics teams, and warehouse staff make up nearly 80 percent of the global workforce.
In today's conversation, I sat down with Tom Bianculli, Chief Technology Officer at Zebra Technologies, to talk about AI that meets people where they work. Not in a document editor or code repository but on the shop floor, in hospital corridors, and inside fulfillment centers.
Tom shared how Zebra's strategy, built on research, acquisitions, and strategic partnerships, is helping to bring practical, purpose-built AI to frontline industries. From generative assistants to machine vision systems, Zebra is developing tools that support real-world tasks without replacing the people doing them.
Whether it's improving shelf visibility in retail, enabling rapid quality control in manufacturing, or automating picking assistance through wearable cameras, the focus is on helping workers complete their tasks more efficiently, accurately, and with greater satisfaction.
One of the standout topics was Zebra Companion, the company's AI-powered assistant for frontline teams. With four dedicated agents covering knowledge, sales, merchandising, and device support, it is a tool designed for immediacy, speed, and seamless integration with the daily workflow.
Tom explained how Zebra is utilizing feedback from pilot programs to enhance the experience and why a human-centered approach to automation is crucial for reducing attrition and boosting morale. We also examined how AI and machine vision are driving measurable improvements in logistics and manufacturing.
Recent acquisitions have strengthened Zebra's capabilities in 3D vision and high-speed industrial scanning. Looking ahead, we discussed omniscient store concepts, collaborative robotics, and the increasing value of real-time operational data.
While much of the AI conversation stays focused on the office, Zebra is showing what happens when intelligence meets physical work. This episode is a reminder that AI is not just about prompts and pixels. It is also about boxes, shelves, scanners, and real people doing real jobs.
How is your business planning to bring AI to the teams that keep everything moving?
The last time Philipp Pointner joined me on the podcast, AI was just a whisper on the horizon. We discussed the foundational role of digital identity in establishing trust between individuals and platforms. But fast forward to 2025, and the conversation has shifted dramatically. We're no longer just discussing verification for compliance. We're reckoning with synthetic identities, deepfake armies, and the growing push for reusable digital credentials.
In today's episode, Philipp returns to unpack how much has changed since 2022. As Chief of Digital Identity at Jumio, he's right at the intersection of where AI meets trust. Fraud has evolved from lone hackers into coordinated operations that run on an industrial scale. ID fraud is no longer a matter of bad actors copying documents. Its entire networks generate tens of thousands of AI-manipulated identities with the click of a button.
So, how are businesses adapting? Philipp breaks down the layered approach required for modern identity verification, touching on risk signals across various channels, including documents, devices, faces, emails, and more. He also points to an encouraging trend: cross-industry collaboration. Companies, regulators, and tech vendors are no longer working in silos. They are coordinating efforts to counter this new breed of threats.
But this isn't just about fraud. We explore how identity solutions are now a key part of improving onboarding, boosting customer satisfaction, and even reducing operational costs. With significant regulatory shifts underway in Europe, the UK, and the US, from mobile driver's licenses to national digital identity schemes, businesses can't afford to fall behind.
Philipp also tackles the AI paradox. The same technology that enables deepfakes is now critical for combating them. Jumio is using AI to detect fakes, verify liveness, and stay one step ahead of fraudsters. Biometrics, meanwhile, are becoming mainstream, not just in airports but as part of everyday onboarding and authentication.
If you're thinking about what identity means for your business in 2025 and beyond, this episode offers a practical, timely look at what's here now and what's coming next. Whether you care about compliance, conversion rates, or protecting your users, it all starts with knowing who you're dealing with. And increasingly, that requires more than just asking for a photo ID.
What role will your organization play in the future of digital trust?
Enterprise security has always been a moving target, but with the surge of AI adoption, it's entering a whole new era of complexity. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Bradon Rogers, Chief Customer Officer at Island, who brings over 25 years of cybersecurity experience to a conversation that cuts through the noise on AI, data protection, and the evolving role of the browser.
Bradon warns that AI isn't just creating new opportunities. It's also generating what he calls a derivative data nightmare. Large language models are now producing massive volumes of unstructured outputs that differ in formatting but carry the same meaning. These subtle variations are already overwhelming traditional data loss prevention tools, and the challenge is only growing.
Yet Bradon doesn't stop at the warning. He believes AI might also be the solution.
We discuss why businesses need to move beyond old data-centric approaches and start designing application-centric frameworks that mirror how people work. In a world where banning AI is no longer realistic, organizations need practical ways to guide users toward safe, sanctioned tools. Bradon explains how enterprise browsers can serve as that safe space, combining usability with security and offering a familiar interface that doesn't get in the way of productivity.
He also addresses the new breed of shadow IT emerging from embedded AI features in everyday apps, as well as the importance of understanding how third-party providers utilize your data behind the scenes. For anyone still thinking of AI adoption as a checkbox exercise, Bradon makes it clear this is a complex governance challenge that demands a new mindset.
From call center automation to real-time coaching workflows, the conversation explores how AI can enhance precision, minimize false positives, and support teams without overwhelming them. We wrap up with a powerful music recommendation that perfectly reflects the winding road many tech leaders now find themselves navigating.
What happens when machine identities outnumber human ones by a hundred to one?
That’s not a future scenario. It’s already happening. In this episode, I’m joined by David Higgins, Senior Director at CyberArk, for a deep conversation about identity security in an environment increasingly shaped by AI agents, autonomous systems, and blurred digital boundaries.
David brings clarity to the growing risks tied to machine credentials and explains why so many organisations are still struggling with password reuse, unsecured personal devices, and outdated security awareness efforts. We explore the rise of deepfake scams, AI-powered impersonation, and the worrying trend of attackers bypassing savvy users by targeting helpdesks and support channels instead.
What stood out is how David reframes the conversation around human behaviour and responsibility. Rather than blaming users as the weakest link, he argues that identity security needs to be rooted in context, culture, and proactive design. From adaptive authentication to just-in-time access models, there are smarter ways forward that balance security and user experience without turning employees into roadblocks.
And we go even further. We talk about the next phase of risk, where AI agents aren't just tools but semi-autonomous actors capable of learning and adapting. What happens when one of these agents goes off-script? What safeguards are in place if they begin to behave in ways their developers didn’t anticipate?
This episode is not about hype. It’s a practical look at what identity-first security really means in a machine-dominated environment.
So let’s hear it: do you think your business is ready for this shift? Or are we still relying too much on assumptions that no longer hold up?
Let me know what you think after listening.
In today’s episode, I sit down with John Adam, Chief Revenue Officer at Aimprosoft, for a direct conversation on what it really takes to implement AI inside a business.
With AI hype dominating headlines, many companies are either rushing in without a clear plan or standing still out of fear of making the wrong move. John brings a grounded perspective, shaped by years of helping mid-sized firms and enterprise teams move beyond buzzwords and into real, measurable outcomes.
We explore how Aimprosoft guides clients to focus on AI projects that are low in complexity but high in impact. These early wins are often the key to building internal buy-in and unlocking wider adoption across departments. John shares why modular implementation strategies are becoming more popular, especially for companies that want to avoid getting locked into any one vendor or platform.
Our conversation goes beyond the technical. We discuss where AI tools actually deliver value and where they fall short. John highlights that AI performs well in rules-based, repetitive environments but still struggles with nuance, edge cases, and anything that requires emotional intelligence. He also outlines the importance of ethics, especially in regulated industries, and offers a pragmatic approach to mitigating bias, protecting data, and maintaining brand voice.
With examples drawn from Aimprosoft’s client work, including success stories involving scalable platform rebuilds and cost-saving test automation, this episode offers a clear-eyed view of how AI is being used today. John emphasizes that the right starting point is a good data strategy, supported by simple pilot projects that prove value early.
If you’re a leader trying to separate substance from noise in AI conversations, this episode offers an honest look at what works, what doesn’t, and how to move forward without overcommitting. What’s the smartest first step your team can take with AI right now? Let’s find out.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Ashley Stevenson, VP of Product and Solution Marketing at DigiCert, to explore the shifting landscape of digital trust. We are living in a time where certificate-related outages still disrupt critical systems, identity management is becoming more complex, and the arrival of quantum computing is no longer a distant concern. Ashley brought clarity to these issues with a practical look at how DigiCert is helping organizations manage trust at scale.
Our conversation began with the foundational role DNS and PKI play in digital infrastructure. While most users never think about them, every secure connection begins with DNS resolving a domain and PKI establishing trust. DigiCert has combined these layers in a single platform, DigiCert1, designed to automate and simplify how trust is managed across networks, users, and connected devices.
We explored the increasing importance of certificate lifecycle management. With certificate lifespans moving from 398 days to just 47 by 2029, and domain validations required every 10 days, automation is no longer a convenience. It is a necessity. DigiCert1 addresses this through centralized inventory, policy enforcement, proactive notifications, and full automation from issuance to installation.
Ashley also shared insights on the convergence of PKI and identity and access management. From IoT to human users, digital identities are multiplying and evolving. PKI is playing a larger role in enabling passwordless authentication and supporting verifiable credentials, especially as organizations move toward privacy-enhancing and standards-based models.
Looking ahead, we discussed quantum readiness and crypto agility. DigiCert is already helping customers evaluate which systems are most vulnerable and preparing them to adopt quantum-safe algorithms when needed. Whether the concern is policy change, an unexpected breach, or emerging tech, the ability to adapt quickly is key.
How do you build a strategy for trust that adapts to this pace of change? This episode offers an inside look at how DigiCert is answering that question.
When I sat down with Leon Butler, the newly appointed CEO of IBM UK and Ireland, it felt like a timely check-in with one of the most influential forces in enterprise technology. Having taken on the role in January 2025 after leading IBM’s global data and AI division, Leon brings both technical depth and a clear strategic lens to what lies ahead. Our conversation couldn’t have been better timed, following the IBM Think conference and the company’s latest wave of announcements around agentic AI, enterprise models, and quantum computing.
Leon offered an inside look at how IBM is responding to real-world business challenges with purpose-built, domain-specific AI tools. While the industry often gravitates toward large, generic models, IBM has chosen a different route, focusing on smaller, more efficient models that deliver measurable business outcomes. Their Granite model family and WatsonX orchestrate platform are helping companies streamline complex workflows, boost productivity, and integrate AI into operations without adding more layers of complexity.
We also explored how AI agents are evolving from basic chat interfaces into tools that can coordinate multi-step processes across HR, procurement, and customer service. Leon shared concrete examples from inside IBM, including how their own HR systems are now 94 percent automated through AI agents. The company has also achieved over $2 billion in productivity gains through AI and automation internally, a figure that sets a strong precedent for its clients.
Our conversation also touched on IBM’s quantum roadmap, with expectations that their systems will surpass today’s most powerful supercomputers by 2033 and reach error-free capability by 2029. Alongside this, IBM is pushing forward with a global commitment to close the AI skills gap, aiming to equip 2 million people with AI skills by 2026.
How does a company of IBM’s scale remain agile while reshaping industries with AI and quantum computing? This conversation offers a glimpse into the strategy, leadership, and technology shaping that future.
When I last spoke with Tony Jamous in November 2020, we were navigating the early days of a remote-first world. The shift was sudden and widespread, but what followed was even more transformative.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I reconnect with Tony to explore how the world of work has changed and how Oyster has grown from an ambitious startup into a B Corp-certified unicorn focused on enabling global employment at scale.
Tony is the CEO and founder of Oyster, a company built on the belief that where you live should never limit where you work. We discussed the journey from pandemic-driven remote work to today’s distributed models, the growing need for location-independent hiring, and how AI is now being embedded into every layer of global workforce management. Oyster is helping businesses hire across 180 countries with just a few clicks, solving compliance, payroll, and benefits challenges without the traditional roadblocks.
During our conversation, Tony broke down what it means to build a mission-driven company and why measuring impact matters. More than 40 percent of employees hired through Oyster now come from emerging markets. That shift is not just a statistic. It reflects real people gaining access to economic opportunities they were previously excluded from. Stories like Christina in the Philippines, who now works from home and spends more time with her children, highlight the human impact of Oyster’s platform.
We also talked about Oyster’s recent Series D funding round and how the company is shifting from high-growth to sustainable profitability. AI is a big part of that evolution. From internal operations to customer support, automation is being used to reduce friction and let people focus on work that matters. For Tony, leadership now means focusing on vision and values while letting AI handle repetitive tasks.
What does the future look like when the world becomes one talent pool? This episode offers a grounded, forward-looking take on what happens when mission, technology, and global opportunity intersect.
What if the biggest delay in healthcare wasn’t a lack of doctors but a broken phone system? In today’s episode, I catch up with Zain Qayyum, the founder of Medsender, who left his path to medical school after witnessing firsthand how slow and outdated healthcare administration really is. His response wasn’t to complain. It was to build a solution.
Zain shares how Medsender uses voice AI, not to replace human interaction, but to support it. The company’s AI agent, Myra, now handles everything from referrals and scheduling to patient queries around the clock. The goal is simple: let staff focus on care while AI deals with the paperwork and the phone queues.
We talk about the real challenges of designing AI for healthcare, where privacy is non-negotiable and errors carry serious consequences. Zain explains how Myra is built from the ground up to work with fragmented healthcare systems while strictly respecting HIPAA compliance. Every integration is intentional. Every safeguard is baked in.
He also offers a look at the measurable impact this technology is already having. Referral times have dropped from days to seconds. Scheduling rates have improved. Phone calls are answered without fail. And patients are no longer left on hold or in limbo.
More importantly, Zain paints a compelling vision of what healthcare could look like in five years. Imagine AI agents not just answering patient calls but also speaking to other systems on their behalf. Imagine a future where getting care feels as seamless as booking a taxi or ordering dinner.
Is this the future patients have been waiting for? Or does the human side of care still risk being lost?
Listen in and tell us what you think. Can AI help healthcare find its voice again?
What happens when customer journeys fall apart behind the scenes, even as AI promises to tie them together? That’s the question at the heart of this conversation with Jochem van der Veer, CEO and Co-Founder of TheyDo. Fresh off a $30 million Series B round, Jochem joins me to unpack what’s really happening inside enterprise organisations that are trying to personalise experiences at scale.
He’s not speaking in theory. TheyDo is already helping companies like Ford, Atlassian, Cisco, and Home Depot shift how they approach customer experience. But instead of chasing the latest automation trend, Jochem urges something far more grounded: a return to clarity. His team’s journey-centric model is designed to bring strategic alignment across departments that are often flying blind, each chasing their own targets without shared context.
We talk about the growing gap between data collection and meaningful insight. While leaders are promised efficiency from AI, many find themselves with more dashboards and fewer answers. In fact, 28 percent say AI is actually worsening the problem by adding to the noise. That’s the paradox.
Jochem shares how journey management can break through these barriers and get teams back on track by focusing on what customers are trying to achieve rather than just what departments are measuring.
You’ll hear why so many personalisation efforts are falling flat, despite all the data, and how a few structural shifts could change that. Jochem also reflects on what the hidden costs of a disconnected experience look like and how businesses can spot trouble before it becomes visible in churn or lost revenue.
This episode is for anyone frustrated by the growing complexity of customer experience. If you’re stuck between data overload and underwhelming results, you’ll find plenty of perspective here. And if you’ve ever wondered whether AI is helping or just making your job harder, this conversation might help you reframe the question.
To learn more about TheyDo, visit theydo.com or connect with Jochem on LinkedIn.
Cloud cost is no longer just a finance team issue. It is now a business-wide concern, and treating it as a budgeting exercise is holding companies back. In this episode, I’m joined by John Purcell, Chief Product Officer at DoiT, to unpack how organisations can rethink cloud financial management through a risk-first lens.
With the FinOps X conference just around the corner, John also gives us a preview of the themes likely to dominate the agenda this year, from Kubernetes complexity to the role of AI in governance.
DoiT is not just another optimisation tool. Their Cloud Intelligence platform helps companies align performance, reliability, and security with financial strategy. John explains how cost spikes are not just common, they are almost guaranteed. He shares a real example of a ninety-thousand dollar AWS bill caused by a minor configuration error and what could have prevented it.
We talk about the shift from reactive cost reviews to proactive financial defence. Think of it like cybersecurity but applied to your cloud budget. That mindset change is something FinOps teams need to embrace quickly. It is not just about watching what is spent, but understanding intent and outcomes across the business.
John also introduces the concept of the FinOps fabric, a combination of technology, processes, and culture that helps teams align on goals and mitigate risks. And while AI and automation are transforming how teams interact with cloud platforms, they are still responsible for driving most cloud spend today. We dig into what needs to change before AI can truly become an optimisation asset rather than another cost driver.
Whether you're gearing up for FinOps X or trying to get a better grip on cloud cost management, this episode offers practical insight into the tools, strategies, and cultural shifts that can help your team stay ahead.
To learn more, visit doit.com or connect with the team at booth G10 if you are attending the FinOps X event in San Diego.
What does it mean to own something in a world where everything is digital? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Ian Rogers, Chief Experience Officer at Ledger, to unpack the growing importance of digital ownership in the age of AI, blockchains, and digital identity.
With more than 6 million devices sold and 20 percent of the world’s crypto secured, Ledger has become a trusted name in both consumer and enterprise digital asset security. But this conversation goes far beyond crypto wallets. Ian explains why self-custody matters, how Ledger devices actually work, and what separates them from traditional custodial models.
"Giving people the ability to securely own their own digital private property is fundamentally what we're all about," Ian says, breaking down a complex topic in a way that's both clear and urgent.
We also talk about the convergence of AI and blockchain, the risks of relying on cloud-based security, and why digital proof and provenance are becoming essential in our online lives.
Whether you're just starting out or already immersed in Web3, this is a conversation that connects the dots between identity, security, and personal empowerment. What does responsible digital freedom look like? And are you ready to take ownership?
I'd love to hear what you think. Get in touch and let me know what digital ownership means to you today.
In today’s episode, I sit down with Ryan Kuhlenbeck, CEO and co-founder of Pico MES, to explore a persistent and costly challenge in manufacturing.
While many OEMs have embraced cutting-edge technology, their suppliers often remain disconnected from the digital conversation. This gap isn’t just inconvenient, it creates delays, quality issues, and serious communication problems on the factory floor. Ryan brings two decades of experience across GM, Tesla, and a range of hands-on manufacturing roles, and shares how that journey inspired the launch of Pico MES.
During our conversation, Ryan walks through how Pico MES was born out of necessity rather than opportunity. After years of building and managing software systems within factories, he became frustrated by the lack of flexible, scalable tools for smaller suppliers. His vision? A modern MES system that can be deployed in weeks, not years, and one that supports rather than hinders the work being done at the operator level.
We unpack how disconnected systems across the supply chain often lead to errors and miscommunication. Ryan explains why shortages are often just the symptom, not the real issue. The real problem is the inability to access or share the right information in time. With a fully connected infrastructure, businesses can address problems long before they snowball into production halts.
Ryan also shares examples from the factory floor, like how a hip-activated switch became a surprise productivity win and how smaller suppliers often drive some of the smartest innovations. For OEMs, there are valuable lessons to learn by observing these smaller, more agile teams.
Whether you're part of a multinational manufacturing company or a small factory operation, this episode provides a grounded, real-world look at what it takes to modernize without breaking what already works. How can we build a smarter, more connected supply chain? Let’s find out.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Samit D'Cunha, a legal advisor at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), about the innovative Digital Emblem Project.
For over 160 years, the Red Cross emblem has symbolized protection in conflict zones, designating medical and humanitarian organizations as safe from attack. Now, as warfare increasingly extends into cyberspace, the ICRC is developing a digital version of this emblem to provide the same legal protections for online infrastructure.
We examine the increasing frequency of cyberattacks on hospitals and aid organizations during armed conflict, and why the Digital Emblem is more crucial now than ever. Samit explains the technical side of the project, including the use of cryptographic certificates and DNS systems to ensure global, decentralized protection. He also discusses the importance of legal recognition and trust-building across governments, tech companies, and humanitarian sectors.
As the digital battleground expands, this emblem could play a crucial role in safeguarding lives and ensuring that humanitarian operations continue uninterrupted. We also explore the challenges of implementing this system without increasing organizations' vulnerability, and why support from over 100 tech companies and states is crucial for its success.
If you’re interested in the intersection of cybersecurity, law, and humanitarian efforts, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Scarlett Sieber, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Money20/20, to explore the key trends shaping finance's future.
As Money20/20 Europe celebrates its 10th anniversary, Scarlett provides a detailed preview of what we can expect from this year's event, bringing together over 8000 senior industry leaders to discuss the evolving landscape of fintech, regulation, and technology.
Money20/20 Europe is not just a conference. It is a critical platform for addressing the big questions about where money, tech, and regulation are headed. Scarlett highlights the growing collaboration between traditional banks and fintech companies, calling it the "golden era" of partnerships. This shift drives innovation, and we discuss how these partnerships are evolving to enable more personalized, efficient financial services for businesses and consumers alike.
A significant focus of our conversation is the rise of stablecoins, which are transforming cross-border payments in ways similar to how the internet changed the telecom industry. We talk about the regulatory challenges that need to be addressed to fully harness their potential and ensure their adoption on a global scale.
Scarlett also shares insights into how AI revolutionizes financial services, enabling more intelligent, automated solutions while raising important questions about trust, data privacy, and security.
We also discuss the impact of the UK's post-Brexit regulatory flexibility, with Scarlett explaining how this presents a unique opportunity for the UK to lead in fintech innovation. However, she points out that policy execution must keep pace with technological advancements.
Tune in for a conversation about the future of fintech and a timely preview of Money20/20 Europe, where innovation and regulatory discussions will define the next wave of financial services.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Glen Shok, VP of Product Marketing at Panzura, for a detailed look into how the company is rethinking hybrid cloud storage with the release of CloudFS 8.5 Adapt.
CloudFS 8.5 isn’t just another update. Built in direct response to customer feedback, it introduces powerful new features like Instant Node and Regional Store that redefine performance, availability, and business continuity. Instant Node allows failed systems to be replaced or migrated in under five minutes.
Regional Store brings high-speed data access closer to end users around the world while reducing latency and cloud egress costs.
As Glen explains, the latest release meets the growing demand for flexibility in the face of geopolitical uncertainty, rising cloud costs, and evolving IT infrastructure. Panzura is helping organizations maintain uptime, protect data, and adapt quickly, whether moving away from VMware or modernizing a global IT footprint. CloudFS 8.5 Adapt enables this without forcing customers to compromise on control, performance, or security.
We also explore how Panzura’s vision for autonomic data infrastructure is becoming a reality. With every CloudFS node sharing full configuration metadata, new nodes can spin up almost instantly. AI plays a central role here too. Through Panzura Data Services, AI tracks behavioral anomalies to detect early signs of data exfiltration, ransomware, or internal threats. This provides not just alerts, but the ability to interdict and isolate risky behavior in real time.
Looking ahead, Glen shares how Panzura is preparing to support AI workloads directly where unstructured data lives. Instead of migrating terabytes to external platforms, organizations can train language models in place, reducing cost and complexity. With features like enhanced RBAC, native Entra ID support, and a virtual data lake model on the horizon, Panzura is clearly positioning itself at the intersection of enterprise storage and AI innovation.
If you work in cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, data governance, or AI deployment, this episode offers practical insights into the challenges IT teams face today and the technologies that are solving them.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Chase Garbarino, Co-Founder and CEO of HQO, a company reimagining the way commercial real estate connects with its occupants. From digital keycards to IoT-enabled spaces, HQO is building the operating system for real estate, already active across 250 million square feet in 24 countries.
We explore how commercial real estate, once known for its slow adoption of technology, is finally undergoing rapid transformation. Chase shares the story behind HQO’s creation, the drive to modernize the built environment, and why he believes cities are humanity’s greatest product. He outlines how hybrid work, flexible leases, and higher user expectations have pushed property owners to rethink what a workplace should offer.
But this isn’t just a tech story. It’s about connection. Chase reveals how HQO is helping create meaningful experiences through digital tools that serve every type of building user, not just those paying the rent. From commute integration to smart access, amenity bookings to workplace engagement, HQO’s platform is designed to be both invisible and impactful.
We also learn about the Quantum City Initiative, a new effort from HQO and MIT to help existing cities leap forward with shared learnings, digital infrastructure, and civic innovation. It is not about tearing cities down and starting from scratch. It is about helping them adapt, thrive, and compete in a connected world.
Chase closes by sharing one of his favorite stories: how a shoe company, a beer company, and a 3D printing firm all found community inside an HQO-powered building. These companies collaborated, socialized, and created something no one could have planned, all because the tech enabled real people to meet.
If you are curious about how smart buildings are becoming more human or how data and design can shape a more connected future, this conversation will spark new ideas.
What happens when AI reshapes intellectual property, and decentralized storage rewrites data sovereignty? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we explore that intersection with a deep dive into the work of StorX Network, a platform rethinking cloud storage from the ground up.
Our guest joins from StorX, a decentralized cloud storage network designed with privacy, security, and user empowerment at its core. At a time when data privacy is eroding and centralized providers are struggling to keep pace with evolving threats, StorX offers a radically different approach. Their system encrypts data using the user’s private passphrase, fragments it into smaller pieces, then distributes multiple copies across a global network of autonomous nodes.
The result? A storage solution that is trustless, censorship resistant, and economically more efficient, often cutting costs by up to 90 percent compared to traditional providers.
We discuss how StorX is positioning itself in a world increasingly concerned about surveillance, ransomware, and digital control. Much like AI is forcing conversations around copyright and ownership, decentralized storage is surfacing urgent questions around who controls data and how it's accessed.
This episode is not just about technology, it’s about the philosophical shift in how we think about trust, control, and freedom in digital spaces. We unpack why decentralized architecture matters, how privacy-preserving systems can scale, and where innovation is heading next.
If you're building applications or storing sensitive data, this is a conversation worth tuning in for. Because as digital life becomes more complex, where and how we store our information will define what kind of internet we want to live in.
Want to hear more stories at the intersection of privacy, decentralization, and innovation? Subscribe and stay tuned.
What happens when the world's most powerful AI systems are measured by the same yardstick?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I spoke with David Kanter, Founder and Executive Director of MLCommons, the organization behind MLPerf, the industry's most recognized benchmark for AI performance. As AI continues to outpace Moore’s Law, businesses and governments alike are asking the same question: how do we know what “good” AI performance really looks like? That’s exactly the challenge MLCommons set out to address.
David shares the story of how a simple suggestion at a Stanford meeting led him from analyst to the architect of a global benchmarking initiative. He explains how MLPerf benchmarks are helping enterprises and policymakers make informed decisions about AI systems, and why transparency, neutrality, and open collaboration are central to the mission.
We explore what’s really driving AI’s explosive growth. It’s not just about chips. Smarter software, algorithmic breakthroughs, and increasingly scalable system designs are all contributing to performance improvements far beyond what Moore’s Law predicted.
But AI’s rapid progress comes with a cost. Power consumption is quickly becoming one of the biggest challenges in the industry. David explains how MLCommons is helping address this with MLPerf Power and why infrastructure innovations like low-precision computation, advanced cooling, and even proximity to power generation are gaining traction.
We also talk about the decision by some major vendors not to participate in MLPerf. David offers perspective on what that means for buyers and why benchmark transparency should be part of any enterprise AI procurement conversation.
Beyond the data center, MLCommons is now benchmarking AI performance on consumer hardware through MLPerf Client and is working on domain-specific efforts such as MLPerf Automotive. As AI shows up in smartphones, vehicles, and smart devices, the need for clear, fair, and relevant performance measurement is only growing.
So how do we measure AI that is everywhere? What should buyers demand from vendors? And how can the industry ensure that AI systems are fast, efficient, and accountable? Let’s find out.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, Neil is joined by Jose Soto, VP of Engineering at Converge Marketing, to discuss how data democratization transforms performance marketing. Jose highlights a common bottleneck in marketing where engineering teams act as the data gatekeepers, often slowing down marketing efforts. He explains how empowering marketers with self-service access to data through intuitive platforms speeds up decision-making and drives measurable growth for brands.
Jose talks about how Converge has broken down data silos by creating clean data pipelines and user-friendly tools that allow non-technical users to interact with data confidently. Instead of relying on engineers, marketing teams now have the freedom to access data, build reports, and analyze trends in real-time. This shift has led to improved agility, better collaboration, and faster campaign optimizations.
The conversation also explores the impact of AI and machine learning on marketing. Jose discusses how these technologies are helping marketers make more precise, data-driven decisions by enabling predictive analytics, optimizing creative messaging, and even automating campaign management. As AI continues to evolve, marketing teams can make more informed decisions with greater accuracy.
For businesses aiming to stay ahead in the ever-changing marketing landscape, this episode offers valuable insights on empowering teams, streamlining operations, and leveraging data to foster growth.
Listen in to discover how Converge is breaking down data barriers and preparing for the future of AI-powered marketing.
What happens when software development meets AI assistance, and anyone with an idea suddenly has the power to build it?
In this episode, I sat down with Ryan Frankel, President and CTO of Digital Brands and the mind behind HostingAdvice.com, to explore the rise of “vibeware” and how AI is shifting the development landscape.
Ryan has a fascinating journey that began with BASIC programming on an Apple IIc and led through military-grade signal processing to leading a portfolio of digital properties. At the center of our conversation is Vibeware.
AI-assisted development tools that are starting to lower the barriers for would-be creators. But unlike the hype you often hear, Ryan doesn’t sugarcoat the limitations. While AI can generate impressive snippets of production-ready code, we’re nowhere near a future where it can build and maintain scalable applications on its own. Context, debugging, infrastructure, and data architecture still require human oversight, and developers who understand these elements are more valuable than ever.
Ryan also explained how these tools are beginning to change how companies approach building versus buying software. AI-assisted development is giving teams more confidence to build custom internal solutions rather than defaulting to SaaS platforms. That trend could open the door for smaller businesses to create the kinds of tailored tools that were once only realistic for large enterprises.
Perhaps the most insightful part of our chat was Ryan’s analogy comparing AI-assisted coding to home cooking. Just as meal kits allow anyone to prepare a decent dinner, vibeware makes it easier for non-experts to build software. But when quality, scale, and performance matter, people still turn to professionals. Developers fluent in both fundamentals and AI tools will be the ones setting the bar.
We also touch on the future of engineering roles, the evolving skillsets needed, and how this new era mirrors the web development explosion of the early 2000s.
So where is the balance between automation and expertise? What role will junior developers play in a world where AI writes 30 to 90 percent of the code? And is the developer job market on the verge of a dip or about to expand in new directions?
On this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Gene Hoffman, CEO of Chia Network, to explore a bold new vision for digital assets, investing, and regulatory-compliant blockchain innovation.
While much of the blockchain space has struggled with regulatory clarity, Chia has taken a different path, working closely with the SEC and other regulators to ensure long-term viability for the network and its applications. With a groundbreaking joint venture called Permuto, Chia is pushing that vision even further.
Permuto is set to tokenize equity investments directly on Chia’s independent layer-1 blockchain. The first application? Microsoft stock.
However, rather than simply offering a digital replica of a share, the platform will divide each into separate dividend and growth certificates. This new level of granularity can reshape the way institutions and individuals think about risk, returns, and liquidity. It’s particularly relevant for low-risk investors and retirees looking to isolate stable dividend income without exposure to market volatility tied to growth stocks.
Gene explains how this innovation could signal the next evolution of ETFs, offering flexible investment structures powered by blockchain. He also shares why Chia’s commitment to open-source technology and green consensus mechanisms has allowed it to attract serious institutional interest without compromising principles.
We also discuss Gene’s participation in the SEC’s upcoming Crypto Task Force Roundtable, where industry leaders will explore the convergence of traditional and decentralized finance. With deep ties to the crypto community and regulatory institutions, Gene offers a rare perspective on how to scale new financial tools in today’s regulatory environment responsibly.
Can blockchain finally deliver on its promise of transforming capital markets in a transparent, compliant, and useful way to everyday investors? Let’s find out.
When cybersecurity companies are racing to outpace evolving threats, innovation often starts in an unexpected place: revenue operations. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with John Queally, Senior Director of Revenue Operations at Clari, to explore why RevOps has become a vital engine behind the performance and resilience of cybersecurity leaders.
John brings a unique perspective from his journey through banking, analytics, and enterprise tech. What stands out is how rapidly the RevOps function has matured from a back-office support role to a central, strategic force. Especially in the cybersecurity space, where innovation requires ongoing investment and risk is measured in seconds, the pressure to run efficient, scalable revenue processes has never been greater.
We delve into why clean, trusted data is the backbone of any AI strategy and how 67% of revenue leaders still don’t trust the data they're using. It’s a staggering insight, and one that underscores the urgent need for cross-functional alignment. John explains how RevOps can serve as the connective tissue across sales, marketing, customer success, and finance, moving companies from a place where they're debating the accuracy of dashboards to making real decisions in real time.
He also shares a behind-the-scenes look at Clari’s work with cybersecurity firms like Okta, where implementing balanced pipeline strategies and streamlining task prioritization has unlocked measurable improvements. We discuss the rise of AI, but John doesn’t just repeat industry headlines. He calls out the "unsexy" truth that real AI advantage requires the hard work of data cleanup first and those who do it will pull ahead.
From operational transparency to building trust within revenue teams, this episode challenges assumptions about how data, AI, and RevOps intersect. And for anyone in cybersecurity or enterprise tech wondering how to scale effectively while preparing for what’s next, this conversation offers a grounded and insightful starting point.
Is your company still debating data? Or are you ready to turn trusted insights into action?
In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Bulent Cinarkaya, General Manager of Field Service Management at ServiceNow, to explore how AI is transforming the frontlines of field service. Often overlooked in the broader tech conversation, the technicians working outside the office are now seeing real, tangible improvements to their daily workflows thanks to advancements in intelligent automation.
Bulent brings a wealth of knowledge from working closely with global organizations that rely on ServiceNow to improve how they plan, dispatch, and support field teams. We talked about how agentic and generative AI are no longer theoretical tools; they are actively used to predict what technicians will need before arriving, automate access to resources, and reduce inefficiencies in task planning.
One of the most compelling parts of our conversation was how ServiceNow is using AI to improve productivity and enhance the human experience. From easing the onboarding of new technicians to capturing decades of experience from retiring experts, AI is helping teams bridge a generational gap in expertise. Technicians can now rely on intelligent systems to surface the correct information at the right moment, whether through summarizing technical documents or guiding them through complex tasks.
We also discussed the operational impact, with examples from customers like Bell Canada, Coursera, and British Telecom, who are seeing measurable improvements in scheduling accuracy and time to resolution. Bulent stressed the importance of unified data models, integrated platforms, and strong change management as organizations look to scale AI to ensure adoption and success.
This episode is a wake-up call for anyone still on the fence about AI in field service. AI is not only improving technician efficiency, but it’s also helping companies retain talent, meet rising customer expectations, and ultimately future-proof their operations.
So, how ready is your organization to move beyond proof of concept and turn AI into a field-ready advantage?
What does it take to turn a moment of frustration into a global mission to tackle waste? At the AWS Summit in London, I sat down with Tessa Clarke, co-founder and CEO of Olio, to explore how a single idea born on a snowy Swiss street evolved into a powerful tech platform reshaping how communities think about consumption, sharing, and sustainability.
Tessa shared her personal journey, from growing up on a farm where food waste was unthinkable to climbing the corporate ladder before walking away to co-found Olio. That decision came after she was told to throw away perfectly good food while moving house, a moment that sparked an idea and a deeper calling.
What followed was years of research, a grassroots WhatsApp experiment, and ultimately, the creation of an app that now connects millions of users worldwide.
In our conversation, we explored how Olio uses technology to drive real-world change. Tessa explained how AWS has been a foundational partner since day one, helping Olio scale sustainably without compromising its values. She also gave an inside look at how AI is integrated thoughtfully across their operations, from assisting users in listing items faster to detecting potentially unsafe or inappropriate listings before they go live.
What stood out is how intentional Tessa and her team have been in making AI serve the mission, not distract from it. Whether it’s reducing friction within communities or using automation to offset operational challenges, every tech choice is aligned with their goal: to build a waste-free world. We also discussed how AI is helping them break the traditional link between headcount and impact, paving the way toward profitability while staying people-focused.
As Olio aims to reach a billion users by 2030, this episode is a reminder of what happens when purpose and technology meet. Tessa’s story offers a compelling blueprint for founders, technologists, and anyone looking to use digital tools to solve human problems.
How can a simple act of sharing create ripple effects across the world, and what role will technology play in scaling that vision responsibly?
Holography has long lived in the shadow of science fiction, but what happens when it’s finally real and ready for the consumer market?
In this episode recorded at Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Darran Milne, co-founder and CEO of VividQ to unpack what sets true holography apart from the gimmicks. With a background in quantum physics and years of technical leadership, Darran cuts through the noise around immersive display technologies and explains how VividQ is building real holographic experiences — not tricks of the eye, but accurate 3D projections that replicate how we naturally see the world.
Darran walks us through the technology powering their recent demo with Call of Duty, showing that VividQ’s tech isn’t just theoretical. It runs on today’s hardware and can convert existing 3D content into holograms without access to the original source code. That changes the game for entertainment, but it’s only the beginning.
We explore where else this could lead: head-up displays in cars that genuinely blend digital directions into the driver’s view, medical devices that eliminate the need for separate testing rooms, and even the idea of holography replacing traditional screens entirely. Darran doesn’t just speculate on the future — he outlines a practical, layered rollout strategy, identifying the industries where the technology can scale first.
This isn’t about chasing hype. It’s about thoughtful engineering and commercial execution. If your business touches gaming, automotive, spatial computing, or XR, this conversation shows why holography may be closer than you think — and how VividQ plans to put it in front of you. Could your next screen be light itself?
What if companies could tap into powerful behavioral AI without compromising user privacy or crossing legal lines? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Frank Portman, CTO of Yobi, to explore how his team is building foundation models grounded in real user behavior, backed by ethically sourced and consented data.
Frank shares how Yobi is taking a distinct approach. They're not building large language models or racing to dominate generative AI headlines. Instead, they're focused on data integrity, transparency, and security from day one. With a strategic partnership with Microsoft Azure, Yobi delivers models that run directly within a customer’s environment. That means privacy is preserved, data stays protected, and companies still benefit from intelligent, adaptive systems.
We unpack how Yobi avoids risky use cases like financial underwriting and healthcare, how their models are trained to avoid demographic bias, and why they actively reward systems for being bad at guessing personal traits. This isn’t just about compliance. It’s about designing products that work better because they’re built responsibly.
Frank also opens up about Yobi’s internal culture, his belief in first-principles thinking, and how empowering engineers to "place bets" drives innovation. He offers insight into what the AI industry must learn quickly from recent missteps, including data misuse and growing public skepticism.
If you're exploring AI solutions and wondering how to build or buy systems that scale without cutting ethical corners, this conversation delivers clarity, honesty, and direction. Are you ready to rethink what responsible AI should look like inside your company?
When we talk about the future of technology, it is easy to focus on the tools, trends, and innovations that dominate headlines. But behind every breakthrough is a human story, and behind every system are individuals navigating an industry that has not always welcomed them equally. That is why I sat down with Sue Harnett, founder and CEO of Rewriting the Code, to learn more about the real work being done to support and elevate women in technology.
What followed was a wide-ranging conversation that brings clarity to an often-overlooked challenge and offers insight into what real change looks like.
Rewriting the Code is more than a community. It is a global network of over 35,000 women who are united by shared goals and driven by the ambition to create a more inclusive tech industry. Sue shared the origin of the organization, born from her own experiences of feeling out of place in elite academic environments, and how that shaped her commitment to building a culture where young women could grow, thrive, and most importantly, feel like they belong.
Today, RTC is impacting lives across the globe with programs that span mentorship, career development, technical education, and real-world support.
What stood out was the way RTC moves beyond symbolic gestures and instead provides practical pathways. We explored the launch of targeted initiatives like Rewrite AI and Rewrite Cybersecurity, which aim to prepare women for high-demand areas in the industry.
We also discussed the Black Wings program, built specifically for Black women in tech, who represent just two percent of the industry workforce. Through focused community-building and peer support, these programs help dismantle systemic barriers that often go unaddressed.
In a time where many companies are retreating from public conversations about diversity due to political pressure, Sue’s work feels more relevant than ever. She spoke candidly about the fear she’s seeing in boardrooms, the erosion of public DEI commitments, and the quiet but continued support from leaders who still believe in building inclusive workplaces.
Her message to companies was simple: inclusion must be intentional, visible, and connected to the lived experience of the people it is meant to support.
What this episode reveals is not only the importance of creating opportunities, but also the power of belief. The belief that women belong in every corner of the tech world, and that with the right community, mentorship, and visibility, they can redefine what leadership looks like.
So how is your organization showing up for underrepresented talent in tech, and what will it take to turn good intentions into lasting impact?
When we talk about the future of IT services, the conversation often revolves around the potential of AI and automation. But what does that really mean when applied at scale, across legacy infrastructure, evolving customer expectations, and real-world operational challenges?
In today’s episode, I sat down with Manish Tandon, CEO of Zensar Technologies, to explore that very question. What emerged was a refreshingly pragmatic take on a space often overwhelmed by buzzwords.
Manish leads a global organisation that's helping some of the UK’s biggest businesses not just integrate AI, but rethink the foundation of their IT strategies. We discussed how Zensar is combining automation with a philosophy they call “experience-led everything,” a human-centric approach that puts users, not systems, at the centre of transformation. Through this lens, he explained how seemingly simple shifts like applying AI to reduce technical debt or drive internal engagement can lead to significant performance gains and improved outcomes across entire organisations.
What I found particularly powerful was how Manish challenges the language around AI. He sees today’s wave of generative and agentic AI as an evolution of long-standing automation principles, not a reinvention. That mindset is helping clients cut through the noise and focus on impact, such as faster delivery cycles, measurable productivity boosts, and tools that empower rather than replace human potential.
We also touched on the ethical implications of AI, the nuances of implementation across different geographies, and the value of responsible AI governance at the application level, not just in principle. If your business is looking to adopt AI in a way that scales sensibly while delivering lasting value, this episode offers insights you won’t want to miss.
So how are you preparing to balance automation with empathy in your IT strategy, and are you building for systems or for people?
What happens when automation grows and learns to think, reason, and adapt? That is precisely what I explored in today's episode with Bennet Kumar, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Business Process Services at Hexaware Technologies. As the enterprise world braces for rapid AI-driven change, Bennet joined me to unpack how agentic AI quietly transforms customer experience from the ground up.
Bennet explains how agentic AI is fundamentally different from earlier forms of automation. We go beyond the buzzwords to explore how these intelligent systems retain business context, plan and execute tasks with autonomy, and collaborate with other agents to deliver meaningful outcomes. This isn't just a new toolset for organizations focused on ROI, customer satisfaction, and operational efficiency. It is a new way of working.
One of the most compelling parts of our conversation centered around AI-powered voice translation. Bennet clearly shows what happens when language ceases to be a barrier. Service agents are no longer required to be fluent in dozens of languages. Instead, they can focus on empathy, listening, and resolution while AI handles translation in real time. We also explore how these technologies reduce stress on customer service staff, giving them more meaningful roles and the tools to thrive.
Of course, no digital transformation is complete without understanding the people behind it. Bennet shares thoughtful insights on change management, addressing customer trust and employee concerns. We discuss how AI can empower rather than replace, and why organizations must be intentional about communication, leadership development, and cultural shift.
From multilingual support to hyper-personalized customer journeys, and AI assistants to back-end process orchestration, agentic AI is no longer a future concept. It is already here. But are enterprises prepared for a world where customers and AI agents interact seamlessly, at scale, daily?
What does the rise of intelligent agents mean for your business?
What happens when access to advanced AI models is no longer the real differentiator, and the true advantage lies in how businesses leverage their own data?
At the AWS Summit in London, I sat down with Rahul Pathak, Vice President of Data and AI Go-to-Market at AWS, to unpack this question and explore how organisations are moving beyond experimentation and into large-scale generative AI adoption.
Recorded live on the show floor, this conversation explores how AWS is supporting customers at every layer of their AI journey. From custom silicon innovations like Trainium and Inferentia to scalable services like Bedrock, Q Developer, and SageMaker, AWS is giving businesses the infrastructure, tools, and flexibility to innovate with confidence.
Rahul shared how leading organisations such as BT Group, SAP, and Lonely Planet are already applying these tools to reduce costs, speed up development cycles, and deliver tailored experiences that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
A key theme that emerged in our discussion is that data, not just models, is the true foundation of effective AI. Rahul explained why unifying data across silos is critical and how AWS is helping companies create more intelligent applications by connecting what they uniquely know about their business to powerful AI capabilities.
We also addressed the operational realities of AI deployment. From moving proof-of-concept projects into production to meeting the growing demand for responsible AI, the challenges are shifting. Organisations are now focused on trust, security, transparency, and measurable value.
If you're leading digital transformation and wondering how to scale AI solutions that deliver on business outcomes, this episode provides practical insight from someone at the center of the industry. How will your business stand out in a world where every company has access to AI models, but only a few know how to apply them with purpose?
In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Christian Reilly, Field CTO for EMEA at Cloudflare, the Connectivity Cloud company, to examine the latest findings from their cybersecurity research and what they reveal about how prepared different industries really are.
While sectors like IT, gaming, and financial services have seen a higher volume of cyberattacks, they also report greater readiness and resilience.
In contrast, industries like education and healthcare, although less frequently targeted, remain far less prepared to defend against growing threats. This gap raises important questions about how organizations approach security depending on their legacy systems, revenue models, and digital maturity.
Christian brings years of frontline experience to the discussion and shares actionable insights into how companies can build cybersecurity strategies that not only protect but also improve performance.
From the shift toward zero trust architecture to the critical role of board-level engagement, we explore how forward-thinking organizations are rethinking the role of cybersecurity in modern digital operations. He explains why simplicity often beats complexity, and how reducing friction for end users is key to long-term resilience.
We also look ahead to some of the key trends shaping the future of security. Christian dives into the challenges posed by emerging technologies such as quantum computing, AI, and the explosion of data generated by IoT and smart infrastructure. He stresses the importance of preparing now for scenarios like Harvest Now, Decrypt Later, and why organizations need to begin thinking seriously about post-quantum cryptography.
On the human side, Christian outlines what effective training looks like today and how to shift employee culture from compliance to awareness.
If you're wondering how to stay one step ahead of evolving threats, this conversation offers a wealth of insight from the heart of the Connectivity Cloud. How is your organization preparing for what’s coming next?
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I reconnect with Abnormal AI's CIO, Mike Britton, to explore one of the most pressing topics in the tech world—AI regulation and cybersecurity.
Speaking from his base near Dallas, Mike brings a pragmatic perspective shaped by decades of experience at the intersection of enterprise technology and security. As the debate around artificial intelligence evolves, we examine the growing divide between the United States and Europe on regulatory approaches and what business leaders can learn from each side.
While Europe takes a more cohesive, application-based approach, the US remains fragmented, relying on state-by-state policies and sector-specific laws. Mike unpacks why this patchwork complicates global alignment and what an effective risk-based, standardized framework might look like. He argues that regulation must focus on how AI is applied, not just its scale, especially as the technology becomes embedded in everything from healthcare to email automation.
We also touch on the unintended consequences of overregulation, including the risk of pushing innovation into regions with fewer safeguards. As Abnormal Security works with some of the world's largest brands, Mike offers a frontline view into how threat actors are already leveraging AI to outpace traditional defenses. His insights reinforce the need for transparency, human oversight, and "kill switches" to ensure AI remains a tool for good, not a liability.
From real-world examples to strategic recommendations, Mike outlines what CIOs and CISOs need to know now. His advice is clear, grounded, and actionable, whether embracing regulatory sandboxes, staying alert to geopolitical nuances in AI models, or maintaining continuous learning in a fast-moving space.
So, how do we keep innovation ethical and secure in a world where AI is moving faster than ever? And what steps should technology leaders take to avoid falling behind or losing control of the tools meant to drive progress?
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape how we work, lead, and interact, the need for emotionally intelligent and human-centered leadership has never been more urgent. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Jen Croneberger, the Founder and Chief Inspiration Officer at The Human Leadership Institute, to explore how relational leadership guides organizations through the noise and complexity of rapid AI adoption.
With a background in sports and performance psychology and a career that spans working with elite athletes, government agencies, and global brands like Nike and Samsung, Jen brings a rare perspective to the conversation around AI. She argues that amidst all the automation and data, our ability to build trust, communicate transparently, and stay grounded in shared values will define success moving forward.
Throughout the conversation, Jen makes the case that leaders today cannot rely on technical skills alone. They must create cultures of psychological safety, model adaptability, and foster a clear understanding of how AI can enhance rather than replace human capabilities.
We also dive into some of the more challenging topics, including the ethical implications of AI, resistance to change, and why some employees struggle to see a future where they coexist with intelligent machines.
What I found particularly insightful was Jen's ability to draw parallels between leading teams in high-stakes athletic environments and leading through tech transformation. Whether it's building resilience after a setback or navigating uncertain outcomes with confidence, the same foundational principles apply.
As we look to a future where AI is embedded in every business layer, Jen's message is timely and practical. If you are a leader wondering how to support your teams through disruption without losing the soul of your culture, this episode will give you plenty to reflect on.
How will you lead in a world where machines are intelligent, but people still need to feel seen?
How prepared is your business for a ransomware attack? Not just to prevent it, but to continue operating when it happens. In this episode, I sit down with Trevor Dearing, Director of Critical Infrastructure at Illumio, to discuss the latest findings from their global ransomware report and what they reveal about cyber resilience.
Trevor shares insight from a survey of more than 3,000 organisations across multiple sectors. The most concerning figure is that 58 percent of those impacted by ransomware were forced to halt operations. That number has risen sharply from 43 percent just two years ago. Despite this, many businesses in the UK still avoid reporting attacks, often due to fears around reputational damage or potential retaliation. Trevor explains why that reluctance is misguided and how public support, improved infrastructure, and more explicit government guidance could encourage more transparency.
We also explore the rise of containment as a more practical and cost-effective approach than prevention alone. Rather than trying to stop every attack at the perimeter, organisations are learning how to isolate and limit damage quickly. Trevor explains how zero trust architecture, microsegmentation, and one-click containment tools are being used to keep systems operational even during an incident.
Only 13 percent of organisations believe their cyber resilience exceeds what is required. Trevor helps us understand why this number remains low and where organisations should focus to shift from vulnerability to resilience. From evolving regulations to future applications of AI in security, this conversation covers what leaders need to know if they prepare for the next generation of cyber threats.
To access Illumio’s full ransomware report, visit illumio.com. Is your cyber resilience strategy built for recovery, or just defense?
Amid the buzz of the AWS Summit in London, I sat down with Eiso Kant, the CTO and Co-Founder of Poolside, to explore how his team is reshaping the future of software development through AI. This conversation was recorded right on the show floor inside a surprisingly sleek podcast booth at the ExCel, where Eiso unpacked what sets Poolside apart in a space many claim to be in but few truly build for.
Poolside is not just another AI company. It's one of a handful globally that is actually training foundation models from the ground up. While most firms are chasing general-purpose AI, Poolside has chosen a different path. They focus solely on empowering software developers inside high-consequence environments, such as banking, defense, and major global retailers. These are systems where precision and security matter, and where AI can drive measurable gains in productivity and reliability.
What struck me during this discussion is how deliberately Poolside has been built for enterprise use from the start. Their model doesn’t just live in the cloud. It is designed to live within the customer’s own infrastructure, whether that’s in their private AWS environment or even on-prem. This focus on data privacy, security, and customizability is helping Poolside win trust where it counts most. And the partnership with AWS takes this a step further, making it easier for enterprises to deploy Poolside’s AI within existing cloud frameworks while meeting strict governance requirements.
Eiso explained that Poolside doesn’t just throw larger models at problems. Instead, they use reinforcement learning from code execution, training on millions of real codebases and test suites. This approach helps the model go beyond autocomplete and simple bug fixes. It’s now stepping into longer, more complex tasks, nudging us closer to a future where AI could serve as a true teammate for software engineers.
We also tackled one of the most important discussions in AI today: whether this is a cost-cutting tool or a productivity multiplier. Eiso didn't dodge the nuance. While some may use AI to reduce headcount, Poolside’s focus is on enabling companies to build more, ship faster, and innovate with greater speed. That shift is not about replacing people. It's about creating leverage for development teams under pressure to deliver more in less time.
If you're a CTO, CIO, or engineering leader, this episode is packed with practical insights. Whether it's understanding the ROI of AI-assisted development, the importance of retaining control of your own models, or how to think about enterprise-grade security in the age of LLMs, there's a lot here to digest.
So how should we really be thinking about AI in the enterprise? Is it a partner, a tool, or the beginning of an entirely new workforce paradigm? Tune in to find out.
What if the food you eat could not only affect how you feel today but also determine how many healthy years you’ll have in the future? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Jonathan Wolf, the co-founder and CEO of Zoe, to explore how advanced science, AI, and data are reshaping our understanding of nutrition and health.
Jonathan shares the remarkable journey of building Zoe from an idea into a leading science and nutrition company that has reached hundreds of thousands of users.
From a background in physics and ad tech to pioneering personalized nutrition, Jonathan has led Zoe through significant milestones, including publishing more than 70 peer-reviewed papers and developing tools that empower individuals to understand their microbiomes, track real-time health markers, and make lasting changes to their diet.
We also dive into the technology powering Zoe's new free app launch in the US, which aims to help consumers see what’s really in their food. Through food photo recognition, AI-driven analysis, and a unique risk scale for processed food, Zoe is offering a tool that could change how people choose what they eat.
Jonathan explains why ultra-processed foods are a major public health concern and how empowering individuals with knowledge is the first step toward lasting change.
Beyond product features, this conversation also unpacks the tension between rigorous scientific integrity and business growth, the importance of behavior change, and the broader implications for public health.
Whether you're interested in the future of AI in healthcare, building a purpose-driven tech company, or simply making smarter food decisions, this episode will leave you thinking differently about what’s on your plate.
How can personalized nutrition move from science labs into daily life, and what role should tech leaders play in that shift?
How do you teach financial literacy to a generation that’s grown up swiping on social media, watching crypto rise and fall, and navigating economic uncertainty before they’ve even finished university? That’s the question Aleksandra Medina set out to answer when she co-founded Frich—a social finance app built with Gen Z in mind.
In this episode, I sit down with Aleksandra, the CPO and co-founder of Frich, to explore how she and her team are redefining financial wellness for the next generation. Born out of a small New York apartment and their own shared frustrations with managing money, Frich isn’t your typical finance app. It gives users a way to benchmark their spending and saving against their peers, sparking conversations around topics often ignored—like how much support you’re getting from your parents, or whether you’re overpaying on rent compared to people your age.
With over 800,000 users and partnerships with banks, credit unions, and fintechs, Frich has become a trusted tool in a space where many young people feel overlooked. Aleksandra explains how her role as Chief Product Officer puts her at the intersection of tech and impact, designing an app that’s as much about psychology and transparency as it is about numbers. We also talk about what it’s like raising funds as a first-time founder during a period of economic headwinds, and why Gen Z’s financial potential is often underestimated.
Throughout our conversation, we explore why open dialogue is key to improving financial well-being and how Frich uses gamified, community-driven insights to make those dialogues easier and more fun. From daily polls to data-driven recommendations, the app flips the script on traditional financial advice, replacing lectures with real-world relevance.
Is Gen Z as financially lost as some headlines suggest? Or are they simply lacking the right tools and data to guide their decisions? Frich is betting on the latter.
Where are you benchmarking your financial reality? And how might a little more transparency change the way you approach money?
In today’s episode, I had the opportunity to speak with Rafael Carazo Salas, a scientist, entrepreneur, and the CEO and founder of CellVoyant. This is a conversation that goes beyond the hype around AI to reveal how machine learning is reshaping the future of healthcare in ways that are both profound and immediate.
CellVoyant, a spinout from the University of Bristol, is using AI and advanced imaging technology to solve one of the most persistent challenges in biotech: the cost, time, and complexity involved in developing cell therapies.
Rafael explained how his team is applying real-time microscopy and predictive AI to monitor and guide cell behavior. This approach doesn’t rely on invasive techniques that destroy the very cells being studied. Instead, it enables a clearer path forward in cell therapy development by understanding how cells behave and adapt over time.
We explored several impactful examples, from CAR-T therapies for blood cancers to emerging treatments for Parkinson’s disease and type 1 diabetes. Rafael drew comparisons to Google Maps, describing how CellVoyant’s platform builds dynamic roadmaps for cell development, allowing scientists to correct course in real time. It’s a shift in how we think about drug development, one that has the potential to lower costs and increase access to life-saving treatments.
Beyond the science, Rafael shared his insights on the UK’s biotech ecosystem, the role of academic spinouts, and why now is a strategic moment for the UK to establish itself as a global leader in AI-powered biotech. As political and economic conditions shift in other parts of the world, he sees a window of opportunity to attract talent, drive innovation, and strengthen commercialisation.
So how far can AI go in transforming biotech, and what role will companies like CellVoyant play in making advanced therapies available to all? Tune in to find out.
What happens when marketing, psychology, and emerging tech converge around a single purpose, redefining the relationship between brands and consumers?
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Jaime Schwarz, a creative force behind Brand Therapy, The TeamFlow Institute, and MRKD.art, whose work is challenging the very foundations of modern brand strategy.
From early days in the advertising trenches to pioneering Web3-native branding frameworks, Jaime brings a fresh take on how brands should evolve in a world dominated by AI, XR, and blockchain.
We unpack the philosophy behind Brand Therapy — not as a gimmick, but as a framework that positions the brand as a living voice within the organization, mediating between company intent and customer expectation.
Jaime explains how the rise of conversational AI and tokenized digital products shifts the entire focus from knowing your customer to understanding your product, not in terms of features, but as vehicles of legacy, collaboration, and value exchange.
Throughout the discussion, Jaime breaks down complex ideas into accessible frameworks, such as the shift from consumerism to “conspicuous prosumerism,” where ownership is just the beginning of the story. Whether it’s a sneaker, a piece of digital art, or an AI-enabled car that remembers your preferences and evolves with you, Jaime shows how technology can enhance brand relationships rather than dilute them.
We also dive into the challenges of co-creation in enterprise environments, why marketers need to rethink what product-market fit actually means in the age of real-time AI interaction, and how NFTs, quantum computing, and immersive experiences are not hype but building blocks of a new economic model. Jaime’s insights offer not just theory but a call to action for companies to stop waiting for the future and start prototyping it.
If you're curious about how the smartest brands are embracing change without losing their core identity, this episode offers a compelling roadmap. And if you're in New York during NYTechWeek, don’t miss the launch of MRKD.dj’s Infinite Drop Live Album — June 6, only 150 tickets available.
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How do you measure the real impact of marketing when every campaign unfolds across multiple channels, mixes digital with physical, and generates more data than most teams can handle? That’s exactly what Abby Kearns and the team at Alembic are tackling. As Chief Technology Officer, Abby is helping build a marketing intelligence platform that doesn't stop at high-level trends or guesswork. Instead, it goes deeper to identify what actions actually drive business outcomes.
In this episode, Abby joins me to explain how Alembic brings together data science, custom-built neural networks, and lessons from pandemic-era contact tracing to solve one of the longest-standing problems in enterprise marketing. By ingesting data from CRM systems, media buys, social platforms, events, and even foot traffic, Alembic identifies causal relationships between brand activities and revenue. It's an approach that has already earned the trust of companies like Nvidia and Delta Airlines.
We also talk about how Alembic uses a combination of deep learning and large language models. While their custom algorithms surface insights and attribute outcomes, the AI layer makes the data digestible for decision-makers. The goal is to help enterprise teams move beyond anecdotal evidence and finally answer the question: what is working, and why?
Abby also opens up about the challenges that come with building and scaling a platform at the edge of what's technically possible. From managing massive data pipelines to keeping pace with generative AI innovation, the team at Alembic is pushing forward fast. This episode is packed with insights for business leaders who want to make smarter marketing decisions grounded in real data, not assumptions.
Are you confident that your marketing spend is delivering measurable value, or is it time to take a closer look at what the data is really telling you?
What if the solution to screen addiction, online bullying, and tech-driven anxiety lies not in removing devices altogether, but in rethinking how we introduce them? That’s the question at the heart of my conversation with Bill Brady, co-founder and CEO of Troomi. In a world where children are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, and where the dangers of unrestricted device access are no longer hypothetical, Troomi offers an intentional and thoughtful path forward.
Bill joins me to share why he believes optimism, not fear, should guide the future of kids and technology. A father of five and a longtime student of digital wellness, Bill created Troomi as a developmental tool. It is a smartphone designed to grow with your child. We explore how Troomi’s Android-based platform allows parents to build a tech environment that is safe, flexible, and adaptable. From contact safe-listing and real-time content filtering to the complete removal of social media, the phone helps kids communicate, learn, and grow without the overwhelming distractions and risks that dominate conventional devices.
This episode also addresses the growing mental health challenges children face, from constant social comparison to online predators. With research showing that most teenagers believe social media negatively affects their well-being, Bill explains why a proactive approach is critical. He offers insights into how parents can strike a balance between digital freedom and protection without isolating their kids from the benefits of modern technology.
We also discuss how Troomi is integrating AI to create a safer online experience through real-time content vetting and educational tools. Bill highlights new features on the horizon and shares the company's plans to expand beyond the United States, particularly to markets like the United Kingdom where demand for healthier tech options is growing.
How can we equip the next generation with technology that supports their growth rather than hinders it?
What if AI could help your content speak every language without losing its heart? In today’s episode, I sat down with Oz Krakowski, Chief Business Development Officer at Deepdub, a company reshaping how stories cross linguistic and cultural borders through AI-powered dubbing. As global demand for diverse entertainment continues to surge, Deepdub is offering studios a new way forward—one that balances scale with emotional fidelity.
Oz walked me through how Deepdub’s platform enables post-production teams to dub content into over 130 languages and dialects, with output that respects the tone and intent of the original performance. This isn’t about replacing human creativity—it’s about integrating it into smarter workflows. Through a hybrid approach, Deepdub fuses cutting-edge AI with seasoned voice actors, directors, and editors to maintain authenticity while massively improving efficiency.
From monetizing dormant titles trapped in single-language formats to opening up live broadcasts for real-time localization, the implications are wide-ranging. Oz also shared how Deepdub Live is already unlocking access to new global audiences for sports, conferences, and beyond—potentially transforming how we experience real-time events.
We also explored the deeper economics of AI dubbing, especially as the cost of localization begins to fall, making it more viable to bring overlooked content into untapped markets. Whether it’s delivering content in regional dialects or enabling personalized voice experiences across industries like eLearning and customer service, the roadmap for AI localization is expanding far beyond the entertainment world.
At a time when studios are re-evaluating their content strategies, Deepdub offers a glimpse of what's possible when AI meets cultural intelligence. Could your next global audience already be waiting?
Have you considered how AI might help your content reach new viewers without losing its original voice?
How do you uncover misinformation and financial fraud hidden in plain sight across thousands of digital platforms during a global election cycle? In this episode, I spoke with Jim Webber, Chief Scientist at Neo4j, to explore how graph database technology is being used to expose coordinated disinformation campaigns, empower AI systems, and help enterprises manage the complexity of modern data.
At the heart of our conversation is the story of the ElectionGraph Project, where Syracuse University used Neo4j's graph technology to investigate political ad spend on Meta platforms. What they discovered was not just political messaging, but sophisticated scams disguised as legitimate campaigns. These efforts, targeting civically engaged users, used merchandise giveaways as a front to harvest credit card details and enroll victims in recurring billing traps. Traditional analytics would have struggled to trace these relationships, but graph databases allowed researchers to map and understand the deeper connections between thousands of entities.
We also unpack how graph technology goes far beyond fraud detection. Jim explains why graph databases are now foundational for businesses building AI systems, particularly those using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to reduce hallucinations and improve decision making. Whether it's helping enterprises respond to customer needs or enabling AI agents to take action in real time, graphs provide the structure and context needed for reliable outcomes.
Jim also shares the backstory behind Klarna's data transformation, where the company embraced knowledge graphs at the core of its operations and replaced major systems, including parts of Salesforce. It's a striking example of what becomes possible when a business commits to connected data as a strategic asset.
From misinformation to intelligent automation, this episode dives into the real-world value of graph technology in 2025. Are you thinking critically about how your data infrastructure supports your AI ambitions?
What does digital sovereignty mean in the age of cloud computing, and is Europe finally prepared to rethink its reliance on foreign infrastructure?
In this episode, I speak with David Michels from Queen Mary University of London about his latest research, which examines the growing demand for sovereign cloud services across Europe. Commissioned by Broadcom but developed independently, the report surfaces at a time when regulators, enterprises, and policymakers are all asking tougher questions about who controls data and how.
David explains why the concept of a sovereign cloud is still poorly defined. Depending on who you ask, it might mean autonomy over data, protection from foreign surveillance, or strategic independence from global superpowers. That ambiguity creates confusion for customers and raises compliance risks in regulated industries.
My guest also addresses one of the most persistent misconceptions in the market: the difference between data residency and data sovereignty. Just because data is stored in Europe does not mean it is immune from foreign access if the provider falls under another country's jurisdiction.
We dig into the practical implications of these issues, including why many organizations are reassessing their risk exposure, particularly in light of extraterritorial legal frameworks like the US CLOUD Act.
David outlines a pragmatic approach to improve clarity without waiting for new legislation. His proposed GDPR-aligned code of conduct would allow cloud providers to transparently demonstrate compliance with European data protection expectations, giving customers a stronger basis for trust and accountability.
This conversation is not about cloud theory. It is about legal risk, operational impact, and policy direction. Whether you're a CIO navigating compliance, a regulator shaping guidance, or a provider building cross-border services, this episode offers a clear-eyed look at the shifting demands of digital sovereignty.
Are European organizations finally ready to take a different path in the cloud?
In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Jeff Butler, General Manager of Cask Canada, who shares the story of how he led a tech startup to a standout position in the competitive ServiceNow ecosystem in less than a year.
Listen in to learn how Cask Canada grew from startup to standout in the ServiceNow ecosystem by focusing on people, trust, and AI-driven transformation.
As we explore Jeff’s unique journey from his early days witnessing the birth of Silicon Valley innovation in San Francisco to building a thriving ServiceNow consulting business in Canada, there are lessons here for anyone navigating today’s fast-moving tech landscape.
Jeff offers a first-hand look at the unexpected realities of launching a consultancy in Canada's evolving digital market. Rather than focusing solely on technology, he highlights the power of building genuine, long-term relationships with clients and team members. Throughout our conversation, it becomes clear that success in tech services today is shaped as much by trust, patience, and authenticity as it is by technical excellence.
We also discuss how AI and automation are reshaping ServiceNow-driven digital transformations. Jeff provides valuable insight into how AI is not just enhancing customer service experiences but also beginning to change the way consulting services are delivered. Yet he makes an important point: human oversight remains vital, especially when high-stakes business decisions are involved.
Looking ahead, Jeff reflects on the challenges and opportunities that ServiceNow partners face as AI capabilities mature, integration demands grow, and the implementation partner landscape changes. He also shares how building an elite consulting team required a deliberate focus on culture, communication, and finding people who want to build something bigger than themselves.
What if contracts could do more than sit in a drawer gathering dust? In today's episode, I sit down with Monish Darda, CTO and Co-founder of Icertis, to explore how AI is transforming contracts into powerful, active business assets.
Monish shares how Icertis has evolved from early machine learning models to leveraging large language models like GPT to extract information and true intent from contracts. This breakthrough allows organizations to optimize business relationships, enforce commitments such as sustainability goals, and significantly reduce revenue leakage, often reclaiming up to 9% of contract value.
During our conversation, Monish explains how contracts become first-class enterprise objects actively participating in workflows, shaping how commerce operates at scale. We dive into real-world examples, including how a global pharmaceutical company saves over $70 million annually by optimizing supplier pricing across multiple countries and languages.
Monish also highlights Humana's success in cutting operating expenses by over $125 million by embedding contract intelligence into core processes.
We also unpack the importance of data quality in building trustworthy AI systems. Monish looks at how Icertis ensures clean, actionable contract data through a standard data model, human-in-the-loop verification, and hundreds of thousands of built-in validation rules.
As the world rapidly embraces AI, he shares his vision for a future where AI agents are constrained by the "rules of business" defined within contracts, ensuring responsible and reliable decision-making.
Monish rounds off our discussion with an inspiring nod to Isaac Asimov and the power of storytelling in shaping our understanding of technology's future. If you ever thought contracts were just static documents, this conversation will change how you see them and reveal how AI is reshaping the foundations of enterprise operations.
How is your organization preparing for a future where contracts guide and drive business outcomes?
In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO of Stack Overflow, to explore how the rise of AI is reshaping the future of software development and the evolving role of community-driven platforms.
Prashanth offers a grounded view of what is happening behind the headlines as the tech world moves into the third year of widespread AI adoption.
We begin by unpacking how AI is already transforming the way developers work, automating routine coding tasks, while still falling short when it comes to complexity and trustworthiness. Prashanth explains why Stack Overflow is positioning itself as a community and a vital "Knowledge as a Service" platform, integrating with AI tools to maintain trusted knowledge in an age where data quality and source attribution have never been more important.
Our conversation also delves into the growing concern of "LLM brain drain" and the broader data crisis facing AI innovation. Prashanth highlights the importance of human-generated content, even as synthetic data technologies advance. He shares why Stack Overflow's continued investment in community-driven knowledge, responsible AI use, and strategic partnerships with major AI players is critical to maintaining a healthy ecosystem for developers and enterprises.
We also look ahead to Stack Overflow's strategic priorities, including expanding content types, integrating AI into both the public platform and Stack Overflow for Teams, and moving toward a seamless user experience across the tools developers already use every day.
How can businesses balance automation with human insight in their AI strategies? Why is data scarcity a looming issue for AI development? And how is Stack Overflow preparing to lead community and enterprise solutions into the next era of innovation? Let's find out.
How do businesses untangle years of legacy technology without risking everything they have built? Today on Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Jacek Migdał, founder and CEO of Quesma, to explore this question and discover how his company offers a fresh and pragmatic approach to database migration and optimization.
Jacek shared the story behind Quesma's creation, shaped by his early exposure to databases through his father's work and his own experiences in Silicon Valley.
Through extensive research, he identified a widespread frustration among businesses trying to modernize their legacy systems, often facing high costs, licensing nightmares, and failed migrations. Rather than tearing everything down and starting from scratch, Quesma offers a database gateway that acts as a middle layer, allowing gradual migrations with far less risk.
I learn more about how this technology enables companies to test new systems alongside their old ones, helping to avoid the costly mistakes that have historically derailed so many modernization projects.
We discussed how Quesma is addressing complex challenges across industries like telecom and travel. Their solution is already providing companies with ten times faster performance while significantly lowering operational costs, all without forcing disruptive system changes.
Jacek also gave a sneak peek into two exciting new products launching soon. SQL extensions with pipe syntax will enrich data directly inside databases, while a feature called "smart charts" will offer AI-powered visualizations for faster, clearer insights.
What makes Quesma truly stand out is its unapologetically pragmatic approach. Rather than assuming a clean, cloud-native environment, Quesma embraces most businesses' messy realities. Their clever use of AI enhances migration processes without relying solely on black box systems, striking a unique balance between speed, reliability, and cost efficiency.
As we look toward the future, Jacek shared how Quesma is pushing forward with open-source initiatives, observability pipelines, and forming consortiums with major players in the tech industry.
With upcoming appearances at major conferences in the United States and Europe, it is clear that Quesma is carving a new path for database modernization.
How could a smarter approach to data migrations change how your organization adapts and grows in a data-driven world?
When building a successful startup, the difference between thriving and failing often lies in understanding the journey itself. Today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Gregory Shepard, the entrepreneur behind "The Startup Lifecycle" and the founder of the Startup Science platform. Gregory's research-driven insights offer a clear and practical roadmap that challenges the myths that have surrounded startup culture for decades.
In our conversation, Gregory shared how his five-year research project revealed why so many startups fail and what can be done to reverse that trend. With data showing that 47.1 percent of startups fail within the first 18 months, Gregory highlights the critical importance of getting the earliest decisions right.
Overvaluation, misunderstanding capital needs, premature scaling, and neglecting to consider an exit strategy from the start are some common missteps he passionately helps founders avoid.
Gregory also discussed the seven stages of the startup lifecycle he created, paying particular attention to the often overlooked stages of standardization and optimization.
Rather than rushing from product development to rapid growth, he emphasizes the need to stabilize and streamline operations first to ensure that scaling brings real profitability, not just top-line growth. This mindset shift alone could dramatically alter the success rate of new businesses.
Beyond the book, Gregory has built the Startup Science platform, a comprehensive ecosystem designed to give founders access to mentors, investors, grants, classes, and curated resources all in one place. It is not just about reading a book or attending a workshop. It is about systematically embedding success principles into every aspect of the entrepreneurial journey.
We also talked about the current startup climate and why economic downturns often lead to a surge in entrepreneurial activity. Gregory's advice is simple yet powerful: bunker down, stay focused, and view this period as an opportunity rather than a barrier. Investors still back good companies even when the broader environment feels uncertain.
Throughout our conversation, Gregory's passion for supporting marginalized entrepreneurs and his commitment to the social and environmental impact of startups shone through. His belief that entrepreneurship is a true driver of global progress resonated deeply with me. Every aspiring founder can learn from their structured approach to resilience and success.
For those curious about the real factors behind startup success, I highly recommend checking out "The Startup Lifecycle" and exploring the resources available at GregoryShepard.com and StartupScience.io.
If you are serious about your entrepreneurial dreams, this is one conversation you cannot afford to miss.
How can computer vision and AI reshape the future of coaching, player development, and fan engagement in sports? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Lauren Pedersen, CEO and co-founder of SportAI, to explore how AI brings advanced sports analysis to athletes and coaches everywhere, not just to elite professionals.
Lauren shares the inspiring journey that led her from New Zealand to Norway and from NCAA Division 1 tennis player to tech entrepreneur. SportAI is leading a movement to democratize access to professional-grade coaching tools, offering real-time tactical and technical analysis in racket sports like tennis, paddle, and pickleball.
Using computer vision to track body movement and ball contact points from video alone without the need for wearables, SportAI delivers data-backed insights directly to coaches and players through integrations with camera-enabled courts and coaching platforms.
We also dive into how SportAI's technology serves sports organizations, academies, equipment brands, and broadcasters, providing valuable performance data and creating new revenue streams for local clubs. Lauren talks about the balance between AI and human coaching, how AI enhances but never replaces the coach's role, and why social engagement and player empowerment are at the heart of this sports technology evolution.
Lauren's vision stretches beyond racket sports, hinting at future expansions into golf, basketball, and baseball, wherever repetitive motion training can benefit from biomechanical analysis. As the sports world embraces AI and camera technology at scale, what does this mean for the future of training, competition, and how athletes of all levels experience the game?
Tune in to learn how SportAI makes advanced sports insights accessible to all and what lies ahead for this exciting intersection of sports and technology.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Sunil Singhvi, Head of Arts & Culture at TriliTech, the London-based blockchain hub helping shape the future of digital experiences through the Tezos ecosystem. Sunil brings a rare blend of deep tech, culture, and media expertise, having held senior roles at Twitter, Instagram, and Rarible before joining Trilitech. His mission? To explore how blockchain isn't just about tokens and ledgers but about real human connection, particularly between creators, brands, and their communities.
What stood out in our conversation is how Sunil views blockchain as a vehicle for restoring creative autonomy and rebuilding trust in the creator-fan relationship. Through compelling examples like Manchester United's Fantasy United game and McLaren's collectible-driven fandom, we explore how Tezos enables ownership, co-creation, and authentic engagement that outpaces traditional social platforms and algorithms.
We unpack the evolution of NFTs, moving beyond the speculative bubble of the past into more grounded use cases that offer tangible benefits. From supporting emerging artists through royalty-respecting marketplaces like objkt.com to enabling fans to co-create digital artwork through platforms such as editart.xyz, the conversation highlights a meaningful shift in how digital creativity is produced and experienced.
Sunil paints a future where fans become collaborators and artists regain long-lost visibility into who their supporters truly are. We also reflect on the power of community, where smaller and more engaged groups increasingly matter more than vast but disengaged audiences. And perhaps most importantly, we explore what happens when creative expression is no longer dictated by opaque systems but driven by transparent, decentralized tools.
Could blockchain finally deliver on the promise of a fairer and more inclusive creative economy? And if so, how can artists, brands, and everyday users participate in this movement without repeating the missteps of earlier digital revolutions?
Let us know your thoughts. Could Web3 be the reset button creative industries have been waiting for?
In today's episode, I sat down with Mary Hamilton, Global Lead for Accenture's Connected Innovation Centers, to explore how the landscape of artificial intelligence is shifting.
As we mark the 25th anniversary of Accenture's Technology Vision report, this year's insights reveal a profound transition into an era of AI-powered autonomy—reshaping how enterprises operate and how people and technology work together.
Mary took us inside the key findings from the Tech Vision 2025 report, which is centered on the growing role of AI as a true partner rather than just a tool. From acting as a co-developer to becoming a brand ambassador and even powering robotics in the physical world, AI is on a fast trajectory toward becoming a foundational layer across every business function.
However, Mary made it clear that technology alone isn't enough. Without trust in the systems being built, none of this innovation will land as intended. As she shared, building confidence in AI must be both cognitive and emotional—leaders must ensure that AI systems behave in expected, transparent ways and that people feel confident in their interactions with them.
We also discussed how enterprises can harness what Accenture calls "cognitive digital brains" through multi-agent systems that enable intent-driven rather than instruction-led technology. Mary unpacked how these architectures, combined with AI platforms like GenWizard and SynOps are already transforming how companies create, operate, and innovate.
We explored how brands can differentiate themselves in an AI-first world, where intelligent systems increasingly mediate customer interactions. She explained that one of the most significant risks is that ever sounds sound the same unless companies inject their values and personality into their AI experiences.
We also touched on the rise of general-purpose robots, which have gained specialist capabilities and brought flexibility to logistics and manufacturing. Through examples with companies like KION and Schaeffler, Mary described a future where AI-enhanced robots work alongside humans in more agile, adaptive ways
Finally, we tackled the human side of adoption. Mary shared why upskilling employees, giving them time to experiment, and aligning culture with AI goals are vital for lasting impact. Measuring success in this space requires more than cost savings or productivity gains. Ethical compliance, trust-building, and workforce empowerment are also essential signals that businesses are moving in the right direction.
So, what does it take to turn AI from a buzzword into a practical driver of reinvention? How can leaders build a digital foundation ready for a future defined by autonomy and intelligence? Tune in to hear how Accenture is answering those questions—and helping the enterprise world do the same.
What does it mean to be a digitally engaged customer in 2025? That question sits at the heart of my conversation with Kim Storin, Chief Marketing Officer at Zoom.
Just two days into her role, Kim brings a fresh perspective shaped by decades of experience and a track record of building and transforming iconic brands. She joins me to discuss the evolution of Zoom, the changing expectations of modern customers, and how the CMO role is being redefined in an era of AI-powered transformation.
In this episode, Kim shares how Zoom is expanding far beyond meetings. Most people know Zoom for its video conferencing, but the platform now includes capabilities across events, webinars, contact center, email, scheduling, and employee engagement. Zoom is evolving into a complete communications and collaboration platform, and Kim offers insight into how her team will help shift perception while staying laser-focused on customer outcomes.
We explore the shift from performance-heavy marketing to a more balanced approach that re-centers brand, storytelling, and product alignment.
Kim emphasizes how the modern customer prefers to research independently, often completing most of their journey before ever engaging with a salesperson. This makes marketing more critical than ever, requiring clear, relevant messaging across every touchpoint. She also highlights the need to improve self-service experiences, especially as more enterprises seek the right balance between automation and human connection.
Kim offers thoughtful insights on integrating AI in marketing, not as a replacement, but as a superpower. From content development and competitive analysis to strategic planning, she shares how her teams are already using generative tools to enhance productivity and creativity.
This episode is packed with real-world observations on digital transformation, customer engagement, and the changing dynamics of marketing leadership.
Whether you're a founder, marketer, or tech leader navigating the future of work, this conversation with Zoom's new CMO will give you ideas to reflect on and strategies to explore. How are you evolving your approach to marketing in a digital-first world?
What does it really take to modernize an enterprise in a world of constant disruption, increasing AI capabilities, and evolving customer expectations? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Rajsekhar Datta Roy, Chief Technology Officer at Sonata Software, to explore how modernization engineering and responsible AI adoption are reshaping business transformation strategies.
Raj brings decades of experience to the conversation, guiding organizations through the complexities of aligning technology with business value. We begin by unpacking what modernization truly means in today’s environment. Rather than a single event, Raj explains how modernization is a continuous process that blends operational efficiency with agile frameworks and a readiness to adapt to future technologies like AI.
My guest shares Sonata Software’s structured approach to modernization, designed to generate efficiency from existing systems and redirect those savings into smarter, faster innovation cycles.
We also explore the growing role of generative AI in digital transformation. Raj outlines the importance of moving beyond surface-level applications, advocating for a deeper integration of AI into reimagined business processes. He discusses Sonata’s responsible-first approach to AI, including its governance framework and platform-level deployment strategy that ensures secure and ethical implementation.
The result is not only a future-ready enterprise, but one that can deliver measurable value through better customer experiences, faster decision-making, and scalable AI adoption.
As we zoom out, Raj highlights key ecosystem shifts, such as the growing importance of cross-industry collaboration and transforming customer expectations in the age of intelligent agents. He also offers advice on how to modernize without disrupting core systems, emphasizing the value of continuous learning, hands-on experimentation, and practical frameworks that reduce time to impact.
If your organization is navigating digital transformation or exploring responsible AI deployment, this conversation offers both a strategic lens and real-world examples to help you move forward with clarity. How are you preparing your technology stack and business processes for what comes next? Let’s continue the conversation.
With over 100 million packages recycled since its launch in 2019, Bower has proven that incentivizing people with real-world rewards can significantly increase recycling rates without building new infrastructure.
From barcode scanning to AI-powered image recognition, the Bower app empowers users to recycle all types of packaging and earn rewards simply by dropping items into ordinary recycling bins. It’s simple, scalable, and working across more than 170 countries.
Berfin Mert, co-founder and COO of Bower, explains how their latest innovations now detect items without barcodes, such as coffee cups, cigarette butts, and batteries. She shares how AI-driven guidance has led to a 32% improvement in sorting rates, and why location-based data is key to building smarter, more responsive recycling systems.
We also discuss the realities of building a circular economy, the growing role of brands like Nestlé and Varta, and why a purely sustainable pitch isn’t always enough to bring companies on board.
Berfin’s perspective on bridging environmental goals with business realities makes this conversation stand out. She talks openly about expanding their value proposition to include marketing insights and loyalty tools, making the platform attractive to both eco-conscious users and revenue-driven brands.
Toward the end of our chat, Berfin opens up about her own journey, crediting her brother and co-founder as the person who inspired her to take the leap into entrepreneurship. It’s a grounded, honest look at innovation, impact, and the people who help bring both to life.
This episode offers a fresh, practical perspective if you’ve ever wondered how small tech-driven actions can influence global sustainability. Could your packaging be worth something more? Let’s find out together.
Here’s the thing: we all heard Sundar Pichai say that the easy wins in AI have faded and that we may see fewer headline‑grabbing releases from the big players over the next year. That comment feels like a red flag for momentum, but I see it as a green light for action.
In this episode, I chatted with Rahul Pradhan, VP of Product and Strategy at Couchbase, about how teams can take advantage of this pause to move projects from simple experiments into solid, production‑ready services.
I ask why many organizations hesitate to send their data to public AI endpoints. Rahul explains that when you’ve invested years building data platforms, handing over your proprietary information—even in encrypted form—can feel like handing over the keys to your kingdom. He walks us through how running models inside your security perimeter keeps private data safe and brings up model accuracy since you can tailor inputs and scrub out noise before it ever reaches the inference engine.
Next, we tackle the question of stability. Companies often assume that the path to a live service is straightforward once a pilot works. Rahul warns that managing GPUs, orchestrating models, and serving them at low latency all require skill sets that live at the crossroads of ML engineering and traditional software development.
We round out our conversation by shifting focus from tools to teams. Technology alone cannot carry an AI initiative. We need leaders who set a clear vision, data stewards who govern every data flow, and developers who feel as comfortable writing database queries as they define training pipelines. Rahul offers thoughtful advice on building that culture and shares examples of industries—healthcare, financial services, and retail—where the most far‑reaching uses of AI are taking root.
If you’re wondering how to push your proof of concept into a robust service that customers depend on, this episode is for you. I promise you’ll come away with ideas you can apply tomorrow and a fresh view of why a little breathing room in AI releases can become the launch pad for your subsequent big success.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, recorded live at Team '25 in Anaheim, I sit down with Jamil Valliani, Head of AI Products at Atlassian, to unpack the momentum behind Rovo, Atlassian’s bold move to reimagine collaboration through generative AI. But this conversation goes far beyond product features. It offers a glimpse into how AI is reshaping teamwork, decision-making, and even company culture.
Jamil explains how Rovo brings together enterprise-grade search, secure contextual chat, and a new Agent Studio designed to help anyone, from engineers to HR teams, build their own AI teammates. Perhaps most notably, all of this is being rolled out at no additional cost to Atlassian’s paid users. That shift in accessibility marks a clear intent to drive meaningful adoption, not just feature excitement.
We explore why 2025 is being tipped as the year of the AI agent, and how Atlassian is helping businesses move beyond overwhelm and into action. What stands out is how teams are using Rovo not just to save time but to remove the friction that clogs up workdays. Think triaging support tickets, updating status reports, or turning customer insights into ready-to-execute tasks. These are no longer chores left to team members; they are responsibilities shared with intelligent, learning agents that work alongside them.
Jamil also shares some revealing stats. Customers are already seeing up to 2x return on investment, saving over 100 minutes a day, and 85 percent say the quality of their work has improved. That time and mental clarity is giving teams space to experiment, adapt, and create.
So, where should you begin if you're starting your AI journey? And what does it take to build a culture where AI is embraced not just as a tool, but as a catalyst for better work? Tune in, and let us know what your AI-powered future looks like.
What does it take to lead with empathy in a world where AI transforms our work? In this episode, I sit down with Avani Prabhakar, Atlassian's Chief People Officer, to discuss how the company is creating a people-first culture while embracing rapid innovation.
Avani shares how Atlassian is approaching AI not just as a technology shift, but as a mindset shift. When teams see AI as a collaborator instead of a task bot, 90 percent say it improves the quality of their work. That’s not a statistic about productivity. It’s a signal that mindset makes a measurable difference.
We explore how leaders can support that shift. It starts with putting people first and using AI to free up time for creativity and deeper thinking. It also means giving teams permission to experiment, learn from failure, and figure out how these tools fit into their day-to-day work. And it includes being transparent about your own journey. What are you using? What’s working? What lessons can others borrow?
Avani also gives us a look at how Atlassian is rethinking performance and growth in a distributed world. Flexibility, trust, and curiosity are the new foundation for high performance, and the people function is now more connected than ever to the wider business strategy.
If AI is going to be a part of every team’s toolkit, how do we help people feel confident using it? And what kind of leadership does this moment call for? Join the conversation and let us know what you think.
What happens when tools like Jira, Confluence, Loom, and AI-powered agents come together under one unified strategy?
At Team 25 in Anaheim, I sat down with Sanchan Saxena, Atlassian’s Head of Product for Work Management, to explore the company’s new Teamwork Collection and what it means for the evolving nature of collaboration.
With leadership experience at Coinbase, Airbnb, Instagram, and Microsoft, Sanchan brings a pragmatic lens to building products that meet teams where they are. In our conversation, we unpack the thinking behind the Teamwork Collection, a curated set of Atlassian tools designed to help teams work more seamlessly while delivering real, measurable outcomes. This isn’t about adding more tools to the stack. It’s about reducing the noise and giving teams a single, integrated space to plan, document, and communicate with clarity.
We also explore how AI is being used to reduce manual overhead, surface relevant information faster, and make daily tasks feel less like busywork. Sanchan shares practical examples of how companies are already using these tools to boost productivity, make meetings more actionable, and give teams back valuable time. For leaders focused on change management or wrestling with tool adoption, there are actionable insights here on overcoming cultural friction and designing for long-term success.
Recorded live at Team 25, this conversation reflects a broader shift in how work is organized and supported. Whether you’re in IT, product, operations, or leadership, this episode offers a look at how Atlassian is building for the future of work—one where humans and AI collaborate without the chaos.
How are you designing your workflows to stay ahead of that curve? Let’s continue the conversation.
What does it really take to build a software startup that doesn’t crash before it can fly? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with David Hirschfeld, founder of Tekyz Inc., a software veteran who’s spent over 35 years working across more than 90 startups.
From his early days studying physics at UCLA to becoming the top national salesperson at Computer Associates, and later founding and selling his own successful software company, David has seen the full arc of startup life—success, failure, and the lessons in between.
In our conversation, David unpacks the patterns he’s observed over decades in the field and the epiphany that led him to create the “Launch 1st Method.” Rather than falling into the trap of building first and validating later, David’s approach challenges founders to prove product-market fit and generate real revenue before a single line of production code is written.
He shares how this model not only reduces time, cost, and reliance on outside investment, but also offers a better chance of startup survival by confronting real-world customer demand from day one.
We also explore how generative AI is reshaping software development, both in terms of speed and in shifting user expectations. David explains which areas of software development are accelerating most, where AI still struggles, and why even the best tools can't substitute for deep customer insight and thoughtful architecture. He also breaks down the artifacts that distinguish exceptional development teams—from weekly status reports to estimation accuracy—and how these practices shape delivery quality and team alignment.
But perhaps most importantly, David offers a grounded look at what makes founders succeed. He emphasizes the value of falling in love with a problem, not a product idea, and staying relentlessly focused on understanding customers and their willingness to pay. Whether you're just starting out or rethinking your strategy, this episode delivers practical insights on how to derisk innovation, build smarter, and stay resilient in a fast-moving AI era.
Are you building what people need, or what you hope they want? Let’s explore that further.
What happens when one of the world’s most loved productivity tools decides to reinvent itself for the age of AI? At Team 25 in Anaheim, I sat down with Gaurav Kataria, Head of Product for Trello at Atlassian, to unpack the biggest release in Trello’s history and what it means for individuals and teams navigating the chaos of modern work.
Gaurav describes the new Trello as “an AI-powered to-do list,” built not to replace project management tools like Jira but to complement them—especially for those personal tasks, scattered action items, and mental notes that get lost in a sea of email, Slack messages, and SaaS app notifications. With half a million users opting into the beta within 48 hours of launch, it's clear that the new direction is resonating.
In our conversation, we explore how Atlassian is using AI to enhance, not overwhelm, individual productivity—by capturing inputs from everywhere, organizing them intelligently, and helping users block time visually with integrations into Google and Microsoft calendars. This isn’t about automating your life; it’s about giving you clarity and control without friction.
We also talk about how Trello remains deeply personal. From list colors to card covers and mobile widgets, the design philosophy centers on reducing cognitive load and sparking focus. Trello isn’t trying to be a super app. It’s trying to be the app that respects your mental model, works the way your brain works, and empowers you to get meaningful work done on your own terms.
If you’re overwhelmed by task sprawl or skeptical of AI’s growing role in daily workflows, this episode offers a grounded look at what thoughtful, user-centered innovation looks like in action. How do you strike the balance between simplicity, automation, and human creativity? Let’s explore that together.
What happens when four decades of hands-on engineering experience meet today’s fast-moving AI and open-source ecosystem?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Paula Paul, Founder and Distinguished Engineer at Greyshore, to explore that intersection. Paula began her tech career in the early 1980s writing code for IBM mainframes and has since become a trusted voice in enterprise modernization, cloud adoption, and open-source governance. Today, she advises organizations on how to build with confidence in an era defined by complex software supply chains, generative AI, and evolving SaaS models.
We recorded this conversation during a time when many organizations are feeling the pressure to adopt AI and modernize legacy systems, but struggle with where to begin. Paula offers grounded insights on how to break down replatforming into value-driven streams and why a “big bang” transformation approach is often more risk than reward. She also talks about the critical role of open source in business today—not just from a tooling standpoint, but in terms of responsibility, transparency, and community.
Paula’s perspective is refreshingly practical. She believes AI is a natural evolution of decades of computing and storage expansion but urges companies to start with targeted experiments and thoughtful team collaboration. She also shares her experiences as a woman in tech since the 1980s, reflecting on what’s changed and what hasn’t and how leadership dynamics continue to shape opportunities for women in the industry.
Beyond the code, Paula draws a fascinating parallel between music and technology. As a board member of the Brookline Music School and an oboe and English horn student, she explores how musical thinking can enhance software development's rhythm, structure, and leadership.
If you’re navigating modernization, curious about AI’s role in development, or wondering how to make open source work for your organization—technically and strategically—this episode has something for you. How are you balancing technical ambition with long-term value? Let’s continue the conversation.
What does it really mean to build software with joy? At the Team 25 event in Anaheim, I had the opportunity to sit down with Rajeev Rajan, CTO of Atlassian, to explore how one of the world’s most influential engineering organizations is redefining developer experience from the ground up.
Rajeev shares how developer joy became a guiding principle for Atlassian, not as a feel-good initiative but as a core driver of performance and innovation. Rather than focusing solely on velocity or throughput, Atlassian measured how productive developers felt in their codebases. That metric has now improved from 49 percent to 75 percent, thanks to a deliberate strategy built on three pillars: better tools, stronger engineering culture, and empowered teams.
We also dive into how this cultural shift helped accelerate the delivery of Rovo, Atlassian’s most ambitious AI product to date. Built-in record time, Rovo didn’t emerge from a top-down push but from an environment where engineers were supported to move fast without cutting corners. That includes training internal teams through AI School, rolling out dev agents, and prioritizing transparency over automation for automation’s sake.
Rajeev also reflects on how India has become a global engine for AI and software development and why Atlassian invests in its global teams with the same level of trust and ownership as any other location. From ship-it hackathons to hands-on leadership and a grounded view of where AI helps and where it still falls short, this conversation highlights what it takes to build modern engineering teams that are both productive and fulfilled.
So, if you’re building AI strategies, leading engineering teams, or rethinking how to scale innovation responsibly, what would change if developer happiness were your benchmark?
What if most product launches fail not because of bad ideas—but because of broken processes? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Stuart Jackson, Vice Chair of L.E.K. Consulting and co-author of the forthcoming book Predictable Winners (Stanford University Press, 2025). Stuart brings nearly four decades of experience in strategic growth and innovation, and his insights offer a much-needed reframe for businesses navigating the high-stakes world of new product and service development.
We sat down to explore a topic many leaders shy away from: why 70–90% of product launches still miss the mark. Stuart breaks down the structural weaknesses that often derail innovation and explains why relying on gut instinct is no longer enough. Instead, we discuss how a rigorous, data-backed approach—augmented by AI—can dramatically reduce the risk profile of innovation while improving speed, accuracy, and return on investment.
Stuart shares how leading organizations are integrating AI into every phase of their innovation pipeline—from idea screening and predictive analytics to launch planning and ongoing iteration. He outlines the rise of long-horizon thinking and how AI is enabling companies to identify emerging demand signals well before the competition.
What I found particularly refreshing was Stuart’s take on what top innovators do differently. It’s not just about having better ideas—it’s about building the right systems. That means empowering cross-functional teams, systematically disaggregating risk, and knowing when to pivot versus when to persevere.
This conversation isn’t about theory. It’s a pragmatic look at how to move from product guesswork to predictable success—whether you're building in-house or buying through M&A. For founders, product leaders, and anyone trying to modernize their innovation model, this episode offers grounded advice and a clear framework that you can start applying today.
How are you thinking about AI as a tool for risk reduction in innovation? Are your product strategies built for speed or sustainability—or both? Let me know what you think.
At Team '25 in Anaheim, I had the unique opportunity to sit down with Stan Shepard, General Counsel at Atlassian, for a conversation that pulled back the curtain on how legal and technology are intersecting in the age of AI.
Stan’s journey from journalism to law to shaping legal operations at one of the world’s most forward-thinking companies is as fascinating as it is relevant. What emerged from our discussion is a clear signal that legal teams are no longer trailing behind innovation—they’re often at the front of it.
Stan shared how Atlassian’s legal function achieved 85 percent daily usage of AI tools, including the company’s in-house assistant, Rovo. This is remarkable when compared to the industry norm, where legal teams typically lag in AI adoption. Instead of resisting change, Stan’s team leaned into it, focusing on automation for repetitive tasks while reserving high-value thinking for their legal experts.
We explore Atlassian’s responsible tech framework, their principles around transparency and accountability, and how these inform product development from day one. Stan also walked me through how Atlassian is navigating the emerging global regulatory landscape, from the EU AI Act to evolving compliance in the US.
His insights on embedding legal counsel directly into product teams, rather than operating on the sidelines, reveal a model of collaboration that turns risk management into a growth enabler.
For legal professionals, compliance leaders, and tech decision-makers wrestling with how to integrate AI responsibly, this episode offers a grounded, real-world blueprint. It’s not just about mitigating risk—it’s about building trust, preserving human judgment, and future-proofing your operations. If you’re wondering what responsible AI adoption looks like at scale, you’ll want to hear this one.
So how are you preparing your legal and compliance strategy for the AI-powered workplace? Let’s keep the conversation going.
What if cloud storage could be simple, transparent, and genuinely affordable? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Tommi Kannisto, founder of Storadera a company based in Estonia that's redefining the way businesses approach object storage. I first met Tommi during the IT Press Tour in London, where Storadera's fresh perspective on S3-compatible cloud storage stood out for all the right reasons.
In our conversation, Tommi shares the journey behind building a hyper-converged cloud storage platform that challenges conventional thinking. From eliminating hidden fees to maximizing performance on traditional spinning disks, Storadera is built around an ethos of doing more with less. The platform’s architectural simplicity allows for efficient scaling, reliable performance with small files, and an operational model that avoids complexity by design.
Tommi also walks us through how Storadera handles everything from data durability to sovereignty, with data centers already operating in Estonia and the Netherlands. With growing demand from regions focused on local control of data, we explore the opportunities emerging from geopolitical shifts and increasing global focus on sovereignty. Estonia’s digital-first culture and its thriving startup ecosystem form the backdrop to this innovation, and we discuss how a small country has produced more than its share of tech unicorns.
As we look to the road ahead, Tommi explains how AI might soon play a role in optimizing read and delete operations to push storage efficiency even further. He also touches on the growing interest in Storadera from companies seeking alternatives to US-based hyperscalers and how demand from across Europe is shaping their expansion plans.
If you’re exploring options beyond the cloud giants or curious about what’s brewing in Europe’s fast-growing tech scene, this episode offers a fresh, founder-led view of the storage market. Let me know what resonates with you. Are you considering new storage strategies in light of data locality or cost pressures? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
What if managing databases on Kubernetes didn’t require a team of specialists or endless configuration? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Tamal Saha, founder and CEO of AppsCode, to explore how his team is building a more intuitive, scalable, and enterprise-ready approach to Kubernetes-native data management.
Recorded during the IT Press Tour in London, this conversation traces Tamal’s journey from Bangladesh to Google, and ultimately to launching AppsCode in 2016. He shares how early experiences with Google's internal systems helped shape his vision for a cloud-native data platform built for modern application environments. What began as an open-source passion project has evolved into a comprehensive enterprise suite that includes solutions like KubeDB, Stash, Voyager, and KubeVault.
We discuss the operational realities of managing databases in Kubernetes—from simplifying provisioning and backups to solving problems around TLS management, multi-tenancy, and even secret rotation. Tamal outlines the benefits of a Kubernetes-native architecture for platform engineers, DevOps teams, and developers who want to deploy faster, automate more, and keep full control over their environments.
With real-world insights from enterprise deployments, including large-scale telcos modernizing their infrastructure, Tamal explains how AppsCode is helping organizations move from ticket-based database provisioning to true self-service. He also looks ahead to what's coming next, including support for vector databases, AI-powered provisioning interfaces, and deeper integrations with open telemetry and observability tools.
Whether you’re running stateful workloads in Kubernetes today or exploring how to modernize your data layer, this episode is packed with insight into building platforms that work with developers, not against them.
So, is it time to rethink your approach to data in the cloud-native era? Let me know what you think.
What happens when the need for rapid AI innovation runs up against the growing pressure for trust, accountability, and compliance? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Mrinal Manohar, CEO of Prove AI, to explore how risk management can accelerate rather than hinder AI deployment.
Mrinal shares how Prove AI is helping organizations build trust into their AI systems from the start. At a time when businesses are moving AI models into production, yet often lack visibility or safeguards, Prove AI offers a solution grounded in transparency and automation. Their approach uses distributed ledger technology to create tamper-proof audit trails for AI models. This allows teams to focus on innovation while having the infrastructure in place to meet evolving standards and regulatory demands.
We discuss why traditional monitoring techniques fall short in an AI context, especially as models become more complex and decisions happen in real time. Prove AI’s infrastructure is designed to support continuous risk mitigation. By recording every event and decision with cryptographic certainty, they make it possible to prove safety, compliance, and responsible use without relying on labor-intensive manual audits.
Mrinal also explains how Prove AI’s upcoming GRC product aligns with ISO 42001 and helps companies stay ahead of regulatory expectations. Whether you're deploying AI in customer service, manufacturing, or high-risk environments, the platform ensures clear oversight without disrupting speed or agility.
This conversation covers practical examples of AI risk in action, from automated railway inspections to drive-through ordering systems. We also explore how distributed ledger technology is helping redefine AI governance, offering companies a way to move fast with confidence.
If you're scaling AI and wrestling with risk, compliance, or trust, this episode will give you a fresh perspective on how to build guardrails that support growth—not slow it down.
What if the way we work could finally match the way we want to work? At Atlassian’s Team '25, that vision is no longer a distant ideal.
In this special episode recorded live from the event, I sit down with Anu Bharadwaj, President of Atlassian, for an in-depth conversation about the future of collaboration and the company’s newly formalized System of Work.
Anu offers a behind-the-scenes look at how Atlassian is rethinking productivity through a new lens. We discuss how the System of Work unifies teams, tools, and data to drive meaningful outcomes instead of isolated wins.
Anu explains how this framework was designed to move beyond conventional work management tools, helping teams focus not just on doing more, but on achieving more together.
One of the standout innovations is the Teamwork Graph. Built to provide context across tools and departments, it connects strategy to execution with clarity. We explore how this visibility allows leaders to uncover bottlenecks, align resources, and connect the dots between business goals and day-to-day work.
It’s about making the invisible work visible and measurable. We also dive into Rovo, Atlassian’s new AI teammate designed to elevate rather than replace human contribution. Anu shares how AI tools are being developed to reduce cognitive load, eliminate friction, and give people more time to focus on what truly matters.
By embedding intelligence directly into the workflow, Atlassian is helping organizations reduce the time lost searching for answers and navigating silos.
For leaders looking to modernize their operations, Anu outlines where to start and what to watch out for. Whether you are overseeing enterprise transformation or leading a fast-moving team, this conversation provides a practical view into how the Atlassian platform is helping organizations unlock better outcomes.
What resonated most for me was the shift from chasing productivity to enabling performance. Atlassian is not just enhancing collaboration—it’s helping reshape how teams think, operate, and scale.
If you're curious about the System of Work, the Teamwork Collection, or what was unveiled at Team '25, this episode is for you. It’s a glimpse into the future of work that prioritizes people, aligns efforts, and enables continuous learning.
Let me know what you think. How are you planning to turn insights into action within your team?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with James Smith, who leads ThoughtSpot’s business across EMEA. With over 15 years in the analytics space, James shares how AI is shifting the way organizations use data, and why that change is not just about technology, but also about mindset and culture.
James explains how ThoughtSpot is helping businesses move toward a more autonomous model, where AI-powered tools handle repetitive queries and free up analysts for more strategic work. He shares how ThoughtSpot’s “Spotter” tool enables business users to ask and answer their own data questions, helping to reduce the bottlenecks that many central data teams face. But this isn’t about removing people from the process. It’s about enabling better collaboration between AI and human decision-makers, where transparency and context guide smarter actions.
We also talk about ThoughtSpot’s internal motto, “2% done,” and how that mentality drives continuous innovation. In a world that’s changing rapidly, it’s a reminder that staying curious, challenging assumptions, and building from first principles can unlock new levels of performance.
As demand for AI-powered insights increases, James highlights the growing importance of strong data foundations. It’s not enough to just add AI on top. Organizations need to invest in data quality, governance, and flexible platforms that support users at every level of maturity.
From enabling better business decisions to giving non-technical users easier access to insights, James offers a grounded view of what AI can really deliver today. If you’re working to build a data-driven culture, or looking to put more power in the hands of your teams, this conversation offers practical ideas to guide that transformation. How are you preparing your business for this shift in analytics? Let me know.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Marc Lueck from Zscaler to explore a security mindset shift that more businesses are beginning to embrace. The conversation revolves around the "Resilient by Design" principle, which encourages organizations to stop relying on reactive threat detection and start building systems that anticipate risk and limit impact from the outset.
Marc explains how today’s cyber landscape demands more than traditional firewalls and legacy systems. He breaks down why Zero Trust should no longer be seen only as a remote access solution, but as a consistent, context-driven access model for all environments. From on-premises communication to lateral traffic between applications, Marc outlines how this model helps reduce vulnerabilities and prevent attacker movement inside the network.
We also dive into the challenges posed by AI-driven attacks, where phishing, malware, and reconnaissance are increasingly automated and customized to each target. With these tactics becoming more advanced, Marc stresses the importance of shifting away from pattern-based detection toward a strategy based on real-time context and intent.
He shares insights into Continuous Threat and Exposure Management (CTEM), a new class of tools that help security teams understand where problems are likely to occur before they happen. This proactive focus is key to designing systems that are resilient under pressure, rather than relying on alerts after the fact.
From his analogies of planning for hurricanes rather than rainstorms, to his thoughts on legacy systems and the future role of automation in threat response, Marc offers a practical look at what resilient infrastructure truly involves.
So the question is, are your systems designed to recover and continue when something breaks, or are they waiting for the next emergency to arrive? Let’s find out.
What if the internet could run fully encrypted computations without sacrificing performance or control? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Yannik Schrade, CEO and Co-Founder of Arcium, to explore how confidential computing is reshaping the future of digital infrastructure.
Arcium is building what Yannik describes as an encrypted supercomputer, a decentralized network that allows data to stay encrypted even during processing. This approach gives developers and organizations a way to build privacy-first applications across sectors like healthcare, finance, artificial intelligence, and government services.
We talk through how Arcium leverages secure multi-party computation to make this possible and why that matters in a world where sensitive data is often a liability.
Yannik explains how Arcium enables companies to collaborate without revealing proprietary data, and how it allows for mathematically provable trust in digital processes. From private order books in financial systems to AI models that train on encrypted health data, the scope of this technology is already expanding into real-world use cases.
We also explore the importance of decentralization, not just as a technical feature, but as a way to reframe the conversation around digital sovereignty, compliance, and individual freedom. Yannik reflects on his own journey from app developer to cryptography leader, and how his background in computer science, mathematics, and law helped shape his vision for Arcium.
If you’re navigating challenges around data privacy, regulation, or AI ethics, or if you're curious about what confidential computing can unlock, this is a conversation that brings clarity to an area often clouded by hype. What would your organization build if privacy was no longer a limitation but a default capability? Let me know after you’ve listened.
I sit down with Chris Hewish, Chief Strategy and Communications Officer at Xsolla, and Lee Jacobson, Senior Vice President of Business Development for Web3 at the same company. Together, they share how Xsolla is helping game developers adapt to the rapidly shifting digital economy by bridging blockchain innovation with proven business models in the gaming world.
Xsolla is no stranger to transformation. With over two decades of experience and more than 2,500 games monetized through its platform, the company is once again stepping into a leadership role—this time at the intersection of Web3 and gaming commerce.
One of the headline announcements we discuss is the launch of Xsolla ZK, a new blockchain-powered solution built on ZKsync technology. It’s designed to scale Web3 experiences in a way that’s secure, accessible, and meaningful for developers and players alike.
We explore the "digital backpack" concept that sits at the core of this initiative. This isn't just a marketing buzzword—it’s a player-owned inventory system that gives gamers real control over their in-game assets. Whether it's transferring gear between games or monetizing collectibles in ways previously restricted by walled gardens, this feature signals a shift toward deeper engagement and lasting value.
Chris and Lee also offer a behind-the-scenes look at how direct-to-consumer models like Xsolla’s Web Shop are unlocking new revenue channels for developers. With a fee structure significantly lower than traditional app stores and tools for customized experiences, these platforms are helping studios build stronger relationships with their communities while boosting margins.
Security, transparency, and compliance remain central to the conversation, especially as blockchain adoption grows. We also touch on identity protection through zero-knowledge proofs and what interoperability might look like in a future where players and creators collaborate across an increasingly open ecosystem. From creator monetization to the evolution of in-game economies, this episode is a must-listen for anyone watching the convergence of Web3, blockchain, and gaming.
What does it take to simplify the chaos of multi-vendor data protection while keeping sovereignty, scalability, and automation firmly in sight?
In this episode, I’m joined by Thomas Bak, CEO of Auwau, to explore how his company’s Cloud Utility platform is helping managed service providers and enterprise IT teams redefine control and efficiency.
I had the pleasure of meeting Thomas at the IT Press Tour, where he shared not only the story behind Cloud Utility but also how Auwau is supporting white-labeling, API-first workflows, and fully integrated billing automation.
This isn’t about adding yet another tool to the tech stack. It’s about building a self-service-first platform that acts as a single control point for complex, multi-tenant environments. Cloud Utility enables service providers and internal IT departments to operate with greater transparency and agility, from backup and object storage to role-based access and recurring billing.
Thomas also opens up about why many customers still demand on-prem deployments, especially in sectors where data residency and control are non-negotiable. His perspective on how service providers can offer branded experiences for resellers while maintaining central governance is especially relevant in today's compliance-driven climate.
We also discuss how Auwau’s background as an MSP shaped its customer-centric approach to product development, and why flexibility across technologies like IBM Storage Protect, Rubrik, and Cohesity is baked into the product’s core.
If your business is struggling to scale its data protection offerings or looking for better ways to serve distributed teams and clients, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss. How are you future-proofing your infrastructure without losing visibility or control? Let’s explore that together.
What does it really take to expose the criminal underworld operating in the hidden corners of the internet? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Gareth Owenson, Co-Founder and CTO of Searchlight Cyber, to uncover what’s really happening on the dark web and how organizations can take action before threats escalate.
Gareth has spent more than a decade researching the Tor network and advising governments, law enforcement, and the military on how to track criminal activity online. His work has moved from academia into frontline cybersecurity operations, leading to major breakthroughs including the takedown of a hacker group targeting a national government.
We explore what makes the dark web attractive to criminal networks, how threat actors are evolving, and what defenders can do with early signals from hidden forums, marketplaces, and anonymized networks. Gareth explains how criminals are using Tor to traffic malware, trade stolen data, and build ransomware businesses, and why many organizations still overlook this part of the internet.
Gareth also shares how Searchlight Cyber uses proprietary tools and research to monitor the deep and dark web, turning obscure activity into actionable intelligence for security teams and law enforcement.
If you're responsible for protecting digital infrastructure and you're not factoring in the dark web, you're missing critical context. So how do you turn unseen risks into visible signals before they become full-blown attacks? Let’s find out.
What happens when blockchain meets AI infrastructure at scale? In today's episode, I sit down with Gaurav Sharma from io.net to explore how a decentralized GPU network could reshape the future of machine learning, AI development, and compute accessibility.
io.net has grown rapidly over the past year. With more than 325,000 verified GPUs already in its decentralized network, it's offering an alternative to the high costs and limitations of traditional cloud compute.
What caught my attention is the platform's ability to reduce GPU costs by up to 90 percent, giving startups and researchers access to performance that would otherwise be out of reach. In fact, over 73 partners have already integrated io.net's infrastructure, helping drive month-over-month network earnings growth of nearly 60 percent.
But this conversation goes far deeper than computing. Gaurav walks me through the vision of a more transparent, open, and incentive-driven AI development ecosystem. From its collaboration with OKX to power Web3 infrastructure for AI developers to enabling real-world applications like Zerebro AI agents, io.net is building a new paradigm for how infrastructure should work in the era of intelligent systems.
We also explore the convergence of blockchain and AI and why this isn't just a niche Web3 experiment. It's about creating real incentives for data sharing, enabling collaboration across models, and removing bottlenecks in how builders access the tools they need. Gaurav also shares how the company is evolving from a computing network into a full-stack AI development platform, including tools for no-code agent creation.
So, what will the next generation of AI applications look like when they're powered by a global, decentralized network instead of a handful of cloud giants? And how can developers take advantage of this shift today?
What happens when AI meets the human side of hiring? In this episode, I sit down with Rebecca Carr, CEO of SmartRecruiters, to unpack the shifting role of HR in a rapidly evolving talent landscape. With new research showing that 56 percent of leaders say talent acquisition has become significantly more challenging over the past five years, Rebecca offers a timely and thought-provoking perspective on how AI can help – and where it can’t.
We explore the tension between automation and human connection, and how organizations can strike the right balance to create meaningful candidate experiences without sacrificing speed or scalability. From improving candidate discovery and reducing administrative overhead to using AI to flag unconscious bias in job descriptions, Rebecca shares how SmartRecruiters is pushing the boundaries of what recruiting platforms can do.
We also touch on the implications of generative AI, the importance of explainability in AI-driven decisions, and how HR teams can move from being transactional to truly strategic partners in business. As companies demand more from their hiring processes and the competition for top talent intensifies, the need for smarter tools – and smarter strategies – has never been greater.
If you're in HR, talent acquisition, or simply curious about how AI is transforming the way companies hire, this episode offers both practical guidance and a look at what’s next. What does it take to hire smarter, faster, and more fairly in 2025? Let’s find out.
What happens when the hype around generative AI starts to mature, and businesses begin asking harder questions about performance, risk, and long-term value? In today’s episode, I’m joined by Mike Mason, Chief AI Officer at Thoughtworks, to explore how 2025 is shaping up across the enterprise AI landscape—from the rise of intelligent agents to the growing traction of small, nimble models that prioritize security and specificity.
Mike brings a deep, practical perspective on the evolution of AI inside complex organizations. He unpacks how AI agents are moving well beyond basic chatbots and starting to integrate into actual business workflows—performing as teammates that can reason, adapt, and even collaborate with other agents. We dig into examples like Klarna's workforce transformation and examine how this shift could play out across customer service, internal ops, and software development.
We also look at what’s fueling the boom in open source AI and how companies are navigating the balance between transparency, IP protection, and regulatory readiness. Mike shares why some financial services firms are turning to in-house fine-tuned models for greater control, and how open-weight and fully open-source models are starting to gain real ground.
Another key theme is the momentum behind small language models. Mike explains why bigger isn’t always better—especially when it comes to data privacy, edge deployment, and resource efficiency. He outlines where SLMs can outperform their larger counterparts and what that means for companies optimizing for security and speed rather than brute force compute.
We also discuss Thoughtworks' forthcoming global survey, which reveals a growing divide in generative AI adoption. While mature players are building in bias detection and robust compliance frameworks, newer entrants are leaning toward fast operational gains and interpretability. This gap is shaping how GenAI projects are prioritized across industries and geographies, and Mike offers his take on how leaders can navigate both speed and safety.
So, what role will explainability, regulation, and open ecosystems play in shaping the AI tools of tomorrow—and what should business and tech leaders be planning for now? Let’s find out in this wide-ranging conversation with Thoughtworks.
What does it really take to implement generative AI in a way that balances innovation, governance, and long-term value? In today’s episode, , I’m joined by Emma Irwin, Director of Sales Engineering at Dataiku. With a deep background in enterprise AI and experience supporting major organizations like AVIVA and the NHS, Emma brings a grounded, real-world perspective to one of the most hyped areas in tech today.
While most businesses are ramping up GenAI investments, few have the processes, controls, or workforce skill sets needed to scale safely and effectively. Emma and I dive straight into the challenges that IT leaders are facing right now—from managing LLM usage and controlling cost, to building secure frameworks that actually reduce risk rather than amplify it.
Emma unpacks the three key pillars every organization needs for sustainable GenAI success: access controls that keep your stack flexible, robust discovery mechanisms to document LLM usage across the enterprise, and value quantification to show the real return on AI initiatives. But what really stood out is the need for diverse teams and strong governance models to address bias in AI development. From sentiment analysis to internal chatbots and large-scale summarization use cases, Emma brings a mix of strategy and execution to the conversation.
We also explore the importance of secure sandbox environments, the value of audit-readiness through documentation automation, and why it’s time for every business to move beyond experimentation into a more structured, responsible phase of AI maturity. Emma is also a vocal advocate for women in tech and AI, and shares how mentorship, representation, and inclusive leadership can help shape a more equitable future for the industry.
So what guardrails do you have in place for GenAI? Are you really ready to move from pilot projects to enterprise-scale implementations? This episode is packed with insights for anyone building, managing, or scaling AI across the enterprise.
What if your mobile app could detect bugs, fix UI inconsistencies, and spot user frustration before a user ever reports it? In today’s episode, I sit down with Kenny Johnston, Chief Product Officer at Instabug, to explore how AI is reshaping the way developers build, test, and maintain mobile apps.
Instabug is taking mobile observability to an entirely new level by developing what Kenny describes as “zero maintenance apps.” Powered by on-device AI models, their platform can now detect subtle UX breakdowns, visual design flaws, and even frustration signals that wouldn’t normally trigger crash reports. Whether it’s an unresponsive button, a layout shift, or a broken navigation path, Instabug flags the issue, often before a user ever notices.
Kenny shares how Instabug’s approach to AI is helping development teams move faster and smarter, particularly in high-stakes environments like retail and e-commerce where performance peaks during events like Black Friday or Valentine’s Day. Through real-time crash reporting, automated UI analysis, and deep session insights, developers can spot and solve problems that would otherwise get lost in a backlog or surface in app store reviews.
We also explore the unique pressures of mobile development. With no quick rollbacks and high user expectations, developers need tools tailored to the realities of app store approvals, device fragmentation, and version-specific bugs. Instabug’s platform brings together observability, feedback, and issue reproduction in a way that simplifies the mobile stack and accelerates release cycles.
Kenny draws on his experience at GitLab to reflect on the need to consolidate tools and workflows in mobile development. He offers valuable insights for product leaders and mobile engineers on how to navigate change, evolve their approach, and stay curious in the face of constant technical demands.
So how can your team shift from reactive debugging to proactive experience design? And are you really seeing all the issues your users encounter or just the ones they report? It's time to find out.
What happens when Microsoft joins forces with IGEL to reimagine the future of endpoint computing? In today’s episode, recorded live at IGEL’s Now & Next 2025 in Miami, I sit down with Scott Manchester, Vice President of Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop at Microsoft.
With decades of experience at the helm of virtualization and cloud innovation, Scott brings a grounded yet forward-looking view of how Microsoft is enabling businesses to adapt to the evolving demands of work.
Our conversation explores how Microsoft and IGEL are working together to address real enterprise challenges—from simplifying endpoint management to ensuring high-performance, secure digital workspaces.
We look at how Windows 365 Cloud PC and Azure Virtual Desktop are helping businesses embrace the cloud while navigating the transition to Windows 11. And we discuss the real-world implications of this shift, from extending the lifecycle of devices to increasing flexibility for IT teams and remote users alike.
Scott also opens up about the industries that are leading in cloud workspace adoption—from healthcare systems like Baptist Medical Center to federal agencies and financial services—and how Microsoft is shaping its offerings to meet the distinct needs of these sectors.
We unpack the unique advantages of IGEL’s Linux-based OS, the growing role of zero trust architecture, and why seamless user experiences are no longer optional in the hybrid era.
With new licensing models like Windows 365 Frontline Shared and deeper integration between Microsoft and IGEL, it’s clear this partnership is more than technical alignment—it’s a shared strategy aimed at delivering resilient, secure, and scalable digital environments.
Whether you’re planning your Windows 11 migration or just exploring cloud PCs as part of your future roadmap, this episode is packed with strategic insights from a tech leader who knows how to deliver results. What role will the cloud desktop play in your 2025 strategy?
What does bringing clarity and control to today’s fragmented digital work environments take? In this episode, recorded live at IGEL Now & Next 2025, I sit down with Tommy Walker, Partner CTO at Omnissa, to explore the intersection of user experience, security, and operational simplicity in modern enterprise IT. With career-spanning roles at VMware, Citrix, and Cisco, Tommy offers a real-world perspective on navigating complexity while building meaningful solutions that work at scale.
This is a conversation grounded in reality. We discuss how organizations can move beyond legacy infrastructure and simplify their digital workspace strategy without overwhelming users or IT teams. Tommy shares how Omnissa is helping enterprises shift from scattered tools and outdated workflows to unified, AI-informed platforms that boost both productivity and resilience.
We also unpack the practical steps for tackling challenges like technical debt, the Windows 10 end-of-life transition, and rising pressure on IT to deliver more with fewer resources. Throughout the discussion, Tommy emphasizes the importance of partnerships—not just between vendors, but within the entire IT ecosystem—to deliver outcomes that matter. And yes, there’s also room for a few lighter moments involving drones, endpoint telemetry, and the occasional geek-out over infrastructure design. But at the core of this conversation is a clear message: modern IT is about enabling users without compromising security and simplifying operations without losing flexibility.
If you’re rethinking your endpoint strategy, evaluating your hybrid work approach, or just trying to bring a little more order to the chaos, this episode will leave you with practical insights and maybe even a few new ideas for your roadmap.
Are you ready to build a digital workspace strategy that actually works? Let’s get into it.
What does it truly take to secure the edge of the enterprise in a multi-cloud, AI-driven world? At IGEL Now & Next 2025 in Miami, I sat down with Marissa Schmidt, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, to unpack the future of endpoint computing and cybersecurity from a perspective rooted in deep research, hands-on insight, and strategic clarity.
As hybrid work continues to scale and the cloud cements itself as the core of modern infrastructure, new demands are being placed on endpoint operating systems, access frameworks, and cloud security models. Marissa brings a clear-eyed view of what’s working, what’s changing, and what IT leaders need to start doing differently.
In this conversation, we explore how AI is reshaping both attack and defense strategies, why the OS layer has become a strategic asset, and what Gartner is seeing in terms of the biggest shifts in cloud networking and endpoint security in 2025. We also dig into the principles behind zero trust, the realities of managing dozens of overlapping security tools, and how businesses can begin building more resilient, adaptive architectures—starting today.
Marissa also shares insights from her keynote and the Women in Tech panel at IGEL Now & Next, including the importance of authentic leadership, being a continuous learner, and building a strategy that connects real-world data with future-ready infrastructure.
Whether you're navigating cloud transformation, rethinking your endpoint strategy, or trying to make sense of the security demands brought on by AI, this episode offers a sharp, actionable look at where things are heading—and how to stay in front of it.
Are your cloud and endpoint strategies built for what’s next? Let me know your thoughts.
What does it really take to reimagine the future of endpoint computing? In this special episode recorded live from IGEL’s Now and Next 2025 event in Miami, I sit down with Klaus Oestermann, CEO of IGEL, to explore how cybersecurity, digital workspaces, and user experience are being transformed at the edge. Klaus is no stranger to innovation, having spent decades in high-assurance security across critical industries, and now leading IGEL’s mission to simplify, secure, and modernize how enterprises manage endpoints.
Our conversation starts by unpacking the shift from traditional perimeter-based security models to a new way of thinking rooted in prevention. Klaus explains how IGEL's Preventative Security Model addresses modern threats by dramatically reducing the attack surface at the endpoint and flipping the conversation from detection and response to control and containment. With more organizations relying on hybrid work and SaaS-based applications, the endpoint has never been more critical—or more vulnerable.
Klaus also outlines how IGEL OS is supporting everything from virtual desktop infrastructure to secure browsing, while enabling consistent user experiences across cloud, on-prem, and edge environments. But this episode isn’t just about technology. It’s about strategy.
Klaus shares how IGEL is creating meaningful impact by extending device life cycles, cutting hardware replacement costs, and supporting sustainability goals. With Windows 11 upgrades looming and endpoint refresh cycles under pressure, IGEL presents a compelling alternative that balances performance with responsibility.
We also dive into the role of AI, how it's reshaping device requirements, and what it means for endpoint security moving forward. And as IGEL expands its ecosystem and reveals over 20 new announcements at this year’s event, Klaus offers a candid look into what’s resonating with customers—and where the industry is headed next.
So what will define your endpoint strategy in 2025? And is your organization ready to lead from the edge?
What if the next major leap in cybersecurity isn't a new tool but a smarter way to think about the edge? In this special episode recorded live at IGEL Now & Next 2025 in Miami, I sit down with John Walsh, Field CTO for Critical Sectors at IGEL, to unpack the changing face of endpoint security, the rise of zero trust, and the role of AI in shaping both threats and defenses.
John brings a career’s worth of insight across aerospace, defense, and high-assurance systems to a conversation that covers the shifting threat landscape and how IGEL’s preventative security model is helping organizations reduce complexity while strengthening security. He explores the vulnerabilities introduced by hybrid work, BYOD environments, and the increasing reliance on AI models that interact with an enterprise’s most sensitive data.
We dive into how zero trust is evolving from a marketing buzzword into a practical framework built on collaboration, unified management, and strong policy enforcement at the endpoint. John breaks down why zero trust isn’t a single product or checklist but an ecosystem of technologies and partnerships that need to operate together—securely and seamlessly.
He also explains why endpoint security still matters, how most attacks still originate at the edge, and why IGEL’s immutable operating system is designed to shut down threats before they even begin. As AI-powered attacks accelerate, John also discusses the importance of reducing noise for incident response teams and the potential for AI to eventually move from defense to pre-emptive strike.
If you’re leading cybersecurity in government, finance, manufacturing, or any sector with critical infrastructure, this conversation will give you a clearer view of where endpoint protection fits into a secure, cloud-connected, AI-augmented world. What are you doing today to make sure your organization’s edge is ready for tomorrow?
What’s the return on your AI investment? In today’s episode, I’m joined by Varun Bijlani, Global Managing Partner for Hybrid Cloud Services at IBM Consulting, to explore why 2025 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for IT leaders under pressure to deliver stronger, measurable outcomes from technology investments.
While many IT projects have historically delivered modest returns, expectations are rising. With a growing number of executives focused on increasing ROI by 25 percent or more, the ability to connect AI efforts to real business value is becoming non-negotiable.
Drawing on insights from IBM Consulting’s latest book, The Great Tech Reset, Varun outlines how the shift from experimental AI projects to production-level deployment is exposing the cracks in outdated infrastructure strategies. He explains why many businesses are trapped in what he calls a hybrid by default architecture, and how that limits the potential of generative AI. Instead, he advocates for a hybrid by design approach, one that aligns cloud infrastructure with AI goals from the outset.
We discuss the organizational mindset shifts needed to move from fragmented systems to intentionally built environments that scale with innovation. Varun also shares real-world examples of companies achieving returns as high as 3.3 times their investment through more intentional planning and execution.
As IT leaders look to reset priorities for the year ahead, how can they build the kind of foundation that allows AI to thrive? And what steps can they take today to ensure their technology choices drive value, not just cost?
What can the UK learn from the Nordic approach to manufacturing—and how can technology play a central role in revitalising the sector? This week on Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Simon Ranyard, Managing Director for Northwest Europe at Orange Business, to explore the strategic differences between two regions facing similar challenges but moving in very different directions.
Simon brings a unique cross-regional view, overseeing Orange Business operations across the UK, Ireland, and the Nordics. While labour shortages and productivity declines are shared concerns, Simon explains why Nordic manufacturers have responded with long-term investments in digitisation and automation, creating not just gains in efficiency but also a rise in high-skill employment. In contrast, many UK firms are still defaulting to short-term headcount increases, missing the bigger opportunity.
We discuss the data behind the divergence, including why Sweden has three times the robot density of the UK, and what that means for output and workforce transformation. Simon highlights how automation isn't about job replacement, but role elevation—moving people away from repetitive tasks and into positions that require critical thinking and collaboration with advanced tools.
He also shares practical insight into how technologies like 5G, AR, and IoT are reshaping production environments, lowering operational costs, and helping companies stay competitive globally. With government-backed reskilling initiatives and AI now moving from theory to application, Simon makes the case for UK manufacturers to adopt a more strategic, future-facing mindset.
If you work in manufacturing, policy, or are simply curious about how different regions are using tech to solve shared problems, this episode offers real-world perspective and tactical advice. What kind of investment decisions will define the next decade of UK industry—and can a mindset shift help close the productivity gap?
How do you turn AI investment into measurable outcomes, not just inflated expectations? In this episode, I’m joined by Dennis Woodside, CEO of Freshworks, to unpack how mid-sized businesses can move fast with AI, show results quickly, and stay competitive without enterprise-level complexity or pricing.
Dennis shares how Freshworks is helping companies achieve real productivity gains and customer support improvements through accessible, enterprise-grade AI tools. With solutions that boost agent performance, reduce repetitive tickets, and deliver useful insights to managers, Freshworks is proving that you don’t need to be a tech giant to see value from AI.
We also explore the challenges that hold mid-market businesses back from adopting AI, and how Freshworks is helping them overcome barriers with tools that are fast to implement, easy to evaluate, and flexible enough to grow with the business. Dennis also reflects on what the industry can learn from customer case studies, including how one company achieved over 250 percent ROI and saved $100,000 annually by streamlining support with AI.
If your business is exploring how to make AI work without long timelines or runaway budgets, this conversation offers a grounded view into what’s working—and why. Are you measuring real return on AI in your organization, or just chasing the trend?
Why do so many businesses struggle to turn insight into impact? At the X4 Summit in Salt Lake City, I sat down with Adam Hagerman, UX Research Director at Indeed, for a refreshingly candid conversation about how his team has helped reshape the company’s approach to research, collaboration, and decision-making.
In a tech culture that values autonomy and individualism, aligning people around a shared understanding of user needs is no small feat—but it’s exactly what Adam has been working on.
In this episode, we unpack how Indeed built a shared research framework that breaks down silos, creates a common language, and encourages teams across the business to talk to one another in more meaningful ways. Adam shares how his team tackles the challenge of information overload by focusing on relevance over volume—and how measurement itself becomes a shared system of accountability across functions.
We also discuss the evolving role of AI in research, including how Adam’s team uses it to reduce cognitive overhead, accelerate workflows, and spark better questions. But perhaps most importantly, Adam talks about the mindset shift needed in times of rapid change—and why embracing uncertainty and remaining curious is more productive than clinging to old ways of working.
Whether you’re a UX leader, researcher, or business decision-maker looking to get more from your data, there’s plenty here to reflect on. How do you ensure your insights aren’t just collected, but acted on? How do you build trust in research across teams? And how can we all get better at asking, “What problem are we actually trying to solve?”
Let me know what resonated with you. What challenges have you faced in translating research into action within your own organisation? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
How do we build high-performing teams in a world where colleagues might never meet face to face?
At the X4 Summit in Salt Lake City, I caught up with two standout voices from Atlassian—Molly Sands, Head of the Teamwork Lab, and Emma Crockett, Head of People Insights. Together, they bring a rich mix of behavioral science, experimentation, and data-driven strategy to the future of work. In this episode, we unpack what it really takes to design distributed work environments that foster both productivity and connection.
Molly shares how her team studies internal and external teams to understand what drives collaboration in a hybrid world, while Emma reveals how Atlassian turns insights into action by grounding people strategies in measurable outcomes. We talk about clear goal setting, the power of asynchronous communication, and how the physical workspace itself can evolve to support a flexible, purposeful culture.
But this isn’t just about metrics and models—it’s about human connection. From a delightful experiment involving “Chief Vibes Officers” and quirky team questions, to Atlassian’s scrappy and iterative approach to designing new ways of working, this episode offers real-world ideas for reimagining how teams collaborate.
We also explore the pitfalls of defaulting to old habits like Zoom fatigue and information silos, and what it takes to fix them. As we touch on people analytics, the role of trust, and the impact of thoughtful measurement, Molly and Emma remind us that even with AI and automation in the mix, work is still about people.
So, if your team is struggling with how to work better together—whether you’re all remote, hybrid, or co-located—what lessons could you take from Atlassian’s approach?
Let us know your thoughts. How is your organisation adapting to the realities of modern teamwork?
What does it take to keep a 40-year-old brand rooted in nostalgia relevant in a rapidly evolving, tech-driven world?
In this special episode recorded live from the X4 Summit in Salt Lake City, I sit down with Maggie Stafford, Vice President of People Insights at Hagerty, to explore how a company best known for classic car insurance has become a technology-enabled, community-powered lifestyle brand for auto enthusiasts.
From cloud-based transformation to one-on-one customer experiences, Maggie shares how Hagerty is modernizing its approach to customer and employee engagement—while staying true to its mission to "save driving."
We discuss the evolution of Hagerty’s digital experience, including their $20 million investment into a modern tech stack, designed not only to improve operational efficiency but also to meet growing member expectations.
Maggie also gives a behind-the-scenes look at how the brand’s culture—one where employees learn to drive stick and take collector cars for a spin—shapes everything from customer service to product development.
You'll hear how community remains the beating heart of the business, with more than 850,000 Hagerty Drivers Club members connecting at grassroots events and exclusive experiences like the Festival of the Unexceptional and Amelia Island Concours. We also explore how Hagerty is using data and insights to prepare for the future of car culture, at a time when automation, electrification, and driverless vehicles are becoming the new norm.
So how does a brand that celebrates the visceral joy of driving stay relevant in an era of AI and autonomy? And what can other businesses—especially those outside the traditional tech space—learn from Hagerty’s approach to transformation and loyalty?
Tune in to find out, and don’t forget to share your thoughts: how do you balance tradition with innovation in your business?
Can AI truly revolutionize customer experience, or is it just another overhyped tech trend? While most organizations recognize AI’s potential, many are still struggling to scale AI beyond pilot projects. So, what’s holding them back?
In this episode, recorded live at the X4 Summit in Salt Lake City, I sit down with Isabelle Zdatny, Head of Thought Leadership at Qualtrics XM Institute, to explore the $860 billion opportunity AI presents for customer experience. We discuss why only 12% of organizations have a company-wide AI strategy, the disconnect between AI ambition and execution, and how companies can break free from what she calls "pilot purgatory."
Key topics include:
- The three biggest ways AI will unlock business value—from productivity gains to revenue growth and operational efficiency.
- Why AI needs to be top-down and outcome-focused—not just a shiny tech experiment.
- The rise of Agentic AI—AI that doesn’t just assist but autonomously manages entire workflows.
- How leading companies are using AI to predict and prevent customer churn, personalize interactions, and optimize operations.
- The biggest myths about AI in CX—and why you don’t need perfect data to get started.
As AI reshapes how businesses engage with customers, companies that act decisively and strategically will gain a significant competitive advantage. But will they move fast enough?
Tune in to hear real-world insights, case studies, and expert advice from Isabelle on how businesses can turn AI potential into real impact—before their competitors do.
Many businesses have embraced automation, but disconnected systems and fragmented workflows still create inefficiencies. In this episode, I sit down with Charles Crouchman, Chief Product Officer at Redwood Software, to explore how organizations can build an automation fabric. a unified approach that connects processes across legacy infrastructure and modern cloud environments.
Charles explains why automation fabrics matter, how businesses can identify the best processes to automate, and why a well-structured roadmap is crucial for long-term success. He also shares insights on industry trends, including the growing role of AI in automation and how Redwood's approach enables enterprises to scale with confidence. With Redwood's recent acquisition by Vista Equity Partners and Warburg Pincus, the company is poised for even greater innovation and expansion.
We also dive into the future of automation, the balance between AI-driven decision-making and human oversight, and what businesses should consider when integrating automation across departments. Whether you're just beginning your automation journey or looking to refine your strategy, this conversation provides a practical guide to building a resilient, scalable automation framework.
Could automation fabrics be the missing piece in your digital strategy? Tune in to find out.
When a cyber crisis strikes, leaders face intense pressure to make rapid decisions that can determine the fate of their organizations.
In this episode, I sit down with Dan Potter, Senior Director of Operational Resilience at Immersive, to explore how leaders can effectively manage high-stakes cyber incidents. From major crises like MOVEit and Log4J to the evolving landscape of AI-driven threats, Dan shares practical insights on what businesses can learn from past events to strengthen their response strategies.
We discuss the key components of a well-structured decision-making framework, how to maintain strategic focus under pressure, and why trust and psychological safety within teams are essential during a crisis. Dan also walks us through a checklist for effective leadership before, during, and after a cyber event, emphasizing the importance of continuous, hands-on training to build organizational resilience.
With cyber threats becoming more sophisticated and unavoidable, organizations need more than just technical defenses—they need leaders who can navigate uncertainty and execute decisive action. Tune in to learn how to transform crisis management from a reactive scramble into a well-prepared, strategic response.
Are today’s business leaders truly ready for the next cyber crisis? Let’s find out.
Online reviews shape consumer trust, but what happens when those reviews can’t be trusted? In this episode, I sit down with Anoop Joshi, Chief Trust Officer at Trustpilot, to discuss the ongoing battle against fake reviews and the role of AI in both creating and detecting fraudulent content.
With over 300 million reviews on its platform, Trustpilot has been at the forefront of combating fake reviews, recently winning 10 legal cases in the UK against bad actors. As the FTC cracks down on deceptive review practices with fines of up to $50,000 per violation, businesses must rethink their approach to online credibility. Anoop shares insights on what this regulatory shift means for companies and how Trustpilot’s AI-driven approach is evolving to stay ahead of generative AI-generated fake reviews.
We explore how Trustpilot’s transparency efforts led to the removal of 3.3 million fake reviews last year alone and why a combination of AI, metadata analysis, and human oversight is critical for maintaining trust online. As AI-generated content becomes more sophisticated, Anoop also sheds light on emerging trends and the growing need for regulatory adaptability.
If online reputation matters to your business—or if you’ve ever wondered how review platforms separate real feedback from deception—this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss. Could AI ever be trusted to fully police itself, or will human intervention always be required to maintain trust?
The future of medicine is being shaped by technology, and few companies are pushing the boundaries like GSK. In this episode, I sit down with Christopher Austin, Head of Research Technologies at GSK, to explore how AI, data science, and cutting-edge digital capabilities are revolutionizing drug discovery and development.
Chris shares how GSK is harnessing vast datasets, AI-driven insights, and genetic validation to speed up the identification of promising drug targets. We discuss how computational biology and machine learning are dramatically reducing the time it takes to develop new treatments—sometimes cutting discovery timelines in half. From selecting the right molecular designs to improving patient identification for clinical trials, technology is streamlining the entire R&D process, increasing success rates, and ultimately bringing life-saving medicines to patients faster.
We also dive into the role of generative AI in modeling diseases, designing antibodies, and optimizing clinical trials. With AI now shaping everything from drug formulation to patient recruitment, we explore what this means for the future of medicine and the ethical considerations that come with such rapid advancements.
How will AI-driven drug discovery change the pharmaceutical industry in the next decade? What challenges remain in integrating these new technologies into traditional research models? And what does all of this mean for patients and the future of healthcare? Tune in to hear how GSK is leading the charge in transforming medicine through technology.
AI is transforming the way we experience storytelling, and few people understand this shift better than Geoff Thatcher. As the Creative Director behind the GAME ON! AI Experience at the College Football Hall of Fame, Geoff is pioneering how AI can place visitors at the heart of an attraction—turning spectators into active participants. In this episode, we explore the intersection of AI, immersive storytelling, and the evolving expectations of audiences.
Geoff shares how AI-powered personalization is reshaping museums, theme parks, and live experiences, making guests part of the narrative rather than just observers. From scanning faces to seamlessly integrating visitors into game-day experiences, he explains how technology is allowing brands and institutions to scale engagement like never before. But as AI deepens immersion, it also raises questions—how far will audiences expect personalization to go? Will simply watching a story unfold ever be enough again? And what ethical and creative challenges come with placing visitors inside historical exhibits, theme park rides, or even feature films?
We also dive into the economics of AI-driven experiences. How does AI influence the way attractions are designed, priced, and operated? Can small museums and local attractions afford to implement these innovations, or will personalization remain an exclusive luxury for major brands? Geoff brings his extensive experience in experiential design to shed light on how AI can be a tool to connect people through storytelling—when used thoughtfully.
If you’ve ever wondered about the future of immersive entertainment, AI in storytelling, or how technology is redefining guest engagement, this episode is one you won’t want to miss. Will the experiences of tomorrow demand that we step inside the story? Tune in to find out.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Cerisse Velasco, Director of Midwest and Retail Media Brand Partnerships at Zynga, to explore how mobile gaming is reshaping digital advertising and brand engagement.
While gaming has long been associated with teenage boys in basements, the reality is quite different—Zynga's audience is predominantly Millennial and Gen X women, a demographic that’s often overlooked in marketing strategies. With mobile games like Words with Friends, Game of Thrones: Legends, and Match Factory, Zynga has built a massive entertainment platform where brands can authentically connect with engaged consumers.
We discuss how mobile gaming offers a "leaned-in" advertising experience, with players actively engaging rather than passively scrolling. From rewarded video and interactive formats to in-game integrations, Zynga is pioneering innovative ad strategies that feel natural within the gameplay, rather than interrupting it. A recent partnership with The Real Housewives is a perfect example of how brands are rethinking their approach to mobile gaming, tapping into a highly influential and purchase-driven audience.
Beyond traditional advertising, we also explore the future of gamified brand experiences, AI-powered personalization, and retail media integrations within gaming. As mobile gaming continues to dominate screen time, brands that embrace these new engagement models will have a significant edge in the evolving digital marketing landscape.
How can brands create authentic connections with audiences in gaming environments? And what does the future hold for advertising in mobile entertainment? Tune in to hear Cerisse Velasco's insights on the changing face of digital engagement.
AI is transforming businesses' operations, but are executives ready to lead this revolution? In this episode, I sit down with Greg Shove, CEO of Section, to discuss the most significant mistakes leaders make when adopting AI and why many companies are falling behind despite all the hype.
Greg, a seasoned entrepreneur and AI strategist, shares why leaders must go beyond buzzwords and get hands-on with AI to drive real impact. He explains how organizations can build a scrappy but effective AI strategy, why CFOs increasingly embrace AI-driven efficiency, and what that means for future jobs. We also discuss how AI reshapes everyday decision-making, from the workplace to personal productivity.
Beyond the corporate world, Greg highlights a more significant concern—Big Tech's control over AI. Drawing from past experiences in Silicon Valley, he warns that AI might follow the same playbook as social media and cloud computing: get everyone hooked, then raise the price. If AI becomes indispensable, are businesses at risk of outsourcing too much cognition to just a few dominant players?
From AI's impact on job security to how leaders can create an AI-powered workforce, this conversation challenges conventional thinking on AI adoption. Whether you're an executive looking to integrate AI into your strategy or an employee navigating the shift, this episode is packed with insights to help you stay ahead.
Is AI genuinely democratizing knowledge, or are we just making ourselves more dependent on a handful of companies? And how can leaders ensure they're leveraging AI as a strategic asset rather than just another tool? Tune in to find out.
The travel industry is at a turning point. While demand for seamless, personalized experiences has never been higher, many airlines, hotels, and travel businesses are still operating on decades-old technology that hinders innovation. In this episode, I sit down with Somit Goyal, CEO of IBS Software, to explore how the industry can break free from legacy systems and embrace a digital-first future.
With a background that includes over a decade at Microsoft and now leading one of the biggest travel tech firms, Somit shares his perspective on why true transformation requires more than just new software—it demands a shift in mindset. Too often, businesses treat modernization as an IT project rather than a full-scale business transformation. He explains why travel companies need strategic partners, not just vendors, to guide them through complex transitions, help them make tough choices, and build future-ready technology solutions.
We discuss how airlines and hospitality brands can rethink their operations, from passenger experiences to loyalty programs, and how AI and data-driven personalization are shaping the future of travel. Somit also highlights why listening—rather than talking—is one of the most powerful tools leaders can use when engaging with customers and making key business decisions.
With IBS Software at the forefront of digital transformation in travel, this conversation sheds light on what’s next for the industry and how companies can stay competitive in an era of rapid technological change. How can travel brands overcome legacy tech obstacles? What role will AI play in the evolution of airline retailing and hotel management? And why is a strategic, long-term approach essential for success? Tune in to find out.
In today’s hyper-connected world, the explosion of IoT devices is reshaping the cybersecurity landscape—but are businesses keeping up? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Paul Savill, Global Practice Leader of Networking and Edge Compute at Kyndryl, to explore why traditional IT security strategies are no longer enough.
With IoT-related cyberattacks rising at double-digit rates year over year and the global number of IoT devices projected to reach 25.4 billion by 2030, enterprises face mounting challenges in securing their networks.
Paul shares insights into the biggest threats organizations are grappling with, including the growing risks of social engineering attacks, outdated infrastructure, and the widening gap between IT and OT security. With 44% of enterprise technology now considered “out of life” and unsupported by vendors, businesses are unknowingly leaving themselves vulnerable to increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.
We also discuss Kyndryl’s cybersecurity training program, which has driven a fourfold increase in employee-reported phishing incidents—a testament to the importance of ongoing education in strengthening enterprise security. Paul highlights the crucial role of Zero Trust and SASE architectures in modern network defense, using Kyndryl’s own post-IBM spin-off transformation as a case study for successfully shifting to a cloud-first, AI-driven security approach.
How can organizations modernize their infrastructure to stay ahead of evolving cyber threats? What steps should enterprises take to integrate IT and OT security more effectively? And how can AI-powered security tools help businesses navigate this rapidly changing landscape?
Tune in to hear Paul’s expert take on building a resilient, future-ready cybersecurity strategy.
How can women in tech overcome imposter syndrome, build confidence, and support the next generation of leaders? In this special International Women’s Day episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Stacey Fournier-Thibodaux, President of Cask NX, to discuss the challenges and opportunities women face in the technology and consulting industries.
With over 20 years of experience in professional services, global IT service delivery, and leadership at the largest pure-play ServiceNow partner, Stacey shares her personal journey from self-doubt to executive leadership. She offers practical insights into how women can navigate imposter syndrome, shift their mindset, and cultivate resilience in fast-paced, high-pressure environments.
We also explore the role of mentorship, representation, and psychological safety in creating inclusive workplaces. Stacey shares real stories of women she has mentored into leadership roles and provides actionable strategies for those looking to take bold career leaps. Whether you're an aspiring leader or looking to empower the next generation, this conversation is packed with valuable lessons on career growth, confidence, and fostering a more supportive tech industry.
As we celebrate Women’s History Month, what steps can businesses take to retain and elevate diverse talent? How can leaders create environments where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued? Tune in to hear Stacey’s insights on building a stronger, more inclusive future in tech.
How are fan relationships reshaping the music industry and beyond? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Nick Holmstén, the visionary behind Spotify Playlists and former Global Head of Music at Spotify, to explore how fandom is becoming the driving force behind brand and artist success.
Nick shares his journey from building Tunigo—acquired by Spotify to leading TSX Entertainment in Times Square and now focusing on the future of artist-fan connections. With streaming, social media, and emerging technologies shifting the power dynamic, fans are no longer passive listeners or consumers. They’re shaping culture, promoting artists, and setting new industry trends.
We discuss how the rise of independent artists and direct-to-fan platforms is changing music distribution, why brands should rethink their audiences as communities rather than customers, and how blockchain could introduce new transparency and reward systems for engagement.
Nick also shares insights from his new book, Fan-Powered Futures, which explores how companies and creators can thrive in this new landscape.
With more industries embracing engagement-driven models, what lessons can businesses take from the evolution of the music industry? And how will AI, Web3, and digital innovation further transform entertainment? Tune in to hear Nick’s thoughts on what’s next for artists, brands, and fan-powered economies.
How is open source shaping the future of technology, governance, and AI regulation? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Amanda Brock, CEO of OpenUK, to explore the evolving role of open source in the age of AI, the shifting geopolitical landscape, and the ongoing push for diversity in tech.
Since our last conversation, AI has taken center stage, raising urgent questions about transparency, intellectual property, and the future of open innovation. Amanda shares insights on how OpenUK advocates for open technology frameworks, the importance of sustainable funding for open-source projects, and the growing influence of standards in shaping global AI policy. She also discusses the UK's unique position between the EU's regulatory-heavy approach and the US's innovation-driven model—offering a glimpse into how policymakers grapple with the balance between governance and technological progress.
With the episode airing on International Women's Day, we also dive into the state of diversity in tech. While open source has historically been a gateway for talent from all backgrounds, Amanda highlights the challenges ahead as many organizations scale back DEI initiatives. She shares how OpenUK fosters inclusivity through events like State of Open Con and why open source remains a critical entry point for aspiring developers worldwide.
We also discuss the AI Action Summit and its impact on global AI policy, the rise of open-weight AI models, and why the phrase "tools, not rules" could define the future of AI governance.
Amanda also discusses her work on AI openness at AI for Good in Geneva and sustainability initiatives at COP30 in Brazil. She also shares how businesses and policymakers can contribute to a more open, collaborative future.
How can open source drive innovation while ensuring accountability in AI? And what role will the UK play in shaping the global tech landscape? Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion with one of the leading voices in open technology.
How can something as simple as returning a lost item transform customer experience and brand loyalty? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Skyler Logsdon, CEO & Co-founder of Boomerang, to explore how his company is redefining the lost & found process through AI-powered automation. Boomerang isn’t just helping businesses return lost belongings—it’s turning those moments of frustration into powerful customer engagement opportunities.
With major brands like Wells Fargo Center, Universal Studios, and top MLB & NFL teams using Boomerang’s platform, lost & found has become more than just an operational challenge—it’s a differentiator in customer experience. Skyler explains how AI-driven matching streamlines the process, reducing the burden on businesses while dramatically increasing the chances of reuniting customers with their valuables. But more than efficiency, it’s about trust. Every successfully returned item creates a meaningful connection between a business and its customers, reinforcing loyalty in a way that no marketing campaign can.
We also discuss how Boomerang’s rapid expansion is building a global network of trust. From sports stadiums to theme parks and hotels, businesses are recognizing that lost & found is no longer just a back-office function—it’s a key touchpoint in the customer journey. Looking ahead, Skyler shares how Boomerang plans to scale its impact in 2025 and beyond, with the goal of making lost item recovery seamless across industries worldwide.
How can businesses turn small moments of frustration into lasting customer loyalty? And what role does AI play in creating frictionless, trust-building experiences? Tune in to hear how Boomerang is revolutionizing lost & found and changing the game for customer experience.
How can AI drive the next wave of innovation in healthcare while ensuring trust, security, and compliance? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Rajan Kohli, CEO of CitiusTech, to explore how agentic AI is reshaping healthcare.
From personalized patient care to streamlining clinical workflows. As AI systems take on more decision-making responsibilities, the challenge is not just about advancing technology but ensuring it operates transparently, ethically, and securely.
Rajan shares insights into the biggest trends shaping healthcare technology in 2025, including the resurgence of value-based care, the shift toward on-demand personalized healthcare, and the urgent need to break down data silos for better insights. With agentic AI moving beyond passive data analysis to active decision-making, we discuss how it can improve efficiency, support medical professionals, and transform everything from diagnostics to patient engagement.
But with these advancements come critical concerns. How do we ensure that AI-driven decisions are explainable and auditable? How can organizations comply with stringent healthcare regulations like HIPAA and GDPR while leveraging AI to enhance care delivery? Rajan breaks down the key trust-building frameworks needed to make AI adoption both responsible and effective.
We also dive into real-world use cases, such as AI-powered virtual agents that support medication adherence, optimize clinical trials, and even assist with claims processing. These applications demonstrate how AI can ease the burden on healthcare providers while improving patient outcomes.
However, cybersecurity remains a major challenge, with the healthcare industry increasingly targeted by data breaches and cyber threats. Rajan explains how leaders can strengthen AI security, prevent data manipulation, and implement strong governance models to mitigate risks.
As healthcare undergoes a massive digital transformation, what will it take to balance AI innovation with the ethical and regulatory demands of the industry? And how can AI truly enhance—not replace—human expertise in healthcare? Tune in to hear Rajan Kohli’s expert perspective on the future of AI-driven healthcare.
How can businesses stay ahead of the rapidly evolving risks of AI-driven fraud? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Bradley Niedzielski, Audit & Assurance Partner, Digital Transformation at Deloitte, to explore the growing threat of generative AI in financial fraud and how organizations can strengthen their defenses.
With deepfake technology, synthetic identities, and AI-generated forgeries becoming more sophisticated, traditional fraud detection methods are struggling to keep up. Deloitte projects that AI-driven fraud losses in the U.S. could reach $40 billion by 2027—more than tripling from 2023.
Bradley shares insights from Deloitte’s latest research, including a startling statistic: over 25% of businesses have already faced a deepfake financial fraud attack, and more than half expect these threats to escalate within the next year.
Despite this growing concern, only 7.4% of companies prioritize technology as their primary defense, and less than half feel confident in their ability to combat AI-powered fraud. So, what’s holding them back? And what steps should organizations be taking right now to strengthen their fraud risk management frameworks?
We discuss the critical role of AI governance, the importance of transparency in AI decision-making, and why human oversight is still essential—even as AI becomes more autonomous. Bradley also highlights how finance departments increasingly embed AI into their workflows, from automating financial close processes to leveraging AI-driven scenario planning. But as AI becomes a core part of financial operations, ensuring data integrity and preventing blind trust in AI-generated outputs is more critical than ever.
Beyond risk mitigation, we explore how businesses can prepare their teams for the AI-driven future. Bradley shares best practices for upskilling finance professionals, fostering a culture of innovation, and ensuring AI adoption aligns with broader organizational goals. With AI reshaping finance functions at an unprecedented pace, how can companies implement it securely while maintaining regulatory compliance and operational efficiency?
As generative AI continues to disrupt the financial landscape, how can businesses balance innovation and risk management? And what strategies will define the next generation of AI-powered finance operations? Tune in to hear Bradley Niedzielski’s expert take on navigating the opportunities and challenges of AI in finance.
What does the future of work look like in an era of hybrid models and AI-powered collaboration? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with James Campanini from Logitech to explore how workplace technology is evolving to empower productivity, foster inclusivity, and reshape how we think about collaboration—beyond office walls.
For over 45 years, Logitech has connected people to the digital world, from early peripherals like mice and keyboards to today's advanced video conferencing and AI-driven solutions.
James shares how Logitech's approach to hybrid work isn't about forcing employees back into the office but rather about ensuring that work happens effectively—whether in an office, at home, or on the move. Businesses focusing on how people work rather than where they work are seeing higher engagement, reduced burnout, and better overall productivity.
We also dive into AI's role in Logitech's innovations for years, from intelligent camera systems that automatically adjust lighting to noise-canceling technology that ensures remote workers are heard as clearly as those in the room.
As AI continues transforming business operations, James explains why it's not about replacing human decision-making but optimizing workflows, reducing time spent on repetitive tasks, and making meetings more inclusive for everyone—regardless of location.
Beyond technology, we discuss a growing concern in the corporate world: employee monitoring. With increasing companies turning to surveillance tools, Logitech advocates for a different approach—focusing on presence rather than policing. By equipping teams with the right tools, organizations can create an environment of trust and collaboration rather than scrutiny and micromanagement.
We also explore real estate trends as businesses rethink office spaces, shifting from rows of desks to more flexible, multi-purpose environments that better support hybrid collaboration. What's the right balance between in-person and remote work? And how can technology ensure all employees have an equal seat at the table—physically and digitally?
With AI reshaping the way we work and businesses needing to do more with less, how can organizations create productive but also inclusive and engaging workplaces? Tune in to hear how Logitech is leading the way in redefining the future of work.
How can businesses deploy AI with full transparency, accountability, and trust? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with David Villalón, co-founder of Maisa AI, to explore how their agentic AI technology is transforming enterprise decision-making. With many organizations still hesitant to integrate AI due to concerns over trust, hallucinations, and lack of explainability, Maisa has taken a different approach—ensuring full traceability in AI-driven processes.
David introduces Maisa's Vinci KPU and its "Chain-of-Work" concept, which moves beyond traditional generative AI models to create structured, deterministic decision-making processes. Unlike black-box AI systems that provide probabilistic answers, this approach allows organizations to see exactly how AI reaches its conclusions, making compliance and regulatory approval far more achievable. We discuss why this is a game-changer for industries like finance, oil & gas, and automotive—sectors where AI decisions carry high stakes and require robust governance.
With AI agents becoming increasingly autonomous, businesses must balance efficiency and oversight. David explains how Maisa's model allows for independent AI operation while ensuring humans remain in the loop for critical decision-making. He also shares best practices for mitigating AI-related risks, including financial losses and reputational damage, through governance frameworks and real-time intervention capabilities.
Beyond today's AI applications, we look at the bigger picture—how agentic AI reshapes leadership and organizational structures. As AI takes on more operational tasks, leaders are shifting from hands-on execution to managing networks of AI-powered "digital knowledge workers." What does this mean for the future of work? How will businesses adapt to remain competitive in an AI-driven economy?
Looking ahead, David shares his insights on the biggest opportunities and challenges facing AI adoption over the next five years. With AI evolving rapidly, how can companies future-proof their AI strategies while maintaining trust and control? Tune in to hear how Maisa is pioneering a new era of AI-powered decision-making.
Are you getting what you need from Tech Talks Daily? Or is there something missing? In this episode, I’m stepping back from interviews to check in with you—my incredible listeners.
I know I’m guilty of keeping my head down, recording back-to-back conversations, and pushing out episodes without stopping to ask: What do you want to hear more of? What should I cover less? Are there industries or tech trends you think deserve more attention?
This show is all about exploring the impact of technology in and outside the workplace, breaking down the ROI and measurable impact of every innovation in a way that everyone can understand. But I want to make sure I’m asking the right questions and featuring the right voices.
So, tell me—what’s on your mind?
I’m also taking Tech Talks Daily on the road! If you’re attending IGEL Now & Next 2025 in Miami or the Qualtrics X4 Summit in Salt Lake City or the Bay Area, why not grab a coffee or a beer and chat in person?
Beyond the podcast, I work with businesses, leaders, and brands to help them share their stories—whether through thought leadership blogs, ghostwriting, or launching their own podcasts. If time constraints have been holding you back from stepping up your content game, let’s talk.
So, what do you think? What’s next for Tech Talks Daily? What trends should I chase down? Who should I be speaking with? Let’s make this a two-way conversation. Reach out, and let’s make it happen.
I’m listening. Are you in?
How can brands leverage emerging technologies to drive real business results? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Sarah Salter, Global Head of Innovation and Platforms at Wavemaker, to explore how companies can move beyond hype and apply AI, AR/VR, and other innovations in ways that truly engage consumers and deliver measurable impact.
With a background spanning 15 years and work on groundbreaking projects for brands like P&G, Nationwide, and the NHS, Sarah brings a unique perspective on digital transformation across industries.
Innovation isn’t about chasing trends—it’s about solving real business challenges. Sarah shares how Wavemaker helps brands set clear KPIs and use emerging tech strategically, from AI-driven personalization to immersive brand experiences in gaming and the metaverse. We discuss key lessons from major tech initiatives, including the NHS’s COVID-19 WhatsApp response and Nationwide’s Local Voices campaign on Alexa and Google, and how these projects balanced agility, accessibility, and meaningful engagement.
As AI continues to reshape marketing, brands are navigating a shift from interruptive ads to participatory experiences. Sarah highlights how companies like L’Oréal and Dove are leading with AI-driven campaigns and why gaming is becoming a major frontier for brand engagement. But with rapid technological change comes challenges—how do businesses keep up, invest in the right skills, and ensure innovation stays inclusive?
A passionate advocate for diversity in tech, Sarah also shares her thoughts on why diverse teams lead to better innovation and why the industry must do more to support women in leadership. From fostering STEM education to initiatives like WPP’s Back in the Game, she discusses what’s needed to build a more inclusive future in technology.
How can brands use technology to connect with audiences in more meaningful ways? And what does the future of immersive, AI-powered marketing look like? Tune in to hear Sarah Salter’s insights on the next era of brand innovation.
How can AI transform project management without adding unnecessary complexity?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Miya McClain, VP of Product Management at Smartsheet, to explore how embedded AI tools are reshaping the way teams collaborate, manage data, and deliver successful projects.
With an engineering background and deep product expertise, Miya shares how Smartsheet is tackling some of the biggest challenges in project management, from data overload to team burnout.
AI in project management isn't about replacing human decision-making—it's about enhancing it. Miya explains how Smartsheet’s AI-driven insights help teams cut through the "data mess," turning scattered information into clear, actionable intelligence. With 63% of eligible Smartsheet plans already leveraging AI tools, businesses are seeing improved efficiency, better decision-making, and a significant reduction in manual work.
We also discuss how AI can proactively identify risks before they derail a project, providing managers with real-time visibility into potential roadblocks. This not only minimizes stress but also helps teams stay on track without last-minute scrambles. And as AI continues to evolve, Miya shares her perspective on the future of agent AI—where technology doesn’t just analyze data but also recommends the best projects to tackle, assigns the right people, and even personalizes onboarding experiences.
But as AI adoption grows, so do concerns about responsible use. Miya highlights Smartsheet’s commitment to data security, ensuring customer data is never co-mingled or used for training. She also debunks common AI myths, explaining why project managers remain vital, even as AI takes on more of the repetitive tasks.
With AI poised to redefine project management, how can businesses ensure they’re using it strategically and responsibly? And what does the future hold for AI-powered collaboration? Tune in to hear Miya McClain’s insights on the evolving role of AI in the workplace.
What is the future of document generation in 2025, and how should businesses navigate the risks of AI? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Christian Lund, co-founder of Templafy, to explore how AI-powered document automation is reshaping productivity, compliance, and security in modern enterprises.
As companies push for greater efficiency, many are adopting AI tools to streamline workflows. But AI's effectiveness depends heavily on context—and context is something you can't always rely on users to provide.
Christian shares why most people approach AI like a search engine, entering a handful of keywords and expecting the right results. But would you brief a colleague with just a few disjointed words? Better briefs lead to better outputs, whether you're working with humans or AI.
This is where Templafy steps in, delivering AI-powered document generation solutions that integrate seamlessly with platforms like Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, and Salesforce. Trusted by over 800 enterprises, including KPMG, BDO, and Adobe, Templafy automates document creation while maintaining compliance and brand consistency—saving employees up to 30 days per year.
We also dive into why the best automation happens when humans are less involved. Far from sidelining human input, this approach reduces compliance risks and frees employees to focus on high-value work that drives business growth.
Christian explains how Templafy orchestrates AI models, data sources, and workflows to ensure optimal outcomes, from sales collateral to RFP responses. Plus, we explore future trends, including AI agents and stronger orchestration that allows businesses to stay in control of AI-powered processes.
How can businesses balance the push for faster workflows with the need for secure, compliant documents? And what role will AI agents play in tomorrow's document generation landscape? Tune in to discover how Templafy is paving the way for smarter, safer automation.
Are we ready for a hedge fund world where machine learning guides trading decisions and data scientists outnumber traditional traders? In this Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, I sit down with Gary Collier, CTO of Man Group, to find out.
Man Group traces its roots back more than two centuries to its days supplying rum, yet it now stands at the forefront of AI-driven finance. Gary explains how the firm’s open-source platforms, Alpha and Rosa, power everything from signal generation to automated execution, all while keeping a firm grip on the art of human oversight.
I found it intriguing how their internal ManGPT system used by over half the organization proves that large language models and neural networks aren’t just hyped. They’re part of daily operations in purely systematic strategies and supporting discretionary portfolio managers who want real-time insights from a sea of unstructured data. We also explore ArcticDB, Man Group’s open-source data science database, enabling it to process billions of rows quickly. Gary argues that without this kind of data infrastructure, AI research stalls under the weight of time-consuming manual tasks.
Throughout our conversation, Gary shares how his hobbyist coder and physicist background influences a data-first culture. It was fascinating to hear how he believes AI could soon disrupt creative aspects of quantitative research, allowing advanced models to generate strategy ideas rather than simply refining existing ones. At the same time, he underscores the importance of transparency. In a world where billions in assets are at stake, pure black-box automation doesn’t cut it, and teams need to explain how trades are executed and why the data looks the way it does.
From front-office analytics to deep research projects, it’s clear that AI pulses through Man Group’s veins. Still, Gary reminds me that people remain vital for framing the right questions and deciding when to trust the outputs. Will AI become the main engine of future hedge fund strategies, or will human ingenuity continue to guide our biggest calls on the market? And how will your organization embrace the growing tide of machine-led innovation?
Is your organization prepared for an era in which AI does more than just offer a helping hand, but actively partner with human teams? In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Randy Weakly, Chief AI Architect at ImageSource, to explore the fast-changing world of agentic AI and how it’s shaping the future of intelligent automation.
After years of working in fields ranging from aerospace engineering to NASA, Randy now leads the AI efforts at ImageSource, a company that has spent decades refining enterprise content and customer experience products. He shares how ImageSource incorporates natural language processing and computer vision to manage documents across finance, healthcare, and government, showing how AI can tackle everything from scanning hundreds of forms to transcribing hours of audio.
Randy highlights the importance of a human-in-the-loop approach, insisting that while AI can automate countless tasks, oversight keeps projects accurate and ethically grounded. He talks about ImageSource’s “AI Empowerment Blueprint” for organizations that want to integrate AI responsibly, stressing that governance frameworks are no longer optional.
I found it enlightening to hear about their journey toward hyperautomation, where agentic AI agents might soon perform tasks with minimal human input. Randy believes that by 2025, this approach will redefine how businesses operate, allowing enterprises to reshape processes, save time, and uncover fresh opportunities for growth.
We also discuss how AI can occasionally surprise us by performing advanced tasks one moment and stumbling on simpler ones the next.
That variability drives the need for codified workflows and oversight, especially when security and ethics hang in the balance. Listening to Randy’s vision, I was struck by how he sees the biggest opportunities for AI in the next three to five years: from boosting routine workflows to powering new products and services that haven’t even been imagined yet.
Will your business embrace agentic AI and the promise of human-machine collaboration, or will you wait until these intelligent systems become the norm?
What will the future of AI accessibility look like when Big Tech no longer dominates the infrastructure? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore this question with Dr. Seena Rejal, the Chief Commercial Officer at NetMind.AI. Seena brings over 15 years of experience in deep tech ventures across the US and UK. As a two-time founder, investor, and now CCO of NetMind.AI, his mission is clear: democratize access to AI by breaking the centralized control of high-performance computing.
NetMind.AI is pioneering a decentralized GPU computing platform through its blockchain-enabled NetMind Power, making AI affordable and accessible for everyone. But how exactly does decentralization level the playing field in an AI landscape dominated by major players? Seena shares his insights on how this approach not only empowers startups and researchers but also tackles some of the industry's most pressing challenges, such as GPU shortages, environmental costs, and Big Tech’s increasing appetite for nuclear energy.
Our conversation explores the growing role of agentic AI and its real-world applications across multiple sectors. How are AI agents enhancing efficiency and transforming decision-making processes? Seena explains why agentic AI could be the next big shift in AI adoption and what businesses need to know to stay ahead. We also discuss recent moves in the semiconductor industry, including Amazon’s efforts to build AI chips designed to rival Nvidia, and what this means for the future of AI infrastructure.
Throughout the discussion, Seena emphasizes the ethical implications of rapid AI advancement. With misinformation and deepfakes becoming more common, how can decentralized, open-source approaches help create a more transparent and secure AI ecosystem? Seena believes that by distributing AI infrastructure and fostering open access, smaller players can compete with big tech giants while promoting ethical standards in AI development.
As AI technology evolves, will decentralization be the key to unlocking its full potential for everyone? What will it take for businesses to embrace this shift? Listen to this insightful conversation and let me know—do you believe decentralized AI is the future?
Have you ever wondered how technology could help solve the growing challenges in the UK’s water industry? With increasing cost pressures and rising consumer demands, the water sector is at a critical juncture. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Sandeep Bhattarai, Utilities Value Advisor at SAP UKI, to explore how digital solutions can help water companies navigate these turbulent times.
SAP’s latest research reveals that 34% of water company leaders are grappling with challenging cost pressures, with 94% believing that investment must rise to meet customer expectations. Sandeep shares his insights into the root causes of these financial strains and how a lack of digital infrastructure is slowing progress. He explains how technology adoption, or the lack thereof, is impacting the industry's ability to meet the stringent requirements of AMP8, a five-year regulatory framework starting in 2025.
As we unpack the complexities of the water network, Sandeep highlights how digital transformation can streamline operations, reduce inefficiencies, and improve service delivery. But can technology truly be a silver bullet? Sandeep addresses this question head-on, offering practical solutions for overcoming the skills gaps, operational silos, and knowledge barriers that continue to hinder digital adoption.
Looking ahead, we discuss what the future holds for the UK water industry post-AMP8. Will the sector embrace the digital revolution required to meet evolving demands? How can leaders harness technology to ensure sustainable growth and customer satisfaction?
Tune in to this conversation and share your thoughts—what role do you think technology should play in shaping the future of water services?
What does it take to transform a men’s health start-up into one of the fastest-growing digital healthcare providers in the UK? In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I explore this question with Sokratis Papafloratos, founder and CEO of Numan.
Since launching Numan in 2018, Sokratis has overseen its remarkable journey from offering solutions for erectile dysfunction to becoming a full-scale digital healthcare provider supporting over 500,000 patients. The business generated £30 million in revenue in 2023 and more than doubled in 2024, while building a team of over 150 professionals.
But Numan’s evolution isn’t just about scaling services—it’s about leading the future of health tech. Sokratis shares how Numan is setting new benchmarks by integrating AI, predictive analytics, and data science into its operations.
We discuss the company’s latest innovation: the AI Health Assistant, a groundbreaking tool designed to offer personalised, real-time health guidance while adhering to rigorous safety and regulatory standards. This tool, backed by Numan's proprietary Aegis Monitoring System, is redefining patient engagement, ensuring clinical accuracy, and delivering up to 99% clinically reviewed responses.
Sokratis also outlines how AI can provide scalable, personalised healthcare solutions for stigmatised conditions like obesity. With the AI Health Assistant already supporting over 3,000 patients in its beta phase, we discuss how this technology has helped patients collectively lose over 200,000kg. Sokratis explains how Numan’s patient-centred AI approach is bridging critical gaps in healthcare by ensuring safe, tailored support that evolves with patient needs.
We explore Numan’s ambitious plans to launch more AI-driven tools in 2025, aiming to lead the UK’s health tech market and expand globally. Sokratis shares his broader vision for digital healthcare, insights on balancing technology with compassionate care, and the crucial role of AI safety frameworks like ISO42001.
As the digital healthcare landscape continues to evolve, Numan’s journey offers lessons in scaling innovation responsibly while staying patient-focused. How can AI reshape healthcare delivery? What challenges and opportunities lie ahead for health tech? Join us to hear Sokratis Papafloratos share his insights and help us understand how technology is transforming healthcare journeys for millions.
What happens when AI agents begin to outnumber humans? In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Steve Lucas, CEO of Boomi, to explore this thought-provoking prediction and what it means for businesses, the workforce, and society. With extensive experience leading companies through transformative journeys, Steve brings invaluable insights into how organizations can prepare for a future dominated by AI.
Steve delves into the concept of the “AI big bang,” where AI agents are set to fundamentally reshape workforce dynamics and decision-making processes. He highlights how these agents are rapidly evolving, influencing everything from customer service and supply chain management to market analysis. But with this growth comes the pressing need for transparency, explainability, and control. How can businesses avoid being overwhelmed by this AI influx? Steve argues that companies must reimagine work processes and establish robust AI governance frameworks to ensure human oversight and ethical AI deployment.
As AI becomes deeply integrated into everyday business functions, Steve outlines the critical role of protocols for future communication. The rapid evolution of technology requires clear frameworks to enable AI agents to interact in ways we can understand and control. He shares how Boomi is addressing this challenge by developing an AI governance platform designed to help organizations manage agent creation, execution, and compliance effectively.
Steve also reflects on how business leaders can stay ahead in this rapidly changing landscape. With AI set to revolutionize global learning and knowledge accessibility, continuous learning becomes essential. Drawing on advice from industry leaders, Steve emphasizes the importance of dedicating time to understanding AI technologies and using AI itself for personalized learning experiences.
This episode offers a deep look into how AI will shape the future of work, the critical need for governance, and the opportunities and risks that lie ahead. As AI agents become a powerful force in business, how will your organization adapt? Are you ready for the cognitive revolution that’s already underway? Let us know your thoughts after the conversation.
What does it take to revolutionize the dining experience for a generation that holds $7.6 trillion in annual spending power? As America’s largest contingent of Baby Boomers approaches retirement, the demand for elevated dining in senior living communities has never been higher.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Joseph Cuticelli, CEO of Restaura, a company poised to disrupt the $45.1 billion foodservice contracting industry. Restaura is not just changing what’s on the menu—it’s redefining how technology, data science, and hospitality converge to create personalized dining experiences that cater to the evolving expectations of the Longevity Economy.
During our conversation, Joseph shares how Restaura is setting new industry standards by leveraging artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and real-time data to gather resident feedback, optimize operations, and reduce food waste.
With dining costs representing up to 20% of a senior living community’s operating expenses, Restaura’s tech-driven insights provide clients with smart dashboards offering real-time KPIs and sentiment analysis, ensuring that resident satisfaction and operational efficiency go hand in hand.
But how does one balance cutting-edge technology with the compassionate care and culinary artistry that residents expect? Joseph explains how Restaura brings together nutrition science and personalized service to address not only the health but also the emotional well-being of residents. We also explore the growing need for tech-enabled responsiveness in senior living, where dining quality is key to attracting and retaining residents.
As the conversation unfolds, we discuss the broader impact of the Longevity Economy and how senior living communities can stay ahead by blending technology with human connection. Is the future of senior dining about more than just food? Could AI and data science pave the way for a more sustainable, personalized approach to care?
Tune in and join the discussion. How do you see technology transforming the way we approach aging and hospitality? Share your thoughts—this is a conversation worth continuing.
The demand for seamless connectivity continues to grow as industries, businesses, and consumers increasingly rely on digital infrastructure. In today’s conversation, I’m joined by Christian Hillbrandt, CEO of Vantage Towers, to discuss how one of Europe’s largest tower companies is shaping the future of mobile networks.
With 86,000 towers spread across 10 European markets, Vantage Towers is at the center of expanding 5G coverage and enhancing network reliability. Christian shares insights on the progress of 5G rollout across Europe, the challenges of building sustainable and scalable infrastructure, and why connectivity across transportation networks—such as highways, railways, and airports—is becoming a priority.
We also explore the company’s efforts to drive efficiency through shared infrastructure, the shift toward renewable energy, and how Europe’s approach to connectivity compares to the U.S. As the demand for faster, more reliable networks increases, how will companies like Vantage Towers support innovation while ensuring cost-effective solutions?
Join us for a fascinating conversation on the technology that powers our digital world. What role do you think infrastructure providers should play in shaping the future of connectivity? Let us know your thoughts.
The internet is evolving, but so are the threats that come with it. The latest Bad Bot Report from Imperva, a Thales company, reveals a staggering statistic: nearly 50% of internet traffic now comes from non-human sources, with bad bots making up almost one-third of all online activity.
These bots are no longer just simple scripts running in the background; they have become more advanced, leveraging AI to mimic human behavior and evade traditional detection methods. The consequences? A surge in transaction fraud, web scraping, data harvesting, and account takeovers, affecting industries across the board.
In this episode, I'm joined by Lynn Marks, Senior Product Manager at Imperva, who returns to the podcast to break down the key findings of the 2024 Bad Bot Report. We explore how bot activity is evolving, why businesses need to rethink their approach to security, and what proactive steps can be taken to mitigate these threats.
Lynn explains how attackers are shifting their focus from technical vulnerabilities to exploiting business logic, making it increasingly difficult for companies to detect and prevent malicious activity.
We also discuss the growing security challenges surrounding APIs, which have become prime targets for cybercriminals. With half of all account takeover attacks now targeting APIs directly, organizations need better visibility and stronger protections in place to defend against automated threats. Lynn shares insights on why industries like gaming and travel are seeing disproportionate bot activity and how businesses can better secure their platforms.
As AI legislation gains momentum worldwide, the conversation around bot management is becoming increasingly complex. How can companies stay ahead of evolving threats while ensuring compliance with emerging regulations? What lessons can be learned from past security failures? And more importantly, how can organizations take a proactive stance in the fight against automated cyber threats?
Tune in for an eye-opening conversation that sheds light on the hidden dangers lurking beneath internet traffic and learn how to better protect your business from the growing wave of automated attacks.
Are businesses truly prepared for the evolving world of AI regulations? As artificial intelligence continues to reshape industries, organizations face mounting challenges in managing data integrity, balancing compliance with innovation, and ensuring ethical implementation. In this episode, I welcome Juan Orlandini, CTO North America at Insight, to explore the shifting AI regulatory landscape and how companies can navigate the road ahead.
With so much hype surrounding AI over the last two years, many businesses rushed to adopt new technologies, eager to stay ahead of the curve. But as the dust settles, a new focus emerges—responsibility, regulation, and long-term strategy. Juan breaks down AI into three broad categories: creators, adapters, and consumers. Each faces distinct challenges, particularly as global policymakers attempt to establish clear frameworks for responsible AI use. The conversation dives into why businesses should begin by focusing on internal AI applications, where the risks are lower, and the immediate value is more tangible before expanding into customer-facing solutions.
With AI regulations in the US still developing, California is leading the charge at the state level, much like it did with past privacy laws. Juan shares his thoughts on how these early policies could evolve into broader federal frameworks and what lessons the US can take from the European Union’s approach with the AI Act. While regulation may seem like an obstacle, Juan argues that it also presents an opportunity for businesses to refine their AI strategies, ensuring their data assets are leveraged effectively while remaining compliant.
Looking ahead, AI’s role in business will only continue to expand, but how can organizations avoid the pitfalls of past technology trends? Juan offers insights into how companies can take a structured, methodical approach to AI adoption, ensuring they don’t fall into the trap of following trends without a clear purpose. Whether it’s identifying high-value, quick-win AI projects or integrating AI into existing enterprise systems without adding unnecessary complexity, Juan emphasizes the importance of measured, strategic implementation.
The conversation also touches on the broader impact of AI on the workforce, the regulatory challenges that different AI categories face, and how organizations can foster innovation while mitigating risks. As AI becomes more ingrained in daily business operations, understanding the nuances of responsible AI adoption will be critical for companies looking to gain a competitive edge.
Are organizations ready for the realities of AI regulation, or are they still in the hype cycle? And how can businesses strike the right balance between innovation and compliance? Tune in to hear Juan’s expert insights and strategies for navigating the AI-powered future.
In today’s episode, I welcome Ricardo Ferreira, EMEA Field CISO at Fortinet, to discuss how the UK's proposed Cybersecurity and Resilience Bill compares to the EU's NIS2 directive. Ricardo brings a wealth of experience in cybersecurity strategy and regulation, and he shares why he believes the UK's bill is missing key components that could make it truly effective.
With Brexit allowing the UK to take an independent approach, Ricardo argues that there is a unique opportunity to cherry-pick the most effective elements from NIS2 while avoiding its potential pitfalls. But is the current bill providing enough clarity?
Ricardo highlights how the legislation introduces buzzwords like "digital supply chain" without actually outlining a clear path for addressing cyber threats. In contrast, NIS2 lays out a prescriptive approach that includes risk profiling, supply chain security frameworks, and post-breach recovery strategies.
We also explore the growing need for board-level accountability in cybersecurity. Should executives and directors be held personally responsible for cyber resilience within their organizations? And how can governments ensure that businesses have both the guidance and incentives to proactively address security risks rather than reactively scramble to contain breaches?
With cyber threats only growing more sophisticated, the role of regulation in mitigating risk has never been more important. But does the UK's current legislative approach go far enough? And what lessons can be learned from international frameworks like NIS2?
Tune in for an insightful discussion on the future of cybersecurity policy, where it’s headed, and what needs to change to create truly resilient digital infrastructures. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts—how should governments balance regulation with innovation in cybersecurity?
At the intersection of Web3, IoT, and AI, we're witnessing a technological shift that promises to redefine business, connectivity, and the metaverse itself.
In today’s episode, I’m joined by David Palmer, Chief Product Officer of PeerPoint by Vodafone, to explore the convergence of these technologies and what it means for the future of enterprise and digital interactions.
David brings a wealth of experience in emerging technologies, and his new book, The Business of Metaverse, provides a roadmap for organizations looking to navigate and capitalize on the opportunities within this evolving digital landscape.
He shares insights into how Web3 and AI are revolutionizing industries, enabling device-to-device transactions, and fueling new AI-driven business models.
One of the most intriguing developments is Vodafone’s PeerPoint platform, the world’s first Web3 IoT platform, designed to give digital identities to IoT devices, allowing them to transact autonomously.
Imagine in-car payments that don’t require additional hardware, smart contracts securing enterprise AI interactions, and an IoT ecosystem that is no longer siloed by technical barriers. With an estimated 26 billion connected devices by 2025, the ability to securely exchange data and conduct business at scale will be a game-changer.
We also discuss the three stages of metaverse evolution—from embedded experiences to full interoperability and convergence. AI is accelerating this transition, with generative AI and intelligent agents opening new possibilities for businesses. But while the opportunities are immense, many organizations are still grappling with how to translate these concepts into real business value.
David shares practical examples of how industries like finance, education, and real estate are already leveraging these technologies to remove geographic barriers and unlock new economic models.
As we look ahead, who will be the winners in this new digital era? How will businesses need to adapt to harness Web3, AI, and IoT effectively? And what role will AI-powered digital agents play in shaping the metaverse’s next phase?
Join us as we explore how the future of business is being rewritten in real-time—and what leaders need to do to stay ahead.
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Simone Cardarelli CEO of MicroAlign to explore a groundbreaking innovation in fiber optics that could reshape quantum computing, data centers, AI, and space communication.
With quantum computing advancing rapidly, every photon counts. Traditional fiber alignment methods struggle with precision, but MicroAlign’s micro-actuator technology achieves 100-nanometer accuracy, vastly improving photon transmission efficiency. This advancement is critical for quantum computers, where precise photon management directly impacts computational power and scalability.
But the implications go far beyond quantum computing. We discuss how this technology can revolutionize data centers by supporting co-packaged optics, improving AI processing efficiency, and enabling high-speed, low-loss communication in space applications. We also discuss the challenges of scaling production to meet industry demands and what the future holds for fiber connectivity in photonics.
Could this innovation set a new standard for fiber optic connections across multiple industries? And what are the next big breakthroughs we can expect in photonic computing? Join us as we explore the cutting-edge world of photonics and its transformative potential.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts—do you think fiber optic precision will be a game-changer for quantum computing and AI?
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Kristina Hloptsidis, Chief Innovation Officer at Signify, to explore how AI is streamlining compliance workflows in the manufacturing sector. With regulatory requirements constantly evolving and global supply chains growing more complex, companies are under increasing pressure to ensure compliance without sacrificing efficiency. Kristina and her team at Signify are tackling this challenge head-on by using AI to automate compliance checks, reduce manual effort, and provide real-time insights for manufacturers.
Signify, a startup that recently spun out of the AI2 Incubator, has raised $2.1 million to develop its AI-powered platform designed to analyze regulatory documentation and reduce risk across the product lifecycle. But while AI holds immense promise, integrating it into legacy systems and established workflows isn’t always straightforward. Kristina shares the common challenges manufacturers face when adopting AI-driven compliance solutions, the strategies for overcoming resistance to change, and the practical steps businesses can take to implement AI without disrupting existing operations.
We also discuss the broader implications of AI in manufacturing, from optimizing supply chains to leveraging robotics and computer vision for defect detection. As AI continues to reshape industries, how can manufacturers strike the right balance between automation and human expertise? And what does the future hold for AI-powered compliance management?
Join us for this fascinating conversation on the intersection of AI, compliance, and manufacturing innovation. And as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts—do you think AI can fully replace traditional compliance processes, or will human oversight always be essential?
Useful Links Signify - www.getsignify.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinahloptsidis/ Book Recommendation (Amazon Link)
AI is everywhere, yet scaling it remains a serious challenge for many enterprises. Organizations are eager to move beyond pilot projects, but they quickly run into obstacles—cloud costs spiral out of control, GPUs sit idle due to inefficiencies, and infrastructure bottlenecks slow down innovation. If AI is supposed to be the future, why is the underlying infrastructure still holding it back?
In this episode, I’m joined by John Blumenthal, Chief Product Officer at Volumez, and Diane Gonzalez, Senior Director of Business Development and Product, to unpack the hidden inefficiencies of AI infrastructure and explore whether Data Infrastructure as a Service (DIaaS) is the answer. They explain why traditional AI infrastructure models are failing and why manual optimization simply can’t keep up with modern AI workloads.
John argues that the problem is beyond human management, stating, “No human being is going to be able to answer that question—to actually arrive at that optimization. So you have to turn it over to a machine.” We explore why cloud spending is so difficult to control, how businesses are struggling to achieve a return on their AI investments, and what it will take to make AI infrastructure more cost-effective and scalable.
Diane shares real-world examples of how AI teams are losing valuable time and resources trying to work around infrastructure constraints. She explains how DIaaS dynamically composes infrastructure on demand, eliminating bottlenecks and ensuring businesses can run AI workloads at full speed without overspending.
With AI adoption accelerating, organizations are rethinking their approach to cloud infrastructure. But is DIaaS the missing piece that will finally make AI truly scalable? And are businesses ready to let automation take the lead in optimizing their cloud environments? Join the conversation and share your thoughts.
What happens when an industry as heavily regulated and historically slow-moving as pharma is forced to accelerate digital transformation? In today’s episode, I welcome Florian Schnappauf, Vice President of Enterprise Commercial Strategy at Veeva Systems, to discuss how Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) are reshaping the pharmaceutical landscape and why their role is now more critical than ever.
The pharmaceutical sector faces mounting pressure to innovate faster, manage costs, and compete with digital-first biotechs. Research predicts the industry will spend $4.5 billion on digital transformation by 2030, a shift that has led to the emergence of CDOs in the pharma C-suite. But what does this role actually entail, and how does it help companies navigate the complexities of drug development, clinical trials, and commercialization?
Florian shares insights on how CDOs are not just supporting digital initiatives but actively orchestrating, building, and operating them. From managing the sheer volume of data generated by clinical trials to ensuring that digital tools enhance—not hinder—the drug development process, the CDO is now a key differentiator between industry leaders and laggards. We also explore how effective digital leadership can shorten timeframes from drug discovery to patient treatment, improve communication with healthcare providers, and ultimately ensure that pharma companies achieve more with fewer resources.
With regulatory hurdles, technological advancements, and shifting market dynamics, the pharmaceutical industry is at a pivotal moment. So, what does the future hold for digital leaders in pharma? How will CDOs continue to evolve, and what lessons can other industries learn from their journey?
Join us as we break down the digital transformation of pharma and the leadership required to drive meaningful change. And as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts—do you think pharma is adapting quickly enough, or is there still a long way to go?
Check out the What Pharma Needs Next podcast.
Workplace productivity is at a crossroads. Despite an explosion of modern collaboration tools, miscommunication, unclear project requirements, and inefficient meetings continue to derail projects, wasting valuable time and resources. A staggering 41% of workers report that making a simple decision can take up to three hours due to unproductive meetings—so what’s going wrong?
In this episode, Bryan, Chief Evangelist at Lucid Software, joins me to break down the research that shows how these inefficiencies are hurting businesses. We discuss how visual collaboration tools can bridge the gap, offering a structured framework to align teams, streamline workflows, and eliminate costly misunderstandings.
Bryan shares insights on why agile practices could be the answer, revealing that while 68% of workers see tangible benefits from agile methodologies, many organizations are still reluctant to adopt them.
We also dive into the biggest roadblocks to change—resistance from employees, misconceptions about agile practices, and fear of disruption. Bryan lays out a practical roadmap for introducing agile in a way that doesn’t overwhelm teams but instead fosters engagement, efficiency, and innovation.
From quick daily scrums to structured retrospectives, we explore simple yet powerful ways teams can evolve their approach to collaboration without feeling like they’re overhauling everything at once.
And in a historic moment for the podcast, we break a record today—an entire, deeply insightful conversation about technology and business without mentioning AI!
So, how can companies shift away from outdated working behaviours and embrace visual collaboration and agile methodologies? What small changes can create massive improvements in decision-making and project execution? And what does the future of workplace collaboration look like in a world that’s still struggling with productivity?
Join us for this eye-opening discussion, and as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts—what’s the biggest collaboration challenge your team faces, and could agile be the answer?
In today’s fast-moving digital landscape, IT teams are under immense pressure to maintain performance, security, and reliability while managing increasingly complex cloud-native environments. But as traditional monitoring tools struggle to keep pace, AI-driven observability is emerging as a game-changer.
In this episode, I sit down with Alois Reitbauer, Chief Technology Strategist at Dynatrace, to explore how AI and automation are redefining enterprise IT. Alois shares his insights on the role of predictive AI, AIOps, and automated observability in helping organizations proactively detect and resolve issues before they impact users.
We also dive into how Dynatrace is integrating AI-powered solutions to enhance performance monitoring, security, and cloud automation, making IT operations more efficient and resilient. Alois breaks down the latest innovations, including how AI observability supports large-scale cloud environments, reduces alert fatigue, and enables self-healing IT ecosystems.
As AI continues to transform enterprise technology, what does the future hold for IT teams? Can AI-powered observability help businesses scale without adding complexity? And how can companies harness Dynatrace’s advanced AI insights to drive greater efficiency and security?
Join us as we explore these questions and uncover the latest breakthroughs shaping the future of IT operations. I’d love to hear your thoughts—how do you see AI observability changing the way businesses manage their digital ecosystems?
The rapid pace of technological change continues to reshape industries, forcing businesses to rethink their IT strategies, embrace automation, and harness AI to stay competitive. But with so many moving parts—legacy systems, cybersecurity risks, and increasing demands for performance—how can enterprises successfully modernize without disrupting mission-critical operations?
In today’s episode, the conversation takes place live from Dynatrace Perform in Las Vegas, where the focus is on AI-driven transformation, digital twins, and the future of IT services. Howard Boville, Executive Vice President at DXC, shares how the company is helping enterprises modernize applications, optimize cloud environments, and use AI to drive efficiency and scalability. With a global team of 50,000 engineers, DXC is at the forefront of enabling businesses to navigate complexity while maximizing operational performance.
A key part of this transformation is DXC’s long-standing partnership with Dynatrace, which spans 15 years. Howard explains how observability plays a pivotal role in ensuring seamless application performance and IT operations. With thousands of interconnected applications running on intricate infrastructure, gaining real-time insights is critical for predicting outages before they happen. The discussion explores how AI-powered observability is preventing IT failures, improving customer experiences, and enabling businesses to transition from reactive to proactive problem-solving.
Another major theme is the rise of digital twins—real-time virtual models that help businesses optimize their technology ecosystems. Originally developed in manufacturing to simulate production lines, digital twins are now being used to map out entire IT environments. Howard discusses how DXC and Dynatrace are bringing this concept into enterprise IT, allowing companies to model the impact of AI, streamline cloud migrations, and maximize return on investment.
The conversation also touches on the growing concerns around cybersecurity and quantum computing. As the industry approaches a new era of quantum capabilities, encryption methods once considered secure will soon be vulnerable. Howard explains why businesses need to start preparing for this shift now, rather than waiting for a crisis to emerge.
With AI playing a bigger role in IT services, the discussion also explores how DXC is leveraging automation to drive operational improvements while ensuring human expertise remains central to decision-making. Howard shares insights on how businesses can balance innovation with risk management, optimize costs, and make AI work for them rather than against them.
As enterprises navigate digital transformation, the question remains: how can they ensure their IT investments deliver measurable business outcomes? What role will AI, observability, and cybersecurity play in shaping the future of enterprise technology? And with quantum computing on the horizon, how can businesses prepare for the seismic shifts ahead?
Join the discussion for a thought-provoking look at the future of IT and the evolving role of AI in enterprise modernization. What are your thoughts on AI’s impact on IT services? Let’s continue the conversation.
What happens when a company decides to redefine its identity? That’s what I witnessed firsthand at the IT Press Tour in Silicon Valley, as CloudFabrix unveiled its transformation into Fabrix.ai—a move that marks more than just a rebrand, but a bold step into the future of AI-driven IT Operations.
In this episode, I sit down with Raju Datla, CEO of Fabrix.ai, to explore this pivotal shift and the launch of their Agentic AI Operational Platform. We discuss why the evolution from CloudFabrix to Fabrix.ai is not just about a name change but revolutionizing how IT operations leverage AI agents for autonomous workflows, predictive analytics, and automated remediation.
Fabrix.ai introduces Agentic AI, a new paradigm where AI-driven agents operate independently to solve IT challenges—without constant human intervention. These agents can detect anomalies, manage SLAs, predict system failures, and execute automated fixes. But how does this compare to traditional AIOps and ML-driven approaches? And what safeguards are in place to prevent AI hallucinations, bias, and errors in critical IT workflows?
We’ll unpack how Fabrix.ai’s three foundational fabrics—AI Fabric, Automation Fabric, and Data Fabric—transform enterprise IT by combining AI-powered reasoning, real-time data processing, and intelligent automation. Raju shares insights into how large enterprises and telcos leverage this technology and how Fabrix.ai works with industry giants like Cisco, IBM, and Splunk to reshape IT operations.
Beyond the tech, we dive into leadership lessons from a serial entrepreneur—how Raju has built a loyal team across multiple ventures, the mindset needed to create sustainable, high-impact businesses, and why passion should always come before profit.
So, what does the future hold as we stand at the crossroads of AI-driven automation and IT modernization? Will Agentic AI usher in the long-promised era of fully autonomous enterprises?
What are your thoughts? Could AI-driven agents transform IT as we know it? Let’s continue the conversation.
Unstructured data is growing at an unprecedented rate, now making up 90% of enterprise data—but how do businesses harness its full potential?
In this episode, I sit down with Krishna Subramanian, co-founder and COO of Komprise, to explore how companies can optimize, manage, and extract value from their unstructured data across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
Krishna shares insights from over a decade in the industry, explaining how data has outgrown traditional storage solutions and why independent data management is critical for organizations to avoid vendor lock-in. We discuss how AI is revolutionizing data strategies, from optimizing storage costs to preparing unstructured data for AI-driven workflows—a challenge every enterprise is now facing.
We also dive into the hidden costs of cold data, how Komprise’s Global File Index brings structure to unstructured data, and the role of transparent data tiering in reducing storage expenses while maintaining easy access. Krishna highlights why data governance and security are more important than ever, especially as enterprises explore AI adoption and face increasing ransomware threats.
As AI becomes more deeply embedded in business processes, how can organizations ensure their data is AI-ready? What steps should they take today to future-proof their data strategies? Join the conversation and discover why unstructured data management is the next big frontier in enterprise IT.
What does the future of observability, AI, and security look like in an increasingly complex digital world? In this episode, I’m joined by Steve Tack, Chief Product Officer at Dynatrace, live from Dynatrace Perform in Las Vegas. Steve has been a frequent guest on the show, but this time, we’re finally sitting down in person at one of the industry’s most anticipated events.
Steve shares insights into how Dynatrace is expanding its AI-driven observability and automation capabilities to help businesses move from a reactive to a proactive IT strategy. We discuss the company’s latest product announcements, including advancements in AIOps, cloud security posture management, and predictive AI for optimizing enterprise performance.
With AI dominating conversations in every industry, Steve explains how enterprises are evolving their IT operations to harness AI-powered automation while ensuring security and scalability. He also shares key trends from the conference floor, including how businesses are restructuring teams for agility and resilience in the era of cloud-native and AI-driven services.
Tune in to hear how AI, observability, and security are converging to shape the future of enterprise IT—and what it means for your business.
Are we truly on the verge of fully autonomous IT operations? Join the conversation and share your thoughts.
What happens when the limits of traditional chip design collide with the relentless demand for AI and high-performance computing? In today’s episode, I sit down with Abhijeet Chakraborty from Synopsys to explore how multi-die chip architectures are redefining the future of semiconductors. With Moore’s Law slowing and the complexity of computing workloads skyrocketing, the industry is turning to multi-die solutions to push the boundaries of performance, scalability, and efficiency.
Synopsys is at the heart of this transformation, powering more than 95% of the world’s advanced chip designs. As AI, IoT, and next-gen computing drive an insatiable need for faster, more efficient processors, the semiconductor industry is undergoing a radical shift. By 2035, the multi-die chip market is expected to reach $411 billion, with at least 50% of new HPC chip designs set to be multi-die or 3D by the end of 2025.
Abhijeet walks us through the breakthroughs in Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe), the growing role of silicon lifecycle management, and how Synopsys is pioneering multi-die integration to help companies accelerate time-to-market while balancing power, performance, and cost. We also discuss how AI itself is being used to optimize semiconductor design, ensuring these complex chip architectures remain reliable and efficient.
With major industry players investing heavily in this technology, the semiconductor landscape is at a critical inflection point. But what are the biggest challenges in making multi-die architectures mainstream? How will innovations in packaging, interposers, and hybrid bonding influence adoption? And with AI models demanding unprecedented levels of compute power, can multi-die designs truly keep pace with the ever-expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence?
Join us for this deep dive into the future of semiconductors, the rise of chiplets, and why the next decade will be defined by radical shifts in computing architecture. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts—where do you see the future of chip design heading, and what challenges do you think the industry must overcome?
How can AI revolutionize the way we research and understand complex topics? In this Tech Talks Daily episode, I speak with Mel Morris, founder and CEO of Corpora.AI. This research engine redefines how individuals, businesses, and institutions approach knowledge discovery.
With traditional search engines struggling to deliver depth and AI tools often relying on outdated or incomplete data, Corpora.AI takes a different approach. The platform processes millions of documents per second using advanced AI and proprietary language graph technology, delivering research reports with real-time insights and source attribution.
Unlike conventional AI models that generate content from limited datasets, Corpora.AI dynamically ingests over 100 petabytes of open-source intelligence, ensuring users can access the most comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date information.
Mel shares his vision for democratizing access to high-level research, making it possible for users across academia, medicine, law, finance, government, and journalism to gain deeper insights faster. We explore how Corpora.AI’s real-time data ingestion and multilingual capabilities allow professionals to conduct advanced research in one language and receive results in another.
From patent research and market analysis to education and rapid learning, the applications of this research engine extend far beyond what traditional AI-powered search tools can offer.
We also discuss how Corpora.AI is tackling some of the biggest challenges in AI-driven research, including bias, credibility, and transparency. By providing research reports with 400-500 cited sources per query, the platform ensures that every insight is traceable, allowing users to verify information and make informed decisions.
With AI reshaping how we access and interpret knowledge, what does the future hold for research, education, and data-driven decision-making? Will AI-driven research engines like Corpora.AI replace traditional search methods? And how can businesses and institutions leverage these tools to stay ahead of the curve?
Join me for this fascinating discussion as we explore the future of AI-powered research and how Corpora.AI is setting a new standard for knowledge discovery.
How can businesses harness the full potential of their data without moving it? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore this question with Ángel Viña, CEO of Denodo, a company at the forefront of logical data management and AI integration. With organizations drowning in complex data landscapes, Denodo offers a way to unify, govern, and personalize data access without the inefficiencies of traditional data movement. Ángel explains how Denodo’s approach creates a seamless, federated data environment that allows businesses to extract insights from multiple sources while maintaining compliance and security. He shares how their platform leverages retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to enhance large language models (LLMs) with corporate data, ensuring AI applications are not just powerful but also contextually aware and enterprise-ready. By partnering with Google Cloud, Amazon, NVIDIA, and OpenAI, Denodo is shaping the future of AI-driven data augmentation. As AI continues to reshape industries, many organizations struggle to develop secure and effective GenAI applications. Ángel discusses how Denodo accelerates the adoption of AI-powered data solutions, helping companies build applications that meet real business needs. He also shares insights from the upcoming O’Reilly book Logical Data Management, which provides a deeper look into how organizations can optimize their data strategies. With AI and automation transforming enterprise data, what does the future hold for self-service data access, security, and integration? How can businesses ensure their AI models are trained on the most relevant and accurate data? Join us for this deep dive into the evolving world of data management and AI-powered intelligence. Useful Links The O’Reilly Logical Data Management book that Ángel mentioned at the end of the episode is available here: and check out Denodo’s blog here for more information.
What does the future of remote work look like, and how does it shape industries beyond just tech? In today’s episode, I sit down with Curtis Sparrer, co-founder and principal of Bospar, and Carole Barrow, VP of Public Relations & Content, as they celebrate Bospar’s 10th anniversary and share their journey as pioneers in remote-first PR.
Bospar has built a reputation for challenging industry norms, proving that remote work is not just viable but essential for fostering productivity, sustainability, and inclusivity. As they explain, working from home five days a week can reduce an individual’s carbon footprint by more than 50%, raising the question—why aren’t more companies embracing this model?
Beyond environmental impact, remote work also removes key structural barriers for women and individuals with disabilities, ensuring a more equitable professional landscape. Curtis and Carole share eye-opening insights into how workplace flexibility is reshaping gender wage gaps and opening new opportunities for talent worldwide.
In addition to discussing the evolution of remote work, Bospar continues to innovate in the tech PR space, recently launching Pushy, an AI-powered PR assistant that helps their team provide clients with data-driven media strategies and instant guidance. As AI disrupts traditional workflows across industries, we explore what it means for the PR profession and how human creativity remains irreplaceable.
And if you’ve ever wondered how a children’s book fits into the world of public relations, Curtis and Carole reveal their latest initiative—a book designed to introduce young minds to PR as a career path. Public relations is often a "hidden profession," much like UX design or cybersecurity before it gained mainstream attention. Bospar is on a mission to demystify PR and inspire the next generation of media professionals.
As Bospar marks a decade of redefining the PR industry, we reflect on their biggest lessons learned, the challenges of staying remote-first in a world where “RTO tech bros” continue pushing for office mandates, and what the future holds for PR in an AI-driven world.
With media consolidation making it harder for companies to get noticed and journalists more overwhelmed than ever, what should businesses and PR professionals be doing differently? What does it take to break through the noise and get real media attention in 2025? And is remote work truly the future, or will companies continue to resist change?
Join us for a fascinating conversation about the intersections of PR, AI, remote work, and workplace equality. And as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you think remote work is the future, or is it time to return to the office?
What does the future of education look like when AI takes center stage? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Clara Aboel-Nil, a 17-year-old entrepreneur and student at Alpha High, a groundbreaking school with no teachers where AI-powered apps facilitate learning. Clara shares how this innovative approach has allowed her to build two successful AI-driven educational apps, TeachTap and AceBot AI, while still in high school.
Alpha High is redefining how students learn by compressing traditional academics into the first few hours of the day, freeing up afternoons for hands-on projects designed to make a real-world impact. Clara describes how this model has enabled her to integrate AI into nearly every aspect of her work, from content creation to app development, without needing a background in coding.
TeachTap, which helps students prepare for AP and SAT exams using AI-powered historical figures and interactive lessons, has already surpassed 100,000 downloads and ranks among the top educational apps. Her newest venture, AceBot AI, takes this concept even further by assisting students across a wider range of subjects.
During our conversation, Clara highlights the role of AI in shaping the future of entrepreneurship, the importance of prompt engineering as a skill, and why students must learn to work with AI rather than fear it. She also shares the challenges of building AI-powered apps as a teenager, from overcoming technical roadblocks to leveraging data-driven marketing strategies to make learning more engaging.
As AI continues to transform industries, education is no exception. Will AI-powered schools become the norm? How can young entrepreneurs leverage technology to create meaningful change? Tune in for an inspiring discussion on how AI is reshaping education and empowering the next generation of innovators.
Enterprise storage has long been dominated by tech giants with expensive, proprietary solutions—but what if there was a different way?
In this episode, recorded at the IT Press Tour in Silicon Valley, I sit down with Brett Davis, Executive Vice President at iXsystems, to explore how TrueNAS is rewriting the storage rulebook with an open-source approach that delivers enterprise-grade performance without the hefty price tag.
With competitors like NetApp, Pure Storage, Dell, and HPE, TrueNAS stands apart as the world’s largest open-source storage platform, trusted by 60% of Fortune 500 companies and downloaded over 500,000 times annually across 190 countries. Brett shares the company’s fascinating origin story, which traces its roots back to Berkeley Unix in the 1960s, and how a commitment to transparency, affordability, and long-term growth has made TrueNAS a serious contender in today’s enterprise storage market.
We also discuss the major trends shaping IT infrastructure in 2025, from the rising costs of VMware licensing to the debate between on-prem and cloud storage—now growing at the same pace. Brett explains why organizations are increasingly pushing back against vendor lock-in, how open enterprise storage is lowering barriers for businesses of all sizes, and why IT leaders are prioritizing cost savings without sacrificing performance.
But where does TrueNAS go from here? Brett gives us a sneak peek into what’s next, including an upcoming software release focused on data optimization, deduplication, and high-performance enterprise storage.
Is open-source enterprise storage the future? And how can businesses break free from costly, restrictive storage contracts? Join the conversation and let us know what you think.
As part of the IT Press Tour in Silicon Valley, I had the opportunity to sit down with David Flynn, CEO of Hammerspace, to explore how the company is redefining the future of enterprise data storage.
At a time when AI-driven workloads and hybrid cloud computing are pushing storage demands to new heights, Hammerspace is stepping in with a fresh approach. Their Global Data Platform is designed to eliminate data silos, providing seamless access and orchestration for unstructured data across edge locations, data centers, and cloud environments.
Hammerspace is experiencing a breakout year, with tenfold revenue growth driven by the surging demand for AI storage solutions and hybrid cloud infrastructure. The conversation delves into how the company is enabling enterprises to move beyond traditional storage limitations.
David explains the critical role of Parallel Network File System, or pNFS, in delivering high-performance storage solutions. We also discuss why it's gaining traction as organizations seek ways to process massive amounts of data with greater efficiency. Together, we explore the state of pNFS adoption, how Hammerspace is driving its evolution, and why it is a key pillar of its platform strategy.
Another important aspect of the discussion is the difference between global namespaces and true data orchestration. While global namespaces have gained attention in enterprise storage, David explains why simply having a global namespace is not enough.
Orchestration is the missing piece that allows data to be moved, accessed, and utilized efficiently across distributed environments. By combining orchestration with a truly global namespace, Hammerspace is making data instantly accessible to users, applications, and compute clusters, no matter where they are located.
As AI workloads become increasingly complex, the need for a new approach to data management is clear. Enterprises require storage solutions that can keep up with the demands of high-speed analytics, GPU-driven AI, and hybrid cloud strategies.
Hammerspace is positioning itself as a leader in this space, offering a way to bridge the gap between traditional storage architectures and the needs of modern enterprises.
The company’s rapid growth is also reflected in its recent leadership expansion. With a new Chief Revenue Officer joining the team and Hammerspace earning recognition as Product of the Year in TechTarget’s Storage Awards, the company is making significant strides in shaping the future of enterprise data storage.
With so much change happening in data infrastructure, what does the future hold for AI storage and enterprise data management? Will solutions like Hammerspace become the new industry standard for high-performance storage and orchestration?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Reach out and share your perspective, and stay tuned for more insights from the front lines of technology.
What will 2025 bring for enterprise technology? How will AI evolve, and what should businesses anticipate in the coming year? In this episode, I speak with Louis Landry, the newly appointed CTO of Teradata, as he shares his insights on the future of AI, data analytics, and the role of trust in technology.
With more than two decades of experience in software architecture and engineering leadership, Louis has played a pivotal role in shaping Teradata’s innovation strategy. Having led the company’s Technology and Innovation Office, his focus now extends to scaling AI-driven solutions that empower businesses with trusted intelligence.
As we look ahead, what will be the defining trends of 2025? Louis explores the growing impact of retrieval-augmented generation, the evolution of large-scale personalization, and the next phase of AI model efficiency. He also delves into the rise of agentic AI systems—where generative AI merges with traditional software to create more autonomous, intelligent processes.
But with rapid advancements come pressing concerns. How can organizations ensure AI remains explainable, transparent, and aligned with ethical standards? Louis emphasizes the importance of people-centered accountability, measurable business impact, and the foundational role of trusted data in AI’s success. As AI continues to reshape industries, businesses must navigate regulatory challenges, balance innovation with risk, and rethink their approach to data governance.
Beyond AI, Louis discusses the role of open-source technology in enterprise environments, the shift from project-focused to outcome-driven AI adoption, and how organizations can harness data harmonization to unlock new opportunities. He also shares his thoughts on the strategic investments businesses should prioritize in an increasingly complex digital world.
As AI and analytics continue to evolve, what strategies will define industry leaders in 2025? How can businesses stay ahead while ensuring AI remains trustworthy and effective?
Tune in to hear Louis Landry’s perspective, and let us know your thoughts. How do you see AI shaping the business landscape in the coming year?
What does it take to turn ideas into impactful books, and how is technology reshaping the publishing industry? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Eric Jorgenson, CEO of Scribe Media, to explore the art and science of book creation, the future of self-publishing, and his vision for unlocking the world’s wisdom.
Eric, best known as the author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, has sold over 1.5 million copies of his books and distributed millions more in digital formats. He shares his journey from startup enthusiast to best-selling author and how that path ultimately led him to take the helm at Scribe Media. He discusses the company’s mission to help professionals turn their expertise into books without needing to type a single word, using structured, conversation-based methods that simplify the process for busy thought leaders.
We dive into the growing role of AI in book publishing, where it can enhance idea generation and content structuring but still falls short in replacing human expertise. With audiobooks now accounting for up to a third of royalties for some authors, Eric also discusses how multi-format publishing is shaping the future of the industry and what factors influence whether an author should narrate their own book.
Beyond publishing, Eric shares his investment philosophy in utopian technologies—supporting “obsessive geniuses” working on transformative innovations such as micro-reactors, advanced batteries, and even asteroid mining.
With publishing undergoing massive shifts and AI accelerating content creation, what does the future hold for authors, books, and knowledge-sharing? Join us as we explore the intersection of technology, storytelling, and big ideas.
How is AI transforming the way we interact with sound, voice, and digital personas? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Alex Bordanova, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Voicemod, about the company’s groundbreaking approach to AI-driven voice transformation and its expanding role beyond gaming.
Originally developed to enhance voice chat experiences for gamers, Voicemod has evolved into a powerful tool for real-time voice modulation, combining traditional digital signal processing (DSP) with cutting-edge AI. Alex shares how their technology enables users to alter their voice characteristics—changing timbre, pitch, and resonance—while maintaining clarity and intelligibility. With millions of users creating custom voices every month, Voicemod is at the forefront of AI-powered audio innovation.
We discuss the launch of Voicemod Key, a new hardware solution bringing voice transformation to console gaming and VR, allowing seamless integration between microphones and gaming platforms. Alex also highlights the importance of ethical AI practices, emphasizing Voicemod’s commitment to using professionally recorded and consented datasets to train its AI models responsibly.
Beyond gaming, Voicemod is forging partnerships with major entertainment brands, collaborating with Warner Bros, Rovio, and other global IP holders to bring iconic voices to life. As audio technology catches up to the advancements in visual media, what does the future hold for voice augmentation in entertainment, communication, and beyond?
How is artificial intelligence redefining industries, from corporate branding to cultural institutions? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Hussein Hallak, founder and CEO of Next Decentrum, about the profound ways AI and immersive technology are shaping customer experiences, education, and cultural preservation.
With over 25 years of experience spanning branding, technology, gamification, and education, Hussein is a serial entrepreneur who has launched more than 20 ventures and advised startups globally. His work at Next Decentrum focuses on using AI and immersive tech to create meaningful, lasting value—moving beyond hype to real-world applications that transform industries.
We explore how AI is not just optimizing efficiency but also revolutionizing storytelling, customer engagement, and global knowledge-sharing. Hussein discusses projects such as AI-powered holograms in tourism, the role of AI in making cultural heritage more accessible, and the challenges institutions face in adopting cutting-edge technology. He also shares his thoughts on AI's impact on learning, highlighting how it enables personalized, immersive experiences that accelerate skill development.
With Vancouver emerging as a unique hub for innovation across VFX, quantum computing, and fusion technology, we also examine the city’s growing tech ecosystem, its strengths, and the challenges of scaling without direct access to major funding centers.
As AI continues to push the boundaries of creativity and accessibility, how can businesses and cultural institutions harness this technology to build deeper connections and unlock new opportunities? Tune in for an insightful conversation on the future of AI-powered innovation.
How can the tech industry close the widening skills gap while creating meaningful career opportunities for diverse talent? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with John Akkara, CEO and co-founder of Smoothstack, a company on a mission to bridge the gap between IT education and real-world industry needs.
John shares his inspiring journey—from an immigrant student on a tennis scholarship to a leader reshaping how tech talent is identified, trained, and deployed. His experiences with mentorship and career-defining opportunities now fuel his commitment to providing others with a clear pathway into technology careers.
We discuss how Smoothstack’s Hire-Train-Deploy model is different from traditional education and bootcamps, simulating real-world project environments where trainees work in agile teams, participate in peer code reviews, and gain hands-on experience tailored to employer needs. John highlights the severity of the IT skills gap—where demand far outpaces supply—and explains how industries like cybersecurity and software development are being affected.
Diversity and inclusion are core to Smoothstack’s approach, with a strong emphasis on increasing opportunities for underrepresented groups in tech. John discusses the company’s efforts to boost participation among women and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, as well as future plans to leverage remote work to expand access to tech careers in economically distressed areas.
What will it take to build a more inclusive and sustainable tech workforce? Tune in to learn how Smoothstack is making a real impact, and share your thoughts on how businesses can rethink talent development in the digital age.
How is the future of payments evolving, and what role does technology play in shaping seamless, secure, and scalable financial transactions? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore these questions with Niv Liran, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Unzer, a company redefining payments across Europe by integrating cloud technology, AI, and security-driven innovations.
Unzer has undergone a major transformation, unifying multiple acquired companies into a single, scalable platform, Unzer-1. Niv shares insights into this journey, explaining how consolidating payments infrastructure in the cloud has enabled greater agility, improved security, and ensured compliance in an increasingly regulated fintech landscape. He also highlights how Unzer’s approach to unified commerce is streamlining transactions for merchants, seamlessly bridging in-store, online, and mobile payments.
We discuss how AI is playing a crucial role in fraud detection and payment security, helping businesses monitor user behavior, detect anomalies, and prevent cyber threats while minimizing friction for customers. As Europe accelerates toward a cashless economy, Niv provides perspectives on how evolving consumer habits, the rise of digital wallets, and innovations like SoftPOS are reshaping the industry.
With a focus on localized payment solutions and deep regulatory expertise, Unzer is setting new standards in fintech. But as digital payments continue to evolve, how can businesses ensure they stay ahead of security challenges while providing seamless experiences for customers? Join us as we explore the technology behind modern payments and the future of commerce.
How can quantum computing move beyond theory and become a practical tool for businesses and researchers? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore this question with Michael Gleaves, a UK-based AI and quantum expert at Eviden, the Atos Group business specializing in advanced computing.
Eviden has been at the forefront of quantum innovation, launching Qaptiva™, a quantum computing ecosystem designed to integrate real-world applications with classical high-performance computing. The company recently announced its first hosted quantum computer, offering both physical and remote access to organizations looking to experiment and develop quantum-powered solutions. Michael shares insights into the company’s partnership with IQM Quantum Computers and how this collaboration is helping to improve qubit stability, enhance optimization models, and make quantum computing more accessible across industries.
We discuss real-world use cases where quantum computing is already showing promise, from optimizing logistics and financial modeling to accelerating materials science and chemical simulations. Michael also unpacks the challenges that businesses face in adopting quantum technologies, including the complexities of integrating quantum with existing HPC and AI workflows, translating real-world problems into quantum-compatible formats, and overcoming hardware limitations in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era.
As quantum computing transitions from research labs to operational environments, how can businesses gain a competitive edge by engaging with these emerging technologies today? Join us for this deep dive into the state of quantum computing, its near-term applications, and what the future holds for industries looking to harness its power.
How can data and artificial intelligence reshape healthcare to create better patient outcomes? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Dr. Mitesh Rao, founder and CEO of OMNY Health, about his mission to build a more connected and collaborative healthcare system. With a background in emergency medicine and hospital leadership, he launched OMNY Health out of frustration with the siloed nature of healthcare data, which limits innovation and patient care.
OMNY Health now represents data from nearly 80 million patients across the U.S., serving as a bridge between healthcare providers, researchers, and life sciences companies. Dr. Rao explains how his company is tackling some of the biggest challenges in healthcare—unifying fragmented data, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations, and providing a secure foundation for AI-driven advancements in medicine.
We explore how this data network is enabling breakthroughs in precision medicine, pharmacovigilance, and clinical research, ensuring that new treatments are developed based on real-world evidence. Dr. Rao also shares insights on the role of AI in healthcare, the importance of diverse and representative data in training AI models, and how secure, compliant data-sharing can support the next wave of medical innovation.
With plans to expand OMNY Health's network to 150 million patients, what does the future hold for healthcare data and AI-driven medicine? Join the conversation to find out, and share your thoughts on the role of data in transforming patient care.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Eric Ormson and Chris Rakel from AEG, an organization redefining how companies approach recruitment and workforce development. With years of experience in staffing specialized sectors like IT and engineering, Eric and Chris offer a fresh perspective on tackling the unique challenges of recruiting and retaining top technical talent in today’s competitive market.
We discuss how the recruitment landscape has evolved into a global competition for talent, where remote work and changing employee expectations are reshaping how companies attract and retain their workforce. Eric and Chris highlight why outdated recruiting methods, like relying solely on passive job postings, are no longer effective and how companies must focus on authenticity, transparency, and alignment with personal values to win over high-demand candidates.
For startups and companies in growth mode, we explore practical strategies to compete for technical talent in a crowded market. From budgeting 20% more for labor costs to adopting contract-to-hire and fractional employee models, Eric and Chris emphasize the importance of flexibility and a clear vision. They also discuss how AEG has successfully tripled its size since 2019 by emphasizing long-term value, meaningful connections, and a consultative approach in staffing.
As the conversation unfolds, we examine how company culture plays a critical role in attracting and retaining talent. With employees seeking more than just compensation, the focus has shifted toward fostering alignment with organizational goals and delivering on cultural promises. We also dive into how AI and automation are reshaping recruitment processes, balancing the efficiency of technology with the irreplaceable value of the human touch.
How can companies navigate the future of recruitment while staying authentic, adaptable, and people-focused? Tune in to discover actionable insights and strategies to help your organization thrive in the evolving world of workforce development.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Chad Fowler, a mission-critical business leader at HED, to discuss how the future of data center design is being shaped by sustainability, community engagement, and the growing influence of AI.
Data centers currently account for around 1% of global electricity consumption, and with AI accelerating demand, their environmental impact is becoming a pressing challenge. Chad shares how HED is pioneering innovative solutions to create greener, more efficient, and community-friendly data centers.
Chad highlights strategies to make data centers more energy-efficient, from advancements in air management to exploring new materials like low-carbon concrete. He emphasizes the importance of integrating green design not only to reduce environmental impact but also to enhance profitability, attract premium tenants, and increase long-term asset value. We also explore how HED works with clients to continuously optimize planning and construction processes to minimize resource use and environmental harm.
One of the key challenges in developing data centers is overcoming opposition from local communities. Chad explains how educating the public about the critical role data centers play in supporting everyday technology can turn NIMBY ("Not In My Backyard") resistance into active cooperation. By designing aesthetically appealing, sustainable facilities and hosting community engagement events, HED helps communities understand the benefits of these essential infrastructures.
We also dive into how the rapid growth of AI is influencing data center design. From evolving cooling technologies to addressing changing power and space requirements, Chad discusses how data centers must adapt to remain flexible in an AI-driven world. He also provides insight into future trends, including the integration of modular reactors, advancements in battery technology, and the development of standardized sustainability metrics for the industry.
How are companies like HED shaping the future of data center design to balance sustainability, profitability, and community impact? Tune in to discover the innovative solutions driving the industry forward.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I examine the transformative rise of agentic AI and its profound impact on the Gaming and tech industries in 2025. Joining me is Richard Dennys the CEO of Game Lounge, a company driving innovation in iGaming and achieving remarkable growth, including a 30% increase in net profit.
With a global reach across more than 130 SEO-driven websites in 60 countries, Game Lounge is shaping the future of the industry through its GLX startup incubator, designed to harness the power of agentic AI.
We discuss how agentic AI is revolutionizing efficiency and personalization while presenting significant challenges. As gambling regulations become stricter, agentic AI also introduces risks by enabling sophisticated black-market operations and illegal transactions. Could these regulatory pressures inadvertently drive users toward unregulated markets?
Beyond regulation, we explore how agentic AI is set to transform the workforce. By 2025, remote service roles may face disruption, but opportunities will emerge for those who transition into AI training and optimization roles. The conversation highlights how individuals can build skills in strategic decision-making and AI collaboration to thrive in this evolving landscape.
How will agentic AI reshape industries, challenge regulations, and transform careers in the coming years? Tune in to uncover these insights and more.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore the cutting-edge intersection of AI and software development with Justine Gehring, an AI researcher at Moderne and the author of AI for Mass-Scale Code Refactoring and Analysis. Justine shares her insights into how AI is addressing one of the most complex challenges in the industry: large-scale code migrations and updates across enterprise environments.
While AI tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT have excelled at assisting individual developers with writing and optimizing code, Justine explains how large-scale code refactoring requires an entirely different approach. At this level, AI must account for enterprise-wide complexity, maintain reliability, and ensure security across thousands of repositories. She also dives into Moderne’s use of open-source frameworks like OpenRewrite, which enable deterministic, verifiable code changes and combine machine learning for targeted tasks.
We also discuss how this transformative use of AI is reshaping collaboration between human developers and machines. From accelerating the onboarding process for developers to simplifying migrations for legacy systems, AI is offering groundbreaking opportunities to enhance productivity, maintainability, and innovation.
How are industries like banking, insurance, and others with vast, complex codebases benefiting from these advancements? And what does the future hold for AI-human collaboration in software development? Tune in to find out.
How is artificial intelligence reshaping the legal and intellectual property landscape? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore this evolving topic with Alex Watt, an IP lawyer at Howard Kennedy who specializes in helping clients navigate the complexities of intellectual property in the digital age.
We delve into the transformative role of AI in intellectual property management, including the implications of large language models and the challenges of copyright exemptions for AI training. Alex also shares insights on the importance of updating licensing agreements to reflect AI usage and the growing complexities of determining ownership in AI-generated content.
Our conversation touches on the emergence of AI-generated influencers, the regulatory challenges they present, and the broader implications for advertising and marketing in an increasingly AI-driven world. Alex also provides his perspective on the future of intellectual property in the metaverse, exploring how virtual worlds and blockchain technology might reshape digital ownership and innovation.
For startup founders, Alex offers invaluable advice on protecting intellectual property early, from trademark registration to ensuring proper IP ownership through contracts. He emphasizes the need to stay ahead of legal and regulatory obligations, especially in light of the rapid evolution of AI and privacy laws.
As we enter an era of unprecedented technological change, what steps should businesses take to protect their intellectual property and navigate the shifting legal landscape? Join us for this insightful discussion and share your thoughts on the future of AI and IP in the digital age.
How can businesses maximize the potential of AWS to drive innovation, efficiency, and scalability? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Jonathan LaCour, CTO of Mission Cloud. The company focuses exclusively on AWS, helping organizations manage cloud adoption, migration, and optimization while addressing complex challenges in security, cost control, and application development.
Jonathan shares practical insights into building successful cloud migration strategies, emphasizing the need for clear planning, secure infrastructure, and governance measures. He also discusses how Mission Cloud combines AWS-native tools with third-party solutions to create robust security frameworks that prevent and respond to cyber threats effectively.
We explore the importance of automation in modern cloud environments, highlighting how Mission Cloud enables businesses to rapidly deploy applications and optimize their workflows. Real-world examples include helping the Boston Celtics transition to a cloud-native approach, showcasing the tangible benefits of these strategies.
Jonathan also provides an overview of integrating AI and machine learning into cloud operations. From personalized customer experiences to automated processes, these technologies are being used to tackle real-world business challenges. He emphasizes the importance of aligning AI projects with specific business objectives to achieve measurable results.
Finally, the conversation covers strategies for ongoing cost optimization, stressing the importance of proactive governance and targeted improvements to manage cloud expenses effectively. How can companies harness the power of AWS to innovate while ensuring their cloud operations are secure, scalable, and cost-effective?
Join us to learn more and share your thoughts on the future of cloud technology.
How is artificial intelligence reshaping the finance industry, and what role do CIOs play in driving digital transformation?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I connect with Sumit Johar, CEO of BlackLine, a leader in digital finance transformation. With over 20 years of enterprise cloud experience spanning cybersecurity, automation, and data governance, Sumit brings a wealth of expertise to the conversation.
Sumit shares insights into the evolving role of the CIO and how deeper collaboration with CFOs is driving innovation and efficiency in finance. We explore the transformative power of AI, from streamlining financial processes to enabling smarter decision-making, and discuss its potential to shape industries beyond finance. Drawing from his leadership experiences at Automation Anywhere and MobileIron, Sumit illustrates how AI is unlocking new opportunities while addressing ethical considerations in its adoption.
As businesses navigate an era of rapid digital transformation, how can they leverage AI to redefine finance and technology while ensuring ethical use? Tune in to discover Sumit’s perspectives and join the conversation on the future of AI in reshaping global industries.
Can artificial intelligence redefine the future of drug development and clinical trials?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Dave Latshaw, Ph.D., the internationally recognized AI and machine learning expert who serves as CEO of BioPhy. Founded in 2019, BioPhy focuses on using AI to revolutionize the later stages of drug development, a critical yet often overlooked segment of the pharmaceutical pipeline.
Dave shares insights into BioPhy’s innovative platform, which combines scientific, clinical, and regulatory insights to predict clinical trial success and steer capital allocation. At the heart of BioPhy’s approach is its patent-pending AI engine, BioLogic, and generative AI solution, BioPhyRx, designed to enhance clinical trial outcomes, reduce failure rates, and accelerate the time to market for life-saving drugs. Dave also explores how BioPhy’s operational assessment model prioritizes immediate ROI by addressing challenges downstream from drug discovery.
In our conversation, Dave delves into the complexities of AI adoption in pharma, including the challenges of scaling AI solutions, managing high computational costs, and overcoming stakeholder fears about job displacement. Drawing from his experience at Johnson & Johnson, where his AI innovations contributed to the global rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, Dave reflects on lessons learned and the transformative potential of AI in healthcare.
As we look ahead, Dave discusses the future of AI in reducing administrative burdens on clinicians, automating regulatory compliance, and enabling groundbreaking advancements like DeepMind’s AlphaFold.
How can AI transform not just how we develop drugs but also the healthcare outcomes for millions of people worldwide? Tune in to find out, and share your thoughts on the role of AI in the future of medicine.
How can technology revolutionize road safety for the 1.5 billion drivers on the road today?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Hari Balakrishnan and Bill Powers, co-founders of Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), the world’s largest telematics service provider. Their unique partnership—blending Hari’s engineering genius, honored with the 2023 Marconi Prize, and Bill’s entrepreneurial prowess as an “atypical tech CEO”—has built a unicorn company dedicated to making roads safer.
We explore how CMT’s AI-driven platform, DriveWell®, leverages sensor data from IoT devices like smartphones, dashcams, and connected vehicles to provide a unified view of driver behavior. By collaborating with insurers, automakers, and the public sector, CMT not only assesses risk but actively incentivizes safer driving behaviors, reducing crash rates by up to 20% with some partners.
Hari and Bill also delve into the challenges of addressing "phone distraction," which contributes to nearly a third of crashes, and the paradox of advanced safety tech not correlating to fewer accidents. They highlight the importance of improving infrastructure for connected and autonomous vehicles, refining human-machine interfaces, and developing solutions that protect vulnerable road users outside of vehicles.
As we unpack the story of how an “odd couple” with complementary skills created a global leader in road safety, we’ll also look to the future of mobility and the transformative role technology will play. What does the next generation of driving safety look like, and how can we all contribute to making the roads safer?
Tune in to find out, and share your thoughts on the evolving landscape of mobility.
How can we safeguard our digital infrastructure in the age of quantum computing? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Rahul Tyagi, CEO of SECQAI, a NATO-backed leader in quantum-resilient and memory-safe semiconductor solutions. As quantum computing accelerates, the risks to current encryption systems grow, making it critical to rethink how we protect our most sensitive data and systems.
Rahul shares insights into the looming quantum computing threat, where "steal now, decrypt later" strategies are already compromising long-term data security. He explains how SECQAI’s groundbreaking secure semiconductor architecture, built on memory-safe principles, can block up to 70% of global cyberattacks while ensuring readiness for post-quantum cryptography.
We discuss the pivotal role of collaboration between governments, industry, and academia in creating innovative solutions, from Cambridge University's Cherry architecture to partnerships with Oxford Quantum Circuits for quantum machine learning research. Rahul also highlights key timelines for quantum resilience, including global policy initiatives such as NIST’s roadmap and aggressive adoption goals from agencies like CISA and the Australian Signals Directorate.
As we stand at the crossroads of quantum advancement and cybersecurity, how can organizations and policymakers align to future-proof critical infrastructure? Join us as we explore these pressing challenges and solutions, and let us know your thoughts on what the quantum-resilient future holds.
How can technology empower asset managers to navigate increasingly complex investments while optimizing their workflows? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Oleg Movchan, CEO of Enfusion, a company revolutionizing investment management through its integrated, SaaS-native platform.
With a career spanning investment banking, hedge funds, and leading Enfusion through an IPO, Oleg shares insights into the challenges and opportunities in modern asset management.
We explore how Enfusion helps firms seamlessly integrate front, middle, and back-office operations, enabling greater agility and collaboration. Oleg sheds light on how blending liquid and illiquid assets, managing global operations, and embracing emerging market strategies are reshaping the industry. He also discusses the role of clean, unified data environments in leveraging AI and analytics to drive efficiency and innovation.
From the rise of private credit as a digital frontier to the importance of streamlining workflows across departments, this conversation offers practical advice for asset managers looking to stay ahead. Oleg emphasizes the need for continuous technology evaluation, tailored client engagement, and the integration of robust data architectures to empower decision-making and optimize trading strategies.
As asset managers face growing complexity, how can cross-collaboration and tech-driven enhancements ensure their success? Tune in to find out, and let us know your thoughts on the future of investment management.
Have you ever stopped to think about the transformative power of technology on our daily lives and the extraordinary minds behind these innovations?
In this episode, I sit down with Thomas M. Coughlin, President of IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization, to explore a remarkable announcement that underscores the profound impact of technology on society: the IEEE Medal of Honor monetary prize is being increased to an astounding $2 million starting in 2025.
Thomas shares insights into why IEEE has elevated this award to such a prestigious level, placing it among the world’s largest monetary prizes. We discuss the 100-plus-year history of the IEEE Medal of Honor and its role in celebrating the pioneers behind revolutionary innovations like the Internet, life-saving medical technologies such as CAT scans, MRIs, and pacemakers, and the development of transistors and semiconductors that form the backbone of modern electronics.
Beyond the award itself, Thomas provides a fascinating look into IEEE’s global efforts, powered by 460,000 members across 190 countries. From addressing society’s most pressing issues to fostering ethical development in emerging technologies like AI, IEEE is advancing technology for humanity in ways that ripple across industries and communities worldwide.
We also delve into the rigorous criteria for the IEEE Medal of Honor and how it celebrates not just innovation, but the profound societal and professional impacts of technological breakthroughs. With the next Medal of Honor recipient set to be announced in February 2025, this conversation offers a timely glimpse into how IEEE is shaping the future of technology and honoring the legacy of those who have driven human progress.
What do you think about the growing recognition of the role technology plays in solving global challenges? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Share your ideas and join the conversation!
On this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Sumeet Kumar, CEO of Innatera, to discuss why neuromorphic computing might be the most transformative technology of the coming year.
Neuromorphic processors are no longer just a concept confined to research labs; they’re poised to revolutionize industries ranging from IoT to wearables, bringing unparalleled efficiency and autonomy to edge devices.
Sumeet explains how Innatera’s groundbreaking Spiking Neural Processor (SNP) T1 bridges the gap between biological brains and artificial intelligence, enabling real-time decision-making with ultra-low power consumption.
With this technology, AI can now process complex data directly at the source, eliminating the need for energy-intensive cloud-based processing.
I learn more about the unique capabilities of the SNP T1 as Sumeet highlights how its efficiency extends battery life for devices like video doorbells and wearables while opening doors to previously unattainable applications in industrial IoT and healthcare diagnostics.
We also explore the broader implications of neuromorphic processing for the AI landscape, discussing how it addresses challenges of scalability, energy efficiency, and sustainability. With commercialization on the horizon, Sumeet shares why 2025 is a tipping point for neuromorphic technology and what this evolution means for the future of smart devices.
As neuromorphic computing shifts from theory to reality, what opportunities and challenges lie ahead for industries adopting this innovation? And how might this technology redefine our expectations of AI-powered devices in our daily lives?
As always, I’d love to hear your perspectives. Where do you see the greatest potential for neuromorphic processors? Share your thoughts with me.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Gautam Singh, Head Business Unit of WNS Analytics and Co-founder & CEO of The Smart Cube, now part of WNS. With decades of experience in management consulting and data-driven business innovation, Gautam shares how WNS is helping organizations unlock the potential of analytics and AI to drive agility, resilience, and growth in today’s digital-first world.
We explore the transformative role of WNS Analytics in guiding companies through complex regulatory landscapes while prioritizing practical use cases for AI and data intelligence.
Gautam explains how businesses can achieve measurable ROI from analytics investments, including an inspiring example of a retail client achieving 13.5x returns. As we dive into the importance of data strategy and infrastructure, he offers insights on why organizations should build “data ponds” before scaling to “data lakes” and how prioritizing the right use cases leads to better outcomes.
The conversation also touches on the human element of AI integration. Gautam emphasizes the importance of combining artificial intelligence with human expertise in a "maker-checker-consumer" model to ensure ethical, traceable, and effective implementation. We also examine the challenges businesses face when navigating the hype surrounding AI and analytics, shedding light on why a balanced, collaborative approach is key.
Looking ahead, Gautam shares his thoughts on the future of enterprise data and AI, as well as the necessity of adaptability in a world of rapid technological change. Whether you're a tech leader, entrepreneur, or enthusiast, this discussion is packed with actionable insights on leveraging data intelligence to transform operations and spark innovation.
What role will data and AI play in shaping the next chapter of business evolution? Tune in to uncover the possibilities.
How can advertisers navigate today’s fragmented media landscape and deliver better ad experiences for consumers? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Nada Bradbury, CEO of AD-ID, to discuss how universal ad-tracking solutions are transforming the ad-tech industry.
As audiences seamlessly switch between linear and digital content, the critical need for a standardized system like AD-ID has never been more urgent. Nada explains how AD-ID provides a universal registry for creative ads—assigning unique identifiers to each ad, similar to UPC codes for products. This innovation addresses key challenges in the advertising world, such as ad frequency management, cross-platform measurement, and balancing personalization with consumer trust.
The result? A better content experience for consumers and a more efficient, optimized approach for brands. We explore the findings of a recent Harris Poll survey highlighting the consumer impact of ad overload, with 61% of respondents stating that excessive ad frequency discourages them from buying a product.
Nada shares how AD-ID is helping brands prevent overexposure, improve targeting, and deliver relevant ads without compromising privacy. With 76% of viewers desiring better-targeted ads, AD-ID’s metadata-driven approach offers a powerful solution for creating engaging and tailored experiences.
The conversation also delves into the broader role of AD-ID in supporting cross-platform transparency and accountability, as well as its potential to set global standards for ad measurement and optimization. Whether you’re in advertising, marketing, or simply curious about how technology is improving the consumer experience, this episode offers valuable insights into the future of ad-tech.
How do you see ad-tracking solutions like AD-ID shaping the future of advertising and consumer trust? Join the discussion and share your thoughts!
What does the future of e-commerce look like, and how are emerging technologies shaping the industry? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Michaela Weber, SVP and GM of Payments & Global Business Development at BigCommerce, to explore key trends and predictions for 2025. BigCommerce, a leading open SaaS platform, is driving innovation for businesses of all sizes, and Michaela offers a front-row view of the transformative changes ahead.
We discuss the role of advanced AI models in enhancing e-commerce experiences, from personalized product recommendations to dynamic pricing and predictive analytics. Michaela explains how AI is enabling brands to create hyper-personalized customer journeys while optimizing inventory and supply chains with IoT and automation. However, with these innovations come challenges, including the need to balance personalization with privacy concerns and ensure cybersecurity in an increasingly complex digital landscape.
Cybersecurity is a major focus of the conversation, as Michaela highlights how generative AI is giving rise to new types of cyber threats targeting retail and supply chains, particularly during peak seasons. She shares practical advice for businesses to strengthen their security frameworks while maintaining frictionless customer experiences. Additionally, we delve into the latest innovations from BigCommerce, including its Catalyst headless commerce architecture and tools that offer agility and customization to adapt to a rapidly evolving market.
As we look ahead, Michaela provides a glimpse into the future of e-commerce in 2025, with a focus on unified commerce across in-store and online channels, accelerated checkout experiences, and deeper AI integration. Whether you're a business leader, retailer, or technology enthusiast, this episode provides valuable insights into how the e-commerce industry is evolving and what it means for brands and consumers alike.
What do you see as the most exciting opportunities for e-commerce in the years ahead? Join the conversation and share your thoughts!
How do you transform a 100-year-old institution into a modern hub for innovation and technology while staying true to its legacy?
In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Dr. Joyce Brown, the first woman and first African American president of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). With 26 years of leadership, Dr. Brown has revolutionized this globally renowned institution, blending technology and creativity to shape the future of fashion education.
Dr. Brown shares how she took over an antiquated institution in 1998 and brought it into the modern era, quadrupling the use of technology in teaching and making FIT a center for innovation and entrepreneurship. At the heart of this transformation is the DTech Lab, FIT’s on-campus innovation hub, where students collaborate with brands like Adidas, Netflix, and Girl Scouts to solve real-world challenges. From redesigning Girl Scouts uniforms to using IBM Watson for brand DNA analysis with Tommy Hilfiger, these projects highlight how FIT bridges the gap between education and industry.
We also explore FIT’s emphasis on sustainability and bio-design, where students work with materials like mycelium and kombucha to create sustainable fibers, and even maintain a natural dye garden for eco-friendly fabric coloring. Dr. Brown discusses how FIT has adapted to major global challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic and social justice movements, by creating safe spaces for dialogue and encouraging students to express their concerns through their creative work.
This episode offers a fascinating inside look at how FIT prepares the next generation of fashion professionals by integrating technology, sustainability, and innovation into its curriculum. Whether you're interested in the intersection of fashion and technology or the future of education, this conversation with Dr. Joyce Brown will leave you inspired.
How do you see technology shaping the future of education and creative industries? Join the conversation and share your thoughts!
How can micro-credentials and short courses reshape the future of higher education to meet the demands of today’s workforce? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Rob Telfer, Director of Higher Education at D2L, to explore how these innovative course formats are transforming education. As universities face challenges such as declining international enrollments and increased competition, micro-credentials present a flexible and scalable solution for learners and institutions alike.
Rob shares insights on how micro-credentials enable universities to tap into the growing lifelong learning market, estimated to reach $800 billion by 2030, while helping learners acquire specific skills quickly and affordably. We discuss the significant impact micro-credentials can have on workforce development, with 72% of employers more likely to hire candidates with these qualifications. Additionally, Rob highlights their potential to foster collaboration between universities, governments, and industry, ensuring programs align with real-world needs and maintain high educational standards.
However, implementing micro-credentials isn’t without challenges. Rob outlines the hurdles institutions face, from securing resources and faculty support to building infrastructure and addressing credibility concerns. Drawing on D2L’s extensive experience in education innovation, he shares practical strategies for universities, including starting with pilot programs, leveraging data-informed approaches, and marketing these programs effectively to students and employers.
We also explore how D2L’s Brightspace platform supports the delivery of micro-credentials and adaptive learning through its scalable, flexible, and AI-enhanced features. Whether you’re an educator, student, or employer, this episode provides valuable insights into how micro-credentials and short courses are reshaping the future of higher education.
What role do you see micro-credentials playing in addressing the skills gap and workforce development? Share your thoughts and join the conversation!
What’s next for AI, and how does it compare to the transformative technology waves that have shaped our world? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Chet Kapoor, CEO of DataStax and a veteran leader with over two decades of experience at tech giants like Google, IBM, and BEA Systems. Chet’s career journey began as an intern working alongside Steve Jobs at NeXT, where he learned invaluable lessons about leadership, innovation, and an obsession with user experience.
Chet walks us through the four major technology waves—client-server, web, mobile, and cloud—offering insights into how each wave optimized different aspects of technology and paved the way for the AI revolution. He explains why the AI wave is not only unique but also the most impactful yet, highlighting its shift from digitalization to “agentification,” where AI agents are designed to focus on effectiveness rather than just efficiency.
We also dive into the practicalities and challenges of AI adoption, including its potential impact on jobs and the economy. Chet provides a balanced perspective, calming anxieties while emphasizing the importance of human-AI collaboration. He shares real-world examples of AI-powered innovation, from education to healthcare, demonstrating how AI is reshaping industries and enhancing productivity.
Leadership in the AI era is another key focus of our discussion. Chet introduces his philosophy of “inspired execution,” encouraging leaders to move the human heart, believe in AI’s potential, and inspire their teams to embrace it. He offers actionable advice for businesses looking to integrate AI, starting with mission-critical projects and iterating for effectiveness.
Tune in to hear Chet’s global perspective on AI, gleaned from his experiences presenting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and learn about the opportunities and ethical challenges that lie ahead. What do you think is the most significant aspect of the AI wave, and how do you see it shaping the future? Join the conversation and share your thoughts!
How can cutting-edge air decontamination technology reshape healthcare and reduce infections? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, we explore this question with Dr. Deborah Birx, Chief Medical & Science Advisor at ActivePure Medical and former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, and Amy Carenza, Chief Commercial Officer at ActivePure. Together, they discuss how ActivePure’s innovative technology is transforming air and surface purification in healthcare and beyond.
ActivePure’s advanced photohydrolysis technology, built on principles originally developed by NASA, replicates natural outdoor air purification indoors. Unlike traditional cleaning or filtration methods, this FDA-cleared Class II medical device offers continuous protection in occupied spaces, achieving remarkable results: a 96-99% reduction in MRSA and a 70% decrease in total healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Dr. Birx and Amy explain how this breakthrough technology deactivates pathogens in real time, effectively filling the gaps left by manual cleaning processes.
The conversation delves into the broader implications of ActivePure's solutions, from reducing hospital stays and improving healthcare outcomes to applications in food production, energy-efficient air management, and even residential use. Dr. Birx shares insights from recent studies, including findings published in PLOS ONE and the Journal of Infection Control, which highlight the technology’s safety and efficacy. Meanwhile, Amy Carenza discusses how ActivePure is driving innovation to meet operational, quality, and sustainability goals across various industries.
As we look to the future, the discussion touches on upcoming advancements in infection prevention, particularly for multi-drug resistant organisms, and the potential for ActivePure’s technology to align with efforts to reduce chemical exposures and improve overall public health.
How do you see air decontamination technology shaping healthcare and other industries? Join us for this fascinating discussion and share your thoughts!
How is AI reshaping the social media landscape and empowering brands to maximize their impact? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Scott Morris, CMO of Sprout Social, to explore the transformative role AI is playing in marketing, customer service, and social media management.
Sprout Social, a leader in social media solutions with over 30,000 customers, has been at the forefront of integrating AI into its platform to help businesses of all sizes drive efficiency, improve personalization, and gain deeper insights into their audience.
Scott dives into Sprout Social’s research on AI and social media, sharing valuable insights into how brands can leverage AI to meet shifting customer expectations. From revolutionizing customer service with real-world examples from Salesforce and Casey’s to using AI for advanced targeting, tailored messaging, and automation, this conversation uncovers the practical ways AI is being applied to solve real business challenges.
We also discuss how AI is helping organizations create an AI-first culture, empowering marketers with tools that streamline workflows, analyze data more efficiently, and unlock creative potential—all without displacing jobs. Scott shares a glimpse into Sprout Social’s recent AI innovations, including tools that generate executive summaries of social media performance, analyze audience sentiment, and assist in crafting impactful social media posts.
Looking ahead, Scott offers predictions for AI’s evolution in the marketing industry by 2025, highlighting the opportunities for brands to embrace advanced tools, responsible AI practices, and multimedia content integration.
Whether you’re curious about how AI is changing the buyer journey or looking for actionable strategies to adopt AI in your marketing efforts, this episode offers key takeaways for staying ahead in a rapidly evolving digital world.
How do you see AI shaping the future of social media and marketing? Share your thoughts and join the conversation!
How is agentic AI reshaping cloud security and what does the future hold for this transformative technology? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Loris Degioanni, the founder and CTO of Sysdig, to explore how agentic AI is driving innovation in cloud security. As the creator of Sysdig and the CNCF runtime security tool Falco, Loris brings a wealth of expertise to the conversation, having also been a key contributor to the widely-used open-source network analyzer, Wireshark.
We discuss how Sysdig has pioneered the first AI-powered cloud security tool using agentic AI. This groundbreaking approach enables AI agents to function as domain-specific experts, working collaboratively to provide rapid threat detection—reducing response times to under 10 minutes in cloud environments where speed is critical. Loris shares insights into the cultural and technological factors fueling the rise of agentic AI and its potential to revolutionize cybersecurity.
The conversation also delves into the promises and pitfalls of agentic AI, such as its ability to handle complex tasks in a way that mimics human teams, alongside challenges like latency and cost. Loris highlights how open-source tools like Falco and Sysdig play a crucial role in advancing AI by making domain-specific knowledge publicly accessible, empowering the broader developer community to optimize AI capabilities.
Looking ahead, we explore the future of AI in enterprise and cloud security, including predictions about how conversational interfaces and agentic AI architectures will redefine how businesses interact with and manage security tools. Whether you're curious about the evolution of AI in cybersecurity or interested in learning how Sysdig is leveraging this innovation to address today’s challenges, this episode offers a fascinating glimpse into the intersection of technology and security.
What are your thoughts on the role of agentic AI in shaping the future of cybersecurity? Join the discussion and share your perspective!
How are businesses preparing for the evolving threats and challenges in the world of cybersecurity? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Dominik Samociuk, Head of Security at Future Processing, a technology consultancy and software delivery partner with over two decades of experience.
Together, we explore the current state of cybersecurity and dive into predictions for 2025, focusing on emerging threats, regulatory changes, and the critical importance of cyber resilience.
Dominik shares insights into the rise of AI-driven attacks, including deepfakes and automated phishing campaigns, which are increasing in sophistication and volume. These threats are forcing organizations to rethink their strategies, moving beyond prevention to comprehensive approaches that include detection, response, and recovery. We also discuss how businesses can strengthen their defenses through zero-trust architecture, third-party risk management, and enhanced employee training—especially as the human factor remains one of the most vulnerable aspects of cybersecurity.
Regulatory changes, such as the NIS2 Directive, DORA, and the upcoming Cyber Resilience Act, are also driving a shift in how organizations approach security. Dominik explains how businesses can align with these evolving requirements by conducting regular gap analyses, automating compliance processes, and leveraging frameworks like ISO 27001 and NIST.
Data privacy in the era of AI is another key focus of our discussion. Dominik outlines the steps businesses must take to classify and protect sensitive data, ensure transparency with stakeholders, and build robust incident response plans. Additionally, we delve into the importance of embedding security practices throughout the development lifecycle and the role of open-source intelligence in identifying vulnerabilities and emerging threats.
Whether you’re looking to stay ahead of cyber threats or understand how regulatory changes will impact your organization, this episode provides actionable insights to navigate the complexities of modern cybersecurity. How is your business preparing for the future of cyber resilience? Join the conversation and share your thoughts!
How can AI transform the healthcare industry and help solve the challenges of rising costs, staffing shortages, and administrative inefficiencies? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, we explore this question with Alex Zekoff, co-founder and CEO of Thoughtful AI.
Thoughtful AI is a company revolutionizing healthcare administration through its innovative, role-based AI agents. These fully human-capable AI solutions—CAM, EVA, and PHIL—are designed to streamline critical but tedious tasks like claims processing, patient eligibility verification, and payment posting.
Healthcare providers in the U.S. currently face mounting pressures, from high staff turnover and costly manual processes to claim denials and prolonged payment cycles. Thoughtful AI's solutions offer a new way forward. By automating these administrative workflows, providers can significantly lower costs, reduce days sales outstanding, and boost claims approval rates. The result? Healthcare organizations can shift their focus and resources from back-office operations to improving patient outcomes.
We discuss how these AI agents combine cutting-edge technologies like RPA, OCR, and large language models to deliver end-to-end automation. With implementation timelines as short as three to six months, these systems not only improve efficiency but also address critical data security concerns by providing full audit trails and real-time analytics without storing sensitive patient data.
Beyond the numbers, we explore the broader impact of AI in healthcare, including how Thoughtful AI’s innovations could pave the way for a shift in healthcare spending—reducing administrative overhead and enabling a more patient-centered approach. This episode highlights real-world examples of how organizations are scaling their operations without adding to administrative headcount, achieving tangible results that signal a new era for healthcare efficiency.
What role do you think AI will play in shaping the future of healthcare and government systems? Join us to uncover the possibilities, and share your thoughts!
How can businesses thrive in the face of rapid technological advancements and increasing IT complexity? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Herb Hogue, CTO of Myriad360, a global systems integrator renowned for its expertise in bridging the gap between technology providers and end-users. With over 500 partnerships with top-tier technology companies, including Nvidia, HP, Cisco, and Palo Alto Networks, Myriad360 delivers customized, scalable IT solutions that align with strategic business objectives.
Herb shares insights into the rapidly evolving IT landscape, highlighting key trends such as the pervasive impact of AI, the growing importance of robust security measures, and the challenges of scaling IT infrastructure to meet demand. He discusses Myriad360's unique approach to navigating these complexities by focusing on data-driven decision-making, optimizing ROI, and integrating cutting-edge technologies into seamless end-to-end solutions.
We also explore the human side of IT—how cultural alignment, skills development, and fostering collaboration between channel partners, distributors, and end-users drive innovation and sustainable business growth. Herb provides real-world examples of how Myriad360’s white-glove service approach addresses multi-vendor environment challenges, improves credentialing and security visibility, and builds long-term client relationships based on trust and consistency.
Whether you're curious about the future of AI in IT or looking for strategies to optimize IT operations in multi-vendor ecosystems, this episode offers valuable insights into navigating today’s IT challenges and staying ahead in a competitive landscape. What are your thoughts on the evolving dynamics of IT and how businesses can adapt? Share your perspective and join the conversation!
How can businesses navigate the challenges of IT unpredictability and ensure operational continuity in an ever-evolving tech landscape? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Geoff Hixon, VP of Solutions Architecture at Lakeside Software, to explore how data-driven strategies are reshaping IT resilience and recovery. Geoff shares his experiences in supporting Lakeside customers during the CrowdStrike global IT outage, including insights into the rapid recovery process for a global airline and a multinational oil and gas company.
Geoff also provides an exclusive preview of Lakeside Software’s highly anticipated IT Resilience report, offering valuable insights into how organizations can transition from reactive to proactive and eventually autonomous IT management. By focusing on real-time data collection and visibility, he highlights the importance of identifying issues before they escalate and shares how enhanced data insights can prevent costly errors—like a bank's multimillion-pound oversight caused by missing a simple cable requirement.
Additionally, we discuss the role of AI in the journey toward autonomous IT, where routine support tasks are automated to free up IT teams for more strategic initiatives. Geoff illustrates how Lakeside’s approach helps organizations build trust in automation through step-by-step implementation and testing, paving the way for self-healing IT systems.
Tune in to discover how forward-thinking organizations can harness the power of data, automation, and proactive strategies to build IT systems that are not only resilient but also prepared for the challenges of tomorrow. Wha
How can cutting-edge technology help combat one of the most devastating contributors to climate change? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO and co-founder of Dryad Networks, to explore the innovative solutions his company is bringing to wildfire detection and forest health monitoring. Dryad’s groundbreaking “Internet of Trees” uses AI-powered sensors, solar energy, and IoT networks to address the challenges of forest management on a global scale.
Carsten shares the inspiration behind Dryad Networks, which stemmed from the catastrophic 2018 wildfires and his drive to tackle the staggering statistic that wildfires account for up to 20% of global CO2 emissions. We dive into the technology powering Dryad’s solutions, including small, solar-powered gas sensors that act as "electronic noses," detecting wildfire indicators like hydrogen and carbon monoxide far earlier than traditional methods. These sensors, supported by AI and machine learning, operate on edge computing to provide ultra-early detection even in the most remote areas.
Beyond wildfire prevention, Carsten explains how the technology is transforming forest management. From soil moisture monitoring and illegal logging prevention to tree growth tracking and CO2 sequestration measurement, the possibilities of Dryad’s network extend far beyond fire detection. With their recent strategic partnership with Kinéis, Dryad is now integrating satellite connectivity to expand deployment into previously unreachable regions.
As we discuss the future, Carsten outlines Dryad’s ambitious goal to prevent 3.9 million hectares of forest from burning by 2030, saving an estimated 1.7 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions. This conversation underscores the power of AI and IoT in addressing pressing global issues and highlights the potential of technology to drive real-world impact.
What role do you think technology like this will play in combating climate change? Can AI and IoT truly transform how we protect and manage our forests? Share your thoughts and join the conversation!
How do advancements in technology continue to redefine everyday experiences? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, we discuss the innovation behind Ulike’s Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) technology, which is setting a new standard for at-home hair removal.
We discuss the science and precision that underpin Ulike’s Air 3 Deluxe and Air 10 devices. With patented Sapphire Ice Cooling technology, these devices maintain skin temperatures at a comfortable 18°C, ensuring an almost painless experience even on sensitive areas. Their advanced IPL technology targets hair follicles at the root, offering up to 96% hair reduction in just two weeks. The Air 10 takes things further with dual-light technology and salon-inspired SHR Mode, making full-body treatments faster and more efficient than ever.
Safety and convenience remain central to Ulike’s design philosophy. Built-in UV filters, adaptive skin sensors, and an innovative UV sterilizer ensure not only effective results but also unmatched hygiene and peace of mind. These features reflect Ulike’s commitment to making high-performance technology accessible, without compromising on safety or ease of use.
As we approach the festive season, Ulike’s holiday offerings provide a perfect opportunity to explore this technology firsthand. Their biggest sale of the year, running until December 31, includes up to 25% off sitewide, with special bundles for both the Air 3 Deluxe and Air 10. With advancements like these, could at-home IPL devices become the future of hair removal?
Join the conversation and share your thoughts. How do you see technology like this shaping the future of beauty and personal care? Let’s discuss the intersection of innovation and everyday convenience!
How can AI revolutionize energy management in our homes while helping us save money and reduce environmental impact? In this episode, I speak with Michael Lotfy, EVP of Home & Distribution at Schneider Electric, to uncover how innovation is transforming the way we interact with and consume energy at home.
With buildings responsible for 37% of global CO2 emissions and homes contributing nearly 20% of that total, the need for smarter, more efficient energy solutions has never been more urgent. Michael shares how Schneider Electric is addressing this challenge with groundbreaking AI-powered features in their Wiser Home app. This technology leverages real-time weather forecasts, tariff data, and solar production capabilities to optimize energy use, reduce waste, and save homeowners hundreds of euros annually—all while keeping homes comfortable and secure.
We discuss how governments worldwide are stepping up with incentives to encourage energy-efficient technologies, including the U.S. Department of Energy's $8.4 million initiative for grid-enhancing AI innovations and subsidies offered across Europe. Michael explains how these programs are accelerating adoption and making ROI cycles more attractive for consumers.
Looking ahead, Michael paints a vision of the future where homes autonomously manage energy based on patterns, utility prices, and weather conditions. From creating virtual power plants to enabling community energy sharing, he reveals the exciting opportunities on the horizon. But with innovation comes challenges—Michael also addresses critical concerns like cybersecurity, data privacy, and the importance of combining hardware, software, and AI to create seamless, user-friendly energy solutions.
What role will AI play in shaping the future of home energy management? Can it truly alleviate the stress of rising utility costs? Join us as we explore the intersection of technology and sustainability—and let us know your thoughts on this transformative topic!
How is the role of the CFO transforming in today’s digital age, and how can AI and automation empower financial leaders to navigate this evolution? In this episode, I speak with Bob Stark, Global Head of Market Strategy at Kyriba, to explore how CFOs are becoming strategic business partners, leveraging cutting-edge technology to enhance decision-making, optimize liquidity, and safeguard their organizations against financial risks.
Bob provides an in-depth look at how AI is reshaping the finance landscape, moving beyond efficiency to drive smarter, data-driven decisions. He highlights key areas where AI and machine learning are making an impact, such as improving cash forecasting accuracy, automating workflows, and enhancing fraud detection. As fraud threats grow increasingly sophisticated, Bob explains how AI's anomaly detection and policy enforcement at machine speed are critical for protecting financial operations.
We also dive into the challenges CFOs face when adopting AI, from building trust in AI systems to balancing automation with human oversight. Bob shares why embedded, turnkey AI solutions are gaining traction and how CFOs can ensure their AI initiatives align with broader business goals. Additionally, we discuss the future of liquidity management, where data-driven insights empower CFOs to make more impactful decisions while reducing inefficiencies.
Whether you're a finance professional curious about the potential of AI, or a business leader looking to understand how to integrate these technologies into your operations, this episode offers actionable insights into the evolving role of the CFO and the strategic use of AI in finance.
What do you think are the biggest challenges CFOs face in adopting AI? Let’s continue the conversation—share your thoughts with us!
What does it take for a tech startup to successfully navigate international expansion? In today's episode, I welcome Dr. Shan Nair, a trailblazer in International Expansion Services (IES) and the president of Nucleus, to unpack the strategies and insights essential for businesses venturing into global markets. Dr. Nair's journey from nuclear physics at Oxford to consulting for some of the world’s most recognizable tech names, including Tesla Motors and FaceTime, offers a fascinating perspective on the intersection of innovation and international business.
During our conversation, we delve into the unique challenges that tech companies face when scaling internationally, from navigating complex regulatory frameworks in Asia-Pacific to addressing employment law risks in Europe and Latin America. Dr. Nair also explains how Nucleus provides a one-stop solution for companies, ensuring that international operations are managed seamlessly without the fragmentation of working with multiple service providers across geographies.
As the landscape of global business evolves, Dr. Nair sheds light on what it takes to succeed—emphasizing the importance of experienced CFOs, realistic budgets, and a sustainable business model. We also discuss the emerging trends shaping the future of international business, including the rise of cryptocurrencies, small-scale nuclear power plants, and the shifting dynamics of global manufacturing strategies amidst rising protectionism.
What are the critical steps for a startup looking to establish its first international hire? How can seasoned CFOs mitigate risks while maintaining sustainable growth? And how might the trends we discuss redefine global business in the coming years?
Join us for this insightful episode, and as always, let us know your thoughts. What challenges do you think startups face the most when going global? Let’s keep the conversation going.
What role does design play in shaping the future of STEM innovation? In this episode, I’m joined by Marilee Lloyd, a seasoned architect and Senior Laboratory Planner at HED, one of the most established architecture and engineering firms in the country. With over 38 years of experience in designing cutting-edge laboratory spaces for pharmaceutical giants, biotechnology companies, and top research universities, Marilee shares her expert insights on the evolving world of lab design.
Together, we explore the transformative impact of modern laboratory environments, from fostering collaboration and innovation to addressing the urgent need for inclusivity in STEM. Marilee explains why laboratories are no longer just functional spaces but vibrant hubs that attract and retain top STEM talent.
She also highlights the critical role design plays in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion—both culturally and in terms of facilities. From gender-neutral restrooms to considerations for neurodiverse scientists, Marilee provides an eye-opening perspective on how thoughtful design can drive societal change and enrich scientific discovery.
We also delve into the challenges of balancing sustainability with functionality in lab environments, the influence of technology on design practices, and the future trends shaping these spaces, such as AI integration and immersive visualization tools.
Could better-designed labs be the key to unlocking the next wave of innovation in STEM? Tune in to learn how Marilee and HED are redefining what it means to create spaces where science, people, and ideas thrive. What do you think is the most important element of a modern lab? Share your thoughts with us!
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I explore the dramatic transformation reshaping search and digital discovery with Michael Walrath, Chairman and CEO of Yext. As AI tools like ChatGPT, TikTok, and Meta AI disrupt the traditional search model, businesses are grappling with the need to adapt their strategies or risk being left behind. With decades of reliance on Google’s algorithms, the rise of more conversational, AI-driven platforms signals a seismic shift in how consumers discover information.
Michael brings a wealth of experience to the conversation, reflecting on his time leading Yahoo’s search advertising marketplace and the lessons learned when traditional models were challenged by new technologies. We discuss how search is not merely evolving but being redefined by AI, as fragmented platforms create both opportunities and challenges for businesses navigating this new digital environment.
The episode dives into why structured data and content distribution are now critical for discoverability across emerging platforms and what businesses can do to optimize their presence beyond Google’s ecosystem. Michael provides actionable advice on how organizations can build strategies for this new era of search, focusing on agility and preparation for ongoing shifts in consumer behavior.
We also touch on the broader implications for businesses, including the potential to reduce reliance on paid search and pivot towards organic growth through newer channels. Michael outlines what a post-Google world could look like and how businesses can position themselves for success in this fragmented and increasingly competitive space.
How prepared is your business for the AI-driven search revolution? Join the conversation and share your insights after tuning in!
How can advanced technology and AI help mission-critical workforces not only keep up with evolving demands but thrive?
From public safety and utilities to agriculture and construction, the essential industries that power our communities are increasingly relying on technology to overcome staffing shortages, streamline workflows, and improve service quality.
With nearly 91% of first responders believing their reporting processes could be better and 70% requiring overtime to finish paperwork, it’s clear there’s an urgent need for tools that make a real difference.
In this episode, I’m joined by Dominick Passanante, Vice President of Mobility at Panasonic Connect North America, to explore the transformative role of technology and AI in these industries. Dominick shares how Panasonic Connect’s AI-driven solutions, including rugged Toughbook devices and predictive analytics tools, are helping to automate routine tasks, enhance decision-making, and boost operational efficiency.
We’ll hear real-world examples, like how AI is enabling better wildfire response, improving law enforcement decision-making with video analysis, and optimizing utility maintenance through advanced sensor technology.
But with all this innovation comes questions: How does AI integration differ across industries? What misconceptions about AI’s role in the workforce still persist? And how can organizations use advanced tech to meet the expectations of today’s tech-savvy workers while keeping operations safe, responsive, and effective?
As you listen, consider this: Are essential industries equipped with the tools they need to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow? And what role should AI play in ensuring that mission-critical workforces can serve their communities better?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we explore groundbreaking research from the BCG Henderson Institute, revealing the profound impact of Generative AI on data science tasks within the consulting sector.
I am joined by Vladimir "Vlad" Lukic from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), who shares insights from a recent collaborative study with Boston University and OpenAI's Economic Impacts team.
The experiment tested the efficacy of GenAI tools, including Enterprise ChatGPT with GPT-4 and Advanced Data Analysis, in enhancing the productivity and technical capabilities of BCG consultants versus traditional methods.
Vlad details the experimental setup where consultants undertook typical data science tasks such as writing Python code for cleaning datasets, constructing predictive models, and validating statistical analyses generated by ChatGPT. The performance metrics of 480 consultants were then measured against 44 seasoned BCG data scientists who completed the tasks without GenAI assistance.
Key findings underscored by Vlad reveal that GenAI not only elevates performance but also equips personnel with sophisticated technical skills, albeit tied to the use of the tool itself. Remarkably, consultants with no prior coding experience were able to execute advanced tasks, achieving 86% of the benchmark established by data scientists and completing these tasks with a 10% faster average time.
I also learn how BCG is harnessing GenAI to foster productivity and broaden skill sets internally. Vlad explores the broader implications of GenAI in revolutionizing the consulting and professional services industries, driving significant value for clients through AI integration.
Key takeaways from this session include the transformative role of GenAI as an 'exoskeleton' that offers instant skill augmentation, the necessity of balancing this with sustainable skill development, and the critical insights into effective GenAI integration within professional workflows.
Join us as we explore these dynamic changes, offering both a comprehensive overview of the practical applications of GenAI and a visionary outlook on its evolving role in the professional world.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we dive into the heart of modern policing with Matt Polega, co-founder and president of Mark43. A recent survey by Mark43 revealed a striking demand among UK residents for greater police presence. But how can technology bridge the gap between public expectations and police resources?
Matt joins us to discuss how modernized, resilient technology like Mark43's can enable police forces to increase their street presence without necessarily adding more personnel. We'll explore how real-time data sharing between neighboring police forces and partner agencies is becoming a game-changer in crime prevention and response.
Matt also sheds light on the critical advantages of systems that update in real-time, allowing officers to respond faster and more effectively to incidents as they unfold.
We also discuss the importance of having robust backup emergency dispatch systems to maintain operations during outages, ensuring that police forces are always ready and resilient in the face of emergencies.
Our conversation will also touch on the broader implications of technology in policing—how it transforms not just operational efficiency but also public perception of police forces. Trust, safety, and responsiveness are at the forefront of this transformation, potentially reshaping community interactions with law enforcement.
Finally, we'll tackle some tough questions about the adoption of modern systems within UK police forces. What are the challenges they face, particularly regarding costs, complexity, and the perception that public sectors lag behind the private sector in technological adoption.
Loking forward, what does the future hold for policing in the UK, especially with the integration of AI, real-time data analytics, and cloud-based systems? Join us as we explore these critical issues and envision the future of policing—a future where technology empowers law enforcement to better serve and protect communities while enhancing public safety and trust.
How do you think emerging technologies will shape the future of community policing? Share your views and join the discussion.
In this episode, I’m joined by Jesmar Cannaò COO of ProxySQL, to explore the journey behind the creation of this open source solution that has become a game-changer for database management.
From his early days in IT to addressing the challenges that database administrators (DBAs) face daily, Jesmar shares the story of how ProxySQL evolved from a side project into a vital tool for empowering database teams around the world.
We discuss the complexities of managing MySQL and PostgreSQL infrastructures, ProxySQL’s unique approach to query routing, load balancing, and its ability to maintain high availability even in the most demanding environments. Jesmar explains why ProxySQL’s open-source model is critical in fostering trust and transparency, and how it helps organizations adapt to the growing demands for cloud-native and on-premise database solutions.
Jesmar also offers insights into the challenges of running a distributed team, the evolution of database management in an era of increasing automation, and the emerging trends shaping the future of this space. Whether you’re a seasoned DBA, a tech leader, or simply curious about the transformative power of open source solutions, this episode is packed with valuable takeaways.
In today’s data-driven world, businesses rely heavily on tools like Tableau and Power BI to make sense of their data. But why do these tools, designed to make analytics simple, often involve such complex and resource-intensive backends? This tension, known as the BI paradox, is what Nicolas Korchia, CEO of IndeXima, is on a mission to resolve.
In this episode, Nicolas shares his journey from data geek to entrepreneur, tackling one of the biggest challenges in business intelligence: the balance between user-friendly dashboards and the intricate data pipelines that power them. We explore how IndeXima leverages AI and machine learning to create dynamic tables, accelerating data analytics, improving dashboard performance, and reducing the cost and environmental impact of data queries. Nicolas explains how his team’s solutions are empowering businesses to streamline decision-making while addressing sustainability—a key concern in today’s IT landscape.
Beyond the technology, Nicolas provides real-world use cases, including how IndeXima transforms retail analytics by optimizing Snowflake queries to deliver near-instantaneous results. We also dive into the future of business intelligence, discussing emerging trends such as the role of large language models (LLMs) in generating SQL queries and how automation is shaping the way businesses handle data.
If your organization is struggling with slow dashboards, skyrocketing query costs, or inefficiencies in BI processes, this conversation will spark ideas and provide insights into optimizing your data strategies. Could the solution to your BI challenges be simpler than you think?
Tune in to find out—and let us know your thoughts on the BI paradox and where you see data analytics heading in the near future.
Have you ever wondered how businesses can better manage supply chain risks in an era of increasing cyber threats and regulatory complexities? In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we sit down with Haydn Brooks, CEO and founder of Risk Ledger, to explore how his innovative platform is reshaping third-party risk management.
Risk Ledger, founded in 2018, operates as a secure social network for supply chain risk management. Haydn shares how his transition from neuroscience to cybersecurity sparked the creation of this dynamic platform, which has already supported major initiatives like the NHS COVID-19 Test and Trace program. Designed to provide real-time insights and foster collaboration, Risk Ledger is redefining traditional approaches to supply chain security.
In our conversation, Haydn discusses the platform’s ability to share threat intelligence across a network of suppliers, helping both public and private sector organizations stay ahead of emerging challenges. He also delves into the critical role of AI in supply chain management—both as a risk and a tool—highlighting how Risk Ledger ensures AI governance and assists suppliers in navigating complex security requirements.
Looking ahead, Haydn outlines Risk Ledger’s ambitious plans for 2025, including enhanced threat response capabilities and international expansion into Northern Europe and the US. With the rise of new regulatory frameworks like DORA and NIS2, Haydn emphasizes how the platform supports compliance while addressing the unique needs of diverse industries.
Join us as we unpack the future of supply chain risk management with Haydn Brooks and explore how Risk Ledger is empowering organizations to tackle threats and seize opportunities in an increasingly interconnected world. What strategies do you think are essential for managing supply chain risks in your industry? Let us know your thoughts after the episode!
Have you ever wondered how businesses are transitioning from isolated AI experiments to integrated strategies that truly drive transformation? In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Pandurang Kamat, Chief Technology Officer at Persistent Systems, to explore this fascinating evolution.
With over 12 years at Persistent and a PhD in Computer Science from Rutgers University, Dr. Kamat brings a wealth of knowledge about innovation, R&D, and the future of AI in the enterprise.
Dr. Kamat explains how the AI revolution is reshaping both the technical and business aspects of organizations. From automating workflows to modernizing data and digital engineering, he dives into how AI platforms are becoming indispensable tools. He also highlights Persistent’s unique approach with its flagship platforms SASVA for digital engineering, iAURA for data engineering, and the GenAI Hub for orchestrating AI across enterprises.
These platforms are enabling businesses to adopt AI faster and more effectively, paving the way for what he calls "services as software."
We also discuss the role of partnerships with hyperscalers like AWS and Google in scaling AI initiatives securely and responsibly. Dr. Kamat shares insights into Persistent’s industry-specific applications of AI, from enhancing customer service to revolutionizing construction risk management and accelerating drug research.
What challenges do businesses face when transitioning to platform-driven strategies? Dr. Kamat unpacks the critical steps, including shaping data readiness, identifying impactful use cases, and implementing responsible AI frameworks. Looking ahead, he envisions a future where AI delivers disproportionate outcomes through purpose-built agents and multi-year transformation projects.
Join us as we navigate the next wave of enterprise AI with Dr. Pandurang Kamat and uncover how Persistent Systems is pushing the boundaries of innovation. What excites you most about the potential of AI to transform industries? Share your thoughts after the episode—we’d love to hear from you!
Is low-code development the future of digital transformation? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Hans de Visser, Chief Product Officer at Mendix, to explore how low-code is reshaping the enterprise software space. With 73% of C-suite executives now viewing low-code as the only viable coding option, Hans shares insights into why this technology is no longer a departmental fix but a strategic enabler driving innovation at scale.
Hans delves into Mendix’s integration of generative AI, which is revolutionizing the software development lifecycle. From AI-assisted data modeling to AI-powered applications, he explains how the fusion of AI and low-code creates a productivity leap that enables enterprises to innovate faster and more efficiently. But innovation doesn’t come without challenges. Governance, security, and upskilling remain critical to unlocking the potential of low-code while mitigating risks.
The conversation also touches on the increasing collaboration between IT and business teams, as organizations adopt fusion team models to harness the full spectrum of talent. Hans offers practical advice on addressing knowledge gaps, building cross-functional teams, and creating sustainable digital transformation strategies.
We’ll also discuss Mendix’s latest research findings, which highlight the growing influence of non-technical C-suite executives in low-code adoption and the importance of regulatory compliance frameworks in reducing risks. With AI and low-code seen as key drivers of future enterprise growth, this discussion provides a compelling look at how technology can transform business processes from the ground up.
What are your thoughts on low-code and its role in shaping the future of digital transformation? Could this be the game-changer your business needs? Tune in and let us know what you think!
What makes the UK a prime candidate to lead the charge in global crypto adoption? In this episode, I speak with Bivu Das, UK General Manager of Kraken, one of the world’s most established crypto platforms, to explore how the UK’s deep roots in fintech and financial services are laying the groundwork for a blockchain-powered future.
With Kraken serving as the largest FCA-registered crypto exchange in the UK and boasting a robust team of 300 professionals across the region, Bivu shares his insights on the country’s unique position in the crypto revolution. We discuss the evolving regulatory framework, the potential for blockchain to add £57 billion to the UK’s GDP by 2030, and the importance of eliminating bad actors to foster trust and innovation in the market.
Bivu also highlights Kraken’s strategic partnerships with iconic brands like Tottenham Hotspur and Williams Racing F1, emphasizing how these collaborations go beyond logo placements to actively engage and educate mainstream audiences about crypto and Web3 technologies.
As institutional adoption of Bitcoin surges and UK crypto ownership exceeds 7 million, Bivu provides a compelling perspective on bridging traditional finance with the digital asset economy.
In this episode, I explore the findings of Akamai’s latest State of the Internet report, “Navigating the Rising Tide: Attack Trends in Financial Services,” with Richard Meeus, Director of Security Technology and Strategy EMEA at Akamai. The conversation reveals why financial services remain the top target for cyberattacks, with incidents ranging from DDoS events to brand impersonation schemes that exploit sensitive data.
Richard offers insights into the unique challenges faced by the financial services sector, especially in the context of rising geopolitical tensions. We discuss a recent DDoS attack in the Middle East that underscores the intensity and sophistication of threats in this space. The episode also examines the growing threat of shadow APIs, which often go unmonitored, leaving organizations exposed to data exfiltration and other vulnerabilities.
The conversation shifts to actionable strategies, including the implementation of Zero Trust frameworks, proactive DDoS defenses, and the importance of balancing automated tools with human oversight for complex, multi-vector attacks. Richard highlights the evolving landscape of cybersecurity regulations, such as the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act, and what organizations need to do to stay ahead.
If you’re curious about how businesses can better defend against these emerging threats and what it takes to build resilience in a rapidly changing digital environment, this episode offers a wealth of practical advice and industry expertise. What are the most pressing cybersecurity challenges your organization is facing? Tune in to explore solutions and strategies.
In this episode recorded live at the IT Press Tour in Malta, I sit down with François Machacek, an IT veteran with nearly three decades of experience and a deep commitment to sustainable technology.
François shares his journey, starting from his early career managing data centers across Europe to becoming an ambassador for green IT and joining EasyVirt, a company revolutionizing how we measure and reduce the environmental impact of digital technology.
We discuss the often-overlooked environmental costs of digital infrastructure, including the growing carbon and water footprints of data centers and AI technologies. François explains how EasyVirt's suite of tools provides actionable insights to optimize IT performance, reduce costs, and minimize environmental impact. He highlights the importance of real-time, granular measurements and how these solutions help organizations achieve their sustainability goals while remaining secure and compliant with tightening regulations.
François also sheds light on integrating GreenOps and FinOps principles, enabling IT teams to balance financial efficiency with environmental responsibility. Whether it’s helping businesses optimize hybrid cloud infrastructures, manage carbon emissions, or prepare for future regulations, EasyVirt is empowering organizations to tackle some of the most pressing challenges in tech today.
Join us as we explore the intersection of IT innovation and sustainability and discover how actionable data can pave the way for a greener digital future.
Could sustainable IT be the missing link in your organization’s ESG strategy? Tune in to find out.
What if your organization could unlock the full potential of AI without ever compromising on privacy or sharing sensitive data? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Alexander Alten, Co-Founder and CEO of Scalytics, to explore how he is building the next-generation infrastructure layer for AI agents.
Alexander brings a wealth of expertise, having led data and product teams at industry giants like Cloudera, Allianz, and Healthgrades. With a background in startups such as X-Warp and Infinite Devices, he has a proven track record of developing customer-centric, data-driven solutions that not only disrupt conventional norms but also fuel measurable growth.
During our conversation at the IT Press Tour in Malta, Alexander introduces Scalytics Connect, a modern AI data platform designed to accelerate insights while preserving privacy. He unpacks the challenges of breaking down data silos and explains why centralizing data may not always be the optimal solution. We also demystify federated learning, shedding light on its potential to empower businesses, particularly in regulated industries, to collaborate on AI models without exposing their data.
The discussion extends to the value of open-source technologies and why they often emerge as long-term winners, citing examples like MySQL, Postgres, and WordPress. Alexander shares how Scalytics leverages open-source principles to provide scalable and transparent machine learning solutions for businesses looking to outperform in an increasingly data-driven world.
As AI continues to redefine the way we work and innovate, Alexander's insights provide a roadmap for navigating the complexities of decentralized machine learning, privacy-first AI, and scalable technology.
Could his approach to AI and data collaboration be the key to unlocking your organization's potential? Tune in to find out, and don’t forget to share your thoughts on the future of AI-powered innovation.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, recorded at the IT Press Tour in Malta, I am joined by Antoine Simkin, co-founder of Digi Film Corporation.
Antoine Simkine is also the lead producer and managing director of the Paris-based Les Films d’Antoine, which was founded in 2004. He was also the executive producer of the VFX of about one hundred feature films such as “The City of Lost Children”, “Amelie”, “Alien Resurrection” by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, “The Ninth Gate” by Roman Polanski, “Ronin” by John Frankenheimer, “Joan of Arc” by Luc Besson, and “The Man Who Cried” by Sally Potter.
Antoine Simkine has then worked for 20th Century Fox as VFX producer during the final phase of development of “I Robot” by Alex Proyas.
With a unique background in cinema and digital visual effects, Antoine brings a fascinating perspective on the challenges and solutions for long-term data preservation in our rapidly evolving digital age.
Antoine shares his journey from pioneering digital visual effects in the 1980s and 90s to tackling one of the industry's most pressing issues: the longevity of digital data. Reflecting on his experience working with formats like Sony DIR and DTF tapes, he highlights the challenges of data migration, evolving standards, and the risks of losing critical digital assets. His work with Digifilm Corporation introduces an innovative approach to solving these problems by blending the permanence of film with the precision of digital encoding.
We explore how Digifilm's Archifix solution offers a robust alternative to traditional storage methods, ensuring data preservation for decades, if not centuries. Antoine provides insight into the diverse applications of this technology, from the cinematic world to industries such as nuclear power, defense, and architecture, where the need for secure, offline data storage is paramount.
As data volumes grow exponentially and regulations around data integrity and security tighten, Antoine's vision for the future of Digifilm highlights the critical importance of balancing technological advancements with sustainable, long-term preservation strategies. Could this approach be the missing piece in solving the global data storage puzzle?
What role could Digifilm play in securing our digital heritage for future generations? Listen, reflect, and join the conversation.
Learn more at https://digifilm-corp.com/home
What happens when the backbone of modern society—our critical national infrastructure—faces an evolving cyber threat landscape? In this episode, Tony Burton, Managing Director of Cyber Security & Trust at Thales UK, joins the show to explore the growing cybersecurity risks posed to smart grids and essential utilities, backed by insights from Thales' 2024 Data Threat Report.
Tony sheds light on the vulnerabilities introduced by the digitalization of critical infrastructure, explaining how the shift to smart grids and interconnected systems has opened new avenues for cybercriminals. He highlights the startling rise in ransomware attacks, insider threats, and human error as key contributors to data breaches in these high-stakes environments. With over 42% of critical infrastructure organizations reporting a cyber breach and 93% noting an increase in attacks, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
We’ll discuss the real-world implications of these risks, from the potential for widespread blackouts and disruptions to essential services, to the theft of energy resources and compromised public safety. Tony also shares actionable strategies for safeguarding the future of energy supplies, emphasizing the importance of multi-layered defenses, proactive threat detection, and robust incident response plans.
The episode also dives into the cutting-edge work at Thales' Cyber Resilience Lab in Ebbw Vale, where smart grid technology is stress-tested against a variety of cyber scenarios—all in a controlled offline environment. Tony underscores the critical role of innovation and compliance in building resilience, offering a forward-looking perspective on how the future of UK energy and national security hinges on addressing both present and emerging cyber threats.
What do you think about the growing risks to critical infrastructure in a hyper-connected world? Join the conversation, and share your thoughts on how technology can help safeguard our most essential services.
What does it take to transform a $19.9 billion consulting powerhouse in the age of AI? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Mohamad Ali, Senior Vice President of IBM Consulting, to explore how his unique blend of expertise in cybersecurity, data, analytics, and AI is redefining the consulting industry and unlocking new possibilities for businesses worldwide.
Mohamad shares how IBM Consulting is leveraging an open ecosystem approach to help enterprises fully harness the power of AI. We delve into real-world examples of top generative AI use cases that are driving innovation, efficiency, and transformation across industries. From improving decision-making to optimizing workflows, these stories offer valuable insights into AI's practical applications.
Beyond technology, Mohamad emphasizes the human element—discussing strategies for upskilling talent in the AI era and creating access to opportunities for professionals at all levels. He highlights the importance of empowering teams to embrace AI, not as a replacement, but as a tool to amplify their capabilities and drive meaningful impact.
With a software-first mindset cultivated from his tenure as CEO of IDG and Carbonite, Mohamad explains how he’s reshaping IBM Consulting to be more agile, innovative, and responsive to the evolving needs of clients in a digital-first world.
How can businesses build an AI strategy that drives real results? What role does upskilling play in creating a future-ready workforce? Tune in to this conversation with Mohamad Ali, and discover how IBM Consulting is leading the charge in transforming challenges into opportunities with AI.
Want to learn more? Connect with IBM Consulting online to explore the ideas and innovations discussed in this episode.
What does it truly mean to "never trust, always verify"? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by John Kindervag, Chief Evangelist at Illumio and the pioneer of the Zero Trust approach to cybersecurity. With cyber threats evolving at an unprecedented rate, John argues that Zero Trust is no longer optional for organisations moving to cloud-based environments—it’s a necessity.
John explains why the traditional trust-based approach to cybersecurity is obsolete and shares actionable insights on adopting a Zero Trust strategy. He highlights the critical steps in implementing Zero Trust, emphasizing the importance of starting small with Protect Surfaces and flow maps to create manageable, effective security policies. Through real-world examples, he demonstrates how organisations have reduced their attack surfaces by up to 90% by embracing this model.
We also explore common pitfalls, such as attempting to implement Zero Trust all at once, and how incremental changes can set the stage for long-term success. John sheds light on how Zero Trust dramatically enhances an organisation's resilience against cyberattacks, providing continuous monitoring and automated policies to safeguard critical assets in an increasingly cloud-driven world.
How can organisations move beyond outdated approaches to cybersecurity and embrace the transformative power of Zero Trust? Are you ready to take the first steps toward securing your digital future? Tune in to this essential conversation with John Kindervag, and let us know your thoughts!
Have you ever wondered why Reddit has become the go-to platform for authentic conversations, community-driven insights, and even purchasing advice? In this episode, we sit down with Jen Wong, COO of Reddit, to explore the platform’s remarkable evolution and its growing role in the digital world. With 97M daily active uniques—a staggering 47% growth from last year—Reddit is shaping the way people discover information, make decisions, and connect with communities around shared interests.
Jen shares how Reddit’s unique positioning, as a platform rooted in anonymity and interest-based communities rather than follower counts, allows it to stand apart from its peers. She highlights how Reddit’s users “age into” the platform, deepening their engagement over time, and how this creates unparalleled opportunities for authentic conversations and valuable user insights. Whether you’re looking for advice on concert tickets or in-depth discussions about hobbies, Reddit offers the kind of information and perspectives you simply can’t find elsewhere.
The conversation delves into Reddit’s AI and machine learning initiatives, such as improving search functionality, enabling machine translation, and leveraging data to create better user experiences. Jen also discusses how these advancements help people find their “home” on Reddit, making it easier for anyone, regardless of their background or interests, to engage meaningfully on the platform.
We also examine Reddit’s innovative ad platform, designed to support brands with unique formats and targeting capabilities, while emphasizing brand safety and community-first values. Jen explains how Reddit’s focus on conversational commerce is transforming the consumer journey, enabling two-way dialogues between users and businesses that inform and validate purchasing decisions in real time.
What does the future hold for a platform that continues to evolve and innovate at this pace? Tune in to discover how Reddit is leveraging its unique community dynamics to shape the next generation of digital interaction and commerce. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts—how do you see Reddit influencing your online experiences? Let us know!
Can water become an investable asset? How is decentralized water treatment reshaping the way industries and communities manage their most vital resource? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Riggs Eckelberry, CEO of Water on Demand, to explore the groundbreaking technology and financial innovation behind this transformative company.
Riggs shares how Water on Demand is revolutionizing the water industry by decentralizing treatment systems. Instead of relying on overburdened municipal systems, industries can now treat and recycle water on-site, reducing costs, achieving regulatory independence, and advancing sustainability efforts. At the heart of this innovation are modular, prefabricated systems that can be operational in just one day, representing a shift toward adaptable, climate-resilient infrastructure.
We also dive into the financial technology underpinning Water on Demand. Riggs explains how businesses can adopt water treatment systems without upfront capital investment, thanks to a pay-per-gallon model that removes financial barriers. For investors, this model opens opportunities for equity and generational royalties, with future plans to tokenize water assets ($H2O), creating a more liquid and tradable market.
Beyond technology and finance, we discuss the social impact of decentralized water solutions. By alleviating industrial demands on municipal systems, residential users benefit from improved access and lower water rates, with significant implications for low-income communities. Riggs highlights how scaling industrial water recycling to just 15% could effectively double the world's freshwater supply, offering a path toward social equity and climate resilience.
How can technology and finance transform water into a sustainable, investable resource? What role will decentralized systems play in addressing the challenges of climate change? Tune in to this insightful conversation with Riggs Eckelberry and join the discussion by sharing your thoughts!
What role does language play in shaping our world? How is AI transforming the way we connect across cultures? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Olga Beregovaya, VP of AI and Machine Translation at Smartling, whose journey from a single mother at 21 to a trailblazer in language technology and AI is as compelling as it is inspiring.
With over 25 years of experience in natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and AI-driven transformation, Olga brings invaluable insights into the evolution of machine translation and the groundbreaking innovations shaping the localization industry.
We discuss Olga's remarkable career trajectory, from her academic roots in structural linguistics to leading AI initiatives at Smartling. Learn how Smartling is leveraging its trademarked "Language AI" to revolutionize translation processes, enabling businesses to communicate globally with greater accuracy and cultural sensitivity. Olga shares her thoughts on the measured deployment of AI, addressing challenges like hallucinations in AI outputs, improving model accuracy, and redefining workflows for the modern workplace.
The conversation also explores the broader trends in language technology, such as task-specific language models, unsupervised learning, and multi-modal advancements that integrate text, imagery, and even digital humans. Olga underscores the importance of data governance and the collaborative role linguists play in prompt engineering to ensure AI systems reflect diverse perspectives and maintain cultural authenticity.
As a passionate advocate for women in STEM, Olga reflects on the progress and challenges facing women in technology, offering actionable insights for fostering diversity, mentorship, and representation in the industry. Her dedication to amplifying underrepresented voices in tech serves as a powerful call to action for listeners to build a more inclusive future.
How can AI continue to bridge language and culture without losing the nuances that make us human? What role do you see yourself playing in this evolving narrative? Tune in to hear Olga's thoughts, and join the conversation by sharing your insights!
What makes Solana an ideal foundation for decentralized finance, particularly in derivatives and perpetual trading? In this episode, I explore these questions with Tristan from Zeta Markets. With $15 billion in trading volume and a growing user base exceeding 50,000, Zeta Markets has become a cornerstone of the Solana DeFi ecosystem. Together, we discuss how Solana’s high throughput, low fees, and lightning-fast block times enable Zeta Markets to deliver a seamless trading experience through their central limit order book model.
Tristan also sheds light on Zeta’s ambitious growth trajectory, including the launch of SatorX, their new Layer 2 solution designed to address network congestion while offering unmatched speed and scalability. With features like near-instant transaction finality, gas fee abstraction, and the capacity to support hundreds of markets, SatorX is poised to redefine the user experience on Solana. We’ll also unpack how their upcoming Token Generation Event (TGE) could shape Zeta’s governance model and fuel community-driven innovation.
A key focus of our conversation is the evolving landscape of market strategy. Tristan explains how Zeta leverages community feedback to prioritize listings of Solana-native assets while expanding their scope to hundreds of markets through their advanced infrastructure. Additionally, we discuss how Zeta is tackling the challenge of Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) through an innovative sequencing scheme on SatorX, creating tighter spreads and better prices by empowering market makers.
Looking ahead, Zeta is gearing up for the December 2024 testnet launch of their upgraded exchange and a mainnet release in early 2025. Tristan teases some of the exciting improvements, including order books capable of updating over 10 times per second, setting the stage for unparalleled performance in DeFi trading.
What does the future hold for DeFi derivatives on Solana, and how will Zeta’s innovations impact the broader ecosystem? Tune in to discover how Zeta Markets is positioning itself as a leader in this rapidly evolving space. After listening, I’d love to hear your thoughts—what excites you most about Solana’s potential, and where do you see DeFi heading next?
Have you ever wondered how we can address the ethical challenges of AI while empowering the next generation of innovators? In today’s episode, I’m joined by Dr. Tara Chklovski, the visionary aerospace engineer turned educator and the founder and CEO of Technovation—the world’s largest tech entrepreneurship program for girls.
Tara has spent the last 15 years redefining what it means to create meaningful impact through technology education, with over 150,000 girls trained as tech entrepreneurs and innovators across 120 countries. Together, they’ve developed more than 12,000 apps and AI-based solutions tackling real-world problems.
Our conversation delves into the inspiration behind Technovation, including Tara’s journey from aerospace engineering to founding a nonprofit dedicated to leveling the playing field in tech education. We discuss the role of the AI Forward Alliance, a global initiative led by Technovation in partnership with organizations like UNICEF and Google, aimed at equipping 25 million young women with the skills needed to thrive in a world increasingly shaped by AI.
Tara also shares powerful stories of transformation, from a young girl in India who overcame cultural barriers to become a Google software engineer, to communities in Kenya where girls are developing tech solutions to combat water scarcity and address critical social issues. These examples underscore the importance of diversity in technology and the role women can play in creating ethical and equitable AI systems.
We explore how Technovation’s curriculum incorporates responsible AI development and empathy-driven innovation, preparing a new generation to navigate the complexities of AI ethics. Tara also discusses the economic and societal benefits of closing the gender gap in technology, emphasizing how investing in young women can yield exponential returns for communities worldwide.
What does the future hold for Technovation and the movement to empower women in AI? How can we all contribute to fostering a more inclusive and ethical tech industry? Tune in to find out, and as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts—how do you see diversity shaping the future of AI and technology? Let us know!
What role does observability play in transforming IT operations? In this episode, I explore this critical question with Gab Menachem, Vice President of Product, IT Operations Management at ServiceNow. With more than two decades of experience in technology innovation and leadership, Gab brings unique insights into how organizations can rethink their IT strategies to tackle modern challenges.
Our conversation begins with clearing up common misconceptions about observability—it's not just about monitoring or accumulating tools, but about understanding the "why" behind IT issues. Gab explains why integrating AI and automation into observability strategies is essential for reducing alert fatigue and improving decision-making. He also sheds light on the power of unifying data sources to create a "single pane of glass," offering IT teams enhanced operational visibility and enabling faster, more informed decisions.
As we dive deeper, Gab shares real-world examples of how ServiceNow is helping organizations overcome IT complexities, such as application sprawl and disconnected tools. From leveraging AI for root cause analysis to automating compliance and risk management, the conversation highlights practical strategies that deliver tangible business outcomes.
We also look ahead at the trends shaping the future of IT operations. Generative AI, tighter integration of observability with action, and AI-driven compliance automation are just a few of the exciting developments Gab predicts will accelerate enterprise innovation.
So, how can IT leaders align with business stakeholders to make these transformations successful? Gab emphasizes the importance of articulating observability’s benefits in business terms, such as reduced downtime, enhanced customer satisfaction, and measurable cost savings.
As the IT landscape evolves, are you ready to embrace the future of observability and AIOps? Tune in to learn how to optimize your existing tools, prioritize change management, and foster collaboration across your organization.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to transform data management into a fearless, innovative journey that empowers businesses to thrive in a data-driven world? In this episode, I’m joined by Alberto Pan Executive VP & CTO at Denodo, a global leader in logical data management and integration.
Alberto takes us through Denodo's remarkable growth story and its groundbreaking innovations, including the Denodo 9 Platform and its recent advancements in Generative AI.
As businesses grapple with the complexities of Generative AI, Denodo is stepping up with pioneering solutions. Alberto discusses how their collaborations with Google Cloud Vertex AI, Amazon Bedrock, Nvidia, and OpenAI are revolutionizing enterprise AI initiatives.
Through Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), Denodo is enhancing AI applications by connecting large language models with up-to-date corporate data, addressing challenges like security, privacy, and query accuracy. These advancements not only enable the creation of intelligent virtual assistants but also significantly improve enterprise AI’s ability to meet real-world business needs.
Alberto also shares the unique features that set Denodo apart, emphasizing the value of its logical data platform for delivering data at the speed of business. From real-time unified data access to a semantic layer that ensures accuracy and governance, Denodo’s innovations are driving efficiency and ROI for organizations across industries.
We’ll also explore future trends in enterprise AI, from the importance of solid data foundations to the increasing convergence of structured and unstructured data. With insights into Denodo’s partnerships and tools like the Denodo AI SDK, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways for anyone navigating the rapidly evolving data landscape.
How do you see Generative AI shaping the future of data management? Tune in to the discussion, and let us know your thoughts!
Have you ever wondered how cutting-edge technologies are reshaping traditional industries? In this episode, we welcome Marc Jeschonneck, EY's Global Assurance Digital Leader, and Paul Goodhew, EY's Global Assurance Innovation and Emerging Technology Leader. Together, they provide a fascinating glimpse into how auditing—a field with over a century of history—is evolving in the age of AI, blockchain, and cloud computing.
We explore the challenges auditors face in an era of increasing regulatory complexity and massive datasets. Marc and Paul reveal how EY's $1 billion investment in assurance technology is empowering auditors to deliver higher-quality insights with unprecedented efficiency. From leveraging AI for document intelligence and anomaly detection to employing blockchain analyzers for digital asset verification, the duo illustrates how innovation is driving productivity and precision in the profession.
However, it’s not all about the technology. Marc and Paul emphasize the importance of fostering a culture of continuous learning and collaboration to ensure auditors can effectively harness these advancements. They share insights into EY's microlearning initiatives, federated development approach, and the role of intuitive design in creating seamless user experiences.
We also discuss the future of the industry, touching on emerging trends such as AI agents, quantum computing, and the potential of smart contracts to redefine auditing standards. Whether you're intrigued by how technology is enhancing client satisfaction or curious about how organizations are navigating the rapid pace of innovation, this episode has something for everyone.
What technologies do you think will have the greatest impact on the audit profession in the coming years? Let us know your thoughts! Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of the intersection between technology and assurance, and share your perspective after the episode.
How do organizations tackle the growing challenge of transformation fatigue, and what does it mean for the future of innovation? In this episode, Alex Adamopoulos, CEO of Emergn, joins the conversation to explore the realities of transformation fatigue, why it persists in global enterprises, and how Emergn’s unique approach is helping organizations break free from dependency on traditional consulting firms.
Alex shares insights from Emergn’s research, revealing that nearly 50% of employees consider leaving their roles due to burnout from repeated organizational changes, and 70% of transformation programs fail to deliver meaningful results. He outlines how transformation fatigue manifests through symptoms like excessive workloads, buzzword-heavy initiatives, and a reliance on outdated methodologies. Alex emphasizes that successful change comes from empowering teams, focusing on incremental improvements, and building a culture where innovation thrives organically.
We also dive into Emergn’s differentiators, contrasting their mission to make clients autonomous with the dependency-focused models of larger consulting firms. Through their VFQ (Value, Flow, Quality) learning program, Emergn helps businesses upskill teams and operationalize innovation in ways that are practical, scalable, and sustainable. Alex critiques the traditional models used by firms like McKinsey and the Big Four, highlighting how Emergn’s focus on flexibility and measurable outcomes offers a more client-centered approach.
The discussion also touches on AI’s transformative potential. With Emergn’s survey predicting AI integration in 98% of products and services by 2028, Alex sheds light on how companies can navigate ethical, legal, and scalability challenges. From predictive maintenance in manufacturing to automated claims in legal industries, AI’s role is poised to reshape sectors far beyond traditional expectations.
What does transformation fatigue mean for your organization, and how can businesses embrace change without losing momentum? Share your thoughts and join the conversation after listening!
How does branded political merchandise shape the way Americans connect with their chosen candidates? In this episode, we’re joined by Rob Mobsby from EverythingBranded, a global hub for high-quality, tangible marketing solutions, to explore the insights from their 2024 Political Merchandise Report. From the enduring appeal of campaign swag to its surprising impact on voter behavior, this conversation dives into the world of branded merch as a powerful communication tool in both politics and marketing.
Rob unpacks fascinating data from the report, including the finding that 36% of Americans have purchased or plan to buy political merch to support their candidate, with a striking 77% proudly wearing it to influence others. We discuss how these items, ranging from t-shirts and hats to bumper stickers and pins, transcend election cycles, with many people holding onto them for years, regardless of the outcome. The report also highlights how Democrats and Republicans embrace merchandise differently, with wearables proving to be the top choice across party lines.
Beyond politics, Rob sheds light on the broader influence of branded merchandise in advertising. With 63% of consumers more likely to engage with a business they see on a friend’s branded item compared to digital ads or social media posts, it’s clear that physical marketing tools remain a cornerstone of effective campaigns. He also delves into the human connection fostered by these tangible items, especially in a post-COVID era where people crave belonging and shared identity.
We also explore EverythingBranded’s commitment to political neutrality, its approach to product customization, and how the company uses AI and data-driven strategies to enhance customer experiences. Whether it’s for businesses or political campaigns, branded merchandise continues to demonstrate its unmatched ability to create long-lasting impressions.
How do you think branded merchandise will evolve in the years ahead? Share your thoughts after listening!
Are businesses overestimating the ROI of AI while underestimating the power of strategic outsourcing? With AI adoption costs soaring to $5 billion globally, companies are grappling with rising budgets and uncertain returns. High-profile cuts at organizations like Intel illustrate the mounting pressures to fund AI initiatives. Meanwhile, a significant shift in business priorities is underway, as "growth at all costs" gives way to a sharper focus on profitability and sustainability.
In this episode, I’m joined by Craig Crisler, CEO of SupportNinja, to explore how outsourcing is evolving from a cost-cutting fallback to a cornerstone strategy for achieving growth in challenging economic times. Craig shares insights into how sustained interest rates, reduced venture capital funding, and slowing growth rates are reshaping talent strategies. He breaks down myths and misconceptions about outsourcing and reveals why it should no longer be viewed as a reactive measure but as a proactive tool for scalability and resilience.
Craig also delves into his leadership philosophy, one that champions empathy-informed decision-making and "value-centric relationships" in the workplace. Drawing from 20+ years in operational excellence, Craig highlights how modern outsourcing partnerships can unlock long-term success for businesses navigating the complexities of today’s economy.
Are businesses ready to embrace outsourcing as a strategic ally in scaling for the future? And how can leaders balance efficiency with meaningful investment in relationships and talent? Join us for this timely conversation, and don’t forget to share your thoughts after the episode!
How is the trifecta of blockchain, machine learning, and AI reshaping the future of financial services? Today, we're joined by Rob Krugman, Chief Digital Officer at Broadridge, to delve into the transformative power of digital technology within the financial sector.
In this episode, we explore Broadridge's latest insights on digital transformation, highlighting the widening gap between digital leaders and those lagging behind. An astounding 75% of firms are confident in their digital strategies, yet only a third are at advanced stages in refining customer experiences, modernization, and data management.
Rob shares that successful digital transformation is not just about technology but also involves a cultural shift within organizations. We discuss the barriers that institutions face, such as the challenge of prioritizing long-term transformation over short-term firefighting, attracting top-tier digital talent, and overcoming the inertia of traditional, internally focused approaches.
Moreover, we'll cover the crucial role of AI in creating more engaging and personalized customer experiences. From AI-assisted form filling in insurance claims to persona-based interactions that aim for real-time personalization, financial services are on the brink of a major overhaul.
Rob will also share insights on the cultural adjustments needed to integrate AI effectively, emphasizing the importance of continuous learning and the development of "superhuman" capabilities through technology.
Looking towards the future, Rob outlines a vision for 2025 and beyond, where blockchain, machine learning, and AI could enable real-time, 24/7 global transactions with enhanced decision-making processes and anomaly detection.
He also provides advice for organizations at the early stages of their digital transformation journey, suggesting a focus on securing a top-down mandate, starting small with experiments, and being prepared to iterate based on feedback and results.
Join us as we uncover how Broadridge is navigating these changes and what other financial institutions can learn from their journey. How are you preparing for the digital transformation in your field? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
How do businesses navigate the growing security risks in a world where employees work from anywhere, on any device, with apps IT departments might not even know about? In this special episode of Tech Talks Daily, recorded live at Web Summit in Lisbon, I sit down with Jeff Shiner, CEO of 1Password—a $6.8 billion Canadian-based security company trusted by over 100,000 businesses worldwide.
Jeff shares how 1Password is redefining security through its innovative Extended Access Management platform, tackling challenges that have emerged with the rise of hybrid work, shadow IT, and the widespread adoption of SaaS tools. At a time when the “access trust gap” between employers and employees poses significant risks, Jeff outlines how businesses can close this gap by securing every sign-in, device, and app, without compromising productivity.
Our conversation explores the dual role of AI in cybersecurity: both as a potential threat and as a productivity enhancer. Jeff explains how 1Password leverages generative AI to improve customer support and address evolving enterprise needs. We also discuss the future of security, from integrating seamlessly with tools like Azure AD and Slack to meeting the growing demand for user-friendly solutions that employees willingly adopt—creating a win-win for both individuals and organizations.
With a focus on making security intuitive, reducing friction for users, and empowering businesses to thrive in today’s fast-paced digital environment, Jeff provides invaluable insights into how 1Password is shaping the future of enterprise security.
As we delve into these pressing topics, one key question remains: how can companies balance security and productivity in an ever-evolving threat landscape? Let me know your thoughts, and stay tuned for more conversations from Web Summit!
How is artificial intelligence redefining the boundaries of creativity and copyright law? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, recorded live at Web Summit in Lisbon, I sit down with Ed Klaris, Managing Partner at Klaris Law and a leading authority on the intersection of technology, media, and intellectual property.
With over 17 years of experience at powerhouse brands like ABC, Disney, and The New Yorker, Ed brings a nuanced perspective to one of the most pressing issues in media and entertainment today: the impact of generative AI on intellectual property rights.
Ed, fresh from a panel discussion titled AI vs. IP, dives into the challenges and opportunities that AI presents to content creators and legal professionals alike. We explore the contentious question of whether AI-generated works can be considered authored—and thus copyrightable—and examine how different global jurisdictions are interpreting human input requirements in the age of AI. From Hollywood's cautious embrace of AI tools to the legal debates surrounding training datasets and fair use, this conversation unpacks the complexities of blending cutting-edge technology with traditional IP frameworks.
We also discuss how businesses can navigate the legal risks of leveraging AI while protecting their proprietary content, the role of blockchain in licensing and rights management, and how companies like Microsoft are addressing concerns around private AI. Ed's insights highlight both the promise and peril of this evolving landscape, offering practical advice for those looking to stay ahead in this rapidly changing field.
As AI reshapes creativity and challenges legal norms, how can we strike a balance between protecting intellectual property and fostering innovation? Join us as we explore these critical questions and more from the show floor at Web Summit. I’d love to hear your thoughts—reach out via email or social media, and let’s continue the conversation!
How can the cybersecurity industry bridge the gap in its staggering 4 million open roles? This episode dives into the critical need for workforce development and how unconventional paths into cybersecurity are reshaping the field.
Joining us is Keatron Evans, VP of Portfolio and Product Strategy at Infosec, a company that has trained professionals at 70% of Fortune 500 organizations. With over 17 years of experience spanning penetration testing, incident response, and information security management, Keatron shares insights on why diverse backgrounds—from non-technical fields like nursing and the military—can enrich cybersecurity teams.
My guest explains how these unique perspectives, coupled with certifications and practical training, can address the skills gap in ways traditional pipelines cannot.
We also explore the growing importance of upskilling in widening talent pools, creating clear career paths, and ensuring inclusivity within the industry. Keatron delves into how organizations can move beyond certifications to focus on demonstrable skills and how AI is accelerating learning while paving the way for emerging roles in cloud security and AI strategy.
The conversation includes practical strategies for workplace leaders and educational institutions to revamp training programs, tap into unexpected talent pools, and prepare for 2025’s cybersecurity trends, including the intersection of cloud, AI, and cybersecurity.
Where do you see the biggest challenges or opportunities in addressing the cybersecurity skills gap? Join the discussion and share your thoughts! To learn more, connect with Keatron Evans and Infosec online for valuable insights into transforming your team’s cybersecurity potential.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I’m joined by Elliott Young, EMEA CTO at Dell Technologies, to explore Dell’s ambitious approach to making AI adoption easier and more effective for businesses of all sizes. As AI becomes a key driver of digital transformation, many organizations face barriers around data management, security, and the lack of skilled talent. Dell's AI Factory aims to address these challenges head-on, providing a comprehensive solution to streamline the journey from AI concept to value creation.
Elliott introduces us to Dell’s AI Factory, a scalable infrastructure designed to support a wide range of GPU options, from NVIDIA to Intel and AMD, making it flexible enough to cater to everything from edge devices to cloud-based deployments. By leveraging pre-engineered frameworks and design patterns, the AI Factory helps businesses accelerate their AI projects, reducing the time and complexity of deployment. We dive into real-world use cases, including "Hero AI" solutions like digital humans in emergency rooms and AI-augmented contact centers, demonstrating how AI can transform industries by embedding intelligence into core production systems.
We also tackle the critical issue of data security. Elliott explains why on-premise and hybrid cloud models remain the preferred choice for over 80% of businesses due to their enhanced security and compliance features. He highlights Dell’s commitment to zero-trust principles and secure supply chains, which form the foundation of the AI Factory’s data management capabilities. Additionally, Elliott shares insights into the innovative security strategies required to address the unique data challenges posed by AI technologies.
Sustainability is another key focus for Dell, as Elliott discusses the energy efficiency improvements in the latest generation of Dell PowerEdge servers and the company's efforts to use recycled materials in hardware and packaging. We also explore how GenAI solutions within the AI Factory can help optimize resource usage, replacing outdated, less efficient AI systems.
As the conversation moves to the skills gap in AI, Elliott talks about Dell's approach to bridging this divide. By focusing on business expertise rather than purely technical skills, Dell’s workshops and professional services aim to make AI accessible for a broader range of users. He emphasizes the importance of empowering teams to prioritize AI use cases that align with business objectives.
Finally, we discuss Dell's commitment to an open ecosystem approach, which supports multiple hardware options and software integrations. Elliott explains how multi-tenancy capabilities within the AI Factory enable efficient resource sharing across departments, maximizing GPU utilization and driving business efficiency.
The company is currently preparing for the Dell Technologies Forum on November 26th, where they will showcase the latest capabilities of the AI Factory. This episode offers a sneak peek into the future of AI-driven innovation and how businesses can overcome common hurdles in AI adoption.
Will Dell’s AI Factory pave the way for a more accessible and effective AI landscape?
This episode was recorded live at Web Summit with Andrew Skrypnyk, CEO and co-founder of Promova, a language learning platform that’s making waves in the EdTech space. With a recent nomination for the 2024 Allstars Awards by GP Bullhound and a spot on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list, Andrew brings a unique perspective on the evolving landscape of education technology and the future of accessible learning. From his move from Ukraine to San Francisco, where he expanded Promova’s reach, to achieving 15 million downloads and 1.8 million active users, Andrew's journey is nothing short of inspiring.
We discuss the challenges of competing in a saturated market against giants like Duolingo and Babbel, and explore Promova’s path to profitability in just two years. Andrew shares insights on how the platform has evolved from a simple flashcard app to a comprehensive, personalized learning tool designed with inclusivity at its core. We discuss innovative features like Dyslexia Mode, which aims to make language learning accessible to neurodivergent individuals, and the balance of AI and human interaction in creating an effective educational experience.
Andrew also sheds light on Promova's partnership with the Ukrainian government, offering free premium access to all Ukrainians, a commitment to support language learning during times of crisis. As he prepares to speak at Web Summit 2024 on the panel "Teaching for Tomorrow's Jobs Today," Andrew offers a glimpse into the future of EdTech and the growing importance of adapting content for diverse learning needs.
Is the future of education technology rooted in personalization and inclusivity? Can language learning apps blend AI with the human touch to deliver better outcomes? Tune in to find out, and share your thoughts after the episode!
Are we ready to see a true revolution in the offshore wind industry? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we’re joined by Joe Tidball, VP and Co-Founder of Beam, a cutting-edge British deep tech company making waves (literally) with its innovative use of AI and autonomy.
As the world leans further into renewable energy, Beam is stepping up with robotic ships and autonomous underwater vehicles designed to service offshore wind farms more efficiently than ever before.
We’ll explore how Beam’s technology is helping to solve the offshore industry’s growing labor challenges and meet ambitious targets set for 2030. Joe shares insights into their recent groundbreaking achievement—the world’s first AI-driven autonomous underwater vehicle deployed to inspect offshore structures. It’s a feat that signals a new era for automation and data-driven decision-making in the energy sector.
In our conversation, we break down the basics of the offshore wind industry for newcomers, dive into the ways technology is transforming this space, and discuss the implications of integrating AI, including both its promise and potential pitfalls. Joe offers a candid look at how Beam navigates these challenges and what the future holds for AI-driven autonomy in wind farm operations.
As Web Summit gathers industry leaders and tech enthusiasts from around the globe, this episode couldn’t be more timely. So, is AI the key to unlocking the full potential of renewable energy, or are we still navigating uncharted waters?
Tune in and find out. And after you listen, don’t forget to share your thoughts—can AI truly redefine our approach to energy sustainability, or is there more work to be done?
In an age dominated by surveillance and data collection, is it truly possible to achieve digital anonymity? On today’s episode, recorded live from Web Summit in Lisbon, I’m joined by two trailblazers who are challenging conventional wisdom around online privacy: Chelsea Manning, well-known whistleblower and privacy advocate, and Harry Halpin, CEO of Nym Technologies.
Together, they reveal why traditional tools like VPNs and encrypted messaging apps might not be enough to protect us in a world where advanced AI can mine metadata to uncover our most private activities.
We explore the current state of digital privacy, dissecting the limitations of existing tools and introducing NymVPN, the world’s first decentralized VPN powered by a noise-generating mixnet.
With AI’s ability to sift through patterns in data, simple encryption isn’t sufficient anymore. Manning and Halpin delve into the concept of metadata—the often-overlooked data about data—highlighting its importance in AI-driven surveillance and why it poses a significant threat to our privacy.
In this engaging conversation, we break down how NymVPN’s mixnet technology offers a unique approach by obscuring online behavior with noise and mixing up data streams. We also address practical questions: Can this technology be easily adopted by everyday users? How does it stack up against popular tools like Tor? And what role does it play in regions plagued by censorship and heavy surveillance?
Whether you’re a journalist, an activist, or simply concerned about your digital privacy, this episode offers a thought-provoking look at the future of online anonymity. Are we truly entering a new frontier in digital freedom, or is privacy becoming an illusion? Tune in to find out—and decide for yourself if it’s time to rethink the tools you use to stay safe online.
After listening, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have your views on digital privacy changed after this discussion? Let me know. Until next time, stay informed and vigilant—because privacy is more than a right; it’s a necessity in today’s interconnected world.
In this special episode recorded live at Web Summit 2024, I’m joined by Mahe Bayireddi, the visionary CEO and co-founder of Phenom, a global leader in AI-powered talent experiences. As AI becomes a transformative force across industries, the HR sector is at a pivotal crossroads, and Phenom is leading the charge in redefining the future of talent management.
With a mission to help a billion people find the right work, Phenom’s innovative solutions are already benefiting companies like DHL, Kuehne+Nagel, and United Airlines, helping them hire faster, develop talent more effectively, and retain employees longer.
In our conversation, Mahe shares his unique insights on navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of AI regulations, including the complexities of the National Privacy Bill and the EU AI Act. We discuss why understanding these regulations is crucial for companies before implementing AI solutions and how ethical considerations play a key role in shaping the future of AI in HR. Mahe dives deep into how Phenom’s award-winning GenAI solutions are driving efficiency, productivity, and employee satisfaction while addressing the challenges of balancing automation with human oversight.
We also explore Mahe’s vision for the future of HR and the role AI will play in creating more personalized, data-driven talent experiences. What does the rise of GenAI mean for HR professionals, and how can organizations adapt to these changes while remaining compliant? Join us for a thought-provoking discussion on the future of AI in HR, the regulatory hurdles ahead, and how companies can embrace this technology responsibly.
Tune in for an insightful conversation that explores the intersection of AI, regulation, and the evolving world of work. What are your thoughts on the balance between innovation and compliance in the age of AI? Share your perspectives, and don’t miss the latest from Web Summit 2024.
Useful Links
www.phenom.com www.iamphenom.com
In this episode, I’m joined by Jitesh Ghai, CEO of Hyland, to discuss the pressing yet often overlooked issue: unstructured data and its potential to redefine AI strategies. As enterprises increasingly prioritize AI, unstructured data—like documents, videos, and images—remains a largely untapped resource, despite making up about 80-85% of enterprise data.
We explore why this data holds untold potential and how Hyland aims to unlock this through their newly launched Content Innovation Cloud.
Jitesh shares insights on why organizations should look beyond conventional data lakes and warehouses, shifting focus towards content repositories. This approach enables companies to harness large language models to extract insights and accelerate innovation.
We also discuss Hyland's role as a long-standing leader in enterprise content management, trusted by over 14,000 customers worldwide. With a vision to drive AI-driven transformation, Hyland’s platform goes beyond simple automation to offer a unique mix of content intelligence, process intelligence, and application intelligence.
Jitesh provides a preview of Hyland’s AI strategy, highlighting their rapid development cycle, where new capabilities are delivered in months rather than years. We explore how leveraging customers’ data assets can serve as a powerful tool in developing advanced AI features, while balancing the pace of innovation with real-world practicality.
If you’ve been considering how to effectively integrate AI into your enterprise and harness the power of your existing content, this episode offers a fresh perspective on the opportunities and strategies that can make it possible. Are you ready to rethink your approach to unstructured data and unlock its full potential? Tune in, and let’s see where it takes us.
What do you think? Could unstructured data be the missing piece in your AI strategy? Share your thoughts with us after listening!
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Tanvir Khan, Executive Vice President at NTT Data, to explore the cutting-edge technologies shaping the future of business. With a focus on Generative AI, cybersecurity, and the evolution of digital workplaces, Tanvir shares insights from NTT Data’s approach to driving industry innovation and tackling complex challenges. We begin with a deep dive into the world of Generative AI, discussing how this transformative technology is already making waves in industries from finance to healthcare.
Tanvir explains why large-scale experimentation and empowering employees are key strategies for unlocking AI’s potential. We also consider the broader implications of AI, including its ability to enhance—rather than replace—human expertise, particularly in fields like risk management and regulatory compliance.
The conversation shifts to cybersecurity in the AI era, where Tanvir outlines a holistic approach that includes strengthening perimeter defenses, minimizing damage through encryption, and building rapid recovery capabilities. With AI playing a dual role in both enhancing security and posing new threats, he emphasizes the importance of ongoing user training to mitigate human vulnerabilities.
As we navigate the modern digital workplace, Tanvir discusses how the shift to hybrid work has redefined collaboration and productivity. We explore the blend of physical and virtual spaces, the need for proactive tech support, and the role of AI-driven tools in creating seamless experiences for employees. He shares how companies can harness Generative AI to support this hybrid model, driving efficiency while maintaining flexibility.
Finally, we touch on NTT Data’s innovative strategies in financial services, including a recent partnership with Naehas to streamline personalized banking solutions. Tanvir highlights the growing need for integrated, AI-driven approaches in digital banking and how these solutions are transforming customer experiences.
How can businesses effectively integrate AI into their strategies without overestimating its capabilities? What steps should companies take to protect against evolving cybersecurity threats? Tune in to hear Tanvir Khan’s expert insights and share your thoughts on the future of technology and digital transformation.
In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, we welcome Julia Fraser, Executive Vice President of the Americas at Sinch, a global leader in Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS). Julia shares her expertise on the transformative power of RCS (Rich Communication Services), which is poised to become the default messaging standard by 2025.
With enhanced branded capabilities, richer interactive features, and deep analytics, RCS is set to revolutionize how businesses connect with customers. Julia discusses how the upcoming iOS 18 launch is expected to be a game-changer, significantly broadening the reach of RCS and offering new opportunities for businesses to engage users with personalized, verified messaging.
We dive into the business impact of RCS, exploring how it builds trust through brand verification, increases engagement with interactive features, and provides unparalleled metrics for businesses. Julia highlights successful case studies, like a French food retailer that saw a 42% boost in engagement using RCS, and explains why companies should prepare now to integrate this technology into their broader customer engagement strategies.
Beyond technology, we explore Julia’s insights on holiday season trends, including early campaign starts and the rise of MMS as a stepping stone to full RCS adoption. She offers predictions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, providing valuable tips on maximizing customer interactions through an omnichannel approach.
We also discuss leadership and diversity in tech, where Julia shares her journey as a female leader in a male-dominated industry. She discusses the importance of mentorship, the role of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), and Sinch’s commitment to building an inclusive workplace. With a focus on fostering a culture of continuous learning and listening, Julia’s leadership philosophy offers valuable advice for aspiring leaders in tech.
How will RCS redefine business messaging, and what strategies should companies adopt to stay ahead of the curve? Tune in to find out, and share your thoughts on the future of customer communication.
What does it mean to be an "everyday influencer" in a world driven by content and social media? On today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, we’re joined by Sean O’Brien, CTO and co-founder of Mavely.
The company is transforming how creators, big and small, connect with brands and monetize their online presence. While many platforms cater to top-tier influencers, Mavely’s unique approach is empowering the next wave of creators—everyday individuals who are driving engagement with authentic, relatable content.
We explore how Mavely is helping more than 70,000 creators monetize their followings through partnerships with over 1,000 retailers, delivering a full spectrum of earning opportunities beyond the traditional brand campaigns. Sean shares how Mavely’s creator-first philosophy offers tools and features designed to enhance the user experience and maximize revenue, with a strong emphasis on data analytics. He explains how a focus on personalized recommendations and tailored content strategies allows both creators and brands to thrive, optimizing each touchpoint from discovery to conversion.
Sean also dives into the shifting dynamics of social commerce, especially as Gen Z shoppers demand more genuine interactions and multiple engagements before making a purchase. He discusses how Mavely’s recent upgrades, including LinkedIn integration for B2B creators and the "Button" feature for enhanced Instagram engagement, are meeting these expectations.
Additionally, we examine the platform’s innovative approach to data-driven strategies, providing insights that help creators choose what to promote and when, while brands gain visibility on ROI like never before.
As we navigate the future of influencer marketing, Sean highlights trends shaping the industry, including the rise of "faceless creators," the growing need for seamless, cross-platform integration, and the importance of robust attribution technologies.
So, how is Mavely empowering real people to become powerful partners for brands, and what lies ahead for the creator economy? Tune in to find out, and don’t forget to share your thoughts on whether you believe everyday influencers could be the key to the future of social commerce.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Annette Taylor, an evolutionary psychology researcher with a unique perspective on the relationship between our ancestral roots and modern technology.
Annette, a former IT professional, delves into the heart of what she calls the "Cavedweller's POV" to explore how our Stone Age minds struggle to adapt to the rapid pace of technological advancements. Is our obsession with efficiency at odds with our innate need for creativity and connection, or are we simply adapting ancient survival strategies to a new digital world?
Annette outlines three key stages of human history—tree dwellers, cave dwellers, and modern house dwellers—and discusses how our biological instincts, shaped thousands of years ago, still govern much of our behavior today. We discuss how our brains are wired for face-to-face interactions, making the loss of non-verbal cues in digital communication problematic.
The implications for our relationships, decision-making, and even mental health are profound, with Annette highlighting how our reliance on digital tools may leave us feeling disconnected and less fulfilled.
We also dive into the challenge of integrating AI into our lives. Annette shares her thoughts on the psychological impact of AI taking over tasks that once provided us with a sense of purpose. Drawing from her own research, she suggests that our need for a sense of belonging, honed during our time as small, cooperative groups, is threatened by an increasing reliance on technology. Are we unknowingly trading our innate creativity and connection for the comfort of efficiency?
Annette offers a refreshing take on how self-awareness and understanding our evolutionary psychology can help us navigate the complexities of our tech-saturated world. Instead of merely reacting to technology, she suggests we need to "relearn" our biology to make more informed choices about how we use it. By revisiting our past, can we better understand the present and make smarter decisions for our future?
Join me as we explore whether our ancient instincts are clashing with modern tech or if we can harness these old survival mechanisms in new, more mindful ways. What can our inner cave dweller teach us about thriving in the digital age? And are we ready to embrace a slower, more thoughtful approach to technology use? Tune in to find out, and don’t forget to share your thoughts on this thought-provoking discussion.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we are live at VMware Explore in Barcelona, diving into the future of digital innovation in education with Keith Woolley, Chief Digital Information Officer at the University of Bristol. As one of the top 100 universities globally, Bristol is renowned for its cutting-edge research and tech-forward approach. Keith shares how the university harnesses VMware’s solutions to create a boundaryless, digital-first campus that enhances both research and educational experiences.
Keith discusses the complex technology ecosystem at Bristol, from virtualization tools and high-performance computing to a groundbreaking reality emulator used for digital twinning. He also explains the university’s strategic journey with VMware, highlighting how they’ve built a flexible infrastructure that supports diverse research needs while managing costs effectively. Keith’s insights reveal the shift towards on-premises private cloud solutions, driven by AI, data sovereignty, and the evolving demands of modern research institutions.
We explore the challenges and opportunities of integrating advanced AI capabilities, including the recent launch of the UK’s fastest supercomputer at the University of Bristol. Keith offers a behind-the-scenes look at how this state-of-the-art supercomputer is set to transform AI research and applications, paving the way for groundbreaking advancements in fields like biotechnology and sensory technology.
Finally, Keith shares his forward-thinking vision for the university in 2045, touching on the relevance of higher education in an AI-driven world and the importance of embedding AI into the curriculum. He discusses how the university is working with students to address concerns around generative AI, bias, and equity, ensuring that AI is used as a tool for learning rather than a shortcut.
Tune in to hear how the University of Bristol is redefining the digital campus and leading the way in tech-enabled education, research, and innovation. Could the future of education lie in a hybrid cloud approach that bridges the physical and digital worlds? Listen now and join the conversation on what lies ahead for universities and their role in a rapidly evolving tech landscape.
In today’s episode, recorded live from VMware Explore in Barcelona, I sit down with Chris Wolf, Global Head of AI and Advanced Services at VMware Cloud Foundation, Broadcom. Chris offers a front-row view of how VMware is leading the charge in transforming private AI solutions to meet the evolving needs of businesses across industries.
As the conversation unfolds, Chris provides insight into the core principles behind private AI and explains why privacy, security, and control over data are critical for businesses looking to unlock AI’s full potential without compromising compliance.
Chris shares real-world examples of how enterprises—from contact centers to police departments—are leveraging private AI to drive efficiency, improve customer experience, and streamline processes. He emphasizes how VMware’s AI solutions enable organizations to keep sensitive data on-premises, thus avoiding risks like data leakage and unauthorized model training. Through platforms like VMware’s Private Foundation with Nvidia and new support for Intel Gaudi 3 accelerators, organizations can now customize and control their AI infrastructure more effectively than ever before.
We also explore the future of enterprise AI, touching on agentic AI and how sophisticated AI agents are poised to reshape large-scale business operations. Chris provides a compelling look at how private AI can optimize resources and simplify workflows by offering modular, flexible solutions that don’t lock businesses into any single service provider.
Whether you're considering AI adoption or looking for ways to deepen its impact within your organization, this episode delves into VMware’s approach to balancing AI innovation with robust privacy protections. As we look toward 2025, Chris outlines the emerging trends and hybrid AI models set to redefine enterprise strategies.
So, how can your organization harness private AI to stay agile and secure in a rapidly evolving digital landscape? Tune in to discover how VMware is shaping the future of AI in business.
What does the future of beauty look like when powered by cutting-edge technology?
In this episode, we welcome Guive Balooch, the driving force behind L'Oréal’s Beauty Tech division, to explore how advancements in AI, AR, and personalization are reshaping the beauty industry. Over the past 15 years, L'Oréal has transformed how consumers engage with beauty products by pioneering tools like AI-powered skincare recommendations, virtual try-on for makeup, and precision diagnostics, all of which create a highly tailored experience for users. Guive reveals how inclusivity and accessibility are guiding L'Oréal’s tech innovations. One example is HAPTA, a robotic lipstick applicator developed in partnership with Verily, designed specifically for those with limited hand mobility. This dedication to inclusivity extends to ensuring diagnostic tools are effective across all skin tones, rigorously tested in over 15 countries. Sustainability is equally integral to L'Oréal's Beauty Tech mission. Guive shares insights into eco-conscious designs, like the Color Sonic device, which reduces plastic usage by 60%, and collaborations such as Gjosa, a water-saving technology aimed at minimizing water consumption in salons. As we look ahead, Guive discusses exciting possibilities, from biomarker-driven skincare and AI-enabled precision tools to the concept of electronic makeup. L'Oréal’s vision for the future is clear: create technology that not only enhances beauty experiences but also makes them more accessible, sustainable, and personalized. How will tech continue to transform the beauty industry, and what innovations can we expect in the years to come? Tune in to hear Guive’s insights and join the conversation on how technology can redefine beauty for all.
With AI fundamentally reshaping the cloud, what does this mean for the future of security?
In this episode, Nataraj Nagaratnam, CTO of Cloud Security at IBM, joins us to dive into the evolving dynamics of cloud security in the age of AI. As organizations integrate AI into their cloud environments, the traditional lines of responsibility for security are being redrawn, raising new questions about who safeguards what and how emerging risks are addressed.
Nataraj unpacks how AI-generated code is introducing unique vulnerabilities, with recent studies highlighting that nearly half of organizations are concerned about the security risks posed by AI-driven development.
My guest explains how the complex, multilayered enterprise AI stack—from applications and models to data and infrastructure—requires a nuanced, data-centric approach to security. This approach includes assessing data sensitivity, managing keys, and implementing tailored controls, especially as unstructured data and machine learning models bring fresh security challenges.
The shared responsibility model is also undergoing a transformation, with Nataraj outlining a shift from a simple customer-provider dynamic to one that includes AI model providers and data lineage.
With industries like healthcare and finance running critical systems in the cloud, regulatory frameworks are tightening, and transparency in model development and data lineage is increasingly emphasized.
Nataraj explores how IBM is working to normalize these controls across sectors, enabling compliance and resilience in a diverse range of cloud environments.
Automation emerges as a cornerstone of Nataraj’s strategy, helping organizations maintain secure, compliant cloud environments in both deployment and operations. He illustrates a dual-phase approach—automation for initial secure deployments and ongoing compliance monitoring—to ensure that security remains robust as systems evolve.
Finally, we discuss the future of cloud security, including the need for AI governance, third-party risk management, and transparency in model use, all critical as the AI-driven Supercycle unfolds.
What will the future of cloud security look like as AI becomes an integral part of our digital infrastructure? Tune in to explore Nataraj’s vision and strategies, and join the conversation—how is your organization preparing for the new era of AI and cloud security?
Is the tech world on the verge of a new Supercycle driven by AI, or is this another phase of venture capital hype?
In this episode, we’re joined by Rahul Baig, Head of Venture Capital & Growth Equity Coverage at Wells Fargo’s Technology Banking Group, to break down the dynamics reshaping the current tech VC landscape. Rahul offers a unique perspective on what’s captivating venture capitalists today and why the focus is shifting sharply towards AI-driven innovations.
As Rahul explains, the landscape for tech companies is changing dramatically. Software growth has slowed, and non-AI companies are finding it tougher to secure investments and gain traction. At the same time, unicorns outside of AI are experiencing funding dry spells, underscoring a rising trend in public markets that demands growth, profitability, and fair valuations. With increased standards for IPOs and heightened investor scrutiny, the bar for tech companies to go public has never been higher.
Beyond the focus on AI, Rahul highlights broader market forces, such as low volatility and rising equity markets, which are reinvigorating capital markets, albeit against a backdrop of geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty. In an era moving away from “growth at all costs,” capital efficiency, strong fundamentals, and sustainable growth are becoming essential for tech firms looking to survive and thrive. This shift marks a “survival of the fittest” phase, where companies with strong value propositions and resilient business models are positioned to succeed.
For founders and entrepreneurs, Rahul offers a roadmap to resilience in a crowded and challenging market. He stresses the need to build solutions that address real-world needs, maintain rigorous financial discipline, and focus on sustainable growth. In an environment where liquidity remains scarce and market competition is fierce, mental and physical stamina are essential for success.
What does the future hold for tech VC, and how can companies prepare for long-term growth? Tune in for Rahul’s insights and join the conversation—what do you see as the defining trends in venture capital today?
How are brands adapting to an ever-evolving landscape of emerging technology, and what does it take to make innovation truly impactful?
In this episode, I explore these questions with Christopher Neff, the Global Head of Emerging Experience & Technology at Anomaly, a leader in pushing the boundaries of brand engagement through technology.
Christopher has been instrumental in launching groundbreaking initiatives at Anomaly, such as the Classify tech incubator, designed to help brands navigate the complex domains of GenAI, Web3, and spatial computing. From guiding luxury giants like LVMH and Diageo to co-developing the Creator Cache Web3 program with Ally Financial, Christopher’s work is reshaping the way brands leverage emerging tech to stay connected and relevant.
Christopher shares his unique approach to fostering creativity and learning within tech, emphasizing hands-on experimentation as a key strategy for breaking through hype and understanding genuine capabilities. He highlights how AI, when applied thoughtfully, can enhance creativity and productivity, whether it's generating custom logos or crafting original music.
His insights into tools like Runway for AI-driven animation illustrate how technology can bring imaginative ideas to life while allowing brands to move at a pace previously unachievable. He also addresses the power of metaverse platforms and gaming engines like Roblox and Fortnite, noting how these digital worlds are not just cultural phenomena but are creating new, immersive spaces for younger generations.
We also delve into Christopher's advisory roles, such as his work with Million Marker, which focuses on biological testing to tackle issues like plastic contamination. This ties into his belief that sustainability and ethical considerations are paramount for brands exploring new technologies. By discussing the balancing act of innovation with environmental consciousness, Christopher provides valuable perspective on how tech can evolve responsibly.
What are the biggest challenges and opportunities for brands in this rapidly advancing tech era? And how can they maintain a human-centered approach as they embrace automation and AI?
Tune in for an insightful conversation that challenges conventional thinking on creativity, sustainability, and the future of brand experiences.
Share your thoughts with us—how do you see emerging technology shaping the brand experience in years to come?
Are telecom operators prepared for a future where connectivity is as seamless as it is sophisticated? In this episode, we speak with Emir Aboulhosn, CEO of NetLync, who has been instrumental in transforming how operators deliver mobile services through NetLync's pioneering Entitlements-as-a-Service (EaaS) model.
Emir shares the story behind this innovative platform, which debuted earlier this year and has quickly attracted over 100 operators worldwide. This service enables mobile network operators (MNOs) and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) of all sizes to launch essential mobile features within weeks, slashing deployment times from traditional timelines that stretched to a year or more.
The conversation explores how NetLync’s solution is democratizing access to advanced connectivity features, allowing even smaller operators to compete with larger players. Emir discusses how EaaS is breaking down barriers in an industry traditionally dominated by OEM agreements, making technologies like eSIM Quick Transfer, VoLTE, and WiFi Calling accessible to a wider range of operators.
We also look into the upcoming global adoption of eSIM-only smartphones and how NetLync is positioning itself to support this shift, ensuring that operators are prepared to provide the seamless connectivity experiences customers demand.
As we unpack the broader implications of EaaS, Emir dives into NetLync’s self-onboarding, developer-focused approach and how this method is simplifying integration while setting a new standard for customer experience. What does the future hold for telecom operators as eSIM technology becomes the norm and entitlements technology continues to expand?
Tune in as Emir provides insights into NetLync’s vision for connectivity’s next frontier and shares valuable takeaways for an industry poised for transformation. How do you see this impacting the telecom landscape, and are operators truly ready for what’s next? Let us know your thoughts.
What does it take for organizations to stay one step ahead of cyber threats in an increasingly digital world? In this episode, I sit down with Dirk Schrader, Field CISO EMEA and VP of Security Research at Netwrix, to explore the state of cybersecurity and the findings from Netwrix’s latest annual security report.
The conversation reveals a stark reality: 79% of organizations experienced a cyberattack in the past year, a rise from 68% in 2023, with ransomware remaining one of the most significant threats.
Dirk offers insights into what these trends mean for organizations today, especially as cloud-based infrastructure attacks are now matching on-premise incidents. He highlights how identity compromise has become the primary attack vector, particularly for privileged identities, underscoring the importance of identity and privilege management.
Throughout the episode, Dirk shares the protective measures organizations can adopt, from fostering a positive security culture that encourages reporting and proactive engagement to utilizing just-in-time privilege approaches and identity threat detection systems.
We also discuss the challenges and opportunities brought by remote work and the increasing reliance on cloud services, which demand a shift in traditional security practices. Dirk advocates for a flexible but resilient approach to cyber risk management, where understanding sector-specific needs and balancing regulatory compliance play crucial roles.
Lastly, we touch on the role of AI in the evolving cybersecurity landscape—both as a defense mechanism and as a potential tool for adversaries, especially with threats like deepfake voice calls and scalable persuasive phishing on the horizon.
Tune in to understand how Netwrix’s research and Dirk’s expertise can help your organization anticipate risks, fortify defenses, and foster a robust security strategy in an era where cyber resilience is paramount. What cybersecurity challenges have you faced in your organization, and what steps are you taking to address them? Let us know your thoughts.
How are organizations rethinking workforce strategies to stay flexible and innovative in today’s rapidly changing landscape? This episode features a conversation with Hugo Malan, President of Kelly Science, Engineering, Technology & Telecom, where he shares insights on the shifts shaping workforce management and driving industries forward.
With a background in electronic engineering and extensive executive experience, Hugo has been instrumental in Kelly’s strategic acquisitions of Softworld and Motion Recruitment Partners. These significant moves have strengthened Kelly’s capabilities in areas like secure government talent and specialized tech staffing, introducing new thinking to their approach.
Hugo discusses mixed labor strategies, blending full-time staff with temporary and project-based roles to create adaptable teams ready for evolving demands. He explains the benefits, including access to niche skills for short-term projects and the ability to adjust workforces effectively across economic cycles. Hugo also examines a recent shift in the temporary labor market, offering perspective on why the industry has seen reduced demand for temporary roles despite economic growth and what this trend may reveal about current business sentiment.
For mid-career tech professionals, Hugo offers guidance on staying competitive, from upskilling to leveraging AI-driven tools that streamline workflows.
In this episode, we tackle a fresh perspective on a common cybersecurity question: What keeps a CISO awake at night?
According to Michael Covington, VP of Strategy at Jamf, the real issue isn’t about external threats but rather a lack of robust security processes, especially in mobile device management. Covington shares insights on how a well-thought-out strategy can let CISOs rest easy, with their minds at ease knowing that key areas, from cyber hygiene to compliance, are under control.
Our conversation dives into three primary areas that Covington believes are essential for keeping mobile device vulnerabilities at bay and ensuring secure integration within enterprise ecosystems. First, he highlights the often-overlooked importance of cyber hygiene. He notes that nearly 40% of mobile users operate devices with known vulnerabilities, a staggering figure that reveals the challenges organizations face in keeping devices up-to-date and correctly configured. Covington argues that regular updates, vigilant configuration management, and consistent patching practices are not just best practices—they’re fundamental in building a secure foundation.
Second, we explore the complexities of compliance, particularly when it comes to mobile devices. Covington points out that many organizations struggle to balance security regulations with the diverse landscape of personal and work devices. He suggests that the right tools can streamline compliance, ensuring that mobile devices align with broader corporate standards without creating unnecessary friction.
Lastly, Covington addresses the evolving nature of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies and the intricacies of managing shared devices. Despite their long-standing presence, these device policies often present challenges, with many organizations lacking effective management strategies. Covington emphasizes the need for layered solutions that integrate into existing security frameworks without overwhelming IT teams or sacrificing the user experience.
Join us as we unpack Jamf’s approach to these challenges and discuss the future of mobile security in industries from healthcare to aviation. How can organizations prepare for the next wave of AI-driven data on mobile devices? And what steps can they take now to ensure seamless, secure access for users? Listen in and share your thoughts on the balance between security, compliance, and user enablement in today’s mobile-driven world.
What does a truly decentralized communication network look like in Web3? Today’s episode explores this question with Push Protocol, a company establishing itself as “The Communication Protocol of Web3.” With over 237,000 subscribers and more than 700 integrations, Push Protocol enables secure, encrypted messaging, notifications, and video for wallet addresses across an open network, powering well-known platforms like Uniswap, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Lens, alongside integrations with MetaMask.
Our conversation with Harsh Rajat Founder, Push Protocol will unpack how the platform has grown to send over 110 billion notifications for Web3 activities, like DeFi transactions and ENS domains. Harsh discusses Push V3, an upcoming launch featuring wallet-free sharing, cross-chain compatibility, and omni-chain capabilities, making it even more adaptable across multiple blockchains.
We’ll also dive into Push Nodes—a new Proof of Stake Network designed to establish a decentralized, scalable communication blockchain. Harsh shares insights into the network’s unique capability to handle high-volume, real-time communication while supporting both EVM and non-EVM transaction payloads.
As privacy and security remain at the forefront of Push Protocol’s mission, end-to-end encryption is key in ensuring sensitive communications are safeguarded. Push Protocol is setting its sights on becoming the foundational communication layer for successful Web3 applications, placing user privacy at the center of decentralized communication.
Are we approaching a future where blockchain-based communication can offer both security and decentralization? Join us to hear Push Protocol’s vision and consider how it might transform the decentralized communication landscape. What role do you see secure communication playing in the future of Web3? Share your thoughts!
In a world increasingly dominated by digital transactions, businesses face the ever-growing challenge of navigating complex payment ecosystems. How can enterprises streamline their payment processes to ensure both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency? Today, we're exploring these questions and more with Tom Voaden, VP of Commercial at BR-DGE, who will shed light on their innovative white-label payment orchestration solution.
BR-DGE, a cutting-edge payment orchestration provider, has made significant strides with its modular, white-label platform designed to seamlessly integrate various payment services under one roof. This solution not only addresses the inefficiencies of legacy systems but also combats market fragmentation, enabling businesses to improve authorization rates and optimize payment processing through dynamic routing and tokenization. Founded in Edinburgh in 2018 and having expanded its footprint globally, BR-DGE is now setting new standards in payment technology by empowering clients with customizable tech stacks that enhance their competitive edge.
The conversation will delve into the specifics of BR-DGE’s offerings, such as BR-DGE Connect, which aggregates payment providers, methods, and fraud management tools, and their tokenization service that enhances transaction security. We will discuss how these services bridge the gap between traditional systems and modern fintech solutions, allowing providers to offer state-of-the-art features without overhauling their existing infrastructure. Additionally, Tom will highlight how BR-DGE's solutions foster better customer relationships through their flexible and scalable technology, facilitating businesses to expand internationally and solidify their market positions.
As BR-DGE continues to grow, exploring data-driven offerings to enrich their value proposition and planning further expansion into markets like Australia, we'll examine the strategic moves that position them as a leader in the payment sector. Their commitment to easing compliance burdens and enhancing merchant retention through innovative services demonstrates a forward-thinking approach to the future of financial transactions.
As we uncover the layers of payment orchestration and its impact on the global market, what are your thoughts on the future of payment technologies? How do you see these innovations influencing your daily business operations or customer interactions? Join the conversation and share your insights.
Can finding a tradesperson be as effortless as ordering a pizza? Today, we explore this question with Jambu Palaniappan, CEO of Checkatrade and former Uber executive, as he leads the digital transformation of the £59 billion UK home services industry. In this episode, Jambu shares his vision for bringing trust and efficiency to a sector that, while essential, has largely remained offline.
Since its founding in 1998, Checkatrade has built a reputation as a trusted platform for connecting homeowners with vetted tradespeople, addressing a critical need that emerged after a natural disaster highlighted the risk of rogue traders. Now, Jambu is focused on evolving Checkatrade from a traditional lead-generation platform into a comprehensive, end-to-end marketplace that simplifies every step of the home services journey—from finding a qualified tradesperson to payment and review. Imagine a world where scheduling, cost estimation, and invoicing are all streamlined on one platform, giving users peace of mind and tradespeople a business management toolkit that’s intuitive and effective.
Checkatrade’s digital roadmap includes innovations like a new consumer app, launched to enhance accessibility and engagement, and business tools that make quoting and invoicing seamless. But with rapid innovation comes the challenge of balancing trust and quality. Checkatrade’s rigorous 12-step vetting process remains central to its mission, and the company continues to reject potential members who don’t meet its standards—because, as Jambu puts it, “no one checks trades like Checkatrade.” Alongside technological advancements, Checkatrade is also addressing a shortage in skilled trades by partnering with over 500 schools to promote careers in the industry, making this digital transformation as inclusive as it is innovative.
In our conversation, Jambu reflects on lessons from his career, including insights from Uber’s rapid growth and his gratitude toward mentors who saw his potential. With new features on the horizon and plans to transform the home services market, what does the future hold for Checkatrade’s digital journey? And will this blend of innovation and trust reshape how we navigate home improvement? Share your thoughts with us after tuning in!
Have you ever thought about how a simple device, something as modest as a “dumb phone,” could bring transformative change to billions? In today’s episode, we're diving into this fascinating intersection of technology, accessibility, and social impact with Anu Bhardwaj, the visionary founder of SHEQONOMI.
As the world’s first and only women-led podcast platform aimed at the "bottom five billion," SHEQONOMI is making digital content and economic empowerment accessible to underserved women across the globe. From low-cost phones to inclusive content in over 50 languages, Anu's mission is to bridge the gender gap and bring education, health, and financial knowledge to women who traditionally lack access.
SHEQONOMI isn’t your typical podcast platform. It’s specifically designed to work on low-cost mobile applications such as Jio, Cloud Phone, KaiOS, Android, and iOS. Anu’s pioneering approach allows the platform to reach communities often left out of the digital revolution. Imagine being able to connect and educate through over 5,000 women-centric podcasts in diverse languages—empowering voices that span topics from health to entrepreneurship, all while rewarding users for content creation and listening.
Anu also brings a profound personal story of resilience and commitment. Inspired by her daughter’s questions about educational inequalities, she built this platform from scratch, even securing a prestigious $150,000 grant from the Islamic Development Bank during the pandemic. Her achievements don’t stop there: from co-chairing the Blockchain for Impact Summit at the United Nations to being named one of Inc Magazine’s Global Top 100 Female Founders, Anu has made it her mission to use technology to uplift women and drive positive change.
So, what’s next for SHEQONOMI? Anu is setting her sights on developing a "super app" for marginalized populations, integrating generative AI, and expanding partnerships to bring more voices into the conversation. Could this pioneering platform redefine digital inclusion for billions around the world? And as Anu continues to break new ground, who would she love to have a conversation with from the worlds of tech, venture capital, or social impact?
Tune in to discover how SHEQONOMI is reshaping the digital landscape for underserved communities, one podcast at a time. Would you agree that technology’s real power lies in its ability to unite and uplift? Let us know your thoughts!
Are you ready to explore how AI is transforming personal computing? In this episode, I am joined by Louise Quennell from Dell Technologies and Matt Hains from Intel as we discuss the exciting world of AI-powered PCs. With AI increasingly becoming integral to our devices, we uncover how these innovations are boosting productivity, creativity, and collaboration in ways that were once unimaginable.
AI's impact on business tasks is undeniable, from automating everyday tasks like drafting emails and taking meeting minutes to enhancing video calls with real-time translations and background blur. But it's time to think bigger. As organizations strive to remain competitive, AI PCs are not just an incremental improvement but a pivotal shift in how tasks are automated, data is processed, and security is handled. From healthcare to research and development, these devices are speeding up workflows, improving decision-making, and even personalizing the computing experience by keeping critical data secure on the device itself.
Matt and Louise provide a fascinating glimpse into the hardware that makes this possible, including Intel's Core Ultra processors, which offer a powerful blend of CPU, GPU, and NPU to accelerate AI workloads. Whether improving battery life, boosting processing speed, or enabling new AI-driven experiences, AI PCs are poised to become essential tools for the modern business environment.
How can businesses effectively adopt this technology, and where do they start? Before scaling up, we'll discuss establishing business personas and testing AI PCs in small, targeted areas. Lou and Matt also dive into Dell's sustainability efforts, showing how their AI PCs are designed with eco-friendliness in mind, from using recycled materials to minimizing energy consumption.
As we continue to witness the shift towards AI-enhanced hardware, it's clear that businesses must think strategically about their digital transformation. How will AI PCs fit into your organization's roadmap? And how will they unlock new levels of innovation and efficiency?
Tune in to hear more, and let us know how you envision AI PCs shaping your business's future.
Learn how to make more innovative tech investments today! https://intel.ly/3SwQxkT
What does the future of the automotive industry look like, and how are automakers rethinking their approach to meet evolving consumer demands? In today’s episode, I sit down with Justin Marcucci, Chief Digital Officer at Endava, to explore how the automotive world is navigating a transformative shift.
From direct-to-consumer models and subscription-based sales to the rise of electric vehicles and high-tech in-cabin experiences, Justin shares his insights into how automakers are reimagining the entire customer journey.
As more OEMs move toward owning their customer relationships through direct sales, they face challenges ranging from dealer resistance to complex logistics and regulatory hurdles.
Justin highlights both the potential cost savings and the roadblocks that are slowing this transition. We also dive into the growing importance of subscription services and how automakers can unlock new revenue streams by offering digital services beyond traditional hardware sales.
Another key focus of our conversation is the evolving expectations of today’s drivers, particularly younger generations. With a reduced emphasis on car ownership and a stronger interest in sustainable transportation and shared mobility, automakers are under pressure to adapt. Justin outlines strategies for engaging this shifting market and overcoming barriers, such as the slower-than-expected adoption of electric vehicles in some regions. Finally, we turn to the in-cabin experience, which is becoming a crucial differentiator for automakers.
Justin explains how advancements in AI and connectivity are shaping the future of in-vehicle interactions, and why it’s critical for OEMs to develop proprietary software platforms to ensure seamless integration and capitalize on monetization opportunities. How are automakers leveraging technology to stay competitive in this rapidly changing landscape?
Tune in as we discuss these trends and explore Endava’s role in helping the automotive industry navigate its digital transformation. Are you ready to rethink how we experience driving in the future? Let us know your thoughts after the episode!
Are we truly harnessing the full potential of AI, or are we missing critical elements that could set us back? Join me as I explore a topic often overlooked yet vital for the ethical advancement of technology: AI bias.
On this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Jennifer Mahoney, Demand Delivery Manager of Data Governance, Privacy, and Protection at Optiv Security, Inc., who brings a wealth of knowledge on this subject.
Jennifer shares insights into the origins, manifestations, and impacts of AI bias, alongside strategies to mitigate its effects. She explains how biases in AI stem from human cognitive processes and societal stereotypes, influencing everything from facial recognition technologies to targeted advertising. We delve into various types of bias such as stereotyping, confirmation bias, and representation bias, examining the real-world repercussions that often remain unnoticed.
Jennifer also discusses the necessity of secure AI governance and the challenges organizations face in operationalizing security programs that integrate AI responsibly. From the pressures of rapid deployment to the need for diverse perspectives and thorough testing, she outlines what effective governance looks like in practice. Additionally, our conversation covers the evolving landscape of AI regulation, including the impact of the EU AI Act and the emergence of industry-specific guidelines.
As we navigate these complex issues, how can organizations balance innovation with ethical considerations to harness the full power of AI without falling prey to its pitfalls? What are the next steps for leaders looking to implement robust AI governance frameworks in their operations?
Join us as we explore these pressing questions and more, offering insights on creating a more equitable technological future.
Could artificial intelligence be the secret ingredient to transforming sales performance management? Today, we're joined by Arnab Mishra, CEO of Xactly, to explore this intriguing possibility. Under Arnab's leadership, Xactly has pioneered the integration of generative AI into the sales process, offering organizations remarkable productivity enhancements and more streamlined operations.
Arnab brings a rich background in software executive leadership and a deep understanding of SaaS product development, making him uniquely positioned to speak on the revolutionary impact of AI in sales. With his extensive experience, including roles at Xactly as SVP of Products and later COO, Arnab has been at the forefront of driving growth and innovation within the company.
In this episode, we delve into the practicalities and potential of AI in redefining sales jobs and boosting overall sales productivity. Arnab will share insights on Xactly’s AI Copilot, which utilizes the largest empirical sales performance dataset to enhance decision-making and productivity in sales organizations. We'll discuss the current barriers to AI adoption in sales, such as the steep learning curve and the rapid pace of sales cycles, which often hinder the effective implementation of new technologies.
Moreover, Arnab will outline Xactly’s strategies for overcoming these challenges, including micro-trainings embedded within products to ease the learning process and streamline adoption. We'll also touch on the broader implications of AI in sales, from automating routine tasks to transforming customer interactions through personalized experiences.
As AI continues to evolve, its role in sales goes beyond merely increasing efficiency; it's about enhancing the quality of decisions and interactions. Join us as we uncover how Xactly’s innovations are not just changing the game but also setting the stage for a future where AI and human ingenuity work hand in hand for superior sales performance.
What do you think the future holds for AI in sales? After listening, share your thoughts and join the conversation below.
Have you ever wondered how developing countries are adapting to the rise of cryptocurrency? Or how AI is transforming the way we experience crypto payments in physical retail outlets? In today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I enjoy a conversation with Peko Wan, co-CEO of Pundi X, to explore these very questions.
Pundi X, celebrating its 7th anniversary, has been at the forefront of the crypto revolution, playing a pivotal role in making cryptocurrency accessible to merchants and consumers alike. From deploying their innovative POS solutions to solidifying partnerships with governments and retailers, Pundi X has consistently pushed the boundaries of what's possible in fintech.
Peko brings over 15 years of IT industry experience and a wealth of knowledge from her time at companies like Opera Software and Ogilvy & Mather. Together, we discuss how crypto payment adoption has evolved since 2017, particularly in developing countries, where currency devaluation and inflation are driving a bottom-up approach to adoption.
Peko also dives into how Pundi X is leveraging AI to enhance crypto payments, from managing liquidity pools to AI-driven mechanisms for anti-money laundering (AML) compliance.
As we explore the challenges and opportunities in the world of crypto payments, Peko shares insights into Pundi X’s upcoming initiatives, including a data marketplace platform launching this November. This initiative will empower users to contribute, annotate, and sell data for AI model training, creating new opportunities for innovation in the space.
How do you see AI reshaping the future of crypto payments? And will developing countries lead the charge in crypto adoption? Tune in, and don’t forget to share your thoughts!
What does it take to turn a life from near rock-bottom to extraordinary success? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Jeff Lerner, founder of ENTRE Institute, who shares his inspiring story of transformation. In 2008, Jeff was a struggling jazz musician with mounting debt, facing personal and professional challenges. Yet, in just a decade, he reinvented himself—building multiple 8-figure businesses, transforming his personal life, and founding ENTRE Institute, a platform designed to help others achieve “whole life” success.
We dive into Jeff's life philosophy, shaped by his unique 3 Ps framework—Physical, Personal, and Professional—which emphasizes the balance needed to create lasting success. ENTRE Institute has already enrolled over 250,000 students, combining entrepreneurship training with personal development to address the often-overlooked gaps in traditional business education. But how does Jeff see the future of entrepreneurship evolving, particularly with the integration of AI? He offers insight into how AI can revolutionize the entrepreneurial world, while stressing the importance of maintaining authenticity and personal value in a rapidly digitizing landscape.
This episode isn’t just about business—it’s about optimizing all aspects of life. Jeff discusses the power of disciplined focus, proactive decision-making, and aligning your actions with a higher purpose, while sharing practical advice for anyone looking to harness the transformative potential of AI. Whether you're an entrepreneur, freelancer, or employee, Jeff’s story offers both motivation and actionable strategies for achieving success across life’s domains.
Are you ready to unlock your potential? Tune in to hear Jeff's incredible journey and learn how to bring balance, purpose, and innovation into your own life. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts—how are you leveraging AI in your work, and what life transformations are you aiming for?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Ada Lopez, Senior Manager of Lenovo’s Product Diversity Office, recorded live at Lenovo Tech World in Seattle. Ada is on a mission to make AI more inclusive, accessible, and free of bias, and her passion for driving change through technology is truly inspiring.
We dive into the critical issue of AI bias and explore how algorithms, often unintentionally, reinforce gender, racial, and social biases. Ada breaks down real-world examples, from AI systems used in criminal justice to everyday applications like Google searches and loan approvals, illustrating how bias can creep into these systems. She also shares how Lenovo is actively working to mitigate AI bias through its product diversity office, ensuring that inclusivity and accessibility are built into the design process from the start.
Ada also sheds light on how Lenovo’s AI initiatives are making a tangible difference, including their partnership with the Scott Morgan Foundation to help ALS patients preserve their voices, and the creation of tactile markings on ThinkPads to support users with visual impairments. We also discuss the excitement within Lenovo’s development teams about building ethical AI systems and fostering empathy in product design.
This conversation is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of AI, the challenges of ensuring fairness and accessibility in technology, and how major tech companies like Lenovo are leading the charge for responsible innovation. Join us as we explore the impact of AI on our lives today—and what’s next for the technology of tomorrow.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m live from Lenovo Tech World in Seattle with Linda Yao, where my guest shares exclusive insights into what’s next for AI and how it will impact businesses and individuals alike.
We also delve into the live demonstrations at the event, including Lenovo’s collaboration with the Scott Morgan Foundation to help ALS patients communicate using AI. This powerful display underscores Lenovo’s commitment to using AI for social good, and Linda explains why these initiatives are at the forefront of Lenovo’s mission to create smarter AI for all.
Additionally, Linda reveals the challenges businesses face when implementing AI, especially when it comes to demonstrating ROI. She introduces Lenovo’s “AI Fast Start” program, which is designed to accelerate results for enterprises. We also discuss Lenovo’s hybrid AI portfolio and how businesses across industries are leveraging AI templates to transform their operations.
Join us as we explore the future of AI and how Lenovo is pushing the boundaries of technology, not only to solve complex business problems but also to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. Whether you're a tech enthusiast or a business leader navigating the AI landscape, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration.
In this episode, I enjoy a discussion with Qianying (Jane) Wang, VP, Lenovo Technology Committee Secretary-General, General Manager of Research’s Technical Strategy & Innovation Platform.
Recorded live at Lenovo Tech World, Jane shares her journey with Lenovo over the past decade, highlighting the rapid evolution of technology and the company's commitment to innovation.
With a focus on the theme of augmented intelligence, Jane explains how Lenovo is redefining the role of AI in personal computing. She emphasizes that AI is not just about artificial intelligence; it's about enhancing human potential and improving user experience. As the largest PC maker in the world, Lenovo aims to integrate AI seamlessly into home and enterprise PCs, helping users navigate the complexities of technology.
We also explore the concept of hybrid AI and its implications for user privacy, the cognitive overload many face in the digital age, and how AI can serve as a companion to manage information more efficiently. Jane delves into the exciting advancements in 3D experiences and how Lenovo’s innovations aim to bring these technologies closer to users.
Join us as we uncover the future of technology through Jane’s insights, and discover how Lenovo is poised to shape the landscape of AI and human interaction.
In this episode, I explore the dynamic intersection of artificial intelligence and business strategy with Vlad Rozanovich, Senior Vice President of Lenovo's Infrastructure Solutions Group.
Recorded live at Lenovo Tech World, Vlad discusses Lenovo’s comprehensive AI-ready portfolio, designed to accelerate the adoption of hybrid AI solutions across enterprises.
He addresses a pressing concern for many organizations: the return on investment (ROI) of AI technologies. Vlad shares his experiences from engaging with over 110 CIOs and CTOs worldwide, shedding light on what businesses can expect when integrating AI into their operations.
We also discuss specific use cases, including customer service chatbots and code generation for IT, that showcase immediate benefits and efficiencies gained from AI applications.
This episode highlights Lenovo’s innovative approaches to data management and sustainability through advancements like liquid cooling technologies.
As the industry moves towards smarter, AI-driven solutions, this discussion serves as a crucial resource for business leaders aiming to navigate their AI journey effectively.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome back Andy Tay from Accenture to unpack insights from their latest report, "Reinventing with a Digital Core." As organizations strive to remain competitive in an increasingly digital landscape, Tay emphasizes the pivotal role of a robust digital core in driving sales and business performance. He outlines three fundamental tenets for companies aiming to build a strong, profitable, and innovative foundation: re-engineering systems for AI operations, tailoring digital advancements to specific needs, and balancing technical debt with future investments.
With the business world shifting towards AI readiness, Tay highlights how leading companies, which increase their strategic innovation investments by at least 6% annually, are positioned to redesign processes, launch new products, and expand into new markets. He explains that prioritizing digital core improvements can lead to automatic enhancements in other areas, simplifying the journey toward achieving a competitive edge in the market. Furthermore, Tay discusses the necessity of allocating approximately 15% of IT budgets to mitigate technical debt while ensuring that organizations maintain evergreen IT capabilities.
We discuss how a strong digital core can catalyze business reinvention, with top performers experiencing up to 20% higher revenue growth and 30% increased profitability. Tay also emphasizes the balanced approach needed for AI integration, urging companies to start small, scale rapidly, and prioritize responsible implementation.
Listeners will gain valuable insights into the integration of cloud infrastructure, data management, and cybersecurity as essential components of a modern digital core. Tay also touches on the future outlook for digital transformation, highlighting the importance of innovation culture, talent development, and ecosystem partnerships in driving continuous reinvention.
To explore more about these topics, you can access the full report here: Accenture's Reinventing with a Digital Core.
Join us for an enlightening discussion that not only provides a roadmap for digital transformation but also equips organizations with the strategies needed to thrive in a technology-driven world. What strategies do you believe are essential for businesses to achieve a successful digital core?
How can businesses bridge the growing tech skills gap and build a future-ready workforce? Today on Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Drew Firment, Cloud Strategist at Pluralsight, to explore how organizations can address this challenge head-on.
As technology evolves, the need for upskilling and continuous learning has never been more urgent. Drew shares insights from Pluralsight's 2024 Technical Research Report, revealing that while cloud computing and cybersecurity remain in high demand, many organizations are still struggling to provide the right skills to their teams.
Drew explains how Pluralsight’s platform is helping to close this gap through personalized learning paths, hands-on labs, and real-time feedback. With a focus on connecting individual skills to organizational outcomes, Drew highlights how companies can save up to £22,000 per employee by investing in upskilling rather than hiring new talent. We also discuss the shift in learning models, moving from knowledge retention to human intelligence skills like critical thinking and creative problem-solving—skills that will be crucial in an AI-driven world.
Additionally, Drew shares how organizations can create a culture of continuous learning, where employees are empowered to expand their skill sets, take non-linear career paths, and contribute to long-term digital transformation goals. From overcoming organizational inertia to fostering a sustainable learning culture, Drew provides practical advice for businesses looking to future-proof their workforce.
How can companies prioritize upskilling and create a more adaptable, innovative team? Join us for this insightful discussion, and let us know how you see the future of learning and development evolving.
What does it take to ensure that cutting-edge AI innovations are ethically sound? Today, live from Adobe MAX, I sit down with Grace Yee, Senior Director of Ethical Innovation at Adobe, to explore the intersection of ethics and AI in real-time.
As Adobe unveils its latest advancements at the event, Grace shares how the company's ethical AI program has evolved to meet the challenges posed by generative AI, including Adobe Firefly.
Grace has been spearheading Adobe's AI ethics program since its inception, and she offers exclusive insights into the global AI ethics governance structure she leads. This framework ensures that every AI feature Adobe develops—whether for creative tools or enterprise solutions—adheres to the company’s principles of accountability, responsibility, and transparency. She walks us through the ethics review process, explaining how Adobe evaluates AI products for risks like bias and stereotypes, and collaborates with product teams to ensure innovations align with ethical standards before launch.
Grace highlights the behind-the-scenes work her team does to support new products. From collaborating with native speakers on multilingual support for Adobe Firefly to running risk discovery exercises for high-risk features, her team ensures that innovation is always balanced with responsibility.
As AI becomes more integrated into everyday experiences, how can we continue to innovate while keeping ethics at the forefront? Grace’s perspective offers a window into how Adobe tackles this challenge head-on.
This week Adobe MAX will explore the future of AI, the role of ethics in tech innovation, and what it means for companies and creators alike. How do you think ethical frameworks will shape the next wave of AI development? Tune in and share your thoughts!
What connects a career rooted in the automotive world to leading research and development at one of the world’s fastest-growing EV charging companies? Today, Richard Earl, Director of R&D at EO Charging, reflects on his professional journey and discusses the challenges and opportunities within the rapidly evolving electric vehicle industry.
With a nod to Steve Jobs' famous words, "You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward," Richard takes us through how his experiences shaped his vision for the future of energy autonomy, where smart energy technologies are at the forefront of the EV revolution.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we’ll explore the world of electric vehicle charging from the perspective of a company that’s making waves on a global scale. Founded in 2014, EO Charging provides cutting-edge, end-to-end EV charging solutions to some of the world’s largest corporations, including Amazon, Tesco, and DHL. Richard shares insights into how EO is tackling the complexities of electrification, from managing corporate fleets to addressing emerging consumer concerns like "charge anxiety."
We’ll dive into the UK government’s 2035 zero-emission mandate and the significant hurdles still faced, such as the lack of incentives and clarity that could hamper mass EV adoption. Richard emphasizes that while government policies may be inconsistent, businesses are moving forward with electrification due to its clear financial and environmental benefits. He also highlights the role of new technologies, such as the ISO 15118 protocol and smart charging innovations, that are set to transform not just EV performance but also the charging experience itself.
How does a company like EO Charging help organizations achieve their net-zero targets? And what is needed from governments to align policy with the ambitions of a greener future? Join us as Richard Earl explains how EO Charging is creating a new ecosystem of energy autonomy and what lies ahead for the EV industry.
As we connect the dots between the present and the future of EVs, what role do you think governments should play in supporting the transition? Let us know your thoughts!
In this episode, I sit down with Richard Barnett, Chief Marketing Officer at Supplyframe, a leader in Design-to-Source Intelligence for the global electronics value chain. Richard brings decades of expertise in semiconductor supply chains and shares insights on the challenges and strategies the industry needs to adopt to build greater resilience. The global semiconductor shortage has had a massive impact across industries, with losses estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Richard discusses the root causes behind these shortages, the complexities of multi-tier supply chains, and how product complexity, especially in sectors like automotive, exacerbates the issue.
We also delve into Supplyframe’s latest innovation—its Electronics Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) offering. This resource is the first of its kind, giving global manufacturers access to carbon footprint data for over 300 million electronic parts. Richard explains how this tool is designed to help companies meet evolving regulatory requirements and improve sustainability in product design and sourcing decisions. As the electronics industry grapples with the challenges of integrating sustainability into supply chains, this new capability is set to play a key role in aligning efficiency, cost optimization, and environmental responsibility.
Throughout our conversation, Richard touches on broader industry trends, including the growing role of AI in supply chain management. He emphasizes that AI is already transforming supply chain optimization by providing real-time insights, but the industry still needs to focus on practical outcomes rather than just hype. Finally, we explore what the future holds for global supply chains as new pressures, both geopolitical and financial, create a more uncertain landscape.
How can companies future-proof their operations and drive real change in their supply chain strategies? Tune in to find out!
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore how Felienne Hermans, creator of the Hedy platform, is reshaping programming education for the next generation. Hedy is an open-source, free platform designed to help children aged 10 and above learn textual programming across multiple languages. With an impressive 500,000 monthly users and translations into 49 languages—including Chinese, Arabic, and Spanish—Hedy is not only accessible but also adaptable to diverse learning environments.
Felienne, a professor of computer science education at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a high-school teacher in the Codasium program, brings a unique perspective on how we need to radically rethink programming education. She shares the inspiration behind Hedy’s development, highlighting how the platform breaks away from traditional teaching models by offering step-by-step, relatable exercises that engage students in a meaningful way. From stories and drawings to music, Hedy’s approach goes far beyond the typical abstract exercises found in traditional programming lessons.
Felienne also dives into the important role that native languages and culture play in fostering stronger connections between young learners and programming. By allowing students to code in their native languages, Hedy is promoting inclusivity and engagement, making technology feel more relevant and attainable. In this conversation, we explore why it's crucial for parents and educators to introduce children to coding early, and how tools like Hedy can help them do so in a way that's both enjoyable and effective.
Felienne also shares her top tips for teaching children to code, offering insights from her own journey as both an educator and a developer. We discuss how to cultivate curiosity in young learners, why programming skills are essential for the future workforce, and how platforms like Hedy are preparing students for the future of technology.
What do you think the future holds for programming education? Could tools like Hedy spark a global movement in coding literacy? Listen in and share your thoughts!
What does it take to lead Data and AI initiatives in today’s fast-paced tech landscape while balancing entrepreneurial ventures? In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I am joined by Suri Nuthalapati, Technical Leader at Cloudera Inc and a member of both the Forbes Technology Council and Entrepreneur Leadership Network.
Suri shares his fascinating career journey, from moving to the United States from India for his Master’s in Computer Science to founding startups and leading transformative projects at major corporations. With a rich background that spans positions at FedEx and Charter Communications, and now as a driving force at Cloudera, Suri brings a unique perspective on the intersection of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He discusses how his ventures — such as Farmioc, an agriculture data platform aimed at empowering the Indian agriculture sector, and Trida Labs, a cloud-native SQL editor for data teams — have shaped his approach to leadership, adaptability, and fostering innovation.
In his current role at Cloudera, Suri leads the Data and AI practice in the Americas, where he helps enterprises fast-track their adoption of data-driven solutions. We explore key trends such as hybrid and multi-cloud architectures, Generative AI, and modern data architectures like Data Lakehouse, Data Mesh, and Data Fabric.
Through Suri’s guidance, organizations are navigating these advancements to accelerate their digital transformations. Tune in as we dive deep into how Suri has successfully balanced corporate roles with his entrepreneurial ambitions and the lessons he’s learned along the way.
How are Data and AI reshaping industries, and what strategies should enterprises adopt to stay ahead? Have you witnessed Data and AI shaping your industry? How do you see future developments influencing business transformations? Share your thoughts!
In today's episode, we're joined by Marco Palladino, CTO and co-founder of Kong, Inc., a company that’s at the forefront of revolutionizing how businesses interact with data and services through APIs.
With a staggering annual recurring revenue surpassing $100 million, Kong provides essential API technologies to Fortune 500 companies and millions of programmers globally. Their groundbreaking AI Gateway is enabling organizations to harness a wide range of AI services that are becoming crucial for modern operations.
At just 19, Marco and CEO Augusto Marietti started Kong with backing from tech luminaries like Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. They convinced Bezos of the potential of APIs, influencing Amazon's pivotal shift towards cloud-based microservices, setting a course for the company to become a dominant force in the cloud services sector.
In our conversation, we delve into the origin story of Kong and explore the evolution and significant impact of APIs in today's digital ecosystem. APIs are not just technical tools; they are the lifelines that connect us to the digital world—from AI to cryptocurrency and beyond.
We'll discuss the critical role APIs play in our increasingly data-centric environment and how they are poised to shape the future as we steer towards more AI-driven processes.
Listeners, you’re invited to join the discussion and learn more about how APIs are not merely facilitating digital transformation but are essential building blocks for the technology of tomorrow. For those eager to dive deeper into Marco’s insights or learn more about Kong, Inc.'s innovations, visit Kong's website and follow their journey towards making API technology more accessible and impactful for businesses around the globe.
What are your thoughts on the future of APIs in our tech-driven world? How do you see APIs evolving with the advancements in AI? Share your views with us!
How do businesses protect themselves in an increasingly digital world where cyber threats evolve as quickly as the technologies designed to combat them? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we welcome Art Gilliland, CEO of Delinea, a leader in Privileged Access Management (PAM).
Art joins us to discuss Delinea's strategic moves in the fast-paced cybersecurity landscape, including their recent acquisitions of Fastpath and Authomize, and the broader trend of market consolidation amid economic pressures.
Under Art's leadership, Delinea has enhanced its capabilities in cloud and SaaS identity management, reflecting a commitment to addressing sophisticated cyber threats and improving organizational cyber defenses.
Art will share insights on the necessity of identity security as the cornerstone of cyber defense strategies, especially critical as businesses increasingly adopt cloud technologies and face AI-powered threats.
This conversation will also delve into the human aspect of M&A in the tech sector—how Delinea manages to integrate new acquisitions successfully within a matter of months and the role of executive leadership in these processes.
Art's perspective on the ongoing consolidation in the cybersecurity industry highlights the push towards creating more comprehensive, efficient security platforms that reduce both complexity and costs for organizations.
Art outlines the future of identity security, focusing on enhancing authorization capabilities and leveraging AI to automate threat response and decision-making. This discussion is not only about the technology but also about the strategic and human considerations that ensure these tools effectively secure and support the enterprises they are designed to protect.
What challenges and opportunities do you see in the integration of new technologies and companies in the cybersecurity sector? Join the conversation and share your thoughts on how businesses can navigate these complex but essential advancements.
Are you curious about how the latest AI advancements are redefining business technology? Bradley Jenkins, Intel's EMEA lead for AI PC and ISV strategies, joins me in discussing the rise of AI PCs, a game-changing technology revolutionizing the workplace with enhanced computing power designed specifically for AI workloads.
Intel's AI PCs aren't your typical machines; they come equipped with three AI compute engines: the CPU, GPU, and NPU, each optimized to handle different types of AI tasks. This architecture allows businesses to benefit from improved productivity and enhanced security for longer device lifespans.
Bradley sheds light on how Intel's AI PC, powered by the Intel Core Ultra processor, enables modern businesses to handle AI-enhanced applications seamlessly, transforming how tasks like content creation, voice-to-text, and security analytics are managed. We also touch on Intel's vPro platform, a curated suite of essential technologies built for the unique needs of business IT, offering solutions across performance, security, manageability, and stability.
Bradley also explains how Intel's software ecosystem, developer support, and AI PC Acceleration Program are vital differentiators, empowering businesses to leverage AI more effectively. We'll explore real-world applications of AI PCs, including the innovative use of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to retain institutional knowledge and how these PCs can supercharge multitasking during collaboration calls without missing a beat.
Whether you're an IT professional or a business leader seeking to understand how AI PCs can reshape your organization, this episode thoroughly examines the practical benefits and future potential of Intel's AI-powered computing.
So, how will AI PCs change the way we work? Tune in to find out, and share your thoughts after listening!
🔗 Listen to the full interview to learn more about Intel's AI PCs and what makes them stand out from other devices.
Are you ready to boost your productivity? Learn more about how Intel's AI PCs with Intel vPro are built for business https://intel.ly/3SwQxkT
What if AI could transform the way healthcare documents are processed, reducing manual effort and increasing efficiency? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Steve Johnson, CEO of Notable Systems, to discuss how his company is harnessing the power of AI to revolutionize healthcare IT. We dive into how Notable Systems' AI-based platform is reshaping the way health data is input, accessed, and processed, helping to humanize and simplify healthcare workflows.
Steve explains how Notable Systems was founded with the goal of liberating human potential through automated document processing, taking tedious tasks like data entry out of the equation.
With AI-driven solutions, the platform is designed to enhance accuracy, reduce the time spent on documentation, and ultimately lead to happier patients and more efficient healthcare providers. By integrating machine learning, natural language processing, and custom algorithms, Notable Systems is tackling some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare administration.
The company recently secured $8.8 million in Series A funding, which will help them expand their team and further develop their capabilities to meet the growing demand for their services. Steve shares the journey behind Notable’s growth, the lessons learned from working with their early anchor customers, and their ambitious plans for the future.
From speeding up patient orders to reducing insurance claim denials, Notable Systems is at the forefront of changing how healthcare organizations operate.
We also explore the balance between AI and human oversight, as Steve reveals how Notable’s technology provides AI confidence levels to guide human review, ensuring accuracy while maintaining speed and efficiency.
Where do you think AI will have the biggest impact in healthcare over the next few years? Could automated systems like Notable’s reshape the patient experience for the better? Share your thoughts, and let’s continue the conversation.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we are joined by Sean Adler, CEO of SWN, to dive into the intriguing world of quantitative finance and alternative financial data. SWN, formerly on the market for $13M before its latest product release, has reshaped the landscape of quant investment by rescaling a quant fund into a highly accessible streamable and downloadable product.
Sean unpacks complex topics like smart beta, factor investing, and quantitative finance, making these sophisticated strategies relatable for listeners. He explains the practical applications of these financial tools, emphasizing the importance of not relying solely on backtesting and how a balanced approach with AI in the financial markets can offer both significant opportunities and challenges. From risk management to derivatives and staying ahead in a competitive landscape, Sean shares his deep insights from years of experience.
We also touch on the secondary market, drawing from Sean's article on Forbes, where he explains the nuances of private equity valuations, alternative trading systems, and the often-overlooked dynamics of secondary liquidity in late-seed startups. The conversation is peppered with his unique perspective, blending elements of corporate strategy with real-world advice for founders navigating the evolving fintech space.
If you're curious about the mechanics of financial markets, the role of alternative data, and the future of fintech, this episode offers a rare behind-the-scenes look into a rapidly changing industry. Plus, with Sean’s storytelling flair and a nod to his love for Guy Ritchie films, there’s no shortage of engaging analogies and thought-provoking insights.
How will the rise of Web3 reshape the way we communicate? In today's episode, I’m joined by Shant Kevonian, co-founder of EtherMail, to explore the fascinating intersection of blockchain technology and email communication.
EtherMail, founded in late 2021, has quickly emerged as a leading player in this space, providing anonymous and encrypted wallet-to-wallet communication. Imagine the power of Gmail, MailChimp, and Metamask all combined into a secure, decentralized platform—that’s EtherMail.
Shant shares the origin story of EtherMail and the vision behind creating the first Web 3.0 email solution. We discuss the significant milestones the company has achieved, including raising $3 million in a seed round led by top Web3 investors like Fabric Ventures and Greenfield One.
I learn more about EtherMail’s mission as Shant offers insights on how the platform is creating a new framework for email economics and consensual marketing, helping Web3 companies deliver blockchain-synced, relevant content to their asset holders.
We also explore the recent launch of EtherMail’s native utility token, EMT, and its critical role in their Advertising Platform. Shant explains how EtherMail's Email-as-a-Wallet (EaaW) solution is bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3, allowing users to create non-custodial wallets via Gmail or Apple accounts in under a minute.
Throughout the conversation, Shant shares valuable advice for aspiring Web3 entrepreneurs and the importance of strategic partnerships, including EtherMail’s backing from investors like Tim Draper. Tune in to learn more about how EtherMail is shaping the future of decentralized communication and what’s next for this innovative platform.
In today's fast-paced tech world, how can businesses stay ahead while overcoming the challenges of digital transformation? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Dave Donatelli from Riverbed, a technology leader with deep industry expertise. We discuss the importance of attracting top talent to the C-suite, the AI conversations happening in boardrooms, and the critical priorities that CIOs need to address in 2024.
Dave also shares insights on Riverbed's newest platform and solutions, which harness AI automation and full-fidelity data to reveal hidden gaps in visibility and enhance digital experiences. We'll explore how Unified Observability helps IT teams overcome pressing challenges, particularly with public clouds, remote work, and enterprise mobile devices. Dave explains the value of open platforms and how organizations can implement scalable AI solutions to improve performance.
Curious about how Unified Observability and AI are reshaping IT strategies? Tune in to discover how Riverbed empowers organizations to elevate their digital experiences. What are your thoughts on these emerging trends? Join the conversation and share your insights.
In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we explore the intersection of AI and cloud technology in the biotech industry with Stephen Deasy, CTO of Benchling.
Benchling is empowering scientists across the globe with a unified platform that supports faster, more efficient research and development, aiming to unlock the full potential of biotechnology.
Stephen discusses how AI is transforming drug discovery through specialized models like AlphaFold and BioNemo, while also warning that without updates to development, testing, and manufacturing, we may face challenges in keeping pace with AI-driven breakthroughs. He emphasizes that modern science needs modern technology to fully capitalize on these innovations.
We also examine how cloud technology is revolutionizing R&D in biotech, allowing companies to innovate rapidly, scale effectively, and focus on core research without getting bogged down in infrastructure management. Stephen shares how Benchling has helped organizations like Sanofi streamline their operations by consolidating legacy systems and creating high-quality, accessible data structures that maximize the impact of AI.
Stephen also highlights ongoing challenges, such as data quality and accessibility, and offers insights into how organizations can successfully integrate AI into their research. He provides valuable advice on fostering cross-functional collaboration, improving onboarding, and ensuring data readiness as key steps to maximizing the potential of AI in biotech.
How can the biotech industry ensure that the speed and scale of AI-driven drug discovery translate into real-world success? Join the discussion, and let us know your thoughts.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we're exploring the complex, high-stakes world of AI governance, risk management, and data security with Jack Berkowitz, Chief Data Officer at Securiti AI. Jack brings over 30 years of experience in the data field, having worked with top Fortune 500 companies like ADP and Oracle. Today, he’s leading innovation at Securiti AI, a company that has become synonymous with secure data and AI systems, and is recognized for its Data+AI Command Center.
The conversation begins with the critical challenges facing today's C-Suite. Executives are tasked with navigating the risks and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence while ensuring robust security frameworks are in place. Jack will discuss how CISOs and other executives can strike the right balance between leveraging AI for innovation and safeguarding against ever-evolving cyber threats like data poisoning and model theft. He will explain the steps that companies should take to secure their AI and data ecosystems, focusing on a framework that’s not just reactive but proactive in identifying risks before they become costly problems.
Listeners will learn about proven strategies for implementing AI governance, as Jack shares real-world examples from his discussions with clients. He’ll also provide insights into how Securiti AI’s platform is giving companies visibility into their data flows and equipping security teams with tools to manage compliance, privacy, and security across systems like SharePoint and Office 365.
Are traditional security frameworks adequate in this fast-paced AI era? What can CISOs do to ensure their AI systems remain transparent, trusted, and secure, all while complying with an increasingly complex web of regulations? Join us as Jack Berkowitz answers these questions.
In the latest episode of Tech Talks Daily, I bring you an insightful conversation with Andy Bradshaw, CEO of SHL, the global leader in HR technology and psychometric science.
As AI continues to reshape the workforce in 2024, Andy's expertise couldn't be more timely or relevant. With over 25 years of experience in technology and service businesses, including renowned companies like Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and Sophos, Andy brings a unique perspective to the table. His passion for leveraging human insights to enhance business and individual performance shines through in this engaging discussion.
The episode kicks off with Andy explaining SHL's remarkable transformation into a talent intelligence powerhouse. He reveals how the company now leverages an astounding 45 billion data points across 150 countries to provide unparalleled workforce insights.
As the conversation unfolds, Andy delves into the critical importance of early career recruitment in today's global talent shortage. He offers valuable strategies for tackling this challenge, emphasizing the need for organizations to recognize recruitment as a two-way process and focus on potential and motivation rather than just specific job skills.
One of the most fascinating segments of the interview explores the power of internal mobility in solving critical talent problems. Andy shares eye-opening statistics on the increased filling of internal roles post-pandemic and discusses the numerous benefits this approach brings to both employers and employees.
The discussion then shifts to a fresh perspective on hiring tech talent, with Andy advocating for looking beyond skills to focus on durable "soft" or "human" skills. He introduces SHL's identification of 11 key human skills for early career success, explaining how this approach allows for future job flexibility and can help reduce salary inflation for niche skills.
Andy talks about how organizations are moving from talk to action, setting concrete targets, and using independent data sources to reduce bias in hiring and talent management processes.
The conversation concludes with an exploration of AI's role in recruitment. Andy outlines how SHL integrates AI into assessment products, candidate experience, and big data interpretation while emphasizing the importance of transparent and ethical AI use.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to transform cloud security? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we explore the intricacies of cloud security with Snir Ben Shimol, the CEO and co-founder of Zest Security.
Snir’s journey is nothing short of extraordinary—an Israeli intelligence alumnus with over 15 years of experience in security research and product management, he’s deeply familiar with the challenges of cybersecurity. Having already built a successful company that was acquired by Palo Alto Networks, Snir couldn’t stay away from the field for long. His latest venture, Zest Security, is designed to address the most pressing cloud security challenges businesses face today.
Zest Security was born out of Snir’s and his co-founder Uri Aronovici’s firsthand frustrations with cloud risk remediation processes. Both ex-Israeli Intelligence officers, Snir and Uri have a combined experience of over 25 years in cloud, product, and application security. Their deep understanding of security issues has fueled their mission to drastically reduce the time it takes to remediate cloud security vulnerabilities—from weeks to mere hours.
What sets Zest apart is its seamless integration with existing tools and DevOps workflows, automating and simplifying the remediation process.
During our conversation, Snir shares how Zest Security’s platform is redefining how organizations tackle cloud security vulnerabilities. We explore how their solution connects with cloud environments and security products to offer both immediate mitigation and long-term remediation.
We also discuss the current challenges in cloud security, including the startling statistic that only about 50% of identified security issues get fixed due to various constraints. Snir’s vision is to make resolution platforms a standard component of cloud security, sitting alongside tools like CSPM and EDR.
This episode is packed with insights into the future of cloud security, the role of AI and automation in vulnerability management, and how customer feedback is shaping the evolution of Zest Security’s platform. As businesses increasingly rely on cloud services, Snir’s expertise offers a valuable perspective on how to stay ahead of the ever-evolving threats in cybersecurity.
How can organizations better protect themselves in this digital age, and what role will platforms like Zest play in this journey? Tune in to find out, and don’t forget to share your thoughts on this transformative approach to cloud security.
How can geo-data become a game-changer in our fight against climate change? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Robert Hoddenbach, Global Director for Climate and Nature at Fugro, the world’s leading geo-data specialist.
With over 20 years of experience in geospatial and marine environments, Robert offers a deep dive into the critical role geo-data plays in understanding and mitigating the impacts of climate change, particularly in our oceans.
Despite covering 70% of the Earth's surface, only 25% of the ocean has been mapped, leaving a vast knowledge gap in one of the planet's most crucial ecosystems. Robert explains how Fugro is at the forefront of addressing this challenge, using advanced technologies such as AI and machine learning to collect and analyze oceanic data. This data is not just vital for scientific research but also has practical applications, from laying underwater cables to understanding the ecosystem impacts on climate.
We also explore how public-private partnerships and the sharing of ocean science data are essential for tackling global environmental challenges. Robert shares insights from Fugro’s involvement in initiatives like Seabed 2030 and UNESCO’s Ocean Decade for Ocean Science, highlighting the importance of collaboration in driving large-scale impact.
But it's not just about data collection; it's about creating shared value. Robert discusses how Fugro balances commercial objectives with environmental preservation, emphasizing the need for long-term engagement with stakeholders to redefine value beyond shareholder returns.
Join us as we uncover the future of ocean health, the technological innovations shaping the field, and the critical need for comprehensive geo-data to ensure a sustainable future for our planet. Could geo-data be the key to unlocking the mysteries of our oceans and safeguarding our environment? Tune in to find out, and share your thoughts on how technology can help us navigate these uncharted waters.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I have a conversation with Jay Vijayan, the founder and CEO of Tekion, to explore how his company is transforming the automotive retail industry through its cloud-native platform. Jay, who has an extensive background in technology and served as CIO at Tesla, shares his insights into how Tekion is unifying the automotive retail ecosystem by integrating everything from inventory management to customer service on a single platform.
Jay discusses the impact of Tekion's platform on customer experiences, highlighting how it enables seamless digital and hybrid transactions, enhances transparency, and significantly improves efficiency for dealerships. We also dive into the role of AI within Tekion’s platform, where automated personalized responses are driving time savings and increasing conversion rates.
Additionally, Jay explains how Tekion is helping dealerships and consumers transition to electric vehicles and the crucial role of cybersecurity in protecting connected automotive systems. This episode is packed with insights into the future of automotive retail and the technology driving this transformation.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Shauna Higgins and Tristan McCallum from IDA Ireland about the country’s ambitious offshore wind energy goals and its growing green economy initiatives.
Ireland is quickly positioning itself as a leader in renewable energy, with a target of achieving 5GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030, and scaling up to 20GW by 2040. With an eye toward creating 37GW by 2050, Ireland is on a clear path to not only meet its own energy needs but to generate surplus capacity, opening up exciting investment opportunities and fostering innovation in sectors like energy storage, AI, and digital technologies.
Shauna and Tristan walk us through the current state of Ireland’s offshore wind ecosystem, which is driven by strategic policy frameworks like the Future Framework and the €5 billion grid infrastructure plan known as Shaping Our Electricity Future. These initiatives are laying the groundwork for Ireland’s sustainable development, attracting international players and fostering a strong business environment for renewable energy companies.
With over 300 wind farms already generating 4.8GW of power, Ireland ranks third globally for installed wind power per capita, and the momentum is growing as the country hosts its first offshore wind auction, granting 3GW of projects.
We also discuss how IDA Ireland is helping companies embrace the twin transition of digital and green technologies, supporting industries that are eager to tap into Ireland’s emerging renewable energy surplus. From energy storage innovations to the growing potential of hydrogen for industrial use, Ireland’s offshore wind strategy is opening doors for tech-driven advancements in sectors such as AI, quantum computing, and semiconductor manufacturing.
Shauna and Tristan provide insights into how Ireland is leveraging its natural resources, talent pool, and pro-business policies to create a robust ecosystem for offshore wind energy. With top-tier training centers like the National Maritime College and a highly skilled workforce, Ireland is not just building a sustainable future but leading the way for other countries to follow.
Tune in to discover how Ireland’s offshore wind initiatives are driving new opportunities for businesses and helping to shape the future of renewable energy. Could Ireland’s investment in offshore wind become a global model for sustainable growth? Shauna and Tristan share their thoughts on the exciting potential ahead.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore how AI is transforming the way small businesses operate with Akankshu Dhawan, SVP of Small Business & Growth at Xero. With a growing focus on productivity in the wake of a significant decline for small businesses, Akankshu shares how Xero is reimagining accounting through the integration of AI and mobile technologies.
Xero’s latest innovation, Just Ask Xero (JAX), is an AI-powered business companion that helps small businesses manage finances and make smarter decisions on the go. Whether it’s generating invoices, predicting cash flow, or providing real-time business insights, JAX is designed to offer proactive support across commonly used platforms like WhatsApp, email, and SMS.
We discuss how small business productivity in the UK has dropped by 7% in the past year, leaving many owners struggling to keep up. Akankshu explains how AI can be the game changer for these businesses, automating repetitive tasks like bank reconciliation and invoicing, while also delivering critical insights to help owners focus on what they do best. As Xero continues to integrate AI into its platform, the combination of mobile tech and generative AI is making accounting more accessible, allowing business owners to take control of their finances from anywhere.
Akankshu highlights the practical ways in which AI is reshaping the future of small business management. He explains how tools like JAX provide not just faster processes but also deeper insights, helping businesses make informed decisions. The enhanced Xero mobile app is a key part of this strategy, offering new features like predictive cash flow forecasting, mobile bank reconciliation, and the ability to manage invoices on the go.
This episode offers valuable insights into how Xero is bridging the gap between small businesses and the promise of AI-driven productivity. Could tools like JAX finally bring AI’s benefits to small businesses? Tune in to hear Akankshu’s thoughts on the future of financial management and how AI is helping small businesses thrive.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Liya Spiegel, Senior Director of Product at WalkMe, about how their latest launch, WalkMeX, is transforming the future of business productivity.
While the market is flooded with AI assistants and tools, many are falling short of their promise to enhance productivity. Liya offers a fresh perspective on how WalkMe is creating a new category of AI that not only meets employees where they are but also delivers real, tangible benefits by working seamlessly across any application.
WalkMeX, the first AI copilot with the context to guide users through any workflow, is changing how businesses and employees interact with AI. Rather than adding to the noise of countless apps, WalkMeX integrates into existing workflows, providing proactive and contextual advice that helps users focus on their work, not on managing technology. Liya shares insights into how WalkMeX flies side by side with users, allowing organizations of all sizes to deploy AI to boost productivity in a meaningful way.
We also explore the challenges businesses face as AI tools flood the market. Many employees are expected to adapt quickly to new copilots without fully understanding their purpose or benefits, leaving them overwhelmed. A recent survey of 1,000 office workers revealed that over half use AI at work, yet almost half see no improvement in their productivity. Liya explains why so many AI tools fail and how WalkMe’s approach is different, offering a unified experience that removes the friction from adopting new technology.
Liya discusses the broader implications of AI for the future of work, including how WalkMe’s advancements will help organizations use AI safely and effectively. With WalkMeX, businesses are finally able to unlock the true potential of AI, enabling employees to focus on what truly matters.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Eric Miquelon, President of Avanade’s North American business, about how AI is transforming the workplace, particularly in the areas of mental well-being, work-life balance, and leadership fatigue. As AI continues to reshape industries, its role in supporting employee wellness and enhancing productivity is becoming more critical. Eric shares insights into how AI tools are being used to monitor and improve mental health in the workplace, offering innovative support as organizations navigate the challenges of modern work environments.
We explore how AI is streamlining tasks, enabling employees to focus on more meaningful work while reducing the pressure of constant productivity demands. Eric provides examples of how AI tools, like M365 Copilot, are freeing up time by automating routine tasks, which helps improve work-life balance—especially in remote and hybrid work models. The discussion highlights how these tools are helping not only individual contributors but also new workforce entrants, equipping them with the knowledge and support to be more productive from day one.
Eric also tackles the issue of leadership burnout, explaining how AI assists leaders in managing their responsibilities more efficiently. By automating routine activities such as email summarization or presentation creation, AI allows leaders to focus on higher-impact tasks that align with their strengths, helping to prevent burnout and maintain team morale. This approach fosters smarter work allocation, ensuring that global teams can operate effectively across time zones while maintaining a human-centric approach to leadership.
We also discuss Avanade's strategic partnerships with Microsoft and Accenture, giving them early access to AI innovations that enable them to lead the market in advising clients on AI strategies. Eric emphasizes the importance of balancing AI-driven efficiency with a focus on employee well-being and the need for careful governance, training, and change management as AI continues to evolve.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I have a conversation with Cleber Martins, Head of Payments Intelligence & Risk Solutions at ACI Worldwide, about the increasing challenges of fraud prevention as real-time payments become more widespread. With payments now happening instantly, the window for detecting fraud is shrinking, and financial institutions need new methods to stay ahead. Cleber explains how fraudsters are using advanced AI techniques to exploit these fast transactions, employing everything from voice mimicry to sophisticated social engineering attacks that trick consumers into initiating transactions.
Cleber also highlights how financial institutions are using AI to fight back. From tracking behavioral biometrics to analyzing patterns in real time, banks are employing cutting-edge AI tools to detect fraud at the very moment it occurs. However, this shift isn't without its challenges.
Cleber discusses the difficulties financial institutions face, such as the high costs of implementing AI systems and the need for domain-specific expertise to ensure the technology is applied effectively.
We explore how AI is becoming a crucial tool for not only fraud prevention but also improving the services and products banks offer. By sharing AI-generated insights between institutions, Cleber believes real-time payments could become one of the safest payment methods available. He also touches on how AI will transform the workforce, enhancing human skills rather than replacing them, and encouraging a focus on solving business problems rather than mastering specific technologies.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore the fascinating journey of Yehor Dremliuha, a software engineer from Ukraine who made the move to the UK just two years ago. Yehor shares his story of navigating the UK tech scene, comparing it with his experience in Ukraine and offering insights into how each country approaches technology. We delve into his startup, Swetrix, a privacy-first, open-source web analytics platform that tackles the challenges many face with Google Analytics, such as data privacy and user tracking.
Yehor explains how Swetrix stands apart with its cookie-free, GDPR-compliant approach, giving businesses an alternative that fosters transparency. He also discusses the transformative role of AI in software development, detailing how it powers Swetrix’s ability to predict website traffic and helps streamline other aspects of development. While some in the industry remain skeptical of AI's potential, Yehor believes it has the power to drive the next wave of innovation, citing personal experiences where AI tools have drastically reduced time spent on complex tasks.
The conversation also covers open-source development, where Yehor highlights the importance of community collaboration and building trust through transparency. Additionally, he offers a glimpse into the trends shaping backend development, from serverless architecture and microservices to Kubernetes and the rising importance of AI and prompt engineering skills.
This episode is packed with valuable insights into the tech industry, the power of open-source software, and Yehor’s inspiring personal journey from Ukraine to launching a successful startup in the UK. How is AI impacting the future of software development? Tune in to hear Yehor’s perspective on what lies ahead.
In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Christopher Meredith, Senior VP of Business Development at Xsolla for EMEA, to explore the latest trends and developments shaping the video game industry. Xsolla, a global leader in video game commerce, plays a vital role in helping developers and publishers fund, market, and monetize their games worldwide. With Chris's extensive background, including roles at Sony PlayStation and Warner Bros, he shares his valuable insights on how the gaming landscape is evolving and how Xsolla is supporting the entire lifecycle of game development.
We begin by discussing Xsolla’s unique approach to supporting developers, from securing funding and monetization strategies to providing ongoing assistance through product suites and integration roadmaps. Chris explains how Xsolla sponsors industry events and conferences to connect developers with investors and offers expertise in navigating the complex world of game publishing. As the gaming industry becomes more diverse and dynamic, Xsolla adapts to meet the evolving needs of developers, helping them maximize revenue and grow their businesses.
A key focus of our conversation is the impact of the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) on game developers and publishers. Chris highlights how the DMA is set to level the playing field by increasing transparency, reducing gatekeeping, and allowing smaller developers more direct access to consumers. He discusses how this regulation could lead to lower commission rates, greater interoperability between platforms, and improved search and discovery algorithms that benefit indie developers. Chris also touches on the DMA’s potential to reduce platform lock-in effects through data portability provisions, empowering developers to have more control over their products.
We also explore the trends Chris has observed at recent industry events like Gamescom and Devcom. Mobile gaming continues to surge, supported by the rise in cashless transactions and digital wallets. Indie game development is capturing an ever-growing share of the market, thanks to innovations in cloud gaming and influencer marketing. Chris shares insights into how the industry is evolving and what Xsolla is doing to help developers and publishers adapt to these changes, including expanding their presence in key territories and developing new tools to meet the bespoke needs of their partners.
In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Andrei Danescu, CEO and Co-founder of Dexory, to explore how AI and robotics are revolutionizing the world of supply chains and warehouse logistics. With global supply chains facing unprecedented challenges due to the pandemic and ongoing geopolitical tensions, companies like Dexory are at the forefront of transforming the industry by enhancing efficiency, resilience, and adaptability.
Andrei walks us through Dexory’s cutting-edge solutions, starting with their 12-meter-tall autonomous robot, designed to dramatically improve warehouse efficiency. Equipped with cameras and 3D depth perception sensors, this robot can scan over 10,000 pallets per hour, covering large warehouse spaces in less than a day.
By providing real-time visibility and eliminating the gaps in warehouse operations, Dexory’s technology helps businesses save valuable time and improve overall productivity. Andrei also introduces Dexory’s digital twin platform, which creates a virtual model of warehouse environments, giving operators instant access to critical data for optimizing storage and operations.
Our conversation touches on the broader impact of the pandemic on logistics and how it accelerated technological adoption in the supply chain industry. As companies were forced to move operations online, the need for more resilient and efficient systems became clear. Andrei explains how AI and robotics have become essential tools for navigating this new landscape, offering actionable insights and streamlining processes that used to require significant human intervention.
Looking ahead, Andrei shares his vision for the future of supply chains, where AI plays a practical role in day-to-day operations, uncovering hidden efficiencies and enhancing human capabilities. He emphasizes the importance of symbiosis between humans and technology, with AI and robotics augmenting human decision-making to create smarter, faster, and more efficient operations.
Finally, we delve into Dexory’s rapid growth, from its launch in 2022 to its expansion across the UK, Europe, the US, and the Middle East within just 18 months. Andrei shares some of the key milestones that have shaped Dexory’s journey, including the company’s continuous innovation in robotics and AI, and the challenges they face as they strive to meet the ever-evolving needs of their customers.
In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I speak with Michael Tyler from Fortra to uncover the details behind a phishing campaign that exploited USign’s e-signature platform. Fortra recently discovered how cybercriminals leveraged USign’s trusted domain to bypass email security gateways, highlighting the growing challenges related to the "living off trusted services" (LOTS) tactic used by attackers. This phishing campaign exposed vulnerabilities within platforms often regarded as safe by email filters, demonstrating how easily attackers can exploit trusted services.
Cybercriminals disguised fake USign documents as HR notifications, tricking victims into entering passwords instead of signatures. By using USign’s strong sender reputation, these malicious emails were able to bypass traditional email security measures, making them harder to detect. The attack even showed signs of being generated with AI language models, adding another layer of sophistication.
We dive deeper into the LOTS tactic, where attackers take advantage of legitimate services—such as e-signature platforms, file hosting sites, and social media platforms—to execute their malicious activities. This strategy not only reduces the setup effort for attackers but also enables them to hide behind the reputation of trusted service providers, making it increasingly difficult for security systems to flag these threats.
Michael discusses the broader implications for cybersecurity and the need for multi-layered defenses. Organizations must not only invest in user education to help employees recognize phishing attempts but also implement deeper email inspection and rapid response capabilities to quickly mitigate risks. For service providers like USign, enhancing security protocols, such as limiting bulk registrations and monitoring for abnormal activity, is crucial in preventing future exploitation.
The conversation also explores how Fortra is working with organizations to bolster their defenses against such attacks. Michael shares practical recommendations, from improving detection of social engineering attempts to collaborating with trusted service providers to combat platform abuse. As the world of cybersecurity continues to evolve, this episode provides valuable insights into staying one step ahead of increasingly sophisticated phishing tactics.
In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I speak with Jeff Halstead about the groundbreaking platform, Genasys Connect, and its transformative impact on law enforcement and emergency responders. As part of Genasys, GenasysConnect was designed to address one of the most critical challenges facing public safety today: slow and inefficient communication during high-stakes situations. Jeff dives deep into how this secure, real-time intelligence sharing platform is helping agencies share sensitive information instantly, filling critical gaps in communication across multiple organizations.
We explore the origins of Genasys Connect, which was developed in 2017 as a response to outdated and slow methods of sharing intelligence within law enforcement. By providing an agency-controlled, cloud-based system that allows real-time sharing of critical information, Genasys Connect enhances collaboration and decision-making during emergencies. The platform is not only secure but flexible, giving agencies full control over data ownership and access while using multi-layered verification to prevent unauthorized entry.
Jeff also shares real-world applications of Genasys Connect, including its role during the 2020 George Floyd protests, where it helped prevent property damage and looting through instant multi-agency coordination. The platform was also key in the quick capture of a mass shooting suspect near Houston. These examples highlight how Genasys Connect’s seamless integration with other Genasys technologies, such as mass notifications and evacuation support, creates a comprehensive public safety solution.
As we discuss the future of GenasysConnect, Jeff offers insight into upcoming features like large-scale mass notifications and resource deployment, all part of Genasys’ broader "Protect" platform. We also touch on the challenges of adoption in law enforcement, particularly the resistance to new technology, and how Genasys builds trust through experience, with an impressive 98.6% customer retention rate.
In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I explore the rapidly evolving role of AI in global employment with Nat Natarajan, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at G-P. With G-P operating in over 180 countries, Nat shares his perspective on how AI is reshaping the workforce and the future of global business. Through G-P AI tool ‘GIA,’ the company is revolutionizing HR and compliance tasks, enhancing productivity while complementing human expertise.
Nat emphasizes that AI will augment, not replace, human work, using the mantra “Humans are wise, AI is intelligent” to explain the partnership between technology and human insight. He discusses how G-Pleverages AI to manage the complexities of international employment and compliance laws, significantly improving efficiency across their operations. In just six months, G-P’s 'GIA' has answered over 30,000 questions with 95% accuracy, becoming a vital resource for the sales team in addressing intricate compliance questions instantly.
We also dive into broader AI adoption trends, particularly how younger generations, like Nat’s son, are naturally integrating AI into their work processes. AI is no longer confined to technical roles; it’s being adopted across sales, operations, and marketing. Nat shares his view on how businesses must embrace AI to stay relevant, warning that future companies will either be "out of business or AI-enabled."
The conversation also highlights the importance of continuous learning and adapting to an AI-driven world. Nat explains how businesses need to evaluate which tasks can be enhanced by AI, while emphasizing the need for critical thinking and data preparation. He shares his personal approach to learning from young professionals, believing in the power of cross-generational knowledge and continuous self-improvement.
Tune in to learn how AI is shaping global employment, the essential role of continuous learning, and why being "better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today" is key to thriving in the future workforce.
In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I talk with Chap Achen, VP of Product Strategy and Operations at Nextuple, about the transformative impact of AI-driven order management in the retail sector. With a career spanning 25 years in OMNI fulfillment, Chap shares his insights into how retailers can harness cutting-edge AI and machine learning tools to improve operations, enhance customer satisfaction, and stay ahead in a competitive landscape.
We begin by exploring the concept of Predictive Promising, a tool that analyzes historical shipment data to predict delivery dates with greater accuracy. Chap explains how this feature not only boosts customer confidence but also increases conversion rates by ensuring delivery promises are reliable. This solution simplifies both outbound promises to customers and inbound promises from suppliers, making it easier for retailers to manage expectations.
The conversation then shifts to Nextuple’s AI-powered Order Management Studio, which helps businesses optimize inventory management and delivery estimates. With features like dynamic inventory services and predictive analytics, retailers can fine-tune their operations, reduce manual configuration tasks, and improve overall efficiency. Chap also touches on the exciting role of generative AI, which is being used to discover issues within inventory data faster and could pave the way for proactive problem-solving in the future.
Finally, we address one of the key challenges in transitioning to AI-driven systems: explainability. Chap explains how Nextuple ensures transparency in AI decision-making, giving retailers the confidence they need to adopt these advanced technologies. Tune in to learn how AI is not only improving current order management processes but also shaping the future of retail.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Lisen Kaci, co-founder of Discrepancy AI, a company that's pushing the boundaries of AI-powered document analysis. Lisen shares how Discrepancy AI transforms the way businesses handle unstructured documents like PDFs, invoices, financial records, and even heavily photocopied images. Through advanced AI, Discrepancy AI converts these into structured, searchable data, unlocking insights and improving workflows for legal firms, financial institutions, and beyond.
We explore the fascinating origins of Discrepancy AI and how it addresses the limitations of traditional Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, which hasn’t evolved much since 1974. Lisen details how their AI goes beyond simple text extraction, working with complex formats like charts, graphs, and tables, and even analyzing pixel-level data to detect signs of document tampering or fraud. This capability is transforming the way industries approach document integrity and security.
Lisen also dives into the specific challenges legal firms face when processing massive volumes of documents, from contracts to tax filings. He discusses how AI can automate much of the tedious work, freeing up legal professionals to focus on higher-level tasks. With law firms increasingly interested in becoming AI-powered, Lisen shares his thoughts on how the industry is evolving toward more technology-driven practices.
We also touch on privacy concerns and how Discrepancy AI ensures that data is handled securely, without training on customer information. Looking ahead, Lisen predicts a future where law firms will fully integrate AI solutions, allowing them to offer faster, more accurate services to their clients.
Could AI truly revolutionize the legal industry, making processes more efficient and secure? Join us as we dive deep into the future of AI in legal tech with Lisen Kaci.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Nimish Panchmatia, Chief Transformation Officer and Chief Data Officer at DBS Bank, about the revolutionary impact of generative AI on the financial industry.
With the potential to save billions annually through cost efficiencies, AI is transforming how banks operate, engage with customers, and support employees. Nimish provides a detailed look at how DBS Bank is harnessing generative AI to enhance productivity, streamline operations, and improve customer experiences.
We explore the myths around AI's full automation and the importance of maintaining a balance between technology and human oversight. Nimish discusses how data stewards play a critical role in ensuring the accuracy, security, and ethical application of AI, helping the bank navigate the challenges of responsible AI use. He also highlights the robust governance framework DBS has established to ensure AI solutions meet stringent risk, compliance, and ethical standards.
Generative AI isn’t just reshaping DBS Bank’s internal processes; it’s freeing up employees from routine tasks, allowing them to focus on more strategic, high-value work. This conversation uncovers how DBS is leveraging AI to create synergy between people, processes, and technology, ensuring that the benefits of AI go hand-in-hand with reskilling employees for the future.
We also discuss how AI is enabling productivity gains across various roles, from customer service to operations, and what this means for the future of banking.
How is generative AI redefining financial services, and what are the ethical considerations that come with it? Tune in to hear how DBS Bank is leading the charge in integrating AI while keeping human oversight at the core of its transformation.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Justin Grooms, the visionary behind Bolt, a company that has redefined ecommerce since its inception in a Stanford dorm room. Bolt’s composable commerce solution is transforming how retailers interact with customers by integrating AI-driven conversational experiences into shopping platforms.
Justin shares the company's journey and how they are using generative AI voice assistants and messaging platforms to create more seamless, human-like shopping experiences across platforms like Instagram.
We dive into the challenges retailers face when scaling these conversational journeys and how Bolt is addressing them by streamlining interactions and removing friction. Justin also explains why non-vertically integrated merchants, such as JCPenney and Nordstrom, might see their ecommerce sales decline if they don't evolve, underscoring the importance of providing a differentiated shopper experience.
Another key discussion revolves around Bolt’s innovative approach to the checkout process, transforming it into a personalized "check-in" experience that adapts to each shopper's unique preferences. With over 80 million global shoppers in Bolt's universal account network, the company is helping retailers personalize everything from product recommendations to the entire checkout process.
Justin also offers a glimpse into Bolt's future as it continues to scale its technology and make a broader impact on the e-commerce landscape. Tune in to learn more about the shifts happening in conversational commerce and how Bolt is positioning itself at the forefront of these changes.
In this episode, I’m joined by Suryaveer Singh, Head of Loyalty at Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), where he leads the groundbreaking Yes Rewards program in the UAE. This initiative, the first of its kind in the region’s fuel sector, has already earned recognition for its role in improving customer happiness, winning the Best Rewards Programme in the Government sector at the CX & Loyalty Awards MENA.
During our conversation, Suryaveer dives into the evolution of loyalty programs and how technology is driving their future. He explains the role of AI and data-driven automation in creating personalized customer experiences and how this technology is enhancing real-time rewards across ENOC’s brands. We explore how Yes Rewards goes beyond fuel to integrate services like convenience stores and automotive care, all while focusing on a simple, user-friendly experience for a diverse customer base of over 19 nationalities.
Suryaveer shares insights into the challenges of launching Yes Rewards amid the COVID-19 pandemic and how his team leveraged the delays to fine-tune their technology for a successful launch. We also discuss the importance of partnerships and collaborations, particularly in the loyalty space, as ENOC expands into sectors like travel, lifestyle, and leisure. Suryaveer provides a forward-looking perspective on how blockchain and AI will transform loyalty programs by offering hyper-personalized offers and faster, more efficient partner integrations.
Tune in to learn how the Yes Rewards program is reshaping customer loyalty in the UAE and discover the future innovations set to redefine customer engagement in the region. How can your business apply these strategies to enhance customer loyalty? Find out in today’s episode.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Jean-Christophe Pitié, the Chief Marketing Officer of Contentsquare, to explore the evolving world of digital customer experience (CX). As businesses continue their digital transformation journeys, the spotlight has firmly shifted toward customer experience, where data-driven insights and personalization play critical roles.
Jean-Christophe, leading the marketing strategy for one of the world’s foremost digital experience analytics platforms, shares his insights on the latest CX trends, the growing impact of AI, and the human challenges organizations face when putting the customer at the heart of their strategy.
We begin by discussing the pressing issue of friction in the digital landscape, with 41% of website visits still being affected despite years of innovation. Jean-Christophe outlines the key factors driving these challenges and how businesses can overcome them by leveraging data and AI to improve user experiences. He also dives into the striking difference between paid search and paid social in terms of conversions, providing valuable insights for marketers seeking to maximize ROI.
AI's role in shaping modern customer experiences is another key point of our conversation. From sentiment analysis to virtual assistants and the dynamic generation of personalized content, Jean-Christophe explains how AI is helping brands reduce friction and create more tailored interactions with their users. However, balancing personalization with privacy remains a challenge across different regions, with Europe emphasizing sustainability and privacy, China excelling in social commerce, and the US focused on speed and convenience.
Jean-Christophe also highlights how building a customer-centric culture, integrating omnichannel experiences, and embracing mobile-first strategies can position companies for long-term success. We wrap up by discussing practical steps brands can take to optimize their CX, balancing quantitative data with qualitative insights to create more engaging and effective user experiences.
So, how can AI help transform your customer experience, and what are the emerging global trends in this space? Tune in to find out!
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Chrissy Hill, the Chief Legal Officer and Interim COO at Parity Technologies, a company driving innovation in Web3 and blockchain technology. We delve into the fractured state of Web3 regulation and explore how this uncertainty is affecting creativity and innovation in the space. Chrissy shares insights into how Parity is working with global regulators to bring about the clarity needed for developers to thrive and for Web3 technologies to reach their full potential.
We also discuss the importance of diversity in the Web3 ecosystem. As a pioneering female leader in a male-dominated field, Chrissy offers a unique perspective on why diverse leadership is critical for the future of decentralized technologies. She highlights the value of having a wide range of voices at the table, particularly as Web3 continues to shape the digital landscape.
The conversation then shifts to how disruptive technologies like blockchain and AI are transforming legal practices. Chrissy explains how these advancements have the potential to reshape the legal profession for lawyers, judges, and even juries, by providing tools that enhance transparency, streamline processes, and deliver more efficient outcomes.
Tune in to hear Chrissy’s thoughts on what lies ahead for Web3 regulation, the role of diversity in tech, and how emerging technologies are influencing the future of law. Will regulation help or hinder innovation, and what role does diversity play in the success of decentralized networks?
In this episode, I talk with Siroui Mushegian, Chief Information Officer at Barracuda Networks, to explore the current state of cybersecurity and its growing importance for businesses. With over 20 years of leadership experience spanning organizations like Ralph Lauren, the NBA, and PBS, Siroui shares her valuable perspective on how companies can navigate the complexities of IT security across various industries.
We dive into Barracuda's CIO report, "Leading Your Business Through Cyber Risk," which reveals concerning statistics: over half of companies struggle to implement consistent security policies, and only 43% are confident in managing cyber risks effectively. Siroui provides insight into the governance challenges that often hinder organizations, including better policy enforcement, securing third-party access, and addressing vulnerabilities in supply chains.
Siroui outlines practical steps businesses can take to better prepare for, respond to, and recover from cyber incidents. From building stronger governance structures to ensuring executive buy-in for security initiatives, she offers actionable strategies to enhance cyber resilience.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore the evolving landscape of cybersecurity in retail with Veroniki Stamati, Director of Security Engineering and Operations at Tesco. Veroniki's experience spans a variety of industries, including online platforms like PokerStars and Skyscanner, giving her a unique perspective on how technology can drive innovation while ensuring security.
Veroniki shares her transition from the travel and entertainment industries to the retail sector, offering insights into how Tesco harnesses technology to protect its vast customer base. She delves into her current role, where she leads a team focused on building secure products, while balancing the need for innovation and security. We discuss Tesco's forward-thinking approach to security, which includes principles like "everything as code" and integrating security within product development and platform delivery.
Throughout the conversation, Veroniki sheds light on the most pressing security threats facing the retail industry today, such as data theft, customer-targeted scams, and the impact of regulatory changes. We also touch on the exciting role that generative AI is playing in shaping the future of security operations, especially in data management.
Diversity in tech is another key focus. Veroniki highlights Tesco's efforts to increase female representation and foster diversity of thought within security roles. Programs like "train, deploy, hire," along with partnerships with STEM programs and tech colleges, are creating new opportunities for a diverse talent pool to enter the security space.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I enjoy a conversation with Rebecca Wooters, the Chief Digital Officer at Signet Jewelers, the world’s largest diamond retailer.
With renowned brands like Kay, Zales, Jared, and James Allen under its umbrella, Signet is revolutionizing the jewelry industry through digital innovation.
Rebecca leads the company’s efforts to create a seamless connected commerce experience, enabling customers to shop effortlessly across multiple channels, whether in-store, online, or through advanced virtual platforms.
Rebecca explains how Signet has leveraged data to become the most data-driven jewelry retailer in the market, sharing how this data-driven approach sets them apart from competitors. We also dive into their cutting-edge advancements in virtual shopping, such as custom jewelry design, virtual try-ons, and their social selling platform that introduces virtual storefronts.
Rebecca offers a glimpse into the future of retail, discussing how connected commerce is shaping consumer experiences and driving company growth.
Tune in to hear how a traditional industry is embracing digital transformation and learn about the innovations that are redefining how consumers engage with jewelry today.
Whether you're interested in retail trends or fascinated by the power of digital transformation, this episode offers valuable insights from a leader at the forefront of change.
In this episode, I have an insightful conversation with Chris Hart, the CEO of Creyon Bio, to dive into how artificial intelligence is reshaping drug development.
Creyon Bio is pioneering the use of AI to engineer Oligonucleotide-Based Medicines (OBMs), prioritizing safety in their approach to creating effective treatments. By applying cutting-edge technology, the company is able to streamline the identification of safe medicines, offering a more efficient path to drug discovery.
One of the most compelling examples of their work is the recent treatment of a baby boy diagnosed with an ultra-rare disease caused by a mutation in the TNPO2 gene. In just 13 months, Creyon Bio developed a tailored treatment that marked a major milestone in the world of personalized medicine.
Chris shares the story of this breakthrough, highlighting the role AI played in rapidly creating and testing a selective lock nucleic acid (LNA) antisense oligo, which led to significant improvements in the child's health.
We also explore how Creyon Bio’s AI-driven platform addresses common challenges in drug development, from enhancing safety to optimizing delivery. Chris delves into how AI helps analyze complex data sets, enabling the rapid progression from identifying a target to developing a lead compound. This innovation is not only revolutionizing timelines but also increasing the probability of success in the often unpredictable world of biotech.
Tune in to hear Chris’s valuable insights on the future of AI in medicine, the challenges the industry faces, and how Creyon Bio is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in drug engineering. Could AI be the key to accelerating life-saving treatments for rare diseases?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, Adam Glaser from Appian shares how generative AI is transforming enterprise technology and redefining how businesses operate. As the global appetite for AI grows, Appian’s low-code platform stands out by making AI more accessible, allowing enterprises to build and deploy AI-powered applications without requiring extensive data science resources. Adam dives deep into how generative AI serves as a force multiplier across the board—from developers building and testing applications faster to end users interacting directly with AI-driven chat interfaces.
A key focus of the conversation is Appian’s patented data fabric, a virtualized data layer that addresses fragmented enterprise data. This architecture provides the foundation for AI to operate efficiently, pulling together disparate data sources into a unified system. Adam explains how this approach enables businesses to unlock the full potential of AI, helping enterprises tackle complex tasks such as document extraction, PII detection, and real-time data analysis.
Throughout the episode, Adam presents several real-world examples where Appian’s AI-enhanced solutions have delivered measurable results. From automating the accounts payable process for a U.S. fire protection company to improving student advising through AI chatbots at a large university, these stories reveal how businesses are achieving significant productivity gains and cost savings. In particular, the episode highlights how AI has revolutionized document processing, customer service, and data management, reducing errors and improving accuracy across industries.
Adam also addresses the barriers to AI adoption, including common concerns around data privacy, job displacement, and unrealistic expectations. He offers practical advice for business leaders looking to integrate AI effectively, urging them to focus on tangible business outcomes and view AI as a tool to augment human capabilities, not replace them.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Chris Reddington, Senior Product Manager of Strategy for Developer Relations at GitHub, to explore the transformative role of AI in software development.
As AI continues to reshape the way businesses innovate, the conversation shifts beyond the mere integration of new technology. Chris emphasizes that adopting AI-powered software development is a significant cultural shift, requiring more than just technical tools. It demands a top-down approach, where leadership support and change management are critical to fostering a progressive culture within development teams.
Throughout our discussion, Chris unpacks why the impact of AI tools like GitHub Copilot should not be narrowly measured by the volume of code produced. Instead, he argues that the true value lies in how these tools free developers to focus on more complex, meaningful work.
By automating repetitive tasks, AI helps developers maintain their creative flow, reducing context switching and allowing them to concentrate on higher-level challenges like architecture, system design, and testing.
Chris also touches on the broader implications of AI adoption, highlighting the need for a clear vision and strategy that goes beyond just using new tools. Organizations must be willing to embrace change, experiment with new processes, and provide continuous learning opportunities for their teams. He points out that AI coding has the potential to enhance developers' skills by providing contextual assistance, especially for junior developers, and by offering insights that can improve security and code quality.
Learn more about GitHub
- GitHub blog: https://github.blog/
- GitHub Universe: https://githubuniverse.com/
- Chris' Profile - linkedin.com/in/chrisreddington
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Matt Gertner, the CEO of Salsita, a forward-thinking startup based in Prague, to explore how conversational AI is set to transform the future of eCommerce.
Salsita has made waves by introducing a groundbreaking 3D product configurator equipped with an AI-powered conversational interface. This innovation allows customers to design and customize complex products—ranging from kitchen ranges to holiday decor—through simple, natural language conversations, making the online shopping experience more intuitive and personalized than ever before.
Matt shares insights into the development of this technology, which leverages OpenAI's advanced language models to provide real-time, expert guidance as customers navigate through the configuration process. This AI-driven approach mimics the in-store experience, where shoppers typically rely on the expertise of sales reps to help them make decisions.
By embedding this configurator directly into retailers' websites, Salsita has created a seamless and engaging user experience that not only enhances customer satisfaction but also drives higher conversion rates.
We discuss the broader implications of conversational AI for eCommerce, including its potential to bridge the gap between online and offline shopping. Matt explains how this technology could revolutionize the way we interact with software, with applications extending beyond eCommerce into other areas of digital interaction. He also touches on the challenges and risks associated with AI, such as the need for accurate information and the potential for misinformation, while sharing how Salsita is addressing these concerns.
Throughout our conversation, Matt's passion for making technology more human-centric shines through. He envisions a future where conversational AI becomes the norm, simplifying complex tasks and making technology more accessible to everyone. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the cutting edge of eCommerce, AI, and the future of human-computer interaction.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Jon Wolfe, President of Global Systems and Services at Light & Wonder, a leader in the casino technology space. With the casino industry being a $300 billion giant, it's no surprise that it's eager to embrace cutting-edge technologies, particularly artificial intelligence. Jon brings deep insights into how AI is poised to transform casino floors, enhance player experiences, and tackle some of the industry's most pressing ethical challenges.
Jon discusses how AI is reshaping the traditional casino environment by creating more personalized and engaging experiences for players. From generating real-time rewards based on player behavior to detecting when a player is likely to end their gaming session, AI is making it possible for casinos to respond instantly and keep players engaged.
However, with great power comes great responsibility. Jon delves into the importance of ethical AI use, transparency in AI-driven decisions, and the measures Light & Wonder takes to protect player data and privacy. This commitment not only builds trust but also ensures that AI is used to foster responsible gaming practices, detect risky behavior, and maintain the integrity of the gaming experience.
As we explore the future of AI in the casino industry, Jon shares his vision for 2025, where AI will collaborate more closely with casino operators, automate routine tasks, and continuously improve customer experiences in real-time. He also reflects on his career journey, particularly the impact of his early mentor, Jack Binion, who taught him the value of putting the customer first. These lessons remain at the core of his approach as he leverages AI to anticipate and meet the evolving needs of casino patrons.
Join us for a fascinating conversation about the intersection of AI, ethics, and the future of gaming. What does the future hold for AI in casinos, and how will it continue to reshape the industry? Tune in to find out!
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Nauman Hafiz, Chief Technical Officer at Constellation, to explore the cutting-edge intersection of AI, data security, and marketing innovation. With over a decade of experience leading technology teams at R/GA, Nauman now spearheads Constellation’s efforts to revolutionize how Fortune 100 companies approach social listening and data protection.
One of the key topics we delve into is Constellation’s proprietary technology, Aurora. Nauman explains how Aurora harnesses the power of AI to perform contextual social listening, enabling companies to refine their marketing strategies and drive significant revenue growth. This AI-driven approach not only offers deeper insights into consumer behavior but also helps brands stay ahead in a highly competitive marketplace.
As we navigate through the conversation, Nauman shares his perspective on the rapid advancements in AI by tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Apple. He offers his predictions on how other companies might follow suit, emphasizing the transformative potential of AI across various industries. His insights provide a glimpse into the future of AI, highlighting the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
Data security is another critical area we discuss, especially in the context of AI’s growing influence. Nauman offers valuable advice on how companies can safeguard their data while leveraging AI technologies. With increasing concerns around data privacy and regulatory compliance, his expertise sheds light on practical strategies to maintain robust security measures without stifling innovation.
Tune in to discover how Constellation is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with AI, and learn from Nauman’s wealth of experience in navigating the complexities of technology, data, and security. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast, a business leader, or simply curious about the future of AI, this episode offers actionable insights that you won’t want to miss.
Where is the best place for listeners to find you or your team online and find out more about anything we talked about today?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Dr. Mfon Akpan, an expert in accounting and finance from Methodist University, to explore the rapidly evolving role of artificial intelligence in the accounting profession.
As AI technologies continue to advance, they are increasingly outperforming humans in various domains, including those within the accounting sector. Dr. Akpan shares insights on how AI is reshaping workflows, boosting productivity, and introducing a new paradigm where AI-generated drafts are refined by human professionals—a process that is not only enhancing efficiency but also challenging traditional approaches.
A significant focus of our discussion centers on the ethical considerations that accompany AI's integration into accounting. Dr. Akpan raises critical concerns about privacy, the need for transparency in disclosing AI usage to clients, and the potential for a digital divide created by unequal access to AI tools.
As major accounting firms invest heavily in AI, the question of how to implement these technologies responsibly becomes ever more pressing. Dr. Akpan also delves into the impact of AI on education, emphasizing the importance of exposing students to these tools to ensure they are workforce-ready while also teaching them to navigate the ethical complexities that arise.
Dr. Akpan's work, including his recent publication on aligning AI with ethical accountancy, introduces frameworks designed to ensure that AI adoption in the accounting profession remains aligned with the core values of trust and integrity.
As we explore these themes, Dr. Akpan also reflects on the challenges facing educators, policymakers, and practitioners as they collaborate to keep pace with the rapid advancements in AI and ensure that ethical standards are upheld.
Join us as we discuss the transformative potential of AI in accounting, the ethical challenges it presents, and the crucial role of lifelong learning in preparing the next generation of professionals for a future where AI plays an integral role in their work.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Tiago Cardoso, Group Product Manager at Hyland Solutions, a company known for its industry-leading intelligent content solutions. With a solid background in Computer Science and AI, Tiago brings over a decade of experience in developing cutting-edge interfaces across web, mobile, and 3D applications.
Our conversation delves into the transformative power of AI in enterprise content management, particularly in sectors like healthcare, insurance, and banking. We explore how AI is revolutionizing these industries by streamlining processes, enhancing decision-making, and ultimately improving customer experiences.
Tiago also shares insights on how AI is reshaping higher education, specifically within computer science programs. He discusses the growing importance of integrating AI into the curriculum, preparing the next generation of tech professionals to meet the demands of an AI-driven world. This naturally leads us into a discussion about AI implementation readiness in the workforce. As AI continues to advance, its impact on jobs and the skills required to thrive in a tech-oriented workplace is a topic of critical importance.
Tiago offers his perspective on how organizations can better prepare their employees for the changes AI will bring, emphasizing the need for continuous learning and adaptation.
Throughout our conversation, Tiago emphasizes the need for a thoughtful and strategic approach to AI adoption, one that balances innovation with ethical considerations and a focus on the human element.
Whether you’re curious about the future of AI in enterprise settings or interested in how AI is influencing education and the job market, this episode offers a comprehensive look at the evolving landscape of AI and its far-reaching implications.
How will AI reshape the industries that matter most to you? What steps should organizations take to ensure they are ready for the AI-driven future? Don’t miss this engaging discussion that could help shape your perspective on the opportunities and challenges ahead.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Niki Manby, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Mutual of Omaha, a company with over a century of experience in providing insurance and financial solutions.
Niki, an expert in consumer financial services, shares insights into how Mutual of Omaha, a Fortune 300 company, is evolving to meet the changing needs of its nearly 24 million customers while maintaining its core mission of helping people protect what they care about.
We explore how Mutual of Omaha is embracing digital transformation within the insurance industry. As customer expectations shift, driven by tech giants like Meta, Amazon, and TikTok, even traditionally tech-averse demographics, such as seniors, are becoming more digitally savvy.
Niki discusses the company’s approach to integrating self-service options and digital learning journeys, all while balancing innovation with the privacy concerns that come with health information.
Niki also dives into the emerging trends within the insurance industry, such as micro-insurance, on-demand insurance, and embedded insurance models. We discuss how these new models are reshaping the industry and the role insurtechs play in supporting carriers rather than competing directly with them.
Throughout our conversation, we look at the challenges and opportunities that come with integrating new technologies into long-standing insurance products, the importance of maintaining a customer-centric approach, and how Mutual of Omaha is positioning itself for future growth.
Niki offers a forward-looking perspective on how the company plans to expand its scope beyond traditional insurance to include broader financial and wellness solutions, ensuring it remains at the forefront of industry innovation.
Tune in to discover how a century-old company like Mutual of Omaha is not just adapting but leading in the rapidly changing landscape of insurance and financial services.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I enjoy a conversation with Eddy Badrina, CEO of Eden Green, a company on a mission to reshape agriculture through cutting-edge vertical indoor greenhouse technology. With a focus on sustainability, Eddy shares how Eden Green is pioneering new methods to grow fresh produce more efficiently, using less water, energy, and reducing carbon emissions.
We discuss Eden Green's innovative approach, where their patented microclimate technology creates optimal growing conditions for each plant. This precise control over water, light, and nutrients not only enhances the growth process but also significantly reduces resource consumption. The result is fresher, safer produce that reaches grocery shelves within 48 hours, addressing the long-standing issue of food miles and waste in the supply chain.
Eddy also introduces us to their groundbreaking herb program, which stands as a first in the industry. Unlike the traditional model that relies on fragmented, global supply chains, Eden Green's approach allows for the growth, packaging, and distribution of over ten herb varieties from a single location. This innovation reduces the complexity and environmental impact associated with herb distribution, offering retailers a more sustainable and efficient solution.
Throughout our discussion, Eddy provides a forward-looking perspective on the future of agriculture. He outlines Eden Green's ambitious plans to expand across the U.S., with the goal of establishing 20 production facilities within the next five years. This expansion is not just about scaling their operations but also about setting a new standard for how fresh produce can be grown and distributed sustainably.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Blake Johnson, Quantum Engine Lead at IBM Quantum, to explore the recent expansion of Qiskit, the world’s most popular quantum software platform.
IBM’s Qiskit has evolved from an experimental tool into a highly stable and reliable platform capable of running complex quantum circuits on processors with over 100 qubits. This conversation dives into how Qiskit is now purpose-built to extract the best performance from real quantum hardware as industries around the world search for quantum advantage—the point where a quantum computer offers the most effective solution to a problem over any classical method.
Blake shares insights into how IBM’s collaboration with its global quantum ecosystem of over 600,000 users has driven the development of Qiskit’s new performance capabilities. These include AI-powered tools that help organizations map their problems to quantum circuits, features that simplify interfacing with quantum systems, and new abilities that efficiently merge the strengths of classical and quantum resources.
We discuss the significance of Qiskit moving to version 1.0, which brings 16x faster performance and new tools like Qiskit Runtime, the Transpiler service, Code Assistant, and Serverless capabilities. These advancements are essential as IBM continues its journey toward achieving quantum advantage and, ultimately, fault-tolerant quantum computing by 2029.
Tune in to learn more about IBM’s vision for quantum software, the growing role of Qiskit users, and how the quantum ecosystem is steadily advancing toward practical quantum computing. This episode provides a deeper understanding of the hybrid quantum-classical approach that is paving the way for future breakthroughs in this cutting-edge field.
Whether you’re new to quantum computing or a seasoned expert, Blake’s insights will shed light on the future of this transformative technology.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Artem Kroupenev, VP of Strategy at Augury, to explore the transformative role of AI in today's workforce. Artem brings a fresh perspective on AI literacy, arguing that it is no longer a niche skill but a fundamental competency akin to reading and writing. As AI continues to evolve from behind-the-scenes technology to a consumer-facing tool, the ability to integrate AI into daily workflows is becoming crucial for professionals across all industries.
We dive into how AI is reshaping entry-level roles, focusing on the shift from traditional skills and knowledge to real-world task performance and outcomes. Artem explains that AI won't replace jobs entirely but will augment workers' capabilities, enabling them to concentrate on higher-order decision-making and strategic thinking. This shift necessitates a new approach to hiring, where employers will increasingly value the ability to leverage AI tools effectively.
Artem also shares his insights on how organizations can successfully integrate AI literacy into their workforce. He advocates for a balanced approach that combines top-down and bottom-up strategies, empowering early adopters to pioneer use cases while fostering continuous feedback loops between users and developers. This approach not only enhances productivity but also encourages cross-functional collaboration, breaking down silos and creating unified insights across teams.
The conversation addresses common misconceptions about AI, particularly the fear that AI will replace human workers. Artem emphasizes that AI is a tool designed to enhance productivity and should be seen as a co-pilot rather than a threat. He underscores the importance of developing AI literacy across all levels of the workforce, ensuring that employees are equipped to harness AI's potential to drive innovation and growth.
Whether you're an employer looking to integrate AI into your operations or a professional aiming to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving job market, this episode offers valuable takeaways on how to navigate the AI-driven landscape.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Nick Gernert, CEO of WordPress VIP, a platform that powers the web for some of the world’s most prominent brands, including CNN, Capgemini, and even The White House. Our conversation dives into how WordPress VIP is leveraging AI to reshape content creation and the broader impact this is having on the web content we interact with daily.
We explore the transformative role AI plays in enhancing the content creation process. Nick shares how AI tools developed by WordPress VIP are streamlining tasks like tagging, linking, and categorization, significantly increasing the efficiency of content creators. Yet, as advanced as these tools are, Nick emphasizes that AI is there to complement, not replace, human creativity. The goal is to offload mundane tasks to AI, allowing creators to focus on more value-added activities, ensuring the human touch remains at the heart of editorial judgment.
The conversation also touches on the importance of data in guiding content strategies. Nick introduces us to their Parsley content analytics solution, which brings data-driven insights directly into the content creation process. By making analytics more accessible, WordPress VIP enables content creators to make informed decisions that drive better engagement and ROI. We then turn our attention to the future of search and content consumption.
With AI increasingly influencing search algorithms, Nick discusses the potential disruptions to traditional SEO practices and the importance of adaptability. He underscores the resilience of open web standards and the need for businesses to continually evolve their digital strategies to meet changing user behavior.
Finally, we address the critical issue of web security in an era where data breaches are becoming more frequent. Drawing insights from the recent Netflix documentary on the Ashley Madison breach, Nick explains how WordPress VIP is helping clients safeguard their content and ensure that such breaches don’t happen on their watch.
Join me for a thought-provoking discussion on how AI is shaping the future of content creation, the delicate balance between automation and human oversight, and the evolving landscape of web security. How are you preparing for the future of content?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I have a conversation with Michael Raduga, the innovative CEO of REMspace, who is pushing the boundaries of brain science and consciousness.
Michael's journey from Siberia to Silicon Valley is nothing short of extraordinary. After experiencing lucid dreams and sleep paralysis as a teenager, he became fascinated with the dream world and its potential. This fascination led him to perform a self-implantation of a neural chip, a bold experiment aimed at exploring the power of REM sleep.
We explore how REMspace is at the forefront of developing groundbreaking technologies designed to harness lucid dreaming, with implications that could transform mental health, education, and entertainment. Michael explains how his personal experiences shaped his vision and how his self-experimentation might pave the way for future innovations in neuroscience.
We also discuss the ethical challenges that come with such advancements, including the risks of dream "hacking" and the importance of developing these technologies responsibly. Michael shares his hopes for a future where lucid dreaming becomes a widely accessible tool, offering experiences that go beyond the limitations of physical reality.
Join us as we explore the fascinating possibilities of merging dream and reality with Michael Raduga on Tech Talks Daily. Could this be the next step in unlocking the full potential of the human mind?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Marna Ricker, EY's Global Vice Chair of Tax, to explore the intersection of emerging technologies, diversity, and the evolving landscape of global tax regulation. With over 28 years at EY, Marna is a transformational leader whose passion for authentic leadership and inclusive empowerment has not only shaped her career but also the future of the tax profession.
We begin our conversation by diving into the impact of AI and generative AI on the tax industry. Marna shares insights on how these technologies are revolutionizing the way tax professionals manage and analyze vast amounts of data, automating processes that once required hours of manual effort.
However, with innovation comes risk, and Marna highlights the common pitfalls that tax departments face when adopting new technologies without a clear strategy. From getting lost in the allure of shiny new tools to the importance of starting simple and focusing on data standardization, Marna offers a balanced perspective on how to navigate the tech landscape effectively.
But the future of tax isn't just about technology. As global regulations evolve to create a fairer and greener world, tax professionals must adapt not only to new rules but also to changing workforce dynamics.
Marna discusses the trends shaping the future of tax, including the influence of sustainability initiatives, and how companies can leverage tax policies to drive ESG goals. She also delves into the human side of this transformation, emphasizing the need for inclusive leadership and a human-centered approach to change management.
Marna's leadership at EY is a testament to the power of diversity, equity, and inclusion in building high-performing teams. She shares the initiatives that EY has implemented, from inclusive leadership training to neurodiversity hiring programs, and how these efforts are making a meaningful impact across the organization.
Tune in to hear Marna's unique perspective on the future of tax, the role of technology in driving innovation, and the importance of fostering an inclusive culture in today's rapidly changing world. What steps can you take to future-proof your tax function and ensure you're not falling into the technology trap?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Dr. Marc Warner, the visionary founder of Faculty, a company dedicated to deploying safe AI systems that merge human expertise with artificial intelligence to deliver exceptional performance. With a rich background that spans over a decade of working with government agencies and leading brands, Marc is at the forefront of helping organizations harness the power of AI to make better decisions. Before founding Faculty, Marc was a Marie Curie Research Fellow in Physics at Harvard University, and his academic work has been featured in prestigious journals like Nature. Recently, he was one of the few London business leaders selected to attend the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park.
In our conversation, Marc makes a grounded and pragmatic case for the regulation of AI, emphasizing the importance of what he terms “mundane” or sensible AI regulation. He argues that while AI is often overhyped in the short term, it represents the most significant technological transformation of our time. Over the next decade, Marc believes that every business will need to evolve into a tech-driven AI business to survive and thrive. Those who lead in AI safety, he suggests, will not only protect their organizations but also set the standard for the industry, while those who remain on the sidelines risk falling behind.
Marc also shares insights into Faculty’s innovative AI solutions, which have had a profound impact on various sectors. From enabling large-scale terrorist content moderation, demanded by the UK Prime Minister, to powering NHS pandemic forecasting and optimizing millions of call center interactions, Faculty's AI applications demonstrate the tangible benefits of integrating AI into business strategies. Marc stresses that AI should not be siloed but instead woven into the fabric of an organization, enabling better human decisions and driving measurable business outcomes.
Throughout our discussion, Marc underscores the need for humility in engaging AI experts and the boldness required to overcome organizational barriers. He advocates for aligning AI initiatives with core business strategies rather than pursuing disconnected AI strategies, which often lead to wasted resources and missed opportunities.
Join us as we explore the future of AI with Dr. Marc Warner and discuss how businesses can effectively integrate AI to not only stay competitive but also lead in this new era of technological advancement. How will your business adapt to the AI-driven future, and what steps can you take today to ensure you’re on the right path? Tune in to discover Marc’s expert perspective on navigating these challenges.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Jeremy Epling, the Chief Product Officer at Vanta, a leading trust management platform that has been recognized as the #1 Most Innovative Security Company of 2024 by Fast Company. Jeremy brings a wealth of experience to the conversation, with an impressive career that includes over 16 years at Microsoft and 4 years at GitHub, where he played pivotal roles in product development and innovation. Now at Vanta, Jeremy is driving the company’s AI strategy to strengthen cybersecurity and compliance for organizations of all sizes.
During our discussion, Jeremy provides an insightful overview of his journey from major tech giants to his current role at Vanta. He shares how his deep-rooted passion for programming and product development led him to Vanta, where he is now focused on leveraging AI to revolutionize the way businesses approach security and compliance. With AI’s ability to analyze vast amounts of data quickly and accurately, Vanta’s solutions are helping companies streamline their compliance processes, saving them significant time while ensuring greater accuracy and trustworthiness.
Jeremy also delves into Vanta’s innovative use of AI in their product offerings, such as automated security questionnaires and trust centers, which are designed to bring tangible value directly to customers. He discusses how Vanta prioritizes transparency in their AI practices, ensuring that customers retain control over their data and processes. As the conversation progresses, we explore the findings from Vanta’s State of Trust report, revealing critical insights into how AI is shaping the future of cybersecurity. From the limited allocation of IT budgets to security to the growing comfort with AI regulations among UK leaders, Jeremy offers a comprehensive view of the current landscape and the role Vanta plays in navigating these challenges.
Join us as we uncover the potential of AI to fortify cybersecurity defenses, enhance compliance, and build trust in an increasingly complex digital world. Where do you see the future of AI in cybersecurity heading, and how can businesses stay ahead in this rapidly evolving field? Tune in to hear Jeremy Epling’s expert perspective and discover how Vanta is leading the charge in trust management.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Steven Read, an industry veteran who plays a pivotal role at adMarketplace, a company at the forefront of search advertising innovation. With over two decades of experience, adMarketplace has been instrumental in connecting high-purchase intent consumers with leading global brands like Home Depot, Wayfair, Best Buy, and Samsung through strategic, data-driven advertising. Steven brings a wealth of knowledge on how the rapidly evolving landscape of search advertising is being shaped by emerging technologies like conversational AI, large knowledge models (LKMs), and AI-driven automation.
During our conversation, Steven dives into the significant challenges of integrating search ads with conversational agents, a frontier that is both promising and complex. We explore the intricate process of aligning ads with these new AI-driven interfaces, focusing on user experience, alignment, and the critical role of incrementality in measuring success. Steven shares his insights into how these technologies are transforming search into a more engaging and conversational experience, and what that means for the future of digital advertising.
Another key topic we tackle is the decentralization of data. Steven provides a nuanced perspective on whether this trend is beneficial or detrimental to companies striving to optimize user experiences. We discuss how decentralizing data can empower better-informed decisions, yet also introduce challenges in measurement and consistency across different channels.
Steven also sheds light on the impact of large knowledge models (LKMs) and their potential to revolutionize the search ads industry. With LKMs reducing reliance on personal data and enhancing the ability to understand user intent, the landscape of search is poised for a transformation that could democratize access to advanced AI capabilities, enabling innovation beyond just the tech giants.
Finally, we delve into how adMarketplace is leveraging AI for automating processes like A/B testing and campaign optimization, allowing brands to gain deeper insights and accelerate development timelines. Steven emphasizes the importance of transparency, trust, and the evolving strategies required to connect with high-intent consumers in today’s fragmented search ecosystem.
Where do you see the future of search advertising heading, and how will AI continue to reshape this vital industry? Tune in to gain expert insights from Steven Read, and learn how adMarketplace is driving performance at scale in the ever-evolving world of search advertising.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Vishal Garg, the dynamic CEO of Better.com, who is leading the charge to revolutionize the home buying experience. Vishal brings a wealth of knowledge about the mortgage industry and a forward-thinking perspective on how technology is reshaping the future of homeownership. Our conversation delves into his predictions for the housing market in 2024 and beyond, offering listeners an exclusive look at the trends that will define the real estate landscape in the coming years.
As we discuss the housing market's current state, Vishal shares his belief that 2024 will be a year of gradual recovery, with the market poised for a strong rebound in 2025. Despite the challenges of high-interest rates and limited inventory, recent improvements in market conditions and potential rate cuts hint at a promising outlook. Vishal contrasts his optimism with more conservative projections, highlighting how recent financial indicators and a potential economic soft landing could spur a quicker recovery than anticipated.
A key focus of our discussion is how Better.com is leveraging cutting-edge technology to streamline and digitize the mortgage process. Vishal explains how AI-driven innovations at Better.com are transforming the traditionally manual aspects of securing a mortgage, enabling customers to obtain pre-approvals in as little as three minutes and commitment letters within eight hours. He envisions a future where "buy it now" buttons on property websites will make purchasing a home as seamless as buying a product online, akin to the e-commerce revolution sparked by Amazon.
We also explore the broader challenges and opportunities within the mortgage industry, particularly the need to meet the evolving expectations of next-generation consumers who demand seamless digital experiences. Vishal discusses the competitive edge that Better.com has over traditional lenders, emphasizing the importance of adapting to the rapid pace of technology adoption to remain relevant in this ever-changing market.
Join us for this insightful conversation with Vishal Garg, where we uncover how Better.com is not just redefining the home buying process but also setting the stage for the future of digital homeownership. Where do you see the housing market heading in 2024, and how will technology continue to shape our experiences in real estate? Tune in to find out.
How prepared is your organization to tackle the growing threat of client-side attacks? In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Lynn Marks, Senior Product Director at Imperva, a Thales company, to discuss the rise of Magecart attacks and the implications of the newly updated PCI DSS 4.0 standards.
Client-side attacks, like Magecart, have been a looming threat since 2015, gaining significant traction as digital transformation accelerated during the global pandemic. As more businesses moved their operations online, the landscape for these attacks became increasingly fertile, putting sensitive customer data at risk. With the recent release of PCI DSS 4.0, the stakes have never been higher for organizations processing payments online. Lynn dives into the specifics of how these attacks operate, targeting vulnerable JavaScript to steal data directly from users, often without detection.
We explore the key updates in PCI DSS 4.0, particularly the new requirements that demand businesses inventory, authorize, and monitor client-side scripts more rigorously. Lynn shares practical insights on how companies can navigate these requirements, mitigate risks, and enhance cross-team communication to protect against these sophisticated threats.
What strategies should your business adopt to stay ahead of client-side attackers, and how can you ensure compliance with the evolving security standards? Tune in to this episode for an in-depth conversation on safeguarding your online transactions and staying resilient in the face of emerging cyber threats. After listening, I’d love to hear your thoughts—how is your organization adapting to the new PCI DSS 4.0 requirements?
What does it take to truly harness the power of AI in a way that augments rather than replaces human capabilities? In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Ash Gawthorp, Chief Academy Officer at Ten10, to explore the critical intersection of AI and human-centric innovation. With a backdrop of PwC's 2024 Global CEO Survey revealing that 69% of CEOs anticipate the need for their workforce to develop new skills due to AI, Ash sheds light on how Ten10 is pioneering comprehensive training programs that equip employees with both technical expertise and essential soft skills.
Ash delves into how Ten10's training initiatives demystify AI, emphasizing its mathematical foundations rather than presenting it as a "magic" solution. By providing hands-on experiences that foster confidence and understanding, Ten10 empowers employees to evaluate, pilot, and implement AI tools securely and effectively. Ash also discusses the importance of holistic development, blending technical proficiency with communication, collaboration, and adaptability, ensuring that workers are prepared to navigate the evolving landscape of AI with confidence.
How can organizations foster a culture of continuous learning and ensure their teams are ready to drive meaningful innovation with AI? Join us as we explore these themes and more. Tune in, and don't forget to share your thoughts—how do you see AI shaping the future of work in your organization?
How can businesses navigate the complexities of cloud costs while maximizing value across their operations? In this episode, we welcome Aviram Levy, Tech Evangelist at Zesty, to explore the current state of cloud usage and waste, and how companies can effectively manage and reduce these costs.
With nearly two decades of experience in IT and cloud technology, Aviram offers valuable insights into the challenges that businesses face when transitioning to the cloud’s on-demand model. He sheds light on the common pitfalls, such as the lack of visibility into cloud consumption, which often leads to unexpected and inflated bills.
Aviram discusses the critical role of FinOps in cloud cost optimization, explaining how dedicated teams and processes can bridge the gap between engineering and finance. He highlights best practices for implementing FinOps strategies, including the use of tools and automation to gain better visibility into cloud usage and to drive efficiency across cloud operations.
With economic volatility adding to the unpredictability of cloud costs, Aviram emphasizes the importance of proactive management and strategic planning.
At the heart of this discussion is Zesty’s innovative approach to cloud cost optimization. Aviram introduces Zesty’s solutions, which provide real-time visibility into cloud usage and offer automated recommendations to reduce waste and optimize resources.
He alsoexplains how Zesty’s automation engines can dynamically scale resources based on demand, ensuring that businesses only pay for what they truly need. Additionally, the newly launched platform, "Insights," is designed to help organizations prioritize and automate optimization opportunities, making cloud management more efficient and cost-effective.
Looking to the future, Aviram shares his vision for the next wave of cloud cost optimization, which will include deep tech solutions tailored to specific workloads like databases and containers. He also discusses the growing importance of multi-cloud support and the continuous advancements in automation that will further enhance cloud efficiency.
As businesses increasingly rely on cloud services, one pressing question remains: Are you doing enough to optimize your cloud costs and maximize the value of your cloud investments?
How is e-invoicing revolutionizing global trade, and why should businesses take notice? In this episode, we speak with Alex Baulf, VP of Global Tax at Avalara, to explore the rise of e-invoicing and its profound impact on commerce around the world.
As governments increasingly mandate e-invoicing across various geographies, businesses must adapt to this new digital era or risk falling behind. Alex, who serves on the European Commission's eInvoicing Technical Advisory Group and is a Board Member of the Digital Business Networks Alliance, offers a deep dive into e-invoicing, how it works, and why it's becoming a critical component of international trade.
E-invoicing, a digital document with structured, machine-readable data, is not just about compliance but transforming how businesses operate. Alex explains how e-invoicing streamlines processes, reduces costs, and enhances data quality, all while ensuring tax compliance in an increasingly regulated environment. He also discusses the role of tax authorities in driving this shift, particularly in the EU, where harmonization efforts are well underway, and in the US, where market-driven approaches are gaining traction.
The conversation delves into the regulatory landscape, highlighting how countries are mandating e-invoicing to close the "VAT gap" and increase tax revenue. By 2030, most countries are expected to have e-invoicing mandates, making it essential for businesses to prepare now. Alex shares practical advice on how companies can embrace e-invoicing strategically, from investing in scalable global solutions to focusing on data quality and integration. He emphasizes that e-invoicing should be seen as an opportunity for process automation and efficiency rather than just a compliance obligation.
Looking ahead, Alex touches on future trends in e-invoicing, including the growth of standardized formats like the PEPPOL network, the use of QR codes for public validation, and the expansion from e-invoicing to full e-document exchange. As businesses navigate this digital transformation, one question remains: Are you ready to harness the benefits of e-invoicing and stay ahead in the global marketplace?
What does it take for a business to survive and thrive in the face of cyber threats? In this episode, I sit down with Muhammad Yahya Patel from Check Point Software to explore the crucial concept of business resiliency in cybersecurity. As cyber attacks become more sophisticated and widespread, a business's ability to continue operating during and after an attack is more critical than ever.
Muhammad delves into the strategies that companies need to adopt to build a resilient cybersecurity framework, starting with identifying critical assets, ongoing risk assessments, and implementing multi-layered security measures.
We also discuss the significance of having a robust incident response plan and the importance of offsite backups and disaster recovery plans. In a world where email remains a primary attack vector—accounting for over 80% of initial cyber attacks in 2023—Muhammad emphasizes the need for advanced email security solutions. He shares insights on how AI and machine learning play a pivotal role in preventing email-based threats, from phishing to business email compromise.
The conversation then shifts to vulnerability management, which is essential to maintaining a solid security posture. Muhammad explains the importance of regularly patching vulnerabilities in software and hardware to prevent exploitation by attackers. He provides practical advice on how organizations can effectively identify, prioritize, and manage these vulnerabilities to reduce risks and maintain operational continuity.
Looking ahead, Muhammad is excited about quantum computing's potential to revolutionize data protection and enhance cybersecurity. He also highlights the ongoing advancements in AI and machine learning that push the boundaries of what’s possible in cybersecurity, ensuring that the field remains dynamic and ever-evolving.
As we conclude the episode, one question remains: Is your business truly prepared to withstand the inevitable challenges of the cybersecurity landscape? What immediate steps can you take today to ensure long-term resiliency? The time to act is now.
How can the tech industry foster a more inclusive environment, and what role does diversity play in driving innovation? In this episode, I sit with Aleks Bass, Chief Product Officer at Typeform, to explore these critical questions and more. Aleks shares her experiences with gender bias throughout her career, offering valuable advice for women navigating the challenges of the tech world. With a commitment to diversity, Aleks discusses why having more women in leadership roles is essential and how companies can support this journey.
At Typeform, diversity goes beyond gender; it creates a space where different perspectives and leadership styles thrive. Aleks reveals how Typeform, with a 50% female composition in its executive team, stays true to this commitment, ensuring that every voice is heard and valued. We also dive into Typeform's latest innovation, the Typeform for Growth suite, designed to help businesses capture, qualify, and convert leads more effectively. This new suite showcases how Typeform is leading the way in making data collection more engaging and intuitive, all while leveraging the power of AI to enhance customer acquisition.
Aleks also highlights the broader impact of these technologies on the industry. As businesses increasingly rely on personalized, data-driven interactions, tools like Typeform for Growth become essential in staying competitive. With features like interactive video forms, automated data enrichment, and AI-powered analysis, companies can create more profound, meaningful connections with their audiences.
As we wrap up the conversation, Aleks reflects on the future of tech and the importance of continuing to push for diversity and innovation. This episode sheds light on the challenges and opportunities within the tech industry. It leaves us with an important question: How can we all contribute to creating a more inclusive and innovative future in tech?
What does the future of connectivity in the UK look like, and how is Vodafone leading this transformation?
In this episode, I explore the world of 5G Standalone (SA) technology with Maria Grazia (MG) Pecorari, a leader at Vodafone driving innovation in telecommunications. MG introduces us to the concept of 5G SA, explaining how it differs from the current network infrastructure and what it means for Vodafone and the broader UK. As we investigate the technical advancements, MG sheds light on the most exciting capabilities that 5G SA will bring, from enhanced network slicing to dedicated, high-performance connections tailored for specific use cases.
We examine how this next-generation technology isn't just a step forward for connectivity but a leap that could revolutionize entire sectors. Imagine a future where the UK's public buildings—like schools, hospitals, and rail systems—are empowered by real-time, low-latency connectivity, enabling everything from immersive training for healthcare professionals to predictive maintenance for infrastructure. MG shares her vision for how 5G-powered technologies could provide critical support to the NHS, making hospitals more efficient and responsive to patient needs.
However with all this potential comes significant challenges. We consider the obstacles that stand in the way of widespread 5G adoption, including the need for increased investment to boost the UK's mobile network quality and 5G rollout. MG discusses Vodafone's commitment to overcoming these hurdles, highlighting their ambitious plans to invest £11 billion over the next decade to extend 5G SA coverage.
Throughout the conversation, MG provides fascinating insights into how 5G SA could transform beloved UK traditions, from how we experience sports and entertainment to how smarter, more connected environments could enhance our daily lives. The episode closes by reflecting on the broader implications of this technology, leaving us to ponder: How will 5G SA change how we live, work, and interact with the world around us?
How safe are we in the age of AI PCs? As AI technology becomes increasingly integrated into our everyday devices, the promise of faster, more personalized computing comes with a critical question: Are we truly prepared for the security and privacy challenges that follow?
In this episode, I sit down with Eric Shulze, VP of Product Management at Trend Micro, to explore the rapidly evolving landscape of AI PCs. With chip makers in a race to innovate, these new devices promise unparalleled speed and privacy by running generative AI locally on specialized neural processing units (NPUs). But as AI’s role expands, so do the concerns over data security and privacy.
Eric shares his insights on the potential risks associated with on-device AI, including the threat of compromised data and the spread of misinformation. We delve into the steps consumers can take to protect themselves, from choosing reputable vendors to implementing additional security layers. Eric also reveals how Trend Micro is stepping up to the challenge, with plans to roll out cutting-edge tools to safeguard AI PC users.
But it’s not all about the risks. We also explore the excitement surrounding AI innovation—how it’s transforming personalization and accessibility in tech, and why ethical considerations must be at the forefront of this revolution. Plus, Eric offers a unique glimpse into his own career journey, from studying zoology and working as a dolphin trainer to becoming a leader in the tech industry.
As AI PCs move from concept to mainstream reality, what do you need to know to stay safe and informed? Tune in to find out, and join the conversation on how we can balance innovation with privacy in the digital age. What are your thoughts on the future of AI PCs? Let us know!
Have you ever wondered how the business-to-business (B2B) payment landscape is evolving, and what the future might hold? In this episode, I sit down with Sarah-Jayne Martin, the Director of Financial Automation at Quadient Accounts Receivable, to explore how B2B payments are rapidly transforming to meet the demands of a more seamless, consumer-like experience.
As businesses strive to streamline payment processes, Sarah-Jayne offers invaluable insights into how B2B payment systems are currently lagging, with issues such as lengthy processing times and limited visibility. She explains how companies can learn from business-to-consumer (B2C) models, like text-to-pay, and discusses the pivotal role of AI and intelligent automation in driving this change.
Together, we delve into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as organizations navigate this transition, highlighting how the integration of digital finance functions can unlock greater efficiency and transparency in the B2B space.
How can businesses bridge the gap between B2B and B2C payment processes, and what does this mean for the future of financial transactions? Tune in to discover Sarah-Jayne's expert perspective, and join the conversation as we explore the next frontier in B2B payments.
In a world where digital transformation is often seen as a pathway to efficiency and profitability, can it also pave the way for sustainability? This pivotal question forms the crux of our upcoming episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, where I sit down with Ricardo Lobo, CEO of Beontag. As a vanguard in the realm of RFID and IoT solutions, Beontag is at the forefront of a quiet revolution in the digital tagging industry, seamlessly blending innovation with ecological responsibility.
Ricardo Lobo brings his expertise from leading a company that believes every item has a digital voice. From their new state-of-the-art R&D Center in Tampere, Finland, to their forthcoming facility in Dayton, Ohio, Beontag is setting the benchmark for sustainable operations and smart technologies. With initiatives like the ECO Tag and investments aimed at amplifying production capacities while minimizing environmental impact, Beontag exemplifies how businesses can meet escalating sustainability and traceability requirements without sacrificing their bottom line.
Throughout our discussion, Ricardo will shed light on the unseen technologies that stitch together the processes of numerous industries, from luxury brands to smart cities. He will articulate how these innovations not only enhance operational efficiency and transparency but also empower companies to meet their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals.
In an era where businesses grapple with integrating climate-friendly practices with competitive, profitable operations, can the right digital tools offer a solution where sustainability and business success converge rather than conflict? Join us as Ricardo Lobo illustrates a reimagined business landscape where technology and sustainability are not at odds but are components of a unified strategy benefiting customers, companies, and the planet.
What are your thoughts on the intersection of technology and sustainability in business? Can digital innovations truly harmonize profitability with planetary health? Tune in and share your perspectives with us.
How can businesses effectively navigate the increasingly data-driven world we live in today? In this episode, we sit down with Felix Van de Maele, CEO of Collibra, to explore the pioneering role of the Chief Data Citizen and its vital importance in the modern business landscape.
Felix shares the journey and vision behind Collibra's decision to appoint the first ever Chief Data Citizen, a role that underscores the critical intersection of data governance and AI. As he explains, "You can’t have AI without data, and you can’t have an effective AI workforce without data citizens." We delve into the responsibilities and impact of this role, offering a comprehensive understanding of how it drives data-centric innovation and organizational success.
Discover why Collibra has always been ahead of the curve in recognizing the strategic value of data in shaping the future of work. Felix discusses the rationale behind this forward-thinking approach and why other companies should consider embracing similar roles to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Felix also sheds light on the rise of AI and the growing importance of data governance, providing insights into how businesses can leverage these trends to their advantage. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, business leader, or data professional, this conversation offers valuable perspectives on the role of data in driving meaningful change.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we sit down with Robert Israch, President of Tipalti, to explore the critical role finance automation plays in the growth and IPO readiness of tech companies. With the UK’s tech IPO market showing signs of revival, driven by potential listings like Raspberry Pi, the strategic insights and planning of finance teams are more crucial than ever. Rob shares his perspective on how excessive manual processes within finance departments can hinder growth and recovery, and how automation offers a path to efficiency and success.
Rob highlights the significant burden that manual processes place on finance teams. On average, processing a single supplier invoice can take 42 minutes, a time-consuming task that stifles growth and impedes strategic financial management. Efficient finance operations are essential for companies preparing for IPOs, and Rob discusses how automation can streamline these processes to provide the necessary financial visibility and control.
One of the main barriers to automation adoption is the skill gaps within finance teams, along with the challenge of selecting suitable tools and overcoming perceived complexities. Rob offers insights into how these barriers can be addressed and overcome, making the case for why finance leaders should prioritize automation.
Tipalti’s finance automation solutions are designed to help fast-growing tech companies streamline manual back-office processes such as accounts payable, expenses, and procurement. By automating these operations, companies can achieve a 50-80% reduction in workload, avoid the need for future hiring, improve controls and compliance, and gain better visibility into spending.
Rob shares compelling customer examples to illustrate the benefits of finance automation. For instance, Spitfire Audio was able to reduce its royalty payment process from six weeks to just 30 minutes, while Schoold avoided the need to hire an additional full-time finance employee. These examples underscore the transformative impact of automation on efficiency and strategic financial management.
For companies considering automation, Rob advises starting by researching options and working with vendors to evaluate fit through live demos. He emphasizes the importance of ease of implementation, user experience, and scalability in selecting the right tools.
Tipalti’s approach balances the breadth and depth of capabilities with simplicity, ensuring a positive customer experience and long-term fit. Built for fast-growth mid-market companies, Tipalti has a high customer retention rate, reflecting its ability to scale with its clients and support their evolving needs.
Join us for this insightful episode as Robert Israch discusses how finance automation can unlock new possibilities for growth and IPO readiness. How is your organization leveraging automation to enhance its financial operations? Share your thoughts and join the conversation!
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we are joined by Roger Corell, Senior Director of AI and Leadership Marketing at Solidigm. Roger brings his extensive expertise to discuss the transformative role of solid-state drives (SSDs) in enabling artificial intelligence (AI) and enterprise workloads. With a new product launch on the horizon, Roger provides an inside look at how Solidigm is pushing the boundaries of storage technology.
Solidigm, a leading provider of NAND flash memory solutions, offers one of the most comprehensive portfolios of enterprise SSDs. These solutions are designed to accelerate workloads, including AI, from the core to the edge, unlocking unprecedented performance while lowering costs and scaling efficiently. Solidigm's commitment to quality and reliability is evident through its rigorous testing and validation processes, ensuring their SSDs meet the highest industry standards.
Roger highlights the critical importance of storage for AI applications. As AI models and datasets grow exponentially, the need for fast, dense, and power-efficient storage solutions becomes paramount. SSDs offer significant advantages over traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), including vastly superior speed, density, and energy efficiency. Solidigm's SSDs, particularly the upcoming PCIe Gen 5 D7 series, are engineered to deliver industry-leading performance across all metrics, making them ideal for demanding AI workloads.
The conversation also delves into Solidigm's customer-centric approach. Roger explains how Solidigm collaborates closely with enterprise and cloud customers to optimize firmware and testing for real-world conditions. This collaborative effort not only accelerates time-to-market for their solutions but also ensures that the SSDs perform optimally in practical applications, beyond just peak specifications.
Roger shares compelling examples of the real-world impact of Solidigm’s SSDs. For instance, one hyperscaler was able to cut AI data preparation time by a factor of 50 by switching from HDDs to Solidigm SSDs. Similarly, OCIENT reported significant energy reductions in AI and HPC workloads using Solidigm’s QLCSSDs. These examples underscore the tangible benefits that advanced SSD technology can bring to AI and other high-performance computing environments.
Looking ahead, Solidigm is poised to sustain its leadership in high-capacity and high-performance SSDs, with plans to introduce next-generation drives exceeding 61TB. The company is also investing in edge data processing capabilities, recognizing the growing importance of data gravity in the AI landscape. By maintaining performance leadership, Solidigm aims to maximize the utilization of costly GPU servers, which are critical for AI training and inference.
Join us for this enlightening episode as Roger Corell provides a detailed overview of how SSDs are revolutionizing AI and enterprise workloads. How is your organization leveraging advanced storage solutions to enhance its AI capabilities? Share your thoughts and join the conversation!
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we welcome Linda Yao, COO of Lenovo’s Solutions and Services Group. With her extensive experience overseeing Lenovo's AI services practice, Linda provides a deep dive into the current state of AI adoption and the strategic approaches businesses can take to bridge organizational gaps and scale AI effectively.
Linda leads Lenovo’s new AI Center of Excellence, which aims to establish internal AI standards and guide customers through their AI journeys. During our conversation, she shares insights from Lenovo’s recent CIO report, highlighting the pressing challenges and opportunities CIOs face in integrating AI into their operations.
One of the core themes Linda discusses is the pivotal role AI plays in driving digital transformation. Despite widespread interest in AI, many organizations struggle with implementing it effectively. Linda outlines the key obstacles, such as security concerns, data readiness, and change management, that companies must address to fully leverage AI's potential. She emphasizes Lenovo’s "security first, people-centric" approach, which ensures that AI implementations are secure, responsible, and tailored to the needs of the workforce.
The conversation also touches on the importance of data readiness. Linda explains how AI acts as a catalyst for improving data infrastructure and analytics maturity. She advises businesses to invest in robust data collection and management strategies to support AI initiatives, underscoring the need for a clear roadmap to balance speed and security.
Linda highlights the significant sustainability benefits AI can offer. She shares examples of how Lenovo has used AI to optimize processes and reduce resource usage, such as doubling the output of refurbished devices. These AI-driven efficiencies not only support sustainability goals but also enhance overall operational effectiveness.
For organizations looking to embark on or accelerate their AI journey, Linda provides practical advice on getting started. She stresses the importance of finding a trusted OT system integrator to navigate the complexities of AI technology and avoid common pitfalls. Linda also emphasizes the value of setting clear, measurable goals to guide AI investments and ensure they deliver tangible business outcomes.
Join us for this insightful episode as Linda Yao shares her expertise on how businesses can successfully adopt and scale AI. How is your organization approaching AI adoption and what challenges have you faced? Share your thoughts and join the discussion!
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we sit down with Bryan DeBois, the Director of Industrial AI at RoviSys, to explore the transformative potential of AI in the manufacturing sector. With a wealth of experience and insights, Bryan sheds light on how digital innovation is reshaping manufacturing processes and what industry leaders must do to stay ahead.
Bryan's role at RoviSys involves bringing cutting-edge AI solutions to manufacturing clients, driving improvements in processes that have long been considered optimized. He discusses the three primary categories of industrial AI: unsupervised learning for anomaly detection, supervised learning for predictive analytics, and autonomous systems for decision-making. Each category offers unique benefits, from monitoring and predicting equipment performance to making real-time decisions that enhance operational efficiency.
The conversation delves into the practical applications of AI in manufacturing. Bryan highlights how AI can tackle complex processes that traditional controls struggle to manage. Whether it's scheduling, production planning, or controlling unmeasurable system conditions, AI provides a sophisticated approach to overcoming these challenges.
A significant focus is placed on the sustainability benefits of AI. Bryan explains how AI projects can reduce energy waste and optimize processes, contributing to more sustainable manufacturing practices. This aspect is particularly relevant as manufacturers face increasing pressure to minimize their environmental impact.
Bryan emphasizes the importance of investing in data infrastructure and developing a robust operational technology (OT) data strategy. He advises companies to find a trusted OT system integrator to navigate the complexities of AI adoption, warning that those who delay risk falling behind their competitors.
For medium-to-large manufacturing companies embarking on a digital transformation journey, Bryan offers valuable guidance. He suggests starting with data readiness projects to prepare for AI implementation, noting that education on AI's current capabilities is crucial for overcoming resistance and fostering adoption.
Join us for this insightful episode as Bryan DeBois provides a clear vision for the future of manufacturing. How is your organization approaching digital innovation and AI? Share your thoughts and join the conversation!
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we explore the fascinating world of domain names with Hayath Hussein, a seasoned expert currently with Com Laude. Hayath brings over 20 years of experience in the domain name industry, including a significant tenure as an in-house domain expert at a FTSE 100 company. Her insights cover the expansive growth and critical importance of domains in today’s digital environment.
Hayath's career journey is a testament to the dynamic nature of the domain industry. She has witnessed a remarkable evolution from an era with only a handful of domain extensions to today's vast landscape of over 2,000 options. This growth has significantly increased the complexity and importance of managing digital assets.
The importance of security and intellectual property protection has grown alongside the expansion of domain options. Hayath emphasizes the need for robust security measures to defend against threats such as DDoS attacks. She explains that brand owners today are much more educated and proactive about securing their digital presence.
A strong advocate for diversity in the workplace, Hayath believes in hiring based on potential. She shares inspiring stories of individuals from varied backgrounds thriving in the domain industry. This approach not only brings fresh perspectives but also enriches the talent pool, fostering innovation and growth.
Continuous learning and mentoring are cornerstones of Hayath's professional philosophy. She highlights the importance of providing ample training opportunities for employees at all levels. Whether through formal education, industry workshops, or self-directed learning, staying updated is vital in this fast-changing industry.
The intrinsic value of domain names extends beyond their role as digital addresses. Hayath discusses how premium domains can drive traffic, enhance brand awareness, and significantly contribute to business objectives. Securing relevant domains is crucial for protecting intellectual property and maintaining a competitive edge.
In tackling the persistent threat of DDoS attacks, Hayath advocates for a multidisciplinary approach to domain management. She offers practical advice on using technologies like anycast DNS and conducting regular audits to safeguard valuable digital assets.
Hayath's commitment to lifelong learning shines through as she shares her strategies for staying informed. From reading extensively to engaging with younger colleagues and clients, she continuously seeks to expand her knowledge and adapt to new challenges.
Join us for this insightful conversation that delves into the technical aspects of domain management while also highlighting the human element of building a successful career in this dynamic field. How has your experience with domain names evolved over the years? Share your thoughts and join the discussion!
How can organizations implement AI safely while reaping its benefits? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we sit down with Danny Allan, the Chief Technology Officer of Snyk, to discuss this crucial topic.
Recent findings from a Snyk survey reveal that a significant majority of IT managers are concerned about their teams' over-reliance on AI code completion tools, potentially bypassing essential security protocols. With developers facing high burnout rates, the pressure to adopt AI is intensifying. However, as Danny Allan emphasizes, the solution lies not in banning AI but in strategically integrating these tools within organizations.
Danny shares Snyk’s innovative approach to AI adoption, which includes providing security guardrails and thorough analysis to ensure AI tools are utilized securely. He discusses how Snyk partners with customers to mitigate risks and enhance productivity without compromising security. By implementing a clear plan for AI integration and partnering with experienced vendors like Snyk, companies can balance the productivity gains of AI with robust security measures.
We also explore a real-world example where a team of 5000 developers successfully rolled out an AI coding assistant with Snyk's security analysis, achieving significant productivity gains. Danny delves into Snyk’s AI Intelligence Framework, which focuses on using AI internally, securing AI implementations, and enhancing products and services with AI capabilities.
Are you interested in learning more about how to securely implement AI in your organization? Tune in to hear Danny Allan's insights and discover how Snyk can help you navigate the complexities of AI adoption. As always, we invite you to share your thoughts and experiences on this topic. How is your organization approaching AI integration, and what challenges have you encountered?
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Nick Walker and Giles Inkson from NetSPI to explore how proactive approaches are reshaping cybersecurity. NetSPI recently rebranded and launched a unified security platform designed to help organizations take a more proactive stance against cyber threats. This platform combines Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS), Attack Surface Management (ASM), and Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) to provide a comprehensive view of assets, risks, and security improvements.
We discuss the latest trends in cybersecurity, including the rapid adoption of generative AI and the complex risks it introduces. As cyber attacks grow more sophisticated, there's a significant shift towards holistic risk management beyond just vulnerability patching. This involves understanding critical assets and the pathways that could be exploited.
The role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is evolving too, with an increasing focus on board-level communication and strategic risk management. CISOs are now essential in translating cyber risks to leadership and ensuring cost-effective security programs.
We also discuss the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), set to take effect in January 2024. This regulation mandates practices like threat-led testing and intelligence sharing for financial institutions, aiming to enhance resilience through rigorous scenario-based tests and improved information sharing.
How do you see the role of proactive measures in cybersecurity evolving? We'd love to hear your thoughts. Connect with us online to continue the conversation and learn more about the topics we covered today.
How is artificial intelligence transforming the way we learn? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we explore this question with Steve Toy, CEO of Memrise, an AI-powered language-learning app with over 70 million users. Recently recognized as the #2 EdTech company by TIME Magazine, Memrise leverages AI to create individualized learning experiences that are reshaping education.
Steve Toy shares insights into how Memrise uses AI to tailor language-learning content based on user interests and vocabulary levels. With Membot, their innovative AI tutor, users can practice language skills in real-time, judgment-free environments. This AI-driven approach not only enhances learning efficiency but also makes education more accessible and personalized.
We discuss the broader implications of AI in education, including how teachers can use AI to design customized lessons for each student. Steve envisions a future where struggling students receive affordable, personalized support through AI tutors, democratizing access to quality education.
Join us as we uncover the potential of AI to revolutionize education, making it more engaging and effective for everyone. What are your thoughts on the role of AI in learning? We'd love to hear from you. Connect with us online to continue the conversation and find out more about the topics we discussed today.
In an era where technology touches every aspect of our lives, how is it shaping the future of healthcare? Join us on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily as we engage in a fascinating discussion with Rajan Kohli, the CEO of CitiusTech, a pioneering digital tech services provider in healthcare. With over 28 years of experience in tech services and consulting, Rajan shares his insights on the transformative power of technology in the healthcare sector.
Despite significant investments in digital transformation, many organizations need a data-driven culture and process inefficiencies to succeed. Rajan provides a roadmap for successfully implementing digital transformation strategies that can change this outlook, emphasizing the need for a shift in mindset and approach.
We also explore the exciting realm of generative AI and its potential to revolutionize healthcare. Rajan explains how this technology makes treatments more human-centric, automates mundane tasks, and paves the way for innovative healthcare solutions. He highlights the importance of trust in AI solutions, especially in healthcare, and introduces CitiusTech's Gen AI Quality & Trust solution to ensure safe and accurate care decisions.
Moreover, Rajan discusses the critical challenges and opportunities in healthcare technology, from improving interoperability and aligning incentives across the value chain to integrating social determinants of health data for more holistic care.
Tune in to learn how CitiusTech is spearheading these innovations and what the future holds for healthcare technology. What are your thoughts on the impact of technology in healthcare?
How is Generative AI reshaping personalized marketing? In this episode, we sit down with Ravi Pal, the Global CTO of Ogilvy One and Verticurl (a WPP Company), to delve into this pivotal question. Ravi, a seasoned technologist, has a wealth of experience in orchestrating enterprise solutions and fostering interactive experiences. His leadership has driven teams to create groundbreaking solutions that merge creativity, technology, and data.
Generative AI has become ubiquitous in the marketing industry, with nearly three-quarters of marketers incorporating it into their workflows. The technology promises to unite disparate data sets, unlocking the personalized marketing that brands desire and customers expect. But, while the potential rewards are substantial, the implementation of Gen AI in marketing is often more experimental than strategic.
In this engaging conversation, Ravi Pal discusses the challenges and opportunities of integrating Gen AI effectively to deliver personalized content that converts potential consumers into long-term customers. We explore key topics such as the importance of high-quality data, the benefits of custom AI models, and the need for balancing AI efficiency with brand uniqueness. Ravi also emphasizes the critical role of AI education across organizations and the importance of transparency and explainability in AI systems.
Join us as we navigate the complexities of Gen AI in marketing and consider whether it can truly fulfill the promise of personalized marketing at scale. Will brands be able to harness this technology to differentiate themselves and build genuine customer connections? Listen in to find out and share your thoughts on this evolving landscape.
How does a company achieve an 80% profit surge in just one year? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I learn more about the remarkable journey of Stenn, a fintech powerhouse that has revolutionized financing for small and medium businesses globally. Join me as I sit down with Bilal Bajwa, Stenn’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, to uncover the data-driven strategies behind their record-breaking growth in 2023.
Bilal shares insights on the technological innovations and data-centric approaches that have propelled Stenn to the forefront of the fintech industry. We explore how Stenn's algorithms analyze credit, fraud, and compliance risks to deliver superior customer experiences and discuss the company's role in advancing the UK’s ambitions to become a global fintech leader.
Additionally, Bilal explains the strategic decision to open a second tech hub in Barcelona and how this expansion supports Stenn’s mission to provide fast, reliable financing to underserved businesses, particularly in emerging markets.
Discover the story behind Stenn's success and gain valuable insights into the future of digital financing. How is data transforming the fintech landscape, and what does it mean for businesses worldwide? Listen in and join the conversation.
What are your thoughts on Stenn's data-driven approach to transforming the fintech industry? Share your insights and join the conversation.
Are you prepared for the ever-evolving cybersecurity threats that challenge today's businesses? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we sit down with Dave Merkel, CEO of Expel, to delve into the dynamic world of cybersecurity. With threats becoming more sophisticated and frequent, organizations must stay ahead of the curve to protect their assets and data.
Dave Merkel brings a wealth of experience and insights into the conversation, discussing the latest trends in cybersecurity and offering practical advice on how both organizations and individuals can prevent and mitigate cyber attacks. We'll explore the role of AI in the security landscape, considering its potential as both a powerful tool for defense and a formidable weapon for attackers. How can AI support security professionals, and what are the risks involved?
Another critical topic we'll tackle is the preparedness of CEOs in understanding cybersecurity. Are business leaders equipped with the necessary skills to make informed security decisions, and how can this influence the overall security posture of their organizations?
Expel, as a leading managed detection and response provider, aims to minimize business risk and enhance security capabilities for organizations of all sizes. Join us as we unpack these pressing issues with Dave Merkel, gaining valuable perspectives on navigating the complex cybersecurity landscape.
Tune in to discover:
- The latest cybersecurity trends and how to stay protected.
- The dual role of AI in enhancing and challenging security efforts.
- The importance of cybersecurity literacy among CEOs and its impact on business decisions.
Don't miss this enlightening conversation, and be sure to share your thoughts with us. How are you tackling cybersecurity challenges in your organization? Let's continue the discussion.
How do you transform a developer's toolkit to speed up innovation and cut down time-to-market? In our upcoming episode, we welcome Uri Maoz, Co-Founder and CEO of WireMock Cloud, to dive into the dynamic realm of API Mocking.
WireMock Cloud leverages the power of its widely recognized open-source API mocking framework, helping tens of thousands of developers at giants like IBM and PayPal enhance their productivity by creating more controlled, isolated development environments.
Uri brings a wealth of experience, not only in fostering a company's growth from the ground up but also in carving out a niche within the fiercely competitive tech space, managing to secure $6.5M in seed funding. His journey involves transitioning from CRO roles at various startups to leading WireMock in developing a sustainable monetization strategy atop their open-source software (OSS) framework—a feat many OSS companies find daunting.
Throughout the episode, Uri will share invaluable insights on:
- The significant role of API Mocking in boosting developer productivity and its application across the API lifecycle.
- The evolution of WireMock from its origins as an OSS project to a commercial platform powering developer efficiency.
- Diverse go-to-market strategies around OSS and how Product-Led Growth (PLG) intertwines with traditional enterprise sales.
Join us as we uncover how strategic API mocking not only resolves dependency issues but also fosters an environment of innovation. How can your organization leverage these tools to enhance developer efficiency and reduce go-to-market timelines?
Could the rapid evolution of CRM systems be the hidden game changer in today's business environment? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we sit down with Arun Gupta, a seasoned Microsoft Dynamics 365 architect and CRM specialist who's reshaping client experiences at Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Arun unravels the story behind a transformative CRM implementation that not only streamlined operations but also enhanced business outcomes on a global scale. From the meticulous selection of the right CRM system to overcoming integration hurdles with existing technologies, Arun provides a masterclass on navigating complex CRM scenarios. He emphasizes the critical role of user adoption and the often underestimated challenge of maintaining high-quality data within these systems.
As we delve into the technical specifics, Arun explains the importance of integrating CRM with other business technologies like ERP and marketing automation to create a unified platform for customer management. This synergy, he argues, is essential for aligning sales, marketing, and operations, leading to improved customer relations and data-driven decision-making.
However, it's not without its pitfalls. Arun candidly discusses common missteps such as inadequate planning and insufficient training that can derail a CRM project. Looking ahead, he predicts the future of CRM will be heavily influenced by AI and machine learning, pointing to a trend towards omnichannel and cloud-based platforms that prioritize data privacy and security.
What insights can businesses draw from Arun's experiences to avoid these pitfalls and leverage CRM technologies effectively? After listening, join the conversation and share your thoughts on how CRM systems are revolutionizing customer engagement in your industry.
Have you ever wondered how the latest advancements in Wi-Fi technology could revolutionize your connected home? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Gary Newson, EMEA Sales Director at NETGEAR, to demystify Wi-Fi 7 and explore its groundbreaking potential.
Wi-Fi 7 promises to elevate our connectivity experiences to new heights, offering increased capacity, faster speeds, and enhanced performance compared to its predecessors.
Gary Newson sheds light on how this new standard will support the growing number of smart home and IoT devices, ensuring seamless connectivity with reduced interference. We delve into the specifics of Wi-Fi 7, discussing its ability to handle up to 200 devices simultaneously and its impressive speeds of up to 5Gbps for clients.
In our conversation, Gary also explains how NETGEAR is preparing for this shift by developing innovative Wi-Fi 7 products like advanced mesh systems. These systems promise to extend coverage and provide robust connections throughout the home. We also touch on the enhanced security features of Wi-Fi 7, such as network segmentation and faster security patch rollouts, which are crucial for protecting smart and IoT devices.
Join us as we unpack the benefits of Wi-Fi 7 for consumers, its impact on smart homes and IoT, and how NETGEAR's upcoming products aim to future-proof our digital environments. Gary shares insights into how this technology will transform streaming, gaming, entertainment, and hybrid working experiences.
What excites you most about the potential of Wi-Fi 7?
How can small-to-medium nonprofits leverage the power of generative AI to enhance their operations and outreach? This is the question at the heart of our conversation today with Tammy Hammond, Chief Product Officer at Bloomerang, on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast.
In this episode, Tammy delves into the untapped potential of generative AI for nonprofits, highlighting its ability to save time and create compelling content. Unlike traditional AI, which relies on known data sets to find insights, generative AI is transformational in storytelling and message conveyance.
Tammy shares her optimism about this technology, especially for nonprofits with limited resources, explaining how it can significantly reduce the time required for tasks such as grant writing and content editing. She emphasizes the importance of introducing generative AI in an approachable way to alleviate apprehensions and maximize its benefits.
We explore the intersection of AI with donor and volunteer management, discussing how Bloomerang is embedding generative AI into their platform to simplify user experience and lower the learning curve. Tammy outlines key areas of focus, including email and content generation, personalized donor journeys, and video creation, combining generative AI with predictive AI to enable highly personalized donor experiences.
Tammy also addresses the challenges nonprofits face in adopting new technologies, particularly concerns about data privacy and ethics. She shares insights on how Bloomerang is working to embed AI into existing workflows to create an AI-empowered experience, with a focus on user-friendly design and structured prompts.
Tune in to learn more about the future opportunities for generative AI in the nonprofit sector, including content repurposing, personalized learning resources, and generating ideas for events and campaigns. As we look ahead to upcoming product launches and developments, Tammy provides a glimpse into how these innovations will continue to evolve and support the nonprofit community.
What do you think about the potential of generative AI in the nonprofit sector? Share your insights and join the conversation!
Learn more about the AI content assistant release
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we have the pleasure of speaking with Frantz Saintellemy, a key figure at LeddarTech, a company that is at the forefront of revolutionizing the automotive industry. LeddarTech’s software is making waves by helping auto manufacturers deliver safer vehicles through advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving (AD). By unifying all sensor data, LeddarTech’s solution provides a more accurate and actionable snapshot of a vehicle's environment, significantly enhancing safety and performance.
Frantz Saintellemy shares insights into how LeddarTech’s sensor fusion and perception software, which is both sensor and processor agnostic, is setting new standards in the industry. This innovative technology allows automakers the flexibility to choose their hardware, reduces costs, and delivers improved performance across a range of vehicle models from entry-level to premium. With over seven years of experience and a robust portfolio of 150 patents (80 granted), LeddarTech has a strong early mover advantage in this fast-growing market, expected to reach $42 billion by 2030.
Having recently gone public on NASDAQ, LeddarTech is poised for significant growth. Frantz discusses the company’s strategic priorities, including new software releases, expanding partnerships, and converting OEM projects into major design wins. Join us as we delve into the challenges and opportunities in the ADAS and AD market, and discover how LeddarTech is driving the future of safe and efficient driving.
The AI landscape is experiencing a remarkable surge in investments, especially following ChatGPT's one-year milestone, showcasing the transformative potential of these models.
However, this rapid progress has also highlighted a significant gap in cybersecurity readiness among organizations. According to McKinsey, while 40% of companies plan to increase their AI investments, only 38% are actively working to mitigate the associated cybersecurity risks. This discrepancy underscores the critical need for a balanced approach that leverages AI's benefits while ensuring robust cybersecurity measures.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we speak with Mariano Nunez, CEO of Onapsis, to delve into the critical aspects of AI and cybersecurity strategy from a CEO's perspective. Mariano brings a wealth of experience to the discussion, providing valuable insights into the leadership imperative in steering organizations toward responsible AI adoption.
Mariano emphasizes the pivotal role of CEOs in guiding their companies through the complex landscape of AI adoption. He discusses the importance of developing a nuanced strategy that harnesses the potential of generative AI while maintaining a strong focus on cybersecurity. This approach ensures that innovation and security go hand in hand, safeguarding the organization against emerging threats.
We explore the specific challenges that come with integrating AI into business operations, particularly the need to address vulnerabilities and mitigate risks. Mariano shares strategies that enable organizations to make the most of AI technologies without compromising their security posture. He highlights the importance of proactive measures, continuous monitoring, and the integration of AI with existing security frameworks to create a resilient and secure environment.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we dive into the fascinating world of quantum computing with Richard Murray, CEO and co-founder of ORCA Computing. ORCA, a spin-out from Oxford University, is pioneering the development of photonic quantum computers that are robust, portable, and operable at room temperature. This innovative approach eliminates the need for the complicated and cumbersome cryogenics required by other quantum computing platforms.
We explore how ORCA Computing is making waves in the quantum computing industry, building and selling their cutting-edge technology from their headquarters in London, right beside Paddington Station. Notably, the UK government recently acquired its first quantum computer from ORCA for the Ministry of Defence, with ambitions for it to function under field conditions, even on the back of a Land Rover.
Richard shares insights on why ORCA has sold five quantum computers worldwide in the last two years and who their primary customers are. We discuss the factors driving the demand for these advanced systems and the competitive advantages of photonic quantum computing. Richard explains how photonics stands out against other quantum computing platforms and addresses common concerns about committing to a specific technology amid ongoing advancements.
We also delve into the technical challenges of quantum computing, such as error correction and fault tolerance. Richard provides an update on how ORCA is tackling these issues and gives his perspective on when quantum computers might outperform the best existing high-performance computers.
The conversation touches on the global quantum computing arms race, highlighting the unique position of a UK-based company like ORCA competing with industry giants such as IBM and Google. Richard discusses the recent acquisition of the Integrated Photonics Division of GXC in Austin, Texas, and how this strategic move enhances ORCA's capabilities and positions them at the forefront of quantum computing innovation.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we speak with Sara Martin from HED about the evolving landscape of data center design. As data centers account for approximately 1% of global electricity usage, the push for sustainability and efficiency in their design has never been more urgent.
Sara shares insights into HED's innovative approach to creating energy-efficient and sustainable data centers. This includes the adoption of modular systems, liquid cooling technologies, and the integration of renewable power sources. She emphasizes the importance of designing with flexibility and scalability in mind to accommodate future growth in AI and other technologies. Proper planning and the use of scalable "blocks" can prevent the need for expensive relocations and ensure business continuity.
A significant portion of our conversation focuses on preventing power failures, a common cause of unplanned outages in data centers. Sara discusses the importance of investing in uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and the role of proper operations, training, and preventative maintenance in avoiding such failures. She also highlights the benefits of using modular prototypes and maintaining consistent design across data halls to enhance efficiency and reliability.
Sara introduces us to emerging trends in data center design, such as liquid immersion cooling for high-density racks and the use of mass timber construction for sustainability. These innovations not only improve energy efficiency but also offer practical solutions to the growing power demands of data centers.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we sit down with Vijay Balasubramaniyan, the CEO and Founder of Pindrop, to discuss the alarming surge in AI attacks and the emerging threats posed by deepfake technology. With a staggering 450% increase in AI attacks in just the first four months of this year, the urgency to understand and combat these threats has never been greater.
Vijay offers an in-depth analysis of the drivers behind this surge, including the rise of voice cloning tools and the innovative, yet dangerous, uses of synthetic media. We delve into the recent instances of deepfake technology being used in political campaigns and elections, such as the false audio tape of President Biden, and the potential impact these technologies could have on the upcoming elections.
As the founder of the industry's first deepfake detection engine, Vijay shares the challenges faced in developing this groundbreaking technology and how it effectively detects synthetic media. He also highlights the crucial role of state and federal officials in defending against these threats, emphasizing the need for coordinated efforts to ensure the safety and integrity of our digital landscape.
Vijay discusses the importance of concerted state-federal coordination in combating the spread of synthetic media. He provides insights into the legislative actions being considered for 2023 and beyond, aimed at addressing the challenges posed by deepfake technology. Additionally, Vijay talks about his involvement wi
In our latest Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, I sit down with Seamus Dunne from Digital Realty to explore the accelerating demand for compute power driven by AI and generative AI technologies. As these innovations push the boundaries of what's possible, the infrastructure supporting them must evolve at a matching pace—or risk being left behind.
Seamus delves into the heart of the matter, explaining how Digital Realty responds to the rising demand for high-performance infrastructure like GPUs and AI chips. He shares insights on how AI drives the need for robust data storage and efficient data access solutions. The discussion touches on the strategic importance of local investment in infrastructure to maintain competitive advantage, especially in regions like the UK.
We also explore the types of AI workloads becoming prevalent across various sectors. Currently, a significant portion of these workloads is dedicated to training models. Still, Seamus anticipates a shift towards inferencing as AI models mature and become integral to advanced products and services. This shift necessitates a robust and adaptable IT infrastructure strategy to deploy AI models alongside cloud services effectively.
Seamus highlights how data centers are pivotal in our daily digital activities—from streaming Netflix and conducting Zoom calls to online shopping and planning holidays. Beyond everyday conveniences, data centers are the powerhouse behind generative AI and other innovations driving economic growth.
Seamus discusses the evolving needs of AI infrastructure, emphasizing the importance of proximity to data centers for low-latency performance, particularly for AI inferencing. He also touches on the geographical advantages and challenges, noting how regions like the UK are well-positioned for AI growth while others, like Dublin, may need more support due to regulatory constraints.
Have you ever thought about how studying philosophy could make you a better coder? Goldman Sachs' CIO Marco Argenti recently suggested that AI engineers dive into philosophy alongside their technical studies to enhance the quality of their code. While this idea may seem unconventional, it underscores a vital truth in the age of AI: soft skills and a human touch are just as essential as technical expertise.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Rob Whiteley, CEO of Coder, to discuss what qualities organizations should seek in a coder beyond deep technical knowledge. We'll explore the importance of critical thinking, creativity, and human understanding, and delve into what coders should be studying to become well-rounded and successful. As AI increasingly becomes a go-to tool for faster coding, how can we ensure it doesn’t compromise quality and effectiveness?
Rob will share insights on the value of a broad liberal arts education, the need for continuous learning, and the crucial role of soft skills in the coding profession. We'll also tackle the ethical and intellectual property concerns surrounding AI-assisted coding, and why the human element remains indispensable for innovation and quality assurance.
Join us for a thought-provoking conversation that challenges conventional wisdom and highlights the multifaceted nature of coding in today's AI-driven world. What are your thoughts on the balance between technical skills and soft skills in coding? How do you see the role of AI shaping the future of software development? I'd love to hear your insights.
Are you curious about how artificial intelligence is reshaping the retail industry and revolutionizing loyalty programs? Join us in this engaging episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast as we sit down with Len Covello, CTO and co-founder of Engage People Inc. Len brings his expertise to the forefront, sharing insights on how AI is enhancing the retail landscape and the innovative ways Engage People is driving loyalty through their unique technology.
In our conversation, Len explains how Engage People has built a robust network allowing loyalty program members to pay with points directly at checkout. This novel approach not only provides an additional currency option but also significantly increases average basket sizes and drives more transactions. We'll delve into how this technology works across various industries, adding value for consumers and building trust in loyalty programs.
We'll also explore the broader impact of AI in retail. Len emphasizes that while AI isn't revolutionizing retail, it serves as a powerful tool for making more accurate decisions based on data analysis. From personalizing offers to optimizing inventory and pricing strategies, AI enables retailers to leverage data more intelligently, effectively "punching above their weight."
Further, Len will discuss current trends aimed at enhancing customer experiences, such as the integration of payment with points, the advent of one-time payment tokens, and the increasing importance of providing a seamless omnichannel experience. We'll also touch on the challenges retailers face, like inflation and competition in the loyalty card space, and how innovative solutions can help overcome these hurdles.
Looking ahead, we'll consider the future of loyalty programs. Len envisions a world where inter-brand partnerships provide a unified customer experience and AI drives hyper-personalized offerings. The ultimate goal? A "nirvana" customer journey that seamlessly integrates financial and retail partners.
Tune in to discover how Engage People is at the forefront of this exciting evolution in retail and loyalty, and how AI is poised to create more efficient, personalized, and engaging shopping experiences. Share your thoughts with us after the episode – how do you see AI transforming your shopping habits?
What does it take to thrive in today's competitive and ever-evolving entrepreneurial landscape? In this episode, I'm joined by Mario Peshev, CEO of DevriX and author of the new book "MBA Disrupted." Mario will share practical insights from his extensive experience as an entrepreneur and the framework he has developed for digital entrepreneurship success. From navigating economic downturns to leveraging AI tools for business efficiency, Mario's advice is not just theoretical, but actionable for aspiring and seasoned entrepreneurs alike.
We'll begin by exploring the current landscape of entrepreneurship. Mario will discuss the increased opportunities and heightened competition in the market, emphasizing the importance of perseverance, hard work, and adopting a CEO mindset. He'll also highlight why second-time entrepreneurs often see more success and the critical role of thorough research and preparation in avoiding failure.
As we delve into the economic factors affecting businesses in 2024, Mario will provide a realistic view of entrepreneurs' challenges, such as stricter funding environments, longer sales cycles, and cost-cutting measures. He'll offer strategies to adjust expectations and capitalize on hiring opportunities arising from industry layoffs. Mario will stress the importance of understanding economic cycles, a key factor in successful business adaptation.
We'll then focus on how businesses can make the most of events like Prime Day and the upcoming holiday shopping season. Mario will explain why, despite the significant revenue generated, these events may have a small impact on some business models, especially in the B2B and B2C sectors.
Today, I'm delving into this fascinating intersection of archaeology and artificial intelligence with Dr. Filipe Natalio and Dr. Ido Azuri. Their groundbreaking research has utilized AI and spectroscopy to detect traces of ancient fire use in archaeological contexts, pushing the boundaries of what we know about early human innovation.
One of the highlights will be their findings at Qesem Cave, where evidence of fire use around 1 million years ago challenges previous assumptions about human ancestors and their technological capabilities. We’ll discuss how their interdisciplinary team dynamics contributed to their success, including memorable moments that shaped their research journey.
We'll also examine the broader implications of their discoveries for understanding early human innovation and adaptation. Their use of AI to uncover patterns in large archaeological datasets offers new insights into ancient human behaviors and technological evolution. Additionally, we’ll explore the future potential of AI in archaeology, considering other ancient technologies and behaviors that could benefit from this innovative approach.
Our conversation will touch on the skepticism they initially faced from archaeologists and the surprising discoveries that validated their methods. Ensuring the reliability and accuracy of AI-driven results in such a complex and data-sensitive field will also be a key topic. As we wrap up, Dr. Natalio and Dr. Azuri will share their excitement about future projects at the intersection of AI and archaeology, offering a glimpse into the next frontier of uncovering our ancient past.
Dr. Filipe Natalio and Dr. Ido Azuri's work at Qesem Cave not only challenges our assumptions about early human fire use but also highlights the transformative potential of interdisciplinary collaboration. What other mysteries of our ancient past might be unlocked with these cutting-edge techniques? We'd love to hear your thoughts on the future of archaeology and AI. Join the conversation and share your insights.
How can businesses adopt AI responsibly while maintaining ethical standards and transparency? Join us in this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast I welcome Deborah Golden, a distinguished leader from Deloitte, who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in navigating the complexities of today's tech landscape.
In our conversation with Deborah, we delve into the ethical considerations of AI adoption, exploring how companies can ensure transparency in their AI operations and invest in workforce training to stay ahead. Deborah shares her insights on the rapidly evolving tech M&A landscape, predicting increased activity as businesses strive to accelerate their digital transformation and expand their technological capabilities over the next three quarters of 2024.
We'll also address the pressing issue of cybersecurity, discussing the most significant threats facing businesses today and how they can enhance their defense mechanisms. Deborah’s expertise sheds light on the innovative strategies companies can adopt to protect themselves against cyberattacks.
Looking ahead, we explore the future of tech innovation and how these advancements could reshape industry standards and consumer expectations in the coming years. Deborah’s dynamic approach to leadership and her ability to blend technological mastery with diverse industry acumen provide a unique perspective on engineering solutions that redefine the marketplace.
Blending technological mastery with a diverse industry background, Deborah navigates today's challenges by engineering solutions that redefine tomorrow’s marketplace. She transforms vision into tangible outcomes, uncovering novel pathways to innovation and turning potential into impactful progress.
Deborah's approach boldly explores the unconventional, leading with insight and provocation. Her dynamic track record illustrates that innovation transcends technological advancement, reshaping what’s attainable through the power of personal experience and the courage to think—and act—differently. Amid the rapid evolution of AI and other groundbreaking technologies, Deborah’s leadership sets new benchmarks for the future, inspiring change that impacts industries and communities alike.
How can organizations strike the right balance between personalization and privacy in their customer-centric strategies? In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Brad Herndon from PwC to delve into this complex issue. Brad, with his extensive experience in AI and transformation practices, provides a deeper understanding of the critical role data quality and integration play in effective AI and analytics.
During our conversation, Brad highlights the importance of ensuring data quality and consistency across various customer touchpoints—a longstanding challenge for many organizations. He discusses how integrating disparate data sources is not only difficult but crucial for gaining a comprehensive understanding of customer behavior. Solutions like customer data platforms (CDPs) are pivotal in unifying customer data, providing a clearer context for customer interactions.
We also explore the delicate balance between personalization and privacy. Brad explains that while customers desire relevant experiences, they also value their privacy and trust. This has led to a shift from individualized personalization towards audience-based strategies, which mitigate the risk of crossing privacy boundaries. By leveraging consented data and focusing on audience segments, organizations can tailor their marketing efforts without feeling intrusive.
Brad sheds light on the practical adoption of AI, emphasizing that while AI has the potential to automate tasks and improve efficiency, its implementation will be gradual. He advises starting with small, manageable AI projects to enhance operations before expecting a widespread transformation.
In our discussion, Brad elaborates on the transition from people-based to audience-based marketing strategies. He notes that most organizations are closer to adopting audience-based personalization and that automating dynamic audience segmentation based on changing behaviors is key. Privacy-enhancing technologies like data clean rooms also play a vital role in this transition.
We wrap up by discussing the future of AI in marketing and operations, with Brad sharing his thoughts on how AI will progressively transform business practices. He also addresses common myths and highlights exciting developments in the field.
Join us in this episode as we navigate the intricacies of data management, personalization, and AI with insights from Brad Herndon of PwC. How do you see your organization balancing personalization with privacy? Share your thoughts and let’s continue the conversation.
Are IT leaders prepared to harness the full potential of AI in today’s fast-paced business environment? In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Paige Costello from Asana to explore this intriguing question. Paige, who leads AI strategy at Asana, shares her insights on the evolving role of IT leaders and how Asana's new AI-powered product features are shaping the future of work.
As the enterprise work management platform of choice for many Fortune 100 companies, Asana is at the forefront of connecting strategy to execution for cross-functional team collaboration. Paige discusses the significant responsibilities IT leaders now bear, with 77% feeling personally accountable for driving IT transformation and 90% believing AI is crucial for overcoming future business challenges. Yet, a surprising 31% of executives and employees report a lack of a strategic plan for deploying AI within their organizations.
We delve into Asana’s innovative approach to AI with the introduction of "AI Teammates," a feature designed to seamlessly integrate AI into workflows. This development leverages Asana’s unique data model, providing contextual accuracy that enhances productivity and decision-making. Paige also shares the future roadmap for Asana, which includes AI-powered reporting, visibility, and goal tracking.
Our conversation also highlights the changing dynamics within IT leadership. As AI becomes more integral, IT leaders find themselves increasingly consulted on AI strategy, a shift that brings both opportunities and challenges, such as the need for careful budgeting and managing the pace of AI adoption. Despite the enthusiasm among employees for AI, there remains a disconnect with cautious executives, often due to low AI literacy and a lack of strategic vision.
Throughout the discussion, Paige emphasizes the concept of collective intelligence—blending human and AI expertise to achieve superior outcomes. She notes that individuals can be up to 33% more productive when collaborating with AI as a teammate, enabling teams to tackle more complex tasks effectively.
Join me in this insightful episode as we unpack the transformative power of AI in IT leadership and explore how tools like Asana are paving the way for smarter, more efficient workflows. How do you see AI reshaping the role of IT leaders in your organization? Share your thoughts and let's continue the conversation.
Can we harness the power of Gen AI and no-code technologies without losing control? This is the pressing question we address in today’s episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. I sit down with Andie Dovgan, the Chief Growth Officer at Creatio, a company that has recently achieved 'unicorn' status with a valuation of $1.2 billion.
Creatio, a global leader in no-code platforms for automating workflows and customer relationship management (CRM), emphasizes the importance of embedding governance and control in the development of no-code and AI applications. As we explore these technologies' potential to democratize digital transformation, Andie sheds light on how Creatio ensures security, compliance, and risk management while enabling rapid, scalable enterprise application development.
We delve into how no-code and AI reduce barriers for non-technical individuals, allowing a larger pool of knowledge workers to contribute to automation and digital transformation. This approach significantly accelerates the time-to-market for digital initiatives compared to traditional development methods. However, with this speed and accessibility comes the challenge of maintaining robust governance frameworks to mitigate risks.
Creatio’s composable architecture and methodology provide a balanced approach, combining flexibility with security and compliance. Andie shares compelling success stories, including how a $3 billion company deployed a 7,000-user CRM app in just three months—an endeavor that would traditionally take over a year.
This episode also highlights Creatio's recent $200 million funding round, which will fuel further research and development into AI and no-code innovation, as well as global expansion. As we navigate the complexities of these transformative technologies, the conversation underscores the critical need for governance applications and frameworks to enforce necessary controls.
As we wrap up, we reflect on the future of Gen AI and no-code technologies. Can these innovations truly be managed and regulated effectively? How can companies like Creatio continue to lead the charge in this space while ensuring security and compliance?
Tune in to this thought-provoking episode and share your thoughts on the future of no-code and Gen AI. How do you see these technologies evolving, and what measures do you believe are essential to keep them in check? Let's continue the conversation.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we dive into the world of insurance innovation with two visionary leaders: Rosie Denee, Head of Lloyd's Lab Accelerator, and Kate Stillwell, Co-Founder of Firebreak Risk. What role can groundbreaking technology play in tackling one of the most devastating natural disasters of our time? Join us as we explore how Firebreak Risk and Lloyd's Lab are revolutionizing the insurance industry.
Firebreak Risk stands at the forefront of using AI to transform the way we assess and manage wildfire risk. Their technology allows homeowners to document their property conditions through an app, converting photos and videos into critical data for underwriting. This innovative approach not only provides mitigation advice but also connects these actions to insurance eligibility and pricing, making homes 40% more likely to survive wildfires.
Lloyd's Lab Accelerator, part of Lloyd's of London, plays a pivotal role in fostering such groundbreaking innovations. By connecting startups with insurance expertise, Lloyd's Lab creates a dynamic environment where new ideas can flourish. An impressive 85% of participating startups establish commercial relationships with Lloyd's market, underscoring the accelerator's success in driving industry transformation.
In our conversation, Rosie Denee and Kate Stillwell shed light on how Lloyd's Lab supports startups like Firebreak Risk, enabling them to address increasing climate risks with agility and expertise. We delve into the broader implications of these innovations, not just for wildfires but for other climate-related risks as well. How do startups bring fresh perspectives and leverage new technologies to help insurers adapt to a rapidly changing world?
Tune in to hear Rosie and Kate discuss the significant impact of their work, the challenges they face, and the opportunities that lie ahead. How can we better mitigate wildfire risk and support the insurance industry's agility in responding to such events? Share your thoughts and join the conversation on this crucial topic.
How can enterprises effectively manage the rapid growth of low-code platforms while balancing innovation and governance? In this episode, we sit down with Nick Ford, Chief Growth Officer at Mendix, to delve into the transformative potential and challenges of low-code development in modern enterprises. As the global low-code platform market is projected to grow significantly, with developers outside formal IT departments becoming the majority, the conversation couldn't be more timely.
Nick shares his insights on how enterprises can leverage low-code platforms to accelerate digital transformation while maintaining the necessary oversight to prevent the pitfalls of unchecked development. With bottom-up development presenting risks like duplicated functions and inconsistent workflows, it's crucial to establish strong governance and policy alignment to ensure security and compliance.
Key discussion points include the four essential elements for a successful multi-platform strategy: oversight, curation, governance, and policy management. Nick emphasizes the importance of understanding the software's value to the business and its potential for reuse across departments. By investing in long-term governance and establishing robust workflows, enterprises can achieve a faster, more sustainable low-code adoption.
We also explore the role of fusion teams in the low-code ecosystem, combining the expertise of citizen developers, business technologists, and professional developers to create a collaborative environment that addresses specific needs while ensuring reusability and best practices.
Have you ever wondered how artificial intelligence and digital transformation can elevate your personal brand to new heights? In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Vladimer Botsvadze, a globally recognized figure in digital marketing and AI, to explore the secrets behind building a powerful personal brand in today's rapidly evolving landscape.
Vladimer, a top global marketing influencer and advisory board member at the United States Artificial Intelligence Institute, brings over 15 years of international experience to our discussion. He shares his journey from modest beginnings on social media to becoming a thought leader followed by over 130,000 people across various platforms. His story is one of passion, authenticity, and strategic thinking, offering invaluable insights for anyone looking to navigate the complex world of digital branding.
We delve into how AI is transforming industries, providing companies with a competitive edge, and revolutionizing personal branding efforts. Vladimer shares practical strategies for leveraging AI tools to enhance content creation, automate tasks, and build authentic connections with audiences. His experience as a mentor at prestigious institutions like UCLA and a judge for numerous marketing awards adds depth to his advice, making it actionable for both aspiring entrepreneurs and established brands.
In our conversation, Vladimer emphasizes the importance of long-term thinking, storytelling, and emotional connections in building a brand that resonates. He also discusses the future of AI in business, predicting significant impacts on efficiency, operational costs, and workforce dynamics. Whether you're a marketer, entrepreneur, or tech enthusiast, this episode is packed with valuable takeaways to help you thrive in the digital age.
Join us as we explore the intersection of AI, digital transformation, and personal branding. How can you leverage these advancements to stand out and make a lasting impact? Listen in and discover strategies that can propel your brand to new heights.
What are your thoughts on the role of AI in personal branding? Share your insights and join the conversation!
How is technology reshaping our relationship with finance? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we dive into the revolutionary world of decentralized finance with Evgeny Lyandres, Founder of VirtuSwap.
VirtuSwap, a decentralized exchange platform, is making waves by providing direct liquidity for smaller-cap assets, offering traders significant cost reductions and liquidity providers higher returns.
Evgeny, a seasoned professor and blockchain expert, brings a wealth of knowledge from his extensive academic and professional background. He currently serves as the Professor of Finance and Head of the Blockchain Research Institute at Tel Aviv University and has been featured in leading finance journals.
Join us as we explore the unique technology behind VirtuSwap and its potential to transform the DeFi landscape. Evgeny will share insights on how AI is being leveraged within VirtuSwap to optimize liquidity allocation and enhance trading efficiency. We'll discuss the future of DeFi in the advancing AI landscape and the exciting possibilities that lie ahead.
Could AI be the key to unlocking the full potential of DeFi? What challenges and opportunities does this convergence of technologies present? Tune in to hear Evgeny’s expert perspective and join the conversation. Share your thoughts and let's envision the future of finance together.
In this episode, I sit down with John Gutch, the FinTech Product Director at Etc., the incubation arm of BT Group. Have you ever wondered how small businesses can streamline their payment processes without investing in additional hardware? This episode brings exciting news for entrepreneurs and small business owners looking to modernize their payment systems with minimal hassle.
BT Group, in collaboration with the financial technology platform Adyen, has introduced the BT Tap to Pay app. This innovative solution allows small businesses to accept contactless payments directly via their iPhone, eliminating the need for additional devices. Available now on the Apple App Store, BT Tap to Pay leverages the iPhone's robust security features and the reliable EE network, enabling businesses to process payments from virtually anywhere.
John Gutch delves into how this service offers a competitive 1.4% transaction fee and ensures funds are available within 48 hours. This move addresses a significant pain point for small businesses—handling payments on the go or remotely. With early positive feedback from diverse sectors like driving instructors and food trucks, the BT Tap to Pay app is proving to be a game-changer.
Join us as we explore how BT’s innovative approach through its Etc. incubation arm is not only simplifying payment processes but also pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with emerging technologies. From converting old broadband cabinets into EV charging stations to continuously learning and evolving, BT is at the forefront of tech innovation.
How do you think technology like BT Tap to Pay can impact small businesses? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
Are we truly on the brink of a digital revolution where AI replaces human creativity and intelligence? A year ago, headlines suggested that AI could soon take over jobs, creating poems, art, and essays, and leaving humans redundant. But as we delve deeper, the reality paints a different picture: AI, on its own, lacks the purpose, creativity, and discernment that only humans can provide.
In today's episode, we sit down with Maria Schnell from RWS to explore the evolving relationship between AI and human intelligence. Maria shares insights into how AI, far from being an independent worker, needs human input to be effective. We'll discuss why AI, despite its incredible capabilities, often falls short without human oversight, leading to errors, biases, and a lack of creative nuance.
We'll challenge the notion that AI is a threat to jobs in fields like journalism, copywriting, and digital art, and instead highlight the emerging reality: AI and humans working together can achieve more than either can alone. Maria explains how AI can boost efficiency and productivity, while humans provide the essential context, creativity, and quality control.
We'll also delve into specific examples like translation, where the human touch is irreplaceable for understanding cultural nuances and engaging content creation. This episode shifts the conversation from a fear of AI replacing humans to how AI and human intelligence can complement each other to create Genuine Intelligence.
Join us as we explore how the future workforce can leverage AI and how AI systems can harness the irreplaceable human traits that drive innovation and creativity. How do you see the role of AI in your industry? Share your thoughts with us!
Tune in for an insightful conversation on the symbiotic relationship between AI and humanity, and discover why AI content just isn’t the same without human input.
Have you ever wondered how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the insurance industry? In today's episode, we sit down with Zaheer Hooda, Head of North America at Cytora, a leading provider of AI-powered solutions for the insurance sector. Zaheer brings his extensive experience from McKinsey and his current role at Cytora to shed light on how AI is reshaping the way insurers operate.
Zaheer delves into the practical applications of AI in improving transparency within the insurance industry. He explains how AI technologies can streamline underwriting processes, reduce manual labor, and enhance underwriter productivity by digitizing and evaluating risk data. Zaheer highlights real-world success stories, including how Markel has seen a 100% increase in underwriting productivity thanks to Cytora’s AI-driven solutions.
We explore the complex nature of commercial insurance, which often involves lengthy and manual processes. Zaheer discusses how AI can navigate these complexities and help insurers adapt to changing real estate valuations due to climate change. He also touches on the future of AI in insurance, predicting that in the next 3-5 years, underwriters will rely more on AI-powered insights, leading to quicker, more accurate decisions and more affordable insurance options.
Transitioning from his consultative role at McKinsey to a dynamic environment at Cytora, Zaheer shares his journey of integrating AI solutions in a practical, non-disruptive manner. He emphasizes the importance of aligning technology with business objectives and managing change effectively.
Join us as we explore the exciting intersection of AI and insurance, uncovering the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. What does the future hold for AI in insurance, and how will it continue to evolve? Listen in to gain valuable insights and join the conversation.
What does the future of finance look like, and how is cryptocurrency shaping this landscape? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we delve into these pressing questions with Tom Duff Gordon, the Vice President of International Policy at Coinbase. With a rich background in regulatory policy and government affairs from his tenure at Credit Suisse and active involvement with key policy groups, Tom brings a wealth of knowledge and insight into the global financial ecosystem.
Tom shares his experiences and perspectives on the transformative potential of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. We discuss how these innovations are enabling faster, cheaper, and more programmable payments, and how stablecoins and tokenization are opening up new opportunities for investors. Tom elaborates on Coinbase's ambitious international expansion strategy, detailing their "Go Deep, Go Broad" approach to establish localized operations in key markets while offering tailored services in others.
We also address the regulatory landscape, examining the challenges and progress in achieving regulatory clarity and building trust. Tom highlights the importance of initiatives like MiCA in Europe and discusses Coinbase's commitment to security and privacy, utilizing advanced technologies to protect user assets and data.
Additionally, we explore global market trends, such as the increasing institutional adoption of crypto, the rise of on-chain activity, and the political progress towards regulatory frameworks. Tom also shares insights into upcoming initiatives from Coinbase, including the "Stand With Crypto" campaign and the scaling of their layer-2 blockchain "Base."
Join us for an enlightening conversation on the future of finance, the role of cryptocurrencies, and the challenges and opportunities ahead. What are your thoughts on the regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies? Share your opinions with us, and let’s continue this important discussion.
Join me, Neil, on this episode of Tech Talks Daily, where I sit down with Russ Thornton, Chief Technology Officer at Shawbrook Bank. Russ is at the forefront of Shawbrook Bank's ambitious digital transformation journey, leveraging AI-powered decisioning and workflow automation from Pegasystems to revolutionize their operations.
Under Russ's leadership, Shawbrook Bank has streamlined their loan processing time by an impressive 75%, while freeing up underwriters from 1,500 hours of manual work each month, all aimed at enhancing the customer experience. Recently, they've embarked on phase two of their transformation, deploying Pega Platform™ to overhaul their buy-to-let mortgage underwriting process, cutting processing times in half and tripling underwriter productivity.
In our conversation, Russ shares insights into his career journey and how it shapes his decisions as CTO. We explore the pivotal milestones Shawbrook Bank has achieved with these automation projects, and what lies ahead on their transformative roadmap. Russ also reflects on the lessons learned from these initiatives and provides a glimpse into future projects that will further elevate Shawbrook Bank's digital capabilities.
Tune in to learn how Shawbrook Bank is harnessing technology to drive efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and pave the way for continued innovation in banking. What are your thoughts on the role of AI and automation in shaping the future of financial services? Share your thoughts with us after listening to this insightful episode.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, join me, Neil, as I sit down with John Simon, Co-founder and Board Chair at GreenLight Fund, and Managing Director at Sigma Prime Ventures. We delve into how GreenLight Fund is reshaping social innovation across America.
Founded on the principles of venture philanthropy, GreenLight Fund identifies and scales proven nonprofit solutions to tackle systemic challenges faced by communities nationwide. With operations spanning 13 cities and plans to expand to 16 soon, their unique model bridges the gap between local needs and impactful solutions.
John shares insights into GreenLight Fund’s journey over the past two decades, from their grassroots origins to becoming a catalyst for change in underserved communities. We explore their rigorous approach to selecting and implementing high-impact initiatives, driven by data and community collaboration.
Discover how GreenLight Fund leverages partnerships with local governments, schools, and nonprofits to ensure sustainable impact and measurable outcomes. John also discusses their ambitious vision for the next decade, aiming to reach millions of families across 25-30 cities with tech-enabled solutions.
Join us as we uncover the transformative power of social innovation and discuss the future of philanthropy in driving meaningful change. What are your thoughts on scaling social impact through venture philanthropy? Share your insights with us after listening to this episode.
How is artificial intelligence reshaping the landscape of language translation? Today on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we are thrilled to welcome Steve Rotter, Chief Marketing Officer at DeepL, a company that has been at the forefront of AI-powered translation since 2017. With a mission to help businesses and individuals thrive through superior translation tools, DeepL's journey is one of continuous innovation and unwavering commitment to quality.
In this episode, Steve shares insights into DeepL's specialized AI approach that sets it apart from general-purpose AI models. We dive into how their technology not only delivers high-quality translations but also ensures unparalleled security and data privacy, crucial for business-critical applications. With a portfolio boasting over 30 languages and various platforms, including web, mobile, desktop apps, and even an API, DeepL is revolutionizing the way we communicate across borders.
Steve highlights the incredible business value of machine translation, showcasing its ability to save 90% of the time compared to manual efforts, driving significant ROI and enabling global expansion. We also explore DeepL’s eco-friendly data center in Sweden and stringent data handling policies that underscore their commitment to security and compliance.
Looking ahead, DeepL is set to launch exciting new products, including an AI writing assistance tool and an enhanced enterprise offering. We discuss how these innovations will further empower businesses and individuals, all while maintaining their core focus on language quality.
Tune in to learn about the unique advantages DeepL brings to the AI translation space and gain a deeper understanding of the broader European tech and AI landscape. How are European companies leveraging their global mindset and expertise in language nuances to excel in specialized AI fields? And where do you see the future of AI-powered translation heading?
Join the conversation and let us know your thoughts on the evolution of AI in language translation. What opportunities and challenges do you foresee? Share your insights and continue the dialogue with us!
Hi, are we overlooking the monumental failures in our quest for innovation? Today on Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Tom Conrad, a Silicon Valley veteran with a rich history in shaping how we interact with technology, from Pandora to Snapchat and beyond. Currently leading Zero, Tom brings a unique perspective on the resilience required in tech, diving into the harrowing yet enlightening lessons from billion-dollar blunders like Quibi and Pets.com.
Tom will unravel the layers of success that extend beyond just a stellar product. He'll explain the importance of robust investment strategies, insightful leadership, and scalable operations that are vital to turning a great idea into a thriving enterprise. Furthermore, we delve into how Zero is transforming the healthcare landscape by democratizing health data, aiming to empower millions with accessible, understandable information to manage their health proactively.
This episode will not only explore Tom’s remarkable journey through tech’s highs and lows but also look ahead at the exciting intersection of AI and biodata that could redefine our health systems. How can past failures illuminate future strategies in business and personal health? After listening, share your thoughts on how we can better harness technology to turn setbacks into stepping stones for success.
Have you ever wondered what the future of data management looks like? In this episode, we dive into the world of data lakehouses with Ori Rafael, the CEO and co-founder of Upsolver. Ori shares his insights on why the lakehouse is poised to be the next big thing in data, and how Upsolver is at the forefront of this revolutionary architecture.
A data lakehouse is not just a buzzword; it's a transformative approach that decouples storage, metadata management, and compute. Ori explains how this separation allows for greater flexibility and significant cost savings compared to traditional data warehouses. By leveraging object storage like S3, open-source Iceberg for metadata, and various compute engines, lakehouses reduce vendor lock-in and provide the ability to use specialized engines for different workloads, such as AI.
We explore the key advantages of lakehouses, including cost reduction, flexibility, and avoiding vendor lock-in. However, transitioning to a lakehouse architecture is not without its challenges. Ensuring performance parity with data warehouses and managing data access controls are significant hurdles. Ori discusses how Upsolver is tackling these challenges head-on, providing ETL solutions and lake management capabilities that optimize data lakes for performance and interoperability.
The episode also delves into the trends shaping the future of data management. With the rapid adoption of open lakehouses and Iceberg emerging as the standard, enterprises are moving away from traditional data warehouses and legacy data lakes. Ori provides a glimpse into how open source catalogs with governance capabilities are evolving, paving the way for more robust and scalable data management solutions.
We wrap up the conversation by asking Ori a fun question: If he could have a private breakfast or lunch with anyone in the business, VC funding, or tech world, who would it be and why? You never know, the person he mentions might just be listening!
Join us for this insightful discussion on the future of data management and discover why the lakehouse is the next big thing in the industry. Be sure to find out more about Upsolver and their innovative solutions by visiting their website or connecting with their team online.
In this episode, I sit down with Sudhir Chaturvedi, President of LTIMindtree, to delve into the transformative power of digital technologies. From the increasing use of Generative AI and automation to the strategic investments necessary for business resilience and growth, Sudhir offers an in-depth look at the future of various industries.
We begin by discussing the critical considerations and challenges businesses face as they integrate Generative AI and automation into their operations. Sudhir highlights the complexities around trust, bias, explainability, security, regulation, and cost, shedding light on how these issues can be navigated to harness AI's full potential.
The conversation then moves to digital transformation and its profound impact on the workforce and industries such as retail and financial services. Sudhir explains how digital transformation is not just a buzzword but a crucial strategy for operational efficiency, customer experience enhancement, and the creation of new revenue streams.
Sudhir underscores the importance of investing in technology to build resilience and sustainability. He shares insights on how leveraging cloud, data, digital, and AI technologies can significantly reduce carbon footprints and drive sustainable growth.
We also explore the exciting future trends in technology, including advancements in AI, quantum computing, and robotics. Sudhir provides a glimpse into how these innovations will continue to shape industries and create new opportunities.
Join us for this enlightening discussion with Sudhir Chaturvedi, where we unpack the strategic importance of digital transformation and technology investment for a resilient and sustainable future. How do you see AI and digital transformation influencing your industry? Share your thoughts with us!
In this episode, we sit down with Harry Caldwell, the dynamic leader of the CX Americas organization at Cisco. Recorded live at Cisco Live, this conversation uncovers the human side of technology and explores how a focus on customer experience (CX) can drive innovation and business success.
Harry Caldwell shares his journey from his early days in North Carolina, through a 23-year tenure at Microsoft, to his current role at Cisco, where he leads a team of 4,400 professionals across the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. His passion for enabling people to do their best work shines through as he talks about his leadership philosophy and the importance of deep collaboration in achieving business outcomes.
We'll delve into the vibrant atmosphere of Cisco Live, where Harry describes the event as a melting pot of innovation, technology, and people from around the world. With 20,000 attendees, the diversity of voices and ideas is a highlight, providing a fertile ground for networking and learning best practices.
Harry emphasizes the critical role of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within Cisco's culture. He discusses how the DEI council within the CX Americas organization ensures these values are integral to their operations, leading to a more inclusive and innovative work environment.
We also explore the significance of the Customer Hero Awards, which celebrate customers who are pushing the boundaries of their industries through innovative use of Cisco technologies. Harry shares inspiring stories from this year's winners, such as Lowe's, which transformed its customer service operations using AI and Cisco's Webex Contact Center, and Mass General Brigham, which leverages AI to advance healthcare research and patient care.
This episode underscores the powerful intersection of technology and humanity, demonstrating how Cisco's collaborative approach and cutting-edge solutions are helping customers achieve remarkable transformations. Harry's insights highlight the importance of aligning technology with human intelligence to drive real-world outcomes.
What role do you think customer experience plays in driving innovation in your industry? Share your thoughts with us!
In this episode, we dive into the fascinating journey of Joe Vezzani, the visionary co-founder of LunarCrush, a leading social media analytics firm in the crypto space. From his background in finance and advertising to the inception of LunarCrush in 2017, Joe's story is one of innovation, resilience, and foresight.
We'll explore how LunarCrush aggregates social media data to offer investors valuable insights into crypto, stocks, NFTs, and other markets. Joe shares how the company weathered the 700+ day crypto bear market, pivoting to a subscription model and launching a groundbreaking platform that connects brands with creators.
Discover the core products of LunarCrush, including their latest innovation that pays creators based on engagement metrics. Joe also highlights the growing significance of social data for investors and how LunarCrush is democratizing access to this data for retail investors.
As we delve into the company culture, you'll hear about their focus on hiring passionate, curious individuals who are encouraged to tinker with new technologies like AI. Joe emphasizes the importance of a remote-first culture in fostering innovation and retaining top talent.
Looking ahead, Joe shares his vision for the future, where utility-focused Web3 apps are seamlessly adopted by users without them even realizing the underlying blockchain technology. We'll discuss how LunarCrush plans to integrate social and market data for diverse fields such as sports, betting, and NFTs, bringing users into the Web3 ecosystem with an exceptional user experience.
Join us as we uncover the dynamic world of LunarCrush and the exciting future trends in the crypto and Web3 landscape. What do you think is the future of social media data in investment strategies? Share your thoughts with us!
Have you ever wondered how to build a work culture that fosters high performance and innovation? In today's episode, we're joined by Francis Lacoste, an expert in engineering leadership coaching. Francis has dedicated his career to helping CTOs and VPs of Engineering at tech startups develop amazing work cultures and high-performing teams. Drawing on over 25 years of experience in the open-source and cloud developer tools industry, Francis shares his journey from being a Senior Director at Salesforce to becoming a sought-after coach for tech leaders.
We dive into the "inner game" of leadership, exploring how self-awareness, emotional mastery, and mindset shifts can transform the effectiveness of tech leaders. Francis emphasizes the importance of maintaining a strong company culture, especially during rapid scaling phases, and shares strategies to foster psychological safety and mutual accountability within teams.
In our conversation, Francis reveals his best tips for staying effective and making an impact at every stage of being a startup CTO or VPE. We discuss his insights on the critical role of culture, the challenges tech leaders face when scaling, and how to create an environment where innovation and collaboration can thrive organically.
Tune in to learn from Francis's extensive experience and discover how you can enhance your leadership skills to build teams that not only meet but exceed expectations. And as always, we'd love to hear your thoughts. What strategies have you found effective in nurturing a high-performance team? Share your experiences with us!
In a digital age where enterprises are tasked with protecting an extensive network of data, traditional methods of safeguarding sensitive information often fall short. Static, rules-based models for detecting data breaches rely heavily on the quality of training data, leaving gaps in security. How can organizations bolster their defenses against ever-evolving cyber threats?
In today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we are joined by Shamim Naqvi, CEO of SafeLiShare Inc., to explore the transformative potential of Secure Enclave technology in the cloud, also known as Confidential Computing. Shamim delves into how this cutting-edge technology can enhance data security, especially when leveraging third-party AI and ML models.
SafeLiShare’s ConfidentialAI platform brings unprecedented security to enterprise data pipelines through digital fingerprinting and a tamper-proof, immutable ledger. This ensures comprehensive monitoring of every user, service, account, and machine, employing a zero-trust approach during runtime interactions. By integrating Confidential Computing, organizations can secure their AI workflows, pipelines, and ML operations against unauthorized access and breaches.
SafeLiShare provides runtime security for AI and ML workloads through Confidential Computing, ensuring data is protected during processing. This technology secures data within isolated hardware enclaves, making it inaccessible to external threats and providing auditable logs for compliance. Achieving high levels of security with minimal performance overhead (3-5%) makes this approach feasible for extensive use.
Confidential Computing is set to become pervasive across cloud and on-premises environments, driven by the increasing need for data security and regulatory compliance. Traditional encryption methods differ from Confidential Computing in that the latter protects data during processing using secure enclaves. SafeLiShare’s ConfidentialAI enables the secure use of large language models by combining them with enterprise context data within secure enclaves. This addresses the main challenges in providing confidential context to public AI models while offloading key management to secure enclaves, resulting in significant security benefits.
Join us for an insightful discussion with Shamim Naqvi as we unravel the complexities of data security in the AI era. How can Confidential Computing reshape your approach to protecting sensitive enterprise data? Tune in to find out, and don't forget to share your thoughts on this evolving landscape.
How does an organization transform the lives of individuals living with vision loss? In this episode, I sit down with Kyle Johnson, President & CEO of Lighthouse Central Florida, to uncover the remarkable story behind their mission to empower people who are blind or visually impaired.
Since 1976, Lighthouse Central Florida has provided comprehensive, vision-specific rehabilitation services, ensuring that thousands can live productive, independent lives.
One of the highlights of our conversation is the groundbreaking partnership between Lighthouse Works, the business processing outsource arm of Lighthouse Central Florida, and Genesys, a global leader in AI-powered experience orchestration. Together, they have launched EquiVista, a solution that enhances job opportunities for the visually impaired by creating accessible contact center environments.
We delve into the significance of this innovation against the backdrop of startling statistics: 2.2 billion people globally live with vision impairment, and nearly 70% of blind or visually impaired individuals in the U.S. are unemployed. The partnership aims to change these numbers, promoting a more inclusive workforce and demonstrating how technology can break down barriers.
Join us as we explore the powerful synergy between Lighthouse Works and Genesys, and discover how their collaborative efforts are driving change, fostering inclusivity, and creating life-changing opportunities for the blind and visually impaired.
What role do you think technology should play in creating an inclusive workforce? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
What does true cyber resilience look like in the face of evolving regulations? In today's episode, we're joined by Marc Lueck, CISO EMEA at Zscaler, to unpack the complexities and nuances of cybersecurity in a regulatory landscape that continues to challenge organizations globally. As we edge closer to enforcing directives like NIS2 and DORA, understanding the intersection of technology, compliance, and strategic foresight has never been more imperative.
Marc will delve into Zscaler's upcoming regulations campaign and the insights from their comprehensive whitepaper, which will launch in April or May. The whitepaper focuses on the imperative need for organizations to simplify their technical frameworks and hardware to boost their cyber resilience and align seamlessly with stringent EU regulations.
Throughout the conversation, we will discuss the critical benchmarks set by the NIS2 directive to enhance security protocols across essential service providers in Europe. Marc will shed light on why, despite a high level of confidence among IT leaders in the UK regarding compliance readiness, there still needs to be a significant gap in actual understanding and preparedness across organizational teams.
Moreover, we will explore how adopting a zero-trust architecture serves as a cornerstone for organizations aiming to meet these regulatory demands effectively. By removing implicit trust and shifting towards context-based access control, Zscaler advocates for a security model that aligns closely with the NIS2's emphasis on rigorous risk assessment and management processes.
In discussing the broader impacts on critical infrastructure, particularly for smaller organizations, we'll assess the challenges and strategies necessary to navigate this complex regulatory environment. Marc's insights will guide listeners through the dichotomy between perceived preparedness and the operational realities many face under new compliance pressures.
As we conclude, consider this: Is your organization genuinely prepared for the sweeping changes brought about by these new regulations, or is there a disconnect between confidence and reality? We invite you to share your thoughts and experiences as we navigate these pivotal changes together. How does your organization measure up in its journey towards cyber resilience?
Today on Tech Talks Daily, we're diving into the world of cutting-edge technology with Rob Devlin, co-founder and CEO of Metalenz. This pioneering company, spun out of Harvard, is reshaping how we think about optics in technology with their groundbreaking meta-surface optics.
Metalenz has introduced a revolutionary flat lens technology that manipulates light much like traditional curved lenses but on a nanostructured surface. This innovation allows for multi-lens stacks to be collapsed into a single flat optic at a semiconductor scale, drastically reducing size and cost while enhancing the capabilities of sensing devices.
Rob discusses Metalenz's first-generation technology, which is already enhancing tens of millions of devices with advanced 3D sensing for mobile augmented reality and photography. Looking ahead, Metalenz is setting ambitious goals with their next-gen "PolarID," aimed at providing secure facial recognition for Android users. This new technology, developed in partnership with Samsung, promises to deliver secure face unlock solutions that are not only more compact but also three times cheaper than current technologies used by competitors like Apple.
The impact of Metalenz's innovations extends beyond just cost and size reduction. By enabling polarization imaging, Metalenz is poised to bring this sophisticated security feature to over a billion Android users worldwide who seek Apple-level security without the hefty price tag. This strategic move, enhanced by their collaboration with Samsung to co-optimize optics and image sensors, is set to redefine the standards of mobile security and performance.
Furthermore, Rob shares insights into the potential future applications of Metalenz technology, including biomarker detection and health monitoring through polarization imaging. These advancements are expected to enrich machine vision and autonomous systems with richer data inputs, paving the way for significant breakthroughs in various industries.
Join us as Rob Devlin explores the journey of Metalenz from its academic roots to becoming a key player in global technology markets, aiming to make enhanced security accessible to millions more consumers without compromising on cost or functionality. What are your thoughts on the integration of such advanced technologies in everyday devices? Let’s discuss how innovations like Metalenz are setting new paradigms in the tech world.
Today's episode of Tech Talks Daily features Will Huber from the Office of the CTO at AHEAD, a leader in driving digital business transformations. AHEAD specializes in several crucial areas such as Cloud Platforms, Digital Engineering, Data & Analytics, Next-Gen Data Center, Enterprise Automation, and Integrated Security, which are fundamental for organizations to excel in today's digital era.
Will, who has a rich background as the former CTO of CDI—a company recently integrated into AHEAD to bolster its market-leading capabilities—shares insights from his extensive experience in the technology consulting sphere. As he speaks to us while traveling from New York City to Chicago, Will sheds light on how AHEAD helps businesses navigate and succeed in their digital transformation journeys.
During our engaging conversation, Will discusses the importance of enterprise automation and how it's pivotal in enhancing productivity and operational efficiency across various aspects of enterprise IT. He emphasizes that by automating processes, companies can achieve quicker deployments and significant cost benefits while allowing staff to focus on higher-value work.
Security is another focal point of our discussion. Will explains why it's critical to integrate robust security measures throughout all layers of an organization, from infrastructure and applications to data and networks. By embedding security from the start and continuously training staff, companies can better manage their digital landscapes against evolving threats.
The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence and its governance are also explored. Will touches on the hype surrounding AI and the need for frameworks to deploy it responsibly. He highlights how AHEAD helps organizations set up these frameworks to ensure AI is used effectively and ethically across various sectors.
Will also delves into the transformative impact of AI in healthcare, noting how it revolutionizes administrative tasks, diagnostics, predictive analytics, and real-time monitoring. This transformation is crucial for improving patient care and outcomes.
Moreover, we discuss the challenges of managing cloud costs. As companies increasingly move to cloud-based solutions, understanding and controlling expenditures become paramount. Will explains how AHEAD addresses these challenges by implementing effective financial operations strategies that provide visibility into cloud utilization and spending.
As we conclude our conversation, Will reiterates AHEAD's mission to reduce complexity and deliver innovative software solutions that blend tools, processes, and continuous learning. This approach not only propels businesses forward but also ensures they are well-prepared to face the future of an increasingly digital world.
Join us as we dive deep into the dynamics of enterprise automation, AI, and the strategic integration of cutting-edge technologies that are shaping the future of digital business transformation. What are your thoughts on the role of AI and automation in your industry? Let's continue the conversation and explore how these technologies are reshaping the business landscape.
In today’s episode, we delve into the innovative world of Rinse, a mobile-first solution transforming the traditional laundry and dry cleaning industry. We are joined by Ajay Prakash, CEO and Co-Founder of Rinse, to explore how their technology not only enhances customer convenience but also supports local laundromats and promotes fair employment practices.
Founded in 2013, Rinse was born out of a desire to remove the friction from a chore that everyone dreads—laundry. Ajay and his co-founder, James, began testing the concept with just 11 friends, quickly realizing the potential to make a significant impact. Rinse’s unique business model partners with local laundromats, equipping them with technology and training to handle increased volume and improve their service quality. This partnership has boosted partner revenue by an average of 20%.
One of the core beliefs at Rinse is the fair treatment of their workforce. Unlike many companies in the gig economy, Rinse’s drivers, known as Valet team members, are all W-2 employees, ensuring they receive the benefits and security they deserve.
Technology plays a pivotal role in Rinse’s operation, with sophisticated systems for route optimization, inventory tracking, and ensuring cleaning quality. This backend technology allows Rinse to manage the complexities of their operation while keeping the customer experience straightforward and effective.
Looking forward, Rinse aims to become a household name and a dominant player both nationally and internationally in the laundry and dry cleaning industry. With plans to expand further across the U.S. and eventually worldwide, Rinse is on a clear path to redefine how we think about managing our laundry needs.
As we unpack the journey of Rinse and its impacts on both customers and local businesses, we invite you to consider how traditional services can be transformed through technology. What are your thoughts on the integration of tech in traditional industries? Join the conversation and share your insights with us!
What steps are necessary to secure a state-of-the-art sports and entertainment venue like SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park against ever-evolving cybersecurity threats? And how can such measures be balanced with providing a seamless experience for millions of visitors each year?
Joining me today to answer these questions is Dwayne Robinson, Head of Cybersecurity at SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park.
I met Dwayne on the show floor at Cisco Live, and we quickly got into a fascinating discussion about the unique challenges and solutions involved in securing a high-profile venue. SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park are not just home to NFL games and concerts but also set to host monumental events like the Super Bowl, the 2028 Olympics, and the FIFA World Cup.
In our conversation, Dwayne shares his insights into how they use cutting-edge technologies to bolster cybersecurity.
From AI-driven threat detection to coordinated efforts with federal and local government agencies, discover how the cybersecurity team navigates this complex digital landscape. We also explore how these measures are implemented without compromising the fan experience, ensuring that every visit to SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park is memorable for all the right reasons.
How do you secure a 298-acre sports and entertainment district while maintaining a top-notch fan experience? What emerging threats keep cybersecurity experts up at night, and how can proactive measures make a difference? Tune in to find out, and share your thoughts on the balance between innovation and security in such dynamic environments. We'd love to hear your insights!
How is artificial intelligence reshaping the landscape of technology, and what new developments can we expect from a leader in the industry? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, live from Cisco Live, I'm joined by Vijoy Pandey, Senior Vice President of Outshift by Cisco. Outshift is at the forefront of Cisco's innovation, especially in the realms of AI, cloud-native applications, and quantum technologies.
Vijoy shares his insights on the latest AI innovations that are not only advancing Cisco's product line but also setting new benchmarks for customer experience and technological responsibility. We discuss Outshift's mission to build what's next in emerging tech for Cisco and the challenges of turning ideas into action. Vijoy explains how Outshift operates like an internal startup accelerator, focusing on both product development and market readiness to address customer needs effectively.
Our conversation delves into the specifics of AI's role in enhancing existing products and driving new ones. Vijoy highlights how AI is being integrated into Cisco's products to improve their capabilities and address evolving customer needs. From AI-driven assistants to the cutting-edge developments in quantum networking and security, this episode offers a comprehensive look at the future of technology.
What's driving the evolution of networking today? How are industry leaders like Cisco shaping the future of data centers and connectivity?
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, live from Cisco Live, I'm joined by Kevin Wollenweber, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Networking – Data Center and Provider Connectivity.
Kevin, with decades of experience and a finger on the pulse of industry transformations, shares his insights into Cisco's latest innovations. We discuss how these advances address the complex challenges faced by the largest service providers and data centers around the world.
From new 400 and 800 gig routers and switches to AI-driven network management tools, Kevin reveals how Cisco is helping customers modernize and streamline their network infrastructures.
Throughout our conversation, Kevin delves into the merging of the data center and routing teams, enhancing Cisco's ability to deliver cutting-edge solutions. We also explore how Cisco leverages automation and AI to simplify network management and improve operational efficiency for service providers.
As we close this episode, I'd like to ask everyone listening: What future networking challenges do you think are most critical? How should companies like Cisco continue to innovate in response? Share your thoughts with me.
In a world increasingly driven by digital transformation, the robustness of enterprise connectivity can often go unnoticed—until it doesn't. Today on Tech Talks Daily, we have the pleasure of hosting Mark Bennett, Head of Global Enterprise Networking Products at Vodafone Business, to discuss the pivotal role connectivity plays in modern business operations.
Vodafone Business, a primary growth engine within the global Vodafone Group, stands at the forefront of enterprise connectivity, boasting a revenue of approximately $8.7 billion. The company's commitment is not just about maintaining connections but enhancing business capabilities through digital transformation.
During this episode, Mark provides us with a deeper insight into the lesser-known yet critical side of Vodafone Business. He details their comprehensive portfolio, which spans IoT, cloud, security, analytics, unified communications, and more, catering from small enterprises to large multinational corporations.
With today's enterprise networks becoming increasingly complex, the convergence of software-defined wide-area networks with security at the forefront—driven by hybrid working and cloud adoption—is more crucial than ever. Mark discusses the strategic importance of SAS and cloud integration, highlighting the significant role of Vodafone Business in supporting their customers through these transitions.
Moreover, Mark sheds light on the transformative impacts of network automation. Despite a large portion of the industry still managing networks manually, Vodafone Business is pushing the boundaries by implementing AI and automation to enhance operational productivity and end-user experience.
As Mark's first Cisco Live event in the U.S., he shares his excitement about exploring advancements in AI and automation, particularly how these technologies integrate into Vodafone's strategies to ensure optimal performance and agility for their customers globally.
Whether you are deeply embedded in the tech industry or just curious about the infrastructural backbone that supports digital business operations, this conversation offers valuable insights into the critical role of enterprise connectivity in today's business landscape.
What are your thoughts on the evolution of enterprise networking? How do you see AI and automation playing a role in your business or industry? Join the conversation and share your insights with us!
Why should companies invest in social impact programs? Today on Tech Talks Daily, we delve into this compelling question with Brian Tippens, SVP and Chief Social Impact Officer at Cisco. Together, we explore how integrating social impact strategies not only drives positive change but also propels business outcomes forward.
Cisco stands at the forefront of this movement, harnessing its vast technological resources and extensive ecosystem to champion an inclusive future for all. Our discussion will highlight Cisco's key initiatives that illustrate the profound intersection of social responsibility and business strategy. These efforts include climate sustainability, response to crises, advancement of social justice, skills development, community impact through employee engagement, economic empowerment, digital inclusion, and accessibility.
In a time when ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) can spark controversy, Brian will share why companies like Cisco continue to invest in social impact, viewing it as essential to their business ethos and crucial for addressing global challenges. We'll also shed light on Cisco’s "One Billion Lives Positively Impacted" initiative and their comprehensive actions for social justice.
Join us as we uncover the tangible benefits of these initiatives not just for society, but for the employees, customers, and partners of a global enterprise. How do you think embracing social impact can reshape the future of business? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
Useful Links
“One Billion Lives Positively Impacted with BBC StoryWorks highlights” https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/csr/technology-for-good/one-billion.html “Cisco’s 12 Actions for Social Justice” https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/social-justice.html Cisco’s ESG Reporting Hub https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/about/csr/esg-hub.html
Are you ready to dive into the latest trends in digital operations? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm excited to welcome Carla DeSantis, Partner in Operations Transformation at PwC, to discuss the findings from PwC's recent Trends in Digital Operations Survey.
Carla provides an in-depth look at the survey's key findings, highlighting that 69% of companies are not seeing returns on their technology investments in supply chain and operations. She explains the primary obstacles, including lack of user adoption, data quality issues, and the challenges of integrating new technology with legacy systems. Carla emphasizes the importance of a holistic approach to transformation, rather than a siloed focus on individual pain points.
One of the most intriguing aspects of our conversation is the discussion on AI integration. Despite nearly all respondents having some level of engagement with generative AI, only 20% report widespread use in operations and supply chain. Carla shares insights into what factors contribute to successful AI integration, stressing the need for clear use cases that augment human capabilities rather than replace them. She also addresses the common misconception of AI as a silver bullet or a tool for workforce reduction.
Carla underscores the critical role of upskilling in achieving digital transformation. She advocates for reimagining training as a continuous learning journey, involving both detractors and super-users early in the process to identify and overcome adoption barriers. Her advice on balancing encouragement with accountability for technology use is particularly valuable for business leaders aiming to foster a digitally adept workforce.
Looking ahead, Carla paints a picture of an evolving landscape where sustainability and regulatory considerations are becoming increasingly important. She encourages listeners to explore PwC's Digital Operations Report for industry-specific insights and practical recommendations.
How is your organization navigating the complexities of digital transformation? Tune in to this episode to gain valuable insights from Carla DeSantis and discover strategies to enhance your digital operations. After listening, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the key challenges and opportunities in your digital transformation journey.
Are you ready to explore the future of data and AI? In our upcoming episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am thrilled to welcome Irfan Khan, Chief Product Officer at SAP, to discuss SAP's groundbreaking data and analytics portfolio, particularly the new SAP Data Sphere offering.
Irfan brings a wealth of experience and insights, starting from his early interest in technology inspired by his father to his formative computing experiences with the BBC Micro and Amstrad CPC 464. His journey from CTO at Sybase to various sales roles at SAP has given him a unique customer-centric perspective that fuels his innovative approach to data and AI.
Our conversation dives deep into the SAP Data Sphere, a revolutionary business virtual data fabric concept that allows for data federation without the need for physical data consolidation. This groundbreaking approach preserves data context and metadata, which are critical for training high-quality generative AI models. Irfan explains how Data Sphere leverages knowledge graphs and vector stores to enable contextual AI capabilities, allowing businesses to detect signals and patterns across disparate data sources for applications like supply chain optimization.
One of the standout aspects of our discussion is the emphasis on data quality, lineage, and ethical use, which are paramount for the responsible deployment of generative AI. Irfan shares SAP's commitment to ethical AI, including the formation of an ethical AI committee to vet models before production use, and discusses the measures taken to prevent hallucinations, cultural biases, and maintain data integrity.
Irfan also highlights real-world applications of SAP Data Sphere and generative AI, such as detecting early signals of supply chain disruptions and ethically screening candidates for recruitment. These examples showcase how generative AI is enhancing business applications across various industries, driving innovation, and supporting better decision-making.
Looking ahead, Irfan paints an exciting picture of the future of data and AI, with rapid innovation from big tech players like Google, Meta, and OpenAI. He underscores the importance of continuous learning through bite-sized content and networking to stay ahead in this dynamic field.
What steps can your business take to leverage the power of AI and contextual data? Tune in to this episode to gain valuable insights from Irfan Khan and discover how SAP's innovative solutions can transform your data management and AI strategies. After listening, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the role of generative AI in your business and how you plan to practice better data hygiene for responsible AI use.
How secure is your data really? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Rocco D'Amico, founder of Brass Valley, to explore the hidden threats and innovations in data security and management. Brass Valley began with a focus on data security for data centers and has since evolved into a leader in search engine optimization and data destruction innovations.
Rocco sheds light on the often-overlooked danger of embedded data in off-network and end-of-life devices, explaining how even wiped devices can harbor hidden data that poses significant security risks. He discusses the importance of identifying gaps in your company's data protection and what a robust data risk management platform should accomplish. Rocco's insights into implementing high-reliability practices from industries like nuclear, healthcare, and aviation into IT asset disposition (ITAD) are invaluable, demonstrating how to minimize the risk of mega data breaches effectively.
One of the standout moments from our conversation is Rocco's account of assisting a major security company in closing 49 data centers across 22 countries within just 60 days. His story highlights the critical role of strong communication, cultural understanding, and experienced partners in achieving such a massive feat without compromising data security.
Rocco also emphasizes the importance of sustainability in data destruction, advocating for responsible methods that keep old devices out of landfills while ensuring complete data destruction. He offers a fascinating perspective on how the data management landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years and what these changes mean for the technology we use today.
For those interested in delving deeper into data security, Rocco provides practical advice on measuring processes, enabling open communication, and having a disaster recovery plan in place. His approach to empowering staff to voice concerns and preventing potential breaches showcases the importance of a proactive and vigilant mindset in data protection.
What steps are you taking to ensure your data is fully protected? Tune in to this episode to learn from Rocco D'Amico's expertise and discover how you can fortify your data security strategies. After listening, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the hidden threats within your data security practices and how you plan to address them.
Are you an aspiring entrepreneur looking for insights on how to navigate the tech startup world? In our latest episode of Tech Talks Daily, I had the pleasure of interviewing Luke Diaz, the founder of DBT Ventures, an angel investment fund dedicated to supporting underrepresented founders. Luke brings a wealth of experience leading customer success teams and has been instrumental in helping several startups scale from single-digit millions to over $100M in ARR.
In our conversation, Luke delves into the challenges and opportunities for startups seeking funding. He shares valuable strategies on how to quantify your startup's potential, attract investor interest, and practice conscious leadership. Luke's commitment to fostering diversity in tech is truly inspiring, as he highlights the importance of providing venture capital to founders from diverse backgrounds, ensuring that innovative ideas are not overlooked due to traditional biases in the investment landscape.
One of the standout moments from our discussion is Luke's emphasis on the critical role of customer success in driving product adoption and retention. He provides actionable advice on how to structure onboarding programs, understand and mitigate churn, and create a culture of transparency and continuous improvement within your company. Luke's approach to leadership is both practical and profound, advocating for conscious leadership practices that not only shape company culture but also drive measurable business impact.
Luke also shares his perspective on emerging tech trends, particularly the role of AI tools like ChatGPT in enhancing business efficiency and decision-making. He cautions against the hype and stresses the importance of linking AI applications to tangible business outcomes.
For those looking to expand their knowledge, Luke recommends "The 7 Powers" by Hamilton Helmer, a book that offers valuable business principles applicable to any entrepreneur. He also shares his commitment to continuous learning, allocating time each week to stay updated with new tools and trends, a habit that has undoubtedly contributed to his success.
What insights did you find most valuable from Luke's journey and expertise? Tune in to this episode to discover how you can apply these lessons to your own entrepreneurial endeavors. And after listening, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how conscious leadership and strategic customer success can transform your business.
In today's digitized age, the spectacle of live entertainment isn't just about the Wrestlers, but equally about the seamless technological orchestration that happens behind the scenes.
On this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we meet Ralph Riley, Director of Broadcast IT Systems at WWE, a man whose career has seen him evolve from an IT intern to a key player managing the nerve center of WWE’s broadcasting operations.
Ralph's journey through the ranks of WWE offers a fascinating glimpse into how critical network management and cybersecurity are in ensuring that millions of viewers receive uninterrupted, high-quality broadcasts of their favorite wrestling events. With over 15 years in the field, Ralph has navigated the rapid evolution of technology and security, particularly in the demanding realm of media and entertainment.
In 2020, Ralph's contributions were recognized with WWE’s ‘Code of Champions’ award, an accolade that highlighted his significant role in advancing WWE’s technological capabilities. His hands-on experience spans from ensuring the robustness of the network during live broadcasts to integrating advanced solutions like Cisco's ThousandEyes, which offers real-time visibility into network performance, drastically reducing the mean time to resolution for network issues.
Beyond the technical, Ralph’s story is also one of personal passion and community service. His dedication extends into his personal life, where he volunteers at Operation Hope food pantry, demonstrating a commitment to addressing food insecurity. His multifaceted life—balancing high-stakes IT management, community service, and family—provides a rich narrative on the intersections between technology, personal growth, and community impact.
What does it take to maintain such a high-stakes technology environment without losing touch with community and family? Join us as Ralph shares his insights and experiences, and let us know how technology has impacted your enjoyment of live events. How does technology invisibly enhance your experience of the spectacle? Share your thoughts with us!
Are you and your business truly leveraging the power of AI in your workplace, or are we just scratching the surface amid the widespread hype? Today, I'm joined by Aruna Ravichandran, the dynamic Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing and Customer Officer at Webex by Cisco, who is making significant strides in technological and workforce transformations. Broadcasting from the vibrant Cisco Live event in Las Vegas, Aruna brings over two decades of experience from some of the most influential tech companies worldwide.
In today’s episode, Aruna will explore the evolving landscape of work and the transformative role of AI. With her robust background in engineering and marketing, she is ideally positioned to discuss the convergence of technology and customer engagement. Aruna is not just a leader in digital marketing strategies; she's also a staunch advocate for women in STEM and brings perspectives on the future of work that are both innovative and deeply inspiring.
So, hold on tight as we dive into a conversation that promises to expand your understanding of AI’s impact on professional environments. Aruna, a massive welcome to the show! Could you start by telling us a bit about your role and the exciting developments you’ve seen at Cisco Live?
Listeners, as we navigate through these insights, what are your thoughts on the role of AI in enhancing workplace efficiency and transforming business operations? How do you see these advancements influencing your industry or personal career trajectory? I invite you to share your views and join the conversation.
Have you ever wondered how one of the world's largest airlines ensures that every passenger interaction is seamless, both on the ground and in the air? Today, I'm joined by Dan Field, Director of Platform and Network Engineering at United Airlines. Dan brings a wealth of experience integrating cutting-edge technology to enhance customer experiences and operational efficiency at United. With tools like Cisco's AppDynamics and innovative solutions like Agent on Demand, Dan and his team are revolutionizing travel. Agent on Demand allows passengers to connect with agents via call, text, or even video chat. This service eliminates the need to physically wait in line, offering a more convenient option for travelers to manage their journey—everything from seat assignments to boarding times can be handled through a simple QR code scan. Today's discussion isn't just about the technology itself but about how United Airlines leverages these advancements to significantly improve organizational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Listeners, as we explore these technological innovations, what are your thoughts on how such technologies could further enhance your travel experiences? Have you encountered any tech-driven solutions during your flights that made a significant difference? Join the conversation and share your views.
Are you and your organization prepared for the future of cyber security? Today, I'm joined by Tom Gillis, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco's Security Business Group on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast.
Broadcasting directly from the vibrant atmosphere of Cisco Live in Las Vegas, Tom joins us to unravel the dynamics of cyber security within the framework of a renowned networking giant. With a career that spans influential roles at VMware and now at Cisco, Tom offers unique insights into the evolution of cybersecurity strategies and their crucial role in shaping business resilience.
Tom discusses the latest innovations unveiled at Cisco Live. From the groundbreaking Cisco Hypershield to enhancements in AI-driven security management, these developments represent Cisco's commitment to fortifying enterprise defenses against increasingly sophisticated threats. As we delve into these topics, Tom will also share his personal journey and the reasons behind Cisco's accelerated innovation in recent times.
So, buckle up as we transport you to the heart of Cisco Live, where the future of enterprise security is being redrawn. Join us for a conversation that promises to be as enlightening as it is inspiring. What are your thoughts on the trajectory of cyber security and the innovations discussed today? How do these advancements resonate with your professional experiences or the challenges faced by your organization? I encourage you to share your perspectives and join the ongoing dialogue by reaching out through our various platforms.
How can a fashion-forward brand like Steve Madden redefine the intersection of style and technology? In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I'm live at Cisco Live, engaging with Steve Madden's top tech minds: Kamran Siddique, VP, CISO & Head of Infrastructure, and Nitin Srivastava, Director of IT Infrastructure & Operations.
We delve into the dynamic world of retail technology and explore how Steve Madden, a brand celebrated for its trendy footwear and accessories, leverages cutting-edge technology to enhance customer experiences worldwide. Despite its traditional association with fashion rather than tech, Steve Madden is making significant strides in integrating technology into its operations, particularly with its recent shift to a new SaaS-based POS system designed for iPads.
During our discussion, Kamran will share insights on the crucial security measures Steve Madden prioritizes to protect customer data and ensure transaction integrity. We'll uncover how the brand maintains a balance between robust security protocols and a seamless user experience, especially in high-traffic retail settings. Furthermore, Kamran will reflect on the evolving role of a CISO in the retail sector, particularly as digital and SaaS-based solutions become more prevalent.
We will also hear about the challenges of aligning IT infrastructure with broader business strategies and the metrics that are pivotal in evaluating the effectiveness of IT security and infrastructure efforts.
Join us as we uncover the technological pulses behind a global fashion giant at one of the biggest tech events of the year. After listening, what do you think are the biggest tech challenges facing the retail industry today? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
How is technology reshaping the way businesses connect with their customers? Today on Tech Talks Daily, I, Neil Hughes, sit down with Shad Aul, Senior Manager of Network Engineering at Lowe's, to uncover how the home improvement giant is transforming its customer interactions through a groundbreaking collaboration with Cisco.
In our discussion, Shad delves into the strategic shift from a traditional on-premise solution to a unified SaaS platform using Cisco Webex Contact Center. This bold move not only streamlines operations across 25 business units and accommodates 8,781 agents but also plays a pivotal role in reducing Lowe's IT overheads and licensing costs significantly. With over 1 million customer calls handled seamlessly in the first quarter of 2024 alone, Lowe's exemplifies how scalability and reliability in technology can lead to superior customer service.
Moreover, we explore how this technological overhaul is not just about efficiency but also enhancing customer satisfaction through a seamless omnichannel experience that meets evolving consumer expectations. Shad shares insights on the integration of advanced AI applications, set to redefine the future of customer engagements and drive Lowe’s forward in attracting top-tier tech talent.
Join us as we discuss the intricacies of implementing such extensive changes without interrupting business flow and the ongoing benefits of Cisco's Lifecycle Services in speeding up the realization of business value through AI-driven outcomes.
What could this mean for the future of retail and customer service? Share your thoughts and join the conversation as we delve into the intersection of innovation, customer satisfaction, and business growth.
In this episode, we explore the exciting developments in space technology with Liz Seward, Head of Space Strategy and Market Development at BAE Systems.
With a background in business development, marketing, thermal engineering, and mission systems engineering, Liz has worked on notable projects such as the ExoMars rover and a mission to return a sample from an asteroid. She is also a prominent figure in Women in Aerospace Europe and the International Astronautical Federation.
Our conversation begins with an introduction to the role of space in defense, emphasizing the need for earth observation and near-real-time intelligence for multi-domain operations. Liz explains how space technology provides critical capabilities for global monitoring, weather forecasting, mapping, and communications, all essential for modern defense strategies.
We delve into BAE Systems' re-entry into the space sector after 20 years, highlighting the Azalea project. Azalea is a groundbreaking initiative combining multiple sensors and machine learning for faster data analysis. It uses software-defined radios, synthetic aperture radar, and onboard processing to fuse multi-sensor data such as RF, radar, and optical, providing actionable insights rapidly. This project aims to reduce the time from data capture to useful information for operators, marking a significant advancement in earth observation capabilities.
Liz also discusses the future of space innovation, focusing on dual-use capabilities that serve both defense and civilian needs. She shares insights on software-defined satellites that can be reprogrammed to meet different use cases securely and the UK’s efforts to establish supportive regulations around space sustainability and debris mitigation.
A critical aspect of our discussion is the urgent need for talent development in the new space age. Liz introduces BAE Systems' launch of the UK's first-ever space engineering apprenticeship program. This initiative aims to build a talent pipeline by combining part-time work at BAE with a part-time engineering degree from the University of Portsmouth. The program seeks to attract passionate individuals eager to work on hands-on space projects, including the Azalea project.
Throughout the episode, Liz provides a comprehensive view of how BAE Systems measures success, both in delivering new capabilities to key customers like the UK government and in providing solutions internationally to allied countries. For the Azalea project, success is defined by its ability to offer step-change earth observation capabilities.
Join us as we uncover the innovative strategies and projects at BAE Systems that are set to shape the future of space technology. How is your organization preparing for advancements in space capabilities? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
In this episode, I sit down with Martin Reynolds, the Field CTO at Harness, to explore the rise of platform engineering as developers strive to accelerate digital innovation amidst rising costs and tightened budgets. Martin sheds light on the importance of internal developer portals (IDPs) in this evolving landscape. He argues that IDPs are crucial for ensuring developers can build at scale without increasing toil, especially given the rising complexity of software delivery pipelines in the cloud-native era.
IDPs provide developers with a single pane of glass, allowing access to the necessary capabilities and infrastructure to deploy code and manage services efficiently. Much like how a bank’s customers need not worry about the backend processes when making a deposit, an IDP encapsulates the development infrastructure, enabling developers to focus solely on writing and committing code rather than getting bogged down by complex deployment processes.
Martin discusses how this trend is set to further disrupt the developer experience and accelerate transformation in 2024. He highlights that platform engineering helps solve non-coding tasks (toil) by providing a reliable, secure platform with automated pipelines for quick and consistent software delivery. This approach allows developers to focus on coding, thereby enhancing productivity and innovation.
We delve into how IDPs act as a gateway and orchestrator for all developer tools, tasks, and resources, offering visibility into existing services, security, and costs. This prevents reinventing the wheel and allows for self-service access to tooling, infrastructure, and pipelines, ultimately enabling more agile and rapid delivery compared to traditional environments.
Martin emphasizes the benefits of IDPs, such as improved productivity, accelerated innovation, and reduced onboarding time for new developers. However, successful adoption of IDPs requires treating developers as customers, understanding their needs, and integrating familiar tools to provide a seamless experience.
Looking ahead, Martin envisions a future where AI assistants augment IDPs, providing contextual information and recommendations without replacing developers. The goal is to shift information left, ensuring developers have the right context at the right time to make informed decisions.
Join us as we uncover how platform engineering and IDPs are revolutionizing the developer experience, driving digital transformation, and shaping the future of software delivery. How are you adapting to these changes in your development processes? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
What real-world impact is AI having on businesses today? How do we measure its success? These are the questions we are exploring at the Experience 2024 event by Genesis in Denver, Colorado. Amid the buzz about AI, I want to dig deeper and uncover tangible examples of its business value.
In this episode, I speak with Louise Phillips, Vice President of Customer Centres at Virgin Atlantic, and Michael Johnson, Operational Change Manager at Virgin Atlantic. They reveal how Virgin Atlantic is leveraging AI to revolutionize customer and employee experiences. They also share remarkable outcomes such as a 25-point improvement in customer satisfaction and a 12-point increase in employee happiness within just a year.
We explore how AI is used to create smarter, more cohesive experiences, including the implementation of predictive routing, voice segmentation bots, and bot flows. Louise and Michael explain how these technologies have transformed Virgin Atlantic's customer journey, particularly for transatlantic routes, and how they've allowed the company to quantify and improve service.
They also discuss future advancements, such as Agent Assist and predictive engagement, that promise to further enhance operations and customer experiences. As the event concludes, they reflect on their partnership with Genesys and the exciting potential of AI.
Join us as we dive into the real-world impact of AI on business, the measurable successes, and the future possibilities. How do you see AI shaping the future of business? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
In this episode, we dive into the evolving landscape of AI integration and security with Kara Sprague, Chief Product Officer and EVP at F5. IDC predicts that by 2025, organizations will allocate over 40% of their core IT spend to artificial intelligence-related initiatives. Just as enterprises raced to the cloud, companies today are scrambling to integrate AI into their IT architecture. The challenge? They must cut existing IT costs to remain competitive.
We discuss how companies need to implement AI technology quickly and reliably while fending off new cybersecurity threats created by AI. Managing the cost and complexity proves challenging for IT budgets. In previous years, IT leaders rushed to onboard cloud services, only to struggle with network complexity and cloud spend. To avoid repeating these mistakes, enterprises must streamline and conserve IT spend to power and protect their AI-based applications and APIs across various environments—be it the edge, cloud, or on-premises.
Kara shares insights on the growing wave of companies reallocating resources to use AI to strengthen and protect their AI-based applications and APIs. She highlights how F5 customers utilize F5’s new AI-based distributed cloud services to support and secure their AI-based apps and APIs across every IT environment.
During our conversation, we delve into the crisis and complexity enterprises face with hybrid multi-cloud environments. Apps are now spread across multiple locations, including multiple clouds, SaaS, edge locations, and corporate data centers, increasing operational complexity. This dispersion brings higher costs from siloed operations and inefficient traffic routing, while expanding the API attack surface creates significant security risks.
Kara explains how AI will drive more apps, APIs, and associated security risks, necessitating architectural changes to manage these hybrid environments effectively. F5 aims to simplify hybrid multi-cloud management with consistent policies across different environments, making the integration process seamless and secure.
We also explore how F5 provides consistent capabilities and flexibility across on-premises, cloud, and SaaS deployment models, ensuring that organizations can maintain robust security and performance. Kara discusses the unique solutions F5 offers for API and distributed cloud security, addressing the growing need for a different approach to securing APIs compared to traditional web apps.
One of the critical aspects we cover is how F5 helps protect against AI-powered threats, such as malicious bots, with advanced anti-bot solutions. Kara highlights the importance of developing new security capabilities tailored to the unique vulnerabilities of AI models and services. We reflect on lessons learned from the complexities of cloud adoption and emphasize the need for architectural intent to avoid similar challenges with AI integration.
Additionally, Kara shares how F5’s Distributed Cloud solutions simplify networking across environments, significantly reducing appliance upgrade times from hours to minutes. This streamlining of processes allows organizations to focus more on innovation and less on operational burdens.
As we look to the future, Kara expresses excitement about the promise and challenges of AI. While AI presents a tremendous opportunity to accelerate digital capabilities, it also requires rethinking architectures and security strategies to manage the associated complexity effectively.
Join us as we uncover the real-world impact of AI on IT architecture, the critical importance of API security, and the future of hybrid multi-cloud environments. How are you preparing for the integration of AI in your business? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
I recently read that 52% of Companies in the Fortune 500 List Have Disappeared Over the Last 20 Years. Another quick search revealed that 1955 v. 2016, only 12% of Fortune 500 Firms remain.
I then came across a company that has evolved over four decades to remain at the forefront of financial process automation.
Join us in this insightful episode as we sit down with Axel Rebien, CEO of Serrala, a company that has spent 40 years helping businesses cut costs and automate financial processes. Axel shares his unique perspective on leadership, shaped by his extensive background in tech, finance, fashion, and healthcare, and how it influences Serrala's customer-centric approach.
In our conversation, Axel delves into the strategic transformation of the CFO role, highlighting how Serrala leverages AI-driven scenario modeling and predictive analytics to provide near real-time visibility into financial health. We explore the importance of customer focus in product development, and how speaking directly with clients ensures that Serrala's solutions solve real-world problems efficiently and effectively.
Axel's passion for transforming finance from a strategic gatekeeper to a value creator shines through as he discusses the integration of Serrala's solutions with SAP, enhancing user experience and efficiency for finance teams. He also offers valuable advice for aspiring business leaders on adopting a customer-centric approach and driving innovation.
How can AI and predictive analytics redefine the strategic role of finance functions? What does it take to lead a company through four decades of technological advancements while staying true to customer needs? Listen in as Axel Rebien shares his journey and vision for the future of finance automation.
Join the conversation and let us know your thoughts on how technology is reshaping the finance industry. How do you see AI impacting financial processes in your organization? Share your insights and let's discuss!
I am live from Sphere 24 in Helsinki in this special Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode. I am pleased to speak with Christine Bejerasco, the Chief Information Security Officer at WithSecure. Christine brings her extensive 20-year experience in cybersecurity to our discussion, offering a unique perspective from the CISO point of view.
We dive into what makes Sphere 24 a standout event in the cybersecurity landscape. Christine shares her passion for this participant-driven unconference that brings together experts from diverse backgrounds to tackle the multifaceted challenges of cybersecurity. She emphasizes the importance of collaboration and multiculturalism, highlighting how these elements are integral to the success of Sphere and WithSecure's approach.
Our conversation covers the primary challenges CISOs face, particularly in balancing minimum adequate security with proactive cyber defense, especially in resource-constrained environments. Christine provides valuable insights into how exposure management is helping organizations identify and prioritize their most critical vulnerabilities, ensuring a more strategic and practical cybersecurity posture.
Christine also shares her thoughts on cyber adversaries' evolving tactics and the importance of embedding security into organizational processes to elevate overall security maturity. We discuss the role of AI in cybersecurity and the necessity of adopting a "secure by design" mindset to build resilient technologies and organizations.
Join us for this engaging discussion, during which Christine Bejerasco offers practical advice, forward-thinking strategies, and a glimpse into the future of cybersecurity. Whether you are a business leader, cybersecurity professional, or simply interested in the latest trends, this episode provides knowledge and inspiration. Listen in, and don't forget to share your thoughts with us!
For more information, visit WithSecure's website at www.withsecure.com and explore their latest blogs and resources on the evolving cyber threat landscape. Thank you for tuning in to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast from Sphere 24.
In this special episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I am live from the Sphere Event in Helsinki, joined by Antti Koskela, the interim CEO of WithSecure. Antti, a seasoned global software business executive, brings a strategic perspective on how midmarket companies can navigate the often enterprise-centric world of cybersecurity.
During our conversation, we delve into the unique needs of midmarket firms and how WithSecure is addressing these through innovative solutions tailored specifically for them. We also explore the European approach to cybersecurity and how it shapes the strategies and offerings of WithSecure.
Antti introduces us to Luminen, WithSecure’s latest GenAI-powered cybersecurity tool designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of IT teams. We discuss how Luminen leverages advanced algorithms to simplify complex tasks, provide contextual guidance, and offer precise, actionable recommendations. This tool aims to democratize cybersecurity by making it accessible and manageable, even for non-experts.
Tune in to learn how WithSecure is not only protecting businesses but also enabling them to thrive in an increasingly digital world. Antti’s insights into the future of cybersecurity and the importance of collaboration, or co-security, are invaluable for anyone interested in the latest advancements and strategies in the field.
Join us as we explore these topics and more, live from Sphere 24, where cybersecurity professionals and heroes unite to create a safer digital future. Don't miss this engaging discussion with Antti Koskela. Listen, reflect, and share your thoughts with us!
Are we truly prepared to foster the next generation of female innovators in tech? In this special episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am thrilled to welcome back Clare Hickie, CTO EMEA at Workday, alongside Caroline O'Reilly, Workday’s General Manager of Analytics. Together, they bring a wealth of experience and passion for shaping a more inclusive and diverse tech industry.
As we approach International Women’s Day, celebrated on March 8th with the theme 'Inspiring Inclusion,' Clare and Caroline share their insights on the future of females in tech. We delve into the importance of an employee-first mindset, the often-overlooked topic of menopause at work, and the value of industry experience offerings to attract more women into tech roles.
Clare and Caroline emphasize why an employee-first mindset is integral for creating solutions based on feedback, ensuring an inclusive workplace for all. They highlight how Workday’s initiatives are setting a precedent for supporting women in tech, including programs to aid women experiencing menopause, thus improving retention and attraction of midlife workers.
We explore the barriers that prevent women from progressing in the tech industry, such as stereotypical branding of tech roles and imposter syndrome. Clare and Caroline share how Workday’s "Return to Work" program and skill-based hiring practices are making strides to address these issues. They also discuss how early STEM education outreach, mentoring circles, and employee belonging councils like Women at Workday are crucial for attracting women to tech roles.
Clare and Caroline share strategies for continuous learning and keeping pace with rapid tech advancements, providing invaluable advice for anyone looking to thrive in this dynamic field. They discuss how Workday's "vibe" philosophy fosters unique perspectives and equal opportunities, creating an inclusive tech industry. Supporting menopause at work, Clare and Caroline stress the significance of open discussions and specialized support programs, which play a crucial role in improving retention and attraction of midlife workers.
In our conversation, Clare and Caroline also delve into the importance of early STEM education outreach, mentoring circles, and the impact of initiatives like Women at Workday. They highlight the significance of treating diversity as a business goal with data-driven accountability and overcoming imposter syndrome to support career re-entry through Workday's "Return to Work" program.
What are your thoughts on how we can inspire more women to pursue careers in tech? Share your insights and let’s continue this important dialogue.
How has a digital image platform with a legacy of over two decades adapted to the rapidly changing landscape of technology and user expectations? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we delve into the fascinating journey of Photobucket with Ted Leonard, CEO of this pioneering company.
Photobucket, a platform that supports more than 15 billion images for 90 million users worldwide, has been a steadfast caretaker of memories for over 21 years. Its mission is simple yet profound: to preserve users' cherished moments and ensure they are securely and conveniently shared with loved ones. But how does Photobucket continue to thrive and innovate in the age of AI and ubiquitous cloud storage solutions?
Ted Leonard takes us through the evolution of Photobucket, from its early days as a photo hosting solution for MySpace to its current status as a leading independent cloud storage service. He discusses the pivotal shifts the company has made, including the transition to a subscription model focused on privacy and preservation, the challenges they faced in staying relevant, and how they navigated technical debt to deploy new, cutting-edge products.
One of Photobucket's latest innovations is "Group Buckets," a feature designed to revolutionize photo sharing and collaboration within communities. Ted explains how Group Buckets offer an effortless way for friends, families, and communities to share and collaborate on photos and videos, enhancing the social aspect of memory preservation.
As AI continues to shape the tech landscape, Photobucket leverages this technology not for generative purposes but to enhance user experience through image tagging, automated organization, and facial/object recognition. Ted shares insights on how AI helps streamline these processes and explores the potential of licensing content for AI training models.
Throughout our conversation, Ted emphasizes Photobucket's commitment to centralization, community, preservation, and longevity. He discusses the company's carbon-neutral stance and the promise of not selling user data, reinforcing Photobucket's dedication to being a trustworthy guardian of users' digital memories.
Join us as we explore the rich history and innovative future of Photobucket with Ted Leonard. How do you see the role of digital platforms in preserving our memories evolving in the coming years? Share your thoughts with us after the episode.
Tune in for an enlightening discussion on the intersection of technology, memory preservation, and community, only on Tech Talks Daily.
How does one juggle the intense demands of refereeing professional football and managing channel partners across a vast region for one of the world's leading application security companies? This intriguing balance is the story of Carl Berry, EMEA Channel Director at F5, who joins us on this episode of Tech Talks Daily.
Carl joined F5 in March 2022, bringing over 20 years of experience in the IT market, particularly within partner and channel ecosystems. But what sets Carl apart is his parallel career as a Championship football referee, a role that has seen him touted for the Premier League. How do the disciplines of refereeing at such a high level translate into managing over 500 partners in the technology space? Carl shares how the integrity, elite communication, and decision-making skills honed on the pitch have influenced his approach to his role at F5.
In our conversation, Carl delves into the synergies between refereeing and his channel director responsibilities. He discusses the importance of integrity and effective communication in both fields and how these traits have shaped his leadership style. We also explore the current technology trends Carl is observing, including multi-cloud networking, the growth of app/API security, and the rise of generative AI.
Carl offers his insights on the unexpected growth in the retail vertical last year and shares his perspective on the technologies that failed to meet expectations. He advises channel partners on the importance of embracing and demystifying AI, focusing on practical business outcomes rather than getting bogged down by the complexities of the technology.
Join us as we unpack Carl Berry's unique journey and gain valuable insights into the evolving landscape of technology and channel partnerships. What skills from your own unique experiences do you bring to your professional life? Share your thoughts with us after the episode.
Tune in for an engaging discussion that bridges the worlds of football and cybersecurity, only on Tech Talks Daily.
Are you curious about how AI and automation can revolutionize your content creation and marketing strategies? In today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, I sit down with James Taylor, founder of PowLeads, to explore the cutting-edge tools and techniques transforming the industry.
From summarizing calls and generating action items with Read AI to automating workflows using Make.com and Zapier, James shares his insights on how these technologies can streamline your processes. We also dive into the capabilities of ChatGPT for script and content outline creation and discuss the innovative Auto Alchemist for automating video and image production.
James, with his rich background in video production, animation, and marketing, has pivoted towards AI-driven solutions to help businesses enhance their brand presence on platforms like LinkedIn and TikTok. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining a human touch in AI-generated content by editing and adding your own voice.
Discover how AI will shape the future of personal brand avatars and learn about the significance of clear use cases for successful AI integration. Whether you're an entrepreneur or a seasoned marketer, this episode offers valuable insights into leveraging AI and automation for impactful content creation and marketing.
Join us as we discuss:
- The journey of James Taylor from video production to AI and marketing automation.
- The role of AI tools like Read AI, Make.com, Zapier, ChatGPT, and Auto Alchemist in content creation.
- The future of AI in creating personal brand avatars and enhancing content authenticity.
- Balancing innovation with the human element in content creation and marketing.
Tune in to gain actionable strategies and stay ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving landscape of AI and content marketing. How is your organization leveraging AI to boost its content creation efforts? We'd love to hear your thoughts. Share your insights with us and continue the conversation.
Stay connected for more thought-provoking discussions on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, and remember to explore the latest technological advancements with us. Until next time, keep innovating and pushing the boundaries of what's possible in content creation and marketing.
Have you ever wondered how sustainability and advanced AI can converge to shape the future of customer experiences? In this episode, we sit down with Peter Graf, the Senior Vice President of Strategy at Genesys, live from Xperience 2024, to delve into the groundbreaking innovations driving the future of personalized, AI-powered customer interactions.
Join us as we explore the pivotal role of sustainability in technology with Genesys Cloud operations now achieving carbon neutrality. Peter sheds light on how this milestone was reached and what it means for the broader tech industry. We also dive into the latest enhancements in the Genesys Cloud platform, including new AI capabilities like Copilots, Virtual Agents, and Empathy Detection, designed to revolutionize customer and employee experiences.
We'll discuss the impact of these innovations on real-world businesses, featuring success stories from Virgin Atlantic, Modivcare, Kiwibank, and the National Domestic Hotline, all of whom have harnessed Genesys' solutions to achieve remarkable results.
As the landscape of AI and customer experience continues to evolve, Peter offers insights into the strategic partnerships and forward-thinking approaches that position Genesys at the forefront of this transformation. From managing customer journeys with deeper insights to the integration of social media analytics through the acquisition of Radarr Technologies, this episode is packed with valuable information for anyone interested in the intersection of AI, sustainability, and customer experience.
Tune in to discover how Genesys is not only accelerating the future of AI-driven customer interactions but also ensuring these advancements are sustainable. What does the future hold for AI in customer experience? How can businesses leverage these tools to enhance both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency? Share your thoughts and join the conversation as we explore these critical questions and more.
Don't miss this engaging discussion with Peter Graf, and be sure to share your insights on how AI and sustainability are reshaping the tech landscape.
Have you ever considered what goes into the products you use every day, from the shampoo in your shower to the battery powering your electric vehicle?
In this episode, we explore the transformative world of Syensqo, a company at the forefront of the green energy transition. Our guest is Mike Finelli, Syensqo's Chief Technology & Innovation Officer and Chief North America Officer, who brings over 30 years of experience in the chemical industry to the table.
Mike will delve into how Syensqo is leading the way in developing essential materials for electric vehicle batteries, with a particular focus on their groundbreaking work in lithium-ion battery components. As North America’s largest production facility for polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) gears up to open in Augusta, Georgia, Mike will share insights on how this new site will play a critical role in the U.S. "Battery Belt," driving the clean energy transition.
We’ll also discuss Syensqo’s innovative use of artificial intelligence to revolutionize chemical production, making processes more efficient and environmentally friendly. Mike will explain how AI is leveraged in their R&D labs, leading to breakthrough discoveries that push the boundaries of what's possible in sustainable technology.
Join us for a deep dive into the megatrends shaping our future—lightweighting, electrification, and advanced connectivity—and learn how Syensqo is not just keeping up but setting the pace for industrial decarbonization. How are they managing to stay ahead in an industry that's rapidly evolving? And what can other businesses learn from their approach to innovation and sustainability?
As we uncover the layers of Syensqo’s strategic vision, we invite you to ponder: How will these advancements change the products you use daily and the world at large? Share your thoughts with us after the episode.
What does the future hold for tech companies as AI continues to evolve and integrate into their operations? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Thomas Lah, the Executive Director and Executive VP of the Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA), to explore this pressing question.
As an expert with over two decades of experience helping major tech firms enhance their operational efficiency, Thomas provides invaluable insights into the profound changes AI is bringing to the industry.
AI is revolutionizing internal workflows, leading to significant improvements in key performance indicators (KPIs), ranging from 15-70%. This transformation is not just about automating tasks but fundamentally changing how companies operate from the inside out.
Thomas highlights that while much of the AI buzz centers around customer-facing solutions, its impact on internal operations is equally transformative. Some companies are rapidly adopting AI to enhance their workflows, creating a divide between the "haves and have-nots" in the industry. Case studies demonstrate that deploying AI in workflows can lead to substantial KPI improvements, underscoring its potential.
One of the most discussed aspects of AI's integration is its impact on headcount. Research indicates that AI could reduce headcount in tech companies by up to 20%. Companies like Google have openly discussed how AI has enabled workforce reductions, while others have slowed their hiring rates despite experiencing revenue growth. This trend raises important questions about the future of work in the tech industry.
The prospect of reduced headcounts brings about a critical need for companies and society to invest in retraining and supporting displaced workers, ensuring a smooth transition into new roles that leverage their existing skills in conjunction with AI capabilities.
Thomas explains that education services and support services are currently reaping the highest benefits from AI implementations. These areas are seeing significant returns on investment, making them prime examples of where AI can deliver substantial value. In contrast, areas like revenue management and sales/renewals are lagging in terms of AI-driven ROI, highlighting the varying degrees of AI impact across different functions.
For companies looking to overcome the barriers to AI implementation, Thomas advises starting with well-defined workflows and integrating AI into these existing processes rather than creating new ones from scratch. He emphasizes the importance of having a sense of urgency, as AI capabilities are not just a passing trend but a permanent fixture in the tech landscape.
The ability to quickly and effectively adopt AI can determine a company's future success, making it imperative for tech leaders to prioritize these initiatives.
Looking ahead, AI promises to deliver more consistent business value and operational efficiency. Thomas and I discuss how AI will reshape workflows for everyone in the industry, creating distinct market winners and losers based on the speed and effectiveness of AI adoption. This shift will necessitate a new approach to business strategy, focusing on leveraging AI to gain a competitive edge.
Beyond the immediate impact of AI, Thomas shares insights into how the classic SaaS business model is under pressure due to inflation, high interest rates, and deflated company valuations. He discusses how companies like Salesforce are adapting to these economic challenges by leveraging big data and AI to offer next-generation value propositions. This adaptability is crucial for SaaS companies to navigate the current economic landscape and emerge stronger.
Throughout our conversation, Thomas emphasizes the role of industry associations like TSIA in helping SaaS companies navigate the challenges brought by AI disruption. He advises that every executive team should focus on their big data play to unlock unique value propositions for their customers. By doing so, companies can not only survive but thrive in an AI-driven future.
We conclude the discussion by reflecting on the broader implications of AI in the tech industry. We agree that AI will enable more consistent business value and operational efficiency, changing everyone's workflows and creating a clear divide between those who quickly adapt and those who lag behind.
As we look to the future, the question remains: How will tech companies continue to evolve and leverage AI to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive landscape? I invite you to share your thoughts on this transformative journey.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we delve into the seismic shifts AI adoption is bringing to the technology landscape with Sam Burman, a partner at Heidrick & Struggles. As AI continues to revolutionize industries, it's not just transforming business operations but also the very fabric of leadership and career progression in the tech world.
Sam Burman brings his extensive expertise to the table, shedding light on how the rapid integration of AI is altering the traditional career ladder. With companies entering an AI recruitment arms race, traditional career progression models are becoming obsolete. We explore how tech giants are now seeking and cultivating talent directly from top universities, propelling fresh graduates into high-level roles right from the start. This trend is reshaping the future of leadership teams and creating unprecedented opportunities and challenges.
Moreover, Sam discusses modern leaders' crucial qualities to navigate this new era. Emotional intelligence, storytelling skills, and fostering trust and transparency around AI are now indispensable. We'll also touch on the latest findings from Heidrick & Struggles' survey of 201 executives in Europe and the US, revealing the current state and future direction of AI and data analytics in leadership roles.
Sam will provides reassuring guidance on how businesses can embark on their AI journey with focused use cases, assuring them that it's a step-by-step process rather than a daunting overhaul of entire leadership structures.
Are we ready for a future where AI dictates the rhythm of career advancements and leadership structures? How can businesses ensure they effectively and responsibly integrate AI into their operations? Join us for this thought-provoking discussion and share your thoughts on how AI transforms the workplace.
For insights and information, visit Heidrick & Struggles online and connect with Sam and his team.
Have you ever wondered how automation and integration can transform your business, making it more efficient and scalable? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Gert-Jan Wijman from Celigo to explore the revolutionary impact of process automation on businesses across various sectors.
Celigo's integration platform is at the forefront of enabling automated, scalable business processes by seamlessly connecting data across different systems. Gert-Jan explains how this eliminates human intervention in routine business tasks, allowing data to flow smoothly between systems, removing bottlenecks, and ultimately making business processes more scalable.
We delve into the critical role of proper platform and integration approaches in harnessing the potential of underused business technologists. By lessening the burden on IT departments while still providing them with the necessary oversight, Celigo's platform empowers "citizen integrators" – non-IT employees with technical skills – to contribute significantly to automation initiatives. This approach not only accelerates implementation but also brings valuable business context to the table.
Gert-Jan shares how automation is particularly beneficial for businesses operating across multiple countries and regions. By ensuring efficient connectivity between systems and intelligently handling errors and changes, Celigo's platform supports agile processes that can adapt to different market demands and regulatory environments.
We also discuss the impact of AI on integration and vice versa. Celigo leverages AI for error handling, using pattern recognition to resolve issues automatically, thereby making business process management more efficient. This integration of AI not only enhances the automation process but also ensures more reliable and consistent operations.
A significant focus of our conversation is the e-commerce and retail sector, where automation plays a crucial role in providing consistent omnichannel customer experiences. Gert-Jan highlights how automation frees employees from repetitive tasks, improving their overall experience and enabling them to focus on more strategic activities. For customers, this means seamless interactions across various channels, which is essential for a positive shopping experience.
Gert-Jan provides compelling examples of how brand aggregators on platforms like Amazon use Celigo's solutions to integrate acquired brands rapidly, leveraging economies of scale. This capability also extends to expanding brands into new geographical markets quickly and efficiently.
As we look ahead, Gert-Jan shares insights into emerging trends, particularly the convergence of integration, automation, robotic process automation (RPA), business process management (BPM), and API management for the mid-market. He emphasizes that companies increasingly seek integrated automation platforms rather than separate tools, and Celigo's roadmap reflects this trend by evolving into a broader automation platform.
Join us in this insightful episode as we explore how Celigo is redefining the landscape of business automation and integration. How can automation transform your business operations? Listen in to find out, and don't forget to share your thoughts on this exciting topic!
How is technology revolutionizing the way we provide mental health support to LGBTQ+ youth? In this special episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Emmett Troxel, Director of Contact Center Technology at The Trevor Project, during the Genesys Xperience 2024 CX event in Denver, Colorado.
With over 25 years of expertise in contact center operations, specializing in IVR, Interaction Routing, Workforce Management, and Automation, Emmett brings a wealth of experience to their role as the Director of Contact Center Technology at the Trevor Project. He is dedicated to leveraging technology for good, helping end suicide among LGBTQ+ young people.
The Trevor Project is the world's largest suicide prevention and mental health organization for LGBTQ+ young people, and Emmett shares how they are leveraging cutting-edge technology to save young lives.
Emmett discusses the imperative for The Trevor Project to evolve its services from more than a dozen vendors to an all-in-one platform, enhancing their ability to support the LGBTQ+ community and manage their unique staffing needs. Emmett delves into the challenges and successes of managing a diverse workforce of full-time staff and thousands of volunteers, highlighting the importance of formalized training, real-time supervision, and the right mix of skills for both voice and digital interactions.
Throughout the conversation, Emmett provides valuable insights into how The Trevor Project is integrating new technologies, including soon-to-come social media platform integrations, to extend their reach and effectiveness. He shares the transformative impact of these advancements on their 24/7 phone lifeline, chat, and text services, as well as TrevorSpace, the world’s largest safe space social networking site for LGBTQ youth.
Have you ever wondered if the eco-labels on your favorite products truly reflect their environmental impact? In this episode, I sit down with Christophe Girardier, CEO of Glimpact, to explore how technology is transforming our understanding of sustainability. Christophe, a serial entrepreneur, brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, shedding light on the critical role of technology in achieving genuine sustainability.
We begin by critiquing the current state of eco-labeling, questioning whether smarter algorithms and data analytics can pave the way for more accurate, dynamic, and helpful sustainability ratings for consumers. Christophe shares insights on how Glimpact's technology goes beyond the narrow focus on carbon emissions, emphasizing the complexity of true sustainability. It's not just about carbon; it's about biodiversity, water, and soil health.
One of the key topics we delve into is the challenge of greenwashing and the importance of authentic sustainability efforts. Christophe introduces Glimpact's global footprint measurement approach, leveraging the EU's OEF method to capture a comprehensive view of environmental impact. This rigorous and holistic assessment spans 16 impact categories, including water depletion, biodiversity loss, and more.
Christophe also highlights the pivotal role of technology in environmental sustainability. We discuss how AI can help consumer brands become more sustainable, using examples like Lacoste to illustrate the importance of a systemic view. Technology not only prepares companies for future reporting demands but also enables them to measure and mitigate a wide array of environmental impacts.
We explore the adoption of PEF/OEF methods for a systemic approach, ensuring a rigorous assessment of environmental footprints. Christophe explains each of the 16 impact categories, from climate change to resource use, and how they contribute to a comprehensive understanding of sustainability.
Finally, we propose a revolution in corporate environmental strategy, urging companies to include all dimensions of the environmental crisis in their decision-making processes. It's about moving beyond carbon balances to consider the full spectrum of environmental impacts.
Join us as we uncover the complexities of sustainability, the dangers of greenwashing, and the revolutionary potential of technology in driving authentic environmental responsibility. How can brands integrate these insights into their business models? Listen in, and don't forget to share your thoughts on how we can all contribute to a more sustainable future.
How can smart vending machines change the way we shop for food on the go? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Aslak de Silva, CEO of Selfly Store, to explore how his company is leveraging IoT, AI, and intelligent vending machines to transform the grab-and-go food shopping experience.
Selfly Store is at the forefront of innovative retail technology, using real-time data and AI to predict demand, optimize operations, and enhance customer convenience. De Silva shares insights into how these smart vending machines provide merchants with invaluable data on inventory, sales, and customer behavior, allowing for dynamic pricing and predictive planning. This technology not only boosts sales but also enables 24/7 service without additional overhead costs.
We'll delve into the concept of "half-mile stores," hyperlocal vending solutions that meet consumers' immediate needs based on real-time data, and discuss the critical role of properly categorizing and cleansing data to extract meaningful insights from AI. De Silva's vision for the future includes more automated, data-driven retail solutions that can adapt to consumer demand and streamline operations.
Join us as we uncover the benefits and challenges of integrating AI and IoT into retail, and explore how business leaders can harness these technologies to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving landscape. Aslak de Silva provides a unique perspective on the future of intelligent vending and the transformative potential of data-driven retail solutions.
Are you ready to see how smart vending machines are shaping the future of grab-and-go shopping? Tune in to this insightful episode and share your thoughts on the potential of AI and IoT in revolutionizing the retail industry.
How is artificial intelligence transforming customer experiences across industries? In today's special episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are live at Xperience 2024, where we have the pleasure of speaking with Brett Weigl, Senior Vice President of Product Management for AI at Genesys. Brett shares his insights on the latest AI innovations from Genesys, including their groundbreaking developments in Customer Journey Management.
Brett delves into the findings from a recent consumer perception study on AI in customer experience, emphasizing the role of chatbots and AI-powered solutions in enhancing customer interactions. He explains how Genesys is harnessing AI to optimize every touchpoint in the customer journey, ensuring smoother, more personalized experiences.
We also explore the newly announced native journey management capabilities for the Genesys Cloud™ platform. Brett highlights how these capabilities provide organizations with deeper insights and control over customer interactions, allowing them to visualize, analyze, and improve customer journeys effectively. This integration not only enhances automation and prediction but also improves conversational intelligence, setting a new standard for AI-driven customer service.
Join us as Brett discusses the synergy between Genesys Cloud AI and Journey Management, revealing how these technologies work together to deliver unparalleled customer experiences. We also get a sneak peek into future innovations and what they mean for the industry.
Tune in to discover how Genesys is leading the charge in AI-powered experience orchestration and what it means for the future of customer service.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we dive into an insightful conversation with Nicole Thomas, VP of Customer Care Center at Coca-Cola Bottlers' Sales and Services Company (CCBSSC).
Nicole shares how CCBSSC has extended the capabilities of the platform by utilizing Genesys Dialog Engine Bot Flows to introduce an innovative account finder voicebot. This technology determines the customer’s identity and intent before connecting them to an agent, ensuring inquiries are routed efficiently and eliminating multiple transfers. As a result, the customer care experience has become smoother and more effective.
Additionally, Nicole discusses how integrating tools from the Genesys AppFoundry® Marketplace, like Help Lightning, has revolutionized technical support. Through video chat, technicians can now visualize and resolve issues remotely, leading to a 12% improvement in fix rates and significant cost savings by reducing the need for site visits.
We explore the impressive outcomes of these technological advancements, including the correct identification and routing of over 80% of calls by voicebots, a $1 million savings in technician site visits, and a 50% TCO reduction. These achievements highlight the profound impact of embracing cloud-based solutions and AI-driven technologies.
How does a global brand like Coca-Cola continuously innovate to maintain its market leadership? What lessons can other businesses learn from CCBSSC’s journey with Genesys Cloud? Tune in to discover the strategies behind these successes and how they shape the future of customer care.
How can businesses harness the power of technology to stand out in a crowded digital landscape? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we sit down with Conor Egan, VP of Product at Contentstack, to explore the innovative solutions and strategies that are redefining digital customer experiences. Conor brings over 15 years of experience in the industry and has been instrumental in creating solutions that disrupt the CMS market.
We begin by discussing Contentstack’s pioneering role in the development of headless CMS and composable digital experience platforms (DXP). Conor explains how these technologies help brands deliver personalized, omnichannel experiences while overcoming the limitations of legacy CMS systems. He shares Contentstack’s vision of making technology an enabler, allowing brands to focus on executing their most innovative ideas.
Our conversation moves to the "Experience Edge" framework, a unique approach Contentstack uses to help brands identify their competitive advantage. Whether it’s faster time to market, superior UX, or innovative creativity, Conor emphasizes how even small improvements in customer experience can drive significant business outcomes.
As we delve into the evolution of martech, Conor highlights the explosive growth in this space and the challenges that come with integrating diverse platforms and data sources. He advocates for a composable approach, enabling brands to use best-of-breed technologies and adapt as their needs change.
Conor also shares insights into Contentstack’s corporate culture and community initiatives, including their support for Girls Who Code and other charitable organizations. He discusses how regular hackathons and community service foster innovation and engagement within the company.
Lastly, we explore the broader implications of digital transformation, touching on how every business, regardless of industry, will need to embrace technology to remain competitive in 2024 and beyond. Conor provides a detailed explanation of the differences between composable DXP, headless CMS, and traditional CMS, highlighting the benefits and opportunities each brings.
How can your business leverage the experience edge to drive customer loyalty and stand out from competitors? Tune in to this episode and join the conversation by sharing your thoughts on these cutting-edge topics.
What does the future of warehouse technology look like, and how can it shape the supply chain industry? Join us in this insightful episode of Tech Talks Daily as we sit down with Matt Gregory, Managing Director of Northern Europe for Körber's Supply Chain Software. With over 17 years of experience in the supply chain software industry, Matt brings a wealth of knowledge on how technology is revolutionizing the way we manage warehouses and supply chains.
In our conversation, Matt delves into the significance of employee well-being in boosting productivity and retention in warehouse environments. He explains how Körber's solutions prioritize the human factor, ensuring that technology supports rather than replaces the workforce. We explore the latest trends in warehouse technology and Matt shares his predictions for the future, highlighting the pivotal role of automation, AI, and digital twins in creating more efficient and adaptable supply chains.
We also tackle the pressing issue of technology's impact on job creation. Contrary to popular belief, Matt argues that technology is not just taking over jobs but also creating new opportunities within the supply chain sector. He provides real-world examples of how AI and automation can enhance decision-making and operational efficiency without fully automating the human touch out of the equation.
As we navigate the complexities of supply chain security, Matt sheds light on how AI can be both a boon and a threat. He emphasizes the importance of cautious integration and robust safeguards to protect supply chains from emerging risks. The discussion also touches on the evolution of smart warehouses and the critical factors for successful implementation, from digital twin simulations to the orchestration of diverse technologies.
Finally, we look at how businesses can create future-proof retail solutions to meet ever-increasing customer demands. Matt shares insights on leveraging software and automation to streamline high throughput operations and build resilient, customer-centric retail environments.
How can businesses leverage AI to improve efficiency and productivity across their supply chains? What does a future-proof retail solution look like in an age of rapid technological advancement? Tune in to find out and join the conversation by sharing your thoughts on these transformative topics.
Good news! I just received the greenlight with one change. In the introduction, Rhett was introduced as Vice President, but his proper title is CTO for Health Markets. Please have that changed. Knowing that it took a while on our end, I was wondering if you could give me an update on timing for when we can expect it to go live?
How can AI transform the future of clinical decision-making? Today on Tech Talks Daily, we explore this pivotal question with Rhett Alden, Vice President of Clinical Decision Support at Elsevier Health. Rhett brings deep insights into the integration of AI with clinical knowledge to enhance healthcare delivery.
Rhett discusses Elsevier's latest innovation, ClinicalKey AI, poised to revolutionize how clinicians access and utilize medical information. Developed with the sophisticated blend of Elsevier’s vast clinical knowledge assets and advanced AI technologies, ClinicalKey AI is designed to deliver trusted, transparent, and timely support to medical professionals. Rhett highlights how this tool leverages a retrieval-augmented generative architecture to provide accurate responses, greatly reducing the time clinicians spend researching complex cases.
Delving deeper, Rhett explains the rigorous validation frameworks that underpin ClinicalKey AI, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the AI responses while addressing potential biases in AI applications. He emphasizes the importance of transparency, with the system designed to allow clinicians to easily trace and verify the sources of information it provides.
Localization of content is another key aspect Rhett touches upon. ClinicalKey AI is customized for diverse global healthcare systems, adhering to local protocols and regulations, thereby enhancing its applicability and effectiveness worldwide. Looking ahead, Rhett shares Elsevier’s vision for the future—transitioning from on-demand tools to anticipatory, embedded clinical advisors, with a particular focus on expanding into the fast-evolving field of oncology.
Join us as Rhett Alden from Elsevier Health unveils how ClinicalKey AI and generative AI are setting new standards in healthcare technology. After the episode, we invite you to share your thoughts: How do you see AI shaping the future of clinical decision support systems in your environment?
Are enterprises ready to harness the full potential of generative AI in application modernization? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, we dive deep with Kyle Charlet, IBM Fellow and CTO for IBM Z Software, exploring the transformative impact of AI on hybrid cloud strategies and legacy systems.
Kyle provides expert insights into how application modernization is crucial for executing successful hybrid cloud strategies, with generative AI playing a critical role in this evolution. He discusses the benefits of AI in translating outdated code from languages like COBOL to more contemporary languages such as Java, enhancing developer productivity, and ensuring business agility. With IBM’s comprehensive lifecycle approach, Kyle outlines how organizations are not just rewriting, but intelligently enhancing their existing assets for future-proof platforms.
We also cover the significant challenges that come with modernization, such as understanding complex, monolithic legacy applications developed over decades. Kyle explains how generative AI serves as a tool to demystify these systems, assisting in generating test cases, synthetic data, and highlighting potential security vulnerabilities that need addressing from the outset.
The conversation shifts to the impact on IT roles and skills, emphasizing the increasing importance of testing, security, and integration competencies. Kyle points out that developers will need to adapt rapidly to interpret AI-generated code and focus more on application architecture and less on building from scratch.
Looking ahead, Kyle speaks on the expectations for faster innovation cycles and more interconnected systems across hybrid environments. He stresses the need for Ops teams to prepare for managing this complexity and the optimization of DevSecOps pipelines to stay competitive.
Join us as we explore how generative AI is reshaping the landscape of application modernization and what this means for the future of enterprise IT. After the episode, we invite you to share your thoughts: How do you see generative AI influencing your industry’s approach to modernization and hybrid cloud strategies?
Are we witnessing a tech evolution or merely chasing the latest shiny object? Today on Tech Talks Daily, we're thrilled to welcome Evan Goldberg, EVP and Founder of Oracle NetSuite, as we explore the journey and future of cloud computing and AI integration within business software. We’re broadcasting from SuiteConnect in London, where Evan shares his excitement about connecting with industry professionals beyond the digital realm.
Evan recounts the inception of NetSuite 25 years ago, following a pivotal five-minute conversation with Oracle's Larry Ellison. This story not only marks the birth of the world's first cloud software company but also encapsulates a moment that defined an era of internet and business software revolution.
As we discuss the flashy allure of AI in today’s tech landscape, Evan draws parallels to early challenges at NetSuite, emphasizing the importance of not getting sidetracked by allure without substance. With Oracle recently unveiling plans to infuse AI across NetSuite, Evan explains how "Text Enhance" and broader AI applications are set to transform user experiences and operational efficiency, aligning with the core needs of CEOs across industries.
Addressing the economic uncertainties of our time, Evan reflects on lessons from the dot-com bubble and the resilience shown during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering sage advice for navigating recessional periods. He also touches on learning from setbacks, underscoring how past failures pave the way for future successes.
In a world increasingly driven by ESG goals and social consciousness, Evan discusses how businesses can achieve success while genuinely contributing to societal good—an ethos deeply ingrained in NetSuite’s operations.
Looking ahead, Evan reveals the tech trends that energize him each morning and previews what’s on the horizon for NetSuite's customers. Lastly, for those feeling overwhelmed by the rapid pace of technological change, Evan shares his strategies for continuous learning and keeping abreast of industry evolution.
Join us for this enlightening discussion and share your thoughts: How do you stay current and balanced in the face of incessant tech advancements?
Are software and platform companies poised to conquer the next wave of innovation, or are internal obstacles derailing their trajectory? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we sit down with Kevan Yalowitz, the global lead for Software & Platforms at Accenture, who brings over 15 years of experience at the nexus of business and technology.
Kevan unpacks the rapid evolution within the software and platforms industry, which has dramatically reshaped our daily interactions from shopping to socializing. Despite the industry's drive towards constant hypergrowth, there lurks a series of internal challenges—organizational siloes, complex processes, and unfocused engineering talent—that could stall future advancements.
In our conversation, Kevan outlines a strategic roadmap designed for these companies to navigate through these hurdles. He highlights four critical pillars: leveraging generative AI for new growth opportunities, crafting compelling user experiences, enhancing employee engagement, and unlocking internal value. Each component plays a pivotal role in not only overcoming existing challenges but also in solidifying a foundation for sustained innovation.
As we explore these themes, we ponder a crucial question: How can software and platform companies recalibrate their strategies to thrive amidst these evolving challenges? Join us as we delve into this topic, and after listening, we invite you to share your views on whether your favorite tech brands are truly ready for the next chapter of growth.
Has the longstanding belief in Apple's invulnerability to cyber threats finally been shattered? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're joined by Jaron Bradley, Director of Threat Labs at Jamf, to dissect this evolving narrative. As Apple devices have become commonplace in professional environments, they've also become hot targets for sophisticated cyber threats, including trojans, ransomware, and Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs).
Jaron will unpack the seismic shift in the threat landscape for Apple's ecosystem, highlighting the transition from nuisance adware to more menacing malware varieties that now plague Mac environments. We’ll explore why the myth of Apple's security invincibility is dissipating and discuss the strategic importance of acknowledging and addressing these vulnerabilities within organizational cyber frameworks.
Moreover, Jaron will shed light on the dire state of cyber hygiene, particularly on mobile devices, and provide actionable insights on how organizations can bolster their defenses against this new wave of threats. With Jamf's cutting-edge solutions at the forefront, we'll delve into practical measures for enhancing security protocols and ensuring robust protection for Apple devices.
As we navigate through these complex challenges, one question remains: Are we doing enough to adapt our security strategies to keep pace with these sophisticated threats? After listening, share your thoughts on how prepared you think organizations really are to tackle this new era of Apple vulnerabilities.
How do you build a thriving tech company that supports tradespeople while revolutionizing an industry rooted in tradition? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Sam Pillar, the co-founder and CEO of Jobber, to uncover the remarkable journey of transforming how small home service businesses operate.
Sam shares his inspirational story of meeting his co-founder, Forest, in a coffee shop and how their shared vision led to the creation of a powerful platform that makes everyday tasks easier for home service providers like HVAC technicians, painters, and landscapers. Jobber helps these tradespeople move from pen-and-paper inefficiency to streamlined, profitable operations, allowing them to focus on their craft and create "blue-collar millionaires."
We discuss the challenges of convincing small businesses to trust cloud software, the critical importance of consistency, and the unique opportunities that exist in traditional industries ripe for disruption. Sam also reveals how emerging AI technologies will further streamline back-office processes and enhance customer service.
As you listen, consider the untapped potential within your industry or community. How can technology improve lives and foster business growth in ways that have yet to be explored? Please share your thoughts with us after the episode!
In this Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, I sit down with Richard Hummel from NETSCOUT to delve into the ever-evolving DDoS threat landscape. Why has there been an explosion in hacktivist groups and DDoS attack activity this year, and what does this mean for organizations across all sectors? With over 1,200 hacktivist groups active in 2023 alone, the threat landscape is more challenging than ever.
We explore how geopolitical tensions are directly influencing attack strategies and targets, resulting in a continuous onslaught of sophisticated attacks that challenge traditional defense mechanisms. Critical infrastructure, particularly DNS servers, is being targeted with unprecedented frequency, posing significant risks to the stability of the internet itself.
Richard provides valuable insights into how attackers are employing more advanced tactics, including leveraging public cloud hosting to evade defenses and utilizing AI to generate potent attacks. He also highlights how global conflicts, elections, and political unrest directly trigger hacktivist activity, with adversaries often striking both sides of a conflict.
To help organizations defend themselves, Richard shares the importance of adopting a predictive defense strategy based on real-time threat intelligence, stressing that visibility into network traffic is critical. With proactive blocking of known adversary infrastructure and AI chatbots identifying new attack vectors, Richard outlines practical recommendations for staying ahead of the curve.
Tune in to understand the risks, challenges, and the strategies organizations can implement to bolster their defenses. Do you feel adequately prepared for this evolving threat landscape, or is your organization vulnerable to these increasingly sophisticated attacks? Listen and share your thoughts!
Have you ever wondered how the evolving role of finance is being transformed by AI and new technology? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Pam McIntyre, Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller at OneStream Software, to explore how AI tools are reshaping finance roles and tackling the industry's talent shortage.
We'll discuss the current challenges facing finance professionals and the shortage of candidates with the right skills. Pam shares her perspective on how AI is automating routine tasks, empowering finance teams to focus on strategic decision-making and become true partners in business growth. She reveals how OneStream's platform provides real-time insights, allowing finance leaders to look around corners and deliver trusted data and insights that support forward-looking decisions.
Pam draws on her wealth of experience in senior finance leadership to highlight how AI is changing the profession, not just by automating tasks, but by shifting finance from being mere record-keepers to strategic advisors. Learn how companies can leverage these tools to attract emerging talent, retain tenured employees, and equip finance professionals with the analytics and skepticism skills necessary for success.
Join us as we delve into how technology is changing the role of finance, the CFO, and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. How will AI impact finance as it continues to evolve? Listen in, and then share your thoughts!
How is AI reshaping supply chain management, and what role is Logility playing in this transformation? In today's episode, I sit down with Scott Tillman, Senior Vice President of Innovation at Logility, to explore the company's groundbreaking approach to integrating artificial intelligence into supply chain operations. Logility's digital supply chain platform leverages AI to recognize patterns and improve forecast accuracy, helping clients reduce inventory by 20% and unlock significant working capital.
Scott shares insights into how AI empowers supply chain managers with real-time insights, significantly reducing latency and enabling more effective decision-making. He provides a comprehensive look at how Logility tailors its platform to scale with clients, meeting them wherever they are on their digital transformation journey. We'll delve into how the company has focused its AI efforts on specific use cases that deliver tangible value, such as optimizing inventory and improving demand forecasting.
We'll also discuss future trends like prescriptive AI guidance and the intelligent automation of routine tasks. As AI use becomes more pervasive, companies must adopt a portfolio approach, targeting high-value use cases that drive tangible business impact. Are you ready to understand how AI can transform your supply chain strategy and operations? Join us to uncover how Logility's innovative platform can redefine your approach.
What are your thoughts on AI's role in supply chain management, and where do you see the most significant opportunities? We'd love to hear from you!
Can technology foster an ethical, user-controlled future? Today's episode features Jonathan MacDonald, a visionary leader and the force behind self.app, a platform dedicated to reshaping how personal AI assistants interact with user data under a banner of ethics and empowerment.
From his early exposure to computers in the 1970s to becoming a stalwart advocate for digital rights, Jonathan has consistently championed the need to reverse big tech's overpowering influence.
Self.app, rooted in blockchain and quantum computing, embodies his commitment to transparency, control, and human rights in technology. Jonathan shares compelling insights on navigating the complex landscape of fundraising, where human principles often clash with profit-driven motives, and paints a vivid picture of a tech future that prioritizes user empowerment over exploitation.
Join us as we dive deep into the ethical challenges and transformative potential of today's tech landscape with a pioneer who believes in technology's power to enhance human freedom rather than constrain it.
Where is technology taking us, and how can we ensure it remains a force for good? Share your thoughts and continue the conversation online!
How can artificial intelligence redefine personal branding for professionals worldwide? Today, we delve into this fascinating intersection of technology and individual growth with Deboshree Dutta, CEO of Criya and a beacon for BIPOC immigrants in the tech industry.
From her early days as a product leader to her dynamic rise as a YC-backed entrepreneur, Deboshree has navigated the complexities of building a personal brand that not only captures her essence but also opens doors to unimaginable opportunities. Under her leadership, Criya has empowered over a thousand high-net-worth individuals with advanced AI tools to craft compelling professional identities. J
Join us as Deboshree shares her journey from securing an EB1 Green Card through her significant contributions to technology, to revolutionizing personal branding with Criya’s innovative platform. What does it take to transform your professional visibility and influence in today’s digital world?
Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences on personal branding in the comments or online! What steps are you taking to enhance your professional visibility?
How does technology shape the future of education for teenagers? In today’s episode, we’re joined by Aditya Advani, co-founder of Best Parents, an innovative education technology platform revolutionizing how parents select summer camps and enrichment programs for their teens.
With a reach spanning 68 countries, Best Parents leverages AI to match teenagers with programs that not only aim to boost their chances of getting into prestigious universities like Harvard and Oxford but also cater to a wide range of interests from medicine to business management.
Join us as Aditya shares insights on the journey of Best Parents, the impact of tailored educational experiences, and how they maintain high standards amidst diverse cultural expectations. What does it take to provide a safe, seamless, and culturally inclusive educational adventure?
Are machines really capable of thinking like humans, or are we merely programming them to mimic our own patterns? Today on Tech Talks Daily, we delve into this intriguing question with Tal Shaked, an American chess grandmaster and Chief Machine Learning Fellow at Moloco, a leading machine learning performance solutions innovator.
In a world rapidly transforming through the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence, the distinction between additive and transformative technology becomes blurred. Tal offers a unique perspective on how ML is reshaping not just individual industries but the entire landscape of software engineering. Unlike previous advancements such as SQL and relational databases, ML's evolution seems to forge a new path, one that might redefine the essence of software itself.
Throughout the episode, Tal discusses the underappreciated art of ML engineering—a discipline that extends beyond traditional software engineering to balance robust infrastructure with high-quality outputs. This intricate balance is crucial for building systems that not only perform well but are also trustworthy and free from biases.
The conversation takes a deeper dive into why the tech community has focused intensely on AI, yet the broader concept of 'machine intelligence'—a perspective that acknowledges the fundamental differences between human and computer cognition—remains less discussed. Tal explores this oversight and its implications for future technologies.
We also address the practical aspects of eliminating bias in machine learning models. Tal shares insights into how engineers can refine their approaches to data to ensure fairness and accuracy in AI systems, and the skills that are becoming essential as ML grows more prevalent across sectors.
As we explore these complex themes, we invite you to reflect on the following: How can we ensure that the pursuit of machine intelligence does not lose sight of human values? Share your thoughts and join the conversation on how we can harmonize human creativity with machine efficiency.
Are we on the brink of a new era in cybersecurity, one where artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes how we protect our digital frontiers? Join us on this episode of Tech Talks Daily as we delve into this fascinating topic with Andrew Hollister, Chief Information Security Officer and Vice President of Labs R&D at LogRhythm.
In our conversation, Andrew shares his insights on the evolving role of generative AI in cybersecurity. Despite widespread apprehension that automation may displace human analysts, Andrew suggests a different narrative—AI as a collaborator enhancing human capabilities, not replacing them. With its rapid development, generative AI is finding its place in cybersecurity, aiding in tasks like summarizing threat reports, detecting patterns in massive datasets, and translating technical log data into understandable language.
However, the technology has its challenges. Andrew points out the potential risks of AI, such as producing misleading information—what he terms "hallucinating false facts." This underscores the irreplaceable role of human oversight, where seasoned analysts apply critical judgment to AI outputs.
Looking ahead, we explore the future skills necessary for cybersecurity professionals. As AI takes over more routine, data-heavy tasks, there's a growing need for roles focused on strategy, problem-solving, and lifelong learning to adapt alongside evolving technologies.
What will the future security operations centers (SOCs) look like? How will AI transform the cybersecurity landscape? After listening to our discussion, what are your thoughts on AI's role in cybersecurity?
Share your views with us as we explore these questions and more.
Is your organization's cybersecurity team equipped to handle the evolving landscape of cyber threats? This pressing question brings us to today's discussion with Max Vetter, Vice President of Cyber at Immersive Labs. In a world increasingly dependent on digital defenses, many organizations report a concerning gap in readiness, with seasoned professionals lagging behind their junior counterparts in tackling more complex cybersecurity challenges.
Immersive Labs has unearthed some eye-opening trends: notably, junior staff often engage with training content that surpasses the difficulty tackled by veterans by an average of 5%. This revelation raises an important question: Are industry veterans becoming complacent, or is there a deeper issue at play within the structure of ongoing professional development?
In this insightful episode, Max will dissect these dynamics, highlighting the vital need for continuous learning across all levels of cybersecurity expertise. He argues that robust security defenses stem from a culture that encourages all team members, regardless of seniority, to stay abreast of the latest threats and solutions. Additionally, Max will outline a strategic checklist to bolster organizational resilience and ensure that both junior and senior cyber professionals are prepared to meet future threats head-on.
As we navigate this complex topic with Max, one must wonder: How can leaders reinvigorate a culture of proactive learning and adaptation among seasoned cybersecurity professionals? After listening, join the conversation and share your thoughts on how organizations can better equip their teams for the cyber challenges of tomorrow.
Listen and share your insights: Are we doing enough to encourage continuous development in our cybersecurity teams?
Is the shift to post-quantum cryptography ushering in a new era of digital security? With the advent of quantum computing, the cryptographic landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, posing significant challenges and opportunities for businesses worldwide.
Today, we're joined by Robert Burns from Thales, a leading global technology and security provider, to discuss the profound impact of quantum computing on cybersecurity.
In this episode, Robert provides an insightful explainer on the state of cybersecurity in the post-quantum era. We delve into how organizations can effectively transition from legacy cryptography to safeguard their sensitive data against future threats. Thales is at the forefront of this evolution, having recently launched the pioneering Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Starter Kit. This kit represents a significant step forward, offering enterprises a unique opportunity to test their crypto agility and preparedness for quantum disruptions within a trusted lab environment.
Robert will share insights into the development of the PQC Starter Kit, how it enables companies to assess and enhance their cryptographic frameworks, and the importance of crypto agility in an era where traditional cryptographic methods are becoming obsolete. With 61% of organizations yet to outline a strategy for a post-quantum world, the necessity for readiness is more pressing than ever.
Join us as we unravel the complexities of quantum-hardened security measures and discuss how Thales is helping enterprises navigate these uncharted waters. As we ponder the future of digital security, one question remains: Are we on the brink of a cryptography revolution that will redefine how we protect our most critical data?
What are your thoughts on the transition to post-quantum cryptography? Do you think your organization is ready for the quantum age? Share your insights with us.
Are you feeling the impact of the talent shortage in your business? In today's episode, we explore this pressing issue with Rob Symons, the Chief Sales Officer at SmartRecruiters. In our conversation, Rob sheds light on the dynamic shifts in the hiring landscape and the innovative strategies shaping the recruitment future.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we unpack how the ever-present talent shortage is compelling HR leaders to overhaul traditional recruitment approaches. Rob discusses the increasing necessity for companies to prioritize skills over experience, opening doors to a broader and potentially more innovative talent pool. This shift challenges old paradigms and aligns with the evolving demands of the modern workforce.
Our discussion also explores the role of AI and automation in recruitment. These technologies, while enhancing the efficiency of hiring processes, are not here to replace the human touch. Rob underscores that they are designed to augment human efforts. By automating routine tasks, recruiters can devote more time to engaging with candidates and ensuring a fit that benefits the company and its potential employees.
Rob also underscores the strategic importance of Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) in recruitment strategies. In 2024, embracing D&I is not just a moral imperative but a business necessity. Companies that integrate these principles into every aspect of their hiring process are more likely to thrive. SmartRecruiters, through its innovative platform, supports businesses in making these significant adjustments, ensuring a fair and inclusive recruitment process that taps into diverse talent pools and boosts business performance.
As we wrap up our discussion with Rob Symons from SmartRecruiters, it's clear that the recruitment landscape is undergoing a significant transformation. How is your organization adapting to these changes? Are you seeing the benefits of prioritizing skills and diversity in your recruitment efforts? Join the conversation and share your experiences and thoughts with us.
Are you prepared to navigate the complex dynamics of a multi-generational workforce in the tech industry? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we delve into the profound insights of Michael Reidy, a seasoned consultant with Interaction Associates, who has dedicated over two decades to enhancing intergenerational collaboration within technology companies.
Michael will share his experiences on embracing the constant shifts in the tech landscape helps organizations stay innovative and responsive. With a rich background in mediating generational challenges, he emphasizes fostering relationships built on trust and mutual respect. According to Reidy, leaders play a critical role in shaping a culture that values diverse perspectives and promotes an enriching work environment for all age groups.
Throughout our conversation, we'll explore how interest-based dialogues, instead of position-based discussions, can bridge generational divides. Michael provides intriguing examples, including insights from the Northern Ireland peace process, demonstrating how finding common ground can lead to significant progress and innovation. Additionally, we'll discuss how the interplay between the 'crystallized intelligence' of experienced employees and the 'fluid intelligence' of younger workers can drive forward-thinking solutions and create a thriving, dynamic workplace.
As we ponder the implications of a future that includes up to five generations working side by side, Michael will share why recognizing and leveraging these generational differences is necessary and a considerable advantage for any tech organization.
How is your company preparing to integrate and benefit from a diverse generational workforce? After listening, join the conversation and share your thoughts and experiences with us.
Are we prepared for the evolving landscape where AI meets DevOps?
In today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we delve into a critical discussion with Elizabeth Lawler, CEO of AppMap and a serial startup founder renowned for her groundbreaking contributions to developer tools. As AI continues to reshape DevOps workflows, understanding this transformation becomes imperative for every tech professional.
Elizabeth brings a unique perspective, having launched ventures like Navi AI, which uses runtime context to aid developers, and the open source initiative Code Challenge, designed to encourage innovation and transparency in AI development. Our conversation explores how the hype surrounding AI's impact on jobs reflects the early days of cloud computing and DevOps—promising not job elimination, but transformation and new opportunities.
We'll unpack the dual necessity of rapid upskilling and maintaining an open, transparent approach to AI integration in DevOps. Elizabeth argues that developers hold the power to shape the AI landscape by opting for open source models, which are crucial in avoiding the "black box" nature of some AI technologies. The need for a robust ecosystem of monitoring tools is as relevant today as it was in the early days of DevOps.
The skills landscape is also shifting. Professionals now must possess not only the technical know-how but also critical thinking abilities to interpret AI outputs and design architectures that maximize model strengths while understanding their limitations. Innovation becomes essential in challenging historical data limitations and pushing the boundaries of what AI can achieve in a DevOps context.
What does it mean to redefine workflows with AI? We'll discuss how assessing risk, emphasizing human oversight, and learning from past implementations like configuration as code are shaping the new standards. Elizabeth emphasizes the importance of ethical considerations and building AI solutions focused on human empowerment rather than replacement.
As we navigate this conversation, it's clear that the intersection of AI and DevOps is not just a technological shift but a cultural one, requiring a thoughtful blend of skills, ethical considerations, and a commitment to continuous learning.
What are your thoughts on integrating AI into DevOps workflows? How do you see these changes impacting your work or industry? Join the discussion and share your experiences as we explore these transformative shifts together.
Is your organization effectively leveraging cloud technologies to boost efficiency and advance sustainability? In this enlightening episode of Tech Talks Daily, we sit down with Steen Dalgas, Senior Cloud Economist at Nutanix, to unravel the complexities of cloud economics and its pivotal role in driving sustainable technological advancements and robust multi-cloud environments.
Steen shares his expertise on how Nutanix, a company at the forefront of hyper-converged infrastructure, is revolutionizing the way enterprises approach cloud technology, delivering substantial cost benefits and enhanced operational flexibility. We dive into how cloud economists like Steen are instrumental in crafting transparent Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) models that extend beyond mere cost analysis to include profitability, risk, and sustainability.
Moreover, we discuss the critical role of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors in today’s IT strategies. Steen explains how Nutanix is tackling IT emissions through optimized operations and a dedication to renewable energy, thus making a significant impact on the company's carbon footprint.
The conversation also covers the evolution of hybrid multi-cloud architectures, addressing the inherent complexities and how Nutanix aims to streamline these through standardized operating models. Plus, we explore the emergence of marketplaces designed to facilitate frictionless IT solution purchases with clear pricing models.
Join us as Steen Dalgas shares valuable insights on why there are no shortcuts to achieving Net Zero and how digital sobriety should be part of every organization’s strategy to ensure sustainable and financially sound cloud solutions.
What are the sustainable practices your organization has implemented in its cloud strategy? Share your thoughts and join the conversation on our social media channels or leave a comment below.
Today, I sit down with Dave Holmes, Managing Director of Falcon Works at BAE Systems FalconWorks, to delve into the innovative frontier of defense technologies that are shaping the future.
In this episode, Dave shares insights on how BAE Systems FalconWorks harnesses the power of partnerships with SMEs, academia, and governments to spearhead developments in uncrewed systems, AI, and sustainability.
With a strong emphasis on low-carbon and net-zero solutions, Dave explains how these initiatives are not only advancing defense capabilities but are also driving significant environmental considerations.
What makes the UK a fertile ground for these groundbreaking advancements? We explore the synergy between Britain's rich academic landscape and its robust inventor culture which, according to Dave, are integral to BAE Systems FalconWorks' success.
From the importance of autonomy in defense to the potential of trusted autonomy and advanced materials, we cover the gamut of technological innovations that could redefine global defense strategies.
How does BAE Systems FalconWorks plan to maintain its edge in a rapidly evolving tech landscape? What can other sectors learn from their approach to innovation and collaboration? And as we think about the future, what ethical considerations come into play with the deployment of these advanced technologies?
In today's episode, we're joined by James Brundage from Ernst & Young to unravel the dynamic shifts and significant trends in the technology mergers and acquisitions sector for 2023. Why was technology singled out as the EY M&A Sector of the Year? Amidst a landscape marked by economic turbulence and evolving market demands, technology has not only rebounded but has also carved new paths for strategic growth and innovation in M&A activities.
During our discussion, James sheds light on the factors that fueled a resurgence in tech M&A activities, particularly in the latter half of 2023. From AI-driven transformations in company strategies and operations to the burgeoning importance of cybersecurity in transaction considerations, we delve into how these elements are reshaping acquisition priorities.
Moreover, the conversation explores the significant role of private equity in navigating the current valuation landscape, highlighting how investment strategies are adapting to capitalize on emerging opportunities.
James also provides insights into the headwinds and tailwinds affecting the sector. With geopolitical tensions, regulatory challenges, and financial conditions dictating the pace and nature of deals, what strategies are firms adopting to thrive? And how is the CHIPS Act influencing investment trends, especially in semiconductors and related technologies?
As we look ahead, what can we expect for tech M&A in 2024? Are we poised for an upturn in deal volumes and values, and how might emerging technologies like generative AI influence future M&A landscapes?
Join us as we explore these intricate dynamics with James Brundage, uncovering how today's challenges are paving the way for tomorrow's opportunities in the tech sector. What do you think the future holds for technology M&A? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're joined by Scott Dodds, CEO of Ultima, a pioneering technology services provider and one of the first to gain early access to Microsoft Copilot. Scott shares his firsthand experiences with this transformative AI tool, providing valuable insights into how businesses can harness AI for automation and as a strategic partner in improving productivity and inclusivity.
Scott discusses the unique approach required to integrate AI effectively within business operations, emphasizing the necessity of training and interacting with AI like a team member to maximize its utility. He reveals how Copilot has revolutionized tasks at Ultima, from enhancing meeting efficiency to assisting employees with diverse needs, including language barriers and dyslexia.
Scott underscores the importance of leadership in the successful deployment of AI technologies. He argues that for AI to deliver on its promise of significant ROI, it must be championed from the top—ensuring both executive buy-in and a clear strategic vision.
Join us as we delve into the practicalities of AI in the workplace, exploring both the opportunities it presents and the diligence required to leverage AI responsibly and effectively. How does your organization view AI integration, and could Microsoft Copilot be the key to unlocking new levels of efficiency in your operations? Let us know your thoughts, and join the conversation.
Are we standing on the brink of a technological revolution in commerce? Today, on Tech Talks Daily, we're joined by Ken Moore, Chief Innovation Officer at Mastercard, to delve into the company's "Emerging Technology Trends for 2024" report. This comprehensive analysis outlines the technological strides expected in AI, computing power, and data and the converging forces reshaping how we buy, sell, and interact in the digital economy.
In this episode, we'll uncover how AI advancements, such as generative AI, are poised to transform consumer experiences over the next three to five years. Imagine AI assistants responding to your queries and anticipating your needs, making shopping and travel more personalized than ever before. We'll explore the development of Mastercard's Shopping Muse, a new AI tool designed to redefine how consumers discover and purchase products.
However, with great technology comes great responsibility. The rise of deepfakes and other digital threats is pushing companies like Mastercard to innovate in cybersecurity, employing AI for robust fraud detection and prevention strategies. We'll discuss the importance of building a security framework that earns consumer trust while safeguarding data.
Moreover, we'll dive into how technologies such as tokenization are expanding to cover more than just payments. Ken will explain how this concept extends to tokenize identities, reward points, and even biometric data, paving the way for a more integrated commerce experience that spans both physical and digital realms.
Mastercard's vision extends beyond transactions; it aims to facilitate an expansive value exchange among diverse stakeholders. By actively shaping data standards and principles, Mastercard is at the forefront of advocating for responsible data usage and enhanced portability.
As we navigate these transformative times, what ethical considerations and challenges must businesses address to ensure these technologies benefit everyone? How can organizations like Mastercard maintain consumer trust while pushing the boundaries of innovation?
Join us as we explore these questions and more. And we'd love to hear from you—how do you see these emerging technologies impacting your daily life and business operations? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
Are you tired of feeling disconnected from your financial life? In today's episode, we dive deep into personal finance management with Sam Taylor, VP of Technology at Cleo, the AI assistant making waves in the financial sector. Sam brings a decade of experience leveraging AI and ML to enhance and personalize user experiences, especially economically.
Founded out of frustration with traditional banking systems and the growing disparity in financial wellness, Cleo was designed to combat the increasing stress money issues bring into people's lives. With a clear vision of empowering individuals to manage and thrive beyond their next paycheck, Cleo utilizes AI to provide insightful, humorous, and highly personalized financial guidance. Sam discusses how this approach has helped over 7 million users stay on top of their finances and improve their relationship with money significantly.
In this discussion, we explore the origins of Cleo, from its foundational beliefs to its rapid growth, including a recent $80 million Series C funding round. Sam shares insights on building products and platforms that harness the power of machine learning and generative AI to create proactive, intelligent financial assistants. He emphasizes maintaining a simple yet powerful engineering stack that facilitates rapid experimentation and understanding, vital for continuous innovation.
As Cleo moves forward, the role of AI is only set to expand. Sam envisions a future where AI assistants proactively optimize various aspects of users' lives, making personal finance management a seamless part of daily living rather than a chore.
What role do you think AI should play in our financial decisions? Are we ready to trust AI with more proactive roles in our personal lives? Please share your thoughts and discuss how technology reshapes our economic well-being.
Are we overlooking the value of fintech in simplifying the complex, yet crucial aspects of financial services? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we sit down with Aaron Holmes, CEO of Kani Payments, a company at the forefront of revolutionizing the financial services industry through their innovative reconciliation and reporting platform.
Since its inception in 2018 in Newcastle, UK, Kani Payments has been dedicated to transforming the cumbersome processes of transaction reconciliation, payment reporting, and merchant settlement. Their platform, which has garnered significant acclaim—including being named Europe's leading financial services startup—offers a unique solution to manage and simplify complex financial data. We'll uncover how this platform can process weeks of transaction reporting and reconciliation work in mere seconds and explore the remarkable growth trajectory of Kani Payments.
Aaron will share insights from his early career, influenced by mentors who emphasized the importance of understanding individual challenges and proactive problem-solving. We'll dive into the specifics of how Kani Payments addresses the high data volume and complex regulatory requirements that many financial institutions face. Moreover, Aaron will discuss the strategic partnership with Pismo and its implications for global expansion, particularly in North America.
Through this conversation, we aim to shed light on how fintech innovations like Kani Payments are not just solving "boring" problems but are essential to the efficiency and security of financial services globally. What are the potential untapped opportunities for fintech to further revolutionize this industry? Join us, and share your thoughts on how technology continues to reshape the financial landscape.
Are we truly prepared to defend our critical infrastructures against cyber threats? In today’s episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're joined by Irfan Shakeel, the VP of Training & Certification Services at OPSWAT, a pivotal player in cybersecurity for critical environments. OPSWAT has recently announced a commendable $10 million scholarship program aimed at addressing the urgent global need for 4 million more cybersecurity professionals. This significant initiative seeks to fill the widening skills gap within the critical infrastructure sectors through targeted training in both Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT).
During our conversation, Irfan will delve into the motivations behind this transformative scholarship program, which is not just a response to academic needs but also aligns with the U.S. Executive Orders and the National Cybersecurity Strategy. This initiative underscores the importance of enhancing our cybersecurity measures and fortifying the workforce tasked with protecting our critical infrastructures.
Listeners will gain insights into the practical aspects of the training offered, focusing on hands-on learning experiences designed to equip professionals with the necessary skills to address current and emerging threats. Irfan will also discuss the criteria for selecting candidates for this program, emphasizing the commitment to fostering a robust pipeline of skilled cybersecurity professionals.
Additionally, we will explore the vital role of public-private partnerships in closing the cyber skills gap and how OPSWAT's collaborative efforts with academic institutions and government agencies are crucial to this endeavor.
As we navigate these discussions, one can’t help but ponder: how well are public and private sectors aligned in their efforts to safeguard our vital systems against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats? Join us, and let’s unravel the complexities of cybersecurity training and workforce development together. What are your thoughts on the effectiveness of such large-scale educational initiatives in combating cybersecurity threats?
Are businesses truly prepared to integrate generative AI into their operations? In today's episode, we engage with Sanjay Jain, Chief Business Transformation Officer at WNS, to delve into a thought-provoking discussion based on a recent survey conducted by WNS and Everest Group.
The survey sheds light on the readiness of various enterprises to adopt generative AI technologies and highlights the four pivotal factors influencing this readiness: technology, data, process, and people.
We will explore how sectors like telecom, technology, and media are setting the pace due to their advanced change management maturity and robust data infrastructure capabilities. Sanjay will share insights into how enterprises can address talent shortages by forming strategic partnerships that provide access to essential expertise and co-create innovative solutions. Additionally, we will discuss the importance of compliance and ethical considerations in the deployment of generative AI, particularly in regulated sectors such as banking, financial services, and healthcare.
Throughout our conversation, Sanjay will also illustrate transformative use cases of generative AI that are revolutionizing customer experiences by enhancing efficiency, effectiveness, and impact. These include improving customer service through instant, accurate, and tailored responses, personalizing recommendations using customer data, summarizing large sets of unstructured data, and automating content creation for knowledge bases.
As we consider the broader implications of generative AI, it becomes clear that its impact varies significantly across different industries. This raises an intriguing question: What can sectors that are lagging in AI adoption learn from those that are leading? Join us as we unpack these insights and discuss how businesses can navigate the challenges and seize the opportunities presented by generative AI.
What do you think are the biggest challenges and opportunities for your industry in adopting generative AI? Share your thoughts with us and join the conversation.
Are you curious how large firms integrate advanced technologies like AI into their operations effectively? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we sit down with James Osborn, Chief Digital Officer at KPMG UK, as he reflects on his first year in this pivotal role. James will share his insights on deploying KPMG's internal AI, dubbed Ava, and spearheading initiatives such as the "Trusted AI Framework" and the "Summer of AI."
With 16,000 global participants from 14 countries engaging in this transformative technology, what can we learn from their experiences? James will discuss the challenges of fostering AI adoption within a well-established firm and the strategies that helped promote an ethical, human-centric approach to digital transformation. How do these technologies augment professional expertise and maintain the integrity and trust crucial in the professional services sector? As we unpack these topics, we'll also delve into practical advice for organizations beginning their AI journeys.
Join us to uncover the nuanced landscape of AI integration in professional services. After listening, share your thoughts: How do you see AI evolving in your professional sphere?
Are you curious how businesses can thrive in the rapidly evolving landscape of cloud computing and multi-cloud environments? In the upcoming episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're diving into the world of resilient databases with Spencer Kimball, CEO of Cockroach Labs. Spencer will share insights on CockroachDB, a pioneering technology designed to ensure business continuity even during outages that would cripple traditional databases.
In our discussion, we'll explore how CockroachDB's ability to replicate data across regions and cloud providers maximizes uptime and facilitates massive scaling. We'll discuss the strategic importance of data locality in improving performance and complying with regulatory demands. We'll also discuss how CockroachDB's flexible architecture helps businesses avoid vendor lock-in and seamlessly manage data across multiple clouds.
Originally founded by three former Googlers, Cockroach Labs has become a key player in the database market, challenging giants like Oracle and cloud provider databases. With high-profile users like Netflix, Bose, and Comcast, CockroachDB stands out for its robust data replication capabilities and distributed architecture, which were once confined to single data centers.
Join me as Spencer elucidates on the evolution of Cockroach Labs in the competitive database market, the growing trend towards multi-cloud strategies among large enterprises, and the future of cloud portability. How is CockroachDB enabling companies to build above the cloud and avoid restrictive vendor lock-ins?
As businesses continue to navigate the complexities of digital transformation, understanding the tools and technologies that facilitate this shift is more important than ever. What challenges and opportunities do you think lie ahead in the journey toward multi-cloud adoption? Please share your thoughts with us after the episode.
Are we on the brink of a new era in manufacturing, driven by AI? Today on Tech Talks Daily, we're joined by Humberto Moreira, Principal Solutions Engineer at Gigster, to explore this transformative landscape. With over 15 years of experience in the software industry, Humberto has been at the forefront of integrating AI with traditional manufacturing processes.
In this episode, Humberto shares exciting insights into how AI is revolutionizing the industry by bridging the gap between mass production and customized manufacturing. We delve into the role of AI in various stages of manufacturing, from ideation and testing to delivery, and discuss the significant shift towards personalized products without compromising on speed or quality. This is a future where AI is not just a tool for optimization, but a catalyst for reimagining what manufacturing can achieve.
We'll also discuss the emerging role of "cobots"—collaborative robots that work alongside humans in factories, enhancing efficiency and safety. Humberto explains how these innovations are not just reshaping production lines but also redefining the workforce, emphasizing the mutual learning between humans and machines.
Moreover, we tackle the pressing legal and ethical challenges of generative AI in manufacturing, such as intellectual property disputes highlighted by recent high-profile cases. Humberto provides his perspective on how companies can navigate these complexities while leveraging AI for innovation.
Join us as Humberto also highlights Gigster's unwavering commitment to sustainable manufacturing practices. We explore how AI-driven solutions can lead to more environmentally friendly production processes, underlining the importance of our collective responsibility towards the planet. We conclude with a look into the future, discussing the next frontiers for AI in manufacturing and how technologies like pervasive AI and seamless data flows will continue to push the industry forward.
Tune in to understand how AI is not just a tool for optimization but a catalyst for reimagining what manufacturing can achieve. What could this mean for your business as we approach 2024 and beyond? Let's discuss.
How are today's retailers transforming the digital landscape to meet evolving consumer expectations? On this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we sit down with Rachel Valentine from Vincit to delve into the pressing trends in digital transformation within the retail sector as we approach the crucial year of 2024.
Rachel shares how global spending on digital initiatives is set to skyrocket, emphasizing the critical role of personalized experiences in customer acquisition and retention. She explains how leveraging analytics and AI can not only anticipate customer preferences but also optimize their shopping experiences across multiple channels. The discussion also covers the impact of progressive web apps (PWAs), which enhance user experience across devices by offering the combined features of web and mobile apps.
Moreover, Rachel discusses the importance of empowering employees to foster a culture of innovation and problem-solving, which directly contributes to customer satisfaction and business growth. We also explore how embracing automation, augmented reality, and seamless user experiences across all platforms are pivotal for retailers to stay competitive.
As we dissect these transformation strategies, Rachel provides actionable insights for leaders in the retail industry on how to leverage technology to not only survive but thrive in the digital age.
What steps is your business taking to adapt to these digital transformation trends? Join the conversation and share your insights with us online.
Are small businesses truly harnessing AI's transformative power? Today on Tech Talks Daily, we delve into this question with Ram Almog, Director of Product Management for AI at vcita, a company making significant strides in integrating AI into the small and medium business (SMB) sector.
In our conversation, Ram introduced us to BizAI, vcita's pioneering AI-driven business advisor explicitly designed for SMBs. This innovative tool doesn't just analyze data—it synthesizes it, offering actionable advice tailored to each business's unique situation. From optimizing digital content to crafting precise email campaigns, BizAI is redefining how SMBs approach their operations and marketing strategies.
However, the journey towards AI adoption has its challenges. Many SMB owners remain skeptical, often due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what AI can do and fears of it replacing human jobs. Ram discusses how BizAI is designed to augment rather than replace human capabilities, emphasizing its role in enhancing business processes and decision-making.
Join us as we explore how Vcita is addressing these concerns by making advanced technology accessible and relevant to SMBs' everyday needs. How can small businesses overcome their hesitance and fully embrace AI's benefits? After listening, visit Vcita online to discover more about BizAI and how it could transform your business operations. What are your thoughts on AI's role in small business innovation? Share your insights and join the conversation online.
Are AI hallucinations undermining trust in machine learning, and can Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) offer a solution? As we invite Rahul Pradhan, VP of Product and Strategy at Couchbase, to our podcast, we delve into the fascinating yet challenging issue of AI hallucinations—situations where AI systems generate plausible but factually incorrect content. This phenomenon poses risks to AI's reliability and threatens its adoption across critical sectors like healthcare and legal industries, where precision is paramount.
In this episode, Rahul will explain how these hallucinations occur in AI models that operate on probability, often simulating understanding without genuine comprehension. The consequences? A potential erosion of trust in automated systems is a barrier that is particularly significant in domains where the stakes are high, and errors can have profound implications. But fear not, there's a beacon of hope on the horizon—Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
Rahul will discuss how RAG integrates a retrieval component that pulls real-time, relevant data before generating responses, thereby grounding AI outputs in reality and significantly mitigating the risk of hallucinations. He will also show how Couchbase's innovative data management capabilities enable this technology by combining operational and training data to enhance accuracy and relevance.
Moreover, Rahul will explore RAG's broader implications. From enhancing personalization in content generation to facilitating sophisticated decision-making across various industries, RAG stands out as a pivotal innovation in promoting more transparent, accountable, and responsible AI applications.
Join us as we navigate the labyrinth of AI hallucinations and the transformative power of the Retrieval-Augmented Generation. How might this technology reshape the landscape of AI deployment across different sectors? After listening, we eagerly await your thoughts on whether RAG could be the key to building more trustworthy AI systems.
In a world where technology evolves at breakneck speed, so too do the methods by which cybercriminals exploit it for malicious purposes. As we edge closer to the 2024 general election, the digital landscape becomes a minefield of sophisticated cyber threats aimed at voters. To navigate this complex terrain, we've invited Andrew Newman, CTO and co-founder of ReasonLabs, to share his invaluable insights on the cybersecurity challenges looming over this pivotal event.
Andrew, a seasoned cybersecurity professional with a wealth of experience and the guiding force behind ReasonLabs—a leading provider of enterprise-grade protection—brings a unique perspective to the table. His insights into emerging trends and digital pitfalls that voters may face are invaluable. Today, he will delve into the sophisticated tactics employed by cyber adversaries, including the use of AI to craft convincing phishing attacks and the creation of deepfakes designed to sow discord and manipulate public perception.
The use of generative AI by scammers has significantly lowered the barriers to creating realistic fake content, posing a serious threat to election security. Andrew will break down how these advanced threats work and the implications for voters' privacy and the integrity of electoral processes. He will also stress the crucial role of public education in countering these threats despite the challenges posed by the realistic nature of AI-generated content.
ReasonLabs, a pioneer in consumer cybersecurity, is at the forefront of implementing layered protections. These include anti-phishing measures and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) systems designed to counter these emerging threats. Through this conversation, Andrew aims to equip listeners with the knowledge and tools they need to protect themselves against the sophisticated scams that are expected to proliferate during the election season.
Expect to uncover the nature of the cyber threats targeting voters, from the evolution of phishing attacks to the sinister use of deepfakes. Learn to discern between genuine and malicious communications, the importance of verifying information sources, and the best practices for ensuring digital security in an increasingly vulnerable online environment.
As we delve into these critical issues, Andrew will also shed light on the expected increase in election-related scams compared to previous years, fueled by advancements in technology that enable scammers to craft more believable and, thus, more dangerous threats. From robocalls and SMiShing to phishing sites and deceptive donation requests, listeners will understand the scams to watch out for and the measures to avoid becoming a victim.
This episode is not just about highlighting problems; it's about forging solutions and strategies to bolster our digital defenses against a significant democratic event. Join us as we explore the intersection of technology, security, and democracy with one of the industry's most seasoned experts. How prepared are we to defend the sanctity of our votes in the digital age? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
In today's episode, we welcome Jeff Miller, CEO of Synchronoss Technologies, for our annual catch-up to discuss the evolution and significance of secure and intelligent personal cloud solutions in today's increasingly digital world. When we last spoke in July 2023, Jeff illuminated the vital role of Synchronoss Personal Cloud in empowering users with secure, limitless storage and advanced AI functionalities. Today, we delve deeper into how Synchronoss has continued to innovate and expand its offerings, standing out in a crowded marketplace where data privacy and seamless user experiences are more important than ever.
What sets Synchronoss Personal Cloud apart from global service giants like Verizon, AT&T, BT, and Softbank? It's the unparalleled data privacy, unlimited storage solutions, and AI-driven capabilities that these giants have chosen to white-label. Unlike conventional Over-The-Top (OTT) solutions, which often come with storage limitations and privacy concerns, Synchronoss provides a robust alternative that prioritizes user security and engagement.
Since our last conversation, Synchronoss has sharpened its focus on cloud solutions, streamlining its business to divest non-core segments and channel all its energies into enhancing cloud services. A notable achievement includes the launch of "Anshin Databox" in Japan with SoftBank—a platform that epitomizes security and peace of mind ("Anshin" in Japanese). Amidst tightening regulations on tech giants in Europe and the U.S., Synchronoss aims to carve a niche by offering a privacy-first cloud solution that refuses to monetize user data.
Jeff Miller will also share insights on the innovative strides Synchronoss is making to keep users engaged. These advancements, from AI-powered photo enhancements to personalized content curation, are redefining how we interact with our digital memories. Looking ahead, Jeff will outline the company's roadmap, emphasizing a stronger iOS integration, improved content searchability, and plans for global expansion—all while continuing to integrate more home devices into the personal cloud ecosystem. These developments are not just about technology but about enhancing your digital life.
As we uncover the layers of Synchronoss's strategic pivot and technological advancements, we invite you to reflect on the changing landscape of cloud storage and digital content management. How do these innovations impact your digital life? Are there concerns or features you believe are essential for a personal cloud service in today's world?
We're eager to hear your thoughts and experiences. Join the conversation and share your insights with us.
In a world where technology evolves at lightning speed, have you ever wondered how generative AI is not just reshaping the tech landscape but also becoming a pivotal ally in sustainability efforts?
Today, I am speaking with Srini Koushik, President of AI and Sustainability, Global Head of Foundry for AI at Rackspace (FAIR). With an illustrious career spanning over two decades in the tech industry, Srini brings a wealth of knowledge and insights into the transformative power of generative AI.
As we delve into our conversation, Srini explores the innovative ways organizations are leveraging AI to enhance their sustainability initiatives, highlighting the shift from traditional methods to more dynamic, AI-driven strategies.
The discussion doesn't stop there; we also tap into the emerging trends in generative AI workloads and the strategic opportunities and challenges they present. Srini paints a vivid picture of an industry on the cusp of a revolution, akin to the seismic shift witnessed with the adoption of smartphones and mobile apps. But what does this mean for the workforce?
Srini addresses the critical need for reskilling and upskilling to harness the full potential of generative AI, emphasizing the importance of aligning these initiatives with talent acquisition strategies. Furthermore, we explore the ethical dimensions and the imperative for organizations to adopt a responsible AI framework that resonates with their core values.
Throughout the episode, Srini shares intriguing insights into how AI is not just a technological advancement but a tool that empowers organizations to 'move up the Maslow hierarchy,' automating mundane tasks to unlock human creativity and problem-solving capabilities. We also look at how advancements in AI chips and models are paving the way for significant sustainability gains.
Join us in this enlightening discussion with Srini Koushik and explore the vast expanse of generative AI's potential. How are you preparing for the generative AI revolution? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
What if the key to transforming customer engagement in today's digital landscape lies in the heart of AI technology? This episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast welcomes Sam Richardson, the esteemed Customer Engagement Consultant at Twilio, for an insightful exploration into the pivotal role of AI in enhancing customer experiences.
Twilio, renowned for its commitment to real-time, personalized interactions, is leading the charge in leveraging AI to foster deeper, more meaningful connections between brands and their customers.
Sam brings to the table over two decades of expertise in advising the globe's premier brands on optimizing customer engagement strategies. His insights are particularly timely, given Twilio's recent research revealing a significant gap in AI strategy alignment among UK organizations, with only a third prioritizing customer engagement at the core of their AI initiatives.
This episode promises to unravel the layers of AI's impact on customer interactions, dissecting the barriers to adoption and unveiling the enormous potential of AI to revolutionize how brands interact with their customers.
Listeners will be treated to an in-depth discussion on the necessity of education and AI literacy for organizations to navigate skepticism and embrace AI technologies. Sam emphasizes the critical need for modernizing legacy tech infrastructures and ensuring high-quality data architecture to avoid the pitfalls of "garbage in, garbage out." Moreover, he advocates for breaking down silos within organizations to align AI strategies with actual customer needs and outcomes.
Delving into the transformative power of AI, Sam highlights the burgeoning trends of chatbots and hyper-personalized brand interactions, as validated by both IT decision-makers and consumers alike. Despite the enthusiasm for AI's capabilities, he sheds light on the hurdles stymying AI adoption, including technological skepticism, financial constraints, and infrastructural deficiencies.
As we navigate this conversation, Sam will also share actionable advice for businesses looking to embark on their AI journey, stressing the importance of starting small with focused experiments and fostering collaboration to learn from existing AI applications.
In what ways do you believe AI can enhance the customer experience in your industry, and what are the first steps your organization can take towards this goal? Let's engage in a vibrant discussion on the future of customer-centric AI strategies.
Have you ever pondered the impact of generative AI on the digital society and how it's reshaping the fabric of marketing, customer experience, and learning?
This episode of Tech Talks Daily delves into the heart of innovation with Tomer Zuker, the visionary VP of Marketing at D-ID, a trailblazing entity in the generative AI arena known for transforming still photographs into captivating AI-driven video narratives.
With an illustrious career spanning over two decades in tech marketing and sales at behemoths like Microsoft and IBM, Tomer brings a wealth of knowledge and insight into the rapidly evolving world of digital technology.
In our conversation, we uncover the origins and aspirations of D-ID, a company at the forefront of creating digital humans through its proprietary platform. Tomer shares his journey from the tech consulting world to spearheading marketing initiatives at D-ID, emphasizing the pivotal role of digital agents in establishing a more natural and engaging user interface. He elaborates on how generative AI is revolutionizing marketing strategies by enabling personalized and real-time customer interactions like never before.
Listeners will gain an in-depth understanding of D-ID's innovative approach to digital agents, the significant strides generative AI has made in content creation, and the transformative potential it holds for marketing departments worldwide. Tomer also addresses the challenges and opportunities of AI adoption, advocating for a hands-on approach to learning and the invaluable support of community engagement in navigating the AI landscape.
Furthermore, we'll explore Tomer's perspective on the future integration of AI in our daily lives and the convergence of software with robotics, painting a picture of a world where digital and physical realms merge seamlessly.
As we delve into these riveting topics, we invite you to reflect on how digital agents could redefine your interaction with technology and the implications for your personal or professional life. Where do you see the role of generative AI heading in the future of marketing and beyond?
Join us for this thought-provoking journey with Tomer Zuker and discover how D-ID is setting the stage for a future where digital agents become an integral part of our digital society.
How do you envision the integration of digital agents in your daily life or business? Please share your thoughts and join the conversation on our social media channels.
In a world where the pace of change is accelerating and the volume of data is overwhelming, how can businesses stay ahead and make informed decisions? This episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast features an insightful conversation with Dhiraj Rajaram, the visionary founder of Mu Sigma, a decision sciences company that has redefined problem-solving and decision-making for Fortune 500 companies.
Dhiraj Rajaram, with his groundbreaking approach, emphasizes the importance of understanding interactions over individual entities and advocates for a learning-focused mindset in navigating today's complex environments.
With over 15,000 employees, Mu Sigma has become India's first unicorn startup under Rajaram's leadership, blending youthful energy with purpose and experience to tackle complex challenges.
This episode dives into the unique problem-solving framework that Mu Sigma employs, emphasizing nonlinear thinking and the construction of "signal engines" and "inquiry engines" to extract insights and pose the right questions. Dhiraj shares examples of how this approach has been applied in various industries, from pharmaceuticals to retail, to develop AI solutions that are at the intersection of technology and practical business use.
Dhiraj’s core message of valuing adaptability over predictability and his recommendation to embrace the principles outlined in Nassim Taleb's "Antifragile" offers a fresh perspective on preparing for the future.
We explore how the art of problem-solving not only accelerates decision-making but also enables organizations to scale and adapt swiftly in an uncertain world.
The conversation also sheds light on the common pitfalls of rushing technology development without a deep understanding of the problems it intends to solve, underscoring the importance of a solid framework for decision-making within organizations.
Join us as Dhiraj Rajaram shares his journey from a management consultant to founding Mu Sigma, his insights from past talks and podcasts, and the accolades that have recognized his innovative contributions to the industry.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of data science, decision-making, and the continuous evolution of technology in business.
Is cybersecurity the hidden iceberg threatening to sink businesses in today's tech-infused world? In the upcoming episode of Tech Talks Daily, we delve into the complex world of cybersecurity with Jonny Tyers, founder and CEO of Threatplane. With a fascinating journey from hacker to heralded protector, Jonny brings a unique perspective to the cybersecurity challenges and opportunities facing businesses today.
As businesses increasingly anchor their operations in technology, the risks escalate. The sophistication of the cybercrime market, coupled with a widespread "explainability problem" among business leaders, underscores the urgent need for clarity and actionable insights. Jonny's approach with Threatplane is refreshingly straightforward, focusing on demystifying cybersecurity and making it accessible and relevant to business leaders' strategic objectives.
Through threat modeling, Jonny's team at Threatplane not only identifies risks but connects these to technical controls in a language that resonates with business leaders. This method bridges the knowledge gap and empowers businesses to make informed decisions about their cybersecurity strategies.
But what happens when emerging technologies like AI and IoT enter the fray, expanding the battlefield in the cyber "arms race"? Jonny discusses the dual-edged sword these technologies represent, offering new challenges and innovative defenses against cyber threats.
Listeners will be treated to Jonny's compelling story, from his early days as a hacker to his pivotal role in assisting a leading UK high-street bank to navigate their digital transformation. His membership in the Internet of Things Security Foundation and partnerships with giants like Mastercard and CISCO highlight his significant influence in cybersecurity.
Join us as we explore the intricacies of cybersecurity in the modern business landscape, from the hidden risks to the cutting-edge strategies that can protect and propel businesses forward. How can companies to stay ahead of the curve in a world where technology evolves at breakneck speed?
Shaping a New Future: Technology and Racial Equity with Darrell Booker
Can technology genuinely shape a better future for racial equity? In today's episode, I have the privilege of sitting down with Darrell Booker, the Racial Equity Tech Lead at Microsoft. His unique blend of personal experiences and professional insights form a powerful lens through which we can explore this question.
Inspired by his mother's challenges as a Black child in foster care, Darrell has dedicated his career to leveraging technology to create, improve, and uplift Black social support networks.
Through the lens of the EMBRACE Project—a national study launched in partnership with Gallup—Darrell shares his vision for how technology can advance policy goals and fundamentally change the experience for Black youth and families in the child welfare system. This project isn't just about data; it's about real lives and the potential to alter their course for the better.
Darrell will also explore how Microsoft is pushing the boundaries of racial equity, from diverse hiring practices to supporting minority-owned businesses and expanding affordable broadband access. Moreover, he will reveal how artificial intelligence might be the key to enabling nonprofit organizations to operate more efficiently and make impactful, data-driven decisions.
But at the heart of our conversation is the question: Why is the EMBRACE Project so crucial, and what goals does it strive to achieve? Darrell's narrative and professional endeavors provide a unique insight into the power of technology as a tool for societal change. Where can you dive deeper into Darrell Booker's work, or how can you contribute to the advancements in technology for racial equity? We'll explore where to connect with Darrell and his team online, ensuring our listeners can engage further with the transformative projects discussed today.
As we navigate this thought-provoking dialogue, we invite you to reflect on the intersection of technology, racial equity, and social support systems. How can we, as a society, utilize technological advancements to foster a more equitable world for all?
After hearing Darrell's insights and aspirations, how do you see technology advancing racial equity and supporting vulnerable communities? Share your thoughts with us, and let's continue this meaningful conversation.
Is blockchain technology truly poised to revolutionize our world? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Temujin Louie, CEO of Wanchain, to peel back the layers of blockchain interoperability and its critical role in pushing blockchain towards mainstream acceptance. As we navigate through the origins of Wanchain and its mission to democratize access to blockchain technology, we uncover the vision of a world where different blockchain networks seamlessly interact with one another.
Despite blockchain's promise, its journey into the mainstream is fraught with challenges. The lack of standardized practices not only complicates the regulatory landscape but also hampers the user experience, making it daunting for the average person to leverage blockchain applications. Moreover, enterprises stand at the precipice, eager to embrace blockchain but held back by the absence of a core infrastructure that can foster adoption.
As we delve into the concept of interoperability, we highlight its significance in achieving the scalability necessary for global adoption. With the example of the ERC-20 standard, we discuss how established protocols can guide the development of interoperable systems that pave the way for innovation and growth within the Ethereum ecosystem and beyond.
Through an engaging conversation with Temujin, we explore how Wanchain's decentralized bridges facilitate the movement of data across different chains, thereby enhancing the user experience by simplifying cross-chain transactions. However, the path to seamless blockchain integration requires further abstraction of the underlying complexities, ensuring that the transformative potential of blockchain can be accessed by everyone, irrespective of their technical knowledge.
Join us as we engage in community conversations that highlight the importance of interoperability, listen to the needs of enterprises and regulators, and caution against the pitfalls of a one-size-fits-all approach to blockchain solutions.
In a world where blockchain stands as a beacon of decentralization and equitable access, how can we bridge the gaps to unlock its full potential? Share your thoughts with us as we explore the future of blockchain through the lens of interoperability.
How secure is the invisible foundation that our modern society rests upon? In this thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Kumar Parakala, President of GHD Digital, to unravel the complexities of protecting our critical infrastructure from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. As we delve into the digital age, our reliance on technology exposes vital systems—power plants, water facilities, and more—to cyber adversaries' constantly evolving tactics. With a staggering 125% average annual increase in attacks on these essential networks, the conversation has never been more urgent.
Kumar brings expertise from leading GHD Digital initiatives, focusing on the nexus between technology and cybersecurity. He shares actionable insights on the societal shifts necessary to fortify our defenses, the role of digital transformation in bolstering security without compromising innovation, and how GHD Digital's Cyber Critical Infrastructure and Risk Centre of Excellence is pioneering solutions to these pressing challenges. Furthermore, we'll explore the double-edged sword of AI in cybersecurity—its power to detect and respond to threats and its potential to broaden the attack surface.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of cybersecurity and how we can collectively navigate the treacherous waters of digital threats. By understanding the intricacies of the landscape and the innovative approaches being developed, we can better appreciate the steps needed to ensure the resilience and security of our critical infrastructure.
One question looms as we confront these challenges: How can individuals, corporations, and governments collaborate more effectively to safeguard the digital and physical systems that underpin our society?
Join the discussion and share your thoughts on navigating the complexities of cybersecurity in an interconnected world.
In the dynamic realm of business intelligence and data analytics, the journey from static charts to live, collaborative decision-making platforms illustrates a profound evolution. This episode of Tech Talks Daily welcomes Mike Palmer, CEO of Sigma Computing, to shed light on this transformative journey and Sigma's role in shaping the future of data analytics.
Business intelligence has significantly transformed beyond historical data visualizations to enable real-time collaboration, forecasting, and decision automation.
Mike Palmer discusses how Sigma Computing is at the forefront of this change, offering a unique cloud analytics solution that combines the familiarity of spreadsheet interfaces with the power of cloud computing. This innovative approach makes expert-level data analytics accessible to everyone through user-friendly interfaces like spreadsheets, SQL, Python, and natural language processing, regardless of their technical expertise.
Key to the discussion is the crucial role of high-quality data and robust governance in achieving data-driven decision-making. Sigma's platform emphasizes data security, lineage tracking, and collaboration, ensuring that organizations can trust the accuracy and integrity of their data.
Mike Palmer also highlights how Sigma is driving sustainable tech growth by maximizing employee productivity and minimizing tool complexity, thereby streamlining workflows and enhancing overall efficiency.
Looking to the future, Sigma is not just another business intelligence tool; it's a gateway to innovative forms of customer collaboration and the development of live applications on cloud data platforms. Mike shares insights into how Sigma eliminates manual steps in workflows and reporting, thus enabling a more agile and responsive business environment.
Whether discussing the evolution of business intelligence, the democratization of data analytics, or the impact of cloud computing, Mike Palmer's insights offer a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities in today's data-driven world. From retail to healthcare, Sigma Computing is redefining industries by putting powerful data analytics tools into every employee's hands, driving informed, timely, and impactful decisions.
Join me as we explore the future of data with Mike Palmer and discover how companies like Sigma are navigating the modern data era, driving transformation, and empowering organizations to achieve data-driven success through awareness, accuracy, collaboration, and ongoing innovation. How will this evolution affect your industry, and are you ready for the future of data analytics? Let's dive into the conversation and find out together.
In a world where the pace of technological advancement often outstrips the ability of industries to adapt, the legal sector stands on the brink of a transformative era. This episode of Tech Talks Daily features Kira Unger, CEO and co-founder of PocketLaw, a pioneering force in the legal tech space, aiming to redefine how legal teams operate. With a mission to democratize legal services through technology, PocketLaw combines the power of AI, automation, and data to streamline legal workflows, making them more efficient, cost-effective, and accessible.
Kira, alongside her childhood friend and business partner Olga, has embarked on a journey to tackle the legacy industry's resistance to change. Together, they've navigated the challenges of digitizing an industry steeped in tradition, leveraging their complementary skillsets to build a solution that not only meets but exceeds the evolving demands of legal teams worldwide.
The conversation delves into the heart of PocketLaw's vision: to augment human capabilities within the legal industry rather than replace them. Kira underscores the importance of embracing state-of-the-art technologies, including large language models, to ensure the accuracy and reliability of legal tech solutions. By automating repetitive tasks, PocketLaw empowers legal teams to focus on high-value strategic work, transforming them from cost centers into true business partners.
Kira shares insights into the founding and growth of PocketLaw, the impact of AI on the legal industry, and the future of AI and legal experts working together. She also addresses the unique dynamics of starting a SaaS company with a lifelong friend, the challenges of transforming a legacy industry, and how technology is cutting business legal costs in an era of rising inflation.
As we explore the shifting role of legal teams and the adoption of new technology, Kira offers her expertise on digitizing legacy industries, the intersection of AI and law, and the societal impact of these changes. PocketLaw's holistic, user-friendly solution exemplifies the potential for legal tech to make a significant, positive difference in how legal work is done, paving the way for a more efficient, inclusive, and adaptable legal landscape.
Join us in this thought-provoking episode as we uncover how PocketLaw is leading the charge in legal tech innovation, enabling a future where legal services are more accessible, efficient, and aligned with the needs of businesses and individuals alike. How can technology further transform the legal industry and what does the future hold for legal professionals in this evolving digital age? Share your thoughts and join the conversation on the role of innovation in driving legal and societal progress.
In an era where climate change and economic development are two of the most significant challenges facing the African continent, how can technology and financial innovation pave the way for a more resilient and prosperous future?
This episode of Tech Talks Daily delves into the heart of these issues with Funmi Dele-Giwa, General Counsel and Head of Governance, Risk & Compliance at MFS Africa, now steering the helm at Onafriq with a vision to revolutionize Africa's financial landscape.
Africa, despite its minimal contribution to global emissions, finds itself on the frontline of climate change's adverse effects. With extreme weather events becoming more frequent and severe, the need for robust climate adaptation and resilience strategies has never been more pressing. However, the continent's fight against climate change is hampered by a lack of adequate funding and a financial architecture that fails to address its unique challenges.
Enter Onafriq, a company poised at the intersection of financial services and technological innovation, aiming to make cross-border payments within Africa as seamless as making a local phone call. In this enlightening conversation, Funmi Dele-Giwa sheds light on the pivotal role that fintech and digital financial services can play in addressing both climate change and the broader economic challenges facing the continent.
From the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement to the need for a climate-centric financial architecture, we explore the pathways toward enhancing intra-African trade and, ultimately, funding for climate adaptation and resilience.
The discussion doesn't stop at identifying the problems; it dives into the practical solutions that Onafriq and similar initiatives offer. By digitizing payments and addressing regulatory barriers, Onafriq is not just facilitating easier trade and financial inclusion; it's laying the groundwork for a more united African economy capable of tackling climate change head-on.
As Africa stands at a crossroads, the question looms: Can the continent leverage its vast potential to foster growth and resilience from within? Join us as Funmi Dele-Giwa shares her insights on how Onafriq's mission goes beyond financial transactions to spearhead a movement towards a more interconnected and resilient Africa.
Listeners, as we navigate these transformative ideas, what role do you see digital innovation playing in Africa's journey toward climate resilience and economic empowerment?
Share your thoughts and join the conversation on how technology can help bridge the gap between Africa's financial and environmental challenges.
In a world increasingly governed by algorithms and artificial intelligence, the control over everyday choices—from the entertainment we consume to the products we purchase—has shifted out of human hands. But what happens when these impersonal algorithms dictate something as crucial as our financial wellbeing?
Have you ever faced the disheartening "computer says no" response when seeking credit for essential life milestones, like buying a home or car? It's a stark reminder of the chasm between our financial needs and the digital gatekeepers that stand in our way.
This episode of Tech Talks Daily delves into a pressing issue many face, yet few discuss openly: the daunting challenge of navigating financial systems designed without the user in mind.
We're joined by Gregor Mowatt, co-CEO and co-founder of Loqbox, a Bristol-based financial wellbeing venture pioneering a revolution in personal finance. Loqbox isn't just another fintech company; it's a beacon for those struggling to find footing in the treacherous waters of credit scores and financial planning.
Gregor illuminates a sobering reality: one in four adults is teetering on the edge of financial distress, exacerbated by soaring interest rates and stringent borrowing criteria from traditional banks. With the financial sector poised for exponential growth, the necessity for consumer education has never been more critical. Loqbox's mission is to empower individuals, giving them the tools and knowledge to enhance their financial situation amidst an ongoing cost-of-living crisis and the transformation of global payment trends.
We'll explore Loqbox's innovative solutions, designed to demystify credit scores and offer a lifeline to those aiming to improve their financial health. From their revolutionary approach to building credit without a credit card to their financial education tools, Loqbox is leading the charge in making finance accessible and understandable for everyone. With nearly 2 million people benefiting from their services, Loqbox is not just changing lives; it's reshaping the future of personal finance.
As we unpack the challenges and opportunities within the financial landscape, we invite you to reflect on your own experiences and the broader implications of a world where financial wellbeing is within reach for all.
How can we collectively bridge the gap between the digital and financial divides? Join the conversation and share your thoughts on how technology can further humanize our approach to our finances.
How often do we consider technology and the fabric of our lives as a catalyst for health and recovery? In this enlightening episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Seth Casden, CEO of Hologenix, to unravel the innovative world of infrared textile technology through their flagship product, CELLIANT.
Seth shares his compelling journey from personal recovery to professional revelation, detailing how an injury led him to discover the profound benefits of CELLIANT. This technology accelerated his healing process and showed remarkable results in animal health, moving beyond a mere placebo effect to a tangible wellness innovation.
Listen as we discuss how this technology works, transforming body heat into infrared energy that promotes cellular respiration and circulation, enhancing performance, recovery, and sleep. Discover how partnerships with major brands like Under Armour and Bear Mattress are not just about differentiation but about introducing a product line that genuinely benefits the end-user's health and well-being.
The episode navigates the hurdles of embedding minerals into textiles, the evolution of manufacturing processes, and a vision for the future where all textiles offer measurable health benefits. Seth envisions a world where every fabric in our lives, from our clothes to the beds we sleep in, serves a purpose beyond the basic, propelling us towards a healthier, more energized existence.
As we wrap up, Seth leaves us pondering the potential of textiles that don't just exist but interact with our bodies in beneficial ways. What if the future of fashion and furnishings could fundamentally enhance our quality of life?
What are your thoughts on the intersection of technology and wellness through the lens of textile innovation? Please share your insights and join the conversation as we delve into the fabric of the future with Seth Casden.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're venturing into the evolving military training landscape with Lucy Walton, Head of Training at BAE Systems, who will shed light on Project OdySSEy.
This initiative stands at the forefront of transforming how armed forces prepare for the complexities of modern warfare across air, land, sea, space, and cyber domains. But what makes synthetic training environments such a game-changer?
Lucy will discuss the inception and rapid progress of Project OdySSEy, which transitioned from a concept to a demonstrable reality through collaboration in just four months. This leap was made possible by leveraging expertise from various fields, including gaming, simulation, supercomputing, and augmented and virtual reality. These partnerships accelerate innovation and bring diverse perspectives to the challenges at hand.
We'll explore how synthetic training offers significant advantages over traditional methods. It allows for unlimited, safe, and ecologically responsible training scenarios that can quickly bring together allies across the globe. Gaming technology and artificial intelligence in these environments promise a new era where ambition and capability align more closely than ever.
Moreover, Lucy will explore the personalized aspects of training enabled by AI and data analytics, offering insights into how these technologies can tailor training programs to individual performance, stress levels, and decision-making processes.
As we look to the future, the conversation will also touch upon the enduring value of live training alongside synthetic environments to ensure that military personnel are fully prepared for the physiological challenges of real-world operations.
What could this blend of virtual and physical training environments mean for the future of military preparedness, and how might these innovations influence other sectors? Join us as we delve into these questions and more. After listening, we invite you to share your thoughts on how synthetic training will shape the future of the military and beyond.
In today's digital age, how can organizations fortify their defenses against the ever-evolving landscape of AI threats and risks? This question sets the stage for a compelling episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, where we sit down with Steve Orrin, Federal CTO at Intel, to delve into the pivotal role of AI in shaping cybersecurity practices and transforming public sector enterprises.
Our journey begins with a deep dive into the Zero Trust Architecture—a strategy that's gaining traction across industries as a means to bolster security in an increasingly complex digital world. Steve shares his insights on starting this journey, emphasizing the importance of asset inventory and multi-factor authentication as foundational steps. But the conversation doesn't stop there; we explore how Zero Trust is a continuous path of evolving controls and maturing capabilities, rather than a one-off implementation.
Shifting gears, Steve illuminates the transformative power of AI within the public sector. From enhancing mission capabilities through advanced object detection and tracking to optimizing back-end processes, AI's role in government mirrors its impact in the private sector. Yet, the journey to successful innovation with AI demands a strategic approach—understanding customer needs, planning for deployment requirements, and piloting technology in a "Goldilocks Zone" of impact without risking critical systems.
As we navigate the conversation towards emerging technologies, Steve introduces us to the concept of AI PCs, which promise to bring native AI acceleration to the edge, where users work. This discussion underscores Intel's commitment to scaling AI and security across diverse environments through innovative computing solutions and custom silicon designs.
Throughout the episode, Steve shares invaluable advice for staying ahead in the tech landscape, from leveraging resources like Hacker News to engaging with a community of experts and continuously learning from one's team.
As we conclude, we ponder the question: In the pursuit of technological advancement and security, how do we ensure that we're not just reacting to threats but proactively shaping a future where technology serves the greater good?
We invite you to share your thoughts and join the conversation. For more insights from Steve Orrin and to explore the topics discussed today, find us and our guests online. Your journey towards understanding and leveraging the latest in AI, cybersecurity, and technology trends begins here.
How are organizations harnessing the transformative power of generative AI (GenAI) while navigating the labyrinth of security risks it introduces? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're joined by Sam Curry, the Chief Information Security Officer at Zscaler, who delves into the intricate dance between innovation and security in the age of GenAI.
As we unfold the layers of Zscaler's latest global study, "All Eyes on Securing GenAI," Sam offers an enlightening perspective on how businesses are rapidly integrating these tools, the security implications at play, and the steps crucial for safeguarding their digital ecosystems.
The study's findings are a wake-up call, highlighting the enthusiasm for GenAI across sectors, alongside an acute awareness of its potential security pitfalls. With an overwhelming majority of organizations jumping on the GenAI bandwagon, the conversation shifts to the delicate balance between seizing opportunities and mitigating risks.
Sam shares his insights on the pivotal role of IT in driving GenAI adoption, the pressure points from various stakeholders, and the transformative impact of a zero-trust approach in securing GenAI usage.
Through a deep dive into the challenges of data leakage, the necessity of comprehensive visibility and control over AI applications, and the strategic implementation of data protection measures, this episode is an essential guide for businesses at the frontier of the GenAI revolution.
What does it take to go from a creative spirit who dislikes math to a rocket scientist at the helm of a cutting-edge tech company? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I delve into the inspiring journey of Masha Petrova, CEO of Nullspace and a beacon of innovation in the aerospace engineering field.
Masha's path to becoming a leading figure in the world of engineering simulation and RF technology is as unconventional as it is fascinating.
Join me as I explore the crucial role of engineering simulation in propelling our technology into the future. Masha sheds light on how Nullspace is revolutionizing the RF simulation space, offering solutions that are more than 25 times faster than existing products.
This breakthrough capability is not just about speed; it's about enabling rapid innovation in a world increasingly reliant on radiofrequency technology—from agriculture to space exploration. Masha's story is a testament to breaking barriers and challenging stereotypes within the traditionally introverted domain of engineering.
Her journey from a creative who hated math to a rocket scientist underscores the importance of perseverance, passion, and pushing beyond one's comfort zone. We'll discuss how her extroverted nature and unique perspective have shaped her career and how Nullspace stands out among deep tech companies for its innovative approach and commitment to diversity.
This episode also delves into the growing demand for radiofrequency technology and its ubiquity in our daily lives, from the devices we use to the cars we drive. Masha will share her insights on the explosion of acquisitions in the engineering simulation software space and what this means for the future of technology development.
How can aspiring engineers and creatives draw inspiration from Masha's journey to overcome their own challenges and make their mark in the tech world? Tune in to this captivating conversation on Tech Talks Daily, and let's discover together the power of innovation, diversity, and determination in shaping our technological landscape.
Share your thoughts with us—how do you see the role of engineering simulation evolving, and what impact will it have on our future?
How can lean principles and artificial intelligence revolutionize the healthcare industry, creating a more efficient and effective system that benefits providers and patients? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Mohan Giridharadas, founder and CEO of LeanTaaS, a company at the forefront of transforming healthcare operations through innovation.
With a rich background of 18 years at McKinsey & Company, where he co-created the lean service operations practice, Mohan has dedicated his expertise to improving healthcare delivery.
LeanTaaS stands out not just for its groundbreaking use of AI in optimizing healthcare operations but also for its commitment to delivering tangible results. The company's iQueue platform has been instrumental in unlocking capacity in critical healthcare assets, such as operating rooms and infusion chairs, across over 1,000 hospitals and centers in the U.S.
This episode will delve into how LeanTaaS's unique approach to using sophisticated algorithms, much more advanced than traditional methods, is whispering actionable advice into the ears of healthcare providers, much like how Netflix suggests what to watch next.
Mohan will share his journey, from identifying the gap in the market to leveraging software for lean transformations in healthcare, highlighting the challenges and breakthroughs along the way. We'll explore the significant impact of LeanTaaS's solutions on healthcare operations, including substantial increases in surgical volume, market competitiveness, staffing optimization, and overall utilization of procedural areas.
Privacy and data security remain paramount, and Mohan will discuss how LeanTaaS ensures the utmost care in handling sensitive information, adhering to stringent healthcare compliance standards while encapsulating customer data.
As we look to the future, Mohan envisions a vast landscape of opportunities for AI to enhance healthcare efficiency, potentially unlocking billions in savings and significantly improving patient care. Join us as we uncover the transformative power of lean principles and AI in healthcare with Mohan Giridharadas. What are your thoughts on the potential of these technologies to change the healthcare landscape?
Please share your views with us, and let's engage in a meaningful conversation about the future of healthcare innovation.
How can Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) transcend traditional boundaries to become enablers of business success and innovation? Join me on Tech Talks Daily as I sit down with Jim Doggett, CISO of Semperis and a veteran in the field of cybersecurity, to delve into this pressing question.
With over three decades of experience in leading cybersecurity and risk programs across global organizations, Jim brings a wealth of knowledge and a unique perspective on the evolving role of CISOs in today's business environment.
In our conversation, we will explore the transformation of the CISO role from a technical doer to a visionary leader who not only protects the digital assets of a company but also drives business growth by leveraging digital infrastructure. Jim will share his insights on the importance of balancing security measures with business enablement, emphasizing the concept of "rarely saying no" but rather offering alternative solutions that align with the company's objectives.
We'll also discuss the critical role of resiliency in the face of threats like ransomware, the significance of maintaining a focus on security basics amidst the allure of new technologies, and the growing importance of identity and behavioral analysis as the digital perimeter continues to dissolve.
Furthermore, Jim will offer practical advice on gaining leadership buy-in by framing security in terms of business risk and impact, thereby fostering a culture of security that supports business continuity and profitability.
Underpinning our discussion will be Jim's perspective on leadership versus management, the necessity for CISOs to redefine what's believed to be possible, and the strategic approach to deploying digital infrastructure in a way that not only secures the business but also drives revenue and sustainable growth.
How can CISOs navigate the complex interplay between security, innovation, and business strategy to redefine their role and contribute to the overall success of their organizations? Tune in to this enlightening episode of Tech Talks Daily, and let's unravel the future of cybersecurity leadership together.
Share your thoughts with us on social media or drop us an email—what do you believe is the key to transforming the role of the CISO in today's business world?
Have you ever wondered what propels an enterprise to the pinnacle of success in the bustling realm of artificial intelligence? Today on Tech Talks Daily, we invite you into a conversation with Deanna Lanier, Chief Strategy Officer at Icertis, a trailblazer in AI and the first contract lifecycle management (CLM) company to achieve a valuation of over a billion dollars.
As we navigate through the burgeoning AI landscape of 2024, Deanna sheds light on a pivotal distinction: the chasm between innovation and imitation.
In an era where digital mimicry seems pervasive, with tales reminiscent of Snapchat's features replicated by giants like Facebook, we delve into the crux of what truly separates the frontrunners from the followers in AI.
Icertis, with its extensive portfolio managing over 10 million contracts across 93 countries, stands as a testament to what innovative foresight coupled with strategic agility can accomplish. Partnering with heavyweights such as Microsoft, SAP, and Salesforce, Icertis has not just navigated but set new standards in the AI domain.
Deanna will unravel the trends that are shaping the AI arena in 2024, emphasizing the critical need for enterprises to architect their unique AI strategies. Beyond the horizon of mere competition, she envisions a future where AI innovators outpace the imitators by not just a step, but a leap.
From leveraging a massive dataset of contracts to fuel AI-driven insights to pioneering in autonomous contracting with the integration of AI, machine learning, and blockchain, Icertis's journey is one of relentless innovation.
As we explore the symbiosis between AI and CLM, Deanna provides an intriguing perspective on how contracts, often seen as mere legal formalities, can be transformed into dynamic assets that drive enterprise-wide intelligence and efficiency. The conversation promises to be an enlightening exploration of how AI is not just reshaping industries but also redefining the paradigms of competition and innovation.
What new standards are we setting today to pioneer the AI-driven enterprises of tomorrow? After listening to our discussion with Deanna Lanier, we invite you to share your thoughts on how AI innovation can further revolutionize the way we do business.
What does the future of retail look like when technology like augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI) are leading the charge in transforming customer experiences? This Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode welcomes Angelo Colletta, the visionary founder of Zakeke, a platform at the forefront of the visual commerce revolution.
Angelo shares his insights on how Zakeke empowers brands like Valentino, HP, Etsy, Uber Eats, Zapier, and Printful to offer immersive augmented reality and virtual try-on experiences, thus revolutionizing our shop.
With a background as a serial entrepreneur and investor in AR/VR technologies, Angelo has positioned Zakeke as a global leader in visual commerce, serving over 10,000 clients across 400+ industries. He discusses the platform's role in reducing over-manufacturing and promoting thoughtful customer engagement through live product personalization and 3D/AR views.
The conversation delves into how C-suite executives can prepare for the imminent launch of new tech like the Apple headset and its impact on content creation and consumption. Angelo also explores AI's role in fostering ethical consumption and reducing environmental impact, marking a shift towards more responsible retail practices.
Listeners will gain insights into the concept of 'retailtainment,' the blending of shopping with entertainment, and how this is becoming the new norm in attracting and retaining customers. Moreover, Angelo provides a visionary outlook on the future of brick-and-mortar stores, which are expected to transform into dynamic, personalized spaces with AI and VR innovations.
Angelo's journey from founding multiple companies to leading Zakeke in visual commerce highlights the importance of continuous learning and staying ahead of technological advancements. This episode is not just a glimpse into the future of retail but a call to action for brands to embrace visual commerce to enhance customer engagement, personalize shopping experiences, and drive sales and loyalty.
As we unpack these trends with Angelo Colletta, we invite you to consider how your brand could leverage visual commerce technologies to meet the evolving demands of the digital age. What role will AI and AR play in your future retail strategy, and how can you begin integrating these innovations today to create more engaging, personalized, and sustainable shopping experiences?
What are your thoughts on the convergence of technology and retail, and how do you see it shaping the future of shopping? Share your insights and join the conversation.
How do businesses stay one step ahead in an era where cyber threats evolve as swiftly as the technology designed to counter them? This Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode features an enlightening conversation with David Torgerson, VP of Technology and Security at Lucid Software, who brings his expert insights into the rapidly changing landscape of cybersecurity.
2023 has seen companies grappling with significant pain points, from communication barriers within teams to the urgent need to prioritize initiatives that truly set them apart. David emphasizes the indispensable role of clear communication in cybersecurity, highlighting how a unified understanding of business goals and cybersecurity strategies is crucial for organizational resilience.
The conversation takes a deep dive into the changing nature of cyber attacks expected in 2024, with financial gain becoming the primary motive for attackers. David sheds light on the sophistication of phishing and ransomware tactics, propelled by advancements in AI, making them more personal, timely, and challenging to detect.
However, it's not all doom and gloom in AI and cybersecurity. David also explores the positive side, where AI emerges as a formidable ally in automating mundane tasks, enhancing productivity, and allowing cybersecurity professionals to focus on strategic initiatives and innovation.
According to David, the key to improving an organization's security posture is implementing processes that simplify doing the right thing for employees, thus enhancing the overall cybersecurity framework. From the critical importance of clear communication across diverse teams to leveraging AI as both a tool and a challenge in cybersecurity, this episode is packed with actionable insights.
David also shares an intriguing anecdote from his career, offering a personal glimpse into the high-stakes world of cybersecurity and the lessons learned from moments of crisis.
As we explore these pressing issues with David Torgerson, we invite you to reflect on your organization's cybersecurity strategies and the potential of AI to transform the landscape. How can companies better prepare for tomorrow's cybersecurity challenges, and what steps can we take today to ensure a more secure digital future?
What are your thoughts on the evolving role of AI in cybersecurity, and how do you see it shaping the future of digital defense? Share your insights and join the conversation.
How is technology shaping the future of human potential and productivity? I sit down with Adam Burden, Accenture's chief technology officer. We explore the insights from Accenture's 2024 Technology Vision report, "Human by Design: How AI unleashes the next level of human potential."
Adam discusses the transformative potential of generative AI, poised to impact a significant portion of working hours across industries, enhancing productivity in numerous job types and potentially adding trillions to the global economy. The conversation extends beyond the realms of generative AI to the broader spectrum of "human by design" technologies. These innovations are redefining our relationship with technology, making it a more seamless extension of human capabilities.
The episode also covers the shift in how knowledge is organized and accessed, with AI reshaping our approach to information processing and decision-making. Adam illustrates this with examples of how AI can suggest perspectives and solutions that might not have been considered, effectively acting as a catalyst for creativity and innovation.
Furthermore, we discuss the emerging importance of spatial computing in the enterprise sector despite the consumer side still searching for its "killer app." They touch on the potential of digital twins for training and exploring AR/VR in retail, highlighting the necessity of modern networks like 5G to support these technologies.
Another intriguing topic is the evolution of body electronics, where technology becomes increasingly integrated and natural in our daily lives. This trend emphasizes the need for responsible AI and ethical considerations as these technologies become more embedded in our physical and digital interactions.
Adam emphasizes the gap between intentions and organizations' operationalization of responsible AI frameworks. He outlines key steps for businesses to embrace and implement responsible AI practices, highlighting the critical nature of governance, risk assessment, and compliance monitoring in this context.
As technology evolves at an unprecedented pace, Adam's insights from Accenture's 2024 Technology Vision report offer a roadmap for harnessing these advancements to unlock human potential.
In a world where technology shapes our everyday lives and the demand for digital skills continues to soar, how can we ensure that everyone, especially mothers looking to re-enter the workforce, has access to the opportunities tech offers? This Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode delves into the inspiring journey of Heather Black, the visionary CEO of Supermums, a global initiative transforming the tech landscape for mothers and promoting gender equality in the digital age.
Supermums, born from Heather's realization of Salesforce's potential as a powerful enabler of flexibility and employment, has, since its inception in 2016, welcomed over 4,300 trainees from more than ten countries, demonstrating a formidable impact on reducing the gender pay gap, supporting women returners, and addressing the digital skills gap. With a keen focus on aligning with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, including Quality Education and Gender Equality, Supermums offers high-quality online learning and paves the way for remote work opportunities in the burgeoning Salesforce ecosystem.
Join us as Heather shares her journey from running a non-profit to leading Supermums, the challenges and triumphs of scaling a social enterprise globally, and the innovative approaches Supermums employs to match parenting attributes to Salesforce roles. Heather's dedication to leveraging Salesforce for social good, her strategic vision for Supermums, and her passion for empowering women through education and employment in the tech sector are inspiring.
As we explore the future of work, the indispensable role of digital skills and the unique challenges and opportunities mothers face in the tech sector, Heather also sheds light on her aspirations to secure investment for Supermums, aiming to further amplify its global impact.
Where can you join the Supermums mission or learn more about how technology bridges employment and education gaps for mothers worldwide? Dive into this enlightening conversation with Heather Black to discover how Supermums is making tech careers more accessible and empowering mothers to achieve their full potential in the digital world.
As we reflect on the transformative power of tech education and flexible employment opportunities, we invite you to share your thoughts on how technology can continue to foster an inclusive, equitable workforce. How can initiatives like Supermums contribute to shaping a future where anyone, anywhere, can thrive in a digital economy?
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we pose an intriguing question: How is the burgeoning field of quantum computing poised to redefine the landscape of cybersecurity? To shed light on this complex topic, we welcome Duncan Jones, the Head of Cybersecurity at Quantinuum, the world's largest dedicated quantum computer provider. Our conversation navigates the fascinating intersection of quantum computing and cybersecurity, highlighting Duncan's insights on how quantum technology is beginning to assert its commercial value and impact within the tech sphere.
Duncan brings a wealth of experience, with over 15 years dedicated to cybersecurity and cryptography. He takes us on a journey through the evolution of Quantinuum, from its inception inspired by Stephen Hawking to becoming a $5 billion quantum computing titan. Quantinuum stands as a testament to the power of full-stack quantum computing, encompassing hardware, software, operating systems, and applications across various sectors including chemistry, machine learning, and notably, cybersecurity.
One of the pivotal topics we explore is the dual-edged sword of quantum computing in cybersecurity. Quantum technology harbors the potential to both compromise and enhance encryption methods. Duncan delves into this paradox, explaining how Quantinuum is pioneering efforts to harness quantum principles for fortifying cybersecurity, through innovations like quantum key distribution and quantum random number generation.
Our discussion extends to real-world applications and partnerships that underscore the tangible benefits of quantum cybersecurity. From Honeywell's integration of Quantinuum's Origin product in smart meters, to collaborations with giants like BMW and Airbus, Duncan provides compelling examples of quantum computing's practical utility in safeguarding digital infrastructure.
Moreover, Duncan shares his vision for the future, projecting significant advancements in quantum computing and cybersecurity within the next decade. This forecast not only emphasizes the ongoing development of quantum hardware but also the increasing integration of quantum-enhanced security technologies across industries.
As we navigate this conversation, we invite listeners to reflect on the transformative potential of quantum computing in redefining cybersecurity standards. How will businesses and individuals adapt to this new quantum era? Join us in exploring the implications of quantum technology's rapid advancement and its role in shaping a secure digital future.
We conclude by asking our audience: What are your thoughts on the integration of quantum computing into cybersecurity? How do you envision this convergence impacting your digital security measures? Share your insights and join the discussion on the future of quantum computing in cybersecurity.
How is artificial intelligence (AI) transforming the way small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) approach marketing and customer interaction? I sit down with Ryan Johnson, Chief Product Officer at CallRail, a platform empowering over 200,000 SMBs with advanced call, text, and form tracking capabilities, to explore this pivotal question. With a deep dive into AI's role in product innovation, this episode offers a unique perspective on leveraging technology to enhance marketing effectiveness and optimize customer experiences.
Ryan brings a rich background in AI and machine learning (ML) from his time at a pre-revenue AI startup, where he learned firsthand the challenges and expenses associated with building AI solutions in-house. At CallRail, the focus is not on becoming an AI shop but on enhancing customers' ability to market more effectively through strategic partnerships with AI leaders. This approach allows CallRail to integrate AI meaningfully, making it purposeful, valuable, accessible, reliable, and scalable for SMBs.
Listeners will get an inside look at CallRail Labs, an initiative inviting customers to test new AI capabilities and provide feedback that shapes future development. This collaboration between CallRail and its customers ensures that AI applications are both innovative and practical, addressing real-world marketing challenges.
One of the standout AI features discussed is conversation intelligence, which saves significant time by reviewing and analyzing customer interactions, thus enabling better lead qualification and improving marketing ROI. Additionally, AI-based call coaching offers objective feedback to help agents improve, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Ryan also touches on how AI helps optimize marketing efforts in a world where traditional cookies are declining, highlighting the growing importance of conversation intelligence in targeting and lead qualification.
As we wrap up, Ryan shares his unique perspective on how AI in product development parallels his personal passion for car racing, emphasizing the need for precision, speed, and continuous improvement to stay ahead.
What if there was a way to turbocharge your tech startup's growth with AI-driven tools, mentorship, and a vibrant community? I spoke with Paul Pluschkell, the visionary behind StartupOS, on Tech Talks Daily to explore how the StartupOS Launchpad is revolutionizing the support system for startups. Paul, a serial entrepreneur, investor, and technologist, brings a wealth of experience and insights into the challenges and opportunities facing today's startup ecosystem.
In this episode, Paul shares his journey through the tech landscape, from founding companies to now leading StartupOS, a platform designed to nurture early-stage startups by providing them with the needed resources. From refining investor pitch decks to achieving the elusive product-market fit and assembling a talented team, Paul discusses how AI-powered technology is not just a tool but a game-changer for startups.
Listeners will be treated to an in-depth conversation on the changing dynamics of the startup landscape, how startups can leverage AI to scale and succeed, and the importance of a supportive ecosystem that includes mentors, investors, and partners. Paul also shares his vision for the next 6-12 months in the venture space, offering valuable perspectives for founders, investors, and anyone interested in the future of startups.
The StartupOS Launchpad platform, described as a lifeline for accelerators, enterprises, communities, and educational institutions, showcases the potential of collaborative and technology-driven ecosystems in building and launching successful companies. Paul's passion for giving back to the startup community and his insights into the power of AI technology make this episode a must-listen for entrepreneurs and innovators seeking to make their mark in the world.
As we wrap up, we're left to consider: How will AI and ecosystem support redefine the journey of startups in the coming years? Join us as we delve into these topics and more, and share your thoughts on the future of startup innovation.
In today's cybersecurity landscape, where does the true threat of ransomware lie? I explore this critical question with Raj Samani, SVP and Chief Scientist at Rapid7, in a revealing episode of Tech Talks Daily.
With ransomware attacks making headlines and disrupting operations for both public and private organizations, the conversation shifts from the frequency of these incidents to the evolving capabilities of ransomware actors. Raj, who has extensive experience assisting law enforcement agencies and serves as a special advisor to the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), brings a wealth of knowledge on dark web trends and the tactics employed by these malicious actors.
The discussion opens with Raj's perspective on how the cybersecurity community has been addressing ransomware threats, suggesting a need to refocus our attention on the capabilities and strategies of ransomware groups rather than the sheer number of attacks. He highlights recent campaigns, such as MOVEit and SysAid, to illustrate how ransomware actors are moving beyond traditional methods like exploiting the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to leveraging zero-day vulnerabilities.
Raj explains how the dark web facilitates a marketplace for skills, allowing individuals with minimal expertise to launch sophisticated ransomware attacks. This shift emphasizes the importance of understanding and mitigating the threat landscape's dynamic nature.
Listeners will gain insight into the implications of these trends for cybersecurity strategies and the measures organizations can take to protect against these evolving threats. Raj also shares his journey in cybersecurity, acknowledging the support and mentorship that have been pivotal in his career.
As the episode concludes, Neil and Raj discuss where listeners can connect with them online to continue the conversation and learn more about combating ransomware effectively. This episode is not just an exploration of the technicalities of ransomware but a call to action for the cybersecurity community to rethink our approach to one of the most pressing challenges of our time.
Is the rapid evolution of technology complicating product management more than facilitating it? I sit down with Anthony Maggio, Head of Product Management at Airtable, to explore the intricate landscape of digital product management in today's fast-paced world. Anthony brings a wealth of experience to the table, having navigated the challenges and opportunities that product leaders face in an era where technology products proliferate at an unprecedented rate.
As organizations strive to discern which products or tools align best with their business objectives and team requirements, Anthony delves into the pivotal role of product leaders in guiding these crucial decisions. The conversation tackles the concept of the digital product supply chain, illuminating how the explosive growth of software has led to more distributed project lifecycles and the unique challenges this presents.
Anthony shares invaluable advice on combating "strategy drift," a phenomenon where accessible data and technology tools can inadvertently lead teams away from their core business goals. He emphasizes the importance of drawing clear connections between projects and overarching business objectives to stay on course.
Furthermore, the discussion highlights the transformative potential of leveraging AI for enhanced support in product management. Anthony illustrates how AI can provide teams with crucial visibility into project lifecycles, enabling more informed decision-making and proactive responses to user feedback.
Listeners will gain insights into best practices for digital product management, including the significance of understanding customer needs, building well-prioritized roadmaps, and fostering collaboration across various teams. Anthony also shares his vision for the future, where AI could empower individuals to quickly develop customized software solutions simply by describing their needs.
As we wrap up, we're left to ponder: In a world where every company is becoming a digital product company, how can product leaders navigate the complexities of their role to drive success and innovation? Join the conversation and share your thoughts on the evolving challenges and opportunities in digital product management.
How can technology transform buildings into sustainable and efficient environments for their occupants? I speak with Vijay Sankaran, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Johnson Controls, to delve into the forefront of intelligent building technology. As we emerge from COP28 with a renewed focus on climate action, Vijay brings invaluable insights into how advanced technologies such as AI, IoT, cloud computing, and cybersecurity are shaping the future of intelligent buildings and playing a pivotal role in the fight against climate change.
Johnson Controls stands at the helm of this transformation, spearheading the integration of these technologies through its OpenBlue digital platform. Vijay discusses how this platform leverages cloud and edge computing to enable seamless connectivity and real-time analytics, breaking down barriers between devices and systems for continuous improvement. The conversation navigates through the significance of AI-enabled autonomous intelligent building technology in crafting next-generation sustainable infrastructure, highlighting the transformative potential of digital twins in optimizing building performance and enhancing user experiences.
Vijay shares compelling insights from Johnson Controls' recently released white paper, "The Smart Building of the Future." The Paper emphasizes the critical importance of sustainable infrastructure in meeting enterprise performance goals and global climate commitments. With buildings contributing to 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the episode sheds light on how adopting these technologies is not just a matter of innovation but a necessary step towards decarbonization and climate action.
The discussion also touches on practical advice for leaders looking to integrate these technologies into their strategies, emphasizing the need to solve business problems first and identify the right technologies to address them. Vijay's experience across various industries, including his previous roles at TD Ameritrade and Ford Motor Company, provides a rich backdrop to the conversation, offering listeners a comprehensive view of the challenges and opportunities in adopting intelligent building technologies.
As we conclude, we're prompted to think: In the race towards 2030 climate commitments, how can we ensure that our buildings are innovative and sustainable? Join the conversation and share your thoughts on how technology can transform our built environment for the better.
Are we doing enough to protect our healthcare systems from cyber threats? In this compelling episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Tim Mackey, Head of Software Supply Chain Risk Strategy at Synopsys, to unravel the complexities of cybersecurity in the healthcare sector.
The healthcare industry has become the prime target for cyber-attacks, with more incidents than any other sector. Through hacking, supply chain attacks, phishing, and ransomware, cybercriminals exploit the vulnerabilities of healthcare systems, endangering patient safety and compromising sensitive data.
Tim Mackey sheds light on why healthcare organizations are in the crosshairs of cybercriminals and how the intrinsic value of patient data makes it a lucrative target. With healthcare facilities often prioritizing patient care over IT security, the episode delves into the consequences of this underinvestment and the increasing risk it poses to patient safety and privacy.
The discussion pivots to the multifaceted approach required to bolster defenses against such threats. Mackey emphasizes the importance of adopting a zero-trust network framework, conducting thorough cybersecurity reviews of vendors and medical device manufacturers, and the need for continuous improvement in cybersecurity practices to counter evolving threats.
But what does the future hold? As governments scramble to enforce new cybersecurity standards, is it enough to stem the tide of cyber-attacks on healthcare systems? Join us as we explore the balance between patient care priorities and the imperative to secure sensitive health data against a growing cyber threat landscape.
As the episode concludes, we're left pondering: How can healthcare organizations better prepare for and mitigate the impact of cyber threats without compromising patient care? Please share your thoughts and insights as we navigate these critical challenges together.
Nick Schrock, the innovative mind behind Dagster Labs and the renowned co-creator of GraphQL, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Nick takes us through his illustrious journey from his foundational days at Facebook, where he spearheaded the Product Infrastructure team, to his visionary leap into solving some of the most pressing issues facing data and ML engineering today through Dagster, his open-source data orchestration platform.
Nick shares insights from his experience at Facebook, elaborating on how internal tools like React and GraphQL revolutionized the company's development practices and set new benchmarks for the developer community worldwide. His transition from Facebook to founding Dagster Labs was driven by a deep-seated desire to address the complexities and inefficiencies in data infrastructure, a challenge he identified as a critical pain point for engineers across industries.
Throughout the conversation, Nick delves into the core areas of data orchestration, highlighting the importance of enabling practitioners to have end-to-end ownership of data pipelines without the need for a centralized team. This approach, he argues, is pivotal in the era where data and ML engineering are becoming fundamental to decision-making processes both in human and business contexts.
Much of the discussion is dedicated to exploring the future of open source in the SaaS-dominated landscape and the operational convergence of ML, AI, and data engineering. Nick emphasizes the delicate balance required in managing an open-core business model and shares personal anecdotes about the "Engineering Founder's Dilemma" — the intricate dance between leading the vision and running the company.
Listeners will gain a unique perspective on the evolution of data platforms and engineering, underscored by Nick's advocacy for a robust, community-driven approach to open-source development. He sheds light on the challenges and rewards of building a platform like Dragster, which aims to simplify and democratize data infrastructure for companies of all sizes.
Nick also advises technical founders on maintaining equilibrium between their visionary roles and their companies' operational demands. This episode is a deep dive into the mechanics of data orchestration and a masterclass in leadership, innovation, and the transformative power of open-source projects in addressing complex engineering challenges.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I enjoy a conversation with Lloyed Lobo, the visionary author behind "From Grassroots to Greatness." Lobo brings to the table a riveting narrative that challenges conventional wisdom on brand success in the digital age. He posits that in a marketplace saturated with fleeting innovations, the true differentiator for enduring brands lies not in their products but in their ability to foster genuine human connections through community.
Lobo's insights are not just theoretical musings but are deeply rooted in his extraordinary life journey. From spending his childhood in the slums of Mumbai to navigating the challenges of being a Gulf War refugee, Lloyed's experiences are a testament to the resilience and transformative power of community support. His unconventional path, from entering engineering without a high school diploma to cold calling as his first job, and eventually bootstrapping a tech company to significant revenue without any marketing spend, underscores the pivotal role that community engagement and support have played in his success.
Through a candid recount of his personal adversities, including a near-fatal bout with COVID and a struggle with depression and addiction, Lobo highlights how communities have been his lifeline, providing not just a safety net but a launching pad for rebirth and success. This episode delves into Lloyed's philosophy that every innovation, no matter how groundbreaking, is destined to become a commodity. The only sustainable competitive advantage, he argues, is the community—a sentiment echoed through his analysis of over a hundred brands and discussions with more than a thousand leaders.
Listeners are invited to explore the essence of Community-Led Growth, a concept that Lloyed champions as the cornerstone for creating brands that not only survive but thrive by turning customers into passionate evangelists. He shares how brands like Harley Davidson, Nike, Peloton, and CrossFit have cultivated fierce loyalty and a cult-like following, not through marketing budgets but through the power of community.
As we traverse Lloyed's four-step path to greatness, the conversation illuminates how the future of branding is shifting from what companies tell the world about themselves to what their communities say about them. It's a future where authentic human connections are the ultimate currency, and building a community ensures your brand never becomes a commodity.
In a world where the digital landscape is continually evolving, how do we ensure that women's voices are heard and valued, especially in the tech sector? This International Women's Day, join us on Tech Talks Daily Podcast as we sit down with Eduarda Camacho, the dynamic COO of CyberArk, a global leader in identity security. From facing doubts about her potential in tech due to her gender, nationality, and non-engineering background to ascending to the executive ranks and making a significant impact, Eduarda's journey is nothing short of inspiring.
In this candid conversation, Eduarda shares the challenges and triumphs of her career, offering invaluable advice to women navigating the tech industry. She emphasizes the importance of staying authentic, seeking support when necessary, and the power of perseverance. But Eduarda's insights don't stop there. As the new COO of CyberArk, she outlines her vision and goals for the company, focusing on driving customer value, expanding platform adoption, and gearing the organization for growth and scalability.
We also delve into CyberArk's latest groundbreaking research, revealing that women are more concerned than men about the use of AI by cybercriminals to compromise their digital identities. Eduarda explores why women perceive their digital assets like social media profiles and personal photos as more integral to their identity and why they feel more vulnerable to AI-powered impersonation attacks. This discussion opens up a broader conversation on the gendered dimensions of cybersecurity and the critical need for more inclusive strategies to combat evolving digital threats.
Eduarda's commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion in cybersecurity is a testament to her belief in the strength of diverse perspectives. As we navigate the complexities of AI in cyberattacks, Eduarda's leadership at CyberArk signifies a hopeful step toward a more secure and inclusive digital future.
Why do these gendered perceptions and concerns around cybersecurity exist, and what can we do to address them? Join us as Eduarda Camacho shares her expertise, experiences, and the proactive measures CyberArk is taking to stay ahead of cyber threats in an AI-driven world. Share your thoughts and join the conversation about women's role in shaping the future of technology and cybersecurity.
How can we further empower women in the tech industry and ensure their security concerns are addressed? Share your thoughts with us and let's continue the conversation.
Are we on the cusp of a workplace revolution? In this thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore the evolving landscape of remote work and artificial intelligence's pivotal role in shaping the future of our work environments.
I'm joined by Iwo Szapar, a trailblazing Remote Work Advocate and the co-founder of Remote-how, we explore the dynamics of the remote work revolution, powered by insights from a community of over 25,000 professionals spanning 128 countries.
Iwo Szapar, known for his relentless drive and passion for enabling remote work globally, shares his unique journey across three continents and 65 countries, fueled by a desire to enhance productivity and achieve work-life harmony. As someone who's been at the forefront of the remote work advocacy, featured by prestigious outlets like BBC, Forbes, and Business Insider, Iwo brings to the table a wealth of knowledge on the trends shaping our work today and tomorrow.
This episode tackles the contentious "back to office" debate, revealing the underlying fears and resistance to change that challenge the transition to remote work. We delve into how AI is not just a tool for automation but a catalyst for operational excellence, enabling companies to implement best practices on autopilot and empowering employees to upskill and reskill in an ever-evolving job market.
With a special focus on the Remote-First Institute's AI Mentor, we discuss how personalized AI can revolutionize productivity by optimizing distributed work, offering a sneak peek into the future where AI assistants are indispensable to knowledge workers. Iwo and Neil also walk us through the Distributed Work Score, a comprehensive metric designed to measure and enhance remote work capabilities across ten critical areas.
As we gaze into the crystal ball, Iwo shares his predictions for 2024 and beyond, offering insights into how AI and remote work will continue to redefine the parameters of operational efficiency and workforce empowerment.
What does the future of work hold for us? Will AI be the ultimate enabler of a more flexible, efficient, and satisfying work life? Tune in as we unravel these questions, inviting you to join the conversation and share your thoughts on how technology is reshaping the way we work.
Have you ever hung up after a customer service call, feeling more frustrated than when you dialed in? In today's episode, we delve into customer service, where dissatisfaction seems to be the norm rather than the exception. With a staggering 97% of people reporting poor interactions in recent surveys, it's clear that the pandemic has only intensified these challenges. But what if there was a silver lining amidst these frustrations?
Joining us today is John Finch, VP of Product Marketing at RingCentral, who is exploring how technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI), revolutionizes customer service. We'll uncover the transformative power of RingCX, RingCentral's omnichannel customer engagement product, and how it's leveling the playing field for businesses of all sizes by integrating advanced AI capabilities such as sentiment analysis, quality management, and next-best action recommendations.
But it's not all about automation. In our conversation, we'll balance leveraging technology and preserving the irreplaceable value of personal human interactions. How does RingCX maintain this equilibrium, and what role do integrations with platforms like Salesforce play in creating a seamless, unified customer experience?
Data security, privacy, and the future of AI in customer service are also on the agenda. With RingCentral's commitment to data protection, we'll discuss how businesses can navigate the complexities of utilizing AI while ensuring customer information remains secure. Furthermore, we look ahead to how AI might evolve to enhance customer service further, potentially surpassing human capabilities with advancements in semantic search, machine learning, and natural language processing.
Whether you're a business owner, a customer service professional, or simply someone intrigued by AI's potential to solve real-world problems, this episode promises to demystify the technology and showcase its practical value in improving customer experiences.
In this thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, we delve into the dynamic intersection of artificial intelligence and the future of work with Or Hiltch, Chief Data and AI Architect at JLLT, the technology arm of global real estate advisory firm JLL.
Amidst a backdrop where technological advancements are often viewed with apprehension regarding their impact on job security, Or presents an alternative and refreshing perspective. He argues that akin to past technological revolutions, AI is not a harbinger of job displacement but rather a catalyst for job creation and transformation.
But how does this align with human nature and behavior, especially considering our intrinsic desire for human interaction and trust? Or illustrates this with the enduring presence of human-operated cash registers despite the advent of cashless technology. This episode explores the intricate balance between embracing AI's potential to enhance efficiency and maintaining the indispensable human touch in our social fabric.
On the technological front, while areas like generative AI are making significant strides, Or points out the relatively slower progress in robotics. This discrepancy underscores the likelihood that professions requiring manual labor or complex human interactions are off the brink of obsolescence. Instead, we're witnessing a reshaping of roles, with AI acting as a sophisticated tool that elevates human capabilities rather than replacing them outright.
It also sheds light on the evolving tech industry landscape, highlighting the emergence of prompt engineering as a sought-after skill. This development signifies a broader shift towards valuing interdisciplinary skills, where expertise in literature, philosophy, and languages becomes as crucial as technical acumen in crafting effective AI interactions.
The conversation takes a deeper dive into how AI is poised to reshape professions laden with language and analysis, such as law and real estate. Or envisages a future where the ability to interpret and leverage AI-generated insights becomes more pivotal than the traditional emphasis on technical programming skills.
As we navigate these transformative times, Or advocates for a balanced approach to AI ethics, emphasizing the importance of addressing challenges like algorithmic bias over speculative fears of artificial general intelligence. This pragmatic perspective is particularly relevant as we consider the role of regions like Israel, known for its prowess in foundational AI models and cybersecurity, in shaping the global AI landscape.
As we wrap up this enlightening discussion with Or Hiltch, we're left pondering how AI will continue redefining our work and lives. How will we adapt to these changes, and what new opportunities will emerge as we leverage AI to unlock unprecedented potential? Please share your thoughts and join the conversation as we explore the evolving relationship between humanity and artificial intelligence.
In today's episode, we pose the question: How is technology revolutionizing the traditional banking sector? Join us as we dive deep into this topic with Norris Koppel, the visionary Founder and CEO of Monese Bank, the UK's pioneering mobile app alternative to traditional banks. In 2023, Monese has once again disrupted the banking landscape with the launch of XYB, an innovative 'coreless' banking platform provider that promises to redefine the industry.
Norris will share insights into how XYB, in a significant shift from the centralized systems of core banking providers, enables banks and non-banking financial institutions to swiftly access new financial services solutions. By leveraging highly flexible decentralized microservices, XYB overcomes the limitations imposed by traditional core banking systems. This breakthrough means that businesses can now deliver the financial products and services their customers need, exactly when and where they're needed.
A cornerstone of our discussion will be XYB's groundbreaking partnership with Google Cloud, integrating generative AI and machine learning tools into its platform. This collaboration is not just a technological leap but a transformation in how financial products are conceptualized, developed, and delivered. Norris will elucidate on how this partnership empowers banks, non-bank financial institutions, and fintech companies to create cutting-edge products with ease and speed, paving the way for hyper-personalized customer experiences and a new era of industry-wide innovation.
Imagine a world where financial products are tailored to individual spending habits, where customer inquiries and complaints are resolved without human intervention, significantly reducing operational costs. Norris will discuss how XYB's strategic embrace of generative AI through its partnership with Google Cloud represents a bold step towards such a future, breaking free from conventional constraints to foster innovation in the financial services sector.
As we explore the transformative potential of XYB and its coreless banking platform, we'll also delve into the broader implications for the banking industry.
In today's digital landscape, the role of cybersecurity within organizations is more critical than ever. As businesses navigate the complexities of protecting their data and infrastructure, the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) stands at the forefront of this evolving battlefield. In this thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are joined by James Alliband, Cybersecurity Strategist EMEA at Carbon Black, to explore the shifting paradigms of cybersecurity leadership and strategy.
James brings a wealth of experience from Carbon Black, a leading cloud endpoint security company that has recently transitioned from VMware Security following the Broadcom acquisition. His insights shed light on the pivotal role of the CISO and how it is expected to transform in the coming year. With cybersecurity now recognized as a strategic business issue, James discusses the critical responsibility of CISOs in managing organizational risk exposure and the delicate balance between security effectiveness and manageability.
A significant part of our conversation revolves around the concept of duty of care in cybersecurity and its impact on the changing world of cyber insurance. As businesses face increasing scrutiny, James elucidates what providing a duty of care truly means and how proactive security measures can influence cyber insurance policies and premiums. The dialogue extends into automation, orchestration, and the importance of simplifying security processes to enhance manageability without compromising effectiveness.
Moreover, James highlights the evolution of the CIO's role into that of a Chief Risk Officer, emphasizing the broadening scope of responsibilities to include security and overall business risk management. He also touches upon the rapid technological changes, including AI and automation, and their potential impact on the role of CISOs and the cybersecurity landscape.
Join us as James Alliband navigates through these critical topics, providing invaluable insights for CEOs, CTOs, and cybersecurity professionals. As we delve into the future of cybersecurity leadership, the evolution of cyber threats, and the strategic importance of security in business, this episode promises to enlighten and inspire. How are these shifts influencing your approach to cybersecurity? Please share your thoughts and join the conversation as we explore the future of protecting our digital world.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we immerse ourselves in the fascinating world of tech startups and software development through the eyes of Frederic Joye, co-founder of Arcanys and a seasoned SaaS investor. With a career spanning over two decades, Fred offers invaluable insights into navigating the complexities of software development and the art of tech startup investment. But before we dive deep into our conversation, thanks to [Sponsor Name] for supporting this episode.
Fred's journey from Switzerland's financial and insurance sectors to the tech scene across Hong Kong and the Philippines is a narrative of relentless pursuit and adaptability. His venture into the entrepreneurial realm, notably with Arcanys, a company that has become synonymous with innovation in software development and investment in tech startups, paints a vivid picture of a strategist at work.
Today, we delve into the essence of "smart money" - an investment strategy that transcends financial capital to include real technical expertise and time. Fred shares why investing in tech startups is more than providing financial backing; it's about contributing to a startup's growth trajectory through strategic mentorship and technical support.
The evolution of software development outsourcing, particularly with the advent of remote and distributed teams, is another critical area of our discussion. Fred looks closer at the benefits and challenges of managing distributed software teams, offering a blueprint for leveraging global talent while maintaining team cohesion and innovation.
Furthermore, Fred's insights into evaluating startups highlight the importance of an experienced team, proven traction, and sound financial management. His advice to tech companies underscores the significance of agility, customer success, talent investment, and culture cultivation in achieving sustainable growth.
As we navigate these topics, Fred's narratives serve as informative dialogues and guiding lights for CEOs, CTOs, and tech leaders steering tech-enabled businesses and B2B SaaS companies. His perspectives on the future trends in AI, low-code platforms, and cybersecurity offer a glimpse into the evolving landscape of technology and its impact on businesses and society.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we venture into the cutting-edge world of artificial intelligence with Yonatan Geifman, CEO and co-founder of Deci.
Deci, renowned for its pioneering work in deep learning and artificial intelligence, is at the forefront of creating AI that builds better AI. Today, we focus on the transformative technology Deci is developing and its groundbreaking partnership with Qualcomm Technologies. This collaboration sets new benchmarks in AI efficiency and makes generative AI more accessible and cost-effective across various industries. But first, let's extend our gratitude to [Sponsor Name] for their support in bringing this episode to life.
Yonatan shares with us the essence of Deci's innovative journey, particularly its strategic partnership with Qualcomm. This collaboration is a game-changer, challenging the status quo and offering high-performance, energy, and cost-efficient solutions in the AI ecosystem. Through their joint efforts, Deci and Qualcomm are introducing two revolutionary Generative AI models tailored for the Qualcomm® Cloud AI 100. These models, DeciCoder-6B and DeciDiffusion 2.0, boost the cost efficiency and scalability of GenAI-based services and address the pressing GPU shortage in the market.
DeciCoder-6B, a state-of-the-art code generation model, and DeciDiffusion 2.0, a text-to-image diffusion model, exemplify Deci's commitment to enhancing AI accessibility. Developed using Deci's proprietary Neural Architecture Search Technology, AutoNAC™, these models are optimized to leverage the full potential of Qualcomm's hardware, setting new standards in performance and efficiency.
As we delve deeper, Yonatan enlightens us on the significant impact of these innovations across various sectors, from healthcare to finance, and the pivotal role of open-source in advancing AI technology. The democratization of Generative AI, facilitated by Deci and Qualcomm, promises to unlock new levels of creativity and efficiency, making the transformative power of AI available to all.
Join us as we explore how Deci's collaboration with Qualcomm is reshaping the landscape of artificial intelligence, making it more accessible, efficient, and transformative for industries worldwide. What does the future hold for AI development, and how will these advancements impact our approach to technology and innovation?
Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
In an era where technology rapidly reshapes the boundaries of privacy and innovation, understanding the intricate dance between AI regulation and data privacy becomes paramount. We explore critical domains with the expertise of Amy Worley, a distinguished figure in AI regulation and data privacy, currently making waves at Berkeley Research Group.
Amy Worley, described as a "data globe trotter," brings to the table an unparalleled depth of knowledge garnered from her extensive experience consulting across borders—from advising a foreign government in Holland on data privacy to guiding Fortune 500 companies through the labyrinth of data compliance, privacy, and ethics. With a background as the global chief privacy officer for a leading global pharmaceutical and medical device company, Amy's insights are at the forefront of shaping how we navigate the complexities of data in a digital age.
This episode unfolds the expected changes and challenges as the EU's new AI Act approaches its implementation. Amy elucidates how this act aims to foster innovation while safeguarding human rights, categorizing AI systems based on risk levels to balance progress with protection. Furthermore, we delve into the AI Pact's role in bridging the gap between current practices and future regulations, offering companies a collaborative platform to align with upcoming compliance requirements.
However, the data privacy landscape isn't just a concern of the future but a pressing issue of today. Amy sheds light on the stalled progress of data privacy regulation in the US, dissected by political divides yet animated by state-level initiatives crafting their laws in response. Despite these challenges, a bipartisan consensus emerges on the necessity to protect children's privacy online, hinting at possible avenues for legislative progress.
Staying abreast of these developments is no small feat. Amy shares her strategies for continuous learning and recommends essential readings and resources that offer broad overviews and deep dives into AI, privacy, and their societal impacts.
As we wrap up today's enriching dialogue with Amy Worley, we're reminded of the ongoing evolution of AI regulation and data privacy laws. The conversation highlights the complexities of navigating these changes and emphasizes the importance of informed engagement with these topics. But the discussion doesn't end here; we invite you to share your perspectives. How do these regulatory shifts impact you or your business? What steps are you taking to adapt and stay informed?
How does a company transform the complex data management landscape in today's ever-evolving enterprise data centers? On this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we sit down with Mark Walsh, Vice President at Tintri, to delve into how Tintri's innovative approach to data management revolutionizes how organizations store, manage, and understand their virtual machine environments.
Mark Walsh's journey from medical research to the forefront of technology innovation is inspiring. Sparked by a serendipitous encounter with John Sculley's "Odyssey," Mark's career pivot is a testament to the transformative power of tech. Under his guidance, Tintri has emerged as a leader in providing autonomous operations, real-time insights, and AI-driven analytics to enterprise data centers around the globe.
Tintri's flagship product, Tintri VMstore, has been lauded as the "best employee" by customers for its ability to automate the most tedious IT tasks. By slashing storage management costs by up to 95%, Tintri optimizes application performance from day one and empowers IT teams to redirect their focus towards strategy, innovation, and activities that drive greater business impact.
One of the most compelling aspects of Tintri's technology is its integrated real-time analytics, which immediately optimizes application performance. Coupled with predictive analytics, Tintri enables unparalleled visibility across workloads, machine learning-enhanced speed and resource forecasting, and the ability to model storage and compute needs up to 18 months in advance. This predictive capability ensures that organizations can effectively plan and budget for their future needs, safeguarding against the unexpected.
In a world where cybersecurity threats loom large, Mark also discusses the critical importance of immutability in protecting data against breaches. Tintri's approach to ransomware protection, through immutable snapshots and rapid recovery capabilities, offers a robust defense mechanism that ensures business continuity in the face of cyber attacks.
As we explore Tintri's impact on IT teams and the broader technology landscape, Mark shares his vision for the future of data management. His insights into the synergy between autonomous operations, AI analytics, and predictive planning illuminate a path toward a more efficient, secure, and innovative IT ecosystem.
The case study that Mark mentions in the podcast is now live on the website, here is the link: https://tintri.com/resources/tpt-retirement-solutions/
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we explore the intriguing intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and real-world applications with Trevor Back, the Chief Product Officer at Speechmatics. But what does the journey from computational astrophysics to spearheading innovation in speech technology look like?
Trevor's unique trajectory from academia to being a pivotal figure at DeepMind and now leading Speechmatics unveils a narrative that challenges and reshapes our understanding of AI's potential.
The conversation delves deep into critically examining AI's current dependency on large datasets. Trevor articulates why the industry's fixation on scale is a fallacy that we must move beyond. Instead, he advocates for a shift towards more efficient learning methods. These approaches enhance quality and inclusivity and pave the way for models that comprehend human intent more accurately. But how can speech technology evolve to facilitate seamless voice interactions that render technology invisible, seamlessly integrating into the fabric of our daily lives?
Trevor shares insights from his extensive experience, highlighting the transformative power of models capable of learning at higher levels of abstraction. This capability is not just about refining AI's understanding of language; it's about building systems that genuinely grasp context and intent, offering personalized and genuinely valuable interactions.
Furthermore, the discussion touches upon the significance of inclusive and accessible AI. By prioritizing sample efficiency, Speechmatics is at the forefront of developing technology that understands diverse voices and accents, reflecting a commitment to making speech technology human-like for all users.
Yet, the journey is not without its challenges. Trevor candidly addresses the limitations inherent in large language models, including their tendency towards hallucination and the lack of personalization. The future of speech technology, as envisioned by Trevor, is one where voice interactions become so natural and intuitive that technology fades into the backdrop of our lives. But what does it take to reach that future? And how close are we to making this vision a reality?
As we conclude, Trevor shares a personal touch, revealing a book that has inspired him and a favorite song that resonates with his journey. These reflections add depth to our understanding of the man behind the innovation and offer us a glimpse into the broader cultural and intellectual influences that shape the development of AI and speech technology.
Now, we turn the conversation over to you. How do you see the role of AI and speech technology evolving shortly? What are your thoughts on moving beyond the fallacy of scale towards more efficient, personalized, and inclusive AI systems? Join the discussion and share your insights as we continue to explore the profound impact of technology on our lives and businesses.
In an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly being integrated into every facet of technology, the line between innovation and overreach becomes increasingly blurred. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are joined by Benn Stancil, ThoughtSpot’s Field CTO, to delve into a provocative prediction for 2024: the potential of AI to make products worse, not better.
As companies race to imbue their offerings with AI, the rush towards "smart" products often overlooks a fundamental principle: the distinction between creating a product and creating a good product. Benn argues that while AI has the power to transform, this transformation will not always be for the better.
The conversation will explore the nuances of AI in product development, emphasizing the importance of starting with real customer problems, thinking beyond the conventional applications of AI, and the necessity of substantial investment for genuine results.
ThoughtSpot stands at the forefront of this discussion as an AI-Powered Analytics company dedicated to making the world more fact-driven through an intuitive analytics platform. With its emphasis on natural language search and the ability to generate actionable insights from complex data, ThoughtSpot exemplifies how to navigate the AI paradox successfully.
This episode promises to unpack the complexities of integrating AI into products without falling into the trap of overselling and underdelivering. We'll cover how ThoughtSpot has managed to sidestep common pitfalls in AI development by focusing on actual customer needs, maintaining transparency about product capabilities, and integrating AI into workflows in a way that truly adds value.
Join us as Benn Stancil takes us through the intricacies of AI's role in product development, offering insights into how businesses can leverage AI responsibly to enhance, rather than complicate, user experiences. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a business leader, or someone curious about the future of AI, this episode will provide a critical perspective on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the quest to build products that genuinely improve our lives.
In today's digital age, where content is not just king but the cornerstone of customer engagement, how can businesses stay ahead in crafting the next generation of customer experiences? This pivotal question brings us to an enlightening conversation with Michael Lukaszczyk, co-founder and CEO of Hygraph, on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, hosted by Neil C. Hughes.
Michael takes us through a journey into the evolution of content management systems (CMS), highlighting the transformation from traditional web CMS to headless CMS, and now to the groundbreaking realm of federated content platforms. With the global digital content creation market projected to reach $24 billion by 2027, the pressure is on for organizations to deliver fast, personalized services reminiscent of Netflix and Amazon's seamless experiences.
Hygraph emerges as a beacon for organizations navigating the complex landscape of digital content management. Michael elucidates how Hygraph's federated content platform is revolutionizing the CMS industry by enabling businesses to federate content sources into a single universal content API. This innovation not only future-proofs CMS investments but also significantly cuts down integration costs, allowing for the rapid development and scaling of connected digital experiences.
Moreover, Michael shares insights into the role of AI and machine learning in automating content creation and personalization, a frontier that promises to redefine how digital experiences are developed. The conversation also touches upon the importance of synergy between marketing/content teams and engineering teams in creating engaging digital experiences.
From his early days of coding websites at age 11 to his profound realization of the potential of headless CMS and GraphQL, Michael's journey is a testament to the power of innovation and vision in the tech world. Join us as we explore the future of content management systems, the burgeoning role of AI in content personalization, and how Hygraph is leading the charge towards more integrated, dynamic, and personalized digital experiences.
As businesses and creators alike strive to meet the ever-evolving expectations of their users, what will the next leap in content management look like? Tune in to this fascinating episode with Michael Lukaszczyk, and share your thoughts on how we can navigate the future of content in the digital era.
Are we too quick to invest in technology without fully understanding how to integrate it into our daily workflows, or do digital adoption challenges simply reflect the growing pains of a rapidly evolving digital landscape? Today on Tech Talks Daily, we delve into these questions with a special guest, Krishna Dunthoori, CEO of Apty, a leading digital adoption platform that's reshaping how enterprises onboard new hires and navigate the complexities of digital transformation.
Krishna brings a wealth of experience from the front lines of software value realization, having guided Apty in its mission to streamline operations and enhance efficiency through guided experiences and analytics. In this episode, we explore the multifaceted challenges enterprises face with technology integration and user experience. Krishna will share insights into how Apty's platform enhances the onboarding process for new employees, significantly impacting their productivity and engagement from day one.
We'll also discuss the importance of optimizing existing technology investments within organizations and how Apty ensures business process compliance during critical digital transformations. With success stories that illustrate the tangible benefits of effective digital adoption, Krishna will highlight the evolution of digital adoption platforms and what the future holds for businesses striving to keep pace with technological advancements.
As enterprises continue to navigate the digital landscape, choosing the right solutions for their needs becomes paramount. Krishna will shed light on the key factors that businesses should consider when implementing a digital adoption platform, ensuring a smooth transition and maximum return on investment.
Join us as we uncover the intricate dance of integrating technology into our work lives, the role of digital adoption platforms in facilitating this process, and the visionaries like Krishna who are leading the charge towards a more efficient, engaged, and productive digital future.
How can organizations balance the rush towards digital transformation with the need for thoughtful integration and adoption strategies? Share your thoughts and experiences as we navigate the digital adoption journey together.
In a world where the boundaries between digital and physical increasingly blur, how is artificial intelligence (AI) transforming the defense landscape? Rob Merryweather, Group Technology Director at BAE Systems, returns to Tech Talks Daily to discuss the groundbreaking impact of AI in defense and beyond.
Rob Merryweather, positioned at the helm of technology strategy within BAE Systems, plays a pivotal role in harnessing technology to fuel collaboration, innovation, and business growth. With a rich history of leading multi-domain integration across land, sea, air, space, and cyber divisions, Rob's insights offer a unique vantage point on the evolving role of technology in defense.
This episode will explore how BAE Systems, leveraging partnerships and open architectures, creates what they term "decision advantage" – turning actionable information into strategic power on the battlefield. We'll delve into the transformative applications of AI, from natural language processing and autonomous systems to developing intercept behaviors that protect critical infrastructure.
Rob will share how AI is not just about automating tasks but is pivotal in enhancing performance, speeding up capability development cycles, and, ultimately, shaping a future where technology and human decision-making coalesce more seamlessly than ever.
Expect to hear about AI's opportunities to automate mundane or complex tasks, thus enabling human operators to concentrate on critical decision-making processes. We will also touch on the excitement surrounding AI's potential, the pace of technological advancement it allows, and how ethical frameworks are being integrated to guide this rapid evolution.
Rob's journey, from fostering cross-division collaboration to his current focus on marrying the agility of AI startups with the robust assurance frameworks of a leading defense company, offers a compelling leadership narrative at the technology frontier.
As we navigate these discussions, we invite you to reflect: How can the defense sector and broader industries leverage AI to enhance operational efficiency and ensure ethical, sustainable growth? Please share your thoughts and join the conversation as we unpack the transformative impact of AI with one of the industry's leading figures.
Are UK businesses leveraging AI effectively to stay competitive on the global stage? To explore this critical topic, I invited Dr. Nicola Hodson, Chief Executive of IBM UK&I, to share her invaluable insights on AI adoption within UK enterprises and the steps necessary to ensure the UK's competitive edge in technology.
IBM's recent Global AI Adoption Index reveals a stark reality: while over a third of large UK enterprises have embraced AI, with another 40% experimenting, the UK still trails behind global leaders like India, China, and Singapore. This discrepancy poses a significant challenge, especially after the Global AI Summit's ambition to position the UK as a forefront player in AI innovation.
Dr. Hodson will delve into the nuances of the report, highlighting the critical barrier of AI skills shortage facing UK companies and how this impediment can be overcome. She'll discuss strategies for fostering responsible AI development that doesn't compromise safety or ethics, closing the AI and tech skills gap, leveraging technology to bridge the productivity gap, and rethinking cybersecurity in the AI era.
This episode promises to shed light on the current state of AI adoption in the UK and explore how embracing technology can propel UK businesses to global competitiveness. We'll examine the implications of the AI skills gap, ethical AI development, and the transformative potential of technology in driving business innovation and productivity.
As we navigate these complex topics with Dr. Hodson, we invite you to reflect on the role of AI in your industry or business. How can AI serve as a catalyst for innovation and growth in your domain? Please share your thoughts and join the conversation as we explore the future of AI in business, guided by one of the leading voices in the field.
What steps can your organization take to adopt AI and do so responsibly and competitively on a global scale? Let's discuss.
How is the digital transformation landscape evolving, and what role does generative AI play in reshaping industries and business practices? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we're joined by Jeff DeVerter, Chief Technology Officer at Rackspace Technology, to explore the dynamic journey of digital transformation and the pivotal moments that are setting new benchmarks in the tech world.
Rackspace Technology is celebrated for its innovative approach to cloud services. Gartner's Magic Quadrant recognizes it as a leader and is at the forefront of empowering businesses through every phase of their digital transformation journey.
Digital transformation is more than a buzzword; it's a continuous process of change and adaptation. Jeff sheds light on how Rackspace Technology is navigating this landscape, emphasizing the importance of managing apps, data, security, and multiple clouds to reach the cloud and innovate and maximize IT investments. As we delve into the conversation, we'll uncover the key takeaways from the generative AI boom, including its role in infrastructure modernization, empowering industries like healthcare and government, and the importance of a curiosity-driven, continuous learning mindset for thriving in an AI-augmented future.
Jeff also addresses the critical balance between leveraging AI to empower employees and the steps toward automation, underscoring the importance of responsible AI principles that are symbiotic, secure, and sustainable. From exploring AI's impact on social good initiatives to reimagining traditional business roles and enhancing efficiency across sectors, this episode is a deep dive into how companies can navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by AI and digital transformation.
As we explore these topics, we'll touch on the real-world implications of data privacy, regulation, and the essential governance and security controls necessary for responsible AI deployment. Jeff's insights provide a roadmap for businesses looking to leverage AI as a tool for innovation and a catalyst for meaningful change and growth.
In a world where the promise of tomorrow is shaped by the technological decisions of today, how can businesses ensure they're not just keeping pace but setting the pace? Join us as we explore these questions and more, and don't forget to share your thoughts on how digital transformation and AI are reshaping the landscape of your industry.
Is the future of work already upon us? In this thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Duri Chitayat, the Chief Technology Officer at Safeguard Global, to explore the transformative power of artificial intelligence in reshaping how we approach work, innovation, and leadership in the digital age. With a rich background in developing disruptive AI tools, Duri offers invaluable insights into accelerating innovation through "quick innovation sprints," fostering a culture of continuous improvement and leveraging creative problem-solving to unlock new possibilities.
As we delve into the conversation, Duri sheds light on AI's pivotal role in redefining work dynamics, emphasizing the importance of human strengths such as creativity, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence—areas where automation has yet to tread. He argues that by investing in strategic planning, leadership, and clear communication, companies can harness AI to support their mission and core values and foster a competitive edge in the ever-evolving business landscape.
However, the path to AI integration is fraught with challenges. Duri outlines three major hurdles tech leaders must navigate: overcoming the limitations of legacy systems to make data more accessible for AI applications, bridging the skills gap in the burgeoning field of AI, and cultivating a company culture that embraces change and innovation. With one-third of CIOs already deploying AI technologies and more on the cusp, understanding these dynamics is crucial for any organization looking to thrive in the age of AI.
Join us as Duri Chitayat provides a roadmap for tech leaders to navigate the complexities of AI implementation, offering a blend of strategic insights and practical advice to make the AI development process a resounding success. How can companies balance the drive for innovation with the need
Have you ever wondered about the incredible journeys that lead innovators to the forefront of technology? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we dive deep into the life and work of Nikola Mrkšić, CEO and co-founder of PolyAI and one of the brilliant minds behind Apple's Siri. From selling books on the streets of Serbia to earning a Ph.D. in Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing from the prestigious University of Cambridge, Nikola's story is a testament to where determination and passion for technology can lead.
Join us as Nikola shares his early experiences of selling his own science fiction stories in Belgrade, igniting a spark for innovation that would eventually lead him to contribute to one of the most famous digital assistants in the world. We'll explore his decision to study computer science at Cambridge, a pivotal moment that set him on a path towards AI and technology entrepreneurship, and his insightful reflections on nearly leaving it all for investment banking.
Nikola will delve into the challenges and triumphs of starting PolyAI, from learning how to sell and implement enterprise software at scale to building human-like voice assistants that are revolutionizing customer experience and contact center operations. Discover how PolyAI's technology not only enhances efficiency but also empathetically bridges the gap between human and artificial communication, seamlessly transferring customers to human agents when needed and improving overall satisfaction.
We'll also discuss the rapid advancements in AI, particularly in understanding human emotions and context, and debunk myths about AI turning against humanity. Nikola's vision for PolyAI aims to automate repetitive tasks in contact centers, enhancing the human role rather than replacing it, and ensuring that technology serves to improve our lives and businesses.
Hear firsthand from enterprise customers and consumers who have been amazed by PolyAI's conversational AI technology, often without realizing they're interacting with an AI. This episode promises to be an enlightening journey through the evolution of AI in customer service, seen through the eyes of a leader who's lived it from the streets to the pinnacle of technological innovation.
As we unravel Nikola Mrkšić's remarkable journey and the groundbreaking work of PolyAI, we invite you to reflect on the human aspect of technological advancement. How do you see AI and human collaboration evolving in the future? Share your thoughts and join the conversation as we explore the possibilities together.
Are you seeking a fresh perspective on managing your finances? In today's episode, we delve into the innovative world of Piere, an intelligent budgeting app redefining personal finance management. Join us as we sit down with Yuval Shuminer, Piere's visionary founder and CEO, to uncover the story behind this groundbreaking platform.
Yuval Shuminer, with her rich background as a consultant at BCG and an alumna of the Wharton School, embarked on a journey to transform personal finance through Piere. Drawing from her own experiences and the challenges of managing finances in bustling NYC, Yuval saw the need for a tool that tracks spending and provides personalized financial insights and guidance. Piere stands out with its user-friendly interface offering two-tap budgeting, automated reconciliations for shared transactions, and a unique feature to pool money for group purchases or holiday savings.
Throughout our conversation, we'll explore the core features that set Piere apart from traditional financial management tools, including its use of AI to offer tailored advice and simplify budgeting for everyday expenses and life's bigger adventures. Yuval's journey from conceptualizing Piere in her living room to being quoted in major financial publications highlights the app's impact on users seeking financial clarity and independence.
As we delve into Yuval's background, the inspiration behind Piere, and the app's key differentiators, we'll discover how Piere empowers individuals to achieve their financial goals confidently. Whether planning a trip to Burning Man or navigating the holiday season without breaking the bank, Piere offers the tools and insights to make informed financial decisions.
What does it mean to have a personal financial assistant at your fingertips? How can Piere change the way we think about and manage our money? Tune in to gain valuable insights from Yuval Shuminer and learn how Piere could be the key to unlocking your financial freedom. We invite you to share your thoughts and experiences with personal finance apps. Have they transformed the way you budget and plan for the future? Join the conversation and let us know your perspective.
How do brands cultivate meaningful relationships with their consumers in an era where digital convenience reigns supreme? This intriguing question forms the backbone of our latest episode with Thomas Butta, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Airship, a leading innovator in mobile app experiences.
What makes a consumer choose to share their personal details with a brand? According to Airship's groundbreaking Mobile Consumer Survey, which spans 10 countries and 11,000 participants, personalized interactions and special incentives are the answer. This comprehensive study sheds light on the evolving consumer preferences in the mobile app landscape, revealing that 77% of UK consumers are willing to share their interests for a more tailored engagement with brands. Ease of use and life simplification emerge as the top motivations for app usage, overshadowing traditional lures like deals and rewards.
Thomas Butta delves into the insights gleaned from the survey, offering a deep dive into what consumers truly seek from their interactions with mobile apps. He reveals that beyond the allure of deals and loyalty rewards, consumers are drawn back to apps that offer ease of use (42%) and simplify their lives (29%). Yet, despite these enticing benefits, a staggering 49% of consumers are ready to delete an app after just a few uses, highlighting the critical importance of first impressions and the ongoing exchange of respect and reward.
Butta also explores the delicate balance between personalization and privacy, noting that while consumers are open to sharing their data for benefits, there's a fine line between personalized engagement and intrusive overreach. The survey findings underscore the necessity for brands to establish a rapport with consumers from the outset, emphasizing the value and improvement an app promises to bring to their lives.
Join us as we unravel the intricacies of building brand loyalty in the digital age, guided by the expert insights of Thomas Butta and the revealing data from Airship's Mobile Consumer Survey. From the key reasons behind app deletions to the evolving trends in consumer engagement, this episode offers a comprehensive overview of the landscape of mobile consumer preferences and how brands can navigate it to foster lasting relationships.
As we ponder the future of mobile engagement and the role of AI in scaling personalized interactions, we invite you to share your thoughts on how brands can better connect with consumers in this digital era. How can businesses leverage these insights to meet and exceed consumer expectations, fostering loyalty and connection in the process?
Have you ever wondered how leading global brands effortlessly communicate with customers worldwide in their native languages? Today's episode peels back the curtain on this fascinating process as we sit down with Bryan Murphy, CEO of Smartling, the company at the forefront of AI-driven translation and localization technology.
Is the language barrier the last hurdle in your company's race to global expansion? Discover how Smartling's innovative LanguageAI platform is revolutionizing how businesses approach new markets, making translation hurdles a thing of the past. With clients like Canva and Pinterest under their belt, Smartling's impact on global communication strategies is undeniable. Bryan shares how his company leverages AI to enable seamless localization and scaling, helping brands reach millions of non-English speaking users with unprecedented efficiency.
Smartling, recognized as the leader in translation management systems by CSA Research and the top-rated system by users on G2, employs a data-driven approach to slash translation times and costs while maintaining the highest quality. This episode dives into the mechanics of Smartling's platform, which combines automation, neural machine translation, and generative AI to deliver human-quality translations at half the cost and time.
Bryan explains the intricate process of localizing content for different markets, from the importance of maintaining a brand's voice across languages to the challenges of translating for B2B versus B2C audiences. We'll explore how Smartling's AI advancements, including using generative AI models like GPT-3, enable the creation of fluent, culturally relevant content that resonates with a global audience.
Join us as we discuss the transformative power of AI in breaking down language barriers, facilitating global expansion, and cultivating a more connected world. Whether you're a business looking to scale globally or fascinated by the intersection of technology and language, this conversation with Bryan Murphy offers invaluable insights into the future of communication.
As we navigate the complexities of global expansion, we invite you to reflect on the role of AI in overcoming the challenges of entering new markets. How can your business leverage AI-driven translation to communicate and connect with a global audience?
Share your thoughts and join the conversation on the transformative impact of technology on global business strategies.
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, where does the balance lie between harnessing the power of generative AI and ensuring the security and privacy of enterprise data? This pivotal question sets the stage for our insightful discussion with Rehan Jalil, CEO and President at Securiti.ai, a trailblazer in the realm of data security and privacy in the generative AI era.
Is your enterprise ready to navigate the complexities of generative AI without compromising data security and privacy? Join me as I delve into the heart of this critical issue with Rehan Jalil. With a distinguished career at the helm of Securiti, Jalil brings a wealth of knowledge on the innovative strategies and technologies needed to safeguard sensitive information in a world increasingly driven by AI.
From the pioneering Data Command Center that Securiti has developed, enabling the safe use of data across hybrid multicloud environments, to the nuanced challenges of data governance, our discussion spans the spectrum of securing enterprise data against the backdrop of generative AI advancements.
We explore the myriad risks that accompany the generative AI era, such as privacy concerns, the generation of biased or inappropriate content, and the potential misuse of AI-generated materials. Jalil emphasizes the importance of governing sensitive data with robust policies, encryption, and a keen focus on data retention and deletion practices.
Mitigating these risks requires cutting-edge techniques like differential privacy, synthetic data generation, and federated learning, all aimed at protecting data while fostering the responsible adoption of generative AI technologies. Jalil advocates for a collaborative implementation approach, highlighting the critical role of cross-functional teams in developing comprehensive data security policies and fostering a culture of continuous education on AI ethics and data privacy.
As we navigate the conversation, Jalil underscores the need for a balanced approach to generative AI adoption, one that ensures benefits are harnessed without sacrificing control over data and privacy. He sheds light on the evolving landscape of risks and regulations, stressing the importance of adapting policies accordingly and promoting a culture of data responsibility and ethical AI practices.
In a world where generative AI presents both immense opportunities and significant challenges, organizations must stay vigilant, embracing innovative solutions and collaborative strategies to ensure the secure and responsible use of AI technologies. Through the lens of Securiti's achievements and the insightful perspectives of Rehan Jalil, this episode offers a deep dive into securing enterprise data in the generative AI era.
As we ponder the future of AI in enterprise security and privacy, we invite you to reflect on how your organization is preparing for these challenges. How are you balancing the potential of generative AI with the imperative of data security? Share your thoughts and join the conversation on responsible AI adoption.
Have you ever pondered the resemblance between a ransomware attack and a natural disaster? Each can bring operations to a sudden halt, plunging businesses into chaos. But what if our approach to ransomware needs to be revised? In this thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, I engage with James Blake, Global Head of Cyber Resiliency Strategy at Cohesity, to explore the necessity of a paradigm shift in business perception and response to digital extortion threats.
This episode is not merely an exploration of ransomware; it's a deep dive into rethinking our responses to these digital threats. James argues that ransomware should be regarded with the same seriousness as natural disasters, advocating for a holistic strategy beyond traditional IT security measures. Drawing from his extensive workshops with business leaders and CIOs, he emphasizes the importance of a unified approach between security and IT teams, the critical nature of the initial response to an attack, and the evolving landscape of cyber threats.
The discussion also touches upon the changing perspectives within boardrooms about cybersecurity, the integration of security and IT for effective ransomware response, and Cohesity's innovative approach to data management that empowers businesses against cyberattacks. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in cybersecurity, offering a fresh outlook on how companies can navigate the tumultuous waters of ransomware threats.
As we navigate the complexities of the digital age, the strategies for defending against and recovering from cyber threats must evolve. The insights provided by James Blake not only illuminate the path forward but also challenge us to rethink our approach to cybersecurity. With ransomware likened to a natural disaster in its potential to disrupt business operations, it's clear that a new mindset is required—one that prioritizes resilience, preparation, and the integration of technology with strategic planning.
What does the future hold for defence technologies in an era where quantum computing, sensors, and AI are no longer just theoretical concepts but tangible realities? Neil Hughes invites Rob Merryweather, Group Technology Director at BAE Systems, to explore the groundbreaking impact of quantum technologies and AI in the defence sector. This episode promises a fascinating journey into how these advanced technologies are redefining capabilities, strategies, and the very nature of security and defence operations.
Rob Merryweather brings a wealth of knowledge from BAE Systems, a leading company at the forefront of defence and security innovations. We delve into the revolutionary potential of quantum technologies, from quantum sensors that are setting new standards in navigation and anti-submarine warfare to quantum computing's role in reshaping the development and production processes within the defence industry. Rob will share insights into how these quantum advancements are not just enhancing existing capabilities but creating new paradigms of operational efficiency and strategic advantage.
Listeners will gain an understanding of how quantum sensors offer unprecedented accuracy and reliability in geolocation, far surpassing today's GPS devices, and opening up new possibilities for exploration and interaction with the world. Rob will also discuss the transformative potential of quantum computing in tackling complex computational challenges, such as managing large fleets of autonomous vehicles and integrating multi-domain operations, offering significant operational advantages in the battlespace.
Moreover, this episode will touch upon the critical role of AI in defence, from automating mundane or hazardous tasks to enhancing human decision-making processes. Rob will highlight BAE Systems' approach to leveraging AI across various applications, including flight controls, missile warning systems, and training modules, emphasizing the importance of ethics, responsible use, and the need for explainability in AI's recommendations to operators.
As we navigate through these topics, we'll uncover the key opportunities that quantum technologies and AI present for the defence sector, focusing on performance enhancement, the acceleration of capability development, and the automation of tasks. Join us as we discuss the future of defence with Rob Merryweather and consider the implications of these technological leaps for global security, ethical considerations, and the balance between human and machine collaboration in making critical decisions.
How are quantum technologies and AI transforming the defence landscape? What challenges and opportunities lie ahead? Tune in to this enlightening conversation and share your thoughts on the future of defence innovation.
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Are you fascinated by the ever-evolving world of agile methodologies and how technology shapes our approach to work? I sit down with Dave West, the esteemed CEO of Scrum.org, for an enlightening conversation on agile methodologies' past, present, and future. This episode promises a deep dive into the agile transformation journey, from the structured days of the Rational Unified Process to the flexible, principle-based frameworks that dominate today.
Dave West, a key figure in the agile community and a pivotal force behind Scrum.org, shares his rich experience from leading the development of RUP at IBM/Rational to his influential role in shaping agile practices globally. With a career spanning key positions at Forrester Research and Tasktop, Dave brings a wealth of knowledge on scaling agile, the integration of emerging technologies, and the power of distributed teams.
Listeners will be treated to an expert's view on how agile frameworks have transitioned from prescriptive methodologies to embrace a culture of empiricism, empowered teams, and continuous improvement. Dave will explore the significance of iterations, the pivotal role of empowered teams, and the constant alignment to outcomes that have stood the test of time in agile methodologies.
Moreover, this episode will explore how emerging practices like design thinking, lean startup, and coaching reshape agile teams today. With the advent of AI technologies like ChatGPT, Dave discusses the potential for automating repetitive tasks, freeing up teams to focus on creative work that directly impacts customer needs and outcomes.
As the conversation unfolds, discover how distributed teams can thrive with collaboration tools like Mural, Slack, and Zoom and how data analytics empowers teams like never before. Dave will also share critical insights on avoiding the pitfalls of "Water-Scrum-Fall," emphasizing the importance of genuinely empowering teams and measuring success based on outcomes rather than outputs.
Dave offers timeless advice for aspiring leaders and agile practitioners: build relationships, be kind, continuously learn, and focus on helping others. This episode is a treasure trove of knowledge for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of agile practices and lead their teams to more incredible innovation and efficiency.
As we explore the agile landscape with Dave West, we're reminded of the importance of adaptability and the continuous pursuit of improvement. How are you navigating the agile evolution in your organization? Join the conversation and share your experiences with us.
Are you intrigued by how technology can enhance employee productivity in today's evolving workplace? Join us as Neil Hughes welcomes Sam Naficy, the visionary CEO of Prodoscore, to delve into the future of workplace productivity and the innovative tools shaping our work environments. In this engaging episode, we explore how Prodoscore's cutting-edge technology harnesses APIs, AI, and machine learning to revolutionize employee productivity tracking, offering insights and opportunities for companies to thrive in a hybrid work model.
Sam Naficy brings a wealth of experience as a serial entrepreneur with a remarkable journey from founding a pharmaceutical brokerage to leading the world's premier provider of intelligent video-based surveillance services.
Now at the helm of Prodoscore, Sam shares how this platform is not just about monitoring productivity but fostering a culture of transparency, trust, and high performance within organizations. We'll dive into the balancing act between maintaining employee privacy and boosting productivity, debunking the myth of invasive surveillance technologies. Sam explains how Prodoscore prioritizes an employee-centric approach, providing individuals with the tools to understand and enhance their work patterns.
Listeners will also gain insights from Sam's entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing the importance of focus, intuition, and the drive to innovate. From success stories highlighting Prodoscore's impact on government agencies to practical advice for young entrepreneurs, this episode is packed with invaluable lessons and forward-thinking strategies.
As we shift towards more flexible work arrangements, tools like Prodoscore are becoming essential components of the modern tech stack, ensuring that productivity and satisfaction go hand in hand. How can leaders implement these technologies effectively to support their teams? What does the future hold for workplace productivity?
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I'm delighted to welcome Petr Kozyakov, CEO and co-founder of Mercuryo, a global payments infrastructure platform, to share his invaluable insights on this transformative journey.
Petr Kozyakov is a visionary leader with a deep understanding of the financial market, and his journey in FinTech began in the late 2000s. Throughout his career, he has held top management positions in payment companies, making him uniquely qualified to discuss the intersection of blockchain and finance.
Our conversation with Petr delves into the potential of crypto payments as a fast and cost-effective solution, particularly for cross-border transactions. While cryptocurrency adoption is still in its early stages, Petr highlights the need for greater integration between crypto and fiat systems to unlock its full potential.
Regulatory changes are also on the horizon, and Petr believes they are ultimately positive for crypto adoption as they legitimize the space and build trust among enterprises and consumers alike. However, he emphasizes the importance of businesses focusing on actual use cases that address genuine pain points rather than adopting crypto for hype.
We explore the diverse use cases of crypto payments, from settling group expenses across borders to facilitating remittances with low fees and high speed. Stablecoins, in particular, are transforming the landscape by providing a store of value in countries with unstable currencies.
Petr envisions a hybrid future of payments, where challenger banks become "crypto-first," seamlessly integrating crypto and fiat services. This integration will bridge the gap between crypto apps and traditional banking, offering users a holistic financial experience.
Despite the immense potential, Petr acknowledges the challenges of implementing blockchain technology in payments. He advises businesses to take the time to understand the technology thoroughly and recommends starting with specific pain points before wholesale adoption. Strategic partnerships can also ease the transition for companies new to the crypto space.
Join us for an enlightening conversation that explores the evolving regulatory landscape, the role of established card networks like Visa and Mastercard in crypto, and the exciting possibilities that lie ahead as blockchain innovation transforms the future of finance.
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In this episode, we venture into blockchain technology and sustainability, where the Solana Foundation has made significant strides. Amira Valliani, Strategy & Policy at the Solana Foundation, joins me to discuss their remarkable journey towards achieving carbon neutrality.
Solana, known for its energy-efficient proof of stake blockchain, has emerged as a beacon of sustainability in the blockchain space. Amira reveals that Solana's carbon footprint is a mere 2-3% of services like Spotify. We explore how Solana consistently tracks its emissions and how the latest Energy Use Report showcases a remarkable 17% decrease in total emissions and a 25% decrease per transaction.
One of the standout achievements is the Solana Foundation's innovative approach to carbon offsetting. Amira explains how they purchase verifiable carbon credits entirely on-chain, enhancing transparency and eliminating intermediaries. This approach reduces emissions and sets a precedent for the broader blockchain industry.
Discover how the passionate Solana community has responded enthusiastically to these sustainability efforts, with many building climate-focused decentralized applications (DApps) on the Solana network. We dive into the technological aspects of Solana's energy efficiency, findings from the latest energy use report, and the challenges faced in data collection and normalization in the agricultural sector.
Amira also sheds light on the partnerships and collaborations that have been pivotal in Solana's journey towards sustainability. With a focus on startups, academia, and enterprises, Solana aims to deliver innovative solutions and positively impact the entire blockchain ecosystem.
Join us for an inspiring conversation highlighting the intersection of technology and environmental responsibility. Discover how blockchain can catalyze sustainability as Solana reduces carbon emissions and builds a greener future.
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How is technology transforming the landscape of agriculture, making it more efficient, profitable, and sustainable? Today's episode delves into the exciting world of agricultural innovation and technology. Teddy Bekele, the CTO at Land O'Lakes, takes us on a journey through the cutting-edge initiatives that are reshaping the future of farming and ensuring a resilient and sustainable food system.
Land O'Lakes, a renowned agricultural cooperative, is harnessing the power of AI and machine learning to provide hyperlocal, customized insights to farmers. Discover how these digital tools enable real-time decision-making in the field and empower farmers to optimize their operations.
Our conversation also explores Land O'Lakes' commitment to sustainability. Teddy discusses how precision agriculture technologies such as GPS, sensors, and imagery are pivotal in promoting sustainable farming practices. Learn how Land O'Lakes quantifies sustainability gains, potentially monetizing them through carbon credits.
Teddy unveils Land O'Lakes' digital transformation strategy, focusing on data, AI/ML, IoT, automation, and other emerging technologies. Discover how these innovations deliver actionable insights to farmers, strengthening connections across the food value chain.
Tune in to gain valuable insights into the intersection of technology and agriculture and how Land O'Lakes is paving the way for a more efficient, profitable, and sustainable future in farming.
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The Quantum Computing industry has been making waves in recent years, transitioning from theory to reality, and Ireland has emerged as a formidable player in this quantum revolution. This episode explores the quantum landscape, its opportunities, challenges, and Ireland's pivotal role.
John Durcan, Chief Technologist at IDA Ireland, joins us to shed light on the quantum computing phenomenon. Quantum computers, driven by qubits, offer parallel computation capabilities that classical computers can only dream of. They've entered the era of "quantum advantage," where they outperform classical counterparts in specific tasks, particularly in fields like finance, life sciences, cybersecurity, and material science. The potential for breakthroughs in quantum simulation and optimization is staggering.
But, as we delve into the quantum realm, we confront significant challenges. How do we make business leaders understand the value of quantum computing and incorporate it into their R&D roadmaps? John Durcan offers insights into the importance of addressing the quantum software skills gap and fostering education initiatives to equip developers for the quantum future.
Dr. Juan Bernabe Moreno from IBM Research Europe/UK & Ireland joins the conversation to discuss Ireland's quantum journey. With its strong tech talent pool, investments in research infrastructure, and partnerships with industry giants like IBM, Ireland is poised to become a global quantum leader. We explore the outlook for the next five years, foreseeing an explosion of use cases, the increasing importance of qubit modularity and quality, and the thrilling race between quantum and classical algorithms driving major innovations.
Corey Nachreiner returns to our show to share his experiences and the remarkable work done by the WatchGuard Threat Lab research team. We kick off by reflecting on his journey over the past year, setting the stage for a deep dive into WatchGuard’s cybersecurity predictions for 2024.
These predictions aren’t just speculative; they are a window into the future challenges and opportunities in the realm of cybersecurity.
Corey discusses the intriguing concept of "Prompt Engineering," a potential vulnerability in large language models (LLMs) that could lead to significant data leaks. He elaborates on the growing trend of AI/ML-based social engineering, with a particular focus on phishing automation kits sold on the dark web, presenting a formidable challenge for organizations worldwide.
We then shift our focus to the rise of AI-driven voice phishing (vishing) attacks. Corey explains how the combination of deepfake audio and LLMs could lead to an alarming increase in sophisticated vishing calls. The conversation also covers the vulnerabilities associated with the widespread use of QR codes, revealing the risks of what seems like a simple technology.
A particularly fascinating segment delves into the emerging threats in the realm of virtual and mixed reality (VR/MR). Corey shares insights on how hackers could potentially steal detailed environmental data from VR/MR headsets, a concerning prospect for privacy and security.
The episode also highlights the crucial role of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) in addressing the cybersecurity talent shortage. Corey discusses how MSPs are leveraging automated platforms to double their security services, despite the skills gap in the industry.
In closing, we explore the broader trends shaping the cybersecurity landscape in 2024 and beyond. Corey offers strategic advice on how organizations can adapt and prepare for these evolving threats. We also ponder over the future threat landscape, considering the impact of emerging technologies on cybersecurity.
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How does the crypto world adapt and thrive amidst market volatility and technological evolution? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we dive deep into this question with our special guest, Brad Chase. Join us as we explore the intricate dance of liquidity management in the crypto space, the rising influence of AI, and the unique solutions Ripple is bringing to the table.
Brad Chase, a leading figure at Ripple, joins us to shed light on the challenges and opportunities in the cryptocurrency market, especially after recent setbacks like the FTX collapse. How is Ripple crafting a roadmap for liquidity management that the entire industry can follow? Brad will share valuable insights into Ripple's innovative approach, including leveraging AI and machine learning in their Liquidity Hub to benefit Ripple's medium and large enterprises.
We delve into the evolving landscape where blockchain and AI intersect. Is AI set to disrupt the crypto industry, or will these two powerful technologies converge to forge a new path? Brad will share his perspectives on this exciting intersection, drawing from his extensive experience at Ripple.
The conversation will also touch on the anticipated trends for 2024 in the crypto industry. What can we expect regarding advancements, regulatory developments, and market shifts? And importantly, we'll hear about Ripple's ambitious plans for their Liquidity Hub and how they aim to expand and enhance service in Ripple's year.
What does the future hold for cryptocurrency and blockchain technology as we navigate these turbulent but exciting times? Please share your thoughts with us, and let's continue the conversation.
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Are you ready to dive deep into the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence in the most unexpected places? In today's episode, I'm thrilled to welcome Karoliina Torttila, the Director of AI at Trimble, an industrial technology company revolutionizing 'traditional' industries like construction, transportation, geospatial, and agriculture through cutting-edge AI and ML solutions.
Karoliina, with her extensive experience, brings a unique perspective on how AI is not just a buzzword but a practical tool reshaping how we think about these foundational sectors.
Trimble's foray into the AI realm is more than just impressive—it's a blueprint for how traditional industries can harness technology for efficiency, sustainability, and transformation. From creating lifelike 3D models for architects to developing AI-driven workforce management platforms, the applications are as varied as they are groundbreaking. Karoliina will explore how AI facilitates better decision-making, elevates design conceptualization, and pioneers workforce transformation.
The conversation will also touch upon the emerging trends in AI, such as multimodal AI models that can process diverse data types, offering unprecedented flexibility and capabilities. But it's not all about the tech wonders; we'll also tackle the challenges, particularly in implementing AI in fragmented industries. How do you start? Where do you focus? Karolina's insights on starting with specific problems rather than a blanket approach could be the key.
Moreover, we'll discuss the ethical side of AI deployment. How does Trimble ensure transparency and trust, especially when data privacy and bias are hot topics? Finally, Karoliina will share invaluable advice for business leaders adopting AI, emphasizing the importance of hands-on experimentation and community engagement.
So, how is AI shaping the future of industries that have been the backbone of our economy for centuries? And what can we learn from Trimble's journey in integrating AI into the core of their operations? Join us as we uncover these answers and more in a conversation that promises to demystify AI and highlight its real-world impact.
How do you see AI transforming your industry, and what are the challenges and opportunities you anticipate? Share your thoughts and join the conversation.
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How do visionaries navigate the complex pathways from groundbreaking ideas to revolutionary technologies? Today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast explores this fascinating journey with Sailesh Ramakrishnan, partner at Rocketship.vc.
Sailesh's story is not just inspiring; it's a masterclass in the art of blending diverse disciplines to fuel innovation. From his early days dreaming of space exploration, leading him to a pivotal role at NASA, Sailesh has been on a relentless pursuit of knowledge and impact. His academic journey is a tapestry of engineering, construction management, and artificial intelligence, culminating in his work on AI for cancer modeling and developing reasoning capabilities for a robotic assistant for the elderly.
But how does one transition from working on Mars Rovers at NASA to diving into the startup world? We delve into Sailesh's decision to leave NASA for the startup scene, his experience co-founding LocBox (later acquired by Square), and his reunion with former colleagues to launch Rocketship.vc. Here, Sailesh uses AI to unearth hidden gems in the global startup ecosystem, moving beyond traditional venture capital models.
In our conversation, we uncover the essential elements that Sailesh believes are crucial for startup success: a strong, cohesive team and an unwavering focus. We'll also get his insights on the role of AI in empowering solo founders and the waves of innovation being spurred by the urgent need to address climate change.
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Are we genuinely leveraging the full potential of AI in our workplaces? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I dive into an enlightening discussion with Hugo Sarrazin, Chief Product and Technology Officer at UKG, exploring how AI is transforming the landscape of work and employee engagement.
UKG, a trailblazer in workforce management, is not only innovating in the realm of AI but also rigorously upskilling its workforce to harness these advancements. Hugo highlights how UKG's impressive team of over 50 AI scientists is one of its fastest-growing groups. He delves into the intriguing process of training over 1,000 people within their engineering organization, empowering them to leverage AI tools in their roles effectively.
The role of hackathons in fostering a culture of innovation and creativity at UKG is another captivating aspect that Hugo discusses, detailing how these events drive product and service innovations. But how do employees and leaders perceive AI? Hugo provides insights from recent data revealing a dichotomy: while most employees are open to embracing AI, transparency from their organizations is crucial.
Interestingly, there is a disconnect between the perceptions of C-suite leaders and employees regarding AI usage in their daily work. Hugo addresses these challenges and the ethical considerations companies face as they race to adopt AI technologies.
Moreover, Hugo talks about UKG's overarching strategy to maximize the impact of generative AI, creating better workplaces not just for office workers but crucially for the often-overlooked frontline employees. With 65% of today's workforce on the frontlines, UKG is pioneering the use of AI to enhance their experience, aiming to break the cycle of high turnover and burnout by catering to their needs for autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
In addition to exploring these themes, we discuss Hugo's journey, from playing varsity water polo to leading product and technology at UKG. We also ponder the pressure of continuous learning in our fast-paced world and where one might turn to self-educate effectively.
How is your workplace adapting to the AI revolution? Are the tools and technologies in place aligning with the needs and aspirations of the workforce? Join the conversation and share your thoughts on how we can collectively harness the power of AI to create more human-centric, efficient, and fulfilling workplaces.
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I explore the intricacies of modern network technologies and their transformative impact on businesses with Accenture's Cloud First Lead, Andy Tay. Our discussion revolves around Accenture's insightful Modern Networks Report and its implications for the tech landscape in 2024.
Andy Tay brings a wealth of expertise and a forward-thinking perspective to our conversation. He's at the forefront of Accenture's cloud initiatives, guiding enterprises through the ever-evolving realm of cloud computing. As we navigate through the intricacies of this topic, Andy shares his insights on how four key imperatives are converging to redefine business reinvention and transformative value in the upcoming year.
We explore the concept of future-proofing your architecture. What does it truly mean for an enterprise to be future-ready in the context of network technology and cloud infrastructure? Andy also breaks down complex tech jargon into understandable language, illuminating how companies can adapt and thrive in this rapidly changing environment. But that's just the start. Andy's viewpoint on the intersection of technology and business strategy promises to offer new perspectives on how enterprises can harness the power of modern networks to drive innovation and growth.
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Luka Pataky, an expert in sports technology from Sportradar, joins me to discuss the groundbreaking advancements in sports broadcasting. As AI and Computer Vision technologies evolve, they are creating a new paradigm in sports. Luka explains how these technologies not only mimic human vision but go beyond to offer real-time, detailed insights that enhance fan engagement, player performance and even sports betting.
In this episode, we explore the role of AI in providing contextual overlays and dynamic advertising, fundamentally altering how we consume sports media. Luka delves into the burgeoning world of micro-betting, explaining how AI-powered real-time data is creating new markets and tapping into a potential $9 billion annual spend in the US alone.
But what are the challenges? Luka discusses the hurdles of data collection, processing power, and the ethical implications of such advanced technology in sports. He highlights Sportradar's commitment to using technology responsibly, ensuring the integrity of sports remains intact while enhancing the experience for fans, broadcasters, and bettors.
As we navigate through the intricate world of sports technology, Luka offers a glimpse into the future – from AI's growing influence in performance analysis and officiating to immersive fan experiences. Join us as we explore how Sportradar's cutting-edge technology is not just keeping up with the changing landscape but actively shaping the future of sports.
The integration of AI and Computer Vision in sports is not just a leap in technology; it's a stride towards an entirely new way of experiencing and understanding the games we love. How do you see these technologies influencing your sports experience? Have you encountered AI-enhanced sports broadcasting or participated in micro-betting? Share your thoughts and experiences with us!
In this compelling episode, we delve into the strategic importance of application security as businesses undergo digital transformation. Sandeep Johri, with his rich experience at Checkmarx, sheds light on this domain's multifaceted challenges and opportunities. We discuss how vulnerabilities in applications can erode customer confidence and pose significant regulatory challenges.
Checkmarx stands out in this landscape with its comprehensive application security platform, CX1, which provides holistic coverage of AppSec. This sets them apart from competitors who may only focus on one or two areas. But what truly enhances Checkmarx's capabilities is the integration of Artificial Intelligence. AI not only accelerates the ability of developers to fix vulnerabilities but also enables Checkmarx to proactively detect emerging threats, particularly those arising from AI systems themselves.
A key theme of our discussion is the communication of AppSec value to corporate boards. Johri emphasizes the importance of maturity assessment models and risk quantification in presenting a clear picture of AppSec status and priorities. This strategic approach offers a roadmap for improvement and a tangible understanding of ROI in application security. However, technology is just one piece of the puzzle. We delve into the human aspect – training developers in AppSec. Here, Checkmarx's integrated "Codebashing" modules come into play, offering quick, context-relevant tutorials for developers to address vulnerabilities efficiently.
Illustrating the impact of these strategies, Johri shares success stories from Checkmarx's engagements, notably with large banking institutions, where they've assisted in swiftly prioritizing and eliminating vulnerabilities. Many of these clients began with relatively immature AppSec processes, underscoring the transformative potential of Checkmarx's approach.
Join me as I explore the story behind Keepingly - a platform that's much more than just a digital tool. Daniel and Jillian, driven by their own experiences as homeowners, have dedicated themselves to advocating for better housing policies and equitable solutions. They discuss how Keepingly is empowering homeowners to view their homes as assets, centralizing all aspects of homeownership, from maintenance checklists to document storage.
Daniel, with a keen focus on housing policies, particularly in appraisals, and Jillian, with her expertise in home and lifestyle, bring a unique synergy to Keepingly. They share their commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, emphasizing how promoting Black homeownership is crucial in achieving equitable housing and generational wealth.
We delve into the technological heart of Keepingly, understanding how it aims to standardize home details and documentation, facilitating home sales and enhancing transparency. The platform's roadmap includes addressing appraisal bias and promoting sustainability, reflecting a holistic approach to homeownership.
The episode also offers valuable insights for PropTech founders. Daniel and Jillian advise building with policy in mind and solving real market needs, emphasizing the importance of an egoless approach and the readiness to adapt.
In this insightful episode, we explore the transformative potential of Autonomous Vehicles and their societal implications. Chris MacKenzie, representing the Chamber of Progress, a center-left tech industry policy coalition, shares expert insights into how technology, particularly AVs, can align with progressive values while ensuring responsible operation and societal benefit.
We delve into the challenges and opportunities AVs present. While they promise to reduce traffic accidents and fatalities drastically, concerns about job displacement in the transportation sector loom large. Chris emphasizes the need for effective education and retraining programs to facilitate workforce transitions in this rapidly evolving landscape.
A significant part of our discussion revolves around building public trust in AVs. Despite safety data showing their superiority over human drivers, skepticism remains a barrier. We discuss the necessity of real-world deployment to showcase the benefits of AVs and how alliances with advocacy groups, such as Moms Against Drunk Driving, LGBTQ+ groups, and disability advocates, are crucial in this journey.
The conversation also touches on the ethical dimensions of deploying emerging technologies. Chris argues for a balanced approach, advocating for the responsible use of technology like AVs and AI, which can save lives, while acknowledging and addressing the short-term tradeoffs, such as job displacement.
In the latest episode of Tech Talks Daily, we venture into the evolving landscape of mobile technology with Tristram Bates, the Head of Mobile at NewDay and an influential figure in the UK's largest iOS meetup group. Our discussion turns from the usual AI focus, delving into the future of mobile apps and the imminent challenges posed by technologies like Apple's rumored Vision Pro headset.
The conversation with Tristram is a journey through the potential and challenges of the ever-advancing mobile technology world. One of the intriguing aspects we examine is the rumored launch of Apple's Vision Pro headset. As the mobile tech community buzzes with anticipation, Tristram provides a nuanced perspective on this groundbreaking device. We ponder its price point, the market it's aimed at, and the broader implications for consumers and tech enthusiasts alike.
As someone who has witnessed the evolution of mobile technology from its infancy, Tristram's insights into the development of apps for varying platforms and form factors are particularly enlightening. The challenge of adapting user interfaces for devices like the Vision headset is not just a technical hurdle but also a creative endeavor. It's a task that requires developers to reimagine how users interact with technology in a world where augmented reality (AR) could soon be as commonplace as smartphones.
Our discussion also touches on the implications of alternative app stores, which have gained significant attention with the European Union's recent regulations. Tristram's perspective on this shift offers a glimpse into a future where the app ecosystem might mirror the more open model on Android platforms. This change could mark a pivotal moment in how apps are distributed and accessed, potentially reshaping the mobile app industry.
At the heart of our conversation lies the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in shaping the future of mobile apps. Tristram envisions a future where apps are not just tools but intelligent companions, intuitively providing information and services without needing explicit instructions from users. This evolution could mirror the transformation of search engines over the years – from requiring specific queries to intuitively organizing information based on a user's context and needs.
As we wrap up our conversation, Tristram shares a thought-provoking viewpoint on the cyclical nature of technology. The choice of the song "History Repeating" is symbolic, highlighting how understanding the past can give us invaluable insights into the future of technology. This perspective is especially relevant in an era where the lines between different tech domains are increasingly blurred and where understanding historical patterns can help us navigate the future more effectively.
Is your business navigating through the murky waters of cloud costs and customer-centric design effectively? In today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I'm excited to welcome Claire Milligan, the CEO of Aimably, to unravel these intricate topics. Cloud computing revolutionized the tech landscape, offering unparalleled efficiency and scalability. But beneath this silver lining, hidden costs and complexities lurk. How can businesses identify and tackle these expenses without compromising on the services they need?
Claire brings her wealth of experience to the table, discussing the often-overlooked pitfalls of cloud services. While companies like AWS have simplified operations, many businesses are entangled in a web of unnecessary costs. Claire will delve into how companies can discern if they're being overcharged and the steps to take if they are. The conversation will also cover the importance of having a design mindset when understanding and solving customer pain points. With her design background, Claire offers a unique perspective on discovering and addressing these issues, boosting product integration and profitability.
Moreover, we'll explore the dangers of overprovisioning in the cloud. Overpaying for unused features can be a silent drain on resources. Claire will share her insights on how businesses can avoid this trap by effectively managing their cloud services.
Throughout our discussion, we aim to provide valuable takeaways for optimizing cloud costs, understanding the delicate balance between necessity and excess in cloud services, and developing products that truly resonate with customers' needs. We'll also touch on the broader impact of cloud computing on software companies, including the shift from CAPEX to OPEX and its implications.
So, are you ready to uncover the hidden costs of the cloud and learn how to align your products with customer needs better? Join us in this enlightening conversation with Claire Milligan.
Have you ever wondered about the masterminds shaping the cloud computing landscape? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we dive into the world of cloud innovation with a special guest, Darren Shepherd, the Chief Architect and co-founder of Acorn Labs.
Darren's journey in the cloud space has been nothing short of remarkable. From his early days at GoDaddy to creating CloudStack, the most comprehensive IaaS platform, and his influential projects like Rancher and k3s, he has continuously pushed the boundaries of cloud technology. His latest venture, Acorn Labs, marks a significant step in making cloud computing more accessible and user-friendly with its innovative platform, Acorn.
In this episode, we explore how Acorn is changing the game by allowing users to run software in their own cloud sandbox and share their creations effortlessly. We delve into the challenges and triumphs Darren has faced in his over-a-decade-long journey in cloud development. With over 22,000 followers on Twitter, Darren is not just a developer but a voice for the community, constantly influencing and inspiring many in the field.
As we navigate this conversation, we'll uncover the opportunities and hurdles in today's cloud computing landscape. What does the future hold for cloud technology, and how can platforms like Acorn simplify the complex world of cloud computing for everyday users and businesses? How does Darren's experience at GoDaddy and his work on CloudStack inform his vision at Acorn Labs?
Join us in this enlightening discussion as we seek to understand the nuances of cloud technology from one of its leading innovators. And as always, we're eager to hear your thoughts. What are your views on the evolution of cloud computing, and how do you think platforms like Acorn can shape its future?
In this episode, I sit down with Paula Phelan, a technology trailblazer whose journey spans from being a software engineer in the 1970s to her recent foray into AI startups. Paula shares extensive insights into what it takes to start and sustain a successful business and the motivations behind her decision to gift her thriving business to her employees.
We explore the transformative power of AI across various industries, with a particular focus on public relations. Paula provides real-world examples of how AI reduces costs, expands global reach, and revolutionizes traditional PR practices. She also sheds light on AI startups' challenges, such as potential access inequalities and biases stemming from flawed training data.
This episode is not just about technological transformation; it's a deep dive into the ethical considerations and the potential societal impacts of AI. We discuss how AI might shape future job landscapes and the importance of ensuring AI is accessible and unbiased. Paula offers practical advice for businesses and entrepreneurs considering integrating AI into their models, emphasizing the significance of solving real problems rather than adopting AI for its own sake.
As we delve into how AI is redefining IT and technology, Paula's networking background offers a unique perspective on the intersection of traditional IT and AI-driven solutions.
Dr. Paula Phelan is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, developer, and investor with expertise in emerging and disruptive technologies in the fields of cybersecurity, 5G, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. Dr. Phelan has assisted over 150 companies in reaching successful exits. Her entrepreneurial spirit and decades of experience in technology, funding, and strategic planning make her a sought-after speaker and advisor in the industry. Currently, she is working with several AI companies, including one of her own.
In today's fast-paced world, where the boundaries of technology are constantly being pushed, how do we bridge the gap between the increasing demand for tech solutions and the scarcity of traditional developer talent? This intriguing question sets the stage for our latest episode of the Tech Talks Daily podcast, where we explore the fascinating intersection of technology, AI, and app development.
Joining us is Jithin Bhasker, General Manager and Vice President for the App Engine business at ServiceNow. Under Jithin's visionary leadership, ServiceNow is revolutionizing the way we think about app development. They're pioneering methods that enable code generation from a variety of prompts, blending the worlds of low-code platforms and generative AI. This approach is not just about streamlining the development process; it's about empowering a wider range of individuals to contribute meaningfully to this realm, thereby democratizing app development.
We delve into the global tech talent shortage, a pressing issue that's only exacerbated by the rising demand for skilled engineers and developers. Despite significant tech layoffs, there's still a massive need for these professionals, with a projected shortage of over 500,000 developers in the US alone over the next decade.
Jithin sheds light on how citizen development through low-code/no-code platforms is enabling non-technical people to build apps and automate processes, addressing this talent crunch. We'll explore how ServiceNow's platform provides the necessary governance for such democratization, ensuring balance and control.
The rise of generative AI, including innovations like text-to-code and text-to-workflow, is making developers more efficient, accelerating app development, and reducing barriers for less technical users. But with this democratization comes the need for continuous learning and adaptation, a challenge for both technical and non-technical roles.
In this episode, we aim to uncover the true potential of combining low-code platforms with AI, how it's still in an experimental phase for many CIOs, and the importance of maintaining proper governance, such as access controls, in this new era of app development.
In this enlightening episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we sit down with Jim Rudall, the dynamic General Manager for EMEA at Intuit Mailchimp, to delve into a plethora of topics shaping the future of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and digital marketing. Jim, who once aspired to be a musician before pivoting to a successful career in technology and sales, brings a unique perspective to the table. We explore what drew him to his role at Mailchimp and his journey through various leadership roles, including a foundational stint at Shopify.
As we navigate through our conversation, Jim sheds light on the evolving landscape of SMBs in the UK. He discusses the significant challenges these businesses currently face and offers predictions on how the SMB market will develop over the next year. With customer expectations continuously shifting, Jim provides invaluable insights into adapting and thriving in this ever-changing environment.
A key focus of our discussion is the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on marketing. Jim talks about how AI is revolutionizing the way businesses approach their marketing strategies, emphasizing the importance of personalization in enhancing customer experience. He draws on insights from Mailchimp's recent Holiday Report and the acclaimed Clustomer campaign to illustrate the critical role of tailored messaging in making customers feel valued and more likely to engage.
We also delve into Jim's key marketing predictions and trends for 2024, offering a glimpse into the future of digital marketing. Jim discusses how privacy legislation and the responsible use of customer data will become focal points in the coming year, highlighting the need for educating customers about these changes.
Join us in this episode as we explore the intersection of technology, marketing, and SMB growth with one of the industry's thought leaders. How is your business adapting to these trends, and what strategies are you implementing to stay ahead in the digital marketing game? Share your thoughts with us after the episode!
How do businesses today navigate the complex world of IT and managed network solutions while keeping pace with technological advancements and security challenges? I sit down with Alan Stephenson-Brown, CEO of Evolve Business Group, to explore this intricate landscape.
Evolve, an independently owned company specializing in end-to-end IT and managed network solutions has been a trailblazer since 2005. It provides services that help businesses reduce costs, simplify service management, and allow teams to focus on their core competencies. With its umbrella of brands – Evolve, 4G Voice & Data, and GB3 – the company has become a key player in keeping networks of various industries compliant, protected, and connected.
Alan Stephenson-Brown, leading Evolve since 2012, has been instrumental in the company's transformation from a Guest WiFi and connectivity provider to a powerhouse in fully managed network solutions, including best-in-class SD-WAN. Under his leadership, Evolve has expanded its reach to 11 countries, working with prominent clients like KFC, Starbucks, and BP.
This episode delves into the multifaceted aspects of managed network solutions and the use of AI. Alan will shed light on how Evolve began as a guest WiFi provider and evolved into offering completely managed network solutions, the importance of AI in analyzing network alerts and data to enhance services and security, and the critical role of segregating networks and ensuring PCI compliance.
Moreover, we'll explore the recent strategic acquisitions by Evolve, including 4G Voice and Data and GB3, which have doubled its headcount and expanded its services into IT, cloud, and cybersecurity.
In a world where the security landscape is constantly changing and the integration of AI and IoT is becoming more prevalent, Alan offers his expert insights on the challenges and opportunities businesses face. Alan provides practical advice and solutions for businesses navigating these complexities, from the dangers lurking in back-office technologies like CCTV and printers to the impending PCI DSS V4 compliance requirements.
Have you ever paused to consider the rapidly evolving landscape of database technology, especially in the era of cloud computing and serverless architectures?
Today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode welcomes a visionary in this domain, Nikita Shamgunov, the CEO and Founder of Neon. This pioneering startup is not just altering the Postgres database scene; it's revolutionizing it with serverless capabilities, a transformative step that recently attracted a staggering $40M investment, pushing their total funding to an impressive $100M.
Our journey today with Nikita isn't just about numbers and investments. It's a narrative of innovation, determination, and foresight. Before Neon, Nikita laid the foundation of MemSQL (now SingleStore), where he honed his skills as both CTO and CEO. His journey is a remarkable tale, spanning from the learning grounds of a Facebook boot camp to the competitive arena of Silicon Valley, a testament to what vision and perseverance can achieve.
In our conversation, Nikita delves into the essence of Neon's innovative architecture. What sets Neon apart is not just its serverless multi-cloud Postgres databases but its ability to simplify complex database functionalities into a straightforward URL. This simplicity is a beacon of hope in an otherwise complex technological landscape.
Neon's story is compelling, especially considering its inception only in 2021. Yet, it has redefined what a database provider should be in this short span. With automated management of clusters, storage, and compute functions, Neon offers fresh air in database management. Its generous free tier and scale-to-zero pricing are not just attractive features; they represent a commitment to accessibility and efficiency.
The addition of database branching, allowing for instantaneous replication of any database at any point in its lifecycle, positions Neon as a frontrunner for modern development workflows.
As we delve into these topics, we also touch upon the broader implications of Postgres in the era of AI and machine learning and how early-stage companies can harness the power of open-source databases.
So, what does the future hold for Postgres and serverless databases? Join us in this enlightening conversation with Nikita Shamgunov and discover Neon's potential to reshape this landscape. And remember to share your thoughts: How do you see the role of databases evolving in the future of technology and business?
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I enjoy a conversation with Bartosz Skwarczek, the entrepreneurial mastermind behind G2A.COM, a behemoth in the world of digital marketplaces. With a customer base spanning over 25 million users across 180 countries, G2A.COM stands as a testament to Bartosz's vision and relentless pursuit of innovation.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to build a global digital empire from the ground up? Bartosz, a renowned entrepreneur and public speaker, offers a glimpse into his journey of transforming a modest online store in Poland into an international powerhouse. His story combines ambition, strategic foresight, and an unwavering commitment to excellence.
Cybersecurity, a critical aspect of any digital venture, takes center stage in our discussion. Bartosz delves into the intricacies of protecting a vast digital marketplace in an era where cyber threats are escalating. The conversation is intriguing as we explore how G2A has fortified its platform, achieving a ten times more robust security standard than the industry average.
But what does the future hold for digital marketplaces? Bartosz shares his insights on the transformative impact of emerging technologies like AI, AR, and blockchain. He paints a picture of a future where these technologies are not just buzzwords but integral components reshaping the digital landscape.
Beyond the technological marvels, Bartosz's journey is also a lesson in entrepreneurship. His mantra, "Every day is a school day," reflects a perpetual learning and growth philosophy. For aspiring entrepreneurs, his experiences underscore the importance of resilience, hard work, and maintaining a clear vision amidst the challenges and triumphs of building a business.
Listeners, what are your thoughts on the convergence of technology and entrepreneurship? How do you see digital marketplaces evolving in the face of new technological advancements? Share your views and join the conversation!
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we embark on an enlightening journey with Assaf Resnick, CEO and Founder of BigPanda. We're exploring the question: How is BigPanda redefining IT operations with groundbreaking AI technology?
BigPanda emerges as a beacon of innovation in the technological landscape, harnessing the power of advanced AI and machine learning to revolutionize the management of IT incidents. Picture a scenario where the detection, investigation, and resolution of IT issues are efficient and almost effortless. This vision is what drives BigPanda. With impressive funding of $337M and a client list that includes industry giants, BigPanda's impact is tangible and growing.
The story behind BigPanda is as compelling as its technology. Assaf Resnick's experience at Sequoia Capital exposed him to the intricate challenges IT teams face in rapidly scaling companies. This exposure, combined with his entrepreneurial acumen, led to the inception of BigPanda. However, our conversation with Assaf goes beyond the innovative AI solutions of BigPanda. We delve into the mind of an entrepreneur. We explore the nuances of scaling a tech company, the current challenges faced by early and growth-stage tech companies, and how AI is not just a tool but a catalyst in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Our discussion with Assaf unveils several fascinating insights. BigPanda's mission is a testament to the power of AI in empowering IT teams and helping them manage the increasing data and complexity brought about by adopting cloud computing. The integration of GPT-3 into BigPanda's framework marks a significant shift in AI development, moving from a reliance on specialized AI expertise to enabling domain experts to create impactful solutions. This is a game-changer in the field of AI.
Moreover, we discuss the challenges in IT operations, particularly the complexity that has escalated without a corresponding budget increase. BigPanda's platform addresses this imbalance, showcasing how technology can provide practical solutions in a resource-constrained environment. The evolution of AI Ops, especially with the potential of GPT-3 and large language models, hints at an exciting future full of innovation and disruption in IT operations.
Assaf also shares invaluable entrepreneurial advice, emphasizing the importance of focusing on real customer problems and balancing technology and practical solutions. He highlights the role of AI in augmenting human capabilities, a crucial perspective in today's technology-driven world.
For those who want to dive deeper into the world of BigPanda or connect with Assaf and his team, the digital world offers numerous avenues. From BigPanda's website to its active social media channels, the resources are readily available for anyone keen to explore IT operations' future as BigPanda envisioned.
As we wrap up this engaging conversation, one can't help but ponder: In what ways has AI influenced your professional journey? We invite you to share your experiences and join us in this ongoing dialogue about the transformative power of technology in solving real-world problems.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we ask: How does a small Barcelona-based startup transform into Spain's second tech unicorn, expanding across 25 countries and impacting millions of lives? Join us as we explore this intriguing journey with Sacha Michaud, co-founder of Glovo.
Sacha delves into the fascinating story of Glovo, conceptualized with his co-founder Oscar Pierre. From its inception as a simple delivery service, Glovo has evolved into a multi-faceted platform, offering various products beyond restaurant food - including groceries, flowers, electronics, and even fashion. We'll uncover the strategies and innovations that propelled Glovo to its unicorn status and how it's reshaping the delivery industry.
But Glovo's story isn't just about business growth; it's also a tale of social responsibility and positive impact. Sacha shares insights into Glovo's Impact Fund and the groundbreaking Courier's Pledge, initiatives demonstrating a deep commitment to couriers and communities. We'll hear about the significant strides Glovo has made in enhancing the lives of its couriers through social rights, benefits, and learning opportunities.
Sacha also sheds light on the vibrant startup scene outside Silicon Valley, particularly in Europe. He offers valuable advice to both burgeoning and established businesses on fostering growth and navigating the challenges of the tech world.
As we delve into Glovo's journey from a local startup to a global player, we also discuss the company's acquisition by Delivery Hero and its vision for the future, including the burgeoning field of quick commerce.
How does a company like Glovo balance rapid growth with social impact, and what lessons can other businesses learn from their experience? We invite you to join the conversation and share your thoughts on this inspiring story of innovation and responsibility.
In today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, we delve into the increasingly relevant and rapidly evolving world of solar energy. With a global shift towards sustainability, solar energy is not just a buzzword but a practical solution for property owners to reduce energy costs. The last decade has seen a remarkable 70% drop in the cost of solar equipment, making it more accessible than ever. Additionally, energy storage, now a part of 40% of residential solar installations, is a game-changer, particularly for businesses looking to eliminate demand charges.
We're joined by James Kennedy from Beach Cities Solar Consulting LLC to navigate these exciting developments. With his deep expertise in solar and renewable energy, entrepreneurship, and personal finance, James shares invaluable insights into the technological advancements in the solar industry and how these can economically benefit both homeowners and businesses.
His journey from finance to founding Beach Cities Solar Consulting is a testament to his commitment to renewable energy and sustainable business practices. James's experience in growing his business remotely, with most projects based in California while he is in Puerto Rico, highlights today's business world's innovative and adaptive nature.
In our conversation, James sheds light on the crucial aspects of solar technology, including the significant reduction in equipment costs and the pivotal role of battery storage technology. He also emphasizes the importance of educating clients about these technologies and their economic benefits.
As we wrap up, we extend a heartfelt thanks to James for enlightening us about the multitude of advantages that renewable energy brings to homeowners and businesses. His journey from working as a financial advisor to running successful companies in the renewable energy sector offers a wealth of knowledge and experience.
In today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, we ask: "As we race to embrace the transformative powers of generative AI, are we adequately considering the ethical, societal, and environmental impacts of this technology?" Joining us is a distinguished guest, Francesca Rossi, IBM Fellow, AI Ethics Global Leader, and a Co-Author of ACM's TechBrief on Generative Artificial Intelligence. Francesca brings her extensive expertise to shed light on the pressing issues surrounding the rapid commercialization of generative AI technologies.
Our conversation dives into the profound implications of AI on the workforce, with the startling revelation from ACM's TechBrief that generative AI will significantly impact an estimated 80 percent of U.S. workers. Francesca will discuss the need for comprehensive AI policies incorporating end-to-end governance approaches, addressing risks at every AI development and deployment stage.
We'll explore IBM's pioneering role in developing ethical AI principles. Francesca will share insights into how IBM addresses the challenging issues of biases in AI systems, ensuring fairness and inclusivity and setting industry standards for ethical AI practices. Moreover, she will elaborate on IBM's specific ethical guidelines and how they are integrated into their AI projects.
The conversation will also navigate the broader landscape of generative AI, examining the ethical and societal challenges likely to intensify in the coming years. Francesca will offer her perspective on future challenges, including issues like AI-induced hallucinations, deep fakes, and the importance of accountability in AI.
In light of the rapid changes and concerns surrounding AI, we'll discuss the role of organizations and individuals in staying informed and educated about these ethical implications. Francesca will highlight IBM's role in this educational aspect, paving the way for a responsible advancement of AI technologies.
Finally, amidst the prevalent concerns, we'll seek optimism. What could the future of AI and society look like if we get it right? Francesca's insights aim to offer a more hopeful story about the potential of AI in shaping a better future.
What do you think the future holds for the ethical development of AI technologies? Are we on the right track, or are there areas where we need to focus more attention? Join the conversation and share your thoughts on this critical issue.
Is it possible for enterprises to transform an often-overlooked IT expense into a robust profit center? In our latest Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, we delve into this intriguing possibility with Amitabh Sinha, the CEO of Workspot and a seasoned Citrix executive. Amitabh brings his wealth of experience to the table, unraveling the complexities and potential of end-user computing in today's multi-cloud environment.
In an era where terms like "next-gen" and "revolutionary" are thrown around liberally, Amitabh helps us cut through the noise. He sheds light on the concrete meaning of these terms within the realm of end-user computing, emphasizing the integration of diverse environments – from on-premises to hybrid and cloud solutions, encompassing giants like Azure, Google, and AWS.
However, the journey is not without its challenges. Amitabh discusses the intricate hurdles that IT leaders face in managing and harmonizing different private and public cloud systems. The critical question he addresses: How can businesses navigate these complexities to mitigate pain points and derive profit from them?
Amitabh's insights are not just theoretical; they are grounded in the practical realities and strategic moves of CIOs and IT leaders increasingly turning to multi-cloud end-user analytics and observability. These tools are not just about oversight; they offer a window into valuable insights across the enterprise, transforming how we understand and leverage technology.
Join us as Amitabh Sinha takes us on a journey through the evolving end-user computing landscape. His perspectives promise to reshape our understanding of IT from a mere operational necessity to a pivotal profit-generating aspect of the business.
What are your thoughts on the potential of transforming IT expenses into profit centers? Do you see this as a feasible strategy for most businesses, or does it require a certain level of scale and technological maturity? Please share your thoughts and experiences with us, and let's continue the conversation.
Have you ever considered how your workplace educates its staff about cybersecurity? Do they use engaging, even humorous, methods to make the information stick? In a world where compliance training often becomes a forgettable ritual, finding innovative ways to raise awareness about cybersecurity is crucial.
Gary Chan is a pioneer in blending cybersecurity education with entertainment. Three years ago, Gary shared his insights on Free Security Awareness Training. Now, he's back to discuss his unique approach to driving security initiatives through entertainment.
Gary has spent a year creating a cybersecurity + mentalism educational entertainment show that's been a hit in cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, Phoenix, St. Louis, and even Warsaw, Poland. His approach isn't just about educating; it's about engaging and making an impression. From putting security messages in fortune cookies to designing custom mugs for password policy changes, Gary turns potential objections into opportunities for storytelling and awareness.
His efforts have resonated not just with IT professionals but also with their families, leading to a demand for cybersecurity educational materials for kids. Gary's keynote speeches, blending mentalism and security awareness, have become a popular fixture at conferences and corporate events.
In this episode, we'll delve into Gary's journey of becoming a 'security mentalist,' his methods of making security fun and engaging, and how he's helping companies transform their approach to cybersecurity awareness.
We'll explore:
- How Gary's show has changed the conversation about security.
- The balance between entertainment and education in his work.
- His vision for the future of cybersecurity awareness.
Join us as we uncover the creative ways Gary Chan is making cybersecurity awareness more effective and memorable.
How often have we longed for a smoother, more efficient travel experience? In this Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, we delve into the innovative world of airport biometrics and digital identity solutions with Jason Van Sice, the Vice President of Advanced Recognition Systems at NEC Corporation of America.
Jason is at the forefront of revolutionizing air travel by integrating biometric tools such as facial recognition systems and fingerprint scans. These technologies are not just about enhancing security; they transform the traveler experience. From reducing check-in times to making boarding seamless, NEC's approach to digitizing travel is paving the way for a future where your face is your passport.
We explore the recent implementation of new biometric tools at Frankfurt Airport and the overall digital transformation of travel. Jason shares insights on how these technologies reduce operational struggles for airlines and airports, leading to fewer delays and misplaced baggage. But it's not just about convenience; there's a significant emphasis on privacy and security. NEC adheres to privacy-by-design principles, ensuring that traveler data is handled carefully.
As government agencies like Customs and Border Patrol and the Transportation Security Administration adopt these digital IDs, we'll discuss the importance of federal frameworks to regulate these technologies. With NEC's Traveler Verification Service (TVS) and other innovations, the conversation will also touch on how such technology can streamline international and domestic travel.
In this inspiring episode of Tech Talks Daily, Neil Hughes invites Jennifer Jane Young, author of "Say Yes to Your YES: How to Trust Your Gut and Take the Leap," to explore the intersection of intuition, technology, and personal growth. Jennifer, an entrepreneur who transcended anxiety and the confines of traditional education, shares her compelling journey. She delves into how embracing technology was pivotal in transforming her life and business, helping her harness her intuition and creativity.
We dive deep into Jennifer's background, understanding how her struggles shaped her path to entrepreneurship and her unique approach to technology. Her story is a testament to the power of self-belief and taking risks.
Jennifer also talks about her book, "Say Yes to Your YES: How to Trust Your Gut and Take the Leap." The episode also sheds light on the evolving role of technology in our lives. Jennifer views technology as a powerful enabler, amplifying human capabilities and fostering connections. Her excitement about emerging tech trends, especially in virtual spaces and AI, reflects a hopeful vision of the future where technology complements rather than replaces human intuition.
Join us in this enlightening conversation with Jennifer Jane Young, as she unveils the secrets to saying 'Yes' to your intuition, embracing imperfect action, and leveraging technology to craft a more fulfilling and aligned life. This episode is not just an interview; it's a journey towards understanding how to balance the logical and the intuitive, the technological and the human, in the pursuit of personal and professional growth.
Shawn Herring, the Chief Marketing Officer at airSlate, joins me in an insightful conversation exploring the nuances of AI and automation in small businesses. With his extensive experience in scaling marketing teams from startups to major enterprises, Shawn brings a unique perspective on how these technologies are not just tools for the future but actively shaping the present landscape of business operations.
Our discussion starts by looking at airSlate's recent report, which provides a startling insight: an overwhelming 94% of small businesses feel confident about embracing AI and automation. This statistic opens the door to a broader conversation about why small businesses, often perceived as cautious or conservative in their approach to new technologies, are leading the charge in this arena.
Shawn shares his thoughts on how AI and automation can be seen from two angles – as friends or foes. For many small businesses, these technologies have emerged as allies in their journey toward growth and efficiency. The conversation then shifts to understanding why small businesses are uniquely positioned to leverage these technologies. According to Shawn, their direct engagement with pain points and challenges makes small businesses more agile and open to transformative solutions.
Our talk further delves into practical strategies for adopting AI and automation. Shawn emphasizes starting with small, manageable steps, focusing on specific processes that hinder revenue generation, particularly in the back office. This approach is not about overhauling systems overnight but identifying areas where automation can immediately impact and scaling up from there.
Looking ahead, Shawn discusses the evolving landscape of AI and automation. He views these technologies as moving from being novel concepts to essential business tools. He shares his predictions on how implementing these technologies will redefine work and set leaders apart in the small business sector.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I welcome Dr. Allen Yang, the Co-Founder of Hitch Interactive on the show, to discuss the innovative intersection of AI, blockchain, and culinary arts through the lens of the new NFT project, Yami Hamo. Hitch Interactive, known for combining advanced technology with education, has ventured into uncharted territory with Yami Hamo, representing a unique fusion of gourmet dishes and NFT technology.
Dr. Yang, with his extensive background as a serial entrepreneur and an 18-year tenure as a UC Berkeley faculty member, delves into the creation of Hitch Interactive in 2019. His journey in AR and VR technologies since 2015 has culminated in this groundbreaking project. Yami Hamo, Hitch Interactive’s first NFT collection, showcases 1000 gourmet dishes, each depicted in an NFT with intricate artwork and embedded data designed to educate about culinary culture. This NFT collection is not just a visual feast but also serves as a tool to train a private AI assistant in the nuances of global cuisines.
The discussion explores the broader implications of the Yami Hamo project for the future of NFTs and Web3. Dr. Yang highlights the need for NFTs to have more tangible, real-world utility and describes how Hitch Mint, their new platform, will empower creators to craft their own decentralized miniverses powered by AI. These miniverses, self-contained within each NFT, represent a significant leap in how NFTs can be utilized beyond just digital art, extending into education and interactive experiences.
Dr. Yang discusses how the Yami Hamo project challenges the conventional perceptions of NFTs, integrating them into everyday life in meaningful and educational ways. This episode is a must-listen for those intrigued by the evolving world of NFTs, AI, blockchain, and their application in unconventional domains like the culinary arts.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are delighted to welcome Gil Rosen, the CMO of Amdocs, who brings a unique blend of expertise as a futurist, innovator, and sociologist. Gil's multifaceted role at Amdocs extends beyond the conventional boundaries of marketing, driving him to influence technology developments and the overarching direction of the company through cross-departmental collaboration.
Today's conversation centers around a crucial technological advancement shaping our world: 5G. Amidst growing discussions and sometimes skepticism around 5G, Gil offers a refreshing perspective on why this technology is not just a fleeting trend but a transformative force in the telecom industry. He delves into the "the 5G iceberg" concept, dissecting how 5G continues to empower networks to innovate and unlock new services.
Gil also addresses the common misconception about the early transition to 6G. He believes that to harness the power of 5G truly, there needs to be a comprehensive shift of core ecosystems to this technology. He emphasizes that 5G is still in its early stages, with only a fraction of telecom operators having fully deployed it, and its full capabilities are yet to be realized.
Throughout our discussion, Gil touches on the multiple dimensions 5G brings to the table, extending beyond mere speed enhancements. He talks about its role in guaranteeing bandwidth, enhancing network programmability, and ensuring quality of service. These capabilities enable groundbreaking use cases across various industries, from precision agriculture with drones to autonomous vehicles and smart factories.
Gil further explores the impact of 5G on different sectors, including retail, entertainment, and automotive. He stresses the need for these industries to understand and leverage 5 G's transformative potential for their business processes, citing the need for 5G literacy among many business leaders as a significant barrier.
In a world where connectivity is increasingly becoming the "oxygen" of our digital lives, Gil underscores the critical role of 5G in powering modern society. From streaming and cloud gaming to enterprise systems, the quality of networks is central to our digital experiences.
As we look to the future, Gil advises businesses to educate themselves on the capabilities of 5G and fully leverage its potential before prematurely jumping to the next big thing in telecom. He suggests engaging with industry publications and conferences to stay informed and prepared for the evolving connectivity landscape.
Join us in this enlightening episode as Gil Rosen from Amdocs shares his expert insights on the 5G iceberg, its impact on various industries, and the future of digital connectivity.
I sat down with Simon Taylor, founder and CEO of HYCU Inc., to discuss the rapidly escalating challenge of SaaS data protection. As SaaS applications become increasingly integral to IT infrastructure, their vulnerabilities are more exposed than ever. Simon Taylor, with his book "Averting the SaaS Data Apocalypse," offers a timely and critical insight into this growing issue.
The episode begins with Simon Taylor introducing HYCU, the world's fastest-growing SaaS data backup and security business. He lays the groundwork by highlighting the vulnerability of SaaS data, noting that 52% of ransomware attacks occur through these applications. Despite the widespread use of SaaS apps across departments like finance, marketing, and HR, a staggering majority lack enterprise-grade data protection.
We explore the myths and misconceptions surrounding SaaS data protection. They discuss the prevalent belief that SaaS data is automatically protected, a dangerous assumption given that most vendors only protect infrastructure, not customer data. This leads to a vast gap in security, with less than 10 major SaaS apps protected by legacy vendors.
The conversation shifts to HYCU's innovative approach to this challenge. Their platform allows for quick integration building to protect a wide array of SaaS apps, a significant advancement compared to the limited options available from other vendors. Simon shares insights from his book, including in-depth HYCU customer case studies from organizations like Bain Capital and the Boston Red Sox. These examples shed light on how companies navigate the complexities of multi-cloud experiences and cybersecurity challenges.
We also explore the legal and compliance aspects of SaaS data protection, anticipating that it will soon become a significant legal issue. They discuss the potential for CEOs to be held liable for unprotected SaaS data and the necessity for organizations to audit their SaaS apps and develop robust recovery plans.
Listeners will leave this episode with a deeper understanding of the challenges and solutions in SaaS data protection, equipped with the knowledge to navigate the evolving landscape of SaaS security effectively.
I sat down with Gal Elbaz, the co-founder and CTO of Oligo Security, to discuss the vulnerabilities and challenges within open-source software.
Gal Elbaz, renowned for his pivotal discovery of a critical vulnerability in an open source library used by Instagram, brings his extensive experience and knowledge to the forefront. He will discuss his journey from being a security researcher at Check Point to founding Oligo Security. This transition marks a significant shift from identifying vulnerabilities to developing robust solutions for open source security.
The episode also highlights Oligo Security's innovative approach to tackling the vulnerabilities in open source software. Special attention is given to their recent discovery, 'ShellTorch', a critical vulnerability within TorchServe, a component of the PyTorch ecosystem. This discovery is particularly noteworthy considering TorchServe's widespread use across major global corporations.
I learn how Oligo Security leverages eBPF-powered platforms to enable security teams to efficiently identify, prioritize, and respond to real and relevant threats in pre-deployment and post-deployment environments. This approach marks a significant departure from traditional methods that often overwhelm security teams with theoretical threats.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome Nathan Leung, co-founder and host of Cryptonauts, a platform renowned for its insightful crypto and blockchain content. Nathan joins us to explore the vital role of education in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
Nathan's journey into the crypto world is as fascinating as inspiring. Having transitioned from a career in Hollywood production, where he worked on commercials for renowned brands, to cryptocurrency, Nathan brings a unique perspective. His foray into crypto began in 2016, sparked by a neighbor's belief in Ethereum's potential. This encounter led to Cryptonauts, a YouTube channel dedicated to demystifying the complexities of the crypto world for a global audience.
With over 3 million channel views and nearly 100k subscribers, Cryptonauts is a testament to Nathan's commitment to making crypto education accessible and engaging. The channel is known for its high-quality explainer videos, humanizing documentaries, and comprehensive conference coverage. Nathan and his team strive to educate the world about developments in Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi, and everything related to crypto and Web3.
In our conversation, Nathan sheds light on the current state of crypto education, discussing the challenges and opportunities ahead. He delves into the varied attitudes towards crypto in different regions, highlighting how Asia's supportive stance contrasts with the more cautious approach in the US. Nathan also touches upon the biggest barriers for new users in the crypto space, emphasizing the need for usability and practical applications.
We also explore the creative methods Nathan employs to enhance crypto education, such as original soundtracks and community-focused events. He shares insights into Cryptonauts' self-funded business model and its focus on giving back to the community.
Looking ahead, Nathan expresses excitement for 2024, anticipating it to be a pivotal year for crypto adoption, akin to the early days of the internet. He predicts that institutional money and new regulatory frameworks will significantly make crypto more accessible to a broader audience.
Join us in this enlightening episode as Nathan Leung from Cryptonauts shares his invaluable insights on crypto education, digital currencies' evolving landscape, and blockchain technology's future. This is an episode you want to experience if you're curious about the world of crypto or looking to deepen your understanding of this rapidly evolving space.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I had the privilege of hosting Todd Olson, CEO of Pendo, for a fascinating discussion that traverses the realms of product analytics, AI adoption, and digital customer experiences. Todd's insights offer a deep dive into the evolving landscape where traditional companies increasingly identify as tech entities, requiring significant shifts in mindset and strategy.
Todd elaborates on how enterprises are undergoing a paradigm shift, moving from project-based work to embracing the agility and continuous iteration technology enables. This transition necessitates shorter cycle times in software development, allowing rapid user feedback and influencing subsequent releases. Todd underscores the importance of transitioning from a 'project' to a 'product' mentality, highlighting that software demands ongoing care and nurturing.
A critical aspect of our conversation revolves around the differing attitudes towards AI adoption in Europe and the United States. Todd points out that Europe tends to be more regulatory and cautious, particularly concerning privacy issues and AI accuracy, while the US often prioritizes innovation. He advises a measured approach to AI implementation, advocating for thorough testing and a gradual build-up of comfort based on proven results.
Integrating new technological roles into existing structures is another challenge that Todd addresses. He emphasizes the importance of blending internal and external hires for effective knowledge transfer, highlighting that internal employees understand the company and product while external hires bring specialized role knowledge.
Leadership communication around AI also emerges as a critical theme. Todd speaks to leaders' need to clearly articulate the 'why' behind AI to ensure middle management buy-in, a group often focused on executing current plans.
Todd also touches on the crucial aspect of upskilling existing teams. He discusses the need to assess teams' willingness to embrace failure and change, acknowledging that some level of attrition can be healthy for company transformation.
Lastly, we delve into the realm of digital customer experiences. Todd shares his belief in the power of empathy, achieved through self-use and observation, to ensure exceptional digital interactions. He provides insights into how observing user sessions can reveal critical pain points and drop-offs, ultimately enhancing the customer experience.
Today, we're delving into a topic quietly shaping the environmental discourse in the tech world – the ecological impact of data storage. Matt Watts, the Chief Technology Evangelist at NetApp, joins me and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this vital discussion.
As businesses continue to expand their digital footprints, the need for sustainable data storage practices has become increasingly critical. With his decade-long tenure at NetApp, Matt has closely observed and participated in technological shifts and strategic evolutions within the industry. He brings to the table his experience and insights into the recent push towards sustainability in data management.
In our conversation, Matt delves into how organizations can navigate the green data blind spot. He highlights the importance of understanding the environmental footprint of data storage and how businesses can leverage this knowledge to drive sustainable practices. Matt's perspective is not just about reducing carbon footprints; it's about unlocking the full potential of green data storage.
We also discuss new research conducted by NTT Data and NetApp. This research sheds light on various aspects of green data storage, including measurement and reporting mechanisms that reveal the environmental implications of data storage and expansion. Matt emphasizes the importance of fostering a culture of responsible data usage and proactive data estate management actions that can eradicate waste and improve sustainability.
A particularly compelling part of our discussion focuses on the reality that most data created by companies is never used again but continues to consume electricity and add to the carbon footprint in data centers. Matt points out that while there has been a focus on hardware efficiency, the real opportunity lies in using data analytics to understand and manage data more effectively.
As we explore these topics, Matt also touches upon the challenges in the current landscape, such as the lack of data ownership and the need for sustainability metrics to be translated into efficiency metrics that IT professionals can understand and act upon. He also brings to light how AI and large language models are poised to create massive amounts of new data, thereby intensifying the sustainability issues in data management.
This episode is an eye-opener for anyone interested in understanding the often-overlooked environmental aspects of data storage and management. Matt Watts' insights provide a roadmap for organizations looking to make significant strides toward sustainable data practices.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we embark on an enlightening journey into the complex yet crucial world of designer-developer relationships. Our special guests, Lauren Andres, a Designer Advocate, and Jenny Lea, a Software Engineer from Figma, join us to unravel the intricacies of this dynamic through the lens of Figma's groundbreaking innovation, DevMode.
The conversation opens with exploring the traditional challenges that have long defined the designer-developer dynamic. With their rich backgrounds in design and development, Lauren and Jenny shed light on the often fraught nature of this relationship. They emphasize how differing perspectives and languages can lead to misunderstandings and inefficiencies in the collaborative process.
This is where DevMode comes into play. Lauren and Jenny delve into how this new tool from Figma revolutionizes how designers and developers interact and collaborate. DevMode, they explain, is not just a technological solution but a transformative approach to aligning language and objectives. It facilitates a shared understanding and a cohesive workflow, enabling designers and developers to work harmoniously while keeping their audience's needs at the forefront.
The conversation takes a deeper dive into our guests' personal experiences and learning journeys. Jenny shares her insights on the importance of continuous learning and adaptability in the fast-paced tech industry. She talks about her journey of self-education and growth, providing valuable takeaways for our listeners navigating similar paths.
We also touch upon the practical implications of using DevMode in the real world. Lauren and Jenny provide examples from companies like Decathlon and Linear, showing how DevMode has positively impacted their design and development processes. These stories highlight the tangible benefits of improved collaboration, efficiency, and productivity that DevMode brings to teams.
As we explore the human aspect of technology, our guests remind us of the importance of not just relying on tools but also fostering genuine conversations and understanding from the user's perspective. This approach, they argue, is crucial in creating impactful and accessible designs that resonate with users.
This episode is not just a discussion about a tool but a deep dive into the evolving design and development landscape. It's a testament to how technology like DevMode can bridge gaps, enhance collaboration, and lead to more user-centric and practical solutions in the tech world.
Please tune in to this insightful episode for a comprehensive understanding of the transformative impact of Figma's DevMode on the designer-developer relationship and discover how it sets a new standard in collaborative technology.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Roshmond "Sum" Patten, the innovative Creative Director at GLOW, to delve into a topic that is becoming increasingly crucial in the creative industry: the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and creativity. Sum, a specialist in AI with a rich background in music, copywriting, and creative direction, brings a unique perspective to this discussion.
Sum's journey is as diverse as it is impressive. He has worked with tech giants like Microsoft, Fox, and Disney in research and community management, and his expertise extends to music streaming, where he trained music discovery algorithms for some of today's biggest platforms. His creative flair is not just confined to technology; he's also a celebrated musician and a two-time Independent Music Award nominee, featuring his work in major TV shows and video games.
Sum emphasized the critical need for creatives to discuss AI in our conversation. AI continues to play a pivotal role in our industry, and there's a growing concern among creatives about embracing this technology. Many fear it might render their roles obsolete or drastically alter their work. Sum addresses these concerns, advocating for a safe space where creatives can openly discuss the challenges and opportunities AI presents.
Sum's passion for this subject is evident as he talks about the necessity for leadership to involve creatives in conversations about AI. He believes that doing so ensures that their voices are heard, and their roles are preserved and adapted in a way that benefits from AI advancements rather than being overshadowed by them.
Beyond his professional accolades, Sum is also an activist, serving as Creative Director in Residence for the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition since 2020. His work in this area has helped to raise awareness about the expanding police surveillance state and the potential harms of artificial intelligence in predictive policing. This work earned a nomination for a Mozilla Foundation Creative Leadership Award in 2021.
Sum's insights are not just limited to his professional experiences. As the Founding Principal and Creative Director at The Kizmet Experience Studio, he brings an interdisciplinary approach to creative direction, blending his extensive knowledge of AI with his creative expertise to forge new paths in the industry.
Join us in this compelling episode as Sum Patten shares his invaluable insights on the role of AI in creativity, the importance of inclusive discussions in the tech industry, and the future of AI in shaping creative roles. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone interested in the evolving landscape of technology and creativity, offering a nuanced understanding of how AI can be a
I sit down with Dima Kats, the visionary CEO behind Clear Junction, a company on a mission to reshape the landscape of global payments. Founded in 2016, Clear Junction emerged from a need identified by Kats and his financial experts: a gap in the market for efficient, cost-effective cross-border payment solutions for businesses and financial institutions.
With a background rich in fintech and a keen eye for the challenges faced by the industry, Kats set out to revolutionize how financial institutions engage with banking partners and handle international transactions.
Clear Junction's journey involves innovation, perseverance, and strategic foresight. The company, leveraging its proprietary technology, has successfully addressed some of the most pressing issues in global payments, such as high foreign exchange fees, prolonged settlement times, and limited access to multi-country payment options. These solutions have propelled Clear Junction's growth and provided a lifeline to many businesses and financial institutions previously marginalized in the realm of international finance.
Much of our conversation delves into the unique challenges of the "severely underbanked" financial institutions, a sector Kats has been passionately committed to serving. The lack of corresponding banking accounts and the barriers this creates in the financial world are crucial areas Clear Junction aims to dismantle. The company has effectively tackled issues such as unpredictability in transfer times and fees by providing access to local instant payment systems for international transfers, thus enhancing competition and service quality.
Beyond the technicalities, Kats shares insights into the strategic decision-making that has guided Clear Junction's growth and independence. Eschewing external investment, the company has maintained a focus on serving regulated financial institutions, a decision that has been instrumental in its sustainable scaling. This approach and meticulous risk management and compliance adherence have allowed Clear Junction to venture into innovative territories, such as introducing an escrow service in digital asset trading.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we delve into a crucial and timely topic at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity. Our guest is Arshan Dabirsiaghi, a renowned security researcher turned entrepreneur, whose unique journey from the helm of a successful software security unicorn to the founder of Pixee is as fascinating as it is inspiring.
Arshan's story is not just about technological innovation; it's also a testament to the resilience and dreams of immigrants, as his father's immigration story vividly illustrates.
The core of our discussion revolves around a burgeoning issue in the tech world: the increasing reliance on Large Language Models (LLMs) like GitHub's Copilot in software development. With an estimated 46% of code on GitHub now generated by LLMs, we're witnessing a seismic shift in how software is created.
However, this shift brings with it a host of security challenges. Historically, developers have not been primarily focused on security, a gap that has led to numerous vulnerabilities and high-profile hacks. The integration of LLMs into the coding process is exacerbating this issue, creating a vast expanse of code that needs to be secured, far outpacing our current capabilities.
Arshan discusses his latest venture, Pixee, and its flagship product, pixeebot. Pixeebot is not just another security tool; it represents a revolutionary step forward in the fight against software vulnerabilities. This free GitHub App acts like a virtual security engineer, not only identifying but also fixing code vulnerabilities. More than a mere band-aid solution, Pixeebot offers an educational component that could be vital for training both new programmers and, potentially, LLMs themselves.
This episode is not just about Pixee or pixeebot, though. It's a broader conversation about the urgent need for solutions in a world where the ratio of code developed to code secured is becoming astronomically unmanageable. We explore the landscape of software development, the primary security concerns in this AI-augmented era, and the critical role of "virtual security engineers."
We explore how AI and automation can scale secure code efforts across the software development lifecycle, from planning and threat modeling to code creation and production monitoring. As we navigate these discussions, we also touch on the broader implications for the industry and steps that companies and developers should take to adapt to this rapidly evolving landscape.
Join us on this enlightening journey as we unravel the complexities and explore the innovative solutions at the forefront of AI and cybersecurity with Arshan Dabirsiaghi.
Michael Lemashov, a seasoned SAP expert and Head of SAP Business Platform at JDC Group, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Bringing over two decades of experience in various SAP roles, Michael's insights illuminate the path for businesses navigating the rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Our discussion takes a deep dive into the significance of 2027 for SAP ECC customers, marking a critical deadline for migration to S/4HANA or extending maintenance. Michael will explore the nuances of this deadline and its far-reaching implications for enterprises around the globe. He also tackles the typical challenges encountered in cloud migration, such as the lack of a clear strategy and the increased complexity of IT landscapes, which collectively contribute to the difficulties organizations face in this transition.
A focal point of our conversation will be SAP Clean Core, a methodology designed to enhance flexibility and stability by reducing technical debt before cloud migrations. Michael will elaborate on how this approach, governed by four fundamental principles, is instrumental in preparing enterprises for a smoother transition to the cloud.
We will also venture into a comprehensive overview of SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), where Michael will detail its suite of tools that amalgamate data, analytics, AI, automation, and more. He'll underscore how SAP BTP's integrated features can expedite innovation and streamline business processes, marking a significant leap in enterprise technology capabilities.
Moreover, the role of JDC Group in this transformative era forms an essential part of our dialogue. Michael will discuss how JDC Group's BTP Development Services are aiding clients in navigating the complexities of cloud migration. He will shed light on their approach to reducing technical debt, making effective customization decisions, and guiding innovation initiatives, all while ensuring a seamless transition to the cloud.
In this episode, I dive into the intricacies and untapped potential of digital adoption in small businesses with Alex von Schirmeister, UK Managing Director of Xero. With a recent report from Xero and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) shedding light on small businesses' hurdles in fully embracing technology, Alex offers invaluable insights into how we can collectively work towards a more digitally inclusive business environment.
Our conversation will explore the report's startling findings, highlighting the disparity between the digital uptake of small businesses and larger SMEs. The report reveals an eye-opening perspective: if small businesses were to digitalize at the pace of the most tech-forward 20%, there could be a £77.3 billion increase in turnover and the creation of 885,000 jobs. This statistic alone underscores the immense value and urgency of digital integration.
Alex discusses the challenges hindering this digital transition, addressing the reasons behind the reluctance of many businesses to adopt new technologies. He'll articulate the compelling case for digital adoption, drawing a direct correlation between embracing technology and enhanced economic growth. We'll hear about the remarkable difference in revenue growth between rapidly digitalized SMEs versus those that have lagged behind.
However, this episode isn't just about identifying problems; it's about providing solutions. Alex will share pragmatic advice for small businesses caught in the 'digital drag,' offering strategies to overcome resource limitations and make meaningful steps towards digitalization.
Listeners will gain a comprehensive understanding of the current state of digital adoption among small businesses, the barriers they face, and the profound economic impact of embracing digital tools. Alex's insights will also highlight the importance of balancing technological advancements with maintaining human connections, particularly as we look toward emerging trends and the digital landscape of 2024.
Whether you're a small business owner, a tech enthusiast, or someone interested in the intersection of technology and business, this episode promises to equip you with the knowledge and inspiration to be part of the digital revolution. Join us for an engaging discussion that bridges the gap between technology and business growth and discovers how small businesses can harness digital tools to unlock their full potential.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm tackling a topic that sits at the intersection of technology, privacy, and workplace ethics – workplace surveillance tools. I'm joined by Ian van Reenen, CTO of 1E, a company at the forefront of digital employee experience (DEX) monitoring, to guide us through this complex landscape.
As remote and hybrid work models become the norm, using surveillance tools to monitor employee productivity has sparked significant debate and concern. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently highlighted the public's apprehension about these tools, particularly the lack of control employees have over their data. This issue is further complicated because 87% of IT managers have noticed a negative impact on their teams since implementing surveillance technology.
Ian van Reenen brings a wealth of experience to this discussion, shedding light on the dos and don'ts of using surveillance tools in the workplace. We delve into why a staggering 73% of IT managers are uncomfortable deploying productivity surveillance technology due to transparency issues. Van Reenen emphasizes the detrimental effects these tools can have on employee morale, trust, and the overall company culture, as evidenced by the increase in employee turnover and hiring challenges faced by companies using such tools.
Throughout our conversation, we explore viable alternatives to surveillance, focusing on setting clear organizational goals, empowering employees, and utilizing technology to identify and address friction points in the digital work environment. Van Reenen argues for a more holistic approach that balances productivity with privacy and trust.
This episode highlights the challenges posed by workplace surveillance tools and offers insights into how organizations can foster a culture of trust and accountability. It's a must-listen for anyone grappling with the ethical implications of surveillance technology in the modern workplace.
In this thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Vahe Andonians, the founder and CTO of Cognaize, a company revolutionizing AI's role in the financial sector with its hybrid intelligence approach. Fresh off the success of Cognaize's Series A funding round, Andonians brings his deep expertise and unique perspective on AI to our audience, blending his experience as a senior lecturer at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management with his practical insights from the industry.
Andonians introduces us to "hybrid intelligence," a pioneering approach where AI and human expertise collaborate rather than compete. This method, he argues, is essential for the financial industry, where judgment and decision-making require a nuanced understanding that AI alone cannot provide. He emphasizes the limitations of large AI models like ChatGPT in economic contexts, citing hardware constraints, the potential for inaccurate outputs ('hallucinations'), and privacy concerns.
Cognaize, under Andonians' guidance, opts for smaller, more targeted AI models. These models are designed to analyze structured and unstructured data effectively, providing insights while sidestepping the downsides of larger, more generalist AI systems. Andonians shares how this approach enables banks and financial institutions to harness AI's power without compromising precision or privacy.
Andonians predict a rapid advancement in AI, including the potential emergence of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). However, he cautions that computational limitations might initially constrain its applications. He also delves into the intriguing possibilities of combining AI with gene editing, hinting at a future of exponential innovation.
For financial institutions eager to embrace AI, Andonians offers practical advice. He underscores the importance of educating staff at all levels, including board members, about AI. He also recommends partnering with experienced vendors to facilitate a smooth adoption process and advises a multifaceted approach, cautioning against reliance on a single initiative or vendor.
Join me in this fascinating episode as Vahe Andonians unravels the complexities of AI in finance, offering a glimpse into the future of financial decision-making, where human expertise and artificial intelligence merge to form a more powerful, insightful, and ethical approach to financial services.
In this insightful episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome Ryan Glasgow, Founder and CEO of Sprig, for a deep dive into integrating artificial intelligence (AI) in product management. Glasgow, a seasoned product manager with a track record of scaling startups to successful exits, shares his expertise from his experience at Sprig - a platform trusted by industry giants like Paypal, Coinbase, and Peloton for measurement of user experience.
Our conversation begins with exploring how AI is revolutionizing the building of new features and products. Glasgow discusses the practicalities and importance of prototyping and testing AI applications, ensuring they solve customer problems before fully integrating into products.
We then shift our focus to the critical task of measuring user sentiment. Glasgow highlights common pitfalls teams encounter in this area and shares his insights on effectively gathering and interpreting user feedback. This discussion naturally leads into an examination of the modern product stack in 2023, as Glasgow describes the evolution of product management tools and how world-class teams are integrating diverse tools to understand and meet user needs at scale.
One key theme of our conversation is understanding user experience as a user base scales. Glasgow emphasizes the importance of collecting and analyzing large-scale data to achieve this. He also underscores the need for product teams to continually ask tough questions about product-market fit and to let customer feedback drive strategic decision-making.
As we delve deeper, the discussion illuminates how AI transforms product teams. Glasgow and I examine the challenges and opportunities presented by this transformation, focusing on solving the right problems for customers and understanding their specific needs. We also touch on the potential impact of AI on product-market fit and the evolving landscape of SaaS tools.
Join us for this episode as Ryan Glasgow unravels the complexities of incorporating AI into product development, offering invaluable advice for product teams aiming to build world-class products.
Today, I welcome Zuzanna Stamirowska, CEO and co-founder of Pathway, a pioneering French tech startup. Zuzanna, celebrated for her achievements including the Female Founders Challenge award at VivaTech, joins us to explore the innovative concept of 'unlearning' in AI and its transformative implications.
Unlearning in AI, as Zuzanna elucidates, involves the ability of AI models to delete specific data points and their effects without undergoing a complete retraining. This advancement is particularly crucial in the realm of linear models like trees, compared to the complexities of neural networks. The concept goes beyond mere technical innovation; it's a step towards implementing privacy rights like the EU's 'right to be forgotten' and addressing the challenge of catastrophic forgetting in AI.
I explore how Pathway leverages unlearning for dynamic operational analytics in sectors such as logistics, legal search, and financial trading. We discuss the unique challenges and solutions in applying unlearning to generative AI, emphasizing its multidimensional nature. An enlightening segment of our conversation focuses on Pathway's mission of enabling real-time learning and data use for data scientists. We explore their recent advancements, including query functionality for AI applications and efforts towards ensuring consistency in real-time systems.
This episode also touches on practical applications and client success stories, highlighting how organizations like La Poste have benefited from Pathway's unlearning capabilities, leading to significant improvements in efficiency and data management. As we look ahead, Zuzanna shares insights into Pathway's future directions, aiming to bring streaming data and models to a broader user base, including integrating with tools like Jupyter and expanding conversational AI capabilities.
Today, I'm joined by Toa Dunn, a visionary in the convergence of technology, gaming, and music. With over a decade of experience, including a significant tenure at Riot Games, Toa now consults in this exciting field.
Today's conversation centers around the significant evolution in technology and entertainment, highlighting the unique merger of music and gaming. This fusion has given rise to virtual artists and transmedia storytelling, offering seemingly limitless possibilities. We aim to explore this intersection and understand the future trajectory of virtual music groups.
We welcome Toa to the show and immediately dive into the heart of the discussion. Toa's insights reveal a landscape where AI, VR, and XR are not just buzzwords but instrumental in shaping the future of music production and consumption, especially in the gaming industry. The emergence of virtual artists adds a new layer of creative expression, revolutionizing how fans engage with music.
As we conclude the episode, we reflect on the enlightening insights provided by Toa. His experiences at Riot Games have been pivotal in transforming how we perceive music in the gaming realm. From virtual heavy metal bands like "Pentakill" to pop groups like "K/DA," Riot Games has been at the forefront of this innovative merger.
The discussion also touches upon the impact of social media, virtual influencers, and the Metaverse on the future of Riot Games Music. Toa emphasizes that while their approach is not to mimic traditional music labels, their focus remains on enhancing music experiences for players and fans by creatively intertwining music with technology.
We also discuss the influence of video games on music, illustrated by the surge in popularity of a classic Tom Petty track used in the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer. This example underscores the symbiotic relationship between gaming and music, a theme that has been recurrent throughout our discussion.
In this groundbreaking episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're joined by Anders Beck, Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at Universal Robots, to explore the transformative role of AI in industrial automation. As we stand at the cusp of a new era in manufacturing, Beck guides us through how AI is revolutionizing factories and redefining the future of automation.
We start by addressing a common misconception: while generative AI may be in its nascent stages, AI technology is already leaving a significant mark on the manufacturing industry. Beck shares insights into how AI, mainly through advancements in computer vision and perception technologies, enables robots to interact with the physical world in previously thought impossible ways. He highlights Apera AI's '4D Vision' technology, which grants robots humanlike perception, allowing them to understand and manipulate objects in disordered environments – a critical breakthrough in automation.
Furthermore, Beck discusses how AI empowers robots to handle a variety of objects without the need for prior teaching or programming. This flexibility is crucial in modern manufacturing environments, where adapting to different shapes and sizes of objects can dramatically increase efficiency and reduce downtime.
Precision in manufacturing is another focal point. Beck delves into how AI, as demonstrated by Inbolt's AI-based Inbrain technology, processes vast amounts of 3D data at high frequencies. This capability enables robots to perform tasks with incredible accuracy, such as the intricate assembly of gears, by adapting their trajectory in real-time based on the position and orientation of workpieces.
Looking towards the future, Beck shares his vision of the 'future factory,' heavily reliant on AI and robotics. This evolution promises performance improvements, cost savings, and a significant shift in the roles of human workers, who can focus on more creative and less repetitive tasks.
Throughout the episode, we will also cover the biggest challenges facing the integration of AI in manufacturing, from finding the right implementation strategies to training and understanding the iterative nature of AI development. Beck provides valuable advice for manufacturers looking to embrace AI, encouraging them to be bold and open-minded in piloting these technologies in natural production settings.
This conversation with Anders Beck is not just about the present state of AI in industrial automation but also a look into the future – where AI and robotics are not just tools but integral parts of a brighter, more efficient, and innovative manufacturing landscape.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we delve into AI's intricacies in data analytics and business intelligence with James Fisher, Chief Strategy Officer at Qlik. Qlik, a leader in the field, has recently unveiled its ambitious AI strategy, marking a significant commitment to advancing AI applications in data handling. This move is especially noteworthy following Qlik's acquisition of Talend, strengthening its capabilities in managing data quality, governance, and lineage in the cloud.
Fisher offers a comprehensive insight into why data stands at the core of any AI development. He emphasizes the importance of generating trustworthy and actionable data outputs for enhanced decision-making processes. This topic aligns seamlessly with Qlik's long-standing integration of AI into its data analytics products and its recent focus on GenAI, which is crucial for understanding and improving data quality, especially for large language models (LLMs).
We'll explore how Qlik, in collaboration with partners like Snowflake and Databricks, is pioneering the delivery of LLMs in the cloud. Fisher will share success stories from early adopters such as Harman and ChatGPT, illustrating these technologies' practical applications and benefits in business environments.
Throughout the conversation, Fisher will shed light on the role of AI and GenAI in transforming data analytics and business intelligence. He'll discuss the challenges and opportunities in creating a data infrastructure supporting enterprise-scale generative AI. This includes a deep dive into the necessity of data quality and governance for the success of generative AI and how Qlik's holistic approach is shaping the future of AI in the workplace.
Listeners will gain insights into how AI democratizes data beyond expert circles, lowers barriers to insight generation, and evolves workplace roles. We'll also explore Qlik's cloud partnerships, emphasizing how hybrid cloud access and scalability are vital for training domain-specific models.
I welcome Asa Whillock, the Vice President and General Manager of Machine Learning at Alteryx, to delve into the transformative world of generative AI and its real-world impact on businesses. Asa, an acclaimed AI and machine learning expert, brings to light the critical gap between the anticipated benefits of generative AI and its practical implications in the business environment.
Our discussion pivots around a compelling revelation: that the success of AI in businesses is not merely about its implementation but hinges on individuals' ability to utilize and trust AI technologies.
Asa argues that without a profound understanding and confidence in how AI operates, businesses are unlikely to reap the expected benefits. This issue is underscored by Alteryx's recent AI Pulse survey, which reveals a surprising statistic: although 40% of businesses have adopted AI, a majority still rank their AI maturity at the preliminary stages of exploration or experimentation.
Throughout our conversation, Asa shares insights on the current state of AI in businesses, highlighting the trend of AI adoption driven more by a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) rather than strategic business intelligence. We examine the intriguing findings from Alteryx's research, noting that only 18% of businesses classify their AI maturity as 'optimizing' or 'innovating'.
This episode is a treasure trove for those interested in the intersection of AI and business efficiency. We discuss how organizations can effectively implement and govern AI, ensuring that it aligns with their business strategies and ethical standards. Key topics include the challenges of AI adoption, the misconceptions surrounding AI's impact on employment, and the importance of regulatory compliance and ethical governance in building trust in AI systems.
Asa also sheds light on the future trends in AI for 2024, emphasizing a shift from hype to practical value and ROI of AI investments. We explore how breaking down data silos can enable more insightful cross-functional analysis, potentially revolutionizing decision-making in businesses.
Join me in this compelling dialogue with Asa Whillock as we unravel the complexities of AI in the business world, offering insights that are both thought-provoking and actionable.
In this Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, we are privileged to host Milena Berry, Co-Founder and CEO of PowerToFly, the groundbreaking platform at the forefront of accelerating economic equity by upskilling and connecting underrepresented talent with significant roles in visible sectors.
Our discussion delves into Milena's visionary mission, striving to partner with the top 100 brands to offer a range of diversity solutions through PowerToFly. We explore the human element of success, seeking insights into the influential figures who have shaped Milena's journey.
A focal point of our conversation is PowerToFly's innovative feature within their PowerPro product, 'Candidate Search.' This transformative tool redefines talent acquisition, enabling companies to identify and recruit candidates from underrepresented backgrounds with unprecedented inclusivity and efficiency. We discuss how this tool uses Enhanced Search to identify candidates based on diversity parameters like gender and ethnicity, revolutionizing the hiring landscape.
We confront sobering statistics, such as the disproportionate job losses among DEIB workers in 2021 and the persistent issue of racial discrimination in the tech industry. PowerToFly's response, through their Diversity Filters and beyond, offers a comprehensive suite of solutions addressing these challenges.
Our discussion with Milena also ventures into strategies for implementing effective and enduring DEIB policies, encompassing leadership accountability, regular training, and integrating DEIB into every hiring phase. We examine how these strategies can weave DEIB into a company's DNA, fostering ethical practices and business success.
Today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast brings a thought-provoking conversation with Andy Whitehurst, UK Chief Technology Officer, and Kevin Macnish, Digital Ethics Consulting Manager, from Sopra Steria. Sopra Steria, a powerhouse in Europe's tech sector, employs 55,000 across nearly 30 countries, known for its advanced consulting, digital services, and software development. In 2022, the group generated a substantial revenue of €5.1 billion, indicating its influential role in global technology and digital transformation.
Our conversation today delves into the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence (AI), which is pivotal in its evolution. With the European Union recently passing groundbreaking legislation to regulate AI development, the topic of ethical AI is more relevant than ever. AI's potential to profoundly transform society is undeniable, yet it carries inherent risks, including data misuse and ingrained gender bias. These challenges underscore the urgency of guiding AI development along an ethical path.
Andy and Kevin bring their extensive expertise to the table, discussing the intricate balance of harnessing AI's transformative power while mitigating its potential pitfalls. They emphasize the importance of considering and addressing the consequences of unethical AI use and development promptly. The discussion extends to the necessity of fostering public dialogue about ethical AI at both governmental and industry levels, reflecting a collective responsibility towards this emerging technology.
The episode also highlights the 'ethics by design' approach as a cornerstone for responsible AI development. This methodology isn't just about embedding ethical considerations into the fabric of organizational structures; it's about integrating these principles throughout the AI development process. By asking the right technical questions and prioritizing ethical considerations from the outset, we can ensure that AI serves the greater good of society.
Join us in this episode as Andy Whitehurst and Kevin Macnish navigate the complex yet fascinating landscape of ethical AI, offering insights on how we can collectively shape a future where technology not only advances but also aligns with our core values for a positive and equitable world.
Joining me today is Peter Dyson, Head of Analytics at Kovrr, a company at the forefront of cyber risk modeling. With over 15 years of experience in risk and financial modeling in the insurance industry, Peter brings a unique perspective on how cyber risks reshape business strategies at the highest levels.
Our conversation orbits around Kovrr's recently released Fortune 1000 report, a critical piece of research that provides crucial cyber risk benchmarks aiding companies in identifying and managing material risks. This report gains even more relevance after the new cybersecurity rules issued by the SEC, which mandate greater transparency and risk communication, effectively making cybersecurity a top concern in the boardroom.
Peter, with his rich background that includes a PhD in engineering, will shed light on the complex intersection of technology, analytics, and business. We explore how cybersecurity is no longer confined to IT departments but has become a pivotal financial discussion, demanding attention from CFOs and CEOs alike.
We also dive into the practical applications of Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ), a solution provided by Kovrr. Peter elucidates how CRQ helps businesses articulate technical cyber risks in financial terms, allowing for more informed decision-making at the highest levels. This becomes particularly essential as companies grapple with understanding the economic impact of potential cyber incidents.
One of the key takeaways from our discussion is the realization of how different industries face varying cyber risk profiles and how larger companies might have better economies of scale in terms of cyber defenses. This information is crucial for business leaders looking to benchmark their risk profiles and understand their standing in an increasingly interconnected and digital business world.
Finally, as we gear up for 2024, Peter shares his insights on the importance of continuous learning in cybersecurity and offers a crucial tip for businesses planning for the upcoming year.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding how cybersecurity transforms business discussions at the highest levels and the role of advanced technologies like CRQ in navigating these challenges.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I engage in a thought-provoking conversation with Wade Bruffey and Zoltan Sarda, the dynamic co-founders of GoMobi.work. This discussion ventures beyond the conventional boundaries of workplace management, delving into the essence of effective performance management and the subtle yet powerful forces that shape company culture.
Wade Bruffey, with his rich background in scaling purpose-driven businesses and driving significant growth as a business & life coach, shares his insights on the transformative impact of aligned leadership and strategies in organizations. He reveals the secrets behind the staggering 300% revenue growth he fostered in a high-growth startup, highlighting the synergy between leadership, strategy, and purpose.
Zoltan Sarda, an internationally acclaimed coach and program developer, brings over three decades of experience. His expertise in developing mentorship and coaching systems within growing organizations offers a unique perspective on fostering mission-aligned effectiveness. Zoltan's doctoral research, which delves into interpersonal dynamics and their influence on workplace behavior, is a cornerstone of his approach to cultivating a workplace of well-being.
Together, they dissect what most organizations misunderstand about performance management and unravel the concept of "micro-moments" instrumental in shaping a company's culture. The episode also explores the pivotal role of clarity, alignment, and guiding principles in crafting a conducive work environment.
Furthermore, our guests elucidate leveraging data to inform and enhance effective coaching methodologies. They share their vision for the "workplace of well-being," a revolutionary concept that promises to redefine the landscape of modern work environments.
In the latest episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I had the opportunity to engage in a fascinating discussion with Clare Hickie, CTO for EMEA at Workday. Clare, with her extensive cloud technology experience and pivotal role in a company that serves over 10,000 customers, offers a unique perspective on the rapidly evolving world of AI and machine learning in the business sector.
Our conversation was particularly timely, coinciding with the release of a new Workday report. This report provides an in-depth look at the current state of AI investment and preparedness in the UK, offering valuable comparisons with global and European standards. Given Workday's significant involvement with 40% of the FTSE 100, Clare's insights are not just theoretical musings but are grounded in substantial real-world experience and data.
One of the most striking aspects of our discussion was the optimism surrounding AI and machine learning. Clare highlighted that a significant majority of business leaders, about 73%, believe these technologies will profoundly impact the global business landscape in the next three years. Furthermore, 58% think these advancements will significantly amplify human potential.
However, this optimism is tempered by a concerning revelation from the report: preparation levels need to keep pace with investment ambitions. While nearly half of the respondents indicated that over 20% of their organization's annual technology budget is invested in AI and ML, only 13% of UK organizations feel entirely prepared to adopt these technologies.
Clare and I also explored the issue of trust in AI, a critical factor in its adoption and integration into business processes. The report indicates that trust in AI is relatively low, with 46% of business leaders expressing concerns about the trustworthiness of AI and ML. This is a crucial area that needs addressing if AI is to realize its full potential in the business world.
During our conversation, Clare shared her insights on how AI and ML are expected to transform essential business functions. She emphasized the strategic role of AI in augmenting human capabilities, particularly in areas like financial reporting, HR tasks, and IT risk reduction. The importance of data quality in training reliable AI models was another significant point of discussion. Clare pointed out that Workday ensures high-quality data through a uniform structure across its customer base, essential for generating responsible and reliable insights.
An exciting segment of our discussion focused on the UK's position in AI adoption globally and in Europe. Clare noted that the UK is ahead in terms of openness to AI and data accessibility compared to other regions. However, she also mentioned that regulations will continue to play a vital role in shaping responsible innovation in this field.
As we looked ahead, Clare shared her predictions for the next decade of AI. While acknowledging the challenges in making accurate forecasts, she expressed confidence that AI would continue significantly boosting productivity and engagement, empowering us to become better versions of ourselves. Workday's commitment to developing impactful, responsible AI was a testament to this belief.
I explore the intricate world of cybersecurity with Adi Dubin, a seasoned expert from Skybox Security. With over 20 years of experience in the field, Adi brings a unique perspective to the table, discussing the challenges and strategies essential for modern cybersecurity.
Adi begins by sharing his extensive background in cybersecurity and his role at Skybox Security, where he leads product management. His passion for continuous learning in this rapidly evolving field sets the tone for a deep and insightful conversation.
We dive into Skybox Security's holistic approach to vulnerability identification and prioritization. Adi explains how their method combines both active and passive technologies, focusing on systematic and customer-specific risks. This approach ensures that organizations efficiently allocate their limited resources to address the most critical issues.
The conversation then shifts to the topic of 'celebrity vulnerabilities'. Adi discusses the pitfalls of focusing solely on high-profile breaches, which can lead to a disproportionate allocation of resources and neglect other significant threats. He highlights Skybox's methodology, which considers both exposure and asset criticality, to determine the impact of various vulnerabilities on each customer.
Further, we delve into the role of predictive analytics and artificial intelligence in cybersecurity. Adi talks about how machine learning aids in threat detection but also emphasizes the irreplaceable value of human judgment in making complex decisions. He stresses the importance of integrating comprehensive data and processes to enhance the effectiveness of these technologies in prioritization.
Adi also touches upon the critical role of the human element in cybersecurity. He discusses how automation and algorithms are crucial but cannot entirely replace human intuition and problem-solving skills. Education, awareness, and policy play a vital role in fostering a proactive security culture within organizations.
As we discuss emerging threats and strategies for effective prioritization, Adi points out the increasing sophistication of social engineering attacks. He advises on the importance of managing attack surfaces and exposure through discovery, risk assessment, automation, and swift response to stay ahead of evolving methods.
In his final thoughts, Adi offers valuable advice for enhancing an organization's cybersecurity posture. He emphasizes the importance of collecting comprehensive operational and technical data to power effective prioritization, automation, training, and decision-making.
I sit down with Darcy MacClaren, the Chief Revenue Officer for the global supply chain at SAP, to explore the burgeoning role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in revolutionizing supply chain management. This episode is a must-listen for business leaders and tech enthusiasts keen on understanding the dynamic intersection of AI and supply chain operations.
The conversation starts with Darcy sharing insights from her interactions with customers eagerly looking to AI to build more risk-resilient supply chains. She delves into how businesses prepare for potential disruptions, emphasizing the predictive power of AI in forecasting and mitigating unforeseen challenges. This discussion is particularly relevant for listeners interested in how AI can proactively approach supply chain management.
We also explore the practical applications of AI in enhancing supply chain efficiency. They discuss integrating responsible and relevant AI technologies in optimizing warehouse organization, improving the accuracy of freight order deliveries, and refining demand planning forecasts. This segment is a deep dive into the operational benefits of AI, showcasing how intelligent systems can streamline processes and boost overall efficiency.
A significant part of their discussion centers on business leaders' need to invest in supply chain technology. Darcy articulates why embracing AI is a trend and a strategic imperative for companies aiming to maintain a competitive edge. She highlights how SAP and its customers are already reaping the benefits of AI through automation and advanced analytics, leading to substantial time and cost savings.
We also discuss the future trajectory of AI in supply chain management. They predict that generative AI will be crucial in revolutionizing the industry, offering contextualized responses and enhancing efficiency across various supply chain facets. Darcy also shares personal anecdotes, including her father and mentor Mitch Wesley's influence on her successful supply chain technology career.
I explore the rapidly evolving world of retail payments with Karna Crawford, Chief Marketing Officer at Marqeta. Our conversation centers around the intriguing insights from Marqeta's 2023 State of Payments report, mainly focusing on the burgeoning trend of embedded finance technology and its implications for retailers and consumers alike.
The discussion begins with an exploration of embedded finance trends and consumer behavior. Karna shares key findings from the report, highlighting the growing consumer confidence in digital banking and the notable shift towards mobile wallet usage. An eye-opening statistic reveals that 72% of consumers now feel confident enough to leave their wallets at home, relying solely on their phones for payments.
As we approach the holiday season, the conversation shifts to holiday shopping trends and credit card usage. Karna sheds light on the critical role of credit cards and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) schemes in holiday purchases. This segment also touches on the broader economic concerns affecting consumer spending habits, offering a nuanced view of the challenges and opportunities facing retailers.
We also discuss retailer opportunities with embedded finance and loyalty programs. Karna explains how personalized payment methods can not only drive traffic and purchases but also how optimizing rewards programs using consumer data can foster deeper loyalty and more meaningful relationships with customers.
Karna also highlights the potential impact of AI in the payments industry. She discusses how predictive credit cards, powered by generative AI and machine learning, could revolutionize the application process and enhance the rewards experience, offering a glimpse into a future where technology seamlessly integrates with consumer finance.
Today, I am joined by David Morton, Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Customer Officer at Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) UK. With a rich background spanning over two decades in strategic sales, customer relationship management, and business process outsourcing, David offered an in-depth perspective on the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI) in customer service.
The conversation opened with a look at the evolving role of the Chief Revenue Officer. David reflected on how this position has significantly changed over the past decade, transitioning from a role that was once spread across multiple senior stakeholders to a consolidated position focused on business growth and strategy. He highlighted the increased complexity of the role, especially in navigating digital transformation and commercial models in today's fast-paced business environment.
A key focus of the discussion was the integration of AI in customer service. David emphasized that AI should be viewed as a tool to support overall business strategy, rather than an end in itself. He shared insights on how AI is enhancing process automation, making it more intuitive, and optimizing operations. However, David also pointed out the importance of maintaining a balance between digital solutions and human interaction, ensuring that customers still have the option for personal contact in their service journey.
David then delved into the strategies for building value with clients. He stressed the importance of understanding a client's industry, challenges, and long-term plans before engaging with them. This approach involves providing actionable insights tailored to the client's strategy and desired outcomes, and committing to a clear roadmap for transforming operations and delivering measurable business results.
The integration of digital solutions in customer service was another significant topic. David discussed the challenges of operating across multiple channels with limited budgets and the role of digital solutions like multilingual chatbots in improving customer journeys. Despite the advancements in technology, he reiterated the need for the human element in customer service, which is crucial for culture, creativity, and gaining deeper customer insights.
The episode concluded with David sharing where listeners can find more information about HGS and connect with his team online. This conversation with David Morton is a must-listen for anyone interested in how technology, especially AI, is reshaping customer service. It highlights the importance of AI in enhancing customer experience while underscoring the irreplaceable value of human interaction in the digital age.
I sit down with Jörg Grotendorst, Senior Vice President of Car of the Future at Magna International, to explore the cutting-edge advancements in the automotive industry. This episode promises to be a treasure trove of insights for anyone interested in the future of mobility, automotive technology, and sustainable innovation.
We discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by vehicle over-the-air updates. Jörg provides an in-depth look at how Magna addresses these challenges, focusing on implementing robust security protocols and developing new vehicle architectures. The duo also touches upon Magna's efforts to measure and minimize the environmental impact of their products and processes, highlighting the company's commitment to an environmentally friendly supply chain, especially in electric vehicle components.
We also navigate the evolving market trends and customer expectations surrounding future cars. A special emphasis is placed on electric vehicles and software functionalities. They discuss Magna's strategic positioning as a top supplier in active safety features and their decision to prioritize L2 and L2+ applications over fully autonomous vehicles, considering factors like cost and consumer willingness to pay.
The episode's key theme is innovation, with Jörg discussing Magna's new technologies, such as breakthrough lighting and integrated battery systems. These innovations are about enhancing vehicle performance and offering design flexibility and functional advantages for electric and autonomous vehicles. Jörg also sheds light on Magna's approach to partnerships and collaborations, including significant acquisitions and joint ventures, to expand their presence in the new mobility market segment and gain deeper insights into customer behavior.
This episode of Tech Talks Daily is a must-listen for anyone interested in how technology is reshaping the automotive industry and the broader implications of these changes for our future mobility and environmental sustainability. Join us for an enlightening discussion that bridges the gap between complex technological concepts and their practical, real-world applications.
In a recent enlightening conversation with Kenneth White, Principal Security at MongoDB, we delved into the intricacies and innovations of MongoDB's latest offering in data security - Queryable Encryption. This discussion, part of my ongoing series on Tech Talks Daily, offered profound insights into MongoDB's journey from a startup to a significant player in enterprise-level data management and security.
Kenneth White's insights began with an overview of MongoDB's evolution. Initially perceived as a tool tailored for startups, MongoDB has significantly expanded its reach and capabilities. It now plays a crucial role in managing high-value workloads across various industries, including finance, healthcare, and telecom. This transformation from a startup-focused technology to an enterprise powerhouse underscores MongoDB's adaptability and the importance of flexible, robust database management systems in today's business landscape.
A central focus of our discussion was MongoDB's Queryable Encryption, a groundbreaking approach that allows developers to perform searches on encrypted data without exposing it. This innovation is crucial in today's digital environment, where data breaches and insider threats are increasingly common. Using cryptographic tokens, MongoDB's approach ensures that the database processes encrypted results without accessing the data or queries. This method bolsters security and aligns with stringent regulatory requirements like GDPR and PCI, making it a valuable tool for businesses concerned with data privacy and compliance.
Developing Queryable Encryption was a journey filled with challenges, as Kenneth highlighted. One of the primary goals was to make this advanced encryption technology accessible and user-friendly for developers. Balancing ease of use with high performance and scalability was no small feat. The MongoDB team dedicated significant time and resources over five months to optimize performance, ensuring that the solution met modern developers' speed and efficiency expectations.
An intriguing aspect of MongoDB's advancement in encryption technology was the strategic acquisition of a startup from Brown University specializing in encrypted search. This move led to an Advanced Cryptography Research Group within MongoDB. This group's establishment marks a significant stride in MongoDB's commitment to leading-edge encryption solutions, positioning the company at the forefront of data security innovation.
Looking ahead, Kenneth outlined MongoDB's priorities for the upcoming year. The company is set to make strides in AI and machine learning capabilities, mainly focusing on vector search. Enhancements in search offerings and ongoing security innovations, including differential privacy and multi-party computation, are also on the agenda. These initiatives reflect MongoDB's dedication to staying ahead in the rapidly evolving world of database technology and data security.
In conclusion, my conversation with Kenneth White from MongoDB offered a comprehensive view of how MongoDB is reshaping the landscape of data security and database management. The introduction of Queryable Encryption is a testament to MongoDB's innovative spirit and commitment to addressing the complex data security challenges businesses face today. As MongoDB continues to evolve and introduce new solutions, it remains a crucial player in the future of secure, efficient, and user-friendly database technologies.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I have a fantastic conversation with Emma Steeley, CEO of Aro, formerly known as Freedom Finance. With 17 years of experience in consumer finance and fintech, Emma brings a wealth of knowledge and insight into the rapidly evolving world of financial services.
The episode starts with Emma discussing the strategic rebranding of Freedom Finance to Aro. She explains how this change reflects the company's commitment to innovation, adaptability, and growth, aiming to meet customers better needs in a dynamic global landscape.
A significant part of the conversation is dedicated to how Aro is leveraging machine learning to transform personal credit matching. Emma elaborates on how the company uses application data, credit reports, open banking, and internal data in their machine learning models. This approach enables Aro to match customers with lending offers they are most likely approved for, significantly enhancing the customer experience beyond what generic credit scores can offer.
We delve into the opportunities and challenges presented by open banking. While open banking holds great potential through consented data sharing, its adoption could be faster. Emma discusses the hurdles such as consent friction, the need for transparent customer value exchange, and lenders' apprehensions about using new data types for underwriting. She emphasizes the need for industry collaboration to overcome these challenges, address conduct risks, and demonstrate the benefits of data sharing.
A key highlight of the episode is the discussion on the value of open banking APIs in democratizing lending. Emma explains how these APIs provide crucial data to power more inclusive lending decisions, especially for traditionally underserved segments, offering them fair and affordable credit options.
Looking towards the future, Emma shares her insights on the rise of embedded finance. She predicts that significant brands will increasingly offer financial services, driven by consumer expectations for seamless experiences. She also touches upon the importance of balancing convenience with responsible lending practices.
As the conversation wraps up, Emma shares her thoughts on the trends to watch in 2024 for the credit industry. She anticipates focusing on stability and using diverse data sources to deepen the understanding of customer needs and risk profiles. She foresees a gradual maturation in open banking integration through collaborative learning and shared experiences.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of finance, the role of technology in lending, and the impact of innovative leadership in transforming industries. Emma's insights provide a unique perspective on how financial services evolve and what we can expect in the coming years.
Today, I enjoyed an engaging conversation with David Woodward, the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Zellis, a frontrunner in Human Capital Management (HCM) and payroll technology. David, with his extensive background spanning over two decades in the HR and payroll tech industry, including senior roles at ADP, SD Worx, and MHR, brings a treasure trove of insights and experiences.
This episode arrives at a crucial time as the world grapples with a significant cost of living crisis. David sheds light on how technology is not just a tool for efficiency but a powerful ally in enhancing the financial wellbeing for employees. He shares his experiences with integrating Wagestream's financial wellbeing suite into several large organizations, both in the public and private sectors, highlighting how these initiatives are making a real difference in employees' lives.
We delve into the nuances of how HR and payroll teams can effectively use technology to provide much-needed support to employees during these challenging economic times. They explore future technological advancements that could further improve the financial wellbeing for workers and businesses.
A particularly poignant part of the discussion revolves around early access to wages. David explains how this approach can be a game-changer for employees, offering them much-needed flexibility and support. However, it has its challenges. David candidly discusses the hurdles organizations face when implementing these new tech solutions, from integration issues to ensuring user-friendliness, and shares valuable insights on navigating these challenges successfully.
I sit down with Hans Fischmann from Vericast to explore the evolving world of data privacy and ethical marketing. Vericast, known for its influence on how over 130 million households engage with the market, is at the forefront of redefining marketing solutions through a business-to-human approach. This discussion comes at a crucial time when consumer data protection is more regulated than ever, posing unique brand challenges and opportunities.
We explore the groundbreaking partnership between Vericast and Qonsent, highlighting their shared commitment to placing consumer consent at the heart of data collection. We dissect how this collaboration is revolutionizing how brands interact with and maintain records of user consent, ensuring compliance in a complex digital landscape.
The conversation shifts to Vericast's innovative strategies, particularly the NextDrive platform, which empowers brands to utilize fully consented first-party data for targeted marketing. Hans offers insights into balancing potent marketing campaigns with stringent data privacy regulations, emphasizing the need for ethically sourced data with provenance.
A key focus of the episode is the importance of centering the consumer in data collection processes. We discuss how this approach enhances marketing strategies and aligns with the evolving relationship between data privacy and marketing. We touch upon Vericast's efforts to separate advertising tech from marketing tech, all while maintaining a privacy-centric use of consumer data.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I, Neil, am thrilled to welcome Andrew Sullivan, President and CEO of the Internet Society, for a thought-provoking conversation on the future of Internet governance, regulation, and the ongoing battle to keep the Internet open and accessible for everyone.
The internet, a marvel of the modern world, stands at a crossroads. Originally conceived as a decentralized "network of networks," it's now facing challenges that could reshape its very essence. Andrew Sullivan, with his wealth of experience in the Internet Society, brings a deep understanding of these issues to the table. We delve into how large corporations increasingly try to "enclose" the internet, shifting the paradigm from an open web system to a more controlled application-based environment. This conversation takes us through the nuances of technical proposals like Web Environment Integrity, "NewIP," and Private Access Tokens and what they mean for the future of the internet.
Our discussion also turns to the role of governments in this evolving landscape. With initiatives like Canada's Online News Act and the EU's Digital Markets Act, we explore the intention behind these regulations and their potential unintended consequences. Andrew offers a unique perspective on how these well-meaning laws might inadvertently reshape the Internet, often at the expense of smaller entities and the general public.
Much of our conversation revolves around the complex issue of misinformation and social problems in the digital age. We explore how these challenges, while amplified by the internet, are not necessarily of its own making. Andrew provides insights into how the internet reflects societal divisions rather than creates them and how regulations aimed at big tech might not address the root causes of these issues.
In this episode, we also focus on solutions and the way forward. We discuss the importance of remembering the benefits of connectivity and ensuring that regulations do not stifle these advantages. Andrew highlights initiatives like encryption, Internet Impact Assessments, and the involvement of civil society as crucial steps in protecting the open Internet.
Peter-Jan Van De Venn, VP of Global Digital Banking at Hexaware-Mobiquity. Our conversation centered around a pressing issue in the banking sector: the relegation of sustainability initiatives amidst the current economic crisis.
Peter-Jan brought to light some startling revelations from recent research. The study, involving 600 C-suite banking executives globally, indicated a significant shift in the banking sector's approach to sustainability. Notably, only two-thirds of these leaders now view sustainability as a key business strategy, a stark contrast to last year when it was unanimously seen as a top priority. This shift is particularly intriguing as more than a third of the executives acknowledge the profitability potential of prioritizing Environmental Societal Governance (ESG).
Our discussion delved into the reasons behind this dramatic change, particularly in the context of current economic uncertainties. Peter-Jan shared his insights on why banks are increasingly focusing on short-term bottom lines, potentially overlooking the long-term benefits and necessity of sustainable practices.
A key part of our conversation focused on the role of technology in driving sustainability in the banking sector. We explored how advancements such as AI, machine learning, cloud analytics, and even Augmented Reality can revolutionize the way banks operate and interact with customers. These technologies are not just tools for efficiency; they are catalysts for sustainable practices, enabling banks to make informed investment decisions, monitor their impact, reduce their carbon footprint, and provide more accessible digital services.
Peter-Jan also emphasized the importance of adopting a sustainability mindset, integrating it into a bank's brand and operations. He highlighted how Hexaware-Mobiquity is assisting banks like Aditya Birla Capital, Bank ABC, and the Bank of the Philippine Islands in leveraging digital technologies to drive both sustainability and overall performance.
Throughout our conversation, we touched upon the potential risks associated with sidelining sustainability, including reputational damage, missed opportunities for cost savings and innovation, and the broader societal impact.
I recently had the pleasure of talking with Kurt Markley from Apricorn, a company at the forefront of encrypted hard drives and flash drives. Our conversation was a deep and insightful exploration into the world of data security, a topic that resonates with businesses and governments alike.
Kurt brought to the table a wealth of knowledge, particularly highlighting a widespread issue in the realm of data backup protocols within organizations. It was intriguing to learn that even seasoned IT professionals in these organizations are often not doing enough to protect their data, a concern that Apricorn is keenly aware of and actively addressing.
One of the most compelling parts of our discussion revolved around the need to simplify security practices. Kurt emphasized that current security measures are often too complex, too expensive, and, ironically, not sufficiently protective. This simplicity in approach, as Kurt suggested, is not just about making things easier but also about enhancing the effectiveness of data security measures.
We also delved into the debate of cloud versus hardware for secure storage. Kurt offered a fresh perspective, advocating for a complementary relationship between the two. He explained the 3-2-1 rule of data management, highlighting how it integrates both cloud and hardware solutions to offer a balanced and robust approach to data security.
Another significant aspect of our conversation was the cost-effective management of data. Kurt shared insights on how organizations could better manage their cloud costs by considering archiving practices. This approach would involve moving unused but necessary data off the cloud, thus reducing ongoing expenses while ensuring data protection.
As we progressed, we tackled the barriers to adopting encrypted solutions in organizations. Kurt's insights here were particularly enlightening, revealing the challenges organizations face and how Apricorn is working to overcome them. He also touched upon the future of hardware encryption in data security, suggesting it as a pivotal element in the evolving landscape of data protection.
In the latest Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, I had the privilege of speaking with John Letter, CEO of Proem Behavioral Health. Our conversation offered a deep dive into how technology is reshaping the landscape of mental health care, a topic that resonates with many in our current times.
John introduced Proem Behavioral Health, a company at the forefront of clinical workflow support software. Their mission is to streamline the screening process for mental illnesses, aiding in diagnosis and tracking treatment outcomes. As John highlighted, this approach is a game-changer i
n addressing the fragmented nature of behavioral healthcare. One of the most striking aspects of our discussion was the real-world impact of Proem's technology. John shared an example from Eastern Europe: their tools are used to screen patients proactively. This proactive approach is critical in mental health care, where early detection can significantly alter treatment outcomes.
However, the journey has its challenges. John candidly discussed the hurdles patients and providers face in adopting new technologies. The biggest challenge? Time. Proem's solution is its asynchronous capability, which allows patient information to be collected ahead of visits, saving hours for healthcare providers and enabling them to focus on treatment rather than data collection.
John's enthusiasm was palpable when discussing the integration of subjective questioning with objective data from wearable devices. This holistic view of a patient's health is where he sees the future of mental health care heading.
For John, the intersection of technology and mental health care is more than just a business venture; it's a passion driven by the potential to make a real difference in people's lives. His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs in the mental health space was clear: listen to the needs of both patients and providers. It's this understanding that drives innovation.
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In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I enjoy a thought-provoking conversation with Olivier Pailhès, the Co-founder of Aircall. Olivier's journey is a fascinating one, starting his career at The Boston Consulting Group and ArcelorMittal, where he gained invaluable insights into the business world. This experience laid the foundation for his venture into entrepreneurship with Aircall, a company that has recently celebrated a significant milestone, achieving centaur status with over $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
Olivier shares his insights on the importance of embracing change and taking risks, especially in a landscape marked by economic challenges and unpredictability. His perspective is particularly relevant in today's fast-paced, technology-driven environment, where adaptability and innovation are key to success.
A significant part of the discussion revolves around the launch of Voice AI, a groundbreaking development in the communications industry. Olivier explains how this technology is not just a disruptor but a transformative tool that is reshaping how businesses interact with their customers. He emphasizes the need for greater education around AI, citing Aircall’s research which reveals a gap in understanding this technology.
Interestingly, the research also highlights a sense of optimism about AI, especially among younger employees, and its potential to streamline tasks like transcribing calls and writing notes.
Neil and Olivier delve into the findings of a survey on AI implementation and concerns among SMB employees. This part of the conversation sheds light on the role of companies like Aircall in democratizing AI technology for SMBs and the broader implications of AI in automating low-value tasks. This automation, as Olivier points out, is not something to fear but to embrace, as it allows human employees to focus on more meaningful and creative work.
The episode also touches upon the future vision of Aircall, including plans to expand their customer base, focus on omni-channel communication, and leverage AI technology further. Olivier's interest in understanding the challenges and impacts on society through a potential meeting with a political leader adds a unique dimension to the discussion, highlighting the broader societal implications of technological advancements.
In summary, this episode not only provides a deep dive into the journey of a successful tech entrepreneur but also offers valuable insights into the evolving landscape of AI in business communication. It's a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the intersection of technology, business, and society.
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In this compelling episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Terry Ray, Senior Vice President at Imperva, for a crucial discussion on a frequently overlooked aspect of data security: protecting low-value data. Terry brings a wealth of knowledge and a unique perspective, warning organizations about ignoring what is often perceived as insignificant data.
Throughout the episode, Terry emphasizes a critical message: no data should be ignored, regardless of its perceived value. He draws an analogy between data security and home security, illustrating how leaving low-value data unprotected is akin to leaving your front door wide open. This oversight can give cybercriminals a foothold, allowing them to gather insights and eventually target more valuable, sensitive data.
The conversation delves into why organizations need to monitor low-risk data as intensely as high-risk data. Terry argues that the goal of data security shouldn't be merely to catch criminals in the act but to identify and thwart their efforts before they can execute their plans. He stresses that even data classified as low risk can be extremely valuable in the wrong hands, necessitating vigilant monitoring and protection akin to other cybersecurity practices.
We explore real-world examples where organizations have suffered significant breaches due to insufficient attention to low-value data. These examples highlight the need for comprehensive visibility and knowledge of all data types to detect and respond to breaches effectively.
A vital part of the discussion focuses on balancing data accessibility and security. Terry underscores the importance of continuous monitoring and analysis of unusual behavior and implementing robust controls to ensure that data access is both authorized and secure.
In a world where data breaches are increasingly common and sophisticated, Terry advises organizations to prioritize data security and close any existing gaps in their security strategies. He also highlights the growing importance of leveraging machine learning and AI in analyzing data and identifying potential risks.
Today, I am joined by Monish Darda, the CTO and Co-founder of Icertis, in a riveting discussion about the intersection of technology and sustainability. As businesses grapple with the complexities of environmental responsibility, Monish brings his rich experience in using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to the forefront, discussing how these technologies are revolutionizing supply chain management and contract intelligence.
The conversation begins with an exploration of how AI is being used to quantify and mitigate the environmental impact of supply chain partners. This topic is particularly relevant in light of the recent EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directives and the UK's Sustainable Disclosure Requirements, reshaping the landscape of corporate responsibility. Monish offers insights into how AI ensuresensures compliance with these new regulations and helps companies navigate this changing terrain.
We discuss the transformative role of machine learning in analyzing millions of contracts. This technology ensures that businesses and their suppliers uphold their environmental commitments. Monish shares how Icertis leads this charge, helping companies align with sustainability requirements and manage contractual obligations.
A critical part of their discussion centers on the role of AI in combating greenwashing and promoting genuine sustainability practices. They explore the evolving role of AI in environmental sustainability and the importance of regulation in this domain, highlighting how AI can address complex sustainability challenges.
The conversation also touches on the practical applications and challenges in this field. Monish shares insights from his work at Icertis, discussing the hurdles organizations face in reducing their climate footprint and how technology can offer solutions. He emphasizes the importance of viewing regulatory changes not as obstacles but as opportunities for innovation and improvement.
Adding a personal touch to the discussion, Monish shares his experiences transforming businesses through technology. He recounts a humorous anecdote from a sales presentation with a German car company, providing a glimpse into the lighter side of the tech world.
This episode is a deep dive into how AI and ML are not just shaping the future of business but also steering it toward greater environmental responsibility. Our conversation is a blend of technical insights, regulatory perspectives, and real-world experiences, making it a must-listen for anyone keen on understanding the role of technology in fostering sustainable business practices.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I had the privilege of speaking with Kohji Nagata, the head of game design at Parallel, a Canadian gaming studio at the forefront of integrating AI and blockchain technologies. Our conversation offered a deep dive into Parallel's innovative projects, mainly focusing on how these technologies revolutionize the gaming industry.
Kohji introduced us to Colony, a unique project epitomizing Parallel's innovative approach. He described Colony as a blend between a Tamagotchi and a Large Language Model, where players interact with an AI avatar that acts autonomously based on its memories and biography. This groundbreaking concept in gaming allows for a dynamic and unpredictable gameplay experience, setting Parallel apart from other studios.
We discussed the Parallel Trading Card Game (TCG), a prime example of web3 and NFT integration in gaming. Kohji shared insights into the game's development process, highlighting the use of AI tools in coding and workflow enhancement. He also shed light on the involvement of industry veterans from Riot, Blizzard, Xbox Game Studios, Wizards of the Coast, and Epic Games, adding a layer of expertise to the project.
Much of our conversation revolved around Parallel's community-first approach to game and tech development. Kohji and I explored how this strategy has shaped their projects and bolstered audience engagement, a crucial element in the success of modern gaming ventures.
Looking ahead, Kohji shared his predictions for the future of blockchain and web3 in gaming. He envisioned a landscape where these technologies become more simplified and seamlessly integrated into gaming experiences, drawing a parallel to email's evolution and widespread adoption.
Kohji also offered valuable advice to aspiring tech entrepreneurs, emphasizing the importance of taking action and solving problems along the way rather than getting bogged down in details.
An intriguing aspect of our discussion was Kohji's recounting of how Parallel gained unexpected support from Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube. This serendipitous connection through a cold message on Twitter led to Chad's involvement as a co-founder, significantly contributing to the success and legitimacy of Parallel.
In this Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, I had the opportunity to engage in a fascinating conversation with Thorbjørn Fink, COO of Pleo, a trailblazing company in the fintech sector. Our discussion offered an in-depth look at how Pleo transforms how businesses handle spending through innovative solutions that streamline financial processes and empower employees.
Thorbjørn began by sharing his journey in finance and what led him to join Pleo. His insights provided a unique perspective on the company's mission and operations, setting the stage for an enlightening discussion about what distinguishes Pleo in the competitive fintech landscape.
Much of our conversation revolved around Pleo's challenges while scaling across different markets. Thorbjørn highlighted the hurdles in attracting and retaining talent and the critical importance of investing in infrastructure and regulatory compliance to facilitate rapid expansion. This part of our dialogue offered listeners a rare glimpse into the complexities of scaling a fintech company internationally.
We then shifted our focus to the role of tools and automation in enhancing organizational efficiency and improving the working lives of employees. Thorbjørn emphasized the need for companies to identify areas where manual tasks bog down employees. He shared how Pleo's solutions, such as intelligent company cards and automated expense reports, are designed to alleviate these burdens, thereby unlocking business value through automation.
Another critical topic we delved into was the importance of automating processes in finance departments. Thorbjørn and I discussed how automation minimizes human errors and allows finance teams to focus on more strategic, value-added tasks. He stressed the necessity of building a scalable foundation in finance departments and being open to adopting new tools to future-proof these critical business units.
Throughout our conversation, Thorbjørn provided insights into Pleo's unique features, including its ability to catch receipts on the go, automatically categorize expenses, and offer full compatibility with Apple Pay and Google Pay. He also touched upon Pleo's innovative Pocket feature, which enables instant out-of-pocket spend reimbursement, illustrating how Pleo captures wall-to-wall spending across businesses.
As we wrapped up, Thorbjørn shared where listeners can find more information about Pleo and its offerings, inviting them to explore how Pleo's solutions can revolutionize their business spending and financial management.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I had the opportunity to converse with Artem Kroupenev, VP of Strategy at Augury. Our discussion offered a deep dive into the transformative role of AI co-pilots in the manufacturing sector and how they are poised to redefine the industry in the coming years.
Artem started our conversation by outlining his role at Augury, a company at the intersection of manufacturing and cutting-edge technology. He detailed how Augury's innovative machine health and process health solutions leverage AI to predict machine failures and optimize production processes, thereby enhancing efficiency and reducing costs in the manufacturing industry.
Our discussion focused heavily on the application of AI in manufacturing, particularly in the context of machine health and optimization. Artem and I explored how AI co-pilots are not just futuristic concepts but current realities transforming factory floors. These AI systems create safer work environments, boost efficiency, and improve product quality, marking a significant leap in manufacturing operations.
We delved into the challenges and benefits of integrating AI co-pilots into manufacturing workflows. The conversation highlighted the importance of building trust, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and effectively measuring the impact of AI adoption. Artem emphasized that AI in manufacturing empowers workers and augments their capabilities rather than replacing human expertise.
Our dialogue then shifted to the broader implications of embracing AI in the manufacturing industry. We discussed the concept of hybrid intelligence, where human expertise synergizes with AI to make informed decisions and improve processes. This approach is not just about enhancing operational efficiency; it's about driving innovation and sustainability in manufacturing.
In a particularly engaging segment, Artem, Kiah, and I discussed the importance of staying abreast of industry trends, the value of self-education, and the critical role of learning in adapting to technological advancements. We also touched upon the impactful work Augury is doing in solving complex problems in the manufacturing industry, setting a benchmark for others to follow.
As the conversation wrapped up, Artem shared insights on where listeners can find more information about Augury and their groundbreaking work. He pointed to their online presence as a resource for those interested in learning more about AI's role in manufacturing and the future of industrial operations.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the future of manufacturing, the role of AI in transforming industries, and the innovative strides companies like Augury are making. Join us as we explore these fascinating topics with Artem Kroupenev, a thought leader in AI and manufacturing.
In this latest episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Roy Zur, CEO of ThriveDX Enterprise, a company at the forefront of cybersecurity training and education. Our discussion centered around ThriveDX's innovative approach to addressing the critical cybersecurity skills gap, its unique training model, and its groundbreaking Cybersecurity Apprenticeship program.
The conversation started by exploring the current cybersecurity landscape and its growing importance in a tight economy. Roy then shared his insights on how cybersecurity offers vast opportunities for individuals looking to reskill or upskill, especially in today's digital age, where security threats are ever-evolving.
We then delved into what sets ThriveDX's training model apart. Roy elucidated on their hands-on, practical approach to cybersecurity education, which equips candidates with the necessary skills and prepares them for the real-world challenges they will face in the field. This focus on practical training is a cornerstone of ThriveDX's success in producing highly competent cybersecurity professionals.
Much of our discussion was dedicated to ThriveDX's new Cybersecurity Apprenticeship program. Roy explained how this program offers companies a risk-free way to bring in new cybersecurity talent and reskill their current employees.
This initiative, aimed at closing the cyber skills gap and building diversity across the industry, partners with nonprofits to provide employers with the opportunity to train and hire cyber professionals from diverse communities. The program stands out for its zero training costs and reduced hiring fees, making it a win-win for employers and aspiring cybersecurity professionals.
Roy and I also discussed the value of hiring individuals from non-tech backgrounds, such as veterans or analysts, for cybersecurity positions. He highlighted how ThriveDX identifies potential candidates, provides them with comprehensive hands-on training, and boasts a high employment rate in the field.
We further discussed the significant cybersecurity skills gap and the challenges businesses face in filling these positions. Roy emphasized the importance of apprenticeship programs in addressing this shortage and the long-term benefits and loyalty apprentices bring to organizations.
Roy also shed light on the Apprenti program, which provides government grants for training individuals in the United States and has partnerships in other countries. He spoke about ThriveDX's continuous learning approach through 'last mile training,' collaborating with tech companies to stay updated with industry advancements.
In this insightful episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sat down with Tobias Dengel, CEO of WillowTree, a leader in the digital product industry. Our conversation revolved around the transformative potential of voice technology and its role in reshaping our interaction with devices and machines. Tobias brought a wealth of knowledge and foresight on how the latest advancements in AI and voice technology are set to revolutionize our daily lives and the business landscape.
At the outset, Tobias and I explored the concept of the complete reinvention of human-device interaction. We delved into how voice technology, powered by cutting-edge AI, is not just an emerging trend but a pivotal shift towards a more intuitive, efficient, and human-centric way of engaging with technology. Tobias emphasized the evolution of digital experiences towards multimodal interfaces, which integrate spoken words, screens, keyboards, sounds, and haptics, creating a seamless connection between humans and machines.
A crucial part of our discussion focused on crafting exceptional user experiences in voice technology. Tobias highlighted the need for a multimodal approach, where voice is used for input and other output forms like text or graphics. This approach, he believes, is the breakthrough we need to enhance our interaction with technology, making it more natural and effective.
We then tackled the challenges inherent in creating relatable and compelling voice interactions. Tobias and I discussed the crucial balance between making voice technology relatable yet transparent about its non-human nature. We also touched upon the sensitive data collection and usage issue, underscoring the need for clear communication and ethical practices in this domain.
Diversity in voice technology development was another significant topic we covered. Tobias highlighted the progress made in training systems to recognize a variety of accents and languages, underlining the importance of inclusivity in this field. He also advised businesses on implementing voice technology, advocating for a step-by-step approach that focuses on solving bounded problems and gradually building trust with users.
An exciting part of our conversation was when Tobias discussed his book, which delves into the convergence of General AI and conversational AI in the voice technology sector. He shared his prediction about the future of Siri and other voice assistants, envisioning a scenario where they become integrated layers within various applications, facilitating a more fluid and natural voice interaction experience within apps.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the future trajectory of voice technology and its implications for both personal and professional realms. Join us as we unravel the complexities and explore the immense possibilities of voice technology with Tobias Dengel, a visionary in the digital product space.
In this pisode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I had the privilege of engaging with Peter Platzer, the visionary CEO of Spire, a company at the forefront of utilizing space technology to address some of the most pressing challenges on Earth. As we delve into the intricacies of Spire's mission and operations, our discussion unveils how this innovative company is leveraging the vastness of space to bring tangible solutions to our planet, particularly in the face of escalating climate disasters.
Our conversation began with an exploration of Spire's foundational mission: harnessing space to solve problems on Earth. Peter eloquently described how Spire, a data and analytics powerhouse, is utilizing its fleet of satellites to revolutionize our approach to weather forecasting and monitoring maritime and aviation activities. This global network of satellites is not just a technological marvel but a critical tool in predicting and understanding patterns that have far-reaching impacts on economies, international security, and environmental sustainability.
A significant focus of our dialogue centered on the increasing risks posed by climate change and how Spire's technology is pivotal in monitoring and early detection of weather-related disasters. Peter shared insightful details on how Spire's collaboration with esteemed organizations like NOAA, NASA, and OroraTech's Wildfire Solution is enhancing our ability to mitigate and track environmental risks. This partnership is a testament to the power of combining expertise for the greater good.
We then navigated through the fascinating journey of Spire in building a space-powered, global data network. Peter's belief that every industry vertical should incorporate a space strategy, akin to the adoption of internet strategies in the past, was a thought-provoking highlight. This perspective underscores the evolving landscape of business and technology, where space is no longer a frontier for a select few but a domain of immense potential for diverse industries.
Our discussion also illuminated how Spire's unique combination of weather and scientific expertise, bolstered by a robust satellite and space infrastructure, enables them to generate accurate 15-day global weather forecasts. This capability is not just about numbers and predictions; it's about empowering communities worldwide to prepare for and mitigate the effects of extreme weather events.
Delving deeper, we discussed Spire's innovative use of small satellites, which orbit the Earth every 90 minutes, providing unparalleled coverage and data collection capabilities. The use of radio waves to analyze critical weather conditions, such as wind speed and moisture, exemplifies how advanced technology can be harnessed for the greater good, aiding in disaster prediction and mitigation.
Peter also illuminated the importance of capturing data from space for accurate global weather prediction. The ability of Spire to generate precise 15-day forecasts marks a significant leap in our weather prediction capabilities, with profound implications for various sectors. In a fascinating segment, Peter shared insights into Spire's latest projects, including developing new weather data sources and advancements in aviation safety and aircraft tracking. His enthusiasm for the future of space habitats and the broader application of space technology in scientific and climate change initiatives was infectious and inspiring.
This episode is not just a conversation; it's a journey into space technology and its profound impact on our planet. Join us as we unravel the complexities and celebrate the innovations shaping our world, one satellite at a time.
In this episode, we're exploring the innovative world of Honeywell, a Fortune 500 company renowned for inventing and manufacturing technologies that tackle global safety, security, and energy challenges. I'm joined by Mehul Patel from Honeywell Safety and Productivity Solutions (SPS) to delve into how Honeywell is revolutionizing the retail experience.
We discuss how modern customer demands are reshaping the retail landscape. Technology is playing an increasingly crucial role, from autonomous stores to the need for instant, informed customer service. With its rich history in the retail supply chain dating back to the 1970s, Honeywell is at the forefront of creating frictionless experiences in both shops and distribution centers. Notably, 60 of the top 100 global retailers and 50 percent of the top 100 e-commerce retailers rely on Honeywell's automated material handling solutions.
Mehul shares insights on how Honeywell Technologies is helping retailers digitize their processes, offering a unified shopping experience across all channels. This digital transformation is not just about technology; it's about enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. We delve into the role of automated solutions in retail, discussing how they optimize workflows, boost worker productivity, and allow employees to focus on more impactful tasks like customer service.
Further into our conversation, we explore how automation and autonomy are crucial to creating a frictionless retail experience. Mehul provides real-life examples of retailers successfully implementing Honeywell solutions, showcasing measurable operations and customer satisfaction improvements.
Lastly, Mehul highlights Honeywell's collaborative approach with vendors, suppliers, and customers. This synergy drives innovation and creates solutions that effectively address their unique challenges. With a proven track record, low total cost of ownership, and integration of the latest technology, Honeywell is a preferred choice for many top global retailers.
Join us in this fascinating episode as we uncover the layers of retail innovation and the transformative impact of Honeywell's technologies in creating seamless, efficient, and customer-centric shopping experiences.
Today, I'm thrilled to have Aviv Cohen, the Chief Marketing Officer of cybersecurity unicorn Pentera, join us for a fascinating discussion on a topic that's crucial yet often overlooked: educating the next generation about cybersecurity.
In this episode, Aviv and I dive into his unique initiative – the creation of a children's book titled "Castle Defenders: What Do Cyber Parents Do?" This Amazon #1 Bestseller is not just a book; it's a movement towards making cybersecurity a household conversation. Aviv shares the inspiration behind this innovative approach to educating children about the digital world and the importance of online safety.
We start our conversation by exploring Aviv's role at Pentera, a category leader in Automated Security Validation. Pentera's platform is pivotal in enabling organizations to consistently test the integrity of their cybersecurity defenses, a mission that Aviv is deeply passionate about.
The core of our discussion, however, revolves around "Castle Defenders." Aviv explains how he managed to distill complex cybersecurity concepts into a format that's not only digestible for children but also engaging and educational. We delve into how this book serves as a vital tool for parents – whether they're cybersecurity professionals or not – to educate their children about the nuances and dangers of the internet.
Further into the episode, we discuss the broader implications of "Castle Defenders." Aviv and I ponder over the potential of such educational tools in inspiring future generations to pursue careers in cybersecurity. We agree that understanding and appreciating the work of cybersecurity professionals from a young age can foster a more secure digital future.
The conversation also touches upon the expansion of the "Castle Defenders" series, including exciting plans for an audiobook with multiple voices and translations into various languages. Aviv highlights the role of private companies like Pentera in public education, emphasizing the importance of early education and parental involvement in cybersecurity.
As we wrap up, Aviv shares insights into Pentera's mission and its impact on the cybersecurity landscape. With thousands of security professionals and service providers globally relying on Pentera for guidance in remediation and closing security gaps, Aviv's insights are invaluable for anyone interested in the current and future state of cybersecurity.
Welcome back to Tech Talks Daily! In today's episode, we're venturing into the innovative world of IoT with Neil Bosworth from Telit Cinterion, the largest western provider pioneering IoT innovation. Telit Cinterion is known for its award-winning and highly secure IoT solutions, modules, and services, catering to the industry's top brands. Our conversation today revolves around the transformative impact of IoT in two critical areas: Electric Vehicle (EV) charging and smart metering.
First, we delve into the integral role of IoT in reshaping the EV charging landscape. Neil sheds light on how cellular connectivity is crucial in providing reliable charging services. He explains how Telit Cinterion's expertise plays a pivotal role in this transformation, ensuring that EV charging is not just accessible but also efficient and dependable.
We then tackle the challenges faced by EV charging stations, including revenue losses and reputational damage due to unreliable or dysfunctional charging points. Neil reveals how Telit Cinterion mitigates these risks by offering robust solutions like SIM cards and industrial connectivity. He also discusses the tools they provide for managing the connectivity of charge points, highlighting the importance of reliability and security in this rapidly growing sector.
A significant part of our discussion is dedicated to the revolution of e-SIM technology. Neil explains how this innovation eliminates the need for physical SIM cards, simplifying the management of mobile network operator profiles. He emphasizes the importance of staying abreast of technological advancements and network operator strategies to ensure long-term, effective connectivity solutions for IoT devices.
Moving to smart metering, Neil and I explore the benefits these devices bring to grid management, energy efficiency, and customer engagement. We discuss how secure and reliable connectivity is essential for smart meters to function effectively, and how this technology is revolutionizing the way we manage and consume energy.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the profound impact of IoT in our daily lives and its potential to reshape industries. Neil Bosworth's insights provide a deep dive into how Telit Cinterion is leading the charge in harnessing IoT for a smarter, more connected world.
Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Michaela Ternasky-Holland, an Emmy and Webby award-winning director renowned for her groundbreaking work in immersive and interactive storytelling. Michaela's expertise in XR (Extended Reality) and the metaverse has positioned her as a leading voice in using technology for social impact.
In this episode, Michaela shares her journey as an XR/metaverse creator, consultant, and speaker. Her work, featured by prestigious brands and organizations like Disney, TIME, Forbes, and the Tribeca Film Festival, focuses on creative strategy and impact production. We delve into how she leverages VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), and XR for purpose-driven projects, addressing global issues like nuclear weapons and gun violence and advocating for diversity in storytelling.
Michaela discusses her recent project, "MAHAL," a VR film that was a finalist for the VR Film of the Year. This film exemplifies her commitment to championing underrepresented voices and cultures. We explore the nuances of creating impactful educational experiences using VR and AR and how these technologies can evoke emotional responses and drive real-world change.
Michaela emphasizes the need for equitable distribution of resources and opportunities, working with international organizations to promote global engagement in XR. We also touch upon radical inclusivity and community involvement in XR technologies, discussing the potential for behavior change through immersive VR experiences.
Further into our discussion, Michaela shared insights into the technical challenges of creating VR content using tools like Oculus Quill. She highlighted the potential of XR technologies in promoting mental well-being and mindfulness while acknowledging the need for caution regarding their impact on the brain.
As we look towards the future, Michaela expresses her interest in generative AI and developing clean, sustainable technology. Our conversation also covers the broader implications of technology on the environment and society.
Michaela's journey is not just about technology; it's about empowering voices and creating meaningful change. Her story is an inspiration to anyone interested in the transformative power of XR and the responsibility that comes with it.
Charlie Robertson and Harry Simmonds from Studio Elros join me on Tech Talks Daily. Studio Elros isn't just another venture studio; it's a hub where world-class inventors and forward-thinking organizations converge to co-create products and startups.
Their mission? To foster positive change for people, the environment, and communities. This episode takes us on a journey from the West Midlands to Edinburgh and New Zealand, illustrating the power of curiosity and uncertainty in driving innovation.
Charlie and Harry share the fascinating origin story of Studio Elros, including their serendipitous meeting while walking the length of New Zealand. This adventure marked the beginning of their partnership and laid the foundation for a venture studio driven by a passion for exploration and a commitment to making a meaningful impact.
We delve into Studio Elros' unique partnership model, focusing on building relationships with organizations to create products that genuinely move the world forward. The duo discusses their approach to selecting projects, emphasizing their passion for initiatives that align with their core values.
Harry brings insights from his experience at Apple, shedding light on how big tech influences smaller innovation hubs. We also explore the studio's sustainability and environmental focus with a fascinating dive into one of their projects on algae farming. This example underscores their commitment to sustainability and showcases how technology can be leveraged for environmental good.
As educators in AI, ML, and product design, Charlie and Harry emphasize the importance of sustainable focus in these fields. They believe in nurturing a culture of open-minded thinkers and builders dedicated to designing products that solve problems and contribute positively to our world.
This episode is a testament to the power of curiosity, serendipity, and openness to new ideas and opportunities. It intertwines life, technology, the universe, and everything in between, reminding us that a human story is at the heart of every technological advancement.
Join us on this inspiring journey with Charlie Robertson and Harry Simmonds from Studio Elros and discover how technology, combined with human creativity and a vision for a better world, can lead to extraordinary outcomes.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we discuss the evolving world of data and analytics with Julie Smith, the director of data and analytics at Alation, a global leader in data intelligence. With over thirty years of experience in the data industry, Julie offers a unique perspective on its transformation and the role of women in this traditionally male-dominated field.
Our conversation with Julie centers around the critical theme of a people-led data transformation. She believes there is no 'one size fits all' approach to data governance and emphasizes the importance of considering the diverse needs and perspectives of people involved in these processes. Julie's insights are precious for organizations looking to balance the technical aspects of data governance with the human elements that drive its success.
Julie also discusses her journey as a woman in the tech industry, highlighting the barriers that still exist for women aspiring to succeed in data and tech roles. Despite the progress made, Julie acknowledges the need for greater diversity and inclusion in the field. Her experiences provide valuable lessons and inspiration for women navigating their careers in tech and data.
Much of our discussion focuses on the importance of effective communication in data management and governance. Julie highlights how data intelligence is revolutionizing various industries, from retail giants like Sainsbury's to energy companies like Vattenfall. She stresses the need for flexibility in data transformation strategies, considering organizational culture and scale factors.
For those aspiring to build a career in tech and data, Julie offers sage advice. She emphasizes the importance of building confidence, the power of networking, and the value of staying true to one's authentic self. Julie's anecdote about a humorous mishap with a sat-nav on a work trip is a light-hearted reminder of the importance of human input and context in our increasingly technology-driven world.
Join us in this enlightening episode as Julie Smith shares her seasoned insights on data governance, the data industry's evolution, and women's empowerment in tech. Whether you're a data professional, aspiring to enter the field, or simply interested in the intersection of technology and human dynamics, this episode is packed with wisdom and inspiration.
In this compelling episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am thrilled to host James Stanger, Chief Technology Evangelist at CompTIA, the world's leading non-profit provider of vendor-neutral IT certifications. Our conversation offers a panoramic view of the current landscape in cybersecurity skills and training, addressing critical issues and emerging trends in the tech industry.
We kick off the episode by discussing the significance of IT certifications, especially cybersecurity. James provides valuable insights into how these certifications serve as benchmarks of achievement and play a crucial role in expanding the employment horizon for those aspiring to enter this dynamic field.
Diving deeper, we explore the benefits of apprenticeships in tech. James shares compelling statistics from the National Apprenticeship Service, highlighting how apprenticeships improve staff retention and offer a practical, hands-on approach to learning and skill development. This segment is particularly enlightening for businesses considering the integration of apprenticeship programs.
The conversation then shifts to the pressing issue of the UK's growing cybersecurity skills gap. James offers his expert perspective on this impact on businesses and the necessary steps to mitigate these challenges. We discuss CompTIA's role in this scenario, focusing on its comprehensive training platform and the resources and certifications it offers for individuals pursuing a tech career.
Much of our discussion is dedicated to the strategic advantages and potential risks of open source in today's enterprise environment. James emphasizes the importance of effective communication, understanding the intricate relationship between business and technology, and implementing data-driven approaches in cybersecurity training programs.
As we delve into the future of tech and training, James highlights the importance of developing a robust technical foundation and digital fluency. We discuss the evolving role of AI in the workplace, stressing the need to view AI as a collaborator rather than a replacement and how it can be utilized to automate mundane tasks, freeing humans to focus on creative and interpretive thinking.
This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone interested in the intersections of technology, cybersecurity, and workforce development. Based on his extensive experience and leadership roles in the tech community, James Stanger's expertise provides a unique and authoritative perspective on these critical topics.
In this enlightening episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Neill Smith, Head of Infrastructure at the Agricultural Economy Directorate for the Scottish Government. We delve into the intricate journey of the Scottish Government's transition towards a more digital and cloud-centric approach. This episode offers a unique perspective on how a significant arm of the government, responsible for disbursing around $1 billion in subsidies to farmers, is navigating the complex landscape of modern technology.
Neill Smith shares his insights on the challenges and opportunities presented by cloud migration, emphasizing the importance of understanding and adapting to the specific needs of each workload. He sheds light on the common misconceptions about cloud-first strategies and the importance of a nuanced approach in public sector digital transformation.
We also explore the broader implications of this shift, including the rising expectations of citizens for digital services, the challenges of cloud skills shortages, and the importance of diversity in tech to foster innovative solutions. Neill's perspective on the role of culture and people in driving technological change is particularly thought-provoking.
Furthermore, we discuss the Scottish Government's commitment to sustainability and how technology is being leveraged to promote greener farming practices. Neill highlights the use of cutting-edge technologies like AI and satellite imagery in agriculture, showcasing how these innovations can lead to more efficient and environmentally friendly practices.
As we delve into the future of application delivery and the vision for a more digital government, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in how technology is reshaping the public sector. Neill Smith's expertise and experience offer invaluable insights into the journey of modernizing government services and the strategic deployment of cloud services.
Join us for this episode of Tech Talks Daily, where we uncover the layers of digital transformation in the public sector and the visionary leadership driving this change.
About Neill Smith:
Neill Smith is a renowned expert in Cloud, Virtualization, Linux, and Middleware. As the Head of Infrastructure at The Scottish Government (ARE Directorate), he brings a wealth of experience and knowledge. A respected figure in the tech community, Neill has spoken at major technical conferences like AWS re:Invent, VMworld, and Gartner Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies. His insights into the intersection of technology, government, and industry are invaluable for understanding the future of digital governance.
Join me for an insightful conversation with Mary Fratto Rowe, the newly appointed Chief Customer Officer at Navisite. With over three decades of experience in customer success and leadership, Mary brings a wealth of knowledge on transforming customer success organizations and driving business growth through exceptional customer experiences.
In this episode, Mary discusses the evolving role of the Chief Customer Officer and how it's becoming increasingly pivotal in aligning company strategies with customer needs and expectations. She shares her vision for Navisite's customer experience, emphasizing the importance of building strong, honest relationships and the implementation of strategic programs like executive sponsor programs and customer advisory boards.
We explore the concept of a customer-centric organization, delving into how such an orientation can drive a company's growth and success. They discuss the significance of a robust customer success program in increasing revenues, profitability, and shareholder return, especially in today's challenging business environment.
Mary also touches on the exciting potential of AI in enhancing customer-facing teams and the future of support portals. She envisions a more intelligent and helpful system that empowers customers to find answers more efficiently. The episode concludes with Mary reflecting on the influences in her career, particularly highlighting Maria Martinez's impact on her professional journey.
In this electrifying episode, I plug into the world of electric vehicle (EV) charging with Dan O'Shea, VP of Business Development at ABB E-mobility. With over a decade of experience in EV charging infrastructure and a finger on the pulse of public charging and utilities, Dan brings an invaluable technologist’s perspective to the table.
ABB E-mobility, a global leader in EV charging solutions, boasts the highest uptime and the largest installed base of DC fast chargers in the market. Dan discusses the company's vertically integrated offerings, including a wide portfolio of AC and DC charging hardware, digital services, and advanced energy and fleet management solutions. He highlights how critical cloud-based connectivity enables ABB to provide round-the-clock remote monitoring and diagnostics, ensuring reliability and availability.
We explore the pressing question of whether EV charging infrastructure can keep pace with the anticipated growth fueled by government investment. They delve into the role of fleet electrification in the broader context of the EV revolution and how it fits into the big picture of sustainable transportation.
The conversation shifts to the best practices for ensuring charging reliability and uptime in public spaces. Dan shares insights on the importance of robust infrastructure, the integration of smart technology, and the need for continuous innovation to meet the demands of an ever-growing EV market.
Furthermore, they discuss the pivotal role of utilities in achieving industry-wide reliability and the further adoption of EVs. Dan emphasizes the collaborative efforts required between various stakeholders to create a seamless and user-friendly charging experience for EV owners.
This episode is a deep dive into the technological advancements and strategic thinking required to expand and enhance the public EV charging infrastructure. Listeners will gain a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the journey towards a fully electrified future.
Some often view Quantum computing as a futuristic concept. But Tony Uttley brings it into the present, discussing its real-world applications and the transformative impact it's already having across various sectors. From enhancing cybersecurity with advanced encryption methods to driving innovation in finance, pharmaceuticals, and materials development, quantum computing is not just a theoretical marvel but a practical tool reshaping our world.
Tony and I dive into the potential risks and rewards of investing in quantum computing. We tackle common misconceptions, emphasizing that quantum computing is more than a theoretical concept; it's a burgeoning field demonstrating tangible benefits and capabilities across diverse industries.
A significant focus of our conversation revolves around the critical role of quantum computing in cybersecurity. We discuss how quantum computing addresses sophisticated threats and the importance of preparing for the quantum leap in data protection and encryption.
One of the unique aspects of Tony's approach at Quantinuum is the integration of a dedicated physics department within the company. This strategic decision allows for tapping into the expertise of leading experts across various fields, fostering an environment of innovation and cutting-edge research.
As we look towards the future, Tony shares insights on the upcoming milestones in quantum computing, including surpassing classical simulation capabilities and the emergence of applications that will tangibly impact our daily lives. He emphasizes the importance of staying informed and engaged with the advancements in quantum computing, inviting listeners to explore more through the Quantinuum website.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the current state and future potential of quantum computing. Join us as we unravel the complexities of this revolutionary technology and its implications for our world today and tomorrow.
In an era where cloud breaches are not just risks but realities, I sit down with Liat Hayun, co-founder of Eureka Security and a vanguard in the cybersecurity domain, on this episode of Tech Talks Daily. Liat, with a decorated background from the Israeli Cyber Command to Palo Alto Networks, and now at the helm of Eureka Security, brings a wealth of experience and a track record of innovation to the table.
The episode kicks off with Liat sharing her journey as a female tech leader and entrepreneur. She reflects on her pivotal roles, from her service in the IDF, which earned her the Israel Defense Prize, to leading the production of Cortex XDR at Palo Alto Networks. Liat offers insights into the growth opportunities and learnings from her transition from on-prem to cloud solutions and the nuances of building a threat hunting team.
As the conversation progresses, we delve into the evolution of data security. They dissect the challenges businesses face in securing data in the cloud and how Eureka's distinctive approach—centered on data discovery, comprehension, and management—addresses these issues.
The importance of data management and access control is underscored, with Liat emphasizing the critical role these play in protecting customer data, maintaining reputation, and ensuring regulatory compliance. They explore how understanding and mitigating data risks is a continuous process, vital for the health of any organization.
We also touch upon the strategic value of engaging with early-stage startups, especially in the current economic climate, for tailored security solutions. They discuss real-world use cases where Eureka Security's solutions have empowered businesses to not only meet compliance requirements but also to harness new technologies effectively.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I enjoy a thought-provoking conversation with Projjal Ghatak, the innovative mind behind OnLoop, a platform that's pioneering the space of Collaborative Team Development (CTD). Projjal, with his rich background from Uber to Accenture and his academic stint at Stanford GSB, brings a disruptive approach to traditional performance management.
The dialogue opens with an exploration of OnLoop's mission to transform how hybrid teams are assessed and developed. Projjal shares his decade-long frustration with outdated enterprise performance tools and how it fueled his dedication to empowering the world's 1 billion knowledge workers.
We dive into the nuances of managing team productivity, discussing the critical need for managers to maintain visibility on their team's capacity to perform. They dissect the concept of shared clarity on business and personal goals, and the importance of building habits around frequent and constructive feedback.
A significant highlight of the conversation is the discussion on the redundancy of writing performance summaries in the digital age. Projjal suggests that generative AI could streamline this process, although user feedback on this innovative approach remains to be seen.
The challenges and benefits of managing hybrid teams take center stage as Projjal acknowledges the complexities of remote work, from reduced accountability to the necessity of finding effective management solutions. They agree that hybrid work is here to stay, underscoring the need for tools that support this enduring shift.
Feedback's role in professional growth is also a focal point, with Projjal introducing 'On Loopers', an app designed to facilitate effective feedback exchange. They touch upon the value of diverse global teams in creating universally relevant products.
Closing the episode, Projjal emphasizes the importance of self-education and coaching, advocating for learning through various channels, including podcasts. This discussion is not just a deep dive into the mechanics of CTD but also a testament to the power of innovation in unlocking team potential.
I explore the psychological underpinnings of the startup world with Yael Daniely, a seasoned startup psychologist and co-founder therapist. Yael brings to the table a unique blend of clinical expertise and intensive research focused on the mental and emotional well-being of founders and their teams.
The conversation opens with Yael discussing the common psychological barriers that startup founders face. From the specter of burnout to the pervasive stress and fear of failure, Yael unpacks the personal experiences and triggers that can hinder founders' professional journeys. With 70% of her portfolio successfully moving on to their next funding round, Yael's approach to transforming vulnerability into strength is not just theory but proven practice.
As a therapist who specializes in co-founder relationships, Yael sheds light on the complex dynamics that can make or break the startup's leadership. She stresses the importance of personal relational resumes, psychological contracts, and the necessity of regular, open communication to navigate the highs and lows of startup life.
We also explore the essential factors that contribute to a healthy co-founder relationship. Awareness, understanding, and embracing the challenges of growth are discussed as cornerstones for fostering emotional health and resilience among founders.
Yael also paints a vivid picture of the startup environment's unique stresses and challenges, where founders often grapple with intense responsibility and anxiety for their venture's survival. She shares early signs of burnout and advocates for a holistic approach to mental health, which includes physical self-care, building a robust support system, and strategies for reframing thoughts and emotions.
This episode is a must-listen for founders, co-founders, and anyone involved in the startup ecosystem who is looking to build resilience, improve performance, and maintain emotional health in the face of intense entrepreneurial demands.
In today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I'm thrilled to bring you an engaging conversation straight from the bustling halls of VMware Explore 2023. It's here, amidst the center of the multi-cloud universe, where I had the fortunate chance to bump into Andy Corcoran, the UK&I Channel Sales Director at VMware.
Known for his fervent passion for leveraging technology to drive positive business outcomes, Andy brings a wealth of knowledge and insight into VMware's approach to multi-cloud innovation.
Our discussion kicks off with an in-depth look at VMware's partner program. Andy eloquently describes how this program is intricately designed to align with the evolving needs of both partners and customers in the cloud technology space. He emphasizes the importance of these partnerships in driving incremental business value, a testament to his meticulous approach in planning and executing business strategies.
As we delve deeper, Andy shares his insights on how VMware collaborates with key partners to address the diverse and complex cloud technology needs of their customers. This collaboration, as he points out, is not just about delivering tailored solutions but also about ensuring that these solutions are effective and future-proof. It's a glimpse into the symbiotic relationships that VMware nurtures and values in its ecosystem.
A significant part of our conversation revolves around the appeal of VMware's technology, particularly VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). Andy explains why an increasing number of customers are turning towards VMware's offerings to enhance their business operations. It's not just about the technology itself, but also about the trust and reliability that VMware has cultivated over the years.
Data sovereignty, a key focus at this year's VMware Explore, is another critical topic we explore. Andy highlights the importance of data sovereignty for organizations and how VMware Sovereign Cloud assists in ensuring this crucial aspect. He doesn't shy away from discussing the risks associated with the lack of a defined data sovereignty policy or supporting technologies, underscoring the urgency and importance of this issue in today's digital landscape.
Private AI, another significant theme at VMware Explore 2023, is also a topic we touch upon. Andy provides a clear and concise explanation of what Private AI entails, integrating it into the broader vision of VMware. He navigates the complexities of balancing the benefits of AI with privacy and compliance rules, a challenge that many organizations face today.
As our conversation nears its end, Andy shares his thoughts on the future - specifically, the challenges and opportunities he foresees for IT and Channel partners in 2024. His forward-looking insights offer a glimpse into what the future holds for the industry, making it a must-listen segment for anyone keen on staying ahead in the rapidly evolving world of cloud technology.
This episode is a special broadcast live from VMware Explore in Barcelona. This event is at the forefront of guiding businesses on their journey to multi-cloud, and today, we're diving into a topic that's on everyone's mind: the evolving priorities of C-suites regarding cloud innovation.
Martin Hosken, VMware's Chief Technologist for Cloud in EMEA, joins me in this insightful discussion. Martin is a driving force behind VMware's technology vision and a recognized thought leader in the Hybrid Cloud and Multi-Cloud communities. A rich technology strategy background and a deep industry understanding shape his insights.
Alongside Martin, we're joined by Gavin Jolliffe, CEO and Co-Founder of Xtravirt. Gavin's expertise lies in steering a modern consulting and managed services firm committed to unlocking the full potential of cloud and business technologies for its clients. His perspective is crucial in understanding how consulting services are shaping the future of cloud strategies.
In our conversation, we delve into the nuances of cloud innovation from the C-Suite perspective. We discuss the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities businesses face in the cloud domain. Martin and Gavin share their insights on why financial and technical expertise, particularly in FinOps, is becoming increasingly crucial yet challenging to acquire in today's market.
We also touch upon the current state of the labor market in cloud recruitment. Understanding what skills are in demand and how traditional cloud skills like DevOps are evolving in the present landscape provides a clearer picture of the industry's direction.
Moreover, our discussion extends to the practical aspects of cloud application and management. We explore how businesses can gauge their cloud applications' and strategies' value and returns. This includes understanding the metrics and signals that indicate successful cloud implementation and value acceleration.
Lastly, we wrap up with some forward-looking advice for businesses seeking to harness the full benefits of cloud computing across their organizations. Martin and Gavin offer their perspectives on how companies can navigate the complexities of cloud adoption and maximize its advantages.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Ken Timsit, Managing Director of Cronos Labs, the driving force behind the Cronos chain ecosystem's remarkable growth. Cronos, known for being the first EVM-compatible layer-1 blockchain network built on the Cosmos SDK, has seen a staggering 600% increase in on-chain transactions and a quadrupling of its user base, despite the market's volatility.
Ken, who has been instrumental in this exponential growth since joining Cronos in November 2021, shares his experiences and the strategic moves that have led to the flourishing of over 500 dApps within the Cronos ecosystem. He sheds light on the Cronos Accelerator Program's second cohort, emphasizing the program's focus on AI and its implications for the future of blockchain applications.
Listeners will gain a deep understanding of how Cronos is nurturing its ecosystem, with Ken discussing the accelerator program's contribution to the chain's success. He elaborates on Cronos' commitment to building a blockchain with utility at its core, aiming to serve an addressable user base of 80 million, with particular attention to GameFi, DeFi, SocialFi, and infrastructure.
We also venture into the broader industry outlook, examining the exciting intersection of AI and blockchain technology. They discuss the implications for the future of decentralized finance and blockchain games, as well as the potential for these technologies to redefine social interactions and business models in the digital age.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Rob Whitehead, the visionary co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Improbable and M2, who has been at the forefront of pioneering interoperable virtual worlds. With a background that marries academic rigor from Cambridge University to the entrepreneurial zeal of the Web3 frontier, Rob offers a unique vantage point on the burgeoning metaverse landscape.
As the metaverse conversation gains renewed vigor, with recent milestones like Futureverse's $54 million funding round and the anticipation of new augmented reality headsets, we engage in a timely discussion about the resurgence of virtual spaces and their potential to revolutionize our digital interactions.
Rob shares his journey from the early inspirations drawn from Second Life to orchestrating the vast, interconnected realms of Improbable and M2, where thousands can converge in shared digital experiences. The duo delves into the potential of virtual spaces to transcend gaming, touching upon the integration of music, sports, and entertainment into the fabric of the metaverse.
The technical prowess of Improbable's Morpheus technology is brought to light, showcasing its ability to scale and deliver realism within these virtual worlds. Yet, the conversation is open to the ethical considerations, such as data privacy and the emerging role of governance in these spaces.
Looking to the horizon, we explore the concept of future-proofing the metaverse ecosystem. They discuss the role of generative AI as a transformative tool and the burgeoning influence of gaming and esports in shaping cultural trends.
This episode is not just a peek into Rob Whitehead's illustrious career but also a profound exploration of the metaverse's potential to create a new digital epoch. Listeners will gain insights into the challenges and opportunities of building a network of diverse, interoperable virtual worlds and the steps necessary to make these shared digital experiences a part of our everyday lives.
Cindi Howson, Chief Data Strategy Officer at ThoughtSpot joins me in an enlightening episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. With a career spanning over three decades in the analytics space, Cindi brings a wealth of knowledge and insight into the evolving world of business intelligence (BI) and the revolutionary impact of generative AI.
In this episode, we delve into the transformative effects of generative AI on BI, discussing the significant advancements since the advent of OpenAI's GPT 3.5. They explore the nuanced shifts in data team roles and the emergence of new specializations, underscoring the importance of adapting to a rapidly changing landscape.
The conversation takes a deep dive into the critical role of data literacy in businesses today. Cindi addresses the future of AI-powered analytics and the sectors poised for disruption. They don't shy away from the tough questions, tackling the ethical concerns of AI's integration into our daily decision-making processes and advocating for a balance of innovation with transparency and trust.
As ThoughtSpot's mission to democratize data takes center stage,we also discuss the hurdles of cultural change within organizations. They emphasize the importance of design in crafting engaging and user-friendly data experiences, making analytics not just accessible but enjoyable for all users, regardless of technical expertise.
Beyond the insights, this episode also gives listeners a glimpse into Cindi's illustrious career and her contributions to the field of data and analytics. As a thought leader and advocate for women in tech and AI ethics, Cindi's perspectives are not just informative but also deeply inspiring.
Finally, Cindi shares 10 books on data, analytics, and AI that leaders should read in 2023
For years, IT and security have operated as separate entities within organizations, each with its own set of priorities and concerns. IT professionals often view security teams as the "Department of No," hindering progress and innovation. On the other hand, security teams see IT as reckless, prioritizing speed over safety. However, as digital transformation accelerates, the need for these two departments to collaborate has never been more critical.
Linh Lam, the Chief Information Officer at Jamf Software brings her expertise to the table, shedding light on the root causes of the tension between IT and security teams. She argues that this division is not just counterproductive but also detrimental to the organization's overall health. Linh outlines four key strategies to mend this fractured relationship: changing the culture of division, fostering early collaboration and communication, overcoming C-suite hierarchy issues, and adopting the CISO-as-risk-management-leader model.
During the podcast, Neil and Linh explore the negative impacts of poor communication and lack of collaboration between these two critical teams. They emphasize the importance of transparency, partnership, and joint planning to avoid unintended consequences and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of security initiatives.
The conversation also touches on the challenges of bridging the gap between IT and security, particularly the role of executive leadership in fostering collaboration and breaking down silos. Linh stresses the need for the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) to act as a risk management leader, elevating the conversation around security and educating the organization on its importance in achieving business objectives.
Towards the end, the discussion shifts to the challenge of balancing speed and security in IT initiatives. We both agree that collaboration between IT and security is essential for aligning roadmaps and understanding the risks and outcomes, thereby enabling a successful digital business transformation.
This episode offers a nuanced look at an issue that affects nearly every modern organization. It's a must-listen for CIOs, CISOs, and any digital technology leader looking to better understand how to harmonize the often conflicting agendas of IT and security teams for the greater good of the organization.
I sit down once again with Arsen Avakian, the Founder and CEO of Cooler Screens, a company that's revolutionizing the in-store retail experience. Arsen's innovative approach to retail media has garnered significant attention and support from industry giants across retail, consumer products, and technology sectors.
Retail media, the practice of showing personalized ads to consumers both online and in physical stores, has been gaining traction. It's a win-win for both retailers and consumers. Retailers get to monetize their platforms, and consumers receive personalized ads based on their preferences. The scale of this is enormous, with projections indicating that retail media advertising could reach $125.7 billion by 2023 and even outpace TV ad revenue by 2028.
Cooler Screens is taking this concept a step further by bringing digital ads right to the store aisles. Imagine walking into a grocery store and seeing smart screens instead of traditional cooler doors. These screens not only display ads but also provide product details and can even change what's displayed based on real-time data. It's like having the internet on a cooler door.
During the podcast, we delve into how the pandemic has accelerated the need for businesses to adapt and innovate. They discuss the evolution of retail media and how technology like Cooler Screens can provide valuable data analytics and insights for retailers and brands. The conversation also touches on the importance of consumer privacy, with Arsen highlighting his company's focus on understanding consumer intent without compromising personal data.
Arsen explains that Cooler Screens' algorithm is designed for a one-to-many experience, eliminating the need for personal identity data. This approach has attracted partnerships with industry giants like PepsiCo and Kraft Heinz, driving incremental sales and brand equity for these companies.
Looking ahead, Arsen explores the future of retail media, discussing its potential to surpass traditional advertising mediums like TV. They also talk about how Cooler Screens is contributing to sustainability and social responsibility in retail. The episode wraps up with a discussion on the importance of customer experience as the foundation for technological advancements in the retail industry, and a mention of an upcoming innovation summit featuring big tech companies like Microsoft and NVIDIA.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I explore the fascinating intersection of human labor and artificial intelligence with Kit Cox, the Founder and CTO of Enate. Kit's journey is a compelling narrative that many in the tech industry can relate to. After years of working on bespoke automation projects for large-scale enterprises, he reached a pivotal moment in 2017. He realized that the technology he had been developing had matured to a point where it could effectively mimic human actions. This led him to a crossroads: should he continue down the path of custom projects, or pivot to create a platform that could manage a hybrid workforce of both humans and digital workers?
Choosing the latter, Kit founded Enate with a straightforward yet ambitious vision—to help businesses navigate the future of work by organizing their operations and maximizing efficiency. Enate is a no-code process orchestration platform that allows work from multiple sources to flow into a single system. It enables teams to build simple workflows and manage hybrid workforces, all while maintaining complete visibility and governance. The result? Businesses that implement Enate's solutions can achieve up to a 20% increase in efficiency.
During the podcast, Kit and I delve into the mechanics of service delivery, breaking it down into three essential components: understanding customer requests, gathering the necessary information, and executing the task. Enate serves as a linchpin in this process, automating certain tasks while seamlessly involving human expertise where it's most needed.
However, the journey to this point hasn't been without its challenges. Kit opens up about the role of external funding in scaling Enate. Investments from angel investors and venture capitalists have been instrumental in hiring top-tier talent and aligning the company's objectives for rapid growth. He also shares case studies, including one involving TMF, that showcase how Enate has helped major brands globalize their operations across multiple countries.
One of the most intriguing parts of our conversation revolves around the challenges of standardizing services across diverse geographies, each with its unique laws and regulations. Kit discusses how Enate employs various automation technologies, such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), and intelligent document processing, to navigate these complexities.
As we look toward the future, Kit and I examine the role of AI in different job functions. We both agree that while AI has enormous potential, the importance of human validation and correction cannot be overstated, especially in service delivery environments. We also touch upon the rapid advancements in AI technology, the inevitable obsolescence of older models, and the shift towards using more general models like GPT for a broad range of applications.
In an enlightening episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sits down with Oleg Fomenko, Co-Founder of Sweat Economy, to explore the transformative power of technology in the realms of health, well-being, and economic productivity. Sweat Economy, a top 4 dApp on DappRadar with over 7 million users, is at the forefront of catalyzing cultural change by intersecting crypto and health. Built on the NEAR protocol, the platform is making strides in mainstreaming Web3 technology while rewarding physical activity.
The episode kicks off with Oleg discussing the high-level mission behind Sweat Economy: to establish a movement economy that realizes the value of physical activities. The platform aims to inspire a healthier, wealthier planet by rewarding all forms of movement. Oleg delves into the 'Move-to-Earn' concept, explaining how incentivizing physical activity not only enhances individual well-being but also contributes to broader economic productivity by lowering healthcare costs.
As the conversation progresses, we explore the challenges and opportunities in performance analysis while safeguarding data privacy in the fitness industry. Oleg emphasizes the importance of user privacy and outlines how Sweat Economy is navigating this complex landscape. He also shares insights into the role of the NEAR Protocol in supporting their robust community and enabling seamless, low-cost transactions.
The dialogue then shifts to the intriguing topic of bringing the Web2 user experience to Web3. Oleg discusses the need for user-friendly products that engage the mass market and how Sweat Economy is working to make this transition smooth for its millions of users. He also touches on the value of building a marketplace and enhancing brand visibility to global communities.
Towards the end of the episode, Oleg shares a book that has inspired him and a favorite song to be added to the Tech Talks Daily Spotify Playlist, providing a personal touch and the story behind his choices.
This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, health, and economic productivity. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a health-conscious individual, or someone intrigued by the potential of blockchain technology, this conversation with Oleg Fomenko offers a nuanced perspective on the challenges and opportunities in these interconnected fields.
In a timely episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I welcome back Oliver Linch, the CEO of Bittrex Global, to discuss the company's recent settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This episode comes on the heels of the SEC's charge against Bittrex Global for allegedly operating an unregistered exchange in the U.S., making it a crucial conversation for anyone interested in the evolving regulatory landscape of the crypto industry.
We dive into the rise of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and the confusion surrounding them. We discuss the urgent need for clear regulations in the crypto industry and express hope for a hybrid solution that marries the best aspects of blockchain technology with traditional finance.
As the conversation progresses, Oliver shares his insights on the recent settlement between Bittrex Global and the SEC. He underscores the importance of proper legislative processes and regulation clarity, advocating for global standards that can unlock the full potential of regulated crypto. Oliver's perspective is precious given his firsthand experience in navigating these complex regulatory waters.
The discussion then shifts to the European Union's adoption of markets in crypto assets regulation. We also explore the significance of aligning crypto regulations with traditional finance principles to gain institutional trust. They also touch on the unique challenges that blockchain companies face in condensing decades of financial learnings into a short period, emphasizing the need for patience and perspective.
Oliver also discusses the strategic importance of engaging with the U.S. market despite its challenging regulatory environment. He outlines Bittrex Global's focus on delivering a straightforward and highly regulated spot exchange and discusses partnerships to enhance security and regulation in the industry.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone keen on understanding the complexities and opportunities in the regulated crypto space, offering a nuanced and informed perspective that only a seasoned industry leader like Oliver Linch can provide.
Today, I enjoyed a conversation with Az Raj, EMEA CMO of Merkle, and the UK & Ireland CMO of Dentsu. With over two decades of experience in the digital industry, Az is a recognized thought leader and a member of prestigious boards and committees, including the Forbes Communications Council and the Data & Marketing Association (DMA) customer engagement committee.
This episode offers a deep dive into the evolving landscape of marketing, focusing on consumer-centric experiences, agility, and the role of technology in shaping customer interactions. The conversation starts with Azlan introducing himself and his unique approach to marketing, which emphasizes solving problems over traditional campaigns. He discusses the shift from product-centric to consumer-focused experiences, citing examples of businesses that have successfully deviated from conventional strategies.
Az underscores the importance of agility in today's fast-paced digital age, challenging the old adage of "Ready, Aim, Fire" by suggesting that sometimes it's more effective to "Fire, Ready, and then Aim," especially when capitalizing on emerging trends.
We also delve into the key technologies and methods employed at Merkle and Dentsu to understand and address customer pain points in real-time. We also discuss tools like brand leadership mapping, consumer panels for understanding motivations, and Mercury technology for authentic customer understanding. The conversation also touches on the ethical considerations in data collection and customer experience, emphasizing the importance of transparency, trust, and prioritizing consumer value.
As the discussion progresses, the focus shifts to the importance of outcomes over functionality in marketing, particularly in the tech space. Az introduces a new AI tool called Artemis that predicts the performance of creative assets, highlighting the emerging role of AI in marketing. He also challenges the traditional notion of strategy, arguing that in a rapidly evolving business landscape, CMOs must be agile and flexible.
I sit down with Nicole Kivel, Managing Director of Northern Europe at Criteo, to dissect the burgeoning field of retail media. Nicole, an early evangelist of retail media who successfully launched HookLogic Sponsored Products to the European market, brings a wealth of experience and insights to the table. The episode is a deep dive into the complexities, challenges, and opportunities that retail media presents in today's advertising landscape.
The conversation kicks off with Nicole and Neil discussing the pivotal role of in-store data for retailers. Nicole argues that this data can serve as a unique selling proposition, especially when competing with online behemoths like Amazon. She emphasizes that leveraging in-store behavior can make retailers stand out in a crowded media market, citing the UK as a strong player in this area with companies like Boots, Tesco, and Sainsbury’s all having robust loyalty programs.
As the dialogue progresses, the focus shifts to the need for standardization, transparency, and self-service capabilities in retail media. Nicole believes that these elements are crucial for attracting agency budgets and for the seamless integration of retail media within the broader advertising ecosystem. She and Neil delve into the importance of being easy to buy and enabling access to data while also protecting it. They highlight the need for retailers to move away from a 'walled garden' mentality to unlock greater value for both advertisers and retailers online.
The conversation then turns to the issue of fragmentation in the retail media landscape. Nicole points out that while the space is fiercely competitive with new entrants appearing all the time, it's crucial for retailers to present a unified front. She stresses the importance of common currencies, common ways of doing business, and a common language to ensure success. Failing to address this fragmentation, she warns, could cut 20% from the $42 billion on the table for retail media.
Towards the end of the episode, Nicole and Neil explore the balance between technological investment and human expertise in managing complex retail relationships. They discuss the importance of understanding customer data and loyalty schemes, and Nicole shares her belief that to capitalize on the golden opportunity that retail media presents, retailers need to embrace more standardized practices.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the evolving world of retail media. It offers a nuanced perspective on the challenges and opportunities in the field, making it a valuable resource for advertisers, retailers, and agencies alike.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I speak with Peter Pugh-Jones from Confluent, a company at the forefront of data infrastructure focusing on data in motion. This episode is a deep dive into the alarming rise of fraud in the UK, the complexities of data analysis for fraud detection, and the unique challenges faced by financial services organizations. The conversation is timely, given that over £600 million was stolen in the UK in the first half of 2022 alone due to fraud.
The discussion begins with the risks that financial services organizations face, particularly the reputational damage that can result from data breaches. Peter and Neil explore the proactive steps that can be taken to mitigate these risks. They discuss the simplification of architectures, the implementation of event-driven systems, and the creation of data products designed for better management and security.
The conversation then shifts to the concept of fusion centers. These specialized units amalgamate different types of data to gain actionable insights to combat fraud. Peter elaborates on how the evolution of technology in the banking industry is not just about enhancing security but also about enriching customer experiences through more accurate data analysis.
As the dialogue unfolds, Peter shares strategies for businesses to protect themselves better. He emphasizes the importance of early detection and discusses how adopting data streaming platforms like Confluent can be a game-changer in fraud prevention. Peter also delves into his methods for staying updated and educated, which include reading books, listening to podcasts, and drawing insights from various industries.
I sit down for a thought-provoking conversation with Kim Crawley, author of "Hacker Culture: A to Z." The discussion serves as a comprehensive guide to understanding the complexities of hacker culture, cybersecurity, and the ever-changing landscape of technology.
The episode begins with Kim demystifying the dark web, a term often laden with negative connotations. While it's true that the dark web is a breeding ground for illegal activities such as drug trafficking and cybercrime, Kim points out that it's also a refuge for political dissidents and whistleblowers. This perspective adds a layer of nuance to the conventional narrative, encouraging listeners to view the dark web as a more multifaceted domain.
As the conversation progresses, Kim expresses her reservations about the increasing demand for user identification on social media platforms like Twitter. She argues that such requirements could potentially infringe on the anonymity that many users rely on, particularly those who use these platforms as a means to speak out against oppressive regimes or to act as whistleblowers. This leads her to discuss her migration to alternative social media platforms like Mastodon and Blue Sky, which offer more privacy and less centralized control.
The dialogue then shifts to the historical aspects of computer programming. Kim highlights the seminal contributions of figures like Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace, and Margaret Hamilton, emphasizing that the field of technology is built on collective intelligence rather than individual genius. This segues into a discussion of Kim's other book, "Agriculture A to Z," which, despite its casual tone, underscores the importance of recognizing that groundbreaking technologies often have roots in collaborative efforts, including those originating from military projects.
Towards the end of the episode, the focus turns to the subject of self-education and continuous learning. Kim shares her personal learning methods, which include spending time online, reading books, and hands-on experimentation with technology. She stresses that learning is a natural process that can be undertaken by anyone, regardless of their background or previous education.
This episode with Kim Crawley is a masterclass in understanding the intricate world of hacker culture and cybersecurity. It challenges preconceived notions, offers fresh perspectives, and encourages a more nuanced understanding of technology's role in modern society. Whether you're a seasoned tech expert or a curious layperson, this conversation offers valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie at the intersection of technology, culture, and ethics.
The quest for efficiency is a never-ending journey in a rapidly evolving business landscape. I sit down with James-King Baskin, CEO and Founder of OutSource Kings, to delve into the intricacies of team efficiency, outsourcing, and the ever-evolving role of technology in the business world.
The conversation kicks off with a robust discussion on the challenges and misconceptions surrounding outsourcing. Neil and James debunk prevalent myths, notably the idea that outsourcing drains domestic job markets. On the contrary, they highlight how a lack of managerial bandwidth often limits the success of outsourced endeavors, emphasizing the need for services that are meticulously tailored to each client's unique demands.
As we pivot towards the transformative role of technology, the focus narrows on artificial intelligence (AI). We explore how AI has remarkably enriched the quality of questions businesses can ask, along with providing unprecedented access to actionable data. The conversation takes an unexpected yet fascinating turn towards the ethical and societal aspects of technology, spurred by a mention of AI-powered dogs that perform tasks—bringing shades of Black Mirror into the real world.
Furthering the technology talk, James shares insights about a programmable bionic robot dog equipped with visual recognition and machine learning capabilities. He finds it unsettling how quickly people are anthropomorphizing these robotic entities, treating them more like pets than machines. This raises imperative questions about our emotional investment in technology and the ethical dimensions that come with it.
Switching gears, James opens up about his philanthropic involvement, specifically his focus on people management for construction companies and organizing events like a kids' Halloween party. A man of many hats, James also divulges his affinity for iconic rock bands like Metallica and The Who, providing a refreshing breather from the tech-heavy conversation.
Wrapping up, the spotlight turns to James's book "Outsource Kings." In a gracious gesture, James extends an offer to send copies to interested listeners, encapsulating his commitment not just to efficient business but also to community building and knowledge sharing.
By the end of this riveting conversation, listeners will have been taken on a journey that not only demystifies complex topics like outsourcing and AI but also offers actionable insights to improve team efficiency and client satisfaction in a competitive marketplace.
In this thought-provoking episode, Neil sits down with Eric Helmer, CTO at Rimini Street, to delve deep into the labyrinthine world of IT infrastructures. As organizations invest heavily in new technologies and services, the question of value becomes increasingly complex. Are enterprises truly getting what they pay for, especially when dealing with a hodgepodge of on-premises, cloud, and hybrid systems?
Eric offers invaluable insights into the multifaceted challenges that IT leaders face as they continually integrate the 'next big thing' into their already complex technological frameworks. The conversation goes beyond the surface-level complexities to dissect the hidden costs of interoperability in hybrid IT systems. Here, both Neil and Eric emphasize the significance of planning for 'believability,' which encompasses extreme high availability, fault tolerance, and compliance with a labyrinth of regulations.
The duo also discuss the pitfalls of integrating siloed technologies without a strategic vision. Contrary to common assumptions, interoperability isn’t just about making disparate systems communicate; it's about orchestrating a symphony of moving parts in a way that adds value to the business. They stress the importance of evaluating emerging technologies based on a justified business case, advocating for a 'start small, prove value, then scale' approach.
Additionally, the conversation dives into the legal and ethical minefields surrounding compliance and security. It's not just about connecting systems seamlessly but ensuring that these connections don't become the weak links in an organization's security armor. Eric speaks to the role of open standards in promoting interoperability and the need for a robust ethical evaluation of AI technologies that handle sensitive data.
Lastly, Neil and Eric examine the precarious balance between leveraging third-party solutions for interoperability and being entirely dependent on vendors. They bring attention to the often-overlooked need for an exit plan and the continuous evaluation of available options in this fast-paced world of technological advancements.
For anyone interested in learning more about the complexities of IT interoperability or to reach out to Eric and his team, the best place to connect is through Rimini Street’s official website and social media channels. This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for IT leaders and business executives alike, providing actionable insights and strategies for navigating the complex landscape of modern IT infrastructures.
In this compelling episode, we welcome back Kevin Bocek, VP of Ecosystem and Community at Venafi, along with Matt Barker, Global Head of Cloud Native Services at the same company. The conversation couldn't be more timely. With the AI Act debate reaching new heights, and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly making statements that AI challenges our basic assumptions about defense and deterrence, the insights Kevin and Matt bring are invaluable.
Kevin introduces us to the groundbreaking concept of an identity-based "AI Kill Switch," a security measure that could be instrumental in making AI "safe and predictable by design," as James Cleverly emphasized at a recent UN meeting. The UK is gearing up to host the first global summit on AI, and Kevin argues that without incorporating identity into every line of code that makes up AI systems, principles of safety and predictability are mere pipe dreams. An identity-based approach can offer the kind of control and observability that could, for instance, thwart attempts to poison AI algorithms used for facial recognition on smartphones.
Matt Barker steps into the discussion with his expertise in open-source innovation. Drawing from a paper he recently authored for Open UK, Matt discusses the impact of AI on open-source development. He also delves into the potentially stifling effects of the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act on European innovation, highlighting lessons that the UK could learn to avoid similar setbacks.
Throughout the episode, the importance of open-source models in driving AI innovation stands out as a recurring theme. Matt, Kevin, and I also discuss the challenges and opportunities posed by EU regulations on open-source development. The conversation doesn't stop at AI and extends to other cloud-native technologies like Kubernetes and MLOps. The significance of these technologies in the current AI landscape is examined, along with the unique potential of applying identity management across both cloud-native and traditional IT environments.
As we wrap up, the episode leaves listeners with much to ponder. It serves as a deep dive into the complexities and intricacies of a future shaped by AI, identity management, and open-source technologies. Whether you're a business leader, a policymaker, or just a technology enthusiast, this episode offers a well-rounded understanding of the multi-dimensional challenges and opportunities at the intersection of these critical areas.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we delve into a subject of immense relevance to organizations across the European Union—the Network and Information Security Directive, commonly known as NIS2. Neil sits down with Arik Diamant, Principle Solution Architect EMEA at Claroty, to unpack this complex and transformative piece of legislation. Set to come into effect by October 2024, NIS2 aims to fortify the cybersecurity landscape of the European Union, mandating a higher level of resilience within organizations.
Arik brings a unique perspective to this conversation, advocating that for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), NIS2 is nothing short of a dream come true. He highlights how the directive forces organizations to meticulously lay out strategy objectives and incident response plans. But what truly stands out in this directive is the emphasis on information sharing and collaboration among organizations. This focus, Arik argues, is not just a step in the right direction, but a leap towards creating a fortified, collective cybersecurity environment.
Yet, the clock is ticking. Arik underscores the urgency for organizations to act swiftly to ensure they are in compliance with the new directive. Drawing a parallel with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), he observes that just like its predecessor, NIS2 is expected to have a sweeping impact on the business ecosystem. While GDPR focused on data protection and privacy, NIS2 takes a broader approach, targeting the overall cybersecurity infrastructure. This makes it a complex, yet welcome challenge for CISOs who are entrusted with not just safeguarding information but also ensuring a resilient cybersecurity framework.
One of the critical points of discussion in this episode revolves around financial planning. Arik explains that budget allocation is not just about throwing money at the problem; it requires strategic foresight to identify and prioritize key areas that align with NIS2 requirements. He warns against common pitfalls, emphasizing the need for meticulous planning, especially given the relatively short timeframe for compliance.
Moreover, the conversation takes an interesting turn when it shifts towards supply chain cybersecurity. NIS2 extends its reach beyond the organization, mandating a close examination of cybersecurity preparedness across the supply chain. This means that companies now need to consider not just their internal practices, but also how secure their external partnerships are. Arik provides valuable insights into how organizations can navigate this complex landscape, offering suggestions for collaborative strategies to enhance security measures.
In a notable comparison, Arik describes the introduction of NIS2 as akin to the advent of GDPR, particularly in the imposition of penalties for non-compliance. He calls attention to the onus of responsibility now placed on organizations, reiterating that failure to comply will not go unnoticed or unpunished.
As the episode winds down, I raise the topic of national cyber crisis management, asking Arik to envision the role national authorities will play in this new regulatory framework. Arik suggests that there is an opportunity for member states to learn from each other's experiences, thereby collectively raising the bar on cybersecurity standards across the European Union.
This episode serves as a comprehensive guide to understanding the multi-faceted elements of NIS2, providing actionable insights for organizations gearing up for the compliance deadline. From budgetary considerations to supply chain security, and from the role of national authorities to the penalties for non-compliance, the conversation with Arik Diamant leaves no stone unturned.
In this thought-provoking episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I explore the intersection of cryptocurrency, financial integrity, and socio-economic challenges with Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, Co-Founder & CSO of Ledn.
The conversation kicks off with an emotionally resonant look at Mauricio's origins in Venezuela. Witnessing the devastating effects of hyperinflation in his homeland, Mauricio shares how Bitcoin became not just an investment but a lifeline. His personal journey from Venezuela to Canada offers a visceral understanding of the grim realities that many people face in economically unstable countries, making this episode a must-listen for anyone interested in the human stories behind technological solutions.
Mauricio recounts how his firsthand experiences propelled him to co-found Ledn, a trailblazing digital currency lending company. By providing Bitcoin-backed loans with an emphasis on transparency and client control, Ledn has issued over $600 million worth of loans in 130 countries. Mauricio explains that this was a deliberate effort to help people like him get liquidity in stable currencies without having to sell off valuable assets like Bitcoin.
But Mauricio goes beyond the headlines to delve into the nuance of financial planning and asset management. He challenges conventional wisdom by discussing his realization that not all debt is detrimental. In a world where governments often rely on printing money rather than effective governance, asset-backed debt can be a smart financial strategy, especially during inflationary periods.
This line of discussion naturally segues into an analysis of Ledn's survival through the lending crisis of 2022. Mauricio contrasts Ledn's approach with that of other digital asset companies that fell by the wayside, attributing Ledn's resilience to an unwavering commitment to transparency, integrity, and sound financial planning.
The conversation takes a broader turn as Neil and Mauricio discuss the role of cryptocurrencies in enabling financial freedom across the globe. From Venezuela to Congo to Russia, they explore how digital assets can circumvent the failures of traditional banking systems, especially in countries grappling with economic and political instability.
As if navigating through economic collapse and industry crises weren't compelling enough, Mauricio also provides a glimpse into Ledn's future, discussing their new innovative products like DCNs and Growth Accounts. These products stand as a testament to Ledn's commitment to revolutionizing how we think about loaning and growing money in the digital age.
This episode is not just an examination of Bitcoin or digital lending; it is a compelling narrative that intertwines personal struggle, innovative solutions, and the universal quest for financial stability and freedom. It's an episode that bridges the gap between the potential of technology and the realities of the human condition, making it an essential listen for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, economics, and social justice.
In this engaging episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I sit down with Tom Monk, the Senior Director of Cloud Product Management at Navisite, to demystify the financial labyrinth that companies often encounter when transitioning to the cloud. The conversation kicks off with a deep dive into the concept of FinOps, a framework designed to bridge the often-siloed departments of finance and IT.
Tom Monk elucidates that adopting a FinOps framework is critical for businesses that wish to master the financial aspects of their cloud strategy. He argues that the practice transcends traditional departmental roles and mandates a collaborative approach to budgeting, forecasting, and parsing through often-confusing monthly billing. Far from being just another industry buzzword, FinOps emerges as an essential blueprint for responsible and effective cloud cost management.
Moving on, the discussion shifts to the necessity of integrating DevOps into business processes. Monk contends that automating common DevOps operations is not a luxury but a requirement in today's cloud-centric business environment. He shares that automating tasks such as build and deployment, unit testing, and maintenance tasks contributes to operational efficiency and, by extension, cost savings.
Continuing on the theme of automation, the dialogue explores the concept of "reserved instances"—pre-allocated virtual servers available for use in the cloud. Monk provides clarity on how these reserved instances can offer significant cost-saving benefits. Companies can lock in lower rates by committing to long-term contracts with their cloud providers, and software tools are available to automate these commitments, further reducing manual oversight and enabling additional savings.
Tom also focuses on the importance of keeping tabs on key performance indicators (KPIs) and measuring cost savings after migrating to the cloud. They acknowledge the cultural obstacles organizations may face when adopting new frameworks and metrics, emphasizing that successful implementation is often contingent on open dialogue and educational outreach across all departments.
Towards the end of the episode, the conversation turns to the broader cloud ecosystem. Both hosts compare different cloud service providers and consider the imperative for companies to future-proof their cloud strategies. Tom stresses the importance of staying abreast of industry trends and suggests that companies build a "cloud center of excellence" to adapt and refine their cloud strategies continually.
This episode offers a multi-faceted view of cloud economics, touching on the strategic, operational, and cultural factors that determine success. It's an invaluable listen for anyone looking to understand how to navigate the cloud landscape both financially and operationally.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence and data science, today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast brings forth a critically important yet often overlooked aspect—securing data through its entire lifecycle. Our esteemed guest is Anand Kashyap, the CEO and Co-founder of Fortanix, a company that has pioneered in the realm of confidential computing.
Anand and his team at Fortanix have uniquely positioned themselves in the industry, focusing not just on securing stored or in-transit data, but also data while it's being processed.
As AI models increasingly become the linchpins for competitive advantage, it's no longer just about the intricacies of these models but the treasure trove of data that fuels them. Giants like Google and Microsoft, armed with vast amounts of data, seem to have an edge. Yet, this edge brings its own challenges around the ethics, privacy, and compliance of using such data—questions that are resonating loudly, not just in the EU under the shadows of regulations like GDPR, but across the globe, including the US.
During our conversation, Anand demystified the concept of confidential computing, a term that is gradually becoming a cornerstone in the discussion around data security. At its core, confidential computing involves leveraging hardware-based trusted execution environments to protect both data and code. One might wonder how this impacts the realm of privacy regulations. Interestingly, confidential computing provides an effective, transparent mechanism to demonstrate compliance without diminishing the operational integrity of AI models.
As the conversation unfolded, Anand offered valuable insights, pointing out that while confidential computing does augment runtime security, it is not a silver bullet. The necessity for well-crafted applications and comprehensive security measures remains unabated. He emphasized that this form of computing, though robust in security mechanisms, does not negate the need for diligent application development and maintenance. We also touched upon the far-reaching implications of data privacy laws like GDPR on the global architecture of data solutions.
Anand highlighted how such regulations are catalyzing the adoption of confidential computing solutions across different jurisdictions, with an intriguing possibility of creating sovereign cloud zones within public clouds.
Ethical considerations in data protection strategies occupied a significant segment of our discussion. With a discerning perspective, Anand shared his thoughts on deploying confidential computing for a myriad of new use cases, from healthcare to financial services. Anand, who continually evolves through self-education, including listening to thought-provoking podcasts, left us with an enriching viewpoint on the challenges and opportunities lying ahead in the data security spectrum.
As the spotlight continues to shine on AI and data, understanding how to secure this data effectively is not just an operational need but an ethical imperative. This conversation with Anand Kashyap illuminates that pathway, shedding light on both the potential and the limitations of confidential computing.
Whether you are a business leader, a tech enthusiast, or someone deeply involved in data privacy concerns, this episode offers a comprehensive lens through which to view the evolving narrative of data security.
Today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast is indeed an inspirational one. We have Avery Pennarun, the Co-founder and CEO of Tailscale, a security networking startup that's not just making waves but has also garnered a valuation of over $1 billion CAD. Avery's journey is nothing short of incredible, having consulted Alphabet's senior leadership, led Google Fiber's gigabit WiFi and platform analytics team, and even sold his startup, Net Integration Technologies (Nitix), to IBM in 2008.
Tailscale, launched in 2019, found itself confronting the unprecedented challenges of a global pandemic. Yet, not only did it survive, but it thrived, carving a unique space for itself in the crowded world of network security solutions. Recognized as one of VentureBeat's top 20 zero-trust startups to watch in 2023, Tailscale is undoubtedly a company that commands attention.
So, what sets Tailscale apart in an arena rife with competition? For teams yearning for secure, private networks without enduring weeks of arduous setup and configuration, Tailscale delivers simplicity and efficiency. It distinguishes itself from traditional corporate VPN solutions by eliminating upfront costs, reducing latency, and offering compatibility with existing services. Furthermore, earlier this year, Tailscale rolled out a zero-trust virtual private network solution specifically aimed at enterprise customers, broadening its market reach and applicability.
In our conversation, Avery provided keen insights into the treacherous yet rewarding path of entrepreneurship, especially in the tech space. His perspectives are invaluable for startup founders and tech leaders grappling with the complexities of scaling a business in economically turbulent times. We delved deep into his experiences navigating Tailscale through the unpredictable waters of a global pandemic, discussing the strategies he employed and the lessons he gleaned along the way.
The dialog didn't stop at Tailscale's rise; it extended into the broader context of network security, particularly focusing on the zero-trust paradigm. Zero-trust architecture has emerged as a critical framework for modern network security, and Avery's expertise offered a nuanced understanding of this concept. We explored the current state of zero-trust models and where Tailscale fits into this evolving narrative, separating fact from fiction in a domain that often leans into buzzwords over substance.
Avery also shared his entrepreneurial journey, a narrative that encapsulates the quintessence of startup resilience and ingenuity. His story serves as a testament to the indomitable spirit that underlies successful startups and offers a beacon of inspiration for aspiring founders across the globe.
So, to all our listeners in Canada and beyond, buckle up! This episode is not just a deep dive into technology and entrepreneurship but also a genuine feel-good story that stands as a monument to what passion, innovation, and resilience can achieve.
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with John Kelleher, head of the UK and Ireland business at UiPath. Our conversation navigated through the intricate maze of artificial intelligence and automation, focusing on UiPath's groundbreaking advancements in this space. If AI is the brain, then automation serves as the body that propels it into action, a sentiment that resonated throughout our discussion.
UiPath made headlines today as they announced their latest AI-powered automation features, aimed at accelerating the discovery, automation, and scaling of business processes. Among the notable offerings are Generative AI and Specialised AI capabilities, including OpenAI and Azure OpenAI connectors with support for the GPT-4 model. These tools are far from mere bells and whistles; they have practical applications such as drafting responses to customer inquiries and summarizing extensive documents into key points.
However, the innovation doesn't stop there. Another feature, Clipboard AI for Finance, employs UiPath's Computer Vision and Generative AI to transfer data between documents, spreadsheets, and applications. This facilitates a more streamlined flow of information, helping businesses operate with increased efficiency and reduced error. Additionally, UiPath's Communications Mining and Document Understanding now harness GPT models to bolster their capabilities.
Beyond these technical details lies a more profound value proposition: the undeniable impact of AI-powered automation on productivity and talent retention. John and I explored how the amalgamation of AI and automation does more than simply improve efficiency. It elevates the quality of work, thereby attracting top-tier talent and offering organizations a unique competitive edge across industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services.
Of course, one cannot discuss the rise of AI and automation without addressing the elephant in the room: the societal fears surrounding job losses. However, both John and I agreed that these fears, though valid, are not unprecedented. From the invention of the printing press to the advent of the internet, every technological leap has induced concerns about job displacement. Yet history has consistently shown that technology more often creates new opportunities than it takes away.
Our conversation also touched upon the relationship between specialized and generative AI. While specialized AI offers solutions to specific problems, generative AI provides a broader range of possibilities. This duality allows businesses to tackle unique challenges with a balanced blend of flexibility and precision.
As we look towards the future, it becomes increasingly apparent that a new generation of workers will soon make AI and automation non-negotiable norms in the workplace. This younger workforce isn't merely open to the idea of AI; they expect it, thereby accelerating its adoption across multiple sectors.
We wrapped up our engaging conversation by discussing the implications of AI on sectors like manufacturing, healthcare, and financial services, acknowledging that regulation must be nuanced and sector-specific. A one-size-fits-all regulatory approach will hardly suffice given the unique challenges and opportunities presented by AI in different industries.
The pinnacle of our discussion was the real-world examples provided by John, which transformed our theoretical talk into a practical dialogue. UiPath's new capabilities are not just conceptual; they offer real tools that businesses can leverage to address targeted challenges through AI-powered automation.
In summary, today's discussion underscored the fact that the union of AI and automation is catalyzing unprecedented opportunities and efficiencies. Yet, like any significant technological advance, it comes bundled with its challenges and fears.
The latest offerings from UiPath symbolize not merely an advancement in technology but a stride towards a more automated, intelligent, and, indeed, promising future.
I chat with Srini Swaminathan, Managing Director at TEKsystems Global Services, a company at the forefront of solving complex technology and business challenges for a vast majority of the Fortune 500 companies. The conversation opens with Srini sharing invaluable insights about his background in data analytics and the evolving landscape that now includes notable advancements in AI and machine learning models.
The dialogue then takes a deeper dive into the undeniable necessity of having a robust data strategy for unleashing innovation and data monetization opportunities. We explore the need for building a strong data foundation that not only involves contributions from domain experts and IT departments but also calls for carefully chosen partnerships to implement AI in a safe and responsible manner.
As the conversation unfolds, the focus shifts to best practices in implementing AI projects. We also discuss the critical role of domain expertise in training AI models for accurate decision-making and discuss the importance of considering the business value and ROI of such projects. The episode closes with an engaging chat about the limitations of AI, the importance of human intervention for meaningful decision-making, and the sharing of experiences and resources for anyone looking to make a deep dive into this transformative technology.
I sit down with Bob Burns, the Chief Product Security Officer at Thales Cloud Protection and Licensing, a division of Thales. The discussion was a deep dive into the alarming statistics and insights from Thales' 2023 Data Threat Report, which provides a comprehensive look at the evolving landscape of cybersecurity threats, notably ransomware.
Bob starts the conversation by highlighting how ransomware attacks have not just increased in frequency but have also evolved in sophistication. What's more disconcerting is that despite this knowledge, the industry as a whole has not substantially improved its cybersecurity posture. This lack of progress is manifesting as a critical impact on businesses, disrupting operations and diminishing revenues.
We continue to delve into the worrisome metrics around data loss due to cyberattacks. Bob's insights bring to light the severe implications of inadequate cybersecurity planning. The conversation touches on the notion that having a robust ransomware plan isn't just a technological necessity but also a strategic imperative for business continuity. Bob stresses the value of proactive rather than reactive measures in mitigating the threat landscape.
Legal and ethical considerations also take center stage in the discussion. We explore the complexities that organizations face when deciding whether or not to pay a ransom. The debate surfaces the ethical dilemmas, legal repercussions, and long-term business consequences that accompany such a critical decision.
At the heart of the episode is the conversation on the financial impact of ransomware attacks. We both agree that beyond data loss and potential reputational damage, the most immediate effect is on a company's bottom line. The 2023 Data Threat Report supports this view, revealing that of those affected, a staggering 67% experienced some form of data loss, with 35% reporting a significant impact or exposure to external operations.
The episode concludes with an analysis of how companies are shifting their spending to prevent ransomware attacks, as revealed by the 2023 Data Threat Report. While 61% of respondents claim they would allocate or shift budgets toward ransomware preventive tools, the report also indicates a lack of clarity in terms of what specific tooling organizations are investing in. Despite these incremental changes in spending, the report underscores the need for more coordinated efforts between stakeholders.
In sum, the episode is a compelling discourse that not only provides alarming statistics about the increasing threat of ransomware but also engages listeners in the broader complexities of cybersecurity planning, ethical considerations, and financial consequences. It serves as an invaluable guide for business leaders, IT professionals, and policymakers seeking to understand and address the intricate challenges posed by ransomware and other evolving cybersecurity threats.
I sit down with Ceschino Brooks de Vita, Head of Evangelism at Sirion, a leader in contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions. With a potent mix of academic and professional credentials, including a JD from Harvard Law and an MBA from UT-Austin, Ceschino marries his profound understanding of law and contract management with insights into emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.
The episode opens with Ceschino discussing the rise in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the United States during economic downturns, particularly in 2023, where over 4,000 such deals have already been inked. This surge in M&As amplifies the challenges of managing numerous complex contracts, from asset purchases to tender offers and consolidations. Traditional methods of manual contract review have proved to be labor-intensive and prone to human error, amplifying the need for intelligent solutions.
Against this backdrop, Ceschino elucidates the immense value proposition of AI-powered CLM solutions. We explore the ways in which AI can serve as a linchpin in automating contract generation and review, optimizing templates, and identifying potential risks. The discussion delves into how these AI-driven processes are not merely theoretical but provide tangible benefits in accelerating legal review cycles, thereby enhancing operational efficiency for enterprises.
Continuing on this thread, Ceschino talks about the risk mitigation aspects of AI-based CLM solutions, particularly in M&As. The duo elaborates on how AI can pinpoint specific contract clauses that may pose risks and compare these against standard enterprise language. In doing so, businesses gain a comprehensive overview of their contractual commitments and liabilities, enabling a more robust due diligence process.
The conversation culminates with a deep dive into the role of AI in extracting actionable insights from documents. Ceschino outlines the transformational potential of AI, emphasizing its ability to revolutionize the industry by automating data extraction processes and even offering natural language interfaces for contract management.
Overall, the episode is a compelling narrative on how artificial intelligence is poised to radically alter the landscape of contract management, particularly in the high-stakes world of mergers and acquisitions. Listeners stand to gain a nuanced understanding of AI’s immediate applicability and future potential in legal and business settings, thus making it a must-listen for anyone invested in the integration of law and emerging technologies.
In this episode, I converse with Alwyn Jones, the CFO of Luno, a global cryptocurrency company. This conversation is particularly notable given Alwyn's two decades of experience in the traditional financial services industry, making him uniquely positioned to speak on the burgeoning world of crypto. With such an extensive background, Alwyn bridges the gap between traditional finance and the emergent field of cryptocurrencies, offering an informed perspective on how the industry is maturing and how businesses can best navigate this volatile landscape.
We kick off the conversation by diving into Alwyn's transition from traditional finance to crypto. Alwyn speaks to the disruptive potential of cryptocurrency technology, drawing parallels to how new asset classes have historically shaken up the financial landscape, as seen in 1999, the 1970s, and even as far back as the 1920s. The dialogue takes an interesting turn as both thought leaders emphasize the importance of learning from past financial disruptions to guide strategic decision-making in managing crypto assets.
They then pivot to discuss the evolving role of CFOs, particularly in the crypto sector. Alwyn identifies two distinct types of CFOs: the operational numbers-focused CFO and the value-driven CFO. Being the latter, he shares his approach to driving value within Luno, moving beyond the conventional CFO role to become a business strategist. We jointly explore the transition from CFO as a steward of past and present financials to a role that requires looking ahead to future business opportunities.
Further enriching the conversation, Alwyn discusses the practical advantages of incorporating crypto payments in business strategies, extending beyond mere consumer demand to include enhanced security and privacy protocols enabled by blockchain technology. He makes a case for why financial discipline and risk management are vital in the crypto industry, and how these classical finance principles apply in this brave new world.
We discuss the role of regulatory bodies in the crypto industry and the long-term impacts of the pandemic on Luno’s strategy. They delve into how the pandemic has accelerated changes in investment behavior and validated the remote work model, shedding light on the shifting paradigms in business strategy and financial management.
The episode brings to the fore an informed and nuanced perspective on the crypto industry, serving as an indispensable listen for anyone invested in understanding the evolution of finance in a digital age. With Alwyn’s extensive background in traditional finance and his current role in the crypto sphere, the discussion adds layers of depth to the subject matter, encompassing both the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in the realm of crypto.
I sit down with Phill Rosen, the CTO of MoneyLion and the Business Leader of Engine by MoneyLion - Web Services. Phill's expertise offers listeners a nuanced look into the ever-evolving world of financial technology, particularly focusing on the growing trend of embedded finance.
The conversation begins with the discussion of what embedded finance means for both consumers and businesses. As Phill elucidates, embedded finance is more than just a technological advance; it's a transformative way of distributing financial tools directly within consumer experiences. MoneyLion aims to redefine this space by providing customized financial solutions right within its app, aiming to democratize access to financial services.
The question then arises: Could embedded financial tools be the golden key to enhancing financial literacy and accessibility for the masses?
As the discussion progresses, Phill opens up about MoneyLion's acquisition of EvenFinancial, and how it transformed into Engine by MoneyLion. This strategic move not only repositions MoneyLion within the marketplace but also allows for the unlocking of new synergies in fintech.
However, this transition isn't without its challenges. We delve into how the current market conditions, laden with high capital costs and financial uncertainties, create hurdles that fintech companies must overcome.
One pivotal aspect that stands out in the conversation is the role of artificial intelligence and data analytics in fintech. MoneyLion leverages these technologies to deliver a personalized financial experience to its users.
We discuss how AI and data analytics have the potential to transform the way decisions around credit and financial services are made, enabling automation and operational efficiency. Yet, they also acknowledge the ethical and logistical complexities that surround the collection and use of consumer data.
Towards the end of the discussion, the conversation veers towards the challenges and merits of consolidating diverse financial services into a single app. While MoneyLion’s all-in-one digital financial solution offers a level of convenience, the process of integrating multiple first-party and third-party products while maintaining regulatory compliance is far from simple. It raises questions around the feasibility and scalability of such a model in a highly regulated industry.
We emphasize the importance of empowering consumers by providing not just seamless access to financial services, but also the tools for improving their financial literacy. The episode concludes with a focus on MoneyLion’s broader mission of democratizing finance for all. By offering an array of financial tools embedded within a single platform, MoneyLion seeks to rewrite the narrative around consumer finance, making it more accessible and engaging for everyday Americans.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we delve into the labyrinthine world of cybersecurity with none other than Satnam Narang, a Senior Staff Research Engineer at Tenable. As we navigate through an age where digital safety is paramount, Tenable serves as a guardian for approximately 40,000 global organizations, helping them understand and minimize cyber risk.
Our discussion covers a multitude of pressing topics—from known vulnerabilities in both UK and global infrastructure to the lurking decade-old bugs that could be the fine line between your safety and a multi-million-pound breach. We explore the urgent need for robust cyber hygiene practices as well as the rising prevalence of social media scams and crypto cyber-attacks. Satnam brings an unparalleled depth of expertise, shedding light on Tenable's pioneering work, including their renowned Nessus® technology.
This episode is particularly timely, considering the recent CISA warnings about new, yet often ancient, Linux vulnerabilities that are actively exploited, presenting considerable risks to federal enterprises. We also delve into the role of open-source libraries in both innovation and the vulnerability landscape. Drawing from real-world examples like the CLOP group's ransomware attack, we discuss how even well-known, old vulnerabilities are proving to be lucrative targets for both average cybercriminals and state actors. Satnam and I share strategies for reducing cyber risk, emphasizing the need for prioritizing vulnerabilities, improving visibility into network assets, and creating an effective incident response playbook.
With cyber threats evolving at an unprecedented pace, this episode serves as an indispensable guide for organizations and individuals alike to bolster their digital fortresses.
In today's thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm thrilled to host Colin Bodell, a leading voice at Bazaarvoice, the company revolutionizing the connection between brands, retailers, and consumers through data-driven insights and interactive shopping experiences.
Our conversation couldn't be timelier. With the explosion of interest in the Metaverse and the increasing integration of augmented and virtual reality into our daily lives, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment. Bazaarvoice's 2022 Shopper Preference Report reveals that an astonishing 59% of consumers envision AR and VR technologies as essential components of future physical retail environments. But what are the practical implications of these findings for retailers and consumers alike?
Colin and I venture beyond the headlines to discuss how these immersive technologies could radically reshape the retail experience. We also engage in a critical conversation about the role of artificial intelligence in e-commerce. While AI can undeniably elevate the customer experience, it also introduces ethical quandaries, particularly around the authenticity of product reviews. Given the recent controversies surrounding fake AI-generated reviews, this is an issue that brands and consumers cannot afford to overlook.
So whether you're a business leader strategizing the implementation of emergent technologies, or an everyday consumer intrigued by how shopping is set to evolve, this episode promises a comprehensive exploration of both the remarkable opportunities and the significant challenges posed by this technological shift.
In a world where digital transformation has accelerated beyond anyone's imagination, cybersecurity remains a cornerstone issue that demands our constant vigilance. This was the theme of my recent conversation with Paul Donegan, the Country Manager in Ireland at Fortinet.
Ireland is a case study worth examining. As one of the world's most open and export-driven economies, it's an international hub for business and technological advancement. However, this economic vitality also attracts a less savory element: cybercriminals seeking to exploit vulnerabilities in supply chain security.
During our discussion, Paul and I delved into why supply chain security should be on every C-suite executive's radar. We explored how organizations are faltering in this aspect—often overlooking the necessity of vetting their suppliers' cybersecurity postures. There is a clear and urgent need for implementing robust risk assessment and testing methodologies.
We also tackled some of the most common pitfalls that organizations encounter. Zero Trust, for example, is not just a buzzword but an essential strategy that needs more than just boardroom attention—it demands action. The idea that you should never assume safety within your networks could be a game-changer in supply chain cybersecurity.
The concept of 'future-proofing' emerged, emphasizing the importance of staying ahead in this ever-evolving landscape. We touched upon how learning in the cybersecurity space is a continuous process. With threats evolving, there needs to be room for complacency.
Lastly, we took the discussion to the concept of the cybersecurity poverty line—an idea that deserves more attention. It's not just about having security measures in place but ensuring they are effective and up-to-date, a process that calls for ongoing education and awareness programs across every stratum of an organization.
This is one episode that promises not only to enlighten but also to offer actionable insights for those willing to take the steps necessary to fortify their supply chain security. Do tune in to understand why, in a digital world, the old adage still holds true: A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Financial, regulatory, and ESG reporting are no longer siloed compartments within corporations, thanks to platforms like Workiva. With a vast clientele that includes leading names like Slack, Delta Airlines, and USAA, Workiva is redefining how businesses approach data and reporting in an era demanding unprecedented corporate transparency.
In this enlightening episode, I am joined by Paul Volpe to discuss the technological solutions empowering businesses to meet ever-changing reporting requirements. The episode kicks off with Paul highlighting how Workiva's software has evolved to adapt to the dynamic landscape of ESG and financial reporting.
The conversation delves into real-world examples of how various companies have leveraged Workiva's technology to enhance data collection, drive smarter business decisions, and integrate non-financial metrics with traditional financial data for strategic advantage. The discussion also uncovers Workiva's collaborative efforts with industry giants like Slack, PWC, Deloitte, and KPMG, aimed at transforming the way organizations manage their multifaceted data needs. From tackling challenges of data integrity to delivering actionable insights, Workiva is at the forefront of enabling informed business decisions.
Further into the conversation, we explore the quantifiable business value of adopting Workiva's platform. From the imperatives of data integrity to the advantages of cost savings, the talk elucidates the myriad benefits that extend beyond the balance sheet, such as instilling a higher degree of trust in data and even aiding in talent acquisition.
As Workiva positions itself at the intersection of technology and robust data reporting, this episode provides invaluable insights for businesses grappling with modern reporting complexities. Listen in to understand how Workiva is shaping the future of data reporting through technological innovation, focusing on content data management, and fostering global collaboration.
In an era where global spending on cybersecurity solutions is forecasted to surpass $200 billion in 2023, and nearly $300 billion by 2026, the persistence of cyberattacks is a baffling paradox. More perplexing is the fact that phishing attacks constitute more than 90% of these cyber incursions. To dissect the reasons behind this incongruity and chart a viable way forward, I spoke with Max Gannon, Vice President of Threat Research at Cofense, a company that stands at the forefront of anti-phishing solutions.
Max Gannon offers an eye-opening perspective that challenges conventional cybersecurity wisdom. He argues that the overreliance on technology to solve phishing problems is a fundamental flaw in how organizations approach security. Despite the sophistication of machine learning algorithms and threat detection systems, technology alone is unable to fully understand the human behaviors and decision-making processes that often lead to successful phishing attacks.
This brings us to another pivotal point made by Max: the underestimated value of Security Awareness Training (SAT). In a digital culture where checking boxes often substitutes for comprehensive understanding, SAT programs can sometimes be reduced to a perfunctory exercise. Max emphasizes the necessity of evolving these programs into continuous educational experiences that adapt to ever-changing threat landscapes.
Integrating human intelligence into cybersecurity strategy is not just an add-on; it's imperative. According to Max, human intelligence can catch the nuances and intricacies that often evade machine-led security measures. Organizations can leverage both human and machine capabilities with a more foolproof defense mechanism by having a more integrative approach.
During our conversation, we also explored the current state of the cyber threat landscape, highlighting the limitations of current email security measures. Max notes that even the most advanced technologies can fall prey to sophisticated social engineering attacks, making up 98% of social engineering attacks according to some statistics. We also delved into the future of cybersecurity, examining potential strategies and solutions that organizations can adopt to stay one step ahead of increasingly inventive and aggressive cyber adversaries.
This engaging dialogue with Max Gannon is a conversation and a call to organizations to rethink their cybersecurity strategies. As phishing remains a ubiquitous threat, the insights from Max offer a robust framework for reinforcing organizational cybersecurity measures. I highly recommend tuning into this enlightening discussion to learn how to fortify your defenses in an ever-volatile cyber world.
The art world has long been a canvas for innovation and disruption, and with the advent of artificial intelligence, the medium is undergoing a transformation unlike any before. I sat down with Ahmed Elgammal, founder of Playform and creator of AICAN, to delve into the state of Generative AI in art-making. This topic straddles technology, creativity, and ethics.
Playform's recent 500-participant survey provides a unique vantage point to analyze how AI is shaping artistic practice. AI is increasingly integrated into the artist's studio, from aiding in idea generation to refining final pieces. But as Ahmed and I discussed, this brings forth questions about the artist's identity and the art's originality. Does AI-enabled creation dilute or enhance human ingenuity?
Ethically, the use of AI in art isn't without its complexities. Issues like copyright infringement loom large, especially as artists use AI tools trained on existing works. Ahmed highlights the importance of using one's own images for training the AI to avoid legal complications. And while the technology is dazzling, it's not without operational challenges, such as the difficulty in controlling outcomes and seamlessly incorporating these tools into traditional workflows.
Commercially, AI's place in art is still a subject of debate and even skepticism among artists and critics alike. Can a machine-generated image hold the same artistic value as a human creation? Or is it simply a tool that assists in the creative process? Ahmed and I touched on these differing viewpoints, highlighting that the role of AI in art might best be described as that of an enabler rather than a creator.
The conversation also ventured into the synergy of AI with other emerging technologies in the art world, stressing that the focus should not be on AI creating art, but rather on how it can enhance human artistic expression and experimentation.
In essence, our talk illuminated the expansive yet intricate role that AI is beginning to play in the world of art. It's a narrative of collaboration and tension, innovation and apprehension, but above all, it's a story still being written. We encourage you to explore Playform's website to see for yourself how AI can be a game-changer in the creative process.
In a world grappling with the dire consequences of climate change, innovators like Denis Creighton are pioneering solutions that marry technology with environmental responsibility. Denis, the CEO & Co-Founder of IMPT, sat down with me to explore how blockchain technology is transforming the carbon credit market.
IMPT is not just another carbon-offsetting platform; it's an ecosystem designed to connect retail brands and consumers in a socially responsible pact for sustainability. The IMPT model allows consumers to be part of climate change mitigation in a way that's not only easily accessible but also verifiable thanks to blockchain technology.
The discussion kicked off by addressing the crucial need for a green blockchain that assures transparency and traceability in carbon credit programs. I learn how IMPT empowers everyday consumers to make sustainable choices through their retail experiences, allowing them to earn free carbon credits.
Denis emphasized the moral imperative for businesses to reduce their carbon footprint. He introduced the IMPT Retail Partnership Network, a strategic alliance aimed at cultivating a culture of eco-consciousness. The Planet's Loyalty Program, another IMPT innovation, not only incentivizes responsible consumption but also allows points to be exchanged for carbon credits, thus offering a twofold benefit.
Blockchain's role in this ecosystem is significant. Denis pointed out that this technology ensures a level of traceability and credibility hitherto difficult to achieve in carbon offset projects. This fortifies trust and encourages more individuals and businesses to partake in these crucial initiatives.
We discuss the throwaway culture prevalent in society today and the resultant environmental degradation. Drawing inspiration from literature and music, including books like "Long Walk to Freedom" and "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind," as well as their shared favorite song, "Skinny Love," they stressed the need for individual and collective action.
The conversation also addresses the darker aspects of the carbon credit industry, notably the deceptive greenwashing tactics employed by companies like BP and the environmental toll of agriculture.
Through IMPT, Denis aims to facilitate actionable climate change mitigation that places the power back in the hands of consumers. The platform epitomizes a future where blockchain guarantees transparency, enabling everyone to contribute to a more sustainable planet.
I sit down with Bruno Guez, the founder of Revelator, a pioneering enterprise transforming the music industry's financial landscape. With a background steeped in 25 years of music business acumen, Bruno provides a nuanced look into how Revelator is shifting paradigms by offering holistic solutions for catalog management, digital distribution, income tracking, and more.
Our conversation begins with a discussion on the challenges the music industry faces in embracing Web3 technologies and NFTs. Bruno illuminates the intricate legal frameworks that underpin the music business and outlines why existing models fall short when applied to the decentralized web. He presents Revelator's groundbreaking work in developing the infrastructure required to support new forms of royalty management and compensation.
As the dialogue progresses, we delve into Revelator's cornerstone principles. Bruno details the company's focus on not just streamlining financial reporting and royalty operations, but also pioneering new revenue streams for rights holders. By leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as AI and blockchain, Revelator is setting the stage for a safer and more efficient IP economy.
Bruno also touches upon the symbiotic relationship between music IPs and emerging fields like VR, gaming, and AI. Through interoperable solutions, Revelator is eliminating bottlenecks in monetization and payments, making it easier for artists and record labels to thrive in a digital-first environment.
This episode is a deep dive into the future of music, viewed through the lens of financial and technological innovation. It's a must-listen for anyone eager to understand the tectonic shifts that are redefining how music creators get paid in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
I reconnected with Ian Wagner and Luke Seelenbinder, co-founders of Stadia Maps, to dive deep into the intricacies of geospatial technology and the transformative power of location-based services. We initially met in Tallinn, Estonia—a digital innovation hub—the actual conversation unfolds months later in a remote setting, breaking geographical barriers.
Ian and Luke recount their entrepreneurial journey as American expats who have leveraged Estonia's e-Residency program to work remotely from Switzerland and South Korea. They shed light on how Estonia's progressive digital ecosystem has been a catalyst in the evolution of Stadia Maps, offering an in-depth look into the advantages of e-Residency, including data privacy and global compliance.
The dialogue then transitions to the core of Stadia Maps' operation: a robust, partnership-centric approach to business. Ian and Luke outline their strategy, which goes beyond traditional vendor-client relationships to build long-term collaborations. They spotlight their work with Stamen Design and their commitment to integrating both open and proprietary data to offer a comprehensive suite of mapping services.
Yet, the narrative extends beyond the geospatial. The co-founders share their future plans, which include incorporating emerging technologies like augmented reality and enhancing their customer support to world-class standards.
I host Stig Martin Fiskå, the visionary Global Head of Ocean at Cognizant in today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode. With the backdrop of a declining oceanic ecosystem that impacts the environment and the livelihoods of 3.3 billion people, Stig Martin brings a message of hope through innovation.
We discuss the transformative role Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing in decarbonizing the oceans and rejuvenating their ecosystems. While climate change and over-exploitation pose severe challenges to our oceans' health, Stig Martin argues that AI can be the linchpin for sustainable solutions. From optimizing aquaculture through precise feeding schedules to measuring existing biodiversity for planning renewable energy projects, AI's scope is broad and critical.
One essential facet discussed is how AI technology is making strides in harnessing massive data sets—from satellite imagery to weather forecasts—to revolutionize maritime activities. AI-driven models are cost-effective and eco-friendly by optimizing shipping routes and improving fuel efficiency.
This episode goes a step further to discuss real-world applications. In collaboration with Tidal, a project by Alphabet's Moonshot Factory, Cognizant has successfully rolled out an AI platform trained on an astounding 8 billion observations across 900 terabytes of operational video. This platform is designed for one of the most challenging environments on the planet, showcasing AI's robust capabilities in sustainability.
Take advantage of this episode if you want to expand your horizons on how emerging technologies like AI are disruptive and can be redemptive, especially for our fragile ecosystems.
Today, I am joined by Motti Finkelstein, Intel's Corporate Vice President of Digital Transformation, to delve deep into the critical issue of sustainability in technology. The episode comes on the heels of Intel's groundbreaking survey, encompassing perspectives from CTOs, CEOs, and CSOs across the world's largest companies in 22 global markets. Motti provides an enriching discourse on the multi-dimensional role of CTOs in driving both technological innovation and sustainability goals.
Among the salient issues discussed is the inherent challenge of improving computing performance while achieving greener IT. A large majority of senior IT leaders find this a considerable hurdle, revealing a tension between the immediate demands for performance and the long-term responsibility for environmental sustainability. Motti elucidates this point, sharing insights on how this balance might be achieved without sacrificing either imperative.
Another pressing concern highlighted is the existing knowledge gap in the IT industry around sustainability and green initiatives. Motti believes there is a dire need for upskilling the IT workforce to understand and implement sustainable practices. The lack of this specialized knowledge in the IT field presents a daunting challenge but also serves as a call to action for industry stakeholders.
Moreover, the episode delves into the idea that technology and sustainability strategies can no longer exist in silos. Motti discusses how CTOs are now at the crossroads of technological innovation and sustainable practices. This alignment is imperative for businesses aiming to be future-ready and environmentally responsible, a sentiment echoed by a significant percentage of senior IT leaders in Intel's survey.
Notably, the role of the CTO has evolved to encompass more than just technological stewardship. Many CEOs and CSOs now consider the CTO to be the lynchpin in driving sustainability initiatives within the organization. Motti offers his perspective on this emerging role and how CTOs can best position themselves to be effective leaders in this domain.
Beyond identifying challenges, the episode also sheds light on actionable solutions for a greener IT future. Motti talks about Intel's own initiatives, including best practices for CTOs and a roadmap for sustainability. Intel is also spearheading a Sustainable CTO Advisory Board, involving industry leaders from companies like Cisco, IBM, and Shell. This board aims to foster collective intelligence and problem-solving in achieving sustainability goals.
In summary, this episode offers listeners a well-rounded understanding of the complexities and opportunities involved in marrying technology and sustainability. Motti Finkelstein's insights serve as both a catalyst for thought and a blueprint for action, making this episode a must-listen for anyone invested in the future of green technology.
In today's complex digital ecosystem, organic search has emerged as a fundamental element for building brand authority and generating ROI. But how exactly do brands measure and optimize their organic search efforts in a sea of data and paid marketing strategies? In this insightful episode of Tech Talks Daily, I dive deep into this subject with Adrien Menard, the CEO and Co-Founder of Botify, a disruptive web page performance platform that empowers brands to enhance their organic search visibility.
Adrien offers a compelling argument for why organic search should be at the forefront of your brand's marketing strategy. Contrary to prevailing notions that SEO is neither "shiny" nor "sexy," Adrien discusses how the landscape is ripe for innovation through data science, automation, and machine learning. Discover how Botify is modernizing the SEO industry and learn about their unique approach to measuring Return On Organic Search Spend (ROSS).
Tune in to hear about the challenges and opportunities faced by digital marketers, especially concerning the high costs of advertising and intense competition. Adrien and Neil delve into the intricacies of Botify's ROSS metric and how it can revolutionize the way marketers allocate resources between paid and organic search campaigns.
As the conversation progresses, they also touch upon the evolving future of SEO, underscoring the essential role of content and search engine connectivity. This episode isn't just about algorithms and analytics; it's about understanding the transformative power of organic search in today's digital age. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or new to the SEO game, this conversation is guaranteed to enlighten you about the untapped potential of organic search as a high-impact performance marketing channel.
As technology continues to weave itself into the fabric of industries worldwide, there's an increasing urgency to protect the integrity of supply chains—especially in the automotive sector. In this eye-opening episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with David Mudd, Assurance Global Head of Digital Trust at BSI, to discuss TISAX, a ground-breaking standard aimed at fortifying the auto industry's supply chain.
David provides invaluable insights into his role at BSI, where he oversees initiatives that shape and support best practices in digital trust. We delve into the catalysts that drove the development of the TISAX (Trusted Information Security Assessment Exchange) standard, pinpointing the critical need to secure information within the auto industry's labyrinthine supply chain.
The conversation takes a nuanced turn as we discuss why trust—often an intangible and overlooked aspect—forms the bedrock of a secure supply chain. It's not just about technology; it's also about the mindset and culture of the people involved. TISAX, as David explains, is designed to be a holistic approach to cybersecurity, one that encapsulates a variety of elements ranging from organizational ethos to robust cybersecurity frameworks.
Addressing the challenges of adoption, David underscores how TISAX is more than a compliance checklist; it's a commercial passport for doing business in an interconnected global ecosystem. Companies that invest in TISAX certification aren't just improving their cybersecurity posture; they're also making a strategic investment that could provide a competitive edge.
As we explore the multi-faceted world of cybersecurity, David and Neil emphasize the need for a comprehensive and realistic approach that acknowledges the complexity of international regulations. They talk about the flexibility of TISAX in allowing organizations to tailor their cybersecurity strategies based on specific risks and jurisdictional complexities, a feature that speaks to the standard's future-proof design.
Closing the episode, David alludes to the extensive competency requirements that lend credibility to TISAX, emphasizing the importance of experienced auditing and impartiality. Intriguingly, he suggests that the lessons learned and structures created through TISAX have applicability beyond the automotive industry, hinting at a future where these standards could be universal.
This episode should provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of how standards like TISAX are becoming increasingly pivotal in an era where digital trust is both a necessity and a differentiator.
Did you know that Shopify currently powers over 10% of all e-commerce in the United States? Astoundingly, the platform has processed transactions amounting to over half a trillion dollars. Shopify, a juggernaut in the e-commerce space, is making significant strides in establishing a new paradigm for retail—one that marries flexibility and scale with the cutting-edge innovation we've come to expect in sectors ranging from AI to headless commerce.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I had the privilege to chat with Bobby Morrison, the Chief Revenue Officer at Shopify. I learned more about what differentiates Shopify is its commitment to enabling millions of businesses to maintain control over their brand identity, customer relationships, and data. This conversation is crucial as enterprise retailers grapple with rapid technological changes and ever-increasing customer expectations.
To cater to the complex needs of enterprise customers, Shopify offers three distinct 'flavors' of its platform, each designed to empower retailers to tailor their approach to customer engagement and operations. This level of differentiation is particularly critical in a market that is increasingly competitive, enabling retailers not just to survive but thrive.
One of the episode's pivotal moments was our discussion about Shopify's recent extension of its Shop Pay feature to enterprise retailers outside its ecosystem. With over 100 million opted-in users, Shop Pay is revolutionizing the checkout process, boasting the internet's best conversion rates. But, according to Bobby, this move is not merely a feature addition; it's part of Shopify's broader strategy to alleviate some of the most significant pain points that plague enterprise retail.
In addition to this, we also delved into headless commerce—a buzzword that has piqued the interest of many in the retail industry. Bobby demystified the concept, describing it as a technological shift and a strategic approach that frees up resources. It allows retailers greater control over the front-end customer experience, thereby aligning with the broader trends of customization and differentiation.
Another subject that stood out was the issue of latency. Shopify has mitigated this challenge through its globally scaled infrastructure, boasting over 150 network edge points of presence worldwide. According to Bobby, this approach has significantly reduced latency, contributing to higher conversion rates than competitors and aligning with the idea that 'latency is pollution' in the e-commerce world.
As we look towards the holiday season, a critical period for retailers, Bobby touched upon how Shopify is positioning itself to aid enterprises in their preparations and to navigate the forthcoming challenges. His insights suggested a focus on agility, scalability, and leveraging data analytics to make informed decisions.
Whether you're a retailer, a tech enthusiast, or just someone interested in the colossal shifts taking place in the retail industry, this episode provides a nuanced understanding of both the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
In today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, I delve into the nuanced and ever-evolving landscape of data privacy with Alan Chapell from Chapell & Associates. Known for his in-depth expertise in this field, Alan offers invaluable insights into various critical topics shaping the global privacy conversation.
Beginning with the EU-U.S. treaty that aims to enable the free flow of personal data across the Atlantic, Alan elucidates why the path to seamless data transfers has been rife with challenges. Is data localization a feasible strategy for tech companies in this regulatory environment? As we navigate this digital age, advertisers often find themselves at the crossroads of innovation and regulation.
Alan shares his thoughts on the current privacy enforcement priorities that data-driven advertisers should pay attention to. This episode also examines Google's Privacy Sandbox—an initiative that piqued industry interest for its promise of user privacy and personalized advertising. But is it a viable tool on which businesses can be built? Alan unpacks the complexities.
No conversation on data privacy would be complete without discussing the two tech giants that loom large over the digital landscape: Apple and Google. How do their approaches to advertising converge and diverge, and what does this mean for users and advertisers alike?
Looking ahead, the possibility of a comprehensive U.S. privacy law in the next few years is a subject of great debate and anticipation. Alan weighs in on the factors that could influence the passage of such legislation and ventures to imagine what it might entail.
Lastly, for those who wish to delve deeper into the intricacies of data privacy and its impact on business strategy, Alan points listeners to his monthly report, which serves as a vital guide in these uncertain times.
So, whether you're an advertiser, a tech enthusiast, or someone concerned about how your data is being used, this episode offers a compelling look at the state of data privacy today and what we can expect soon.
I sit down with Jeremy Sirota, the CEO of Merlin. Merlin is a trailblazing entity in the realm of digital music, boasting a global market share of 15% in the independent music sector and forming premium partnerships with tech behemoths like Apple, Spotify, and TikTok. With a background in technology law and a specialized focus on copyright issues, Jeremy offers a multidimensional perspective that bridges the music and technology industries.
The conversation kicks off by exploring Merlin's key mission, which is to offer independent artists and labels the access, transparency, and opportunities they need to thrive in the digital world. Merlin's impact transcends traditional streaming services, encompassing strategic collaborations with alternative platforms like Pinterest, Canva, and Twitch to reach new audiences on a global scale.
The dialogue takes a nuanced turn as we delve into the transformative impact of emerging technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) on the music industry. The potential partnerships with platforms like Supernatural become a focal point, prompting listeners to consider how such technologies might enrich the musical experience for end users.
As a former copyright lawyer, Jeremy adds another layer of depth to the conversation by highlighting the pivotal role Merlin plays in protecting artist rights, especially in emerging tech sectors like gaming. This naturally transitions into discussions about the future of the industry, touching on the potential integration of music into wearable technology and the expansive opportunities that lie beyond traditional streaming services.
The episode wouldn't be complete without addressing one of the most intriguing and debated topics of our time: the role of generative AI in music creation. We examine the ethical dimensions of this technology, emphasizing the imperative to ensure that AI acts as an enabler for human creativity rather than as a replacement. The conversation stresses the importance of consent, control, and fair compensation for artists in this evolving landscape.
This episode stands as an enlightening deep dive into the intricate challenges and vast opportunities that lie at the intersection of music and technology. It's a must-listen for artists, tech enthusiasts, and music aficionados alike, offering fresh perspectives that will compel listeners to rethink the future of music in our increasingly digital world.
In today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, I welcome back a special guest from Berlin—Oleg Stavitsky, the CEO of Endel. Some of our regular listeners might remember Oleg's previous appearance, where we delved into the innovative collaboration between James Blake and Endel.
The conversation circled around 'Wind Down,' an album designed to facilitate a smooth transition from the hustle and bustle of daily life to a state of restfulness. This unique auditory experience is rooted in the power of artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and Endel's commitment to elevating our mental wellness.
Today, we are going to navigate the evolving role of AI in the realm of creative music generation. We discuss how Endel's Generative AI repurposes existing music stems to craft functional soundscapes. These soundscapes aren't mere alterations; they serve specific functions like aiding sleep or enhancing focus. Such creative synergy between AI and artists like Black opens up intriguing possibilities, including new revenue streams and an extended lifespan for musical albums.
A focal point of the conversation is the transformative potential of Generative AI in amplifying the wellness quotient of music. This is no longer music for the sake of entertainment; this is artist-driven, functional music curated to have a direct, positive impact on listeners' mental health. We also explore how this collaborative model is opening doors to partnerships with significant industry artists and leading to the release of new, unexpected soundscapes.
This episode offers a nuanced view of AI's disruptive yet enriching impact on the creative process. While the larger dialogue often portrays AI as a futuristic threat to human creativity, individuals like Oleg are changing that narrative. AI can be a collaborative tool that enhances artistic endeavors and brings quantifiable benefits to creators and consumers.
Oleg is at the forefront of this paradigm shift, having recently penned essays for high-profile publications like Billboard, Music Business Worldwide, and Variety, in which he details his conviction that AI should be an instrument for artists rather than a replacement.
Today's episode is more than just a catch-up with an innovative leader; it's a lens into the future of music, wellness, and the constructive role that AI can play in that intersection. As you listen, you'll find yourself contemplating the technology that powers these transformations and the ethical, financial, and artistic layers that make this a watershed moment in how we interact with music and technology.
In today's episode, I sit down with Jonathan Shroyer, the Chief CX Innovation Officer at Arise Virtual Solutions and one of CIO Journal's "Top CX Professionals of 2022." This episode offers an in-depth exploration into the intricacies of modern customer experience (CX) and unpacks the key priorities every leader should focus on for organizational success.
We discuss the urgent importance of psychological safety in the workplace. Jonathan illuminates how empathy, communication, and genuine leadership can catalyze team engagement and drive business outcomes.
As we navigate through the era of digital transformation, the conversation shifts to how artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the CX industry. We dissect the ethical complexities and operational challenges tied to AI implementation. They stress that while AI has the potential to optimize efficiency, the human element of empathy must never be sidelined.
The discussion takes a practical turn as they tackle the pressing need to strike a balance between automation and human touch in customer service. Drawing upon decades of experience, Jonathan provides insights into harnessing next-gen AI for creating compelling customer journeys, without losing sight of employee experiences.
In today's episode, I engage in a discussion with Raj Koneru, the visionary founder and CEO of Kore.ai, a global leader in enterprise conversational AI solutions. With the recently announced Experience Optimization (XO) Platform V10.1 upgrade, Kore.ai is breaking new ground in the fast-evolving realm of automated customer service.
The conversation kicks off with the fascinating journey of Kore.ai, tracing its evolution from initial proof-of-concept stages to a comprehensive solution for customer service automation. Raj provides an insider's look at the platform’s innovative features like Smart Co-Pilot and AI-Assisted Dialog Nodes, revealing how generative AI and large language models are revolutionizing the bot development process by enabling dynamic workflows and dialogues.
Dive deeper as Neil and Raj explore the fusion of Large Language Models (LLMs) with ontology-based knowledge graphs, which opens new vistas for personalized and contextually aware bot interactions. The concept of domain-specific Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) is brought into focus, demonstrating how AI can be meticulously tailored to meet specialized business requirements.
Not stopping at customer interactions, the episode also delves into Kore.ai's ambitious plans to expand the scope of conversational AI to all applications. Raj provides insights into their strategic initiatives, including a burgeoning professional services business unit facilitated through preferred platinum partnerships. He also shares his vision for the future, which includes a revolutionary new product aimed at enhancing employee productivity.
For any business looking to stay ahead in the age of AI and automation, this episode offers a wealth of insights. You'll come away with a nuanced understanding of conversational AI's current state and future possibilities, and how Kore.ai is pioneering these advancements.
I sit down with Joe Hyrkin, the visionary CEO of Issuu, a premier omni-channel content tools and publishing platform. With a career spanning over two decades in the startup and tech space, Joe lends his profound insights into the ever-changing landscape of marketing and technology that small and medium-sized businesses navigate daily.
The conversation kicks off with an exploration into the challenges and opportunities faced by SMBs in 2023, especially in the realms of digital marketing and tech adoption. Neil and Joe delve into the disruptive forces, from Google to AI-powered tools, that have democratized access to technology, thereby enabling businesses to be more efficient and creative.
At the core of the discussion is Issuu's role in simplifying the content creation process. Transforming a single piece of content into multiple formats and integrating seamlessly with platforms like Canva and MailChimp, Issuu is setting new standards in digital content distribution. They also tease a future where Issuu intersects with the burgeoning Metaverse, adding yet another layer of complexity and opportunity for both business and entertainment.
Shifting gears, the duo tackles the subject of scaling in the Metaverse. Joe emphasizes the critical importance of delivering real value to consumers and fostering strategic partnerships within this expansive ecosystem. The conversation culminates with a candid discussion on navigating businesses through periods of global uncertainty. Drawing from his extensive experience, Joe highlights the enduring principles that can guide entrepreneurs and businesses through tumultuous times.
As an industry veteran who's been at the helm of various startups and tech companies, and with a portfolio that includes stints at Reverb, SingleFeed, and the Economist Group in China, Joe offers a multi-faceted view on marketing, technological innovation, and what lies ahead in the uncharted waters of the Metaverse.
I explore the escalating challenges of cloud security and hacker trends with Nico Popp, Chief Product Officer of Tenable—the leading Exposure Management company. With public cloud spending estimated to soar to nearly $600B in 2023, organizations find themselves in a race against evolving cyber threats.
Nico lends his expertise to decode the complexities around the pressing need for unified Cloud Security Posture Management and vulnerability solutions, as Tenable rolls out advancements in their Tenable One platform.
The episode unpacks how simple misconfigurations and software vulnerabilities can serve as gateways for significant security breaches, making it essential for businesses to transition from reactive threat detection to preventative cloud security.
Nico also highlights the concept of exposure management as a paradigm shift that consolidates various security vendors into a unified data platform. This forward-thinking strategy not only operationalizes vulnerability management but also transcends mere compliance to bolster real cybersecurity capabilities.
Tune in to glean actionable insights on achieving a robust cloud security architecture and staying a step ahead of imminent hacker trends. A must-listen for anyone tasked with safeguarding complex cloud environments.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sits down with Monika Liikamaa, Co-CEO of Enfuce, for a conversation that takes us from a hotel lobby to a moving taxi—illustrating that innovation never stands still.
With operations across Europe and numerous accolades under its belt, Enfuce is at the vanguard of modern payment processing. The discussion kicks off with the audacious strategic decision by Enfuce to move card issuing entirely to the cloud, positioning the company as a trailblazer in a highly competitive industry.
However, the episode isn't just a chronicle of tech milestones; it’s also a study in unconventional leadership. With Monika at the helm as Co-CEO—a rarity in any industry, but particularly in fintech—Enfuce is challenging the status quo on multiple fronts. Monika elucidates how this distinctive leadership model has been pivotal for the company, especially in navigating the complex fintech landscape.
Amid these business insights, Monika confronts an issue that the tech world often sidesteps: gender imbalance in leadership. With women making up a paltry percentage of CEOs in financial services globally, Monika’s perspective serves as both a wake-up call and a beacon of change. Tune in to discover how Enfuce is not just leading in technology, but also in shaping the future landscape of leadership in fintech.
Today, I am joined by Rob Hays, the CEO of Atom Computing, a company specializing in the creation of scalable, gate-based quantum computers. In an era where quantum computing is quickly evolving from theoretical research to practical application, Rob Hays comes forward with an impassioned perspective on why the United States needs to lead the global race in this pivotal technology.
As we unpack his views, you will discover a detailed roadmap that includes increased public funding, diversified investment strategies, and the essential role of government partnerships. Rob and I also tackle the increasingly important topic of talent acquisition and retention in the burgeoning field of quantum technologies. The conversation illuminates the U.S.'s struggles and opportunities as it attempts to maintain a competitive edge, particularly when pitted against international rivals in the technology sector.
However, this isn't merely about a race but the consequences of who crosses the finish line first. We will explore the monumental economic value and the array of industries that stand to benefit from large-scale quantum computing. Moreover, we will touch upon the implications of new rules under consideration by U.S. Treasury officials that could restrict the flow of investments and knowledge to foreign companies, particularly in China, which is making strides in semiconductors, AI, and quantum computing.
Join us as we engage in an incisive discussion that goes beyond the headlines to provide a nuanced understanding of the complexities, challenges, and vast opportunities in the world of quantum computing.
In this episode, I am joined by Barry Levett, the CEO of Mypinpad, a B2B SaaS enterprise making remarkable strides in the sector. Headquartered in Cardiff, UK, but with a presence in over 20 countries, Mypinpad aims to be the go-to solution for seamless and secure mobile transactions.
Fresh from securing a $13 million investment led by the respected fintech investor Crossfin Holdings, Barry joins us to shed light on Mypinpad's ambitious goals and innovative technology. He will share how the company actively pursues financial inclusion in emerging markets, helping individuals access and manage their financial resources.
Given the current global economic landscape, it's an initiative that feels particularly timely, and we'll dive deep into how technology can make a difference in these communities. Beyond its laudable mission, Mypinpad is also setting the industry standard when it comes to security. We explore the company's emphasis on bank-grade security protocols that have undergone rigorous testing. Barry's insights offer much-needed reassurance for anyone concerned about the safety of financial transactions in a digital-first world.
Navigating the regulatory waters of the fintech industry is a complex task, and this is where our conversation takes an intriguing turn. We'll delve into the challenges surrounding PCI compliance, a crucial aspect of data security in the payment card industry. This is a realm where partnerships are invaluable, as Barry will illustrate. Collaborations not only help companies like Mypinpad meet stringent regulatory requirements but also enable them to augment their offerings, thereby providing additional value to customers.
In a time when the payments landscape is continuously evolving, Barry and his team at Mypinpad are keenly attuned to the shifting needs of their customer base. The company is not just reacting to changes in the market but actively shaping it, looking ahead to what secure mobile transactions could and should look like in the future.
Tom McVey, Senior Sales Engineer EMEA at Menlo Security, joins me in a layered discussion about the complexities and potentials of artificial intelligence (AI). Drawing on Tom's extensive background in cybersecurity and AI, this episode serves as a comprehensive guide on how to boldly embrace AI's disruptive power while being vigilant about its ethical and security implications.
The episode starts with Tom addressing the increasing proliferation of AI-generated images, videos, and voices and the threats these pose regarding misinformation and false flag operations. We examine the urgent need for verification tools to discern human-created content from AI-generated material, marking this as an essential line of defense against AI-based threats.
Tom discusses the delicate balancing act of implementing ethical frameworks while not stifling the innovative potential of AI technologies. They also explore the concept of AI models controlling other AI models—what Tom refers to as the 'sci-fi reality' of multi-intelligence-based systems.
We delve into Menlo Security's latest product, HEAT Shield, and its machine learning capabilities to thwart these complex cyber threats. The conversation also brushes upon how Menlo's unique architecture isolates user interaction from potentially harmful web content.
Towards the end, Tom dismisses the idea of halting AI development, comparing it to the societal transformations unleashed by Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press. He argues that pausing progress would be both impractical and counterproductive, giving adversaries an unfair advantage.
Today, I am joined by Jon Trask, CEO of Dimitra, a trailblazing agtech company. Dimitra is revolutionizing the agricultural sector through its blockchain-based platform, designed to empower smallholder farmers across 18 countries. From combating deforestation to leveraging technology for sustainable agriculture, this episode offers a unique glimpse into how emerging technologies can address pressing global challenges.
As an agtech pioneer, Jon outlines how Dimitra's flagship product, Connected Farmer, harnesses cutting—edge technologies— from blockchain and IoT sensors to satellite imagery—to offer a holistic solution to smallholder farmers. The platform equips them with the necessary tools to optimize yields, reduce costs, and secure financial assistance to foster sustainable agriculture.
Jon shares how Dimitra's use of blockchain AI and machine learning can mitigate issues like deforestation while guaranteeing agricultural products' provenance. The dialogue emphasizes the critical role of education and training for farmers, elucidating how the adoption of these emerging technologies can redefine the agricultural industry.
With an eye on the European Union's sustainability goals and a closing note on Jon's aspiration to meet with Bill Gates, this episode serves as a comprehensive guide to understanding technology's untapped potential in advancing sustainable agriculture and combating climate change.
If you're a stakeholder in agriculture, an environmentalist, or simply someone intrigued by the interplay of technology and sustainability, this episode is a must-listen.
Join me in conversation with Joseph Carson, Chief Security Scientist at Delinea, where we delve into a critical but often overlooked aspect of cybersecurity: its alignment with business metrics. Based on alarming statistics from Delinea's Global CISO research, this episode urges cyber decision-makers to reframe their perspective and underscores the pressing need for integrating cybersecurity with business objectives.
We explore the challenges stemming from the traditional cybersecurity-focused approach, emphasizing a seismic shift towards holistic business security. The statistics from Delinea’s Global CISO research set the tone: 89% of survey respondents reported experiencing at least one negative business impact in the past year due to the absence of alignment between cybersecurity and business strategies. This underscores the importance of the conversation and the pressing need for structural changes.
We discuss the art of communicating the value of cybersecurity initiatives to executive boards. Joseph argues that merely focusing on technical or activity-based metrics such as the number of prevented attacks isn't enough. These metrics must be integrated into strategic business objectives, helping to break down the conventional silos within organizations and positioning cybersecurity as a crucial enabler of business growth.
Joseph shares why businesses need to prioritize the most critical assets and incorporate security considerations early in project development phases. He underscores the significance of a symbiotic relationship between the CIO and CISO roles for better alignment and fortification against looming cyber threats.
Whether you are a CISO, a business leader, or an executive, the discussion renders invaluable insights into aligning cybersecurity strategy with business goals to gain consensus, appropriate budgets, and, ultimately, a seat at the executive table.
In this episode, I am joined by Ganesh Swaminathan and Javier del Prado from Qualcomm Technologies. We discuss Qualcomm's exclusive Wi-Fi 7 Day event in San Diego, exploring the latest initiatives and technologies shaping the future of connectivity. The conversation ranges from Wi-Fi 7's advanced features to its seamless integration with Fiber and 10G networks.
We kick off the episode with an introduction to Qualcomm's Wi-Fi 7 Day event, which Ganesh and Javier describe as a seminal moment for the tech industry. Here, we delve into the advanced features of Wi-Fi 7, including its adaptability and remarkably higher connection speeds. Within the first ten minutes, you'll be up to speed on how Wi-Fi 7 is poised to revolutionize internet access with enhanced speed, low latency, and optimized interference management.
We also take a deeper dive into Wi-Fi 7's breakthrough features. We cover how these attributes, such as interference puncturing, multiple connectivity, and high band simultaneous multi-link, promise to improve not just internet speed but also latency and interference management. Whether you're at home or part of a sprawling enterprise network, Wi-Fi 7 offers benefits that are both wide-ranging and substantial.
Around the 18-minute mark, we shift gears to discuss the confluence of Wi-Fi 7 technology with fiber connectivity and 10G. We underline this integration's tremendous benefits to end-users, particularly in terms of ultra-low latency and high reliability in applications like 4K gaming and ultra HD streaming.
From a tech implications standpoint, the capability of Wi-Fi 7 to integrate with other technologies like Fiber and 5G points to a future where user experience is seamless and high-quality, irrespective of the device or access type. Additionally, Qualcomm's Service-Defined Wi-Fi holds the potential to transform the broadband industry fundamentally, thanks to its application-level granularity in quality of service.
So tune in to this episode for an expansive, thought-provoking discussion that offers a multi-faceted look at the future of connectivity technologies like Wi-Fi 7.
I explore the world of drone delivery with Bobby Healy, the experienced inventor and technology entrepreneur behind Manna, the world's first aviation-grade B2B drone delivery 'as-a-service' company. The episode provides an enlightening look into Manna's journey to revolutionize last-mile delivery, with exclusive insights into their European operations, technology, partnerships, and future plans.
We explore the genesis of Manna. Taking us down memory lane, Bobby shares how Manna was born and the early days of experimentation involving quirky methods like parachutes and cherry pickers. Here, Bobby brings to light the significance of their unique license, positioning Manna as a trailblazer in the European drone delivery landscape.
Manna's collaborations with the Irish government and the healthcare sector show how technology can be leveraged for the greater good. The episode delves into Manna's poignant role during the pandemic, ensuring that medication reached vulnerable individuals when needed.
The episode takes an interesting turn when Neil and Bobby discuss Manna's strategic partnership with Hillwood in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Bobby elaborates on how partnerships and collaborations are fundamental for scaling a tech business while delivering tangible benefits to local communities.
This episode serves as a blueprint for how transformative technologies like drones can redefine industry norms. The success Manna has achieved in Europe signals the expansive potential that lies ahead, yet it also underscores the challenges that accompany rapid innovation, such as safety and regulatory hurdles.
From a business standpoint, the episode accentuates the symbiotic nature of strategic partnerships. Aligning with real estate development companies like Hillwood is not just about corporate growth but also about creating value for end-users.
This episode offers a comprehensive yet nuanced perspective for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, logistics, and social impact. As we venture deeper into the 21st century, last-mile delivery is emerging as a critical touchpoint for consumers and businesses. Manna seems to be at the forefront of this transformation.
As the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds blur, I sit down with Arie Trouw, the visionary CEO and Co-Founder of XYO Network, to dissect the labyrinthine world of geo-spatial technology within the blockchain universe. Known for their pioneering role in anonymously collecting and validating over 3 million IoT devices' geospatial data, XYO is also breaking ground in the metaverse and Web3.
Key Topics: * Mapping the Future with XYO World 4.0: Arie unveils XYO’s ambitious 2023 product roadmap, with a spotlight on their forthcoming XYO World 4.0. Learn how XYO aims to make geographical staking more granular and accessible than ever, all stored on the Ethereum blockchain. * Self-Sovereignty in a Digital World: Navigate the idea of self-sovereignty and digital asset ownership as Arie outlines the ethos behind XYO’s mission. If personal data is the new oil, how does XYO plan to return the well to its rightful owners? * Unlocking Geo-Tokens and NFTs: Get introduced to Geotokens, the unique NFTs that are integral to XYO World. Arie and Neil unpack how these tokens democratize digital real estate ownership and pave the way for user-generated rules and gameplay. * State of the NFT Market: From oversaturation to value proposition, the conversation takes a hard look at the current trends and future predictions in the NFT marketplace. Is this the next bubble or the dawn of a new digital asset class? * Challenges and Opportunities in Web3: Diving into the technicalities, the dialogue explores the limitations of shared ledgers and the untapped potential of decentralized technologies. How does XYO envision overcoming scalability issues to unlock a more functional Web3?
Arie Trouw, with his wealth of experience and insights featured in various high-profile platforms like Yahoo Finance and BeinCrypto, provides an invaluable perspective on the evolving nexus of geospatial technology, blockchain, and NFTs.
Whether you're a Web3 developer, a C-suite executive navigating digital transformation, or simply intrigued by the blockchain's real-world applications, this episode promises to be a treasure trove of insights, offering both micro and macro-level understanding of these game-changing technologies.
In an era where AI's transformative potential oscillates between allure and ambiguity, I sit down with Alwin Magimay, a three-decade veteran in digital and data science and currently the Global Head of AI at PA Consulting. Known for his interdisciplinary acumen, Alwin serves as a strategic guide at the intersection of academia, business, and innovation. His vast experience provides a multilayered lens through which we examine the disruptive influence of AI on financial services, among other sectors.
Key Insights from our conversation: * The Boardroom's AI Agenda: Alwin's latest research unlocks the mysteries of AI for board members, setting the stage for what every C-suite executive should know. Learn why a company's "AI IQ" is as essential as its bottom line and why an "AI manifesto" might be the cornerstone of future business ethics. * The Annual Report 2.0: Explore Alwin's provocative assertion that the next evolution of annual reports will mandate the explication of AI usage and ethical frameworks. Transparency isn't just a buzzword; it's becoming a regulatory imperative. * Unveiling AI's Double-Edged Sword: From hacking to deepfakes, the conversation delves into the darker potentials of AI. The key takeaway? Trust and ethical considerations aren't secondary; they're foundational to AI's mainstream acceptance and utility. * Bridging Ivory Towers and Marketplaces: Alwin argues for a tighter symbiosis between academic rigor and market pragmatism in AI applications. He shares his own criteria for evaluating the potential of AI startups, offering a roadmap for innovators and investors alike. * The Multi-Industry Impact of Generative AI: Get a panoramic view of how AI technologies, including generative models, are revolutionizing industries as diverse as healthcare, transport, and retail. What opportunities do they offer, and what vulnerabilities do they expose?
This episode is a must-listen for anyone tasked with navigating the AI labyrinth—whether you're a board member, a startup founder, or an academic. Alwin's insights offer not just a compass but also a detailed map, replete with pitfalls and treasures, for those journeying through the ever-changing landscape of artificial intelligence.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Ali Ahmed, the recently appointed EVP and General Manager of TIBCO & ibi, Cloud Software Group—a business unit underpinning the mission-critical software of some of the world's most innovative enterprises. With over two decades of experience in the industry, Ali provides a lucid, nuanced perspective on the seismic shifts occurring in the landscape of Business Intelligence (BI) and data analytics.
Key Takeaways: * Unlocking Enterprise Efficiency: Learn how deploying BI at scale isn't just a buzz term—it's the cornerstone of enterprise productivity and cost optimization. * BI Evolution: Ali shares firsthand insights into the transformative changes in BI use over the last three years. Discover why modern BI is not your grandfather's reporting tool. * Cloud is the New Fort Knox: A counter-intuitive perspective that cloud migrations, often seen as a security risk, are stepping stones to bolstering organizational security. * AI and ML: The Next Frontier in Analytics: Understand how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are not just adding layers of complexity but significantly augmenting analytics capabilities. * Economic Downturn as a Catalyst for Innovation: A thoughtful discussion on why a weakening economy could paradoxically spur technological innovation. * The Future of BI: The year ahead promises a significant shift from traditional to modern BI. What does this mean for enterprises, and how can they prepare for it?
This episode is a treasure trove for C-level executives, data scientists, and aspiring thought leaders who want to glean both the challenges and opportunities embedded in the fabric of BI and cloud technology. As Ali Ahmed guides us through TIBCO's strategy and innovation pathways, you'll walk away better equipped to navigate your organization's data-driven journey.
Today, I am joined by Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, the mastermind behind Profound Impact Corporation. Sherry founded the company as a heartfelt tribute to her late husband, Scott A. Vanstone, and she brings to the table a wealth of expertise in startups, technology, and systems security and a life devoted to philanthropy and leadership.
They kick off the discussion with a look at the unique and emotional origin story of Profound Impact, an AI-based software company focused on driving meaningful change. The conversation naturally flows into Sherry's personal journey in the STEM fields, where she emphasizes the crucial role of mentorship and breaks down her experience of venturing into new areas. Her narrative serves as a practical guidebook, especially resonant for young women aspiring to make their mark in science, technology, research, and entrepreneurship.
The dialogue also takes a significant turn towards diversity and inclusion, especially within the context of cybersecurity—a field where Sherry's extensive background in cryptography shines. Sherry stresses the latent power of diverse perspectives in meeting the burgeoning challenges in the sector.
In a nuanced conversation about the interplay between philanthropy and startups, we explore the necessity of intentional and measurable philanthropic efforts. The need to align these efforts with a company's core strategy is laid bare, illustrating how goodwill isn't just an ethical need and a business imperative.
This episode serves as a rich tapestry of wisdom, offering a 360-degree view of technology, diversity, and the human aspects that influence both. The talk is layered with strategic insights and emotional intelligence, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, society, and impactful leadership.
In today's episode, I sit down with Ian Barrell, Partnerships & Business Development Manager at DivideBuy, a frontrunner in the burgeoning consumer finance industry. Join me in a conversation that dissects the rapidly expanding landscape of consumer financing while shedding light on the technological innovations that are setting DivideBuy apart.
We explore the unique selling points of DivideBuy, focusing on their dedication to merging technology with retail finance. The discussion pivots to the importance of ethics and responsibility in lending, emphasizing DivideBuy's commitment to making prudent and informed lending decisions.
As we delve deeper, the conversation takes an exciting turn toward DivideBuy's recent acquisition by Zopa. Ian unravels the synergistic opportunities this merger opens up, from leveraging Zopa's underwriting capabilities to infusing new technological advancements into their portfolio. This union aims to redefine the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) concept by incorporating comprehensive credit checks and affordability assessments.
Ian talks about the 'installments as a Service' model. This modern take on consumer financing offers businesses an edge, allowing them to integrate seamlessly with DivideBuy's solutions, enhancing their customer experience. They also discuss potential avenues for the company, including the possibility of venturing into subscription and rental services.
Don't miss out on this eye-opening discussion that concludes on a lighter note as Neil and Ian share a musical recommendation that perfectly encapsulates the zeitgeist of our times.
In this thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore the transformative world of edtech with Graham Glass, CEO of CYPHER Learning and a visionary in the field of educational technology. Graham, a former senior lecturer at the University of Texas, Dallas, shares his fascinating journey from academia to entrepreneurship, revealing how he has consistently been at the forefront of driving meaningful change in the education industry.
The conversation explores the seismic shift happening in learning environments—traditional and corporate—pivoting on human-focused experience design. Graham discusses how he and his team at CYPHER Learning are championing this shift through next-generation intelligent learning platforms. These platforms are not merely responsive; they actively mentor learners, regardless of geographical distance, breaking down traditional barriers to effective education.
Among the episode's highlights is the discussion about Copilot, CYPHER's revolutionary AI-driven tool that significantly accelerates course creation. We examine the complexities and challenges of integrating AI into education, balancing the potential for fast, automated course design with the need for human oversight to ensure content quality and accuracy. Here, they touch on a pervasive concern: as we delegate more tasks to AI, how do we guard against misinformation and maintain the integrity of educational content?
Taking a broader view, the conversation also encompasses the future of EdTech, scrutinizing how emerging technologies like AR could further revolutionize the landscape. Graham offers insights into how technologies can be harnessed to create tailored, personalized learning experiences that resonate with the learner.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of education, the ethical and practical implications of AI in learning, and how technology can be leveraged to create more inclusive and effective educational experiences.
In today's episode, I will take you on a journey through the frontiers of quantum computing, a technology surrounded by an aura of scientific intrigue and commercial promise. Yuval Boger, Chief Marketing Officer at QuEra, joins us to cut through the fog surrounding this emerging field. QuEra, a visionary Boston-based company founded by luminaries from MIT, has set out to transform quantum computing from a theoretical wonder to a practical tool for solving real-world problems.
The crux of our conversation orbits around the timeline of quantum computing's contributions to real-world business applications. While the technology has been enveloped in a whirlpool of hype over the years, Yuval provides a sober perspective on when quantum solutions might genuinely disrupt industries like finance, oil and gas, and government research.
Yuval offers a nuanced view of how quantum processors will coexist with traditional CPUs and GPUs. The key takeaway is that rather than upending the computational apple cart, quantum will supercharge certain calculations and unlock problems beyond the reach of classical computing systems.
By the end of our conversation, it becomes apparent that while quantum computing is undoubtedly a revolution in the making, it's a revolution that will integrate with, rather than overthrow, existing technological infrastructures. For companies and individuals willing to grasp its complexities and nuances, quantum computing offers opportunities that could redefine problem-solving in the 21st century.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with TJ Jiang, the Co-Founder and CEO of AvePoint, a company at the forefront of SaaS operations and cybersecurity. With an esteemed client list including the U.S. Department of State, NASA, Ikea, and Bloomberg, AvePoint is the critical infrastructure for optimizing the hybrid workforce, data management, and secure collaboration.
The conversation with TJ offers an in-depth exploration of modern technology's multifaceted challenges and opportunities. TJ starts by delineating the growth trajectory of SaaS applications, which have become indispensable for modern enterprises. Given AvePoint's client base of over 17,000 worldwide, his insights are backed by hands-on experience and a broad spectrum of case studies.
Data sprawl, a natural byproduct of our digital age, becomes the next focal point of the discussion. TJ delves into how this complexity can be managed effectively, particularly in hybrid work environments. For organizations grappling with enormous and dispersed datasets, the debate around data sprawl is an invaluable guide.
Artificial Intelligence, a recurring subject on Tech Talks Daily, is another major topic. TJ expresses a nuanced view of the burgeoning field, highlighting its transformative potential and the risks accompanying its widespread adoption. He presents a compelling argument for a balanced approach to AI, advocating for comprehensive strategies that weigh both its opportunities and challenges.
As the conversation turns to cybersecurity, TJ's insights become especially salient. With ransomware attacks and cyber threats regularly making headlines, he provides actionable tips on how individuals and organizations can mitigate risks. These insights stem from AvePoint's extensive network of over 3,500 managed service providers and its continuous endeavor to stay ahead of the technological curve.
To round off this insightful dialogue, Neil and TJ discuss the future of the hybrid work model and how AvePoint plans to evolve its solutions to meet the ever-changing demands of this paradigm. The episode makes it abundantly clear that while technology offers unprecedented benefits, it also presents a labyrinth of challenges that demand robust, multifaceted solutions.
In today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I speak with Alfons Straek, a seasoned leader in the tech industry with a wealth of experience at giants like Amazon and Microsoft. Currently serving as the Senior Director of Global Recruiting Technology and Experience at Boston Consultant Group, Alfons is the go-to expert regarding the intersection of AI, recruitment, and ethical considerations.
The episode comes at a critical time. After an unfortunate incident where employees unintentionally leaked sensitive data, Samsung banned its employees from using ChatGPT on company devices. This event underscores the risks of integrating generative AI solutions like ChatGPT into HR and recruitment processes. Alfons takes the opportunity to dissect these challenges, leaning on his two decades of experience in the technology sector.
Alfons kickstarts the conversation by discussing the growing prominence of AI in recruitment. He emphasizes that companies must develop responsible AI programs as AI becomes an increasingly vital piece of the recruitment puzzle. These comprehensive programs should include elements like strategy, governance, processes, tools, and a culture that imbibes responsible AI usage across the organization. The aim is to ensure that while technology evolves, it doesn't outpace our moral and ethical responsibilities.
Data privacy emerges as another key theme of the conversation. In a world where data breaches are an everyday news headline, Alfons impresses upon listeners the imperativeness of protecting candidate data. He goes beyond mere warnings and offers tangible insights companies can use to safeguard sensitive information. The emphasis is clear: As AI-driven tools become increasingly integrated into our systems, they must be built and deployed with the highest security measures to protect candidate and employee information.
On the subject of implementing AI in recruitment, Alfons is pragmatic yet optimistic. He offers listeners a trove of actionable insights for implementing AI tools in HR processes that are technologically advanced but also responsible. His recommendations range from choosing the right vendors to identifying metrics that can help measure AI applications' effectiveness and ethical impact.
To wrap up the episode, Alfons delves into the future, offering a glimpse of what we might expect as AI-driven solutions evolve and improve the candidate experience. While AI promises tremendous opportunities, it also comes with challenges, ethical quandaries, and potential risks. He provides a nuanced perspective that should equip HR leaders and tech enthusiasts with the understanding and tools they need to innovate responsibly.
We also demystify the complex landscape of AI in HR and recruitment, balancing the scales between technological advancement and ethical responsibility. As Alfons puts it, technology has the potential to solve real-world problems, but it's up to us to ensure that it does so ethically and securely.
So, tune in to understand the challenges and opportunities in adopting AI in recruitment and HR processes. With insights from an industry leader like Alfons, you'll be better equipped to navigate the increasingly complex business technology landscape.
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the deployment of 5G networks holds the promise of unprecedented speeds and data capabilities. However, with these advancements comes the imperative to address their environmental impact, a challenge the technology industry must confront head-on. I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Jeni Barovian, Intel's VP and GM of the Network & Edge Compute Division, about this pressing concern.
Our conversation touched on many critical points, starting with Intel's strategies for making 5G networks more power-efficient. Jeni shared insights into innovative approaches, such as integrating Intel VRAM boost into processors. These advancements help to optimize power consumption without compromising on performance. Another fascinating initiative she highlighted was the development of Intel's Infrastructure Power Manager software, specifically designed to calibrate performance levels with energy use in 5G networks.
Jeni and I agreed that collaboration will be the linchpin for making technology more sustainable. The technology ecosystem is expansive and involves many stakeholders—from technology vendors, operators, and service providers to governments, NGOs, and industry leaders.
We hope to overcome the hurdles in the path to a sustainable future through a collective, multi-stakeholder approach. This harmonized action is vital for sharing knowledge and best practices and creating common methodologies and frameworks that are universally applicable.
As we delved deeper into the subject, it became increasingly clear that sustainability is not a localized issue; it's a global one. For 5G and other technologies to be sustainable, there's an undeniable need for international partnerships.
Different regions present unique challenges, and tackling them necessitates a harmonized global strategy. With the impending threat of climate change, Jeni emphasized that these alliances are not just preferable but essential. It's a race against time to meet sustainability goals on a global scale, and doing so requires us to transcend national borders and work as one cohesive global unit.
Towards the end of our conversation, we touched upon Intel's long-term vision for a greener, more sustainable future. Jeni talked about the company's ambitious goals of achieving renewable electricity, net positive water impact, and zero waste targets. She reiterates that sustainability is not an endpoint but a journey that requires continuous effort and, more importantly, collaborative initiatives within the technology ecosystem.
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the deployment of 5G networks holds the promise of unprecedented speeds and data capabilities. However, with these advancements comes the imperative to address their environmental impact, a challenge the technology industry must confront head-on. I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Jeni Barovian, Intel's VP and GM of the Network & Edge Compute Division, about this pressing concern.
Our conversation touched on many critical points, starting with Intel's strategies for making 5G networks more power-efficient. Jeni shared insights into innovative approaches, such as integrating Intel VRAM boost into processors. These advancements help to optimize power consumption without compromising on performance. Another fascinating initiative she highlighted was the development of Intel's Infrastructure Power Manager software, specifically designed to calibrate performance levels with energy use in 5G networks.
Jeni and I agreed that collaboration will be the linchpin for making technology more sustainable. The technology ecosystem is expansive and involves many stakeholders—from technology vendors, operators, and service providers to governments, NGOs, and industry leaders.
We hope to overcome the hurdles in the path to a sustainable future through a collective, multi-stakeholder approach. This harmonized action is vital for sharing knowledge and best practices and creating common methodologies and frameworks that are universally applicable.
As we delved deeper into the subject, it became increasingly clear that sustainability is not a localized issue; it's a global one. For 5G and other technologies to be sustainable, there's an undeniable need for international partnerships.
Different regions present unique challenges, and tackling them necessitates a harmonized global strategy. With the impending threat of climate change, Jeni emphasized that these alliances are not just preferable but essential. It's a race against time to meet sustainability goals on a global scale, and doing so requires us to transcend national borders and work as one cohesive global unit.
Towards the end of our conversation, we touched upon Intel's long-term vision for a greener, more sustainable future. Jeni talked about the company's ambitious goals of achieving renewable electricity, net positive water impact, and zero waste targets. She reiterates that sustainability is not an endpoint but a journey that requires continuous effort and, more importantly, collaborative initiatives within the technology ecosystem.
Today, I am rejoined by Donna Loughlin Michaels, an award-winning PR influencer, strategic communicator, and recognized innovator in many tech spaces. She brings unparalleled insights into the transformational power of technology, especially regarding AI, agritech, EVs, and robotics.
The episode kicks off with an exploration into the role of AI in automating labor-intensive tasks in agriculture, a subject that has become incredibly pertinent due to the pandemic-induced labor shortages. Donna brings an illuminating perspective on how autonomous tractors and AI interfaces are revolutionizing not only agriculture but other industries like automotive.
Safety, predictability, and responsibility are crucial parameters for technological integration, a topic we discuss with gravitas. Donna highlights the need to build systems that prioritize these aspects without stifling innovation, essentially striking a balance that supports public good and corporate interests.
One of the most enlightening segments is when the conversation steers towards the role of AI platforms like ChatGPT in corporate communications and content creation. Donna insists on the importance of integrity and responsibility while leveraging such platforms, underscoring that ethical considerations should accompany technological power.
I sit down with Ranjit Bahia, the CEO of Cyferd, a next-generation digital transformation startup that is redefining how businesses approach low-code development and unified data processes in the cloud. This eye-opening conversation dives into the intricacies of AI-driven digital transformation and the far-reaching implications it has on the future of work, governmental policy, and the business landscape at large.
The episode begins with an engaging exploration of Cyferd's unique cloud-based data platform. Ranjit shares how their platform leverages artificial intelligence to streamline application development and unify disparate systems, setting the stage for more agile and efficient businesses. We delve into how this paradigm is especially vital in sectors like healthcare, where inefficiency can be costly both financially and in human terms.
As the conversation progresses, they discuss the transformative potential of AI. We address the common fears surrounding AI, demystifying the notion that AI will replace human workers. Instead, they emphasize the idea that AI can work alongside humans to enhance efficiency and reduce risks, serving as a tool for empowerment rather than replacement.
A particularly thought-provoking segment of the episode centers on the regulatory challenges of AI, especially within the United Kingdom. Ranjit offers a critical look at the lack of governmental support for fostering AI innovation and what it will take for the UK to become an AI superpower in the global landscape.
Toward the end of the episode, the focus shifts to practical applications of AI, featuring Cyferd's own product, Neural Genesis. This solution exemplifies how digital transformation can be achieved by leveraging AI and machine learning technologies for enhanced efficiency and growth.
This episode is a must-listen for those looking to understand the complex yet rewarding landscape of AI and digital transformation. Ranjit Bahia not only brings a wealth of experience but also a passionate viewpoint on how businesses, irrespective of size, can harness the transformative power of AI to pave the way for a more efficient and innovative future.
In this episode, I am joined by Katy Trost, a highly sought-after coach and advisor specializing in guiding CEOs and executive teams through the intricacies of scaling up. With a client list that reads like a 'Who’s Who' of the venture capital world, including firms like SoftBank, Octopus Ventures, and First Round Capital, Katy brings unparalleled experience to the table.
The conversation starts with an insightful discussion on the challenges CEOs commonly face as their companies move through funding rounds and scaling stages. Katy delves into the psychological aspects of leadership, touching upon the role of imposter syndrome, the CEO's relationship with the board, and nuanced gender differences in how leaders seek and utilize support.
As the episode progresses, Katy shares her perspective on the dynamism that exists within various departments of a scaling company—from the sales team to tech to finance. The chat sheds light on how CEOs can serve as the linchpin that connects different personalities and professional objectives into a coherent, effective leadership framework.
One of the episode’s highlights is a deep dive into company culture, a concept often misunderstood or underemphasized during rapid growth. We explore the necessity of maintaining a strong culture at scale and the challenges that can arise when implementing change across an organization. They also discuss the importance of measuring and setting Key Performance Indicators (KPI
Today, I dive into the complex and often nebulous world of data observability with a leading expert in the field, Taggart Matthiesen, the Chief Product Officer at LogicMonitor. With an impressive career trajectory that includes pivotal roles at Lyft, Twitter, and Salesforce, Taggart offers an insider’s view on the challenges and opportunities of harnessing data for actionable business intelligence.
The discussion opens with Taggart sharing his unique perspective on how data has evolved to become the heartbeat of every business. In a world saturated with information, how do enterprises sift through the 'noise' to identify that elusive 1% of data which can drive decision-making and business outcomes? Taggart elucidates on the growing potential in the data observability space, shedding light on why this has become indispensable for businesses of all scales.
As AI continues to infiltrate every aspect of our lives, questions around data responsibility become increasingly pertinent. We explore the readiness—or the lack thereof—of using AI to contextualize data. They discuss the ethical and practical implications, offering a balanced view on the technological advancements and the cautionary tales that serve as important guideposts for AI adoption in data observability.
The episode then shifts to explore LogicMonitor's AI ops tool, DEXTA, as a case study. Taggart recounts how this tool provided immediate value by pinpointing the cause of a network outage, thereby showcasing the utility of intelligent data observability solutions. What are the design principles that inform such solutions? And what safeguards does LogicMonitor put in place to ensure data integrity and security?
If you are a business leader, a product manager in SaaS, or someone simply interested in the frontier of data science and AI. In that case, this episode offers a holistic view on where data observability is headed, why it matters, and how to leverage it responsibly for business success. Prepare for an insightful journey through the world of data, AI, and business innovation.
Today, I am joined by Adam Wolf, the Head of Software Infrastructure at Bloomberg—a company renowned for delivering data, news, and analytics through groundbreaking technology. With more than 17 years at Bloomberg and a strong academic background from Yale, Adam is a veritable treasure trove of insights when it comes to software engineering and innovation.
Bloomberg may be a titan in providing professional services that connect decision-makers, but did you know that its true "superpower" lies in its engagement with the open-source community? In a thought-provoking dialogue, Adam uncovers how Bloomberg leverages open-source technology to catalyze true technological innovation, compelling why this open approach has more benefits than meets the eye.
We dive into Bloomberg’s transformative journey in the adoption of open source, examining the company's cultural metamorphosis. Was it a natural evolution or did it necessitate a seismic shift? How critical is it for businesses to contribute back to the community from which they draw so much? Adam touches upon Bloomberg’s efforts in language standardization and what these contributions mean not just for Bloomberg but for the tech ecosystem at large.
The conversation then turns to the symbiotic relationship between open-source communities and large enterprises. We dissect the nuances of democratic funding models like Bloomberg’s FOSS Contributor Fund. They reflect on how these funding avenues are not just a give-back mechanism but also an investment in sustainable innovation.
Adam highlights the array of benefits and challenges that engineers face while working on open source projects. The exchange delves into how open source can be a fertile training ground for budding engineers, offering avenues for them to sharpen their skills and broaden their horizons. But what does this mean for Bloomberg’s talent pool? Adam shares unique perspectives on Bloomberg's "visiting engineer" pilot program, aiming to infuse fresh ideas and perspectives within its technical teams.
Towards the end, we explore why Bloomberg's commitment to open-source innovation has made it more popular in these circles than even the FAANG companies. What does this mean for Bloomberg’s positioning in the tech landscape? And importantly, what does it indicate about the evolving ethos in tech development?
This episode is not just for the tech-savvy but also for business leaders, policy-makers, and even the casually curious. Tune in to delve into the future of open-source technology and its transformative impact on innovation in the global tech industry.
Welcome to another illuminating episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast. I sit down with Fran Rosch, the visionary CEO of ForgeRock, a global leader in digital identity management. With a radical transformation on the horizon, Fran sheds light on the pressing challenges and monumental opportunities in enterprise identification management. Having previously been at the helm of Symantec's $2B+ Consumer Digital Safety segment, Fran brings two decades of rich industry experience to the table.
In this episode, Fran takes listeners through a historical overview of how authentication has evolved over the past 20 years, punctuating the narrative with intriguing insights. Has technology really moved the needle, or are we stuck in a quagmire of incremental advancements? With solutions like self-service options and biometrics, Fran argues we're on the cusp of a passwordless future. But is the industry ready for it? Are we, as users, prepared for such a monumental shift?
As we delve deeper into the realm of identity management, we discuss the far-reaching challenges and opportunities for organizations and governments in an ever-connected world. With identities numbering in the millions, perhaps billions, Fran casts a lens on the complexities of scale, specifically in the context of AI and IoT.
We then explore why, despite notable technological advances, flawed passwords continue to be the Achilles heel of digital identity management. Is it inertia, or is it a complex web of technological, social, and economic factors?
Fran paints a vivid picture of the challenges surrounding technology adoption and change management, especially when it comes to passwordless authentication. He emphasizes the urgency for companies to transition to new identity solutions—not just to stay competitive, but also to improve user experiences, both for consumers and within the enterprise.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the future of digital identity, AI, and the ever-evolving technological landscape. From C-suite executives to tech enthusiasts, there are actionable insights and thought-provoking discussions that promise to keep you engaged from start to finish. Tune in and prepare to rethink what you know about passwords and digital identity.
Today, I will take you into the often-overlooked corridors of finance within the digital marketing realm. My guest, Chris Pearce, serves as the International Finance Direct for EMEA and APAC at Marigold, a name that commands respect in the digital marketing arena.
In the episode, Chris walks us through Marigold's transformative journey as they made the shift from manual to automated accounts receivable using Quadient AR by YayPay. Chris delves into the before and after, revealing a landscape fraught with challenges, including inconsistent system reports and missed follow-ups that were a part of their pre-automation days.
With automation, the game has entirely changed for Marigold, with remarkable improvements like securing on-time payments, enhancing customer experiences, and slashing overdue customer payments by an impressive 40%.
We then discuss the K-Piver-Cordion system, a leap forward in the company's automated accounts receivable efforts. This has significantly optimized communication with customers, streamlined payment processes, and bolstered cash flows. The conversation turns richly informative as Chris elaborates on the challenges Marigold had to navigate during this transition. He emphasizes the meticulous data organization and communication strategies that were pivotal to their success.
We also explore the exciting horizons that automation and artificial intelligence could offer Marigold in the near future. Not just confined to accounts receivable, but the potential for sweeping transformations across various operational facets of the company.
Tune in for a deep-dive into the transformative role of finance in digital marketing, as Chris Pearce offers an unprecedented look at the operations behind one of the industry's leading names. Whether you're a digital marketer, a finance professional, or someone intrigued by the blend of the two, this episode promises invaluable insights.
I sit down with Tom Stephenson VP, Community & Legal Ops/Legal.io Plus and Host of Dear Legal Ops. Tom, brings over a decade of rich experience from global law firms, Fortune 500 companies, and legal tech vendors, illuminates the myriad facets of the legal landscape in today's digital age.
The conversation kicks off with Tom sharing insights into how technology is transforming the very bones of the legal profession. Whether it's machine learning algorithms expediting contract reviews or AI tools revolutionizing compliance checks, technology stands as a game-changer.
However we delve deeper, discussing the thorny challenges that accompany this digital shift. Issues like imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and the complexities of migrating from traditional law firms to in-house corporate legal roles are examined with a critical lens. The episode takes a riveting turn as Tom unpacks his role at Legal.io, a disruptive force aiming to redefine the legal hiring process and provide resources for career advancement. Tom elucidates how his platform is not just a marketplace for jobs but a community that fosters growth, innovation, and transformative professional experiences.
We then venture into the realm of community building within the legal tech landscape. Tom reveals the magic behind cultivating effective relationships and aligning disparate groups under a unified mission. His insights are deeply rooted in his role as Vice President of Community & Legal Operations at Legal.io, where he has proven his prowess in steering the ship of organizational strategies.
Tune in to this episode for an intricate, multi-dimensional view of legal operations, technology, and the paths that lie ahead. It's a masterclass in understanding the future of law through the lens of someone who is actively shaping it.
Today, I explore the world of modern data analytics with Aron Clymer, Founder and CEO of Data Clymer. Aron brings to the table a wealth of knowledge and experience, from his time building the Product Intelligence team at Salesforce to democratizing data at PopSugar, and finally leading Data Clymer to become a force to be reckoned with in the realm of data and analytics.
Our journey begins with Aron sharing his personal story, illustrating how his passion for data analytics has driven his career. He uncovers the transformative power of data in problem-solving across various sectors, highlighting how data is no longer a side note but central to business strategy.
The discussion takes a deep dive into the modern data stack, a concept Aron is fervent about. He stresses the importance of centralizing, democratizing, and making data analytics-friendly. Amidst the chatter about buzzwords like 'data democratization,' Aron brings clarity by offering a pragmatic approach to building a robust data culture, grounded in solving specific use-cases and iterating solutions.
The conversation shifts gears as we explore the evolution of data warehousing. Cloud technology, it appears, has been a game-changer. Aron elucidates how it's now possible to run an entire business operation off a data warehouse, obliterating the need for data movement. This technological leap means that employees in diverse roles can become 'data heroes,' wielding analytical tools with relative ease to glean valuable insights.
As the dialogue moves forward, Aron shares captivating insights on the future of data analytics, including the harmonization of real-time data and batch processing. The discussion spirals into the specific challenges and opportunities in the domain of marketing analytics, hinting at what's next on the horizon for Data Clymer, particularly in untapped industries like sports and entertainment.
Don't miss this episode if you're looking to understand not just the mechanics of data but its soul; how it can empower, inform, and most importantly, drive success.
In this episode, Neil delves into the intricate world of digital identities with Thibault Launay, a serial entrepreneur and the innovative mind behind Doppl.ai. An evolution from Thibault’s earlier venture, Exclusible, Doppl.ai reimagines the concept of a digital twin by incorporating generative AI technology. Far from being just another avatar, the 'Doppl' becomes an interactive, highly precise digital version of oneself, evolving in real time based on the individual's data.
Thibault shares the origin story of Doppl.ai, giving listeners an intimate look at his entrepreneurial journey that began at the young age of 22. Not just a solo venture, he elaborates on how he has recruited an exceptional team from varied backgrounds, including veterans from IGN, GameFly, and Speechmatics. Each team member brings unique insights and skills, contributing to the revolutionary product they're building.
As the conversation unfolds, it becomes evident that Doppl.ai isn’t just about digital identity—it's about the convergence of disruptive technologies like NFTs, the metaverse, and AI. It takes the scattered, curated, and often deceptive digital identities of traditional social media and transforms them into something far more authentic. This venture represents a significant leap in the ongoing quest for individuality in digital spaces, offering a transparent, real, and engaging user experience.
Toward the end of the discussion, Thibault touches on the future of Doppl.ai. We talk about the rigorous quality improvements planned before its market launch and express their excitement about what lies ahead. If you’re interested in the future of digital identity, AI, and how we present ourselves in increasingly virtual worlds, this episode is a must-listen.
In this captivating episode, Neil speaks with Sriram Sampath, Vice President of CX Management and Collaboration platforms at Tata Communications, a leader in enabling digital ecosystems for global enterprises. They delve into the imperative need for powerful yet straightforward digital collaboration platforms in today's hybrid work environment.
We explore the complexities of merging our personal and professional lives in the age of remote work. As digital walls continue to blur, they discuss how the right technological frameworks can help manage these transitions and even aid in task-switching between different roles.
The conversation further turns to the often-undiscussed challenges of a hybrid work culture—unproductive meetings, procrastination, and the friction points employees encounter when transitioning back to physical workspaces. Drawing on Sriram's wealth of experience and insight, they outline how companies can best navigate these issues. They highlight that failing to address such challenges risks not just productivity but also personal time, as described by The Wall Street Journal's report on the erosion of weekends in a hybrid-first world.
Sriram provides an insider look into how Tata Communications is partnering with tech giants like Cisco and Microsoft to deliver end-to-end solutions that help companies communicate more effectively and adapt to these new work paradigms. He shares the forward-looking strategies that Tata Communications is adopting, from evolving platform capabilities to introducing features designed to meet the unique needs of a modern workforce.
Listen in to gain a nuanced understanding of the digital transformation journey, its impact on the global work landscape, and the innovative solutions Tata Communications brings. This episode offers a 360-degree view on the challenges, opportunities, and next steps in digital collaboration and hybrid work culture.
In a thought-provoking episode, I sit down with Dr. Eric Daimler, an eminent authority on artificial intelligence and robotics with over two decades of multifaceted experience. As a Presidential Innovation Fellow for AI and Robotics under the Obama Administration and the CEO of Conexus, Dr. Daimler offers a unique vantage point on the intersection of policy, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the ever-evolving AI landscape.
The conversation kicks off with an exploration into Eric's role as the first AI authority in the Obama White House. They delve into the strategic importance of having technology expertise within the governmental structure, examining how such expertise can shape public policy and drive national initiatives.
From the macro to the micro, the conversation shifts towards the mounting challenges of data management in AI implementations. With his current venture, Conexus, Dr. Daimler aims to revolutionize data integration and migration through a category-theory-based platform, CQL. The discussion takes a deep dive into the complexities of managing data deluge and the role of category theory in simplifying this monumental task.
The discourse then moves into the social and ethical dimensions of AI and robotics. Eric and Neil ponder on the responsibility of communities and citizens in shaping the future of these technologies. They stress the necessity for a collective approach towards understanding the ethical, societal, and economic impacts of AI.
As the conversation advances, we discuss the prospects and challenges for AI in automating vocational IT work and synthesizing various tools' actions. They underscore the transformative potential of AI in diverse sectors, including supply chain management, organ donation, and drug discovery.
Dr. Daimler brings an unparalleled blend of academic rigor, policy insight, and entrepreneurial spirit to the episode. This is a must-listen for anyone interested in the multifaceted aspects of AI, from data management to ethical considerations and policy implications.
In this insightful episode of Tech Talks Daily, Neil Clauson, Regional CISO at Mimecast, joins us to shed light on a subject that has now found a permanent place in boardroom agendas worldwide: cyber risk. The World Economic Forum's 2023 Global Risks Report has highlighted cyber risk as a top concern for global leaders, echoing the urgent need for board-level understanding and action in this domain. But how do CISOs make the complex world of cybersecurity comprehensible to the C-Suite and the board? Neil Clauson offers a masterclass.
We explore the nuances of demystifying mid-to-long-term risks associated with cyber threats, urging the importance of language that resonates with the board. Gone are the days when technical jargon could dominate these high-level discussions. In today's interconnected business landscape, it's crucial that cyber risks are articulated in terms directly correlating with business outcomes. But it's not just about communicating what could go wrong; it's also about focusing on why it can go wrong. For instance, why does heavy reliance on a single security provider increase risk?
The episode explores Clauson's recommendations for aligning cyber risk with the broader business landscape. By doing so, CISOs can move away from a crisis-response model to one that is integral to the business strategy, thereby elevating the cybersecurity discourse from a niche IT concern to a core business functionality.
Neil Clauson also imparts wisdom on how to frame cyber risk without inciting unnecessary panic. He suggests tactical approaches that allow the board to quantify these risks accurately, driving home the point that not every incident warrants a five-alarm fire.
Finally, we delve into the evolving role of the CISO, emphasizing the need for a sense of humor, preparedness, and proactive risk management strategies that go beyond mere compliance to embed cybersecurity into the very fabric of the business.
This episode is a must-listen for CISOs grappling with the challenge of making cybersecurity a board-level priority and for board members looking to gain a nuanced understanding of this multifaceted risk landscape.
In a digital era where content is king and data is the new oil, businesses grapple with the challenge of intelligently connecting these invaluable assets. In the next episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I engage in a candid conversation with Tim Hood, VP for EMEA & APAC at Hyland, a company at the forefront of crafting technology foundations that empower over half of the Fortune 100 companies.
With 15 years in content management and a formidable track record of expanding Hyland's European team from 48 to over 600, Tim brings an unmatched depth of insight into content management and digital transformation.
Our discussion starts by tackling the age-old frustrations of legacy systems— their inflexibility, growing obsolescence, and widening performance gaps. Tim provides an eloquent analysis of why businesses often find themselves shackled to these outdated technologies, citing concerns ranging from cost and convenience to custom integrations and technological inertia.
The conversation then transitions to the undeniable power of cloud technology in addressing these challenges. Tim elucidates how the cloud can pace a company's digital evolution, mainly through hybrid storage approaches. By framing the cloud as more than just a tool but as a strategic asset, Tim makes a compelling case for its role in shaping the future of content management.
One of the unique aspects we explore is the regional nuances in digital transformation strategies. While the technological challenges remain consistent globally, the approach to solving them varies. Tim outlines how market behaviors differ across the UK, Europe, and the US, offering insights into how Hyland tailors its strategies to align with regional idiosyncrasies.
Further, we dive into the broader narrative of digital transformation. Tim stresses the importance of a well-defined vision that includes technology, people, and processes. He discusses Hyland's mission of enabling intelligent connections between content, data, and processes using a blend of cutting-edge technologies like AI and machine learning. A holistic outlook has fueled Hyland's remarkable growth under his leadership.
The episode wraps up with Tim sharing glimpses into the future— from the expansion of the content services market to Hyland's ongoing focus on enhancing customer experiences through technologies like Insight. Plus, he shares a bit of whimsy, expressing his hypothetical dining companions from history and tech, namely Charles Babbage and Bill Gates.
This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for businesses looking to navigate the complex landscape of digital transformation, especially in the realm of content and data management. It's a conversation rich in expert insights and practical strategies, equipping listeners with the knowledge to make informed decisions in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.
In a financial landscape increasingly characterized by uncertainty and volatility, clarity and expertise are prized commodities. I sit down with Kate Leaman, Chief Market Analyst at AvaTrade, to shed light on some of the most pressing issues affecting the financial markets today.
Kate Leaman isn't just another talking head in the world of financial analysis. With a background in financial broadcast journalism and over 15 years in the financial media landscape, she brings a nuanced understanding of market dynamics. She’s not only a seasoned analyst but also an experienced trader, providing her with a 360-degree view of market movements.
Our conversation begins with an exploration of Kate's role at AvaTrade, delving into the intricacies of analyzing markets in an era marked by unprecedented challenges, from inflation and fluctuating interest rates to the weakening of the U.S. dollar. Kate shares how her day-to-day responsibilities include not just scrutinizing numerical trends but also deciphering their implications for AvaTrade's vast clientele.
One of the central themes of our discussion revolves around de-dollarization. This trending phenomenon signifies a shift away from the U.S. dollar in international trade, a move that resonates with broader geopolitical implications. Kate delves into how this trend has evolved, fueled by factors like Federal Reserve policies, trade imbalances, and emerging markets finding their foothold in the global economy.
The conversation also touches upon the symbiotic relationship between inflation and interest rates. In an era where central banks have become proactive economic agents rather than mere regulators, understanding this relationship becomes vital for both institutional and retail investors. Kate offers actionable advice on diversifying portfolios and focusing on high-quality investments to hedge against inflationary pressures.
Trading in uncertain times requires more than just financial acumen; it demands emotional intelligence. Kate and I discuss the importance of removing emotions from trading decisions, urging traders to adhere to a disciplined plan. She emphasizes starting small, being prepared for market volatility, and most importantly, learning from mistakes.
Lastly, we venture into the intersection of technology and trading. The financial markets have seen a digital transformation that goes beyond algorithmic trading to include social trading platforms and blockchain technologies. Kate offers her insights into how traders, both novice and seasoned, can benefit from these technologies without getting lost in their complexities.
As we traverse through an increasingly interconnected and volatile global economy, this episode stands as an essential guide for anyone looking to navigate the financial markets effectively. Kate Leaman’s expert insights serve not just as a forecast of what’s to come, but as a roadmap for how to prepare for it.
In the ever-evolving landscape of tech startups, one may wonder if the rush for innovation has room for meaningful impact. The conventional venture capital model has been scrutinized for its focus on rapid growth, often at the expense of the broader societal implications of the technologies being funded. Does this need to be the norm, or can we chart a more conscientious path for tech innovation?
In a thought-provoking Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, I delve into this pertinent question with Johannes Weber of Ananda Impact Ventures.
Johannes introduces us to his revolutionary "Impact Carry Model," a framework designed to ensure that tech companies not only set but also meet impact Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Far from an idealistic endeavor, the model implements a concrete 'theory of change,' meticulously measuring a company's impact over time. What sets this model apart is its in-built self-checking mechanism that goes beyond mere intentions to quantifiable impact. If "what gets measured gets managed" holds true, Johannes' Impact Carry Model could be a vanguard in managing for good.
While many venture capital firms talk about creating an impact, their claims often prove to be little more than marketing slogans. Johannes takes a different route by writing purpose-related clauses into contracts and term sheets, ensuring accountability and steering companies back to their original mission.
Johannes and I discuss the potential pitfalls of the "grow at all costs" mentality often propagated by traditional VC models. This single-minded focus has resulted in a burnout culture that impacts startups and founders. Johannes advocates for a balanced approach that gives equal importance to founder resilience, backing it up with proactive support measures like coaching and peer discussions.
We also explore the innovative frontiers of impact-driven tech, spotlighting unique startups such as I-E-Z-O-I-E-S-O Digital Health, Nature Metrics, and Aurora Tech. These companies stand as testaments to what can be achieved when business imperatives are aligned with societal needs.
The conversation takes a softer turn as we delve into the importance of kindness in the tech industry. Johannes shares a heartwarming anecdote about a pitch centered around the concept of kindness, which not only succeeded in securing funding but also led to a sustainable and impactful partnership.
The episode provides actionable insights for startup founders keen on creating sustainable, impact-driven businesses. The industry's call to action is to move beyond mere talk and commit to quantifiable, impactful change.
In a world where information management often leads to chaos, M-Files emerges as a beacon of organization and innovation. Antti Nivala, the CEO and mastermind behind M-Files, joins Neil on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss the company's remarkable journey to Centaur status, achieving $100M in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). Through pragmatic leadership and a unique metadata-driven approach, M-Files stands as a testament to what unwavering commitment and clever strategy can achieve.
Antti's journey began with the challenges he observed in engineering and construction projects, grappling with disorganized document handling. He realized the traditional folder paradigm was no longer sufficient, leading to the birth of M-Files and its metadata-driven approach. With over $150 million in investment, Antti has driven the enterprise SaaS company to new heights, reaching markets across the globe and particularly expanding in the U.S.
Leadership at M-Files is not about authority but about empowerment. Antti emphasizes transparency and trust within the team. Under his guidance, the company celebrated the milestone of $100 million in recurring revenue—an achievement that speaks volumes about the firm's potential and its future in the market.
Being named Software Entrepreneur of the Year and CTO of the Year didn't just bring Antti accolades; it shaped his leadership strategy. These recognitions instilled in him the courage to pursue audacious goals and enabled him to guide others on their entrepreneurial journeys. Antti's mantra is clear: Focus on what your startup does best, and stay committed to success.
Achieving Centaur status, especially during turbulent economic times, is no mean feat. Antti's pragmatic approach to sustainable growth is a shining example for tech startups looking to expand globally. His stewardship has helped M-Files become the only pure-play modem platform in the document management space—an incredible feat that resonates with both industry insiders and newcomers alike.
Antti Nivala's story is a masterclass in leadership, innovation, and resilience. From understanding the core issues of document chaos to creating a global leader in information management, M-Files is a testament to what clear vision and dedicated execution can achieve. As the conversation with Neil unveils, Antti's approach is not just about technology; it's about human values, commitment, and the courage to do what one does best.
In this enlightening episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, Neil delves into the world of language learning with Steve Toy, the CEO of Memrise. A name synonymous with innovation in education, artificial intelligence, and mobile applications, Steve Toy's journey is nothing short of inspiring.
The conversation kicks off with an introduction to Memrise, a powerful language learning app with over 65 million users. Steve unveils MemBot, their latest innovation—an AI language chatbot powered by ChatGPT technology. This ground-breaking tool provides a friendly, encouraging language partner that aids learners in overcoming the daunting prospect of speaking a new language for the very first time.
Steve then elaborates on MemBot's unique features, such as providing hints, translations, and suggested responses. It's more than just a tool; it's a safe space that offers all of the practice with none of the pressure. Steve passionately discusses how Memrise has used technology to personalize content, offering immediate feedback to users. The integration of videos from platforms like YouTube and TikTok, matched with words and phrases each user knows, brings a fresh perspective to language learning.
The conversation turns reflective as we discuss the importance of continuous self-education and staying abreast with tech trends. Steve emphasizes the value of self-learning through free resources and the effectiveness of Memrise for language acquisition.
But this technological advancement doesn't come without its concerns.
We also touch on the challenges and negative aspects of AI in education. While AI offers highly engaging learning experiences, questions about it potentially replacing human interaction and ethical considerations in AI use are thoughtfully examined.
Finally, they explore MemBot's ability to attract users with varied interests, personalizing their learning experiences, much like how Netflix recommends movies and TV shows. Steve also shares Memrise's future plans, underlining their vision of scaling language immersion digitally.
In today's episode, we sit down with the dynamic David A. Steinberg, the co-founder and CEO of Zeta Global, a cloud marketing tech giant that recently broke down the distinctions between the shopping behaviors of Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X. How are they choosing brands? What's their shopping platform of choice? And how do these patterns signal the booming rise of live shopping and the "phygital" fusion in the retail space?
As marketers scramble to decipher the digital-native Gen Z and anticipate the upcoming Generation Alpha, David sheds light on why understanding these consumer habits is paramount. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. With Zeta Global's expertise in harnessing AI-powered insights from a monumental data pool, they've been steering Fortune 500 brands like Hanes, Toyota, and Purple towards understanding consumer intentions. Not to mention their recent introduction of generative AI data analysts, ramping up companies' marketing arsenals.
Co-founding Zeta Global alongside ex-Apple CEO John Sculley, David has seen the company's triumphant public debut in 2021 and watched its market cap soar to a staggering $2B. But with AI's meteoric rise come significant concerns, especially regarding its impact on jobs. In light of recent events where thousands of film and television writers went on strike, citing AI as a factor in their job insecurity, David provides a refreshing perspective. Contrary to common fears, Zeta Global has showcased a model where AI augments the workforce rather than replaces it.
In our deep dive, David speaks about:
- The unique role AI plays in enhancing workplace productivity by weeding out redundant tasks.
- Tasks that AI can masterfully automate, which are beyond human capability, especially handling vast data quantities.
- The potential AI holds in not only creating new job avenues but also elevating existing ones.
With rivals like Salesforce, Adobe, and Oracle in the fray, Zeta Global stands out with its unique blend of technology, data, and consumer insight. Dive in as we unpack David's profound insights, his vision for the future of AI and retail, and his storied journey in scaling tech businesses over the past three decades. It's a conversation brimming with revelations, and you won't want to miss it!
In today's episode, we delve deep into the tech world with Melissa Mulholland, the remarkable CEO of Crayon. Navigating a realm traditionally dominated by men, Melissa's journey is one of grit, innovation, and a passion for tech. Discover how Crayon is at the forefront of helping organizations maximize their software and cloud investments, all while creating unparalleled value for businesses.
From her early challenges, where societal expectations did not align with her vision, to personal stories highlighting the transformative power of AI technology, Melissa breaks down the essence of what it truly means to be a leader in the IT industry. Rather than embodying an "untouchable" superhuman, she reminds us that the most influential CEOs are those who prioritize trust, sharing, dedication, and, most importantly, humanity.
This enlightening conversation ranges from discussions about the need to disrupt traditional perceptions of IT leadership to Melissa's insights on the very human acts that differentiate great CEOs. Plus, hear about her work with Intel, Microsoft and the very personal story of her son's journey with autism and the role AI played in it.
Prepare for an episode that touches on tech and delves into the heart of leadership, challenges, and the profound impact technology can have on human lives. Join me for an episode that promises tech insights and stories of resilience, vision, and transformation. Whether you're in the IT industry or someone who believes in the potential for change, this conversation with Melissa Mulholland is not missed.
In a digital age marked by rapid technological advancements and increased global connectivity, ensuring cybersecurity for large corporations can often seem daunting. Today, I am joined by Doug Shepherd, Senior Director of Offensive Security and Global Insider Risk for Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL). This leading, billion-dollar real-estate services company spans 80 countries.
JLL's challenges are multifaceted: ensuring the safety of a decentralized workforce, navigating the complex terrains of diverse privacy laws and regulations across continents, and maintaining real-time visibility into an impressive 100,000 endpoints.
During our insightful chat, we delved deep into the previous security issues faced by JLL. The intricacies of having endpoint checks just every 75 days, coinciding with password changes, posed significant risks. Doug sheds light on the dynamics of managing security across different jurisdictions, emphasizing the importance of local expertise and overarching global strategies.
Together, we explore the prevalent cyber threats that JLL and other organizations of its stature grapple with. Doug shares the transformative impact of real-time endpoint monitoring on JLL's cybersecurity posture, highlighting its role in enhancing incident response capabilities.
The broader industry has its challenges.
Doug and I discuss the relentless pace of the cybersecurity sector, the balancing act between data privacy and augmented security measures, and the critical symbiosis between security and business. The episode also touches on innovative training programs and technologies, such as Immersive Labs and CASB, that are ushering in a new era of cybersecurity preparedness.
Wrapping up, Doug, with his rich background as a former 'spook' and red team leader, offers a nuanced perspective on the pressing need to find the middle ground between rigorous data collection and upholding privacy.
Join us in this riveting episode as we journey through the cyber labyrinths of a global giant and uncover the strategies, challenges, and solutions that shape the future of organizational security.
In today's Tech Talks Daily episode, we dive deep into the exhilarating world of Web3, NFTs, and innovative gaming. Joining us is Shiti Manghani, the dynamic COO of Find Satoshi Lab (FSL) and an award-winning business leader with a formidable track record spanning 14 years and 11 countries.
Find Satoshi Lab began its exciting journey with the introduction of STEPN, a revolutionary Web3 application that marries fitness with crypto rewards. Imagine being rewarded for your every step, jog, or run with the help of a virtual NFT sneaker. That's the innovation of STEPN, and Shiti offers a behind-the-scenes look at its inception during the height of COVID-19 and its subsequent impressive growth trajectory.
But why would a digital sneaker hold more appeal than its physical counterpart in our current era? We delve into this intriguing topic, understanding the strategic confluence of health awareness and technological allure.
The future of Web3 is vast and promising. Shiti offers her perspectives on the trailblazing projects in this domain that aren't just innovating but also turning profitable. Find Satoshi Lab, the genius team behind STEPN, has recently unveiled GNT, an AI-powered NFT generator. This unique platform is a boon for creators, founders, and startups, offering them the prowess to craft distinctive digital art pieces that can be instantly minted as NFTs.
And there's more. Awaiting launch is the online multiplayer game, Gas Hero. This game, accessible via web browsers and mobile phones, promises a tantalizing mix of power, fame, and money, accentuating the importance of player interaction. Shiti shares her insights on the psychological intricacies of game development, emphasizing the meticulous care FSL is putting into refining Gas Hero's UX and UI.
Shiti's journey is nothing short of inspiring. With an academic foundation in Electronics Engineering and an MBA in Marketing, she's donned several esteemed hats. From founding a top-ranked computer vision-based AI start-up in the UK to launching the Wall Street Journal's digital arm in India and building influential brands for PepsiCo US, Shiti's story is one of innovation, tenacity, and global impact.
So, gear up for an episode replete with insights on Web3, the explosive potential of NFTs, and the future of immersive gaming. Dive into the world of Find Satoshi Lab and the brilliant mind of Shiti Manghani.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Neil dives deep into the world of data infrastructure and its transformative power in the digital landscape. As organizations grapple with the complexities of building robust and flexible data infrastructure, we uncover why such an investment can unlock unparalleled potential despite not always being in the limelight.
The global Data Infrastructure Construction Market is on track to see an impressive growth of over +7% by 2030. But what’s driving this surge? And how should organizations approach budgeting, modernizing, and strategizing for it?
Joining the conversation is Diana Bald, President of Blue Orange Digital. With over 20 years of experience in leading digital transformations and fostering sustainable product development across diverse industries, Diana shares her invaluable insights. She delves into her journey at the helm of Blue Orange Digital and how the company has been pivotal in aiding businesses in their digital evolution.
As the narrative unfolds, the duo touches upon the evolving challenges and opportunities of recent years. From navigating the tides of remote/hybrid work models and economic flux to ensuring tangible ROI on tech ventures, the discussion is both insightful and timely. Data's undeniable power also takes center stage. How can organizations harness its full potential?
From revolutionizing industries to fueling innovation, Diana and Neil view data not just as an asset but as a continuous expedition. Diana emphasizes the integral aspects organizations must focus on when budgeting for data infrastructure. From aligning goals and ensuring scalability to understanding the cloud paradigm and ensuring impeccable data security, the nuances are many.
The digital age sees a proliferation of IoT devices, an influx of unstructured data, the shift to cloud, and heightened data protection norms. Diana and Neil ponder what this means for the global data infrastructure construction market. The conversation then steers towards the art and science of modernizing data infrastructure. Diana and Neil navigate the roadmap to ensure businesses can evolve without causing rifts in their current operations. Their mantra is clear: run systems in parallel, begin on a smaller scale, and always be in the iterative mode.
Peering into the future, the episode delves into what's next for data infrastructure. With data volumes soaring, advancements in cloud technology, industries becoming increasingly tech-reliant, and AI & digitization becoming more embedded in daily life, the future promises to be exciting. Wrapping up, Diana recounts her professional trajectory and the unique ways Blue Orange Digital empowers businesses in their digital journeys.
This episode is a riveting discussion on the very core of digital transformation: data infrastructure. Tune in to equip yourself with the knowledge to navigate its intricacies.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Neil delves into the vital world of field service automation with Prateek Chakravarty, CEO of Zinier, a frontrunner in leveraging AI and machine learning to revolutionize field installation and maintenance operations.
At the heart of our conversation is Zinier's mission: to make field service organizations more intelligent, efficient, and swift in their response. As the digital age advances, with phenomena like 5G and the boom in IoT devices, data floods in at an unprecedented pace.
The age-old manual methods and legacy solutions are proving inadequate to keep up with the demands of the times. Enter Zinier, with its comprehensive solution that seamlessly merges the back office with the field, ensuring not just the efficient management of tasks but also a transformative touchless field service delivery experience.
Prateek passionately discusses technology equity, emphasizing the urgency to level the playing field between desk and frontline workers in terms of technology access. In a world racing towards innovation, he believes it's crucial that our frontline workers aren't left behind.
We explore the unique challenges infrastructure-centric industries face in embracing technology. Beyond the technological hurdles, we ddress the socio-economic dimensions of this transformation, underscoring the essence of ESG measures in modern business strategies.
Our conversation takes a deeper dive into the importance of sustainable and inclusive practices in heavy industries. With the global push towards eco-consciousness and gender equality, how are industries adapting? We also evaluate the role of no-code and low-code platforms in catalyzing this change.
While AI presents unprecedented opportunities, it's not without pitfalls. Prateek candidly discuss the challenges and imperatives of integrating AI into infrastructure-focused sectors. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, an industry professional, or someone curious about the future of infrastructure, this episode promises valuable insights and takeaways!
In today's episode, I explore the convergence of technology and logistics with Michael Newcity, the CIO and president of ArcBest Technologies. While logistics may not immediately evoke thoughts of high-tech innovation, Michael sheds light on how ArcBest sets new industry standards through technological advancements.
ArcBest's commitment to harnessing the power of tech is evident in its groundbreaking Vaux Freight Movement System. This state-of-the-art system comprising software and hardware components is a game changer for the logistics landscape. Michael delves into its ability to drastically reduce the time spent loading and unloading freight — a transformative shift from hours to mere minutes.
The Vaux system's proprietary technology, which seamlessly integrates into existing setups, offers warehouse managers and dock supervisors the tools to supercharge productivity. But that's not all. The software's unique tracking technology ensures real-time visibility, further reinforcing ArcBest's vision of providing unparalleled efficiency in the logistics realm.
Michael emphasizes that the Vaux system is a testament to ArcBest's robust investment strategy in technology. Remarkably, half of the company's impressive $150M annual technology budget is allocated towards strategic, transformative projects — a figure that surpasses industry benchmarks.
Throughout the discussion, Neil and Michael also touch upon the industry's historical strides in tech, such as the pioneering efforts in online tracking for consumers. Michael's insights underscore ArcBest's customer-centric approach, using innovative solutions like the Vaux system to provide unprecedented value.
As the conversation unfolds, the duo deep dives into broader tech trends reshaping the logistics industry, especially after recent supply chain disruptions. From the surge in IoT and digitization to the promises of edge computing, listeners will get a panoramic view of the tech-driven metamorphosis in logistics.
Tune in to understand how technology is not just augmenting but revolutionizing the logistics domain. This episode offers an inspiring narrative of how forward-thinking strategies and relentless innovation can drive a century-old business like ArcBest into the future.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Trent Fitz, a seasoned veteran in the tech space with over two decades of leadership experience, especially in cloud computing, AI, and cybersecurity. As Chief Product Officer of Zenoss, Trent has been at the forefront of technological innovation, steering product strategy, and global marketing.
If the terms 'AI' and 'IT Infrastructure Management' get your gears turning, you're in for a treat. We dive deep into how AI is revolutionizing how we manage complex IT ecosystems, encompassing hardware, software, and network devices. From the historical evolution of IT infrastructure management, with a spotlight on mobile and cloud computing, to the pivotal role AI promises to play in the domain - the conversation promises a whirlwind of insights.
Remember the days when mobile and cloud computing were the buzzwords? Trent draws from his vast experience to explain how these tech trends have evolved over the past quarter-century and why AI stands to overshadow them in terms of impact. His stint in cloud computing has uniquely positioned him to approach AIOps with a nuanced perspective, especially considering the escalating complexity of today's digital infrastructures.
Listeners get a peek into the world of AIOps: its current trajectory, the inherent challenges, and the multitude of benefits it promises. But, as with all technology, there are pitfalls. Neil and Trent emphasize the need for discretion in selecting AIOps tools. A one-size-fits-all? Think again. Thorough research and precise alignment of vendor capabilities with individual use-cases are crucial to sidestep ill-fated projects.
The duo also shines a light on the intersection of AIOps with data security and compliance. With rising concerns about data breaches and regulatory mandates, could AI be the knight in shining armor?
Beyond the nitty-gritty of AIOps, Trent shares snippets of his personal journey into the tech realm, offering words of wisdom for budding tech enthusiasts. His roles, ranging from leadership stints at Nimboxx and SailPoint Technologies to his consultancy practice, have equipped him with a 360-degree view of the tech landscape.
To all our listeners pondering the seismic shifts in information technology or those sifting through the AI chatter to separate myths from reality – this episode has you covered. Plus, today's discussion is a gold mine for anyone contemplating a tech career or simply seeking a deeper understanding of AI's business applications – from security and compliance to sales and marketing.
Take advantage of this enlightening conversation with Trent Fitz, where we bridge IT management's past, present, and future through the lens of AI.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I delve into the intriguing world of technology behind wellness products with Jaime Sanchez, VP of Product Development and Manufacturing at Therabody.
While many recognize Therabody as a pioneering brand in percussive therapy, few are aware of the intricate tech, rigorous R&D, and science-backed principles that underpin their celebrated products. Jaime peels back the curtain to unveil the thought processes and advanced technologies incorporated to prioritize human needs.
From the deployment of rare earth magnets in the Theragun motor for precision pressure control to the innovative use of Cryo-thermal technology that rapidly cools the skin to a consistent 10 Celsius, every facet of product design is meticulously crafted to serve genuine user needs.
With patented heart rate sensors, a unique bed design enabling versatile product features like air massages and vibrations, and a commitment to iterative development based on genuine feedback, Therabody sets the bar high in the wellness tech sector.
Throughout the conversation, we explore the brand's commitment to changing the paradigms of self-care. We discuss the painstaking R&D journey, the critical role of customer feedback in refining products, and share light-hearted moments like experimenting with the Theragon device on the face.
I also gain insights into the upcoming innovations from Therabody, with a peek into the development of the smart goggles product, boasting a distinctive heart rate sensor.
The episode an insight into how Therabody harmonizes technology with human-centric design, ensuring that their offerings don't just promote wellness but also cultivate behavior that prioritizes health.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're diving deep into the world of artificial intelligence with Ayesha Iqbal. She is an IEEE Senior Member and Engineering Trainer at Manufacturing Technology Centre, UK.
Throughout our discussion, Ayesha uncovers AI's profound influence across many industries, illustrating both the opportunities it presents and the challenges it raises. We delve into the transformative power of AI in healthcare, from genetic code discoveries to robot-assisted surgeries, and how the technology promises to reshape diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. Yet, as with any technological evolution, it's crucial to move forward with caution.
Ayesha highlights the urgent call from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for rigorous oversight, ensuring that AI's integration in healthcare remains safe, effective, and ethically sound. But our AI journey doesn't stop at healthcare. We venture into AI's broader applications, discussing its burgeoning influence in travel, transportation, and even its potential to address some of the planet's most pressing climate and environmental challenges.
One can't help but feel a flurry of lightbulb moments while listening to Ayesha's insights, inviting listeners to dare to think bigger, to envision the art of the possible.
In addition to her illustrious work in the AI realm, Ayesha has an impressive academic and professional background. With a master's in electrical engineering, a decade of professional experience, and numerous publications to her name, Ayesha's expertise is undeniable.
On today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're diving deep into the world of cyber resilience with Deryck Mitchelson, Field CISO at Check Point Software. The number is staggering: organisations lost over $2.7 billion in email fraud last year. But should this continue?
In our dynamic conversation, Deryck and I explore why many CISOs may be underestimating the threat of email security breaches and how the right security measures can lead to significant cost savings for companies.
Amidst the rising tide of cyberattacks and the socio-political turmoil, it's evident that traditional cybersecurity measures are no longer sufficient. Instead, Deryck introduces us to the concept of cyber resilience, where organizations strive to anticipate, withstand, and bounce back from cyber onslaughts.
We also discuss the pressing need for organizations to transition from a detection-focused mindset to a prevention-first approach. Central to our conversation is the three C's vital for enhanced cyber resilience: Comprehensive measures, Consolidation of tools, and Collaboration within the cybersecurity ecosystem. Deryck emphasizes the role of Checkpoint Software in pioneering this shift, offering solutions to ensure businesses stay one step ahead of cyber adversaries.
Referencing his insightful article, "How Does Your Board Measure Cyber Resilience?", Deryck further delves into the frameworks that businesses can adopt to bolster their security and why resilience is the cornerstone of any modern cybersecurity strategy. As threats grow and evolve, resilience becomes more critical than ever, and Deryck offers a roadmap on how businesses can navigate this complex landscape.
In the latest Tech Talks Daily podcast episode, we sat down with Darryl Adams, Director of Accessibility at Intel. Darryl provides enlightening insights into how Intel is harnessing technology to bridge the accessibility gap, particularly for individuals with hearing disabilities. Here are some of the key takeaways:
Global Access to Assistive Technology: In a heartwarming partnership with 3DP4ME, Intel is making strides in increasing the availability of assistive tech in developing countries. A pilot project in Jordan stands as a testament to the potential of this initiative. By employing 3D printing technology, 3DP4ME is equipping children with custom-fitted hearing aids. This not only ensures a better fit but also proves to be a quicker and more cost-effective solution than traditional methods.
Seamless Aid-to-PC Integration: Leveraging the insights from their employees with hearing impairments, Intel's innovative team is closing the compatibility gap that once restricted the full use of hearing aids with PCs. Thanks to the implementation of Bluetooth LE Audio, users can now directly connect their hearing aids to their computers.
A Tailored Audio Assistance Experience: Recognizing that one size doesn’t fit all, Intel is pioneering personalized audio assistance solutions. For those challenged by specific sound frequencies, Intel’s tools are designed to help them concentrate on their PC tasks without missing out on vital ambient sounds. The All Ears software is a prime example of this, alerting users to significant sounds in their surroundings through on-screen notifications.
This conversation sheds light on the power of technology in making the world a more inclusive space for all.
In the rapidly evolving world of data analytics, staying ahead of the curve is essential. Today on Tech Talks Daily, I'm thrilled to have Sumeet Arora from ThoughtSpot to walk us through their game-changing announcements. ThoughtSpot is already renowned for its advanced analytics tool, but with its recent launches, they are truly pushing the boundaries.
Dive in with us as we discuss the all-new ThoughtSpot Sage, a search experience that blends foundational language models with ThoughtSpot’s unmatched search technology. Get excited as we unveil its integration into free trials, enhancing accessibility for users everywhere.
As businesses globally rely heavily on workplace productivity tools, ThoughtSpot's integrations with giants like Excel and Google Workspace aim to embed analytics right within your everyday workflow. But that's just the start. With Liveboards now enabling real-time collaborative decision-making using data, we examine the tangible benefits this brings to the table.
The episode then takes a deeper dive into the expanded universe of ThoughtSpot's features. With the recent launch of ThoughtSpot SaaS on Google Cloud Platform, the introduction of a range of new database connectors, the unveiling of the Data Modeling Studio, and innovative embedded Liveboard features, businesses are in for an enriched data experience like never before.
Sumeet also elaborates on the exciting launch of Monitor for Mobile, a feature that not only notifies users about business metric changes but provides invaluable insights into the 'why' behind these shifts.
We then switch gears to discuss ThoughtSpot's strategic acquisition of Mode Analytics for a whopping $200M. How does this merger aim to empower data teams with Generative AI? And how will it redefine the landscape of Business Intelligence?
If you've been seeking to understand how to truly harness the power of your data, this episode is packed with insights, updates, and a vision of the future you won't want to miss. Join Neil and Sumeet as they chart the course of AI-driven analytics and explore the next frontier in data interpretation.
In today's episode, I delve deep into decentralized identity verification with Lars Seier Christensen, Chairman of Concordium. Riding high on the recent announcement of their groundbreaking product, mysome.id, Concordium aims to revolutionize how we perceive and manage digital identities.
As a banking industry veteran, Lars brings a wealth of knowledge and a unique perspective to the ever-evolving realm of blockchain. With mysome.id, Concordium has rolled out a zero-cost alternative to centralized verification models, such as Elon Musk's Twitter Blue. Initially launching on LinkedIn, mysome.id seeks to tackle some of the most pressing issues in the digital space: fake profiles, data breaches, and the myriad challenges arising from centralized data storage.
Lars shares insights into his journey in the cryptocurrency world, stressing the significance of finding a balance between decentralization and essential regulatory requirements. At the heart of Concordium's mission lies a dedication to bolstering security and trust in digital transactions. With tools like mysome.id, users can now reclaim control of their identity data, emphasizing authenticity and user-driven privacy.
Through the lens of Concordium's offerings, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of self-sovereign IDs and verifiable credentials, which promise a future where identity verification is both private and transparent, devoid of centralized control.
We also venture into the broader implications of blockchain technology for shaping a safer, more secure web3 future. Lars elaborates on Concordium's unique protocol, Concordia, designed to ensure transactional security, robust identity verification, and a formidable defense against fraud across platforms, including social media giants like LinkedIn and Twitter.
As Concordium carves a path towards creating a safer digital realm, mysome.id stands out as a testament to the potential of Web3 technology in addressing Web2's most pressing challenges. With innovative strides like the soon-to-launch Web3 ID and continuous community-driven enhancements, the future looks promising for both Concordium and the broader world of decentralized digital identity.
A recent article by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson painted a somewhat grim picture of AI and its implications, stirring significant controversy within the tech community. Today's episode dives deep into the ongoing debate about AI technology's potential risks and rewards.
I welcome Shomron Jacob, Head of Applied Machine Learning and Platform at Iterate.ai, to offer a fresh perspective. Shomron provides a nuanced view of AI, emphasizing the importance of recognizing the diversity and dynamism inherent in AI technologies, the actors involved, and their contexts.
One of the highlights of our conversation will be AI's potential as a leveling force. How can this revolutionary technology prevent monopolies, especially in the saturated tech sector? Shomron sheds light on how AI is democratizing opportunities for businesses of all sizes, with a special focus on smaller companies.
Our exploration wouldn't be complete without discussing the innovations at Iterate.ai. We'll delve into how they're harnessing AI to accelerate projects within large enterprises, enabling businesses to reach their market at an astounding 17x faster rate.
Generative AI has been making waves in the tech world, and we'll investigate its role in boosting creativity across various sectors. Why is it trending, and how is it shaping the future of design, art, and more? We'll also trace the evolution of AI technology, understanding how it has matured over the years and identifying pivotal moments that have defined its current state.
In the realm of AI, with great power comes great responsibility. Our discussion will also touch upon the ethical deployment of AI. How can users, developers, and businesses ensure the technology's ethical use? And, as we look ahead, we'll hypothesize the future trajectory of AI, exploring its implications for businesses and society at large.
Join us in this insightful conversation, where we debunk myths, understand challenges, and envision a future shaped by AI's limitless potential.
Today, I have the pleasure of reconnecting with Rob Scott, a multifaceted figure in the world of technology, cybersecurity, sports, and entrepreneurship. Since their last conversation, there have been seismic shifts in Rob's journey. Notably, Cygilant's acquisition by SilverSky and Rob's ascent to their Chief Strategy Officer.
Journey with us as Rob delves deep into the cybersecurity arena, revealing the challenges the industry grappled with during the pandemic. He unveils the expansion of their security operation centers post the CyberX acquisition and emphasizes the essence of cybersecurity education. Listen closely as Rob warns of the lurking dangers of phishing emails and stresses the necessity for businesses to embed cybersecurity in their core strategic plans.
But that's not all! From the race tracks of Formula One to the thrill of entrepreneurship, Rob gives us a glimpse of his diverse past. He introduces us to his latest passion project, "Let's Go Racing". A venture that interweaves technology, cybersecurity, and the exhilarating world of F1 racing. Dive into his insights on staying tech-savvy in this fast-evolving digital age.
Neil and Rob then navigate the inspiring phases of Rob's life. From the football pitches of Manchester United to the fencing battlegrounds of the Olympics, and the high-speed circuits of Formula One. Rob recounts his invaluable interactions with mentors, his board of directors, and the inspirations that shaped his illustrious career.
Whether you're a tech enthusiast, an F1 aficionado, or an aspiring entrepreneur, this episode has treasures for everyone. Don't forget to check out the links to "Let's Go Racing" and SilverSky to immerse further into Rob's world.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I dive into the innovative world of hospitality technology with Austen Asadorian from SevenRooms. With a mission to revolutionize the dining experience, SevenRooms has unveiled its latest product feature, Pre-Shift – a game-changer for the restaurant industry.
As labor shortages continue challenging the sector, Pre-Shift emerges as the beacon of efficiency. This cutting-edge tool empowers restaurant teams globally by streamlining pre-service meetings, replacing tedious paper reports with dynamic, real-time data presentations about each guest for the upcoming shift.
Listen in as Austen elaborates on how Pre-Shift harnesses rich customer data to offer invaluable insights like dining preferences, allergy information, and past reviews. This tool is not just about logistics but about enhancing the diner's journey from the moment they step in, making each experience truly personalized.
Highlighting its user-friendly design, Neil and Austen discuss the platform’s capability to deliver this information on-the-fly, via devices like iPhones and iPads, demonstrating its superiority in the reservation management space.
Get a front-row seat to testimonials from industry heavyweights like Allison Page, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer at SevenRooms, who likens the Pre-Shift feature to magic. Plus, hear from Steve Scott Springer, the General Manager at Spago Beverly Hills, who recounts the transformational impact Pre-Shift has had on their pre-service meetings.
Whether you're a restaurateur, a techie, or someone who loves a great dining experience, this conversation promises to serve up a rich blend of technology, innovation, and hospitality insights. Join me as I explore how SevenRooms is setting the table for the future of dining.
In this enlightening episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Thorsten Neumann from SC Ventures, the innovation engine behind Standard Chartered Bank. As the force overseeing technology at SC Ventures, Thorsten plays a pivotal role in seeking out disruptive business models and state-of-the-art technologies that are reshaping the financial services sector.
Throughout our discussion, we delve deep into the multifaceted roles of SC Ventures, ranging from investment to incubation, and highlight the symbiotic relationship with startups that fuels groundbreaking innovation and sharpens investment decisions. We also unpack the strategy behind the identification of game-changing business paradigms, focusing on a quintet of defining themes such as the burgeoning online economy, the role of digital assets, the future of SME and World Trade, and the imperative of sustainability and inclusivity.
With the VC landscape itself on the cusp of change, we discuss the ascent of technologies like blockchain, AI, and the tantalizing potential of quantum computing. Thorsten shares invaluable insights into the synergy between the bank’s broader strategies and its portfolio of innovative companies, illustrating with the success story of TASKNAK, a supply chain financing platform.
Thorsten also underscores the bank's ambitious vision to harness its global footprint and the power of AI to shape its future trajectory. Finally, we reflect on the indispensable role of AI infrastructure in propelling businesses forward and extend heartfelt appreciation to the SC Ventures leadership and the wider community of technologists and partners for their unwavering support.
Tune in to understand the delicate art of juggling the roles of venture capitalist and venture builder, and to explore how SC Ventures is not only amplifying the bank's ambitions but also creating a ripple effect in the fintech realm, delivering solutions that redefine traditional banking.
In this episode, I sit down with none other than the 'Godfather of Martech', Scott Brinker. Don't believe the title? A quick Google search will validate that claim! Before HubSpot, Scott's leadership as the co-founder and CTO of ion Interactive set the gold standard for interactive content, serving titans like Cisco, Dell, and Microsoft.
Currently steering the ship at HubSpot as the Vice President of its Platform Ecosystem, Scott's vast expertise encompasses shaping platform strategies and fostering global technological partnerships. We discuss the essence of versatility in the tech stack: Why businesses should embrace diverse tools and bypass restrictive competitive overlaps.
On the subject of the IT-Marketing Evolution, we explore how "no-code" has emerged as the marketer's secret weapon, empowering them to keep pace with rapid industry changes minus the constant IT hand-holding.
We also talk about marrying AI with marketing and discuss the monumental potential of AI in content creation, software interaction, and data analytics. Scott also tips his hat to the book "Antifragile" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, shedding light on the resilience and adaptability of platform ecosystems in our dynamic tech landscape.
Additionally, we delve into the concept of an anti-fragile ecosystem, exploring what happens when one dominant social network disappears and the subsequent rise of innovative software to seize the day. For those yearning for more nuggets of wisdom, Scott points listeners to HubSpot's marketplace and his insightful blog, ChiefMartek.com.
If Martech's complexities have ever befuddled you or if you're keen to discover how to weave technology into mainstream marketing seamlessly, this episode promises a masterclass from the very best in the business.
Today, I welcome Steve Stathis Tzikakis, the dynamic CEO of Sitecore, a visionary in digital transformation with a legacy that spans continents and industries. Steve, a stalwart of the tech industry since the '90s, boasts a glittering track record, from his 13-year tenure at SAP - where he helmed its monumental growth across the EMEA South region, to his present role at Sitecore, where he is revolutionizing the way brands perceive and deliver digital experiences.
In this enlightening episode, we reminisce about their last meeting at the Sitecore Symposium 2022 in Chicago. We delve into how brands have had to shift gears over the past six months, emphasizing the increasing importance of agility, scaling content, and delivering impeccable digital experiences at the speed of light.
The conversation takes a financial turn as we also discuss the remarkable $1.2 billion investment in Sitecore in 2021. Against economic unpredictability, this investment has been a beacon, propelling consistent global growth.
Steve elaborates on the benefits of a composable strategy, not just for marketers but for end users too. London, with its bustling Martech scene, gets a special mention. As a resident and the CEO of Sitecore, Steve shares his unique insights on what makes the UK capital a hotbed for tech innovation.
Technological landscapes are shifting; brands are on a rollercoaster, navigating from the urgency to deliver rapid digital experiences to grappling with pioneering tech like generative AI. Steve shared with me where Sitecore fits into this whirlwind of change.
Settle in for a captivating discussion on technology, transformation, and the trajectory of brands in an ever-evolving digital universe.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Michael Burdick, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Paro, the disruptive startup changing how companies connect with on-demand financial talent. Burdick, a leading authority in the freelance marketplace industry, will delve into the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and freelancing, a domain where he sees a promising future for AI.
Freelance marketplaces have often found it difficult to compete with larger, more established Managed Service Providers (MSPs), due to concerns around risk, security, compliance, and potential misclassification lawsuits. Michael, however, believes in the power of AI to level the playing field. Through Paro, he has demonstrated how AI can help these platforms not only compete but also scale and disrupt the industry.
Throughout the conversation, we explore the challenges faced by freelance marketplaces in competing with traditional MSPs, and how AI can be a game-changer. They also delve into the transformative impact of AI on the gig economy, offering greater flexibility and choice to high earners in the freelance world and challenging traditional employment norms.
In addition to these broader industry topics, the discussion also spotlights Paro's innovative use of AI in its platform. From financial modeling and expert talent selection to potential applications in areas like pricing, business optimization, and professional career growth, Paro is leveraging AI to redefine how freelance marketplaces function.
This conversation is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of freelancing, the disruptive potential of AI in this space, and the innovative work being done at Paro. As Paro's founder, chief strategy officer, and interim CFO, Michael Burdick is uniquely positioned to provide these insights, offering a fresh, forward-thinking perspective on the rapidly evolving freelance marketplace industry. Don't miss out on this insightful discussion.
Today, I'm joined by Chris Ebeling, an industry-renowned animator, creative director, writer, and digital artist who recently joined Behaviol's leadership team. Chris shares insights from his extensive experience, having worked on Hollywood blockbusters and AAA gaming cinematic productions, as well as innovative projects such as ZED.RUN, a blockchain-based, digital horse racing game.
We explore the fascinating world of Behaviol, a tech studio at the cutting edge of sports gaming. Behaviol stands out with its revolutionary use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to create unique digital athletes. Starting with their flagship game, META11, they're pioneering the world's first free-to-play triple-A sports gaming omniverse, which is set to transform the sports entertainment industry.
Join us as we delve into the intricate use of AI to train digital avatars in META11, discuss the ethical considerations of integrating AI in gaming, and predict how AI and digital avatars are going to reshape the future of esports. We also address how the fusion of traditional sports and esports is leading to a new era of immersive gaming, attracting major sports brands to extend their reach and fan engagement.
Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation that explores the intersection of AI, gaming, and sports, with a sprinkle of privacy considerations and cultural representation in the gaming world.
On this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with William Glazier, an expert from Cequence Security, and Terry Ray, a seasoned veteran from Imperva, to delve into the ins and outs of the groundbreaking "API Protection Report: Holiday Build-up Shows 550% Jump in Unique Threats."
This revealing report is based on an analysis of approximately a trillion transactions spanning a variety of industries and uncovers the pressing API threat trends that are currently challenging organizations. We unpack key findings, such as a 900% spike in shadow APIs, a worrying 550% increase in unique threats during the holiday season, and a surprising revelation that API and web application security tactics are being combined by attackers, leading to a 220% increase in anomalous traffic.
Join us as we dive deep into the conversation about the vital role of API security in today's digital landscape and how Cequence Security stands out with its history of mitigating bot attacks and its keen focus on both risk analysis and blocking malicious traffic.
We'll also explore the alarming rise in fraud and retool attempts in the telecom industry and discuss how businesses can navigate the expanding threat landscape while safeguarding both legacy and new APIs. Listen in as we envision the future of API security, highlighting the role of generative AI in developing robust testing methods and ensuring that security becomes an integrated part of application development.
Don't miss this eye-opening episode that sets a new standard in understanding the evolving threats and strategies in API security.
In today's digitized world, the security of our data is paramount. Understanding the complexity of data breaches and developing robust security strategies can often be a challenging task for businesses. To shed light on this critical issue, I'm thrilled to have Terry Ray from Imperva, a global leader in cybersecurity, on Tech Talks Daily.
Terry brings a wealth of knowledge to our discussion, focusing on the key findings from Imperva's '100 Data Breaches Findings' report. We delve into the root causes of data breaches, from hacking and unsecured databases to the prevalent menace of social engineering. We also examine the types of data most frequently targeted by cybercriminals and identify the industries most susceptible to these attacks.
In our conversation, Terry underscores the importance of comprehensive data security strategies, emphasizing the need for monitoring all data activity and not just a few servers. He shares valuable insights into common oversights in data security, such as the lack of multi-factor authentication and limited visibility of activity monitoring.
Terry also outlines his work on developing algorithms to assess and improve data security risk scores for organizations, a testament to Imperva's integrated approach that combines edge, application security, and data security.
Whether you're a seasoned tech professional, an entrepreneur navigating the digital world, or simply someone curious about cybersecurity, this episode offers a deep-dive into the world of data breaches. So join us as we unravel the complex terrain of data security with Terry Ray.
To get more insights from the '100 Data Breaches Findings' report, visit https://www.imperva.com/ and stay one step ahead of the threat landscape.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Hugo Bergmann from Seagate, a global leader in data storage solutions, to tackle a significant problem facing today's businesses: the rising and often unsustainable costs of data storage.
According to recent statistics, more than half of British businesses' IT leaders are grappling with the spiraling costs of data storage, which are becoming untenable. With some companies spending as much as £231k per year, many businesses are compelled to delete data that could potentially unlock revenue-generating innovation, a decision they can ill-afford in a world where data is king. What's worse, over half of IT leaders believe their senior leadership remains oblivious to the magnitude of the problem.
During our discussion, Hugo and I delve into this pressing issue, exploring how the current global economic crisis has exacerbated the need to curb data costs without losing the valuable insights that data offers. We shed light on the necessity of better data management and discuss innovative strategies such as storage-as-a-service models, that can help predict costs more accurately.
Hugo also highlights Seagate's commitment to fostering a circular economy in the data storage industry. We discuss the importance of refurbishing and reusing storage devices, thereby extending their lifespan, and the steps the data storage industry can take toward creating a sustainable data sphere.
Whether you're an IT leader battling ballooning data storage costs or a tech enthusiast interested in the future of data management, this episode is a treasure trove of insights. Tune in as we navigate the challenges and possibilities in the realm of data storage with Hugo Bergmann.
In this compelling episode of Tech Talks Daily, we delve into a hot topic that concerns us all: internet privacy. Zenobia Godschalk, the Founder of ZAG Communications and Senior Vice President of Communications for Hedera Hashgraph, joins me to explore the notion of personal data being bought and sold online and how we, the people, have become "the product."
With a wealth of experience in high-tech PR, blockchain, and cybersecurity, Zenobia shares her insights on how we can utilize blockchain technology to shape the internet that we deserve rather than the internet that we have today. She takes us on a deep dive into the world of Web3 and its transformative potential for application builders, developers, and businesses.
We explore the real-world adoption of blockchain and DLT, focusing on their vital role in the future of business and the benefits they can bring. Zenobia provides valuable tips and tools for enterprise architects, enabling them to enhance their blockchain security practices and navigate the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity.
This episode is particularly beneficial for enterprise architects, application builders, developers, women in tech, CEOs, IT decision-makers, and founders interested in blockchain/DLT, Web3, blockchain security, the metaverse, sustainability, women in Web3, and women in tech.
Whether you're an enthusiast of emerging technologies or simply interested in better understanding internet privacy and how to safeguard it, this conversation with Zenobia Godschalk is a must-listen. Join us as we explore the intriguing intersection of privacy, blockchain, and the future of the internet.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Raghu Nandakumara, a seasoned cybersecurity expert and Head of Industry Solutions at Illumio, a company at the forefront of zero trust segmentation technology. Raghu brings us insights into where business leaders need to focus their attention to achieve maximum ROI on cybersecurity investments.
We dive deep into the critical importance of proving ROI in the first six months of deployment, discussing how vendors need to support businesses in achieving a quick payback. We explore an ideal ROI percentage and compare how Illumio measures up against industry averages.
Raghu also highlights the often overlooked and less quantifiable benefits that can't be ignored. These range from the growing institutional knowledge to the regulatory compliance benefits. We address why many organizations do a poor job of tracking ROI on security products post-purchase and how this trend needs to change.
We also examine the findings from the Forrester Total Economic Impact of Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation (ZTS) study. Illumio's platform demonstrated a total benefit of $10.2 million over three years and paid for itself in just six months.
Whether you're a business leader trying to justify security spend or a cybersecurity professional looking to stay on top of the latest trends, this episode with Raghu Nandakumara is not to be missed.
In this thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, we dive into the cutting-edge insights from the Accenture Technology Vision 2023 report titled "When Atoms Meet Bits: The Foundations of Our New Reality." Joining us is Michael Blitz from Accenture, who sheds light on the transformative technology trends shaping the convergence of the physical and digital worlds.
Michael and our host Neil explore the fascinating world of generative AI and its potential to augment human capability as a co-pilot, creative partner, or advisor. Discover how generative AI is poised to spark significant creativity and innovation while ushering in a new era of enterprise intelligence. With as much as 40% of working hours expected to be supported or augmented by language-based AI, Michael explains why AI foundation models are crucial for organizations' future strategies.
The discussion deepens into the strategic importance of digital identity technologies, the authentication of digital users and assets, and how they form the foundation for traversing both digital and physical realms. Uncover the impact of data transparency on business success, as well as the increasing role data plays as a key competitive differentiator.
As we look to the future, Michael outlines the powerful feedback loop between science and technology, and its potential to unlock the world's grand challenges. Learn how Accenture is at the forefront of driving these disruptive technologies forward, including the establishment of their Generative AI and Large Language Model (LLM) Center of Excellence.
Join us in exploring Accenture's Technology Vision 2023, where we discuss the convergence of the digital and physical worlds, the transformative potential of generative AI, the significance of data transparency, and the feedback loop between science and technology. As the line between the physical and digital worlds becomes increasingly blurred, this episode is a must-listen for technology enthusiasts, business leaders, and anyone curious about the future of business in a rapidly evolving world.
I sit down with Ryan George, the CMO of Docupace, a leading cloud-based fintech platform transforming the back office processes in the financial services industry. With over 15 years of marketing and communications experience in finance, Ryan shares his journey and how he became a driving force in modernizing and digitizing the back office.
Discover the transformative trends in fintech and wealth management tech as Ryan sheds light on what's worth paying attention to and what might be overhyped, including the role of cryptocurrency and the potential impact of AI in the industry's future.
The COVID pandemic accelerated the back office revolution in wealth management, and Ryan emphasizes the importance of digitizing and transforming these processes to enhance efficiency and improve the client experience. Learn how Docupace's platform played a significant role in transforming operations for leading financial firms like RBC wealth management by reducing processing time and paperwork rejections.
Docupace's impressive journey is backed by over $70 million in funding, and the company serves some of the largest independent broker-dealers and registered investment advisers (RIAs) in the financial services industry. Tune in to hear how Docupace earned accolades like being named to the 2021 Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies and winning the 2021 Gold Globee Award for "Hot Technology of the Year."
Ryan's admiration for business leader Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, stems from his optimism and perspective, and he discusses how technology is reshaping the financial industry.
Don't miss this episode where Ryan George shares his expertise and insights into the future of financial advice and how technology will revolutionize the financial services landscape in the years to come. Whether you're a financial professional, tech enthusiast, or interested in the future of finance, this episode offers a fascinating exploration of the back office revolution and its transformative impact on the industry.
I have the pleasure of hosting Slava Podmurnyi, the Co-Founder and CEO of Visartech, a leading software technology partner specializing in custom software solutions. With over 13 years of experience in applying technology to diverse business niches, Slava brings a unique perspective and valuable insights to the table.
Join us as Slava shares his journey, starting with WizardTech Incorporated, a game development studio that evolved into Visartech, with a laser focus on AR and 3D solutions. Discover how Visartech has become a reliable tech partner, helping businesses tackle major challenges and turn them into intelligent and interactive solutions.
Slava's expertise spans various areas, including digital twin ecosystems, metaverse platforms, and SaaS products. Tune in as he discusses the significance of adopting new technologies and remote work in today's business landscape. Learn how optimizing IT infrastructure with DevOps practices can save business funds while building a strong foundation for applications.
Explore the world of digital twins and their transformative capabilities, from simulating processes to predicting problems and training employees. Slava sheds light on the power of a bespoke metaverse with solid backend architecture and interactive interfaces, creating immersive 3D experiences that enhance user interactions.
We discuss the adoption and feedback of metaverse technology among big tech companies, exploring its potential applications in training, education, and beyond. Uncover the rising demand for content generation using AI tools, leading to faster application development and enhanced user experiences.
Visartech Inc. has a remarkable track record of crafting digital masterpieces for brands, from SMBs to Fortune Global 500 corporations. Discover some of their best cases, including a metaverse for remote collaboration, a golf simulation platform for the sports industry, and a fintech solution for secure lending.
Don't miss this episode filled with valuable insights from Slava Podmurnyi, as he shares how Visartech is shaping the future of software solutions and paving the way for innovative business experiences. Whether you're a business leader, developer, or technology enthusiast, this episode offers an inspiring and informative conversation on the potential of digital twins and the metaverse.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am thrilled to have Mara Cairo, the Product Owner of Advanced Technology at Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (AMII), as our guest. Mara is a trailblazer in the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, with a passion for leveraging AI for the greater good.
With a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and esteemed designations as a P.Eng. and PMP, Mara brings a wealth of expertise to the table. Prior to joining AMII, she made significant contributions in the hardware development space, helping clients bring their products to market with a specific focus on micro- and nano-technology.
At AMII, Mara leads a dynamic technical team that empowers industries to build their internal machine learning capacity. By collaborating with clients committed to advancing AI adoption, Mara's team tackles the most challenging business problems using machine learning. Their transformative solutions span across diverse industries, including agriculture, health, supply chain, oil and gas, and forestry.
During the episode, Mara will share her insights into the AI adoption journey, demystifying the technology and showcasing its potential to drive tangible results. As a seasoned team leader, she will also provide valuable strategies for recruiting and retaining top-notch AI talent, ensuring a sustainable talent pipeline for businesses aiming to thrive in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
Whether your organization is already exploring AI or seeking to establish data science teams, this episode is a must-listen for business leaders. Mara's expertise and commitment to using AI for good will inspire and enlighten, offering actionable insights to harness the power of AI to transform your business.
Join us as we delve into the world of AI with Mara Cairo, and discover how her vision and expertise are driving meaningful change in industries worldwide.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with cybersecurity expert Richard Hummel from NETSCOUT to explore the alarming rise of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in the digital landscape. Richard unveils the key findings from NETSCOUT's 5th Anniversary DDoS Threat Intelligence Report, which provides a comprehensive overview of the new threat landscape.
With an average visibility of a staggering 401 Tbps of internet traffic and over two decades of data from more than 500 internet service providers (ISPs), NETSCOUT's ATLAS platform presents crucial insights into the evolving tactics of adversaries. From the emergence of direct-path bot attacks dominating the attack toolkit to the increasing complexity and motivations behind DDoS attacks, Neil and Richard delve into the growing challenges faced by enterprises and service providers alike.
Learn about the dangerous trends observed in the second half of 2022, such as the surge in bandwidth and throughput, the prevalence of multi-vector attacks, and the evolving techniques like carpet-bombing and application-layer attacks. Discover how these attacks are affecting various industries, from national security and government to manufacturing, wireless telecommunications, and more.
Neil and Richard discuss the critical importance of global visibility in assessing the DDoS threat landscape, enabling organizations to identify trends, prepare for attacks, and implement effective defense strategies. They emphasize the need for adaptive DDoS solutions to combat both short-lived and long-lived attacks, showcasing real-world scenarios where enterprises and service providers can benefit from this approach.
Tune in to this informative episode to gain insights into the ever-changing world of DDoS attacks and how NETSCOUT's Threat Intelligence Report offers valuable knowledge to enhance cybersecurity practices. Stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape and protect your organization against the rising tides of DDoS attacks.
In this intriguing episode, I welcome David El, Malware Researcher at CyberArk, to discuss the underbelly of popular communication platforms like Discord. While the recent Pentagon document leaks via Discord have alerted us to the platform's potential misuse, new research from CyberArk Labs has shed light on the magnitude of these threats.
David delves into the specifics of the newly discovered malware, its operations, the implications it poses, and the indicators of compromise (IOCs) organizations should watch out for. He takes us behind the scenes, narrating how they unearthed a burgeoning cybercrime group while infiltrating their Discord server.
As more large enterprises adopt Discord for their strategic communications, this malware heightens the risk of opening up networks to command and control attacks. David enlightens us on this increasing threat and the advanced preventative measures required to guard against it.
Throughout the episode, we also discuss the attractiveness of Discord and similar platforms for cybercriminals, owing to their casual nature and vulnerability to impersonation and social engineering attacks. As we foresee the complexity and capabilities of malware to advance in line with Discord's growth, David equips us with knowledge on how we can stay one step ahead.
Join us on this enlightening journey through the maze of cybersecurity, where we unmask the dark side of popular chat platforms and discuss how to defend against their misuse.
Today, I'm joined by Vishal Soni, a trailblazer in the realms of data analytics, machine learning, and process automation at Alteryx. In this day and age, with escalating environmental concerns and stricter regulatory norms, Vishal's work in harnessing technology to optimize energy usage, reduce ecological footprint, and unlock significant cost savings for businesses becomes particularly salient.
Our conversation delves into the crucial importance of energy optimization for enterprises, the transformative potential of technology in this sphere, and the promising future prospects of this field. Join us as we navigate the complex interplay of data, technology, and energy optimization.
Through this enriching discussion, Vishal shares his insights on how automation and data analytics can revolutionize the way companies assess and enhance their energy usage. We also explore the role of AI in identifying, monitoring, and reducing energy wastage, along with the significance of integrating diverse streams of energy consumption data for robust modeling and optimization.
Looking towards the future, we touch upon how businesses can adapt by investing in digital infrastructure, keeping abreast with energy regulations, and leveraging data analytics to improve their energy efficiency. Learn about Alteryx's ground-breaking work in energy optimization and how businesses can harness these tools to go beyond environmental regulation compliance to achieve significant cost savings.
In the end, remember, technology isn't just about gadgets or codes; it's about making our world a better place, one kilowatt at a time.
Join me in this insightful episode as I converse with Luc van Huystee, the Vice President of Mobility at TD SYNNEX, an innovative leader in the global IT ecosystem, which has been recently acclaimed as the 2023 Microsoft Operational Excellence Partner of the Year!
Van Huystee, a veteran with over a decade of expertise in mobility, SmartHome, Metaverse, and AR/VR solutions, discusses the compelling journey of TD SYNNEX and its significant role in transforming the technology industry. Dive into the conversation as we explore the rapid advancements in AR/VR, SmartHome tech, and the burgeoning Metaverse, and learn how TD SYNNEX is carving out its unique niche in these emerging domains by focusing on commercial applications and assisting vendors in crafting solutions.
We also delve into topics such as remote assistance potential, the rise of smart home technology, the crucial role of maximizing IT investments for clients, and TD SYNNEX's firm commitment towards fostering diversity and inclusion in its operations. Listen as we underline the importance of understanding customer needs, tapping into specialist knowledge, backing resellers, and striving towards building a balanced organization for unprecedented success.
Listen in as we explore the exciting terrains of emerging technologies in the IT ecosystem, such as AI, green tech, and the game-changing impact of AR/VR. This episode promises to be an enlightening journey into the future of technology, as envisioned by one of the industry's most forward-thinking leaders. Tune in to stay ahead of the tech curve!
Join us on this episode of Tech Talks Daily, where I sit down with Simon Hodgkinson, the former Chief Information Security Officer at BP and current strategic advisor at Semperis. Transitioning from the role of a CISO to a strategic advisor, Simon delves into his journey and emphasizes the critical importance of prioritizing secure Active Directory for IT departments across all industries.
Simon enlightens us about Semperis ADAM, an innovative solution that focuses on Active Directory security and recovery. By continuously monitoring for configuration drift and automatically remediating issues, Semperis ADAM stands as a crucial line of defense against potential threats.
In this enlightening discussion, Simon elaborates on the importance of recovering Active Directory and how Semperis automates this process. He also provides insights into the common strategies hackers employ to exploit Active Directory, highlighting the challenges that come with securing hybrid identity environments.
Further into the episode, our conversation steers towards the critical management and security of Active Directory to prevent misconfigurations and configuration drift - potential threats to an organization's security. Simon emphasizes the necessity of specialized identity threat detection and response tools, such as Semperis, to safeguard critical IT services related to identity and access management.
As the conversation progresses, Simon underscores the pivotal role of Active Directory in an organization's IT landscape and the crucial need for a recovery plan in the face of a catastrophic event. He reiterates the importance of investing in tools that protect identity and access management solutions to ensure operational resilience.
Finally, the episode concludes with a profound discussion on the importance of building a culture of transparency and psychological safety in cybersecurity. Simon draws parallels to the safety culture in the airline industry, as described in the book "Black Box Thinking" by Matthew Syed.
Tune in to this enlightening episode to glean insights from an industry veteran and learn more about securing your organization's Active Directory.
I am joined by Raphaëlle d’Ornano, Founder and Managing Partner at D’Ornano + Co., a leading global advisory firm. D’Ornano + Co. has revolutionized the analysis of tech and tech-enabled companies, focusing on their long-term resilience and investment potential.
Raphaëlle sheds light on the transformative technology shaping the investment landscape and urges businesses to consider counter-intuitive ways to navigate emerging tech trends. She provides thought-provoking insights into how specific sectors such as ClimateTech, AgTech, and HealthTech are paving the way for the next wave of business innovation.
Our conversation delves deep into the inner workings of D’Ornano+Co and Raphaëlle's journey to pioneer a new form of due diligence – one that caters specifically to the unique challenges and opportunities presented by tech and tech-enabled businesses.
In a volatile economic environment, assessing risk accurately is more crucial than ever, especially for tech companies. Raphaëlle discusses the hurdles that tech companies are grappling with and emphasizes the importance of risk assessment for promoting sustainable growth.
Drawing on her insights shared in her February newsletter, Raphaëlle also provides an intriguing analysis of the current tech investing environment. This episode is an enriching dive into the world of tech investments, touching on the transformative power of technology, the need for a more nuanced approach to due diligence, and the future of tech-enabled industries. Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics at play in tech investments today.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are joined by Mark Kaufmann, the CEO of LingQ, an innovative language-learning app. LingQ has recently made headlines for announcing the addition of Swahili to their extensive catalogue of languages, raising their total to 42 languages on offer.
Swahili, spoken by over 100 million people across East and Central Africa, represents LingQ's first venture into African languages. The LingQ platform focuses on providing an authentic learning experience, offering lessons from real-life conversations, news articles, videos, and much more, making language learning as immersive and engaging as possible.
Join us as Mark takes us through his journey from professional hockey player to tech entrepreneur, drawing inspiration from his experiences in different countries, his father's passion for language learning, and encounters with immigrants. The genesis of LingQ is a story of continuous learning and pivot, culminating in a successful multi-language learning platform.
We delve into the unique aspects of LingQ's approach, including its content-based methodology that focuses on 'flooding' the brain with the target language to optimize learning, and how this method has garnered positive testimonials from users worldwide. Mark further discusses how LingQ harnesses machine learning and AI to customize and enhance the user's language journey, an aspect backed by third-party studies highlighting LingQ's effectiveness.
As the conversation progresses, Mark reveals the launch of Afrikaans as LingQ's second African language and drops hints about future features, including automatic transcript generation for podcasts and a chatbot to help learners practice their speaking skills.
I host Ahad Khan, the CEO of Kajabi, a revolutionary all-in-one platform designed for knowledge entrepreneurs and creators to build, market, and sell educational content.
In the age of the "Great Resignation," millions of people are breaking traditional employment chains to start their own ventures. However, the risks and difficulties associated with entrepreneurship can be discouraging. Ahad discusses how Kajabi is offering a solution, enabling individuals to monetize their expertise without sacrificing their day jobs or making substantial time and capital investments.
As we delve deeper into Kajabi's functionality, we explore how it provides a single, user-friendly platform to publish, market, and sell a variety of digital products, including online courses, membership sites, and communities. Kajabi has been instrumental in fostering the success of tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, who've collectively generated over $2 billion in sales from nearly 50 million customers.
Ahad shares inspiring stories of individuals flourishing on Kajabi, such as Dr. Jamie Wilkey, who earned $230,000 in a year by teaching an online course for pharmacists.
In the conversation with Ahad, we uncover Kajabi's technology stack, the role of AI in accelerating its platform functionalities, and the vision behind Kajabi's effort to empower creators and celebrate their achievements.
We also dive into Ahad's personal journey, his views on entrepreneurship, and his book recommendation for our listeners, "The Ascent of Money" by Niall Ferguson.
This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to understand the potential of knowledge entrepreneurship and the power of innovative platforms like Kajabi in driving this new wave of digital enterprise. Tune in to learn more about the journey, successes, and future plans of Kajabi under the leadership of Ahad Khan.
Greg Hanson, GVP platform sales specialist at Informatica, and Ed Williams, VP, Consulting, Professional Services at Trustwave. In an engaging conversation, we explore the innovative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) for data management, highlighting the capabilities of Generative AI and the industry-first CLAIRE GPT launched by Informatica.
Starting with their own journeys, Greg and Ed share their experiences and insights into how AI is transforming data management, enabling companies to digitize, innovate, and operate intelligently.
We dive deep into the advancements and applications of Generative AI, exploring its role in simplifying data management through automation. Greg discusses how AI is helping organizations like Ericsson and Unilever become data-driven and make sustainable decisions, addressing ESG requirements, and even solving supply chain shortages.
Greg then introduces us to CLAIRE GPT, Informatica's generative AI-powered data management platform, which brings a natural language-based interface to their Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC). With CLAIRE, Informatica processes 53 trillion monthly transactions, empowering the digital transformation of companies such as Puma, Avis Budget Group, and Abu Dhabi Ports Group.
We also delve into the benefits of CLAIRE GPT for enterprises, including fostering deeper data democratization and self-service, optimizing data management, and providing an in-context data experience at the point of consumption.
Join us on this enlightening journey, and discover the future of data management powered by AI. You will learn about how AI and Generative AI are supporting various innovations, the potential of AI in automating data management and analysis, and the tremendous capabilities of Informatica's new generative AI technology, CLAIRE GPT. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in data management, AI, and digital transformation.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome Ed Williams, VP, Consulting, Professional Services at Trustwave, a global leader in managed security services. Ed brings invaluable insights into the challenges and strategies around communicating cybersecurity risks and solutions within an organization, particularly between CISOs and the less technically inclined C-suite.
Ed kicks off the conversation by sharing his unique journey into the cybersecurity field and his experiences, including an unexpected appearance in a Bollywood film.
We then delve into the heart of the matter - the struggle CISOs face when conveying technical risks to the C-suite. Ed provides his top tips for effective communication, highlighting the importance of simplifying language, prioritizing key security topics, and aligning these with business metrics to demonstrate their impact on the bottom line.
Our conversation further explores the critical role regular communication and collaboration play in building a resilient cybersecurity infrastructure. Ed emphasizes how understanding an organization's risk appetite helps shape an effective security strategy, debunking the misconception of cybersecurity as merely a cost and highlighting it as a business enabler.
We also touch upon the importance of identifying and presenting meaningful cybersecurity metrics to the board. Ed suggests methods for engaging the C-suite in these discussions, ensuring their understanding, and keeping them abreast of the latest cybersecurity trends.
Finally, we explore how Ed's team stays updated on AI and machine learning developments, with Ed sharing his favourite resources, including the Trustwave SpiderLabs team's insightful blog on the latest threats and vulnerabilities.
Join us for this enlightening episode as we demystify the art of cybersecurity communication within an organization, and understand its pivotal role in fostering a secure business environment.
In this thought-provoking, I'm joined by Andrew Bud, CEO of iProov, the global leader in face biometric verification and authentication technology. As we delve into the evolving world of deepfakes, we unpack the security implications for businesses and individuals alike.
Andrew kicks off the conversation by sharing crucial insights into the security risks of using voice replication as a biometric verification method. With generative AI technologies becoming increasingly advanced, it has become alarmingly simple for both cybercriminals and regular individuals to replicate voices, posing significant threats to the security of sensitive information.
We explore how deepfakes, including face swaps and voice replication, have become common tools for cybercriminals. According to iProov's 2023 Biometric Threat Report, digital injection attacks, such as the use of deepfakes, have risen dramatically, occurring five times more often than persistent presentation attacks in 2022.
With the rise of these sophisticated cyber-attacks, Andrew underscores the importance of robust biometric authentication. He explains how iProov's technology, including the IPU flashmark, analyzes the reflection of screen illumination from a user's face to ensure they are a live human and not a generative deepfake.
Andrew and I delve into the importance of authenticating and not just verifying customers, the largely misunderstood threat of deepfakes, and why overconfidence and unsuspecting victims intensify this threat. We discuss how organizations can safeguard against these advanced attacks and the imperative role of strong verification in protecting users on social platforms.
Whether you're concerned about your online security, work in the digital space, or are simply interested in the evolving world of deepfakes, this episode is packed with valuable insights. Join us as we navigate the intricacies of biometric authentication in a world where distinguishing between real and fake has become a crucial security measure.
Dr. Ben Zhang, founder of NodeReal, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. NodeReal is a one-stop infrastructure and solution provider, paving the way for the high-speed blockchain era and the evolution of Web3 technology.
Dr. Zhang and our host discuss the crux of easing the transition from Web2 to Web3 and how it's integral to large-scale enterprise adoption. By highlighting real-world case studies like a South Korean game studio leveraging blockchain technology, they delve into the pivotal role of managed services in empowering traditional enterprises to navigate the blockchain landscape.
Our conversation shifts towards NodeReal's unique approach of providing end-to-end solutions for scalable blockchain implementation. From high-performance blockchain services to hosting solutions, Dr. Zhang walks us through the concept of a one-stop service that caters to the demands of web3 developers.
A significant part of the discussion dwells on the impact of traditional tech giants like Amazon and Google venturing into the Web3 space and offering managed services. Dr. Zhang provides insight into how Web3-native companies like NodeReal can not only co-exist but thrive in this evolving ecosystem, focusing on customer needs and creating collaborative opportunities.
We further explore the industries showing a growing demand for NodeReal's services, such as loyalty programs, DeFi, and AI integration with blockchain. Dr. Zhang underscores the opportunities and challenges associated with Web3 technology, emphasizing the need for infrastructure simplification, improved data management, and the importance of continuous learning in this rapidly evolving domain.
I sit down for an enlightening conversation with Mohamed Al Fayed, founder of Grubtech, a revolutionary platform that is reshaping the Food and Beverage (F&B) industry with its end-to-end operating system for omnichannel restaurants and cloud kitchens.
We kick off the episode exploring Mohamed's entrepreneurial journey, as he shares insightful tips for launching a startup in the competitive F&B space. We delve into the inception of Grubtech, understanding how this young start-up has digitized the F&B scene, enabling the digital transformation and optimization of clients in 23 countries, including prestigious brands like Subway, Eataly, and Burger King.
The conversation then pivots to the transformative potential of AI in the F&B industry. Mohamed sheds light on how Grubtech leverages AI to personalize customer experiences and streamline operations, from a multi-brand menu and recipe management to enhanced marketing capabilities and operational analytics. He further discusses the true value of Cloud Point of Sale (POS) systems, providing insights on how these systems future-proof businesses.
We also discuss Grubtech's role in empowering entrepreneurs and restaurants, enhancing efficiency and reducing errors in delivery operations. Delving into the realm of sustainability, we explore how Grubtech's enhanced analytics prevent wastage and greenwashing in the industry.
Additionally, we address the cultural aspects of consumerism and tastes, highlighting how these factors shape business strategies in the F&B space, especially in regions outside your own.
Finally, we close with an exciting discussion on Grubtech's recent product innovation, including the integration of OpenAI's ChatGPT and Language Models for menu optimization, content creation, and providing nutritional value.
Don't miss out on this captivating journey through the world of AI-powered restaurant management and the future of the F&B industry.
Mike Puglia, Chief Strategy Officer and General Manager of Security Products at Kaseya, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Mike sheds light on the much-anticipated Kaseya 2023 MSP Benchmark Report, an insightful resource that dives deep into the trends, challenges, and priorities of over 1,000 managed services providers (MSPs) worldwide.
Our discussion centers around the critical themes of automation, cybersecurity, and integration. Mike expounds on how 90% of the respondents view automation as a game-changing technology for their businesses, enhancing efficiency and revenue generation by streamlining processes such as endpoint management, monitoring, and cybersecurity.
We delve into the growing significance of cybersecurity, a realm that has seen a 15% surge as the top IT challenge from the previous year. With a clear majority of MSPs regularly advising their clients on cybersecurity, Mike explains how this trend has also fuelled the growth of managed detection and response solutions.
Tackling the issue of software integration, we explore how poor integration continues to hamper productivity and daily operations. Mike elucidates how the ability to integrate core applications can reduce duplication of efforts, automate repetitive tasks, and ultimately improve work-life balance for executives and technicians.
We address the various challenges that MSPs anticipate, such as intensifying competition and escalating security threats. From co-managed IT services to M&A strategies, we delve into different tactics to overcome these hurdles and ensure business growth.
Join us to uncover key insights about MSP operations, understand how break-fix activities impact revenue streams, and explore the strategic potential of co-managed IT services. This episode is a must-listen for anyone keen on the future trajectory of the MSP sector and the burgeoning role of cybersecurity within it.
I sit down with Hania Othman, Director of Sustainable Impact for Europe and Africa at the HBAR Foundation. Hania brings a wealth of experience from her diverse roles in the Web3 space, including her stint as the Head of Impact at Smart B and as the co-founder of TrustFactors.
We delve into the pressing need for enhanced security, transparency, and efficiency in the digital age. Hania paints a vivid picture of how these necessities are more critical than ever before, drawing from her extensive work in designing and building solutions for the next-gen economy.
Our conversation covers the unique intersection of inclusivity and sustainability, demonstrating how these two concepts are indispensable to each other in driving positive change. We discuss the HBAR Foundation's pivotal role in the adoption of the Hedera network and its focus on employing technology to address global sustainability challenges.
Hania shares insights into the foundation's strategies for grant and investment decisions based on five key goals, including making climate finance auditable and establishing a global climate asset price. We also explore the necessity for accurate and auditable ESG reporting to counteract climate risks and prevent greenwashing. Plus, we dive into the differences in driving sustainable practices across various regions like Europe and Africa.
Tune in to hear about the potential of emerging technologies in fostering economic growth, the intersection of blockchain and sustainability, and how digital public goods can lead to climate solutions and a just transition. A must-listen for those interested in the future of Web3, sustainability, and the role of technology in making a difference.
Today, I have the privilege of hosting Eric Lamarre, a senior partner at McKinsey's Boston office and one of the authors of 'Rewired: The McKinsey Guide to Outcompeting in the Age of Digital and AI.'
In a world where digital transformation has become a fundamental business requirement, Eric shares his valuable insights from the trenches, discussing McKinsey's playbook that they've developed over the years by working with over 200 clients. With a focus on generative AI, transformation roadmaps, talent management, operating model agility, technology, data, and adoption scaling capabilities, this conversation promises a deep dive into the multifaceted aspects of digital and AI transformation.
During this discussion, Eric sheds light on the key trends businesses are currently adopting, including the application of generative AI such as ChatGPT. He discusses the importance of aligning leadership towards a common North Star vision and how to leverage technology to reimagine businesses.
We also delve into the significant topic of talent management and building an organization that nurtures innovation and growth. Eric shares insights on choosing the right operating model for your organization, emphasizing the need for speed and distributed innovation in a technology-driven world. Furthermore, we discuss the role of data architecture in ensuring quality, easy enrichment, and reuse of data.
But what happens when despite implementing great digital solutions, businesses fail to unlock their full value? Eric provides keys to this crucial question, discussing strategies for achieving true value from digital transformation.
For leaders navigating the digital transformation landscape or anyone interested in the impact of AI and technology on businesses, this episode with Eric Lamarre offers a wealth of wisdom.
Join me for an enlightening episode of Tech Talks Daily as I welcome Vivek Sagi, the accomplished Chief Technology Officer of Eventbrite, a global platform renowned for transforming the landscape of live experiences. With an impressive career that has spanned over 20 years in e-commerce, B2B marketplaces, and enterprise software, Vivek brings a unique blend of technical prowess and business acumen to our discussion today.
In this episode, Vivek shares his insights on the essential skills required to build, lead, and scale successful product portfolios. From his early days as a serial entrepreneur to his executive roles at Amazon and RetailMeNot, and now at Eventbrite, Vivek's journey is rich with lessons on marrying technology with customer obsession for optimum impact.
Explore how technology is revolutionizing the live events industry and how Eventbrite's innovative platform equips creators with the tools needed to scale their events and reach larger audiences. Dive deep into Eventbrite's customer-centric approach and learn about its commitment to combating social isolation through shared experiences, a vision more crucial now than ever.
Get a glimpse of how Eventbrite's technology, including its marketplace and boost marketing tools, supports creators across 180 countries, enabling them to host world-class events that resonate with varied interests. Listen to Vivek's thoughts on the future of the industry, with a focus on virtual and hybrid events and the role of AI-powered tools in enhancing event marketing.
This episode promises a wealth of knowledge for anyone passionate about technology's transformative power in creating shared human experiences. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a tech enthusiast, or an event creator, you'll find a trove of inspiration in Vivek's words.
In this enlightening episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Ed Vincent, the dynamic mind behind FestivalPass. Ed's entrepreneurial journey has spanned from investment banking to creating an experiential agency and even working as an interim Chief Data Officer at MoviePass. Today, he’s leading FestivalPass, the world's first festival and events subscription marketplace.
Throughout the conversation, Ed delves into his experiences, the ups and downs of his entrepreneurial journey, and the insights he gained from his time at MoviePass. He further sheds light on how he's differentiating FestivalPass through unique subscription benefits and leveraging blockchain technology to tokenize the business for added value.
As the conversation progresses, Ed elaborates on FestivalPass's innovative approach to integrating NFTs and maintaining their value despite market fluctuations. He envisions a future where all major ticketing platforms will harness the power of blockchain and operate as NFTs.
Ed's passion for live events and creating memorable experiences shines through as he talks about FestivalPass. The platform not only enables subscribers to access and discover a myriad of events, but it also facilitates interactions among like-minded people, encouraging them to live, life, live.
Whether you're a fan of music, art, food & wine, film, or other interests, this episode is sure to inspire and get you excited about the future of live events, technology, and how FestivalPass is transforming the space.
Join us for this exciting episode as we explore the intersection of live events, blockchain technology, NFTs, and how FestivalPass is setting the pace for the industry.
Join us in today's episode of Tech Talks Daily as we sit down with Jeff Miller, CEO of Synchronoss Technologies, to talk about the significance of secure and intelligent personal cloud solutions in this digital era. Synchronoss, with its newly redesigned personal cloud platform, is taking a revolutionary stride in providing customers with advanced cloud management features harnessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).
As an ex IT guy, our host Neil is particularly keen to explore the importance of data backup and privacy. He discusses with Jeff the unique features of Synchronoss Personal Cloud, which is currently set to roll out to major carriers including Verizon and AT&T.
Jeff sheds light on the unique aspects of the platform including:
- BackTrack: A game-changing feature that safeguards your files against accidental deletions or losses, by retaining old versions of backups for 30 days.
- Genius: An AI tool that colorizes black and white photos, enhances photos, touches up faces, and applies other filters for an optimized visual experience.
- Advanced Highlights: This ML-based feature facilitates categorization, tagging, and easy management of content.
- Private Folders: This added layer of security allows subscribers to create pin-protected folders for sensitive data like tax documents, ID documentation, and secret recipes.
Unlike OTT solutions, Synchronoss Personal Cloud, purpose-built for telecom provider and carrier networks, ensures utmost data privacy and security. Jeff emphasizes how they prioritize data privacy by not leveraging user data for ads or other services and focusing on carrier-grade security measures.
Additionally, Neil and Jeff delve into the future of cloud solutions incorporating AI, 5G networks, and IoT devices. Jeff also shares his personal journey in technology, his admiration for his father's values, and his commitment to leaving things better than he found them.
Get ready for an insightful conversation on how Synchronoss is reshaping the landscape of personal cloud solutions and prioritizing your data's privacy and security. Tune in now!
On today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are delighted to host Horacio Barakat, Head of Digital Innovation for Capital Markets at Broadridge Financial Solutions. Broadridge, a global fintech leader with $5 billion in revenues, delivers cutting-edge communications, technology, data, and analytics solutions that help clients transform their businesses.
Horacio has been at the helm of Broadridge's expansion and implementation of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) in their DL Repo platform. With a staggering volume surpassing a trillion dollars a month in total transactions, Broadridge handles millions of trades a day involving trillions of dollars. Giants of the financial world like UBS and Société Générale are already onboard.
In this insightful conversation, Horacio shares his expert perspectives on the new DLT use cases in finance and provides an in-depth analysis of its application in repo transactions. He highlights how DLT has brought about significant operational efficiencies and improved capital velocity, increasing liquidity, and facilitating different types of transactions in finance and bond trading.
We also delve into the evolution of DLT in the finance industry. Starting in specific areas and slowly expanding, its adoption journey has been as expected. But along with opportunities, there are challenges—Horacio emphasizes the need to fully comprehend the technology and its benefits.
The discussion further extends to how Broadridge is harnessing the power of smart contracts and the digital representation of securities to enhance workflows in securities lending and build a matching platform.
Lastly, we touch on the importance of continuous learning in the financial services industry. Broadridge facilitates this through online training platforms like LinkedIn and Coursera. Horacio encourages listeners to explore the Broadridge website for more insights and examples of platform solutions.
Join us in this enlightening episode, as we unravel the complexities and opportunities of Distributed Ledger Technology in the world of finance with Horacio Barakat.
In today's episode, I sit down with Sipho Simela, the innovative Founder and CEO of Matrix Rental Solutions, a company revolutionizing the tenant-screening process using AI. With 34% of the U.S population living in rental housing, Sipho's mission to streamline the rental application process couldn't be more timely.
Matrix Rental Solutions is leading the charge in tackling biases found in conventional applicant algorithms that often obstruct renters. With an AI that provides a holistic view of an applicant's financial stability, Matrix ensures deserving renters get a fair chance, showing that 89% of conditionally accepted applicants were able to make at least three consecutive on-time rental payments.
Sipho shares insightful discussions on the measures Matrix has taken to mitigate fraud in the rental market, which has seen a significant increase during the pandemic. We delve into the importance of empowering consumers with control over their data and how Matrix's advanced tools detect fraudulent documents and identity theft.
Our conversation also uncovers the limitations of the traditional tenant evaluation system, such as cumbersome paper-based applications and slow processing times. Sipho envisions a future with faster, more accurate tenant evaluations through the power of AI and other emerging technologies.
We also discuss the necessity of industry-wide standardization through a Universal Rental Application, and how technology can shield tenants, realtors, and brokerages from housing discrimination cases.
In a particularly heartening segment, Sipho shares his humbling personal journey that led to the birth of Matrix Rental Solutions. Despite the complexity of the tech world he navigates, Sipho's humility shines through, adding a layer of personal connection to our conversation.
Join us as we explore the intersection of AI, real estate, and equity with Sipho Simela. Learn how Matrix Rental Solutions is forging a path for a fairer rental process, democratizing access to quality housing, and shaping the future of tenant screening processes.
About 30% of "abandoned" prospects answer calls branded and triggered by Regal.io, leading to conversations that help you hit your growth goals way faster. They are behind some of the fastest-growing B2C companies like SoFi, Ro, Emeritus, The Farmer's Dog, Vroom, and Fidelity Life. For instance, in just a month, Angie's List increased their new customer conversion by 26% without increasing marketing spend.
On today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Alex Levin, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Regal.io, to delve into the heart of B2C sales and the role of technology in reshaping its landscape.
Alex starts our conversation by tracing his professional journey from Personal and Thomson Reuters roles to being an early employee at Handy (acquired by ANGI in 2018) and eventually co-founding Regal.io. He shares the motivation behind Regal inception: a vision to revolutionize the B2C sales industry with tools that enhance customer experience at the internet scale.
In a fascinating discussion about Regal's successes, Alex highlights the significant role of a customer-first approach. They discuss how technologies like text message marketing can be wielded effectively to engage with customers at scale and drive increased revenue.
The conversation takes an insightful turn as we discuss the importance of having honest conversations with customers to boost conversion rates. In this context, they touch upon the steps Regal is taking to combat call spam and robocalls and the benefits these measures present in terms of improved answer rates and customer value.
As our discussion concludes, we tackle the challenge of balancing personalized service and customer privacy in B2C marketing. We also explore the potential of AI in elevating the customer experience and its role in the future of B2C sales.
Whether you're a business professional, a marketer, or someone interested in the future of sales, this episode is packed with insightful conversations and forward-thinking perspectives. Tune in to learn more about the evolving landscape of B2C sales and the innovative solutions offered by Regal.io.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am delighted to host Rich Stern, the CEO of TuneIn, a platform that has emerged as a significant player in the audio streaming market. As we navigate the intersection of technology and radio, Stern shares his perspective on the challenges, opportunities, and future of the radio industry in the digital age.
Our conversation begins with Stern highlighting the transformative impact of digital technology on radio, exploring concepts like AI DJs and the shift from hyper-local to hyper-global distribution. Throughout our discussion, he emphasizes the importance of companionship and human connection in radio listening, advocating for inclusive technology solutions that benefit broadcasters and listeners alike.
Diversity and inclusion take center stage as Stern explains TuneIn's approach towards content and product development. Drawing from his diverse professional experiences, he discusses the strategies employed to enhance user experiences and expand TuneIn's user base through digital transformation and ubiquity.
As we probe deeper into the competitive landscape of audio streaming, Stern discusses TuneIn's unique positioning that pivots on live audio and curated content. As he predicts the future of the audio streaming industry, we explore the challenges and uncertainties in the profitability of the streaming music and podcasting industry.
Join us for an exciting discussion that offers a 360-degree view of the radio industry's transformation, straight from the helm of one of its front-runners. Whether you're an audio enthusiast or a tech aficionado, this episode promises valuable insights into the world of digital radio streaming.
In today's episode, I'm thrilled to have Oliver Tuszik, SVP of Global Partner Sales and GM Routes to Market at Cisco, join me on Tech Talks Daily. We delve deep into the heart of the ecosystem economy, said to be "the most significant economic transformation in history."
With 90% of Cisco's revenues coming through partners, Oliver shares his unique perspective on the changing needs of businesses and the crucial role that a robust partner ecosystem plays in delivering successful outcomes from IT investments. In a rapidly evolving tech landscape, partnerships are more critical than ever, driving significant portions of global GDP and reshaping traditional industry boundaries.
Join us as we explore how 'as-a-service' models are providing businesses with the flexibility to focus on their core strengths in the face of economic uncertainties and how multi-partner technology agreements are increasingly being leveraged to meet customer demands and manage solution complexities.
We'll also dive into a thought-provoking discussion around the future of business models, with a particular focus on the strategic importance of partnerships and ecosystems in the current climate, where a staggering 90% of tech sales are partner-assisted.
Don't miss out on this insightful conversation with Oliver Tuszik, as we decode the 'tech-tonic' shift underway, providing you with the knowledge you need to navigate the complex terrain of the ecosystem economy.
In this episode, I explore the rapidly evolving landscape of cybersecurity with Antonio Sanchez, Principal Evangelist at Fortra.
Formerly known as HelpSystems, Fortra carries forward a legacy of people-first support, now reinforced with a renewed focus on exceptional protection and peace of mind. Antonio opens our conversation with an overview of Fortra's evolution, discussing the shift from systems management to delivering robust cybersecurity solutions.
In this candid discussion, Antonio underscores the dynamic nature of the cybersecurity industry and outlines Fortra's proactive approach to staying ahead of the curve. Through continuous investment in threat intelligence and a customer-centric feedback system, Fortra navigates the industry's shift towards an integrated platform world.
We delve into some of Fortra's recent cybersecurity initiatives, including their collaboration with Microsoft in combating illegal infrastructures. Antonio offers valuable advice to businesses on stratifying and evolving their cybersecurity strategies over time, and shares success stories of how Fortra has enhanced organizations' security postures via penetration testing and integrated solutions.
Rounding off our conversation, we take a lighter detour into Antonio's personal journey in cybersecurity, touching on the changing landscape of the field, the importance of automation, and the critical role of security in the C-suite. And as a fun anecdote, we learn about the seven Antonios in his family!
In this thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Emmanuel Daniel, a global thought leader on the future of finance and listed as a top 10 global influencer in the "Fintech Power50" for 2021 and 2022. The founder of The Asian Banker and Wealth and Society, and author of “The Great Transition: The Personalization of Finance is Here,” Daniel takes us on a journey through the evolving landscape of finance.
Our discussion unravels around the continuous growth and impact of decentralized finance (DeFi), the importance of accessibility, and the potential of these technologies to revolutionize the financial landscape. Daniel explains Total Value Locked (TVL) - a key measurement in DeFi, the challenges of its understanding and its immense potential in reshaping our financial systems.
We delve into the dichotomy between Web3 and Web3.0, highlighting the battle between decentralization and platform dominance. This conversation extends into the realm of personalization in the banking sector, emphasizing the importance of decentralizing identity, value transmission, verification, and information transmission.
As we examine the concept of self-sovereign identity, Daniel illustrates its potential to transform our interactions with financial institutions. Furthermore, we explore the financialization of data and how trading and transacting digital assets can spur GDP growth.
Finally, we discuss the value of cryptocurrencies in a networked world, the future of the deposit business in the banking industry, and the potential role of stable coins. Wrapping up the conversation, we reflect on the banking crisis in light of Emmanuel's predictions in his book, "The Great Transition."
Tune in for this insightful episode, as we demystify complex financial technologies and delve into the future of the financial industry. Whether you're a financial enthusiast or an industry expert, this is an episode you don't want to miss.
In this enlightening episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Alex Babin, CEO of ZERO Systems, a company at the forefront of AI innovation, working with Fortune 500 companies and recently recognized as a "Cool Vendor" by Gartner.
Starting with debunking some of the most common misconceptions about AI, Alex explains that it's not an 'out-of-the-box' solution, nor a tool that flawlessly executes tasks with just any data. The path to AI effectiveness begins with understanding one's data and the company's ROI, taking a step-by-step approach.
This episode dives deep into the evolution of AI, shedding light on the new layer of metric data - user-generated data or feedback loop - which is revolutionizing the way AI tools interact and learn. Listen to Alex as he illustrates how AI can be a bridging mechanism to connect ontologies, and how this can be leveraged by Fortune 1000 companies for more efficient data utilization.
A core theme of our discussion is the lack of enterprise-scale AI solutions and the current trend of piecing together fragmented applications. As we navigate these challenges, Alex introduces us to the concept of skilled AI models (SAMs), a potential roadmap to achieving comprehensive, end-to-end solutions.
As AI is rapidly advancing, an 'arms race' of sorts has been initiated. Alex underscores the urgent need for AI governance and ethical considerations to ensure this powerful tool doesn't spiral out of control.
Join us in this riveting conversation as we explore the landscape of AI, its potential, its challenges, and the future it's carving out for enterprises across the globe.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I chat with Kealan Lennon, the mind behind CleverCards, a disruptive global payments platform that is reshaping how both public and private sectors transact. With its astronomical growth, CleverCards has challenged traditional banking systems by opening over 100,000 accounts across Europe in 2022, a significant feat in a year of sweeping changes in the financial landscape.
Kealan takes us behind the scenes of CleverCards' genesis and its rapid rise to success, including a revenue increase by a staggering 5,000% in just a year. He sheds light on how CleverCards uses cutting-edge technology to bypass unnecessary processes and participants in the payment value chain, creating unrivalled efficiencies while automating compliance with complex financial services regulations.
Listen as Kealan explains the technology that powers CleverCards, from building an infrastructure that issues digital Mastercards across Europe to processing payments globally in less than a second. He shares the challenges they've encountered while navigating intricate financial regulations and how they've leveraged these into a competitive edge.
Kealan also discusses how CleverCards is innovating payment processes by offering configurable digital Mastercards for various use cases. This flexibility has even seen CleverCards used by the British state to distribute fuel and gas vouchers during the cost-of-living crisis.
We explore the company's remarkable expansion plans and its focus on Europe and the Middle East as potential markets. Additionally, Kealan shares his insights on disrupting traditional banking and payment methods, hinting at possible offerings of digital credit cards in the future.
Today on Tech Talks Daily, I'm excited to host Elena Sinelnikova, co-founder of Metis.io and CryptoChicks, as she shares her unique journey from a Government of Canada solutions architect to a pioneering blockchain entrepreneur.
Elena's groundbreaking work with CryptoChicks, an educational hub and accelerator for women in blockchain, has made significant strides towards inclusivity in the space, extending its reach to 56 countries. Now, at the helm of Metis.io, a Layer-2 blockchain, she is focused on building a completely decentralized infrastructure to fuel the burgeoning web3 economy.
With over $50 million raised and more than 110,000 wallets in their infrastructure, boasting a total value locked exceeding $45 million, Metis.io is at the forefront of tackling high transaction fees and slow processing times on Ethereum.
Elena opens up about the challenges and innovations within the Layer-2 ecosystem and Metis.io's strategic focus on collaboration with targeted startups to address specific industry pain points.
Join us as we delve into an enlightening conversation about the potential of DeFi, the need for increased blockchain education, and Metis.io's unique edge over other Layer-2 solutions. We also touch upon the invaluable contributions of influential figures like Natalia Amelin, Vitalik Buterin, and Kevin Liu to the Metis.io journey.
Whether you're a blockchain enthusiast, a tech entrepreneur, or just keen on learning about the power of decentralized collaboration, this episode is not one to miss. Tune in as we explore the next steps in lowering the barrier of entry to blockchain technology and truly unlocking the potential of the web3 economy.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome a special guest Dan Adika, the co-founder and CEO of WalkMe, a leading player in the burgeoning industry of Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) as recognized by Gartner's first-ever market guide on DAP.
Digital adoption platforms are transforming how organizations interact with technology, enabling more seamless and efficient user experiences. Dan takes us on a journey through the concept of DAPs, illustrating their intrinsic value to businesses - from gaining observability into tech stacks to guiding employees in completing business processes.
By leveraging DAPs, companies can improve productivity and reduce errors, paving the way for a new level of operational excellence. In our engaging conversation, we delve into the rise of DAP professionals and their pivotal role within organizations. Dan emphasizes how WalkMe aids organizations in their digital transformation endeavors, enhancing employee experiences and ultimately transforming the workplace.
We further explore how DAPs can revolutionize decision-making within organizations, empowering them to be more data-driven and proactive. Our discussion also touches upon the complexities of AI and generative AI, addressing critical considerations around data privacy, compliance, and security.
Finally, we turn our attention to the importance of continuous learning and self-education in the ever-evolving technological landscape. Listen in as we delve into the potential of AI to lower the barriers to entry across various fields, highlighting the promise of a more accessible and inclusive digital future.
Victor Potrel, VP of Content Distribution at TheSoul Publishing, and Reza Izad, Co-Founder of Underscore Talent. Sitting at the unique crossroads of creators, platforms, and consumers, Victor and Reza share insights from their wealth of experience in the ever-evolving creator economy.
The duo begin by shedding light on their respective backgrounds and their companies' commitment to fostering the growth of content creators across various platforms. Their combined experience of over 30 years, a portfolio reaching 1.5 billion social media subscribers, and representation of over 200 big names in digital-first talent, provides a comprehensive look at the intricacies of the creator economy.
We explore their collaborative work in amplifying the voices of creators, the challenges of the attention economy, and how creators need to adapt to different platforms and formats to reach their audience effectively.
Victor and Reza delve into the complexities of working with both traditional and digitally native talents. They highlight the importance of diversifying across multiple platforms and how strategic navigation during platform shifts can yield an early advantage.
In a deep dive into monetization in the creator economy, our guests elucidate various strategies, including subscriptions, branded content, and merchandising. They discuss the ongoing platform battle among giants like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, and the implications of this rivalry for content creators.
Our guests underline the significance of their partnership in the creator space, emphasizing the importance of supporting this growing part of the economy. They offer a glimpse into the ongoing professionalization of businesses in the creator economy, driven by larger creators running significant enterprises.
Whether you're an aspiring content creator or an enthusiast eager to understand the intricacies of the creator economy, this episode brims with wisdom from two industry leaders transforming the creator space. Join us as we navigate this complex industry, and glean invaluable advice for future creators on investing in multiple platforms and effectively delegating tasks to sustain their businesses.
In this enlightening episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are joined by Joaquin Cuenca Abela, the CEO and co-founder of Freepik Company. From his humble beginnings as an engineer to leading several successful startups, Joaquin takes us through his inspiring journey and shares the crucial lessons he's learned along the way.
Listen to Joaquin as he unfolds the story of Freepik, a venture that began as a search engine for free graphics and progressively adapted to user demand by creating its own unique images. Drawing from his time at Google, Joaquin emphasizes the importance of staying user-focused while keeping a keen eye on financials for startup success. He also shares invaluable advice for budding entrepreneurs about listening to users, leveraging quality data, and progressing steadily towards their goals.
Our conversation takes a deep dive into the intricacies of scaling a business, including the need for strategic hiring and fostering talent, especially in the midst of a tech skill shortage. Joaquin discusses his experiences and strategies in talent acquisition and development that propelled Freepik's growth.
We delve into a rich discussion about the role of product-centric focus in trumping competition, and how Freepik is transforming the design industry by democratizing creativity and utilizing AI to enhance user experience. Joaquin also shares a glimpse into Freepik's ambitious future plans aligning with current industry trends.
Whether you're an aspiring founder, a design enthusiast, or simply curious about the transformative impact of AI in creative industries, this episode packs a wealth of insights from Joaquin's 20-year industry experience. Join us in this fascinating dialogue as we uncover the secrets behind running successful bootstrapped companies and the exciting developments shaping the future of design.
Thomas Lah, the Executive Director and Executive VP of the Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA) is my guest today. With over two decades of experience in advising global technology companies, Thomas brings invaluable insights into the evolving SaaS landscape amid inflation, high-interest rates, and deflated company valuations.
Join us as we delve into the challenges confronting unprofitable SaaS companies as they face slower growth and adverse economic conditions. Thomas shares his expertise on the levers for increasing profitability and cites Salesforce as a successful example of a company adapting to the current economic environment.
Our discussion takes a deep dive into the future of SaaS companies in trying times. We explore how traditional enterprise SaaS models are feeling the heat, leading to a crucial pivot towards next-generation value propositions that leverage big data and AI. Thomas also sheds light on the enduring relevance of SaaS as a delivery model despite current challenges.
We touch upon the instrumental role of industry associations in helping SaaS companies steer through the disruptions brought on by AI. Drawing from his wealth of experience and his acclaimed books like 'Technology-as-a-Service Playbook' and 'Digital Hesitation,' Thomas provides advice that every executive team should heed - focusing on their big data play to unlock unique value propositions for their customers.
Additionally, we also talk about Thomas's podcast, Tectonic, its unique approach to examining technology and services trends, and the equipment he uses to record it.
Whether you're a seasoned tech executive, a startup founder, or just interested in the future of SaaS, this episode is a must-listen. Join us for this insightful conversation as we decode the path forward for successful SaaS in these challenging times.
I sit down with Dan Zavorotny, the co-founder of the revolutionary health tech company, Nutrisense. Starting from scratch, Dan has led his startup to remarkable heights, building a $100 million company with over 170 employees in a mere three years.
Our conversation explores the vital strategies that have contributed to Nutrisense's rapid growth, including Dan's unique approach to effective hiring for startups. He sheds light on the necessity of founders immersing themselves in each role before hiring and emphasizes the value of seeking mentors and experts who can significantly elevate the company's performance.
We delve into the compelling world of unscalable marketing strategies that, contrary to the traditional wisdom, Dan believes are indispensable for acquiring customers and understanding their needs in depth. He elaborates on the crucial role these strategies played in Nutrisense's expansion, leading to innovative solutions like real-time blood glucose monitoring.
Hear about the inspiring anecdote of Dan's extreme customer service that involved personally delivering a lost package to a customer in France, ultimately turning that customer into a valuable team member and leader within Nutrisense.
We also discuss Nutrisense's ground-breaking health technology, its prospects, and upcoming trends that could revolutionize the company’s offerings further.
Join us as we delve into the journey, the mistakes, the lessons, and the triumphs of one of today's most inspiring tech entrepreneurs. This episode is a must-listen for everyone interested in startup growth, innovative health tech, and the art of unconventional yet effective strategies in entrepreneurship.
On this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're serving up an exciting conversation with Ari Melamud, CEO of Incredo Sugar, an innovative food tech company that's on a sweet mission to revolutionize sugar consumption.
In what seems to be a paradox, Ari explains how his company is reducing the amount of sugar in our food, using sugar itself! Dive into the science and strategy behind Incredo Sugar, a patented sugar reduction solution that is not just combating health issues linked with high sugar consumption, but also contributing to sustainability.
Listen as Ari takes us through the meticulous development journey of Incredo Sugar, detailing how it's able to deliver the same sweetness using up to 50% less sugar. He touches upon the challenges they faced and how they successfully worked with food manufacturers to incorporate this groundbreaking sugar into their products.
In a lighter vein, Ari shares his love for Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence", his go-to karaoke song, and how his career path, spanning from Kimberly-Clark to Sharon Laboratories, has led him to lead a sugar revolution with Incredo Sugar.
This episode promises an informative deep-dive into food tech, filled with insights into how simple ingredients like sugar can be innovatively tweaked to promote healthier eating habits. Whether you're a food tech enthusiast or someone keen on understanding the future of food, join us as we unravel the sweet science behind Incredo Sugar with Ari Melamud.
Deb Ashton joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. .With over 25 years of experience in ERP and digital transformation, Deb has cultivated an impressive reputation in the industry and has now directed her focus towards connecting business systems, enhancing data analysis, and promoting intelligent business decision-making with Certinia.
In this insightful discussion, Deb sheds light on the evolution of FinancialForce into Certinia, revealing the vision and strategy behind the rebranding. We delve into the heart of Certinia's mission to provide certainty in data, highlighting its unique attributes of a connected business, intelligent delivery, and scalable agility.
Deb will share her thoughts on the emergence and potential of generative AI, and how Certinia is planning to stay ahead of the curve in an ever-evolving tech industry. We also uncover the secrets behind Certinia's culture and how it plays a pivotal role in staff retention.
Finally, we touch on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the tech industry, a cause that Deb is particularly passionate about, and discuss how she sees the future of ERP and PSA technology solutions shaping up.
For tech enthusiasts, digital transformation advocates, and aspiring leaders, this episode offers an insightful view into the journey of a technology company from its early roots to its current success. Tune in to learn from Deb Ashton's wealth of experience and understand why Certinia is making waves in the world of Services-as-a-Business platforms.
Robin Gandhi, Chief Product Officer at Nium discusses the transformative innovations in global payroll management. As businesses are increasingly operating across borders with remote and distributed teams, payroll complexities and compliance issues are becoming more significant hurdles to overcome. Nium is at the forefront of addressing these challenges, enabling companies to pay employees and contractors worldwide in a seamless and efficient manner.
Robin shares how Nium's infrastructure powers renowned companies like Panther and Ripling, helping them navigate the intricate world of global payroll. We dive into the impact of real-time payments on employee experience and the operational effectiveness of businesses, the role of transparent foreign exchange rates in global payroll, and the exciting future of embedded payments.
We also delve into how the pandemic has accelerated the trend of digitizing B2B payments and how Nium is leveraging this to offer innovative solutions. With Robin's decade of experience in the industry, this episode offers deep insights into the ongoing evolution of global payroll systems and the opportunities it holds for businesses worldwide.
Tune in to discover how Nium is simplifying global payroll and shaping the future of global payments!
I sit down with Lynn Collier, Global Solutions Manager for Digital Infrastructure at Hitachi Vantara, to talk about their pioneering work in enhancing data center storage systems. Lynn shares insights about their efforts to increase sustainability and efficiency in the face of rising electricity consumption in data centers worldwide.
Lynn tells the success story of South African IT company Gijima, who, with the help of Hitachi Vantara, successfully deployed Hitachi VSP systems in their production data center. By replacing bulkier spinning-disk arrays with all-flash storage systems, Gijima significantly consolidated its physical infrastructure, reduced power consumption by 66%, and enhanced its disaster recovery capabilities.
We delve deeper into the complexities business leaders face when striving for improved sustainability without sacrificing performance, reliability, or disaster recovery capability. Lynn explains how Hitachi Vantara’s innovative solutions, such as data-driven automation and sophisticated diagnostics, are helping organizations to address these challenges and continually lower their carbon footprint.
Lynn also shares a sneak peek at some exciting sustainability-focused tools in the pipeline at Hitachi Vantara. She talks about the development of a CO2 calculator tool that will enable organizations to assess their environmental footprint accurately.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in how tech companies are innovating to make data centers more efficient and sustainable and how these advancements can deliver significant business benefits.
Join me, as I sit down with Nic Granger, Director of Corporate and CFO of the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), to discuss her critical role in overseeing the transformation of the oil, gas, and carbon storage industries in the UK, and how she champions the intersection of tech, diversity, and agility within her organization.
As a woman at the helm of digital transformation, Nic shares her fascinating journey into tech, sparked by her parents' purchase of a ZX Spectrum. She sheds light on how this early exposure ignited her passion for technology and eventually steered her into the pivotal position she occupies today.
Throughout our conversation, we delve into the significant strides the NSTA is making in fostering a robust digital culture. Nic provides insights into its innovative initiatives, such as its digital academy, digital awareness sessions, and the digital ambassadors program, all of which aim to enhance digital literacy within the NSTA.
We also touch on the crucial role diversity plays within the tech sector and how the NSTA is addressing this issue head-on. Through strategic recruitment and immersive storytelling sessions, they ensure a breadth of views, experiences, and ideas are brought to the table, enriching the overall innovation and problem-solving process.
Nic takes us through the NSTA's successful implementation of Agile methodologies, underscoring how this has facilitated the swift launch of high-quality products and allowed for their constant improvement based on user feedback.
Finally, we discuss the challenges and strategies involved in driving digital change. Nic shares how she equips other leaders to prioritize projects effectively and the importance of influencing boards and stakeholders on digital and data initiatives. She elaborates on how collaboration is a vital part of digitizing offshore energy in the UK and how the strategic repurposing of data can unlock significant value.
Tune in if you're interested in digital transformations, agile leadership, and the digital future of the offshore energy sector.
Andrew Middleton from British Gas Zero joins me on this episode of Tech Talks Daily. Andrew plays a pivotal role in a venture dedicated to installing, managing, and supporting EV chargers, heat pumps, and smart home technologies. These innovations are helping pave the way to a decarbonized future for public and private sectors, under the trusted banners of British Gas, Hive, and PH Jones.
With the UK government's firm commitment to achieving net zero by 2050, we delve into the timely topic of sustainable energy, affordability, and the role of technology in the fight against climate change. The conversation touches on the implications of the newly announced department for energy security and net zero, highlighting the importance of this national goal amidst rising living costs and pressing environmental concerns.
Andrew sheds light on how British Gas Zero is helping customers lower their energy bills while making significant strides in reducing carbon emissions. We explore how technology is fostering a future where UK homes can fully embrace decarbonization and discuss why enhancing energy efficiency in homes is imperative in our path to sustainability.
We explore the steps individuals and businesses can take to help achieve the national net-zero goal, the perceptions around this ambitious target, and how businesses can simplify the decarbonization agenda. Andrew also shares insights on how the net zero venture is aiding the UK's energy transition and British Gas Zero's collaborations with other organizations and initiatives in support of this transition.
If you're curious about the UK's net zero ambition, concerned about climate change, or simply interested in how tech can help make your home more energy-efficient, this episode offers vital insights and practical advice.
In this episode, we welcome Benedetto Biondi, CEO of Folks Finance, a trailblazing decentralized protocol developed on Algorand that's reshaping the future of lending, trading, governance, and asset management. Benedetto walks us through his intriguing journey from a mechanical engineering background to becoming a key player in the blockchain arena, steering the ship at Folks Finance.
We delve into the inherent problems with centralized exchanges and explore how Folks Finance is revolutionizing the status quo through smart contracts and blockchain applications. We also take a step back to consider the broader impact of the DeFi revolution on the financial industry and its role in constructing the infrastructure for a new, permissionless, and borderless financial system.
As our conversation unfolds, we examine the reasons behind Folks Finance's choice of Algorand for their project, shedding light on the scalability, decentralization, and security of this layer-one blockchain. We navigate the challenges often faced by innovators in the DeFi space, providing valuable insights for those venturing into this dynamic field.
Benedetto discusses his influential role as a mentor in the Algorand accelerator and shares how Folks Finance's emphasis on ecosystem nurturing has helped position them as a leader in the industry. He also touches on his academic engagement as a DeFi lecturer at the University of Florence, reinforcing the critical role of education in grooming the next generation of Web 3.0 innovators.
Looking ahead, we discuss emerging trends in the DeFi industry, the integration of blockchain technology and real-world assets into the permissionless market, and future plans for Folks Finance, including a lending platform.
If you're curious about decentralized finance, interested in blockchain, or seeking to understand the future of digital asset management, this conversation with Benedetto Biondi is a must-listen.
In today's episode, I welcome Chris Roeckl, the Chief Product Officer at Appdome, a global leader in cybersecurity automation defense for mobile applications. With mobile apps becoming increasingly central to our daily lives, the need for robust security and protection measures is more vital than ever before.
Chris shares his expert insights into the complex world of mobile app security and data protection. We delve into some of the most common types of mobile app attacks, such as screen overlay attacks, credential stuffing, and man-in-the-middle attacks, and explore how organizations can safeguard their mobile platforms against these threats.
We discuss how Appdome is empowering industries - from finance and gaming to healthcare - to enhance their app security through encryption and other cutting-edge security capabilities. Additionally, Chris touches on the unique approach Appdome takes to incorporate cybersecurity within DevOps processes, emphasizing full integration into the CI/CD pipeline and certification of implemented security protections.
Moreover, we explore the challenges of achieving mobile app compliance and how Appdome is helping organizations meet stringent security requirements. As we examine Appdome's mission to protect every mobile app worldwide, we gain insights into how the company stays ahead of evolving threats through a collaborative approach and a dedicated security research team.
Whether you're an app developer, a cybersecurity enthusiast, or just a mobile app user, this conversation provides valuable insights into securing the mobile world, underscoring the importance of staying one step ahead in this ever-evolving digital landscape.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are privileged to host Shival Seth, the dynamic Chief Technology Officer at Grand River and St. Mary's Hospital in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Serving over a million patients, Shival's mantra is "What you lack in skills you make up in will," which has proved integral to his leadership role in this diverse community.
Our conversation unfolds as Shival explains the journey of business transformation, specifically focusing on the use of technology to enhance services for administrators, clinicians, and patients alike. With an array of innovations in staff scheduling, HR processes, and patient scheduling, we gain an insight into the challenges and solutions found in healthcare technology.
Shival will walk us through his collaboration with HIMSS and the Cisco Customer Experience (CX) Team to conduct an INFRAM (Infrastructure Adoption Model) assessment. This helped map out their technology infrastructure capabilities and align them with clinical, strategic goals and international standards. Shival’s insightful explanation on how the INFRAM assessment led to significant investments in technology infrastructure will be a valuable lesson for all tech leaders.
A major part of our discussion will delve into how Cisco’s Webex has revolutionized the hospital's operations, allowing for secure, virtual care. From emergency consultations to upgrading meeting rooms, Shival demonstrates the power of technology in modern healthcare.
We’ll also cover the role of Cisco security and Full Stack Observability in safeguarding the hospital's network, and Shival's future vision for pioneering virtual triaging and abolishing traditional waiting rooms.
Key discussion topics include:
• The role of Webex Connect in virtual care and hybrid work • Webex’s integration with Cerner and its inclusivity tools • The efficiency of Webex Connect (CPaaS) in staffing, patient monitoring, and scheduling • The value of a unified view in security tools like Duo, Umbrella, ISE, and ThousandEyes • How Cisco Full Stack Observability enables proactive problem-solving • The importance and value of an INFRAM assessment
Join us as we venture into the exciting world of healthcare technology with Shival Seth, a pioneer making waves in his industry.
Join us on Tech Talks Daily for a conversation about the power of neurodiversity in the tech industry. In this episode, a prominent figure at Lucid, Bryan Stallings shines a light on the strategies businesses can employ to nurture neurodiversity and create an inclusive environment that embraces diverse perspectives.
With Lucid's visual collaboration suite revolutionizing the way teams see and build the future, Bryan shares his insights on how organizations can leverage the unique capabilities of neurodiverse individuals to enhance productivity, innovation, and engagement. Drawing inspiration from his personal experiences as a father of four neurodivergent children, Bryan's understanding of neurodiversity extends beyond the workplace, offering valuable perspectives on applying learnings from home to solve technical and human problems at work.
Throughout the episode, Bryan delves into practical tips for team leaders and business owners, highlighting the importance of establishing patterns, defining success criteria, creating transparency, and leveraging Agile principles and Scrum practices. By breaking down tasks into manageable increments, businesses can promote alignment and minimize confusion for neurodiverse individuals, unlocking their true potential.
As an Agile practitioner with over two decades of experience and a certified Scrum trainer, Bryan brings a wealth of knowledge to the conversation. He shares his passion for creating inclusive environments that value diverse perspectives, not only within the workplace but also in society, ensuring his children have a place to thrive.
Don't miss this inspiring and thought-provoking discussion on how embracing neurodiversity can transform the tech industry. Learn how Lucid's Visual Collaboration Suite is empowering teams worldwide to turn ideas into reality, clarify complexity, and collaborate visually, regardless of their geographical location. Tune in and discover the secrets to nurturing neurodiversity and driving success in today's ever-evolving tech landscape.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Oz Golan and Eli Brosh, from Wix, a leading global SaaS platform, to discuss their groundbreaking development in the sphere of Artificial Intelligence - the AI Text Creator. This cutting-edge feature, developed in collaboration with OpenAI’s GPT-3, is designed to facilitate the generation of high-quality and uniquely-tailored content for users' websites.
We dive into the intricate development process of integrating GPT-3 into the Wix editor, the challenges faced, and the gratifying results of user adoption and retention. Discover how this AI feature is transforming the website content creation process, making it more efficient and less time-consuming for users.
My guests share exclusive insights about the capabilities of this AI technology and Wix's future plans, including expanding language support and adding new features. He underscores the significance of validating each feature to ensure it contributes genuine value to users' websites and overall business success.
This conversation offers an intriguing exploration of how AI technology is increasingly being leveraged to streamline website-building and content creation, ultimately enhancing the quality of online presence. Whether you're a tech enthusiast or a business owner seeking to optimize your digital presence, this episode is packed with valuable insights. Join us as we explore the exciting frontier of AI in website content creation.
About the guests
Dr. Eli Brosh is the Head of AI Research at Wix, where he is working on future-looking technologies to enhance and reinvent the website design experience.
Prior to Wix, Eli held AI leadership positions in leading startups in the fields of visual driving analytics and smartphone-based medical diagnostics. Eli holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University and has authored multiple publications and patents.
Oz Golan is a Product Manager in Wix's Editor division. He has over 10 years of experience in SaaS B2C and B2B environments with millions of end-users. His expertise is in building high converting, long retention, and high CLV products.
Join me in this captivating episode of Tech Talks Daily as we delve into the ever-evolving world of Life Sciences with Rohit Alimchandani, the Head of Life Sciences for UK & Ireland at Cognizant. With over two decades of experience with Europe's biggest life sciences businesses, Rohit provides invaluable insights into the industry's transformative journey.
Our conversation begins with an exploration of the importance of sustainability in the Life Sciences sector. Rohit elaborates on how Cognizant is pioneering sustainable practices and innovations through setting examples, advising clients, and building strategic partnerships.
We venture into the realm of cutting-edge technology and how it's reshaping the Life Sciences industry. Be it virtual reality games for patient adherence, robotic arms for lab experiments, or machine learning bots for medical legal review, Rohit discusses the plethora of exciting advancements that are transforming the industry's landscape.
The conversation delves into the challenges companies encounter while embracing digital transformation, particularly in the areas of talent acquisition and fostering a collaborative partner ecosystem. Rohit emphasizes the crucial role that diversity plays in fostering innovation and shares insights about Cognizant's efforts in promoting a diverse workforce.
Listen as we uncover the story behind the development of a COVID tracking app through a collaboration between Cognizant, Microsoft, and Sensyne Health. Finally, join us as we look into the future of the Life Sciences sector, focusing on precision medicine, and Cognizant's role in advancing it.
Whether you're an industry insider or a curious outsider, this episode is an opportunity to learn from an industry expert about the innovations and transformations shaping the Life Sciences sector. Discover how technology, sustainability, and diversity are paving the way for a brighter, healthier future. Tune in!
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are rolling up our sleeves and diving deep into the fascinating world of Carhartt, a company renowned for its high-quality, durable workwear. This time, we're not focusing on the fabric but the technology that underpins their impressive operations.
I'm broadcasting live from Cisco Live in Las Vegas, where we're sitting down with Bryan Laszlo, Carhartt's Manager of Application Performance. Bryan's been instrumental in transforming Carhartt's approach to IT infrastructure and operations, reducing downtime and improving performance to meet the growing demands of their customer and associate base. His secret weapon? Full-Stack Observability solutions from Cisco, including Cisco AppDynamics and Cisco ThousandEyes.
Bryan shares his team's innovative approach to achieving 360-degree visibility across their tech stack, which has not only enhanced customer and associate experiences but also saved the company millions of dollars in operational expenses. We delve into the tangible benefits of prioritizing observability, including how it's positioned Carhartt to support increased production volume and expand their business footprint.
Carhartt has been "outworking them all" since 1889. But in today's digital world, the company is proving that even long-established businesses must adopt cutting-edge technology to stay ahead. This is a conversation about the fusion of tradition and innovation you won't want to miss.
Remember, technology isn't just about gadgets and gizmos - it's woven into the very fabric of every business. So, sit back, relax, and get ready for another daily dose of tech insights on Tech Talks Daily.
On this special episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm broadcasting straight from Cisco Live in Las Vegas, and I'm about to take you behind the scenes of the most anticipated event of the conference: the Cisco CX Customer Hero Awards. This is the place where extraordinary customer achievements in technology innovation are recognized and celebrated.
Joining us is the man leading the celebrations, Alistair Wildman, Senior Vice President of Cisco Global Customer Experience (CX). With a career in technology spanning over two decades, and having held executive positions at tech giants like Microsoft, Salesforce, and VMware, Alistair's insights into the tech world are second to none.
In this conversation, Alistair shines a light on the award winners, sharing the transformative stories of each customer Hero, from NYC Health + Hospitals' secure network initiative to Nationwide's digital transformation, Princess Cruises' innovative customer experiences, Honeywell's automation triumph, and many more. Alistair's passion for customer success is evident as he details the groundbreaking work these companies have achieved with the aid of Cisco's cutting-edge technology.
But this episode isn't just about celebrating technology's triumphs; it's also about the future. Join us as we explore these inspiring tales of technological innovation and discuss the future of customer experiences. As always, remember that technology isn't just changing the way we live—it's the driving force behind every successful business. So, tune in, get inspired, and let's talk tech.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm thrilled to welcome Nathaniel Morris, founder of EQ Digital. EQ Digital is at the forefront of bridging the often overlooked gap between IT and business, striving to create harmony in this integral space by transforming technical leaders into strategic business owners.
Morris and his organization have been instrumental in saving millions in annual expenses, cultivating high-performing teams, and contributing significantly to the bottom line of numerous businesses.
Join us as we dive deep into the critical need for sound business skills amongst technical leaders. We'll explore how Nathaniel's innovative, business-aware approach to technical leadership has redefined the dynamics within retail and technology sectors, promoting efficiency and profitability without compromising on budget or timelines.
In this conversation, we'll unpack the details of EQ Digital's strategies, Nathaniel's unique leadership style, and discuss how to bridge the IT-Business divide.
Whether you're a seasoned tech executive, an ambitious startup founder, or just passionate about the interplay of business and technology, this episode promises to be full of valuable insights and practical advice. Tune in to learn how to leverage technology to your business's advantage and create a harmonious, high-performing team.
TK Keanini is a seasoned veteran in the network and security space with over 25 years of experience, TK also brings unparalleled insights from his extensive career at Cisco. Currently driving technical innovation and the integration of security solutions with both private and public cloud-based computing platforms, TK is transforming the way we view cybersecurity.
In this episode, we dive into a range of compelling topics, including the latest product news with a focus on Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), implementing AI assistants in security, and the ever-evolving capabilities of firewalls and multi-cloud defense. We'll explore the product launches that are part of the broader Cisco Security Cloud and understand how they align with Cisco's strategic vision to build an integrated security platform.
We further venture into the hot topic of zero-trust framework and its significant impact on security resilience. With the increasing complexity of modern IT environments and an escalated threat landscape, the zero-trust model becomes essential. TK provides an expert view of how it influences the development of secure networks and enhances overall security resilience.
This episode offers the perfect blend of tech, innovation, and security, providing listeners with a comprehensive look into the current state and future of cybersecurity. Whether you are a tech enthusiast, an IT professional, or just curious about the digital world, there's something for everyone. Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to hear from one of the leading figures in the tech world.
Today, I am honored to host Lorrissa Horton, the recently-appointed Chief Product Officer at Webex, who is shaping the future of hybrid work and collaboration technologies.
Webex, a Cisco company, is renowned for its end-to-end platform, providing robust solutions for both collaboration software and hardware. These offerings are designed to revolutionize the way we work and interact, tailoring to the evolving needs of hybrid workspaces and customer experience landscapes.
Since taking the helm, Lorrissa has focused on scaling the platform and driving innovations that align with Webex's mission to promote inclusivity. Her remarkable work and her creative approach to work-life integration have earned her recognition as one of the top Asian American business leaders today. A holder of over ten patents and an advocate for remote work, Lorrissa is truly a force to be reckoned with in the tech industry.
In this episode, we delve into the recent genAI announcement from Webex and their intriguing partnership with AT&T. We will also unpack Webex's vision for the future of customer experience, powered by artificial intelligence, as well as the remarkable strides they have made in the realm of cloud calling.
Don't miss this deep dive into the world of collaborative technologies with one of the industry's top leaders. Stay tuned for a thought-provoking conversation on the future of work, the role of AI in customer experience, and the intriguing crossroads of technology, leadership, and work-life balance.
Today, Nathan Howe, the VP of Emerging Technology and 5G at Zscaler, makes a return appearance to delve into the increasingly relevant topic of Zero Trust architecture.
In an era marked by hybrid workforces, global economic instability, and evolving cybersecurity threats, Nathan explains how Zero Trust architecture serves as more than just a security measure, transforming into a potent business solution delivering resilience, superior performance, and cost reductions.
The conversation kicks off with an in-depth discussion on the concept of Zero Trust architecture – the application of least privilege in computing to safeguard business assets, ensuring only authorized entities can access specific applications and data sets.
Neil and Nathan then explore why Zero Trust architecture deserves a priority spot on the C-suite agenda and why businesses can ill afford to overlook it.
Moving on, Nathan provides fascinating insights into the numerous benefits of adopting Zero Trust architecture for businesses, including enhanced security, improved resilience, boosted performance, and decreased costs. Drawing from Zscaler's experience, he shares real-world examples of how their Zero Trust platform empowered organizations to eliminate inbound VPN services, thus reducing exposure risks.
Nathan then delves into the concept of policy-based steering and Zscaler's ability to forge direct paths for workloads, citing key trends in cloud security like the shift towards edge compute and AI usage.
Don't miss out on this insightful exploration of Zero Trust architecture with Nathan Howe. Tune in and stay updated on the latest in emerging technology and cybersecurity trends. If you enjoyed the episode, please rate us on your preferred podcast platform and share it with other tech enthusiasts!
I sit down with Jeetu Patel at Cisco Live. We discuss the scale of global security and its far-reaching implications for every individual and organization.
Jeetu provides a comprehensive look at the challenges of cybersecurity and how the digital landscape is changing. We explore the idea of making security a seamless, frictionless experience for users through the latest release of Cisco Secure Access, aimed at simplifying and enhancing cybersecurity measures for all.
Our conversation also navigates the complexities of current security setups, where companies often struggle with managing numerous products and policy engines. Jeetu shares insights on the importance of reducing cognitive load for users and the efforts Cisco is making to accomplish this.
This podcast is a deep dive into the significance of achieving a balance between zero trust and zero friction, to provide least privileged access without overcomplicating the security process.
Jeetu also touches on the importance of integrating AI in cybersecurity to handle sophisticated attacks at scale. He gives us a sneak peek into Cisco's upcoming security policy management gen AI assistant, set to revolutionize the way security rules are managed and hygiene is maintained in the cybersecurity space.
Listen in to stay updated on Cisco's upcoming releases and to gain valuable insights into the future of cybersecurity. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, an IT administrator, or a general user, this conversation will provide crucial takeaways for you. Tune in to discover how Cisco is shaping the future of global security and what it means for you.
Today, I am live from the buzzing showfloor at Cisco Live in Vegas, where we have a chance to talk to Nathan Bullock, IT Operations Manager at Interstates.
Interstates, a company with a rich 60-year history based out of Iowa, is known for maximizing value for its manufacturing customers. How? By simplifying and updating its servers through a strategic partnership with Cisco, a global leader in IT and networking.
In this episode, Nathan will walk us through how Cisco server technology is being leveraged by Interstates to innovate and optimize its operations. Thanks to Cisco's advanced solutions, Interstates has seen a significant reduction in the frequency of server infrastructure overhauls. But that's not all - they've also experienced improved systems integration, enhanced automation, and better scalability.
Furthermore, Nathan will discuss how these changes have simplified and accelerated their data center operations. The result? A whopping 75% acceleration in deployments to manufacturers, providing them with the efficient, high-quality service they need to remain competitive in today's fast-paced business landscape.
We will also touch on the challenges that come with such a massive transformation and how Interstates has navigated the path to digital transformation, emerging stronger and more efficient.
With Nathan's rich experience in IT operations and his leadership at Interstates, this conversation is guaranteed to offer valuable insights for anyone looking to understand the power of updated IT infrastructure, the crucial role of server technology, and the impact of strategic partnerships in driving business value.
Tune in for this insightful discussion with Nathan Bullock live from Cisco Live in Vegas, and discover how the right technology can revolutionize IT operations, optimize value delivery, and drive the future of manufacturing. It's an episode you won't want to miss, right here on Tech Talks Daily.
Javed Khan, SVP and GM of Cisco Collaboration, joins me in a discussion about the world of Hybrid Work. Javed reveals the approach of Cisco Collaboration in leveraging AI to deliver unrivaled experiences for both organizations and contact center agents. We explore the impact of AI on teamwork, decision-making, and efficiency, transforming the very way we understand and approach work.
Javed also discusses the concept of the 'mobile office', giving us a glimpse into the future of work. He shares his vision of a seamless blend of technology and connectivity, where geographical boundaries cease to restrict productivity and innovation.
In addition, we delve into Javed's leadership at Cisco, where he previously ran Cisco’s Cloud Calling business and led the Webex Meetings business unit. We learn about the strategy and transformative initiatives that have been the hallmark of his tenure, such as the development of a single meetings platform architecture and the modernization of the Webex experience.
Listen in as we explore the intersection of technology, work, and the future. If you are interested in the future of work, AI, or just curious about what comes next, you won't want to miss this episode.
I sit down with Ken Martin, the Managing Director of Global Sports, Media & Entertainment at Cisco. As the strategic advisor to the world's premier sports leagues, venues, and organizations, Martin has been a key player in transforming the digital landscape of stadiums globally, setting the pace for the future of fan experiences.
From pioneering video delivery in stadiums 15 years ago to architecting high-density Wi-Fi and IP Fabric for broadcast, Cisco is now at the forefront, enabling more than 460 stadiums worldwide to deliver personalized, immersive experiences to their audiences. With advanced technologies such as AI, Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, and dynamic security tools, Cisco is revolutionizing the guest and fan experiences by enhancing convenience, customization, and personalization.
During the podcast, Ken will share insights on how Cisco's technology underpins the infrastructure of the most technologically advanced venues, such as SoFi, State Farm, and Allegiant Stadiums, which hosted the 2022, 2023, and 2024 Super Bowls. He will also shed light on the integral role of Cisco's networking technology in powering the biggest events, including Super Bowl LVII and upcoming grand events like the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games.
Moreover, we'll delve into Cisco's partnerships with organizations like the NFL to ensure enterprise-level security. From handling 100 million DNS requests and blocking 200,000 of them during the 2023 Super Bowl to analyzing 800,000 suspicious files using secure Malware analytics, Cisco's role in cybersecurity is extensive.
Ken Martin will also reveal how Cisco's technology, such as Cisco Secure Firewalls, Umbrella, and Secure Malware Analytics, is utilized to aggregate intelligence feeds that are integral to threat hunting and monitoring.
This is a must-listen episode for all tech enthusiasts and sports fans curious about the future of sports entertainment and the massive digital transformations behind the scenes. Join us to discover how technology is transforming the global sports, media, and entertainment industries.
On this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're coming to you live from the bustling show floor of Cisco Live in Las Vegas. Our focus today is on the evolution of technology adoption in the public sector, a field traditionally seen as lagging behind its private counterparts. We're busting myths and challenging stereotypes as we delve into the intriguing world of public services, proving that they are, indeed, keeping pace with the digital world.
Our special guest is Brad Walsh, Lead Program Manager for Application Performance Management at the Indiana Office of Technology. Brad offers unique insights into the current technological shift in the public sector and reveals how governmental organizations are not just catching up, but in some areas, leading the charge in implementing cutting-edge solutions.
We're shining a spotlight on Cisco's Full-Stack Observability (FSA), a game-changing solution that provides end-to-end visibility across applications, infrastructure, and network layers. This powerful tool can transform IT operations and enhance overall business performance, boasting benefits like improved visibility, faster problem resolution, increased collaboration, scalability, and heightened security.
But what does this look like when applied in the real world? How can it truly revolutionize public services and raise public expectations from government services? Brad Walsh will share his firsthand experience with the Cisco FSA and will reveal how this tech solution is transforming operations at the Indiana Office of Technology.
Tune in for an eye-opening discussion about the future of public sector technology, straight from the heart of Cisco Live. We're breaking down barriers, shattering misconceptions, and bridging the gap between the public and private sectors. Don't miss out!
I sit down with Gabriele Columbro, General Manager of Linux Foundation Europe (LF Europe) and Executive Director of Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), to dissect the geopolitics of open source and the dynamic growth of LF Europe.
We kick off by understanding why a regional foundation like LF Europe is vital in the ever-evolving global landscape of open source. Gabriele provides fascinating insights into the rapid growth of LF Europe, which has amassed over 100 members in just 8 short months. We then delve into the instrumental role of the public sector in Open Source Software (OSS) sustainability and its potential to elevate the open-source community.
Our discussion then veers towards the implications of the Cyber Residency Act (CRA), the intricacies of open-source policy, and the pressing need for liability clarity for open-source contributors and commercial entities. We also touch upon the recent launch of the Linux Foundation Europe Advisory Board (LFEAB), aiming to define priorities, foster new collaborations, and expand the open-source community across Europe.
Furthermore, we explore the 2023 Global Spotlight Survey, reflecting on the significant findings from the previous year's survey that have influenced LF Europe's operations. Lastly, Gabriele shares exciting glimpses into the upcoming Linux Foundation Europe Member Summit scheduled in Spain, which will revolve around hot topics such as collaboration between the public and private sector, upcoming projects, and the role of LF Europe in Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Don't miss out on this intriguing conversation with Gabriele Columbro as we delve into the geopolitics of open source, discuss pivotal community and policy matters, and unveil what lies ahead for the Linux Foundation Europe.
On this episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I am excited to host Ashley Skyrme, a notable figure from Accenture. Ashley plays a pivotal role in shaping Accenture's cloud strategy and has recently been involved in their latest report, “The race to cloud: Reaching the inflection point to long sought value.”
During our engaging conversation, Ashley sheds light on how the cloud market is evolving at an unprecedented pace. Our discourse delves into the report's findings that reveal cloud commitment is no longer optional but has become a business mandate. An astonishing 86% of companies report ramping up the scope and volume of their cloud initiatives since 2020.
While cloud adoption shows promising progression, it's not without challenges. We talk about the persistent hurdles businesses face, such as security and compliance risks, the complexity of operational change, and how a few early adopters have managed to overcome these barriers to unlock the true value of their cloud investments. Ashley generously shares some success stories, strategies, and best practices that have worked for companies, providing listeners with valuable insights and solutions.
Our conversation also includes a future-forward perspective as we discuss the upcoming trends in cloud adoption. Ashley explains the strategic shift towards reinventing the digital core, sustainable cost transformation, and the importance of AI-centric and industry-specific cloud investments.
In this episode, we don't just scratch the surface but deep dive into the current state of the cloud market, its benefits, complexities, and how businesses can optimize their cloud strategies.
Sachin Duggal, the innovative mind behind Builder.ai joins me in a deep dive into the journey of making software creation as easy as ordering a pizza.
Sachin's experience with the arduous process of app development and the frustrations that came with it sparked the inception of Builder.ai. He was determined to create a platform where anyone, regardless of their technical knowledge, could bring their app ideas to life. Builder.ai revolutionizes software development by creating an AI-powered platform that transforms complex coding processes into a simple selection and customization task.
Listen in as Sachin dissects the world of low code and no code platforms, the limitations that these platforms possess, and how Builder.ai navigates through these challenges. They delve into the recurring barriers to entry in the software industry and explore how Builder.ai elevates its users' confidence in building software and ensuring successful outcomes.
Sachin shares insights on how his platform enables non-technical customers to build apps with the help of an AI assistant. The platform's unique approach allows clients to own the code and build anything within reason, making Builder.ai stand out in the crowd.
In addition, the duo discuss how Builder.ai reduces the risk of building the wrong product, automates the software production process and fosters a high return on investment by creating an expert network of developers and designers.
Discover how Sachin Duggal, a computer prodigy since his early teenage years, evolved from fixing a broken computer to founding one of the first cloud computing companies and eventually building Builder.ai. Get inspired by Sachin's remarkable journey from a passionate tech enthusiast to a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer and Entrepreneur.com's Serial Entrepreneur of the Year.
Join me on this enlightening journey of transforming the landscape of software development. Learn how Builder.ai is reshaping the software industry and making it more accessible to the non-tech savvy community. Tune in and get inspired to bring your app ideas to life!
In this episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we explore the rapidly evolving AdTech and digital programmatic advertising industry with Mark D. Walker, the CEO, Co-founder, and Chairman of Direct Digital Holdings (DDH).
Mark unpacks how DDH, a burgeoning titan in the industry, continues to lead with its innovative technology platform that manages approximately 90,000 clients monthly, generating over 100 billion impressions per month across various media channels. Amid industry turbulence, this disruptive tech entity uniquely stands strong, continuing to grow and succeed.
Crucially, DDH isn't your typical AdTech firm. Comprising Huddled Masses, Colossus SSP, and Orange142, DDH presents a unique ad ecosystem that offers services on both the ad-buy and ad-sell sides, a feature that most competitors lack. DDH has strategically positioned itself as a leader in programmatic advertising, emphasizing reaching consumers and publishers in mid-sized, multicultural, and under-represented markets, including those linked to gender, race, and sexual orientation.
On a prouder note, DDH carries the torch of being the 9th ever black-owned business to list on a US exchange (Nasdaq: DRCT), an accomplishment that Mark, who is well-versed in the complexities and potential of multicultural markets, holds with great pride.
In our conversation, Mark discusses a recently released whitepaper featuring noteworthy research findings indicating that, during a time of economic uncertainty, many brands are neglecting potential revenue and market share growth opportunities due to a lack of focus on Black, Hispanic/Latin, AAPI, and LGBTQIA+ communities. Mark offers actionable insights to address this issue.
This episode promises to provide a deep dive into the future of AdTech, the unique vantage point of DDH, and why this fast-growing company should be on everyone's radar. Stay tuned for this insightful discussion with Mark D. Walker, a trailblazer and advocate for diversity in the tech industry.
Guy Tytunovich is the founder and CEO of CHEQ, a leading security firm specializing in the elimination of bots, fake web traffic, and malicious users. Born from the minds of former members of Israel's elite intelligence Unit 8200, CHEQ is dedicated to shielding over 15,000 companies worldwide from damaging web activities that can significantly impact their bottom lines.
In our conversation, Guy unpacks the startling extent to which bots and fake traffic disrupt businesses, with a whopping 40% of all web traffic comprised of invalid users and bots. He illuminates how this trend sabotages marketing efficiency, skews data and analytics, and hampers on-site conversion efforts.
Guy brings the issue to life with real-world examples. We dive into CHEQ's findings, which reveal an astounding potential wastage of $658M annually in Twitter ad spend on bots and fake users. Guy also touches on the infamous bot attacks on Ticketmaster during Taylor Swift's tour sale, which led to site crashes and congressional hearings.
We explore the recent case of JP Morgan Chase, which suffered a $175M loss due to a fraudulent customer list during the acquisition of startup Frank. In the rapidly heating M&A landscape, Guy sheds light on how businesses can properly vet acquisition targets and steer clear of such pitfalls.
Join us for this insightful episode as we explore the hidden threats in the digital landscape and discuss how CHEQ, with its advanced cybersecurity measures, is paving the way for safer, more efficient business practices in the web realm.
Rusty Matveev, Chief Strategy Officer at Calaxy discusses the surge of investment in the creator economy and its implications in the world of Web3. The creator economy, predicted to hit a whopping $75 billion USD market worth by 2024, is set to revolutionize the traditional commerce sector and the way celebrities and influencers connect with their fans.
Calaxy is a next-generation social marketplace aiming to reinvent the creator-fan relationship, providing creators with a direct line of engagement with their fans, free from the confines of traditional social media conglomerates. With an impressive line-up of creators including NFL star Ezekiel Elliott, The Bachelor's Matt James, and singer Teyana Taylor, Calaxy is a prominent player in the creator economy.
Boasting over 15 years of experience in the emerging tech and startup space and a background in venture capitalism, Rusty is uniquely positioned to shed light on this thriving sector. He explores the shift in power dynamics within the creator community, the growing impact of NFT-powered commerce, and the potential of utility-driven NFTs.
In our conversation, Rusty and I delve into Calaxy's hybrid social platform that serves as a unique marketplace for creators, providing a storefront for direct fan engagement. We also touch upon the exciting potential the creator economy holds for its participants, with Rusty predicting that creators could earn millions of dollars daily through direct fan engagement.
Don't miss this episode for insights into the future of the creator economy, the transformative potential of Web3, and how platforms like Calaxy are empowering creators and revolutionizing fan relationships.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I host Heather Younger, a prominent keynote speaker, author, CEO, and Founder of Employee Fanatix and an all-around amazing human being. At a time when we are hearing about the importance of people in the tech industry and every business, I learned how Heather focuses on empowering leaders to value their people at work.
Heather shares the significance of active listening, a skill she explores in depth in her recent book and believes is crucial for a robust company culture, especially in today's hybrid work environment. Despite the wealth of communication, we talk about the frequent neglect of effective listening in workplace communication.
Heather shares insightful instances where a lack of customer listening led to unfavorable outcomes, highlighting the need to incorporate all voices in an organization and build a culture fostering connection and belonging. She discusses prevalent workplace myths and misconceptions, stressing the importance of uniting individuals from all tiers to drive superior strategies.
Echoing hope for the future, Heather cites examples of leaders starting to pay attention to inclusivity and implementing broad changes that could benefit their employees and the people they serve.
In conclusion, Heather and Neil discuss her new book, The Art of Active Listening, her Leadership with Heart podcast, and future plans for a workshop and certification program. This episode underscores the power of active listening in enhancing belonging, loyalty, profitability, and innovation, making workplaces more engaging and inclusive for everyone.
Ben Meyer from Outlier Ventures joins me for a deep dive into the world of Web3, decentralization, and the unique challenges startups face in this arena. Outlier Ventures, renowned for propelling the Web 3 movement, boasts a track record of 25 cohorts, partnerships with multiple layer one protocols, and an impressive $350 million raised for their pre-seed portfolio companies.
Ben delves into Outlier Ventures' mission to foster a decentralized economy, outlining the array of challenges that they help startups navigate. These include the technical intricacies of Web 3, issues of scalability, regulatory uncertainties, interoperability, user adoption hurdles, security concerns, talent acquisition, funding, and limitations of infrastructure. He also introduces us to the zero knowledge cohort, a program designed to mentor founders and assist them in exploring diverse design spaces and ecosystems.
We also touch upon the importance of stress-testing projects for endurance through future cycles in the Web 3 industry. We delve into how DeFi can address challenges like transparency, auditability, and privacy, and discuss Ally Adventures' method of evaluating potential projects based on the resilience and adaptability of founders.
Ben shines a light on the Aptos X Outlier Move accelerator program, which focuses on mainstreaming Web 3, enhancing user-friendliness, and boosting scalability. He also shares insights on Outlier Ventures' role in ecosystem development and the exciting convergence of AI and crypto.
Finally, Ben explores the crucial role of zero knowledge in enabling scalability and privacy for Web 3, along with opportunities for infrastructure, tooling, and authentication. Wrapping up the conversation with a book recommendation, Ben invites eager listeners to reach out to learn more.
Join us for this insightful conversation, offering a glimpse into the future of Web 3, the dynamic landscape of decentralization, and the exciting endeavors of Outlier Ventures.
Alexander De Ridder, the Co-Founder and CTO of INK joins me on Tech Talks Daily. As the creator of the world's first AI-powered content optimization software, Alexander brings a unique blend of experience from startups to Fortune 100 companies, offering deep insights into the evolving landscape of AI, SEO, marketing, and social media.
Alexander shares the exciting journey behind INK, the revolutionary software leveraging AI to optimize content across SEO and social media. As we explore the upcoming shift to the interactive web, Alexander explains how INK aims to steer the SEO industry towards this novel phase. He also provides fascinating insights into his previous contributions to machine learning and the scope of Web 3.0.
Addressing ethical considerations in the realm of AI, the discussion revolves around its role in business, marketing, and social media, with an emphasis on delivering unique data and experiences via quality content. Alexander forecasts the transformative impact of AI assistants on our web interactions and the need for businesses to engage conversationally with AI.
With Alexander's diverse roles from project manager to chief innovator, this episode offers a rich exploration of AI's potential to reshape SEO, content optimization, and business interaction dynamics. Stay tuned for a fascinating journey into the future of AI and SEO with Alexander De Ridder.
In today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we're coming to you from Latitude 59 in Estonia, hosting an enlightening conversation with the prominent Sten Tamkivi. A stalwart in the tech scene from an early age, Sten established the first digital media agency in Estonia when he was just 18 years old, and played a significant role in Skype's monumental $8.5B sale to Microsoft.
Now, Sten is pushing the boundaries of the tech industry with his Plural Platform, where he invests in groundbreaking tech companies at their infancy. Through his multi-family office, Taavet+Sten, he's also making remarkable strides outside of early tech. In our chat today, we'll explore the culture of founders supporting founders, Europe's pivotal role in the global tech scene, and the lessons gleaned from the evolution of Estonia's tech landscape.
With Sten, we venture into the world of venture capitalism, challenging the conventional hierarchy and creating a scalable network of peers committed to nurturing the next generation of tech builders. Through his work, he hopes to generate a GDP-level impact on Europe and foster a product-building mindset among the upcoming tech entrepreneurs.
I learn how Sten's investment strategy via Plural Platform focuses on the earliest stages of legendary tech companies. His previous work includes founding Teleport (acquired by Topia in 2017), and an 8-year journey with Skype from its startup phase to reaching 300M active users and a $8.5B exit to Microsoft. An active voice for entrepreneurship, tech education, and an open, creative society, Sten continues to shape the future of European tech.
Join us as we delve into Sten's inspiring journey and vision, sharing unique insights and exploring innovative strategies. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur, seasoned tech professional, or simply a tech enthusiast, this is a conversation you won't want to miss.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joining forces with Rainer Sternfeld and Tomosaku Sohara, the powerhouse Managing Partners of NordicNinja. This unique joint venture between Japan and Estonia is at the forefront of cultivating an international, collaborative tech environment, and we can't wait to dig into this fascinating partnership.
Rainer Sternfeld, a seasoned founder turned investor, has spent the last 20 years building tech businesses across continents. As the co-founder of Planet OS, a climate tech company acquired by Intertrust, Rainer has established a solid foothold in the intersection of tech and sustainability. With his extensive experience and unique perspective, he is a crucial link between Japan, Europe, and the U.S., strengthening ties and fostering a harmonious tech ecosystem.
Our second guest, Tomosaku Sohara, brings his profound knowledge in investment and clean technologies to the table. As a former leader of investments at JBIC IG Partners and having financed cleantech and mobility projects across the globe, Tomosaku is deeply embedded in the tech sector, focusing on climatetech, energy, and blockchain applications.
In this conversation, we'll explore the fascinating synergy between Japan and Europe, the unique opportunities and advantages of founder-led venture capital firms, and the imperative digital and sustainable transformations happening in our world today.
The collaboration of Rainer and Tomosaku exemplifies the power of cross-continental teamwork in creating a sustainable future. Through the innovative work of NordicNinja VC, we'll delve into how technology can bridge the gaps between nations and propel us towards a future that is both digitally advanced and ecologically responsible.
So, gear up for this eye-opening episode as we delve into the tech world's cutting-edge innovations and the transformative power of global collaboration. From Japan to Estonia, from AI to climate tech, and everything in between, this is one episode of Tech Talks Daily you won't want to miss!
Today, I'm diving into the complex and increasingly important realm of financial crime. To guide us through this labyrinth, I am joined by an industry veteran and dedicated crime fighter, Taavi Tamkivi.
As the Co-Founder and CEO of Salv, Taavi Tamkivi brings decades of experience in fraud, revenue assurance, and consumer analytics. Prior to founding Salv, he led the AML, Fraud, and KYC teams at distinguished companies such as TransferWise and Skype. However, despite his significant contributions, Taavi felt the vast financial crime expended a more collaborative and holistic approach. This inspired him to establish Salv, a company focused on innovative, cooperative methods of combating financial crime.
At Salv, Taavi is pioneering Europe's first collaborative crime-fighting network, creating a new front line in the battle against financial crime. Today, we'll delve into the emerging threats of financial crime, financial institutions' difficulties in combating it, and how collaboration is key to turning the tide.
As we conclude our insightful dialogue with Taavi Tamkivi, we're left with a deeper understanding of the complex landscape of financial crime. His insights into detection, prevention, and the power of collaboration in the fight against crime are invaluable in this rapidly evolving sector.
I'm thrilled to be broadcasting from Latitude 59 in Estonia today, renowned as the cradle of the digital revolution. And the person who'll be joining us today is someone who has played a pivotal role in shaping that revolution – Taavi Kotka.
Taavi Kotka is not just an entrepreneur, but also the first-ever Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Government of Estonia. His innovation and vision were key in shaping e-Estonia, the world's most digitally advanced nation. His contributions, notably the world's first e-Residency program, have revolutionized the way the government interacts with its citizens and conducts its operations.
Starting his career as a humble programmer and eventually becoming the CEO of Webmedia (now Nortal), Taavi has worn several hats throughout his illustrious career. His achievements range from being crowned Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year to receiving Estonia’s prestigious White Star III Class Order.
Now, as a special advisor to the European Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip on the European Digital Single Market, Taavi continues to influence the tech sphere, whether it's through his startup ventures, consulting for enterprises and governments, or his thought-provoking keynotes at global conferences.
In today's episode, we're going to deep dive into a conversation with Taavi Kotka. We’ll explore his journey, the milestones he’s achieved, and his views on the future of digital governance and transformation.
I also learn how for community-led businesses, Koos simplifies shared ownership to let business-critical communities earn and own equity-like stakes in that business without messing with the cap table.
As we wrap up this insightful conversation with Taavi, we're reminded of the disruptive power of technology. Through his relentless efforts and innovative thinking, Taavi has transformed not only industries but also an entire nation. His insights into digital transformation, government policy, and the startup ecosystem offer a unique perspective on the future of technology.
Michael Messele is the Co-Founder and CEO of Pillar Project, and also at the helm of Etherspot, revolutionizing cross-chain asset transfers and Web3 user experience. A seasoned campaigner in the FinTech realm, Messele brings his 15+ years of experience to the table, sharing profound insights from his blockchain journey.
Today, Messele outlines the significance of decentralized economies and how it can shape future technologies. From Cranfield School of Management to leading multiple blockchain-centric projects, Messele discusses his leadership ethos, entrepreneurial spirit, and his keen interest in exotic derivatives and independent pricing verification.
During the podcast, we focus on the major pain-points of blockchain adoption. They discuss how to create a frictionless Web3 user experience via Account Abstraction, the potential to draw millions into the DeFi space, and demystify the transition from Web2 to Web3 for developers. Also, they contemplate why Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) should ideally steer product development in the blockchain arena.
Additionally, we attempt to unravel Etherspot's contributions to simplify decentralized apps usage and minimize transaction barriers. They converse about account abstraction's role in simplifying decentralized wallets usage while preserving data ownership. Furthermore, the hurdles faced by Web2 developers during the Web3 transition and the solutions Etherspot provides to smoothen this transition are discussed.
Finally, the future of web development, the evolving dynamic between DAOs and conventional product development structures, and data ownership's importance are expounded upon. Stay tuned for an enlightening discussion on the power of decentralization, continuous learning, and the future of blockchain.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I dive into the fascinating world of blockchain and Web3 with Stefan Colins, Head of Marketing and Community at Venly, a Belgium-based trailblazer in the crypto space.
Amidst a notable decrease in global venture funding, Venly stands out, having successfully secured €21 million in a Series A funding round in April 2022.
They've since been at the forefront of innovation, providing a seamless transition solution for Web2 companies to embrace the promise of Web3, along with a robust suite of tools designed to boost user growth in the industry.
My guest, Stefan, takes us behind the scenes at Venly, discussing their broad range of offerings, including their Shopify wallet integration, Venly wallet, Venly NFT marketplace, market API, and their comprehensive suite of NFT tools. Serving over 3 million end users, Venly has been driving revolutionary advancements across both the Web2 and Web3 domains, with renowned partnerships with Shopify, Stripe, Sandbox, OpenSea, 1inch, and Aavegotchi.
We delve into Venly's key milestones, including their partnership with Stripe, which enabled new fiat-to-crypto onramps, and the integration allowing Shopify users to sell NFTs via their storefront. Stefan also enlightens us on the challenges and strategies involved in catalyzing mainstream adoption of Web3 by onboarding traditional companies to this new domain.
Our engrossing dialogue with Stefan promises insights on Venly's vision for the future of blockchain, their commitment to regulatory compliance, and their expansion plans. Join us in this episode for a deep dive into the transformative power of blockchain and the endless possibilities of Web3 with Stefan Colins from Venly.
Join me in a discussion about the world of remote work with Job van der Voort, the visionary co-founder and CEO of Remote. Join us as we explore the profound impact of remote hiring on modern business paradigms, with insights drawn from the latest research commissioned by Remote.
We begin our journey by scrutinizing the fascinating evolution of Remote, a company that expanded from a dozen to a thousand employees, proving that geographical boundaries no longer dictate the limits of success. From there, Job sheds light on the role of remote hiring in enhancing diversity and inclusion, while fueling sustainable economic growth.
The discussion then veers towards the rise of the digital nomad culture and the challenges that businesses face in adopting remote hiring practices. Job expertly navigates these complexities, explaining how Remote is defying these hurdles by providing comprehensive solutions for compliance, taxes, payroll, and benefits.
The conversation further delves into dispelling myths and concerns surrounding global hiring and the disparities in healthcare and total compensation across different regions. We conclude our discussion with Job sharing valuable advice on how companies can tap into a diverse pool of talent across Asia, Middle East, and Africa, and the importance of fostering a remote default culture.
With key findings from Remote's Tech Talent research, our chat uncovers how remote hiring could revolutionize employment, promote local growth, and catalyze an upsurge in workforce diversity. Yet, it also reveals how many are still restrained by domestic hiring practices, missing out on this opportunity.
Join us to understand the barriers to global hiring and how to overcome them, changing your perspective on remote work forever. Tune in to this episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, where the future of work awaits.
Ever wonder if Estonia’s digital transformation is everything it’s cracked up to be? Wonder no more. I'm about to show you. Embark on a journey through the future with Estonia – a country that has produced the largest number of unicorns per capita in Europe. My guest today is Ott Velsberg, Estonia's Government Chief Data Officer and a driving force behind the country's digital revolution.
From discussions at the Tallinn Digital Nomad meetup to a deep dive into Estonia's digital government infrastructure, our conversation with Ott promises an inside look into a future where public sector innovation matches—and even surpasses—that of the private sector.
Estonia stands apart in a world where ease of use is often exclusive to private sector innovations like Amazon's One-Click Basket or Netflix's viewing continuity. Here, 99% of government services are available online, transforming the way citizens interact with the public sector. But how did this Baltic nation achieve this feat? Ott, a key player in implementing Estonia's open data, data management, and AI action plan, will help us decode this fascinating journey.
From exploring the underpinnings of e-government to the sensitive topic of repurposing data with user consent, Ott's insights are bound to challenge conventional wisdom. We'll also touch on the role of AI in public service, the implications of data privacy regulations, and the concept of the 'Sputnik moment'—how countries technologically advanced are leaving others behind.
If you're curious about the power of technology in governance, the future of AI, or the role of data consent in a digitally driven society, this episode is a must-listen. Brace yourself as we uncover the remarkable story of Estonia's digital leap and how it continues to reshape the world's perception of what's possible in the public sector.
In this next episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I'm thrilled to welcome Ravi Mayuram, the CTO of Couchbase.
As the technological sphere enters an intense period of competition in artificial intelligence (AI), with key players like Microsoft and Google vying for supremacy, we find ourselves at a critical juncture for AI adoption. Ravi argues that confronting and eliminating inherent bias in AI is now more crucial than ever.
Ravi also discusses the critical need for AI to be a beacon of virtue, especially when 36% of enterprises report negative impacts due to AI bias. He'll explore the wide-ranging implications of AI bias, from reputational damage to severe financial and legal consequences, backed by recent examples.
He'll also stress the urgency for AI's "Guardians of the Galaxy." In a world rife with hate speech and misinformation, the role of data scientists as AI and data custodians has never been more significant. Ravi will emphasize the need for ethical practices during data collection and cleansing to ensure fair and representative decision-making by AI algorithms.
Ravi will delve into the importance of a robust AI architecture that can "connect the dots" and observe the broader picture. In line with classic tales of small-town individuals discovering a diverse world, AI must also transcend its limited perspectives that can potentially induce bias. By eliminating data siloes and curating a conducive environment for AI to absorb diverse perspectives, we can mitigate bias.
Join us as we navigate this complex and vital issue with Ravi Mayuram, understanding Couchbase's role in aiding businesses to counter AI bias, the importance of flexible data architectures, and the need for constant learning amid rapid technological change. Don't miss this insightful conversation, shedding light on the responsible use of AI, fostering the democratization of creativity, and preparing for the profound impact of emergent technologies on application development and software composition.
Amid the burgeoning global popularity of Digital Nomad VISAs, we focus on the rise of hybrid workplaces and the intriguing innovation problems they present. I discuss this topic with Spencer Pitts, VMware's Digital Workspace Chief Technologist.
Our conversation explores startling research findings from VMware, which point to a significant disparity between organizations and their employees on the concept of anywhere working. While 66% of EMEA employers are convinced that remote work hampers innovation, 81% of employees report enhanced job satisfaction with the flexibility to work from anywhere.
With Spencer, we delve into the shifting power dynamics in workplaces leading to phenomena like 'quiet quitting' and talent shortages. We discuss how a digital-first approach can stimulate innovation and the significance of crafting tailored digital experiences for employees based on demographics and roles. We also show the balance between bolstering security and optimizing employee experience in hybrid work models.
Our enlightening conversation with Spencer equips listeners with insights on navigating the challenges of hybrid workplaces, prioritizing efficiency and innovation without compromising employee morale. Then, tune in for a nuanced discussion on reimagining productivity, job satisfaction, and the future of work with Spencer Pitts from VMware.
Join us in this episode as we unearth the keys to an innovative, employee-friendly hybrid work environment. Take advantage of this compelling discussion packed with thought-provoking insights and practical strategies.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore the transformative power of artificial intelligence in hybrid workplaces with an industry leader, Jeetu Patel, Cisco's Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration.
I learn more about Cisco's recent AI-powered upgrades to their renowned Webex platform. My guest enlightens us about the innovative feature that guarantees high-quality video irrespective of camera quality or bandwidth constraints and introduces us to the generative AI capabilities now inherent in Webex Connect.
We further discuss how Cisco is shaping the future of hybrid work models, using technology to break down communication barriers and minimize meeting fatigue. Patel also expounds on the ethical and security implications of integrating AI into workplace environments and underscores the necessity of responsible AI use.
Finally, our conversation steers towards the critical need for collaboration between public policy and private sectors in regulating AI and intellectual property. Tune in to better understand AI's potential in reshaping workplaces straight from the AI frontier at Cisco. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of work and the intersection of technology, ethics, and public policy.
In this insightful episode, we welcome Anurag Bhatia, a leading figure from Mphasis Corporation, known for its cutting-edge application of next-generation design, architecture, and engineering services. Bhatia shares Mphasis' vision of being the "Driver in Driverless Car" for Global Enterprises and how their innovative Front2Back™ approach uses the power of cloud and cognitive technologies to deliver hyper-personalized digital experiences.
He takes us through Mphasis' commitment to the UK market, the largest in Europe, discussing strategies for zero-cost transformation and self-funded projects during economic slowdowns. We delve into how Mphasis' acquisitions of Blink UX and data litics have boosted their growth, broadened their services, and enhanced their data capabilities. Bhatia also highlights the importance of collaboration in driving tech innovation and discusses how Mphasis is tackling the challenge of evolving technologies.
A key focus of our conversation is service transformation initiatives, with Bhatia sharing real-world examples of automation that resulted in cost savings and increased product density. He also shares valuable advice for those aspiring to make their mark in the tech industry. Listen in as we explore the future of the tech industry, the role of AI and machine learning, and the significance of cybersecurity.
In this captivating episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Andrew Howarth, the founder of Easy R&D and Storetech, a successful entrepreneur with a deep passion for commercial innovation. With over 25 years of experience, primarily in advanced software solutions, Andrew is dedicated to transforming businesses with the power of R&D tax relief.
Our conversation begins with Andrew sharing his journey in the corporate world, his decision to forge his path with his businesses, and his firsthand experience with claiming R&D tax credits. He takes us through his origin story, the founding of EdiFax, and how his experience with the R&D tax relief scheme inspired the inception of Easy R&D.
Andrew expounds on the benefits of the R&D tax relief scheme, explaining how it can help businesses navigate economic challenges and spur innovation. He also addresses the hurdles faced by the UK in R&D productivity and innovation, with a focus on industries like retail and smart buildings.
Sharing success stories of businesses that have successfully leveraged R&D tax relief, Andrew highlights a heartfelt letter from a grateful client. He encourages business leaders to recognize when their developments have been technically challenging and to investigate the potential for making a claim.
The discussion transitions to Andrew's business, Easy R&D, and its mission to assist UK businesses in claiming against HMRC's R&D Tax Relief Scheme. Andrew also recommends the gripping read "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer and shares his contact information for anyone seeking assistance.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to unlock capital, accelerate innovation, and sustain growth in the face of challenging climates. Tune in to gain insights from Andrew's wealth of experience and passion for driving business success through R&D tax relief.
Ariel Geifman, Chief Revenue Officer at Dealtale, a Vianai company joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Ariel's entrepreneurial journey spans over 15 years, marked by the intersection of marketing, analytics, and artificial intelligence. As a co-founder of Dealtale and an MBA graduate from the Darden School of Business Administration, he carries a wealth of knowledge and experience.
We start our conversation by delving into Ariel's journey as an entrepreneur and revenue leader. He shares the challenges he faced, the triumphs he celebrated, and how these experiences shaped his unique approach to business. We also discuss Dealtale, a game-changing AI-based customer analytics and attribution platform.
Ariel sheds light on the transformative role of conversational AI in marketing analytics, discussing how it has revolutionized data analysis and decision-making for marketers. He also examines the AI-driven metrics marketers rely on today and delves into the rising popularity of attribution models for revenue contribution analysis.
Discussing the often-complex issue of tracking ROI in marketing campaigns, Ariel shares various techniques to measure it accurately, including multi-touch attribution and media mix modeling. He explains the significance of causal inference in marketing analytics and its potential to optimize campaigns for better outcomes.
We dive into Ariel's experience as an MBA graduate, discussing the real-life challenges it helps tackle, and the importance of balancing the roles of leading sales, marketing, and customer success teams. As we explore the future of revenue science, Ariel talks about how AI can augment human talent to drive business success. Finally, Ariel shares his insights on AI's potential in marketing analytics, and pays tribute to a past investor who provided invaluable guidance. Tune in to learn more about Ariel's journey and his vision for Dealtale's future.
In this intriguing episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Eric McDonald, the dynamic CEO of CoinLion, a platform simplifying cryptocurrency investments. With a rich history in tech entrepreneurship, including 19 years as the Founder and CEO of DocuTAP, Eric now channels his expertise into making crypto trading accessible to all.
Join me as Eric shares his journey from leading DocuTAP, an urgent care software company, through explosive growth, multiple fundraising rounds, acquisitions, a successful merger, and a subsequent billion-dollar acquisition. Now, at the helm of CoinLion, Eric is leveraging his experience to navigate the volatile and complex world of cryptocurrencies.
We delve into how CoinLion, with over 530K+ executed trades worth over $1B, is demystifying the crypto market for beginners. By offering a unique auto-trading feature that allows users to mimic expert traders' strategies, CoinLion empowers individuals to navigate the crypto market efficiently, maximizing profits and mitigating risks.
Eric discusses the current global economic climate, underlined by an energy crisis, inflation, and market uncertainties, and explores why investors are turning to crypto as a potential safe haven. He also shares lessons for crypto leaders and investors from the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and his outlook on the future of cryptocurrency.
Finally, we discuss Eric's passion for building excellent teams centered on customer needs and his involvement in other innovative tech businesses, such as Phraze.AI, Journey Tellr, and SideCar. Please tune in to hear Eric's unique insights on leading in uncertain times and his vision for CoinLion, aimed at turning the complex crypto jungle into a walk in the park for investors.
In this compelling episode of Tech Talks Daily, I chat with Aaron Peck, the dynamic CEO of Mothership, a company revolutionizing the freight industry with its on-demand network of connected trucks and streamlined local freight operations. Aaron, a former drummer for the band A Thorn for Every Heart (ATFEH), shares his fascinating journey from music to tech entrepreneurship and his relentless pursuit to solve last-mile delivery problems.
Join us as Aaron walks us through his past ventures, including Beat Deck and Skirt, leading up to the inception of Mothership. First, we explore the origins of the name 'Mothership', a choice that sparked passionate debates within his team. Then, listen in as Aaron discusses the company's triumphs, including securing their domain name and raising an impressive $76 million from prominent investors like Westcap, Benchmark, and Bo Capital.
We dive deep into the trends shaping the freight and commerce industry, emphasizing the growing importance of technology, the rise of independent truckers, and the impending market consolidation. Aaron provides advice for aspiring entrepreneurs on staying open to opportunities and avoiding rigid plans.
In a futuristic discussion, Aaron shares Mothership's exploration of AI technology and their ambition to mend the fractured furniture delivery sector. A passionate problem-solver, he sheds light on his thirst for knowledge through podcasts and reading and emphasizes each individual's essential role in shaping and running the world.
Whether you're an entrepreneur, tech enthusiast, or love a good startup story, this episode offers a unique blend of insights from a drummer-turned-CEO at the forefront of tech innovation. Tune in to hear how Aaron's rhythm of problem-solving is driving Mothership to new heights.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I venture into the world of Web3 and the metaverse with Isabel Perry, VP of Emerging Tech, DEPT®. Isabel spearheads a 300-strong team, crafting the future of the web and aiding renowned brands like H&M, Tomorrowland, SPIN, Eurovision, Sprite, and Dubai World Expo in their adventurous foray into blockchain technology and immersive metaverse experiences.
Join us as we explore how Web3 and the metaverse are revolutionizing the marketing industry, disrupting traditional value exchange and compelling brands to adapt and evolve. Isabel provides an enlightening perspective on the transformative potential of these technologies for businesses, including the profound impact on SEO, the growing importance of immersive web experiences, and the intriguing role of NFTs in future marketing strategies.
We discuss the phenomenal success of DEPT®, one of the fastest-growing digital agencies worldwide, with a unique 50-50 split between marketing and technology. Discover how DEPT® empowers its clients to navigate and embrace emerging technologies through education, consultancy, and hands-on experience.
We discuss the challenges and opportunities of marketing in the metaverse, stressing the importance of ethical considerations and education, the need for brands to adapt to new channels and experiences, and debunk the myth that entry into the space requires massive investment. Isabel also gives us a sneak peek into Web3Dep Labs, a program designed to demystify Web3 fundamentals for clients and employees.
Whether you're a marketing enthusiast or a professional looking to understand the future of the web and the metaverse, this episode offers invaluable insights straight from a leader at the forefront of these emerging technologies. Tune in and prepare to be enlightened.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore the world of data with Martin James, the VP of EMEA at Aerospike, a company specializing in real-time data management serving major players like Yahoo, Wayfair, and Experian. Martin, known for his unique perspective on the colossal growth of global data and its effective management, takes us through his journey in the data landscape and the important role it plays in sectors such as ad-tech.
Join us as we explore the rise in data usage, its implications for enterprises, and how they can maximize their data utility. Martin sheds light on the significance of data platforms in delivering real-time processing to power globally distributed applications. As a horse enthusiast, Martin also shares some interesting insights drawn from his love for horses and the parallels he sees with data management.
Together, we dissect the impact of technology, revenue generation, cost reduction, and regulatory compliance on the data explosion. Hear Martin's unique take on how Aerospike's no-SQL database helps organizations manage voluminous data with lean hardware requirements, meeting the demands of modern application development.
This episode takes a deep dive into the challenges and opportunities presented by data in the ad-tech industry, the role of real-time data management platforms, and the future of data management with the emergence of generative AI, 5G, and IoT.
Whether you're a data enthusiast or a professional looking to harness the power of data, this episode offers valuable insights into the future of data management, the importance of scalable and flexible data platforms, and the need for actionable data.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Bill Ledingham, CEO of Fairwinds, a company dedicated to helping businesses deploy and manage cloud-native applications at scale. we dive into the complexities of Kubernetes and discuss how Fairwinds Insights simplifies the process for platform teams and developers deploying and managing containerized applications.
Bill shares how Fairwinds assists platform engineering teams in enabling developers to build and deploy containers securely, reliably, and cost-efficiently in Kubernetes. By monitoring the development life cycle, scanning containers for vulnerabilities, and providing actionable feedback, Fairwinds stands out in the market by integrating with popular DevOps tools and embracing open-source technology.
Discover how Fairwinds Insights helps organizations operationalize Kubernetes and containers at scale by ensuring consistency, reducing time spent on code reviews, and offering developers automated assistance and remediation suggestions. In addition, learn about the tool's capabilities in educating developers on best practices for securely, cost-effectively, and reliably deploying applications.
Bill highlights Fairwinds' commitment to providing visibility into Kubernetes resource usage to optimize spending on containerized infrastructure. He explains how their solution enables organizations to understand the resource usage of each application or workload, including CPU and memory.
Finally, explore Fairwinds' unique combination of software and services, including their managed services team and platform engineers who develop solutions for common pain points. Understand the company's focus on addressing challenges faced by cloud-using businesses and their efforts to create software that standardizes development best practices for Kubernetes platform engineers.
In this episode, I am joined by Kevin Chong, co-founder and general partner of Outwood VC, a London-based FinTech venture capital fund. Kevin shares his journey, the founding story of Outwood VC, and his insights on the counter-cyclical nature of early-stage startups and the challenges they face when raising significant capital.
Kevin discusses the pitfalls of unsustainable growth in early-stage startups that rely too heavily on paid acquisitions. Instead, he emphasizes the importance of fostering sustainable growth through strategic partnerships and highlights London's unique advantages as a global fintech hub.
As the conversation unfolds, Kevin explores the appeal of mission-oriented FinTech startups and the verticals poised for growth in the industry. He notes how founders and investors have pivoted their focus during economic downturns, becoming more meticulous in preparing for funding rounds and hiring strong CFOs to identify efficiencies.
Kevin shares his perspective on the opportunities the pandemic-induced downturn presents, explaining why it's an ideal time to invest in early-stage fintechs that can emerge stronger and more sustainable. He stresses the importance of looking beyond financial services in isolation and investing in startups that focus on the future of consumer finance.
Finally, Kevin reflects on his experiences in venture capital and investing in companies, appreciating the privilege of being part of others' business journeys. He provides information about his company, Howzat Partners, and offers guidance on how to get in touch for more details. Join me in exploring the ever-evolving FinTech landscape and the exciting opportunities it presents.
Today I am joined by Ayanna Lott-Pollard, Executive Director of Resilient Coders, a non-profit organization with a mission to achieve social justice through economic empowerment. Resilient Coders offers a 20-week coding boot camp to BIPOC youth from low-income communities, providing them a pathway to becoming software engineers with an average salary of $94,420.
With over 20 years of experience in marketing and operations, Ayanna is a transformational leader who has dedicated her career to empowering the next generation. Neil and Ayanna discuss how Resilient Coders is closing the generational wealth gap and challenging the traditional educational system by emphasizing skills over degrees.
Discover the impact of Resilient Coders on graduates and their communities as they provide access to high-growth careers in the tech industry. Ayanna shares success stories of alumni who embody the organization's mission and highlights the importance of creating pathways for young adults to succeed and envision a brighter future.
Ayanna also opens up about her experience as a woman of color in leadership positions, advising young adults from BIPOC communities on navigating challenges and staying resilient. Learn about Ayanna's work with The Leadership Collective, her passion for developing emerging leaders, and her vision for a more inclusive and equitable tech industry.
Listen in as we explore the power of social justice, economic empowerment, and the importance of nurturing diverse talent in the world of tech.
Xtract One Technologies is at the forefront of threat detection and security solutions, using AI to prioritize patron access experiences without compromising safety. With a recent investment from Madison Square Garden Sports, the company is poised for growth and continued innovation in the physical security space.
Peter Evans, CEO of Xtract One Technologies, joins me in a conversation about how AI-driven security is revolutionizing the event experience. Peter brings over 25 years of experience leading organizations through digital transformations, solving modern security problems with innovative solutions, and applying AI in the physical world. As a four-time high-tech CEO, Peter has a track record of driving revenue growth and accelerating profitability, making him the perfect guest to discuss the future of event security and the role of AI in creating a safer world.
In our conversation, we dive into how Xtract One's AI-powered weapon detection technology transforms perimeter screening and security, replacing outdated metal detectors with seamless, unobtrusive threat detection systems. By focusing on weapons rather than the person, Xtract One's integrated security solutions provide patrons with a frictionless, welcoming experience while ensuring their safety.
We also discuss the challenges and opportunities of integrating AI-powered security solutions and how Xtract One addresses concerns about personal privacy. Finally, Peter shares an example of how a venue transformed its outdated security system using its smart gateway lanes, resulting in significant cost savings and an improved patron experience.
Finally, we'll explore emerging trends and technologies in AI-driven security, including the potential for AI to replace labor-based business models and create digitally enhanced security guards.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I chat with Tim Hwang, the 30-year-old CEO of FiscalNote, who became the youngest Asian American CEO on the NYSE in August 2022. Under Tim's leadership, FiscalNote has grown significantly.
FiscalNote is the premier platform for regulatory and policy data, functioning as the "Bloomberg terminal" for state, federal, and global policy information. With over 5,000 clients, FiscalNote powers the data used in President Biden's daily briefings, informs decision-making at half of the Fortune 500 companies and enables foreign embassies to monitor global changes and enact diplomacy and treaty negotiations.
During the interview, Tim shares the background story of FiscalNote, which he started during his junior year of college alongside his childhood friends. He also discusses how he secured Mark Cuban as the company's first investor through a cold email after watching Shark Tank.
Tim emphasizes the importance of a "Bloomberg terminal" for policy in today's rapidly changing regulatory landscape. With 69% of people in the government and regulatory affairs sector experiencing increased policy issues, FiscalNote's technology and AI-driven platform help key decision-makers navigate complex policy environments.
Lastly, Tim delves into his commitment to equal opportunity information and intelligence, highlighting FiscalNote's work with clients across the political spectrum and around the world. As misinformation continues to plague modern society, Tim believes everyone should have equal access to accurate data, regardless of political beliefs. Join me and Tim as we explore the innovative world of FiscalNote and its impact on policy intelligence.
Megan Clarken shares her unique background, going from a woman with no college degree to an Olympic athlete and finally to the CEO of Criteo. She discusses her dedication to promoting diversity and inclusivity within the tech industry based on her experiences of discrimination.
We discuss the challenges of implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the tech industry, emphasizing the need for long-term commitment over immediate progress. Megan reveals Criteo's approach to attracting and hiring diverse talent, focusing on pay parity and collaborations with diversity-focused groups and universities.
Together, we explore Criteo's innovative DEI programs, such as the Open Path program for underprivileged students and the Top Talent program for career growth. Megan expresses her optimism for the future of diversity and inclusion in the workplace, driven by the demands of the younger workforce.
Megan highlights the importance of fostering a culture of inclusivity within organizations and the pitfalls of short-term "quick fixes" that often fail. Finally, we discuss the benefits Criteo has experienced from implementing DEI programs and the ongoing efforts to prioritize pay parity and inclusivity.
I learn more about the power of diversity and inclusion in building a more resilient and innovative company culture and Megan's inspirational journey as a woman leader breaking barriers in a male-dominated industry.
Join me in a conversation with Oren Kaniel, the CEO and co-founder of the successful Israeli mobile marketing measurement and experience platform, AppsFlyer. In this episode, Oren shares his journey of creating AppsFlyer, a unique technology that empowers brands to better understand their users and make informed decisions. Learn how AppsFlyer's independence and unbiased measurement approach has gained the trust of major players in the ecosystem, including Coca Cola, HBO, Walmart, and eBay.
Discover how AppsFlyer anticipated the mobile industry's transformative impact on our lives and the crucial role of analytics in mobile app marketing. Oren and our host, Neil, discuss the challenges posed by privacy changes and regulations on the digital ecosystem and how AppsFlyer is responding with privacy-preserving technology.
Explore the potential of AI as a game-changing technology and how AppsFlyer is working at the intersection of data privacy and AI to ensure consumer privacy and safety in the digital ecosystem. Hear about AppsFlyer's mission to provide privacy-preserving technologies and measurement solutions in the face of an ever-evolving industry.
In this conversation, Oren also shares insights from his blog and the influence of Tony Hsieh's book, "Delivering Happiness," on AppsFlyer's company culture. Don't miss this fascinating discussion with Oren Kaniel, the leader of a unicorn startup that has grown to a valuation of over $2 billion and is trusted by more than 12,000 brands worldwide.
Terrie Smith, Co-founder and Global Ambassador of wearable tech pioneer DIGISEQ joins me on Tech Talks Daily.Terrie shares her expert insights on the future of wearable technology, and how it is transforming payments, consumer engagement, access control, and authentication across various industries. Discover how NFC chip design is paving the way for fashionable items to become payment and ID devices, and how the wearable tech market is expected to reach $186 billion by 2030.
In this episode, Terrie talks about smart clothing, powered by passive wearable tech, and explore the opportunities it presents for tech innovators and forward-thinking designers to collaborate on a new style revolution. Learn about the concept of tokenisation, which Terrie helped create for ApplePay, GooglePay, Garmin, and more, and discuss the current state of FashionTech.
Key points covered in this episode include:
- The use of sensors to track biometric data, acting as living ID
- The application of wearable tech for home or venue access control, and as an interface between the physical world and augmented virtual reality
- How the diversity of wearable tech applications is being embraced by high-end fashion designers and luxury brands worldwide
Don't miss this exciting conversation with Terrie Smith, a trailblazer in fintech and the driving force behind the Mastercard Digital Enablement Service (MDES) and mobile contactless payment services like Apple Pay. Be inspired by Terrie's innovative leadership, ground-breaking payment technology patents, and her commitment to raising the bar for tech ingenuity today.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily,I chat with Paul Ruppert, a Harvard graduate, skilled negotiator, CPaaS veteran, and holder of 2 tech patents, as they explore the world of mobile technology, messaging, and telecommunications. Paul shares insights from his impressive career, which includes launching Messaging Trust with AT&T, a cybersecurity solution that generated $6 million in its first year and won the GSM Association's global product award for "Best Cyber Security Solution.
Paul discusses his involvement in the development of voice-activated personal assistant technology, as well as the future trends in the telecommunications industry, including asynchronous messaging for customer care and the integration of various communication platforms through data management.
We also delve into the potential of text messaging for businesses to engage with customers and the emergence of quantum computing and its applications in the industry. Paul shares his perspective on innovation and staying competitive in a rapidly evolving tech landscape, emphasizing the importance of humility, agility, and adaptability.
With a track record of generating $400 million in tech sales and engineering multiple trade acquisitions, Paul has worked with clients such as Facebook, MasterCard, Western Union, and private equity firms like National Bank of Kuwait, HIG Capital, Warburg Pincus, and One Equity Partners. He shares valuable insights on emerging trends, such as Quantum Computing, AI, Conversational Commerce, and Secure Authentication.
Listen in as we discuss global telecoms and messaging megatrends, uncovering the secrets to staying innovative and competitive in the rapidly changing technology industry. Learn about the potential of cutting-edge technologies like quantum-safe cryptography and the importance of leveraging technology to enhance customer engagement.
In this episode, I welcome Prof Stijn Viaene from Vlerick Business School, a renowned digital transformation and leadership expert. We delve into the critical role of digital infrastructure in business success and the importance of collaboration across organizational silos for effective digital transformation.
The discussion highlights the debate around every company being a tech company and emphasizes the need for business transformation, with digital technology playing a dominant role. My guest shares insights on the four leadership styles (vigilant, voyager, visionary, and vested) crucial for successful digital transformation.
We discuss ensuring digital transformation is purpose-driven and that technology complements human skills. We also discuss the importance of focusing on business transformation, aligning objectives with resource allocation, balancing past exploitation with exploring the future, and addressing the talent gap.
Together, we examine companies' challenges and pitfalls during digital transformation, such as the need for a forward-looking vision, digital literacy gaps in executive teams, and the importance of routine transformation.
The conversation explores the need for businesses to stay ahead of the curve, continuously adapting to industry innovations and disruptions. All were brought to life with examples of successful companies, including DBS Bank, KBC, John Deere, and the City of London, that have introduced new products and services while transforming their ways of working with technology.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, Neil C. Hughes interviews blockchain expert and Ontology enthusiast Humpty Calderon. As a passionate advocate for emergent technologies, Humpty has extensive experience in everything from drone technology to cryptocurrencies. The pair discuss the potential of purpose-driven blockchains, the importance of decentralized identity, and the future of decentralized finance.
Humpty explains Ontology's unique approach to tackling problems in the blockchain space and the potential it holds for content creators looking to take ownership of their work. They dive into the benefits of different layer one protocols and the need for simplifying the blockchain landscape for mainstream users.
As the conversation unfolds, Humpty emphasizes bridging Web2 and Web3 through decentralized identity and reputation systems, making technology invisible to users for widespread adoption. The ONT token and staking rewards within the Ontology network is also discussed, alongside upcoming developments like the Goshen L2 project. Humpty encourages listeners to explore the Ontology blog and his podcast, Crypto Sapiens, for more information.
With a deep understanding of various cutting-edge technologies, Humpty has founded businesses, grown protocols and applications, and launched the podcast Crypto Sapiens, which reaches over 100,000 listeners. He also founded DAO LA, a group connecting Los Angeles founders, investors, and hackers.
Join me in an insightful conversation about blockchain, Web3, crypto, Ontology, and the world of staking as they explore the future of technology and its impact on our lives.
Did you know that cellular networks only cover 15% of the world? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Josh Miner, Vice President of Land Mobile Services at Iridium Communications, to explore the exciting world of satellite communication.
Iridium Communications is the only company offering true pole-to-pole coverage, connecting people and organizations across the globe. They discuss the unique benefits of Iridium's network, including satellite phones, push-to-talk, and data products that cater to various industries.
We discuss Iridium's innovative approach to global communications and how it's reshaping industries. I also learn more about the Iridium GO! exec device and its powerful new features. Together we explore the fascinating world of Iridium Communications and how this ultra-portable device creates new possibilities for global connectivity and transforms how businesses, governments, and adventurers stay connected.
Whether working off the grid or exploring the world, I discover how the Iridium GO! exec brings reliable communication to your fingertips.
In this thought-provoking episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Kat Hartigan, VP of International at Clari, a revenue operations platform that is transforming businesses across the globe. With a rich background at Soho House and WeWork, Kat shares her inspiring journey from studying neuroscience to leading Clari's international expansion.
Kat also discusses her experience as a female leader in the tech industry, addressing challenges such as confidence gaps and the lack of diversity in leadership positions. She shares her personal battle with imposter syndrome and offers valuable advice for women seeking leadership roles in technology and business.
Neil and Kat delve into the concept of revenue operations (RevOps) and its impact on businesses in the UK, as well as the benefits of Revenue Governance & Collaboration as an emerging trend. They explore how Clari's Revenue Platform improves efficiency, predictability, and growth across the entire revenue process, providing total visibility to drive process rigor, spot risks and opportunities in the pipeline, and increase forecast accuracy.
Kat shares a success story and highlights how Clari's platform has helped the company enhance its forecasting accuracy. She also provides insights into Clari's future plans and upcoming features, emphasizing the company's commitment to innovation and support for its users.
I sit down with Paul Saccone, Sr. Director of Adobe Video Marketing, to dive into the latest Adobe announcements and explore how AI revolutionizes video creation. Paul shares insights on Adobe Premiere Pro's new features, including generative AI and AI-powered text-based editing, and the company's dedication to providing workflow innovations that enable customers to execute their ideas faster.
We discuss the recent improvements in Adobe's Premiere Pro and After Effects, touching on workflow animations, tone mapping, and the new property panel interface for After Effects. They also delve into Adobe's expansion of the Frame.io collaboration platform to encompass still images and PDF documents.
With the increasing demand for content, I learn more about how Adobe is committed to offering tools like Firefly and Sensei to help creators work more efficiently and produce unique content. We also explore the potential of generative AI and Adobe's focus on supporting artists and creators while maintaining authenticity in content creation.
Finally, we examine the use of generative AI in professional video work, and its ability to enhance creativity and speed up the creative process. Paul also shares some exciting news about Adobe's upcoming releases and how customers can try them. Tune in to this insightful episode as we delve deep into the world of video tech, AI, and the innovations shaping content creation for years to come.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we explore the unconventional path to business success with our special guest, Don Schuerman, Chief Technology Officer of Pegasystems, a global US software firm with major clients such as Lloyds Banking Group, Booking.com, and the UK government. Don shares how his passion for musical improv theatre has helped him rise to the top and transformed how he and his colleagues make better business decisions.
In this fascinating conversation, Don discusses the business value of improv as a hobby and how theatrical improvisation skills can sharpen curiosity and collaboration capabilities crucial for success in today's fast-paced business environment. He also delves into OpenAI's recent introduction of ChatGPT and the challenges organizations face when deciding where to begin their automation and AI implementation journey.
Don further reveals how embracing improv can help business professionals develop a mindset that accepts constant change as exciting and interesting, fostering a perpetual openness to new ideas.
Join us for this enlightening episode as we uncover the power of improvisation in business and technology and learn how a unique skill set can make a difference in achieving success.
Christoph Trappe, a global top 14 content marketer and top 100 digital marketer, who has transformed businesses across industries through powerful content marketing campaigns. Christoph shares his expertise in building and engaging prospects, driving results with his unique Content Performance Philosophy, and the impact of the Create Once, Publish Everywhere (COPE) model.
Learn about Christoph's successful career leading teams of journalists, content creators, strategists, and designers, and how his approach has driven growth and customer engagement for businesses in healthcare, nonprofits, SaaS, publishing, technology, and professional services. We'll also discuss his latest book, "Going Live," and the popular Business Storytelling Podcast, which has been downloaded over 400,000 times in more than 100 countries.
Discover Christoph's five pillars of content performance: an embraced content performance culture, innovation by all, next play mentality, right players in the right seats, and ongoing evaluation. Don't miss this insightful conversation with one of the industry's leading voices in content marketing and storytelling.
I chat with Søren Meyer, CEO at ZeroNorth, the maritime technology company leading the green transition of global trade. As the world faces an existentially challenging environment, Søren discusses the critical role that data and digital technologies play in ensuring sensible decision-making within the shipping industry.
Learn how data can provide stability in times of radical transformation, as it remains impartial and immune to the volatility of the global economy. Søren highlights the importance of leveraging data for transparent and measurable decision-making, particularly when human decision-making falls short.
Join us as we explore how data-driven insights can identify and eliminate inefficiencies in the shipping sector, leading to more profitable operations and genuine progress on decarbonization. Don't miss this enlightening conversation on the future of global trade and the green transformation of the shipping industry!
Kwindla Hultman Kramer, Co-founder and CEO of Daily discusses the transformative power of video technology in our lives. From remote work and accessible healthcare to new teaching methods, social media, and more, video is reshaping the way we use technology.
Kwindla shares insights into Daily's rapidly evolving video tech architecture and how the ability to lead in this video-first era will differentiate the top growth companies over the next decade. Discover how Daily's scalable video infrastructure serves a diverse range of companies and use cases, powering real-time audio and video for millions of users worldwide.
Daily provides video and audio APIs for developers to build interactive live streaming experiences seamlessly into their applications and websites. Learn how this Series B startup, having raised $40 million, is helping both small startups and Fortune 500 companies embed video into their products.
Join us for this fascinating conversation with Kwindla Kramer as we explore the undeniable impact of video on businesses and industries, and how Daily is enabling developers to create innovative, real-time experiences for users across the globe.
Today, I am joined by Kimberly Prieto, Vice President of Product at Modern Campus, to discuss how the company is revolutionizing the higher education landscape across North America. Learn how Modern Campus supports over 2,000 institutions to grow their annual revenue by tailoring their digital engagement engine through targeted, personalized content and experiences for students.
Discover the wide array of solutions offered by the Modern Campus platform, including non-traditional student management, web content management, catalog and curriculum management, student engagement and development, career pathways, and campus maps and virtual tours. Kimberly shares the story behind the company's growth and its acquisitions that have helped create a seamless "Learner-to-Earner" lifecycle for institutions.
Join us as we delve into Kimberly's personal passion for higher education and her extensive experience in the FinTech industry. Gain valuable insights on how Modern Campus is enabling colleges and universities to adapt to the changing technological and demographic shifts, ultimately providing administrators with the tools needed to drive efficiency and streamline workflows. Don't miss this fascinating conversation on the future of higher education!
Kira Makagon, Chief Innovation Officer and head of RingCentral Ventures discusses her remarkable career journey, her insights on the latest trends in the tech industry, and how she is driving innovation and investments at RingCentral. As a recognized leader in her field, Kira shares her thoughts on the rise of AI and generative technologies, and the lessons she's learned along the way.
Dive deep into Kira's experience in investing in workplace AI technology and learn how she has been instrumental in redefining RingCentral's product strategy, global reach, and market-leading position in the communications and collaboration landscape. From launching RingCentral's open platform to spearheading the development of RingCentral Video®, Kira's impact on the industry is undeniable.
Join us for this engaging conversation about reimagining the future of work through cutting-edge communications and collaboration solutions.
In this captivating episode, I sit down with Dan Woods, former FBI Special Agent, CIA Cyber-Operations Officer, and now the Global Head of Intelligence at F5, to explore the world of fraud protection and bot detection. Dan sheds light on the inner workings of bots, mitigation strategies, and reveals specific examples of malicious bot activities targeting banks, hotels, airlines, insurance companies, and social media sites.
We delve into the surge of marketplaces like Genesis Marketplace, which provide attackers with an avenue to buy digital fingerprints, and discuss the implications for cybersecurity. Finally, Dan shares his expert advice on what organizations can do to address bot threats and the critical need for neutral third-party validation of bot traffic.
Join us for this eye-opening conversation with a cybersecurity veteran who has dedicated his career to staying one step ahead of the ever-evolving cyber threats.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are joined by Jonathan Kaplan, COO of Magic Software Enterprises, Inc., and a technical leader with over 20 years of experience in bringing transformative technology to the corporate IT environment. Jonathan takes us through the critical importance of Industry 4.0 for small and mid-sized manufacturers and the challenges they face in automating data management.
Listen in as we explore how systems data integrations, software implementation, and the elimination of data silos can lead to increased efficiency, and how connecting the factory floor to the C-Suite can help North American factories stay competitive in a complex market. You'll also learn about Jonathan's journey from founding and serving as CTO of PowWow Mobile, a leading provider of low-code mobile tools, to its acquisition by Magic Software in 2019.
Don't miss this insightful conversation on the future of manufacturing and how businesses can harness the power of automated data management solutions. Tune in now!
In this insightful 250th episode of the podcast, we are thrilled to have Nick Durkin, the Field CTO of Harness.io, join us to discuss the challenges and opportunities developers face in the rapidly evolving world of software delivery. Harness.io, a leader in the field, focuses on automating the most tedious aspects of developers' jobs, allowing them to concentrate on what they love – creating and innovating.
Nick, a seasoned developer with 20 years of experience, dives deep into the current notion of "shifting left" in software development and how today's organizations might be getting it wrong. With recent studies revealing that developers only spend three hours a day coding while the rest is spent on operational tasks, it's evident that a change is needed.
Drawing from his own experiences, Nick shares his unique vision for a more effective way of shifting left – not by overburdening engineers with tasks, but by rapidly moving critical information to the right people at the right time. This approach empowers developers to write exceptional code and harness powerful systems to deliver it where it's needed most.
In this captivating conversation, Nick also delves into next steps for teams looking to embrace this new perspective on shifting left and explores broader developer topics. As a bonus, he offers valuable insights into cloud cost management considerations organizations should take into account in the face of economic uncertainty.
Listen in as we uncover new ways of empowering developers, unleashing innovation, and redefining the future of software development. Don't miss this thought-provoking and inspiring discussion – tune in now!
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I'm live at QlikWorld with Jan Birkholz, a process mining evangelist from Mehrwerk, discussing how they support businesses in establishing a data-driven process understanding and optimize their operations.
Mehrwerk, a Qlik Elite Solutions Provider, offers software-based business process optimization solutions, utilizing Qlik Sense to help organizations integrate data from multiple sources and transform it into meaningful insights. Jan shares how data visualization plays a crucial role in today's data-driven world and the benefits of Qlik Sense's intuitive software in creating reports and dashboards.
We explore the latest version of Qlik Sense, which features personalized dashboards, larger datasets in scatter graphs, and chart animations, and discuss how these enhancements improve user experience and help businesses better understand their data.
Jan highlights success stories from clients like Galderma, EMSA, and Agilent, showcasing how Mehrwerk's partnership with Qlik has made a significant impact on their business performance. We also discuss the challenges organizations face when optimizing their processes using data-driven insights and how Mehrwerk's approach helps overcome these obstacles.
Finally, Jan shares his vision for the future of business intelligence solutions and data visualization, and the roles that companies like Mehrwerk and Qlik will play in shaping this landscape. Tune in for valuable advice on how businesses can leverage data more effectively and become more agile in today's competitive market.
Martin Sahlin is the visionary behind Stretch on Sense, an active intelligence platform for elite sports that is transforming the way coaches, players, and stakeholders access, analyze, and utilize data to make informed decisions.
Stretch on Sense gathers all relevant data around players' game performance, practice routines, and well-being into one easy-to-understand platform. By doing so, it empowers sports clubs to better understand their teams and fosters informed discussions and decision-making, leading to improved results.
As a Qlik Elite Solutions Provider, Stretch on Sense has collaborated with Qlik to deliver data analytics to Malmö Redhawks, a leading Swedish ice hockey organization, resulting in reduced injuries due to overtraining and a more informed decision-making process. The Qlik-based product, Hat Trick, measures team practice, performance, and player well-being, leading to better insights and outcomes.
We also discuss how Stretch on Sense leverages Qlik's Cloud Services track to enhance customer relationships and accelerate adoption, adapting to shifting technology needs and new customer buying behaviors.
Join us as we explore the enormous demand for a simplified and detailed player analysis in elite sports and how Stretch on Sense is revolutionizing the industry by providing a comprehensive overview of where teams are, where they are going, and how they are performing. Discover how Active Intelligence in elite sports is taking the game to the next level with Martin Sahlin and Stretch on Sense.
In today's special episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I am live at QlikWorld in Las Vegas, reconnecting with a returning guest. His name is Adam Mayer, and he has previously shared insights with Natwest and the Nationwide Police. It's always a treat to build friendships with our guests and have the opportunity to meet them in person at tech conferences.
In this lively conversation, we discuss the QlikWorld experience and the excitement of being back on the show floor in Vegas. We delve into the impact of ChatGPT and generative AI on organizations and the world of work, and explore other data and analytics trends that are catching our attention.
We also share insights from conversations on the show floor, highlighting recurring themes around data privacy, governance, and the growing importance of real-time data in industries like financial services and retail. We discuss the cultural shift towards "Data Everywhere" and how businesses that prioritize data-first strategies will emerge as the big winners.
As our guest reflects on the transformative impact of data across various industries, we consider what thoughts and ideas from QlikWorld will occupy their mind on the long flight home. Don't miss this engaging and insightful episode, recorded live from the heart of QlikWorld in Las Vegas!
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we're live at QlikWorld, where we sit down with Martin Tombs, VP of Market Readiness at Qlik, to discuss the challenges and opportunities businesses face when it comes to their data and analytics strategies.
As part of Qlik's global transformation team, Martin shares his insights on the common challenges customers encounter in leveraging data analytics and the exciting opportunities that arise when organizations effectively harness the power of data to drive better decision-making.
Tune in as we explore specific examples of how Qlik has significantly impacted businesses, enabling them to capitalize on data analytics for growth and innovation. We'll also delve into common themes and trends emerging from customer conversations, shedding light on how data analytics is helping organizations create new value.
Furthermore, we discuss Qlik's commitment to staying ahead of the curve in terms of innovation and addressing the ever-evolving needs of businesses in the data analytics space. Martin shares his advice for organizations looking to improve their data and analytics strategies to better leverage insights and drive growth.
Don't miss this enlightening conversation with Martin Tombs, as we dive into the future of the data analytics landscape and explore the critical role Qlik will play in shaping the industry. Listen now!
Join us for a special episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, live from the show floor at QlikWorld in Las Vegas! Today, we're diving deep into the world of retail insurance and exploring how CDL, the UK's leading retail insurance software provider, is revolutionizing the industry with its cutting-edge data solutions.
In this engaging conversation, Matt Houghton, a prominent figure at CDL, shares his insights on the challenges of managing vast amounts of data in the retail sector and underscores the importance of real-time analysis for businesses looking to stay ahead of the competition.
Together, we'll uncover how CDL's Kingfisher data platform, powered by Qlik, is transforming the way insurance providers access and utilize data, enabling them to make well-informed decisions at lightning speed. We'll also delve into the crucial role of Qlik Data Integration in ensuring a seamless flow of data from various sources, allowing CDL customers to gain valuable insights at the pace their business demands.
Listen in as we learn how CDL's innovative solutions have reduced data access time from 24 hours to mere minutes, significantly enhancing customer value and ROI.
So buckle up and hold on tight as we beam your ears all the way to Las Vegas, where Matt Houghton takes us on an exciting journey through the rapidly evolving world of retail insurance and data-driven decision-making. Discover how CDL is helping retailers capitalize on trends in retail, from price comparison sites to the connected home, and how their game-changing approach to data is paving the way for a brighter future in the industry.
This week, I am broadcasting from the QlikWorld conference in Las Vegas, dedicated to exploring the latest data integration and analytics innovations. One of the key themes here is "Data Everywhere," where every team within an organization is empowered to utilize data to drive a business forward.
In this episode, I am joined by Josh Good, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Qlik. With over a decade of experience in the BI and analytics industry, Josh has been a leader in business transformation and innovation. We discuss how Qlik is meeting the growing demand for cloud-based services, enabling SaaS adoption with data capacity pricing, and ensuring that businesses can unlock the value in their data to make better decisions.
We also dive into the importance of data integration, democratization, and how Qlik works to provide greater access to data and analytics for more people within organizations. Finally, Josh shares the challenges businesses face when transitioning to cloud-based BI and analytics solutions and how Qlik helps overcome these obstacles.
We explore the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in the future of data integration, BI, and analytics and how Qlik is incorporating these technologies into its product offerings. Finally, we discuss what we can expect from Qlik regarding product innovation and how the BI, analytics, and data integration landscape will evolve over the next few years. Tune in to this exciting episode and learn from one of the leading voices in the BI and analytics industry.
I sit down with Chris Royles, EMEA Field CTO at Cloudera, to discuss the evolution of Big Data and why hybrid data is the next challenge for businesses to tackle. In this episode, we explore how the term 'Big Data' has become dated and how the rapid rise of hybrid data has shifted the conversation.
Chris will take us through the explosive growth of structured data in the past decade, from less than 1ZB in 2011 to a staggering 14ZB in 2020, and its expected trajectory to triple by 2025. Then, as organizations continue to collect and manage increasingly large datasets, Chris will explain why hybrid data is here to stay and how businesses can harness its power.
We'll also dive into the importance of a modern data architecture that integrates multi-function data analytics with secure and governed data management, regardless of where the data resides – be it in the cloud, on-premise, or at the edge. Finally, learn how businesses can leverage hybrid data to make real-time decisions and why data truly is the new oil.
Take advantage of this fascinating conversation with Chris Royles, an expert in the ever-evolving world of data, as we uncover the challenges and benefits of embracing hybrid data in today's technology-driven landscape.
I sit down with Marcus Harvey, General Manager and EMEA Sales Director at Targus, to explore their groundbreaking work in sustainability and the tech-accessories sector. With over 40 years of experience in understanding materials' social, environmental, and chemical impact, Targus is a leading force against greenwashing and a pioneer of sustainable business.
Marcus shares with me how Targus has continued to innovate and prioritize sustainability, creating long-lasting, environmentally friendly tech protection. I also learn more about the collaborative efforts between Targus and their channel partners in preventing over two million plastic bottles from ending up in the ocean and landfill.
One example is the Targus 15.6" EcoSmart ® Zero Waste Backpack which utilizes recycled materials in all elements of the product, even its packaging. It uses it to create the bag's standup silhouette. Thoughtfully designed to help reduce waste, the bag's external packaging is flattened into a rectangle, slipped into a pocket along the back panel, and reused as structural support and added laptop protection.
In addition, this bag was designed with the environment in mind. Using GRS-certified recycled materials, 20 plastic bottles were kept out of our waterways and landfills, shredded into small flakes, re-polymerized into plastic chips, and heated and spun into yarn stitched sewn into the fabric of this EcoSmart® bag.
Marcus Harvey is a passionate leader dedicated to building a successful and sustainable business with Targus. Take advantage of this engaging episode that delves into the world of sustainable tech accessories and the crucial role they play in tackling climate change. Tune in and learn how Targus is shaping the future of the tech-accessory industry.
Sheila Kloefkorn, the multi-award-winning marketing thought leader and Founder of KEO Marketing, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Sheila's B2B marketing agency has been instrumental in helping Fortune 1000 companies and mid-market businesses in 100+ countries scale faster by executing well-rounded, goal-oriented marketing plans.
In today's episode, Sheila shares her insights on common marketing mistakes companies make and offers actionable marketing tips that entrepreneurs can apply to increase the profits and value of their businesses. Sheila also discusses how leveraging a fractional CMO can lead to faster and more economical business growth.
As a marketing visionary, Sheila explores the future of blockchain in the realm of marketing and advertising. She emphasizes the potential of this groundbreaking technology to revolutionize the industry and shares her predictions on how blockchain will shape advertising in the coming years.
With over 25 years of experience in the marketing industry, Sheila began her career in New York City at a small marketing firm, which she helped expand into the largest youth marketing firm in the world. As one of the first online advertisers, Sheila has witnessed the rapid evolution of the digital marketing and advertising sector.
Her numerous accolades include In Business Magazine Phoenix's 2022 Women of Achievement, Phoenix Business Journal's Top 10 Business Leaders of the Year, and Top 25 Dynamic Women in Business.
Don't miss this enlightening conversation with Sheila Kloefkorn on Tech Talks Daily, where she shares valuable insights and expert advice on marketing strategies, business growth, and the future of blockchain in advertising.
On today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm thrilled to welcome Kunal Agarwal, the rising under-30 CEO of Dope Security, who's on a mission to disrupt the multi-billion dollar SWG (Secure Web Gateway) market. Kunal shares the story behind Dope, his perspective on entrepreneurship, and the opportunity he sees in the underserved SWG market.
Having recently announced a $16M Series A funding round (bringing their total funding to $20M), Dope Security is making waves in the industry. Before founding Dope, Kunal led product management teams at SWG giants Symantec and Forcepoint. There, he recognized an inevitable flaw in legacy technology - the reliance on stopover data centers for security checks, a method designed before the advent of cloud computing and remote work.
With today's distributed workforces, the traditional approach to SWG no longer works efficiently, leading to data center congestion, performance issues, and privacy concerns. Dope Security addresses these problems by performing security checks on the endpoint, a more efficient and scalable solution. Decrypted data never leaves the endpoint, ensuring reliability and privacy.
Join me as Kunal delves into the founding of Dope Security, his approach to building the company, and the innovative technology they've developed. Don't miss this insightful conversation with one of the brightest young minds in the world of cybersecurity. Tune in now to learn how Dope Security is revolutionizing the SWG market and redefining the future of cybersecurity.
On today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're excited to bring you an exclusive interview with Lubo Smid, the CEO & Co-founder of STRV, an award-winning software design and engineering company that has built products for high-profile startups and Fortune 500 brands. Lubo is a tech entrepreneur passionate about cutting-edge technology, especially in Web3. I learn more about his origin story from humble beginnings as a freelance web developer in high school to building a $20M company.
In this episode, Lubo shares his insights on the ups and downs of building STRV, the importance of embracing Web 3.0 and blockchain, and how he keeps himself mentally and physically fit to handle the challenges of running a successful company. He also dives into the world of Web 3.0, discussing the potential and challenges of blockchain technology and why he believes it's the future for businesses and entrepreneurs.
Key takeaways from this episode:
- The journey of building STRV: from humble beginnings to working with Fortune 500 brands and living on the edge.
- The importance of embracing Web 3.0 and blockchain for businesses and entrepreneurs.
- Lubo's peak performance secrets for maintaining physical and mental health while running a 200-person company.
- How Lubo overcame one of the most challenging periods in his business during the pandemic and economic crisis.
- Lubo's thoughts on the future of Web 3.0, the challenges of market adoption, and his perspective on the Metaverse.
Listen to this inspiring startup story with Lubo Smid as he shares his experiences, wisdom, and insights on the world of tech and entrepreneurship.
In this episode, I am joined by Eugene Le Roux, Vice President of Digital Government at NEC Corporation of America, to discuss the ever-evolving landscape of biometrics and digital identity. With digital access to government services becoming increasingly essential, we delve into the importance of a robust governance framework built upon the four key pillars of authentication, accessibility, interoperability, and data protection.
We explore the role of biometrics in digital identity tools and the necessity of a national framework that ensures security, accuracy, and accessibility for all citizens. We also discuss how NEC's Digital Identity Platform, trusted by numerous government agencies worldwide, aligns with these pillars to prioritize privacy and accuracy.
As the conversation unfolds, we address the challenges and roadblocks governments face in implementing digital identity solutions, such as privacy and security concerns, technological infrastructure challenges, and budget constraints. They emphasize the importance of transparency and collaboration between governments and private companies in ensuring data protection and privacy for citizens.
We also delve into the significance of transparency and accountability in public-private partnerships, particularly in the context of digital identity platforms. Finally, we shed light on NEC's digital identity platform and discuss potential future collaborations.
Join us in this thought-provoking conversation as we uncover the future of digital identity and its impact on our increasingly connected society. Gain valuable insights from industry expert Eugene Le Roux on why NEC Advanced Recognition Systems advocates for a federal framework that guarantees independent systems meet interoperability and privacy standards. Learn about the transformative potential of digital identity solutions and how they can shape the future of government services.
Daniele Mensi, Managing Director at DigitalBits Foundation, joins me for a deep dive into the world of DigitalBits blockchain and its transformative impact on the brand economy and consumer engagement. DigitalBits aims to drive the adoption of blockchain technology in the retail and brand sectors, partnering with renowned brands and organizations to offer innovative blockchain-based loyalty programs and enhance customer experiences.
Daniele, a seasoned Italian serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in technology, finance, and telecommunications, shares his insights on how the DigitalBits blockchain is tailored to cater to brands and the retail sector by creating a more meaningful way for brands and consumers to engage. He discusses the importance of authenticity and imperfections in their work and how partnerships with companies like CoinBar and Dr. Gungar enable digital Bitcoin as a payment tool for retail products.
In this episode, you'll also learn about DigitalBits' collaborations with sports organizations and brand ambassadors, such as MotoGP rider Fabio Di Giannantonio, to drive the adoption of blockchain technology. Daniele delves into the challenges of managing a B2B2C model and the importance of timely community interactions in the crypto space.
Join us as we explore the fascinating blend of B2B and B2C approaches in the brand economy and the role of blockchain technology and NFTs in enhancing the brand experience. Daniele emphasizes the importance of education and user experience in expanding the adoption of these technologies and discusses DigitalBits' ambitious goal of becoming one of the top five blockchains regarding transactions and adoption.
Learn more about the future of brand engagement and blockchain technology's role in shaping tomorrow's consumer experiences.
On this Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, I speak with Oliver Linch, the London-based lawyer, and CEO of Bittrex Global, a leading cryptocurrency exchange. With Europe's central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) rapidly developing, Oliver offers a unique perspective on the current landscape and future of digital money in the region.
Following the UK's decision to move forward with its Digital Pound project, CBDC initiatives are gaining momentum across Europe. However, significant opposition remains to digital currencies, with some arguing that central banks should not be involved in CBDCs due to the associated costs and risks.
As Bittrex Global's General Counsel and with a background in advising on regulatory policy in financial regulation and fintech, Oliver Linch is well-equipped to discuss the evolving CBDC landscape in Europe. In this episode, Neil and Oliver delve into why the UK decided to embrace the Digital Pound despite a fragile economy and ongoing political uncertainty.
We also explore the causes of opposition to CBDCs, the EU's slow progress in this area since 2021, and why most CBDC projects in Europe remain in the pilot phase, according to the Central Bank Digital Currency Tracker.
During our conversation, Oliver discussed the potential benefits and drawbacks of CBDCs compared to cryptocurrencies. While CBDCs may not fully leverage the advantages of blockchain technology, they acknowledge the convenience and speed of transactions that CBDCs can offer.
Addressing concerns about the centralization of data and government control, we question the motives behind CBDCs and the need for their proponents to explain their necessity and superiority over existing currency forms.
Finally, the podcast touches on the challenges governments and central banks must overcome to successfully implement CBDCs, such as regulatory and technological obstacles. Oliver emphasizes the importance of understanding the purpose of CBDCs before building a system around them and explores the potential impact of generative AI on businesses.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I am joined by David Schwed, the COO of Halborn, an award-winning blockchain cybersecurity firm providing end-to-end cybersecurity advisory services and products to both Web2 and Web3 organizations, such as Coinbase and Avalanche. David shares his insights on the unique challenges posed by Web3 security and how Web2 and Web3 must collaborate to ensure a secure digital ecosystem.
Before joining Halborn, David served as the Global Head of Digital Assets Technology for BNY Mellon. In addition, he held various senior roles in the financial services sector for Merrill Lynch, Salomon Smith Barney, Citigroup, and Galaxy Digital. In addition, David is the founding director and professor of the cybersecurity Master's program for the Katz School of Science and Health at Yeshiva University, where he is also their practitioner-in-residence.
During the episode, David delves into why Web3 projects often overlook cybersecurity. He shares his transition from traditional finance (TradFi) to decentralized finance (DeFi), offering recommendations for those on a similar path. He also discusses the best security practices for organizations and users to secure their crypto assets.
David and Neil explore the convergence of Web2 and Web3, the role of ethical hackers in identifying attack vectors and vulnerabilities, and the importance of education in addressing misconceptions about blockchain and crypto security. They also recommend resources like the Crypto Consortium and Blockchain Council for those interested in learning more about Web3 and decentralized finance.
David concludes by discussing his vision for the future of blockchain cybersecurity, predicting that it will become as secure as traditional banking systems within the next five to ten years. He also introduces Halborn's open-source product, Zion, and emphasizes the significance of continued education in the industry.
On today's episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I am joined by Cody Coleman, the inspiring co-founder, and CEO of Coactive AI, a Cloud 100-recognized startup transforming how organizations analyze and search image and video data. Cody shares his remarkable personal journey, from humble beginnings to earning his Ph.D. at Stanford and leading a cutting-edge visual data analytics company.
Cody is also a passionate advocate for sustainable and ethical AI, working relentlessly to fight algorithmic bias in computer vision. He discusses his recent research in this area and shares exciting news about Coactive AI's $14 million funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners. We dive into how this investment will fuel the development of their visual content analytics platform and help refine their go-to-market strategy.
Discover how Coactive's platform is set to benefit both enterprises and startups by unlocking the hidden value in the world's images and videos. Cody also talks about their closed beta, featuring companies like Fandom, which aims to gather valuable feedback and make essential adjustments to the platform before its official launch.
Join us on this compelling episode as we explore Cody's incredible backstory, Coactive AI's mission, and their platform's revolutionary potential in visual data analytics.
Over the past few weeks, we've heard many experts and leaders share their thoughts about the impact of generative AI on the future of work and the global workforce. While there are many opinions on this controversial topic, I wanted to gain a unique perspective - what does AI have to say about working alongside humans and being called a co-pilot or a tool?
Inspired by a recent podcast interview with Christoph Trappe, I was inspired to perform a technological experiment by interviewing ChatGPT 4, a language model trained by OpenAI, to learn more about generative AI and the future of its impact in the workplace. So, instead of asking a human guest, I asked the AI model and recorded its responses.
To add an extra layer of depth to the conversation, I then used Synthesia to create an AI-generated avatar and provided it with the answers from ChatGPT 4. This allowed me to bring the words of AI to life. After recording the interview, I used Descript to transcribe the video and edit it like a document. This allowed me to rearrange the content to ensure it flowed well and was easy to follow.
Overall, this approach allowed me to explore a fascinating topic unique way to provide insights from the perspective of AI. Although the outcome was slightly flawed, it offers food for thought on where this technology is heading and the new opportunities it could unlock.
In my conversation with Mark, the generative AI guest did offer valuable insights into the potential of human-AI collaboration in the workplace. But it's essential to understand the capabilities and limitations of generative AI models and approach AI as a collaborative tool that can augment human capabilities rather than replace them.
By focusing on collaboration, remaining informed about the latest advancements in AI research and best practices, and embracing lifelong learning, workers can alleviate their concerns and create a productive and rewarding partnership with generative AI. Ultimately, this partnership has the potential to unlock unprecedented levels of creativity, innovation, and problem-solving, driving positive change across various domains.
As AI technologies continue to evolve, it will be interesting to see how the human-AI relationship develops and how it will shape the future of work. The experiment with Mark offers a glimpse into this future and highlights the potential for a world that thrives on the combined strengths of both human intelligence and artificial intelligence.
The phrase "With great power comes great responsibility" is especially relevant when it comes to the use of technology. It requires a forward-thinking mindset where everyone considers the future implications of their actions. This means moving away from the "move fast and break things" mentality and taking a more cautious approach. If we fail to do so, we risk behaving like small children with a very dangerous box of toys, playing with them recklessly and without regard for the consequences.
However, Mark said it best when he advised, "AI presents both opportunities and challenges for humans. On the one hand, these AI models can be incredibly valuable for automating tasks, enhancing human creativity, and solving complex problems across various industries. But, on the other hand, by working together, AI and humans can complement each other's strengths and achieve better outcomes than either could independently."
We all must recognize the potential impact of our actions and work together to ensure that technology is used responsibly and for the betterment of society. So how will you leverage technology to augment human creativity, help solve complex problems and improve the workplace?
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're joined by Kofi Gyekye, a self-made tech entrepreneur who successfully sold his prop-tech company Lane for $200 million. Born to African parents and raised in Italy, Kofi's journey has taken him from founding the award-winning digital agency Little Room to co-founding Lane, the world's largest and most innovative workplace experience platform, connecting over 300 properties across 22 cities and 8 countries.
Listen in as Kofi shares his unique experiences and insights into how he turned multiple companies into thriving businesses that disrupted the workplace industry. Discover the challenges and triumphs he faced while building and scaling these businesses, and learn about the impact of his work on the property technology landscape.
Alongside his work in the tech industry, Kofi has also led multiple digital strategies and fundraising initiatives for non-profits, such as the Leyaata Project, which aimed to reduce mother and infant mortality in 50 villages in Northern Ghana. For his contributions, Kofi was awarded the UNICEF Global Standard by the Canadian International Development Agency.
Join us for this inspiring and enlightening conversation as we explore Kofi Gyekye's journey to success in the world of prop-tech and beyond, and learn valuable lessons from his experiences that can help aspiring entrepreneurs make their mark in the industry.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we welcome Simon Walker and Tim Smeaton from Kubrick Group, as we tackle the challenge of under-skilling in basic digital skills, which could affect 5 million workers by 2030. We dive into the UK's digital sector, its exponential growth, and the future impact of the UK's Digital Strategy, which aims to contribute an additional £41.5bn to the economy and create 678,000 jobs.
Join us as Simon and Tim emphasize the importance of recruiting and cultivating talent from non-traditional backgrounds, focusing on the "frozen middle" – a group with 5-10 years of experience at risk of being left behind in the digital economy. Learn how companies can address this issue and help shape the future of work in the tech industry. Don't miss this insightful conversation on bridging the digital skills gap!
In today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, I sit down with the inspiring Zsuzsa Kecsmar, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder of Antavo, the leading loyalty technology platform used by major brands like BMW, KFC, Simply Be, Ripcurl, Kathmandu, and Luisaviaroma. Zsuzsa shares her journey from Journalist of the Year in Hungary (2009) to being listed by Forbes as one of Europe's top 100 female founders in tech (2016).
Zsuzsa's fascinating origin story unfolds as she reveals how her experience as a local radio producer in Hungary shaped her path into the tech industry. She also discusses the vibrant tech scene in her home country.
Discover how Antavo is revolutionizing loyalty programs, enabling next-gen solutions that go beyond transactions. Zsuzsa explains how their platform helps brands like BMW and KFC revamp their loyalty strategies and achieve business goals.
Learn about the importance of gradual change in loyalty programs, the innovative technology that supports these strategies, and the challenges brands face in creating effective loyalty systems. Zsuzsa also shares her thoughts on exciting tech trends in the industry, the AI revolution's impact on Antavo and their global strategy to bring their loyalty solutions to professionals and systems integrators worldwide.
Gratitude plays a significant role in Zsuzsa's success story, as she highlights the support she received from investor Kristina Perkin-Davison, founder of iEurope. The conversation wraps up with a glimpse into Zsuzsa's upcoming business travels and Neil's podcasting business.
Take advantage of this incredible interview with one of Europe's top female tech founders as she shares her journey and insights into the world of loyalty technology and beyond.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're joined by Jesper Trolle, CEO of Exclusive Networks, a global cybersecurity and cloud transformation specialist dedicated to safeguarding data and helping companies navigate the complex world of cybersecurity. Listen in as Jesper shares insights on how Exclusive Networks scouts the market for innovative cybersecurity manufacturers, partners with them, and brings their solutions to market through their extensive network of over 26,000 partners.
Together, we discuss the pressing issue of the cybersecurity skills shortage and the importance of initiatives that connect young people and professionals from other industries to cybersecurity education and opportunities. Jesper emphasizes the need for diversity in the industry and the value of on-the-job experience in training.
Together we delve into the challenges posed by the accelerating threat landscape of cybercrime, highlighting the necessity for international collaboration between businesses and governments. We also explore the critical role of technology and cybersecurity in today's interconnected world, driven by the rise of remote work due to COVID-19.
Discover the impact of the shift to cloud computing on the security perimeter, and learn about the importance of securing access to data as digital transformation accelerates. Jesper recommends the book "Digital Hesitation" for understanding the challenges of digital transformation. Finally, we discuss Exclusive Academy's three-year program to address the cybersecurity skill shortage and the importance of international collaboration in the fight against cybercrime.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are joined by Sam Flynn, a Digital Wellbeing Coach with 12 years of experience as a social media trainer. Sam discusses the importance of managing the negative aspects of technology in our lives and shares valuable insights into how we can consciously use the digital world to minimize its negative impact on our focus, time, sleep, mental health, and creativity.
In this episode, Sam covers:
- The challenges of smartphone addiction and its consequences
- Strategies for maintaining a healthy relationship with technology
- Tips for managing digital wellbeing in personal and professional life
- Turning off notifications, using blocking apps, and other practical steps
- How Sam overcame her own phone addiction and now helps others
- Leveraging Business Psychology to improve productivity in teams
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Sam Flynn as she shares her expertise and personal journey to help individuals and teams achieve a healthy balance between the digital world and their overall wellbeing. Don't miss this episode of Tech Talks Daily for valuable insights and actionable tips on mastering digital wellbeing!
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are joined by Ben Canning, the Senior Vice President of Product at Smartsheet, an enterprise platform for modern work management. Ben discusses the recent findings of Smartsheet's inaugural Future of Work Management Report, which reveals a "resource recession" affecting businesses across the globe as they operate with limited personnel, technology, and support.
The report uncovers a rise in "citizen project managers," junior employees taking on additional work outside their job descriptions and without proper training.
Key talking points in this episode include:
- Work management trends and the future of work
- Insights from Smartsheet's Future of Work Management Report
- The rise of the "citizen project manager"
- How businesses can turn the resource recession into a resource revolution
- The importance of support, training, and technology for project teams
- Focusing on the "middle work" for project success and employee satisfaction
- The value of scalable, repeatable processes in project management
Join us for an insightful conversation with Ben Canning as he shares expert insights into the current state of work management and provides valuable advice on how businesses can empower their teams with the right tools, technology, and training to succeed in this rapidly changing landscape.
Join me for an engaging conversation with Alex Svinov, CEO and Co-Founder of Insquad, as he shares his journey from a career in finance and banking to becoming a successful serial entrepreneur. After realizing his passion for IT, Alex launched his first startup while working full-time, eventually co-founding five businesses, four of which achieved remarkable success.
In this episode, Alex offers valuable insights on:
- Pivoting in your startup journey: Learn when and how to pivot when your startup isn't reaching the desired results, emphasizing the importance of execution and the ability to test hypotheses quickly.
- The significance of AI: Explore why AI is the most crucial technology of this decade and how it's changing the landscape across various industries, with recent breakthroughs like ChatGPT showcasing its revolutionary potential.
- The future of tech growth: Alex discusses the recent massive layoffs in the tech industry and explains why this is just a temporary setback, with the fundamental growth story still very much alive.
- Staffing and remote work trends: Discover why the shift towards remote work will continue in the future, not just in IT but across multiple industries.
With years of experience in IT and entrepreneurship, Alex Svinov now leads Insquad, a platform that helps companies hire remote engineering talents quickly and efficiently. In addition, his expertise in founding and managing successful startups offers invaluable insights and advice for aspiring and seasoned entrepreneurs.
In this episode, we are joined by Rod Cope, Chief Technology Officer at Perforce Software, a company that has made 11 acquisitions in the past six years, including his own. Rod shares his unique insights on navigating the challenges and uncertainties that come with mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and provides valuable advice on eliminating friction and ensuring successful integration between companies.
Rod's extensive experience in M&A has taught him that it typically takes at least two years for companies to fully integrate and become a cohesive unit. He shares his top tips for tech leaders on both sides of an M&A to support a positive experience:
- Host a Town Hall early on with an AMA (Ask Me Anything) section to build trust and open communication among the entire team.
- Set clear expectations through transparent and constant contact, ensuring everyone is on the same page throughout the process.
- Swap out the brands early on, including building signs, email signatures, and more, as these small details can make a significant difference in establishing a unified identity.
- Ensure employees don't experience any friction with calendars, emails, and communication, allowing them to feel like part of the greater team.
Rod also discusses how tech leaders can better prepare for acquiring or merging with another organization and the importance of understanding the time it takes for a successful integration.
As companies worldwide rely on Perforce to build complex digital products faster and with higher quality, Rod's insights and experiences offer a valuable perspective for tech leaders navigating the M&A landscape. Tune in to this episode to learn from Rod Cope's extensive expertise in M&A and discover how to successfully eliminate friction and foster a positive experience during the integration process.
Univention is a leading supplier of Open Source products for the major operation and management of IT infrastructures - either classic on-premises, in the cloud, or in hybrid environments, for companies of any size. It also provides standardized identity management systems for organizations from 5 people to 5 million.
Kevin Korte joins me in a conversation about how companies can adopt leading-edge cybersecurity practices and turn IT from a hindrance into an asset. We also discuss digital identities, password management, single sign-on, and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).
The shift to remote work has brought numerous changes to the professional landscape. Still, one often overlooked aspect is the need for robust security measures to protect employees and organizations. In this episode, we discuss the crucial topic of cybersecurity in the era of remote work with Alec Nuñez, Director of Business Compliance at Poll Everywhere.
With many organizations transitioning to hybrid or fully remote work models, ensuring proper security protocols are in place has never been more important. In fact, only 32% of companies with existing cybersecurity plans updated their security measures after shifting to a remote work model, leaving them vulnerable to a range of cyber threats.
Alec shares his valuable insights and experiences, as Poll Everywhere has been a hybrid company since its inception in 2007 and is now fully remote. He discusses what proper work-from-home (WFH) security looks like and how organizations can adapt and strengthen their security measures to safeguard against attacks and breaches in an increasingly digital world.
In this episode, we cover the importance of updating security protocols for remote and hybrid work environments and the challenges and risks faced by organizations that don't prioritize cybersecurity in a remote work setting. Alec shares his firsthand experience with Poll Everywhere's transition from hybrid to fully remote work and the security measures they implemented. He also shares practical steps and best practices for organizations to bolster and maintain security for their remote workforce.
Join us for an engaging conversation with Alec Nuñez as we delve into the world of cybersecurity for remote employees and learn how organizations can protect themselves and their workforce in the new era of remote work. Don't miss this opportunity to gain invaluable insights and tips from a seasoned professional to help you ensure your organization's cybersecurity is up to par in today's ever-changing work landscape.
In this episode, I take a deep dive into the world of personal finance and explore how Rocket Money, a personal finance app with over 3.4 million members, is empowering consumers to take control of their financial lives. We are joined by Yahya Mokhtarzada, the face behind Rocket Money's television commercials and its co-founder, as he discusses his journey developing Rocket Money, the app's money management features, and shares tips on how consumers can live their best financial lives.
Rocket Money, formerly known as Truebill, has made its mark as a leading personal finance app with a mission to help users optimize their spending, manage subscriptions, lower their bills, and effortlessly set aside money to achieve their savings goals. By analyzing members' spending habits, identifying inefficiencies, and offering immediate solutions to improve their financial health, Rocket Money gives its members a valuable advantage on their financial journey.
In this episode, Yahya shares the app's unique features, such as canceling unwanted subscriptions, creating personalized budgets, and even negotiating bills on behalf of users. Yahya also gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how Rocket Money's technology makes it all possible. Key discussion points include:
Join us for an insightful conversation with Yahya Mokhtarzada as we delve into the world of personal finance and uncover how Rocket Money is revolutionizing money management for millions of users.
As brands increasingly turn to loyalty programs to foster lasting customer relationships, NFTs have emerged as a game-changer, providing a new level of exclusivity and engagement. With Boson Protocol's unique approach, businesses can develop decentralized alternatives to traditional eCommerce, offering consumers exclusive experiences, events, and content by purchasing NFTs.
Justin Banon, CEO and Founder of Boson Protocol, discusses the power of token-gated commerce and NFTs in driving long-term customer engagement. He shares insights on how brands implement token-gated commerce to forge new customer relationships, the potential for NFTs to deliver enduring consumer benefits, and how the Boson Protocol's latest release, v2 of their dApp, empowers brands to launch their tokenized loyalty programs.
In this episode, you'll also learn about how major brands like Starbucks, Disney, and Adidas have embraced NFTs to drive long-term community engagement. We also explore the global customer loyalty management market's impressive growth, predicted to surpass $24 billion by 2028 and the increasing popularity and utility of NFTs, particularly among institutional investors.
I also find out more about the role of Boson Protocol in creating a decentralized alternative to eCommerce through redeemable NFTs. Take advantage of this fascinating conversation on the future of commerce and loyalty programs in the age of NFTs with Justin Banon of Boson Protocol.
In this insightful and timely podcast episode, we sit down with Kyle Wong, a thought leader in user-generated content (UGC) and influencer marketing, to discuss why a UGC strategy matters more than ever in 2023 and beyond. As social media continues to evolve, businesses must adapt to stay ahead of the curve, and Kyle's expertise offers valuable insights into this rapidly changing landscape.
Kyle delves into the importance of UGC in scaling businesses, explaining how brands can leverage the power of social proof to grow and succeed in an increasingly competitive market. He emphasizes the necessity for authenticity and shares his insights on how businesses can create genuine experiences for their customers that resonate on a deeper level.
We also explore the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of UGC versus influencer and celebrity campaigns. Finally, Kyle provides real-world examples of brands that have successfully harnessed the power of UGC, demonstrating how this strategy can lead to tangible results and long-term success.
In addition to addressing the challenges brands face when starting a UGC strategy, Kyle discusses the evolution of user-generated content and its impact on social media and social commerce. He highlights the growth of social proof as a vital marketing channel. Finally, he shares his predictions on the future of brand social media management, stressing the importance of integrating social channels and content into a winning strategy.
Join us in this conversation with Kyle Wong, and learn how your business can tap into the power of UGC to scale, create authentic experiences, and outshine the competition in today's digital world.
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we are thrilled to host Mala Tejwani, the operations lead at DataStax, who shares her inspiring journey from a world champion in Indian classical dance to a leading role in Silicon Valley's tech industry. Mala's unconventional background provides a fresh perspective on how her experiences as a dancer translate to the tech world.
Mala reflects on how her dance career taught her the importance of fluidity, agility, passion, precision, and creativity, and how these qualities are crucial for anyone starting a new career in any industry. Mala started her tech career at Google in an entry-level position, but her passion for solving complex problems and creating efficient solutions led her to grow within the organization and eventually take on a leading role at DataStax.
During the conversation, Mala shares insights into her experience leading operations at DataStax through significant periods of activity and growth. She also advises professionals looking to pivot into tech from other industries and how to harness their unique skills and experiences to succeed.
Mala's story is a testament to the power of resilience, adaptability, and pursuing your passion in the face of challenges. If you're interested in hearing how Mala's background in dance helped her succeed in the tech industry, this episode is a must-listen.
In this episode, I am joined by Jordan Gal, co-founder of Rally, a company on a mission to empower merchants and app developers by providing them with a headless, fully optimized, one-click checkout solution. Rally is revolutionizing the modern headless e-commerce ecosystem, bridging front- and back-end platforms, and creating seamless customer checkout experiences.
Listen in as Jordan shares the origin story of Rally and the problems it aims to solve with technology and how Rally collaborates with Swell, Klarna, and Stripe to help small businesses scale without being tied to Shopify, acting as a 'headless' checkout option. He also shares s use case to help listeners understand how Rally can work in their world
Jordan also talks about his experience raising $6M in 2021, along with advice for startup founders looking to follow in his footsteps. In addition, he evem finds time to share a few tips for early-stage founders looking to grow a business in this area, and his passion for ensuring small business owners can operate on their terms.
Join us for an insightful conversation with Jordan Gal as we explore the power of Rally's innovative checkout solution and the future of e-commerce.
Permissioned blockchains have gained popularity as an alternative to open distributed networks, attracting institutional investment by ensuring security through restricted access.
Although permissioned decentralized finance (DeFi) could ease the transition for traditional finance players into the blockchain industry, it is undoubtedly a departure from the core ethos that drives the development of permissionless blockchains like THORChain, a non-custodial decentralized exchange that opens access to native and cross-chain liquidity.
Permissioned chains offer the familiarity standards of security, privacy, and control that financial institutions are used to. By that very nature permissioned DeFi is oxymoronic, recreating the restrictions of the traditional financial system that DeFi was designed to bypass. Such permissioned protocols may attract institutional support but inevitably stray from the open, transparent, and equitable ethos that is championed by permissionless blockchains.
Pedro Isaac Lopez, Chief Growth Officer at THORWallet DEX, the gateway to THORChain and the only non-custodial DeFi wallet to offer cross-chain swaps, advocates for the position that if it is not permissionless, then it is equally not decentralized: it’s centralization masquerading as innovation. Listen in as we discuss how decentralized blockchain networks maintain security through over-collateralization without sacrificing open access for everyone.
At the Adobe Summit, I sit down with Joan Smith, Managing Director and leader of Protiviti Digital, to discuss how leaders and marketers can navigate the uncertainties of today's rapidly changing landscape. As the lines between digital and physical continue to blur, businesses are grappling with challenges such as shifting consumer behavior, data privacy regulations, and supply chain interdependence, all while facing a looming economic downturn.
In this enlightening conversation, Joan shares her insights on Meeting customer expectations in an economic downturn by delivering meaningful experiences. We also discuss connecting technology to customer value, focusing on experience rather than process, and orchestrating purposeful interactions for hyper-personalization without being creepy.
We also discuss how businesses can embed agility and automation into operating principles to adapt to a world of constant change in an informative chat on thriving in uncertainty, embracing change, and redefining the playbook for leaders and marketers.
In this episode of The Tech Talks Podcast, I am thrilled to welcome Jonathan Rosenberg, the CTO and head of AI at Five9. With over 25 years of experience, Jonathan is a true pioneer in the industry, co-inventing SIP and being named one of the 100 most innovative technologists in the world by Technology Review Magazine.
Join us as we dive into Jonathan's passion for technology, his pivotal role in SIP's development, and how it transformed the communications landscape by creating new markets and job opportunities. We'll also explore Five9's innovative AI strategy, including their latest product, Agent Assist, designed to enhance customer service agent productivity and efficacy.
As the leading provider of cloud customer service technology, Five9 is at the forefront of AI-powered solutions for customer experience. We'll discuss the impact of AI technologies like ChatGPT and GPT-3 on businesses, brand loyalty, and customer experience. Jonathan will share his thoughts on innovation during economic uncertainty, explaining his mantra: "Be adopters, not innovators."
Finally, we'll discuss Five9's new European Research and Development site in Portugal and the challenges their engineering teams are tackling. Jonathan will also share his excitement about the future of technology and where current tech trends are taking us.
In this episode, we delve into the fascinating findings of a recent study by ClickUp, conducted by Sapio Research, which uncovers the critical factors that differentiate high-productivity businesses from their less productive counterparts.
Join me and my special guest, Richard McGuinness, VP of Sales EMEA at ClickUp, who shares his expertise on the essential role of technology, training, and culture in driving productivity. We'll discuss how open communication channels, strong team cohesion, and a focus on employee well-being all contribute to improved organizational productivity and job satisfaction.
Together, we'll explore top-performing organizations' most effective productivity measurements techniques, such as tracking task progress and completion and performance against set objectives or deliverables. Additionally, we'll examine the importance of setting employees up for success by providing them with the right technology, resources, and an inclusive culture fostering growth and innovation.
During our conversation, we'll also dive into the impact of higher productivity on employee well-being. The study shows a strong correlation between high productivity and better job satisfaction, work-life balance, and motivation.
Welcome to this episode of the podcast, where we explore the intersection of sports and technology with Rick Limpert, the No.1 Sports Tech Writer in the U.S. With over a decade of experience in this field, Rick has become a leading voice in the industry, appearing on major news networks and writing for prominent publications.
In this episode, Rick shares his insights on the ways in which technology has transformed the world of sports, and how many of the consumer tech devices we use today have their origins in the sports world. We dive into the exciting advancements in sports fan engagement, including the use of technology in arenas and stadiums, and the trends shaping the armchair fan experience.
Rick's passion for sports and technology is contagious, and his enthusiasm for the future of this industry is inspiring. Join us as we explore the fascinating world of sports and technology, and discover how these two seemingly disparate fields are converging in ways that are revolutionizing the way we experience sports. Don't miss out on this insightful conversation with one of the leading voices in sports tech!
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we're joined by Dan Sommer, Qlik Senior Director and Global Market Intelligence Lead, as we explore the challenges and opportunities businesses face amidst a perfect storm of economic recession, declining VC funding and conflicting global regulations. Dan, a former Gartner analyst, shares his expertise on markets, trends, competitive landscape evaluations, and go-to-market strategies.
I learn more about how Qlik, a US company with a Swedish heart, aims to change the world by making it easier for people to make more insightful, data-driven decisions and act on them. Dan emphasizes the importance of honing the accuracy of decision-making to anticipate unexpected events and achieve connected governance in a world of disparate and siloed datasets.
Join us as we discuss the impact of market consolidation, the rise of synthetic data, and the need for AI to move deeper into the pipeline to consolidate and strengthen organizations' data processing. Finally, Dan shares how to navigate uncertainty and future-proof your business in this rapidly changing tech landscape.
This daily tech podcast explores how technology transforms our lives, work, industries, and world. At the recent X4 event by Qualtrics, I sat down with Rob Swain, the Global COO of KFC. Tune in as we dive into how technology and conversational analytics have unlocked actionable insights for KFC.
I learn more about how in each of their 27,000 restaurants, every manager takes on the role of a part-time data analyst. They monitor social media, assess customer feedback, guide employees, and propose enhancements. This empowerment enables the overall brand to prioritize what truly matters to customers by integrating customer and employee feedback.
We'll discuss how these tech tools have empowered KFC's team to tune in to what people say about their brand, allowing them to improve everything – from taste and food service to the delivery experience. Rob Swain's insights on the technology will enable every listener to take a peek behind the curtain at the tech behind every KFC experience.
After listening to this episode, you may find that your future KFC orders will never be the same. You might even feel compelled to share the fascinating story of conversational analytics and the tech behind KFC with the person next to you. But be warned – they might tell you to be quiet, enjoy your boneless banquet, and stop making everything about tech. Or maybe that's just what happens to me.
David Carvalho joins me in a conversation sharing his insights on how the Naoris Protocol is revolutionizing cybersecurity for enterprises and individuals in today's hyper-connected world. In this episode, we'll explore the decentralized cybersecurity mesh architecture (dCSMA) that protects networks and data by turning every connected device into a trusted validator node.
We'll discuss how Naoris Protocol leverages the power of blockchain and swarm AI to record real-time immutable ZK proofs of every device's status, identifying and mitigating threats in milliseconds and ensuring infrastructure security.
With the average breach detection time for a large enterprise being 280 days, Naoris Protocol is a game changer for regulators and cybersecurity in general. Our proactive solution helps companies manage cyber risks in real time instead of relying on reactive regulation after the fact.
Join us as we dive deep into the world of cybersecurity and discuss how Naoris Protocol is paving the way for a safer and more secure future.
Today we explore the future of recruitment and the role of AI in creating a more equitable and efficient job market. In this episode, we are joined by Malcolm Burenstam Linder, the CEO of Alva Labs, a company that is dedicated to using technology to revolutionize the recruitment process.
We start by discussing the traditional recruitment methods that are known to promote bias and how technology can help replace them. Malcolm shares his insights on the importance of maintaining a long-term hiring strategy, particularly in a changing market, and how technology can create a more candidate-centric approach to recruitment.
We also delve into the role of AI in recruitment and how it can assist in making the process more accurate, diverse, and efficient. Malcolm shares how companies that base their hiring decisions on data rather than personal opinions can recruit with better accuracy and higher diversity while reducing employee churn and improving performance.
Join us as we explore the future of recruitment and how technology can help create a more equitable and efficient job market that benefits both organizations and job candidates alike.
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In today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we delve into the world of entrepreneurship and investing with the guidance of Cap Treeger, a serial entrepreneur and investor. Join us as we explore the lessons he's learned from his own successes and failures in building multiple businesses in various industries.
As the Wall Street Journal and National best-selling author of Finding the Way, Cap Treeger has invested directly in several dozen early stage ventures and indirectly in hundreds more through his engagement in angel and venture funds. Through his experiences, he's gained invaluable insights into the world of entrepreneurship and investing.
In his fictional account of an entrepreneur's journey to the top, Cap Treeger crafts a series of dynamic and well-drawn lessons for anyone who wants to start or build a business venture. Follow the story of Ren, a driven individual with a dream to build his own startup from the ground up, as he navigates the complexities of the business world. With the help of his mentors and his own trial and error experiences, Ren discovers the importance of building a solid team and crafting a well-thought-out business model.
Join us on the Cap Treeger podcast as we explore the factors necessary for success in entrepreneurship and investing, with insights from one of the industry's most experienced and successful players.
In this episode, we're diving into the world of refurbished tech devices, e-waste, and the great digital divide. Our special guest is Biju Nair, EVP & President of the Global Connected Living business unit at Assurant, a leading provider of device protection, support, and logistics solutions for mobile devices, smart homes, and connected devices.
Biju's expertise in the wireless industry spans more than 25 years. He oversees the refurbishment and recycling of connected devices for Assurant, which repurposed over 17 million devices last year for companies like AT&T and Vodafone. Biju's entrepreneurial and innovation leadership has driven Assurant's sustainability and environmental responsibility commitment.
In this episode, we discuss the impact of automation on sustainability in the e-waste and recycling market. We also explore the benefits of repurposed technology for consumers in developed and emerging markets, such as improved sustainability and connectivity. Join us as we delve into the exciting world of refurbished tech devices and learn how they are changing the game in the tech industry.
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On today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by Bianca Peel and Frank Duffy, the founder of Code Division, a non-profit organisation and SQA-certified learning centre in Scotland. They are on a mission to provide free digital education to those who need it most, focusing on individuals who are unemployed, facing barriers to employment, and from underrepresented backgrounds in tech.
As automation and technological advancements threaten to displace 75 million jobs, Code Division empowers communities through industry-driven courses in data analysis, cyber resilience, business applications, software development, and more. By offering practical work-based learning and SQA accreditation, they prepare learners for various digital roles and help bridge the digital divide.
In this insightful conversation, we'll discuss the importance of digital equality and the positive social impacts of Code Division's latest initiatives. Learn how this inspiring non-profit brings the tech community together to support students with job opportunities, laptop donations, and mentoring.
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Last week at the X4 Summit, I dived into the world of customer experience with Maggie Butler, Director of Customer Experience at Allianz. With keynotes from inspirational figures like Martha Stewart, Sean White, Tony Hawks, and The Killers, this event is packed with excitement. But my conversation with Maggie takes center stage in this episode.
We explore how Allianz, a travel insurance company assisting 25 million customers annually, leverages its partnership with Qualtrics to better understand and serve its customers. Learn how Allianz unifies data from its Voice of the Customer (VoC) program, customer service call monitoring, satisfaction surveys, and social media platforms to identify actionable insights and align its products with customers' actual needs.
About Allianz Partners
Allianz Partners is a world leader in B2B2C insurance and assistance, offering global solutions that span international health and life, travel insurance, automotive, and assistance. Customer-driven, their innovative experts are redefining insurance services by delivering future-ready, high-tech, high-touch products and solutions that go beyond traditional insurance.
Their products are embedded seamlessly into their partners' businesses or sold directly to customers and are available through four commercial brands: Allianz Assistance, Allianz Automotive, Allianz Travel, and Allianz Care. Present in 75 countries, our 21,100 employees speak 70 languages, handle over 71 million cases each year, and are motivated to go the extra mile to offer peace of mind to their customers around the world.
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Today's guest is Matt Andrew, UK Managing Director and Partner at Ekimetrics. The global data science consultancy helps brands improve their marketing performance, understand customers, and enhance operational excellence through analytics and data science.
Ekimetrics uses econometrics as a basis and employs triangulated methods such as Marketing Mix Optimisation (MMO) to ensure that brands make consistent decisions. Matt Andrew has worked with Google and Meta on solutions like MMO, helping clients make more confident decisions.
I learn more about how The UK team at Ekimetrics grew by 60% last year and has over 400 data scientists worldwide. The ongoing development and expansion of its Data Science Transformation, Customer Centricity, and MMO solutions are helping some major brands with holistic measurement globally at scale.
In this episode, we explore the potential of emerging technologies such as the Metaverse, web 3.0, and AI. We also discuss the true potential of digital as an integral part of marketing. Sustainability is high on Ekimetrics' agenda for 2023, and we discuss their plans in this regard.
Join us as we delve into the fascinating world of data science and marketing effectiveness with Matt Andrew of Ekimetrics.
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Corey Nachreiner, CSO at WatchGuard, joins me in a conversation about the latest cybersecurity predictions for 2023 from WatchGuard’s Threat Lab research team. Our guest then shares the story behind the batch of predictions for 2023, offering different takes on potential hacks and attacks in various categories.
We discuss two matchups: “Insurers Going Vertical” and “Targeting Vendors and Partners.” Then, moving on, we explore the hype around the metaverse and web3 and question whether we could see a Big Metaverse Hack this year too.
One of the standout predictions is the potential surge in MFA-targeted Social Engineering Attacks. Our guest expands on this trend and explains the prediction regarding Hacking AI Robotaxis in a simple and accessible way as if explaining it to a five-year-old. The podcast also explores the prediction regarding Vulnerability Proliferation through AI Coding Tools, discussing how AI tools could empower script kiddies to write malware and write more convincing phishing emails.
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In this episode, we have invited Harishkarthik Gunalan, a crypto enthusiast and expert in the gaming industry, to share his insights on CoinFantasy. Harishkarthik will delve into the key USPs and innovations of CoinFantasy, and how it differs from other Play-to-Earn model games.
He also shares his thoughts on the future of this space, new innovations and trends in the De-Fi Gaming Industry in 2023, and how gaming can transform the financial sector. Additionally, he will discuss how CoinFantasy can influence the financial and gaming industry and the plans in the pipeline.
I learn more about how CoinFantasy is a platform that offers a unique and innovative approach to investing in cryptocurrency, making it accessible to anyone without the risk of financial losses. The platform uses blockchain technology to create a decentralized and transparent ecosystem, providing users with a secure and reliable cryptocurrency investment platform.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the gaming industry's future and blockchain technology's potential to transform the financial sector. Harishkarthik's insights and expertise will give listeners a deeper understanding of CoinFantasy and its exciting opportunities.
Join me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast as I welcome Charles Frankievich, Director of Consumer Insights at Shake Shack. In this episode, we discuss the critical role that technology and data play in shaping the customer experience at Shake Shack.
We discuss the brand's 5-year plan to become a national competitor and how insights from data and analytics helped Shake Shack truly understand how guests feel and what they need to do to keep them coming back.
Charles reveals how Shake Shack will continue to leverage technology to improve the customer experience and shares fascinating insights into what goes on behind the curtain at the popular fast-casual restaurant chain. If you're a fan of Shake Shack or simply interested in how technology is transforming the restaurant industry, this is an episode you won't want to miss.
In this episode, we are joined by Matthew Scullion, the CEO of Matillion, a cloud data integration software company. Join us as we dive into an intriguing conversation about ETL and ELT - their differences, how to choose which one to use, and why making the wrong choice can lead to a waste of IT budgets.
Matthew also sheds light on the challenges caused by the ever-increasing volume and complexity of data and data sources, and shares his insights on how to overcome these barriers. We also discuss the risks of information gaps caused by slow and inefficient data processes and how to bridge these gaps.
Furthermore, we explore the best approach for data teams in using a mix of no code/high code/own code and how to determine which one is best suited for specific circumstances in terms of cost savings and efficiency. Tune in for an enlightening conversation on all things data integration with Matthew Scullion!
Over the last few years, the way we work has changed dramatically. We have transitioned from working in an office to working from home at scale to hybrid working. While this transition was challenging at first, we now expect to work from any device, on any network, in any location at any time. So the big question now is, how can we make work better? How can we improve the future of work?
In this episode of Tech Talk Daily Podcast, I am joined by Doug Dennerline, CEO and Chairman, and Jamie Aitken, VP of HR Transformation at Betterworks. as our special guests. Betterworks is a company that aims to help HR and business leaders make work better by providing innovative HR tech solutions.
Doug and Jamie shed light on some of the most pressing HR tech trends shaping the future of work. They discuss employee-first work culture, new HR tech trends, pay transparency, quiet quitting and firing, and the role of tech in improving DEI. They also provide valuable insights and advice to business leaders on staying ahead of the curve and leveraging the latest HR tech trends to make work better.
One of the key themes that emerges in our conversation is the importance of putting employees first. Doug and Jamie explain that an employee-first work culture is critical for building a motivated and engaged workforce. In today's hybrid working world, creating a culture that fosters collaboration, communication, and connection is more important than ever. HR tech solutions can play a vital role in facilitating this process.
Another topic we explore in depth is the role of tech in improving DEI. As Doug and Jamie explain, HR tech solutions can help businesses identify and address bias in the hiring process, track diversity metrics, and provide training to help employees understand and embrace diversity. Toward the end of the podcast, we discuss the newly released book "Make Work Better" and who it is aimed at. The book is a collaboration between Doug and Jamie, providing insights into the trends shaping the future of work.
They give us a sneak peek into what readers can expect from the book and share their favorite book or song that has inspired them. Overall, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in making work better and staying up-to-date with the latest HR tech trends. So tune in, sit back, and enjoy the ride as we explore how tech is shaping the future of work!
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I am joined by William Reeve, a serial tech entrepreneur with an extensive track record of founding and chairing successful high-growth tech businesses. William shares his insights on why the rental sector has been overlooked by the tech industry for so long, despite impacting a significant percentage of homes in the UK.
As CEO of Goodlord, a RentTech company, William discusses how he is using technology to revolutionize the rental experience for agents, landlords, and tenants. We explore the challenges faced by the lettings industry and the role that RentTech can play in addressing these issues.
Join us as we discuss the potential of RentTech to reshape the world of renting and establish itself as a major player in the tech industry. Learn why the lettings industry desperately needs tech reform and how Goodlord is leading the charge to bring much-needed innovation to this important sector.
William has extensive experience founding companies such as Fletcher Research (sold to Forrester Research), LOVEFILM (sold to Amazon), and Secret Escapes. He has also served as NED and/or Chair of various high-growth tech businesses, including Graze (sold to Carlyle), Nutmeg (sold to JP Morgan), True Knowledge (sold to Amazon), Media Ingenuity, and Zoopla.
Virgin Voyages is a cruise line that aims to offer a unique experience to the adult traveler. The company has also partnered with a Creative Collective, including some of the most sought-after interior designers, artists, and architects, to create a sleek, contemporary, and stylish look for the ships.
Virgin Voyages offers city-like eating to sea with 20+ food choices onboard, with no traditional dining rules. The company has also banned single-use plastics on board its ships, including straws, bottled water, other beverage bottles, and food packaging.
Virgin Voyages is committed to having one of the cleanest fleets at sea and has offset its direct climate change emissions by purchasing carbon offsets, making the brand the first cruise line to become carbon-neutral for its direct emissions footprint from its first day of commercial operation. But what does all this mean>
Ultimately, Virgin Voyages is attempting to build a narrative that its ships will be cooler and edgier than what's currently on the market. But I want to learn more about the role of technology in delivering new experiences in the industry.
At the X4 Summit in Utah, Tamara Pluviose, Director of Digital Strategy, at Virgin Voyages, shares her insights and how technology is transforming the cruising experience. Tamara owns the B2C, and B2B digital experiences at Virgin Voyages, and part of that is ownership of the strategies and tactics that help deliver more human brand experiences.
The world of marketing is rapidly changing, and businesses need to adapt to stay ahead of the curve. With the rise of AI technology, a new marketing normal is emerging that bridges the gap between brands and their target audiences. AI is being used to analyze vast amounts of data and generate insights that can inform marketing strategies and make them more effective. By using AI, brands can create highly tailored content for their target audiences, which is crucial to building stronger relationships and driving business growth.
In this Tech Talks Daily podcast episode, we delve deeper into this topic with Thomas "AI Nerd" Helfrich, CEO of InstantlyRelevant.com. As an expert in AI technology and marketing, Thomas brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, and is passionate about helping businesses build trust and relevance with their target audiences.
Together, we explore how businesses can leverage technology, data, and experts to create meaningful content with a strategy and purpose. We discuss the challenges of creating content that resonates with target audiences and the importance of understanding your audience and using data to inform your content creation. We also dive into how AI can generate insights and identify new trends and opportunities, which can help brands create more compelling content that drives business growth.
One key takeaway from our conversation is the power of combining a human and AI to create highly tailored, scalable, and effective content. While AI can analyze vast amounts of data and generate insights, humans bring empathy and creativity to the table. By working together, these two elements can create content that is both highly effective and tailored to the specific needs of target audiences.
We also discuss the importance of having a strategic content plan, which is critical for any business looking to accelerate growth and amplify its brand. A strategic content plan can help companies to identify their goals, target audience, and key messaging and can provide a roadmap for creating and distributing content that resonates with their audience and drives business growth.
Overall, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in staying ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving world of marketing. With insights from an expert in AI technology and marketing, you'll gain a deeper understanding of how to create meaningful content that has a strategy and purpose, and how to leverage technology and data to drive business growth. Tune in today to learn more!
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Did you know that last year, Qualtrics analyzed 2 billion conversations and 16 billion surveys? That's a lot of data on customer experiences. And this week, at the X4 Experience Management Summit in Salt Lake City, around 10,000 attendees are discussing how technology can turn a customer into a fanatic, an employee into an ambassador, and a product into an obsession.
One of the companies speaking at the event is AMEX, and they are on a panel discussing how they are transforming financial services with XM. AMEX has set the bar high regarding customer service, and they continue to make world-class service a key differentiator. But how do they stay ahead of the game?
CX is embedded in the culture at AMEX, and they have had a program since 2007. They are now looking at how they approach this from not just a transactional lens, but a journey-centric lens. At the heart of all this is the idea that technology can make businesses more human.
Luis Angel-Lalanne from American Express shares how they transformed how customer sentiment is gathered to help improve their CX. Join us as we explore this fascinating topic in today's podcast.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I am joined by Alex Fleseriu, the CEO of Exchange.Art, a fine arts marketplace on Solana. Alex shares with us the impressive growth Exchange.Art has experienced since launching in October 2021, with a consistent 20-60% growth despite other marketplaces dipping this year.
Exchange.Art is a unique marketplace that is creator-focused, unlike its buyer-focused competitors. Alex explains how they have launched a Royalties Standard, giving NFT creators a chance to profit from secondary sales, and a Provenance Feature that shows the entire history of an NFT to prevent fraud. The goal of Exchange.Art is to have a platform that supports creators and gives them the tools to make a living off their work.
Alex reveals that Exchange.Art has paid out $1.2 million in USD to creators in 2022, and grown to a community of 150,000 creators, with 7.3 million collectors and 22 million NFTs minted on the platform since launch. We also discuss NFTs as a form of investment and how they could outperform other asset classes amidst market turndowns.
Furthermore, Alex shares his predictions for web3 and NFTs in 2023 and how Exchange.Art plans to navigate the changes in the industry. Lastly, we learn about the conferences Exchange.Art will be speaking in 2023.
So, tune in to this exciting episode to learn more about Exchange.Art and its unique approach to the NFT marketplace.
Qualtrics Experience Management (XM) is a software platform that helps brands continually assess the quality of their four core experiences—customers, employees, products, and brands. Last year, Qualtrics analyzed 2 billion conversations and 16 billion surveys.
The Company's X4 event takes place in Salt Lake City this week, where around 10,000 attendees will be discussing how technology can you turn a customer into a fanatic, an employee into an ambassador, A product into an obsession, and create the write-home, tell-everyone-you-know kind of experiences we all love. But, most of all, how technology can make Business more human.
I will report from the event, where there are three days of inspiring keynotes, breakthrough product sessions, live training with Qualtrics experts, and much more. There is so much going on with Keynotes, with some big names such as Ryan Reynolds to Martha Stewart and even music by the Killers.
In today's episode, I sit down with Brad Anderson, President of Products and Engineering at Qualtrics, about his origin story and why he left Microsoft. But most importantly of all, we discuss the big themes at the X4 event and what excites him about leveraging technology to make business more human.
This episode delves into the often-overlooked human factor in cybersecurity with Amanda Widdowson, Head of Human Factors Capability at Thales. Businesses can invest significantly in cybersecurity infrastructure, but human error can undermine it. Amanda shares her extensive knowledge of human factors and ergonomics, highlighting the need to design policies that consider human factors rather than blaming people for poor security practices.
We discuss the importance of adapting policies to compensate for human error and why companies need to fit procedures around the people they have rather than trying to change people. Amanda stresses that while awareness training is crucial, it's not enough. People will still make errors, and technology to prevent these errors is critical.
Finally, we explore the additional challenges that have emerged over the past few years, including home information security. If you're a business owner or work in cybersecurity, you will want to take advantage of this insightful discussion on the human factor in cybersecurity.
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In this episode, we are joined by Marcin Kleczynski, the CEO and co-founder of Malwarebytes, a leading cybersecurity company. Marcin shares his insights on the cybersecurity workforce gap and its implications for cyberattacks in 2023.
We also discuss the current economic climate and how the cybersecurity industry is weathering it, with the increasing need for better defenses against cyberattacks. One of the key talking points is the importance of Managed Service Providers for small-to-medium sized businesses. Marcin discusses MSPs' role in providing cost-effective and comprehensive cybersecurity solutions to these businesses.
We also delve into entrepreneurship and Malwarebytes' journey from its creation to its current position as a leader in the industry. Finally, Marcin emphasizes the importance of positive leadership in business and investing in your people to build a strong culture.
Additionally, we explore the strategic partnership between Exasol and TurinTech, and how it brings AI to customers. Finally, Marcin shares his thoughts on the growth potential of the cybersecurity industry and how companies can take advantage of this growth to build a more secure future.
Join us as we discuss these critical topics and more with Marcin Kleczynski, a cybersecurity expert and successful entrepreneur.
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In this episode, we are joined by Marcin Kleczynski, the CEO and co-founder of Malwarebytes, a leading cybersecurity company. Marcin shares his insights on the cybersecurity workforce gap and its implications for cyberattacks in 2023.
We also discuss the current economic climate and how the cybersecurity industry is weathering it, with the increasing need for better defenses against cyberattacks. One of the key talking points is the importance of Managed Service Providers for small-to-medium sized businesses. Marcin discusses MSPs' role in providing cost-effective and comprehensive cybersecurity solutions to these businesses.
We also delve into entrepreneurship and Malwarebytes' journey from its creation to its current position as a leader in the industry. Finally, Marcin emphasizes the importance of positive leadership in business and investing in your people to build a strong culture.
Additionally, we explore the strategic partnership between Exasol and TurinTech, and how it brings AI to customers. Finally, Marcin shares his thoughts on the growth potential of the cybersecurity industry and how companies can take advantage of this growth to build a more secure future.
Join us as we discuss these critical topics and more with Marcin Kleczynski, a cybersecurity expert and successful entrepreneur.
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Today, on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, I am diving into the world of digital business transformation with Tim Bottke, senior Strategy Partner at Monitor Deloitte and Associate Professor for Strategy and Digital Transformation at SDA Bocconi business school.
Years after companies spend millions of dollars on digital transformations, their investors often ask why there's no return on investment. It's not that digital transformations are a waste but that companies haven't designed them to maximize value. As a result, they overpay and get no payback. However, Digital Transformation Payday: Navigate the Hype, Lower the Risks, Increase Return on Investments, Tim's new book, delivers a provocative new perspective on digital business transformation.
As businesses are faced with doing more with less, every tech project must face scrutiny on the value it offers. With this in mind, Tim shares a proven framework for defining any company's next digital transformation effort from end to end, ensuring maximum return on investment and value. In addition, Tim shares how to design digital transformations to maximize value, lower risk, and navigate the hype.
Join us as we explore how to ensure a return on investment and value, no matter the scale of your business or industry. And get ready to buckle up tight for a deep dive into the world of digital transformation with Tim Bottke.
Tim Bottke is a senior Strategy Partner at Monitor Deloitte and an Associate Professor for Strategy and Digital Transformation at SDA Bocconi, a Financial Times/Forbes/Bloomberg Businessweek Top-Five European business school. He has more than 22 years of top management consulting and (digital) transformation experience from two global strategy boutiques and Deloitte, working with clients in more than 20 countries.
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As businesses and individuals, we rely increasingly on digital services in our everyday lives. Our lives have become dependent on technology, from cloud services to mobile phones and streaming sites to the apps we use. And behind these technologies lies open source software.
Open source software has become a vital part of building digital services. It has made it possible for developers to collaborate and share code, making it faster and more cost-effective to build software. But with this increase in use, the importance of security planning and governance has also grown.
Amanda Brock, CEO of OpenUK, is a leading open-source software and governance expert. She has been an advocate for open source software for over a decade and has seen its impact on the industry. Amanda shares where we are with open source and why we must care about how our software gets put together and where it comes from.
Amanda discusses the importance of understanding the source of the code and the licenses used. With the rise of open source software, it is essential to be aware of potential legal issues and ensure compliance with licensing requirements. She also highlights the importance of building and maintaining trust with open source communities and contributing back to them.
Amanda also emphasizes the role of governance in ensuring the security and reliability of open source software. She points out that open source projects must have a strong governance structure to ensure that contributors are held accountable and that the code is secure. As Amanda notes, open source software has become too important to ignore. We must ensure that we are not only using it but also contributing to it and supporting its continued growth.
By understanding where our software comes from and its governance structure, we can ensure the security and reliability of the technologies we rely on daily. As businesses and individuals, we must recognize the importance of open source software and take steps to ensure its continued growth and success.
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In this podcast episode, I'm joined by Alex Zeltcer, the CEO and Co-Founder of nSure.ai, who shares insights on payment fraud prevention in the crypto industry. He debunks the notion that preventing fraud in the crypto space is a complex process and provides real-life examples of how fraudsters attempt to attack crypto businesses. Alex also offers practical tips for listeners to safeguard themselves against such attacks.
Furthermore, Alex sheds light on how his company is utilizing predictive AI to detect and prevent fraud, while maintaining the best possible customer experience. We also address the misconception that crypto fraud prevention is challenging and discuss the five most common ways that fraudsters target the crypto industry.
Lastly, we delve into the significance of KYC in maintaining a healthy financial system, and the dilemma of customers' reluctance to disclose their personal information, despite it being a crucial aspect of the process.
Dominika Szulc from Future Processing joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the inspirational story that saw her pivot from the optometry industry into a career in tech. She shares her unique career transition to IT and offers advice for anyone wanting to follow in her footsteps. We also discuss how the ML world works from a junior specialist perspective and the tech scene in Poland.
Dominika also shares her view on women in tech and Learning and Development in the industry.
About Dominika
Dominika is a highly-motivated and passionate about machine learning and the use of technology. After +5 years spent in the sales and optometry industry, Dominika decided on career transition. Since 2020, Dominika has attended online coding school, Turing College. Previously, she finished a postgraduate degree: Data Science – Big Data algorithms, tools and techniques (Warsaw University of Technology) and before that, she studied chemistry (Military University Of Technology And Erasmus Exchange at Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal) and Optometry at Warsaw University. At Future Processing, Dominika is developing skills as Junior ML Engineer, working on interpreting data and generating models and prototypes.
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The world is changing, and the way we work is changing with it. For many people, working for a company that is purpose-driven and focused on creating real change is becoming increasingly important. Pam Maynard, CEO of Avanade, believes that technology can play a key role in creating a better employee experience, but only if businesses focus on purpose-driven technology strategies.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily podcast, Pam discussed the importance of purpose-driven technology strategies and how they can help transform the employee experience. Pam believes that businesses need to focus on creating change that is meaningful and that truly makes a difference in the lives of their employees.
At Avanade, the company practices what it preaches by being purpose-led. One way it does this is by ensuring that its thirteen employee networks have a say in the work it does and the strategies it creates. This approach helps to create a culture of inclusion and diversity and ensures that employees feel listened to and recognized.
Another key topic discussed in the podcast is the importance of durable growth. Business leaders need to ensure that their organizations are a core part of their customers' prosperity, especially during turbulent times. By focusing on long-term, durable growth and embedding themselves into customer culture, technology businesses can set themselves on the road to ongoing and continuing growth.
The conversation also touches on the importance of inclusion and diversity. It's not just about implementing DEI strategies for the sake of it; it's about doing the right thing and ensuring that all workers feel recognized and valued. Bias must be exposed and eliminated, and leaders must tackle these issues from the front with empathy.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of work and the role of technology in creating a better employee experience. It's clear that purpose-driven technology strategies, durable growth, and inclusion and diversity are all critical components of a successful and empowered workforce. By listening to Pam's insights and ideas, business leaders can gain valuable knowledge on creating a more purpose-driven and inclusive organization.
About Pamela
CEO Pamela Maynard believes Avanade's purpose is to make a genuine human impact. She is committed to Avanade's vision: to advance the world through the power of people and Microsoft.
Before being named CEO in September 2019, Pamela was President of Product and Innovation, focused on defining and delivering innovative solutions for our clients. Earlier in her Avanade career, she was President of our European organization after serving as General Manager of Avanade UK.
Throughout her career in the technology industry, Pamela has helped clients rethink how they do business, whether it's to be more resilient in their operations, empower their employees to do more remotely, strengthen customer experience, and beyond. She is passionate about using technology not just as an enabler of business but to support the missions of non-profit organizations and closing the digital divide, especially for young people, so that everyone has an opportunity to participate in the digital world.
As businesses face an ever-growing number of cyber threats, it's no surprise that cybersecurity spending is rising. However, despite all this spending, cyberattacks and data breaches are still occurring at an alarming rate. So what is going wrong?
According to Jason Hart, CTO EMEA at Rapid7, the missing piece of the puzzle is often the failure to operationalize cybersecurity. In other words, businesses need to embed security into their culture and make it a part of their everyday business processes. Instead, they rely solely on technology solutions to detect and respond to threats.
In this podcast interview, Jason outlines the core elements businesses need to have to guarantee a solid foundation for a secure business. One of the critical components is culture and accountability. Companies need to create a culture where security is seen as a shared responsibility across the entire organization, from the boardroom to the front lines. This means providing regular training and education to all employees and ensuring that security is embedded into all business processes and decisions.
Another essential step is identifying what risk is and what isn't. Only some threats are created equal, and businesses need to be able to distinguish between high-risk and low-risk threats. This allows them to focus their resources on the most critical areas and ensure they are adequately protected.
Finally, operationalizing cybersecurity means making it a business process. This involves setting clear metrics and outcomes for security and measuring and reporting on these regularly. This not only helps businesses to track their progress and identify areas for improvement, but it also ensures that security becomes a part of the fabric of the business.
In today's fast-paced, digital world, cybersecurity is no longer an optional extra - it's an essential part of doing business. By following the steps outlined by Jason Hart, companies can ensure that they are taking a proactive approach to security, embedding it in their culture and making it a part of their everyday business processes. This, in turn, will help them better protect their customers, reputation, and bottom line.
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In this Tech Talks Daily podcast episode, I'm joined by Kalyan Kumar, the Global Chief Technology Officer at HCL Technologies & Chief Product Officer at HCL Software in London. We discuss the impact of technology trends on businesses over the next year.
One of the main topics of the conversation was the role of cloud infrastructure in the quantum revolution. According to Kalyan, by 2030, businesses will no longer be talking about which cloud services to use but how the cloud can deliver on business priorities so they can be ready for the quantum era.
The quantum market is predicted to reach $1 trillion by 2035, and businesses must level up their cloud infrastructure to take advantage of this next generation of computing. However, only those businesses that have nailed the cloud and made it instinctual to them will benefit from the full potential of quantum.
Another topic discussed was the move toward carbon neutrality in the tech sector. HCL Technologies has committed to becoming net zero by 2040, reflecting the increasing pressure from customers for organizations to become greener. KK believes that the tech industry, one of the planet's biggest producers of carbon, will focus on developing new approaches for trapping and removing carbon dioxide from the air. This will lead to a significant focus on carbon sequestration in the next decade in enterprise IT.
Kalyan Kumar's insights provide a glimpse into the future of technology and how it will impact businesses. Cloud infrastructure will be a crucial aspect of the quantum revolution, and organizations must level up their cloud infrastructure to take advantage of this next generation of computing.
In addition, businesses must also consider their environmental impact and focus on achieving carbon neutrality to meet the growing demand for a more sustainable future. Only by embracing these changes will businesses be able to thrive in the coming years.
In the digital age, businesses of every size constantly look for innovative and efficient ways to embrace positive change and improve their operations. One company leading the way in this space is Vodafone Business, a part of the Vodafone Group that provides a wide range of digital communication technologies to businesses worldwide.
At the forefront of Vodafone Business's digital innovation is David Palmer, the Chief Product Officer and co-founder of Vodafone's Digital Asset Broker (DAB) platform. As a digital visionary and global platform innovator, David is an expert in blockchain technology and its applications to telecoms and wider enterprise businesses.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily podcast, David discusses several exciting developments in the world of digital communications, including Vodafone Business's Digital Asset Broker Platform, the economy of things, SIM linking to the blockchain, new middleware to enable IoT devices for business, device identity passports, device wallets, and the metaverse of things.
The Digital Asset Broker (DAB) platform is a blockchain-based solution that allows businesses to easily and securely manage their digital assets, such as contracts, licenses, and intellectual property, through a single platform. This innovative platform helps companies to streamline their operations, reduce costs, and improve their overall efficiency.
David also discussed the "economy of things," which is the idea that the increasing number of connected devices in our world will create new economic opportunities and revenue streams. He explained how Vodafone Business is working to enable businesses to take advantage of these opportunities by providing them with the necessary tools and infrastructure.
Another exciting development that David discussed is SIM linking to blockchain. This technology enables businesses to securely store and manage their SIM cards using blockchain, improving security and reducing the risk of fraud.
David also talks about the importance of device identity passports and device wallets, which are vital components of Vodafone Business's IoT offerings. These solutions enable businesses to securely manage and authenticate their devices, making integrating them into their operations easier.
Finally, David discussed the metaverse of things: the idea that virtual and physical worlds will become increasingly intertwined. He explained how Vodafone Business is working to enable businesses to take advantage of this trend by providing them with the necessary tools and infrastructure to operate in this new world.
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Marc Linster, the CTO of EnterpriseDB (EDB), joins me recently on Tech Talks Daily to talk about the benefits and growing popularity of open source database technology. With over 20 years of experience in the database industry, Marc is a leading expert on Postgres, an open source database system that has seen tremendous growth in recent years.
EDB is a leading provider of enterprise-class software and services that enable businesses and governments to fully leverage the power of Postgres. As the world's leading open-source database, Postgres is highly scalable, flexible, and performant. As a result, it is used by organizations of all sizes across a wide range of industries, including finance, government, media, and IT.
During our conversation, Marc explained how Postgres has evolved over the years to become a highly reliable and secure database system suitable for even the most mission-critical applications. He also highlighted the benefits of open source technology, such as the ability to unlock innovation and rapidly iterate on software.
As the role of the CTO continues to evolve, Marc discussed how EDB is helping its clients to harness the full potential of Postgres. With deep database expertise and 24x7 global support, EDB ensures that its clients can leverage the power of Postgres to drive business growth and innovation.
Finally, we discussed the broader tech landscape and how C-suite executives navigate the ongoing shift from proprietary to open-source software. Marc provided valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities facing businesses in a variety of industries and how they can take advantage of open source technology to drive growth and innovation.
If you're interested in learning more about the benefits of open source database technology or how to leverage the power of Postgres for your business, be sure to check out our conversation.
In a recent podcast episode, Lauren Hawker Zafer, the Head of Training and Education at Squirro Artificial Intelligence, joined the discussion on Education in Enterprise digital transformation. As more and more organizations embark on their digital transformation journeys, the importance of educating employees on the changes that come with it cannot be overstated.
One of the key questions we discussed in the podcast is, "When should you educate an enterprise?" We discuss why educating employees at the beginning of the digital transformation process is important. This helps set the tone for the changes that will take place and helps employees understand why these changes are necessary. It is also essential to continuously educate employees throughout the transformation process to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that there are no knowledge gaps.
Another important topic discussed was what education should cover when undergoing a digital transformation. We explore why education should cover the technical aspects of the transformation and the cultural changes that come with it. This includes communication, collaboration, and teamwork, which are all essential for a successful digital transformation.
Finally, the podcast touches on what many CDOs have failed to educate on when carrying out a digital transformation. According to Lauren, many CDOs still need to educate employees on the potential impact the change could have on their roles and responsibilities. This can lead to resistance and confusion among employees and ultimately hinder the transformation's success.
As the Chief Strategy Officer at Ericom Software, Dr. Chase Cunningham is a leading voice in cybersecurity. With his extensive experience in enterprise security and his nickname "Dr. Zero Trust," Dr. Cunningham is well-positioned to offer insights and advice to organizations looking to protect themselves from advanced security threats.
One of the key points that Dr. Cunningham stresses is the importance of Zero Trust security. Zero Trust security is not just a "nice to have," but an essential component of modern cybersecurity. With businesses becoming increasingly digital and connected, their security threats are also growing. Dr. Cunningham explains that implementing Zero Trust security is a proactive way to reduce risk and ensure that sensitive information is protected from cyberattacks.
Cybersecurity Threats and Vulnerabilities are also key areas of concern for Dr. Cunningham. He is currently seeing an increase in the use of ransomware and other cyberattacks, and he believes this trend will only continue in the future. As a result, businesses need to be proactive in their approach to cybersecurity, and they need to make sure that they are using the latest technologies and strategies to protect their assets.
Another topic that Dr. Cunningham discusses is the recent rapid growth of ChatGPT. ChatGPT has gained 100 million users in just three months, a trend that will likely continue. However, with this growth comes an increased risk of cyberattacks, and Dr. Cunningham believes that organizations must be prepared for these challenges.
Finally, Dr. Cunningham touches on the growing threat of Cyber Warfare. With so much global conflict and political tension, he believes that it's only a matter of time before we see an increase in cyberattacks carried out maliciously. This is why he stresses the importance of Cyber Forensic and Analytic Operations, which can help businesses understand the root causes of these attacks and take steps to prevent them in the future.
Welcome to the Daily Tech Podcast! As we approach 2,300 interviews, we have had the privilege of hosting some of the most memorable guests from the tech world and beyond. However, due to limitations on Apple Podcasts, some of these interviews are not easily accessible as they only show the last 2,000 episodes.
In this episode, we feature some forgotten clips that deserve to be highlighted. From William Shatner talking about singing Pupl's Common People to Wendy Williams sharing her backstory, we bring you some of the biggest names in the industry.
We also spoke with John Sculley, former CEO of Apple, who shared stories about his time with Steve Jobs and how he discovered that Jeff Daniels would play him in a movie. Other notable guests include Guy Kawasaki, who shared stories from his time at Apple, and Marylene Delbourg-Delphis, the Duchess of Silicon Valley, who shared her secrets for startup success and how she tempted Guy away from Apple. Finally, I share a clip of my interview with Gary Vaynerchuck when he predicted Joe Rogan's 100 million dollar deal before it happened.
Now I want to hear from you! How long have you been listening, who were your favorite guests, and who would you like to see on the show?
Dr. Jemma Green, co-founder and executive chairman of Powerledger, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. We discuss the importance of renewable energy and the role of blockchain technology in encouraging its growth. As renewable energy becomes more prevalent, the current centralized grid system in place can create issues for grid stability, leading to wasted energy and increased costs.
Powerledger has developed a blockchain-enabled software that matches the time and place of energy generation to when and where it is required, enabling peer-to-peer trading of excess renewable energy within local energy communities. This system reduces the cost of energy, encourages the growth of renewable energy, and reduces the need for fossil fuel-based energy.
Additionally, Powerledger has developed a proprietary blockchain solution that is less energy-intensive and faster than previous blockchain systems. The company has won numerous awards for its work in this space and has implemented projects in 12 countries. Dr. Green’s championing of sustainability and corporate social responsibility, coupled with her PhD in electricity market disruption, laid the groundwork for Powerledger's mission to create a more agile energy market.
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Dr. Jemma Green, co-founder and executive chairman of Powerledger, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. We discuss the importance of renewable energy and the role of blockchain technology in encouraging its growth. As renewable energy becomes more prevalent, the current centralized grid system in place can create issues for grid stability, leading to wasted energy and increased costs.
Powerledger has developed a blockchain-enabled software that matches the time and place of energy generation to when and where it is required, enabling peer-to-peer trading of excess renewable energy within local energy communities. This system reduces the cost of energy, encourages the growth of renewable energy, and reduces the need for fossil fuel-based energy.
Additionally, Powerledger has developed a proprietary blockchain solution that is less energy-intensive and faster than previous blockchain systems. The company has won numerous awards for its work in this space and has implemented projects in 12 countries. Dr. Green’s championing of sustainability and corporate social responsibility, coupled with her PhD in electricity market disruption, laid the groundwork for Powerledger's mission to create a more agile energy market.
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Mathias Golombek and Dr. Leslie Kanthan bring a wealth of experience and expertise to the podcast, as they share their insights on the data science industry and the role of AI in today's fast-paced business environment. They discuss the challenges faced by companies looking to integrate AI into their workflows and how the partnership between Exasol and TurinTech helps businesses overcome these obstacles.
Throughout the podcast, Mathias and Leslie delve into the technical aspects of how their solutions work, and how they enable organizations to quickly and easily create high-performing models for data analysis. They also talk about the future of AI and how it will continue to shape and transform the business world.
Hopefully, you will walk away from this episode with a better understanding of the importance of data democratization and how companies can leverage the power of AI to drive better decision-making, increased efficiency, and a more agile business. Join Mathias and Leslie as they share their thoughts on the future of AI and data analytics in this engaging episode of Tech Talks Daily.
In the ever-evolving world of blockchain and cryptocurrency, it can take time to keep up with the latest developments, technologies, and protocols. With so much jargon and technical language, it's easy to feel intimidated and overwhelmed, even for those well-versed in the space. However, on this episode of Tech Talks Daily, we have an exceptional guest who has a talent for simplifying complex topics and making them accessible to all.
Meet Adam Simmons, the Chief Strategy Officer of Radix, a DeFi protocol that aims to lower barriers and bring decentralized finance to the mainstream. In this episode, we dive deep into what sets Radix apart from other DeFi platforms, how to scale blockchain, the future of DeFi, and how crypto can benefit the unbanked in underdeveloped economies.
Adam's expertise and patient approach make him the perfect guide to explore the intricacies of DeFi and potential impact on the world. Radix's public ledger and token ($XRD) with a market cap of over $1bn is the only decentralized network that allows for fast building, rewards everyone who contributes to making it better, and scales without friction.
During the conversation, Adam discusses the various challenges that DeFi faces in gaining mainstream adoption, such as high fees and slow transaction times. In addition, he highlights the importance of creating a user-friendly and seamless experience for newcomers to the space and predicts that DeFi will have more liquidity than any other single exchange within the next ten years.
Adam shares his insights about the future of DeFi and its impact on unbanked and underdeveloped economies. By using crypto and blockchain technology, individuals and businesses in these regions can access financial services that were previously unavailable to them. This could lead to a more inclusive and equitable financial system.
Adam Simmons' passion for DeFi, and his ability to communicate its potential impact clearly and concisely make this episode a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of finance and technology.
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Dr. Ilia Kolochenko, an expert in cybersecurity and cyber law, offers some advice on how to deal with the potential risks of the rapid growth in AI projects like ChatGPT. For example, collecting training data from public sources, such as websites and social networks, may raise concerns for content creators who do not want their work used without their permission or compensation.
Ilia discusses content owners can protect their intellectual property by updating their terms of service to prohibit the use of their content for AI training. They should consult a lawyer to ensure the clause is enforceable in court. This will shift any disputes from the murky area of intellectual property law to the clearer ground of contract law.
Regulators and lawmakers can also promote transparency in AI training data by requiring AI companies to disclose their sources and giving individuals and organizations the right to restrict the use of their IP for AI purposes without consent. Ilia shares why transparency is essential for the responsible development of AI, but more regulation can be counterproductive. Lawmakers must work with AI experts, scholars, and entrepreneurs to find a fair balance.
Jennifer Taylor is the Chief Product Officer at Cloudflare, a company that provides internet security, performance, and reliability to organizations around the world. She oversees the development of cloud-based solutions for companies of all sizes, from nonprofits to a significant portion of the Fortune 1000.
Jennifer is a strong advocate for inclusion and allyship in the workplace. She is the founder of Proudflare, Cloudflare's LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group that supports and celebrates diversity both within and outside the company. As a lesbian woman, she emphasizes the importance of embracing individuality and creating a supportive environment for all employees.
In addition to her leadership at Cloudflare, Jennifer is passionate about mentorship and the challenges faced by women in the tech industry. She believes that women in tech are responsible for inspiring future generations of leaders and provides tips on how organizations can protect themselves from cyberattacks.
This year marks the 8th anniversary of Cloudflare's Project Galileo, a program that provides free cybersecurity services to public interest groups. The project is crucial to Cloudflare, as they believe cybersecurity is essential to supporting human rights. For example, project Galileo supports LGBTQ+ organizations in the UK, ensuring their websites and helplines remain online and protected from cyberattacks. One such organization supported by Project Galileo is Switchboard, one of the UK's oldest LGBTQ+ helplines, providing a safe and non-judgmental space for those in need.
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Tech Talks Daily is pleased to welcome Philip Belamant, co-founder and CEO of Zilch, to share his insights on the payments technology industry and how Zilch is changing the game.
Philip Belamant is a visionary entrepreneur who has spent his career building innovative companies that disrupt established markets. Zilch, which he co-founded and led as CEO, is no exception. However, Zilch stands out from the crowd as a UK-based payments technology company by offering a unique combination of payments and commerce on a single direct-to-consumer platform.
What makes Zilch truly special is its business model, unlike anything we've seen before in the payments industry. By building direct relationships with customers and hosting retailers on its platform, Zilch earns commission from the retailers' marketing budgets. This innovative approach means that Zilch can process vast volumes of payments, at attractive margins, without charging customers any interest or fees.
This business model has resonated with investors, as evidenced by Zilch's recent Series C funding round. Despite the trend of falling valuations in the fintech space, Zilch has maintained its $2bn valuation and even extended its Series C by securing an additional $50m, bringing the total raised to $160m.
Philip Belamant attributes Zilch's success to its focus on the customer and its commitment to building a sustainable business model. "At Zilch, we believe that everyone should have access to financial services that are both affordable and convenient," says Belamant. "We're committed to providing a service accessible to all, regardless of their credit score or financial situation."
Zilch's unique business model, combined with its focus on the customer, has set it apart from traditional BNPL providers like Klarna and Affirm. Investors are responding positively to this different approach, and it's clear that Zilch is on track to revolutionize the payments industry.
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing our planet today. The need to transition to renewable energy sources has never been more pressing, and it requires a new form of climate finance that is efficient, transparent, and accountable.
This is where Reneum comes in. Reneum is a global green energy marketplace built on blockchain technology that provides a platform for individuals and organizations to fund climate action and accelerate the energy transition.
By using blockchain as a mechanism to drive a new form of climate finance, Reneum solves the industry's transparency, accountability, and traceability issues. With Reneum's full proof-of-provenance, stakeholders can gain increased authenticity and ownership of their actions, giving them the ability to look under the hood and see the impact they are making.
Brianna Welsh, CEO and founder of Reneum, is a thought leader on the intersection of sustainability and deep technologies. With an in-depth knowledge of the challenges faced by female founders, Brianna has successfully raised $4.1M in pre-seed funding for Reneum.
Prior to Reneum, Brianna led carbon markets for Sindicatum Renewable Energy in APAC and has worked in mergers and acquisitions in New York and London. She is also a partner in several initiatives for a positive crypto future, including Blockchain for Social Impact, Crypto Climate Accord, and Blockchain for Climate Foundation.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily podcast, Brianna discusses why Web3 is key to curbing the climate crisis, what steps organizations must collectively take to propel the industry, and how to catalyze the energy transition to turn climate frustration into real impact. She believes that blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach climate finance, enabling us to create a positive-sum ecosystem where individuals and organizations can work together to solve the industry's most pressing challenges.
I learn how Reneum is providing a solution to the challenges faced by the energy sector, offering a platform for individuals and organizations to fund climate action and drive the energy transition forward. With the support of visionary leaders like Brianna Welsh, the future of climate finance is looking bright, and we can all look forward to a more sustainable future for our planet.
Professor Giana M Eckhardt from King's Business School and Willard Ahdritz from Kobalt join me on Tech Talks Daily. Today's topic is how Kobalt leverages technology, to provide music publishing services and promote social responsibility within the music industry.
Kobalt's innovative technology has set them apart from other companies, enabling them to process royalty payments almost instantly and providing unparalleled fairness and transparency in the industry. This is in stark contrast to other tech companies accused of exploiting artists, such as Spotify and YouTube, who pay only a small amount per play.
However, Kobalt's commitment to using technology for good has paid off, as other major players are now forced to follow suit in response to the demands of their clients. Despite this, competitors will struggle to match Kobalt's level of trust and authenticity, as evidenced by the growing number of big names moving their catalogs to Kobalt, including Lorde and Paul McCartney.
I learn how Kobalt has successfully leveraged technology to build a brand centered around purpose-led branding, appealing to both artists and consumers who value transparency and fairness. We discuss how this has led to strong loyalty for both artists and consumers, solidifying Kobalt's position as a leader in the music publishing industry.
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In the fast-paced world of technology, the demand for talented developers and tech professionals has never been higher. With a massive shortage of tech talent in the market, companies are facing the challenge of attracting and retaining top tech professionals. However, Ilya Brotzky, founder and CEO of VanHack, has found a solution to this problem.
VanHack is a fast-growing tech recruitment platform that helps over 1000 companies hire the best tech talent quickly. With a network of over 350,000 developers from 120 countries, VanHack has the largest diverse workforce of tech professionals. This platform also provides a team of 80+ employees in 13 countries, generating mid-seven figures in annual revenues.
Born in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, raised in Vancouver, Canada, and with a degree in business administration from Cornell University in the US, Ilya's journey to creating VanHack began in Rio de Janeiro. While working as a management trainee with Brazilian mining giant Vale S.A., he met software engineers who wanted to relocate to Canada but lacked English skills. This inspired him to start VanHack in 2015, providing English resumés and interview skills to help them get hired by companies seeking hard-to-find tech talent.
Ilya has been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, and Time, and has helped raise over $100,000 for various charities in Africa and South America. In this podcast, we talk to Ilya about the current shortage of tech talent, the changes happening in the workspace and recruitment industry, and how remote hiring can help companies build a more diverse workplace.
The current shortage of software developers and other tech talents is a problem faced by many companies. Ilya explains that this shortage is due to the rapid growth of technology, leading to an increased demand for tech professionals. Companies are struggling to find the right talent to meet their needs, and VanHack provides a solution to this problem.
The workspace and recruitment industry are undergoing massive changes, and Ilya highlights the importance of these changes in the tech industry. With remote working becoming increasingly popular, companies have the opportunity to build a more diverse workplace, attracting top tech professionals from around the world.
Finally, Ilya talks about how remote hiring can help tech companies build a more diverse workplace. Remote working provides companies with access to a larger pool of talent, enabling them to find the best candidate for the job, regardless of location. This also helps to break down geographical barriers, leading to a more inclusive and diverse workplace.
I learn how VanHack is helping companies to overcome the challenge of attracting and retaining top tech talent, providing a solution to the current shortage of software developers and other tech professionals. With the changes happening in the workspace and recruitment industry, remote hiring is the key to building a more diverse workplace and finding the best tech talent from around the world.
Yubico, the company behind the YubiKey, is revolutionizing online security with its hardware-based security keys. These keys provide an extra layer of protection for your online accounts, making them less vulnerable to cyber threats such as phishing, man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks, SIM swapping and account takeovers. The YubiKey is the world’s first security key and protects over 4,000 organizations worldwide.
The shift to remote work due to the pandemic has highlighted the need for better cybersecurity measures. According to Yubico’s research, 42% of people feel more vulnerable to cyber threats while working from home, and 39% feel unsupported by IT. However, hardware-based security keys like the YubiKey provide a more secure solution while reducing friction at login. They meet the FIDO2 and WebAuthn standards, helping to pave the way for interoperability.
Niall McConachie, Regional Director (UK & Ireland) at Yubico discusses the most common cyber threats people face and why not all security is equal. He emphasized that while one-time passcodes (OTPs) sent by SMS or mobile authentication apps are the most popular forms of two-factor authentication (2FA), they are still vulnerable to attacks. On the other hand, hardware-based security keys provide strong authentication and reduce the friction of logging in to multiple apps and accounts each day.
Niall also discusses the future of secure, passwordless authentication. The evolving modern authentication ecosystem, with the help of hardware-based security keys, is paving the way for a future where passwords are no longer the primary form of authentication. This not only makes our online accounts more secure, but also reduces the hassle of remembering multiple passwords.
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Yegor Sak shares his journey of building Windscribe and the challenges he faced along the way. He explains how he was able to grow the company to more than 50 million active users, despite the intense competition in the VPN industry. Yegor highlights the importance of providing a high-quality product, excellent customer support, and focusing on the needs of the user.
Yegor also discusses his approach to scaling the company with a small team. He believes in the power of remote work and investing in technology to automate processes. This has allowed him to build a global team and scale the company effectively.
One of the key topics of discussion was the ongoing consolidation in the VPN industry and its impact on the consumer. Yegor believes that as larger companies gain more control, prices may increase and privacy may decrease. He also shares his decision to not terminate Russian access to Windscribe, as he believes that people in the country should have access to real news outside of the state media propaganda.
In addition to his work with Windscribe, Yegor also discusses his other company, ControlD. This fully customizable DNS service allows users to block annoyances like malware, tracking, ads, and IoT telemetry, and unblock over 200 services through a network of servers in over 100 cities. All without any apps to install.
Yegor Sak is a true visionary in the tech industry. With his passion for programming and commitment to providing a high-quality product, he has been able to build two successful companies, Windscribe and ControlD. His insights on scaling a company with a small team and the impact of consolidation in the VPN industry are valuable lessons for any entrepreneur.
Private wireless networks have become increasingly important in achieving networking success, with telecom providers and tech giants investing in new capabilities to drive private 5G adoption among enterprises. By 2030, it is estimated that over 150 million cellular devices will be connected to local private networks, a significant increase from 5 million by the end of 2022. The industry for private networks within enterprises is expected to grow to $109 billion.
As industries adopt private 5G networks, enterprises must understand why this shift from traditional network infrastructure is so important and how they can adapt to achieve success. On The Tech Talks Daily Podcast, Darren Parkes, Country Practice Leader - Network & Edge at Kyndryl, shares his insights on this topic.
Darren emphasizes the need for highly secured and reliable networks for enterprises that require high-security reliability. He also discusses the cost benefits of private networks, as it allows enterprises to better prioritize operational costs and remain agile with a faster application pace.
5G network technologies provide a higher level of security for enterprises due to the use of licensed spectrum and embedded security standards. As a result, private 5G, if implemented correctly, offers a more robust security posture and greater control over the network for enterprises. The implementation process for private networks involves understanding the spectrum to be used, matching it with the technology to be deployed, and connecting to local area networks, wide area networks, and the public cloud to transfer or analyze data.
Darren also made predictions for the future, with private 5G serving as a "trigger" for the general use of Edge as a third landing zone for data beyond on-prem or cloud. This expansion of options for working with data highlights the importance of private networks as key enablers for advancement.
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In today's episode, we dive into the world of personalized customer experience with Meghann York, Global Head of Product Marketing at Emarsys. Meghann takes us on a journey to understand how brands are leveraging AI-powered automation to provide highly relevant and personalized recommendations to their customers across multiple channels.
One of the critical elements of the Emarsys platform is its ability to unify, cleanse and analyze first-party data. This data, which includes information from business applications, customer data, and commerce solutions, is used to build a rich profile of each customer. This information allows the platform to automate communications and provide personalized recommendations to customers.
Meghann also shares her insights on the role of technology in customer obsession, retention, and loyalty. We also discuss insights gained from the Emarsys Customer Loyalty Index. Meghann shares what will drive customer loyalty in 2023 and beyond based on their findings.
Listen in as Meghan provides valuable insights into personalized customer experience and how brands leverage AI-powered automation to provide highly relevant and personalized recommendations. She also highlights the importance of unifying first-party data and how it plays a critical role in building rich customer profiles and driving customer loyalty.
Mario Peshev is the CEO of DevriX, a global WordPress agency serving industries from publishing to fintech, healthcare, e-commerce, and more. Peshev focuses most of his time on running his business and leading distributed tech teams at DevriX of 50+ people crafting high-scale WordPress solutions optimized for revenue.
Mario started with development as a hobby and built his first website in 1999. Since 2015, DevriX has consistently ranked among the top 20 WordPress consultancies worldwide, scaling world-known enterprise brands and high-traffic publishers with up to 900M monthly page views on top of WordPress. He also has over 10,000 hours of training and consulting activities for organizations such as CERN, Saudi Aramco, VMware, SAP, and many others, coaching business owners on growth strategy, technical architecture, marketing funnels, and digital presence.
In addition to leading DevriX, Peshev also advises up-and-coming web developers and tech entrepreneurs, attracting over 2.5 million views to his transparent Quora discussions on his experience of entrepreneurship and IT work life, and he recently authored the book 126 Steps to Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur: The Entrepreneurship Fad and the Dark Side of Going Solo. Follow him on Twitter @no_fear_inc and connect on LinkedIn.
Mario joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss some of the high-scale WordPress solutions that DevriX has developed for clients in various industries. He also shares his thoughts on the importance of digital transformation for businesses and how DevriX helps companies in this process. Finally, I learn more about his book 26 Steps to Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur: The Entrepreneurship Fad and the Dark Side of Going Solo.
Justdiggit is a non-profit organization dedicated to regreening degraded land in Africa. The company works with local farmers to implement cost-effective, nature-based solutions to increase biodiversity and improve ecosystems. The ultimate goal is to capture more CO2 and help cool the planet.
So far, the company has made significant progress in its mission. They have dug 200,000 water bunds and brought back 9.7 million trees. This has resulted in 300,000 hectares of land being regreened. The company aims to reach 350 million farmers by 2030, and they plan to make this a reality.
One way Justdiggit achieves this goal is through its regreening app. Harnessing the growth and penetration of mobile technology in Africa, the app provides farmers with the tools and instructions they need to restore their own land. Once fully developed, the app will make everyone with a mobile phone an ambassador of regreening, helping to spread the message and reach more people.
Justdiggit is also utilizing technology to track the progress and impact of their work. In partnership with Planet Labs, they are using daily earth data and high-res satellite imagery to evaluate their regreening projects. This allows them to understand the tangible change they are making to the land, including the amount of water retained and changes in biomass.
Listen in to Sander de Haas as he shares the story behind this inspiring organization and how they are working with local farmers and using technology to track their progress, they are restoring degraded land and making the planet a greener place.
Everything is now digitized, and businesses are expected to be available 24/7. Unfortunately, in this digital-first world, traditional enterprise architectures have hindered businesses' ability to keep pace with changing needs and requirements. The rigid framework that governs how applications are developed, delivered, secured, and integrated limits businesses' ability to progress further into the digital era.
This rigid framework was created before the widespread adoption of the internet and the era of digitization we find ourselves in today. It defines how data should be stored, accessed, and governed, and it constrains infrastructure to aging standards. It makes assumptions about applications and their interactions, and about the nature of their users.
For CIOs and IT leaders to successfully navigate the second phase of digital transformation, they must first identify key technologies and capabilities critical to enabling businesses to progress into the third and final phase of digital transformation. To reach the third phase of transformation, businesses need a new enterprise architecture that enables them to adapt to changing needs and requirements across all key components: data, applications, infrastructure, and security.
They must also add architectural concepts to address the growing dependence on telemetry and automation that is enabling business to become truly digital. This new architecture must be a digital enterprise architecture, designed to be efficient, scalable, secure, and able to adapt to changing needs.
The digital enterprise architecture must include the ability to deliver applications in a distributed model that includes private and public clouds, data centers, and edge computing. It should also expand and scale digital operations by adopting site reliability engineering (SRE) operational practices to align technology with business outcomes.
The architecture should take advantage of AI and analytics in both IT and lines of business by reimagining data architectures and governance to adapt to the convergence of operational technology (OT) and IT. Furthermore, it should operate securely at scale by incorporating security as a key component in every aspect of the digital business and embracing app delivery as a core disciplinary domain.
Geng Lin, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at F5, joins me on today's edition of Tech Talks Daily. Listen in as we discuss all this and much more.
Marc DeBevoise, CEO of Brightcove, joins me in today's episode of Tech Talks Daily in a discussion about the rise of the future of streaming. As a seasoned executive with a wealth of experience in the streaming industry, Marc provides an in-depth look at what is driving the evolution of the creator economy into a producer economy.
According to Marc, the rise of the producer economy is fueled by the growing number of creators and producers leveraging technology to produce high-quality content and reach new audiences. In addition, the producer economy is characterized by the democratization of content creation and distribution. For example, anyone with a smartphone and a creative idea can reach a global audience with their content.
This is a massive shift from the old entertainment industry model, where a limited number of gatekeepers controlled what content was produced and how it was distributed. Marc also shares his thoughts on the current state of the streaming wars, which are shaping up to be the biggest battle for the future of entertainment.
Marc's insights and experience in the video technology industry, along with his deep understanding of the evolution of the creator economy into the producer economy, provide us with a valuable glimpse into the future of streaming and the video technology industry. I highly recommend checking out the entire conversation with Marc DeBevoise on Tech Talks Daily.
Rackspace Technology is a leader in the cloud technology services industry, offering end-to-end solutions for customers looking to modernize their technology environments. With a focus on the entire cloud journey, from design and build to operation, Rackspace provides support and guidance to businesses of all sizes in adopting innovative technologies and building new products.
In this episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, Jeff DeVerter, Chief Technology Evangelist at Rackspace, joins us to discuss the latest trends and advancements in the technology industry. With over 10 years of experience in the cloud-based services sector, Jeff offers valuable insights into the importance of cybersecurity, the difference between private and public clouds, and the technological trends across various industries.
One of the key topics we discuss is the growing concern over cybersecurity and the increasing risk of cyberattacks due to the rise of hybrid work environments. Jeff highlights the importance of cloud implementation for enhancing cybersecurity measures across all business sectors. With more and more companies relying on remote work, the need for robust cybersecurity measures has become even more critical.
We also delve into the latest tech spending trends, discussing where investments are likely to rise and fall this year. Jeff provides valuable insights into the factors driving these trends and the impact they will have on various industries. Finally, Jeff shares his thoughts on the current hiring trends in the technology industry, including the skills and experience that companies are looking for in new hires. He also provides advice for job seekers looking to break into the tech industry and grow their careers.
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Dave Little and Phil Lindemann, VP of Business Intelligence and Analytics at Epic, join me on The Tech Talk Daily podcast. Epic manages electronic health records for more than 250 million patients and is now expanding clinical trials by kicking off a Life Sciences program to help speed up the development of new therapies. Providers across the world use Epic to conduct more than 100,000 active research studies with 4.7 million patients.
Today many clinical trials struggle to find the right participants - the first stage of Life Sciences will be accurately matching organizations with clinical trials suited to their patients. This will allow researchers to be able to recruit more effectively and help ensure that clinical trials benefit more representative populations.
Dave and Phil discuss the importance of companies providing data for the greater good of Americans' lives. I also learn more about how large data sets like Epics’ Cosmos can provide health officials with the data needed to enact changes. This allows doctors to learn from thousands of other hospitals and support researched-health needs like adverse trends in healthcare and outbreak detection.
Ramakant Vempati, the President and Co-founder of Wysa, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss how AI revolutionizes the mental health industry. Wysa, the leading AI-guided mental health platform, delivers scientifically validated care through its emotionally intelligent conversational AI, 150+ mental resilience exercises, and expert human coaching.
Wysa has redefined accessibility in mental healthcare by providing 24/7 support to individuals facing everyday stressors or critical moments of crisis. It has already facilitated over 400 million therapeutic conversations and is growing rapidly, having raised $20 million in its Series B funding round in July 2022. With over 4.5 million users in 65 countries, Wysa is accessible through employee benefits providers, insurance providers, schools, and the mobile app.
Wysa empowers individuals to take control of their mental health and addresses issues such as anxiety, sleep problems, depression, relationship struggles, school pressure, and work stress. In addition to its direct-to-consumer care, Wysa's complete workplace solution supports organizations in improving employee wellbeing and productivity at scale.
We discuss how Wysa is leading the charge in transforming the mental health industry through its AI-guided platform and evidence-based approach. With its commitment to privacy, security, and accessibility, Wysa is making a difference in the lives of millions of individuals, and we can expect to see continued growth and impact from this innovative company.
Nextdoor is a platform that helps you connect to your local neighborhood and build real-world connections with your neighbors, local businesses, and public services. It is a place where people can turn to receive trusted information, ask for help, get things done, and build relationships with those around them.
Emma Mondolino, the Head of Nextdoor Create, is a seasoned marketing and sales professional with extensive experience in the tech industry. Before joining Nextdoor, she worked at Pinterest in both sales and marketing and was a key member of the brand strategy team at Twitter.
In this podcast episode, Emma joins the host to discuss the trend towards localism and why this got her excited about the Nextdoor opportunity. She explains why CMOs are moving their budget from regional to hyperlocal audiences and how localism can work at scale with the help of technology.
She shares her insights into the importance of localism and how Nextdoor is helping people build strong connections within their communities. By focusing on hyperlocal audiences, Nextdoor is giving brands a new way to reach their target audience in a more meaningful and impactful way.
Whether you're a business looking to reach local customers or a resident looking to stay connected to your neighborhood, Nextdoor has something to offer. Tune into the podcast to learn more about this innovative platform and the future of localism.
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Today's guest is Sameer Kazi, President of ActiveCampaign, who is responsible for guiding the core operations and helping prepare the company for its next growth phase. We discuss how ActiveCampaign is helping businesses grow by scaling their customer experiences and data points from the Customer Experience Automation Impact Report.
I learn how communicating via one channel just won't cut it. All brands still need to be taking an omnichannel approach — 99% of those surveyed agree companies grow faster by using multiple channels beyond email marketing alone, and 93% report using their website as an engagement channel to supplement their email marketing efforts.
We also discuss how CXA + social media is the sweet spot for B2C: Nine in 10 (89%) B2C businesses using CXA also leverage social media to share information with existing and potential customers. We talk about how this omnichannel approach helps improve customer experiences by sending the right message at the time it's going to be best received by existing and potential customers.
Highly relevant communications are critical to a great customer experience: Nearly 80% of CXA users agreed that the technology helps them send highly relevant communications, leading to greater retention and customer acquisition. Customer loyalty depends on whether each buyer feels a brand is speaking directly to them and communicating with them based on their own personal wants and needs.
About Sameer
Sameer is a deeply experienced software executive and operator with global P&L and public company experience helping growth stage & mature SaaS businesses scale revenue and operations. Sameer is also co-founder and Managing Director of Operating Capital, an investment firm focused on helping operating teams at B2B SaaS companies win through capital, operating best practices and by leveraging our global talent and industry network.
Prior to ActiveCampaign, Sameer served as CEO and board member of Cheetah Digital, interim CEO and Executive Chairman at Simply Measured (acquired by Sprout Social), board member at Emarsys (acquired by SAP), and as EVP at Salesforce.com and ExactTarget (acquired by Salesforce in 2013 for $2.5B).
Contract Research Organisations (CROs) are a vital cog in the pharmaceutical industry – they provide essential support services to help companies conduct clinical research more efficiently and effectively, saving money and time. Whilst CROs traditionally largely involve data management, new technological advancements are changing how they work.
Richard Young, Vice President Vault CDMS Strategy at Veeva Systems, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to explore how study teams can now aim higher because of new technologies, as they can begin to work faster and more efficiently, and traditional CROs can use technology to help them look at data with fresh perspectives, as automation helps with the bulk of data management.
We also talk about how new technology means that there is no longer the burden of tedious administrative tasks that took up workers’ time. Workers can use platforms like Veeva’s to sort data efficiently, allowing them to be able to focus on important data analysis instead. In turn, this will enable better clinical data success. Employees could therefore benefit from upskilling, rather than necessarily being replaced by technology.
In this podcast episode, we dive into the world of Hedera, a distributed ledger technology that sets itself apart from its competitors with its unique governing council. Comprising of some of the biggest names in the tech and finance industries, including Google, IBM, Standard Bank, Shinhan Bank, and the London School of Economics, this governing council plays a crucial role in ensuring the network's transparency and security
We explore the benefits of this type of governance model and learn how these council members utilize Hedera's technology to bring value to their businesses and organizations. With Hedera being a member of the World Economic Forum, we also discuss their recent presence at Davos including their President and Chair Brett McDowell's attendance and speech at the main sessions.
Today's guest on Tech Talks Daily is Leemon Baird, the mastermind behind the innovative hashgraph distributed consensus algorithm and the Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at Hedera. Join us as we uncover the cutting-edge technology behind Hedera and discover its potential impact on the future of finance and technology.
Many new technologies like AI and ChatGTP are disrupting how articles, company information, social media, and other content are created. It is also changing how it reaches and performs with audiences. So, it feels like something big is happening.
"In 2023, people-first content and SEO supremacy will make or break content success for major brands and companies," said Carlos Meza, CEO of Crowd Content. "The days of plugging in keywords to reach the top of search results are over. Instead, leaders will only drive their business towards successful goals for 2023 with optimized content that puts people first." After hearing this, I invited him on Tech Talks Daily to explore this topic.
We discuss how an understanding of marketing technology (SEO, web design) influences how audiences search for content and engage with it. We also discuss building a tech-driven content platform that can still focus on people-first / human-first intentions and serving the "why" in content creation.
About Carlos Carlos Meza serves as President & CEO of Crowd Content, a leading content creation service provider connecting talented writers and editors with businesses needing high-quality, people-first, publish-ready content at scale in a tech-driven platform experience. A master of scale himself, Meza has been leading high-growth technology companies over the last five years.
Before being appointed CEO of Crowd Content in 2021, he served as CEO of Kivuto Solutions, a SaaS Edtech company. An industry veteran, Meza brings a background in engineering and corporate finance to expand the Crowd Content footprint of global brands served. During the early part of his career, Meza spent 13 years working with multinational brands and banks that included Citibank and HSBC. He holds a bachelor's degree from the Universidad Industrial de Santander and an MBA from the University of Calgary.
The tech industry is facing a paradox as we hear of a global tech skills shortage on the one hand and big tech layoffs on the other due to economic uncertainty. In this podcast, Andrew Hogan joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the impact of these trends on design hiring and what the recent Design Hiring report by Figma has to say about it.
Andrew is a thought leader in the field of Design and UX with over 50 published Forrester reports and is recognized by leading publications such as Fast Company, WSJ, Forbes, and Business Insider. He also provides expertise in creating training modules for CX certification, including journey mapping and the integration of data/AI and Design.
So, how is the paradox of tech hiring impacting Design hiring in particular? The Design Hiring report provides valuable insights into the current state and future prospects of the design industry. From the report, we can see that despite the economic uncertainty, the demand for design talent is increasing. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for designers and design teams looking for work or looking to hire.
I learn how the tech industry may be facing conflicting trends, but the design industry continues to thrive. With the help of innovative solutions like Figma, design teams can navigate the challenges and seize the opportunities presented by the current job market. Keep an eye out for the Design Hiring report for a more in-depth understanding of the design industry and its future prospects.
About Figma
Figma, a design platform for teams building products together, offers a solution to streamline the design process and make it more efficient, fun, and collaborative. Whether it's consolidating tools, simplifying workflows, or working with teams across time zones, Figma ensures everyone is on the same page.
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Abnormal Security is revolutionizing cloud email security with its behavioral AI-based platform. Using machine learning, the platform detects and stops sophisticated inbound email attacks and dangerous email platform attacks that traditional solutions often miss. The anomaly detection engine analyzes the risk of every cloud email event, preventing inbound email attacks, detecting compromised accounts, and remediating emails in milliseconds, all while providing visibility into configuration drifts across your environment.
The company has recently launched Security Posture Management, a product that monitors each entity for potentially risky configuration changes. This includes changes like the escalation of administrator privileges or the integration of new unverified applications with read-write access to mailboxes. When changes occur, Security Posture Management alerts administrators so they can understand the impact and take appropriate downstream action to protect their cloud email platform from insider threats or attacker infiltration.
CISO at Abnormal Security, Mike Britton, shares the company's mission to redefine cloud email security and protect against email platform attacks. Mike shares why he belives that with Abnormal Security, organizations can have peace of mind knowing their cloud email platform is protected from sophisticated attacks.
Uniphore, a privately held startup company, recently achieved the coveted status of a "unicorn" by raising $400 million, giving it a valuation of $2.5 billion. The company, which made its name in conversational AI, is revolutionizing the way contact center agents have conversations by harnessing the power of machine learning.
Imagine this scenario: A customer calls to request internet installation at their new apartment. With the help of Uniphore's AI technology, the agent can automatically scan the system to find out what modem the customer currently has, what technology is already installed at the new property, and when an installation technician is available. This means the call is resolved quickly and efficiently without needing multiple back-and-forth exchanges.
The AI can also automatically log follow-up actions, freeing up the agent to move on to the next call. But Uniphore's innovation continues beyond there. The company has expanded its business into "emotion AI" - a subset of AI that can gauge human emotions during sales calls.
This allows for feedback to be provided to sellers and pitchers, highlighting the most engaging parts of the pitch and points of concern that need to be addressed to close the deal. Umesh Sachdev, CEO & Co-Founder of Uniphore, is the mastermind behind this revolutionary technology. In this podcast episode, he shares the story behind the company and its exciting journey into the world of AI.
In this episode, I sit down with Halit Develioglu, the CEO of OPLOG, Turkey's leading e-logistics company. OPLOG recently raised €11mn in a pre-series A funding round, which will fuel the company's expansion, most notably into the UK.
OPLOG was founded in 2012 and has grown exponentially over the years. The company has topped the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Turkey, having experienced 4564% growth and graduated from the Microsoft for Startups GrowthX Accelerator. OPLOG has also experienced 91% YoY growth in units fulfilled, in contrast to the wider e-commerce slowdown post-pandemic.
Ultimately, it enables brands to streamline and optimize their post-purchase fulfillment operations. The company's user-friendly management platform provides brands with an end-to-end fulfillment service that eliminates the operational costs and challenges needed to develop their shipping infrastructure.
The company's proprietary robotics technology is helping to solve global supply chain issues by streamlining fulfillment operations. OPLOG's CEO, Halit Develioglu, shares with me their mission to solve the supply chain crisis using technology. I learn more about the company's plan to open a new fulfillment warehouse in the UK in 2023, employing over 100 people within its first 18 months of operation.
Halit shares with me how the company's proprietary robotics technology is helping to streamline fulfillment operations globally. Join us as we delve into the importance of innovation in the face of the ongoing supply chain crisis and the challenges businesses face with shipping and fulfillment delays.
Sean Moss-Pultz is recognized as an open-source hardware pioneer, having founded and served as CEO of Openmoko, the world's first open-source phone and precursor to the iPhone and Android smartphones. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Bitmark, a blockchain startup that aims to bring traditional property rights into the digital age by providing tools that enable anyone to affirm ownership and control digital assets they create and post online.
They've raised $10.3M in funding from investors, including Alibaba and Kevin Lin (Co-Founder of Twitch), and their clients included Pfizer, UC Berkeley, Health2Sync, and KKBOX. One of their products is Autonomy, the world's first and only digital art wallet that allows traders to showcase their NFT collection and view it on any screen, TV, or projector, anywhere.
Property rights were invented for land (real property) and then ideas (intellectual property), but none extend to the digital world. Because of this oversight, millions of us give away what we create online and our personal data for free to entities that profit from it every day, and we don't get a cut because we don't own it. Bitmark intends to change that.
Sean joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss defining property in the digital environment and how we can secure personal data in an age when it has become fully commoditized. We also discuss whether the new digital economy will stay or go bust, and Sean shares his thoughts on the current state of the NFT market and the future of NFTs.
Martin Ramsin, a tech prodigy from Stockholm, has always been passionate about computers. From a young age, he knew he wanted to make a difference in the tech industry. His first job as a programming intern took him to San Francisco during the height of the internet bubble, where he learned valuable lessons about the industry. After moving to Berlin, Martin honed his skills in product management and decided to return to his roots in web development, teaching himself the latest technologies like Ruby on Rails.
Together with Raffaela, Martin co-founded CareerFoundry, an online tech school that empowers individuals to reach their full potential through education and training. They recognized the increasing skills gap in the tech industry and wanted to make a difference.
On Tech Talks Daily, Martin shares the story behind CareerFoundry and how it's addressing the skills gap by preparing individuals for the future. He also delves into how remote working is leveling the playing field for talent in developing nations and how online tech academies can open up new job opportunities.
Martin also explains why online tech schools offer better career prospects at a more affordable price and how flexible learning is working towards closing diversity gaps. He also discusses the link between reskilling and recessions and how the 2008 recession gave rise to the first tech Bootcamp, as macroeconomic headwinds forced workers to adapt.
Lastly, Martin explains the difference between upskilling and reskilling, with 54% of CareerFoundry students having zero experience in the field of their course.
Ahmed Ismail, a seasoned investment banker and tech-driven entrepreneur with 18 years of experience at major financial institutions such as Bank of America, Credit Suisse, and Jefferies, is now the CEO and President of FLUID, a liquidity aggregator that uses AI quant-based models to tackle fragmented liquidity in virtual asset markets.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Ahmed discusses how AI can change the decentralized ledger and explains the benefits of using AI in the crypto market. We also talks about how liquidity aggregators could help manage market participants get through Black Swan events and the growing number of tech talent migrating to Web3.
About Fluid:
FLUID is the AI quant-based liquidity aggregator providing execution for CeFi and DeFi at high throughput, ultra-low costs, ultra-low latency, and zero counterparty risk. Many physical and digital assets will be tokenized in the future. FLUID intends to capitalize on the multi-trillion dollar tokenized market volume potential across spot, futures, derivatives, synthetics, STOs, tokenized assets and more.
FLUID is driven by a seasoned senior team with diversified experience in tier one financial institutions such as Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, Citibank, Visa, and founders of leading regulated digital asset OTC trading desks, quantitative firms, and popular blockchain companies.
Intel's Responsible AI work recently revealed FakeCatcher, a deepfake detection technology that can detect fake videos with 96% accuracy. The platform is the world's first real-time deepfake detector that returns results in milliseconds.
FakeCatcher uses Intel's hardware and software to assess "blood flow" signals in real videos to detect inauthenticity. The technology can run up to 72 different detection streams simultaneously on 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Social media platforms can use this technology to prevent the spread of deepfakes, global news organizations to avoid amplifying manipulated videos, and non-profit organizations to democratize the detection of deepfakes for everyone.
Intel also recently announced its extended collaboration with Mila, an AI research institute in Montreal, to help advance AI techniques to tackle global challenges like climate change, identify drivers of diseases, and expedite drug discovery.
Accelerating the research and development of advanced AI to solve some of the world's most critical and challenging issues requires a responsible approach to AI and the ability to scale computing technology. As leaders in computing and AI, Intel and Mila will work together to tackle some of the challenges the world faces today and drive tangible results.
Lama Nachman, Intel Fellow and Director of Intelligent Systems Research Lab at Intel Labs, joins me on Tech talks Daily in a discussion about Responsible AI and the real-time deepfake detector.
Are you tired of feeling trapped in the traditional 9-5 workday? Meet Peter Johnston, the founder of Polywork, the revolutionary professional network for multi-hyphenates. With $44.5M in funding from top investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Polywork is changing the game for those looking to pursue multiple passions and collaborate with like-minded individuals.
Join me as I speak with Peter about his own journey from product designer to CEO, the inspiration behind Polywork, and why traditional online communities like LinkedIn fall short for those looking to explore multiple career paths. Plus, Peter offers valuable advice for those ready to take the leap and start their side hustle or passion project. Don't miss out on this exciting episode of Tech Talks Daily.
CISA recently announced critical guidance on threats against organizations using certain forms of multi-factor authentication. The agency urged all organizations to implement phishing-resistant MFA controls in order to prevent phishing and increasingly automated and sophisticated attacks on authentication processes.
With so many phishing attacks targeting credentials to be used in a later campaign, more organizations are getting the hint that they need to have MFA in place for at least those users with access to critical resources and/or valuable data, if not everyone. However, what happens when the threat actor has the credentials but doesn't have the additional forms of authentication?
I invited Sally Vincent, Threat Research Senior Engineer at LogRhythm to join me on Tech Talks Daily. Listen in as we discuss how organizations can identify unusual authentication activity and explore mitigation strategies to stay ahead of phishing attacks.
I'm excited to have Josh Rogers, CEO of Precisely, joining us today. We last spoke in 2020, but I was intrigued to learn that he has led the company through seven acquisitions. So I invited him to join me again to share his unique perspective on the current Mergers and Acquisitions (M & A) market.
As we all know, today's business leaders are facing a complex and challenging economic environment, with many facing the decision to either move forward or cease M&A activity completely. In fact, PwC reports that in comparison to the first half of 2021, deal values have declined by 20 percent.
However, buyers can experience better returns during a downturn and achieve outsized growth as valuations come down, according to the same analysis from PwC. Josh touches on this and the current economic environment, evaluating risk, and how leaders should proceed with M&As. He also shares his experience leading Precisely through seven acquisitions and the company's acquisition plans in the current market. Additionally, we discuss how leaders should communicate acquisitions to customers and the acquired company's employees.
Listen in as one of the most experienced M&A leaders in the tech industry shares his insights.
hat deliver "Wow!" moments to customers.
Vinay also delves into data sovereignty and how organizations often center their discussions around data residency for compliance purposes. He explains that true data sovereignty is an extension of sovereignty over an organization's stack and that heavy users of public clouds and their services, such as DBaaS, are not truly sovereign. However, it's not a binary proposition, and there are varying degrees of sovereignty.
Vinay also touches on the importance of stack decisions being made based on balancing capabilities and risk tolerance, not convenience. He also points out the risks of cloud deployment models, including vendor, environment, ecosystem lock-in, database license type and stability, key-man risk, cost predictability, etc.
Vinay shares that the landscape has evolved to enable organizations to get the convenience of cloud deployment models and the reliability and scalability of DBaaS without sacrificing their sovereignty wholesale. Please tune in to learn more about data sovereignty and how organizations can make informed decisions about their data stack.
On today's episode of the podcast, we're discussing the importance of innovation in warehouse safety as workers in states like New York, Illinois, and California speak up about poor safety protocols and high injury rates. I am joined by Beemal Vasani, Director of Ansell's Inteliforz, a connected workplace safety solutions brand.
Beemal believes that a company's safety program directly reflects its workplace culture and explains how investing in safety solutions technology and employee engagement tools can encourage safer workplaces, speed up training, and reduce onsite injuries. According to the National Safety Council, every $1 invested in injury prevention returns between $2 and $6.
We'll also discuss how wearable technology can act as the eyes and ears of employees, especially when staffing and training courses are tight, to ensure the correct personal protective equipment is being used at the right time. Additionally, we'll explore how communication platforms or apps can help workers quickly identify and report unsafe conditions and provide real-time feedback.
Beemal also shares how Inteliforz can tailor its platforms to a company's specific needs, making them as large and robust or as simple and minimal as needed. In addition, with customizable haptic technology based on a company's dataset, Inteliforz enables solutions to be tailored to a company's specific needs.
Tune in to learn more about how technology can improve health and safety in the warehouse industry and how organizations can better equip their staff through wearable and connected technology.
Theta Labs is the company behind Theta Network, the leading chain for media & entertainment. Theta has partnered with brands and personalities such as Katy Perry, Sony, Samsung, Google, American Idol, World Poker Tour, and many more. So, the recent launch of Metachain seemed like an excellent opportunity to learn more about it. ]
Metachain is the new customizable, highly scalable blockchain designed for media and entertainment businesses, built from the ground up to be a user-centric, simple, and intuitive platform. It's developed for the needs of video platforms, ticketing companies, metaverses, and other enterprises as they evolve to decentralized models.
Among two of Theta's biggest fans — and two of its advisors — are Steve Chen, co-founder of YouTube, and Justin Kan, Co-Founder of Twitch. Steve Chen has said, "Theta's innovation is set to disrupt today's online video industry much in the same way that the YouTube platform did to traditional video back in 2005."
Andrew De La Torre is the Group Vice President of Technology at Oracle Communications. He is responsible for making strategic decisions that improve the company's competitiveness and leads the technical sales, business development and acquisitions teams. He has over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, including leadership roles at Vodafone, and has also consulted in other industries such as oil and gas and construction. He has experience in corporate governance, finance, strategic planning, and technology transformation.
Today, he joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the upcoming trends in 5G technology and what communication service providers are looking for. I also learn more about how Oracle Communications offers integrated comms & cloud solutions for service providers & Enterprises to accelerate their digital transformation journey.
SOURCE Global is an Arizona-based organization founded by world-renowned Engineering professor Cody Friesen whose mission is to make drinking water an unlimited resource. The brand is backed by Bill Gates Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund, and Blackrock.
I invited Neil Grimmer to join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how the company's hydropanels use the sun to draw pure water vapor out of the air and transform it into fresh, high-quality, perfectly mineralized drinking water. I also want to learn more about the technology that makes it al possible and how it has impacted the citizens of remote communities in 50 countries worldwide.
About Neil Neil Grimmer is an entrepreneur with a rich history of disrupting categories by bringing to market innovative products and human-centered brands. Leading with an exceptional blend of intuition and data-driven strategy, he has been an architect and accelerator of impact-driven companies for over two decades. Currently, Neil is the Brand President for SOURCE Global, PBC, a technology company harnessing the unlimited resources of sunlight and air to produce clean drinking water globally.
Prior to his current role, Neil served as the first- ever Brand President for Harley Davidson where he was responsible for all consumer-facing global touchpoints. For over a decade, Neil solidified his passion for brands with a social purpose when he founded two successful health and wellness companies, Habit and Plum Organics. Both companies share a progressive approach to food innovation and nutrition science with disruptive products that revolutionized their industries.
Intel's Ignite program is one of the most competitive and challenging accelerator programs for early-stage startups, providing the winners with everything they need to compete and succeed in the tech industry. The program offers access to world-leading experts in technology and business, a preferred path to top investors, as well as the knowledge, resources, and association that comes with being accepted into the program.
The 12-week program focuses on mentorship and is designed for the 10 most diverse and impressive early-stage startups. Tzahi "Zack" Weisfeld, the program director, joins md on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how the Ignite program stands out from other startup accelerators and the recent expansion in Boston. He also shares insights he's gathered from the program since its launch in 2019.
I also learn how they are helping turn cutting-edge ideas into industry-disrupting technologies by giving entrepreneurs hands-on mentorship, technical support, and the business acumen they need to build world-changing companies.
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Quasar is a new app-chain built in the Cosmos Ecosystem, optimizing inter-chain value capture with a human-centric design. Its mission is to provide sustainable, sovereign, and ergonomic investment vehicles for digital assets. Quasar’s flagship product will be yield-aggregating vaults that enable users to easily deposit Cosmos-based tokens, and passively earn yield generated from automated strategies. It will function like a decentralized, permissionless hedge fund.
Valentin Pletnev, the 23-year-old CEO and co-founder of Quasar Finance, discusses how Cosmos represents the future of blockchain and why he beives it's the best way to deliver on the decentralization blockchain has promised from the start. He also discusses the Appchain thesis, Permissionless vaults, Non-custodial trading, Defi native inter-chain strategies.
Listen in to learn more about Quasar and how it plans to bring simplicity, fairness, and ease of use to the DeFi sector, with the aim of opening the sector to much wider adoption.
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Karoli Hindriks, an Estonian entrepreneur, has made a major pivot in her business that has proven to be a game-changer for her company, Jobbatical. In 2018, the company was recognized by Forbes as one of Europe's 10 most exciting technology SMEs. However, as Karoli noticed that the biggest problem for her clients in international hiring was not the hiring process but getting people into the country, she decided to take an incredible leap of faith.
Karoli decided to focus on automating the immigration and relocation process, providing businesses with a way to retain talent amidst a growing global skills shortage. Her new business model, which removes the friction of labour mobility, became more critical than ever in 2022 as worker priorities continue to shift in favor of borderless working in the wake of the pandemic.
As a result, business has been booming for Jobbatical, with 8x ARR growth in the past 12 months alone. Karoli's entrepreneurial spirit began early, founding her first company at 16 and becoming the youngest inventor in Estonia to have a registered patent. By the age of 23, she became the youngest-ever CEO at MTV. In 2021, she gave a talk at TED@Monterey, becoming the first person from Estonia to ever speak on the main TED stage in the US.
Karoli's TEDtalk, "Why Passport Needs an Upgrade," has been translated into twelve languages. In 2020, the EU Council named her one of 8 most inspiring women in Europe, and this year EU-Startups named her one of the 50 most influential women in the European startup and VC space for the seventh year running.
Karoli shares her story, Jobbatical's journey, the importance of hiring beyond borders, why being resilient in business is critical for success, and her famous Happy Dance in Times Square.
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In today's data-driven world, staying aware of the latest trends and strategies in data management and innovation is essential for success. Unfortunately, many chief data officers (CDOs) and business leaders must understand what other organizations and industries are doing with data. However, with this awareness and a basic curiosity, CDOs may be able to innovate and improve their business operations.
On this Tech Talks Daily podcast episode, Roman Kucera discusses this issue and the importance of staying informed about other companies' data strategies and practices. He emphasizes that while there are rarely entirely new ideas for using data, there are often opportunities to borrow and adapt ideas from others.
I also learn more about the story behind Ataccama. Recently spun off from Adastra, the company also secured $150 million in funding from Bain Capital to fuel its worldwide expansion. As a provider of master data management (MDM) and data quality solutions, Ataccama understands the importance of high-quality data that is appropriately managed.
We discuss the need for data quality and proper management, as well as the art of telling effective stories using data (hint: pie charts aren't always the answer). With the right strategies and tools in place, businesses can turn data into a powerful asset for driving growth and innovation.
Join us as we sit down with Kazuki Ohta, CEO, and founder of Treasure Data, a leading customer data platform. Kaz has dedicated his career to helping businesses effectively leverage data to power exceptional customer experiences in marketing, service, and sales. He will share his insights on the importance of understanding customer data and walk us through the steps to personalize the customer experience and stay ahead of the competition.
With his background as the founding CTO of Treasure Data, as well as his experience co-founding the world's largest Hadoop User Group and contributions to open-source software, Kaz is a true industry expert you won't want to miss. We also touch base on Kaz journey of moving to America and overcome the language barrier and his key role in building world fastest super computer while he was still a student.
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I sit down with Brewster Stanislaw, a true industry veteran with experience leading product and strategy at some of the biggest names in tech, including Google, Adobe, and Marketo. Currently the Chief Product Officer at Demandbase, Brewster has a wealth of knowledge to share about building a world-class R&D organization, defining product-led growth, innovation during hypergrowth, and the crucial role of the customer in product development. Whether you're a product manager, marketer, or simply interested in how these industry giants operate, you won't want to miss this episode!
About Demandbase
Demandbase is a B2B marketing technology company that provides a variety of solutions to help businesses target and convert high-value B2B accounts. Their platform offers features such as account-based marketing, website personalization, and real-time visitor tracking to help businesses identify and engage with their ideal customer profiles. Additionally, Demandbase also provides a suite of analytics and optimization tools to help businesses measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions about how to improve them.
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On today's episode, I have the pleasure of introducing you to Alan Jacobson, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Alteryx. Alan leads the company's data science practice, helping businesses get the most out of their data and insights. He is also responsible for data management, governance, and the use of the Alteryx Platform to drive growth.
Alan has held a variety of leadership roles at Ford Motor Company and was recognized as a top leader in the automotive industry with awards such as the Automotive Hall of Fame Leadership & Excellence award and the Outstanding Engineer of the Year by the Engineering Society of Detroit.
He has also worked as an advisor on data science topics with the National Academy of Engineering and other organizations. In this episode, Alan will be discussing driving key data initiatives and accelerating digital business transformation for the Alteryx global customer base, as well as the issue of many businesses being stuck on the AI hamster wheel and why nearly 80% of organizations do not trust or use their own analytic insights for decision making.
On today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, we're joined by Angel Grant to discuss the results of the F5 Survey on Emerging Tech. For example, did you know that one in ten IT decision-makers are already operating in the Metaverse, and 51% expect to be there within five years or sooner.
However, this virtual world also brings new threats, such as virtual reality storefront attacks and the potential for ransomware in the Metaverse. Many IT professionals are also concerned about the security and data privacy risks associated with the Metaverse, with six in ten reporting that it has introduced complexities their organization may not be equipped to handle. Additionally, 37% say their organization has already been attacked in relation to the Metaverse.
As we continue to explore the possibilities of the Metaverse, we discuss the importance of addressing these concerns to ensure a seamless and secure experience.
We have arrived in 2023, and big topics such as Social media, independent media, journalism, futurism, censorship, surveillance, algorithms, digital rights, and Internet freedom are more important than ever. But what role does technology play in fixing the problems created by big tech?
Bill Ottman is the co-founder and CEO of Minds, an open source decentralized social networking app with 6M+ users focused on censorship resistance, global dialogue, privacy, and creator monetization with both traditional payments and cryptocurrency. He is also the co-author of "The Censorship Effect".
I learn more about how the code and algorithms behind Minds are free and open source for maximum transparency and accountability and how they believe the only way to change someone's mind is if you provide them with a platform to speak it.
Rytis Lauris, the co-founder and CEO of Omnisend, shares practical insights on how e-commerce stores can benefit from omnichannel marketing during this period of economic uncertainty. We also discuss how paid advertising costs are rising while its effectiveness is plummeting.
About Omnisend
Omnisend is an e-commerce-tailored email & SMS marketing automation platform built to help nimble teams drive more revenue without increasing their workload. One-click ecommerce stack integrations, pre-built workflows and intuitive drag & drop editing make it easy to get up & running without diving into the gritty details unless you want to.
More than 80,000 ecommerce brands use Omnisend to grow their businesses on autopilot, converting their customers with quick-to-build, highly-relevant emails & texts.
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Brennan Spellacy, Co-Founder, and CEO of carbon offset technology business Patch shares the story behind the company. I also learn how their technology enables customers to calculate their carbon footprint to identify and finance offset projects that capture the equivalent carbon dioxide emissions associated with that footprint. The company works with over 100 corporations and institutions, including the likes of Farfetch, Afterpay, Harvard University, and the University of Oxford. Its customer portfolio spans industries such as travel, fintech, crypto, and ecommerce. Patch is jointly headquartered in London and San Francisco, and its principal investor is American VC fund Andreessen Horowitz. We discuss how the software allows companies to choose which projects they'd like to finance to support the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, with projects ranging from reforestation and conservation projects to more high-tech, early-stage technologies like direct air capture and sequestration projects.
Finally we explore the current macroeconomic landscape for climate technology founders in the UK and US right now and how Patch's technology works in practice and why it should not be viewed as an alternative to the decarbonisation of business.
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Sateliot is the only satellite company that connects IoT solutions worldwide under the 5G protocol with its patented technology via a low-Earth orbit (LEO) constellation of nanosatellites. Its satellite constellation functions as cell towers from space and delivers its service to land-based telecom operators, extending mobile operators' coverage to everywhere on the planet, including formerly out-of-coverage places.
Jaume Sanpera, CEO and Co-founder of Sateliot, joins me in a conversation about how satellite constellations can bring 5G networks worldwide to users without having to purchase equipment other than their own mobile device.
We discuss the differences between 5G-IoT-NB satellite constellations and other satellite constellations. We also talk about how cubesats (nanosatellite standardized models) have made access to space easier for start-ups and the benefits of this new space scenario to the world.
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According to Chainanalysis, over $2 billion in cryptocurrency has been stolen in cross-chain bridge attacks last year. Exasperated by another string of bridge hacks over the last two weeks, many are calling into question the technology's ability to adequately secure users' assets and enable the interoperable, multi-chain future that is needed to propel the DeFi industry forward.
Protocols are struggling to strike the delicate balance between decentralization adherence and pursuing the ultimate priority for a financial product — security. Christopher Goes, Co-Founder of Anoma, an intent-centric, privacy-preserving protocol discusses the need for full decentralization in blockchain, privacy as a public good enabled by blockchain and why anonymity in money is so important.
With hacker techniques becoming increasingly sophisticated in cryptocurrency, we talk about the state of security across cross-chain bridges and why the industry needs better solutions. But most importantly, what can be done to prevent future hacks. Finally, we discuss why an interoperable, multi-chain future is essential for the DeFi industry.
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As work environments undergo a rapid transformation and distributed and hybrid workforces become the norm, the need for an efficient, smooth digital document creation and management process becomes paramount. Documents remain the essential glue of how business gets done, but many professionals still need help in manual legacy processes or face challenges in their digital document creation.
The old way of signing and sending documents means you’re tethered to your desk. The new way: collect eSignatures wherever life takes you – whether it’s an office or a beach halfway around the world. You can even track important updates right from your mobile phone.
So today, I have invited Mikita Mikado, CEO of Panda Doc, to explore Digital transformation in remote work environments and the mission to create seamless document creation and finalization tools. We also discuss how PandaDoc recently introduced the first "forever free" e-signature solution and offers businesses of all sizes an all-in-one solution to easily manage the creation, editing, and signing of documents in every work setting in the new era of hybrid and remote work.
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The well-documented tech skills shortage also provides opportunities for people from any age or background to consider a tech career. In today's episode, I am joined by Graham Hunter from CompTIA to share his insights and actionable tips for anyone to start or grow their career in tech with an IT certification from CompTIA.
Graham reveals insights from CompTIA's recent report into the State of the Tech Workforce UK. I also learned more about the cyber security skills gap and a new initiative to help those who don't make it as professional footballers into careers in the sector and what needs to be done to address the UK's data skills gap.
About Graham
Graham Hunter is Vice President of Business Development covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and Canada at CompTIA, the Global IT Industry Trade Association. CompTIA represents more than 12,000 member companies and registered users around the world; and is the world's leading provider of vendor-neutral skills certifications for the global IT workforce.
Graham is responsible for explaining how critical it is for governments, businesses and educators to provide the most current certifiable IT training programs for their employees and students to meet the demands of the global IT workforce, as well as providing senior strategic direction, leadership, management, and support to the EMEA, APAC and Canadian team.
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In 1999, Michael Beckley, Matt Calkins, and two other friends were in a basement. Twenty-three years later, Appian is publicly traded with more than 2,000 employees - and was the most successful software IPO of 2017. Today he joins me in a discussion on growth in tech and shares tips to push through the looming recession. He shares how they grew Appian to be a company with a market cap of more than $3B, giving giants like Salesforce and ServiceNow a run for their money.
Appian became a unified platform for change that accelerates customers' businesses by discovering, designing, and automating their most important processes. The Appian Low-Code Platform combines the key capabilities needed to get work done faster, Process Mining + Workflow + Automation, in a unified low-code platform.
Michael offers advice for newer tech execs on how to combat economic downturns. We also discuss why companies automating tasks in white-collar office roles are not taking away jobs but changing the workflow dynamic to remove menial tasks and allow employees to focus on more important aspects of their job.
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In today's episode, Neil shares his new year message and explores the opportunity to learn more about leveraging technology to make lasting connections. Then, Sarah Elkins, the founder of the No Longer Virtual (NLV) Conference, shares her insights on how to use technology to create meaningful connections.
Through her inspiring stories and lessons learned, Sarah provides tips on how to benefit from stories to shape personal growth and development. She also discusses the importance of pushing oneself beyond fear and taking risks, as well as her favorite song, Hang On Little Tomato, by Pink Martini.
Sarah shares how to use technology to create meaningful connections and build relationships. She also shares her motivation for creating the NLV conference and how the stories we tell ourselves that shape our perception of the world. Listen in as Sarah offers advice on how to push ourselves beyond our fears and encourages us to open ourselves up to the opportunities that technology can provide.
In today's Tech Talks Daily episode, I explore technology's role in demystifying music licensing and its complexities. More Specifically: how Tracklib has automated sample licensing to the benefit of both music creators (artists, producers, and songwriters – superstars and budding talent) and rightsholders (labels and publishers).
Today's guest is Pär Almqvist: who caught my attention when he said, "There's a big, positive implication from knowing you can sample something and not be afraid of being sued." I learn more about how Tracklib makes sampling and sample clearance fast, easy, legal, and affordable for every music producer worldwide.
By simplifying music licensing, can technology unlock creative opportunities for all the world's music creators, new revenue for the whole music industry, and change how the world can make music? Listen in to learn more.
Otovo is Europe's leading online residential solar marketplace and has assessed over 4 million homes across Europe. They're currently active in eight markets - set to be 13 before the year ends, meaning they'll be serving 90% of Europe's population - and launching into a dozen more over the next year.
Andreas Thorsheim, its founder and CEO, joins me on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily. I learn more about how Otovo uses proprietary technology to connect customers to local, vetted installers, making the process of adopting solar at home as smooth and seamless as possible.
We discuss how the online marketplace takes a customer's address and then automatically calculates the size, shape, and specification of suitable rooftop solar products. Using satellites, Otovo also calculates exactly how much sun is shining on a roof and how much energy can then be produced from it. It then runs an automated, 'real time' auction between local solar installers to find the cheapest price for the work required.
As a pioneer in solar, Otovo is already the market leader in their native Norway, where they've managed to cut the price of solar in half over the past 5 years alone. They've helped over 10,000 households in Europe transition to domestic solar power already, operating at a pace of 9,000 installations per year.
Pete Sena is a design-led entrepreneur who loves to partner with forward-obsessed founders, entrepreneurs, and business leaders to unlock new possibilities and growth. For nearly 20 years, Pete has built and led cross-functional teams that have delivered many successful multi-channel programs and activations, ranging in scale from venture-backed startups to Fortune 50 companies.
Pete joins me in a conversation that covers everything from marketing, branding, entrepreneurship, design thinking, tech (Web3, AI, metaverse), and the importance of a growth mindset. I also learn how he constantly remains curious and the tech trends that excite him in 2023.
2219: EdgeQ - RISC-V: The Linux of 5G
EdgeQ is a 5G chipmaker leveraging the RISC-V architecture to open its tech. RISC-V is not only shaping the evolution of 5G, it's also redefining the broader mobile landscape. The mobile/telco industry has historically been dominated by proprietary, closed technologies and vendors. However, with RISC-V's growing popularity, the mobile industry is adopting openness at a massive scale for the first time.
Just as Linux drove enterprises to embrace open-source software, RISC-V is driving mobile operators and telcos to adopt open approaches to building networks. This is a necessary shift: For 5G to pay off, organizations need the flexibility and customizability RISC-V delivers. But the impact of this shift will extend beyond 5G and enable the industry to deliver other innovations that would be lost in a proprietary ecosystem.
Adil Kidwai shares with me how RISC-V adoption is transforming the mobile industry and what this mean for 5G and beyond.
Neil McGregor, COO at REPL Group, Part of Accenture, has amassed over 15 years of consulting experience – mainly focused on global retail systems integration. Neil has been at REPL for over six years, taking on the role of COO back in 2020, where he leads all people, projects, and operations across the consulting team globally. Before that, he was Consulting Operations Director, where he lead and motivated the delivery team; and Consulting Director, where he was responsible for leading complex change, system implementation and developed teams of solution oriented consultants. Prior to REPL, Neil has held roles at both EY and Accenture – where he kickstarted his career.
In today's episode, Neil shares his story and the retail technology trends that excite him along with a few predictions and challenges for the year ahead.
Cyber crime is everywhere, it's on your phone, laptop, it's even seeping into warfare, shutting down entire countries. How many times have you received a notification saying your password has been compromised on a retail website you've spent far too much time on? Usually you change the password as soon as possible, the risk to bank details and other personal information is too great.
Yet, the same attention and diligence is not given to cybersecurity for businesses, despite reports of fraud and cybercrime in the UK reaching more than 400 000 in 2021 alone. It is critical that businesses have strong cyber defences in place, much like changing your personal password, businesses need to be on top of threats before they go too far.
JP Perez-Etchegoyen, CTO of Onapsis, a cybersecurity provider for business-critical applications, has extensive experience identifying and solving these threats. Onapsis provides cybersecurity solutions to 20% of Fortune 100 companies around the world and has grown 187% over the past three years.
JP joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss why organizations should be worried about unknown internet-facing vulnerabilities and how they can prevent them.
Ryan Lasmaili is the Co-Founder & CEO of Vaultree, the world's fastest searchable encryption technology for databases. Ryan has been fascinated by technology breakthroughs from space travel to EnviroTech since childhood, and in the last 12 years he has been involved with technology startups developing solutions to major problems.
Ryan's background is in financial mathematics with a passion for astrophysics and economics, having also worked in corporate environments in roles ranging from project manager to senior analyst, reporting to executives in listed multinationals.
Ryan is always looking for ways to improve and apply his out-of-the-box thinking to solve significant cybersecurity problems, with his biggest undertaking to date solving today's and tomorrow's data encryption and protection challenges.
Surveillance State tells the gripping, startling, and detailed story of how China’s Communist Party is building a new kind of political control: shaping the will of the people through the sophisticated—and often brutal—harnessing of data.
It is a story born in Silicon Valley and America’s “War on Terror,” and now playing out in alarming ways on China’s remote Central Asian frontier. As a minority separatist movement strains against Party control, China’s leaders have built a dystopian police state that keeps millions under the constant gaze of security forces armed with AI. But across the country in the city of Hangzhou, the government is weaving a digital utopia, where technology helps optimize everything from traffic patterns to food safety to emergency response.
Award-winning journalists Liza Lin takes listeners on a journey through the new world China is building within its borders, and beyond. Telling harrowing stories of the people and families affected by the Party’s ambitions, Surveillance State reveals a future that is already underway—a new society engineered around the power of digital surveillance.
The machines we interact with every day make our lives easier. As they become more intelligent and able to help us in new ways, we need to take a step back and consider whether how third parties govern them is fit for purpose, particularly as we move towards a world with autonomous vehicles. Many machines, devices, and vehicles we use daily are centrally controlled, limiting what the machines can or can't do regarding the provision and rendering of goods and services.
Machines built for Web2 exist in a closed, permission-based environment, which massively limits how they can interact with other machines, where they can go, and what they can do. Existing identification numbers are one-dimensional and are used to label machines and their specifications. This does not enable them to leverage their identity to enable movement, service authorization, trade, or payment.
Sheridan Johns, Enterprise Lead at Ocean Protocol, and Leonard Dorlöchter, co-founder of Peaq discuss their mission to enable the secure, fast, and frictionless transfer of value and data between humans and machines through Self-Sovereign Machine IDs (SSMIs).
I learn how the implementation of SSMIs as digital identities will enable vehicles, machines, robots, and devices to identify themselves with each other, people, and their environment. Decentralized Machine IDs will solve some of our biggest societal and economic challenges while enabling communities to benefit from the increased use of machines and automation within the workplace.
We discuss how giving machines Self-Sovereign Machine IDs will change the future of work and how Web3 can ensure that job automation empowers a global workforce. We also explore what a fully decentralized machine economy will look like and how this can benefit individuals.
Push Protocol is a web3 communication network, enabling cross-chain notifications and messaging for dapps, wallets, and services. It powers communication for over 100 of the world’s leading dapps and service providers across DeFi, NFTs, gaming, dev tools, and more.
Until Push, no solution existed to enable native communication between wallets in response to on- and off-chain data. The result was a fractured dapp ecosystem, held together by antiquated and centralized communication platforms. Push is building the communication network for Web3, addressing a gap in critical infrastructure and improving the everyday experience for blockchain users.
Harsh Rajat, CEO and co-founder of Push Protocol (recently rebranded from EPNS), joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast in a conversation about bringing simplicity and ease of use to web3 communications. Listen in as Harsh defines what Web3 communication is and why it matters. He also offers an overview of Push Protocol and PushChat. Finally, we explore the future of decentralized social media and much more.
Sean Farrington, EVP EMEA at Pluralsight – the workforce development platform, joins me on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily to talk about the ongoing challenges around hiring and the role of internal skill development in plugging gaps.
We discuss the scramble for talent and how tech companies must still take on high revenue projects, bring new products to market and keep customers happy. This means talent remains critical, but businesses will need to turn to expanding the skillsets of existing teams, rather than relying on new hires or outsourcing work, and support them to deliver on new projects.
We also talk about the importance of capitalising on the hunger to learn. For example, 75% of technologists determine whether to stay at their company partly based on how dedicated their employer is to development opportunities. Now more than ever, reducing turnover is key. A commitment to L&D can support this, and develop more engaged team members.
Finally, we discuss why tech leaders need to create a culture of learning and why putting this culture of learning in place needn't cost businesses a fortune. In fact, it makes good business sense to invest in upskilling – with estimates suggesting that upskilling could save at least $3,125 per employee.
Steven Furnell, IEEE senior member and professor of cybersecurity at the University of Nottingham, joins me on today's episode of The Tech Talks Daily podcast. Steven discusses the findings of his recently published paper titled 'Assessing website password practices –Unchanged after fifteen years?', which explores how leading websites guide and support users in making appropriate password choices. The paper presents the fifth in a series of studies that have been conducted every few years since 2007, with the aim of examining the level of guidance provided to users before and during the password selection process, as well as examining the nature of the passwords that users are then permitted to choose.
We also discuss the enforcement of password rules and applying various tests which determine whether the site filters out common or predictable password choices.
About Steven
Steven Furnell is a senior member of the IEEE and professor of cybersecurity at the University of Nottingham. His research includes usability of security and privacy, security management and culture, and technologies for user authentication and intrusion detection. He has authored more than 320 papers in refereed international journals and conferences, as well as books including Cybercrime: Vandalising the Information Society and Computer Insecurity: Risking the System.
A recent report has revealed that Google harvests 39 types of private data on its users, which includes users’ specific location, their browser history and the emails on their Gmail accounts. Google is constantly invading our personal space thanks to the many formats at its disposal, including: Search, Chrome, Gmail, Youtube, Maps, Workspace, and Android.
As Google's oppressive dominance continues to grow, more and more email users are ready to embrace new decentralization tools that are providing private solutions.
Skiff is fusing the mail interface that consumers use everyday with Web3 open source technology, to provide a privacy-first, end-to -end encrypted, wallet native workspace. Users will be able to send messages, write notes and share files all while completely owning their own data. Utilizing IPFS, Skiff users will also have the option to store their content, including all Skiff Drive files, fully decentralized and end-to-end encrypted.
In light of this, Andrew Milch, CEO and Co-Founder of Skiff, joins me in a conversation about how new technologies can help individual de-couple privacy concerns from a reliance on big tech companies. We also discuss the need to embed privacy into the platforms we use in order to protect against the non-consensual usage of sensitive data by third parties.
Finally, we explore the advantages for users of switching from other cloud storage providers to a totally private storage platform that is entirely censorship-resistant and decentralized.
When every business is talking about the power of digital experiences, I want to learn more about what that means and look beyond the buzzwords and toward the business value it offers. Contentsquare, the global leader in digital experience analytics, was recently named a winner of the 2022 Aragon Research Innovation Award for Digital Experience Analytics. So today's guest is Dave Anderson from Contentsquare, which helps brands deliver the power to make the digital world more human.
Dave shares his origin story and the path that led him to an AI-powered platform that provides rich and contextual insight into customer behaviors, feelings, and intent at every touchpoint in their journey. I also learn more about the story behind Contentsquare, founded in Paris with offices worldwide and has raised $1.4B in investment funding.
We also discuss the emergence of apps and reliability but the lack of focus on the experience. Finally, we talk about the Tech Seeking Human Podcast - a podcast about AI built on the back of working at Dynatrace and exploring where AI is heading.
Draft.dev helps businesses achieve their technical content goals through a team of writers who are also professional software developers and subject matter experts. As a result, they create content that resonates with technical audiences and performs well on search engines.
After spending eight years as a CTO, building software engineering teams in venture-funded startups, Karl Hughes started Draft.dev to help companies create authentic technical content that resonates with software developers. Since founding the company in 2020, the team has grown to include marketers, editors, engineers, and over 130 technical writers.
Karl joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story of transitioning from engineer to team leader to business owner. He also reveals the skills and lessons learned throughout his career. I also learn how he had to learn to sell and closed over $1mm in new business in his first year. Karl also discusses growing a business quickly and going from 1 to 16 employees and 200 contractors in 2 years with no funding.
Jeffrey Partyka, Principal Data Science Engineer at Xactly, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a discussion about the rise of data scientists and their value for companies. Jeffrey shares how forecasting models work, the importance of statistical analysis, and how wider teams can utilize data to create better business products. He discusses how this role has evolved and is better institutionalized in recent years.
We also explore Xactly's survey report - Insights on The Sales Talent Crisis of more than 400 U.S. sales leaders, and the lessons learned from the great resignation.
Jeffrey Partyka has been a principal data science engineer at Xactly since July 2020, actively conducting and overseeing numerous machine learning/statistical projects relating to sales forecasting, churn, cross-selling, and other sales areas. Jeff has worked in data science since 2007 as a Big Data engineer, data science team lead, research & development manager, and part-time professor across multiple domains, including geospatial indexing, psychometrics, productivity optimization, and sales performance management.
Continuous digital transformation has created a data explosion that's overwhelming many organisations. Every tap, click, or swipe from a user, new code deployment or architecture change, and attempted cyberattack generates more data that can be captured and analysed. However, there is too much data to store and use cost-effectively.
Organizations are therefore forced to discard most data or lock it away in cheaper storage layers where it can't be analyzed. This has led to a tipping point, where the datasets used for observability and security analytics are too incomplete to be truly valuable.
The value of observability and security data is in the insights it can provide to help organizations optimize their digital services. However, current approaches to analytics mean they often need help to maximize the detail those insights contain. As well as having an incomplete dataset, most of what they keep is stored and analyzed in silos, so it lacks a crucial ingredient – context. This means any answers from data analytics are often incomplete, imprecise, or even incorrect – limiting its value to the business.
Grail is a data lakehouse, purpose-built to solve these challenges. It combines the structure, management, and querying capabilities of a data warehouse, with the low-cost benefits of a data lake. Bob Wambach shares the story behind Grail and how it enables organizations to store vast quantities of observability and security data cost-effectively and analyze it together in context.
I also learn how Grail uses a massively parallel processing (MPP) analytics engine, enabling organizations to run thousands of queries simultaneously rather than processing them sequentially. As a result, they can get instant, more precise, and cost-efficient insights from analytics.
The transportation industry is going through a massive digital transformation right now. The changing value proposition of cars is moving software to the center of a legacy business. So it's a great time to get in on an early software trend that will soon redefine driver expectations.
In today's episode, I want to learn more about how the advanced technology team at General Motors is doing inspiring work driving the future of transportation, from EVs and AVs to connected cars. Padma Sundaram, director of Software Defined Vehicle Quality and Operations at General Motors, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share how she played a crucial role in launching a new software platform called Ultifi.
I learn more about how Ultifi will leverage a Linux-based operating system allowing third-party developers worldwide to create apps for GM. This will also help expand the capabilities of a customer's connected car long after it's sold and create collaboration opportunities never seen before.
We discuss how open source is powering the shift to an era of software-defined vehicles where cars will become much more like our smartphones – a connected device that will regularly update, customize and evolve with their owners over time. Padma also shares how the auto industry might be the next frontier for tech talent looking to build their careers.
Did you know that Biodiversity loss represents a risk to more than half the world's GDP - about $44 trillion? Today, I want to explore what Biodiversity is and technology's role in improving it. Dr Mike Musgrave joins me in a conversation about all this and more.
We discuss his work with the School of Wildlife Conservation at the African Leadership University is working with Dalberg Catalyst and Financial Services Deepening Africa to develop a Biodiversity Investment Ratings Agency (BIRA). Dr Mike Musgrave graduated from Rhodes University and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and holds a PhD in Sustainable Development from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. A recipient of the prestigious Frederick Soddy Award from the Royal Geographic Society, he writes broadly on African customary law, common-pool resource governance and nature-based solutions for addressing climate change in Africa.
Mike is currently Conservation Leadership Faculty in the School of Wildlife Conservation at the African Leadership University in Kigali, Rwanda where he leads the development of a Biodiversity Investment Ratings Agency for Africa in partnership with Dalberg and FSD Africa.
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Visibility and detection tools such as Orca, AWS Security Hub, Wiz, Lacework, and others revolutionized cloud security assessment and analysis, inching the world of SecOps towards remediation. The transformation they introduced to risk prioritization and assessment in the cloud brought to the surface valuable indications and alerts that required the attention of security teams. SecOps teams are now swamped with a growing number of security findings but no comprehensive tools or streamlined processes to remediate them. Opus is filling that gap. Meny Har witnessed firsthand the growing need for SecOps orchestration in cloud security remediation. Listen in as Meny shares with me how they have built a solution that will do for cloud SecOps remediation what Orca, Wiz, and others did for cloud risk detection and prioritization. Opus strives to transform cloud SecOps by enabling organizations to effectively respond and remediate in the cloud.
About Opus
Opus Security is a Cloud Security Orchestration and Remediation startup emerging from stealth with funding in the double-digit millions led by YL Ventures, Tiger Global, and big-name security executives and serial entrepreneurs, including the CEOs of CrowdStrike and Cyber Ark. The co-founders, are experienced, successful executives who come out of Siemplify, acquired by Google in Jan. to boost SecOps.
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At IDEO, they believe a more sustainable, equitable future is for all of us to design. And there is an urgency to that collective effort, as today's challenges are increasingly global and interconnected. For decades, They have helped individuals, leaders, and organizations navigate such complexity, designing the products, services, and experiences of the future. But what is the role of technology in these efforts?
Wes Eugene, CIO IDEO on the podcast, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story. We discuss the Circular Economy and How organizations can tackle the greatest challenge of our lifetime. For example, H&M recently partnered with IDEO to eliminate plastic in its packaging (2,000 tons, in fact). Logitech also turned to IDEO to set new sustainability goals when they decided to become climate positive by 2030.
We also discuss how to design inclusion into existing systems and processes. For example, IDEO worked with LA County to create a new voting experience that's more intuitive and accessible, as well as Ford Foundation to elevate frontline workers in the business decision-making process.
Finally, we explore organizational transformation and how organizations can evolve around global forces and digital innovation while staying true to their mission and purpose. For example, IDEO worked closely with Ford Motor Company on designing its successful electrified fleet last year. It's also worked with governments such as the UAE on new ways of designing policy when traditional processes fail.
Cipher Skin CEO Phillip Bogdanovich shares the story behind the biometric and motion smart sleeve used for physical rehabilitation. He is a former US Marine Corps Amphibious Recon Medic and was Tactical Medical Chief Diplomatic Protection for the US Dept of State. I learn more about how he launched Cipher Skin after his own physical rehabilitation recovery from combat injuries and success with previous startups.
We also discuss how the patented technology has numerous applications, including athletic performance and industrial monitoring (like oil and gas pipelines). We also discuss what biometric and motion data is collected through Cipher Skin and explore the possibilities for future hybrid care and wearable technology.
Stephen Semmelroth was in the Army for 6+ years, and he served in Afghanistan and the Army's Cyber Corps, where he led a red team and a threat intelligence team defending US assets across an entire continent. Unfortunately, he broke his back while on a mission which left him paralyzed, and he had to relearn how to walk.
After retiring from the Army, he founded Rainier Cyber, a cybersecurity recruiter that matches Cyber Vets with tech jobs across the county, which was acquired by StrataCore in 2020. Stephen holds CISSP, PMP, GSNA, GCIA, and GPEN cyber security certificates, and he mentors between 200-300 people annually in the cybersecurity space.
Today, Stephen is the VP of Cyber at StrataCore. This IT services broker helps companies source high-quality technologies that drive their enterprise forward faster, at the lowest prices and best contract terms.
They have 300+ clients, including organizations like World Vision, Zillow, Getty Images, Electronic Arts, and NortonLifeLock, and they have brokered 2500+ technology contracts worldwide.
Stephen shares his story with me and discusses a rise in global conflict necessitates a review of cybersecurity best practices. He also talks about how companies and non-tech professionals can solve the cybersecurity talent problem.
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Larry Williams is the President and CEO of The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), one of the largest tech associations in North America with 30,000+ members. His role is to help strengthen the innovation ecosystem of Georgia, a state particularly well-known for its booming technology industry.
Through TAG-Ed, Larry also works tirelessly to promote STEAM education and support workforce development for tech professionals. Larry shares with me his insights about supporting the technology ecosystems that help innovative companies bridge the gap between their customers, partners, products, technologies and markets.
Larry also shares insights about educating, building and supporting the technology workforce of tomorrow. Finally, he reflects from his experience as the Founder and President of the National Technology Security Coalition, a non-profit, non-partisan trade association serving as the voice of CISOs to help improve national cybersecurity.
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Issuu is the world's largest SaaS content publishing and marketing platform. The Issuu Story Cloud empowers content creators to transform creative designs from static files into web-optimized assets for every marketing channel, including web, mobile, social, email, and more.
Joe Hyrkin, CEO of Issuu, the Omni-channel content tools and publishing platform, joins me on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily. We discuss how the Issuu Story Cloud enables millions of global marketers, brands, creators, and publishers to digitally share and monetize their longer-form quality content and create marketing materials.
We discuss big tech's responsibilities for the future of marketing & publishing, the workflow mentality shift among enterprises, and streamlining processes strategically amidst a recession. Finally, we discuss what is driving the creator economy, the future of publishing, and what's next for Issuu and other brands in this space.
About Joe
Joe joined Issuu in early 2013 after more than 20 years of leading startup/growth companies in executive, business development, and product roles. He served as CEO of Reverb during two rounds of financing; in addition, as head of SingleFeed, Joe oversaw that firm's acquisition by Alibaba. Before that, Joe held sales and leadership positions at Gala Interactive, Yahoo, Flickr, and Virage. He directed the Economist Group's business in China and has extensive board and tech-advisor experience. Joe was educated at the State University of New York in Albany and as a foreign student at Beijing Normal University in China.
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Linden Tibbets, Founder and CEO of IFTTT (If This Then That), shares the story behind the platform that allows users to integrate different apps, devices, and services to create automated responses and routines. I learned more about his vision to empower everyone to automate and integrate their favorite apps and smart devices to work together by launching IFTTT in 2010. Before that, he worked as a communications designer at IDEO, a renowned product design firm.
Did you know there are over 700+ apps, services, and devices, including the world's biggest brands like Google, Discord, Slack, Dropbox, Alexa, and Fitbit, as well as millions of their users rely on IFTTT for their most essential integrations?
From notifications (letting your spouse know you've left work and are heading home automatically), to tapping into the Internet of Things (turning on your lights when you unlock the front door) — IFTTT makes it easy to control and customize their world. To date, they've also raised $62.5M from investors, including Salesforce and IBM, and their users perform 1B+ automation and integrations monthly.
Listen in as Linden shares how he built his company from the ground up to become one of the leading IoT solution platforms with million-dollar revenues. We also explore the top IoT trends we can expect to see in the next five years and the future of human-computer interaction.
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On Dec. 3, 1992, a 22-year-old Papworth texted "Merry Christmas" to Richard Jarvis, a director at Vodafone who was at a company Christmas party. It was the first time a cellphone user had ever received words instead of a voice call on their device. Papworth was a developer and test engineer for Sema Group, which was rolling out the world's first short message service (SMS) center for Vodafone U.K.
This noteworthy event later led to Papworth being featured in a Best Buy Super Bowl commercial, a Jeopardy! question, a book and the Museum of Global Communications. It also gave rise to an important new medium now used regularly by most Americans and employed by billions of people globally.
Neil Papworth discusses the changes he has seen since sending the first text message. Best known as the first person ever to send a text, Neil made his indelible mark on the world of communications – and the annals of tech and text history – early in his career.
In addition, Infobip recently revealed insights from their 30th Anniversary of the SMS report, so I invited Ivan Ostojic back on the podcast to join the discussion. In 2020, Infobip became the first Croatian company to reach unicorn status. In the past 12 months alone, over 5 billion people have used Infobip solutions and services.
Ivan shares insights from the report and discusses the future of SMS and other means of messaging for business purposes.
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Arun Kumar is a regional director at ManageEngine, the enterprise IT management division of Zoho Corporation. With almost two decades of global experience in enterprise IT, Arun has a deep knowledge and peer network in the IT management industry. He has been working with ManageEngine since 2003. In his current role, he leads all channel and partner-related initiatives for the company in the United Kingdom (UK) and Asia Pacific (APAC) markets.
Arun joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share insights from their global survey around the empowerment and democratization of IT with 3,300 decision-makers from across IT and business decision-makers. On the topics of IT Leadership, Autonomy + Expectations we explore the relationship between IT and the C Suite, and levels of consultation. We also discuss the influence and importance of the IT department and how they collaborate with other internal teams.
We also talk abot IT Sovereignty and decentralization in UK companies versus the global average. Why companies are choosing to decentralize their IT, their motivation for doing so, and the levels of independence for IT decision-making. Finally, we discuss the perceived role of IT in preventing security attacks and how the UK compares with the global market regarding educating its workforce about security threats.
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With a legal and finance background, Andrew Wilkins founded the first international wealth management platform, which he sold in 2015, going on to start an early-stage incubator, Fintecho. Futr.ai was born in 2017 when Andy and co-founder Lee Skyrme saw the massive opportunity to use cutting edge artificial intelligence to transform the way we access public services. Five years later, with the support of an amazing team and fantastic VCs, Futr is proud to include the police, the NHS, and many amazing charities and social services as well as private organisations as valued customers.
Over the past year, Futr has accelerated its work with a myriad of organisations as they have all implemented AI chatbots to ensure increased engagement with their end-users and deliver a seamless customer service experience. From government to business, their chatbots are used by over 1,000 organisations across the world.
We discuss their work with the NHS, various UK police forces (recently launching the first live chat support service for domestic abuse victims), UK housing associations and the charity CALM. I also learn how Futr is also now integrated with the social media profiles of the UK police divisions as well as CALM (among others), so they not only have access to real-time data, but past historical data as well.
Andy shares his knowledgeable insights into current AI chatbot technology as well as practical guidance based on a wealth of experience for implementing digital transformation in the future.
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William McKnight has been recognized as the #1 global influencer in big data, cloud, and data center by Thinkers 360 and the #1 global influencer in master data management by Onalytica in 2022. He is the Founder and President of McKnight Consulting Group, which advises many of the Global 2000 companies, including Pfizer, Verizon, UnitedHealth Group, Dell, Oracle, and Scotiabank, on ways to grow their businesses with big data faster.
They've been recognized as one of the Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private companies in the US two times and their clients in 14+ countries have reaped tremendous ROI and turned data into a real corporate asset. With over 30 years of experience, William is a highly sought-after speaker who has spoken on four continents for various organizations, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Bank of America, Orange South Africa, and SAP.
Listen in as we discuss personal data, who's watching you, and how they can use the data collected from you. We also discuss new analytic uses of master data management in the enterprise, how AI will significantly impact users and how organizations think about their data resources.
The brains behind Couchbase's leading data platform, CTO Ravi Mayuram, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how businesses can avoid the $8.75m cloud overspend revealed in the company's latest cloud evolution report. Ravi shares that even though companies now view the move to the cloud as inevitable, enterprises are still caught out by issues such as inflexible pricing plans, ineffective management tools, and data not stored where it needs to be.
We also explore how businesses can make the cloud live up to its promise and how new tech adoption impacts companies. Despite the current reputation of Web 3.0 being tarnished by Crypto-bros, NFTs, and Mega – Ravi believes there is definite potential for companies to explore blockchain technology.
We also talk about how businesses can unlock this potential and what it will mean for data. While it's no surprise that the decentralization concept has extended to the IT industry, business infrastructure must be in place to achieve the benefits. Finally, Ravi shares his thoughts on how the future of IT must mean managing data anywhere, including on the edge, a server, or the cloud
Cybersecurity is now recognized as a critical priority for businesses around the world. However, cybersecurity threats are evolving as risks, and the responses necessary to mitigate them, change rapidly. As a result, staying ahead of bad actors is a continuous challenge, and businesses, despite their intentions, are only sometimes keeping pace.
To solve these problems, IT leaders must understand why. They need answers to questions such as, how is cybersecurity transforming? How are cyberattacks harming businesses? Where must investments in preventative training and tools be focused? Is cybersecurity being prioritized by leadership? And how does cybersecurity fit within an organizational culture?
In partnership with Sapio Research, Keeper's second annual Cybersecurity Census report maps the transforming landscape of cybersecurity based on these expert insights. It provides leaders with a forensic assessment of their businesses' threats and details the urgent strategies necessary to overcome them.
Darren Guccione, CEO & Co-founder at Keeper Security, returns to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share insights from the report.
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Ben Uprcoft, VP of Technology at Oxbotica, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Today's guest has extensive experience in perception systems for field robotics ranging from commercial passenger vehicles, all-terrain vehicles, draglines, haul trucks, and underwater platforms to unmanned aerial vehicles.
At Oxbotica, Ben is responsible for technology development and our team of skilled engineers, balancing state-of-the-art algorithms with real-world system implementation to achieve intelligence in self-driving platforms - on and off road.
Ben's previous life was as a tenured academic in Computer Vision and Robotics at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia where he focussed on machine learning for field robotics. He led the Robotics and Autonomous Systems group of over 150 postgraduate students, postdocs, and academics.
Today, we explore delivering safe and sustainable AV technology that will reshape the future of transportation and mobility. I learn more about Oxbotica's software, Oxbotica Driver, which brings flexibility to its fleet customers and partners, such as the Ocado Group, enabling a unique last-mile delivery service.
We discuss how Oxbotica is accelerating the adoption of its full-stack Oxbotica Driver by revolutionizing last-mile delivery not just in the UK but in the US, as the company plans to go global and work towards its mission of 'Universal Autonomy.'
Earlier this year, the all-electric AppliedEV vehicle, driven by Oxbotica, completed a journey in Oxford with no onboard driver, marking the next step in commercializing AV technology. The target for the first public on-road business deployment with Ocado Group, with a goods delivery variant, completing customer orders will be from 2023 onwards.
Mike McCarron is a partner at PwC, where he helps C-suite executives in a range of industries drive transformation across all aspects of business operations through IT strategy and governance. Mike has spent his career advising and supporting leaders as they navigate technology, investments, and operations. Prior to PwC, he was a CIO at Bain Capital, GE Capital, and Fidelity, among other companies.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Mike discusses why so many CIOs struggle to make an impact (and turnover in the role is so high). He also reveals why so many companies treat technology simply as a series of risks to be managed, not as a key lever of corporate strategy.
We also explore why corporate boards should create tech subcommittees, and he reveals the two years in the military (when he was in his early 20s) that taught him more about leadership than any other experience.
It is estimated that the sportswear industry is worth approximately $33bn, and counterfeiting is a growing issue, especially during globally renowned events such as the World Cup which has already seen multiple seizure operations of counterfeit merchandise. Connected garments are the future of sportswear.
Innovations in sportwear such as 'smart' numbers and invisible digital triggers which can be scanned with a smart phone. These innovations exist to boost consumer engagement as they have the power to unlock exclusive content such as match day information, quizzes and competitions for fans. They are also used to prove authenticity of the garments.
Michael Colarossi is the vice president of Innovation and Product Line Management for Avery Dennison RBIS. In this role, Michael is responsible for RBIS' portfolio of products and solutions, product line strategies, and technical product innovation. He also leads the division's sustainability, social, and product compliance efforts.
Listen in as we discuss how digital solutions can help brands and consumers, especially from a sustainability point of view, and stop fake merch.
Aaron Goldman, CMO, Mediaocean joins me in a discussion about “The Golden Crunch Point”. As we are all aware, we are entering that time in the marketing calendar where for many brands, the majority of their revenue and sales are made – the Golden Quarter. These three months have always been huge but this year it has been amplified with the continued unpredictable headwinds of cost of living, changing consumer confidence and a potential recession. The crunch point for brands is that, while retail sales are expected to be lower this year - while consumers are more cautious of what they spend their money on - they still to need to make revenue.
Aaron discusses “the four must haves” brands and retailers need for their Golden Quarter campaigns this year to entice new and existing customers outside discount and deals. With $200 billion in annualized ad spend running through its software, I also learn more about how Mediaocean provides foundational solutions to connect brands, agencies, media, technology, and data.
About Mediaocean
Mediaocean is the mission-critical platform for omnichannel advertising. With more than $200 billion in annualized media spend managed through its software, Mediaocean connects brands, agencies, media, technology, and data. Using AI and machine learning technology to control marketing investments and optimize business outcomes, Mediaocean powers campaigns from planning, buying, ad serving, and creative personalization to analysis, optimization, invoices, and payments. Mediaocean employs 1,700 staff across 30 global offices and supports over 100,000 people using its products
Sergio Esteve De Miguel is the co-founder of Bigle Legal, an innovative legaltech startup from Barcelona. Together with his brother, he wanted to combine their expertise in business and technology to transform the legal industry. Sergio believes technology can change how legal professionals approach their jobs and make their work lives much more enjoyable and productive.
In today's episode, Sergio shares his story, the problems they are trying to solve, the future of legal operations, and how intuitiveness is critical in a contract lifecycle management or tech solution.
About Bigle Legal
Bigle Legal is a Contract Lifecycle Management Software, provides an AI-powered, cloud-based solution that automates the legal operations of a company while improving safety and minimizing the risk of legal contingencies. A pioneer tech company and leader in the field of document automation from Spain, with a presence in the UK, Austria, Netherlands and Italy, and has a network reseller across Europe and Latin America. Its clients include real estate companies, corporations, and large law firms. The platform is precise, flexible, and intuitive, providing full control over the entire document life cycle.
Philipp Pointer leads Jumio's digital identity strategy and the initiative to enable multiple digital identity providers in its ecosystem. Prior to Jumio, Philipp was responsible for paysafecard, Europe's most popular prepaid solution for online purchases.
As well as sharing his personal experience in the technology industry and the projects he's worked on, Philipp discusses how digital identity for identity verification is a great place to start when it comes to building an ecosystem of trust. Listen in as we explore the different ways digital identity can make everyday transactions safer and easier for consumers while also improving people's online experience with brands
Finally, we discuss why it's important to not just 'Know Your Customer' but 'Know Your Business' in order to navigate business challenges without compromising on security.
In July, Gartner introduced Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM). In practice, CTEM is a set of processes and capabilities that allow organizations to evaluate the accessibility, exposure and exploitability of all digital and physical assets. The objective of CTEM is to create an actionable security posture remediation and improvement plan that business executives can understand, and architecture teams can act on.
Haggai Polak, CPO of Skybox Security discusses what this new process means for enterprise security. Haggai also shares how Skybox has observed the approach in practice to help organizations better understand how exposure management can help stay ahead of today’s cybersecurity threats.
Simon Mellin and his friends founded Modern Milkman in 2018 to reduce waste while making sustainable choices convenient and accessible to all. Modern Milkman set out to tackle the problem of single-use plastic packaging and food waste to ultimately protect the environment by reinventing the milk round.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Simon shares how his inspiration came after watching David Attenborough's 'Blue Planet' TV show and the global aim of cutting single-use plastics from ending up in the ocean in a trash area five times the size of France. I also learn more about how sustainability, supporting independent suppliers, farmers, and plastic waste reduction remain at the heart of his mission. But it's data and AI that make all this possible.
We discuss how Modern Milkman uses technology to deliver on its mission and transform the consumer experience. I learn how critical it is for customers to have what they ordered on time and the key to execution is capturing all the data points and running live analytics on the data so that Modern Milkman can map deliveries and predict demand and order flows to ensure no waste.
Simon also speaks about the role of ThoughtSpot as part of the Modern Milkman data story and how it powers both business growth as well as Modern Milkman's mission.
Måns Ulvestam and his co-founders, Karl Rosander and Markus Ahlstrand, sold their shares in Acast to launch a new book, audio, and news platform, Sesamy. The platform allows users to buy only what they need, when they need it, and access it on any device or app through single purchases. In addition, no subscription is needed to access (and own) digital content. They've already rolled out in Sweden and Denmark, and have significant expansion plans in place.
By using their own unique SmartID software, Sesamy can ensure a single-purchase option does not cannibalize existing subscription income. Instead, it creates an additional, incremental revenue stream to support publishers and provide consumers with flexible options in a time of considerable financial uncertainty. Sesamy have exciting upcoming plans for this software in the news/magazine sectors in particular.
With inflation through the roof, and troubles ahead, the worst is arguably yet to come for those wedded to subscription models. It plausibly figures that the publishing sector, already facing a downturn in ad revenues, will also see the same trend as consumers cut back and grow ever tired of 'peak subscription'. Given these developments, subscription-dependent sectors are crying out for an alternative and are now increasingly finding they've optimized their own subscriber numbers. Growth is tailing off, and at risk of declining rapidly with these self-evident economic pressures.
Greg Sloan, CFP®, CEPA, CPM™, is a Chief Purpose Officer and Co-Founder of Go Beyond. This People Development company combines Behavioral Science and Technology to improve well-being in the workplace.
With over 25+ years of experience in financial services, Greg is a serial founder who discovered his purpose and wants to share the knowledge of how to achieve this same goal with others. He is a thought leader who centers his time and energy on purpose and people, focusing on purpose in the workplace, the future of work, and financial wellness.
Go Beyond's mission is to create scalable, science-based tools and content that can be easily distributed worldwide to enable people to live better lives. They accomplish this by activating purpose in the workplace to help companies recruit, grow, and retain workers. Research shows that aligning company and personal goals improves productivity, retention, and overall wellness in the workplace.
After consecutive pandemic years, employee burnout has become a ubiquitous problem, impacting companies of every size, industry, and level. The consequences are devastating and far-reaching, negatively impacting people's personal and professional lives. For example, one employee survey found that a staggering 77 percent of employees are experiencing burnout at their current job.
This reality is exacerbating already-high employee turnover rates, which reached historic highs this year, reorienting the workforce in real-time. As a result, four in five HR leaders say that mental health and employee well-being are top priorities for their companies.
Today's episode discusses how Purpose Pulse enables companies and coaches to measure individual and organizational well-being. In addition, we explore how the combination of behavioral science and technology can help diagnose the root causes of disengagement, turnover, and burnout to allow organizations to allocate resources effectively to the most needed employee assistance programs.
Businesses across the country are already cutting costs amid the looming recession. From hiring freezes to trimming headcount, difficult decisions are already being made. As customers and clients try to cancel and tighten contracts, Kraig Swensrud shares the hardest questions he’s getting in the sales and renewals conversations right now, and how to handle them.
Kraig has led two companies through acquisition and is now the CEO of Qualified, which just raise $95M for their Series C. Even with an average 4,000% ROI across customers, Kraig is still having to navigate customers trying to cut costs.
Arjun Rai, serial entrepreneur and founder of the crowdsource-funded HelloWoofy.com joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story. His passion for technology and helping entrepreneurs and small businesses compete with the unlimited marketing budgets of their corporate competitors through digital marketing and equity fundraising make him a perfect fit for the show.
Arjun offers tips for anyone struggling to keep up with post creation, scheduling, integrations etc. For startup founders, he also shares his experiences with equity crowdfunding, scaling a startup and how to
survive and thrive as a founder.
Sparkseeker is a new, healthy alternative to current social apps that combines humane data practices, emotional wellness, and social good in one video-centric platform. It's fully built and launched its crowdfunding campaign earlier this summer, and crowdfunding contributors will receive early access to the app's private beta testing phase.
As more and more people look to social media to share and further the causes most important to them, Sparkseeker's unique, action-focused features make online advocacy easy. At the same time, Seekers (the app's term for users) can post freely about their everyday lives without worrying about anonymous comments or bots, thanks to the app's fully video-based model. In addition, Sparkseeker's use of responsible technology and neuroscience-supported features ensures a healthier Seeker experience without invasive data practices, harmful algorithms, or in-stream ads.
Sparkseeker's Founder and CEO, Kalista Zackhariyas, shares her incredibly engaging story about building a new healthy alternative to current social media apps.
Claire Vo, Chief Product Officer at Color, shares how she went from tech to healthcare. At Color, Claire leads the engineering, product management, data, and design teams to develop the company’s population health platform, services, and technology. She joined Color from Optimizely, where she was Chief Product Officer, building enterprise-grade experimentation and progressive delivery products.
After spending her entire career in tech, Claire made the jump into healthcare when she realized how the pandemic revealed just how inaccessible much of the U.S. health infrastructure is for people who need it most.
The digital health industry boomed during the pandemic, with a proliferation of new services to address every part of the care ecosystem, but it also revealed just how inaccessible much of the U.S. health infrastructure is for people who need it most. Based on her current position at Color, a company focused on delivering a scalable public health infrastructure for millions, Claire discusses what it means to build a healthcare product focused on increasing access for millions and how companies can build infrastructure for scaled impact.
Within digital health, Claire is passionate about the fact that software alone cannot solve public health crises – a notion which was proven through many companies’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare. There is a tendency to believe better tech is always the answer, but while the right software can reduce friction and drive better insights, healthcare is essentially a human interaction at the end of the day. It requires a hybrid model that incorporates both better technology and the personal touch of a visit to the doctor’s office or a pharmacy.
Claire Vo, Chief Product Officer at Color, shares how she went from tech to healthcare. At Color, Claire leads the engineering, product management, data, and design teams to develop the company’s population health platform, services, and technology. She joined Color from Optimizely, where she was Chief Product Officer, building enterprise-grade experimentation and progressive delivery products.
After spending her entire career in tech, Claire made the jump into healthcare when she realized how the pandemic revealed just how inaccessible much of the U.S. health infrastructure is for people who need it most.
The digital health industry boomed during the pandemic, with a proliferation of new services to address every part of the care ecosystem, but it also revealed just how inaccessible much of the U.S. health infrastructure is for people who need it most. Based on her current position at Color, a company focused on delivering a scalable public health infrastructure for millions, Claire discusses what it means to build a healthcare product focused on increasing access for millions and how companies can build infrastructure for scaled impact.
Within digital health, Claire is passionate about the fact that software alone cannot solve public health crises – a notion which was proven through many companies’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare. There is a tendency to believe better tech is always the answer, but while the right software can reduce friction and drive better insights, healthcare is essentially a human interaction at the end of the day. It requires a hybrid model that incorporates both better technology and the personal touch of a visit to the doctor’s office or a pharmacy.
François Candelon, Global Director of the BCG Henderson Institute – BCG's research think tank, joins me in a conversation about the growth of the many metaverses. Listen in as we talk about how the race is on to capture digital engagement.
With 30 years in tech and as a global team leader analyzing the impact of the Metaverse through research, François discusses what metaverses actually exist and their purpose in shaping the future, from full-second digital lives (for work and play) to gaming communities and even crypto-centric marketplaces.
We also talk about how organizations across industries can and must understand these rival metaverses before engaging. Finally, we look into who is winning the Metaverse and who the wild card contenders will be.
About François Candelon:
François Candelon is the Global Director of the BCG Henderson Institute, Boston Consulting Group’s think tank dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. He is also a leader of BCG GAMMA’s AI@Scale effort for technology, media, and telecommunications companies. GAMMA is BCG’s data science and advanced analytics unit.
François joined BCG in 1993. He has worked in several European countries, led BCG’s global telecommunications work from 2008 to 2012, and spent seven years in China, where he worked with the most advanced tech companies. His research is focused on AI and digital as a source of competitive advantage for businesses and national economies. His work has been published in several prestigious reviews (Harvard Business Review, MIT, and Sloan Management Review). He has also been a speaker in global conferences like Mobile World Congress, TED@BCG, Web Summit, Politico AI Summit, and Wuzhen Internet Conference.
François Candelon, Global Director of the BCG Henderson Institute – BCG's research think tank, joins me in a conversation about the growth of the many metaverses. Listen in as we talk about how the race is on to capture digital engagement.
With 30 years in tech and as a global team leader analyzing the impact of the Metaverse through research, François discusses what metaverses actually exist and their purpose in shaping the future, from full-second digital lives (for work and play) to gaming communities and even crypto-centric marketplaces.
We also talk about how organizations across industries can and must understand these rival metaverses before engaging. Finally, we look into who is winning the Metaverse and who the wild card contenders will be.
About François Candelon:
François Candelon is the Global Director of the BCG Henderson Institute, Boston Consulting Group’s think tank dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. He is also a leader of BCG GAMMA’s AI@Scale effort for technology, media, and telecommunications companies. GAMMA is BCG’s data science and advanced analytics unit.
François joined BCG in 1993. He has worked in several European countries, led BCG’s global telecommunications work from 2008 to 2012, and spent seven years in China, where he worked with the most advanced tech companies. His research is focused on AI and digital as a source of competitive advantage for businesses and national economies. His work has been published in several prestigious reviews (Harvard Business Review, MIT, and Sloan Management Review). He has also been a speaker in global conferences like Mobile World Congress, TED@BCG, Web Summit, Politico AI Summit, and Wuzhen Internet Conference.
Research from Accenture found that most CEOs list becoming a sustainable and responsible business as a top priority, even at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, companies with higher sustainability performance also perform better financially than their peers.
As meeting ESG benchmarks becomes a requirement, not simply a goal, Accenture recently shared its sustainability roadmap, including priorities, learnings, and best practices. I invited Accenture’s internal global IT organization/Accenture CIO Penelope Prett to join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss her strategy that focuses on three key pillars:
Data: Sustainability commitments require greater access to sustainability data and environmental sustainability reporting tools that can identify trends in specific products or locations and build bridges to end goals.
Cloud optimization: Optimizing migrations to the public cloud can reduce global carbon emissions by 59 million tons of CO2 annually. Accenture runs 95% of its infrastructure in the cloud, which led to an estimated reduction of 220 metric tons of carbon emissions in only nine months.
Value Chains: Driving supplier engagement through data platforms and procurement hubs to influence responsible buying decisions and help businesses optimize their supplier base.
We discuss how delivering on the promise of sustainable technology means that CIOs must embed sustainability into the core of operations to help the business achieve sustainability goals while also managing the environmental impact of the technology itself.
Research from Accenture found that most CEOs list becoming a sustainable and responsible business as a top priority, even at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, companies with higher sustainability performance also perform better financially than their peers.
As meeting ESG benchmarks becomes a requirement, not simply a goal, Accenture recently shared its sustainability roadmap, including priorities, learnings, and best practices. I invited Accenture’s internal global IT organization/Accenture CIO Penelope Prett to join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss her strategy that focuses on three key pillars:
Data: Sustainability commitments require greater access to sustainability data and environmental sustainability reporting tools that can identify trends in specific products or locations and build bridges to end goals.
Cloud optimization: Optimizing migrations to the public cloud can reduce global carbon emissions by 59 million tons of CO2 annually. Accenture runs 95% of its infrastructure in the cloud, which led to an estimated reduction of 220 metric tons of carbon emissions in only nine months.
Value Chains: Driving supplier engagement through data platforms and procurement hubs to influence responsible buying decisions and help businesses optimize their supplier base.
We discuss how delivering on the promise of sustainable technology means that CIOs must embed sustainability into the core of operations to help the business achieve sustainability goals while also managing the environmental impact of the technology itself.
Venafi®, the inventor and leading provider of machine identity management, recently announced new research findings that evaluate the security impact of the increasing number of nation-state attacks and recent shifts in geopolitics.
The survey of over 1,100 security decision-makers (SDMs) globally found that 66% of organizations have changed their cybersecurity strategy as a direct response to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, while nearly two-thirds (64%) suspect their organization has been either directly targeted or impacted by a nation-state cyberattack.
I invited Kevin Bocek to join me on the podcast to discuss how cybersecurity has become intertwined with geopolitics, with state-backed hackers using cybercrime to advance their nation's wider political, economic, and military goals.
I learn how everyone is a target, and unlike a kinetic warfare attack, only you can defend your business against nation-state cyberattacks. There is no cyber-Iron Dome or cyber-NORAD. Every CEO and board must recognize that cybersecurity is one of the top three business risks for everyone, regardless of industry."
We also discuss the Venafi research into the methods used by nation-state threat actors shows the use of machine identities is growing in state-sponsored cyberattacks. The digital certificates and cryptographic keys that serve as machine identities are the foundation of security for all secure digital transactions. Machine identities are used by everything from physical devices and to software to communicate securely.
Venafi®, the inventor and leading provider of machine identity management, recently announced new research findings that evaluate the security impact of the increasing number of nation-state attacks and recent shifts in geopolitics.
The survey of over 1,100 security decision-makers (SDMs) globally found that 66% of organizations have changed their cybersecurity strategy as a direct response to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, while nearly two-thirds (64%) suspect their organization has been either directly targeted or impacted by a nation-state cyberattack.
I invited Kevin Bocek to join me on the podcast to discuss how cybersecurity has become intertwined with geopolitics, with state-backed hackers using cybercrime to advance their nation's wider political, economic, and military goals.
I learn how everyone is a target, and unlike a kinetic warfare attack, only you can defend your business against nation-state cyberattacks. There is no cyber-Iron Dome or cyber-NORAD. Every CEO and board must recognize that cybersecurity is one of the top three business risks for everyone, regardless of industry."
We also discuss the Venafi research into the methods used by nation-state threat actors shows the use of machine identities is growing in state-sponsored cyberattacks. The digital certificates and cryptographic keys that serve as machine identities are the foundation of security for all secure digital transactions. Machine identities are used by everything from physical devices and to software to communicate securely.
Idit Levine, founder, and CEO of Solo.io, shares her inspirational tech startup story with me on Tech Talks Daily. Her journey took her from playing basketball professionally in her home country of Israel to founding Solo.io in 2017, the modern service connectivity company that’s already valued at $1 billion!
Idit shares with me the lessons she has learned along the way including how to scale as a CEO, hiring in the current market, and how to monetize open-source services.
Idit Levine, founder, and CEO of Solo.io, shares her inspirational tech startup story with me on Tech Talks Daily. Her journey took her from playing basketball professionally in her home country of Israel to founding Solo.io in 2017, the modern service connectivity company that’s already valued at $1 billion!
Idit shares with me the lessons she has learned along the way including how to scale as a CEO, hiring in the current market, and how to monetize open-source services.
Greg Gould is the COO of Dexioprotocol (DEXI), a crypto-based gaming company with several utilities. Their flagship product, DexiHunter, aims to be the "Pokemon Go" of cryptocurrency, and it allows players to earn crypto by hunting and collecting bounties around their cities. I invited Greg to join me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about Dexioprotocol and the worldwide adoption of crypto bounty hunting.
We discuss how gaming is helping to get more people interested in cryptocurrencies and the future of blockchain, and we reflect on what's happening in the market.
Greg Gould is the COO of Dexioprotocol (DEXI), a crypto-based gaming company with several utilities. Their flagship product, DexiHunter, aims to be the "Pokemon Go" of cryptocurrency, and it allows players to earn crypto by hunting and collecting bounties around their cities. I invited Greg to join me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about Dexioprotocol and the worldwide adoption of crypto bounty hunting.
We discuss how gaming is helping to get more people interested in cryptocurrencies and the future of blockchain, and we reflect on what's happening in the market.
Many B2B companies are struggling to truly innovate their operating models. As a result, leading companies in high-tech, industrial, medical device, and other B2B tech markets are hesitating to take the steps necessary to change how they build and deliver their solutions.
They are carrying too much baggage―high labor costs, slow time to customer value, under-responsive sales and services―into a future that won't stand for it. That's true even though the technologies are available to enable the changes NOW.
Digital Hesitation is a technology business book that examines why most B2B companies fail to reach the full potential of their digital transformation efforts. The authors join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how the book is written from the perspectives of a dozen experts who interact with and advise the world's top technology companies daily.
About J.B. Wood
J.B. Wood is president and CEO of the Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA), the leading association for today's technology and services organizations. Through TSIA, Wood advises the world's largest B2B technology companies on strategies to increase growth and profitability by optimizing their services, sales, product, and channel operations.
Wood is a best-selling author and frequent industry speaker on the topics of business outcome engineering, X-as-a-Service (XaaS) business models, transformations in the traditional customer-supplier relationship, and TSIA's LAER customer engagement model (Land, Adopt, Expand, and Renew). He has also appeared in such leading publications as Fortune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
About Thomas E. Lah
Thomas Lah is the executive director and executive vice president of the Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA), the leading association for today's technology and services organizations. For over 20 years, he has been helping some of the world's largest technology.
About TSIA
The Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA) is the world's leading research organization dedicated to helping technology companies achieve profitable growth and solve their top business challenges.
80% of the Fortune 100 technology companies have a TSIA membership, and executives from these companies look to TSIA for data and guidance that helps them make the right business decisions to ensure success.
Many B2B companies are struggling to truly innovate their operating models. As a result, leading companies in high-tech, industrial, medical device, and other B2B tech markets are hesitating to take the steps necessary to change how they build and deliver their solutions.
They are carrying too much baggage―high labor costs, slow time to customer value, under-responsive sales and services―into a future that won't stand for it. That's true even though the technologies are available to enable the changes NOW.
Digital Hesitation is a technology business book that examines why most B2B companies fail to reach the full potential of their digital transformation efforts. The authors join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how the book is written from the perspectives of a dozen experts who interact with and advise the world's top technology companies daily.
About J.B. Wood
J.B. Wood is president and CEO of the Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA), the leading association for today's technology and services organizations. Through TSIA, Wood advises the world's largest B2B technology companies on strategies to increase growth and profitability by optimizing their services, sales, product, and channel operations.
Wood is a best-selling author and frequent industry speaker on the topics of business outcome engineering, X-as-a-Service (XaaS) business models, transformations in the traditional customer-supplier relationship, and TSIA's LAER customer engagement model (Land, Adopt, Expand, and Renew). He has also appeared in such leading publications as Fortune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
About Thomas E. Lah
Thomas Lah is the executive director and executive vice president of the Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA), the leading association for today's technology and services organizations. For over 20 years, he has been helping some of the world's largest technology.
About TSIA
The Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA) is the world's leading research organization dedicated to helping technology companies achieve profitable growth and solve their top business challenges.
80% of the Fortune 100 technology companies have a TSIA membership, and executives from these companies look to TSIA for data and guidance that helps them make the right business decisions to ensure success.
Four years ago, I spoke with Todd Olson, millionaire CEO and co-founder of software development platform Pendo - the man on a mission to elevate the world's experiences with software. The serial entrepreneur famously teamed up with product leaders and technologists from Red Hat, Cisco, and Google to launch Pendo in October 2013.
Fast forward to 2022, and Pendo has gone on to raise $356 million in venture capital, land more than 2,300 customers, and employ 900 people across seven offices around the globe. Pendo also landed on the Forbes Cloud 100 and Inc. Best Workplaces lists for the fourth year in a row in 2021.
Todd returns to Tech Talks Daly to share further insights around the recently released fourth annual State of Product Leadership Report. We explore trends impacting product management, the evolution of the Product Manager role, and how Europe is faring in terms of product-led digital transformation.
Todd also talks about how he used his knowledge of the digital economy to help community banks meet surge of demand for online services and encourage schools to make the most out of their educational software throughout the height of the pandemic.
Four years ago, I spoke with Todd Olson, millionaire CEO and co-founder of software development platform Pendo - the man on a mission to elevate the world's experiences with software. The serial entrepreneur famously teamed up with product leaders and technologists from Red Hat, Cisco, and Google to launch Pendo in October 2013.
Fast forward to 2022, and Pendo has gone on to raise $356 million in venture capital, land more than 2,300 customers, and employ 900 people across seven offices around the globe. Pendo also landed on the Forbes Cloud 100 and Inc. Best Workplaces lists for the fourth year in a row in 2021.
Todd returns to Tech Talks Daly to share further insights around the recently released fourth annual State of Product Leadership Report. We explore trends impacting product management, the evolution of the Product Manager role, and how Europe is faring in terms of product-led digital transformation.
Todd also talks about how he used his knowledge of the digital economy to help community banks meet surge of demand for online services and encourage schools to make the most out of their educational software throughout the height of the pandemic.
One is the largest generation in the US, and the other is at the forefront of shaping expectations for brands — so how does marketing to Gen Z and millennials really work? Millennials, born between 1981-1996, make up 23% of the global population and 21% of the US population, meaning they are the largest demographic by age.
Gen Z refers to people born between the mid to late '90s and the 2010s and is the most diverse generation in human history. Despite some being close in age, they vary significantly in the type of marketing that resonates with them. For example, Millennials are known for driving a perfect aesthetic, while Gen Z rejected the trend by actively trying to avoid it.
This means that to appeal to both generations, businesses must strike the perfect balance of authentic and 'real' while also offering the same sense of aspiration. Carissa Flinders shares with me her insights on what technology each generation is using and how brands can leverage tech to better communicate with audiences.
One is the largest generation in the US, and the other is at the forefront of shaping expectations for brands — so how does marketing to Gen Z and millennials really work? Millennials, born between 1981-1996, make up 23% of the global population and 21% of the US population, meaning they are the largest demographic by age.
Gen Z refers to people born between the mid to late '90s and the 2010s and is the most diverse generation in human history. Despite some being close in age, they vary significantly in the type of marketing that resonates with them. For example, Millennials are known for driving a perfect aesthetic, while Gen Z rejected the trend by actively trying to avoid it.
This means that to appeal to both generations, businesses must strike the perfect balance of authentic and 'real' while also offering the same sense of aspiration. Carissa Flinders shares with me her insights on what technology each generation is using and how brands can leverage tech to better communicate with audiences.
I have invited Mark Hughes from DXC technology to join me on Tech Talks Daily to share insights around best practices for securing complex IT environments. We also discuss cyber security approaches for fighting the enemy within and how to make cyber security a top priority for boards and CFOs. Finally, we dare to explore smart security in the metaverse, and Mark shares a few Cyber security tales from the trenches.
About Mark:
Mark Hughes is president of Security for DXC Technology. He is responsible for DXC’s Security business including cyber defense, digital identity, secured infrastructure and security risk management.
Mark joined DXC from BT, a world-leading global telecommunications provider, where he most recently served as chief executive of BT Security. He joined BT in 2002 and held a variety of senior appointments, including key government customer-facing roles.
In 2013 Mark led the formation of BT Security, which has become a global leader with 3,000 cyber security experts across 15 security operation centers globally and double-digit annual revenue growth. Earlier in his career, Mark was the commercial director at MWB Business Exchange. He began his career in the British Army.
Mark has served on national boards, including the Cyber Growth Partnership for the United KingdomKingdom, and the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Cybersecurity Board. Awarded a BS with honors by the University of Leicester, Mark trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and the Junior Division of Staff College. He was awarded advanced military certificates in French and German from the University of Westminster.
I have invited Mark Hughes from DXC technology to join me on Tech Talks Daily to share insights around best practices for securing complex IT environments. We also discuss cyber security approaches for fighting the enemy within and how to make cyber security a top priority for boards and CFOs. Finally, we dare to explore smart security in the metaverse, and Mark shares a few Cyber security tales from the trenches.
About Mark:
Mark Hughes is president of Security for DXC Technology. He is responsible for DXC’s Security business including cyber defense, digital identity, secured infrastructure and security risk management.
Mark joined DXC from BT, a world-leading global telecommunications provider, where he most recently served as chief executive of BT Security. He joined BT in 2002 and held a variety of senior appointments, including key government customer-facing roles.
In 2013 Mark led the formation of BT Security, which has become a global leader with 3,000 cyber security experts across 15 security operation centers globally and double-digit annual revenue growth. Earlier in his career, Mark was the commercial director at MWB Business Exchange. He began his career in the British Army.
Mark has served on national boards, including the Cyber Growth Partnership for the United KingdomKingdom, and the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Cybersecurity Board. Awarded a BS with honors by the University of Leicester, Mark trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and the Junior Division of Staff College. He was awarded advanced military certificates in French and German from the University of Westminster.
CBRE Group's Chief Digital and Technology Officer Sandeep Dave joins me on Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss how technology impacts the commercial real estate industry. I also learn more about how they recently piloted a program to test collaborative tools used in virtual worlds for onboarding, training, and hybrid work.
About Sandeep Dave
Sandeep Dave leads the company's digital strategy and execution globally. He and his team provide the technology capabilities and infrastructure to support CBRE and CBRE's clients and professionals across the globe. He is also a member of CBRE's Global Executive Committee.
Prior to his current role, Dave served as Chief Digital and Technology Officer for CBRE's Global Workplace Solutions business with responsibility for digital enablement and transformation of the business. Prior to CBRE, Dave headed digital strategy and transformation for Citibank leading the firm's digital agenda across businesses and geographies globally. In his role, he helped Citi respond to digital trends and effectively compete and win in the face of changing customer expectations and emerging disruption.
About CBRE Group
CBRE group is one of world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm. With deep market knowledge, superior data and proprietary technology, their multi-dimensional perspective helps you use real estate to transform your business and find greater success. Their mission is to realize the potential of clients, professionals and partners by building the real estate solutions of the future. From instilling confidence in today's decisions to re-imagining tomorrow's spaces, they thrive in complex and ever-changing environments.
CBRE Group's Chief Digital and Technology Officer Sandeep Dave joins me on Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss how technology impacts the commercial real estate industry. I also learn more about how they recently piloted a program to test collaborative tools used in virtual worlds for onboarding, training, and hybrid work.
About Sandeep Dave
Sandeep Dave leads the company's digital strategy and execution globally. He and his team provide the technology capabilities and infrastructure to support CBRE and CBRE's clients and professionals across the globe. He is also a member of CBRE's Global Executive Committee.
Prior to his current role, Dave served as Chief Digital and Technology Officer for CBRE's Global Workplace Solutions business with responsibility for digital enablement and transformation of the business. Prior to CBRE, Dave headed digital strategy and transformation for Citibank leading the firm's digital agenda across businesses and geographies globally. In his role, he helped Citi respond to digital trends and effectively compete and win in the face of changing customer expectations and emerging disruption.
About CBRE Group
CBRE group is one of world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm. With deep market knowledge, superior data and proprietary technology, their multi-dimensional perspective helps you use real estate to transform your business and find greater success. Their mission is to realize the potential of clients, professionals and partners by building the real estate solutions of the future. From instilling confidence in today's decisions to re-imagining tomorrow's spaces, they thrive in complex and ever-changing environments.
MailChimp recently decided to clamp down on crypto companies. Given the ramifications of this move for web3 projects, I invited Gerald Heydenreich of EtherMail on the podcast. We discuss how the first Web 3.0 email solution is setting the standard for anonymous and encrypted wallet-to-wallet communication. Think Gmail + MailChimp + Metamask and you have EtherMail.
EtherMail recently closed a $3 million seed round, led by top Web3 investors Fabric Ventures and Greenfield One. Founded in Q4 2021 by serial entrepreneurs Shant Kevonian and Gerald Heydenreich, EtherMail is the first web3 tool to allow web3 companies to send rich, relevant content directly to their asset holders based on blockchain-synced real-time information.
MailChimp recently decided to clamp down on crypto companies. Given the ramifications of this move for web3 projects, I invited Gerald Heydenreich of EtherMail on the podcast. We discuss how the first Web 3.0 email solution is setting the standard for anonymous and encrypted wallet-to-wallet communication. Think Gmail + MailChimp + Metamask and you have EtherMail.
EtherMail recently closed a $3 million seed round, led by top Web3 investors Fabric Ventures and Greenfield One. Founded in Q4 2021 by serial entrepreneurs Shant Kevonian and Gerald Heydenreich, EtherMail is the first web3 tool to allow web3 companies to send rich, relevant content directly to their asset holders based on blockchain-synced real-time information.
When you stream your favorite songs on Spotify, the owners (rightsholders) of that music are eligible to receive money (royalties). On anotherblock, owners of music sell NFTs containing a share of the streaming royalty rights of your favorite songs. As an NFT owner, you will receive your share of the streaming royalties.
anotherblock is a community of music lovers building music rights catalogs. The company was founded in 2021 by entrepreneurs Michel D. Traore, Sebastian Ljungberg, and Filip Strömsten. anotherblock was built upon the idea that accessing music rights should be easy and democratic. By connecting music rights to NFTs, anotherblock creates a smooth and easy way to both buy and sell music rights - a community of music lovers building music rights catalogs together with artists.
Michel D. Traore joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about the story behind the company and improving the value of music by introducing it to a free and open market. I learn more about their mission to solve the institutionalized imbalance of power within the industry with technology.
We also talk about how the marketplace for music royalty NFTs is following on its first rapid-fire sell-out drops to offer shares in the streaming income from Alan Walker’s track, “Alone, Pt. II,” a pop-perfect ballad with vocals by Ava Max. Each of the 500 anotherblook NFTs gives holders the rights to 0.001% share of streaming revenue from the song.
When you stream your favorite songs on Spotify, the owners (rightsholders) of that music are eligible to receive money (royalties). On anotherblock, owners of music sell NFTs containing a share of the streaming royalty rights of your favorite songs. As an NFT owner, you will receive your share of the streaming royalties.
anotherblock is a community of music lovers building music rights catalogs. The company was founded in 2021 by entrepreneurs Michel D. Traore, Sebastian Ljungberg, and Filip Strömsten. anotherblock was built upon the idea that accessing music rights should be easy and democratic. By connecting music rights to NFTs, anotherblock creates a smooth and easy way to both buy and sell music rights - a community of music lovers building music rights catalogs together with artists.
Michel D. Traore joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about the story behind the company and improving the value of music by introducing it to a free and open market. I learn more about their mission to solve the institutionalized imbalance of power within the industry with technology.
We also talk about how the marketplace for music royalty NFTs is following on its first rapid-fire sell-out drops to offer shares in the streaming income from Alan Walker’s track, “Alone, Pt. II,” a pop-perfect ballad with vocals by Ava Max. Each of the 500 anotherblook NFTs gives holders the rights to 0.001% share of streaming revenue from the song.
Sanjay Brahmawar, CEO of enterprise tech/IoT company Software AG joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss why successful digital transformation hinges on two criteria. I learn more about the importance of cultural transformation and talent – and how to leverage both to modernize your enterprise.
We also talk about the roadblocks businesses face when undergoing company-wide strategic changes, and how to get buy-in from leaders to push forth that change. He also shares the leadership lessons he’s learned, including resilience and patience in the face of such a large, strategic transformation.
About Sanjay
Joining Software AG in 2018, Sanjay initiated a multi-year journey to convert the business to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based model. Called the Helix transformation, the strategic shift has required buy-in from stakeholders and employees and a change in sales models, processes and internal culture.
The five-year transformation, undeterred by the challenges brought on the COVID-19 pandemic, recently celebrate its third year. The program has been successful to date, seeing total recurring revenue growing, with 2021 seeing a 10% YOY increase, driven by six consecutive quarters of double-digit bookings growth within its Digital Business.
The proportion of Subscription and SaaS bookings in the Digital Business – a key indicator of the transformation – continued to increase to 88% for 2021.
Sanjay Brahmawar, CEO of enterprise tech/IoT company Software AG joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss why successful digital transformation hinges on two criteria. I learn more about the importance of cultural transformation and talent – and how to leverage both to modernize your enterprise.
We also talk about the roadblocks businesses face when undergoing company-wide strategic changes, and how to get buy-in from leaders to push forth that change. He also shares the leadership lessons he’s learned, including resilience and patience in the face of such a large, strategic transformation.
About Sanjay
Joining Software AG in 2018, Sanjay initiated a multi-year journey to convert the business to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based model. Called the Helix transformation, the strategic shift has required buy-in from stakeholders and employees and a change in sales models, processes and internal culture.
The five-year transformation, undeterred by the challenges brought on the COVID-19 pandemic, recently celebrate its third year. The program has been successful to date, seeing total recurring revenue growing, with 2021 seeing a 10% YOY increase, driven by six consecutive quarters of double-digit bookings growth within its Digital Business.
The proportion of Subscription and SaaS bookings in the Digital Business – a key indicator of the transformation – continued to increase to 88% for 2021.
In its latest SMB technology forecast, Analysys Mason predicted that IT spending by SMBs will grow at a growth rate of 7.5% between 2022 and 2027. In addition, cloud-based categories are expected to grow from USD $600 billion in 2022 to USD $1.0 trillion in 2027.
Bob Takacs, Research Director and SMB IT practice leader at Analysys Mason, commented on the forecast, “Our latest forecast reveals the shift in SMBs’ behavior and priorities since the pandemic. We see increased investments in categories driving resiliency and efficiency. This is an important release because we accounted for the impact of three critical drivers, including SMB’s changing behaviors post-pandemic, macroeconomic headwinds, and the global political unrest.”
Bob joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how the report suggests that SMB’s spending priorities include IT solutions that support efficiency, resiliency, and business continuity. We also discuss how three categories will account for almost half of all spending; managed services, infrastructure, and cybersecurity. Finally, we talk about how a distributed workforce and hybrid working practices will continue to influence IT spending.
In its latest SMB technology forecast, Analysys Mason predicted that IT spending by SMBs will grow at a growth rate of 7.5% between 2022 and 2027. In addition, cloud-based categories are expected to grow from USD $600 billion in 2022 to USD $1.0 trillion in 2027.
Bob Takacs, Research Director and SMB IT practice leader at Analysys Mason, commented on the forecast, “Our latest forecast reveals the shift in SMBs’ behavior and priorities since the pandemic. We see increased investments in categories driving resiliency and efficiency. This is an important release because we accounted for the impact of three critical drivers, including SMB’s changing behaviors post-pandemic, macroeconomic headwinds, and the global political unrest.”
Bob joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how the report suggests that SMB’s spending priorities include IT solutions that support efficiency, resiliency, and business continuity. We also discuss how three categories will account for almost half of all spending; managed services, infrastructure, and cybersecurity. Finally, we talk about how a distributed workforce and hybrid working practices will continue to influence IT spending.
HarperDB's CEO Stephen Goldberg shared the story behind the company with me in July on episode #2028. We discussed how their technology is changing other companies in unique and innovative ways. But this time, I have invited Jaxon Repp, Head of Product, on the podcast to learn more from his twenty-five years of experience architecting, designing, and developing enterprise software.
Jaxon is the founder of three technology startups and has consulted with multiple Fortune 500 companies on IoT and Digital Transformation initiatives. The partially-reformed developer understands what it's like to wrestle with technology instead of benefiting from it,
He also believes that if the Jetsons never had an episode where a config file error brought down the food-o-Matic, it surely should not be a problem now. Join me in learning more from Jaxon Repp.
HarperDB's CEO Stephen Goldberg shared the story behind the company with me in July on episode #2028. We discussed how their technology is changing other companies in unique and innovative ways. But this time, I have invited Jaxon Repp, Head of Product, on the podcast to learn more from his twenty-five years of experience architecting, designing, and developing enterprise software.
Jaxon is the founder of three technology startups and has consulted with multiple Fortune 500 companies on IoT and Digital Transformation initiatives. The partially-reformed developer understands what it's like to wrestle with technology instead of benefiting from it,
He also believes that if the Jetsons never had an episode where a config file error brought down the food-o-Matic, it surely should not be a problem now. Join me in learning more from Jaxon Repp.
Rakesh Jayaprakash from ManageEngine joins me on Tech Talks Daily as discuss how Analytics Plus was originally an on-premises IT analytics solution. Recently though, Rakesh and his team finished transforming the product into a SaaS solution that allows IT to connect several data sources into an integrated analytics platform that can be deployed on private and public clouds including AWS and Azure. This will help organizations attain faster time to market, increase productivity, curb expenditure, and garner more revenue.
Rakesh also discusses the decision to evolve Analytics plus into a SaaS offering, share the journey of doing so, and the value this update will bring to IT teams.
Rakesh Jayaprakash from ManageEngine joins me on Tech Talks Daily as discuss how Analytics Plus was originally an on-premises IT analytics solution. Recently though, Rakesh and his team finished transforming the product into a SaaS solution that allows IT to connect several data sources into an integrated analytics platform that can be deployed on private and public clouds including AWS and Azure. This will help organizations attain faster time to market, increase productivity, curb expenditure, and garner more revenue.
Rakesh also discusses the decision to evolve Analytics plus into a SaaS offering, share the journey of doing so, and the value this update will bring to IT teams.
There is so much hype around emerging technologies, but I want to move beyond the buzzwords, demystify the technology, and understand the business value and tangible results it can offer. So today, I want to talk about Edge Computing.
AtlasEdge, the leading pan-European edge data centre provider, recently appeared on my radar after they announced the acquisition of Datacenter One ("DC1"), the leading German provider for data centre development. The company is also rapidly gaining a reputation as a leading European Edge data centre platform with over 100 locations across 13 countries.
Giuliano Di Vitantonio, CEO of AtlasEdge, joins me on Tech Talks Dailyto discuss how their distributed data centre portfolio allows their customers to plan and shape their technology and network infrastructure to meet the growing requirements for lower latency, higher performance, and localised solutions.
There is so much hype around emerging technologies, but I want to move beyond the buzzwords, demystify the technology, and understand the business value and tangible results it can offer. So today, I want to talk about Edge Computing.
AtlasEdge, the leading pan-European edge data centre provider, recently appeared on my radar after they announced the acquisition of Datacenter One ("DC1"), the leading German provider for data centre development. The company is also rapidly gaining a reputation as a leading European Edge data centre platform with over 100 locations across 13 countries.
Giuliano Di Vitantonio, CEO of AtlasEdge, joins me on Tech Talks Dailyto discuss how their distributed data centre portfolio allows their customers to plan and shape their technology and network infrastructure to meet the growing requirements for lower latency, higher performance, and localised solutions.
Experts are predicting an economic downturn in the coming months. Tech companies across the US have already implemented hiring freezes and are trimming up to 20% of their workforce. Unfortunately, this means that corporate sustainability initiatives will also likely fall by the wayside to save cash.
In the wake of the recession and the new wave of globalization, Jag Lamba, founder of Certa, discusses specific practices that businesses can implement to prioritize ESG, mitigate risk, and maintain visibility into their supply chain, where 70% of all risk lies.
Jag also shares the story behind Certa’s no-code platform and how it was designed to make it easy to digitize and manage the lifecycle of all suppliers, partners, and customers. With automated onboarding, contract lifecycle management, and ESG management, Certa eliminates the procurement bottleneck and allows companies to onboard third-parties 3x faster.
Experts are predicting an economic downturn in the coming months. Tech companies across the US have already implemented hiring freezes and are trimming up to 20% of their workforce. Unfortunately, this means that corporate sustainability initiatives will also likely fall by the wayside to save cash.
In the wake of the recession and the new wave of globalization, Jag Lamba, founder of Certa, discusses specific practices that businesses can implement to prioritize ESG, mitigate risk, and maintain visibility into their supply chain, where 70% of all risk lies.
Jag also shares the story behind Certa’s no-code platform and how it was designed to make it easy to digitize and manage the lifecycle of all suppliers, partners, and customers. With automated onboarding, contract lifecycle management, and ESG management, Certa eliminates the procurement bottleneck and allows companies to onboard third-parties 3x faster.
On this podcast, I pride myself on sharing stories from all over the world and have interviewed guests from more than 75 countries. Today, I am going to take you on a trip to the Czech Republic, where Artur Kane from Good Access is going to discuss the importance of establishing an encrypted connection between employees and business systems from wherever they're working.
Artur is also regarded as a passionate speaker on protecting remote workers and company data in a digital world at industry events and often contributes to security/networking magazines. We discuss how zero trust access control provides a more secure alternative to corporate VPN for remote working security and how companies can move from VPN to zero trust access.
On this podcast, I pride myself on sharing stories from all over the world and have interviewed guests from more than 75 countries. Today, I am going to take you on a trip to the Czech Republic, where Artur Kane from Good Access is going to discuss the importance of establishing an encrypted connection between employees and business systems from wherever they're working.
Artur is also regarded as a passionate speaker on protecting remote workers and company data in a digital world at industry events and often contributes to security/networking magazines. We discuss how zero trust access control provides a more secure alternative to corporate VPN for remote working security and how companies can move from VPN to zero trust access.
According to a recent Gartner study, DEI is one of the top five business priorities for businesses in 2022. However, hybrid and in-person work environments could jeopardize company access to talent. So while more organizations are doubling down on diversity and inclusion efforts and implementing consequential reporting, meeting those goals still remains a challenge for many corporations.
One way to help increase diversity in an organization is to provide opportunities for growth from the entry-level employee sector. Ahva Sadeghi, Co-Founder & CEO of Symba shares with me how remote internship programs allow employers to access diverse talent and fill their future hiring pipeline. Ahva also shares her inspirational tech startup story and ways remote positions can feed an overall DEI strategy, and how they contribute to tenure, culture, and overall company wellness.
According to a recent Gartner study, DEI is one of the top five business priorities for businesses in 2022. However, hybrid and in-person work environments could jeopardize company access to talent. So while more organizations are doubling down on diversity and inclusion efforts and implementing consequential reporting, meeting those goals still remains a challenge for many corporations.
One way to help increase diversity in an organization is to provide opportunities for growth from the entry-level employee sector. Ahva Sadeghi, Co-Founder & CEO of Symba shares with me how remote internship programs allow employers to access diverse talent and fill their future hiring pipeline. Ahva also shares her inspirational tech startup story and ways remote positions can feed an overall DEI strategy, and how they contribute to tenure, culture, and overall company wellness.
Lugano’s Plan ₿ Forum is a Bitcoin conference bringing together world leaders, technologists, and entrepreneurs to discuss nation-state Bitcoin adoption, economics, financial freedom, and freedom of speech. Although I am not attending the event, I did get to spend a little time with Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether and Bitfinex to discuss the Plan B forum.
We discuss how Bitfinex and Tether's actions for financial freedom might influence the rest of the world and fight for innovation through governmental, corporate, individual, and technological tracks. We also talk about how Bitfinex is participating in Adopting Bitcoin in El Salvador in November. Finally, we dare to imagine IT without any infrastructure or reliance on the cloud.
Lugano’s Plan ₿ Forum is a Bitcoin conference bringing together world leaders, technologists, and entrepreneurs to discuss nation-state Bitcoin adoption, economics, financial freedom, and freedom of speech. Although I am not attending the event, I did get to spend a little time with Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether and Bitfinex to discuss the Plan B forum.
We discuss how Bitfinex and Tether's actions for financial freedom might influence the rest of the world and fight for innovation through governmental, corporate, individual, and technological tracks. We also talk about how Bitfinex is participating in Adopting Bitcoin in El Salvador in November. Finally, we dare to imagine IT without any infrastructure or reliance on the cloud.
Many are citing open source as the future. The UK Government's National Data Strategy even talks about the importance of opening public sector datasets to form the backbone of innovation, efficiency, and growth. This is a trend that Databricks is betting on in a big way.
Databricks is the lakehouse company. More than 7,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, H&M, and over 40% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform to unify their data, analytics and AI. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe. Founded by the original creators of Apache Spark™, Delta Lake and MLflow, Databricks is on a mission to help data teams solve the world's toughest problems.
I have invited Dael Williamson, EMEA CTO, Field Advisory & Engineering at Databricks, to join me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company and how they are helping data teams solve the world's most challenging problems.
Many are citing open source as the future. The UK Government's National Data Strategy even talks about the importance of opening public sector datasets to form the backbone of innovation, efficiency, and growth. This is a trend that Databricks is betting on in a big way.
Databricks is the lakehouse company. More than 7,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, H&M, and over 40% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform to unify their data, analytics and AI. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe. Founded by the original creators of Apache Spark™, Delta Lake and MLflow, Databricks is on a mission to help data teams solve the world's toughest problems.
I have invited Dael Williamson, EMEA CTO, Field Advisory & Engineering at Databricks, to join me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company and how they are helping data teams solve the world's most challenging problems.
Kenny William is the "Senior Director of Distribution Center Wizardry" at Parts Town, the world’s largest distributer of OEM parts for the food service industry. Parts Town has made significant automation improvements at its recently expanded 300,000 sq. ft. distribution center. The company implemented AutoStore, an automatic storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) that has helped improve picking accuracy by more than 50% and handles 72% of parts picks in only 7% of the total distribution center space.
The distribution center also features over 100 robots and an elevated conveyor belt that moves parts throughout the space without taking up additional floor space. Kenny joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about their supply chain innovations in this unique market segment and discuss how these investments are transforming Parts Town team members into tech-savvy professionals.
Kenny shares with me how they are using technology to circumvent supply chain challenges for OEMs and the purchasers of these parts (restaurant owners, service companies, etc.).
Kenny William is the "Senior Director of Distribution Center Wizardry" at Parts Town, the world’s largest distributer of OEM parts for the food service industry. Parts Town has made significant automation improvements at its recently expanded 300,000 sq. ft. distribution center. The company implemented AutoStore, an automatic storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) that has helped improve picking accuracy by more than 50% and handles 72% of parts picks in only 7% of the total distribution center space.
The distribution center also features over 100 robots and an elevated conveyor belt that moves parts throughout the space without taking up additional floor space. Kenny joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about their supply chain innovations in this unique market segment and discuss how these investments are transforming Parts Town team members into tech-savvy professionals.
Kenny shares with me how they are using technology to circumvent supply chain challenges for OEMs and the purchasers of these parts (restaurant owners, service companies, etc.).
NETSCOUT recently announced findings from its DDoS Threat Intelligence Report. The findings demonstrate how sophisticated cybercriminals have become at bypassing defences with new DDoS attack vectors and successful methodologies.
"By constantly innovating and adapting, attackers are designing new, more effective DDoS attack vectors or doubling down on existing effective methodologies," said Richard Hummel, threat intelligence lead at NETSCOUT. "In the first half of 2022, attackers conducted more pre-attack reconnaissance, exercised a new attack vector called TP240 PhoneHome, created a tsunami of TCP flooding attacks, and rapidly expanded high-powered botnets to plague network-connected resources. In addition, bad actors have openly embraced online aggression with high-profile DDoS attack campaigns related to geopolitical unrest, which have had global implications."
NETSCOUT's Active Level Threat Analysis System (ATLAS™) compiles DDoS attack statistics from most of the world's ISPs, large data centres, and government and enterprise networks. This data represents intelligence on attacks occurring in over 190 countries, 550 industries, and 50,000 autonomous system numbers (ASNs). NETSCOUT's ATLAS Security Engineering and Response Team (ASERT) analyses and curates this data to provide unique insights in its biannual report.
When I hear phrases such as DNS water-torture attacks and carpet-bombing attacks on the rise combined with a new Netscout Threat Intelligence report, I immediately reached out to my go-to guy for cybersecurity threats. Richard Hummel rejoins me on Tech TAlks Daily to discuss the news in more detail and demystify some of the terminologies around the threat landscape.
NETSCOUT recently announced findings from its DDoS Threat Intelligence Report. The findings demonstrate how sophisticated cybercriminals have become at bypassing defences with new DDoS attack vectors and successful methodologies.
"By constantly innovating and adapting, attackers are designing new, more effective DDoS attack vectors or doubling down on existing effective methodologies," said Richard Hummel, threat intelligence lead at NETSCOUT. "In the first half of 2022, attackers conducted more pre-attack reconnaissance, exercised a new attack vector called TP240 PhoneHome, created a tsunami of TCP flooding attacks, and rapidly expanded high-powered botnets to plague network-connected resources. In addition, bad actors have openly embraced online aggression with high-profile DDoS attack campaigns related to geopolitical unrest, which have had global implications."
NETSCOUT's Active Level Threat Analysis System (ATLAS™) compiles DDoS attack statistics from most of the world's ISPs, large data centres, and government and enterprise networks. This data represents intelligence on attacks occurring in over 190 countries, 550 industries, and 50,000 autonomous system numbers (ASNs). NETSCOUT's ATLAS Security Engineering and Response Team (ASERT) analyses and curates this data to provide unique insights in its biannual report.
When I hear phrases such as DNS water-torture attacks and carpet-bombing attacks on the rise combined with a new Netscout Threat Intelligence report, I immediately reached out to my go-to guy for cybersecurity threats. Richard Hummel rejoins me on Tech TAlks Daily to discuss the news in more detail and demystify some of the terminologies around the threat landscape.
Today, every B2B omnichannel retail user experience is expected to be seamless, without boundaries for users, with well-aligned journeys and a fully integrated experience across all channels. But can one truly achieve that in a big company, with a huge history and complex processes, while keeping customers happy and engaged?
Rehan Saleem, Product Manager, and Tobias Schröder, Ph.D., Product Manager, joined me in a conversation on the show floor at Sitecore Symposium 2022 about powering brand experiences. At the event, their presentation, "How to (not) ruin a B2B organization," focused on the challenges of creating and maintaining a seamless user experience and keeping a great relationship with our customers.
Tobias and Rehan share with me how their teams manage to build human-centered solutions while handling business models and METRO shops in 23 countries. We also discuss personalization technology and experience platforms.
Today, every B2B omnichannel retail user experience is expected to be seamless, without boundaries for users, with well-aligned journeys and a fully integrated experience across all channels. But can one truly achieve that in a big company, with a huge history and complex processes, while keeping customers happy and engaged?
Rehan Saleem, Product Manager, and Tobias Schröder, Ph.D., Product Manager, joined me in a conversation on the show floor at Sitecore Symposium 2022 about powering brand experiences. At the event, their presentation, "How to (not) ruin a B2B organization," focused on the challenges of creating and maintaining a seamless user experience and keeping a great relationship with our customers.
Tobias and Rehan share with me how their teams manage to build human-centered solutions while handling business models and METRO shops in 23 countries. We also discuss personalization technology and experience platforms.
As Chief Technology Officer and Senior PE for Intel Corporation, Steve Orrin orchestrates and executes customer engagements in the Federal space, overseeing the development of federal solution architectures to address challenges in a government enterprise, national security, and other federal areas of focus.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Steve joins me in a discussion about the key trends in cybersecurity. Steve reveals the latest threats and techniques used against corporations and governments and shares the best practices to help.
We also discuss the security/risk concerns around supply chain security and what organizations can do today and in the future to address or reduce this risk. With trust being top of mind for CISOs, Steve also advises how organizations can adopt Zero Trust Architectures and what new security innovations are waiting on the horizon.
About Steve Orrin
Steve Orrin offers three decades of extraordinary success in a series of high-level roles at top-tier companies that include Intel Corporation, Sarvega, Watchfire Inc., Sanctum Inc., First Genetic Trust Inc., Lockstar Inc., and SynData Technologies Inc. He has developed a reputation as an industry leader, leveraging a history of delivering results in Innovation, Intrapreneurship, and Entrepreneurship. He is a Tech-enabled business professional who has launched and scaled companies and brought innovative industry-leading products to market.
Steve's invaluable expertise and broad business range have powered a history of developing successful products, technologies, and new markets. Such traits have consistently enabled Steve to achieve an impressive command of the skills needed to manage ongoing business planning processes while developing strategies to meet future challenges.
As Chief Technology Officer and Senior PE for Intel Corporation, Steve Orrin orchestrates and executes customer engagements in the Federal space, overseeing the development of federal solution architectures to address challenges in a government enterprise, national security, and other federal areas of focus.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Steve joins me in a discussion about the key trends in cybersecurity. Steve reveals the latest threats and techniques used against corporations and governments and shares the best practices to help.
We also discuss the security/risk concerns around supply chain security and what organizations can do today and in the future to address or reduce this risk. With trust being top of mind for CISOs, Steve also advises how organizations can adopt Zero Trust Architectures and what new security innovations are waiting on the horizon.
About Steve Orrin
Steve Orrin offers three decades of extraordinary success in a series of high-level roles at top-tier companies that include Intel Corporation, Sarvega, Watchfire Inc., Sanctum Inc., First Genetic Trust Inc., Lockstar Inc., and SynData Technologies Inc. He has developed a reputation as an industry leader, leveraging a history of delivering results in Innovation, Intrapreneurship, and Entrepreneurship. He is a Tech-enabled business professional who has launched and scaled companies and brought innovative industry-leading products to market.
Steve's invaluable expertise and broad business range have powered a history of developing successful products, technologies, and new markets. Such traits have consistently enabled Steve to achieve an impressive command of the skills needed to manage ongoing business planning processes while developing strategies to meet future challenges.
I have been watching many keynotes at Symposium, and two of the speakers from Sitecore's leadership team are joining me on the podcast today.
First of all, we are going to speak to Dave O'Flanagan, CPO at Sitecore, who will walk me through the big announcements at this year's event. We discuss Content Hub One, a new AI-powered standalone search derived from Sitecore's Reflektion acquisition and Sitecore Connect.
We will then meet Nick Malone, COO, who has some great insights to share with me about how enterprises can create superior digital experiences. We discuss the need to operate in a state of always-on innovation and adapt to the ever-evolving expectations of consumers.
About Nick Malone
Nick is a proven executive with 24 years of leadership experience within both client and vendor roles spanning UK, Europe, Middle East, USA, Russia and Central Asia. Extensive experience in sales leadership and business development within both mature & emerging markets and in the management of diverse cultures, complex business environments and an extended ecosystem of national and international alliance partners & national & global corporations
About Dave O'Flanagan
Dave O'Flanagan is the Chief Product Officer in Sitecore. Sitecore delivers a digital experience platform that empowers the world's smartest brands to build lifelong relationships with their customers.
An industry leader, Sitecore is the only company bringing together content, commerce, and data into one connected platform that delivers millions of digital experiences every day. Leading companies including American Express, ASOS, Kimberly-Clark, L'Oréal and Volvo Cars rely on Sitecore to provide more engaging, personalised experiences for their customers.
Previously the CEO & Co-Founder of Boxever, a personalisation platform that uses data and AI to help the world's biggest brands make every customer interaction smarter and deliver game-changing customer experience.
I have been watching many keynotes at Symposium, and two of the speakers from Sitecore's leadership team are joining me on the podcast today.
First of all, we are going to speak to Dave O'Flanagan, CPO at Sitecore, who will walk me through the big announcements at this year's event. We discuss Content Hub One, a new AI-powered standalone search derived from Sitecore's Reflektion acquisition and Sitecore Connect.
We will then meet Nick Malone, COO, who has some great insights to share with me about how enterprises can create superior digital experiences. We discuss the need to operate in a state of always-on innovation and adapt to the ever-evolving expectations of consumers.
About Nick Malone
Nick is a proven executive with 24 years of leadership experience within both client and vendor roles spanning UK, Europe, Middle East, USA, Russia and Central Asia. Extensive experience in sales leadership and business development within both mature & emerging markets and in the management of diverse cultures, complex business environments and an extended ecosystem of national and international alliance partners & national & global corporations
About Dave O'Flanagan
Dave O'Flanagan is the Chief Product Officer in Sitecore. Sitecore delivers a digital experience platform that empowers the world's smartest brands to build lifelong relationships with their customers.
An industry leader, Sitecore is the only company bringing together content, commerce, and data into one connected platform that delivers millions of digital experiences every day. Leading companies including American Express, ASOS, Kimberly-Clark, L'Oréal and Volvo Cars rely on Sitecore to provide more engaging, personalised experiences for their customers.
Previously the CEO & Co-Founder of Boxever, a personalisation platform that uses data and AI to help the world's biggest brands make every customer interaction smarter and deliver game-changing customer experience.
Jacuzzi is known around the world for its hot tub and spa manufacturing. But people seldom think about their technology or how their digital presence is a primary source for generating leads.
The Jacuzzi Group had a fragmented dealer model, including hundreds of Jacuzzi-owned stores, Jacuzzi-only dealers, and brand-agnostic dealers, all who had their own websites and e-commerce experiences. This made managing the Jacuzzi brand a nightmare, not to mention the inconsistent experience it was portraying to customers.
Kyle BladesJacuzzi's Director of Digital Marketing shares their digital transformation journey with me and how they leveraged technology to unify its customer experiences, delivering both a best-in-class experience and future-proofed, omnichannel connectivity at scale.
Jacuzzi is known around the world for its hot tub and spa manufacturing. But people seldom think about their technology or how their digital presence is a primary source for generating leads.
The Jacuzzi Group had a fragmented dealer model, including hundreds of Jacuzzi-owned stores, Jacuzzi-only dealers, and brand-agnostic dealers, all who had their own websites and e-commerce experiences. This made managing the Jacuzzi brand a nightmare, not to mention the inconsistent experience it was portraying to customers.
Kyle BladesJacuzzi's Director of Digital Marketing shares their digital transformation journey with me and how they leveraged technology to unify its customer experiences, delivering both a best-in-class experience and future-proofed, omnichannel connectivity at scale.
Cirque du Soleil started with a group of street performers in Montreal, Canada in 1984 and manages approximately 40 shows worldwide today. In addition to the iconic shows under the blue and yellow big top, the Cirque du Soleil brand includes other live entertainment brands such as the Blue Man Group, VStar Entertainment Group, and The Works Entertainment Group.
After being shut down for an extended period during the pandemic, Cirque Du Soleil is back, stronger than ever across multiple continents. But this time, they are also delighting their customers with an Interactive Program to enhance the fan experience and enable more engagement opportunities.
Pierre-Luc Camirand, Director of Digital Customer Experience, at Cirque du Soleil shares their digital transformation journey with me. With annual global ticket sales ranging from 11-12 million, most of these transactions are completed online and move through the Sitecore digital ecosystem. Through micro-interactions and behavioral personalization, I learn how Cirque du Soleil is increasing engagement, conversion rates, and repeat business.
We discuss how they are replicating the experience of a live show in the digital environment and creating a seamless customer experience across all digital platforms with content in multiple languages.
Cirque du Soleil started with a group of street performers in Montreal, Canada in 1984 and manages approximately 40 shows worldwide today. In addition to the iconic shows under the blue and yellow big top, the Cirque du Soleil brand includes other live entertainment brands such as the Blue Man Group, VStar Entertainment Group, and The Works Entertainment Group.
After being shut down for an extended period during the pandemic, Cirque Du Soleil is back, stronger than ever across multiple continents. But this time, they are also delighting their customers with an Interactive Program to enhance the fan experience and enable more engagement opportunities.
Pierre-Luc Camirand, Director of Digital Customer Experience, at Cirque du Soleil shares their digital transformation journey with me. With annual global ticket sales ranging from 11-12 million, most of these transactions are completed online and move through the Sitecore digital ecosystem. Through micro-interactions and behavioral personalization, I learn how Cirque du Soleil is increasing engagement, conversion rates, and repeat business.
We discuss how they are replicating the experience of a live show in the digital environment and creating a seamless customer experience across all digital platforms with content in multiple languages.
Digital tools have transformed the car buying experience for drivers over the last twenty years. Most will routinely do their own research online before visiting their local dealer, but could the Metaverse further transform the process of browsing and purchasing your next vehicle?
Sitecore's 2022 Perceptions of the Metaverse Report recently revealed that consumers are ready (and expect) to engage brands in new virtual environments. The company is also working with Honda to streamline the purchasing experience using a Metaverse that does not require strapping a clunky headset to your face.
The concept promises to help make car configuration easier and more interactive. Drivers will be able to get all the information they need in a virtual world before completing the purchase. Ultimatley, technology is beginning to reimagine the traditional car dealership as an experience centre.
I sit down with Aswin Mannepalli, Global Director, Industry Strategy and Marketing for (Automotive and Manufacturing) at Sitecore Symposium 2022 to explore how digital and metaverse experience tools can streamline the car buying process to ease the path to conversion.
Digital tools have transformed the car buying experience for drivers over the last twenty years. Most will routinely do their own research online before visiting their local dealer, but could the Metaverse further transform the process of browsing and purchasing your next vehicle?
Sitecore's 2022 Perceptions of the Metaverse Report recently revealed that consumers are ready (and expect) to engage brands in new virtual environments. The company is also working with Honda to streamline the purchasing experience using a Metaverse that does not require strapping a clunky headset to your face.
The concept promises to help make car configuration easier and more interactive. Drivers will be able to get all the information they need in a virtual world before completing the purchase. Ultimatley, technology is beginning to reimagine the traditional car dealership as an experience centre.
I sit down with Aswin Mannepalli, Global Director, Industry Strategy and Marketing for (Automotive and Manufacturing) at Sitecore Symposium 2022 to explore how digital and metaverse experience tools can streamline the car buying process to ease the path to conversion.
Wolters Kluwer is a 189-year-old company and global leader in professional information, software, and services for health, tax and accounting, governance, risk and compliance, and legal and regulatory sectors. However, in the digital age, the company had a fractured user experience, unmanageable marketing operations systems, siloed data, and a disconnected brand presentation across hundreds of marketing and product websites.
This is a story that many listeners will be all too familiar with, but Wolters Kluwer embarked on a digital transformation journey and selected one CMS to present a single global website leveraging analytics and reporting better aligned to the company's strategy.
The theme at this year's Sitecore Symposium event is Meet Every Moment. With this in mind, I invited Amy Kolzow and Mike Shaw from Walters Kluwer to share their inspiring digital transformation journey with me.
About Amy Kolzow:
Amy is a marketing technology leader with over two decades of experience driving digital transformation. As Vice President of Global Digital Marketing at Wolters Kluwer, Amy designed and led a program that brought 280 websites together into one global website to deliver a unified customer experience. Reaching more than two million visitors a month, www.wolterskluwer.com is a game changer in Wolters Kluwer's 189-year history. Amy applies her analytics-first mindset to her passion for escaping marketing mediocrity and achieving tangible, repeatable results.
About Mike Shaw:
Mike is the Associate Director of Marketing Technology and Operations at Wolters Kluwer. Among his responsibilities, Mike manages the transformation of the marketing technology stack as the company rapidly evolves. With over ten years of Sitecore experience, Mike leverages Sitecore's technologies to meet the needs of a continuously expanding organization.
Wolters Kluwer is a 189-year-old company and global leader in professional information, software, and services for health, tax and accounting, governance, risk and compliance, and legal and regulatory sectors. However, in the digital age, the company had a fractured user experience, unmanageable marketing operations systems, siloed data, and a disconnected brand presentation across hundreds of marketing and product websites.
This is a story that many listeners will be all too familiar with, but Wolters Kluwer embarked on a digital transformation journey and selected one CMS to present a single global website leveraging analytics and reporting better aligned to the company's strategy.
The theme at this year's Sitecore Symposium event is Meet Every Moment. With this in mind, I invited Amy Kolzow and Mike Shaw from Walters Kluwer to share their inspiring digital transformation journey with me.
About Amy Kolzow:
Amy is a marketing technology leader with over two decades of experience driving digital transformation. As Vice President of Global Digital Marketing at Wolters Kluwer, Amy designed and led a program that brought 280 websites together into one global website to deliver a unified customer experience. Reaching more than two million visitors a month, www.wolterskluwer.com is a game changer in Wolters Kluwer's 189-year history. Amy applies her analytics-first mindset to her passion for escaping marketing mediocrity and achieving tangible, repeatable results.
About Mike Shaw:
Mike is the Associate Director of Marketing Technology and Operations at Wolters Kluwer. Among his responsibilities, Mike manages the transformation of the marketing technology stack as the company rapidly evolves. With over ten years of Sitecore experience, Mike leverages Sitecore's technologies to meet the needs of a continuously expanding organization.
The last two years have seen tremendous change. People all over the world have been doing business online more than ever before, and with that, their digital expectations are now sky-high. The brands that will thrive in a post-pandemic world are the ones that can connect intelligently and meet their customers with authentic experiences at every touchpoint along their journey.
At this year's in-person Sitecore Symposium, I set out to learn how some of the world's biggest brands are empowered to deliver standout CX through innovative solutions that drive results and build customer loyalty.
When the American Dental Association (ADA) began its journey to refresh its member digital hub, the solution was not just about modernizing the technology. Instead, modernizing how the team worked and interacted with the hub and each other had to change, placing the member experience at the center of every decision.
Jen Sutherland and Ken Zenger from the American Dental Association share key insights that ADA learned along the way to build an evergreen hub model that would continue to deliver relevant and easily navigated content to new and established members into the future. We also discuss the dangers of having out-of-date information outranking new content.
The last two years have seen tremendous change. People all over the world have been doing business online more than ever before, and with that, their digital expectations are now sky-high. The brands that will thrive in a post-pandemic world are the ones that can connect intelligently and meet their customers with authentic experiences at every touchpoint along their journey.
At this year's in-person Sitecore Symposium, I set out to learn how some of the world's biggest brands are empowered to deliver standout CX through innovative solutions that drive results and build customer loyalty.
When the American Dental Association (ADA) began its journey to refresh its member digital hub, the solution was not just about modernizing the technology. Instead, modernizing how the team worked and interacted with the hub and each other had to change, placing the member experience at the center of every decision.
Jen Sutherland and Ken Zenger from the American Dental Association share key insights that ADA learned along the way to build an evergreen hub model that would continue to deliver relevant and easily navigated content to new and established members into the future. We also discuss the dangers of having out-of-date information outranking new content.
In the space of three days, Solana lost about $4.5 million worth of tokens to hackers while the Nomad protocol was drained of $200 million. Zooming out, ChainAnalysis estimates that $2 billion in cryptocurrency has been stolen from cross-chain bridges across 13 separate hacks so far this year.
Dominic Williams, the founder of DFINITY Foundation shares his take on the prevalence of blockchain hacks and the fundamental infrastructure flaws behind their regular recurrence. It's Dominic’s assertion that these hacks will continue so long as trusted intermediaries reign supreme in the blockchain world. Until the industry steps away from centralized MetaMask-style wallets, hacks of this nature will continue.
The DFINITY Foundation is building the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP). This set of protocols allows independent data centers worldwide to band together and offer a decentralized alternative to current centralized internet cloud providers.
Dominic highlights why hacks keep happening in blockchain and how the industry can best approach the problem. Dominic also shares his opinions on the bear market and what we can expect from the DFINITY Foundation.
In the space of three days, Solana lost about $4.5 million worth of tokens to hackers while the Nomad protocol was drained of $200 million. Zooming out, ChainAnalysis estimates that $2 billion in cryptocurrency has been stolen from cross-chain bridges across 13 separate hacks so far this year.
Dominic Williams, the founder of DFINITY Foundation shares his take on the prevalence of blockchain hacks and the fundamental infrastructure flaws behind their regular recurrence. It's Dominic’s assertion that these hacks will continue so long as trusted intermediaries reign supreme in the blockchain world. Until the industry steps away from centralized MetaMask-style wallets, hacks of this nature will continue.
The DFINITY Foundation is building the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP). This set of protocols allows independent data centers worldwide to band together and offer a decentralized alternative to current centralized internet cloud providers.
Dominic highlights why hacks keep happening in blockchain and how the industry can best approach the problem. Dominic also shares his opinions on the bear market and what we can expect from the DFINITY Foundation.
Bitwarden's CEO, Michael Crandell joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share Bitwarden's origin story from side hustle to business used by millions and discuss the role of the password in today's digital sphere. We also explore why many believe the recent growth in biometric-based security and MFA methods will be the final nail in the coffin for the password. Still, much like the paperless office, a truly passwordless world has yet to appear.
Together we discuss the future of the password and the role of biometrics and MFA methods. We also discuss the impacts of remote work, increased reliance on cloud services, and what that means for businesses as social engineering hacks continue to grow.
We also discuss passwords in the increasing number of IoT and smart devices and the problems password management can solve.
Bitwarden's CEO, Michael Crandell joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share Bitwarden's origin story from side hustle to business used by millions and discuss the role of the password in today's digital sphere. We also explore why many believe the recent growth in biometric-based security and MFA methods will be the final nail in the coffin for the password. Still, much like the paperless office, a truly passwordless world has yet to appear.
Together we discuss the future of the password and the role of biometrics and MFA methods. We also discuss the impacts of remote work, increased reliance on cloud services, and what that means for businesses as social engineering hacks continue to grow.
We also discuss passwords in the increasing number of IoT and smart devices and the problems password management can solve.
AND Digital is on a mission to close the world's digital skills gap. They believe in empowering people with the knowledge they need to unlock the full potential of technology. So I invited Mairead O'Connor on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss creating a culture of creativity to drive innovation.
We discuss how many are approaching digital transformation wrongly by focusing too much on technology and not enough on the people. But how a ''culture of creativity'' where people are at the centre of all innovation could make a massive difference to businesses.
We also talk about how the key to upskilling is making technology easier. Most enterprises don't want people with obscure technology skills and if we focus on making the tech infrastructure in an organisation simpler for the people, the tech integration will come easier as well.
I also learn more about AND Digital worked with an airline to build a culture of creativity and keep re-evaluating what their people want.
AND Digital is on a mission to close the world's digital skills gap. They believe in empowering people with the knowledge they need to unlock the full potential of technology. So I invited Mairead O'Connor on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss creating a culture of creativity to drive innovation.
We discuss how many are approaching digital transformation wrongly by focusing too much on technology and not enough on the people. But how a ''culture of creativity'' where people are at the centre of all innovation could make a massive difference to businesses.
We also talk about how the key to upskilling is making technology easier. Most enterprises don't want people with obscure technology skills and if we focus on making the tech infrastructure in an organisation simpler for the people, the tech integration will come easier as well.
I also learn more about AND Digital worked with an airline to build a culture of creativity and keep re-evaluating what their people want.
Mostafa ElSayed, CEO of lab automation start up Automata joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Spending the first half of his career working for top architecture firms, Mostafa is not your typical biotech CEO. With the initial intent to make building structures easier with robots and automation, Automata was born from an observation that automation was not taking off in a range of markets. We’ve seen the world of automotive manufacturing get transformed through automation, but others like pharmaceuticals and life sciences were staying behind.
This is what sparked Mostafa to launch Automata, which now provides software and hardware lab-automation solutions to enable efficiencies and scale in labs, working with customers including the NHS, Novartis and Imperial College London. A recent partnership with the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust aims to develop a strategy and plan to bring the benefits of automation to a number of disease areas, including prostate and cervical cancer screening.
Mostafa shares with me how his background in architecture brought him to where he is today, the challenges facing CEOs in the UK biotech industry in 2022 and his views on how the lab automation market is changing and growing.
Mostafa ElSayed, CEO of lab automation start up Automata joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Spending the first half of his career working for top architecture firms, Mostafa is not your typical biotech CEO. With the initial intent to make building structures easier with robots and automation, Automata was born from an observation that automation was not taking off in a range of markets. We’ve seen the world of automotive manufacturing get transformed through automation, but others like pharmaceuticals and life sciences were staying behind.
This is what sparked Mostafa to launch Automata, which now provides software and hardware lab-automation solutions to enable efficiencies and scale in labs, working with customers including the NHS, Novartis and Imperial College London. A recent partnership with the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust aims to develop a strategy and plan to bring the benefits of automation to a number of disease areas, including prostate and cervical cancer screening.
Mostafa shares with me how his background in architecture brought him to where he is today, the challenges facing CEOs in the UK biotech industry in 2022 and his views on how the lab automation market is changing and growing.
SolarWinds is number one in network management software beating out IBM, Cisco and others, and serves over 300,000 customers including 498 of the Fortune 500. Its products have become ubiquitous because they are easier to use, more powerful and scalable and more affordable than other providers, including its recently launched Hybrid Cloud Observability Platform.
This is the first platform that the company has built from the ground up since the SUNBURST supply chain incident that targeted SolarWinds and other technology companies last year. The platform provides customers with an integrated, full-stack solution that's able to detect productivity and security anomalies, identify issues and take automated remediation actions to maximize productivity, prevent security issues and reduce costs.
The company's Head Geeks, Chrystal Taylor and Sascha Giese join me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about what observability can do for network administrators and learn more about SolarWinds' new Hybrid Cloud Observability Platform.
SolarWinds is number one in network management software beating out IBM, Cisco and others, and serves over 300,000 customers including 498 of the Fortune 500. Its products have become ubiquitous because they are easier to use, more powerful and scalable and more affordable than other providers, including its recently launched Hybrid Cloud Observability Platform.
This is the first platform that the company has built from the ground up since the SUNBURST supply chain incident that targeted SolarWinds and other technology companies last year. The platform provides customers with an integrated, full-stack solution that's able to detect productivity and security anomalies, identify issues and take automated remediation actions to maximize productivity, prevent security issues and reduce costs.
The company's Head Geeks, Chrystal Taylor and Sascha Giese join me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about what observability can do for network administrators and learn more about SolarWinds' new Hybrid Cloud Observability Platform.
It's been nearly a decade since the famed story of a Verizon employee who leveraged a VPN to outsource his job to privately hire workers in China. In 2013, remote employees accessing company networks was a less frequent occurrence than it is now. But today, studies are projecting that by 2025, 36M American employees will work remotely.
HR professionals and business leaders are welcoming a newer, more flexible age of working arrangements to accommodate digital nomads, work-from-home offices, and in some cases, a partial return to the office or hybrid work.
Meanwhile, cybersecurity professionals tasked with managing now ever-expanding digital boundaries of the organization face exponentially increasing threats. All while managing users accessing companies' systems and sensitive data during the once-in-a-career jump to WFH catalyzed by the pandemic has become a new standard working protocol that adds layers of complexity to access control and authentication measures.
In this new cybersecurity best practices discussion, Jonathan Tomek provides background knowledge on the importance of applying threat intelligence protocols to track, identify and analyze IP address data to ensure safe work environments, regardless of how they are accessed.
It's been nearly a decade since the famed story of a Verizon employee who leveraged a VPN to outsource his job to privately hire workers in China. In 2013, remote employees accessing company networks was a less frequent occurrence than it is now. But today, studies are projecting that by 2025, 36M American employees will work remotely.
HR professionals and business leaders are welcoming a newer, more flexible age of working arrangements to accommodate digital nomads, work-from-home offices, and in some cases, a partial return to the office or hybrid work.
Meanwhile, cybersecurity professionals tasked with managing now ever-expanding digital boundaries of the organization face exponentially increasing threats. All while managing users accessing companies' systems and sensitive data during the once-in-a-career jump to WFH catalyzed by the pandemic has become a new standard working protocol that adds layers of complexity to access control and authentication measures.
In this new cybersecurity best practices discussion, Jonathan Tomek provides background knowledge on the importance of applying threat intelligence protocols to track, identify and analyze IP address data to ensure safe work environments, regardless of how they are accessed.
Wang Qi (Joey) is responsible for Huawei's 5.5G marketing. He has more than 17 years of experience in the mobile communications industry. He has a deep understanding of industry developments and solutions related to 5G, LTE, indoor coverage, and vertical industry applications.
I recently sat down with him to discuss 5G-Advanced, the key capabilities of this technology, and real-world use cases of how businesses can unlock new opportunites. We also take a look under the hood at 5.5G's key characteristics which include 10 Gbps downlink, 1 Gbps uplink, 100 billion connections, and native intelligence.
Driven by new toC and toB services, 5.5G will enhance eMBB, URLLC, and mMTC, it provides new capabilities of sensing, passive IoT, positioning, and native intelligence. We also discuss how Huawei are on a mission to build intelligent 5.5G that support 10 Gbps downlink, 1 Gbps uplink, and 100 billion connections, embarking on a new journey of 5G.
Wang Qi (Joey) is responsible for Huawei's 5.5G marketing. He has more than 17 years of experience in the mobile communications industry. He has a deep understanding of industry developments and solutions related to 5G, LTE, indoor coverage, and vertical industry applications.
I recently sat down with him to discuss 5G-Advanced, the key capabilities of this technology, and real-world use cases of how businesses can unlock new opportunites. We also take a look under the hood at 5.5G's key characteristics which include 10 Gbps downlink, 1 Gbps uplink, 100 billion connections, and native intelligence.
Driven by new toC and toB services, 5.5G will enhance eMBB, URLLC, and mMTC, it provides new capabilities of sensing, passive IoT, positioning, and native intelligence. We also discuss how Huawei are on a mission to build intelligent 5.5G that support 10 Gbps downlink, 1 Gbps uplink, and 100 billion connections, embarking on a new journey of 5G.
In February, eSentire announced a bursary with Munster Technological University to support students in their learning and development around security. Ciaran Luttrell, Senior Director, SOC Operations EMEA at eSentire joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how companies should get involved in developing the next generation of security professionals, using direct funding and providing internships. We also discuss the challenges teams face in running a SOC and supporting customers with their security responses.
About eSentire
eSentire, Inc. is the Authority in Managed Detection and Response, protecting the critical data and applications of 1500+ organizations in 80+ countries, representing 35 industries from known and unknown cyber threats. Founded in 2001, the company’s mission is to hunt, investigate and stop cyber threats before they become business disrupting events.
Combining cutting-edge machine learning XDR technology, 24/7 Threat Hunting, and proven security operations leadership, eSentire mitigates business risk, and enables security at scale. The Team eSentire difference means enterprises are protected by the best in the business with a named Cyber Risk Advisor, 24/7 access to SOC Cyber Analysts, Elite Threat Hunters, and industry-leading threat intelligence research from eSentire’s Threat Response Unit (TRU).
In February, eSentire announced a bursary with Munster Technological University to support students in their learning and development around security. Ciaran Luttrell, Senior Director, SOC Operations EMEA at eSentire joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how companies should get involved in developing the next generation of security professionals, using direct funding and providing internships. We also discuss the challenges teams face in running a SOC and supporting customers with their security responses.
About eSentire
eSentire, Inc. is the Authority in Managed Detection and Response, protecting the critical data and applications of 1500+ organizations in 80+ countries, representing 35 industries from known and unknown cyber threats. Founded in 2001, the company’s mission is to hunt, investigate and stop cyber threats before they become business disrupting events.
Combining cutting-edge machine learning XDR technology, 24/7 Threat Hunting, and proven security operations leadership, eSentire mitigates business risk, and enables security at scale. The Team eSentire difference means enterprises are protected by the best in the business with a named Cyber Risk Advisor, 24/7 access to SOC Cyber Analysts, Elite Threat Hunters, and industry-leading threat intelligence research from eSentire’s Threat Response Unit (TRU).
Kris Beevers, founder, and CEO of NS1 joins me on Tech Talks Daily. I learn more about how this New York City-based startup delivers smart network control across core network services for over 800 global customers, including Dropbox, Fox, Salesforce, LinkedIn, & eBay.
We also talk about the tech startup story behind their success which began as a specialist in DNS, and to quote TechCrunch, took: ‘a slumbering and dreary yet reliable aspect of the Internet and turned it into a strategic moat and an enterprise win’.
Kris is a recognized authority on all things DNS, but he also knows a lot about building and deploying high-performance infrastructure globally. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science. We discuss the impact of outages (including in the summer heatwave) and the importance of multi-cloud or multi-CDNs. We also talk about DDoS attacks, the importance of working with the open source community.
Kris Beevers, founder, and CEO of NS1 joins me on Tech Talks Daily. I learn more about how this New York City-based startup delivers smart network control across core network services for over 800 global customers, including Dropbox, Fox, Salesforce, LinkedIn, & eBay.
We also talk about the tech startup story behind their success which began as a specialist in DNS, and to quote TechCrunch, took: ‘a slumbering and dreary yet reliable aspect of the Internet and turned it into a strategic moat and an enterprise win’.
Kris is a recognized authority on all things DNS, but he also knows a lot about building and deploying high-performance infrastructure globally. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science. We discuss the impact of outages (including in the summer heatwave) and the importance of multi-cloud or multi-CDNs. We also talk about DDoS attacks, the importance of working with the open source community.
The pandemic highlighted what many already knew: high-speed internet access is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. Yet, the digital divide remains prevalent, with 21M U.S. citizens still lacking internet connection. The UN Human Rights Council considers access to the internet as a basic human right, but despite numerous strides that have taken place in the technology realm in the last two decades, billions of people worldwide still don’t have access to the internet.
So, how can telcos and government organizations work together to accelerate the process of identifying these “digital deserts” to build the infrastructure needed for internet access? The answer lies in accelerated big data analytics, which enables users to analyze billions of data points in minutes and generates detailed visualizations of regions that still lack broadband.
Dr. Mike Flaxman, head of product at HEAVY.AI joins me on TechTalks Daily to discuss how utilizing GPU-powered advanced data analytics and visualization can help to close the digital divide and shares different use cases for the technology.
The pandemic highlighted what many already knew: high-speed internet access is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. Yet, the digital divide remains prevalent, with 21M U.S. citizens still lacking internet connection. The UN Human Rights Council considers access to the internet as a basic human right, but despite numerous strides that have taken place in the technology realm in the last two decades, billions of people worldwide still don’t have access to the internet.
So, how can telcos and government organizations work together to accelerate the process of identifying these “digital deserts” to build the infrastructure needed for internet access? The answer lies in accelerated big data analytics, which enables users to analyze billions of data points in minutes and generates detailed visualizations of regions that still lack broadband.
Dr. Mike Flaxman, head of product at HEAVY.AI joins me on TechTalks Daily to discuss how utilizing GPU-powered advanced data analytics and visualization can help to close the digital divide and shares different use cases for the technology.
Amit Bareket, CEO of client Perimeter 81, just helped secure a $100 million Series C funding round for the company, making them one of the latest unicorns in the cybersecurity industry. He's a former operative of Unit 8200.
Perimeter 81 simplifies corporate network security with its Security Service Edge (SSE) platform. As a holistic, cloud-based solution, Perimeter 81 allows organizations of all industries and sizes to efficiently support the decentralized, hybrid workplace while avoiding the cyber complexity that hurts IT's ability to defend corporate cloud and on-prem networks.
I invited Amit on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the most significant cybersecurity risks businesses face and what they need to do differently to address them better. We also discuss why the zero-trust model is top of mind for security experts and explore a few practical ways businesses can begin to implement/think about zero trust.
Amit Bareket, CEO of client Perimeter 81, just helped secure a $100 million Series C funding round for the company, making them one of the latest unicorns in the cybersecurity industry. He's a former operative of Unit 8200.
Perimeter 81 simplifies corporate network security with its Security Service Edge (SSE) platform. As a holistic, cloud-based solution, Perimeter 81 allows organizations of all industries and sizes to efficiently support the decentralized, hybrid workplace while avoiding the cyber complexity that hurts IT's ability to defend corporate cloud and on-prem networks.
I invited Amit on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the most significant cybersecurity risks businesses face and what they need to do differently to address them better. We also discuss why the zero-trust model is top of mind for security experts and explore a few practical ways businesses can begin to implement/think about zero trust.
Max Newlon is the President of BrainCo USA, a brain-computer interface company leading the way in biofeedback tech. FocusCalm is one of the company's verticals that uses neurofeedback to help users train and optimize their brains. When I sampled the FocusCalm headband myself, I quickly learned how active my brain was when I thought I relaxed.
Thanks to neuroplasticity, our brain is always capable of change and is within our control. Max joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how FocusCalm quantifies your brain state so you can measure your brain activity and learn to adjust it. He shares how anyone can learn to stay calm and change how they react in stressful situations or optimize their mental efficiency. We also discuss applications for workplace wellness and leadership mentality.
Max Newlon is the President of BrainCo USA, a brain-computer interface company leading the way in biofeedback tech. FocusCalm is one of the company's verticals that uses neurofeedback to help users train and optimize their brains. When I sampled the FocusCalm headband myself, I quickly learned how active my brain was when I thought I relaxed.
Thanks to neuroplasticity, our brain is always capable of change and is within our control. Max joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how FocusCalm quantifies your brain state so you can measure your brain activity and learn to adjust it. He shares how anyone can learn to stay calm and change how they react in stressful situations or optimize their mental efficiency. We also discuss applications for workplace wellness and leadership mentality.
Benjamin Brial, the former Red Hat EMEA Cloud Manager and now Cycloid's founder. A company he created to help organisations aid the transition to the cloud by increasing their automation capabilities through a DevOps and hybrid cloud platform.
With the rapid transition of organisations to cloud/multi cloud, businesses currently need more visibility and control over their servers. Cycloid helps organisations regain control of their cloud operations, limiting the energy being needlessly wasted by organizations.
Benjamin shares insights from his time at Red Hat as GM of EMEA Cloud Manager. We also talk about Cycloid's launch of GreenOps, that will help organisations improve the sustainability of their cloud infrastructure by automating the process of turning servers on and off when not in use.
We discuss how Cycloid is bringing businesses back to point zero by reverting their infrastructure back to code, offering greater control of deployed infrastructure and greater automation.
Benjamin Brial, the former Red Hat EMEA Cloud Manager and now Cycloid's founder. A company he created to help organisations aid the transition to the cloud by increasing their automation capabilities through a DevOps and hybrid cloud platform.
With the rapid transition of organisations to cloud/multi cloud, businesses currently need more visibility and control over their servers. Cycloid helps organisations regain control of their cloud operations, limiting the energy being needlessly wasted by organizations.
Benjamin shares insights from his time at Red Hat as GM of EMEA Cloud Manager. We also talk about Cycloid's launch of GreenOps, that will help organisations improve the sustainability of their cloud infrastructure by automating the process of turning servers on and off when not in use.
We discuss how Cycloid is bringing businesses back to point zero by reverting their infrastructure back to code, offering greater control of deployed infrastructure and greater automation.
I recently came across the Talend Data Health Barometer, and one of the highlights of the report is that 97% of the respondents face challenges in using data. So I invited Nick Vigier, CISO at Talend, on the podcast to learn more about the research and explore the complex regulatory landscape, how it's evolving, and how organizations can navigate accelerated technological change to find their way through the data privacy quagmire.
We discuss how many areas of the industry have been focusing on the wrong problem and how it's not about moving data from point A to point B. By contrast, we talk about why companies need to drive data health to enable data-driven business decisions with confidence that ultimately lead to successful business outcomes.
Every company needs documented, universal standards on the quality, accessibility, and security of its data. We talk about how this helps the entire business reach a shared understanding of their data's reliability and accuracy. Once data standards are established, getting a pulse on the health of any business will be much easier.
We also discuss whether data sovereignty is outdated or the last hurdle in the life cycle of the privacy policy and how it could open an opportunity to refer to the establishing data excellence use case where data governance plays a central role.
About Nick
Nick is a technology and security leader focused on innovation to drive business results. In his 18 years of security leadership, he has focused on building high performance teams to ensure security is a business driver rather than a cost center. His focus on all areas of security ranging from physical security to risk management through to application security, infrastructure security, and operations gives him a unique perspective on how security can positively impact an organization.
I recently came across the Talend Data Health Barometer, and one of the highlights of the report is that 97% of the respondents face challenges in using data. So I invited Nick Vigier, CISO at Talend, on the podcast to learn more about the research and explore the complex regulatory landscape, how it's evolving, and how organizations can navigate accelerated technological change to find their way through the data privacy quagmire.
We discuss how many areas of the industry have been focusing on the wrong problem and how it's not about moving data from point A to point B. By contrast, we talk about why companies need to drive data health to enable data-driven business decisions with confidence that ultimately lead to successful business outcomes.
Every company needs documented, universal standards on the quality, accessibility, and security of its data. We talk about how this helps the entire business reach a shared understanding of their data's reliability and accuracy. Once data standards are established, getting a pulse on the health of any business will be much easier.
We also discuss whether data sovereignty is outdated or the last hurdle in the life cycle of the privacy policy and how it could open an opportunity to refer to the establishing data excellence use case where data governance plays a central role.
About Nick
Nick is a technology and security leader focused on innovation to drive business results. In his 18 years of security leadership, he has focused on building high performance teams to ensure security is a business driver rather than a cost center. His focus on all areas of security ranging from physical security to risk management through to application security, infrastructure security, and operations gives him a unique perspective on how security can positively impact an organization.
The GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications Association) represent the interests of the global mobile industry. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators, as well as more than 400 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media and entertainment organizations.
The GSMA is focused on innovating, incubating and creating new opportunities for its members, all with the end goal of driving the growth of the mobile communications industry. I recently caught up with Barbara Pareglio, Executive Director for Advanced Air Mobility and IoT Technical Director, GSMA at this year's MWC in Las Vegas to discuss advancing the 5G Era Benefits and the opportunities 5G-Advanced will unlock.
Listen in as we discuss why 5G-Advanced is important and how the GSMA helps to spread knowledge and accelerate the adoption of 5G-Advanced. Barbara also shares the activities the GSMA is doing in relation to 5G evolution and how people can join the GSMA.
Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators and more than 400 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media and entertainment organizations.
The GSMA is focused on innovating, incubating, and creating new opportunities for its members, all with the end goal of driving the growth of the mobile communications industry.
About Barbara
Barbara has over 20 years of experience in the mobile industry. She has been part of the GSMA Internet of Things Programme since 2014, working on several aspects of the IoT such as the development of the Mobile IoT Technologies (LTE-M, NB-IoT), GSMA IoT Security Guidelines, GSMA Drone Interest Group and looking at a variety of emerging technologies, like machine learning/AI and edge computing, for helping the mobile industry to create trusted solutions for the IoT.
Before joining the GSMA Barbara worked in R&D in several areas of telecommunications, including Intelligent Networks, IMS, Service Enabling and M2M/IoT. She also participates in and actively contributed to several standards.
About GSMA Internet of Things
The GSMA Internet of Things helps operators to fully realise the opportunity in the IoT, operators must deliver secure IoT networks as well as scalable value-added data services for the world’s industry and machines beyond connectivity. This is to be achieved by industry collaboration, appropriate regulation, optimising networks as well as developing key enablers to support the growth of IoT.
Webinar: Advancing the 5G Era – Benefits and Opportunity of 5G-Advanced
The GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications Association) represent the interests of the global mobile industry. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators, as well as more than 400 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media and entertainment organizations.
The GSMA is focused on innovating, incubating and creating new opportunities for its members, all with the end goal of driving the growth of the mobile communications industry. I recently caught up with Barbara Pareglio, Executive Director for Advanced Air Mobility and IoT Technical Director, GSMA at this year's MWC in Las Vegas to discuss advancing the 5G Era Benefits and the opportunities 5G-Advanced will unlock.
Listen in as we discuss why 5G-Advanced is important and how the GSMA helps to spread knowledge and accelerate the adoption of 5G-Advanced. Barbara also shares the activities the GSMA is doing in relation to 5G evolution and how people can join the GSMA.
Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators and more than 400 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media and entertainment organizations.
The GSMA is focused on innovating, incubating, and creating new opportunities for its members, all with the end goal of driving the growth of the mobile communications industry.
About Barbara
Barbara has over 20 years of experience in the mobile industry. She has been part of the GSMA Internet of Things Programme since 2014, working on several aspects of the IoT such as the development of the Mobile IoT Technologies (LTE-M, NB-IoT), GSMA IoT Security Guidelines, GSMA Drone Interest Group and looking at a variety of emerging technologies, like machine learning/AI and edge computing, for helping the mobile industry to create trusted solutions for the IoT.
Before joining the GSMA Barbara worked in R&D in several areas of telecommunications, including Intelligent Networks, IMS, Service Enabling and M2M/IoT. She also participates in and actively contributed to several standards.
About GSMA Internet of Things
The GSMA Internet of Things helps operators to fully realise the opportunity in the IoT, operators must deliver secure IoT networks as well as scalable value-added data services for the world’s industry and machines beyond connectivity. This is to be achieved by industry collaboration, appropriate regulation, optimising networks as well as developing key enablers to support the growth of IoT.
Webinar: Advancing the 5G Era – Benefits and Opportunity of 5G-Advanced
Valued at $4.3bn, you may have seen the Arctic Wolf logo adorning the Oracle Red Bull F1 race car this year or as a sponsor of the Wolves football club. But the business provides security operation services and does more than just help these specific partners with their security issues.
Ian McShane, VP of Strategy, has over 20 years of experience in cybersecurity. A former Gartner analyst, Ian has advised some of the world's largest and fastest-growing companies. He can talk about all facets of the cybersecurity industry and is not afraid to call out bad practices when he sees them.
Ian also discusses new Arctic Wolf research, which has found that UK organisations are being put in a precarious and unsecure position, with over a quarter (27%) of respondents stating they don't feel knowledgeable enough as an individual to spot a cyber threat. The critical nature of these revelations becomes even more apparent when noting the report also discovered that 30% of cybersecurity workers claim they don't know how to use their organisation's security tools effectively.
Valued at $4.3bn, you may have seen the Arctic Wolf logo adorning the Oracle Red Bull F1 race car this year or as a sponsor of the Wolves football club. But the business provides security operation services and does more than just help these specific partners with their security issues.
Ian McShane, VP of Strategy, has over 20 years of experience in cybersecurity. A former Gartner analyst, Ian has advised some of the world's largest and fastest-growing companies. He can talk about all facets of the cybersecurity industry and is not afraid to call out bad practices when he sees them.
Ian also discusses new Arctic Wolf research, which has found that UK organisations are being put in a precarious and unsecure position, with over a quarter (27%) of respondents stating they don't feel knowledgeable enough as an individual to spot a cyber threat. The critical nature of these revelations becomes even more apparent when noting the report also discovered that 30% of cybersecurity workers claim they don't know how to use their organisation's security tools effectively.
Like it or not, we are all in the digital experience business. We demand it as consumers and enterprises are challenged with continuously raising the bar to keep consumers coming back for more. But doing this at every stage of the customer journey can be incredibly daunting.
Sitecore is a company unifying data, content, commerce, and experiences to empower brands like L'Oréal, Microsoft, and United Airlines to deliver unforgettable interactions across every touchpoint. The company also has a big event in Chicago called Symposium, where Mindy Kaling will speak. There will also be 100+ sessions with top global brands sharing how they are creating digital experiences.
This week, Sitecore released its 2022 U.S. Holiday Report with Paige O'Neill, Sitecore CMO, advising, "This season, shoppers will seek out brands that offer competitive pricing, buy-now-pay-later options, and low-cost shipping. Brands that empathize with consumers' inflation-forced financial constraints and focus on meeting their needs by delivering content that focuses on value and shows authentic empathy — where they can — will come out ahead this holiday season.
In today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, Paige shares insights from the Reality of Holiday Shopping research and reveals what we can expect at Sitecore's Symposium 2022 event.
About Paige
Paige brings over 20 years of experience in senior marketing roles crossing many areas of enterprise software, customer experience, and cloud computing. As Chief Marketing Officer, she combines product marketing expertise with an extensive background in communications and a passion for developing thought leadership programs that build awareness, differentiation, and demand.
Prior to joining Sitecore, Paige was CMO at digital workplace platform provider Prysm, where she rebranded the company and helped it transition to a combined SaaS and hardware business. She previously served as CMO at SDL and as Vice President of Marketing for Aprimo, where her thought leadership, demand generation, and communications programs contributed to rapid growth.
Paige also served as CMO at PHH Arval and two early-stage startups—Aravo and GreenRoad Technologies. Prior to PHH, Paige spent a decade at Oracle Corporation leading a variety of marketing initiatives.
Like it or not, we are all in the digital experience business. We demand it as consumers and enterprises are challenged with continuously raising the bar to keep consumers coming back for more. But doing this at every stage of the customer journey can be incredibly daunting.
Sitecore is a company unifying data, content, commerce, and experiences to empower brands like L'Oréal, Microsoft, and United Airlines to deliver unforgettable interactions across every touchpoint. The company also has a big event in Chicago called Symposium, where Mindy Kaling will speak. There will also be 100+ sessions with top global brands sharing how they are creating digital experiences.
This week, Sitecore released its 2022 U.S. Holiday Report with Paige O'Neill, Sitecore CMO, advising, "This season, shoppers will seek out brands that offer competitive pricing, buy-now-pay-later options, and low-cost shipping. Brands that empathize with consumers' inflation-forced financial constraints and focus on meeting their needs by delivering content that focuses on value and shows authentic empathy — where they can — will come out ahead this holiday season.
In today's Tech Talks Daily Podcast episode, Paige shares insights from the Reality of Holiday Shopping research and reveals what we can expect at Sitecore's Symposium 2022 event.
About Paige
Paige brings over 20 years of experience in senior marketing roles crossing many areas of enterprise software, customer experience, and cloud computing. As Chief Marketing Officer, she combines product marketing expertise with an extensive background in communications and a passion for developing thought leadership programs that build awareness, differentiation, and demand.
Prior to joining Sitecore, Paige was CMO at digital workplace platform provider Prysm, where she rebranded the company and helped it transition to a combined SaaS and hardware business. She previously served as CMO at SDL and as Vice President of Marketing for Aprimo, where her thought leadership, demand generation, and communications programs contributed to rapid growth.
Paige also served as CMO at PHH Arval and two early-stage startups—Aravo and GreenRoad Technologies. Prior to PHH, Paige spent a decade at Oracle Corporation leading a variety of marketing initiatives.
CityFibre is building a new generation of Full Fibre infrastructure for the UK - a network capable of transforming the digital capabilities of citizens and businesses, sparking innovation, and underpinning our economy in a gigabit age.
In a recent report in collaboration with Hatch, they identified over £38bn in potential economic benefits, derived over fifteen years, stemming from CityFibre's rollout of future-proof Full Fibre infrastructure in 285 cities, towns, and villages in England and Scotland.
Rob Hamlin discusses the importance of Full Fibre, how this impacts how we live and other industry trends, including 5G, and the economic benefits of a Full Fibre Britain.
CityFibre is building a new generation of Full Fibre infrastructure for the UK - a network capable of transforming the digital capabilities of citizens and businesses, sparking innovation, and underpinning our economy in a gigabit age.
In a recent report in collaboration with Hatch, they identified over £38bn in potential economic benefits, derived over fifteen years, stemming from CityFibre's rollout of future-proof Full Fibre infrastructure in 285 cities, towns, and villages in England and Scotland.
Rob Hamlin discusses the importance of Full Fibre, how this impacts how we live and other industry trends, including 5G, and the economic benefits of a Full Fibre Britain.
The job of defending against increasingly advanced threats on a daily and hourly basis is causing more problems than ever with The Great Cybersecurity Resignation plaguing industries across the world.
New research reveals that 49% of UK C-Suite leaders have considered quitting the industry due to stress, with the primary issues being an unrelenting threat from ransomware and the expectations to always be on call or available.
However, there is greater awareness that AI-enabled tools can effectively combat sophisticated attacks such as ransomware. For example, 79% would rather depend on AI than humans to hunt threats, and 47% agree that "they need greater automation through AI/ML to improve security operations." So, how can AI reduce the burden put on security teams?
Justin Vaughan-Brown, VP of Market Insight at Deep Instinct, joins me in a conversation about how AI can be used to reduce the stress experienced by security teams. We discuss why there is so much stress and pressure placed on the C-Suite and the fear felt by those whose decision it is to pay ransom demands.
I learn more about how organizations can stop a cycle of stress and prevent themselves from becoming the victims of ransomware attacks in the first place. Finally, Justin explains why AI has the potential to reduce critical productivity challenges like reducing false positives that will allow teams to focus their time and resources on more critical cyber defense issues.
The job of defending against increasingly advanced threats on a daily and hourly basis is causing more problems than ever with The Great Cybersecurity Resignation plaguing industries across the world.
New research reveals that 49% of UK C-Suite leaders have considered quitting the industry due to stress, with the primary issues being an unrelenting threat from ransomware and the expectations to always be on call or available.
However, there is greater awareness that AI-enabled tools can effectively combat sophisticated attacks such as ransomware. For example, 79% would rather depend on AI than humans to hunt threats, and 47% agree that "they need greater automation through AI/ML to improve security operations." So, how can AI reduce the burden put on security teams?
Justin Vaughan-Brown, VP of Market Insight at Deep Instinct, joins me in a conversation about how AI can be used to reduce the stress experienced by security teams. We discuss why there is so much stress and pressure placed on the C-Suite and the fear felt by those whose decision it is to pay ransom demands.
I learn more about how organizations can stop a cycle of stress and prevent themselves from becoming the victims of ransomware attacks in the first place. Finally, Justin explains why AI has the potential to reduce critical productivity challenges like reducing false positives that will allow teams to focus their time and resources on more critical cyber defense issues.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Olof Liberg from Ericsson joins me in a discussion about how the telecoms industry is aligning around 5G-advanced to support immersive reality, evolving IoT, and sustainability.
Olof Liberg is a researcher and program Manager at Ericsson's department for Standards & Technologies. Olof joined Ericsson in 2008 and specialized in designing and standardizing cellular radio access technologies. He is currently leading Ericsson's 3GPP radio access network standardization team. Olof holds a bachelor's degree in Business and Economics and a master's degree in Engineering Physics, both from Uppsala University.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Olof Liberg from Ericsson joins me in a discussion about how the telecoms industry is aligning around 5G-advanced to support immersive reality, evolving IoT, and sustainability.
Olof Liberg is a researcher and program Manager at Ericsson's department for Standards & Technologies. Olof joined Ericsson in 2008 and specialized in designing and standardizing cellular radio access technologies. He is currently leading Ericsson's 3GPP radio access network standardization team. Olof holds a bachelor's degree in Business and Economics and a master's degree in Engineering Physics, both from Uppsala University.
From social services to the NHS, most public sector organizations have been feeling the strain of funding cuts, staff shortages, and a lack of end-to-end digital transformation over the past few years. Now, with record numbers leaving to work elsewhere and services increasingly squeezed by inflation, public sector organizations are facing their biggest challenges.
Satpal Biant, Head of Public Sector, UK & Ireland at SAP joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast in a conversation about how technology is the key to modernizing the management of staff working on the frontline. We explore how it could play a key role in halting this mass exodus from the public sector in the months and years ahead. We also discuss how technology can streamline the administration, management, and operation of staff working on the frontline.
We discuss the importance of facilitating greater communication between managers and employees and how this can lead to an improved understanding of staff wellbeing and morale. But also how HR software, including sentiment analysis and automation, can play a key role in tracking and understanding employee sentiment.
From social services to the NHS, most public sector organizations have been feeling the strain of funding cuts, staff shortages, and a lack of end-to-end digital transformation over the past few years. Now, with record numbers leaving to work elsewhere and services increasingly squeezed by inflation, public sector organizations are facing their biggest challenges.
Satpal Biant, Head of Public Sector, UK & Ireland at SAP joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast in a conversation about how technology is the key to modernizing the management of staff working on the frontline. We explore how it could play a key role in halting this mass exodus from the public sector in the months and years ahead. We also discuss how technology can streamline the administration, management, and operation of staff working on the frontline.
We discuss the importance of facilitating greater communication between managers and employees and how this can lead to an improved understanding of staff wellbeing and morale. But also how HR software, including sentiment analysis and automation, can play a key role in tracking and understanding employee sentiment.
In this podcast, I pride myself on sharing stories from all over the world and have interviewed guests from more than 75 countries. Today, I am going to take you on a trip to the Netherlands to speak with Jasper van Horssen who will share his startup story.
In less than two years, he bootstrapped Dxfferent; a Dutch Top Ranked IT Consultancy company, to more than $1M. We also discuss how Autotask PSA is one of the top project management systems in the world and how it helps manage employees, clients, projects, tasks etc in an easy way.
Jasper also shares how he helps businesses with the best practices to implement Autotask PSA in a business.
In this podcast, I pride myself on sharing stories from all over the world and have interviewed guests from more than 75 countries. Today, I am going to take you on a trip to the Netherlands to speak with Jasper van Horssen who will share his startup story.
In less than two years, he bootstrapped Dxfferent; a Dutch Top Ranked IT Consultancy company, to more than $1M. We also discuss how Autotask PSA is one of the top project management systems in the world and how it helps manage employees, clients, projects, tasks etc in an easy way.
Jasper also shares how he helps businesses with the best practices to implement Autotask PSA in a business.
AFEX is building the physical and technology-enabled infrastructure for the continent’s commodity sector to provide access to markets and unlock capital for smallholder farmers, processors, and export operations.
Its technology-enabled solutions provide traceability and transparency that ensures shared prosperity between soft commodity producers, processors, and investors.
Akintunde Akinyink shares how AFEX is aiming to help the continent feed itself by boosting food security and making food production more efficient, closely aligning its company goals with the UN SDGs, in particular no poverty, ending hunger, gender equality, decent work, and economic growth, and responsible consumption
I learn more about how AFEX has created the largest network of warehouses in Nigeria and Kenya with 130 warehouses, securitizing physical commodities through its electronic warehouse receipts, which can be traded on the exchange through its proprietary electronic trading platform.
AFEX is building the physical and technology-enabled infrastructure for the continent’s commodity sector to provide access to markets and unlock capital for smallholder farmers, processors, and export operations.
Its technology-enabled solutions provide traceability and transparency that ensures shared prosperity between soft commodity producers, processors, and investors.
Akintunde Akinyink shares how AFEX is aiming to help the continent feed itself by boosting food security and making food production more efficient, closely aligning its company goals with the UN SDGs, in particular no poverty, ending hunger, gender equality, decent work, and economic growth, and responsible consumption
I learn more about how AFEX has created the largest network of warehouses in Nigeria and Kenya with 130 warehouses, securitizing physical commodities through its electronic warehouse receipts, which can be traded on the exchange through its proprietary electronic trading platform.
Creative thinking—humankind's unique ability to combine unrelated and abstract ideas—has been utilized in countless ways since the dawn of humanity. Every day, people in creative and non-creative fields take advantage of creative thinking to reach all kinds of goals, personally and professionally.
Joey Cofone, founder of Baronfig and author of The Laws of Creativity: Unlock Your Originality and Awaken Your Creative Genius, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share the inspiring tech startup story behind Baronfig.
We all began our lives creative, and many let go of it as they got older. But how can you reawaken your creative side? Together we dispel the myth that only a select few people are creative. In his book, Joey defines creativity, how it works, and how you can harness it in your everyday life. He demystifies the creative process by uncovering the thinking and science behind it. We explore the 39 laws that contain illuminating concepts and powerful instruction.
Each law is illustrated with inspiring, enlightening, and surprising stories of iconic creators across history—including Albert Einstein, Serena Williams, Martin Luther King Jr., Harry Houdini, Grace Hopper, Bruce Lee, and many more by simply breaking down how they wielded creativity to reach incredible heights.
Creative thinking—humankind's unique ability to combine unrelated and abstract ideas—has been utilized in countless ways since the dawn of humanity. Every day, people in creative and non-creative fields take advantage of creative thinking to reach all kinds of goals, personally and professionally.
Joey Cofone, founder of Baronfig and author of The Laws of Creativity: Unlock Your Originality and Awaken Your Creative Genius, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share the inspiring tech startup story behind Baronfig.
We all began our lives creative, and many let go of it as they got older. But how can you reawaken your creative side? Together we dispel the myth that only a select few people are creative. In his book, Joey defines creativity, how it works, and how you can harness it in your everyday life. He demystifies the creative process by uncovering the thinking and science behind it. We explore the 39 laws that contain illuminating concepts and powerful instruction.
Each law is illustrated with inspiring, enlightening, and surprising stories of iconic creators across history—including Albert Einstein, Serena Williams, Martin Luther King Jr., Harry Houdini, Grace Hopper, Bruce Lee, and many more by simply breaking down how they wielded creativity to reach incredible heights.
After the fourth GDPR anniversary, what's changed since its inception? And what is the best way forwards for companies to navigate the complexity? These are just a few topics that I explore with Dave Horton from Odaseva.
We discuss the API challenges of backing up SaaS data, data subject access requests, and right of access. We also talk about how residency-as-a-service helps organizations navigate complex and evolving Data residency laws, e.g., PIPL in China.
Finally, we discuss ransomcloud – what it is, attackers' techniques, which organizations are most at risk, and how preparation is key for organizations to protect themselves.
After the fourth GDPR anniversary, what's changed since its inception? And what is the best way forwards for companies to navigate the complexity? These are just a few topics that I explore with Dave Horton from Odaseva.
We discuss the API challenges of backing up SaaS data, data subject access requests, and right of access. We also talk about how residency-as-a-service helps organizations navigate complex and evolving Data residency laws, e.g., PIPL in China.
Finally, we discuss ransomcloud – what it is, attackers' techniques, which organizations are most at risk, and how preparation is key for organizations to protect themselves.
Have you heard James Blake's album version of Wind Down done in collaboration with sound and wellness company, Endel? Inspired by the science of sound and sleep, Wind Down is a prelude to bedtime, helping listeners shift gradually from the activity of day to the calm of night. It uses the same AI technology and sounds found in the adaptive experience, available exclusively in Endel apps for iOS, Android, Mac, Apple TV, and Amazon Alexa.
It’s no secret that more and more people are turning towards ambient music as an effective tool to help improve relaxation, focus, movement and sleep. What is interesting about the Wind Down album in particular is that it is the first ambient music album constructed via AI to be released by a Universal label. Blake’s musical artistry blends seamlessly with Endel’s patented AI technology. This method of composition has the ability to give ambient music an enhanced functional edge that is actually backed by neuroscience.
This prompts a bigger question: Has AI technology ushered in a new era of ambient music that can more effectively serve specific wellness and mental health purposes? Oleg Stavitsky, CEO & Co-Founder at Endeljoins me in exploring the answer to this question as we discuss the growing intersection of science, technology, sound, and wellness.
If you are interested in trying Endel for free for 1 month, Oleg kindly shares the following link that unlocks a free 1-month subscription, no card is needed.
https://code.endel.io/?code=dailytech
Have you heard James Blake's album version of Wind Down done in collaboration with sound and wellness company, Endel? Inspired by the science of sound and sleep, Wind Down is a prelude to bedtime, helping listeners shift gradually from the activity of day to the calm of night. It uses the same AI technology and sounds found in the adaptive experience, available exclusively in Endel apps for iOS, Android, Mac, Apple TV, and Amazon Alexa.
It’s no secret that more and more people are turning towards ambient music as an effective tool to help improve relaxation, focus, movement and sleep. What is interesting about the Wind Down album in particular is that it is the first ambient music album constructed via AI to be released by a Universal label. Blake’s musical artistry blends seamlessly with Endel’s patented AI technology. This method of composition has the ability to give ambient music an enhanced functional edge that is actually backed by neuroscience.
This prompts a bigger question: Has AI technology ushered in a new era of ambient music that can more effectively serve specific wellness and mental health purposes? Oleg Stavitsky, CEO & Co-Founder at Endeljoins me in exploring the answer to this question as we discuss the growing intersection of science, technology, sound, and wellness.
If you are interested in trying Endel for free for 1 month, Oleg kindly shares the following link that unlocks a free 1-month subscription, no card is needed.
https://code.endel.io/?code=dailytech
In recent years, thousands of companies have voluntarily pledged to meet sustainability targets, but many of them likely lack the knowledge and the tools to properly measure progress and how to optimise their carbon and energy footprints. Honeywell is working to help solve this problem with its new Carbon & Energy Management, a carbon energy management software, that enables building owners to track and optimise energy performance against carbon reduction goals, down to a device or asset level.
Companies face increasing pressure today – from stakeholders as well as regulatory agencies – to curb energy consumption, reduce carbon emissions and create more sustainable, healthier facilities. There’s an urgent reason for this: commercial buildings currently account for almost a third of global energy consumption and 37% of global energy-related CO2 emissions. While 28% of those emissions are related to building operations – or the energy used to heat, cool and power the building – many building owners likely don’t have device or asset level insight into energy consumption or carbon impact.
Through using the Honeywell Forge enterprise performance management software solution’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms, Carbon & Energy Management autonomously identifies and implements energy conservation measures to help drive efficiency, resiliency and accountability throughout a real estate portfolio. It continuously investigates, analyses, and optimises building performance, down to an asset-specific level, measuring critical sustainability KPIs including carbon emissions.
Manish Sharma, VP & general manager of sustainable building technologies at Honeywell, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss this topic in more detail.
In recent years, thousands of companies have voluntarily pledged to meet sustainability targets, but many of them likely lack the knowledge and the tools to properly measure progress and how to optimise their carbon and energy footprints. Honeywell is working to help solve this problem with its new Carbon & Energy Management, a carbon energy management software, that enables building owners to track and optimise energy performance against carbon reduction goals, down to a device or asset level.
Companies face increasing pressure today – from stakeholders as well as regulatory agencies – to curb energy consumption, reduce carbon emissions and create more sustainable, healthier facilities. There’s an urgent reason for this: commercial buildings currently account for almost a third of global energy consumption and 37% of global energy-related CO2 emissions. While 28% of those emissions are related to building operations – or the energy used to heat, cool and power the building – many building owners likely don’t have device or asset level insight into energy consumption or carbon impact.
Through using the Honeywell Forge enterprise performance management software solution’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms, Carbon & Energy Management autonomously identifies and implements energy conservation measures to help drive efficiency, resiliency and accountability throughout a real estate portfolio. It continuously investigates, analyses, and optimises building performance, down to an asset-specific level, measuring critical sustainability KPIs including carbon emissions.
Manish Sharma, VP & general manager of sustainable building technologies at Honeywell, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss this topic in more detail.
With the hyper digitalisation of business, electronic signatures have become a necessity. Contracts are a crucial element of every business; when overlooked, they can be detrimental, especially when renewal season comes around. And, as we feel the fallout of Brexit, businesses need to ensure their service agreements, employment contracts, etc., are all up to scratch, or it could mean lost revenue and costly legal penalties.
Ronan Copeland, Group Vice President & General Manager EMEA at DocuSign, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the present and future of digital identities. In addition, we explore how AI can be implemented to improve and augment workflows, freeing employees to focus on creative or strategic priorities.
We also discuss how paper contracts are not only outdated but dangerous and the value of AI and automation in the context of contract lifecycle management. But how implementing CLM and AI-driven tools could make a business more agile and impact a business's bottom line
As we look to the future, we talk about how many people now see automation and the integration of ML and AI into our daily working lives as the next frontier of the future of work. I learn how these technologies will reshape the way we work and how leaders are overcoming the fear factor when integrating AI in the workplace.
With the hyper digitalisation of business, electronic signatures have become a necessity. Contracts are a crucial element of every business; when overlooked, they can be detrimental, especially when renewal season comes around. And, as we feel the fallout of Brexit, businesses need to ensure their service agreements, employment contracts, etc., are all up to scratch, or it could mean lost revenue and costly legal penalties.
Ronan Copeland, Group Vice President & General Manager EMEA at DocuSign, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the present and future of digital identities. In addition, we explore how AI can be implemented to improve and augment workflows, freeing employees to focus on creative or strategic priorities.
We also discuss how paper contracts are not only outdated but dangerous and the value of AI and automation in the context of contract lifecycle management. But how implementing CLM and AI-driven tools could make a business more agile and impact a business's bottom line
As we look to the future, we talk about how many people now see automation and the integration of ML and AI into our daily working lives as the next frontier of the future of work. I learn how these technologies will reshape the way we work and how leaders are overcoming the fear factor when integrating AI in the workplace.
In KPMG’s recent UK CEO Outlook Survey, 81% of leaders said that protecting their partner ecosystem and supply chain is just as important as building their own organisation’s cyber defences. Given the numerous high-profile supply chain cyber-attacks seen in 2021, this will not come as a surprise.
However, as enterprises continue to prioritise digital transformation, the sharing of data throughout a complex and connected ecosystem of partners and suppliers will only get more convoluted. Already, they have incredibly complex ecosystem structures and may not have clear obligations for establishing adequate controls to protect their partners’ data, leaving the entire network vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Furthermore, existing vetting processes for suppliers requires tremendous and perhaps infeasible due diligence by each ecosystem partner. Some existing approaches aren’t even fit for purpose.
As a result, many businesses, third-party vendors, and even regulators are under increased pressure to provide continuous assurance over the security of their ecosystems. This is only going to become more challenging as the complexity of the supplier ecosystem increases, and fourth parties, shadow-IT, and a lack of SaaS provider oversight demand more and more attention.
In KPMG’s recent UK CEO Outlook Survey, 81% of leaders said that protecting their partner ecosystem and supply chain is just as important as building their own organisation’s cyber defences. Given the numerous high-profile supply chain cyber-attacks seen in 2021, this will not come as a surprise.
However, as enterprises continue to prioritise digital transformation, the sharing of data throughout a complex and connected ecosystem of partners and suppliers will only get more convoluted. Already, they have incredibly complex ecosystem structures and may not have clear obligations for establishing adequate controls to protect their partners’ data, leaving the entire network vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Furthermore, existing vetting processes for suppliers requires tremendous and perhaps infeasible due diligence by each ecosystem partner. Some existing approaches aren’t even fit for purpose.
As a result, many businesses, third-party vendors, and even regulators are under increased pressure to provide continuous assurance over the security of their ecosystems. This is only going to become more challenging as the complexity of the supplier ecosystem increases, and fourth parties, shadow-IT, and a lack of SaaS provider oversight demand more and more attention.
As Google announces its intention to test new AR glasses prototypes, the reality that AR may be our future is finally starting to settle in. Unlike the traditional virtual reality (VR) metaverse we have come to know, augmented reality (AR) technology gives users the best of both worlds, merging the real world with the technological advances, interactivity, and information of the web.
OVER, is a company building the first augmented reality open metaverse and enabling users to create unique geolocalised experiences that bridge the gap between our physical and digital worlds. Utilising world-class, community driven 3D mapping, OVER provides users and builders alike with the opportunity to own AR metaverse real estate, map their local areas to earn OVR tokens, and explore Web3 like never before.
In light of this recent announcement and the growing groundswell for information related to the emerging AR market, I invited Diego De Tommaso, Co-founder, and COO of OVER to join me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story and vision for the future.
As Google announces its intention to test new AR glasses prototypes, the reality that AR may be our future is finally starting to settle in. Unlike the traditional virtual reality (VR) metaverse we have come to know, augmented reality (AR) technology gives users the best of both worlds, merging the real world with the technological advances, interactivity, and information of the web.
OVER, is a company building the first augmented reality open metaverse and enabling users to create unique geolocalised experiences that bridge the gap between our physical and digital worlds. Utilising world-class, community driven 3D mapping, OVER provides users and builders alike with the opportunity to own AR metaverse real estate, map their local areas to earn OVR tokens, and explore Web3 like never before.
In light of this recent announcement and the growing groundswell for information related to the emerging AR market, I invited Diego De Tommaso, Co-founder, and COO of OVER to join me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story and vision for the future.
Stevie Hopkins – CEO and founder of merch company SCP, shares the inspirational story that began with him working with big names such as Billie Eilish, Freddie Gibbs, and Louis the Child. Here in 2022, we discuss how he is building an NFT-powered, fan-guided community that will resemble a city in its cultural complexity and offerings called Dropolis.
From Hopkins' professional career in merchandising and fan engagement, he has seen the massive potential web3 can have for those often unseen in the existing community. So he is bringing that idea to those interested in everything from music, food, and fashion, offering up IRL experiences/physical rewards through NFT drops.
Building a "city-like" structure removes the facade and narrative NFT projects have created for web3. This way, finding a home for NFTs makes an authentic-safe space for everyone. Something Hopkins believes web3 has longed for. I learn how Dropolis will be nothing like you've seen as it breaks through the chaotic noise of digital collectible marketplaces lacking tangible, real-life experiences.
Stevie Hopkins – CEO and founder of merch company SCP, shares the inspirational story that began with him working with big names such as Billie Eilish, Freddie Gibbs, and Louis the Child. Here in 2022, we discuss how he is building an NFT-powered, fan-guided community that will resemble a city in its cultural complexity and offerings called Dropolis.
From Hopkins' professional career in merchandising and fan engagement, he has seen the massive potential web3 can have for those often unseen in the existing community. So he is bringing that idea to those interested in everything from music, food, and fashion, offering up IRL experiences/physical rewards through NFT drops.
Building a "city-like" structure removes the facade and narrative NFT projects have created for web3. This way, finding a home for NFTs makes an authentic-safe space for everyone. Something Hopkins believes web3 has longed for. I learn how Dropolis will be nothing like you've seen as it breaks through the chaotic noise of digital collectible marketplaces lacking tangible, real-life experiences.
Software intelligence company Dynatrace (NYSE: DT) recently announced the findings of an independent global survey of 1,300 chief information security officers (CISOs) in large-size organizations. The research reveals that the speed and complexity created by using multi-cloud environments, multiple coding languages, and open-source software libraries make vulnerability management more difficult. In addition, 75% of CISOs say that despite having a multi-layered security posture, persistent coverage gaps allow vulnerabilities into production.
The report highlights the growing need for observability and security to converge, paving the way toward AISecDevOps practices. This will empower organizations with a more effective way of managing vulnerabilities at runtime and the ability to detect and block attacks in real-time. Daniel Kaar joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss these findings in more detail.
Software intelligence company Dynatrace (NYSE: DT) recently announced the findings of an independent global survey of 1,300 chief information security officers (CISOs) in large-size organizations. The research reveals that the speed and complexity created by using multi-cloud environments, multiple coding languages, and open-source software libraries make vulnerability management more difficult. In addition, 75% of CISOs say that despite having a multi-layered security posture, persistent coverage gaps allow vulnerabilities into production.
The report highlights the growing need for observability and security to converge, paving the way toward AISecDevOps practices. This will empower organizations with a more effective way of managing vulnerabilities at runtime and the ability to detect and block attacks in real-time. Daniel Kaar joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss these findings in more detail.
Bill Burns from Zebra Technologies defines what the on-demand economy is and what it takes to be a successful business and leader in it. We also discuss why reacting faster in an on-demand environment is no longer good enough and how leaders in major industries – like retail, logistics/warehousing, and healthcare – can plan better for what's coming next.
Finally, we explore what emerging technologies or techniques organizations can use to have a more accurate picture of what's happening in their business and move forward with innovation strategies and digital transformation initiatives.
About Bill Burns
Bill Burns joined Zebra in 2015 and today leads the product & solutions group. In his role, Mr. Burns oversees product and solutions strategy, investments, and development operations for the company's expansive technology portfolio which includes mobile computing, specialty printers, data capture solutions, location solutions, and intelligent edge solutions. Mr. Burns is also responsible for the chief technology office - focused on emerging technologies and solution incubation.
Mr. Burns has more than 25 years of experience in the high-tech sector. Before joining Zebra, he served as chief executive officer of Embrane, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital-backed startup Cisco acquired in April 2015. Before joining Embrane, Mr. Burns served as chief executive officer of Spirent Communications, a global leader in test and measurement solutions publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. He has also held various executive and sales leadership roles at Tellabs, Inc., now Coriant.
Bill Burns from Zebra Technologies defines what the on-demand economy is and what it takes to be a successful business and leader in it. We also discuss why reacting faster in an on-demand environment is no longer good enough and how leaders in major industries – like retail, logistics/warehousing, and healthcare – can plan better for what's coming next.
Finally, we explore what emerging technologies or techniques organizations can use to have a more accurate picture of what's happening in their business and move forward with innovation strategies and digital transformation initiatives.
About Bill Burns
Bill Burns joined Zebra in 2015 and today leads the product & solutions group. In his role, Mr. Burns oversees product and solutions strategy, investments, and development operations for the company's expansive technology portfolio which includes mobile computing, specialty printers, data capture solutions, location solutions, and intelligent edge solutions. Mr. Burns is also responsible for the chief technology office - focused on emerging technologies and solution incubation.
Mr. Burns has more than 25 years of experience in the high-tech sector. Before joining Zebra, he served as chief executive officer of Embrane, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital-backed startup Cisco acquired in April 2015. Before joining Embrane, Mr. Burns served as chief executive officer of Spirent Communications, a global leader in test and measurement solutions publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. He has also held various executive and sales leadership roles at Tellabs, Inc., now Coriant.
Pool CEO Shiv Malik - a technologist, award-nominated broadcaster, author of two books, former Guardian investigative journalist, and co-founder of the Intergenerational Foundation think tank joins me on Tech Talks Daily.
UK-based Pool, currently valued at $39m, is building a data marketplace and associated payment rails for new data-sharing entities called data unions. These new data-sharing organisations seek to leverage shifts in privacy, the end of consumer data following Chrome's deletion of third-party cookies, and new EU rules for data portability which are due to come into effect next year.
The most powerful companies on Earth are those who monopolise vast swaths of humanity's information. Pool's purpose is to redistribute the control and value of that knowledge and thereby completely reconstitute power relationships in the political economy of the 21st century. I learn how Pool is doing this by taking an old-fashioned organisational structure - the trust - and evolving it with Web3 technology to make it fit for the digital era.
This straightforward model allows Data Unions to align incentives around data creation. It's why the model is backed not just by EU regulators through the upcoming Data Governance Act.
Pool CEO Shiv Malik - a technologist, award-nominated broadcaster, author of two books, former Guardian investigative journalist, and co-founder of the Intergenerational Foundation think tank joins me on Tech Talks Daily.
UK-based Pool, currently valued at $39m, is building a data marketplace and associated payment rails for new data-sharing entities called data unions. These new data-sharing organisations seek to leverage shifts in privacy, the end of consumer data following Chrome's deletion of third-party cookies, and new EU rules for data portability which are due to come into effect next year.
The most powerful companies on Earth are those who monopolise vast swaths of humanity's information. Pool's purpose is to redistribute the control and value of that knowledge and thereby completely reconstitute power relationships in the political economy of the 21st century. I learn how Pool is doing this by taking an old-fashioned organisational structure - the trust - and evolving it with Web3 technology to make it fit for the digital era.
This straightforward model allows Data Unions to align incentives around data creation. It's why the model is backed not just by EU regulators through the upcoming Data Governance Act.
Biotechnology is leading the most important scientific revolution since computing. R&D is the key to unleashing biotechnology's potential to transform our world radically, but software hasn't kept up with science. Scientists deserve and urgently need technology that's designed for what they do. But I invited Paul Robson to join me on the podcast to discuss how Benchling R&D Cloud is built for scientific work.
We talk about the shortcomings currently present within life sciences R&D that inspired its creation and the role of the cloud, and how its transforming R&D in life sciences to speed up scientific discoveries, including Covid-19 research.
About Paul
Paul Robson is Head of Field Operations at Benchling, overseeing all aspects of global sales, from deployment and customer success to strategic partnerships and regional expansion. Paul brings more than 25 years of experience scaling high-performing field organizations.
Most recently, as President of International at Adobe, he led global business across 160 countries. He joined Adobe in 2011 and played a key role in the company's transformation from packaged desktop software to a cloud subscription model. Prior to Adobe, Paul held leadership roles at Hewlett-Packard and Compaq.
Paul is an advisory member on Telecoms and Technology for UK Trade & Investment and board member of techUK. Originally from Australia, Paul graduated from Western Sydney University and holds graduate degrees from INSEAD and University of Helsinki.
Biotechnology is leading the most important scientific revolution since computing. R&D is the key to unleashing biotechnology's potential to transform our world radically, but software hasn't kept up with science. Scientists deserve and urgently need technology that's designed for what they do. But I invited Paul Robson to join me on the podcast to discuss how Benchling R&D Cloud is built for scientific work.
We talk about the shortcomings currently present within life sciences R&D that inspired its creation and the role of the cloud, and how its transforming R&D in life sciences to speed up scientific discoveries, including Covid-19 research.
About Paul
Paul Robson is Head of Field Operations at Benchling, overseeing all aspects of global sales, from deployment and customer success to strategic partnerships and regional expansion. Paul brings more than 25 years of experience scaling high-performing field organizations.
Most recently, as President of International at Adobe, he led global business across 160 countries. He joined Adobe in 2011 and played a key role in the company's transformation from packaged desktop software to a cloud subscription model. Prior to Adobe, Paul held leadership roles at Hewlett-Packard and Compaq.
Paul is an advisory member on Telecoms and Technology for UK Trade & Investment and board member of techUK. Originally from Australia, Paul graduated from Western Sydney University and holds graduate degrees from INSEAD and University of Helsinki.
Unity is the world's leading platform for creating and operating interactive real-time 3D content and one of the main drivers within the XR space as the evolution of the internet continues. By using technology such as AR, Unity has the digital tools to bring this parallel world to life to help create beautiful, immersive experiences that engage from the very first pixels.
Antonia Forster, Unity's Senior XR Technical Specialist joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss everything from "the metaverse" and emerging technology to business cases for VR/AR to my work on the LGBTQ+ VR Museum.
About Antonia
Antonia Forster is an award-winning VR/AR developer, TEDx speaker, and advocate for women, LGBTQ+ people, and marginalised voices in tech. A self-taught coder with expertise in emerging and immersive technology, Antonia is Senior XR Technical Specialist at Unity; and the founder of DiVRse Technologies Ltd, an innovation studio "using virtual worlds to change the real world for the better".
Antonia has also been shortlisted for Nature's John Maddox Prize, the WiIT Advocate of the Year award, and won the YTKO Breaking Barriers award for her impactful work; including the creation of the world's first LGBTQ+ VR museum, which won Tribeca Film Festival's New Voices Award.
Unity is the world's leading platform for creating and operating interactive real-time 3D content and one of the main drivers within the XR space as the evolution of the internet continues. By using technology such as AR, Unity has the digital tools to bring this parallel world to life to help create beautiful, immersive experiences that engage from the very first pixels.
Antonia Forster, Unity's Senior XR Technical Specialist joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss everything from "the metaverse" and emerging technology to business cases for VR/AR to my work on the LGBTQ+ VR Museum.
About Antonia
Antonia Forster is an award-winning VR/AR developer, TEDx speaker, and advocate for women, LGBTQ+ people, and marginalised voices in tech. A self-taught coder with expertise in emerging and immersive technology, Antonia is Senior XR Technical Specialist at Unity; and the founder of DiVRse Technologies Ltd, an innovation studio "using virtual worlds to change the real world for the better".
Antonia has also been shortlisted for Nature's John Maddox Prize, the WiIT Advocate of the Year award, and won the YTKO Breaking Barriers award for her impactful work; including the creation of the world's first LGBTQ+ VR museum, which won Tribeca Film Festival's New Voices Award.
Arne Schepker is Babbel's CEO, the world's top-grossing language learning platform. But I wanted to learn more about how he has leveraged technology and implemented a rather exciting approach to growing his business.
Babbel is a whole ecosystem of language learning offerings, with over 10 million subscriptions sold and over 60,000 courses for 14 languages. Arne joined Babbel as CMO in 2015, and later became CEO in 2019, successfully scaling it from a start-up of 250 employees to a household brand, with now 750 employees across more than 60 nationalities.
Arne is passionate about the transparency and authenticity of the Babbel workplace. Before he took up the position of CEO, he did job shadowing every single team at Babbel to experience what his colleagues were going through daily. Overall, this played a pivotal role in helping him better understand the necessary measures required to scale and grow his business even further.
Arne joins me o Tech Talks Daily to share how Babbel evolved its services from a mobile app to a multi-product ecosystem and how the pandemic ultimately digitized skill building. We also discussed the importance of integrating diversity and inclusion guidelines into your work culture and product offering and how to maintain a positive workplace culture across a team of over 750 employees in a tech company.
Arne Schepker is Babbel's CEO, the world's top-grossing language learning platform. But I wanted to learn more about how he has leveraged technology and implemented a rather exciting approach to growing his business.
Babbel is a whole ecosystem of language learning offerings, with over 10 million subscriptions sold and over 60,000 courses for 14 languages. Arne joined Babbel as CMO in 2015, and later became CEO in 2019, successfully scaling it from a start-up of 250 employees to a household brand, with now 750 employees across more than 60 nationalities.
Arne is passionate about the transparency and authenticity of the Babbel workplace. Before he took up the position of CEO, he did job shadowing every single team at Babbel to experience what his colleagues were going through daily. Overall, this played a pivotal role in helping him better understand the necessary measures required to scale and grow his business even further.
Arne joins me o Tech Talks Daily to share how Babbel evolved its services from a mobile app to a multi-product ecosystem and how the pandemic ultimately digitized skill building. We also discussed the importance of integrating diversity and inclusion guidelines into your work culture and product offering and how to maintain a positive workplace culture across a team of over 750 employees in a tech company.
Ryan Wines has consistently advocated for creators, makers, and artists and once gave a TED Talk about leading creatives amidst a modern landscape. Today, the founder and CEO of Marmoset shares the story of turning this bootstrapped startup into industry-leading tech-powered music licensing company. I learn more about how they set out to become the Patagonia of music licensing, bring transparency into the industry, and how Web 3.0 will impact the future of music licensing.
We discuss Track Club: Marmoset's subscription app for the creator economy. The platform knows what creators need when they look for music. As a rule, they want to get in, get exceptional music, and get out quickly — and they want the music to feel custom-made for their content. We also discuss MixLab: Track Club's new stem mixer technology, empowering creators to mix, arrange & produce music.
Ryan Wines has consistently advocated for creators, makers, and artists and once gave a TED Talk about leading creatives amidst a modern landscape. Today, the founder and CEO of Marmoset shares the story of turning this bootstrapped startup into industry-leading tech-powered music licensing company. I learn more about how they set out to become the Patagonia of music licensing, bring transparency into the industry, and how Web 3.0 will impact the future of music licensing.
We discuss Track Club: Marmoset's subscription app for the creator economy. The platform knows what creators need when they look for music. As a rule, they want to get in, get exceptional music, and get out quickly — and they want the music to feel custom-made for their content. We also discuss MixLab: Track Club's new stem mixer technology, empowering creators to mix, arrange & produce music.
CircleCI is one of the biggest players in a relatively unknown but increasingly important corner of the developer world known as Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD). Its value lies in giving companies like Samsung, Ford Motor Company, Spotify, Lyft, Coinbase, and Stitch Fix the ability to release software more frequently to constantly improve features and function.
In today's episode, I am joined by Rob Zuber, CTO at CircleCI, a position he has held since 2014. As a 20-year veteran of software startups, a four-time founder, and a five-time CTO, Rob has the technical software knowledge and proven leadership in managing infrastructure and engineering operations. Since joining CircleCI, Rob has seen the company through multiple funding rounds and an acquisition while leading a team of 200+ engineers distributed worldwide.
Rob discusses how the constant pressure to innovate faster and the competition for developer talent is leading companies to look towards no-code and low-code solutions to help developers get more done. We also discuss how this might be building tools for people who already know how to make software but neglecting those who don't want to be programmers.
We also explore CircleCI's 2022 State of Software Delivery Report, highlighting the state of software delivery and providing insights into the qualities of the most successful engineering teams. Finally, we discuss why organizations need to stop focusing on hiring talent based on degrees and qualifications, what it means to be a good coder and the benefits of diverse dev teams.
CircleCI is one of the biggest players in a relatively unknown but increasingly important corner of the developer world known as Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD). Its value lies in giving companies like Samsung, Ford Motor Company, Spotify, Lyft, Coinbase, and Stitch Fix the ability to release software more frequently to constantly improve features and function.
In today's episode, I am joined by Rob Zuber, CTO at CircleCI, a position he has held since 2014. As a 20-year veteran of software startups, a four-time founder, and a five-time CTO, Rob has the technical software knowledge and proven leadership in managing infrastructure and engineering operations. Since joining CircleCI, Rob has seen the company through multiple funding rounds and an acquisition while leading a team of 200+ engineers distributed worldwide.
Rob discusses how the constant pressure to innovate faster and the competition for developer talent is leading companies to look towards no-code and low-code solutions to help developers get more done. We also discuss how this might be building tools for people who already know how to make software but neglecting those who don't want to be programmers.
We also explore CircleCI's 2022 State of Software Delivery Report, highlighting the state of software delivery and providing insights into the qualities of the most successful engineering teams. Finally, we discuss why organizations need to stop focusing on hiring talent based on degrees and qualifications, what it means to be a good coder and the benefits of diverse dev teams.
Zapata Computing is a Boston-based company that branched out from Harvard, where its founders pioneered the field of near-term quantum algorithms. As a leading enterprise software company for quantum solutions, Zapata Computing is helping various industries prepare for a quantum future.
Christopher Savoie discusses what companies can do to be quantum-ready, what a quantum future could look like, the industries that can benefit from quantum (including supply chain, automotive, security, etc.), and potential use cases for quantum. Christopher also shares exciting insights from their partnership with Andretti Autosport.
Zapata Computing is a Boston-based company that branched out from Harvard, where its founders pioneered the field of near-term quantum algorithms. As a leading enterprise software company for quantum solutions, Zapata Computing is helping various industries prepare for a quantum future.
Christopher Savoie discusses what companies can do to be quantum-ready, what a quantum future could look like, the industries that can benefit from quantum (including supply chain, automotive, security, etc.), and potential use cases for quantum. Christopher also shares exciting insights from their partnership with Andretti Autosport.
Dirk Schrader, VP of security research at Netwrix, joins me on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss the cybersecurity firm's latest research into cloud vulnerabilities and what more organizations can do to better protect data in the cloud.
Dirk shares insights from Netwrix's new Cloud Security Report. The report's findings show that 88 percent of UK organizations store sensitive data in the cloud, where it can be left vulnerable to cyberattacks. Of this data, 65 percent was personally identifiable information (PII) of customers, 42 percent was the PII of company employees, and 31 percent was corporate financial information.
Furthermore, threats to this data were ubiquitous, with 52 percent of surveyed UK companies reporting a cyberattack on their cloud infrastructure within the last 12 months. Of these attacks, phishing was the most widespread at 69 percent of reported incidents, followed by account compromise at 35 percent and targeted attacks against cloud infrastructure at 31 percent.
In this climate of constant cybersecurity risk, 65 percent of UK respondents named integration with the existing IT environment as the main factor that slows down cloud adoption in their organizations. In the interview, Dirk also discusses the research findings and what more companies can do to take full advantage of the cloud and all it can bring while remaining safe from cloud cyber risk.
Dirk Schrader, VP of security research at Netwrix, joins me on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss the cybersecurity firm's latest research into cloud vulnerabilities and what more organizations can do to better protect data in the cloud.
Dirk shares insights from Netwrix's new Cloud Security Report. The report's findings show that 88 percent of UK organizations store sensitive data in the cloud, where it can be left vulnerable to cyberattacks. Of this data, 65 percent was personally identifiable information (PII) of customers, 42 percent was the PII of company employees, and 31 percent was corporate financial information.
Furthermore, threats to this data were ubiquitous, with 52 percent of surveyed UK companies reporting a cyberattack on their cloud infrastructure within the last 12 months. Of these attacks, phishing was the most widespread at 69 percent of reported incidents, followed by account compromise at 35 percent and targeted attacks against cloud infrastructure at 31 percent.
In this climate of constant cybersecurity risk, 65 percent of UK respondents named integration with the existing IT environment as the main factor that slows down cloud adoption in their organizations. In the interview, Dirk also discusses the research findings and what more companies can do to take full advantage of the cloud and all it can bring while remaining safe from cloud cyber risk.
Wärtsilä Voyage develops the technology that enables the maritime industry's digital transformation. Responsible for the carriage of around 90% of world trade, shipping is the lifeblood of the global economy. Sarah Barret shares with me how the industry is waking up to the reality of data-enabled decision-making and how it holds the key to optimizing every vessel and voyage.
I learned more about how the volume of data we have at our fingertips has never been greater, but as more data is generated, it becomes increasingly complex to store, manage, and analyze. Finally, Sarah discusses how data can help connect the dots across the entire maritime ecosystem and how shipowners and operators can use data to their advantage.
Wärtsilä Voyage has also developed a whitepaper outlining seven key benefits of data-driven decision-making in the maritime industry. The benefits include achieving long-term regulatory compliance, enabling transparency and accountability, allowing for timely decisions to optimize operations, and providing greater tracking of iterative changes. These offer feedback loops to support shipping's data evolution, augmenting crew activity and ultimately unlocking commercial benefits.
Wärtsilä Voyage develops the technology that enables the maritime industry's digital transformation. Responsible for the carriage of around 90% of world trade, shipping is the lifeblood of the global economy. Sarah Barret shares with me how the industry is waking up to the reality of data-enabled decision-making and how it holds the key to optimizing every vessel and voyage.
I learned more about how the volume of data we have at our fingertips has never been greater, but as more data is generated, it becomes increasingly complex to store, manage, and analyze. Finally, Sarah discusses how data can help connect the dots across the entire maritime ecosystem and how shipowners and operators can use data to their advantage.
Wärtsilä Voyage has also developed a whitepaper outlining seven key benefits of data-driven decision-making in the maritime industry. The benefits include achieving long-term regulatory compliance, enabling transparency and accountability, allowing for timely decisions to optimize operations, and providing greater tracking of iterative changes. These offer feedback loops to support shipping's data evolution, augmenting crew activity and ultimately unlocking commercial benefits.
Elijah Allan-Blitz and Brie Larson have an innovative recently released on Disney+ called REMEMBERING. The short film uses first-of-its-kind technology via a companion Augmented Reality app that allows viewers to interact with the story by scanning the TV to extend the World of Imagination into your room.
Elijah joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss REMEMBERING, the technology behind it, why it was created, and the inspiration behind it. I also learned more about how Brie & Elijah's VR experience, The Messy Truth, won them an Emmy in 2020.
We discuss bringing the future of storytelling to audiences through innovative technology -- a pillar that is core to their joint production company, The Great Unknown Productions.
Elijah Allan-Blitz and Brie Larson have an innovative recently released on Disney+ called REMEMBERING. The short film uses first-of-its-kind technology via a companion Augmented Reality app that allows viewers to interact with the story by scanning the TV to extend the World of Imagination into your room.
Elijah joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss REMEMBERING, the technology behind it, why it was created, and the inspiration behind it. I also learned more about how Brie & Elijah's VR experience, The Messy Truth, won them an Emmy in 2020.
We discuss bringing the future of storytelling to audiences through innovative technology -- a pillar that is core to their joint production company, The Great Unknown Productions.
The future is electric. The automobile and the supporting industries are investing heavily in electric battery technology, testing, and manufacturing. This is happening locally in the Detroit area as well as abroad. Leaders in the industry are saying we are at the beginning of an Electrical Revolution.
At HED, they believe great design is about thinking creatively to overcome challenges and improve tangible outcomes. So, I wanted to learn more about how they improve every facet of design, from architecture, consulting, engineering, and planning to creating a positive impact through responsive, innovative, and sustainable design solutions.
Todd Drouillard shares how technology and facility updates are changing how organizations conduct business. We also discuss how the pandemic and increased shipping issues have forced companies to rethink their real estate needs. Finally, we explore how manufacturers are investing in new and existing facilities to build products in the United States.
The future is electric. The automobile and the supporting industries are investing heavily in electric battery technology, testing, and manufacturing. This is happening locally in the Detroit area as well as abroad. Leaders in the industry are saying we are at the beginning of an Electrical Revolution.
At HED, they believe great design is about thinking creatively to overcome challenges and improve tangible outcomes. So, I wanted to learn more about how they improve every facet of design, from architecture, consulting, engineering, and planning to creating a positive impact through responsive, innovative, and sustainable design solutions.
Todd Drouillard shares how technology and facility updates are changing how organizations conduct business. We also discuss how the pandemic and increased shipping issues have forced companies to rethink their real estate needs. Finally, we explore how manufacturers are investing in new and existing facilities to build products in the United States.
DIMO is an open platform that connects data producers (like cars) and consumers (applications and businesses) to unlock next-generation mobility services. So I invited Andy Chatham to join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the converging tech trends around cars, IoT, data, crypto, and software development.
Andy Chatham has worked in the mobility industry for ten years, overseeing some of the largest autonomous and electric vehicle fleets and developing software used by millions of passengers. Before DIMO, he managed a team of hundreds of people working on Waymo, Google's self-driving car division. He's also worked in many other areas of mobility, assisting transportation and real estate partners in leveraging emerging technology and deploying mobility-as-a-service solutions.
We explore the future of mobility for transit-dense cities,
reinventing the digital infrastructure for moving objects,
the importance of growing decentralized IoT networks and
how blockchain and IoT technologies are powering innovation in the auto industry.
DIMO is an open platform that connects data producers (like cars) and consumers (applications and businesses) to unlock next-generation mobility services. So I invited Andy Chatham to join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the converging tech trends around cars, IoT, data, crypto, and software development.
Andy Chatham has worked in the mobility industry for ten years, overseeing some of the largest autonomous and electric vehicle fleets and developing software used by millions of passengers. Before DIMO, he managed a team of hundreds of people working on Waymo, Google's self-driving car division. He's also worked in many other areas of mobility, assisting transportation and real estate partners in leveraging emerging technology and deploying mobility-as-a-service solutions.
We explore the future of mobility for transit-dense cities,
reinventing the digital infrastructure for moving objects,
the importance of growing decentralized IoT networks and
how blockchain and IoT technologies are powering innovation in the auto industry.
Despite the acceleration of tech developments, it can often seem like consumer expectations outpace every industry. Whether outlandish or reasonable, consumers want intuitive, tech-enabled experiences in the here and now. It's all well talking about what's possible in 2030 or even 2050, but how much of that is readily available for us to use currently – what technologies are turning vision into reality?
On this podcast, I enjoy exploring how those expectations transform areas you don't associate with tech, and a great example of this is car parks. For instance, it's not uncommon to pay for your parking space using a smartphone app.
Today's guest takes that a step further and believes that today's cars do much more than get you from A to B, as integrated tech experiences are revolutionizing travel on our roads by making transport greener and more innovative while turning cars into smartphones on wheels. Peter O'Driscoll, Managing Director of RingGo, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the future of parking, mobility, and the automotive industry.
We discuss the impact of the technological age with the increased prevalence of tech and easy accessibility and tackling the rising CX demands. We also talk about the knock-on effect reflected in car trends towards tech-enabled, sustainable transport, with one in five buyers looking to go electric, according to SMMT.
Despite the acceleration of tech developments, it can often seem like consumer expectations outpace every industry. Whether outlandish or reasonable, consumers want intuitive, tech-enabled experiences in the here and now. It's all well talking about what's possible in 2030 or even 2050, but how much of that is readily available for us to use currently – what technologies are turning vision into reality?
On this podcast, I enjoy exploring how those expectations transform areas you don't associate with tech, and a great example of this is car parks. For instance, it's not uncommon to pay for your parking space using a smartphone app.
Today's guest takes that a step further and believes that today's cars do much more than get you from A to B, as integrated tech experiences are revolutionizing travel on our roads by making transport greener and more innovative while turning cars into smartphones on wheels. Peter O'Driscoll, Managing Director of RingGo, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the future of parking, mobility, and the automotive industry.
We discuss the impact of the technological age with the increased prevalence of tech and easy accessibility and tackling the rising CX demands. We also talk about the knock-on effect reflected in car trends towards tech-enabled, sustainable transport, with one in five buyers looking to go electric, according to SMMT.
Nathan Howe, VP of emerging technology and 5G at Zscaler, once again joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Nathan discusses how AI and ML-based capabilities can secure and manage cloud infrastructure, sensitive data, and native applications deployed across multi-cloud environments.
Lean-running IT and security teams are experiencing security alert fatigue with increasing exposure to real-time threats and often don't have the resources or skills to effectively investigate and respond to the mounting volume of threats. Nathan shares how to address these challenges by providing one-click root cause analysis to instantly identify the issues behind poor digital experience, freeing up IT and security teams from troubleshooting to focus on preventing attacks.
On the topic of AI-powered phishing prevention, we talk about how to detect and stop credential theft and browser exploitation from phishing pages with real-time analytics on threat intelligence from 300 trillion daily signals. We also discuss AI-powered segmentation and how to simplify user-to-app segmentation to minimise the attack surface and stop lateral movement with AI-based policy recommendations. These are trained by millions of cross-customer signals across private app telemetry, user context, behaviour, and location.
Finally, we discuss how to dynamically adapt security and access policies in real-time to maintain network integrity against rapidly-evolving cyber threats and how to accelerate mean time to resolution. All by putting impacted end users back to work in a matter of seconds by identifying root causes of poor user experiences 180 times faster, freeing IT from time-consuming troubleshooting and analysis.
Nathan Howe, VP of emerging technology and 5G at Zscaler, once again joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Nathan discusses how AI and ML-based capabilities can secure and manage cloud infrastructure, sensitive data, and native applications deployed across multi-cloud environments.
Lean-running IT and security teams are experiencing security alert fatigue with increasing exposure to real-time threats and often don't have the resources or skills to effectively investigate and respond to the mounting volume of threats. Nathan shares how to address these challenges by providing one-click root cause analysis to instantly identify the issues behind poor digital experience, freeing up IT and security teams from troubleshooting to focus on preventing attacks.
On the topic of AI-powered phishing prevention, we talk about how to detect and stop credential theft and browser exploitation from phishing pages with real-time analytics on threat intelligence from 300 trillion daily signals. We also discuss AI-powered segmentation and how to simplify user-to-app segmentation to minimise the attack surface and stop lateral movement with AI-based policy recommendations. These are trained by millions of cross-customer signals across private app telemetry, user context, behaviour, and location.
Finally, we discuss how to dynamically adapt security and access policies in real-time to maintain network integrity against rapidly-evolving cyber threats and how to accelerate mean time to resolution. All by putting impacted end users back to work in a matter of seconds by identifying root causes of poor user experiences 180 times faster, freeing IT from time-consuming troubleshooting and analysis.
More than one billion people use messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Messenger to connect with businesses. This is proving to be a significant consumer behavior shift that requires businesses of all sizes to adapt quickly to their customers' rising expectations. Dan Levy, VP, Business Messaging at Meta, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss the future of tech, the Metaverse, and business messaging.
We discuss why conversational commerce looks set to be the next big thing in online shopping and why Facebook is doubling down on business messaging. We also explore how businesses can expect to meet these demands of having a fluid conversation across WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.
With one eye on the future, we also talk about how business-to-consumer messaging and business messaging will evolve with metaverse and the brave new world of Web 3.
More than one billion people use messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Messenger to connect with businesses. This is proving to be a significant consumer behavior shift that requires businesses of all sizes to adapt quickly to their customers' rising expectations. Dan Levy, VP, Business Messaging at Meta, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss the future of tech, the Metaverse, and business messaging.
We discuss why conversational commerce looks set to be the next big thing in online shopping and why Facebook is doubling down on business messaging. We also explore how businesses can expect to meet these demands of having a fluid conversation across WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.
With one eye on the future, we also talk about how business-to-consumer messaging and business messaging will evolve with metaverse and the brave new world of Web 3.
Peter Coppinger, Co-Founder, and CEO at Teamwork, a Cork, Ireland-based project management platform, with hubs in Boston, Belfast, Amsterdam, and Barcelona. Started in 2007 by Peter and his fellow developer pal Dan, they now have a global workforce of over 350 employees. Their platform is used by over 20K companies worldwide, including Disney, Spotify, and Paypal.
Peter joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind Teamwork which is currently the only scalable project management platform built for client work and founded by former agency owners. We discuss the importance of understanding the efficiency of your organization is key to unlocking the next level of success and avoiding burnout.
We also discuss how businesses that deliver client work should work smarter, not harder, by getting organized and managing all of their work in one tool that scales with you as you grow. Finally, we explore how process drives efficiency and profitability and why it's the only way to confidently scale your business with the future of work, rise in remote work, and The Great Resignation.
Peter Coppinger, Co-Founder, and CEO at Teamwork, a Cork, Ireland-based project management platform, with hubs in Boston, Belfast, Amsterdam, and Barcelona. Started in 2007 by Peter and his fellow developer pal Dan, they now have a global workforce of over 350 employees. Their platform is used by over 20K companies worldwide, including Disney, Spotify, and Paypal.
Peter joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind Teamwork which is currently the only scalable project management platform built for client work and founded by former agency owners. We discuss the importance of understanding the efficiency of your organization is key to unlocking the next level of success and avoiding burnout.
We also discuss how businesses that deliver client work should work smarter, not harder, by getting organized and managing all of their work in one tool that scales with you as you grow. Finally, we explore how process drives efficiency and profitability and why it's the only way to confidently scale your business with the future of work, rise in remote work, and The Great Resignation.
New research shows automation demand surged in more than 90% of companies. With macroeconomic uncertainty — across markets, hiring, costs, and more — now firmly top of mind, CEOs and leaders across the business focus on efficient growth, cost savings, and increased productivity. As a result, companies are turning to automation more than ever to drive immediate value across all parts of the business, from technical to non-technical departments like sales, customer service, marketing, and commerce.
To understand how IT is approaching these demands and some of the challenges businesses face, I invited Matt McLarty from MuleSoft to join me on Tech Talks Daily. Matt shares how organizations across every industry want to automate processes and customer experiences as quickly as possible. However, they'll impede true innovation if they try to go fast with the wrong tools and techniques.
Matt discusses why it's vital that organizations become more adaptable to technological change, enabling them to build automation and connect data and applications in a holistic manner. As a result, organizations risk compounding rather than reducing their technical debt without a more composable approach. But we explore how when automation is done right; it fuels efficient growth.
Mobility programs often rely on carrier-provided devices or, if corporate-owned, represent a high CapEx burden. Internal IT resources have to deal with staging, MDM, help desk, and logistics, while repair shops and insurers are used to mitigate unforeseen device defects.
This often leads to an outdated device inventory that's often a patchwork of different models and operating system versions resulting in security risks, sub-par staff productivity, cost spikes, accounting challenges, and problematic sustainability and DE&I situations.
These are just a few examples of how enterprises face many challenges regarding mobile device management and maintaining employee satisfaction/productivity. Tillmann Schwabe, General Manager of Everphone US joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about overcoming these challenges, what's coming next, and the solutions available.
We also discuss the circular economy and how device-as-a-service is the most sustainable solution for enterprises and how Everphone's model reduces each device's CO2 footprint by 120 lbs.
Before Flowout was born in April 2021, they were just a friendly bunch of freelancers. Each of them with a startup story, a passion for bootstrapping products, and a love for Webflow. But this passion for launching new products led them to seek how they can help brands stand out on the internet.
With a mission to help brands create unique and superior user experiences, they created Flowout, a business focused on all things Webflow. Today, Flowout is currently in full growth mode, successfully conquering the US market. From building a new SaaS tool, giving back to the community, and sharing free templates to gaining bigger clients with exciting projects.
Ziga Fajfar shares his story and what differentiates Flowout from other Webflow companies. We also talk about the thriving tech startup scene in Slovenia. He also shares tips on successfully conquering the US market from Europe and the lessons they have learned in scaling Flowout and other ventures.
Before Flowout was born in April 2021, they were just a friendly bunch of freelancers. Each of them with a startup story, a passion for bootstrapping products, and a love for Webflow. But this passion for launching new products led them to seek how they can help brands stand out on the internet.
With a mission to help brands create unique and superior user experiences, they created Flowout, a business focused on all things Webflow. Today, Flowout is currently in full growth mode, successfully conquering the US market. From building a new SaaS tool, giving back to the community, and sharing free templates to gaining bigger clients with exciting projects.
Ziga Fajfar shares his story and what differentiates Flowout from other Webflow companies. We also talk about the thriving tech startup scene in Slovenia. He also shares tips on successfully conquering the US market from Europe and the lessons they have learned in scaling Flowout and other ventures.
Polymer is a no-code Data Loss Prevention (DLP) platform that allows companies to monitor, auto-remediate & apply behavioral techniques to reduce the risk of insider threats, sensitive data misuse & leakage over 3rd Party SaaS platforms. It focuses on SaaS platform data security because that is a 'dark web' of sorts for organizations where data controls generally do not exist. Additionally, most SaaS applications' high collaboration focus makes it easy to lose or exfiltrate sensitive data.
Data Loss Prevention is no longer a technical problem but a business risk, especially in a remote/hybrid work environment. In addition, information security resiliency is critical in the cloud-first infrastructure where the tech stack is no longer a clear set of boxes (like it used to be for on-premises tech architecture) but rather a mishmash of SaaS and an overlapping set of technology services.
Often in infosec, teams view security as a 0 or 1 problem-either I am secured (check box) or I am not. As an ex-wall street bond trader, Yasir Ali looks at risk on a more probabilistic gradient. By deploying mitigating controls and nudging the workforce to behave responsibly, one can make any organization's information security posture resilient.
Jon Gregory started his career as a finance guy, working around the clock on algorithmic trading and high-frequency computing and squeezing in workouts in the company training room, which consisted of a bunch of metal weights. Surely, we can do something better, Jon thought.
Using his degree in applied physics, Jon dedicated himself to making training more effective, efficient, engaging, and beneficial by transforming the traditional gym using 21st-century technology. And, just like that, Jon exchanged the trading floor for the weight room and created Vitruvian, one of the fastest growing connected fitness brands in the world, on a mission to disrupt human health and wellness.
Delivering up to 440 lbs. of digital weight, the Vitruvian Trainer+ uses artificial intelligence to adjust its weight to individual users in real-time, loading and unloading the optimal resistance up to 50 times per second, all in a slim carbon fiber platform that can easily slide under a couch or bed.
Jon joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his startup story while also discussing entrepreneurship, technology, and how Vitruvian is revolutionizing the in-home gym and the future of the fitness industry.
PraSaga is a Swiss Foundation building the next generation of Layer One blockchain. Its technology solution is on a mission to solve many of the limitations that plague first-generation Layer One blockchains. The SagaChain™ successfully addresses lowering transaction fees and extensibility for supply chains and significantly lowers development costs.
We’ve designed the next evolution of blockchain architecture. A Layer One blockchain achieves the promise that all blockchains aspire to. One that provides the highest level of resistance against attacks. Rewards its ecosystem of contributors. And most importantly, it scales in throughput as more resources are added to the network, providing the maximum possible increases in speed.
Any additional information: Rich Phillips, Chief Product Officer of PraSaga, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about all this and the recent announcement of SagaPython at Consensus 202
PraSaga is a Swiss Foundation building the next generation of Layer One blockchain. Its technology solution is on a mission to solve many of the limitations that plague first-generation Layer One blockchains. The SagaChain™ successfully addresses lowering transaction fees and extensibility for supply chains and significantly lowers development costs.
We’ve designed the next evolution of blockchain architecture. A Layer One blockchain achieves the promise that all blockchains aspire to. One that provides the highest level of resistance against attacks. Rewards its ecosystem of contributors. And most importantly, it scales in throughput as more resources are added to the network, providing the maximum possible increases in speed.
Any additional information: Rich Phillips, Chief Product Officer of PraSaga, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about all this and the recent announcement of SagaPython at Consensus 202
Women make up 64% of the 40 lowest paying jobs in the US despite being less than 50% of the overall workforce. Additionally, the pandemic pushed women's labor force participation rate to 1993 levels, and the US lost 11 years of progress toward parity throughout the pandemic.
Katica Roy is a Gender Economist and CEO of Pipeline, a technology platform that uses AI to weed out unconscious bias and help companies create gender equity in the workplace by analyzing employee hiring, pay, performance, potential, and promotion data. Katica joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share story.
We discuss how a recession might disproportionately impact women as they are typically the first to lose their jobs during a recession and the last to gain them back. Katica also shares how Pipeline found through its implementations that men receive promotions at a 21% greater rate than women, and the promotion gap doubles for Black women (men are promoted at a rate of 42% greater than Black women).
I learn more about the steps companies can take to change inequitable systems in the workplace, including embedding equity into the employee lifecycle and creating workplace cultures that facilitate authenticity without retaliation. But also how Pipeline is using technology to help make the process easier.
What is the Metaverse? The metaverse is a persistent shared virtual environment where you, as an avatar, can meet and interact with other people and engage in a wide array of virtual activities. The metaverse can be used to work, play, learn, or all three — and its applications in the enterprise are limitless.
The metaverse is a topic that is becoming impossible to ignore. It promises to present a virtual world and extended reality of possibilities for enterprises. Many believe that companies that master the metaverse can reap business benefits by exploiting the power of shared virtual environments. But what does this mean for the future of the workplace?
Mike McDaniel, president of Modern Workplace at DXC, and Nathalie Vancluysen, DXC's Head of Extended Reality, join me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about all things virtual reality, extended reality, and the metaverse regarding businesses. In addition, we explore the different services, virtual environments, and how easily they can be deployed.
Video chat doesn't work as well for large groups or social situations. By letting participants move around the space and collaborate with others, GroupRoom gives individuals their freedom back. Three people on one side of the room can have a group conversation with a whiteboard or google doc etc completely separate from a group of two people on the other side.
Chris Matthieu, founder & CEO of XRPA.NET, and Chris Fleck, Vice President and Technical Fellow at Citrix Systems, join Neil C. Hughes in a conversation about digital hybrid workspaces. We also discuss how businesses can leverage technology to re-enable those moments of serendipity in the workplace that are the lifeblood of every organization.
About Chris Matthieu
Chris Matthieu is the founder & CEO of XRPA.NET inc., a metaverse company. We build and market spatially-aware alternative communications platforms including: GroupRoom.io (2D digital twin virtual offices for digital hybrid workplaces) andMetaverses.io (3D metaverse platform allowing users to build, explore, and host their own metaverses). Prior to XRPANET, Chris co-founded Computes Inc. (a decentralized supercomputing platform company) which was acquired by MagicLeap and co-founded Octoblu Inc. (an enterprise IoT platform company) which was acquired by Citrix.
About Chris
Chris Fleck is Vice President and Technical Fellow at Citrix Systems. In this role he is responsible for Emerging Technology, IP, and driving innovation. Previously, Mr. Fleck was CEO and a founder of 14 South Networks, an IBM Spin-off and pioneer in the application of Blade Technology for the IT industry. He was a NYS Licensed Professional Engineer and has twelve patents issued, he graduated from NYU Poly and has an MBA from Union College
Scalefast is changing the way brands do direct-to-consumer eCommerce, by empowering them to regain the control and simplicity they need to create an exceptional shopping experience, directly from their online storefront.
By joining forces through the Scalefast Commerce Cloud, brands can deliver localized and personalized direct-to-consumer shopping experiences while leveraging the volume and data of an entire brand ecosystem.
Scalefast’s modern approach to eCommerce has generated award-winning success for their clients and has allowed them to become the fastest-growing eCommerce platform in the U.S. Its full-stack enterprise solution brings together a cloud-based eCommerce platform, global business services and an international footprint of logistics, payment, tax and business partners.
Amandine Soares shares her inspirational story with me on Tech Talks Daily. She's an absolute rockstar and pro on Scalefast's Air360 platform, a US analytics solution that helps reduce friction in the customer experience, increase conversions and improve loyalty.
Scalefast is changing the way brands do direct-to-consumer eCommerce, by empowering them to regain the control and simplicity they need to create an exceptional shopping experience, directly from their online storefront.
By joining forces through the Scalefast Commerce Cloud, brands can deliver localized and personalized direct-to-consumer shopping experiences while leveraging the volume and data of an entire brand ecosystem.
Scalefast’s modern approach to eCommerce has generated award-winning success for their clients and has allowed them to become the fastest-growing eCommerce platform in the U.S. Its full-stack enterprise solution brings together a cloud-based eCommerce platform, global business services and an international footprint of logistics, payment, tax and business partners.
Amandine Soares shares her inspirational story with me on Tech Talks Daily. She's an absolute rockstar and pro on Scalefast's Air360 platform, a US analytics solution that helps reduce friction in the customer experience, increase conversions and improve loyalty.
Ryan Cloutier, CISSP and president of Security Studio joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about their mission to help simplify cybersecurity. In particular, Security Studio is passionate about working with underserved/under-resourced organizations like local governments and public educational institutions to improve their cybersecurity.
Ryan discusses why public organizations like schools and local governments find themselves woefully unprepared for cyberattacks and how hybrid workplaces have affected them. We also discuss the importance of taking a holistic approach to risk assessments and simple steps that organizations (and individuals) can take to improve their cyber-resilience (or ability to recover from a cyber-attack).
Ryan shares real-world examples of how cybersecurity risks in public institutions (on both sides of the pond) affect us all. For example, from recent FOI requests in the UK, just five government departments confirmed they have a data backup in place. The Department for Education (DfE) also confirmed it had lost or reported 116 stolen devices between September 2020 and September 2021.
Most CEOs have difficulty answering the most critical question in business: "Are we going to meet, beat, or miss on revenue?" Why? After more than $1 Trillion spent on ERP, CRM, Business Intelligence, spreadsheets, and collaboration software, there is no enterprise approach to revenue. As a result, there is no way for "Revenue-critical" people, processes, and systems to work together.
Andy Byrne, CEO, and Co-Founder of Clari joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how RevOps is a rapidly emerging concept in the UK. We talk about the importance of business unification and the end of siloed operations. Andy also shares how he put a deck on LinkedIn detailing his recommendations for how companies can not just thrive during the downturn but thrive and how it went viral.
I also learned how Clari is helping companies including Zoom, Equinix, Atlassian, and Okta forecast revenue growth, manage operations efficiently, and how they have achieved a valuation of $2.6 billion.
Fehintolu Olaogun, the CEO of CredPal joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story. This consumer credit startup has offered BNPL infrastructure to African retail merchants since 2018 and has garnered interest insights in the niche. Fehintolu was just in DC last month at the Africa Fintech Summit, where his panel discussed embedded finance.
For example, one exciting perspective he shares is that while BNPL is often regarded as a tool for impulse buying elsewhere in Africa, it's a necessity because many cannot afford upfront payment for essential items. Having served over 4000 merchants and now looking to scale across Africa, CredPal has a great vantage on BNPL and consumer credit in Africa.
Digital commerce expert Spryker recently released research into the grocery shopping habits of 2,500 UK consumers. The company found that 60% of UK consumers now order their groceries online, and 16% now do most of their food shopping via the internet.
With the cost-of-living crisis shrinking consumers’ budgets, shoppers at low-cost supermarkets are crying out for online services from the likes of Aldi and LIDL – with almost half (43%) of consumers keen to see their low-cost providers operate online. Other findings include:
Spryker CEO and co-founder Boris Lokschin reveals more findings from the report with me as we explore the broader trends in the digital grocery space – such as checkout-less shopping and Q-commerce apps.
About Spryker
Spryker is a composable digital commerce platform that enables enterprises to future-proof their business and accelerate growth at any point in their commerce journey. Spryker’s headless, API-first model allows companies to adapt, scale, and quickly go to market while facilitating a lower cost of ownership and higher return on investment.
As a leading platform for Enterprise Marketplaces, IoT Commerce, B2B, and D2C, Spryker has empowered 150+ customers in more than 200 countries worldwide to differentiate based on how they sell best and is trusted by brands such as Aldi, Siemens, Hilti, and Ricoh.
Gartner® recognized Spryker as a Visionary in the 2021 Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce, just one year after it first appeared (2020), and it has also been named a major player in B2B e-Commerce by IDC. Spryker is a privately held technology company headquartered in Berlin, Germany, and New York, USA.
Sarah Larner, Executive Vice President of Strategy & Innovation, Wejo joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Sarah is responsible for the formulation and management of the strategic initiatives at Wejo. She has been at Wejo since 2015, playing an integral role in the organization’s growth and success.
Sarah shares her story and discusses the connected vehicle landscape across automotive and the marketplace. Wejo is a UK-headquartered company publicly listed on NASDAQ. It's also a global leader in connected vehicle data, revolutionizing how we live, work and travel by transforming and interpreting real-time vehicle data.
The company enables smarter mobility by organizing 12 trillion data points from approximately 12 million vehicles and more than 59 billion journeys globally, across multiple brands, makes, and models, and then standardizing and enhancing those streams of data on a vast scale.
Wejo partners with ethical, like-minded companies and organizations to turn that data into insights that unlock value for consumers. With the most comprehensive and trusted data, underpinned by leadership in data privacy, Wejo is creating a smarter, safer, more sustainable world for all.
Tally builds tools for DAOs. The company helps people join decentralized orgs and help user-owned communities make decisions together. Tally CEO, Dennison Bertram is an avid futurist, artist, and serial entrepreneur with a keen eye for the future of technology and its social impacts. He's also an early block-chain technologist, having founded the first Bitcoin Exchange for Czech Crowns (BuyBTC.cz), a technologically advanced physical bitcoin wallet (Aeternum Key-Vault), and a paypal like digital currency wallet (Terrawallet).
Dennison joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss what are DAOs? How do they work and why should you care about them? He also shares the most interesting uses of DAOs right now and why he believes DAOs will replace corporations and become the dominant organizational form for human capital and creativity. Finally, Dennison also shares his tips on how to invest in DAOs without losing your money or becoming a victim of fraud.
Semtech's LoRa device-to-Cloud platform is a globally adopted long-range, low-power solution for IoT applications, enabling the rapid development and deployment of ultra-low power, cost-efficient, long-range IoT networks, gateways, sensors, module products, and IoT services worldwide.
Semtech's LoRa technology provides the communication layer for the LoRaWAN® standard, which the LoRa Alliance® maintains, an open IoT alliance for Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) applications that have been used to deploy IoT networks in over 170 countries.
With the proliferation of LoRa devices and the LoRaWAN standard, the LoRa Developer Portal is a place to learn, connect, collaborate, and find resources to help accelerate your LoRa development process. Semtech is a founding member of the LoRa Alliance.
Steven Hegenderfer, senior director of developer ecosystems at Semtech, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss Semtech's LoRa Developer Portal. The portal allows developers of all levels to quickly build and test IoT devices connecting with LoRaWan. In addition, I learn how it aims to help developers bring their ideas to life and close the skills gap many companies are facing by offering resources for education and training purposes.
This portal comes at a time when building IoT devices and solutions are more complex than ever before, and developers need additional resources to build and test device connectivity efficiently.
Shawn Vo is the CTO and co-founder of Axle, the all-in-one financial platform for modern freight brokers. Back in May, they completed a $10 million Series A round of funding led by Crosslink Capital. This financing follows a record year for Axle, during which volume grew 850% on their payments and financing platform.
A graduate of the University of Virginia, Shawn spent seven years in financial technology, building software for fast-growing startups and consulting for the top 20 largest banks before starting Axle with his longtime business partner and friend, Bharath Krishnamoorthy. He is also member of the Forbes Technology Council, as well as an angel investor in fintech and developer tools.
We discuss the importance of digital transformation initiatives, integrations and personalization in freight brokers' tech stacks. I also learn how moving toward open platform tools will benefit brokers so they can continue to build a tech stack that's personalized specifically for their back-end, data-driven processes.
Rachel Berry of eG Innovations and Richard Faulkner from the Conversant Group join Neil C. Hughes on the Tech Fusion Podcast. They discuss the importance of performance monitoring for Citrix deployments. Rachel shares where eG Innovations adds value to Citrix customers and how it relates to Citrix built-in tools.
Richard shares more about the problems they solve for businesses at Conversant Group and how they work with eG Innovations. We also talk about what changes they have seen from Citrix customers' needs in terms of monitoring throughout the last year.
Pave is on a mission to improve access to credit for millions of people by building the world's best credit builder. They already have close to 500,000 registered users and are helping their members improve their credit health. But I wanted to learn more about the company's story, and this is where things got interesting.
Co-Founder and CEO Sho Sugihara spent the first half of his life in Japan. He started his career working for The Big Issue to help the homeless by delivering magazines to newspaper vendors. Then, at 18, he went to Brazil to work for an NGO, helping underprivileged families keep their children in school through a state-sponsored microfinance and daycare program. These experiences opened his eyes to the power of financial inclusion.
After university, he worked at McKinsey for three years to save up cash to finally start his own business before leaving to co-found Pave out of Entrepreneur First in 2017. Fast forward to 2022, we're seeing extreme income volatility and an unprecedented surge in energy prices and living costs. In times like these, Sho believes there are new opportunities to help consumers and businesses.
As a result, they launched Fuse, a credit analytics B2B service that helps businesses make better lending decisions using our state-of-the-art analytics capabilities. Combining Open Banking data, Credit File data, and tangible outcomes data, the company can help enterprises to make the best affordability decisions with powerful insights.
I invited Sho on the podcast to share his inspiring story and how it led to two products aimed at helping Pave solve the inefficiencies they see in the credit system faster and at a critical time.
Payment Orchestration continues to be a hot topic in digital payments. It has become even more prevalent post-COVID-19 with increased demand from consumers for more digitized payment methods, combined with the push from merchants to drive global growth ambitions with efficient cross-border services.
CellPoint Digital is a leader in payment orchestration and has a longstanding history of delivering payment orchestration services for brands in the air travel sector. One of the most complex markets from a cross-border payments perspective – it bosts Virgin Atlantic, Cebu Pacific, and Avianca (one of the oldest airlines in Latam) as its clients and has transformed their payment architecture.
I invited Kristian Gjerding to share the company's story and explore how to navigate complex payments data with a payment orchestration’s proprietary rules engine that can optimize existing payments relationships. We also discuss how they are on a mission to make life easier for organizations that take payments. For example, they don’t have to renegotiate with payment providers and make system changes.
Quantinuum, the largest full-stack quantum computing company, recently revealed its quantum chemistry platform. InQuanto makes it easy for computational chemists to explore and experiment with quantum computing. This quantum computing offers a path to rapid and cost-effective development of new molecules and materials, which in turn, could generate novel answers to some of the biggest challenges we face in sustainability, climate change, drug discovery, and more.
Quantinuum’s quantum chemistry team developed InQuanto to support collaborations with partners such as BMW, JSR, Nippon Steel Corporation, and TotalEnergies. Through these collaborations, InQuanto has already led to the achievement of many firsts. I invited Jenni Strabley and Simon McAdams to share some of these and talk about the opportunities that Quantum computing will unlock.
Ben Coffin is a Solutions Marketing Manager for PHY and ORAN emulators at Keysight Technologies. Having spent the last decade in the test and measurement industry, Ben has spent his time in business development, product management, and systems engineering roles across the wireless communications space.
Ben is also enthusiastic about telling stories about how the technology in the wireless world is advancing and how the bleeding edge finds root through research and industry and academic collaboration. In a nutshell, he's a perfect fit for the Tech Talks Daily podcast.
Is it too early to be talking about 6G? We discuss 5G, 6G research, Open RAN, academic research on communications, research, and policy initiatives. We also explore how wireless communications will evolve how we communicate and the type of partnerships needed to exist (private/public, government) to make research in the wireless space successful.
When the pandemic hit, the need to touch as few things as possible to slow the spread of the virus meant QR codes took off quicker than Netflix stock. Now that we as consumers are programmed to scan them without a second thought, we find ourselves in a vulnerable situation. The FBI has even issued a formal warning about faked QR codes.
In his new research, Len Noe, aka 'the Biohacker' and White Hat Hacker at CyberArk, has revealed three ways that any QR code can be spoofed to provide an attack vector. Crucially, Len's research has shown how mobile devices can be taken over and used to provide an attack vector in corporate environments to launch advanced attacks.
Len discusses why we should be wary rather than blindly trusting forms. For example, a fake job ad containing a malicious QR code offers a perfect opportunity to send all that personal sign-up information straight to an attacker, not a prospective employer.
We also discuss the importance of vigilance when installing new apps from a QR code. Len shares how he spoofed the Google Play Store to gain ultimate access to a user's phone – including reading personal messages and taking pictures with the camera. Finally, he shares how even scanning a rogue QR code to order takeout could result in your details getting phished. In one fell swoop, Len had access to a user's phone, leaving their GPS location and sensitive user information open to play with.
Moiz Janjua Built his first public website, a college news blog when he was 16. He started working as a freelance designer in 2014. He built a couple of indie mobile games for iOS and Android in 2016. His love and passion for design and problem solving paved his way in the startup world. In 2021 founded SplitTrip.
Splittrip is a road trip-sharing app for verified university students. It provides a marketplace where verified Hosts with vehicles going on road trips offer extra seats to verified Riders. All participants equally share the trip cost, including the accommodation and fuel.
I invited him on the podcast to share his story and how they raised their first pre-seed investment of £50,000 by delivering groceries door to door in a high-net-worth area in central London. I also learned how Splittrip is officially endorsed by Coventry University and one of 10 startups endorsed in 2021.
List Perfectly is an e-commerce solution for sellers to efficiently list and cross-post products on multiple major marketplaces and channels like Poshmark, Mercari, Instagram, Shopify, eBay, and more. The company was created by founders Amanda Morse and Clara Albornoz for sellers like them, who make a living from online sales, as a solution to the frustrating and laborious process of listing on multiple channels.
However, there is an inspirational story behind the company. I invited co-founder Clara Albornoz on Tech Talks Daily to share how her arthritis prevented her from listing her products as a seller and how it inspired her to create something that would go on to save sellers an average of 80 hours per month.
I learn how its member base has grown by over 600% and sellers have cross-posted over 20 million products using its software in the last year alone. We also discuss how they are leveraging technology to fulfill the company's sustainability-driven mission to keep products out of landfills.
Gen Z is transforming the way we consume. With a keen eye toward sustainability, they are influencing older generations to prioritize sustainability in their purchasing decisions.
Raahish Kalara, CTO of Knit, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. The consumer insights startup appeared on my radar after learning it provides market data for Gen Z audiences and works with NASCAR, the Minnesota Twins, the San Antonio Spurs, and JBL Speakers, to name a few brands.
Using the Knit platform, brands can upload questions and get 30-90 second "selfie" video responses from hundreds of Gen Z consumers in as quickly as a few hours. With their video analysis AI, brands can analyze hours of video feedback in minutes, helping larger brands rapidly learn more about what Gen Z audiences want.
We discuss the three key 'takeaways' brands should keep in mind when looking to attract the attention of Gen Z'ers and what Gen Z data tell us about building thriving communities online.
Less than half of Gen Z have an account with a traditional bank revealing that non-traditional payment methods will dominate the future of digital banking. But Sanat Rao, Chief Business Officer, and Global Head, Infosys Finacle, believes many countries across the globe are falling behind in developing the infrastructure needed for a fully cashless, digital banking system.
Sanat joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the pros and cons of a cashless environment. Sanat shares how going cashless will create ease and efficiency, but to do so, countries need to digitize every step of transactions, including opening accounts with digital documentation. This is costly and requires a profound change in infrastructure, posing a significant barrier for many countries.
We also explore Blockchain security considerations. For example, Blockchain combats security concerns of digital payments by recording digital transactions, and Sanat believes this will not only curb fraud but also allow for cross-border transactions to increase exponentially.
On navigating end-to-end digital adoption, Sanat shares his thoughts on improving digital adoption progress and continuing to build infrastructure for a cashless environment.
Left Lane Capital is a leading global venture capital and growth equity firm investing in high-growth internet and consumer technology companies that are fundamental to the lives of customers. The foundation of Left Lane's strategy is built on four main elements: specialization in internet-first businesses, proprietary sourcing at every level, deep data rigor and best practices, and a genuine philosophy around partnering with founders.
Dan Ahrens (Managing Partner) joins me on Tech Tech Talks Daily to discuss Left Lane's second fund with $1.4 billion in commitments, how the firm is focused on growing the internet and consumer tech category by identifying and supporting category-defining companies, the market potential for consumer internet companies, and their recent investments in GoStudent, M1 Finance, iTrust Capital, and Tovala.
Logitech released the Logitech Pen in January, one of the first mainstream tech tools designed for and with students. The Pen is a USI stylus for Chromebooks, designed for learning, so students can unlock their full potential.
Tech is not often built with kids in mind (but it should be). It's built for adult and consumer use. Children have smaller hands, different developmental needs, etc. Logitech took all this into consideration when designing the Pen, with students at the center every step of the way.
Grace Lee is Head of Design for Logitech for Education. She is a leader in design who is passionate about creating user-centric education products that delight students and teachers. I invited her onto the podcast to learn more about the design process and discuss the development process of the Pen and what it can tell us about the future of tech design overall.
We discuss how the future of learning (and life) is increasingly digital and why bridging the 'awkwardness' gap is so important. We also explore where tech can be a comfortable extension of our real physical selves to build confidence.
Dr. Usama Fayyad is Executive Director of the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University. The Institute is a game-changing research center focused on researching and developing human-centric AI solutions that leverage machine technology to extend human intelligence. I invited him on Tech Talks Daily to learn more about their mission to solve core research problems centered on building real solutions in real contexts to make reliable and responsible AI that works effectively and cooperatively with humans.
The world-renowned expert in AI and an industry leader joins me to discuss what the Institute will mean to the advancement of AI and experiential AI. We also talk about the development of AI talent, the creation of AI solutions for real-world problems, AI ethics, and the promotion of Responsible AI.
Finally, I learned that he was the Global Chief Data Officer & Group Managing Director at Barclays Bank in London and the first person in the world to hold the Chief Data Officer title when at Yahoo!
Simon Blunn is SVP and General Manager for the EMEA region at WalkMe, a pioneer of the digital adoption sector. In a nutshell, digital adoption is the process of helping businesses make sure people – both staff and customers – are actually using any new technologies those businesses have embraced as part of their digital transformations. Simon is also a veteran of the enterprise IT industry more broadly, whose career has encompassed stints at the likes of HP and Cisco.
Simon joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about what digital adoption is, why it’s important to businesses, and how businesses can achieve true digital adoption. He also talks about WalkMe’s recently-released Digital Adoption For Dummies guidebook.
We discuss the centrality of digital adoption. Simon shares his belief that although digital transformation is essential to businesses in all industries, the technologies embraced during these businesses’ digital transformations must be used and understood – this often isn’t the case! Replacing legacy technologies with swanky new software may actually make things more confusing for businesses’ staff, worsening their digital experience and driving down productivity. In short, achieving digital adoption is central to successful digital transformation.
Simon also shares his view, if businesses want to retain and attract talent, an IT team that ensures a fuss-free digital experience is paramount. The pandemic-induced increase in home working means many staff are less concerned about whether their office has a coffee machine, and more concerned about whether they can easily use the applications and software necessary to do their jobs.
Ten years ago, Zach Supalla wanted to find a way to help his deaf father send and receive text messages. Specifically, he wanted to enable his dad's phone to flash when he got a text from his wife. What began as a personal mission turned into a global integrated IoT platform-as-a-service.
Since its inception in 2012, Particle has grown immensely to be the most widely used IoT platform, making it easier for 8,500 others to bring their physical products online. Zach joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his inspirational story. I learn how the founder wants to help you reprogram the world and how Particle empowers innovators to solve industry problems.
Particle provides an integrated IoT Platform-as-a-Service that helps businesses connect, manage, and deploy software applications to connected devices, from edge to cloud and back. Over 240k developers and 160+ Enterprise customers are building on Particle, from fast-growing startups to Fortune 100 companies that are all building connected solutions to business problems.
At CES earlier this year, Vuzix unveiled Vuzix Shield, a revolutionary leap for enterprise AR smart glasses. They are lightweight, stylish, prescription-ready safety glasses and a powerful 8-core CPU combine to deliver a singular wearable experience. Vuzix's CEO, Paul Travers, rejoins me on Tech Talks Daily for a catchup on their many developments and milestones and to discuss how Vuzix's technology today is allowing people to connect themselves to the metaverse easily.
We discuss how their smart glasses now support Microsoft Endpoint Manager to streamline device onboarding and provisioning for Microsoft Teams. We also talk about other strategic partnerships to address the future of the deskless workforce.
About Paul
Paul Travers is the founder of Vuzix and has served as President and Chief Executive Officer since 1997 and as a member of our Board of Directors since November 1997. Before the formation of Vuzix, Mr. Travers founded both e-Tek Labs, Inc. and Forte Technologies Inc. He has been a driving force behind the development of Vuzix products.
He is a nationally recognized industry expert with more than 30 years of experience in the consumer electronics field and 26 years of experience in the virtual reality and virtual display fields. He holds an Associate degree in engineering science from Canton, ATC, and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical and computer engineering from Clarkson University.
SingleStore recently launched the ‘Data Intensity Index’ tool to help companies understand how data-intensive their applications are. Using five variables, the Data Intensity Index gives you an assessment of what kind of data infrastructure an application will need to deliver the best user experience. This 3-minute assessment, spread over 10 questions, aims to understand how data is used by the application and calculate the intensity score.
Shireesh Thota joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the tool and the problems they set out to solve. I also learn more about the data intensity assessment and what it means if you have a high or a low score. We discuss why data-intensive applications need a modern data infrastructure and the five critical components that impact application performance
Ariel Camus is the Founder and CEO of Microverse, an online school that helps anyone become a high-paid, international software developer. The best part? The program costs $0 until you get employed. They are the first ones to scale peer-to-peer model (no other school/university has been able to do it).
Microverse has also raised over $17M+ and was part of the Y Combinator 2019 Batch. Thousands of people from over 100 countries apply to join Microverse every month, and hundreds of remotely-employed alumni from Colombia to Nigeria are making 3-10x their previous salary working for companies like Microsoft, VMware, Huawei, and Globant.
Before starting Microverse, Ariel was the Co-Founder and CEO of TouristEye, a mobile app for planning trips and discovering new things to do while traveling. He grew the app to 1M users in 180+ countries before selling it to Lonely Planet in 2013. After the sale, Ariel worked as a Senior Product Manager of Lonely Planet's website, with over 150 million unique visitors per year.
Ariel joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss the instant solution to the massive shortage of software engineering talent and why ignoring the solution will make the problem even worse. We also discuss how remote hiring can help tech companies build a more diverse workplace. Finally we explore the future of work and the wider investment opportunities in the new world of remote work.
Have you ever wondered what happens when Elon Musk X.com by, Zoom.com by ZOOM, as well as Prime.com, Podcast.com, Tube.com, Author.com, and others by Amazon? These are just a few examples of the tens of thousands of domain names today's guest has sold over the years.
Andrew Rosener is an industry-leading Domain Broker, Domain Investor, Digital Asset Investor and pioneer in domain name valuation methodology. He has completed more than $500 Million in domain name transactions and has been involved in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies since 2013.
The industry leader in third-party escrow services, Escrow.com, has recognized Andrew and his firm, MediaOptions.com, as the #1 or #2 Domain Broker in the World since 2013 when they began the Award. He has also won and been nominated for many other awards, including Domain Name Hall of Fame and Domain Investor of the Year.
Furthermore, Andrew Rosener is the creator of the Rosener Equation, an algorithm that determines the full objective end user or retail value for premium generic .com domain names. "My job is to create liquidity for an illiquid asset," says Andrew. Join me and Andrew in conversation about why he believes domains are the original NFT - connecting the future and the past.
Have you ever wondered what happens when Elon Musk X.com by, Zoom.com by ZOOM, as well as Prime.com, Podcast.com, Tube.com, Author.com, and others by Amazon? These are just a few examples of the tens of thousands of domain names today's guest has sold over the years.
Trend Micro is a global cybersecurity leader on a mission to make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Fueled by decades of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, their cybersecurity platform protects hundreds of thousands of organizations and millions of individuals across clouds, networks, devices, and endpoints.
The platform delivers a range of advanced threat defense techniques optimized for environments like AWS, Microsoft, and Google, and central visibility for better, faster detection and response. In addition, the global threat research team delivers unparalleled intelligence and insights that power cybersecurity platform and help protect organizations worldwide from 100s of millions of threats daily. But I wanted to learn more about how they are helping organizations to simplify and secure their connected world.
Kevin Simzer. Chief Operating Officer, Trend Micro, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share how they are using technology to make the world a safer place. As COO, Kevin is responsible for all field operations, including global sales, marketing, business development, strategic alliances, and corporate development.
Kevin has held various roles since joining Trend Micro, including CMO, Global Alliances, and Corporate Development & Strategy. Before joining Trend Micro, Kevin held a number of executive positions including COO, general manager, chief marketing officer (CMO) and VP engineering for security pioneer Entrust (now Entrust-Datacard) where he was part of the founding team.
Before starting Entrust, Kevin began his career working in several product development positions while at Nortel in engineering, developing next generation networking technology. Kevin has held a number of board positions with Entrust, the Queen’s University High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory, and has also served on the board of Certes Networks, an innovative cloud network security specialist.
Donna Loughlin is the Founder of LMGPR and is best known for her work with futurists and innovators. She has launched more than 500 companies taking them from stealth to market leaders since forming her agency in 2002. She is also the host of BeforeItHappened, a leading narrative podcast featuring visionaries and the moments, events, and realizations that inspired them to change our lives for the better.
Donna joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share her inspirational story as a woman in tech and insights gained from the evolution of Silicon Valley. I also learn more about how she launched a public relations firm with the sole purpose of helping visionaries tell their story to the world—almost 20 years ago. Two decades later, her podcast takes a deep dive into a singular lightbulb moment that inspired the visionaries to push forward and change our lives.
We also talk about the global tech skills shortage and what we need to do to ensure we attract more women in STEM.
Wireless charging applications are almost endless, from powering IoT applications like smart retail, building automation, smart home, digital advertising, touchless appliances, and industrial sensors.
Ori Mor co-founder and Chief Business Officer of Wi-Charge, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. The Israeli-based start-up is the first company to bring wireless charging from exciting potential to actual commercial deployments.
Wi-Charge’s patented infrared wireless power technology safely and efficiently delivers several watts of power to client devices at room-sized distances. It frees end-users from being tethered to wires or limited usage due to power constraints and gives product designers the power they need to usher in the next generation of mobile smart devices.
While the tech industry's teams have seamlessly evolved into remote and hybrid-based work operations - what's still missing when it comes to how companies operate as cohesive cultural units working in this disrupted fashion? And within a business setting - how do you define trust and empathy in tech companies? These are just a few topics I explore with today's guest.
Chris Williams, Chief Operating Officer for Interaction Associates, joins me on Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Interaction Associates is best known for introducing the concept and practice of group facilitation to the business world in the early 1970's. For over 50 years, IA has provided thousands of leaders and teams with practical, simple, and effective programs, tools, and techniques for leading, meeting, and working better across functions, viewpoints, and geographies.
We explore how leaders can take concrete steps to build trust and empathy in the workplace - especially virtually and what sort of technology and protocols come into play. Finally, we discuss how it can impact building trust and empathy and what can be done to optimize technology to make and sustain connections for teams vs disrupt them?
The quality and quantity of food we depend on are at risk — from weather extremes and scarcity of cropland to supply-chain dysfunction and war. Consumers are demanding more nutritious and sustainable food. Governments are mandating that growers use less water and energy to produce crops.
Innovation in agriculture has exploded with so much hype and promise. But how can we move away from hype and toward agtech solutions for producing more nutritious, sustainable food at scale?
AgriFORCE is an agtech IP development company also listed on NASDAQ that aims to facilitate resource-conservative, high-yield food production for consumers while creating sustainable, long-term jobs for local communities. The AgriFORCE vision is to be a leader in delivering plant-based foods and products through advanced and sustainable AgTech solution platforms that make positive change in the world—from seed to table.
Whether it's reshaping greenhouse design to harness the power of the sun, reimagining ways to capture the full nutrient value of crops or reigniting the passion and purpose of the next generation of growers through education and support, AgriFORCE is on a mission to break down the siloes of a fragmented industry and forging a better way to feed the planet.
These are just a few of the topics I discuss with Ingo Mueller in today's episode of Tech Talks Daily.
I recently discovered a company called Topia that is leveraging technology to help communities bring people together to build stronger and more meaningful connections through shared experiences.
Daniel Liebskin joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how companies can use the metaverse today to create value for their prospects, customers, and community. In addition, we explore the ethical considerations of the evolving internet and how to prevent dystopian outcomes. Finally, we discuss how different technology trends converge into systems and paradigm shifts and how people can prepare, gain skills, and shape their expectations for the future
Have you heard? From angry Adele fans to broken robot vacuums, millions were hit by the suspension of services that use Cloud. Robot vacuums ceased sucking, WiFi cameras stopped watching, and eager Tinder daters were left unable to "swipe right" on their smartphone apps. These are just a few of the many recent news stories that highlight how Cloud technology is everywhere.
Cloud is widely seen as helping deliver value to customers through innovation, improved resilience, and positive sustainability impact. But it also has its imperfections. Can Cloud fail us? Should you be investing in Cloud skills? And is it time to remediate Cloud? These are just a few areas I explore with today's guest.
Alina Timofeeva is a multi-award-winning Principal at Oliver Wyman who helps major organisations adopt Cloud so they can deliver on their business ambitions in a safe and cost-effective way. She was recognized by 7 industry awards only in 2021, including Cloud Professional and Digital Leader.
Outside of work Alina actively gives back to the community, through mentoring immigrants and women of diverse cultural and social backgrounds - so we can all look at our failure as an opportunity, instead of a setback. Her recent TEDxTalk "Fail but never give up" was watched by over 500 000 people and translated into 20 languages globally.
Over the last year, we have seen a rapid increase in the number of cyberattacks on cloud environments, with breaches having potentially disastrous consequences. The rise has even led to CISA releasing guidance and legislation on how to improve cloud security.
However, the issue of securing cloud environments does not have to be as complex as it is sometimes made out to be. Far too many breaches result from organizations relaxing their security settings on cloud resources or simple cloud misconfigurations. Therefore, what extra security checks and training should organizations be implementing to reduce the risk of breach?
Gadi Naor, VP of Software Engineering, Cloud Security at Rapid7 joins me today on Tech Talks Daily to discuss why cloud security does not need to be such a complex problem as once thought. In addition, we discuss which sectors are most vulnerable to cloud misconfigurations and how data breaches in the cloud can result in further attacks, for example, social engineering attacks.
We also talk about how organizations have helped contribute to the rise in attacks, including relaxing security settings and deploying unencrypted instances on the cloud. Finally, discuss what organizations can do to ensure that cloud misconfigurations are resolved.
Dr. Robert Blumofe (Bobby), EVP and CTO of Akamai Technologies, discusses where the bar has been set for digital transformation at the enterprise level and how organisations globally can keep pace with those setting the gold standard. We also discuss how those lagging in their digital journey can catch up without exposing their security infrastructures to risk.
We talk about the pivotal role that Zero Trust plays in defending against increasing cyber-attacks in the new world of work. Finally, we explore why the centralised cybersecurity model underpinned by a centralised technology stack is no longer effective against cyber threats that increasingly originate from the edge of a network.
Akamai is a cloud company that helps companies build, deliver, and secure digital experiences. The company has more than 8,000 employees worldwide and, in 2021, generated $3.5 billion globally. More than 50% of the Fortune 500 use Akamai’s products and services, and its customers include the likes of Lufthansa, Airbnb, and Honda.
Did you know there has been a fundamental restructuring of cybercrime cartels thanks to a booming dark web economy of scale? Powerful cybercriminal groups now operate like multinational corporations and are relied upon by traditional crime syndicates to carry out illegal activities such as extortion and money laundering.
As a result, cybercrime cartels are more organized than ever before and often enjoy greater protection and resources from the nation-states that view them as national assets. A recent report from VMware found that 63% of financial institutions experienced an increase in destructive attacks, a 17% increase from last year. Destructive attacks are launched punitively to destroy, disrupt, or degrade victim systems by taking actions such as encrypting files, deleting data, destroying hard drives, terminating connections, or executing malicious code.
Tom Kellermann, Head of Cybersecurity Strategy, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the findings in the report and share his insights.
About Tom Kellermann
Tom Kellermann is the Head of Cybersecurity Strategy for VMware Inc. Previously, Tom held the position of Chief Cybersecurity Officer for Carbon Black Inc. Before joining Carbon Black, Tom was the CEO and founder of Strategic Cyber Ventures. In 2020, he was appointed to the Cyber Investigations Advisory Board for the United States Secret Service. Additionally, on January 19, 2017, Tom was appointed the Wilson Center’s Global Fellow for Cyber Policy.
Tom previously held the positions of Chief Cybersecurity Officer for Trend Micro; Vice President of Security for Core Security and Deputy CISO for the World Bank Treasury. In 2008 Tom was appointed a commissioner on the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th President of the United States. In 2003 he co-authored the Book “Electronic Safety and Soundness: Securing Finance in a New Age.”
Red Box, the AI voice software specialist, is enabling enterprise businesses to capture and unlock the power of their voice data to drive digital transformation, AI innovation, and compliance – all while giving their customers full ownership of their data. Voice data, both from internal communications and customer interactions, is commonly overlooked in informing an enterprise’s decision-making. However, it is amongst the most powerful data sets a business can own!
Pete Ellis, Red Box’s Chief Product Office, talks about the many ways voice data is the fuel for change businesses need and provides a crucial foundation for digital transformation and AI deployments. We also discuss how data ownership is a key part in unlocking the benefits from AI and analytics tools, and how many businesses are losing out on this valuable asset because of things like paywalls and extra charges for exporting data.
Mike Whitmire is the co-founder and CEO of FloQast, a close management software company that helps rapidly growing companies, particularly pre-IPO and public companies, close their monthly financial books with greater accuracy and speed.
Mike joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how tech is revolutionising the finance function to make it a strategic business function and the role of automation in supporting forward-thinking CFO's. We also discuss upskilling in the finance function, continuous talent optimisation and how tech can help accountants achieve a better work-life balance at work.
Many businesses are currently juggling two different worlds. We have the modern cloud infrastructure and Kubernetes. But on the flip side, there is 10-20-year-old legacy tech such as Oracle Solaris, old IBM and HP servers, etc. Elsewhere, business leaders are also challenged with managing security, the Cloud, and hybrid working. Anil Kumar from Citrix and Sharon Besser from GuardiCore join Neil Hughes in discussing the advantages that hybrid cloud and SAS apps can offer businesses.
About Sharon
Sharon Besser is an accomplished data and network security expert with a successful track record combining deep technical hands-on excellence with a market vision to incubate new solutions and develop next-generation technologies.
Sharon was the CTO and co-founder of Publicom (acquired by Comsec), co-founder of Contondo (acquired by Bigtincan), co-founder of EyeOTee Inc., VP Technologies at Net Optics, (acquired by IXIA), VP of Products Strategy at Imperva, Director of security solutions at Check Point, Director of security products at Websense, through the acquisition of Port Authority Technologies. Sharon holds a BSc degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Geography from Bar Ilan University.
About Anil
As a Technical Marketing Manager at Citrix, Anil Kumar is responsible for Building and owning an Ecosystem of Networking, Security, and Cloud technology partners. He is also a subject matter expert on the Citrix cloud, networking and security products, and services. Anil is also responsible for developing and managing a test infrastructure in-house/on-prem and on Cloud for proof of concepts and for partner product verifications.
The challenges facing organizations today are timely, urgent, and complex. Business leaders must find new ways to manage hybrid work models, unleash diversity, equity and inclusion for all employees, and most importantly, understand the needs of talent and provide every individual with the opportunity to experience choice and growth across an organization.
In January 2021, I spoke with Jeff Schwartz about Deloitte's Global Human Capital Trends Report. Jeff is an incredible subject matter expert and innovator who has had a front-row seat to the changes that have transformed and shaped the modern workplace. He's now the VP of Insights & Impact for Gloat, a pioneer of the internal talent marketplace.
Trusted by some of the most respected brands in the world like Unilever, Nestlé, Seagate Technology, and Standard Chartered Bank, Gloat uses a two-sided platform that connects the talent within an organization to full-time roles, gigs, projects, mentorships, networking opportunities and more, enabling companies to democratize career development, unlock skills, and future-proof their workforces.
I welcome Jeff back to the podcast to discuss how talent marketplaces are establishing a new category of HR technology and what forward-looking companies must do to succeed long-term as the world of work undergoes major shifts. We also discuss the benefits a talent marketplace provides to employees, managers and businesses as well as the future developments in this field.
Ruben Merre is the CEO and Co-founder of NGRAVE, the creators of ZERO, a military-grade cold wallet with the highest security certification in the world. Ruben joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the vulnerabilities digital asset holders face by using hot wallets that are connected to the internet as opposed to transferring their assets to cold wallets which are offline and therefore cannot be attacked.
We talk about NGRAVE’s $6 million seed round which saw investment from renowned DeFi and Web3 investors, including Woodstock Fund, Morningstar Ventures, DFG Group, Spark Digital Capital, and Mapleblock Capital. We also explore the growing problem of phishing and hacking scams, which have impacted users of Axie Infinity, OpenSea, and the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Suppose you are thinking of purchasing a new laptop, TV, home appliance, car, or any big purchase. Where do you begin? For the most part, it probably reviews sites and YouTube videos that help you learn more about the pros and cons of each model. However, when we enter the workplace, we have those exact expectations, but we seldom do the same research before buying somehting.
Vinay Bhagat is an entrepreneur passionate about improving the software buying process so professionals like HR teams can make better decisions for their organizations. Under Vinay’s leadership, TrustRadius, has become the most trusted business technology review site, delivering over 386,000 reviews & ratings from 100% verified users.
Vinay started TrustRadius after experiencing challenges when buying enterprise solutions at his last company. He shares his journey as an entrepreneur and insights into how buyers make buying decisions.
We also explore the 2022 B2B Buying Disconnect report—a survey of 2,185 respondents that shows year-over-year trends in business technology buying and selling. The annual survey covers significant industry findings and further analysis and insights.
Check out the report.
Hybrid collaboration can be challenging. Remote teammates suffer from the "second-class citizen problem" - feeling excluded from spontaneous brainstorms, magic moments, and the creative energy of the office. Hybrid Spaces bridge the gap between remote and in-person teammates to make hybrid work the best of both worlds.
Tandem is a virtual office that facilitates frictionless collaboration and allows distributed teams (such as Airbnb, Lyft, and Spotify) to feel connected, collaborate in real-time, and increase productivity. As the world struggles with redefining the way we work, I invited Tandem CEO and Co-Founder Rajiv Ayyangar to join me on Tech Tech Talks Daily to discuss what Techcrunch calls "remote-friendly hybrid collaboration".
I learn more about how hybrid workers can teleport around the office, connect, and collaborate.
Jellysmack is a global creator company founded in 2016 that detects and develops the world's most talented video creators through AI. Top creators with Jellysmack include PewDiePie, MrBeast, Bailey Sarian, Derek Deso, Karina Garcia, Charles & Alyssa Forever, and Brad Mondo. Jellysmack has also been named #1 Most Innovative Company in Video by Fast Company.
The company optimizes and distributes content for over 500 leading individual video creators on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. It enables creators to grow their audiences, maximize earnings and generate more revenue opportunities. The company says the result is about 10 billion video views monthly, reaching 125 million people. In addition, its influencers have a combined 360 million followers.
Jason Brown shares with me the story behind the company and the road to Series C funding from the SoftBank Vision Fund in May 2021, which catapulted the company to "unicorn" status. I also learn more about the tech that makes it all possible and why Jellysmack is a strategic partner across every aspect of the creator's journey and fully invests in a creator's long-term success.
Brent Kochuba is the Founder of SpotGamma, a financial insights company, which applies its proprietary methodology toward modeling index and equity options and then provides unique content to its subscribers. SpotGamma has thousands of members and has been featured in publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Markets. At SpotGamma, Brent oversees all of the product development and creative content.
Prior to SpotGamma, Brent was most recently a portfolio manager with Seven North Capital Management where he focused on creating options-based investment strategies. Prior to that, he spent time as a derivatives broker at Wolverine Execution, Credit Suisse and Bank of America. Brent now lives with his wife and children in Easton, Connecticut. Brent holds a B.S. in Emerging Technologies from the University of Connecticut.
Brent joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss why tech, stock, and options analysis work so well together. We also attempt to demystify the options market and empower investors at all levels.
Meliá Hotels International anticipated an industry shift, with demand for travel hitting record levels following the pandemic. To accommodate this demand and deliver frictionless guest experiences, meeting guests on the mobile and online platforms on which they interact, Meliá Hotels accelerated its digital transformation by migrating its critical applications to the cloud.
A cloud-native environment allowed Meliá the agility to release better digital functionality faster, enabling its guests to access more of its services via mobile and web platforms. I wanted to learn more about the importance of choosing the right support partner and how they leverage the Dynatrace platform's broad and deep observability and advanced AIOps capabilities to detect any anomalies in Meliá's infrastructure before they create issues for customer experiences.
Christian Palomino joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss their digital transformation journey and how choosing the right partner enabled Meliá to ensure its digital services deliver the same quality experience as in-person interactions with hotel staff.
Can a Zebra change its stripes? Yes, if the rapid set of software acquisitions in the past few years by Zebra Technologies are anything to go by. It has catapulted Zebra firmly into the world of SaaS and injected some new ‘magic’ into their ubiquitous hardware portfolio, says David Lancefield, software solutions director at Zebra, who joined via the acquisition of AI-powered workforce management and planning company, Reflexis.
Zebra’s recent flurry of acquisitions include Adaptive Voice (machine vision software), Profitect (prescriptive analytics for retail), Reflexis (AI-powered workforce management and planning) and antuit.ai (AI demand forecast and inventory optimisation) – all aimed at complementing and enhancing their current software and hardware for frontline workers in retail, warehouse, manufacturing, and logistics, to name a few.
With brands like Dixons Carphone UK, McDonald's UK and Coop Switzerland under their belt, Zebra helps retailers improve their inventory visibility, optimise costs to streamline shipment completion times, identify fraud, and manage workers and tasks in real-time. With the pandemic in the UK feeling more behind us and labour shortages and supply chain pressures in front,
David Lancefield, software solutions director at Zebra, discusses why we’re seeing the rise of vertical SaaS for specific industries like retail and logistics. We also explore how SaaS changes workplaces into ecosystems where people, inventory, hardware and software are connected.
Opera, the company behind the popular multi-platform web browser, has fully integrated the Polygon Network into its lauded Crypto Browser Project.
The integration will unlock unfiltered access to Polygon's vast array of more than 7,000 decentralized apps (dapps), including popular gaming dapps such as Decentraland, Sandbox, Aavegotchi, My Crypto Heroes and Atlantis World, and Decentral Games, among many others.
Critically, the direct integration bypasses the need for users to transfer assets from Ethereum to Polygon — increasing the environmental benefits of using Polygon’s solution. Bridge contracts alone account for about 70% of Polygon PoS gas usage. By circumventing the need to bridge assets, Opera users can dramatically reduce their carbon footprint.
Susie Batt, Crypto Ecosystem lead at Opera, and Brian Trunzo, Metaverse Lead at Polygon Studios, join me in a discussion about accessing Web3 and crypto functionality technologies to create a trusted and unique way for everyday users to access the future web.
I learn more about the future for both Opera and Polygon in the growing Web3 industry and how these two companies are working together.
It goes without saying that security has not developed at an equal rate to software innovations in the last few decades. This has led to Cloud-Native organically evolving security to be coherent with how software is made today. In addition, creating disposable layers of protection on certain scales of attack has prevented security bottlenecking and allowed eager users to implement cloud-native.
Nevertheless, questions are being posed as to the consequences of relying on such solutions and whether they are reliable or adequate to deal with the risks in the current landscape. Thorsten Geissel from Tufin joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a discussion about Traditional vs Cloud Native applications and the biggest risks of relying on native cloud security solutions.
We also discuss whether cloud native tools are strong enough and how collaboration can be maintained and amplified to break free from silos.
Creaticles is the first custom NFT request platform connecting businesses and individuals with creators ready to fulfill any occasion of custom NFTs. It enables users to engage in various contest modes to ensure your NFT request, whether a meme, logo, game, or web asset, is fulfilled to your expectations at a price you can afford.
The platform allows anyone to source custom NFTs through ‘Creaticles contests’, using a Request for Proposal (RFP) model. Users submit an NFT idea request to the platform’s roster of verified artists, who are remunerated for their work in ETH and other cryptocurrencies.
Creaticles was also selected as one of eight of the most promising projects in CoinList’s Seed batch for Fall 2021, out of a field of over 500 crypto projects, and recently announced a partnership with Fantom. Jonathan Chen joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company.
Andrew Yates is the co-founder and CEO of Promoted.ai, a tech startup that helps marketplaces maximize conversions through optimizing for better search results as well as real-time personalization for new and anonymous users. Promoted.ai was part of the Y Combinator 2021 batch.
Before starting Promoted.ai, Andrew worked at Pinterest and Facebook, where he led ads ranking, auction, and marketplace engineering and research teams. In today's episode Andrew shares how Promoted.ai plans to better match every buyer with a seller across all marketplaces on web or mobile. We also explore how ad engineering works behind the scenes and tips ad engineers can use to design great ad marketplaces.
Finally, Andrew shares his experiences of getting Promoted.ai into Y Combinator and what the experience has been like.
About Promoted
Promoted is the only company to unify search, feed, ads, and promotions for top marketplaces like Outschool, Hipcamp, Teachers Pay Teachers, Snackpass, and other e-commerce unicorns. Promoted works by measuring everything in the marketplace using its real-time streaming data infrastructure. Then, Promoted maximizes conversions in search and feed through machine learning. Backed by Y Combinator, the company was founded by former ad engineers from Pinterest, Facebook, and Google.
Rick Hammell, CEO, and founder at global HR Tech Firm Atlas, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Rick is the author of “Getting Sh*t Done!: The Millennial CEO,” so his productivity and exponential growth of his company should come as no surprise.
We discuss the recent rebranding from elements Global Services and how they are helping to define the “work from anywhere” space. In today's conversation, we cover various topics from the labor shortage to tech employee retention and paying different salaries depending on where you live, for the same job. But at the heart of everything, we talk about the opportunities being unlocked by emerging technologies in the workplace.
Odun Eweniyi (COO & Co-Founder at PiggyVest) joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how she's revolutionizing the savings & investments culture amongst young Nigerians. She is also a Forbes Africa 30 under 30 Technology Pioneer awardee.
Based in Nigeria, PiggyVest is West Africa's first digital savings and micro-investment app with a focus on restoring trust and democratising financial services for Gen Zs & millennials. They've built a strong customer base of over 3.5 million users since launching in 2016 and in 2021 alone, the platform paid out over $582 million to its users. PiggyVest's growth is also especially impressive when you consider its last fundraise was a $1.1mn seed round in 2018.
Why do savings & investments in Nigeria need change? There are very few countries in the world where savings are more of a necessity than Nigeria. Due to the severe lack of credit options, Nigerians are well-accustomed to paying for goods and services upfront, forcing them to rely heavily on their savings. However, with excessive bank charges and poor interest rates further eroded by high inflation, they are heavily disincentivized to save with traditional financial institutions, which often leave them with less money than their original deposits.
Equally, the barriers to boosting wealth creation through investments are just as daunting. The average entry point to invest with formal financial institutions stands at 10,000 Naira, which is 8% of the average Nigerian's annual income. We discuss how technology is restoring trust and democratizing financial services for Gen Zs & millennials in Nigeria. I also learn more about how technology and innovation is sweeping across Africa.
We're beginning to see businesses return to normality – but it appears part of getting back to normal is ramping up the volume of irritating customer communications advises Andrew Stevens, Principal, Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance, Quadient.
"The number of complaints accelerated towards the end of 2020, but now we're in a worse position than before the pandemic. The sheer volume of spam calls and texts will take a toll on worried customers, who are already grappling with the energy crisis and soaring costs of living. So businesses need to pull the handbrake on annoying customer calls and texts, or they could hit record levels of complaints this year, which would hit revenues when customers decide to leave."
With the cost-of-living crisis at the top of everyone's minds, consumers are more worried than ever about their finances. Banks must provide helpful and personalized communication to demonstrate they are on the customers' side. By bombarding customers with irrelevant content, banks are only exacerbating what is already a stressful time.
Instead, they don't need to be sent innumerable offers or reminders, instead functions like spending tracking tools and searchable statements. Communications that highlight these valuable functions and how to use them, or give other ways to reduce costs, will be much more welcome. These are just a few topics we explore in today's episode of Tech Talks Daily.
Lakeside Software is a leader in digital experience monitoring and a Citrix partner. The company recently released a report, "The Future of Digital Workplaces Bridging the critical 2021 digital experience divide between CEOs, IT leaders, and employees."
I invited Peter Collins from Lakeside and Allen Furmanski from Citrix onto the podcast to discuss insights from the report and talk about how they are working together to solve some of the biggest business challenges around digital experiences. We also discuss how this partnership enables them to provide the visibility IT teams need to design and support productive digital workplaces.
About Peter
Peter Collins is a Senior Solution Architect with Lakeside Software, focusing on Digital Employee Experience. At Lakeside DEX is at the heart of what we do. SysTrack monitors 10,000 individual data points every 15 seconds, providing you with the richest insights into your employee experience. Peter has had the opportunity to work with some of the largest organizations, providing how to save money and make employees happier.
About Allen
Allen Furmanski is a Principal Product Marketing Manager with Citrix focusing on virtual app and desktop offerings and hybrid cloud solutions. He is a passionate IT professional, Citrix evangelist, creative problem-solver, and public speaker. In his personal time, Allen enjoys traveling, outdoor activities, digital photography, and trying new cuisines.
Dan Goman is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ateliere, a tech company that solves many of the production and distribution challenges of legacy technology. It does this through its cloud-native digital media supply chain and distribution platforms.
Its solutions help companies focus their time, energy, and resources toward delivering the best audience experience possible. It works with leading production and streaming companies and aims to have the leading and only solution available on the market for the expected $932 billion streaming industry by 2028.
Born in Western Romania during the 1970s, Dan and his family lived under an oppressive communist regime, where his father was given a choice: conform or shut up. He did neither, so his parents were fired from their jobs. The family of eight kids struggled as they applied for political asylum to move to the U.S.— but once this was granted, they never looked back
Dan was an ambitious child and wanted to succeed in his new, unknown surroundings — he learned English from watching television shows and taught himself programming on an old IBM computer. He went on to graduate from the University of Maryland and began a career in software development.
This led to him start-up his own company, Ateliere (formerly named OWNZONES), in 2010. As streaming services started rising in popularity, Dan knew this was a valuable market, as these streaming platforms would need support with the consolidation of production and content
We discuss how he has become a successful start-up developer as an immigrant from a troubling background and the lessons he's learned that have facilitated Ateliere's significant success. We also explore how Ateliere is fuelling an evolution by helping streaming giants consolidate their media content and helping other platforms come together with merging businesses.
I also learn why the next generation of filmmakers and directors need to think cloud-first – upskilling the entertainment industry to incorporate new technology.
After learning how HarperDB's technology is transforming their business, and their technology is changing other companies in unique and innovative ways. I felt compelled to find out more. So I invited their CEO Stephen Goldberg onto the podcast to find out more and ask his to share his startup story.
Stephen has worked as a CTO and CEO of startups, held several roles at larger organizations like Red Hat, and led digital transformation projects at a number of Fortune 500 companies across many verticals. He is an established thought leader in the IoT space, having been published on sites like Tech Target, and quoted in a number of articles and publications like Forbes and ZDNet. He has been a speaker at IoT World, SAP Sapphire, and Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce. Stephen holds 2 patents with Kyle and Zach.
Tom Summerfield, Retail Director at Peak joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how he has helped retailers including B&M, Nike, and ASOS to stay ahead of the curve. We discuss why retail survival in the current climate is likely to boil down to the tech they have at their disposal. we also explore the impact of inflation on retailers and how best to manage this against shrinking costs.
In the coming months, Primark won't be the only retailer fighting to be competitive as inflation squeezes margins. For the first time, we're going to see a divide opening up between the haves and the have nots; those with the tech in place to adequately manage yet another catastrophe in a sector already hit hard by supply chain distribution and fluctuating demand.
However, the battle ground won't just be operational efficiency (as big as it is), stock availability and convenience will be increasingly crucial. Shopper behaviours have changed post-pandemic, and are likely to again as inflation bites and consumers downgrade their choices. Demand forecasting is a struggle for many right now, and this could push them to breaking point. If retailers don't have the right stock on their shelves at the right time, they'll see once loyal customers voting with their feet.
Artificial Intelligence is being leveraged across the value chain to tackle pain points that include demand forecasting, stock optimisation, allocation and distribution resource planning which are increasingly important in a high inflationary environment.
Tom Summerfield, Retail Director at Peak joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how he has helped retailers including B&M, Nike, and ASOS to stay ahead of the curve. We discuss why retail survival in the current climate is likely to boil down to the tech they have at their disposal. we also explore the impact of inflation on retailers and how best to manage this against shrinking costs.
Organizations that use Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop solutions must secure both their on-premises and cloud environments. Citrix virtual solutions provide flexibility for the workforce but can remain a prime target for attackers since infecting the environment extends their reach greatly.
Attackers have demonstrated that they can evade security controls to compromise an internal system, using it as a beachhead to infiltrate the network and target critical or sensitive data and infrastructures, such as Active Directory and Citrix VDI. Organizations must look to new solutions to enhance their security and prevent attackers from remaining undetected within the network.
Joesph Salazar from Attivo Networks, the award-winning leader in deception for cybersecurity threat detection, and Rajkumar Repswal from Citrix to discuss how together organizations can protect against active directory attacks with Attivo's Citrix Ready® solution.
We discuss how organizations can protect Citrix VDI endpoints against attackers successfully querying Active Directory and AD resources like privileged users, computer groups, and service accounts.
I chat with the inspirational Jaeson Schultz, a technical leader for Cisco Talos Security Intelligence & Research Group. Jaeson has over 20 years’ experience in Information Security and his experience ranges from hardware hacking, to log analysis and security policy recommendations, to thwarting misuse of Internet application layer protocols like DNS, HTTP, and SMTP.
We discuss securing Web3 and what cybersecurity in the metaverse might look like. I also learn more about Cisco's how Talos Group is dedicated to advancing the state-of-the-art of threat defense and enhancing the value of Cisco's security products.
As work environments undergo rapid transformation and distributed and hybrid workforces become the norm, the need for an efficient, smooth digital document creation and management process becomes paramount. Documents remain the essential glue of how business gets done, but many professionals are still stuck in manual legacy processes or facing challenges in their digital document creation.
In today's episode, I explore the benefits of document automation and digitization of workflows with Nate Gilmore, CMO, PandaDoc. I also learn more about how this all-in-one document workflow automation platform helps fast scaling teams accelerate the ability to create, manage, and sign digital documents, including proposals, quotes, contracts, and more. On average, their customers achieve a 28% increase in close rate, an 18% increase in the average sales price, and a 65% decrease in the document creation time.
We discuss the age-old story of how David is taking on Goliath in the world of SaaS dynamic documents and how close we are to the dream of a paperless office.
About Nate
With over 20 years of executive experience, Nate helps high-growth SaaS startups supercharge their sales, develop effective marketing programs, and execute customer success plans that move the needle. As CMO for PandaDoc, Nate oversees the marketing team using his broad-based knowledge and extensive experience in business development to ensure that the strategic direction is implemented.
With a passion for leadership and mentorship, Nate is a seasoned tech operator, investor, and advisor and has worked with hundreds of smaller startups to help them reach their revenue goals.
Amit Jain from ServiceMax joins me in a conversation about how digital transformation strategies and SaaS are reshaping and improving field service industries such as manufacturing, energy, healthcare, etc. I learn more about Asset Data Gravity and how AI influences field service and product design.
About ServiceMax
ServiceMax's mission is to help customers keep the world running with asset-centric field service management software. ServiceMax's mobile apps and cloud-based software provide a complete view of assets to field service teams. By optimizing field service operations, customers across all industries can better manage the complexities of service, support faster growth, and run more profitable, outcome-centric businesses.
Mikhael Lindholm from Stratodesk and Nitin Sharma from Citrix discuss how to provide an endpoint experience beyond the infrastructure. We talk about the advantages of using Citrix workspace in a Linux environment.
About Mikael
Mikael is an EUC, VDI, and virtualization industry veteran that has a long story with different jobs within industry-leading companies. He started as a Citrix Instructor in the early 2000. Mikael has spent his professional life in the world of virtualization and cloud and today saves the world at Stratodesk Software one endpoint at a time. In his free time, he spends time with his family, enjoying the Swiss Alps, mostly by foot and occasionally with his motorbike.
About Stratodesk
Stratodesk is the leading global innovator in EUC management and OS software. Stratodesk partners with Citrix to bring a greater level of efficiency, convenience, and security to Citrix VDI endpoints and organizations. Stratodesk NoTouch, our management, and OS software for VDI endpoints, is ready to connect to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops in a matter of minutes. With the Citrix Ready Workspace Hub, Stratodesk can offer an all-in-one solution for your Citrix environment and combines PC repurposing for existing hardware.
Stratodesk's cutting-edge, Linux-based solution, NoTouch OS, is impervious to common security threats running on x86 and Raspberry Pi endpoints. Stratodesk offers the perfect user experience for administrators and end-users via NoTouch Center – the most advanced and user-friendly endpoint management software.
NoTouch Center is a browser-based solution, packed with enterprise-grade features and can be run on-premise or in the cloud, enabling Remote Workforce to access and manage virtual apps and cloud workspaces from anywhere, on any device."
About Nitin Sharma
Nitin Sharma is a leader in product and solutions marketing strategy at Citrix. He is responsible for designing and executing global companywide go-to-market strategies for digital workspace solutions. With a passion for solving business problems with technology solutions, he has held various solutions sales and marketing roles—targeting audiences at all levels: executive, line of business, and IT.
Designed to bring the cloud to the cloudless, Thryv is an end-to-end client experience platform that has already helped nearly 50,000 small businesses across the country take their businesses to the cloud.
Joe Walsh, CEO, Thryv joins me in a discussion about why a digital transformation is necessary for SMBs to remain competitive against their enterprise-level competition, as well as discuss the technology and tools available to help them do so. Joe shares the different aspects SMBs are presently being impacted by, the customer experience challenges in the changing climate and how the supply chain is changing business priorities for SMBs
We also dive into the findings of the Thryv, Payments Dive 2022 Consumer Payments Survey, which takes a look at how payment strategies have changed over the past few months, what customers seek from vendors, and how they’ll respond if a business doesn’t offer their preferred payment method and more.
IT departments are often very siloed, with 75% of DevOps initiatives failing due to difficulties working across teams. Creating a community can break down these silos. Additionally, having a community forum can give IT departments support. When IT pros need support, they want it at all hours and prefer self-service that can come from online community forums.
During the pandemic, every business was forced to go remote almost overnight and now explore the world of hybrid work. But behind all of this is the need for more tech. But where do you get that equipment at scale and how do you manage that at scale, improving the experience while keeping support calls low? David Sholkovitz from StarTech, joins me on Tech Talk Daily to explore this topic with me.
James Bayly is the Head of Business Development at SubQuery, a data as a service platform that speeds up querying and extracting blockchain data so anyone can take the data off-chain and build Web3 applications of the future. Since its launch in 2021, SubQuery has raised $10.8M, and the platform is serving millions of Polkadot data queries daily.
James is also the Head of Business Development at OnFinality, a SaaS platform that supports blockchain teams worldwide by providing critical infrastructure so they can focus on building the next dApp. OnFinality’s API service receives 700M+ daily API requests from blockchain developers.
James joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about building decentralized networks with huge communities, sourcing data for cross-chain application development and building core infrastructure for the blockchain industry.
Kashable uses innovative technology to improve the financial well-being of working America with a commitment to both reliability and affordability. Ultimatley, it's a socially responsible financing solution for employees offered as an employer-sponsored voluntary benefit. I wanted to learn more about how it deploys innovative technology to offer immediate access to low-cost credit.
Rishi Kumar, Founder of Kashable joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story. Rishi is also an engineer, an innovator, and a serial entrepreneur, who has built his career creating value at the nexus of technology and finance. As an MIT computer scientist and former derivatives trader on Wall Street, Rishi combined his engineering techniques in analyzing big data with cutting-edge financing and underwriting to create a cloud based solution that makes instant access to affordable on-demand credit available to every American worker.
I recently discovered Candu, a product-led experience builder that helps any team improve their existing SaaS product without code. Ultimatley, anyone can strategically embed UI components to create personalized, in-product content experiences that engage users throughout the customer lifecycle.
The company has also raised $5 million in seed funding, and I wanted to learn more about the story behind all this. Jonathan Anderson, co-founder, and CEO of Candu, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to reveal all. We also discuss the pros and cons of using no-code for business software development and the power of personalized user interfaces in your product adoption journey.
The recent news surrounding the Log4j vulnerability exposes the many cracks that exist within information security tools. Unfortunately, most technologies lack the visibility to detect critical vulnerabilities creating massive enterprise-wide challenges. When I learned that Lakeside software technology is so unique that it identifies dormant vulnerabilities before they become a massive threat to organizations' information security, I felt compelled to find out more.
Ryan Purvis, Head of Solutions, Lakeside Software, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Ryan is focused on helping Lakeside customers solve complex problems and transform their businesses through the strategic application of our technology. In his 20+ year career, Ryan has led cross-functional teams in multiple roles, ranging from Chief Information Officer for HiLo Maritime Risk Management to Director for Cyber Defence at UBS and Engineering Lead for JP Morgan Chase. Ryan divides his time between the UK and South Africa.
We discuss why many leading information security tools lack the visibility to detect critical vulnerabilities and the severe impact that this can have on enterprise organizations. We also talk about the importance of speed as a critical factor in remediation.
The fastest-growing part of the world's waste stream is e-waste (unwanted or unusable consumer electronics). This is because technology continues to improve or evolve faster and faster, so electronics become outdated more quickly.
Electronic items should not be thrown in the trash (or in landfills) because they contain toxins such as lead, mercury, and cadmium that can leach into the soil and water supplies. For these reasons alone, all electronics should be responsibly recycled. But they seldom are. A company called ERI specializes in the environmentally safe and socially responsible dismantling of electronic waste and ensures 100% data destruction and compliance.
John Shegerian is the co-founder and Chairman/CEO of ERI. He is also the author of a book about hardware hacking called the Insecurity of Everything, which went to #1 on Amazon in the cybersecurity category. I invited him on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the scale of the problem and how e-waste plays a pivotal role in the circular economy.
We discuss e-waste and data protection and the trends he believes will continue. I also learn more about the most significant factor driving the need for efficient data destruction and how serious a problem hardware hacking is. John also shares real-world examples of devices that store personal data that people don't even think about.
Sidetrade recently revealed B2B global payment trends from its unique Data Lake – industry-first predictive payment intelligence map of 20.7 million companies worldwide
Sidetrade CTO Mark Sheldon joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the recent launch of Sidetrade’s AI-powered Data Lake which I an industry first for finance leaders. It is the most unique data lake of B2B payment behaviours on the market and combines true AI with real-time collaborative intelligence.
With this publicly available AI-powered data lake, finance teams can become more strategic and forward-looking and can use predictive analytics to benchmark and make more strategic business decisions vs. leveraging traditional, tactical/reactive data.
We discuss how technology enables finance teams to transform into futurist teams and the power of AI over RPA in the finance function. Mark also reveals the biggest myths about building and maintaining a huge data lake. Finally, I learn more about how Sidetrade has also been featured as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Integrated Invoice-to-Cash applications!
Jay Patel, VP Business Development, GM imi Mobile (Cisco acquisition) - the state and future of Communications Platform as a Service and Customer Experience; running a startup to being part of Cisco post-acquisition
Jay Patel is the VP & GM of Cisco's Webex CPaaS initiative and joined Cisco when the company he ran was acquired for $730m in 2021. He helped start IMImobile PLC and as CEO led it to a successful IPO in 2014 and then to its exit to Cisco. Today he is working on combining the IMI platforms with relevant technologies from Webex to create solutions that help our clients deliver the world’s best customer experiences.
We sat down at Cisco Live and explored the Communications Platforms as a Service landscape. I learn more about how cloud-based messaging APIs help Customers use the technology to interact with clients over voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Apple Business Chat, WeChat and Google RCS. Jay also shares a few tips for founders listening to our conversation and what excites him about the future.
While at Cisco Live, I learned how American Football is being transformed by technology with a tour of the Allegiant Stadium, the home of the Las Vegas Raiders. But, in today's episode, I wanted to turn my attention to the role of technology in Formula 1
McLaren Racing recently announced a multi-year partnership extension and expansion with Cisco as an Official Technology Partner of the McLaren Formula 1 Team from 2022. But I wanted to learn more about how Cisco's technology will help with enterprise networking, Wi-Fi, digital signage, collaboration, and more.
At Cisco Live, I sat down with Edward Green, Head of Commercial Technology, McLaren, to explore how technology has transformed F1 and why marginal gains mean everything. I also learn more about how Cisco and Webex are fueling innovation at McLaren.
We discuss the importance of finding the perfect tech partner for a team like McClaren and how the relationship with Cisco enables both parties to deliver great things together. We also talk about the growth of esports and how this is helping the McClaren team. We even heard a few anecdotes about Lando Norris too.
98% of the meetings moving forward will have at least one participant that's not in the same physical space as everyone else. That means every meeting will have someone not in the same location, and if these people feel left out, we have regressed. This is just one of the many reasons Jeetu Patel, EVP and General Manager, Security & Collaboration at Cisco, believes hybrid work is broken.
Meetings are impacted by the audio and video quality. But it's networking and connectivity that users reply on the most. Employees connecting on insecure networks and unmanaged devices into unsanctioned apps in many businesses are also causing cybersecurity concerns. If these words resonate, it's because we all know there are problems with hybrid working, but Cisco is on a mission to solve them.
Jeetu shares the big announcements made at Cisco Live to resolve many problems with hybrid working. We also discuss the Cisco security cloud vision.
Cisco Live ignites creativity, delivers practical know-how, and accelerates the connections that fuel the digital future. But what does that mean in the real world? Today I explore the technology behind Las Vegas and help everyone see the entertainment capital in a different light.
Living on the edge may conjure up images of the City of Las Vegas, a city exploding with growth and more than 40 million visitors per year. And with this many residents and visitors, Michael Sherwood, CIO, is living on the edge of technology with IoT and edge computing solutions by Cisco.
"With Cisco's advanced cloud applications for connected and automated vehicle technology, the City of Las Vegas has not only advanced digital initiatives but has also delivered real traffic benefits for residents and visitors in the areas of traffic safety and pedestrian protection. The partnership with Cisco has also allowed the City of Las Vegas to expand our data sharing strategy rapidly and securely, which directly supports our region's integrated traffic management and transportation planning."
Tackling meeting fatigue is a big topic at Cisco Live on the show floor. But Webex Hologram is on a mission to solve this problem with 3D immersive collaboration. The real-time meeting solution takes advantage of Augmented Reality headsets combining meeting functionality with immersive 3D. So I invited Edel Joyce on the podcast to give me an overview of what it is and the problems it solves.
Edel Joyce is an experienced high performing senior manager with 20 years of industry experience. She has held pivotal roles across Engineering Design, Operations, Customer Experience, Governance, and Strategy in the Technology sector. Most recently, she is leading the productization of Webex Hologram, the industry's first holographic collaboration system, taking it from its innovative roots to a full mainstream product.
The St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD), is a socioeconomically and geographically diverse area based in Longmont, Colorado. SVVSD is home to 60 schools, 33,000 students and spans 411 miles.
A St. Vrain’s core value is that each student should have equal access to the classes and learning tools they need to succeed. To bridge this gap, SVVSD Leadership soon recognized that Cisco collaboration tools could help SVVSD for staff, educators, and students close the digital divide.
Michelle Bourgeois, CTO, St. Vrain Valley School District, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share her journey in tech and the importance of finding the right tech partner to bring your vision to life. In addition, we discuss the massive culture shift that impacted staff and students and how they got everyone on board to embrace new ways of teaching and learning.
We also discuss reimagining the future of education to benefit every student and reduce the digital divide.
Quantum computing is still a while away from widespread commercial application, but another technology could become available much sooner – quantum sensing. Quantum sensors can measure different physical properties, including temperature, magnetic field, and rotation, with extreme sensitivity. These sensitives give the technology distinct advantages for applications including communication, infrastructure monitoring, navigation, and radar.
Henry White, Lead Technologist in Sensing at BAE Systems, joins me in a conversation on 'Making Sense of Quantum Sensing'? We discuss what the technology is in more detail, as well as the current and potential real-world applications of quantum sensing, such as threat detection in the military or at airports.
Matthew Rocklin, the creator of Dask, the popular Python native distributed computing library. Matthew is also a founder and CEO of Coiled, which helps teams run Dask in the cloud.
The past decade has seen a boom in several open source tools built specifically for data scientists. However, most of these projects struggle to gain wide adoption. Matthew is one of the few leaders in the developer tools space who knows how to build things that data scientists love. Matthew believes that for a data science tool to be successful, it must be human-centric.
Data science is a diverse field. It should be easy for any data scientist to pick up a tool and quickly adapt it to their unique use case. Coiled is built on the success of Dask and is being used by thousands of data scientists and engineers in organizations like NASA, Capital One, Anthem Health, and the USAF to combat climate change, perform a credit risk analysis, and manage supply chains.
Matthew shares his entrepreneurial path and offers tips on building a human-centric developer tool that thousands of developers will love. We dare to explore the future of distributed computing.
Jack Li is the CEO and founder of Datassential. He took a 2-man company in 2001 and created a global food and beverage digital research powerhouse that helps brands like Target Foods, Jack in the Box, and General Mills innovate with data. This is the company that predicted the rise of avocado toast and is helping restaurants and food service providers match new menu items with consumer preferences.
Specifically, they focus on making food data more usable for these brands through digital tools. For example, one of their tools allows you to enter in a new menu item you’re considering and see data on how likely consumers are to enjoy it, or how to alter it to improve its appeal.
Jack joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how he grew the company, how Datassential predicts food trends, and the practice of merging data science with the art of food. We talk about the tech behind food trend insights, the different models Datassential uses to judge the performance of certain dishes, and how these tools benefit its customers.
We also discuss how technologies such as databases and algorithms are helping push restaurants, food service providers, and food brands into the next era and create targeted appeals to customers.
I recently discovered a company called Nykcel that develops an ML platform that allows anyone to develop and integrate ML functionality into their application quickly. So I invited Oscar Beijbom onto the podcast to learn more. He shares his story and some incredibly cool use cases that should give everyone listening to a little food for thought on the value this tech can offer.
Oscar is the co-founder and ML lead at Nyckel. He has 20 years of experience shipping ML products for a wide range of products including self-driving cars, airbag bicycle helmets, coral reef monitoring, and microscopy. His academic work on deep learning has been cited over 5000 times and includes topics on object detection, domain transfer learning, and fine-grained visual categorization.
We discuss how machine learning differs from artificial intelligence and how entrepreneurs can use machine learning to accelerate the growth of their companies. He also shares tips on how developers can improve the accuracy of their machine learning model.
Many teams have been thrust into collaborating using video tools as hybrid working becomes the norm. But in a world of Zoom fatigue, how can you present yourself on video, and radiate energy, to garner the right attention? How can you create or host memorable live, virtual, or hybrid events? And what is the secret to building an emotional connection with your audience? Ronny Leber joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his insights and expertise.
Ronny Leber is a world-renowned keynote speaker, TV host, stadium host, and legacy coach who has entertained millions of people, live, and worldwide at major sporting events, corporate events, and seminars. He loves to motivate his listeners, fill them with momentum, and provide magic moments that enhance team-building skills and peak performance.
Ronny specializes in working with high-level individuals to create their legacy and multiply their impact by helping them build an emotional bridge to their audience and create raving fans. "The reason why I do, what I do is simple: I love to entertain and inspire people in a positive way. I love to create “Magic Moments” to build a bridge between the audience and the protagonists and to create an emotional bond.
Ronnie shares tips on performance preparation when thousands of eyes are all on you and how to get the most out of tech-based tools.
Whether supporting new remote workforces, overhauling legacy systems and applications, or combatting ransomware and other cyberattacks, IT organizations face new and evolving challenges to their business and their data. Corporate data has never been more valuable or vulnerable, and data security and management is a C-level business problem, not just an IT problem.
Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT) is on a mission to liberate business and IT professionals to do amazing things with their data by ensuring the fundamental integrity of their business. For 25 years, more than 100,000 organizations have relied on Commvault, and today, Metallic is accelerating customer adoption to modernize their environments as they look to SaaS for the future.
Today's guest is David Ngo, who has been with Commvault for 24 years--his whole career. He shares his career trajectory and how he has seen the company change, such as launching a SaaS venture, Metallic, of which he is now CTO).
We discuss how Metallic’s conversations with customers are expanding—from IT operations and infrastructure to matters of security—forcing IT and Security teams to converge on their strategies.I also learn more about how Fiscal Year 2022 was the best in Commvault's history. The growth was driven by large deals and continued traction of SaaS offerings-–including Metallic.
The past six quarters since Metallic has been available globally were a success, and this quarter, we crossed a milestone in ARR – reaching $50M.
As crypto trading becomes increasingly prevalent, so too does the opportunity to maximize returns using various technology-driven tactics. One such tactic is the concept of yield farming, the process of using decentralized finance (DeFi) to maximize returns.
Brad Yasar is the CEO, and Co-Founder of EQIFI, a decentralized finance (DeFi) investment platform powered by a regulated bank. Brad joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share how he and his team have created the EQIFI Yield Aggregator, harnessing the power of DeFi to generate steady returns across a range of digital asset classes.
EQIFI's Yield Aggregator optimizes users' returns across multiple protocols by automatically identifying the most attractive yields based on risk tolerance levels and investment criteria. As a result, EQIFI's Yield aggregator has achieved 70% APY, trumping alternative DeFi platforms like Nexo, which generates 12% APY for its users.
Brad demystifies the technology and potential profitability associated with yield farming and why crypto traders should consider utilizing yield farming tactics. Brad also discusses how to approach yield farming for those new to the concept.
Trusted by over 15 million users worldwide, Jotform's forms and a suite of no-code tools are flexible enough for small businesses and robust enough for enterprises. Jotform helps organizations go from busywork to less work with forms that use conditional logic, accept payments, generate reports, automate workflows, and more. Jotform's products make it easy for any team to streamline its processes with 10,000 templates, hundreds of integrations, and almost 400 widgets.
Jotform's Steve Hartert joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to explore how business owners can take advantage of no-code/low-code tech to grow their businesses and customer base. As a SaaS, cloud software, and B2B enterprise products and services expert, Steve discusses how no-code and low-code tech is democratizing access to software and results that weren't possible for small- and medium-sized businesses before.
Steve also shares how this type of tech can empower small business owners to embrace digital transformation and take their businesses to the next level.
Brett Galloway, CEO of AttackIQ, joins me on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss how security leaders can build a comprehensive defense-in-depth strategy to confidently report to their boards, auditors, and leadership teams the strength of their security posture.
I ask why CISOs keep investing in more and more security controls when 82% of enterprise breaches that existing controls should have stopped weren't. Finally, we discuss why buying more silver bullet tools to combat evolving threats doesn't solve the underlying problem: how to be indeed confident in your defenses against adversaries.
Brett expands on his belief that the only way to do so is by gaining data-driven visibility into what's working across your whole system, people, processes, and technologies by continuously validating them. Then, organizations can build a comprehensive defense-in-depth strategy to stop intruders from breaching their applications, networks, and clouds by automating adversarial emulation.
Ram Palaniappan, Chief Technology Officer, TEKsystems, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss its recent State of Digital Transformation report. The report found that leaders who strategically applied technology to enable business transformation thrived and further increased the gap between themselves and digital laggards.
We discuss highlights from the report such as why 2 out of 5 organizations note that digital transformation initiatives fail to deliver the identified outcomes. As leaders continue to invest in all aspects of digital transformation, we also talk about how their expected return-on-investment is more immediate, with leaders expecting ROI in one to three years, compared to the laggards at three to five years.
TEKsystems recognizes that each organization’s road to transformation is rarely a straight line and collectively works with partners to map out attainable wins to identify a path to long-term success in total business transformation.
9 out of 10 organizations indicated that the skills critical to their workforce are also areas where they experience the most significant gaps. We explore how overcoming these gaps, albeit challenging, requires the development of creative talent strategies where companies can acquire new talent, upskill and reskill existing talent, and cultivate a future-ready workforce.
Blake Hall is a former Army ranger who turned his vision of helping veterans into ID.me, the leading digital identity verification company. Blake has grown his company from 21 employees into a $1.5 billion entity. I invited him on Tech Talks Daily to share his tech startup story and learn more about the innovative technology changing how Americans identify themselves online by:
We discuss how they are eliminating identity fraud and the $56 billion consumers lost to it in 2020. We also discuss reducing bias and opening access to online services for Americans in underserved communities. Finally, Blake shares how he built ID.me into a unicorn from his initial VC pitch to passing the $1billion valuation mark and how his military background helped him navigate the business world.
Wi‑SUN Alliance® is a global industry association devoted to seamless connectivity. They seek to promote certified standards that coordinate various wireless systems and standardize power levels, data rates, modulations, and frequency bands, among other variables. Through technology development, market building, and regulatory programs, Wi-SUN Alliance supports the worldwide development of Wireless Communications Networks for Utilities, Smart Cities, and IoT.
Phil Beecher, President and CEO of Wi-SUN Alliance, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story and mission to accelerate the implementation of smart cities, smart utilities, smart grids and
other large-scale outdoor Internet of Things (IoT) applications by enabling the global adoption of interoperable solutions based on open standards.
Since 1997, Phil has played a key role in developing communications standards, including Bluetooth, WiFi, and IEEE, and the specification of test plans for many Smart Utilities Network standards.
We discuss how IoT is transforming cities and the technology making it happen. We also talk about how smart networks enable other applications, such as smart traffic signals, public transit signs, parking spaces, and electric vehicle charging stations. Finally, we explore how smart cities benefit businesses and residents.
When it comes to hybrid work, debates continue to rage about who should decide where employees work on any given day and how many days they should be in the office. But, the notion of a fully hybrid workforce has been accepted across those industries that can support it.
However, the implementation details of a hybrid work model aren't as important as a result: there will be employees working from home and from the office every day of the week. Hybrid work is the new default. And this promises to have a profound impact on the future of access strategies.
F5 application services ensure that applications are secure and perform the way they should—in any environment and on any device. But in today's episode, Lori MacVittie from F5 joins me in a conversation about how hybrid work is driving a shift to identity-centric security.
Lori MacVittie is a Principal Technical Evangelist at the Office of the CTO at F5. She has extensive development and technical architecture experience in both high-tech and enterprise organizations. She also serves on the Board of Regents for the DevOps Institute and CloudNOW, and has been named one of the top influential women in DevOps.
We discuss IP-based access and how traditional IP-based technologies rely primarily on a fixed set of network ranges and addresses, but why identity is the way and how the security challenges associated with hybrid work are accretive to those arising from the rapid pace of digitization.
We also talk about the importance of expanding our understanding of identity beyond people to the workloads, applications, and devices we increasingly rely on.
Giancarlo Hirsch from Phaidon International's Glocomms brand joins me in a conversation around securing business-critical talent in technology. We discuss the intricacies of recruiting in the tech space right now, including the most lucrative positions and insights from both the candidates and companies on what they are looking for.
We also talk about bringing humanity back into recruiting and why it's more than just a numbers game while also busting a few myths and misconceptions of recruiting in the tech industry.
Seamlessly monitoring people’s temperatures in real time was essential during the height of the pandemic, so Jau Huang took his award-winning photo editing AI tools and adapted them into a COVID health monitoring solution deployed in hotels, malls, and workplaces across the US.
Jau Huang is the Founder and CEO of CyberLink, a company that’s grown from a small startup into an international powerhouse for multimedia products and facial recognition tools for private businesses.
Originally, Huang developed a popular virtual makeup applicator called YouCam, and then transformed it into a facial recognition software called FaceMe that could pair with temperature cameras for accurate identification and health monitoring of subjects, even when masked. The solution consistently ranks as one of the most accurate in the world.
On the podcast, Jau shares his journey to adapting his tech for health monitoring and discusses how AI is transforming industries including banking, retail, and employee management.
Peter Wang is a veteran software developer turned co-founder and CEO of Anaconda, which brought the programming language Python to the mainstream for business data analysis. Anaconda’s open-source data science solution helps organizations mitigate bias, deploy deep learning models using neural networks, and predict numerous current business challenges, such as customer churn, consumer demand levels, stock prices, maintenance needs and outage probabilities. Anaconda also partners with some of the world’s largest tech organizations, including IBM, Red Hat, Snowflake, AWS, and Intel.
Peter shares his story on Tech Talks Daily and discusses why bias in data, AI and ML should be an enterprise priority right now. I also learn how Anaconda and the open-source community is responding to the Russian-Ukraine crisis and the importance of mentorship in an ever-changing field like data science.
Ivan Ostojic was recently named Chief Business Officer of Infobip, the Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) which, in 2020, became the first Croatian company to reach unicorn status. In the past 12 months alone, over 5 billion people have used Infobip solutions and services. Ivan joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company.
We discuss the new Adobe partnership and how the company introduced SMS and WhatsApp messaging for Adobe Commerce customers. This means customers can get real-time alerts via texts or WhatsApp with information related to stock levels, personalized special offers, and order tracking, adding value to the Adobe Commerce experience.
We also discuss how Infobip recently secured funding of $500m, advised by Morgan Stanley and led by funds managed by the Credit Group of Ares Management Corporation and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. We also explore several macro trends in the API market, the rise of CPaaS, the unicorn effect, and more.
Viasat is a global communications company that believes everyone and everything can be connected. That’s why they are building the ultimate communications network, to enable great, global connectivity to be brought to where it’s needed and wanted most: to homes all over the world, to faraway communities, to warfighters on the battlefield, and to people in the air or at sea — to name a few.
John Reeves, Managing Director of Viasat UK joins me on Tech Talks Daily. John discusses the need for better technology development using third parties within the public sector and connectivity. More specifically,
we explore a fresh approach to technology development.
With MI6 recently outlining plans to use technology developed by outside companies for the first time, John shares why the Government and bodies such as the MoD need to perform the same cultural shift. John also expands on how and why using commercial technology can, with the right approach and controls in place, offer more opportunities to innovate, adapt and develop the best capabilities against the rise of increasingly advanced and sophisticated adversaries. After all, ultimately it’s all about getting tech into the hands of people in the field.
John also outlines the importance of a hybrid approach, using a combination of technologies to deliver end users the connectivity and services they need. After all, the person on the ground – whether armed personnel, paramedics, or someone living in a remote village – doesn’t care how their service arrives. They just care that it arrives.
Anthony Hughes is the co-founder and CEO of Tech Elevator, a 14 to 30-weeks coding bootcamp that teaches students in-demand tech skills that can lead to meaningful careers in the tech industry. After reading that 2,300 students have graduated from Tech Elevator, with 90% of whom secured tech positions at companies within 6 months, I felt compelled to find out more about the story behind the company.
Anthony has been nominated twice for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2020 and 2021). Before starting Tech Elevator, he was the President of the Software Craftsmanship Guild, another fast-paced program that teaches the skills required for a tech career which Learning House acquired in April 2015.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Anthony shares his story. He discusses how Covid-19 has accelerated the need for a digital workforce and why anyone thinking of joining the tech industry should do it now as the career leap will be worth it. We also talk about how the modern-day coding bootcamps are helping companies meet the enormous demand for tech talent.
Itxaso Del Palacio, Partner of VC fund Notion Capital joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Notion is a European VC fund in the B2B SaaS and Cloud space with more than $700m in assets under management. Having made 80+ investments to date, the Notion team founded, built, and exited two highly successful SaaS businesses – Star and MessageLabs – and today invests exclusively in exceptional founders with the ambition to build global category leaders.
The fund's investments include Go-Cardless, Paddle, Currencycloud, and Tradeshift. Notion is also the founding fund of Included VC, the venture capital fellowship for individuals from diverse and overlooked communities from around the world. But I wanted to learn more about Itxaso's unconventional journey to the VC world, which includes a decade of classical ballet, working on the assembly line at DaimlerChrysler, a Masters in Engineering, and, ultimately, a PhD in Entrepreneurship.
Once she turned her hand fully to VC investing, since 2010, she moved to London and has invested in more than a dozen businesses in the last 12 years. She has also taught entrepreneurship to around 2,000 students at University College London and Imperial College. And before joining Notion, she spearheaded the European launch of Microsoft Ventures and led investments in Onfido, Beamery, and Unbabel.
In the episode, we discuss why there is no one route to entering the VC industry and how product-led growth will be the key to the expansion, explosion, and even domination of European software companies globally. Itxaso also shares what traits she looks for in founders and what the best founders do to blow away investors beyond their entrepreneurial vision.
Eversheds Sutherland is a global top 10 law practice that provides legal advice and solutions to an international client base that includes some of the world's largest multinationals. They have a reputation for helping their clients, people, and communities to thrive by providing quality, innovation, and consistency in legal service delivery around the globe from over 70 offices in more than 30 countries.
The legal industry has been criticized for being slow to adapt to the digital world, but I wanted to determine if this is a myth that we can finally lay to rest. So I invited James Grice on the podcast to discuss how this law firm is being driven by legal technology and how it launched the hugely successful Techtober alongside its first Legal technology graduate scheme last year.
James Grice is an experienced technology transformation professional, working directly with clients and lawyers to collaborate on new, innovative solutions. He is also the Head of Legal Service Design at Eversheds Sutherland LLP.
Having conceived and built the team to design new service delivery models and drive continuous process improvement. He leads a diverse team of talented professionals focusing on human-centered solutions, designing and implementing their Legal Service Design framework to ensure the consistent delivery of excellent service to clients.
James also has a keen interest in emerging technology, leading the firms Robotic Process Automation CoE, as well as supporting the business in the implementation of new legal tech solutions, coordinating the overall product portfolio, and driving adoption and awareness across the firm.
He is a qualified Business Change Practitioner, Design Thinking practitioner and facilitator, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, APMQ Project Manager, and Certified Technical Trainer.
Tshepo Mahloko heads up the Co-Innovation Lab for SAP. He leads a team dedicated to developing groundbreaking applications for software and technology. Yet, it’s his inspiring journey to his career as a technologist that truly serves as a foundation for his current vision as a leader.
Growing up in South Africa, he began to hone his skills as an innovator from a young age, experimenting with ways to pair technological prowess with an unwavering passion for social good. He ultimately found early success applying his abilities by leading grassroots initiatives that employed technology to help alleviate poverty within his community.
These formative experiences helped mold his abilities as a problem solver while further reinforcing his ability to lead within a highly competitive field. So I invited him on the podcast to share his story, which began with the African way of innovation and how it led him to the global company lSAP.
About Co-Innovation Lab for SAP
Have you ever wondered how many liters of water it takes to create one liter of mineral water? Or what happens when you have to stop a sugar mill because there is a shortage in the delivery of sugar cane? Can a repair centre safely retread a particular truck tire without impacting the tire warranty?
The SAP Co-Innovation Lab provisions and delivers co-innovation services and project environments from currently 16 locations worldwide. Each location uniquely reflects regional nuances while offering the same degree of professionalism and co-innovation experience.
Dave Grow is the CEO of Lucid – the leading provider of visual collaboration software. After raising more than $500 million in June 2021, the company is now valued at $3 billion and trusted by 99% of the Fortune 500 to connect candidates and employees and help them clarify complexity, collaborate visually, and progress opportunities to advance no matter where they're located.
Looking back at the last two years of the pandemic, we can no longer underestimate the hit collaboration has taken in the shift to remote working – and how visual collaboration technology can help restore it. Great virtual meetings don't happen by accident.
As offices open their doors again amid mass resignations, project managers are increasingly asking themselves, 'what could've gone better during the pandemic?' and 'what technology do I need' to redefine the next wave of working.
For Dave Grow, businesses have still not cracked proper remote collaboration platforms. 75% of employees believe collaboration suffered most during the pandemic, according to Lucid's research. I invited Dave to join me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss the importance of understanding the difference between an adaptive strategy vs. a reactive strategy and altering collaboration processes for new circumstances.
I learn how one size doesn't fit all and why businesses should equip themselves with the most relevant tools to facilitate collaboration for their team. But why they shouldn't rely on the tech, they brought in during the pandemic but constantly re-evaluate their stack. Finally, we talk about creating an environment where everyone can contribute, no matter if they are in person or remote.
Europe has been paving the way for digital IDs with the eIDAS legislation, and the U.S. is next in line. Apple is rolling out a feature that will enable U.S. residents to upload their government-issued ID to their Wallet app, while some states like Mississippi and Florida have already launched or are working on launching their own digitized driver’s license program for residents.
While digital ID solutions do offer a more convenient alternative to physical IDs, the high sensitivity of these documents means this approach will come with many potential security and privacy implications that governments must be prepared to face.
Jumio has verified more than 500 million identities issued by over 200 countries and territories from real-time web and mobile transactions. Jumio’s solutions are used by leading companies in the financial services, sharing economy, digital currency, retail, travel, and online gaming sectors.
Bala Kumar, Chief Product Officer at Jumio Corporation, discusses what we currently know about digital driver’s licenses and what governments should consider to safeguard their residents’ identities. Bala can also discuss the privacy challenges that may arise with a digital ID system and best practices for ensuring the system is truly secure.
If you have ever looked at the food hashtags on Instagram, it doesn't take long until you feel hungry. But have you ever opened up the Deliveroo, Just Eat, or UberEats App to see the same big fast food outlets? If you are a food lover, you will probably want something more sophisticated or tastier than a Mcdonald's or a KFC.
Father and son duo Brandon, CEO, co-founder, and the COO Jacob of Propagrub share their story on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. I learn more about the technology behind a new food delivery service app that aims to create a community for foodies.
Inspired by the impact of the pandemic and how it hit chef unemployment rates and the rise of small businesses selling goods through social platforms, Propagrub was born. The platform provides independent chefs and traders with new business and exposure. For food lovers, it makes food discovery easy. It also builds a foodie community where users can chat, and share food images, recipes, clips, reels, and experiences. Ultimately the love and passion for food.
Brandon shares how he worked for 28 years as a chartered surveyor growing hospitality brands from one or two sites to 100+. His first client was Cafe Rouge who he began working in 1994, assisting in their expansion to 150 units in three years.
Jacob brings Propagrub a wealth of experience spanning marketing technology, merchandising, operations, cryptocurrency, design, and development, having already run several start-ups in the past decade.
Brandon Leibowitz runs and operates SEO Optimizers, a digital marketing company that focuses on helping small and medium-sized businesses get more online traffic, which in turn converts into clients, sales, leads, etc. For the past 14 years, he has been involved with search engine optimization and other digital marketing strategies to help drive targeted traffic that converts.
I invited Brandon on the podcast to share his story and explore SEO topics such as advanced link-building strategies and analyzing your data to find SEO opportunities.
Gigster is on a mission to companies develop software applications with the speed of a startup, coupled with the quality and expertise of the most innovative global talent.
Cory Hymel leads all things Web3 as the Director of Blockchain at Gigster, a company dedicated to helping businesses develop software applications with the speed of a startup, coupled with the quality and expertise of the most innovative global talent. Cory also manages academic partnerships to help further research into distributed teams and the future of work.
I invited Cory on the podcast to share his insights on what he sees as emerging trends for mass adoption and early execution of enterprise impacting technology like NFTs, blockchain and Web3. We also discuss how to create a roadmap for an NFT marketplace development project and why inter-blockchain communication is the key to blockchain mass adoption.
We explore the topic of high Ethereum gas fees and why Gas is vital on the Ethereum network as it avoids poor performance and security issues for every transaction.
I recently read that approximately 50 percent of men and 30 percent of women in the US will develop symptomatic heart disease. I wanted to learn more about the scale of the problem and how non-invasive technology can help determine who is at the greatest risk for a cardiovascular episode,
Dr. Charles Taylor, co-founder, Chief Scientific Officer, and member of the Board of Directors of HeartFlow joins me on Tech Talks Daily. We discuss how technology is transforming the diagnosis and management of coronary artery disease.
We also discuss how the medical community has received HeartFlow and how technology drives a more proactive healthcare approach.
About Charles A. Taylor, Ph.D.
Dr. Taylor is a co-founder, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and member of the Board of Directors of HeartFlow. Previously, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Surgery at Stanford University with courtesy faculty appointments in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Radiology.
He is internationally recognized for the development of computer modeling and imaging techniques for cardiovascular disease research, device design, and treatment planning. He received his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering, MS degree in Mechanical Engineering, and MS degree in Mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Dr. Steven Hunt, Chief Expert, Technology & Work at SAP, joins me in a conversation about Workforce Psychology, HR Technology & Business Strategy. Steven shares his origin story, and we discuss how technology is influencing the way we work and how this has evolved over the last few years.
Shifting demographics combined with the digitalization of all aspects of life are transforming the nature of work. This is forcing companies to rethink how they design jobs and recruit, develop, and engage employees.
In Talent Tectonics: Navigating Global Workforce Shifts, Building Resilient Organizations, and Reimagining the Employee Experience, Steven Hunt explains how technology is changing the purpose of work and why creating effective employee experiences is critical to building organizations that can thrive in a world of accelerating change and growing skill shortages.
I learn more about how a technology company like SAP embraces this area of focus and how it impacts new software solutions being developed. We also explore the role of technology in all of this and what tools are critical in this future of work evolution.
About Steven
A recognized expert on strategic human resources (HR), Dr. Hunt has had a pivotal role in developing systems that have improved productivity and engagement of millions of employees working for hundreds of companies around the globe. A well-known speaker, author, and thought leader on strategic human resources, Dr. Hunt has written over 100 articles, published two books, and supported strategic HR efforts working with companies across five continents.
Dr. Hunt holds a Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology from The Ohio State University, a B.A. in applied mathematics and psychology from the University of California, San Diego, and certification as a Strategic Professional of Human Resources (SPHR) from the Society of Human Resource Management. He has experience as an advisory board member for the Society of Human Resource Management, the Workforce Institute, the Journal of Management, and other talent management organizations. Prior to joining SuccessFactors, Dr. Hunt held positions with Kronos Talent Management Division, Starbucks Coffee Corporation, SHL Inc., Personnel Decisions International, and the U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories.
Find out more information on today's conversation at http://talenttectonics.com/
At CES this year, Peter Virk, Vice President, IVY Product & Ecosystem at BlackBerry on #1839, shared how over 195 million cars worldwide currently use BlackBerry software. In the light of current geopolitical events and the consequent necessity for extra cyber security vigilance, I wanted to bust a few more myths and talk about the role of BlackBerry in Cybersecurity.
After 14 years at McAfee, where he was vice president of central and north/eastern Europe, Hans-Peter Bauer moved to BlackBerry to start his new role as senior vice president of EMEA. But I wanted to learn more about BlackBerry's Prevention First approach, which involves using AI and machine learning ML to prevent attacks from the outset.
We discuss why a four-day workweek is possible for the always-on cybersecurity industry and what it looks like for a small business to be fully protected against cyber-attacks and explore if it's sustainable.
We also talk about why a prevention first cybersecurity approach is much more than just a perimeter defense – at its best; it's an active effort to neutralize malware before the exploitation stage of the kill-chain
Finally, we talk about how not to become a victim, the shortage of IT workers, why security specialists are critical, and what organizations can do to attack new cyber specialists.
Peter Holten Mühlmann founded Trustpilot in 2007. Over the last fourteen years, he has led Trustpilot from a small Danish startup to a global FTSE-250 listed company. Day to day, Peter focuses on business strategy and product development and has overseen Trustpilot's expansion to 800+ employees across six countries. Peter joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about the story behind Trustpilot and how they are using techology to remove fake reviews.
We talk about a new Consumer Verification tool, an industry first in the world of online reviews. This tool is yet another step in Trustpilot's effort to protect and promote trust online – something that continues to be a struggle, as we've seen with companies like Fashion Nova hiding bad reviews from the public and businesses buying fake reviews. As a result, it's difficult for a shopper to trust what's said online.
We also discuss the growing issue of misinformation causing distrust between consumers and businesses and discuss some recent data Trustpilot has uncovered through recent consumer surveys. For example, 84% of Americans say they'd be motivated to prove their identity if it would protect others from misinformation online.
We explore how another recent survey about consumer grudges that revealed 66% of Americans aged 45-54 years old are less likely to regret holding a grudge than those aged 25-34 (37%) and 69% of Americans are holding a grudge, while 51% regret holding a grudge.
Oleg Giberstein is the Co-Founder of Coinrule (YCombinator backed startup, S21), which is all about catching the next market opportunity on your behalf by automating your investments. With Coinrule, hobbyist investors can compete with professional traders and hedge funds by creating automated strategies for Crypto and Stocks.
The company has achieved over 209% of its seed target during one of its most recent crowdfunding campaigns, raising an impressive $700K from 670+ investors. Other investors include the founders of Twitch, EightSleep, and Fitbit.
I invited Oleg on Tech Talks Daily to share his story, which began when he worked in Banking and Risk roles at Citigroup London for many years. In his last role at Citi, Oleg was Chief of Staff to Citi's Global Public Sector Portfolio Head. Here in 2022, I learn more about Coinrule and the problems it solves for its customers.
We talk about fintech, crypto, trading, investing, and how Oleg organizes Enterprise Ethereum Alliance meetups in London.
Yotta is a solar storage solution that simplifies the solar storage process through decentralized, panel-level storage and optimizes energy efficiency with intelligent software. Through its flagship product, SolarLEAF™, they have pioneered a modular storage solution with smart thermal regulation that seamlessly integrates behind each photovoltaic (PV) panel while maximizing the life and performance of the battery.
Unlike fixed storage centers, SolarLEAF allows you to expand the development of solar + storage microgrids in minutes. Today, the market needs a breakthrough in energy storage solutions. Although solar+storage has risen in popularity over the last 10 years, the industry has faced challenges with producing practical batteries for energy storage.
Omeed Badkoobeh shares Yotta's vision to accelerate the adoption of solar+storage by engineering a new generation of solar storage that is cost-effective and reliable, changing the face of solar energy as we know it.
Remittance tech is booming right now and the digitization of sending money isn't slowing down. 2021 was a milestone year for remittances, and according to a recent report from the Remittance Industry Observatory, digital transactions accounted for 37% of all global remittances – a 15% bump compared to 2020. Moreover, as the global payment industry continues to maneuver choppy macroeconomic situations, the digitization of remittances is only expected to grow, with industry leaders estimating that digital transactions will reach 50% by 2032.
Earl Melivo, a global payment expert and Director of Country and Business Development at the digital-first remittance company, WorldRemit joins me on Tech Talks Daily. We discuss the digital remittance trends WorldRemit is already seeing with their users worldwide. He also shares his first-hand insights on how the industry is heading towards a more digital world.
Epiverse is a global collaborative led by data.org to co-create distributed data analysis tools that will get ahead of the next global health crisis. Its inclusive, open-source software ecosystem is led by an interdisciplinary community of experts driving equitable innovation in infectious disease response.
Ultimatley, it's an interdisciplinary collaboration of experts from health, science, academia, business, technology, and philanthropy working to improve global epidemic response. But I wanted to learn more about the story behind the company developing privacy-preserving technology to unlock insights in non-traditional data,
Danil Mikhailov, Executive Director at DataDotOrg, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how data collected and distributed in silos does not support a cohesive global response and how Epiverse is building a global software ecosystem centered around people and a sustainable system of data sharing.
However, technology is just one part of a larger human system of connection and relationships. It's also important to remember that global social impact strategies will fail without conscious inclusion and a focus on capacity-building within LMIC's.
We talk about how the Epiverse community and ecosystem aspire to serve as a blueprint to inform how technology design and global collaborative response can be applied across the social good sector.
Rootstrap is a full-service custom design and development shop specializing in responsive web/mobile solutions and custom applications. They help companies scale people, processes, and products through outcome-driven development.
The company has helped launch more than 750+ digital products with more than 100 million combined downloads. Their mission isn't to merely build pretty interfaces. Instead, it's to iteratively design software solutions. The outcome? Achieving your business goals & generating ROI.
Patrick Ward, Vice President of Marketing, Rootstrap, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story. We also explore emerging tech trends on the way to Web3, why AI isn't going to take your job, and why NFTs aren't just a get-rich-quick fad.
Last year, Divi and LaLiga agreed on a deal that would bring crypto to the masses as fans' love for football and crypto overlapped for the first time. I wanted to learn more about this deal and their most well-known project Divi Wallet which enables instant crypto payments for everyone.
Nick Saponaro, CEO of The Divi Project, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how they aim to increase the adoption of digital currency. The most well-known project is Divi Wallet, which enables instant crypto payments for everyone. Since beginning in the crypto space in 2013, Nick has become one of the leading experts in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space with media appearances in Nasdaq, The Fintech Times, and Quartz.
Nick shares his perspective on risk, given the stock market's current untethering from reality and the historical crashes that have followed periods like the one we're living through now. We also discuss the future of crypto, decentralization goals, and the importance of crypto's investment narrative.
techUK is the trade association that brings together people, companies, and organisations to realise the positive outcomes of what digital technology can achieve. With over 850 members (the majority of which are SMEs) across the UK, techUK creates a network for innovation and collaboration across business, government, and stakeholders to provide a better future for people, society, the economy, and the planet.
Matthew Evans, Director for Markets, techUK, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about why digital transformation is critical to the decarbonisation journey of organisations in every sector. I learn more about how industries are converging across supply chains and sectors with tech partners to find innovations that reduce carbon emissions and efficiencies that drive down energy use.
By 2030, digital technology can cut global emissions by 15%. Cloud computing, 5G, AI, and IoT have the potential to dramatically reduce carbon emissions in sectors such as transport, agriculture, and manufacturing. techUK is working to foster the right policy framework and climate leadership so we can all play our part.
We discuss how techUK focuses on applying emerging technologies in traditional forms of infrastructure to deliver innovative environmental solutions. We also talk about their core aim to work towards a policy and regulatory environment that removes the barriers to tech investment. For example, techUK will lobby for a tax, R&D, innovation, and business environment that enables all sectors to invest in digital tools to help them decarbonise and, in turn, supports clean tech organisations.
Overall digital tech is the best way to reach net zero and deliver wider benefits such as cost savings, process efficiencies, and new business models.
Sightly is a market insights resource that helps brands anticipate the unexpected. Its proprietary Brand Mentality platform uses data science, predictive algorithms, and expert human know-how to help brands maximize their media planning & outcomes, maintain authenticity and understand when, why, and how to effectively lean into controversial, hot-button issues in a meaningful way.
Robert Helstrom, SVP of Marketing, Sightly, talks about how they are helping brands navigate shifting marketing insights while holding themselves to a higher accountability standard. We also discuss the current trends within adtech and how brands should plan to adapt to get ahead of the metaverse and Web3.
Girish Redekar is a CEO & Co-Founder of Sprinto.com. A company helping SaaS brands become SOC-2 compliant, close enterprise deals faster, and pass vendor security assessments easily.
Previously, he built and bootstrapped RecruiterBox to 2500+ customers and 50+ employees in the US and India. The company was acquired by San Francisco based private equity firm Turn/River Capital in an undisclosed all cash deal (no stock or earn-outs).
Girish is a passionate programmer and entrepreneur, keen on helping other SaaS businesses demonstrate security chops and close enterprise deals faster. So I invited him on Tech Talks Daily to share the startup story of how he took his first company from SMB to Enterprise, gaining over 2500 customers and exiting in an all-cash deal.
Hundreds of businesses around the world rely on REPL to help them solve critical enterprise problems. They develop intimate partnerships with businesses in order to transform their people, supply chain, and customer experience to create and deliver long-lasting value.
Tech and retail sustainability expert Graeme Hamlet from REPL Group joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about sustainability leadership and its implications for businesses.
We talk about the multitude of opportunities to make positive changes, increased transparency on production and consumption, reduced waste and emissions, improved working conditions, and greater learning & development goals. Graeme also discusses supply chains, in-store technology, workforce management, data science, and project delivery concerning sustainability goals for the industry.
Lumin balances energy storage needs and multiple power sources (traditional electrical grid, solar PV, backup generator) by adding standard electrical panels and making ordinary circuits smart and responsive. Alex Bazhinov joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share how Lumin is helping homeowners automatically or manually control their home's microgrid to enhance and protect their investment in solar PV and energy storage.
I learn more about the tech that makes it possible and how Lumin can connect to any existing circuit breakers, while competitors may require LG or Stalla to be installed. In addition, you do not have to purchase a costly, time-consuming upgraded circuit breaker to implement the smart control features that Lumin provides.
Metaphysic is building the AI tools and resources that creatives, the entertainment industry, and brands need to develop hyperreal content and tell incredible stories. The software being developed by Metaphysic will help creators process datasets, mix and remix proprietary and open-source AI models and integrate traditional production workflows.
The result is a decentralized production process that can generate exponentially more hyperrealistic content without extra time and cost. Founded by the creators of @DeepTomCruise, Metaphysic and its team have worked with such brands as South Park, Gillette, and The Belgian Football Association.
Metaphysic CEO and co-founder Thomas Graham joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. We discuss the story behind the Tom Cruise Fake videos and how it has raised $7.5 million from leading tech investors and creators, including Section 32, 8VC, TO Ventures, Winklevoss Capital, and Logan Paul.
I learn how the funding will help expand Metaphysic’s groundbreaking work in pushing the boundaries of digital experiences, including its focus on pioneering synthetic content creation tools for emergent metaverse worlds that Facebook and other networks are building.
Brian Pagano, Chief Catalyst and VP at Axwa joins me on Tech Talks Daily to offer tips, best practices, and expert analysis for organization leaders tackling privacy issues. Before Axway, Brian was a Global Platform Strategist at Google and was VP of Digital Success at Apigee. In addition, he has worked for years as a technology executive on Wall Street and was a CTO in Italy.
Brian discusses why we should abandon the old faith in passwords. He argues that you can tell if an IT department is not evolving if you are required to frequently change your password (this practice has been shown to decrease security and has largely been abandoned). Keeping data private involves data-at-rest and data-in-motion, mostly ensuring that whoever is trying to access the info has the proper entitlements to that data.
If privacy is a top concern, the organization should adopt a need-to-know check for any document. Prove you need this information. Then, keep logs and audit them randomly. We also discuss how there is no one solution for optimized data privacy and how the cloud has the same problems around data-in-motion. Finally, we talk about APIs and data privacy and how APIs are the critical front door to your business.
As cryptocurrency becomes more widely adopted and additional real-world assets become tokenized, Salt Lending Inc is on a mission to offer solutions that allow people to hold and borrow against their crypto-assets securely. With SALT, individuals and businesses can secure fiat or stable coin loans without worrying about credit checks.
Unlike a traditional loan that takes your credit score into account, a SALT loan is an asset-backed loan in which your crypto assets act as collateral for your line of credit. They have issued hundreds of millions in blockchain-backed loans.
Justin English, CEO of Salt Lending Inc, is one of the earliest entrepreneurs in the space and serves on Elite Mining Inc.'s board, a crypto mining operation focused on clean energy and green mining. He joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about all things fintech, crypto, trading, investing, and raising money.
Have you ever stayed at a chic Airbnb and wished you could buy one of the paintings on the wall? Or woken up with a headache while spending a weekend at your short-term rental and wished you had some ibuprofen? Having to leave in search of a nearby pharmacy is enough to make your head spin. Now, shoppable Airbnb rentals are on the rise as guests seek out all the comforts of home and long to bring a piece of their getaway back with them.
Annie Sloan recently launched The Host Co, the digital commerce marketplace for short-term rentals, so I invited her on Tech Talks Daily to find out more. We discuss the growing trend of 'shoppable Airbnbs.'
Designed for spaces like Airbnb, VBRO, and even Swimply, The Host Co. gives hosts the ability to add items for sale and increase revenue while improving the guest experience. The Host Co. adds the amenities guests receive at a hotel, including preordered services and products, but have been missing from Airbnbs and other short-term rentals. Guests also have access to curated local goods they can ship home, such as artisanal foods and crafts.
Annie Sloan discusses the benefits of digital retail for guests and hosts at their Airbnb rentals and what products and services are most demand.
Canopy Servicing offers a flexible infrastructure to build and launch next-gen credit, debit, and lending products and support them with world-class service in a secure and compliant way. Canopy’s API-first loan management and servicing platform enable small Fintechs and large enterprises to quickly bring differentiated products to market.
Its clients offer revolving credit, debit, and installment loans, including fixed-rate, mixed-rate, and differed with customized interest rates, promotions, billing cycles, etc. But I wanted to learn more about its flexible and immutable ledger technology and how it makes it possible to apply policies on a per-account level, empower customer service agents with real-time account information, automate dispute processing, and retroactively reprocess accounts, re-calculate interest, and apply for payments.
Matt Bivons, Founder & CEO at Canopy, discusses how embedded finance is the fault line for the future of the fintech industry, and finding true market fit will lead to the next evolution of innovation. We also discuss why the fintech industry should embrace transparency and how credit providers can make alternative credit options safer for consumers (Buy Now, Pay Later).
Nathan Howe, VP of Emerging Technology at Zscaler, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about developing transformative technology such as Security Service Edge (SSE).
SSE reflects the circumstances organizations have contended with over the past two years. Driven by the pandemic, employees have left the secure network and instead access their applications through various new working environments.
In addition, as more organizations adopt SaaS offerings, data and applications will continue to be increasingly distributed outside of on-premise data centers. We also discuss How hybrid work will shake up IT infrastructure and why instant and real-time demands will drive 5G and edge computing.
About Nathan
In his current role, Nathan is in charge of developing a security strategy for 5G. As a digital transformation and telecommunications expert, he's assisted hundreds of enterprise customers in seamlessly modernizing their environments, adapting to distributed workforces cloud migrations, and standing up private 5G networks. He has more than 20 years of experience in the security industry and previously worked for Nestle and Verizon.
Polarr is a photo and video editor made by creators, for creators. Its sharing ecosystem is designed to enable creativity within the creator community, empowering creators to establish their visual identity and express their individuality through the filters they create
Polarr’s focus is to use technology to empower and protect the creativity of Gen Z and its other users and be a platform where they can maintain full ownership of their creativity and unlock their creative potential alongside a growing community of creators. Borui Wang, CEO, and founder of Polarr, joins me on Tech Talks Daily.
We discuss the great divide in the current creator economy between those profiting handsomely off their creativity and those not being compensated at all. But how companies must step forward and play a role in helping creators who use their platforms establish their visual identity and learn how to take the next steps in their creator journeys.
With over 75% of its users being Gen Z, we also discuss its unique position in identifying the latest trends among Gen Z creators. As Web 3.0 continues to make its way into various industries, Borui believes the metaverse will not only be about ownership b
Did you know that your adult stem cells are a specialized population of cells that have the unique ability to self-renew and differentiate into multiple tissue types. Because of this, they can replenish dying cells and regenerate damaged tissue. You can think of them as the tools your body uses to repair damage acquired over time.
As we age, the number and function of our stem cells decline. But what if you could stop time on this invaluable resource and preserve the biological potential of these cells for the future. I recently discovered a company called Forever Labs which uses technology to bank your stem cells to help you live healthier and longer.
Steven Clausnitzer, CEO and Co-founder of Forever Labs, joins me in a conversation about how the company is evaluating autologous interventions to extend the healthy human lifespan.
Forever Labs has received several patents, including one for a service providing accelerated healing and reversing hair loss. In addition, Steven has managed to personally raise over $8 million in funding for Forever Labs, building his brand in a way that continues to make a difference in the future. An avid supporter of young entrepreneurs, I also learn how Steven spends his free time mentoring these individuals.
Hiring is a time-consuming process. Have you ever gone through hundreds of resumes, shortlisted candidates, scheduled multiple interviews, and still could not find the right person for your team? This is the exact problem a company called Hirect set out to solve.
Hirect focuses on top tech startup hiring. Using its proprietary algorithm, they match job seekers and recruiters instantly. The one-stop-shop for matching candidates and video interviewing removes the time-consuming email tennis waiting for responses.
Stephanie Lovell shares how Hirect's algorithms combined with asynchronous communication are, helping tech startups find the right candidate fast. I also learn how this means no more anxious waiting or messy communications for candidates.
Imagine if essential data such as your name, address, date of birth, etc., was public information that anyone could access. Would you feel safe?
Data is an important driver that helps an individual or an organization make key decisions. However, a lot of this data is sensitive, and once out in the public domain, people lose control of how it will be used, misused, or re-used.
Solving this data sharing problem, working towards building responsible Data DAOs, and powering the next-gen of web3 with privacy, speed, and security is one of the leading blockchain networks, Oasis.
By leveraging the Oasis Protocol, developers can address the complexities of data sharing in Web3 by enabling individual data sovereignty and the right to own and share data on their terms. Linda Lu joins me on Tech Talks Daily in discussing using data for social welfare and economic efficiency. We also talk about governance for data rights, prevention of misuse/abuse, and more
Kevin Hrusovsky, CEO of Quanterix and the Powering Precision Health Summit founder, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Kevin has more than 25 years of experience leading life sciences and biotechnology companies and believes that accelerating precision medicine is the key to changing our current healthcare system and improving the population's longevity.
Two years ago, he founded the Powering Precision Health Summit as a way to bring all key stakeholders – including doctors, scientists, patients, patient advocates, investors, innovators, etc., together to discuss how we can accelerate research and turn today's sickcare into tomorrow's healthcare. He sees collaboration as the key for advancing our healthcare system and currently sits on the board of several life science companies, to ensure that all medical milestones are capitalized on.
Finally, Kevin believes the ability to track the environment's impact on our health is key for helping move the needle forward. He grew up in a coal mining town and from an early age became fascinated with how environmental factors dictate our health. He has found that protein biomarkers can track a person's health as it changes over time, which can enable doctors to spot diseases before they occur, and is working to advance digital technologies that can measure these biomarkers in real time.
We discuss how biomarker technology is enabling researchers to see and monitor health conditions that were previously impossible to study in blood, including COVID-19, TBIs, Alzheimer's, MS, cancer and more. I learn how this tech is making a tremendous impact by identifying diseases much earlier in the disease progression opens the floodgates to new and better treatment outcomes.
Flint Capital is a Boston-based international VC fund that has raised $250M in two funds and announced that it closed its second fund. Its portfolio includes 45 companies like Flo, Socure, Walkme, CyberX, Cyolo, and 15 successful exits, 3 of which are unicorns. But what is the story behind the company?
At the age of 35, Andrew Gershfeld of Flint Capital ($500M fund) has already made a few brilliant investments, including Flo. Additionally, he is a ski marathon runner, which gives him a sense of confidence while competing with top venture funds. I invited him on the podcast to share his insights into how startups become unicorns and how venture funds can help startups scale successfully.
We discuss how health tech startups disrupt the healthcare system, how the pandemic has changed the venture market, and with 90% of pitches being made online, he also shares tips on pitching via zoom.
QUICK is an Ethereum token that powers QuickSwap, a decentralized exchange that runs on the Polygon Network in order to provide faster and cheaper transactions on Ethereum. QUICK can be used to create and vote on proposals governing QuickSwap and can be staked to earn a portion of trading fees.
Nicole Grinstead joins me in a conversation about how QuickSwap became the biggest decentralized exchange on Polygon since launching in 2020. We discuss DeFi growth, especially layer 2 platforms, and why institutional investors can no longer afford to ignore DeFi. We also talk about Indian blockchain and DeFi innovation and recent FUD around regulation, DeFi growth, and what happens next.
Adam Singolda, CEO of leading ad-tech company Taboola joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his insights on the open web, personalization, metaverse and AI, and content and consumption. We also discuss the top readership trends driving consumption on the web and how Meta’s decisions in the attention economy are fundamentally harming the publisher/consumer relationship.
Taboola’s recent history has been noteworthy, as the company has experienced exponential growth and released new products that have shaken up the market. Recent examples include their acquisition of Connexity for $800m, their partnership with Microsoft, and the launch of Homepage For You, which adds AI to power editorial recommendations.
About Taboola
Adam Singolda, Taboola’s CEO, founded the company in 2007. The company’s platform, powered by artificial intelligence, is used by digital properties, including websites, devices and mobile apps, to drive monetisation and user engagement.
Taboola has long-term partnerships with some of the top digital properties in the world, including CNBC, NBC News, Business Insider, The Independent and El Mundo. More than 13,000 advertisers use Taboola to reach over 500 million daily active users in a brand-safe environment. The company has offices in 18 cities worldwide, including New York and Tel Aviv.
Audius is a digital streaming service that connects fans directly with artists and exclusive new music. It does this by being fully decentralized: Audius is owned and run by a vibrant, open-source community of artists, fans, and developers all around the world. Audius gives artists the power to share never-before-heard music and monetize streams directly.
Developers can build their own apps on top of Audius, giving them access to a unique audio catalogue. Backed by an all-star team of investors, Audius was founded in 2018 and serves millions of users every month, making it one of the largest crypto applications ever built.
Audius also recently introduced $AUDIO 'Engage to Earn' Crypto Rewards program with Cheat Codes, Alina Baraz. The feature allows artists and fans to earn $AUDIO through challenges on the web's largest decentralized streaming service. I invited co-founder Forrest Browning on the podcast to find out more.
About Forrest Browning
Forrest Browning, co-founder, and CPO of Audius, is a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, and most recently was a Co-Founder of StacksWare, an enterprise datacenter management platform started from a Stanford University research project. The company provides analytics at scale for Fortune 500 customers, and was successfully acquired in late 2017.
Leadership is a strange word. For some, it conjures up images of the "old" world of work, with strict hierarchies, stuffy titles, and (predominantly) ageing men in suits with inflated salaries. For others, it's a fluffy concept filled mostly with hot air.
However, as work shifts to become more collaborative, cross-functional, and complex, it's more important than ever for managers to excel at bringing people together, inspiring them, and empowering them to reach their full potential. And that's what leadership is.
BUNCH is an AI leadership coach on a mission to help anyone become a great leader. BUNCH enables anyone to overcome everyday leadership challenges with personalized 2-minute leadership tips - all in the format of a sleek, intuitive app.
Bunch co-founder Darja Gutnick joins me in a conversation about the science of leadership and how anyone can become a great leader. We explore how leadership is a mindset that can be learned and not some hidden talent that we need to discover. Then, Darja shares a few lessons she had to learn the hard way on female entrepreneurship.
Two leading quantum companies – Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) – have merged to form a new business called Quantinuum. The new company combines Honeywell's expertise in quantum hardware with CQC's software capabilities. "Quantinuum is now the largest and most advanced integrated quantum computing company in the world," said Ilyas Khan, CEO of the new company and founder of Cambridge Quantum.
Ilyas Khan, CEO of Quantinuum joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the state of the quantum computing industry overall and Quantinuum's place in it. Ilyas also shares an inspirational origin story and being inspired by Stephen Hawking.
An “unprecedented” lack of tech skills is threatening the progress of digital transformation projects at more than two-thirds of companies worldwide. For example, did you know that the Asia Pacific region is bracing itself for a shortfall of 3 million unfilled cyber security positions?
These skills shortages are creating opportunities for anyone to transition into a new tech career in anything from project management and coding to cyber security.
Mark Wheatland from the Learning People joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how anyone can make the switch to a career in tech. We also discuss recruiting challenges when no one has the two years of experience employers are searching for and why University IT degrees are not always fit for purpose.
We talk about the right skills and qualifications people need to land their dream job in IT, coding, and project management. We also discuss the hot areas of shortages and skills gaps that are in the highest demand right now.
Bilal Baloch, Co-Founder & COO of Enquire.ai joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Enquire’s technology is empowering Fortune 500 companies like Apple and Oracle through diverse knowledge and a complete range of perspectives, which has proven to be critical in the fight against misinformation. Bilal provides unique insights into how technologies within the digital media landscape are promoting the consumption of low-quality information.
We discuss how social media networks are currently failing their users and the potential implications of spreading misinformation. We also talk about why there is a current lack of trust behind an abundance of data and what steps we need to ignite a wave of change.
We also explore trends around the future of information consumption looks like what declining CNN & MSNBC TV ratings mean for the future of the news cycle. Finally, we chat about the development of up-and-coming technologies that are changing the way we use information to make decisions.
Not long after the shelling began in Ukraine, Daniil Cherkasskiy got a phone call from a close friend. The surrogate mother of his friend’s twins, trapped in Kyiv, had given birth at 33 weeks. But, unfortunately, the babies were in dire need of preemie formula.
Local pharmacies were blocked by Russian gunfire. Daniil began working through the night to help coordinate the delivery of the formula. Through a series of connections, he met Natalia, a real estate agent, and young mother. Instead of evacuating, she stayed, narrowly escaping shelling as she drove from pharmacy to pharmacy — risking her life for a stranger’s babies. The first link of trust was established.
That moment led to a launching of a Chicago nonprofit called Ukraine TrustChain, made up of primarily Ukrainian immigrants who are working to fund six teams on the ground in Ukraine to meet citizens’ most critical daily needs – food for bomb shelters, sleeping pads, evacuations of senior homes, baby formula, etc.
I invited Daniil on the podcast to learn more about his story and how the Ukraine TrustChain tech has facilitated the evacuation of more than 23,000 Ukrainian refugees.
More info - https://www.ukrainetrustchain.org/
NETSCOUT, one of the leading cybersecurity and network diagnostics firms globally, recently revealed the findings of its bi-annual Threat Intelligence Report. The report provided insight and analysis into distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack trends in 2021. I invited Richard Hummel, ASERT Threat Intelligence Lead for NETSCOUT, to join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the big takeaways from the report.
Richard shares how DDoS-for-hire services are now more accessible to the public and the significant increase in computer manufacturers and computer storage manufacturing attacks. We also discuss the different types of attacks used and who the suspected attackers are. Finally, I learn more about which industries have been most targeted and what business leaders need to be aware of when it comes to DDoS attacks.
With hybrid work – or a flexible corporate environment that enables employees to operate both remotely and in a physical office – now a permanent professional fixture, workers have come to expect new levels of flexibility. However, employees now demand even more from their hybrid work experience – namely greater meeting equity.
Simply defined, meeting equity ensures that remote employees receive the same level of engagement, collaboration and access to a meeting room experience as those who are physically seated around the table. As a new Barco ClickShare survey released today found, hybrid workers are growing more concerned about perceptions of an inequal and less productive meeting experience while apart from their colleagues, and many are going as far as to consider new opportunities at organizations where they believe they will be more included.
The recently-released Barco ClickShare Hybrid Work Survey shows, businesses must now address the challenge of meeting equity in the hybrid environment. Simply defined, meeting equity ensures that remote employees receive the same level of engagement, collaboration and access to a meeting room experience as those who are physically seated around the table.
The survey finds that nearly one in three workers struggle to feel heard during hybrid meetings, amplifying calls for improved meeting inclusion. In today's episode, Anthony Wright from Barco shares insights uncovered from the Hybrid Work Survey and reveals a few surprises.
DiMassimo Goldstein (DiGo) is the world's first creative agency focused exclusively on promoting better habits by building brands and businesses using Positive Behavior Change marketing.
Becoming “Metamates” and dropping “news” from “feed” are just a few items off the long list of rebranding tactics Mark Zuckerberg has in mind as Facebook becomes Meta. But is it enough? Will this actually result in user habits that Zuckerberg is seeking for his vision of Meta?
Mark DiMassimo, is the Founder & Creative Chief of DiGo, a creative agency promoting better habits by building businesses using Positive Behavior Change marketing. Mark joins me on Tech Talks Daily to take an in-depth look into the rebranding and marketing choices Facebook is making now, whether it’s enough to change consumer habits, and ways to ensure not just behavior change, but positive behavior change among Meta users.
Camunda process orchestration software helps orchestrate complex business processes that span people, systems, and devices. With Camunda, business users collaborate with developers to model and automate end-to-end processes using BPMN-powered flowcharts that run with the speed, scale, and resiliency required to compete in today’s digital-first world. Hundreds of enterprises such as Allianz, ING, and Vodafone design, automate, and improve mission-critical business processes with Camunda to drive digital transformation.
Jakob Freund, CEO, and co-founder of process automation provider, Camunda, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about the missed opportunity when organizations don't start small with automation and the criteria for organizations that can significantly benefit from bringing a Chief Automation Officer on board.
In February 2022, the UK Government released its ‘Levelling Up’ manifesto, revealing its plans to drive innovation and economic growth, while upskilling people and leading the way to a better society and more sustainable environment. In many ways, this is a microcosm of the wider world and organisations on all corners of the globe should too be striving to level up. Doing so is key to deliver digital products and services faster, to keep up with customer demands and remain competitive amid increased market pace and competition.
IT is essential to this, but they in turn need the right architecture, underpinned by composable applications, which Gartner predicts will become a strategic objective for 60% of organisations by 2023, while 80% will use iterative, experimental methods like lean, agile and design-thinking for service design. To this end, IT / digital workflows will also play a pivotal role. So, in this podcast episode, we explore the non-negotiable need for workflows within organisations, and how companies can use the Now Platform to level up and empower their IT teams.
Andy Lockard, Solutions, Development & Architecture Lead, Fujitsu, (ServiceNow) joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a discussion about these trends and much more.
Wade Ellery, Senior Solution Architect at Radiant Logic, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how many organizations have an identity management crisis without realizing it and what they can do to solve the problem?
For many organizations, identity data exists in multiple forms across different locations (such as LDAP, AD, SQL, and web services), which creates a fragmented infrastructure within the organization, resulting in a deceleration of the time it takes to authenticate a user and the expansion of the organization's attack surface.
Many organizations see current Identity Access Management solutions as incapable of meeting the demands of scalability, performance, and security needed in the work-from-anywhere era. So, what can be done to solve the identity management crisis experienced by organizations today?
We discuss how many realize too late that they suffer from a fragmented infrastructure that results in a sprawl and why digital transformation has exacerbated organizations' current identity management problem. Finally I learn more about how using identity data fabric can help solve the identity sprawl problem.
Cybersecurity can seem complicated, but the truth is, many cyberattacks could be stopped with something very simple: improving password security. In fact, over the last two years, passwords were at the heart of some of the most high-profile breaches, including SolarWinds and Colonial Pipeline. And with an estimated 1 million passwords stolen every week, anyone could be the next target if they haven't taken steps to improve their password security.
Darren James, a password security expert and Head of Internal IT at Specops Software, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Darren discusses his role at Specops and what inspired him to pursue a career in security. We also discuss best practices that every business and individual should be using and why password breaches are so common.
IBM recently announced its fourth-quarter 2021 earnings results, which showcased significant growth in automation software, with revenue up 15 percent. Dinesh Nirmal, General Manager, of IBM Automation joins me on the Tech Talk Daily Podcast to discuss IBM's plans to accelerate automation adoption in 2022,
We also discuss the following three key industry challenges and trends that businesses are facing today:
Skills gap: Automation is helping close the skills gap by solving the shortage of data scientists and developers that the industry is currently experiencing. For example, new automation tools like Watson Orchestrate provide workers access to their own interactive AI to help them perform both mundane and mission-critical tasks faster – everything from scheduling meetings and procuring approvals to interacting with business systems and preparing proposals.
Complexity of legacy systems: Many challenges arise for enterprises when dealing with the complexity of legacy systems. Instead of having to deal with the number of workloads, databases, platforms, storage systems, security models, and so on, businesses are looking for a one-stop-shop for automation across business automation and IT automation.
Increasing digitization, fast: Automation has become the go-to solution to speed up the level of digitization in order to continue to grow at a competitive pace. By providing clients with a one-stop-shop for AI-powered automation powered by recent acquisitions of Turbonomic, MyInvenio, WDG Automation and Instana, IBM has created an easy pathway for our customers to embrace automation, making it one of the most beneficial technologies for businesses today on an industry-wide level.
Gianna Scorsone, General Manager and Head of North America at global technology company Aircall ($1B valuation), joins me on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast.
We discuss the importance of mass personalization for business communications and how cloud-based, digital-first companies face fierce competition for customer loyalty. Potential and existing customer interactions with a company’s sales and customer service team must be personalized and positive to distinguish a brand from similar products and services and continue driving sales growth.
In the day and age of the Great Resignation and labor shortages, businesses are reassessing what’s needed to retain and recruit employees. Gianna firmly believes employee retention is directly tied to the culture companies create in the workplace.
As a GM, she believes in prioritizing people first, then sales. Finally, she offers advice to future sales leaders and women working in tech.
Matt Pullen, EVP, Managing Director, CyrusOne, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. The premier global data center real estate investment trust (REIT) has over 50 data centers worldwide, including a range of facilities in London, Dublin, and Frankfurt, and some exciting expansion plans in Europe.
We discuss what the future data center will look like and how increased regulation and legislation will impact the landscape. Matt also shares his predictions for the future and explores sustainability in the industry, and I learn more about the founding of the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact.
About CyrusOne
CyrusOne (NASDAQ: CONE) is a premier global REIT specializing in design, construction and operation of more than 50 high-performance data centers worldwide. The Company provides mission-critical facilities that ensure the continued operation of IT infrastructure for approximately 1,000 customers, including approximately 200 Fortune 1000 companies.
A leader in hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud deployments, CyrusOne offers colocation, hyperscale, and build-to-suit environments that help customers enhance the strategic connection of their essential data infrastructure and support achievement of sustainability goals. CyrusOne data centers offer world-class flexibility, enabling clients to modernize, simplify, and rapidly respond to changing demand.
Combining exceptional financial strength with a broad global footprint, CyrusOne provides customers with long-term stability and strategic advantage at scale.
In April, Chili Piper, the leading inbound conversion platform for sales and marketing teams, announced a Series B of $33M led by marquee VC, Tiger Global and includes Google’s Gradient Ventures as an investor. After the ongoing onset of the pandemic, Chili Piper’s co-founder and CEO, Nicolas Vandenberghe, was able to win over investors in just 20 minutes.
Nicolas shares his origin story which includes a great anecdote of a conversation he had with Steve Jobs and his journey to ChiliPiper. I learn more about their playbook for success how customers can increase conversion and drive more leads with a “speed-to-lead” approach.
No matter who you are and what kind of organisations you’ve worked for, everyone knows the pressure to just get it done. It can be for the sake of stakeholders, the cause, or the bottom line, but the consequences are the same: eventually you amass organisational debt.
Like technical debt, this has accelerated amid recent disruption, where the need to keep things moving, at any cost, was greater than ever. But if this isn’t addressed, the knock-on effect on your culture, people and all-round effectiveness can be severe.
Ultimately, everyone knows organisational debt is there, but no one wants to talk about it. However, this needs to change – and fast – if businesses are to rid themselves of complexity and inefficiency. So, herein lies the purpose of this podcast episode, where our experts will be exploring some of the key things to look out for to fathom if your organisation is suffering from this debt.
Complete with a deep dive into the power of IT workflows and other ways to free yourself from these shackles, to empower your people and drive growth in the remainder of the year (and beyond).
Jason Fowler, VP of HR for Fujitsu in Northern and Western Europe joins me on Tech Talks Daily to tackle the topic of Organisational Debt.
With twenty years’ experience in the technology sector, Jason has seen first-hand the impact that digitalisation has had, and continues to have, in disrupting organisations and their employees. He believes that in the era of total tech, the people capability of an organisation becomes the principal point of commercial differentiation – and it is the role of HR to create this.
Today’s guest, Jay Gibb, is a former software engineer and the Founder and CEO of B2B SaaS company, CloudSponge. Together with his team, Jay has helped thousands of e-commerce store owners optimize their word-of-mouth sales since 2010. With a unique blend of tech expertise and soft skills, Jay is an expert at helping e-commerce stores build the right features to reduce customer acquisition costs and increase sales
Jay joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story and the critical role that their products have played in the growth stories of household name tech companies like Airbnb, Nextdoor, GoFundMe, Morning Brew and Yelp.
Mahyar Raissi, co-founder and CEO of OpenPhone, an app-based phone service that is disrupting the antiquated and clunky business telecommunications market, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. OpenPhone replaces traditional business phones designed primarily for voice communication with intuitive and full-featured mobile and desktop applications.
In the last five years, there has been an explosion in collaboration technologies, such as Slack and Zoom. However, there has been little innovation in phone services, particularly for startups and small businesses for which the phone remains the center of communications. As a result, SMBs typically have to choose between basic mobile services or expensive and complicated enterprise technologies until now. OpenPhone includes features such as messaging and collaborative tools to meet business needs and integrates with other productivity applications and tools on which businesses rely, such as HubSpot, Slack, email, and Zapier.
Mahyar shares his inspiring origin story where he emigrated from Iran with his family and started OpenPhone three years ago through the Y Combinator program.
Arthur Woods is a social entrepreneur, LGBTQ+ advocate working at the intersection of equity and technology. He is the author of the nationwide best-selling book Hiring for Diversity and most recently co-founded Mathison, a venture-backed technological platform equipping employers with all they need to manage their diversity hiring efforts. He has delivered over 300 keynote speeches and is a three-time TEDx speaker. He has advised multiple brands over his career including Disney, Sonos, the Smithsonian, and many more.
Arthur was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 and 40 Under 40 by BEQ. He is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, GCT Entrepreneur in Residence, and many more! He was the lead of Google's Education and Schools division. Since then he has been at the forefront of developing platforms such as Imperative, Out in Tech & Social Impact 360, a collegiate social enterprise education program.
Arthur joins me in a discussion about how technology can help companies reduce bias in hiring and the biggest problems in most companies' diversity hiring efforts. We also explore some helpful tools (free or paid) and strategies that HR teams can use to make better hiring decisions.
I also learn more about the Equal Hiring Index® and how tech can help assess your full hiring and retention process to ensure equity and access.
ZapBatt started with a simple experience that we have all been through, being stuck with a dead battery and having no time to charge it. Their story is centered around people who want to improve how we use energy, and how that impacts our planet. From backgrounds in waste energy regeneration, batteries for wildlife, e-bikes, and more, their team has helped shape the technology they have built and their impact on the world for both consumers and companies.
Charlie Welch, founder, and CEO of ZapBatt joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about how they are creating a new kind of battery system to power a wide range of electrical products for both businesses and consumers.
In addition to its software technology, I learn more about ZapBatt's utilizing unique battery chemistry with a nano-structured crystal compound called lithium-titanate. Compared to other batteries, a lithium-titanate battery charges faster lasts longer, and is better for the environment and the bottom line. Until now, this chemistry has mostly been used in large-scale infrastructure oil and gas projects and industrial applications.
Whether physical or digital, a good onboarding process should reflect and understand the needs, expectations, and – indeed – frustrations that come with being a fresh face. This is especially important for the key HR processes that accompany many of the critical first interactions a new hire has with their employer.
George Dunnett from Zellis joins me on Tech Talks Daily about tech's role in transforming these processes. Zellis provides payroll, HR and managed services to UK and Ireland-based companies with over 500 employees. They are the largest business of this nature in the UK counting a third of the FTSE 100 as customers, serving over 5 million of our customers' employees and processing in excess of 60 million payslips a year.
We discuss how hybrid working is positively changing the business landscape, but how many things are still missed that could be tweaked with good tech initiatives. We also explore where tech investments should go next.
To many organizations, endpoint detection and response (EDR) is seen as the latest cybersecurity innovation and the tool to keep their network safe. However, with attacks now only needing 60 seconds after executing to cause significant damage to an organization’s network, EDR solutions give an organisation a false sense of security.
With attackers now looking to cause as much damage as possible in the shortest time possible, security teams can no longer react to a cyberattack but must start preventing them altogether. So how can organizations start preventing cyberattacks and protecting themselves?
Deep Instinct is the first company to apply deep learning to cybersecurity. Deep learning is inspired by the brain’s ability to learn. Once a brain learns to identify an object, its identification becomes second nature. Similarly, as Deep Instinct’s artificial brain learns to detect any type of cyber threat, its prediction capabilities become instinctive. As a result, zero-day and APT attacks are detected and prevented in real-time with unmatched accuracy.
Chuck Everette joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss why EDR solutions are not secure enough to stop cyberattacks which have a low dwell time. and why prevention-first solutions will be the next layer in an organisation’s security stack. Finally, we discuss how deep learning, a subset of AI, will shift an organisation’s mindset from detecting and responding to cyberattacks to actually predicting and preventing them.
RJ Pittman is the CEO of Matterport, a leading company that develops digital twins. Think of it as a way to create a digital replica of the real world, where people can either visit locations virtually to keep track of their inventory. Matterport is also a company contributing to the metaverse conversation, which is a topic that will likely continue to evolve next year.
RJ joins me in a conversation about using this technology across many verticals. We explore the role of digital twins across tourism, travel, and real estate and how it ties to a potential metaverse.
I learn more about Matterport's spatial computing platform turns buildings into data making every space more valuable and accessible. Millions of buildings in more than 150 countries have been transformed into immersive Matterport digital twins to improve every part of the building lifecycle from planning, construction, and operations to documentation, appraisal, and marketing.
A 2021 EdScoop survey underwritten by Dell Technologies and Intel found that higher education officials believe the demand for AI training is outpacing both supply and the current ability of higher education institutions to meet that demand. Fifty-three percent of survey respondents suggested AI would account for the most significant increase in instructional demand over the next three years, and 50 percent said they would like support from a consortium/association of peer institutions.
Intel, Dell Technologies and the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) recently announced the AI Incubator Network. The new initiative from Intel’s AI for Workforce program will design and build artificial intelligence (AI) labs across the country by utilizing the expertise and industry connections of America’s community college system.
The partnership is opening applications for community colleges that would like to participate in the AI Incubator Network by designing and building their own AI incubators as physical laboratories, on virtual platforms or in hybridized models.
Community colleges that join the AI Incubator Network can participate in discussions, connect on economic development, strategize on student engagement into AI programming, share lessons about student projects between the participating colleges. It will also gather best practices from the field of AI Incubation as identified by AACC, Intel, Dell and other industry partners. The labs will also provide students with more access to AI equipment, tools and resources, and foster the skills needed for future jobs.
Carlos Contreras shares more information on the announcement along with Intel’s 2030 Goals and the company’s dedication to using tech as a force for good, underscoring its aim to make technology fully inclusive and to expand digital readiness worldwide.
imimobile, part of Webex by Cisco, provides cloud communications software and services that manage business-critical customer interactions at scale. Cisco Systems acquired the business in February 2021 and now forms an integral part of the Webex CX strategy.
Since its foundation in 2000 at the start of the mobile internet era, the company has worked with many large enterprises across different industries to create superior customer experiences. Its API and low-code Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) offering, Webex Connect, enables large enterprises to automate, orchestrate and monitor their customer interactions all on one platform. This helps businesses to lower costs, reduce complexity and accelerate IT roadmaps.
I invited Ramy Riad on Tech Talks Daily to learn more about how they are helping businesses stay connected to their customers in a world where every touchpoint, on every channel, is an opportunity to deliver rich, engaging, intuitive experiences. A world where every interaction matters.
We discuss the right strategies that can make it possible to employ a single platform to deliver next-level CX, the future of messaging, and how leaders can expedite their approach across digital channels with solutions like CPaaS.
Paul Oppong is a leader in the project management & digital transformation space. I invited him to join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss why more companies are beginning to embrace digital transformation and why it’s key to their survival. We also talk about how to pivot and increase revenues through digital transformation.
ABOUT PAUL:
Paul Oppong is a project management consultant, author, and speaker specializing in digital transformation and leadership. He has a strong record of success in helping organizations meet the technology challenges of tomorrow in a wide range of sectors such as Aeronautics, Defence, Automotive, Transport, Financial Services, and Energy. In addition, he’s delivered countless projects in big data and technology.
Paul is also a published thought leader whose writing has appeared in The Project Times and The Business Analyst Times. In addition, he’s written several books, including “The Future-Proof Business
Do the traditional "moats" around the legal services industry still exist? And is the legal industry still slow to embrace technology? I wanted to bust a few myths today and learn how the industry embraces technological change and does things differently.
Today I want to explore the world of legal tech, document automation, negotiation, and analysis platforms. Giles Thompson, Head of Growth at Avvoka, a lawyer by trade (formerly Kirkland & Ellis and Herbert Smith Freehills) shares his story on Tech Talks Daily and how he is now a tech investor and entrepreneur.
I ask if LegalTech is the next FinTech, and who/what will be the next DocuSign? We also discuss how many lawyers are beginning to ask why they still have to negotiate contracts over email, with track changes and several lawyers building a different future that makes their lives easier.
I also learn how Avvoka is a document automation, negotiation and analytics tool designed to help law firms, in-house legal teams and businesses draft documents, negotiate them, and leverage data insights from that process to draft better documents and get to “yes” faster.
Carey Blunt, Global Head of ServiceNow Solutions at Fujitsu joins me in a conversation about diagnosing the symptoms (and solutions) of technical debt.
In a nutshell, technical debt is the cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy solution over a better approach that would take longer. It’s something that is impacting a huge number of organisations, especially in the wake of all the disruption we’ve seen in recent years. But while this has likely been born out of necessity, if these burdens from the past aren’t addressed, the repercussions for your future could be severe. As shown by the fact that for every hour spent on innovation, organisations spend three hours tackling technical debt.
Even more worrying, however, is the recent study that revealed how 68% of organisations believed their technical debt would increase in 2022. So, to help organisations overcome this, this podcast will explore the main traits of technical debt to raise awareness among leaders who often fail to recognise the symptoms in their own business. But of course, like any good doctor, we won’t just diagnose the symptoms, we’ll also provide the cure – in the shape of thought leadership from our experts and a healthy dose of looking at the benefits of digital / IT workflows.
This is a highly challenging time for energy companies as we head towards a cleaner future that is only achievable through decarbonization and electrification. John Kochavatr, VP of IT & Supply Chain and CIO at Portland General Electric joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share their story.
Portland General Electric is a fully integrated energy company based in Portland, Oregon, with operations across the state. The company serves approximately 900,000 customers with a service area population of 2 million Oregonians in 51 cities. Oregon has some of the most ambitious clean energy targets in the U.S. – and PGE is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power served to customers by 80% by 2030 and 100% by 2040.
John shares how their path to reach these targets involves everyone working together - from their customers, regulators, stakeholders and technology providers. But how they have also participated in multiple ambitious projects to help us reach those targets, including our up-and-coming battery storage facility Wheatridge and the recently completed Integrated Operations Center (IOC).
I learn more about how Portland General Electric sees technology in service of its larger mission of providing their customers with clean, safe and reliable energy. We also discuss some of the innovative ways they are currently using technology to improve reliability.
Richard Walters, CTO of autonomous integrated cloud security firm Censornet joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast.
Censornet provides mid-market organizations with the confidence and control of enterprise-grade cyber protection. Its platform integrates attack intel across email, web, and cloud to ensure their cyber defenses can react immediately, whether it's day or night.
The company has more than 1,500 customers globally, including several standout names such as Fever-Tree, the National Portrait Gallery, Hallmark Hotels, and Thatchers Cider.
We discuss why attacks on critical infrastructure are on the rise and why ransomware will be the next security threat to cause human casualties. In addition, we also discuss the ABC of cybersecurity will be Activity, Behaviour, and Context and why we are moving a step closer to Walled gardens to protect data.
Mark Curtis, Head of Innovation and Thought Leadership at Accenture Interactive returns to the Tech Talks Daily podcast. Mark is a serial entrepreneur and innovator. His first company, Curtis Hoy, pioneered radio sales promotion from 1989. Highlights included introducing fixed frequency low-cost radios as a sampling driver for the Pepsi taste test, bringing drive-in movies to the UK for the first time ever (Diet Pepsi) and designing the first marketing use of virtual reality in 1993 (for a Unilever brand).
Today's episode discusses how the Metaverse and its technology could impact brands and customers. In addition, we talk about how this is expanding beyond just the gaming community – designers, digital product developers, creatives, and technologists will play a central role in virtual world-building and content placement, as everything is 3D-based.
However, as brands seek to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the Metaverse, ethics around behavior manipulation, sustainability, and accessibility for all must remain front of mind. Finally, we discuss the democratization of access might lead to a new wealth of shared cultural experiences and new economies.
WiFi has increasingly become a critical need for both consumers and enterprises over the years, and technology has needed to evolve to address these new experiences for all. WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E are fast becoming mainstream, and there is a growing need to improve performance.
Just when you thought you were on top of the game, WiFi 7 is now within tangible reach, and it's expected to bring next-level wireless connectivity and performance to all. So today, I have invited Andy Davidson, senior director of technology planning, at Quualcom in a discussion about What is WiFi 7? And why it's already shaping up to be the next big thing in connectivity.
Andy also shares how Qualcomm is at the forefront of WiFi evolution, driving the standards and technology to meet the aspirations of the ever-growing customers, devices, applications, and services.
CD Baby is an artist-services platform that makes it easy for independent musicians to distribute, promote, and monetize their music so they can thrive outside the major-label system. Built on the belief that every artist should be able to pursue their vision without compromise and have an equal opportunity to be heard, CD Baby’s distribution services, self-promotion tools, and educational initiatives are designed to increase artist autonomy and empower independent artists to build their audiences without corporate assistance. Home to over 1 million artists and more than 10 million tracks, CD Baby has paid out over $1 billion in royalties to artists since its founding in 1998. However, with all the recent startup posturing, model shuffling, and race-to-the-bottom pricing in music distribution, it’s time to take a step back and think, what is the role of a music distributor? Kevin Breuner shares his philosophy on what it means to be a music distributor in 2022.
Nik Froehlich is the CEO and Founder of Saritasa, a full-service mobile web, software, AR/VR, and IoT development brand. Today, he discusses the unique position of working with developers post-Covid, how the mobile and app development industry has changed, and trends that he's seen in working with some household name brands. One unique brand that they've worked with is: iHeartRadio. For their annual music festival, Saritasa's team was tasked with creating an immersive 'earthquake experience'. They've also created apps for BJs and other restaurants across the US and world. But where did it all begin?
In 1987, he started a sidewalk repair company, and that is when he realized the real power of technology; and how he can use tech to scale a business. He created a database and a CRM to run this new business. Utilizing technology, he eventually grew the company to cover over 20 branches in 9 states across the country.
All In The Loop creates virtual, hybrid, and in-person event solutions. The company supports thousands of events in over 45 counties, and they pride themselves on delivering an outstanding event experience with their unique events technology platforms. Whether your event is virtual, in-person or somewhere in between, their versatile mobile apps and virtual event platforms can be tailored to your requirements.
In 2020, the event industry was decimated by the pandemic. All in the Loop were forced to evolve its offering to cater for the rapidly emerging virtual event market. They positioned themselves to serve remote working audiences.
By partnering with its homegrown streaming technology, they were very quickly able to provide a virtual event solution for their clients.
All In The Loop designed and launched virtual rooms for attendees to view live presentations, which became the industry standard.
Today, they pride themselves in supporting thousands of events worldwide, whether in-person, hybrid, or virtual. Lawrence Gillward shares their journey and how their technology is transforming events.
Agreena was founded within the industry by visionary farmers and fintech-savvies. What originated as an online commodity trading marketplace has become one of the first carbon farming platforms in the pan-European landscape. Using a set of core principles to regenerate soil, the company’s unique vertically integrated solution suggests putting the farmer first – backing with the knowledge, support, and incentives to implement sustainable ag practices at scale. In 2021 alone, Agreena serves more than 150 farmers in eight countries; and more than 50,000 hectares of farmland yielding regeneratively. Verified to the ISO 14064-2 standard, AgreenaCarbon is based on a yearly harvest cycle, with the data capture process giving farmers the opportunity for payouts from year one.
Simon Haldrup, Co-founder & CEO, Agreena, joins me in a conversation about how we are entering an exciting phase of climate action where both farmers and innovation are stepping center-stage as discussions move toward removing carbon from the atmosphere.
We discuss the Carbon Farming Initiative and how it emphasizes public funding to spur growth and create more certainty for landowners to participate.
With new funding on the horizon for carbon farming through mechanisms such as the CAP eco schemes, I learn more about how it will be essential to ensure that all programs are designed to complement what has already been created through incentives from the private sector and voluntary carbon market.
With plans to develop a carbon removal certification, the European Commission is currently positioning itself to take a leading role; getting measures in place from a governing body can ensure transparency and environmental integrity of the market.
Now is the time that requires collaboration and activation across all stakeholders – public, private, academic, civic – all hands in the soil. We discuss how technology will bring all this together.
DroneShield is a worldwide leader in counter-UAS security and technology. The company develops pre-eminent UAS security solutions that protect people, organizations and critical infrastructure from intrusion from UAS threats. Its leadership brings world-class expertise in engineering and physics, combined with deep experience in defence, intelligence, and aerospace.
I wanted to learn more about how this anti-drone company uses AI to jam or shoot drones out of the sky. Matt McCrann, US CEO of DroneShield (DRSHF), breaks down types of attacks, potential risk, rise in drone use age, etc.
Matt elaborates on both the benefits and downfalls of drone use and discusses how the use of drones will shift the type of attacks we see in modern warfare. But most importantly, he also provides insights on how destructive attacks can be prevented.
UiPath is a leading robotic process automation (RPA) software company. Renzo Taal designs and manages the company's growth strategy for the EMEA region in close collaboration with the senior leadership team and has been recognized as one of the most influential young business leaders in the EMEA.
We discuss the importance of retaining and attracting talent with automation education and how to best implement automation upskilling and reskilling programs within the context of the current job market. Finally, Renzo shares his story and how an increased awareness of the power of UiPath's end-to-end automation platform coupled with solid execution by the team resulted in a fiscal third-quarter ARR of $818 million, an increase of 58 percent year-over-year.
Rob Ellis from Thales joins me in discussing the rise of the sovereign cloud. We discuss how data sovereignty is not just about localization; it's ensuring that nation-states can store their data in their own country and control access to it. There are now more than 1,800 data compliance laws companies must comply with on a global scale. I learn how this surge in regulation is creating a shift towards the containment and localisation of data and why we will see this more and more in the years to come.
The public will become increasingly aware of these challenges too, with individual data sovereignty on the horizon. This will allow individuals to control where their data is and how it is used, strengthening the correlation between identity and data protection.
Finally, we discuss how it's likely that more tech giants will build localized data centers to circumnavigate geographical barriers to business. This in turn will lead to an increasing level of investment from global cloud providers in the cloud infrastructure of nation-states, driving forward their ongoing digital transformation journey.
Cybersecurity vulnerabilities have been plaguing supply chains across industries. According to an analysis conducted by BSI, ransomware attacks on the supply chain have increased by 66 percent in the last three years, expediting the concern of cybersecurity for private companies.
Considering these attacks range from targeting the sea modality to the trucking modality, tools to combat the threat of cyber-attacks on the supply chain have solidified in the last year, making it a central part of the United States cybersecurity policy.
Mark Brown, Global Managing Director, Digital Trust Consulting Services at BSI joins me in a conversation about all this, along with cybersecurity risk and trends that are emerging along with how we can better prepare,
Mark Brown joined BSI in February of 2021 as the Global Managing Director of the Consulting Services, Cyber Security, and Information Security business. In his role, Mark drives a new global focus on emerging technologies and risks such as IoT and Operational Technology (OT), increased cloud adoption, RPA Security, 5G security, and the CISO desire to achieve central management over the new converged digital arena, positioning cyber security as a business enabler.
With over 25 years of in the industry, Mark brings a wealth of knowledge on the expanding cybersecurity marketplace as organizations grapple with digital transformation and addressing new technologies that bring new business risks.
Mark has previously held global leadership roles across industry and professional services, including tenures as Global CISO at SABMiller plc, and Global CIO/CTO at Spectris plc, as well as leadership roles as a Partner at Wipro Ltd., and Ernst & Young (EY) LLP.
The COVID-19 pandemic has added many layers of complexity to the workplace, as companies are increasingly relying on technology to establish secure remote work capabilities. Since a multi-cloud IT infrastructure can provide exceptional benefits, including optimizing cost performance, avoiding vendor lock-in, and increasing reliability by distributing assets in the event of an IT crisis, it’s no wonder so many companies are racing to adopt multi-cloud solutions.
However, this rush to migrate sensitive data and business functions from on-premises to multiple clouds is leaving many organizations ill-prepared for security and compliance issues. Gartner has predicted that by 2025, 90% of the organizations that fail to control public cloud use will inappropriately share sensitive data.
Companies that fail to employ security guardrails when planning a cloud migration are severely increasing their risk of misconfigurations that can lead to devastating security and compliance incidents.
Keith Neilson, Technical Evangelist at CloudSphere joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how companies can maintain a competitive edge and keep company data secure by leveraging a more agile cyber asset management approach.
Paddy Padmanabhan is the Founder and CEO of Damo Consulting Inc., a digital transformation and growth advisory firm focused on the healthcare sector. For over 20 years, Paddy has had a distinguished career in leadership roles working extensively as a technology strategist and trusted advisor to C-suite executives in large health systems and digital health firms. Paddy is also the author of the best-selling book Healthcare Digital Transformation - How Consumerism, Technology, and Pandemic are Accelerating the Future and The Big Unlock – Harnessing Data and Growing Digital Health Businesses in a Value-based Care Era.
We discuss the top digital priorities for health systems today and the Digital transformation trends driving healthcare in 2022. We also talk about developing enterprise digital roadmaps and digital maturity in healthcare.
Trace Network Labs is creating an ecosystem that will allow an individual to create their own exclusive virtual space, live their lives, and roam freely across. They aim to enable the evolution of the luxury lifestyle for the metaverses as the boundaries between real and virtual continue to blur.
Lokesh Rao discusses how the Metaverse will change the way people connect with others and express themselves through clothing, accessories, etc. We also discuss what this will mean for consumers and brands and how NFTs will continue to revolutionize the fashion industry.
We also talk about how technology has changed and influenced fashion over recent years and what we might expect from the convergence of blockchain and fashion.
Steve Neat, GM EMEA of a large Enterprise Data Catalog and Data Governance company called Alation, joins me in a conversation about Data Intelligence. IDC recently coined the term to mean a system that delivers trustworthy, reliable data. We discuss how Alation is credited with creating the data catalog product category, how this relates to data intelligence, and why a number of the world’s best known brands are now turning to data intelligence to create a more data-driven culture. I learn how an ability to better understand and trust data across an organization leads to creating communities around data where people can reach out to each other and share information.
We all care about climate change - but it's not always easy to know what to do about it. So what are the best things we can do - and how can we quantify our impact? Treepoints is the easiest way to do good and earn rewards along the way. With Treepoints, not only will you offset your carbon footprint, but you'll support projects that deliver life-changing benefits to vulnerable communities and local ecosystems. Treepoints had raised £150k to help us reach our goal of planting 67 million trees (one for every UK resident) within the next five years. But I wanted to learn more about how technology brings all this to life. Jacob Wedderburn-Day returns to the podcast to talk about all this and much more.
Building on Shopify and selling on Facebook won't work anymore for the brands as this is just pushing CAC through the roof, leaving brands struggling for profitability and growth. Organically reimagining commerce is the only way for digitally native brands to win in every normal.
dotkonnekt is building the industry's first Experiential Commerce platform, purpose-built for brands to grow their D2C channel organically. How? By converging Content, Community, and Commerce and scripting a composable and unique experience for their customers visiting their site. The commerce platforms that exist today, Shopify's of the world were built for Retailers and SMB's, hence brands feel stuck, with no room for creativity, in their templatized and monolithic architectures.
Started amid a pandemic last year by 2 retail enthusiasts & industry veterans Dhiraj (in Bangalore) & Chandan (in the US), who in their previous avatars have led this space for 2.5 decades.
The recent pandemic response has elevated the importance of simplified administration of UCC platforms like Teams to senior management who are navigating a highly complex hybrid working environment with increasingly distributed workforces.
However, the fragmentation of technology in the UCC space has actually led to a disunification of communications, meaning that the challenge for businesses now is to re-unify and automate management and user administration, freeing admin specialists to do the work they need to do, and employees to work, collaborate and innovate.
Kurmi is a company that works with the likes of Verizon, NTT, Orange, BP, L’Oreal, BNP Paribas, etc to handle the automated provisioning of around 5 million people worldwide to ensure that employees have the tools and platforms they need to get working ASAP.
Eric Olson, VP Sales Americas joins me in a conversation about the multitude of different platforms like Teams, Google, Avaya, Cisco etc, and collaboration tools that organizations need to navigate. We also discuss how things like ‘the great resignation’ and hybrid working have created greater pressure for admin teams and why automation can alleviate the burden.
Lara Hodgson is the CEO and co-founder of Now®️, a fintech startup enabling minority-owned small businesses to grow through its invoice payment solution that redefines how and when companies get paid. Lara also serves as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Harvard Business School and is an internationally recognized speaker, leading seminars on creativity, innovation, and access to capital.
Lara joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share lessons from the growing pains of starting her own small business with Stacey Abrams and their guide for entrepreneurs highlighted in their upcoming book, Level Up.
In 2010, they created NowAccount because they were sick of waiting for their customers to pay. Initially, they celebrated when they landed a big contract, but weeks and weeks would pass and payment would still be outstanding. They needed working capital to continue business operations and their cash was tied up in their invoices.
Everyone told them to get a line of credit or try factoring, and they thought, “Why should we have to borrow money or factor when we are the free bank to our customers? There had to be a better way!” I also learn more about her entrepreneurial journey as a female founder and startup story about how and why she co-founded Now®️.
Finally, we discuss the ongoing effects of COVID-19 on small businesses and the importance of supporting small, minority-owned businesses.
Darren Person joins me on Tech Talks Daily. As Global CIO, Darren leads NPD's Technology Group, encompassing the company's operations and technology organizations, and is responsible for spearheading the development of NPD's next-generation platform, addressing clients' needs through innovations in data and analytics. Today's episode explores the opportunities beyond Silicon Valley, and we discuss where to find the best tech jobs across America. Darren also shares advice on how to find the right company to further your career in tech and shares tips on why a career in technology is the best investment you can make.
Finally, we discuss the importance of data-driven decision-making across organizations, and the guest offers some strategic advice for CIOs on building a future-proof tech workforce.
Founded in 2015, Roboze was created to redesign the global supply chain through its patented ultra-precise 3D printing technology for super materials, leveraging a proprietary CARBON PEEK material - the highest performing 3D printing super polymer in the entire industry. Roboze currently works with GE, Bosch, Airbus, and other global organizations across space, energy/sustainable energy, medical, manufacturing, and more to design and create end-use parts. The company recently released the world's largest 3D printer equipped with a heated chamber for the fast production of incredibly strong non-metallic parts and is the creator of additive manufacturing systems with the highest accuracy and repeatability in the world.
I invited Alessio Lorusso onto Tech Talks Daily to learn more about his tech startup story, 3D printing, and much more.
Digital collectibles platform, RCRDSHP, has just embarked on a brand new journey with RCRDSHP Studio. Developing a space for artists and fans to engage with each other in such an innovative and personalized web3 environment is everything RCRDSHP has aimed to do, and now it is here for the world to explore.
Far from the big tech hype and commercial bluster surrounding NFTs and web3, thousands of projects and collectives are quietly shaping new music communities via decentralized tech. These grassroots, often fan-driven efforts blend experiences, collaboration, collective creation and investment with ever-evolving creativity.
RCRDSHP wants more of these experiments to flourish. To make this happen, the web3 music platform has launched RCRDSHP Studio, a home base that provides the tools for music lovers and artists to experiment together with all that web3 offers.
RCRDSHP Studio gives music fans a base and the tools to play around with new web3 experiences, from collectively creating something to running a remix contest to supporting a cause that matters. These experiences take place primarily on Discord and Twitch, NFTs, and the legacy music business to build a bridge to music’s web3 future. It’s part of RCRDSHP’s ongoing mission to find new ways to assert music’s value and create sustainable artist livelihoods.
Obie Fernandez joins me in a discussion about the future of our music collections.
Denis O’Shea joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a discussion about securing remote workers using their personal devices. We also talk about balancing security with employee experience, and he shares a few tips around running a paper-less, server-less, password-less business. Finally, I learn more about the story behind Mobile Mentor. Denis O’Shea founded Mobile Mentor in New Zealand in 2004. Since then, the company has helped millions of people unlock the full potential of their technology. In 2017, O’Shea moved to Nashville, Tennessee to launch the company’s US business, with a focus on securing the mobile workforce in industries such as healthcare, education, finance, and government services.
Mobile Mentor is a global leader in the endpoint ecosystem, helping clients navigate the right balance between security and employee experience. The company was named Microsoft’s 2021 Global Partner of the year for Modern Endpoint Management primarily for their work helping Alive Hospice safely treat patients during COVID 19.
In addition to being a top Microsoft partner, they are also certified by Apple and Google. In addition, mobile Mentor has recently worked with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Michigan Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and the US Coast Guard.
Under the "Great Resignation," millions of people are leaving their jobs to start their own businesses. However, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20% of those businesses will fail within the first year. And those that do survive the first year will likely not turn a significant profit for quite some time — if ever.
What if people could keep their day jobs and monetize their expertise without significant risk or time and capital expenditure? Well, that's exactly what Kajabi is doing.
With Kajabi, users have a single platform to publish, market, and sell online courses, membership sites, communities, and other digital products. Tens of thousands of entrepreneurs rely on Kajabi to build and manage their online businesses, and the company has helped these entrepreneurs generate over $2 billion in sales from nearly 50 million customers to date.
As an example of how people are growing their businesses on Kajabi, Dr. Jamie Wilkey earned $230,000 in 2021 on Kajabi through her online class that teaches pharmacists to use personalized medicine to change the trajectory of their careers.
Ahad Khan is the CEO of Kajabi, an all-in-one platform for knowledge entrepreneurs and creators to build, market, and sell educational content. I learn more about the story behind Kajabi and how they are helping people and businesses with their tech.
A company called LANDR recently set off my tech spidey senses when they launched Chromatic, a first-of-its-kind virtual instrument featuring exclusive sounds by well-known artists, session players and producers. These sound sets are grouped by color and mood to spark more creativity for music makers.
With an impressive streaming library growing with new material in the next month, including artist-generated sound sets by 2020 Grammy nominee D Smoke (Best New Artist, Best Rap Album) and platinum selling Montreal singer-songwriter Ariane Moffatt (with her SOMMM collective), Chromatic offers the artist community a playable interface they can use in producing new works.
Chromatic will soon incorporate royalty splits for creators who are contributing sound sets and those who utilize them in their works, generating potential new revenue streams for artists everywhere while allowing for artful collaboration and exchange in a unique way. It will function as an intriguing additional asset artists can use to promote their recordings and projects and boost their income.
Khaled Said shares the story behind LANDR.
Tina D’Agostin is the CEO of Alcatraz AI, an artificial intelligence company that employs facial authentication technology to create autonomous access control solutions for enterprises. D’Agostin previously served as the Chief Revenue Officer for Alcatraz AI, responsible for driving top-line growth and expanding Alcatraz’s footprint globally. As CEO, she plans to take Alcatraz AI into its next chapter to modernize the access control industry.
Tina brings over 25 years of experience within the security technology and solutions industry, with leadership experience building high-performing organizations in hardware, IT, and smart technologies. Prior to Alcatraz AI, D’Agostin was the General Manager of Building Technology & Solutions at Johnson Controls, focused on delivering smart building technologies to global companies.
Tina earned her undergraduate degree and her MBA from Rockford University. An avid and lifelong student, she has continued her education at Stanford University, receiving professional certifications in Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Energy Innovation & Emerging Technologies. Tina currently serves on the board at the Bay Area Council and is a contributing member of the Forbes Technology Council.
In today's episode, we discuss the touchless future awaiting all of us as well as how buildings are getting smarter and how these technologies evolving are making for safer physical environments.
Should small startups care about cybersecurity? Did you know that the average cost of a ransomware attack is $500k? For most small businesses and startups, this means they go out of business. Even if they can afford to pay the ransom, the reputation damage is permanent. For that reason, more than 60% of small businesses & startups never survive the attack. Scary statistics. Brian Fritton, CEO & Founder of Havoc Shield shares how they’ve taken the technical and legal ocean of complexity in the security arena and turned it into a simple step-by-step action plan that integrates many of the products, services, and policies companies normally need to wade through and implement individually.
Brian discusses why cybersecurity is not only for the big players as 43% of attacks target brands under 500 employees. He also shares easy-to-apply strategies that can literally save the businesses of everyone listening.
Finally, we talk about how something as simple as putting a cybersecurity badge on your website increases the conversion rate by more than 5%. And that’s just one of the underleveraged strategies.
Panos Siozos is the Co-Founder and CEO of LearnWorlds, an online course platform for creating, selling and promoting online courses. He formerly worked in the European Parliament as a policy adviser for research and innovation issues (2009-2014). He is currently 'tasting his own medicine' having co-founded his edtech SaaS startup.
LearnWorlds is a powerful, easy-to-use and reliable training solution for individuals and enterprises. A fully customizable, white-label solution to train employees and associates, educate customers, or sell online courses to a wide audience.
The cloud-based e-learning platform offers Professionals, Entrepreneurs & Training Managers a solution tailored to their specific needs and a team of experts to help achieve your goals. Much more than just selling online courses, LearnWorlds comes with a built-in Social Community. But I wanted to learn more about the technology that makes it easy for anyone to create, market, and sell the most engaging online courses.
Panos joins in on Tech Talks Daily shares the story behind LearnWorlds, how the pandemic affected the way we learn, market trends, and surge in demand.
In 2017, Andrew Butt launched his third startup -- Enable, a venture-backed ($58.6M) cloud-based SaaS solution for B2B rebate management. The software is used by procurement and finance professionals in distribution, wholesale, and manufacturing across over 50 industries so that they can have an easy, seamless solution to execute and track their full range of trading programs.
More than $1 trillion in rebates are issued each year, and 4% of potential rebate revenue typically goes unclaimed due to companies using old methods like inadequate software solutions and excel sheets. Enable makes sure this revenue doesn't fall through the cracks and has more merchants and suppliers in the UK and US than any other comparable software solution.
Andrew Butt, Co-founder, and CEO of Enable, shares his story with me on Tech Talks Daily Podcast.
Andres Rodriguez is the founder and CTO of Nasuni, a cloud file storage provider. He is also the former CTO for the New York Times. We last spoke a few years ago, and I was eager to invite him back onto Tech Talks Daily for a catchup.
Andres talks about why ransomware has finally pushed back up to the breaking point. Backup, especially as the last line of defense against disasters like ransomware, is dead and ineffective. If it’s taking an enterprise or organization 2 weeks to recover their files (because they are following “best practices”) and suddenly paying the ransom seems like a good idea for business continuity, then the model is broken.
Prevention is no longer enough. It’s the detection and, most importantly, recovery. Unfortunately, the IT silos and no one wanting to take responsibility for recovery exacerbates the problem, causing it to fall between the cracks.
As ransomware attacks continue into the new year, the traditional backup will be more widely exposed as entirely inadequate for business continuity and minimizing disruption to the business. But we discuss how cloud-native, global file systems can make a recovery in minutes possible, not days or weeks.
Most of today's DeFi lending and borrowing protocols have inflationary token models, don't capture or pass on the value the protocol generates, often lack cross-chain capabilities, and offer an overly complex user experience. Minterest changes that.
Having launched in September, following a $6.5 million from top-tier investors, the team is made up of ex-Cardano, Prysm Group, Chainlink, and IBM leaders and members with elite academic and technology credentials.
What sets Minterest apart from DeFi incumbents is that it is engineered from the ground up to capture the value it generates. By utilizing its buy-back mechanism, the protocol passes on 100% of revenue generated to its community of active participants.
Josh Rogers, the CEO and Co-founder is an Australian entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur. Josh has been a founding member of numerous start-ups, including COMindico, the world's first point-to-point IP telco (US$300M raise); Oriel Communications, the world's first micro-billing content engine including the world's first monetisation of Big Brother 2 content; Freelancer.com, and the world's largest freelance marketplace.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Josh discusses why the Minterest protocol provides users with decentralized token money markets, combined with a uniquely fair incentive structure. He also shares how Minterest recaptures crypto's vision of creating a fairer, more egalitarian financial system and the industry's current issues.
IRIS is a revolutionary new audio experience that dramatically increases sound quality by introducing the space usually missing from recorded audio, unlocking the 'live' dimension that's often lost. This is achieved through a proprietary algorithm that splits out and increases the phase information sent to the brain. The listener's brain then reassembles this vast increase in information and becomes far more active in the listening process.
The audio technology company has also just launched IRIS CLARITY, a desktop application that eradicates all background noise in online meetings, ensuring the voice of each participant is heard clearly and bringing control to otherwise uncontrollable environments.
Jacobi Anstruther joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share how this new audio technology company is on a mission to enable the world to listen well. Their patented algorithms use advanced psycho-acoustics, machine learning, and AI to create cutting-edge, sound innovation software that enhances audio streams in real-time and dramatically increases sound quality.
About Jacobi
Jacobi Anstruther has been considered a leading innovator in the music industry for over 15 years. Possessing a background in finance and an irrepressible entrepreneurial spirit, he has been behind start-ups spanning technology, music, venues, and record labels.
With a clear vision and desire to instigate change in the music space by bringing 'live' experiences to everyone, Jacobi became obsessed with tackling music compression and audio quality issues alongside neurological behaviour and human performance.
It was in 2016, while building a music festival in California that would blend music and social change with audio quality at its heart, that he was introduced to the two key engineers behind IRIS technologies Ltd. Instantly blown away by the superior audio experience and their unique understanding of the neurological effects of sensory input stimuli, he began to build a business model focused on hacking the nervous system to improve human performance and quality of experience looking to solve the many issues found with digital content.
Today IRIS has been recognised as the most innovative steps forward in audio and human performance in over 10 years. IRIS continues to expand its understanding of this area and the book of patented technology solutions.
Every piece of data tells a story. Ordnance Survey data is more than a map. It keeps us all safe, helps businesses be more productive and gives people the freedom to step outside and explore.
The emergency services depend on it to get exactly where they’re needed. And when disaster strikes we work with our partners to minimise damage and save lives. Its data is used to plan smart cities, brings gaming worlds to life, helps lenders and insurers assess risk and prevent fraud, and supports over £100 billion of our nation’s economy.
For over 230 years, Ordnance Survey has been mapping Great Britain in extraordinary detail. But I wanted to learn more about the company's digital transformation and how it has developed one of the world's largest spatial databases. So first, Lloyd Clarke shares how its old products and data sets were on multiple Oracle databases. Then, we discuss how Ordnance Survey (OS) has completely overhauled its approach to data storage with Pure Storage and achieved its innovation goals.
I also learn how thanks to FlashArray™, the company can now deploy servers and spin up virtual machines in minutes, which allows it to react to its customers far quicker than before.
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At Dynatrace's annual Perform conference, the company revealed new capabilities to help developers automate observability and security best practices in their applications. In addition, the $13.48 billion monitoring and observability company is going head-to-head with Splunk and Datadog on its mission to boost growth.
We have recently spoken with Steve Tack from Dynatrace about going multi-cloud with serverless monitoring, and I also learned that they have a new CEO in Rick McConnell. At the Perform 2022 event, I caught up with him to learn more about his origin story, what attracted him to Dynatrace's vision for the company's future, and much more.
Join me in learning more about the motivations, passions and insights from the Dynatrace CEO.
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For over 200 years, Wiley has been helping people and organizations develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. They are known for creating digital education, learning, assessment, and certification solutions to help universities, businesses, and individuals move between education and employment and achieve their ambitions.
By partnering with learned societies, Wiley supports researchers to communicate discoveries that make a difference. Its online scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly journals, books, and other digital content build on a 200-year heritage of quality publishing.
At last year's Dynatrace Perform event, I got chatting with Wiley's CIO and CISO; Sean Mack shared his experience in DevOps, infrastructure, security, enterprise applications, development, and program management. But, at this year's Perform Event, I have invited Eric Lytle on the podcast to learn more about how Wiley's digital transformation journey has progressed. We also discuss how Wiley accelerated its cloud journey and worked with Dynatrace.
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Providing essential security and compliance infrastructure, Very Good Security (VGS) enables startups and enterprises to focus on their core business instead of compliance and regulatory overhead. With one single integration, VGS customers unlock the value of sensitive data without the cost and liability of securing it themselves, while also accelerating compliances like PCI, SOC 2, GDPR and more.
Since I last spoke to VGS in 2019, the company has raised a $60 million Series C funding. It has also hit several key milestones including recognition as a Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startup, doubling revenue and headcount, launching several pivotal products, acceptance into the AWS ISV Accelerate Program, and expanding its executive bench.
Peter Berg, VP of Business Development & Strategy at Very Good Security (and former head of Visa Ventures) joins me on Tech Talks Daily. He has a great back story and is a fintech expert who shares the latest industry trends (like the rise of virtual cards and embedded fintech) and why data security is a crucial pillar for payments and e-commerce companies as consumers are increasingly worried about using their personal info.
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Derek Osgood is a former marketing exec turned founder, building Ignition – the collaborative GTM platform helping Product and Marketing teams to get new products to market faster and more effectively.
Prior to founding Ignition, he was an early hire at Rippling where he stood up the Product Marketing function and helped scale the company to $20M in ARR. As a Product Marketing leader everywhere from startups to major brands like PlayStation, Derek has launched over 100 products, and his products have generated over $1B in revenue. Now he's building the platform he wished he had along the way.
In today's episode, Derek discussed the vital elements to a successful product launch and the future of software for product and marketing teams. We also talk about the biggest mistakes companies make when launching products + how to avoid them.
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ECINS started as a germ of an idea back in 2000, when founders, Gary and Sarah Pettengell, were still working in the police force. They saw vulnerable people grappling with problems like gambling, addiction, family violence and sex crimes and wondered if there might be a less authoritarian, more compassionate way to help them. They thought how much better it might be if support agencies could securely share their knowledge about people, so the complexity of their lives and struggles might be more fully seen and supported. They wondered what might help empower vulnerable people and communities to take action in their own lives. And so, Empowering Communities through Integrated Network Systems, or ECINS, was born.
Gary and Sarah share how their collaborative technology is solving complex social problems.
Bios:
Gary Pettengell Global CEO
As head honcho of E-CINS, if there is one thing you can be sure of, it’s that Gary’s sights are firmly set on making things better. Whether during his time in the police force, helping vulnerable people. Or when E-CINS first began. Or right up to this day, when he learns about the problems his clients are facing, and stays up late into the night, mind ticking over to the next piece of new functionality he can add to E-CINS to make things better for users. Never one to sit still, it’s no wonder coffee is his best friend.
Sarah Pettengell Director of Services
Sarah’s compassion has always been front and centre in her approach to life and work. This quality served her well during her time in the police force, chairing domestic abuse conferences and managing specialist teams grappling with complex issue such as child abuse, vulnerable adult abuse and serious sexual violence. Dunsborough is her home base in Australia. It brings with it the sounds of the ocean and sand between the toes that spell relaxation with a capital R. Sarah’s in-depth knowledge of the real problems faced not only by vulnerable people, but those helping them, is invaluable to our clients.
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The UK and European fintech space has seen a boom in recent years. But over the last five years in particular, Europe has seen huge growth. In the first half of 2021 alone, fintech investment in the region reached $39.1bn.
The boom in Europe’s fintech scene is apparent in our work at Ripple too.
A quarter of our customer base is from the region. Over the years, Europe has developed strong foundations for the fintech industry to flourish, and it looks set to continue this upward trajectory with no signs of slowing down soon. So why does Europe have a booming fintech scene?
Sendi Young, Managing Director, Europe, Ripple, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss Ripple’s momentum in the market, trends she’s seen in digital payments, crypto adoption, and financial regulation in this space.
We also talk about how Ripple is supporting the next generation of talent in finance with initiatives including its University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI) in partnership with the world’s leading universities.
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Adam Moelis shares why half of American's can't come up with $400 in an emergency, and 78% of people live paycheck to paycheck. But they spend $80 billion on the lottery every year. We also discuss a recent study that showed that most wished they'd learned more about money in school and scored themselves low when it came to financial literacy. Could tech change this? Adam shares how he founded Yotta to help Americans make healthier financial decisions and become more financially secure. Adam's company provides the chance to win big every week, similar to playing the lottery but in an FDIC-insured account where customers cannot lose any money.
About Adam
Adam Moelis is the Co-Founder and CEO of Yotta, a financial technology startup whose mission is to help Americans become more financially secure by offering a unique banking experience that allows customers to win weekly prizes of up to $10 million.
Adam graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Finance and Accounting from Wharton. His degree and interest in personal finance and passion for behavioral psychology led him to co-found Yotta with Ben Doyle. Adam and Ben were honored with the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2021 for their social impact on founding their company, Yotta. Additionally, Yotta has raised over $17 million from investors like Base 10, Core Innovation Capital, Slow Ventures, FundersClub, TwentyTwo VC, Chapter One, Capital X, among some angel investors. Yotta graduated from the prestigious Y Combinator in July of 2020.
Previously, Adam was an investment analyst in the Multi-Strategy Investing Group at Goldman Sachs. He also worked as a Product Manager and Data Analyst at YipitData, where he built a mobile app for consumers.
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Since co-founding NineTwoThree Digital Ventures in 2012, Andrew Amann has helped launch countless ventures for clients and emerging companies and turned his business into one of the fastest-growing private companies in America on the Inc 5000 list.
Amann is an experienced intrapreneur and entrepreneur. He is responsible for patents for nuclear submarine components and three supply chain innovations and has successfully launched twelve startups, including the digital business card solution, Inigo App, acquired by Royaltie. Amann excels at bootstrapping startups without the involvement of venture capital.
In today's episode, Aman shares how he has navigated the startup world by building a digital venture studio vs. a traditionally backed V.C. model startup. He also discusses how mentors and encourages young entrepreneurs with this approach. Tech Talks Daily Podcast Sponsor Details
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As many traditionally in-person industries embrace hybrid work on a large scale, there have been, and will continue to be, many changes to both the technology and the workplace. But I wanted to learn more about how workplace collaboration technology shifted and grown over the last 2 years to meet the needs of this new workforce. Jamie Snaddon shares his insights and story. About 8x8 8x8, Inc. (NYSE: EGHT) is transforming the future of business communications as a leading Software-as-a-Service provider of voice, video, chat, contact center and enterprise-class API solutions powered by one global cloud communications platform. 8x8 empowers workforces worldwide to connect individuals and teams so they can collaborate faster and work smarter. Real-time business analytics and intelligence provide businesses unique insights across all interactions and channels so they can delight end-customers and accelerate their business.
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The Great Resignation is here, employees are seeking new opportunities and businesses are having to re-evaluate their workplace cultures to improve employee retention and evolve their onboarding programmes for new joiners. Whilst business leaders are busy finding solutions to retain talent with new perks
The reality is, the Great Resignation has brought about growing business IT challenges associated with insider threats. Insider threats have become a new, distinct challenge for organizations as they try to balance employee turnover, employee onboarding and the use of non sanctioned apps and platforms.
The sheer number of employees leaving their jobs and potentially still having access to the network or proprietary data has created a headache for IT and security teams tasked with protecting the organization. In 2022, Rick McElroy, Principal Cybersecurity Strategist at VMware believes we'll see the number of insider threat incidents increase.
Attackers will also start targeting employees to carry out their attacks or plant ransomware. As a result, we'll see new protocols and guidelines established as organizations work to keep networks and sensitive data protected.
In today's episode, we discuss the growing IT challenges associated with insider threats and how businesses can respond to this new threat, and how businesses can make sure employees with legitimate access to systems aren't using this privilege for illegitimate reasons.
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Steve Tack, SVP, Product Management at Dynatrace, reveals the big announcements from Dynatrace Perform 2022. We discuss how Dynatrace will extend observability and advanced AIOps to all major serverless architectures. As a result, DevOps and SRE teams can now automatically discover, analyze, and optimize serverless applications in cloud-native applications at scale, freeing teams from manual processes and enabling them to spend more time accelerating innovation. We also discuss how Dynatrace will enhance its Application Security Module to deliver on the promise of Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) for cloud-native applications. Building on existing capabilities, including immediate and automatic detection of vulnerabilities in cloud-native apps and container workloads, Dynatrace will also block against attacks. As a result, organizations can secure modern cloud workloads and applications – accelerating throughput. Finally, we discuss why these product updates are important and what they mean for Dynatrace's product portfolio.
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Amanda Mountain has been with SAP for over 15 years. She serves as Global Vice President of SAP Digital Commerce, providing customers one seamless experience across all digital channels. She oversees digital customer strategy for SAP across sales, customer success, support and marketing, and has enabled and exemplified the digital transformation of SAP.
In today's episode, Amanda discusses how 2020 (and much of 2021!) reshaped the way she led her team at SAP. From the impact being virtual had on employees to its effect on B2B sales and customer experience, Amanda highlights how she has remained human-focused to keep employees and engaged and business in the green.
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Tomas Gorny was born and raised in Poland. He moved to the United States in pursuit of the American Dream at the age of 20 without knowing any English. Today, he’s a technology visionary, Co-founder and CEO of Unitedweb and Nextiva, and on the board of directors for Endurance International Group. Tomas has received numerous awards for his leadership in the technology industry. In 2014 he was recognized as the "Business Leader of the Year" at Arizona Technology Council’s 2014 Governor’s Celebration of Innovation, and in 2017, he was named Top Tech CEO by the Phoenix Business Journal. Nextiva co-founder and CEO joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story. We discuss how Nextiva brings together communications, customer management, intelligence, and automation to help businesses build deep, lasting relationships with their customers.
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Josh Millet is the founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based Criteria, a venture-backed ($64.3M) assessment company dedicated to helping organizations make better talent decisions using objective, multidimensional data. The company acquired Alcami Interactive, a video interviewing platform, and Revelian, the leading game-based assessments company in the past couple of years.
Josh founded Criteria in 2006 with a vision to create a SaaS-based pre-employment testing service that would eliminate biases in the hiring process. I invited him to share his story on Tech Talks Daily.
With over 20 million assessments administered globally, the company has helped organizations make objective, data-driven hiring decisions that lead to better business outcomes with its scientifically validated assessments across multiple dimensions, including aptitude, personality, and skills. On average, Criteria has helped organizations increase their hiring success rates by 52%, reduce turnover by 48%, and generate 25% more revenue.
Before launching Criteria, Josh co-founded an online test preparation company, Number2.com, which Xap Corp acquired in 2002. Josh holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar and a Mellon Fellow.
I learn how Criteria helps companies make better talent decisions and
how their goal is to help companies practice science-based talent management, producing better outcomes and reducing the impact of bias.
Finally, Josh shares his belief that the predominant hiring model centered around resumes consistently produces bad outcomes and exacerbates bias. He advised the science of what works and what doesn't work in hiring is very clear, but most companies are still
Lauren Woodman, the tech-for-good veteran who was recently announced CEO of DataKind, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the future of the Data for Good movement. DataKind is a global non-profit organization that leverages data science in the service of humanity. They are unique for pushing the boundaries of what is possible when social and humanitarian causes leverage advanced technology to enact positive change in the world.
Woodman has over 25 years of experience in the technology and non-profit sectors including roles as congressional liaison at the UN and GM of Microsoft’s global education programs. Most recently, she was the CEO at NetHope where she awarded $190 million in technology capabilities and infrastructure to humanitarian organizations.
In this episode, we discuss her experience as a pioneer in the tech policy and non-profit space. I also learn more about the current data projects DataKind is working on using AI solutions and its social impact.
Miles Barr, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of solar startup Ubiquitous Energy, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. The solar energy company designs transparent solar technology for windows, electronics, and other applications. We discuss their goal of helping solve climate change by creating truly transparent renewable energy for every surface across the globe. Founded in 2011, Ubiquitous Energy was started by a group of MIT and MSU scientists and engineers looking for new ways to reduce humanity's carbon footprint by seamlessly integrating solar power technology into everyday products and surfaces.
Here in 2022, Ubiquitous Energy has the world's leading transparent solar technology – converting light into electricity using semiconducting materials while maintaining visible transparency. To both residential and commercial building occupants, Ubiquitous Energy's solar windows provide a clear, vibrant experience that is expected from traditional Low-E windows, but with self-contained, on-board power and smart functionality.
Quantum technology is on the brink of a breakthrough. This giant leap forward in computing power will enable unprecedented speed and power for certain industries. However, with this scientific milestone also comes significant cyber risk. For example, quantum computing has the power to break today's standard encryption methods - processes that are widely used to protect customer data, complete business transactions, and secure communications. While a handful of industry giants in tech and academia have reported "quantum breakthroughs" there are still skeptics that disprove quantum's progress thus far. Nonetheless, it's just a matter of time. Quantum advances aside, the reality is that anything secure today will no longer be secure in the future. Because of this, companies need to be vigilant about staying up to date with the adoption of new standards.
However, industry groups (for example, NIST in the United States) are expected to debut new standards for quantum-resistant cryptography. In turn, companies will need to understand what these new standards will mean for their organization overall.
Ted Shorter, co-founder, and CTO of Keyfactor, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the potential impact of a quantum cryptography advancement and what this means in the future. We also talk about how the new standards will affect OS/software vendors and how the new standards will affect organizations.
Redis is a popular open-source database. As a real-time data platform in the cloud, global enterprises have become a critical component to compete in the digital economy. Alongside this, it's a company that's gone from strength to strength in recent times, with revenue growth of 54% over the last three years. In April, it secured $110m in series G funding, which closely followed a $100m funding round in August 2020, providing the company with a $2bn valuation.
Taimur Rashid, Chief Business Development Officer at Redis, joins on Tech Talks Daily to why it's time for senior teams to start seeing the creative value of developers within their organizations. Taimur shares his belief that software developers can offer a lot more value to their business. Therefore, organizations should empower their developers and give them a voice to experiment and innovate.
We also discuss how Redis is enabling the future of real-time AI. Finally, Taimur declares we're in the golden age of AI and ML and that it's becoming a core part of businesses worldwide. Finally, we talk about innovating at an enterprise pace and maintaining stability while adopting innovation.
Enterprises face a fast-changing, hyper-competitive market that requires organizations to implement changes to applications and infrastructure much faster than they did in the past—Taimur shares why they must balance stability and innovation.
High-profile hacks and ransomware breaches continue to plague headlines, making cyber risk more tangible for individuals. So it's no surprise that a Bloomberg analysis found cyber expenses rising faster than overall IT spending. In addition, as remote/hybrid work shifts more workflow to the cloud, spending is expected to increase.
Insight Partners is a NY-based VC/PE firm with over $30 billion under management. It is also a top enterprise software investor specializing in cybersecurity and data privacy. Notable investments in this space include DarkTrace, Tenable, Armis, Veeam, OneTrust, Cylance, Recorded Future, and Aqua Security.
Steve Ward, Managing Director at Insight, formerly the CISO of Home Depot and a member of the Secret Service, Steve has over 20 years of experience in cybersecurity, physical security, fraud, and technology risk. We discuss where companies allocate cybersecurity spending and the innovations disrupting the market.
We also talk about how the shift to remote/hybrid work has affected cyber investment, the most critical threats, and how cyber innovation responds.
Stewart Watts, VP EMEA at D2L – the global learning provider, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation on the state of digital transformation across HigherEd, and the sectors’ recovery plans.
As part of its Outcome Delivery Plan: 2021 to 2022, the Department for Education (DfE) has prioritised improving the sector’s digital infrastructure and connectivity. Indeed, DfE has placed ‘innovation, technology and data’ front and centre and this has been reflected in the recent Autumn Budget and Spending Review, with a new package of £1.8 in financial support. However, it has acknowledged that it will need to reassess all current staff training initiatives, particularly in the use of digital technologies, in order to facilitate this.
In its latest research, D2L consulted 500 higher education professionals in the UK on their motivations behind their digital transformation strategies, as well their struggles over the last 18 months, and what the drivers behind their post-pandemic recovery plans will be. It found that improving student experience, course quality and digital infrastructure are vital and will play a major role in most institutions future growth plans. Stewart Watts discusses DfE’s recovery plan and how universities should approach DX in the coming months. Drawing upon D2L’s research, he also argues that faculties will need to reassess all current online or blended learning programmes. Including:
- The current state of UK digital learning programmes and how institutions approached DX based on D2L’s findings
- What institutions should be prioritising as part of their recovery plans and how learning must be ‘data-driven’
- The tools at universities’ disposal as they look to cover the gaps in students’ learning and improve overall experienceThe need for a flexible online learning environment and contingency plans to guarantee continuity for students
Over the past year, COVID-19 has dramatically impacted the travel industry, forcing it to reimagine its future. SITA sets out five critical areas for the air transport industry to recover and recently published a survey highlighting SITA’s remodelled solutions to tackle the significant challenges facing air travel in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sergio Colella, SITA Europe President, expends how SITA will help the industry recover quickly. We discuss how technology will affect passengers, especially when addressing the new health requirements through automation and making the passenger journey more mobile-enabled and touchless in the airport.
I also learn how SITA is making progress in driving down its emissions and energy consumption through its Planet+ program – a program recognized by the UN as a Sustainable Development Goal Good Practice.
SITA recently published their CSR report revealing they are on course to be carbon neutral by or before 2022. We discuss the acquisition of Safety Line to help airlines drive more efficiencies and fuel savings around the aircraft while taking immediate and sustainable steps to reduce their carbon footprint.
Finally, we discuss why governments should review their border control operations to ensure a sustainable economic recovery and how robust border controls that allow safe travel can be configured quickly to treat evolving risks.
Current trends are increasingly geared towards delivering improved user experiences and innovation at speed. Unlocking data and harnessing digital capabilities will be the cornerstone of future transformation initiatives, with composable businesses set to take centre stage in the year ahead.
MuleSoft, provider of the world’s #1 integration and API platform, has outlined the trends that will shape these emerging operating models and IT priorities in 2022.
Emely Patra discusses how the future of work will be built on connected hybrid experiences. We also discuss how the composable business matures and why 2022 will be the year of the business technologist and the growth of hyper-automation.
As companies address employee demand for more flexible work arrangements, they will need to adapt their hiring processes to protect data privacy, accelerate hiring time, and expand the candidate pool. In addition, employers will need to continue to stay apprised of new and developing hiring laws to ensure compliance and reduce the risk of monetary and reputational harm resulting from lawsuits.
Market forces have increased the need for background screening because of tailwinds in the economy, but it's coming into conflict with heightened scrutiny concerning privacy protection. At the very time when background screening is needed, governments are making it harder to get access to information about people.
In 2006, during the earliest days of the big data era, Inflection was founded to address three emerging trends: the increasing prevalence of people searching for people online, the emergence of online records, and the privacy implications of the easy availability of personal information.
I explore this topic with Max Wesman. Max joined Inflection in 2012 to lead the planning and launch of GoodHire. He now oversees all of Inflection’s product strategy, roadmap, development, pricing, and growth initiatives.
Before joining the team, Max managed and launched B2B software products for HP and Microsoft. He received an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and undergraduate degrees from the Wharton School and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
His passions outside of work include international travel, golf, pickleball, cooking, home brewing, and escape room games.
AI-driven cloud optimization platform that slashes cloud cost, optimizes DevOps, and automates disaster prevention. Leon Kuperman, CTO Cast AI, discusses how AI powers cloud automation. We explore exactly what value AI brings to the table and why simple automation is not enough. We also discuss the Top 3 tips for businesses adopting cloud automation. On the subject of cloud cost management, we look at the big picture of what management optimization is and the main reasons it's complicated (hint: cloud providers aren't exactly helping most of the time). But we talk about how automation helps with cloud costs and how AI brings this automation up a notch. I also learn more about Leon's story in techand how he started his career at IBM when he was just 19, but realized very early that he was best suited in the startup world so in 1998 started his first company and has been working through the battle scars ever since. A few companies to mention - Zenedge (acquired by Oracle), CUJO.
Matija Kovac from Taia Translations discusses the future of machine translation, how localization can enhance global strategy and how AI is revamping the translation industry. He also shares his entrepreneurial story, knowledge, and industry insights. Taia Translations is a modern translation platform, where they help companies translate their documents, websites, and other content with AI-assisted, human perfected translations.
If advanced neural machine translation is good enough, you can get your files translated, with formatting intact, in just a few seconds. But when you need a professional touch, you can order from a range of services, right inside the app.
The Taia Translations app was created to make the ordering process as seamless as possible, as we are aware that ordering translations can be a bit time-consuming. You drag 'n' drop your document into the uploader, select the right parameters for your needs, and just a few moments later your project is being reviewed by TAIA's project management. Based on your chosen parameters, you'll be assigned the perfect translator for your project.
Over the past two decades, companies have increasingly used new web, cloud, and mobile technologies to address business challenges and realize new business opportunities. However, the recent pandemic turned this digital business wave into a tsunami, as organizations scrambled to create new digital properties to address supply chain management, customer relationships, employee communications, and other urgent business problems.
As these companies accelerated their use of digital to address their pandemic-related business problems practically overnight, many came to a realization: the quick, discreet, iterative, do it or die approach they took to digital initiatives during the pandemic succeeded in addressing their immediate pandemic business challenges, even if these initiatives now need further refinement.
Endava is a leading next-generation technology services provider working to help businesses accelerate disruption by delivering rapid evolution to enterprises. They saw a 20%+ year-on-year growth in their 3rd quarter results as part of businesses turning to them for support and are working with some of the largest brands.
Endava Chief Digital Officer, Justin Marcucci, discusses what he sees in terms of customer refinement and how the quick do-or-die processes from last year are being updated for longer-term success.
Philippe Humeau is the Founder of CrowdSec, an open-source multiplayer firewall that can analyze visitor behavior & provide an adapted response to all kinds of attacks.
In addition, it leverages crowd power to generate a global IP reputation database to protect the user network. Today, users come from 110+ countries, approximately block 700,000+ malevolent IPs by quarter, and the company also raised $5M in funding!
Phillipe has also received an MBA in Computer Sciences from EPITA, created five start-ups, and seeded 10 of them. Philippe joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the biggest issues currently facing cybersecurity and how open-source cybersecurity platforms combat them.
We discuss why multiplayer firewalls can help limit zero-day attacks and minimize cyberware from attempting to ‘divide and conquer’ businesses.
Philippe also shares how malevolent IP attacks are growing and how everyday users equip themselves to protect their data.
Every great idea starts with a problem. For Eric Johnson, it was simple: dental insurance was broken. The founder and CEO of membersy is a digital health company democratizing access to quality, affordable dental care through subscription-based dentistry. While building his career in the dental care space, Eric founded membersy in 2015 with the mission of helping dental professionals take back the dental care narrative from big insurance companies through pricing transparency and a personalized membership experience for patients. It became the first and largest subscription-focused company in the dental industry, providing Dental Service Organizations (DSOs) of all sizes with the tech, marketing, and administration infrastructure to launch and grow a modern membership experience.
Today, more than 4,000 dental practices and close to 1 million members across the United States utilize membersy's advanced subscription platform for a more personal and connected dental care experience. Eric shares the tech startup story behind the success.
In light of the recent Log4Shell vulnerability that has been dominating the headlines, I invited Asad Ali, Senior Director, Global Centre of Excellence at Dynatrace to join me on Tech Talks Daily. We talk about the longer-term impact this vulnerability will have on the way organizations handle their cybersecurity practices and the next steps they can take in the more immediate term.
Some organizations may not even know they are affected or which instances of the vulnerability are most urgent to address. For example, not all cases will be present in applications exposed to public networks and reveal sensitive data to malicious attackers.
We discuss why the dynamic and complex nature of today’s cloud environments has broken traditional approaches to application security. We also talk about how an AI-driven approach can help dramatically speed up risk and impact analysis of the vulnerability by automatically and continuously identifying and prioritizing instances that access critical databases or file systems in the environment. Finally, we talk about what to expect from Dynatrace Perform in February.
Anamarie Huerta Franc is the head of SAP Labs US in Palo Alto. Her charter for one of the largest software companies in the world is an ambitious one - to build a collaborative community across the thousands of developers working in the United States on SAP’s broad range of cloud-based software groups, which includes technologies such as Concur (expense management), SuccessFactors (human capital management) and Fieldglass (vendor management system). Hiring, motivating, and retaining employees has always been a challenge for software companies, but no more so than today when the demand for developers has never been higher and when companies are grappling with workplace and culture issues driven by COVID-19 and the evolving definitions and expectations of the workplace. One of Anamarie’s charters is to challenge the traditional corporate assumptions that community and culture can only be built in a physical office and determine how to balance flexibility and accountability.
As an example of Anamarie’s efforts, she led SAP’s hybrid workforce pilot program on its Palo Alto campus that involved 300 workers who put its new flex work model into practice. Teams worked in a hybrid fashion at home and in the office, using a new iOS app to help them utilize office space and have meaningful experiences when in the office. The program's goal was to determine the best approach to creating office spaces with high energy and high utilization.
After working at SAP for over a decade, Anamarie shares her story along with many interesting insights and experiences.
Recent reports show that DeFi exploits totaled $12 billion in 2021. Between this fraud spike, the social engineering attack at Robinhood, and the recent Google Play scam, it's more critical than ever that cybersecurity becomes an embedded part of cryptocurrency.
Tammy Kahn, co-founder and CEO of BTblock has a team of some of the best dedicated DeFi logic security analysts. Having performed cybersecurity code reviews of the software supporting major blockchain protocols, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano, she and her team continuously observe how significant an impact security concerns have on widespread adoption.
With crypto scams and fraud skyrocketing, Tammy discusses some of the core issues plaguing the industry in 2022. We talk about why until 'basic' users can feel their funds are secure, the adoption of crypto and other types of micro-investing will remain slower. Too much is at risk; people may not know the answer, but many know enough to be scared.
We also explore why we need more than cyber training needs to happen and why it needs to be built from the code up.
Hannes Bend is on a mission to improve mental health at work with technology. His work was inspired by when he felt disconnected and depressed until he discovered mindfulness. This moment led to him founding breahting.ai, which allows users to focus solely on where it belongs.
breathing.ai uses the webcam and machine learning to detect vital signs (heart rate and respiration) and stress and then adapts and personalizes the screen's colors, fonts, and UI to the user's wellbeing. Breathing.ai founder and CEO Hannes Bend developed award-winning technological projects with cross-disciplinary collaborations with top researchers and labs.
Hannes joins me on Tech Talks Daily and shares how he has worked with my mentor friend Wim "The Iceman" Hof since 2015 to develop pioneering AR biofeedback projects that inspired the breathing.ai startup and its technology.
I also learned how Wim's breathwork, in-depth meditation practices in Myanmar, and yoga transformed Hannes from decades of anxiety and depression to living healthy and happy. Finally, we discuss how breathing.ai develops patented machine learning technologies to adapt and personalize screens and audio interactions to each user.
Big Tech sees your data—your clicks, your online shopping choices, your browsing history, as the most valuable stuff on earth. Datacappy consists of independent developers worried about the sudden loss of online privacy. Digital insecurity and what’s been called “Surveillance Capitalism” are serious problems for our kids, ourselves, and you. And not a lot of people are doing anything about it. At Datacappy they see your data as yours. They think your clicks are your business. If your children want to research tigers and rocket ships, they should be able to do so without an unaccountable corporation using that data to build a profile of them and profit off it. I wanted to learn more about how they are helping users preserve their privacy, use the internet securely, and keep their information under their control.
Marco Bellin, the author of PrivacyParent.com and engineer behind Datacappy VPN (built on the open-source WireGuard), joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast in a conversation about the year ahead threats to consumer data privacy from more apps, advantageous data selling to malware via USB ports. We also discuss how the US is trying to catch up to its peers with a national data privacy law.
Peter Hurley is a world-famous photographer, an official partner of Canon and B&H Photos. He is also the creator of Headshot Crew, the world's largest team of headshot and portrait photographers. As a man who spins many plates, he also an inspiring TedTalks and has authored The Headshot - an in-depth book on the importance of a proper headshot and how to take the best shots possible.
More recently, he launched the first-ever photography-inspired NFT collection, Shabangrs. Named in honor of Peter's catchphrase, "Shabang!" the collection features 10,000 unique pieces that come with utilities and enter holders into giveaways, raffles, and more.
Ownership of Shabangrs NFTs will automatically grant you citizenship in Shabangrsville, a virtual city in the Metaverse. In addition, Shabangrs citizens will have access to exclusive lifetime perks and rewards as well as access to a flourishing community of the world's best photographers and creators.
Peter joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story that began by earning his stripes in the photography industry and why he feels that NFTs are the logical next step for the photography industry.
Allan Cole was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson's disease five years ago, at the age of 48. He subsequently started PD Wise, a blog and community hub aimed at telling stories, providing education, and building community among those living with Parkinson's and their loved ones. I wanted to learn more about how he was using technology to help others.
I quickly learned that Allan had published Counseling Persons with Parkinson's Disease (Oxford). He has two additional books that will be published this year, Discerning the Way: Lesson's from Parkinson's Disease and In the Care of Plenty: Poems (Cascade).
So I invited Allan Cole to the podcast to discuss Parkinson's, which is yes is progressive, and currently, there is no cure. However, there are lots to be hopeful for, and as this is a tech podcast, the role he sees technology playing in helping people.
The state of the global supply chain has hit the headlines recently, and it has dramatically impacted both businesses and consumers. This got me thinking about the challenges in the trucking/logistics companies and the most significant technical challenges for the transportation industry right now.
Wendy Greenland, CEO of Openforce, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to explore this topic with me. Openforce, the provider of technology-driven and insuretech solutions for transportation companies, offering onboarding, settlement, compliance and insurance services for managing independent contractor workforces.
Through the transparent and collaborative leadership of CEO Wendy Greenland, Openforce is well-positioned at the forefront of where technology and the shifting modern labor markets converge. According to a recent survey by MIT and Deloitte, tailwinds are driving the new world of work. 33% of companies plan to utilize a 1099 workforce in the next 18-24 months. Of those companies, 52% plan to implement a technology platform to manage them.
With vast experience in technology leadership and, most recently, transportation, Wendy provides a unique skill set to bridge the gap between companies and independent contractors–that only technology can do.
Wendy brings nearly 30 years of experience and leadership to Openforce, focused on developing and delivering technology-driven business services and solutions, providing outstanding client service, and driving profitable revenue growth. Within Openforce, she drives the organization's mission and creates a standard of quality to provide best-in-class products and services to our contractors and clients.
A recent Gartner survey revealed that nearly 80% of workers are using collaboration tools for work in 2021, up from just over half of workers in 2019. While many organizations relied on productivity platforms before the pandemic, the emergence of remote and hybrid work models has proven just how vital an all-in-one solution is to maintain workplace collaboration and efficiency.
ClickUp, the world's first productivity platform, recently announced they raised $400 million in Series C funding -- the largest funding round to date in the workplace productivity market. This funding puts ClickUp at a $4 billion valuation, which will be used to support the creation of 600 European jobs, a regional European HQ, and a new development center.
ClickUp's unique offering in the market has fueled their success as one of the fastest-growing SaaS startups in the world -- ClickUp is the only solution that replaces all individual workplace productivity tools within a single, unified platform. In less than 18 months, the company has raised $535 million in funding ($35M Series A in June 2020; $135M Series B in December 2020.)
In the last year, the company has tripled its revenue and grown its user base from 200,000 to 800,000 teams worldwide and has more than 85,000 paying customers, including teams at McDonald's, Booking.com, and Netflix to name a few. Zeb Evans, ClickUp founder, shares how he has taken ClickUp from a 50-person Series A startup to a $4 billion-dollar company.
Before launching this daily tech podcast and writing about technology, I was an IT guy. So I was the first port of call for any problems with Finance applications and upgrades to applications like SAGE in a corporate environment. The shift to digital-first accounting is seen as imperative by nearly all accountants – with new Sage research showing 99% of accountants are using some form of digital accounting.
Fast forward six years, and I will be talking to SAGE about their new product that accountants design for accountants, 'and it's called Sage for Accountants. It's a practice management suite that provides client onboarding, connected client management, productivity tools, data collection and intelligent reporting, bookkeeping, payroll, and compliance. The product applies to general practices of all sizes.
Chris Downing, Director of Product Marketing, Sage & Gerty Bester, Director of Product Marketing, Sage, join me on Tech Talks Daily to share their stories. They are both former chartered accountants. They will be discussing why they've invested so much time and resource into this new product, how they involved their customers in its development and how it can help accountants meet practical demands in a challenging marketplace.
Designed by accountants for accountants, I learn how Sage for Accountants is removing the friction from practice management by providing onboarding, connected client management, and productivity tools, truly digitized data collection and intelligent reporting, bookkeeping, payroll, and compliance.
We also discuss how by digitising business processes and relationships with customers, suppliers, employees, banks, and governments, the SAGE digital network connects SMBs, removes friction, and delivers insights. Knocking down barriers also means using our time, technology, and experience to tackle digital inequality, economic inequality, and climate crises.
With the announcement of the UK publishing its first AI Strategy - a ten-year plan fit to make the UK an AI Superpower - it will be to businesses' detriment to not capitalize on the power of AI and automation. However, with this rapid shift towards automation, one of the primary areas of value is often overlooked — enabling humans to focus on what matters and strategically control the acceleration.
Romain Picard, Vice President EMEA, of the recently acquired multi-billion-dollar enterprise data cloud company Cloudera, believes in a world dominated by robots, chatbots, drones, and other machine learning and artificial intelligence-powered technologies, the power of human touch is still relevant.
Romain joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his insight on why acceleration shouldn't run rampant without control. We also discuss how it is essential that, alongside automation, we form bold strategies that keep our focus on what's essential — human ingenuity. Finally, we talk about the ability automation provides for teams to bring their A-Game more, increase productivity and growth.
Maybe now is the time for businesses to reimagine their culture to one that uses automation to its fullest value and celebrates human capabilities at their best
Over the last two years, the lockdowns have seen adults flirt with burnout as they now find themselves permanently tethered to their office. Children have also experienced stress with masks in schools, being socially distanced from their friends, etc.
However, in a world where people of all ages are feeling stressed, I invited Liam Joe Blackwood from Stressbox on the podcast to discuss how technology contributes to stress and how it can also help relieve it. I learn how StressBox provides a psychological assessment and treatment service for individuals experiencing stress, anxiety, and other related difficulties.
In 2022 (and beyond), personalization is more important than ever. There is no room for broad, generalized marketing. Instead, customers crave and expect personalized experiences that subtly enable them to discover and find products they actually want. Data science is a powerful way to take personalization to the next level. However, it's not always readily accessible or actionable without engineers or data scientists.
Breinify is a personalization platform on a mission to democratize data science by finding ways to make predictive capabilities accessible to non-technical, yet data-driven marketing teams. Breinify's AI solution enables enterprise marketers to deliver predictive personalization in real-time and build more meaningful customer experiences. The platform blends traditional machine learning with temporal AI to predict a consumer's future interests, needs, and behaviors.
The algorithms enable dynamic segmentation and fully individualized personalization, which minimizes the manual involvement required from marketing and tech teams while producing top-tier results.
Diane Keng, co-founder, and CEO of Breinify, talks about democratizing data science, predictive personalization, and trends in this space to watch out for in 2022.
RackN Digital Rebar standardizes the full lifecycle management of your infrastructure, mitigating risk and taming automation helping you innovate faster.
Rob Hirschfeld founder RackN, an Austin-based start-up that develops software to help automate data centres joins me on Tech Talks Daily.
Rob has been in the cloud and infrastructure space for nearly 15 years and has done everything from working with early ESX betas to serving four terms on the OpenStack Foundation Board.
Rob believes that the technology of running data centers and applications on cloud is just part of the bigger story. We discuss why Rob believes developers often develop infrastructure incorrectly and why he is a strong advocate for lean/agile processes.
We also talk about the increasing focus on automation, the impact of open-source software, and its emphasis on agility and fast decision-making.
Organizations infected with the Conti ransomware affiliate programs malware who refuse to negotiate a ransom payment are added to Conti’s victim-shaming blog, where confidential files stolen from victims may be published or sold. But, sometime over the last 48 hours, US security expert Brian Krebs has reported that the cybercriminal syndicate has updated its victim-shaming blog to indicate that it is now selling access to many of the organizations it has hacked:
Ilia Kolochenko, Founder of ImmuniWeb and a member of Europol Data Protection Experts Network, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss why this new marketplace indicates that well-organized cybercriminals are not afraid of law enforcement agencies anymore.
We also talk about how criminals create mature, agile, and multistakeholder ecosystems similar to legitimate businesses and how cybercriminals are creating online subscriptions, free trials, and discount systems for recurrent customers to maximize their profits.
Finally, we explore the most significant challenges and what global governments must do to combat the issue or risk losing the battle to cybercrime.
Altruist is on a mission to make independent financial advice better, more affordable, and accessible. The company has built an all-in-one platform that reduces barriers for financial advisors to deliver great advice. As a result, advisors using Altruist can work more efficiently and substantially lower operating costs, enabling them to grow on their terms and help more people.
Adam Grealish offers an overview of the state of the financial advising industry and why there's a time and place for Robo advisors. But there's a growing need for human financial advice too.
About Adam
Adam Grealish's career is rooted in financial innovation. Through his work (formerly at Betterment and Goldman Sachs, and now at Altruist as Head of Investments), Adam has a unique pulse on the trends and issues shaping the wealth management and financial planning technology spaces.
Further, because Adam has assisted financial advisors for years in various roles, he has keen insight into how the industry has evolved and where it needs to go. Before serving as Betterment's investing lead, Adam was Vice President in the Fixed Income, Currencies, and Commodities division at Goldman Sachs.
Adam was responsible for structured corporate credit and macro credit trading. In addition, Adam was part of the quantitative equity portfolio management team at New York Life Investments earlier in his career.
This episode explores the Metaverse and bridging the gap between value and enterprise through video games with Alexander Fernandez, the CEO of Streamline Media Group. The independent video games group is dedicated to publishing / developing great games, cultivating diverse talent, and breaking barriers of interactive entertainment.
Alexander is a proud latinX entrepreneur passionate about bridging the gap between video games and traditional enterprise industries. He has grown Streamline Media Group from a modest gaming-focused startup to a global company with over 180 employees across three continents and various brands under the Streamline Media Group umbrella.
Alexander shares his valuable insights into the entrepreneurial journey and how he became successful at what he does. Next, we discuss how the Metaverse will impact business strategies in the next five years. Finally, we talk about the best ways to promote diversity in the video game industry and how he's established an innovative and multicultural environment for his employees.
Doron Gerstel, CEO, Perion, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Perion is a global technology innovator in the digital advertising ecosystem, providing brands and publishers with an opportunity to unlock lucrative growth opportunities. The company operates across the three main pillars of digital advertising – ad search, social media, and display/ CTV, representing a potential market of more than $300B.
Perion generates revenue from both demand and supply sides, and in the last year, they signed an agreement with Microsoft Bing to drive growth opportunities. Doron shares a recap of how adtech companies performed during the pandemic, what the end of third-party cookies will mean for advertisers, and how companies will adapt.
We also discuss how ongoing privacy changes will impact the adtech landscape and the importance of agnostic technology, and how it will help companies adapt to any changes in digital marketing.
In 2022, it’s estimated that $7.4T worth of B2C and B2B commerce will happen digitally, however, shoppers are now demanding a faster, easier, and more visually compelling customer experience. In response, brands are creating millions of images, but they are falling short. Whether it is photography that requires a physical product to be built or the impossible task of manually capturing thousands (or millions) of SKUs, brands rely on broken processes to create visual experiences and improve their operations.
Threekit, a leading developer of high-end visualization software that automates the creation of visuals and bridges the gap between the creative and commerce worlds. The company's visual commerce platform, which does not require prototype experience, engineers, or CAD artists, enables brands to create interactive, augmented reality (AR), and photorealistic 3D visuals and engage in lean commerce and asset-light manufacturing.
To date, Threekit visualized products have generated over $1 billion in sales for customers. TaylorMade, Duluth Trading, and Ciroc use Threekit because it drives a 40% increase in conversion, a 90% reduction in photography costs, and an 80% reduction in returns. Matt Gorniak, CEO of Threekit joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind Threekit.
Your smartphone will probably have several different apps to manage your finances, from personal bank accounts, bills accounts, credit cards, savings, and even crypto. But what if you could have a singular view of everything. Today, I explore the role technology can play in helping people reach their financial goals and how couples can work better as a team while still having their privacy and independence.
I have invited Katherine Salisbury, Co-Founder, and Co-CEO of Qapital, on the podcast. She founded the company with her partner George Friedman when they wanted a solution to provide a joint overview of all their finances and automate how their money moved to savings, investments, bills, and spending accounts.
Qapital is a new kind of banking experience that aims to empower people to maximize their happiness by saving, spending, and investing with their goals in mind. By blending behavioral science with technology, Qapital provides users with the tools they need to make managing money easy and fun.
It was the End of an era for BlackBerry as the company pulled the plug on support for its classic smartphones — 22 years after the device first hit the market this week. But what these headlines didn't tell you is that over 195 million cars worldwide currently use BlackBerry software.
BlackBerry IVY, developed in partnership with AWS, is the company's cloud-connected software ecosystem that equips OEMs to analyze vehicle sensor data and derive actionable insights. Blackberry revealed more about their smart car innovation at CES 2022.
Peter Virk, Vice President, IVY Product & Ecosystem at BlackBerry, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about the announcements at CES. We discuss how vehicle data can be turned into actionable insights and how BlackBerry QNX technology is integrated across the vehicle.
I learn more about how BlackBerry IVY brings together signals from various sensors across the vehicle and how configuration is then controlled via the cloud-based IVY console. Finally, we discuss how the IVY platform makes real-time AI decisions and the role of IVY "Buck": BlackBerry's physical car dashboard.
Desktop Metal recently appeared on my radar after reading how their technology is accelerating the transformation of manufacturing with 3D printing solutions for engineers, designers, and manufacturers around the world
Jonah Myerberg is Co-founder, Chief Technology Officer, and SVP of Global Engineering at Desktop Metal. He joins me on Tech Talks Daily to provide an overview of Desktop Metal, Additive Manufacturing 2.0, and how it is reshaping the future of mass manufacturing by leveraging digital factories. We also discuss how additive manufacturing can impact the supply chain, lumber shortage, sustainability, and how businesses expand into new fields like space tech and healthcare.
About Jonah Myerberg
Jonah Myerberg is responsible for leading the technical direction of the company’s 3D printing solutions and driving global engineering efforts. Before joining Desktop Metal in 2015, Myerberg held senior positions with various organizations focused on high-performance battery development, including Renovo Motors and Boston Impact, which he founded, and A123Systems.
At A123Systems, Myerberg established and led the motorsports business unit, which focused on developing high-performance batteries. His products were adopted by most Formula One teams, including the McLaren, Force India, Mercedes Benz, RedBull, and other high profile motorsports teams like the Porsche 919 team, which won the 24 hours of Le Mans in 2015 and 2016.
Jonah was also a race engineer for Porsche on the 919 team and the Mahindra on the Formula E team. Additionally, he helped launch Gradiant Corp., where he managed the deployment and operation of large-scale water desalination plants that converted fracking water into fresh water.
Cheetah Digital is a marketing tech platform that has collected over 2 billion data entries for brands including Arsenal FC, Hilton, BBC, Citibank, Vodafone UK, and the Postcode Lottery, McDonald's, Pizza Hut UK, Godiva, Urban Outfitters.
Richard Jones, CMO of Cheetah Digital, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about why smaller enterprise-specific marketing technology and unified data model platforms provide far more benefits for customers than those from more prominent players. For more than 20 years, I have learned how Richard has worked in technology, specifically, building marketing technology for the likes of Adobe, Oracle, and how he has been a CMO integrating martech to deliver business results.
We discuss the growth of customer engagement suites that ingest various kinds of data, batch data, streaming data, point of sale data, and weather data according to a businesses' requirements. We also talk about how companies can use machine learning and artificial intelligence to segment and analyze that data.
Finally, we discuss why leveraging the same data model with the customer engagement data platform at its heart is key if you're building software from the ground up.
Rich Nanda is a principal in Deloitte Consulting LLP, where he serves as the leader of Deloitte’s US Monitor Deloitte practice. He has significant experience in guiding clients through strategy-led transformation to achieve profitable growth. He routinely advises boards, CEOs, and executive teams at consumer products companies on topics spanning growth, business model innovation, operating models, capability building, analytics, and technology adoption.
Nanda has also co-authored a new book and sequel to The Technology Fallacy. The Transformation Myth takes a deep dive into how companies that use disruption as an opportunity for innovation emerge from it stronger, while companies that choose to weather the storm miss an opportunity to thrive.
All of this is especially noteworthy as the pandemic has disrupted business – yet many companies have emerged better-positioned than before and innovated in response to changing circumstances. As a leading expert in digital transformation, Rich discusses his experience guiding clients through strategy-led transformations and key findings featured throughout the book.
Baracoda Daily Healthtech has a strategic vision focusing on preventive healthcare in a digital environment. At CES 2022, the focus is on The Bathroom of the Future. With a focus on balance, posture, spine health, oral health as an indicator of systemic health and wellness, using predictive technology to alert you about changes in your skin, your heart rhythm, your risk of falling if you're a senior.
Healthtech makes it possible to monitor your wellness in a noninvasive way. And physicians have a way to monitor whether a prescribed treatment is working, all in a very non-invasive way. And for the first time – a thermometer that doesn't need batteries, so it's always ready when you need it while using minimal plastic.
Healthtech meets sustainability. One example of Baracoda using proprietary software to scale a product can be seen in the partnership with Colgate. Thomas Serval, the CEO, reveals more about Baracoda's Open Innovation model, which encourages collaboration to further the preventive health mission through the bathroom of the future.
We also discuss how Baracoda Daily Healthtech has received two Innovation Honors at CES 2022. The first award is for BBalance, the first connected product to use footprint recognition and merge medical indexes — posture and balance, weight, and BMI (body mass index). And the second is for bcool - the first thermometer to operate without batteries, combining healthtech with sustainability.
Finally, we discuss how their partner Colgate also earned an Innovation Award at CES 2022, For their new low-price smart toothbrush - Bringing the benefits of smart technology to the general population, as we all strive for optimal wellness.
Mobile DevOps company Bitrise recently announced Arpad Kun as its VP of Engineering and Infrastructure. In his time at Bitrise so far, he led the development of their new enterprise-grade platform, which increased the business's speed to app market by 50%, saving them time and money.
Now, Kun is scaling Bitrise's technology to support enterprises with an all-in-one platform fully. In addition, the platform will automate mobile app workflows, allowing organizations more time to concentrate on creativity, customer-centricity, and innovation.
Previously Arpad served as Chief Architect for Network Services at IBM Cloud and TPM at Facebook Infrastructure. Arpad shares his years of experience in the development space and discusses the importance of platforms that streamline workflows so developers can keep up with the growing demands of consumers and app stores.
In today's episode, Arpad shares his story and what is on the horizon for Bitrise and mobile app development as a whole.
Dublin-based climate action fintech is a climate donation app that empowers conscious shoppers to amplify their positive impact by earning free, personalized climate donations from their spending. Amplify partners with a network of sustainable brands, allowing their customers to earn a donation for a high-impact climate cause of their choice on every purchase, at no added cost.
Users choose a climate charity, securely link their bank card, and then 2% of each transaction they make with a sustainable brand in Amplify’s network is automatically donated to their chosen cause for free. Supported by Enterprise Ireland and approved by the world’s leading card networks, Amplify is setting out to transform the donation experience for sustainable brands and conscious shoppers, empowering them to amplify the climate action of every sustainable purchase.
David Beakey, Co-founder of Amplify, shares how they combine their passions for sustainability and technology to help conscious consumers transform the impact of their sustainable spending.
Assaf Gedalia is the co-founder of WalkOut, the developer of an autonomous end-to-end checkout platform that created a smart cart solution to provide an efficient, frictionless checkout.
This smart cart is an AI, computer vision-based solution mounted onto shopping carts in the form of a screen and cameras and becomes shoppers' personalized advisory board. WalkOut can identify every item placed in the cart with high accuracy, tally them up, and notify the shopper of an anomaly. That means knowing when an item is what the shopper is looking for, if it goes against a dietary need, or contains an ingredient that will cause an allergic reaction.
Walkout provides shoppers with a unique experience where all they have to do is walk in, place items in the cart, and walk out. Unlike other checkout options, the tally, bagging, and payments are all done on the cart itself.
Assaf Gedalia is the co-founder of WalkOut, the developer of an autonomous end-to-end checkout platform that created a smart cart solution to provide an efficient, frictionless checkout.
This smart cart is an AI, computer vision-based solution mounted onto shopping carts in the form of a screen and cameras and becomes shoppers' personalized advisory board. WalkOut can identify every item placed in the cart with 99.2% accuracy, tally them up, and notify the shopper of any anomaly.
So shoppers have prime convenience, and grocers can implement the affordable WalkOut solution that involves very little changes to the shop's environment and compete with the bigger players.
In today's episode, Assaf shares how technology upgrades traditional brick & mortar shops and improves the shopping experience. We also chat about why smart carts are the best integration for a shop and the benefits of in-store shopping compared to online \ delivery \and even Amazon GO. Finally, we discuss the intricacies of the different proprietary algorithms WalkOut developed to reach a 99.2% accuracy rate on product identification.
Casa is a US-based provider of Bitcoin security services, which enables users to have total self-custody over their crypto holdings, without the risk of theft or hacks like those experienced by exchanges. Bitcoin can be purchased through Casa and deposited directly into a user’s wallet on the service where they control the funds, without the company having custody over the holdings at any point.
Nick Neuman, CEO of Bitcoin self-storage startup Casa shares his view that despite sovereignty being the biggest issue in the Bitcoin space, it’s ultimately the one that’s being addressed the least. It’s not a technology problem or a process problem, but rather that the big challenge is how to make security technologies standard in an industry with an overall poor track record for keeping its customers’ coins safe.
Nick discusses the different Bitcoin safety solutions on the market that holders need to be aware of and why they should consider taking their coins off exchanges altogether. We also talk about why a wallet alone might not be enough and what questions investors should be asking of their Bitcoin partners to ensure they can always keep sovereignty of their coins.
Joaquin Viramontes, Director of Personalization at digital experience agency R2i, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. The seasoned expert in analytics, personalization, and all things data shares insights on personalization and why it's much more than a buzzword for marketing professionals.
R2i is a digital experience agency that creates digital solutions that connect and accelerate customer experiences to drive impact for brands. I learn more about their relentless focus on combining data, insights, and technology with creative design to drive engaging and high-impact digital experiences.
Joaquin shares how businesses can go beyond making a case for personalization to implementing a long-term program that shows ROI. He also explains a marketer's ideal toolkit of analytics and optimization tools that can be used to identify wins and optimal ways to invest time and resources.
Finally, we discuss how to establish a company culture of data-driven decisions and build excitement around the value that tech and data can bring to all decisions in every department.
In January 2021, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC)began administering blanket mechanical licenses to eligible streaming and download services (digital service providers or DSPs) in the United States. The MLC will then collect the royalties due under those licenses from the DSPs and pay songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers.
The MLC has built a publicly accessible musical works database, as well as a portal that creators and music publishers can use to submit and maintain their musical works data. These tools will help ensure that creators and music publishers are paid properly.
It is also striving to ensure songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers receive their mechanical royalties from streaming and download services in the U.S. accurately and on time.
In order to pay these royalties, The MLC utilizes a portal where creators and music publishers submit their musical works data, which is then matched to the appropriate monies. Therefore, the importance of getting the word out to self-administered songwriters and collecting the necessary data is paramount in ensuring that creators are being compensated for their work.
The MLC’s CEO Kris Ahrend shares insights from its first full year of operations and how it has already distributed more than $106 million in royalties to songwriters.
Grant McDougall is a marketing and advertising veteran who hit a tipping point in the agency space after working with brands like AT&T and Chevron. He started BlueOcean, an AI driven platform helping companies like Google and Microsoft track, measure, and compare their brand health to competitors using AI. The company also recently announced a $15M Series A funding.
As we all know, branding is one of the most critical assets for a company. It can significantly impact customer loyalty, stock price, employee retention, and other key metrics of success. So I invited Grant on the podcast to explore how conventional marketing agencies are not capable of giving their clients relevant and actionable information to outpace their competition.
The growing and future of consumer privacy compliance have allowed users to manage their data tracking, but this popular option has developed challenges for marketers across all platforms. We discuss how AI technology for data insight has become the core for services like BlueOcean who offer data input reports to help financial institutions.
Ben Brook's story started when he set out to find out what companies had collected his personal information - and he realized his data was nearly impossible to track, control, or reclaim.
Ben, who is now the founder and CEO of Transcend, raised 25M from Index Ventures and Accel, with participation from South Park Commons, Phil Venables (Board Member and former CISO, Goldman Sachs), and Dylan Field (CEO, Figma), just months after graduating from Harvard.
Since launching, Ben's company has successfully tapped into the swelling interest in data rights, privacy, consumer rights by helping customers such as Paetron, Indiegogo, etc., encode privacy across their tech stack.
Ben had a great idea - give people the rights to their data by making it easy for companies to deliver. With GDPR, CCPA, and 40 different state-level bills in the US pending, this is a major issue for businesses and almost feels like perfect timing. Ben shares his startup story on Tech Talks Daily.
Shiv Gupta, the founder of Incrementors Web Solutions, a Digital Marketing Agency, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. He shares his story, how he crafted his content marketing strategy, and how digital marketing, especially SEO, transformed his life.
We discuss what types of content businesses should be creating for their industry and how to repurpose content in different ways to make it last longer. Shiv also shares tips for your content that sells your products naturally or in a way that comes across as not pushy to the customer.
One of the traditions in the UK is to watch the Queens Christmas Speech on Christmas Day. I thought I would offer an alternative for tech fans where I look at where we are now and what the following year in tech will look like.
Whether it’s the concept of fold space in Dune, warp drive in Star Trek, or light speed in Star Wars, sci-fi creators and fans alike have always been intrigued by the idea of moving from one galaxy to another in the blink of an eye. Thanks to Hollywood, we associate the slow stretching of stars, streaks of particles drifting behind the exhaust pipes, and the silent rumble of engines with space ships - but what is the reality of space travel?
Daniel Bock, CEO & Co-Founder at Morpheus Space, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to dig into precisely what Hollywood gets wrong, how far off commercial space travel is, and what the industry needs to do not only to make it viable but to keep ESG at the core of it.
The space entrepreneur also shares his story and how he aims to enable a sustainable and safe future of our planet Earth by seeking new ventures and pushing boundaries. Morpheus Space is disrupting the NewSpace industry by introducing Agile Constellations, a fusion between advanced electric propulsion and Artificial Intelligence.
The solution package enables satellite service providers to operate entire constellations as one entity. Furthermore, with the support of its groundbreaking spacecraft electric propulsion systems, each satellite can perform countless orbital maneuvers, allowing the possibility of “objective first” mission planning with an automated trade-off.
All this provides the flexibility of satellite networks exploited by the A.I. to optimally morph the constellations to fulfill the user’s objectives, ranging from revisiting frequencies to observing moving POIs.
Overair Inc. - Overair is positioned to be a global leader in advanced air mobility. In August 2021, they announced the design of their revolutionary Butterfly – an all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for advanced air mobility. Butterfly is designed to be the most robust, efficient, and quiet aircraft in its class – a mobility workhorse that produces zero carbon emissions in flight.
Overair CEO Ben Tigner talks about Butterfly’s technology and how they want to change the way we live, work, and travel.
Embedded finance looks set to radically transform digital businesses and create a new benchmark for customer experience across multiple industries. According to Juniper Research, the embedded finance market will be worth $138 billion by 2026.
In the near future, embedded finance will enable digital businesses to serve SMEs and micro-entrepreneurs worldwide, helping them sell to their core offering and create diversified revenue streams by embedding payments, insurance, lending, and other financial services under the banner of their existing brand.
Innovative businesses are also expected to adopt embedded finance to overcome perennial challenges around handling payments across geographies, currencies, and differing regulatory zones. As a result, they will be able to offer fintech as a service to help clients implement financial services into their own business models.
Frederick Crosby - Chief Revenue Officer at NIUM, joins me in a conversation about the trend towards embedded fintech and how the Nium platform enables banks, payment providers, travel companies, and other businesses to collect and disburse funds in local currencies to over 100 countries.
About Frederick
Frederick is the Chief Revenue Officer at Nium, an advanced global payments platform redefining how consumers and businesses can send, spend, and receive funds around the world. Frederick leads the global Business Development, Marketing, and Communications teams that have helped inform and transform business models for banks, fintechs, and other platforms that needed new payment capabilities in this quickly evolving digital age, and that have made Nium one of the fastest-growing global fintechs in the payment space.
Frederick is a veteran in the cross-border payments and e-commerce space and has catapulted huge global businesses and customer bases at start-ups and enterprise companies alike.
In the early days of PayPal, Frederick unlocked the potential of cross-border e-commerce by aligning eBay/PayPal’s massive supply/demand, and providing new functionality for global buyers and sellers to transact. At Western Union, he led a team that transformed digital remittances into the largest growth engine at the company to attain the #1 position in all their global markets.
As CRO at Veem, Frederick joined a pioneering team bent on making global SMB bank payments into a five-minute affair. His sales and marketing teams built a network of over 170K SMBs around the world who could send and receive payments in a click, and the partnership team, in turn, brought the capability into the world’s largest small business accounting and e-commerce platforms.
Synergis, a globally focused technology venture capital firm whose existing investments include SMIC, WuXi AppTec, eSign, etc., launched its flagship Venture Fund I earlier this year. In addition to sectors such as SaaS, Biotech, and Consumer, the fund also has a dedicated Crypto/Blockchain strategy that has already allocated to six seed-stage funds and made one direct investment.
Synergis is set to launch Shanghai-based “Synergis LaunchPad” to assist portfolio GPs and companies in expanding founder-sourcing and community-building capabilities throughout Asia.
Jerry Shi is also a crypto evangelist and investor based in Toronto and New York. He institutionalized Synergis Capital with a strong team based on his differentiated model and track record with family assets and managed SPVs. I invited him on the podcast to learn more about his story.
The UK government recently launched data reforms to boost innovation, economic growth and protect the public, a year on from the creation of the National Data Strategy and a key step in its 10 Tech Priorities, which include unlocking the power of data. The proposed reforms aim to empower the ICO and businesses using data in innovative and responsible ways to benefit people's lives, in areas from healthcare to financial services.
However, a new report from data analytics leader, Qlik, into the UK's FS industry suggests that while AI and predictive analytics has huge potential in FS organisations, low trust and regulatory fears are still holding back their widespread adoption in the industry.
In fact, Only half (50%) of IT leaders FS organisations trust decisions made by predictive analytics solutions are without bias, 46% of IT leaders believe the regulatory burden outweighs the benefit that predictive analytics solutions could offer.
Richard Spiegal, BI Centre of Excellence Leader at Nationwide, and Adam Mayer, Senior Manager at Qlik join me in a conversation on the state of regulation and trust around data in the financial services (FS) sector.
We discuss how to tackle the issues laid out in Qlik's report, particularly around trust and regulation issues and the power of data analytics to help organisations build a data pipeline and democratise data in a safe, secure way with customers interests at heart.
I also learn how Nationwide is exploring analytics use cases across anti-money laundering, financial crime, risk management, and supporting human decisions, for example, by triaging and helping to prioritise staff caseloads.
A big thank you to the team at Feedspot for featuring Tech Talk Daily on their Best 40 UK Tech Podcasts list.
I recently discovered a Belgian company called Soda who focuses on data quality monitoring and testing. Think of it a bit like application or software monitoring which is now ubiquitous. Soda scans for issues caused by human error, firmware upgrades, schema changes, cross-platform integration snafus, bought data, or transformation bugs.
The aim is to automate, verify, and validate the flow of data from various sources and encourage collaboration between software/data engineers and downstream business decision-makers.
The big idea here is to eliminate so-called ‘silent data issues.’ These are the issues that bubble up (hence the name Soda!) further downstream having gone undetected in datasets. In an era when most companies are moving towards being entirely data-driven, ensuring data is of the optimum quality is critical.
I invited Soda CEO and founder Maarten Masschelein on the Tech Talks Daily to learn more. Maarten discusses why data quality monitoring is becoming a hot topic and provides examples of where bad data has caused serious problems. I also learn how Soda was listed as a data management Cool Vendor by Gartner.
It has been remarkable to witness the enterprise transition to the cloud in just a few short years -- but what is next? Multi-cloud networking is the new way for enterprises to manage applications worldwide for dispersed and remote users. Managing applications in the cloud - and through multiple cloud service providers (CSPs) -- can mean a host of benefits, including reduced latency, more affordable transit costs, and heightened security.
However, we are not there yet. Most organizations are still struggling with the complex networking infrastructures needed to achieve "a multi-cloud networking Nirvana." Ramesh Prabagaran, co-founder and CEO of Prosimo, recognized the opportunity for a newer type of infrastructure -- one that would provide enterprises a better way to network to multiple CSPs - a safer, less complex, and more affordable way.
As the former co-founder of Viptela, acquired by Cisco for $610 million in 2017, Ramesh is one of the pioneers in the SD Wan field - and is no stranger to overcoming serious networking challenges. Ramesh and his team at Prosimo have developed a single, vertically integrated infrastructure stack to deliver an application experience that balances performance, security, and costs across multi-cloud environments.
Just months out of stealth, the team has had early success with several enterprise customers, including Flexport, announced partnerships with Google Cloud, AWS, and Verizon, and was recently included in the 2021 Gartner Market Guide for Cloud Networking Software.
Multi-cloud networking is complex and not easy to do or even understand. Still, in today's episode, Ramesh breaks it down and explains it all in a language everyone can understand. He also shares his own story, which involves a series of successes and innovations.
The way we authenticate online is fundamentally broken. Technology has evolved significantly since the advent of the internet, yet we still rely primarily on passwords for authentication. Passwords pose significant security and user experience issues, negatively impacting both consumers and businesses. In addition, passwords are also responsible for the vast majority of data breaches each year.
According to Verizon's 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report, 81% of all breaches involve weak or stolen passwords. In addition to being insecure, passwords also introduce significant consumer frustration. According to a recent Google study, ~75% of users report feeling overwhelmed trying to keep track of their passwords. So it's no surprise that users often re-use the same password across sites to make this process easier, but it introduces its own risks.
Julianna Lamb, co-founder, and CTO of Stytch, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to explore this topic in more detail. Stytch is the first company that's built a platform for passwordless authentication so that any application or website can embed passwordless sign-up and login flows.
I learn more about the story behind Stytch. We also discuss how thousands of companies have used Stytch's software to eliminate password-based authentication's security and user experience shortcomings.
Consumers seem to begin their holiday shopping earlier each year. This year, it's likely that shoppers will start buying even earlier as supply chain shortages impact everything from popular toys to footwear and even coffee. So, how should retailers prepare for this shopping season?
For e-commerce retailers, website crashes or slow sites are all too common during holiday shopping, leading to frustrations for customers and potentially costing companies millions during downtimes on top of ongoing shortages. As a result, IT teams can become overwhelmed trying to ensure there are no disruptions for shoppers, but there is only so much they can do.
However, automating certain processes throughout the e-commerce workflow can help mitigate these issues and ensure customers don't feel any impact. And while automation is effective, many teams don't know what to automate to be most successful.
Ritu Dubey from Digitate discusses how retailers should automate workflows to relieve IT teams so that they can rest easy this holiday season, knowing that their customers are having a good experience.
Fernando Lucini, Global Data Science & Machine Learning Engineering Lead at Accenture, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss synthetic data.
We explore how privacy concerns and process issues are still holding businesses back from developing advanced analytics initiatives – and how synthetic data (artificially generated by an AI algorithm) might be able to help.
We discuss how the technology has potential across a range of industries. Synthetic data’s most obvious benefit is that it eliminates the risk of exposing critical data and compromising the privacy and security of companies and customers.
With synthetic data, a company can quickly train machine learning models on large data sets, accelerating the processes of training, testing, and deploying an AI solution. While the benefits of synthetic data are compelling, realizing them can be difficult.
Generating synthetic data is a highly complex process, and to do it right, an organization needs to do more than plug in an AI tool to analyze its data sets. We discuss how the task requires people with specialized skills and truly advanced knowledge of AI.
Dan Greenberg, president of Sharethrough, one of the world’s largest omnichannel exchanges, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Dan has his pulse on how businesses can ensure their ads get as many eyeballs as possible. In particular, Dan has thoughts on how our desire to read through feed-based visuals will inform how we interact with advertising in the future, particularly when it comes to TV.
Dan believes that the current, catalogue-style home page that most streaming services have adopted will become obsolete and that adapting to the way we consume other media through personalized feeds on channels like social will become the norm. In addition, with streaming giants such as Netflix reporting slowing subscriber growth, streamers need to find new ways to breathe life into their UX.
About Dan
Dan is the President of Sharethrough, overseeing market development and customer strategy. As the founding CEO of Sharethrough, Dan is a recognized leader in the industry and the Silicon Valley tech ecosystem.
Coming from a research background at Stanford in Behavior Design, Dan has been at the cutting edge of digital advertising since 2005, bringing together unique expertise in persuasive technology and native monetization.
Dan is the founding chair of the IAB Native Advertising Committee and has spearheaded the native advertising movement since its inception in 2011. Dan has been recognized as an AdAge “Media Maven,” Forbes “30 Under 30,” Inc “35 Under 35″, and AdAge “40 Under 40.” He is a regular speaker at advertising and technology conferences and contributing author for Forbes, AdAge, TechCrunch, and other industry publications.
White Shark Media is a digital marketing agency with more than ten years of experience managing pay-per-click campaigns with Google, Microsoft, and Facebook Ads. We provide custom PPC solutions and white label services to businesses, agencies, and organizations.
At White Shark Media, Daniel Alvarado helps organizations use technology to create meaningful experiences, simplify complex tasks and generate value for their clients. Daniel joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the best digital marketing strategies to implement in 2022.
We discuss why automating marketing allows for better personalization in your marketing content while also being time-efficient. By obtaining data and segmenting your audience, you have a better chance at engaging your product or service with customers to convert them faster.
We also discuss how making bids automatic instead of manual gives personnel more time to dedicate to other marketing efforts, and keeping business information up to date is critical as it can allow your business to achieve higher client acquisition rates.
Amira Learning CEO Mark Angel joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share how they are building a first-of-its-kind voice AI-based reading tutor for kids. With previous experience working at Nuance, which MSFT recently acquired for $19B, Mark's goal in developing Amira is to make every child a motivated and masterful reader.
I learn how they have raised $11 million to scale up with a new app and growing customer base. We also talk about how 'Amira & the StoryCraft' has been named one of TIME's 100 Best Inventions of 2021. Only one of three inventions honored in the Education category. The list features 100 products and services that change how we live, play, work, and think about the future.
Amira's Dyslexia Screener identifies students at risk of Dyslexia and other disorders. In longitudinal testing conducted by the University of Houston, the Screener missed only 1% of at-risk students. Finally, we talk about how Amira uses AI to generate the right reading intervention at the right time when an unproductive struggle helps create motivated and masterful readers.
Rob Carpenter is the CEO and Founder of Valyant AI, the first Artificially Intelligent "Digital Employee" to work directly alongside employees in customer-facing roles. For example, Valyant's AI "Holly" works in fast food restaurants to greet customers at the drive-thru post, answer questions and take food orders.
The revolutionary nature of this technology is that it pulls AI from being a hidden back-office tool to something that feels like a real staff member, which humanizes a brand's personality and brings the AI experience front and center to a physical location.
The major technological innovation of Holly is her Conversational AI. It allows her to speak with a human-sounding voice, to understand context, nuance and to be able to manage a free-form and wide-ranging conversation within the context of food ordering.
After five years of development Valyant AI now has paying customers, can deliver up to 20% average order increase and has begun rolling out with two restaurant chains that have a combined 5,000 locations. Much like self-driving cars, Conversational AI has had a long and bumpy road to deployment, but the technology is maturing, and Valyant is at the vanguard of this new era of customer service automation for physical locations.
Rob joins me in a conversation about the future of AI-human relations and its impact on the labor market - both positive and negative. We also discuss the developments in robotics and the commercialization of space travel.
At the end of 2020 Troy Gill, Senior Manager of Threat Intelligence at Zix, predicted in the 2020 Global Security Report that we would see attackers further personalizing and customizing their attacks this year. Over the last 8 months, it has come true over and over again.
One such attack lived up to this prediction. The phishing attempt was posing as certificate errors for the recipient’s website. What made it unique was it pulled their real certificate data and DNS (Domain Name System) A-record to tailor the phishing message to their domain. The payload URL also led to a credential harvesting site customized for their specific web platform admin page. While testing, we observed the generic WordPress admin login page and Shopify login pages (depending on the target).
Troy Gill joins me on the podcast to discuss the rise of personalized phishing attacks and what businesses can to do protect themselves.
Transaction Network Services (TNS) is a leading global provider of data communications and interoperability solutions. Its global network and innovative services enable transactions and the exchange of information to many of the world’s leading retailers, banks, payment processors, financial institutions, and telecommunication firms.
Founded in 1990 in the United States, TNS has grown steadily and now provides services to customers in over 60 countries across the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. Its reach extends to many more. TNS has designed and implemented a global data network that supports various widely accepted communications protocols and is designed to be scalable and accessible by multiple methods.
John Tait joins me in discussing the important role SD-WAN will play in enabling the next generation of connected payments and what it means for merchants and consumers. First, I learn more about how SD-WAN enables a retailers to securely connect a wide range of devices to their POS system.
This can be anything from ordering a delivery of milk directly from your refrigerator, to ordering new ink cartridges directly from your printer, to paying for parking, gas, or a car wash directly from your vehicle.
You can read more about the benefits of SD-WAN here: https://tnsi.com/infographics/tns-secure-sd-wan-the-benefits-of-mission-critical-payment-capability/
The digital workplace brings the potential for numerous world-beating solutions, but many businesses don't have the resources to find the perfect solution. That's where REPL comes in, drawing on years of experience in the technology sector to provide a solution that gets results for businesses.
Cerys Johnson took on the CEO role in 2017, after six years working for the company, firstly as Chief Financial Officer and later as Chief Operating Officer. Her in-depth knowledge of how the firm works have given her an unpreceded insight into how to guide the path of the company's growth globally. Her tenure as CEO thus far has seen REPL double in size, with a reported increase in revenue of 40% year over year.
With over twenty-five years of experience in strategic and digital transformation roles, she knows how to ensure that companies make the most of what they have. With her unique perspective driving the strategy and execution that spans all the aspects of REPL's business model, there has been a chance to impact product development, IT, marketing, and sales.
When REPL opened its doors in 2007, the aim was to enhance the capacity of businesses of all sorts. No one deserved to be left before in the technological age. This demanded an innovative approach that could scale easily and adapt effectively to suit the needs of different markets and industries. We discuss how this feels even more relevant today than 14 years ago,
When it comes to the technology sector, it's easy to get lost in the hardware that goes into making a success. Cerys also shares how they have achieved your success through working closely with people.
A divisive topic for techies is quantum computing. Although still in its infancy, many wonder if it can ever live up to its hype. We can expect these debates to intensify after IBM revealed its 127-qubit quantum computer, double the size of comparable machines made by Google and the University of Science and Technology of China.
I wanted to explore this topic further and found the perfect guest. Her name is Prineha Narang. She is the assistant professor of computational materials science at Harvard. She heads up NarangLab, where she and her team work on many of the most promising quantum computing technologies.
We discuss why quantum technologies and what it holds for consumers, engineers, developers in the future. We also talk about how to think about quantum technologies and their impact on a spectrum of applications/industries. Finally, we explore the limitations and benefits of quantum tech across computing, networking, and sensing.
We have all searched on a website, search engine, or even a podcast app to find this episode. But when that search function does not deliver, it can be nearly as frustrating as slow wifi. Algolia solves this problem with an API-first approach that allows developers and business teams to surface relevant content when wanted.
I wanted to learn more about how this tech satisfies the demand for instant gratification while also building and optimizing online experiences that enhance online engagement, increase conversion rates, and enrich lifetime value to generate profitable growth.
More than 10,000 companies, including Lacoste, Birchbox, Stripe, Slack, Medium, and Zendesk, rely on Algolia to manage over 1.5 trillion search queries a year – that's six times more than Microsoft Bing, 16 times more than Yahoo, and 50 times more than DuckDuckGo (four times more than Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Baidu and Yandex combined).
Bernadette Nixon is an entrepreneurial & driven CEO with a strong track record of growing and scaling global businesses and is focused on doing that at Algolia. Most recently, she led the company in a new funding round that resulted in the company closing $150 Million in funding and a new valuation of $2.25 Billion – almost QUADRUPLE the company's previous valuation.
We are currently right in the eye of the storm of the holiday season, and I find myself fascinated by how technology is raising our expectations from retailers. Everything from smart changing rooms, smart mirrors, and the evolution of virtual shopping via 3D, AR, and virtual try-on's highlights how much the industry has changed.
Zakeke is empowering brands and retailers to offer their customers live product personalization and 3D / AR View. Zakeke also integrates Visual Commerce Solutions online and offline to engage their customers with a rich and interactive "design-your-own" experience.
People are different and have unique tastes. As customers, they want to play a primary role in designing the products they use, configuring them according to their needs and preferences. Merchants are discovering the value of letting their customers create their own unique products and taking personalization a big step into mass customization.
Lou Leporace joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how Zakeke enables merchants to meet the increasing demand for customized products.
With Google's plan to delay killing third-party cookies until 2023, many businesses are breathing a sigh of relief that they no longer have to scramble to plan out their consumer data collection practices. However, as the world moves toward increased consumer data privacy measures backed by legislation like the GDPR and at the local state levels in Colorado and California, the death of third-party data is inevitable and businesses need to get ahead to succeed.
Alex Atzberger, CEO of Optimizely, shares why companies need to personalize based on the behaviors behind content consumption, even if the visitors are unknown. He also reveals how to build trust brands should do the following:
- Offer loyalty programs, as seen recently by McDonald's and Chipotle, where customers can receive points for purchases that translate into freebies later on
- Track the content your customers are engaging with to see what's resonating, even if the customer is anonymous
- Glean customer feedback on their preferred channels and ensure you're engaging with them, on ones they favor
We also discuss how Gen Z and Millennials start their shopping journeys on social media apps, but most leave the apps to purchase on 3rd party sites like Amazon.
As you all know by now, I am fascinated by how we have gone from a reactive approach to healthcare to a proactive approach where we record calories, steps, sleep, and heart rate to monitor our health. HGS AxisPoint Health is a technology-enabled care management services company focused on applying whole-person interventions to improve healthcare outcomes, reduce costs, and increase satisfaction.
Michele Kratz and SV Krishnan from HGS AxisPoint Health join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how health plans and providers are beginning to use a predictive analytics model known as "impactability" to more effectively address the multifaceted aspects of an individual's health.
There is a visibility problem within the tech industry as there is a large absence of female leaders and role models. The diversity gap among tech leadership roles is wider today than it was in 1984. A 2021 report found that 50% of women abandon tech careers by 35 and are leaving at a 45% higher rate than men.
AWIT was founded to address this representation gap in tech leadership roles by giving underrepresented individuals the resources they need to exceed, including mentoring, skills-based training, and advocacy. Nancy Wang shares the story behind AWIT.
In addition to being CEO and Founder of AWIT, Nancy pulls double duty. She is the GM of Data Protection Services at Amazon Web Services (AWS) — understanding first-hand what it means to climb to be a female leader within the tech industry.
We discuss all of these reasons represent the need for mentorship and continuing education for women and underrepresented individuals to have the right support to accelerate their careers to the next level. I learn how AWIT has recently created the industry’s first 1:1 executive mentorship program for MongoDB and teamed up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to release two online certification programs for Coursera.
Mike Potter is the CEO and Founder of Rewind, a leading provider of cloud backups for SaaS applications that help businesses easily back up and restore their cloud data. While Mike and Rewind have experienced tremendous growth and success, supporting over 80,000 organizations across the globe, this wasn't always the case. Mike weathered the failure of two companies to get to where he is today.
Mike knows the path to success isn't always glamorous. Over the years, he has learned to embrace the discomfort of pivoting or persisting. This point in growing a business is essential to its success and a founder's sanity. Mike shares his story on Tech Talks Daily.
We also discuss how to balance life and work while creating a company that people love, Tips for overcoming agency challenges and what it takes to build a $100M startup.
A new study reveals the remote patient monitoring industry (RPM) is expected to grow by 12.5% in the next ten years. And another study shows that almost half of healthcare providers believe that remote patient monitoring will be as prevalent as in-person monitoring within the next five years.
All this comes at a time when Apple also recently announced new heart and health monitoring features for their latest smartwatch. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, CEO and founder of Biotricity, discusses how RPM will continue to improve patient outcomes and why RPM tech is poised for rapid growth.
Waqaas shares his insights on whether wearable devices such as the Apple Watch can replace other devices for patients with heart conditions. We also explore what the future holds for remote patient monitoring technology.
About Biotricity
Biotricity is a medical technology company committed to improving healthcare by developing solutions that aid chronic disease prevention and management. Biotricity’s premier product is Bioflux, an ECG monitoring system that will be prescribed by physicians to diagnose and remotely monitor cardiac patients.
Biotricity is expanding medical-grade monitoring into the consumer market via its Biolife solution, which empowers users to self-manage chronic conditions. Biolife helps users make lifestyle changes by combining medically relevant ECG data with social media interactivity and a lifestyle log.
Biotricity’s R&D continues to focus on the preventative healthcare market, with a vision of putting health management into the hands of the individual. The company aims to support the self-management of critical and chronic conditions with the use of innovative solutions to ease the growing burden on the healthcare system.
There is a lot of talk around autonomous vehicles and electric cars right now, and I wanted to demystify this world. This path led me to Cyngn, a developer of innovative autonomous driving solutions for industrial and commercial enterprises that recently announced its partnership with Columbia Vehicle Group.
Lior Tal shares the story behind the company, the road to the partnership with Columbia, and current trends shaping the market. I also learn more about how Cyngn's autonomous vehicle capabilities are powered by DriveMod, an end-to-end solution that can be integrated with Columbia vehicles – or any vehicle.
DriveMod enables vehicles to switch easily between manual, remotely-controlled, and fully autonomous modes. Autonomous vehicle technology brings various benefits to industrial organizations by increasing efficiency, continuity and making it easier for workers to stay focused on their most mission-critical tasks. The pairing of Cyngn's DriveMod with Columbia's fleet of electric utility vehicles means material handling organizations can begin to implement autonomy today.
Dr. Chase Cunningham, CSO of Ericom Software released a techno-thriller book during Cyber Awareness Month titled "C:>_gAbrIel." This book draws on Chase’s real-world experience as a technologist and how cyber warfare, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence (AI) can be leveraged by bad actors.
Although fiction, the information in this book offers a glimpse at what can potentially happen in the future if these technologies remain unchecked. Chase’s background includes interacting with national security and intelligence communities, countering cybercriminal actions, and building and deploying secure systems to counter malicious cyber threats.
About Chase
Dr. Chase Cunningham primarily guides client initiatives related to security operations center (SOC) planning and optimization, counter-threat operations, encryption, network security, and strategic concepts and implementation. In addition, he helps senior technology executives with their plans to leverage comprehensive security controls and the use of a variety of standards, frameworks, and tools to enable secure business operations.
Chase has served as a director of cyber threat intelligence operations at Armor. He was the computer network exploitation lead for Telecommunication Systems and the chief of cyber analytics for Decisive Analytics.
Dr. Cunningham is also a retired U.S. Navy Chief with more than 20 years’ experience in cyber forensic and cyber analytic operations. He has past operations experience, stemming from time spent in work centers within the NSA, CIA, FBI, and other government agencies.
Chris Harris from Couchbase joins me in a conversation about the challenges that businesses continue to face with legacy technology. Using the database industry as a case in point, we discuss how business' legacy arrangements hinder their chances of being competitive in the post-COVID, digital-first world.
Chris argues that reliance on legacy database technology such as Oracle is holding them back from achieving their digital goals. We also talk about cloud and IoT to AI, and even 5G calls for a much higher level of data agility than legacy databases can provide.
In Chris' view, one of the key reasons businesses struggle to move away from legacy tech is skills; often and companies lack the resources to adopt more modern alternatives that are better suited to meeting digital transformation requirements.
Finally, Chris offers his thoughts on where he sees the database industry moving next, looking at emerging technologies that businesses increasingly demand, such as edge computing or real-time analytics, and explaining how the database industry is evolving to support them.
At Couchbase, they believe data is at the heart of the enterprise. They empower developers and architects to build, deploy, and run their mission-critical applications. Many of the world’s largest enterprises rely on Couchbase to power the core applications their businesses depend on.
Could the API revolution and the digital transformation be exposing everyone to security risks? An API is the connective tissue that binds together cloud-native architecture and enables us to enjoy digital services. While these are fundamental for the way we work and live, they're exposing organizations to a new domain of security risk.
Peter Klimek, Director of Technology, Office of the CTO at Imperva joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast in a conversation about the benefits, and pitfalls, of APIs.
Imperva is a cybersecurity leader with a mission to protect data and all paths to it. They protect the data of over 6,000 global customers from cyberattacks through all stages of their digital transformation. Their products are informed by the Imperva Research Lab, an international threat intelligence community that feeds the latest security and compliance expertise into our solutions.
Terra Virtua is the world's first fully immersive social digital collectables platform. Given your expertise in this area, I invited Jawad Ashraf, CTO, and Co-Founder of the company, onto the Tech Talks Daily Podcast.
Launched in 2016, Terra Virtua is on a mission to turbo-charge fandom - from art to sports, music to movies, games to comics - with the world's first fully immersive platform for buying, sharing, trading, exhibiting, and interacting with digital collectibles.
As the world has started shifting the digital realm – from working to shopping, entertaining, and connecting with friends and family Terra Virtua is at the start of using the internet as a virtual world. NFTs isn't an evolution of traditional collecting; it's a whole new form of entertainment.
I learn how Terra Virtua is revolutionizing the way people experience digital tokens, and it's the only place where fans can buy and own 2D, 3D, or animated collectibles. We also discuss how Terra Virtua ensures that the environment doesn't pay a heavy price for this game-changing technology and has just switched to Polygon – a new, energy-efficient, scaled blockchain solution.
Since launching, Terra Virtua has collaborated with numerous industry leaders, such as Paramount Pictures and Legendary Entertainment, to bring the best NFT content and collaborations to their platforms. The brand has big plans for growth and creating a whole new form of entertainment for its fans.
Firdosh Sheikh is the Co-founder and CEO of DRIFE, a decentralized Ride-hailing platform powered by blockchain to empower both the drivers and the riders without any existence of a central entity. Firdosh shares her powerful origin story that she calls 'the ride that changed my life.'
I learn why ride-hailing is crying out for innovation. Despite being a huge global market, drivers, riders, and ride-hailing platforms are all struggling. Uber still is not making profits. So one of the original big disruptive industries is crying out for disruption itself.
We discuss how DRIFE is breaking the vicious cycle of centralised ride-hailing platforms like Uber and the high commissions leaving drivers trapped with little to no profits.
Khaled Naim is Co-Founder & CEO of Onfleet a provider of last-mile delivery management software. Since its launch in 2015, Onfleet has grown to power millions of deliveries per month for thousands of businesses around the world. Clients include Gap, Total Wine & More, Capsule, Imperfect Foods, and United Supermarkets.
Onfleet's software provides advanced route optimization, dispatching, real-time driver tracking, proof of delivery, analytics and customer communications. Onfleet was ranked #124 on the Inc 5000 list of America's fastest-growing companies in 2019 and #13 in San Francisco Business Times' Fast100 list of the Bay Area's 100 fastest growing companies.
Khaled joins me on Tech Talks Daily and shares his story and how Onfleet's technology helps businesses streamline this onerous undertaking by efficiently connecting businesses, dispatchers, drivers, and deliveries to happy customers.
Scale is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital investment firm with $1.9B under management. They were early investors in SaaS pioneers like Bill.com (NYSE:BILL), DocuSign (NASDAQ:DOCU), HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS), JFrog (NASDAQ: FROG) and Root (NASDAQ: ROOT).
Today they are focused on the next generation of enterprise software companies building Cognitive Applications like: Comet.ml, Observe.ai, Techsee and Viz.ai.
Eric Anderson is a Partner at Scale Venture Partners, where he focuses on cloud infrastructure and security investments. He is a Board member at Scale portfolio companies Datastax and Upsolver and a Board observer at Matillion, BigID, Expel, Honeycomb, Tetrate, and AppOmni.
Before Scale, Eric led early Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services product teams. At Google, he was a Product Manager in the Data Analytics and Machine Learning group. He led the team that launched Cloud Dataprep and critical components of Cloud Dataflow. Previously, Eric built aircraft engines in General Electric's Operation Management Leadership Program.
Eric is a go-to resource on open source (he also moonlights as the host of the Contributor podcast) and has deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and app development and contributed to the deal teams for Matillion and BigID and more recent deals like AppOmni, Comet, and Upsolver.
I learn more about the early-stage VC investor that is focused on intelligent business software, and we discuss the trends he is seeing in the industry.
Blue Wireless was founded in Singapore in 2015 to solve what was missing in the market – a flexible connectivity solution and a provider able to guide enterprise customers and simplify their connectivity journey to focus on their business. Since then, it has grown its presence with offices across APAC, Europe, and the US. They serve 80 countries with LTE/5G connectivity and have doubled their customer base in the last year.
I wanted to hear about the story behind the company, and how they are transforming the way Global Enterprises use LTE/5G services, so I invited Ivan LandenFounder and CEO of Blue Wireless, to find out more.
I learn how founders come from a telco world. Hence, they know the faults and limitations of customer service, flexibility, and even connectivity (wired vs. wireless). Finally, we discuss the 5G boom and how enterprises are looking for alternatives to telcos and their challenges when it comes to connectivity.
In a recent viral video on TikTok, a Starbucks customer was waiting in a field for her Starbucks order to be delivered by drone. The video quickly garnered over 2.2 million views. (Video here https://bit.ly/30GQMCn).
So I tracked down the company and invited their CEO onto the podcast to learn more. Yariv Bash, CEO, and Co-founder of Flytrex, a leading on-demand drone delivery service in the food and retail space, shares his take on the future of drone delivery.
Drawing from his experience operating an on-demand drone delivery system since August 2017 and witnessing advancements in the space since Yariv discusses how technology and regulation have come together in recent years to create a viable framework for safe and secure drone innovation across applications.
Flytrex expects to gain airworthiness certification from the FAA in the not-so-distant future -- once that happens, the sky’s the limit. I learn more about Flytrex and its role in bringing about a future where drone delivery is the rule, not the exception.
Until recently, 90% of enterprise data was sent to the cloud. However, this number is dropping to only 25% over the next three years. By 2025, 75% of enterprise data is expected to be created and processed at the edge.
With edge adoption increasing in adoption, bringing in the power of 5G should also be considered for improving energy efficiency. 5G has a positive impact on edge operations as it allows for the installation of lower power but faster computational power, making it a more sustainable option. Furthermore, by integrating 5G and edge computing, enterprises can harness meaningful data to drive better business decisions around sustainability and reduce carbon emissions.
Chris Penrose, COO at FogHorn, a developer of edge AI software and solutions, discusses how 5G and edge capabilities drive sustainability, ultimately helping enterprises and communities achieve net zero emissions?
Rahul Singh from HCL Technologies discusses how covid has accelerated digital change in the financial services industry. Banks had to adjust in 2020, as the use of cash dropped off a cliff and mobile banking grew by 13%, while branches were forced to close overnight rapidly. As lockdowns were imposed without warning, some of the world’s oldest, most cautious organizations were suddenly forced to change – do nothing, and they would surely see a mass customer exodus.
HCL manages IT for Deutsche Bank, ING, and Metro Bank, so I asked Rahul to share his unique insight into the industry challenges faced during the pandemic. He also explores the three significant digital shifts that have occurred within the financial services industry:
1. An explosion in remote working. With existing ways of working, and the obvious privacy and security concerns, banking has been slow to adopt remote working compared to other industries. However, the pandemic made it a necessity – banks had to find a way to enable people to work remotely without damaging customer experience.
Rahul talks about the key areas they had to address: removing entrenched rule-based processes to accommodate remote workers and providing the required collaborative tools for employees to complete the necessary functions. He also discusses how recent announcements from HSBC and JP Morgan indicate this isn’t a temporary shift but a permanent change.
2. Pushing mobile payments to the top of the agenda. Paying through your phone was once a nice to have, but that all changed when the pandemic meant we had to avoid unnecessary physical contact – so chip and pin card machine use dropped. This meant banks had to speed up mobile payment roll-out and ensure mobile apps were reliable – they couldn’t risk letting customers down at the crucial moment. Imagine queuing for half an hour to enter a supermarket, loading your trolley with essentials, and then finding payment doesn’t go through when you arrive at the checkout…
Rahul says this meant banks’ contactless and phone payment options had to mature quicker than initially planned. IT projects had to be re-prioritized, with future-facing alternative payment projects now pushed front and center. The sudden introduction of new rules and directives, such as the FCA’s decision to increase the single transaction contactless payment limit to £100, also means banks must be prepared to quickly update payment systems based on directives at short notice.
3. Adopting public cloud computing at breakneck speed. Financial services have been one of the slowest industries to adopt the public cloud, with regulations and restrictions keeping FS out of the fast lane. However, banks had to dramatically speed things up when they suddenly had large remote workforces to support, requiring computing beyond the current capabilities of many existing on-premise or private cloud systems.
This led to many flexing their financial muscles to make a move and play catch-up. Rahul can explain how this move unfolded, with critical workloads shifting to the likes of Amazon and Google. He says that every bank around the world will emerge from the pandemic with a public cloud strategy, meaning it will become increasingly prevalent across the industry.
Companies are investing millions of dollars to digitally transform their entire operations. This involves deploying hundreds or thousands of applications. So if there’s a business problem like in sales or HR, there’s an app for it. Enterprises will spend half a trillion dollars on software this year alone— and they’ll spend nearly three-quarters of a trillion in 3 years (by 2024).
While software vendors are constantly delivering new features and improvements that enterprises continue to deploy, nobody focuses on software adoption. These actual people need to use the software for the digital transformation to be successful. That is why 90% of all digital transformation projects fail.
Dan Adika is the co-founder and CEO of WalkMe, a software company that recently went public on NASDAQ, explains that’s where WalkMe comes in. The company’s Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) enables organizations to measure, drive and act to maximize the impact of their digital transformation to improve productivity, humanize technology and drive more effective use of all of the software.
We discuss how WalkMe drives users to action as they use software or websites, providing step-by-step guidance without requiring the user to leave the screen, watch video tutorials, or read tedious manuals or FAQ pages.
DXC Technology and Qualtrics recently announced a new collaboration to make the Qualtrics’ EmployeeXM™ experience management platform a part of DXC’s Modern Workplace service solution. Blended with DXC’s Modern Workplace operational data, DXC will capture and integrate experience data from Qualtrics–how employees feel about their technology experience at work–to provide valuable, real-time employee sentiment to drive greater engagement and collaboration, and productivity.
Qualtrics research also found that employees’ technology experience plays a larger role in the overall employee experience, particularly as the digital workplace continues to evolve. Over 90% of CIOs believe the IT experience is essential when it comes to attracting and retaining talent and building corporate culture.
I invited Mike McDaniel back on to the podcast to talk about all this and also learn more about how DXC will be the first to use the Modern Workplace solution internally to transform the digital experiences for its more than 130,000 employees.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I want to explore three of the most common questions that I am asked on this show. How do I launch a podcast without the hassle of editing audio files and submitting them to all the podcast platforms? How do I get high-quality guests on my new podcast? And if you are a business leader, how can I get invited onto more podcasts as a thought leader in 2022?
Ryan Estes from Kitcaster joins me on the podcast to talk about all this and much more. He also discusses how to leverage podcast interviews to generate leads, validate new products, create new opportunities, and build brand awareness through personal connections.
About Kitcaster
Kitcaster books podcast interviews for funded start-up founders, entrepreneurs with exits, and C-suit execs. Get on-demand podcast placements scheduled for you by professionals.
All growing businesses run into the same fundamental marketing problems. Automated bots, fake news, rampant amateurism. The good news? kitcaster™ solves them. Podcasts cut through the gobbledygook and make fundamentally authentic connections.
Podcasts make business better. Where are you in your entrepreneur journey? Validation? Launch? Traction? Scale? Wherever you are, podcasts will take you further. They book you on top podcasts that speak directly to your ideal audience. These are your peeps – this is your influence. Podcasts are good for business and good for people.
Precisely is the global leader in data integrity software, providing accuracy, consistency, and the context in data for 12,000 customers in more than 100 countries, including 97 percent of the Fortune 100. Precisely's data integration, data quality, data governance, location intelligence, and data enrichment products power better business decisions to create better outcomes
A Survey of 300 chief data officers revealed that worldwide adoption of digital initiatives continues to accelerate despite significant data quality, integration, and enrichment challenges. Precisely and Corinium Global Intelligence ran the independent study of more than 300 C-level data executives in the U.S., Europe, and the Asia Pacific. One of the biggest takeaways was 82% of Chief Data Officers have data quality concerns.
Dan Adams, SVP Data and Operations at Precisely joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast and shares why businesses must rethink the path to trusted data as a foundation for digital transformation and business growth.
Useful Links
https://www.precisely.com/resource-center/analystreports/data-integrity-trends
https://www.linkedin.com/company/preciselydata/
Dan Wallace-Brewster, Senior Vice President Marketing at Scalefast, joins me in a conversation on the state of the retail industry as we continue to navigate more waves of COVID and face the upcoming holiday season.
Dan leads the content and lead generation engines for Scalefast as it accelerates an already-exponential growth curve. He has mechanized custom content throughput by enabling internal and external creative teams and focused messaging on defined ICPs and products in collaboration with sales leaders. Under his leadership, a new marketing technology stack has been deployed to ensure multi-touch attribution, maximum funnel velocity, and accountability for every B2B marketing investment.
About Scalefast
Scalefast is on a mission to change the way brands do direct-to-consumer eCommerce by empowering them to regain the control and simplicity they need to create an exceptional shopping experience directly from their online storefront.
By joining forces through the Scalefast Commerce Cloud, brands can deliver localized and personalized direct-to-consumer shopping experiences while leveraging the volume and data of an entire brand ecosystem.
Scalefast’s modern approach to eCommerce has generated award-winning success for their clients and has allowed them to become the fastest-growing eCommerce platform in the U.S. Its full-stack enterprise solution brings together a cloud-based eCommerce platform, global business services and an international footprint of logistics, payment, tax and business partners
The Smart Cube is a global provider of research and analytics solutions focused on CPG, retail, and life sciences. Nitin Aggarwal, Vice President of Data Analytics, discusses how to use data analytics to drive growth, including featured case studies/examples in retail and CPG.
About The Smart Cube
The company researches, analyses and addresses the needs of businesses in today’s intelligence age with tailored sector-specific solutions and Amplifi – their organisational platform, rich with knowledge, cutting edge tools, and advanced analytics – delivered by talented minds. Primarily serving the CPG, Energy & Chemicals, Financial Services, Industrials, Life Sciences, and Retail sectors, they work with a third of companies in the Fortune 100, helping them make smarter decisions, accelerate value and gain a competitive edge.
Gridware was founded by Tim Barat, a former lineman, who developed the company out of frustration with the immense shortage of information available to the people responsible for providing reliable electricity to our society.
Tim believes that this data shortage leaves grid operators forced to operate a fragile electricity grid to fail to identify problems.
While the symptoms of this problem present themselves in many different ways across the globe, he believes the most chronic symptom is the increased risk of wildfire ignition occurring throughout the west.
The company specializes in feeding real-time utility line tracking information to commercial and public utility companies to prevent wildfires and environmental damages due to powerline abnormalities.
Gridware combines a cloud-based system with several different sensors connected to utility poles to provide consistent updates of environmental, mechanical, and temperature-related statuses. The device runs on solar power and uses patented wireless and satellite technology to provide a detailed account of the powerline's health 24/7 to the grid operator in milliseconds.
Tim shares his inspirational story of going from an actual lineman to entrepreneur, trying to prevent issues and wildfires caused by utilities, and looking out for the safety of linemen with technology.
Free TON is a community-driven blockchain cultivating an open and free internet. I invited Alexander Filatov, Co-Founder, and Chief Executive Officer at TON Labs on Tech Talks Daily, to share how he oversees the development of Free TON, a community-driven blockchain underpinning an open and free internet.
In this role, he leverages his extensive corporate and VC experience towards fostering meaningful partnerships and communities to build a decentralized 'WebFree' platform.
Prior to co-founding TON Labs in 2018, Alexander held several Executive positions, heading three multibillion-dollar manufacturing corporations in the automotive, construction equipment, and oil & gas equipment industries.
After more than 20 years in the corporate industry, Alexander turned to the world of private equity and venture capital, in 2018 co-founding Industry 4.0, a diversified venture fund focused on exponential technologies, including blockchain.
At Moderne, they automatically identify and patch security holes in your code, freeing you to create, build, and make exciting new things. Olga Kundzich and Jonathan Schneider join me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss the downsides of cloud-native application development and maintaining modern applications.
It has become clear that modern cloud-native applications require a tremendous amount of maintenance to keep up with the constant changes to all of the components used to build them. This includes managing thousands of APIs and open source components. It is an enormous challenge for any size company, taking up to 30% of the development team’s time, which acts as a tremendous drag on innovation and software quality.
I learn how Moderne was founded to tackle this enormous problem. Moderne’s technology is based on OpenRewrite, a large-scale tool for code maintenance that Moderne co-founder Jonathan Schneider developed while working at Netflix. Moderne has picked up OpenRewrite and expanded its scope.
Jed Corenthal, the CMO of Phenix (real-time streaming technology platform) returns to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss their unique OTT technology infrastructure. I learn how it allows for streaming video as close to real-time as possible without sacrificing broadcast quality and scale.
We discuss their Syncwatch™ technology and how it ensures every user consumes the content simultaneously, regardless of location or connection. Trusted by Verizon, Racecourse Media Group, and many more, this technology helps avoid the ‘Spoiler Alert’ moment from a game lagging behind other streams/broadcasts.
We also talk about how this technology allows for the 21st-century sports viewing experience through gamification and interactivity, such as offering ‘Watch Together’ features, in-game trivia, etc. Finally, Jed shares examples of interactive fan experiences and accurate game-day streams.
Here in 2021, Figma is a web-based design platform used by Uber, Deliveroo, and Bulb that's challenging the likes of Adobe and Sketch. Forget Unicorn status after Figma has received significant VC investment and also has a heavy-weight $10BN valuation. But what is the story behind Figma?
Pierre Berlin shares the story and Figma's ambitions for growth in the UK and beyond, including expansion plans, hiring plans and new tools on the horizon, and the critical milestones made in the region to date. We also discuss reinventing remote collaboration and empowering diversity in design.
I learn more about the new business model of design, how it's accelerated during the pandemic, and why design differentiates brands across every sector. We also discuss the USP of web-based tools which are enabling true remote collaboration across all locations, operating systems, and platforms – and why diversity is so important.
Jay Kulkarni founded Theorem in 2002. Over the last 12 years, Kulkarni has been the driving force behind the company's extraordinary expansion.
Theorem works with top brands and publishers, including Tory Burch, Pandora, Roku, News Corp, Hearst, and the New York Times, to operate as a true extension to their in-house teams and support their overall business goals and marketing strategies.
The company recently announced plans to challenge traditional working models by creating a flexible, full-service marketing solution offering. In addition, the company consolidated all its deep strategic talent into one Consultancy team while also expanding its six global operations teams to focus more on client servicing and delivery.
Jay expands on the idea of the "flexible" working model, how the business ecosystem is evolving, and unpack what it means for the future of business. We also discuss how today's publishers, brand marketers, and advertisers can better leverage the marketing cloud and programmatic tech to rise to the next level.
Mongolia, a country of untapped mineral wealth, has become a target for the most advanced mining technology, but it does little for indigenous people. At erxes, they are working hard to prove that Mongolia can do better than trying to dig its way out. They believe in the untapped brilliant minds of young people who can start leading the way in the IT Industry on a global scale.
It can be daunting to live in a world where everything is shifting, especially how we communicate. With apps like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, WeChat, and Instagram, consumers are communicating daily and on the go more than ever. This means that businesses need to keep up. But it doesn’t have to be so hard.
erxes Inc is the second generation of tech entrepreneurs in Mongolia. With over eight years of experience, they are proud to be a part of the pioneer movement to bring forth their country on the global stage.
Nauren Batjargal, co-founder and COO of Erxes, shares the story behind the fully open-source growth marketing platform. We also discuss open-source vs. closed and proprietary.
Once the pandemic hit, stores became vulnerable, and retail headquarters began sending out 3X the amount of information to stores. Hy-Vee, L.L.Bean, Fjällräven, Sephora, and American Eagle Outfitters became customers during the pandemic, among others.
People in the retail trenches created zipline. They have been there and know the execution struggle inside and out. This is not technology for the sake of technology. This solution was designed to truly help people (brands, operators, communicators, and stores) achieve their goals by a team that truly knows the grind, barriers, and struggle of achieving them.
Their goal is to enable all customers to be the best version of themselves: every day, in every location. Melissa Wong, CEO & Co-Founder of Zipline, shares the inspirational tech startup story behind the company. She shares how they are helping a c-store be speedy, efficient, and contact-less.
Jason Illian, Managing Director of Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), the venture and investing arm of Koch Industries, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Artificial intelligence, blockchain and crypto, bio IT and genomics, and industrial robotics are just a few segments being explored by KDT.
Since 2003, Koch has invested $133 billion in growth and improvements and has spent $30 billion on technology investments and acquisitions in the last six years. I learn how Koch’s “Creative Destruction” philosophy guides the company’s bets on transformative technologies that will bring long-term success to itself and its partners.
Jason shares real-world examples of technologies that KDT has invested in and how Koch has learned from and empowered different technologies. We explore how KDT’s role is to partner with entrepreneurs who are creating a “could-be” world, which includes investing in technology companies that disrupt and transform Koch’s core businesses and expand into new platforms and capabilities.
As organizations begin to envision what the return to the office will look like – or in some cases, have put their plans into action – they have the unique opportunity to reimagine the layout and feel of their space. While the nature of on-site work has changed significantly since the start of the pandemic, the office still represents a prime forum to inform, engage and entertain employees and visitors.
After spending so much time working remotely and away from their colleagues, workers want to feel more involved and connected with their counterparts and employers than ever before. While there are many ways to go about this, we're seeing more businesses turn to technology to create experiences employees and visitors will remember and take pride in.
Barco designs and develops visualization and collaboration solutions for a variety of selected professional markets. Piet Vanhuyse, Barco's global segment marketing director for large video walls, shares his insights.
Are data privacy and compliance laws at risk of becoming speeding tickets for major enterprises? Progress from governing bodies like recent bipartisan data privacy bills in the US or the EU's new focus on unethical AI are all steps in the right direction. But recently levied fines and pushback against new regulations suggest compliance will not enforce protection so much as force companies to budget for its existence.
Talend's Talend's CISO, Anne Hardy, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about data compliance. Anne shares her belief that there is an opportunity for both big tech and government regulators to set a precedent for good compliance and regulation. We discuss how outdated attitudes towards personal consumer data collection can lead to compliance breaches.
We also talk about how international tech giants can turn compliance into teachable moments for smaller and burgeoning companies dealing in data and why compliance regulators need to focus on smaller companies and not just those offering major payouts.
Clark Lagemann is Co-CEO of Avidon Health, a platform for employers and healthcare providers to offer wellness and healthcare-related courses to help individuals improve health outcomes.
Clark joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss how technology can help employees who are struggling with substance abuse. According to a recent survey, the pandemic has exacerbated substance use for employees. Among workers struggling with addiction or substance abuse issues, more than one-third say it has affected their work more since the pandemic began. Unfortunately, many employees are afraid to say they need help.
They may end up leaving the workforce altogether or suffer in silence as their work deteriorates––and they may experience safety risks if their job entails driving or using heavy machinery. So what can employers and companies do to help if they don’t know their employee is struggling?
Fortunately, technology can make a difference for individuals needing to make a change and Avidon Health takes a different approach to online coaching through a hybrid approach
Murali Palanisamy, chief solutions officer of AppViewX, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. He shares why machine identity management is critical for today's enterprises and share some of the latest findings from AppViewX and Vanson Bourne's The Next-Gen Machine Identity Management Report.
The report explores where the current machine identity market stands, the challenges and opportunities for organizations today, and what has been the true impact of sub-optimal digital identity management.
Some of the key findings:
- 61% of organizations don’t hold full awareness of certificates and keys across their digital assets
- 67% believe managing certificates is too complex
66% lack of skill sets within IT/security teams to properly manage digital identities and certificates - After implementing a machine identity management strategy, 51% of enterprises have strengthened security credentials and 41% have reduced outages due to certificate expiry or human error
About Murali Palanisamy
Murali is responsible for the overall product vision, development and technical direction of AppViewX. Prior to AppViewX, he was a Senior Vice President at Bank of America, where he was leading the e-commerce application delivery’s architecture and engineering team. He also served as VP of Architecture and Product Engineering for Merrill Lynch, where he designed and developed automation and integration solutions for servers, application delivery controllers, IP services and networking.
Fyma was founded by Karen Burns and Taavi Tammiste. They have created an AI platform that easily plugs into most retail, city, urban, and CCTV cameras, transforming your standard camera feed into deep insights into objects, people, and bahaviours in real-time.
Use cases include The London LegacyDevelopment Corporation, using AI to keep building the Olympic park legacy; major retailers and shopping centres; the Dutch GranPrix; European city governments; urban planners and event spaces.
It's more ethical - the AI is trained to not recognise faces, ever, in the training and deployment stages of AI, so there's no risk of facial/racial profiling. And, Fyma does not store any camera feed data, only the metadata.
For businesses, it's good for unlocking data, getting new insights to create more tailored retail experiences, loyalty schemes, offers, etc., to improve in-store revenue. For venue owners and urban planners, it means getting the insights to adapt and create more accessible, inclusive, and efficient spaces.
For citizens and consumers, it's all about protecting privacy, avoiding data being misused, no racial or facial profiling. Fyma is pushing ahead with AI learning in new ways and focusing on other things (movements, weather, gender, age, etc.).
Taavi Tammiste, CTO and co-founder of Fyma joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share the story behind the company.
Gary Goldberg is an entrepreneur and third-generation textile scientist who has combined his passion and unique knowledge of the craft with a relentless entrepreneurial spirit to disrupt the way sports leagues, teams and schools design and purchase customized gear for today’s young athletes through his B2B and B2C business: SquadLocker.
The company has grown phenomenally in recent years and raised $20 million in a Series C funding round in 2020, one of the largest institutional funding rounds in Rhode Island in recent years.
SquadLocker leverages a sublimated printing technology that has allowed the company to circumvent the recent strains of the supply chain by dyeing fabric entirely through the printing process, and not relying on shipments of particular fabric colors to fulfill orders. They’ve also utilized a more streamlined production process so that orders can be placed directly by individuals rather than through coaches or school administrators, allowing for a better customer experience and direct shipping of goods (which became more important during the pandemic when social distancing was broadly recommended).
Gary is also extremely passionate about the impact of mentoring when it comes to helping today's young athletes reach their full potential. He also believes coaches, teachers and mentors are the unsung heroes in the fabric of America's youth and has launched a podcast which dives deeper into the topic called On The Whistle.
We're entering a savings account crisis where millennials' uninvested cash will lose over $18.5B to inflation in 2022 alone. Investing is imperative. Did you know that the average portfolio of 25-35-year-olds consists of a broad range of assets, including stock, crypto, shoes, cards, whiskey, private equity, and more?
I am fascinated by how people are turning away from savings accounts and 1% interest rates and turning to alternative investments. Firma is an investment platform built to support new generations of investors with different goals and behaviors than their predecessors. They offer public and private securities across asset classes so users can build a comprehensive and well-balanced portfolio.
Anna Roubos shares how Firma helps investors manage and keep their portfolios healthy by providing access to tools and opportunities typically reserved for institutions and the ultra-wealthy. I also learn more about the technology that makes all this possible.
The automotive industry is in transformation. Whilst the sector has made huge strides to reduce its environmental impact, pressure to do more increases each day. The result is an engineering design process that is orders of magnitude more complex than anything faced before.
Secondmind is on a mission to help automotive manufacturers navigate the increasing complexity of engineering design in its transition to electrification. The technology is underpinned by years of award-winning, practical machine learning and artificial intelligence technology to design cleaner cars, and achieve greater sustainability.
Gary Brotman, the newly appointed CEO of Secondmind joins me on the Tech talks Daily Podcast. We discuss how the role of technology will continue to increase as automotive manufacturers move away from creating hardware to software. Gary also shares how AI/ML technology will gradually lead to new approaches like digital twinning and simulation-led manufacturing with AI/ML technology at the forefront.
We also talk about the future of automotive and the transition to green will be a multi-decade journey for the industry. It’s a complex problem facing the industry on the road to greener mobility beyond fuel emissions. But Gary reveals how Secondmind’s technology is helping automotive brands prepare for this future.
Jake Athey, VP of Marketing and Customer Experience at Widen Enterprises, provider of digital asset management and product information solutions, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. We discuss the value of digital asset management (DAM) as part of core brand and marketing channel strategies and the technology that makes it all possible.
We also talk about how effective management and efficient use of content is critical to maximizing return on marketing investments, ways to ensure brand consistency to increase revenue and drive customer retention.
Hoyin Cheung, founder, and CEO of Remo left an online meeting and couldn't shake the feeling that he couldn't connect with people in the same way he could connect with someone in the real world. Worse yet, he noticed time and again that social media had become anti-social.
Hoyin asked a simple question: What's stopping us from cultivating online relationships that are every bit as deep, meaningful, and enriching as relationships that develop in-person? From there, he set out to transform the experience of connecting, communicating, and collaborating with people across the globe by "humanizing" online interactions.
Remo Conference helps creators, coaches, and event organizers create immersive online events! Users can learn and connect with each other, just like in real life. The platform allows people to have face-to-face networking just like in-person events, building meaningful relationships and conversations.
Hoyin joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story. We discuss how we can use technology for authentic conversations that build meaningful relationships. I also learn how Remo is leveraging technology with his online interactive events platform that connects people more authentically.
Everyone has talked about how much the world has changed in the last two years. But today, I want to explore how our home internet expectations have increased. Wi-fi is now fundamental to every aspect of the family home. In some cases, doorbells, lighting, heating, 4k streaming, online gaming, and a long list of smart devices are all hungry for a slice of bandwidth.
Research from Zen Internet recently revealed that 75% of people are unaware microwaves could interfere with their internet connection, and one in seven regrets not switching broadband providers over the last year. I invited Paul Stobart on the podcast to learn more about the report.
We also discuss how Zen is the first broadband provider to go Net Zero by 2028 – meaning it will remove more carbon emissions from the environment than it generates. I also learn more about why Zen has also been awarded the Cisco Powered SD-WAN Service accreditation for its SD-WAN solution.
Finally, we talk about how CityFibre, with help from Zen, is extending its infrastructure to 216 additional towns and villages across Britain – delivering gigabit-speed broadband and ensuring everyone has access to full fiber.
Amnon Mishor is the CTO and founder of Leadspace, a leading B2B Customer Data Platform. He has designed and deployed innovative global data & AI solutions for some of the world's largest B2B tech organizations such as Zoom, Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, and more.
After successfully designing and deploying world-class technology to aid the military in catching terrorists, Amnon saw an opportunity to apply data and AI in another industry where leaders cannot afford to "fail": B2B enterprise software. He shares his experiences from his time heading up the Intelligence Systems and Data Mining Department of the Israel Defense Force's Technological Intelligence Unit.
In 2010, he founded Leadspace to help Silicon Valley's biggest enterprise companies take full advantage of customer and prospect data — their most valuable business asset. Have you ever wondered what the vaccine rollout teaches us about AI and big data? Amnon Mishor believes there are key takeaways for B2B marketers.
In this podcast, Amnon shares expert opinion as a data technologist to expose what the vaccine rollout teaches B2B companies about big data, AI and more. We also discuss what's wrong with applying big data solutions to small data sets - and how to get it right.
Anudit Vikram, former board member of the IAB Data Center of Excellence and Chief Product Officer, MediaMath joins me in a discussion about consumer privacy (amid Amazon fines), Google’s FLoC (which recently wrapped up the first phase of testing), and addressable/scalable identity solutions to replace third-party cookies.
Anudit explains, “While there has been a flurry of activity preparing for the demise of the third-party cookie, the pushback around it and signals from the EU hinted that it would not be smooth sailing for Google, so, ultimately, it’s not a complete shock that the timing changed. There is no question that first-party data performs better, and that the quality of third-party data is questionable, but that is not the only factor driving transparency. Transparency to the actual user – what we call addressability – is directly affected too.
To continue the momentum of creating a more transparent supply chain, industry leaders must continue work around the activation of first party identity options and creating cohort-based solutions. As far as next steps for the industry, marketers, advertisers, publishers and the like should use this time to start working with first party identity solutions and perfect the stack they will use, while still being able to leverage the scale provided by third-party cookies.”
Modern banking hasn't changed since the 1400s, when financial institutions were established by Machiavelli’s Medici family in Florence, Italy. Since, the power has long been in the hands of the intermediary. We've been at the mercy of market fluctuations and currency volatility.
Today, with the rise of blockchain, the power is shifting. As Rob Frasca, Managing Partner at Cosimo Ventures and a holder of ndau, the world’s first adaptive digital currency, states, "This is the single largest value creation event in our lifetime, because we’re moving to a more resilient networked approach to value and trust exchange.
It’s a borderless resilient value exchange, putting financial control into the hands of the people. Consider this: less than 50% of people in the world have a bank account. Yet, 75% of the world’s population have smartphones. More than 50% of those who have smartphones have prepaid accounts. We now have the technology to allow 75% of the world to have true cross-border banking. It’s a personal property, a personal finance revolution: owning the property rights to your money versus bank control."
Frasca discusses what this seismic shift means and dives into the realities of market volatility and the benefits of owning your savings for the long term.
MuleSoft is a trusted integration and API platform provider that can empower any company to quickly unlock and integrate their apps and data to create connected experiences faster. Paul Crerand joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss the IT and Business Alignment Barometer report findings.
Highlights from the report include:
Significant hurdles preventing automation: Security and data governance issues, along with data siloes, are hindering automation initiatives for more than 70 percent of organisations
Security concerns slow the pace of innovation: the majority (87 percent) of IT and business leaders say that security and governance concerns are slowing down the pace of innovation
Seeing eye-to-eye? Almost nine in ten (87 percent) reported that IT and business alignment has improved over the past 12 months, suggesting there are opportunities to overcome security and governance challenges and enable faster innovation
Disparate systems remain a key challenge: almost three quarters (73 percent) of organisations say the integration of disparate systems has increased their concerns around data security and governance – 34 percent say it had ‘significantly’ increased concerns
Empowering non-technical users key to creating connected experiences: The vast majority (86%) of organisations agree business outcomes would improve if business users were able to use low or no code to securely connect apps and data on their own to create connected experiences
We discuss the technological and operational challenges organizations face in achieving their business priorities. We also talk about what is behind these results and what businesses should take away from them.
Valeria Kogan, founder of the agritech startup Fermata built a scientific career in bioinformatics and worked as a hired employee in Gero (a Singapore-based longevity biotech company) for more than five years before founding her agrotech startup Fermata. The next-generation farming tool uses AI-based technology to provide farmers with precise monitoring of their greenhouses, preventing 30% of the harvest loss and reducing the monitoring time by 50%.
Valeria Kogan joins me on the podcast to talk about how crop and livestock monitoring applications will hold a significant market share from 2020 to 2025. Fermata offers an integration within weather data, irrigation, nutrient, and other systems to improve resources used and boost output by more accurately identifying deficiencies.
We discuss enhancing data quality in the ecosystem, and the potential use case for data in agriculture. Massive data volumes of mapping, variable rate seeding, soil testing, crop monitoring, and crop rotation must be stored and managed correctly as successful farming relies entirely on it for assessing the conditions and improving regular operations. At the same time, it is pretty hard for farmers to develop and fulfill data storage from scratch: that's where intelligent technologies are needed!
The COVID-19 pandemic brought the importance of timely, detailed, and comprehensive data to the forefront. To help curb or prevent the next pandemic, many leading institutions are actively discussing how global data-sharing could be established and governed to detect the risk of future pandemics and disease outbreaks more quickly.
One company at the forefront of this new, collaborative approach is HSR.health. The health tech firm has successfully adapted its ‘Health Risk Index’ to improve pandemic emergency response efforts with hyper-focused risk indices that nations and public health agencies have adopted worldwide.
Ajay Gupta, CEO of HSR.health, reveals the many benefits of health-focused geospatial analytics in aiding pandemic response and mitigating future risk.
The world of consumer goods is changing for the better – and technology is at the forefront of this transformation to answer demands for a more sustainable and ethical supply chain.
CEO of Farmer connect® Michael Chrisment has already helped secure $9 million in a Series A investment round for the platform that uses blockchain to track the lifecycle of coffee and chocolate. He now continues his mission to transform the agriculture supply chains by cleverly connecting farmers to consumers and everyone in between.
Michael joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the importance of traceability. He also shares his insights on the company’s vision and the future of the industry. We recorded the episode on World Coffee day. So, we also discuss the importance of supply chain traceability and why coffee/cocoa companies should be transparent in their product journey
farmer connect® is a platform that allows consumers, farmers, and retailers to have insight into the complete supply chain of the coffee and chocolate products, using blockchain-based on IBM technology, self-sovereign identity, and artificial intelligence. It connects the user to farmers, traders, roasters, and brands. Its rapidly growing roster of clients and industry partnerships already includes some of the world’s biggest coffee brands, such as UCC coffee, HEMA, and Massimo Zanetti Beverage.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the fastest-growing part of the AI industry. But it's is often overlooked by the media and misunderstood by the general public. RPA allows businesses to automate necessary processes, whether invoicing or data entry, without investing in lengthy and costly IT systems.
While businesses and organizations like the NHS are already using RPA, many still view RPA simply as a threat to their jobs. The reality is that RPA is transforming how businesses function and the workforce of the future will be hybrid with human employees managing extensive team of digital workers.
Blue Prism pioneered the concept of RPA, and Eric Tyree, their Head of AI, explains how RPA is already transforming how businesses work and what the workforce of the future will look like together. Eric also discusses how accessible AI and RPA are becoming, as systems are increasingly designed to be understood and used by everyone – not just IT or tech professionals.
Eric Tyree biography
Eric Tyree is the head of AI at Blue Prism and is an expert in the commercial application of AI and advanced analytics with over 20 years’ experience in related product and technology leadership roles. Eric has led the development of a wide range of data driven products and services in travel, consumer analytics, HR, pensions & insurance, portfolio management, algorithmic trading, retail banking and equity exchanges.
Eric is experienced in building and leading high-performance organizations and has worked with a wide range of companies ranging from some of the largest corporate institutions in the world to start-ups developing from the ground up.
Before joining Blue Prism, Eric was CTO and chief data scientist for the data division of CWT where he was responsible for data products, personalization and data driven revenue management. Prior to that Eric was chief data scientist at Capita Plc responsible for new data products and services. Eric has also founded and/or advised a number of startups while serving in a range of senior AI/data science, product and technical roles.
About Blue Prism
Blue Prism has operations globally and is currently listed on London’s AIM stock market. It has grown fast from around £50m when it listed in 2016. They have a great long-term perspective on the industry and its evolution, with a global client base – including EY, Jaguar Land Rover, Siemens and Google.
One of the big reasons I record this podcast every day is to try and feature as many voices and tech communities from around the world, NOT just silicon valley. So today, I am excited to take you on a trip to Bulgaria, where Hristo Borisov, Co-Founder & CEO of Payhawk, discusses how and why fragmentation in fintech is coming to an end.
Payhawk is an all-in-one integrated finance platform for businesses, combining credit cards, payments, expenses, cash management and pre-accounting into one platform to give businesses maximum control and visibility over their spending. The company is London founded and headquartered, with Bulgarian roots, and recently raised $20m from Klarna's investors QED. Its customers include the likes of Zenloop, Nexo, and Telus.
Due to Payhawk’s technology, the average finance team saves 2-3 days of work each month and broadly speaking, a customer with approximately 100 expenses per month can save an extra $3,540 per month on average when switching from manual processes to Payhawk.
We discuss how Payhawk reimagines how payment works (by simplifying and automating processes and building an end-to-end experience). We also talk about how banks and fintechs could coexist in the future? (working together rather than against them).
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We now have employees recruited, onboarded, and working daily without ever meeting their teammates in person. So how do we bring everyone together and make them feel a valued part of a team well? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore how technology can help develop and train teams to innovate even when employees are working from home and the office.
When a team is stuck in its comfort zone, growth and innovation are dead in the water. But a tech company believes that nothing inspires a new mindset more than adventure. But most teams can't drop everything to climb a mountain.
At Vestigo, they are bringing the adventure to you: VR experiences that force employees to let go of fear and think differently, designed to help remote teams level up from fear to bravery, enabling radical innovation and adaptability. For example, Vestigo’s AltspaceVR experience unites teams in an unforgettable Mt. Everest expedition.
Marshall Mosher is a world-record-holding action sport poly athlete, tech futurist, and host of the Inside the Adventure podcast. As the Founder and CEO of Vestigo, he’s bringing his passion for adventure into the digital world by building the future of virtual reality adventure by digitally recreating the world’s most inspiring and daunting adventure environments.
I learned how his recent VR team programs include work for enterprises and businesses like Microsoft and the CNN Emerging Product & Platform team. Marshall has tapped into something with his business as he evaluates how tech teams are tapping the power of virtual reality to harness their fearlessness to innovate and work together.
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In the wake of major breaches over the last few months, organizations across industries are re-evaluating their cybersecurity strategies, with many realigning priorities to ensure their security team and technology solutions can meet the needs of an evolving threat landscape.
Mark Logan, CEO of LogRhythm, talks about the importance of the CSO reporting directly to the CEO. Mark explains why this reporting structure demonstrates the value a company places on cybersecurity as an enabler of business performance at a time when cyber breach headlines are top of mind for the public and maintaining trust is crucial.
Cybersecurity is now a board-level initiative for all companies, not just those in the software and security spaces. We talk about why enterprises that do not get on board with this shift in organizational structure that brings CSOs to the forefront could lose out on key talent.
Perhaps more concerningly, they also stand to see a weakening of consumer trust and business value, especially if the organization ultimately experiences a damaging breach because security was not prioritized.
Mark discusses how this reporting structure fosters trust among consumers and future business partners that security and data privacy are taken seriously and given the highest priority within the company.
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AVID empowers media creators with innovative technology and collaborative tools to entertain, inform, educate and enlighten the world. For example, AvidPlay, Avid's subscription-based, independent music distribution service, now allows independent artists and labels to distribute their Dolby Atmos tracks directly to Apple Music's Spatial Audio.
Apple Music is the latest streaming service with the largest user base to receive Atmos tracks directly from AvidPlay. In addition, the distribution service has delivered immersive audio to Amazon Music and TIDAL since 2020.
Avid is the only provider of both music production tools and an independent distribution service where Dolby Atmos tracks can be made and delivered from the same setup. AvidPlay makes it extremely easy for artists and labels to distribute and monetize the music they're creating with Pro Tools, Avid's industry-leading,
Rob D'Amico joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his lifelong passion for audio and production informed his position and goals at Avid. I learn more about AvidPlay: what it is, who uses it, and details about the audio formats and quality it enables artists and producers to work with, as well as details about how compensation, splits, and fees work with other independent distribution services in the market.
Rob shares a few use cases to illustrate how AvidPlay works and a detailed description of the process from production suite to streaming services. We discuss why today's creators need AvidPlay; the opportunities it provides artists, labels, audio engineers, and how AvidLink fosters community amongst users by enabling feedback and questions.
We talk about how an artist can start using AvidPlay and make the most out of the service, along with how customer demands and feedback are informing future offerings.
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As “the Great Resignation” continues to rock companies across industries (recent surveys say 37% of workers are thinking of making a move) it’s more important than ever to listen to employee feedback and take real action to improve employee retention. However, mining rich, actionable insights from thousands of employee comments has always proved a daunting and incredibly time-consuming task until now.
Samer Saab, the CEO of Explorance, shares his story and the path that led to him starting Explorance 18 years ago. He discusses the three foremost challenges facing the industry today – recruiting, retention and inclusion. We also talk about machine learning has proven beneficial in helping address these issues.
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It feels like every aspect of our lives is dominated by tech. It also makes our lives easier in so many ways. But when we lose a loved one, it seems that tech and innovation are absent. Suddenly at a time when you don't want to speak to anyone, you can be thrust into endless calls to arrange a funeral, flowers, closing accounts, removing names from mailing lists, and so much more,
Empathy is removing the taboo on death while providing information to help families navigate the logistics of losing a loved one. These are just some things technology excels at, like navigating logistics. Empathy’s app combines technology and human support to streamlines end-of-life bureaucracy, minimizes tedious tasks, and automates processes involved in the administration of an estate while also providing emotional guidance.
It's a sensitive topic, and today I learn more from Ron Gura about how the collaboration of humans and technology can help when we are trying to go through the grieving process.
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Pete Knowlton, Senior Director of Operations for Ghostery, rejoins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss data tracking, specifically the new (terrifying) channel of email tracking. Pete is a privacy expert who leads US operations for Ghostery, a privacy intelligence platform with over 7 million monthly active users.
Pete focuses primarily on web tracking and how little bits of code can get ahold of your data when you're using Google or another browser. However, as more people have become wary of online tracking, Ghostery has found that email trackers are becoming more prolific, and most people don't know how to protect their data in their inbox.
Pete shares what email tracking is and how to prevent it in a language that everyone can understand.
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Etherisc is developing a protocol for decentralized insurance applications. We use blockchain technology to make the purchase and sale of insurance more efficient, enable lower operational costs, provide greater transparency into the industry.
Christoph Mussenbrock shares how Etherisc is on a mission to make insurance fair and accessible through its open-source, decentralized insurance protocol and collectively build insurance products on the Ethereum blockchain. Since its launch in 2016, the Etherisc protocol has been reimagining insurance solutions to democratize the process in the interest of the consumer.
Etherisc is currently working with ACRE Africa on the Bima Pima crop insurance product, which offers farmers weather index insurance policies to protect them against climate-related risks for their crops. This crop insurance is more affordable, fairer, and more transparent than the traditional insurance solutions available to farmers to protect their livelihoods in case of extreme weather events fueled by climate change.
Other projects currently hosted on Etherisc’s open-source Generic Insurance Framework include Flight Delay Insurance, Crop Insurance, Social Insurance, and Hurricane Protection.
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Degoo is an experience-driven cloud provider offering 100GB of free, secure storage with an AI-empowered interactive display that helps users re-discover their best, stored memories. Designed in the bursting Swedish startup scene, Degoo’s platform offers users a place to securely store and uniquely experience their photos and memories anywhere in the world.
With Degoo, users will never run out of space for their photos and have protection knowing that running out of storage space or a broken phone no longer equals the loss of your favorite photos. In addition, Degoo is available across operating systems and on the web, meaning that users will never be without their memories.
Degoo is constantly innovating and improving their product, having recently released AutoAlbums, which uses AI to create albums of similar photos - whether they are taken during the last year or are photos of basketball games or specific landmarks.
Carl Hasselskog joins me on the podcast and discusses how Degoo has watched competitor after competitor acquired by Google Photos, making it one of the few challenger brands left on the market. He also shares how Degoo has navigated the changing landscape of photo cloud storage.
Andre Leibovici and Anil Kumar join me in a conversation where we explore the Citrix Security Stack and Citrix Ready Security Ecosystem.
The guests discuss how expensive it has become to recruit security professionals and how businesses can turn this challenge into an opportunity. They also talk about retiring legacy VPNs, Zero Trust, monitoring, and analytics to measure your security improvements.
Useful Links
Citrix Ready Workspace Security Ecosystem: https://citrixready.citrix.com/program/workspace-security-program.html
Citrix Secure Access solutions: https://www.citrix.com/solutions/secure-access/
Mike Betzer, CEO of Hypergiant, joins me on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast to chat about how artificial intelligence is actively solving some of the world’s biggest problems, both on earth and in space.
From powering carbon sequestration machines with algae and fighting climate change to building out the infrastructure for an internet on Mars, artificial intelligence undoubtedly has the capacity to do good. As an enterprise AI company, Hypergiant is genuinely in the trenches developing these groundbreaking technologies – just ask companies like NASA, Boeing, and Apple, all of which are turning to Hypergiant for new and improved AI solutions.
Hypergiant Industries is an enterprise AI company focused on developing world-changing technologies to solve the world's biggest problems in the areas of space, defense, and critical infrastructure. Hypergiant offers a suite of AI services, software, and solutions that support companies and governments in preparing for the future of AI.
Mike discusses how artificial intelligence impacts space innovations, defense solutions, infrastructure improvement, climate solutions, and how tech and AI can shape the future.
Since 2014, RAKwireless has delivered simple but powerful tools that eliminate barriers in IoT connectivity and empower people to build a smart future. RAK's continuous development of these IoT solutions empowers innovators and commercial enterprises to build the right environment for their property.
The brand has held partnerships with some of the world's leading tech players such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Microsoft. In addition, they regularly partner with academies, schools, and organizations supporting young people working to build a better, more innovative future through IoT devices. But after hearing how they recently secured $10M in Series A funding, I invited Jose Marcelino, Solutions Architect at RAKwireless, on the podcast to learn more.
Despite global manufacturing and supply chain disruption, the renowned producer of IoT tools, hardware, miners, and software tools has seen tremendous growth. We talk about RAKwireless, the relationship with Helium, and how the miners work.
We discuss the People's Network, what it represents and why the 'builder community is so important to RAKwireless. We also talk about how to mine the Helium cryptocurrency tokens (aptly named HNT) and how it allows people to create passive income. Finally, we talk about why this is such an exciting time for RAK fans and other young folks who love to 'tinker, create and build new devices and ideas?
Killian Brackey is the CTO at Sezzle, a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) payments tool working with global brands like Discover, Target, Lamps Plus, GameStop, Barstool Sports and more.
Over the last few years Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) has exploded in popularity, especially during the peak of the pandemic when online spending saw record levels. Now that stores have fully reopened across the country, consumers are looking to get a fix of the in-store shopping experiences.
However, many still want to have the option to finance their purchases with BNPL payments platforms. Additionally, BNPL will only improve the touchless experience at the register, with tap-to-pay tools, improving the overall contactless experience.
Killian discusses what Sezzle is doing to move the needle on that front with its own tap-to-pay technology, as well as Apple’s move into buy now, pay later, whether big tech is set to take over the space (and why that may not be a good thing for innovation), and more.
People relied on the internet more than ever before throughout the pandemic, doing everything from ordering groceries to keeping up with critical health updates online. However, for millions of people with disabilities, only 2% of all websites are accessible, making navigating the internet nearly impossible.
This is where accessiBe comes in, using proprietary technology to make websites usable for people in the disability community. As a web accessibility hub, accessiBe provides different AI-Powered solutions for testing and remediating web accessibility and various professional services to create an inclusive web and help businesses comply with web accessibility standards and regulations, i.e., WCAG and ADA.
accessiBe's full suite of web accessibility solutions enables businesses of all sizes, from solopreneur to large corporations, to participate in global inclusion efforts and make their websites available to everybody, regardless of ability. accessiBe's founding team has deep domain expertise in the field of web development and accessibility services. It has developed the technologies in close partnership with users who have vision impairments or blindness, epilepsy, motor impairments, cognitive dysfunctions, and other disabilities.
I learn how their technology helps businesses meet ADA and WCAG 2.1 compliance within 48 hours and as low as $49/month.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS) continues to dominate the blockchain landscape in 2021, with Ethereum moving closer to its 2.0 upgrade and PoS consensus, as well as other major protocol launches this year using the consensus mechanism.
Tushar Aggarwal, CEO, and Founder of Persistence, an ecosystem of next-generation financial services designed to stimulate global liquidity, has been a long-term advocate for PoS blockchains.
A former Podcast Host for Decrypt Asia and Venture Partner deal sourcing for blockchain and crypto startups for Outlier Ventures, Tushar has extensive expertise across operations, investment, and management consultancy in the financial technology and blockchain industry. Prior to founding Persistence in 2015, Tushar worked as a Principal at blockchain and cryptocurrency fund LuneX Ventures.
The experienced entrepreneur and investor, Tushar was awarded a place on the renowned Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list in 2021 for his work in finance and venture capital. As CEO of Persistence, Tushar is aiming to bridge the gap between legacy finance and decentralized finance via a fully interoperable protocol and evolving ecosystem of services purpose-built for seamless integration across blockchains.
As a recognized thought leader on DeFi, staking, and interoperability, he shares his insights on several developments in blockchain including, Interoperability in blockchains; the importance of a self-sovereign network of blockchains. We also discuss Blockchain network governance on Eth2.0 and liquid staking and how to stimulate locked assets. Finally, we discuss unlocking mass DeFi adoption through better tooling.
The UK’s plans to explore its own central bank digital currency (CBDC) is a testament to the increasingly mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies and the realization of its potential to truly revolutionize the way we move money around the world today.
Rishi’s Sunak's recent announcement claimed that a Britcoin could tackle some of the challenges of popular cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin – i.e., from a regulatory and volatility point of view. However, Joe Baguley, VP, and CTO, EMEA at VMware believes the chancellor must also consider the sustainability cost of introducing Britcoin en-masse and how it could foil the government’s green ambitions due to the unjustifiably high environmental burden of cryptocurrencies.
Joe joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about the fundamental mistake the founders of bitcoin made by building the cryptocurrency on a proof-of-work blockchain which consumes an incredible amount of energy. We also discuss why we cannot unpick the environmental problems proof of work blockchains have caused by plugging renewable resources into powering them.
If the UK considers its own CBDC seriously, it must learn from the industry’s early mistakes and ensure that it is green by design. We explore what building a more sustainable blockchain ecosystem would look like and the role that VMware will play in a new future of work from any device, location, and time.
Now in its 18th year, Cybersecurity Awareness Month continues to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. So what will you be doing differently this year? Will it be switching to a password manager? or adding MFA to your email and social accounts? Alanna Gilson and Eric Due from Robust Network Solutions join me on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily in a discussion about how to improve your security hygiene.
Robust Network Solutions is a premier IT consulting firm headquartered in San Mateo, CA, that specializes in providing proactive services to many professional firms in the San Francisco Bay Area. Specializing in Microsoft, VMware, Cisco, Citrix, HP, IBM/Lenovo, network buildouts, technology projects, mobile technology, remote access, enhanced security, disaster recovery, improved network performance, helpdesk support.
About Eric
Eric Due works as a Senior Engineer at Robust Network Solutions. He helps provide business planning and implementation to bring digital services that align with business needs. He has over 25 years in systems and business implementation. Alongside his design skills and startup experience, he brings a wealth of perspective. Focusing on people and reducing risks, Eric is passionate about aligning solutions with business goals and ensuring IT is a positive experience.
About Alanna
Alanna has worked in the digital media tech industry for more than 20 years. With experience in global web and mobile app monetization, inventory management, and internet fraud, the seasoned tech business development executive is also passionate about advancing cybersecurity and cyber-Training for Businesses and their Employees.
In addition to business development/IT consulting, she is also involved in digital marketing, virtual/experiential events, and digital content development. Outside of the office, Alanna enjoys her work as an accomplished artist and spending time with her family.
Liftoff is a performance-based mobile app marketing and retargeting platform, using post-install user data to run true cost-per-action user acquisition and re-engagement campaigns.
Traditionally, marketers pay for each click or app download when devising a mobile ad campaign, regardless of whether new customers spend money in the app. Liftoff changes this model by only requiring marketers to pay for advertising when a person completes an action or spends money in an app.
Powered by machine learning and lookalike targeting, Liftoff's campaigns drive actions beyond the install, securing only the most engaged users for its customers.
Mark Ellis, CEO, and co-founder of Liftoff joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Mark has made community and culture a core tenet of Liftoff's work, eschewing the toxicity that's rampant in fast-growing Silicon Valley businesses and aiming for impact beyond revenue alone. This approach has been integral to building Liftoff's global, high-performance mobile app marketing platform that's attracted customers like CBS Sports, Amwell, Lifelock, acorns, and many others.
The last three years served as another great stretch for Liftoff as the company had explosive growth with over 400% increase in revenue from 2017-2020. With Mark's leadership, Liftoff cemented itself as an industry leader, creating an alliance of mobile marketers focused on promoting good-business practices in a dynamic sector. This community-first approach has come to define Mark's successful tenure and sets him apart from his peers in the tech-startup world.
Industries like insurance, finance, and media have all found impactful ways to apply symbolic AI and deep/machine learning to common pain points when taking unstructured language data from documents, social content, and emails. By extracting sentiment and the deeper meanings of words that only humans can do, language can be turned into data, and actionable insights for a wide range of use cases can be drawn from it.
Walt Mayo, CEO of expert.ai, the natural language processing AI company trusted by The Associated Press, Dow Jones, Gannett, and other top brands, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. We discuss how combining a symbolic approach to AI with machine learning can form an innovative hybrid model.
Walt talks about the difference between symbolic AI and deep learning/machine learning and what kinds of use cases are typically applied together. We also discuss the strengths of each and what organizations can gain by combining them. Finally, we discuss how a hybrid approach addresses the "black box" problem in AI; and scaling existing human biases.
Dean Guida officially launched enterprise software company Infragistics in 1989 when his small start-up of 10 people went head to head against Microsoft for a $300k deal with Philadelphia Conrail—and won.
Dean has since scaled the company to 250 employees across six countries, including a 75,000 square foot headquarters in New Jersey, without accepting outside funding. As a result, the company now boasts a client roster that includes 100% of the S&P 500, including Intuit, Exxon, and Morgan Stanley. And this year, Dean launched Infragistics’ $50M Innovation Fund and Lab to encourage entrepreneurism within his own company.
Dean joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share his entrepreneurial journey and how he has navigated Infragistics through its 30+ years in the tech space. Infragistics has thrived through major economic recessions, tech bubbles, and bursts. Dean reveals how the company survived – and saw success –during even the most challenging times.
Dean also shares why he never accepted outside funding and how he bootstrapped Infragistics to, the multi-million dollar global company today, without ever taking VC funding. We also discuss how their Innovation Fund works and creates freedom for internal inventors to experiment with innovations beyond its core UI/UX products without an immediate need to generate revenue.
Integral Ad Science (IAS) ensures ads are running exactly where, when, and how you want — no ifs, ands, or bots. They help protect brands and save their cusotmers from spending time and money on inappropriate content, markets, or fraudulent traffic. These insights are based on 100+ billion web transactions they process every day.
Netflix, Apple TV, and consoles are becoming more popular advertising avenues than traditional linear TV. As a result, we're consuming more video than ever before, and I wanted to explore the challenges and opportunities with connected TVs and explore the latest shopping trends. I invited Tony Marlow, CMO, Integral Ad Science, to analyze these trends and understand the scale of the problem with fraud and the role that technology will play in the industry's future.
Tony Marlow is the Chief Marketing Officer for Integral Ad Science, based in New York. He is an insights-driven executive and leads all aspects of corporate marketing strategy, brand development, and communications for the company.
Before joining IAS in 2019, he was the CMO for the big data company Data Axle. Before that, he was the Global Head and Vice President of B2B Marketing for Yahoo – overseeing all B2B Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Product Marketing, Sales Learning, and Sales Insights.
Geotab is advancing security, connecting commercial vehicles to the internet and providing web-based analytics to help customers better manage their fleets. In addition, Geotab’s open platform and Marketplace allow both small and large businesses to automate operations by integrating vehicle data with their other data assets.
As an IoT hub, the in-vehicle device provides additional functionality through IOX Add-Ons. Processing billions of data points a day, Geotab leverages data analytics and machine learning to help customers improve productivity, optimize fleets by reducing fuel consumption, enhance driver safety, and achieve regulatory compliance.
Since being established in 2000, Geotab Inc. has grown from a small family business to a global leader in fleet management and vehicle tracking solutions. They are now one of the largest telematics outfits globally and have become the first to surpass two million connected vehicles built on a single, open platform.
David Savage, Associate Vice President, UK, and Ireland at Geotab, joins me in a discussion about electric vehicle adoption, fleet telematics, sustainability, and tech.
David leads the operational, commercial, and organizational activities of the UK and Irish regions. In addition, he has accountability for delivering Geotab's overall strategy and realization of the company's ambitious growth targets in support of its wider UK/European growth focus.
With more than 15 years of experience within operations and transport management, David has a proven ability in helping businesses to scale sustainably. Before joining Geotab, he held the role of General Manager at FreeNow (formerly MyTaxi and Hailo), Europe's leading e-hailing app.
David shares his story and also discusses the growing conversations around the intersection of sustainability and tech.
The case for diversity in the workplace is straightforward: it's the right thing to do, and numerous studies suggest it can drive better business performance, too. For example, a 2018 report found that gender-diverse executive teams, which make the most important strategic and operational decisions, were correlated with profitable outcomes across geographies; and companies with the most ethnically/culturally diverse boards worldwide are 43% more likely to experience higher profits.
However, an organization might consider its workforce "diverse," but that doesn't mean all employees feel valued or are given the same opportunities. Far too often, because of unconscious bias, inclusivity is left out of the equation.
In the past, unconscious bias was often perceived as subjective or circumstantial versus a larger systemic issue. Now, rather than taking action against an individual, emerging technologies are empowering business leaders to analyze the different ways that diversity and inclusion are hindered at a foundational level and inspire action to remove those factors from the equation.
The team at Knockri, for instance, understands the detrimental effects unconscious bias has on applicants and organizations—and has designed a suite of AI-powered behavioral assessments that help eliminate these issues and shortlist the best-fit job candidates to interview during the early screening process of hiring.
Knockri's CEO, Jahanzaib Ansario joins me in a conversation about how tech can foster great inclusivity in the workplace.
The pandemic’s impact on the acceleration of digital means that just providing a personalized experience to customers is no longer good enough. In order to succeed and stay one step ahead of the competition, brands need to embrace a data-driven approach to optimize every digital experience based on outcomes.
Justin Anovick, Chief Product Officer at digital experience company, Optimizely joins me on Tech Talks Daily. We talk about how businesses can unlock digital potential through a combination of personalization and experimentation.
Justin also discusses why it’s so important to look beyond just personalisation and the importance of combining this with experimentation in order to move away from guesswork and gut decisions to use data to a more scientific approach that will provide customers with the best digital experience possible.
About Optimizely
With its digital experience platform (DXP), thy equip teams with the tools and insights they need to create and optimize in new ways. Now, companies can operate with data-driven confidence to create hyper-personalized experiences. Building sophisticated solutions has never been simpler. Optimizely’s 900+ partners and 1100+ employees in offices around the globe are proud to help more than 9,000 brands, including Peloton, Uber, AMEX, WSJ, Santander, KLM and Mazda enrich their customer lifetime value, increase revenue and grow their brands.
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Octopus Energy Founder & CEO Greg Jackson joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Greg is inspired by giving customers the best experience at the cheapest price-point possible to drive the green energy revolution. We discuss how technology is reinventing the energy industry and tackling climate change.
For years, the energy industry has been running on the software equivalent of floppy disks, but through the application of technology, Octopus Energy is bringing energy into the present day, innovating in the space through their tech platform - Kraken – to provide affordable and clean energy to millions across the globe with an unrivalled focus on the customer experience.
Described as ‘Amazon of energy’ Octopus Energy are a global disrupter bringing energy towards a greener future. They currently serve 2.2 million customers with renewable, clean energy which their technology allows them to do cheaper and much more efficiently than anyone. They also license their technology to their competitors around the globe in USA, Australia & Japan reaching 15 million homes and currently growing at 100k per month.
Serial entrepreneur Tim Mendelssohn had an early entrepreneurial experience, starting his first company, Elephant Branded in university. Famously, it was featured in an episode of BBC's Be Your Own Boss. After that, he had a progressive career in technology and finance before becoming a CEO of Spark, including roles at Sony, Warner Brothers, BP, and Koch Supply and Trading.
With no ability to code but passion for seeing how technology can fundamentally improve how the markets operate, Tim saw the flaws of markets and took on the challenge of using the technology to take on the competition of established companies with 50+ years in the industry.
Spark Commodities was founded in 2019 with a mission to disrupt the trade in the commodity markets thanks to technology and data. Spark's key users are leading commodity market participants, exchanges and brokers focused on bringing value to customers suffering from expensive, unsophisticated legacy providers
In February 2021, Spark beat legacy market players such as Baltic Exchange (250+ years), Platts (100 years) and Argus (50+ years) to secure a listing on ICE - an exceptional achievement for a startup. Tim Mendelssohn shares his inspirational story on Tech Talks Daily
Serial entrepreneur, William West, has founded four startup companies; his most successful sold to a global outsourcing company. In addition, he’s written two business books, was featured on CBS 60 Minutes and in FORBES, won twenty entrepreneurial awards, and made the Inc. 5000 list five times.
Now, after twenty years building tech companies using VR, AR, and AI, West is building his piece-de resistance, a passionate endeavor merging his love for the sea with that of building companies. His most recent venture, Regatta VR, trained companies to tackle difficult HR issues and used cutting-edge VR technology to do it.
Regatta Travel uses its technology to tackle more fun issues: planning the perfect vacation for you. If you want to shop, its app will send you to St. Bart’s; if you want to hike the rain forest, to Dominica. And if you’re a celebrity or a couple just wanting your privacy, Regatta’s algorithm can handle that too.
Regatta Travel Co. is built around its Waypoint app, which overcomes the Paradox of Choice typically associated with travel planning and engages the Dopamine Circle the way a dating app does. Unlike a dating app, every option is the crème de la crème and sure to delight – it’s simply a matter of what the client wants to do on this trip. In fact, focusing on the activities their customers want to enjoy—the experience—is what sets Regatta apart from other travel companies.
Instead of exhaustive lists of villas or boats that all look like, and leave customers unhappy with their eyes glazed over, Waypoint focuses on what vacationers want to do, and then aligns them with the top locations and accommodations on them.
While Regatta’s fleet, one of the largest in the travel industry, includes 1,000 boats, 1,000 villas, 4,000 planes, and 30 private islands across 50 countries, users will only see options based on their vacation vibe they’re going for, and the activities they’re most interested in enjoying on their trip.
The Amsterdam-based scale-up StuDocu was founded in 2013 by four students, including CEO Marnix Broer, and StuDocu was born out of the need to share study resources more efficiently. Since launching, the company has expanded to markets like Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK, and the United States. It boasts more than 15 million monthly active users, helping the platform become the international leader in the document sharing space.
Marnix shares his startup story and his belief that education is a resource that should be accessible to everyone and built the platform on that premise. In addition, Marnix feels strongly that education technology, particularly platforms like StuDocu, needs to complement teachers' and professors' work, creating ways for students to study for exams and learn the course material applicable in their careers in the future.
Marnix also discusses the continued rise of EdTech over the past 18 months and how StuDocu recently received $50M in funding. I also learn why the solutions so desperately needed during COVID-19's study-from-home period will continue to be important as students return back to school.
StuDocu utilizes a freemium model, where 80% of all documents on the site are free to access by all, and 20% fall into the premium category, which can be accessed by paying a small quarterly or annual fee or by uploading your own study materials for premium access.
Tom Gearing is the CEO of Cult Wines, the global leader in fine wine investment. But I wanted to learn more about how Cult Wines is leveraging technology to disrupt the fine wine investment industry. Traditionally, fine wine investing was targeted to the "snooty" high-net-worth investor, but Tom uses technology to bring more accessibility, transparency, safety, and credibility to the industry.
Tom grew up with an investment banker father who took him all over the vineyards of Europe as a boy, and he learned and sampled wine and is more knowledgeable about fine wine than people twice is his age. But his love for technology has been instrumental in making Cult Wines a leader in innovation. They released the first NFT in their industry for auction on OpenSea, and they are continuing to utilize blockchain and other technologies to set Cult Wines apart from its competitors.
Tom shares his tech story and how he appeared on BBC's Apprentice a decade ago. He has also overseen the growth of the business, receiving several awards, including appearing on the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 in 2015 and 2017 and receiving a Queen's Award for International Trade. But here in 2021, he regularly appears as a market commentator on media outlets such as Bloomberg, CNBC Europe, CITYAM, and more.
Both Google and Entrust recently announced support for email authentication specification BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification). A survey of 1,000+ US and UK adults from Red Sift, a leading cybersecurity company, looks at consumer interaction when brands are able to display their logos in an email inbox consistent with BIMI standards – revealing how this will affect consumer interaction with emails, open rates, buying behavior and brand recall.
For example, the study found that BIMI has the greatest impact with Gen Z with 28% reporting that not deploying BIMI would negatively impact purchasing decisions. Rahul Powar, CEO, and Founder of Red Sift, joins me in a discussion about the rise of BIMI standards and what this will mean for marketing and security.
We talk about the impact of BIMI and how this standard will translate into market value, why BIMI will be the new standard for logo visibility in email, and how BIMI will become a crucial part of security protocol in the future.
Since its inception, SevenRooms has served hospitality operators from independent restaurateurs to global hospitality groups. They created the company to overcome a challenge they recognized within the industry: limited access to and ownership of guest data.
Over the past ten years, they have built a platform that unlocks a 360-degree view of the guest journey and empowers operators to deliver highly personalized experiences to every on- and off-premise diner. As a result, they are leveraging technology to helping hospitality businesses, big and small, increase revenue and create loyal guests for life.
Joel Montaniel, CEO & Co-Founder of SevenRooms, returns to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast for a catchup. We discuss on-premise and off-premise dining, vaccine passport mandates, and how customer's needs have evolved over the last 15 months. We also talk about how Joel sees hospitality adapting to these needs by leveraging technology.
Finally, we discuss how restaurants can create a seamless journey that diners prefer from discovery to booking to the dining experience itself with technology.
According to ABI Research, the market for metal payment cards is expanding rapidly and is expected to reach 90 million cards (cumulative) by 2025. In addition, CompoSecure, the category leader in metal payment cards, and Nok Nok Labs, the co-founder of the FIDO Alliance and leader in passwordless authentication, recently revealed they would bring to market the first Internet ID and Payment Card that can be used as a virtual ignition key for the authentication of a user into any digital service on any device.
This new offering will combine Nok Nok’s passwordless, secure and scalable authentication server with CompoSecure’s three-factor authentication technology and patented metal NFC hardware to ensure a high level of security on any device or card. In addition, all transactions using the CompoSecure internet ID and payment card will be enabled to be used for either a POS or a card-not-present transaction.
Other everyday use cases for the card include cryptocurrency transactions, eGaming, online gambling, and identity verification applications. Phil Dunkelberger joins me in a conversation about the recent announcement and shares insights from his career in tech.
About Nok Nok
Nok Nok is a trusted leader in passwordless consumer authentication to the world’s largest organizations. Delivering the most innovative authentication solutions in the market today, Nok Nok empowers global organizations to improve the user experience to access digital services, while meeting the most advanced privacy and regulatory requirements.
The Nok Nok™ S3 Authentication Suite integrates into existing security environments to deliver a proven, cost-effective, future-proof and standards-based passwordless consumer authentication solution. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, the company has delivered unique inventions and innovations that are protected by a robust global patent portfolio.
As a founder of the FIDO Alliance and an inventor of FIDO specifications, Nok Nok is the expert in deploying standards-based authentication, and its industry leading customers and partners include BBVA, DDS, Inc., Ericsson, Fujitsu Limited, Hitachi, Intuit, Lenovo, MTRIX GmbH, NTT DATA, NTT DOCOMO, OneSpan, SoftBank, T-Mobile and Verizon.
The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. By harnessing the collective expertise of hundreds of leading technology, consumer services, and government organizations, the FIDO Alliance enables simpler and stronger online experiences and more secure online identities and services.
Did you know that every device you open right now has FIDO and WebAuthn through a simple API? FIDO Executive Director/CMO Andrew Shikiar discusses how the FIDO Alliance recognized a need for service provider help with User Experience, and for FIDO to take off, it needed some common elements to drive the change.
I learn how Top Tech Design Engineers and UX Leads from companies such as VISA, Wells Fargo, Facebook, JP Morgan Chase, and Microsoft were involved in shaping the new UX guidelines and formed the UX Taskforce.
Authentication is moving towards less dependence on knowledge and more on inherent authentication. I learn more about their mission to let people log in the same way they unlock their devices and make access easy for everyone by offering a standardized way of doing it.
Anthony Caiafa, Chief Technology Officer at SS&C Technologies joins me in a conversation about how automation and AI can help the finance industry’s burnout problem, further exasperated by the pandemic and the loom of a hybrid workforce. We also talk about where technology fits in to revolutionize the traditional wealth and asset manager role, and the reception from Wall Street to these broadening tech capabilities.
Anthony is a technology leader and innovator with a deep understanding and experience across the entire stack. SS&C has emerged as the largest hedge fund, private equity, and transfer agency in the world, growing to over 25K employees, 18K+ clients, and over 200+ products and solutions in its portfolio, in its 35 years in operation.
I also learn more about how it is rooting itself first as a technology company, and always looking to bring automation, advanced technology, and digital transformation to a traditionally antiquated industry known for being slow adopters amidst mass regulations and compliance restrictions.
Recent research by the Bank of Ireland reveals that many people have become accidental savers during the Covid-19 crisis. Understandably, half of those surveyed want to build up a rainy day fund for the future. Moreover, within today's climate of low interest rates and high living costs, many are considering investing as a way to make their money go further.
Offering a new investment alternative for the Irish market, BUX, Europe's fastest-growing neobroker, officially launched its zero-commission investing app, BUX Zero, in Ireland this week, making it the first exclusively mobile platform to offer investing in the country.
The arrival of BUX Zero in Ireland promises to make investing easier and more affordable through commission-free investing. In addition, BUX aims to remedy the findings that only 23% of people claim to have sufficient knowledge of markets and investment options. It is a platform that provides intuitive tools to start investing and educational content that helps users to invest responsibly.
Yorick Naeff, CEO of BUX, joins me on the podcast to share the story behind the company. I also learn how BUX's flagship platform, BUX Zero, is making commission-free investing more accessible and allows users to invest in the companies they believe in.
Captiv8 CEO and co-founder Krishna Subramanian joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his tech journey. Krishna is an expert in mobile advertising. Before creating Captiv8 in 2015, he was a co-founder at BlueLithium, an online advertising network that Yahoo acquired for $300 million after becoming the fifth largest ad network in the US and the second-largest in the UK. He then went on to co-found Mobclix, a mobile ad exchange network, which went on to be acquired by Velti, where Krishna then became the CMO.
Captiv8 started as a social listening tool and has grown to become a leading Influencer Marketing company that offers a fully self-service, AI-powered platform and a managed service marketplace. We also discuss their partnership with LiveRamp to turn brands’ first-party data into scalable influencer campaigns.
Emily Snell, President of Allstate Identity Protection, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Allstate Identity Protection, formerly known as InfoArmor, has been a leader in the employee benefits space for over 13 years and provides advanced identity and privacy protection to more than 30% of the Fortune 500. Emily shared her insights into how identity theft impacts businesses.
We discuss how personal data is most commonly stolen from employees and what costs employers incur from these breaches. We also discuss why and how companies should better protect employees and themselves against identity theft.
Alois Reitbauer, VP, Chief Technical Strategist, and Head of Innovation Lab at Dynatrace, returns to Tech Talks Daily to discuss how forging stronger links between business and academia will drive the next wave of digital innovation.
Alois has 20 years of software experience, starting as a developer before moving into tech strategy. Passionate about all things tech, he is also a co-chair for the App Delivery Special Interest Group for the CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation).
In his role as Head of Innovation Lab at Dynatrace, Alois is responsible for Dynatrace Research, which has a team made up of academic researchers from the University of Linz, Austria, and passionate software experts from Dynatrace, to spearhead research into future technologies that can solve the challenges facing the most advanced use cases for modern data systems.
He shares why he believes this approach exemplifies the broader need for the IT industry to champion closer collaboration between business and academia, covering:
Accelerating innovation – 89% of CIOs say digital transformation has accelerated, and 58% believe it will continue to speed up. However, organisations are struggling to keep up with this fast-paced innovation. Partnering with academia can help bring new knowledge, fresh thinking, and novel ways of working into a business to help accelerate the charge towards new digital frontiers. However, these partnerships are often viewed as a CSR initiative rather than being a core part of the R&D process, which limits their potential.
Forging stronger links – Alois believes academic partnerships can drive more meaningful impact if they sit firmly within the business. This helps provide more direction and enables academic partners to dedicate research efforts to solving current or pressing business challenges, which can’t be done in a classroom. Organisations should create joint innovation teams, including university researchers, developers, and other business stakeholders, with practical knowledge of the company’s systems, processes, and vision.
Think fast, build fast, learn fast – With access to real-world business experience and first-hand knowledge of the challenges organisations are trying to solve, academics can create solutions that truly change the world instead of developing a theory that takes years to be tested. This can help foster a ‘think fast, build fast, fail fast’ mentality that accelerates the pace of digital innovation and drives the next wave of transformation.
Josh Feast, MIT alumnus and CEO and co-founder of AI company, Cogito joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share his story and how the human-AI relationship will define the future of work. We explore how we can extend ourselves with AI, teach AI to understand us better and create human-AI interactions that work in the moment.
I learn more about how Cogito provides aware human technology to help professionals elevate their performance. Cogito’s contact center AI instantly analyzes hundreds of conversational behaviors to provide live in-call guidance combined with a real-time measure of customer experience.
The technology is augmenting the emotional intelligence of thousands of agents in the world’s most successful enterprises – improving sales results, delivering world-class service and enhancing the quality of care.
Backed by Goldman Sachs, Romulus Capital, and Salesforce Ventures. We also discuss how they produce innovative technology that drives customer success and helps people live more productive lives.
Today I have an inspirational tech startup story to share with a New York mom turned technology entrepreneur by turning her parenting into a passion! What makes her story stand out is she caught the eyes of leading investors like Sequoia Surge, Unilever Ventures, and Qualgro, who recently announced a $9 million investment into her company.
Today's guest is Tamanna Dhamija. She founded Baby Destination after she had her first child a few years ago. The online parenting community she built grew into a community resource for 2 million parents. Tamanna and her co-founders saw that online communities were built and managed by passionate people, but they could not monetize these passions into a source of income.
This insight led them to create Convosight, which built the technology tools to help community managers on Facebook, Reddit, and Discord to earn from their passion and drive the creation of the passion economy. In the last year, Convosight's community members grew exponentially from 34 million to 300 million. In the last 12 months, Convosight has also made nearly $1 million in payouts to community managers.
Tamanna shares her inspirational story and the role that tech plays in bringing online communities together.
The customer journey is blurring the line between digital and physical experiences. Therefore, retailers should look to create consistent, convenient, and inspirational customer experiences in their brick-and-mortar stores while providing the physical touch, engagement, and interaction with products.
By investing in AR, VR, AI, and gesture technology, businesses can focus on improving omnichannel shopping experience to optimise engagement opportunities with customers both online and in-store, while also allowing the retailer to get to know the customer better and provide customised offerings such as personalised samples, loyalty points or discounts.
I invited Valtech MD Chris Daplyn onto the podcast to share his insights into the technology guiding the future high street. Chris has over 20 years of experience in the digital agency landscape. He is a proven leader with a passion for bringing together diverse talent to connect brands and audiences in relevant and contemporary ways. Before joining Valtech, Chris has led the significant growth of several businesses as managing director of Wunderman, and most recently, as CEO of Mirum in Europe.
Steve Jiang, CEO, and co-founder of Hiretual, a leader in AI-powered recruitment software, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Steven’s background is far from ordinary. From growing up in a small rural town in China to becoming a pioneer leader in his industry, he always possessed a steadfast dedication to differentiate himself from his peers - leading him to build an innovative company in his own vision.
As companies around the country experience the crisis to find candidates for their job openings (9.3 million job openings, to be exact), now more than ever is the time to find the right tools to help fill the gap. I learn more about how Hiretual’s software can help transform the recruiting process for companies across the board – it has even become a key resource for those in the recruiting and sourcing industry by helping businesses cut their sourcing time by as much as 80%.
Steven shares why AI is helping the post-pandemic hiring market, his experience in the technology and recruiting industry, and the story behind the creation of Hiretual.
Retailers such as Walmart entered the financial services space when it launched a payment app that allows Mexican customers to receive remittances from the US. With global professionals wanting to send home payments back home to their families, I wanted to explore how the remittance market is heating up. With Remity filing to go public and BayaniPay's partnership with BDO Bank and Seafood City there seems to be a growing number of trends that I wanted to talk about.
Los Angeles-based BayaniPay recently launched a new borderless digital banking service in partnership with BDO Unibank, the largest bank in the Philippines, and Seafood City, a large US-based Filipino supermarket chain. Through the service and partnership, the companies offer millions of Asian Americans a low-cost, frictionless way to send money to their families back in their homelands, pay bills and conduct online transactions.
BayaniPay takes its name from ""Bayani,"" the Filipino word for "hero"—a term often used to describe global professionals in their home countries. Born out of a partnership between inclusion tech venture studio Talino Ventures and leading Asian American multimedia publisher The Asian Journal, BayaniPay received funding from Wavemaker Partners, a cross-border venture capital firm investing in early-stage startups in the United States and Southeast Asia.
Winston Damarillo is the co-founder and CEO of BayaniPay. He joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share BayaniPay's mission to use technology to break down the borders in banking and level the playing field for all global citizens.
The lack of confidentiality and privacy on blockchains is obvious. It hampers blockchain technology’s disruptive potential as a WEB 3.0 platform supporting value transfer, especially in an increasingly interconnected and data-reliant world.
Dr. Kurt Nielsen, PhD, President of Partisia Blockchain, believes that industry players need to take urgent action to safeguard privacy considerations. Kurt and the team at Partisia Blockchain are pioneering Multi-party computation technology (MPC), a type of distributed cryptography. While blockchain boasts increased security over personal data, MPC ensures that data remains confidential.
Dr. Kurt Nielsen joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss how the combination of MPC and blockchain will pave a trustworthy road for advanced solutions and greater peace of mind for internet users. We also talk about how Partisia Blockchain represents the first successful complete integration of blockchain technology with MPC, allowing for companies to interact with targeted individuals without compromising the users’ confidential data.
Finally, we chat about Partisia’s recent fundraising round which saw $20m of investment, and their plans to use this funding to build an internet privacy infrastructure for the greater good.
Elisabeth Bohlmann joins me on the podcast to share her story and talk about how design drives technology. We explore the wearable ecosystem, the role of mobile applications for smart devices, and the strategic development of health and fitness apps. I also learn more about why Latin America is the perfect location for US startup growth.
Elisabeth is VP of Client Strategy at December Labs, a high-touch Design & Development firm for mobile and web products that are at the frontline of innovation. She drives December Labs’ expansion strategy and accompanies up-and-coming startups and enterprise companies towards scalable and continuous growth, making her a sought-out speaker for key industry events, such as CES or the Austin Startup Week, to top 100 tech, entrepreneur and product podcasts.
With over a decade of leadership background in tech, digital marketing and international operations in addition to a degree in Economics from Bonn University in Germany, Elisabeth is a scrum-trained trilingual cross-functional marketing executive with a passion for design-thinking and integrating cutting-edge technologies into human-centered and value-driven solutions. She has developed and led projects for iconic brands such as Mattel, NBCUniversal, Food Network, and the NBA.
As an entrepreneur, Alon Braun is the founder of Neurotech Analytics and Riverbank Consulting. He has a passion for scaling enterprises and scientific innovations, especially in the deep tech industry. Articles by or about Alon have been featured in Inc Magazine, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Thrive Global. In addition, his new book, The Entrepreneur Journey: 8 Steps from Inspiration to Global Impact. Besides Alon's work in science and technology, his areas of expertise include business growth strategies, agile methodologies development, and decision-making consultation.
Alon Braun is a master at decision making especially helping people make difficult decisions. One of the ways that he helps with this is that he is an expert in understanding cognitive hacks that allow you to maximize your cognitive load capacity such that people who have to make complex long-range decisions involving factors with which are difficult to measure, those decisions can be made optimally and using his technologies.
In today's episode, we explore the topic of Neurotechnology and Biohacking. We discuss the cognitive limit to making decisions and how to bypass it to enhance your performance. We also talk about creating more purpose with memory hacks and Alon's unique methodology that combines mathematical rigor with holistic consideration of the values important to the entrepreneur.
iOS 15 is ending open rate tracking and bringing a fundamental change to 20-year-old email marketing best practices. Rytis Lauris, the co-founder and CEO of Omnisend shares his insights and actionable tips on how email marketers can get ready for this change,
We discuss what is happening with the iOS15 update, what it means for email marketing, and how marketers can prepare for these changes. Rytis also shares tips & tricks about e-commerce email marketing, SMS marketing, and omnichannel marketing.
DarioHealth is a software as a service company that began for diabetes management and hypertension and recently branched out into musculoskeletal and behavioral health in 2021. The company has a compelling combination between medical devices and strong software capabilities integrated with health coaching.
Data shows that 29% of people with a chronic condition have a behavioral health issue as well. DarioHealth, available to users worldwide, aims to offer a holistic platform for users not to use multiple applications to address needs.
Omar Manejwala discusses how the software uses AI to encourage sustained behavior change in users. Finally, we discuss how the app offers remote patient monitoring and provides users with coaching and the motivation to manage their chronic condition, ultimately reducing healthcare costs.
The CFO role has been emphasized more than ever over the last 15 months. While reducing fear and uncertainty amongst employees and investors has always been a part of the job description, it became a major focal point during the pandemic. This intense focus led to a complete transformation of the role of finance/the CFO within many organizations, elevating it from a purely technical position to become a strategist and change agent within the company.
Danielle Murcray, CFO at AttackIQ, shares firsthand how her role as a startup CFO has shifted to a far more strategic partnership with the CEO and the board. But while also playing an integral part in shaping the adoption of innovative technologies to aid in the security and prosperity of an increasingly distributed enterprise.
Danielle also shares why proving the value of cybersecurity investments has never been more critical, and how the CISO/CTO and CFO can work together to understand how effectively they’re detecting, alerting and blocking threats.
Hiroki Koga, CEO, and co-founder of Oishii, shares his inspirational story on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily.
Oishii is the company behind the world's largest indoor vertical strawberry farm, where Hiroki is on a mission to transform the future of farming/agriculture and make the most delicious and healthy produce available to everyone. With continued tech innovations, indoor vertical farming is becoming a more sustainable farming practice and a better way to cultivate fruits/vegetables at any time of the year with less land and water.
Hiroki and his team have been able to marry ancient Japanese farming techniques with modern AI/ML technologies, which has allowed them to produce their Omakase Berry. A Japanese varietal is known for its sweetness, creamy texture, and aroma. The Omakase Berry is an example of cultivating tasty, nutrient-rich fruits while keeping sustainability a top priority.
Hiroki shares the technology behind the vertical farming world, the precise technologies needed, and its potential in providing communities with hyper-local and organic fruits/vegetables with little to no carbon footprint. I also learned how Oishii incorporated AI and machine learning technologies with rigorous farming practices to develop a first-of-its-kind pollination method conducted naturally with bees.
Andreas von Estorff is CEO and Founder of ModelManagement.com — a digital marketplace for models, talents, and influencers built on the principles of transparency, trust, and safety, helping clients around the world source models and talents for their projects.
The ModelManagement.com ecosystem is trusted by over 1 million models and influencers worldwide; 50,000 brands such as Nike, H&M & Garnier, agencies and photographers; and is home to over 10 million model images. ModelManagement.com is leading the digital transformation of the modelling world while leveraging Artificial Intelligence and blockchain technology innovations to help models and their clients manage their image rights and payments with absolute confidence and clarity.
To help aspiring models entering the space navigate the inherent industry challenges and risks, the company launched the Model Academy — an online educational course for industry newcomers led by seasoned models from the ModelManagement.com ecosystem. The company’s ‘More than Models’ podcast also provides in-depth interviews with models and influencers, charting their career trajectories and providing invaluable advice to prospective talents.
Shant Kevonian is Chief Operating Officer of Olyseum — the star-led, virtual social engagement platform for fans and brands to trade and rent experiential Non-fungible Tokens (xNFTs). As COO, Shant works closely with Olyseum CEO Carlos Grenoir in directing the company's growth strategy while overseeing the business's day-to-day administrative and operational functions.
During his distinguished career, Shant has excelled at creating proprietary algorithms and solutions geared towards scaling early and medium stage enterprises.
Shant has demonstrated exceptional analytical, managerial, and technical acumen across several C-suite positions, including CTO of cang.eco — a marketplace for eco-conscious brands and sustainable products — and CTO of Youtiful.net — the carbon-neutral cosmetics brand and genesis platform that would subsequently launch cang.eco.
An entrepreneur in his own right, Shant founded Prodcast.tv in 2018 — a fully integrated marketplace and live video-streaming platform delivering a dynamic video-shopping experience to consumers, providing a competitive alternative to Twitch and Amazon. Before this, Shant served as Head of R&D at Pippa&Jean — a social selling community geared towards empowering 100,000 women to start their own business and CTO of Deliverea — a cloud shipping management service that manages the logistics of users' e-commerce platforms.
Shant is passionate about driving fan engagement forward through NFT and crypto innovations while leveraging technology as a force for good.
Ansys is the leader in engineering simulation technology that provides a multiphysics simulation solution leveraging high-fidelity physics, spanning a scale from silicon to the city, which includes:
• Integrated chip package and system analysis.
• Signal, power and optical integrity.
• Antenna design, placement and integration.
• RFI, EMI/EMC and de-sense mitigation and full communication
analysis in electrically large and complex environments.
• Open environment delivery for optimization, simulation data and process management, workflow customization, access to cloud and high-performance capacity (HPC).
• Support of third-party integration for deployment across the enterprise.
Larry Williams, Director of Technology shares how Ansys provides comprehensive simulation technology that is helping automakers tackle autonomous vehicle production and safety challenges — without the need for expensive prototypes or countless hours of test driving.
In fact, autonomy in the automotive industry won’t happen in our lifetime without simulation technology. To that end, Larry shares more insight into the future of space, the benefits of these recent major advancements, what implications these have on the environment, infrastructure, and consumer trust, and the significant challenges the industry is up against.
I learn how Ansys works with over 45,000 customers worldwide and many of the biggest names in the automotive industry. We discuss how simulation can address the myriad challenges faced by those engineering the future of 5G, delivering a significant competitive advantage.
Gregg Johnson is an expert on helping businesses use data to gain insight into the buyer journey to improve customer experience and increase revenue. He’s a former Salesforce exec turned CEO of Invoca who just led the company through its first acquisition (of DialogTech) and through the release of its second product, Invoca for Sales.
Invoca’s technology is used in the contact center to help B2C companies deliver customer experience that drives sales. Invoca recently found that consumers actually want to call the contact center with 68% of respondents preferring to speak with businesses over the phone than any other form of communication. And they’re enjoying their experience -- 50% of consumers say agents are more helpful now than before March 2020.
In today's episode, Gregg brings to life what’s happening on the other side of the phone call when you call contact centers, how data is powering those interactions, why interactions are improving and how businesses can keep the momentum going.
Michel Tricot is the CEO and Co-Founder of Airbyte, an open-source data integration platform. 4,000+ companies have synced data using Airbyte, and $31 million has been raised through Accel, YCombinator, and others to fund the project.
Michel has been working in data engineering for the past 15 years. As head of integrations and engineering director at Liveramp (NYSE: RAMP), he grew the team responsible for building and scaling the data ingestion and data distribution connectors, syncing 100s TB every day.
In 2020, he co-founded Airbyte, the new open-source data integration platform, with the vision to commoditize data integration pipelines across all industries and organizations.
We talk about Business Intelligence, Data Infrastructure, Security and Integration and what makes Airbyte different from Fivetran or StitchData.
Pindrop (the global technology leader in identity, security, and trust for voice interactions used by 8 of the 10 largest U.S. banks) recently announced that it hired former AWS and Symantec I.T. leader Collin Davis as its new CTO.
Pindrop continues to gain momentum in the voice biometrics industry, with the launch of IVR, expansion into streaming IoT, and most recently, the acquisition of Next Caller. To keep pace with this rapid growth, the company attracted a global tech leader like Collin, and I felt compelled to fight out more.
Collin Davis joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share his story, having founded and launched Alexa for Business and led the engineering and Q.A. teams that built the suite of Norton Security Products while at Symantec. He also shares why he moved to Pindrop from global, well-respected tech leaders like AWS.
Finally, he shares his insights into the intersection of voice and security, and where voice capabilities are headed based on his time at AWS and Symantec. Finally, we discuss Collin's future vision for Pindrop's expansion into new markets to remain the leader in voice authentication technology.
We discuss why he made the move to Pindrop from global, well-respected tech leaders like AWS and offers Insider Insights into the intersection of voice and security, and where voice capabilities are headed based on his time as an I.T. leader at AWS and Symantec.
Colin also shares his future vision for Pindrop's expansion into new markets in order to remain the leader in voice authentication technology
Quadient is the driving force behind meaningful customer experiences. By focusing on four key solution areas: Customer Experience Management, Business Process Automation, Mail-Related Solutions, and Parcel Locker Solutions, Quadient is on a mission to simplify the connection between people, and what matters.
The company claims that businesses face a customer exodus if they don’t shift to CaaS (Communications as a Service). This comes as IDC predicts that a quarter of all connectivity budgets will run through CaaS within two years.
Scott Draeger from Quadient discusses the immense pressures businesses currently face, with customers demanding an almost instant reply across an increasingly expanding range of channels. In contrast, different business departments struggle to keep pace as interaction with customers is slowed by constantly needing to call on the assistance of their IT team.
We also talk about how these problems risk damaging customer experience, leaving people to conclude that the business is too slow to respond/makes them repeat themselves. Gartner reports that more than four-fifths of companies compete based on customer experience poses a real risk of leaving for a competitor.
Regardless of where you live and what you do, 2020 was a challenging year for everyone around the world. It decimated the event and trade show industry. As veterans of live event production, in order to survive and thrive, Echelon knew it had to pivot from physical experiences to virtual ones. The change was always coming. Fate just demanded it happen sooner.
Endeavoring to convert this challenge into an opportunity, SURREAL was conceived and created by Chicago-based Echelon Design, an event marketing and production company with offices in Chicago, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Portland.
The result is this best-of-breed virtual Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) AND a mission is to provide unparalleled live experiences across any industry—especially when cost, carbon footprint or other factors make on-premise events impractical or impossible.
Built with Unreal Engine, SURREAL is a browser-based, pixel-streamed, 3D virtual events platform where audiences experience fully customizable and unparalleled experiences. It provides clients with a different level of storytelling, game design, and multi-player participant immersion—one that reimagines and redefines the human condition and our relationship with physical distance.
I invited Adam Voss onto the podcast to learn more about how Surreal Events bridges the possible and impossible, and the physical and digital worlds, to bring any event to life, in any virtual environment imaginable.
Today's episode explores remote teams, the humanization of onboarding, and company culture in remote startups with Katerina Sukhenko, founder & CBDO at Postoplan. In just 14 months, Katerina led the company to reach $1M revenue and expanded its customer network to 112,000 clients.
Postoplan is a marketing platform that calls itself better than Buffer or Hootsuite. It's a fully remote company, and its' employees are working from 18 countries and help marketers & entrepreneurs across the world to build more efficient social media strategies.
Katerina shares her story, and the startup's mission is to help small businesses to work in social networks. We discuss how it's the only platform that allows users to create and post content free of charge and without any time limits and why she is passionate about marketing automatization.
With very little tear-down and build time between shows, the entire production of extensive tours often requires several weeks of practice to become a well-oiled machine before they go full-time on the road. That is the problem Elevation Studios has targeted to eliminate completely with a dedicated state-of-the-art 26-acre complex, located just outside one of the best music cities in the country -- Nashville, TN.
The company recently announced that they are completely shovel-ready and breaking ground this summer on the multi-purpose creative campus, which will be delivering large-scale facilities and support services for creators of live entertainment, touring productions, broadcast, and new media content.
This project, and its massive $100M investment in the roaring return of live music, is the feel-good story music fans have been hoping for. The show will go on, and Elevation Studios will help the show go off without a hitch in a gorgeous private facility twenty minutes from Music Row.
Eric Elwell, the CEO of Elevation Studios, shares the story behind the company and reveals more about the technology that brings concerts and world tours to life.
Gurus Direct is a platform that connects businesses directly with on-demand experts offering services in niche areas of IT that have the biggest skill shortage and highest demand. These experts streamline workflows, making organizations more profitable, flexible, and responsive.
They provide technology that increases employee satisfaction, engagement, and productivity by removing mundane tasks. In addition, they can be non-invasive, remote, and rapidly implemented into your digital transformation teams as you need to scale up or down.
Steve Brooks, Mandy Downham, and Peter Walker join me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share the story behind the company and the problems their mission is to maximize access to automation talent. In addition, I learn how they are leveraging technology to connect businesses with on-demand Automation experts offering services in RPA, IDP, and Process Mining.
Businesses can hire only the talent they need, when needed, and stay lean and flexible as you grow on your digital transformation journey. We discuss how they can narrow automation experts by the vendor, department, process, location, language, etc. In doing so, they can find the right blend of skills such as expertise across multiple toolsets, relevant industry knowledge, the right language skills, and prior qualifications.
I also learn more about the benefits for consultants who can build their online presence to attract new business while developing skills, make new connections to grow their income. But also work flexibly at a time and in a manner that suits them.
We look at our phones an average of 58 times a day. This means that this summer 2.1 billion people who suffer from the deterioration of one’s ability to focus on nearby objects, will end up switching between reading glasses and shades every 12 minutes. Yariv Hadad, CEO, and Co-Founder of DeepOptics, the inventor and pioneer of a novel adaptive lens technology, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about optical technology.
Yariv puts his formidable professional experience to use as he has led for the past 20 years different high-tech R&D groups and ventures to great successes. He was the Founder & General Manager of Trevo Technologies, served as the Director of imaging, and R&D Dblur where he met the other current co-founders of DeepOptics. Yariv graduated with a B.A. in Computer Science from the Technion, Israel, and an MBA from Tel-Aviv University.
Lately, DeepOptics has launched their 32°N sunglasses, the first and only adaptive focus sunglasses, on Kickstarter, reaching their goal in a couple of hours. Their timing is impeccable, as many of the other major players are still behind on the technology.
Yariv also discusses topics like the influence of smart technology on daily gadgets and the future of optical technology.
Jesus Ramirez is a mission-driven leader, an innovator, and a humble, life-long learner. In his career, he has helped build and lead several technology-driven products, teams, and companies in the education, healthcare, and labor industries. He is VP of Strategy & Innovation at Tallwave, where he helps companies create exceptional customer experiences.
Recently, Tallwave surveyed 1000+ individuals aged 24-65+ about their perceptions, behaviors, and customer experiences before and during the pandemic. The data revealed that consumers want a choice for how they can interact with a brand, making retail hybrid experiences more critical than ever.
The report highlights the most influential components of customer experience, satisfaction, and loyalty and how organizations can transform experiences for a digital-first, hybrid, and hyper-personalized world. In addition, we discuss how the digital shifts we have experienced over the past year have affected consumer behaviors and tech adoption and how brands can enhance their hybrid customer experiences.
Shameer Sachdev is the founder of Growth Gorilla -- a growth marketing agency focused on helping fintech, proptech and financial services firms go apesh!t and smash through their growth marketing goals.
Originally launching his career in financial services, as an equity broker, Shameer has worked for big brands like Alexander David and Barclays Wealth. Shameer then moved on to focus more on client acquisition and eventually became Marketing Director at a well-known online trading platform provider.
While working with marketing agencies as a client, Shameer couldn’t help but notice their flaws. Most marketing agencies simply didn’t understand how things worked inside financial service companies.
Equipped with a background in financial services and technology, Shameer struck out on his own -- advising courageous fintech, proptech and financial services firms on how to accelerate their growth.
HELO creates moving experiences that connect brands with their consumers by bringing together the best in creative strategy, storytelling, production, and event design. They've worked with top brands to include Amazon Studios, Hulu, Comcast, Budlight, and Santander.
In just our three years, they have won 13 Cannes Lions including Gold Lions in Promo & Activation, Production, Entertainment, and Cyber, an AICP Gold for Production, and were named MOST NEXT in the AICP NEXT Awards, recognizing the most innovative, forward-thinking work in the industry.
With their willingness to tackle even the trickiest productions, AdAge named us a Production Company Standout. They have built a reputation by pulling off the 'not-been-done-before' things, and we wouldn't want it any other way
For example, they recreated the 1862 World's Fair for the launch of one of Amazon Studio's most ambitious original films - AERONAUTS. Brendan Kiernan joins me on the podcast to talk about the challenges and future of storytelling. We also discuss how technology and media consumption is continuously changing and how organizations can keep up.
At the end of every episode, I always ask the listeners to share their stories and offer an open invitation to join me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. After receiving an email from Grant Morgan, I invited him on Tech Talks Daily to discuss tech's role in achieving must-have sustainable sanitization.
For years, the biosafety landscape has been dominated by lumbering, archaic giants, but their time at the top of the food chain may be about to end. While companies like Clorox and Ecolab continue to focus on harmful, inefficient chemical disinfectants, R-Zero envisions a new era of hi-tech public safety strategies. Grant shares his plans to use IoT-enabled hardware, smart sensors, software, and machine learning to crack open a $200B+ market.
Antibiotic soaps and sanitizers are driving a deadly new wave of antibiotic-resistant infections. Harsh chemical disinfectants can create hazardous environments for staff and employees, and their overuse is already harming wildlife around the world. Let's face it — the status quo is not sustainable. Grant discusses the urgent need for environmentally-friendly disinfection, and talk about the advances in technology that are finally making it possible.
The average enterprise has two to three API management vendors and plans to adopt more soon. However, 40% of organizations have three or more API management vendors, and most don't intend to consolidate to a single vendor throughout the enterprise. Thus, complexity is growing, but it can be an opportunity.
API Ecosystem complexity, if unmanaged, is slowing down enterprises. Don't try to simplify your complexity. Master it and control it, it happens for good reasons, but you will not go fast if you leave it alone. The task then is to keep, even boost, the agility that autonomous business units create with their own particular applications and API ecosystems amid the tech sprawl that they also perpetuate.
Teams need creativity and flexibility, so it's essential to have a centralized governance system while at the same time offering developer teams autonomy so they can work in the languages and platforms that make sense to them.
Jana Frejova shares how at Axway, they recognize that companies want the freedom to use different API vendors for different solutions. Still, they also need the freedom to manage all of those APIs as they see fit – and to be able to freely access all of their data without it being locked into silos.
iProov is a small British biometric authentication company that is currently working with the NHS to provide secure login for the NHS Digital app. They are also working with the Home Office for the EU Settlement Scheme and with a range of other high-profile international customers who deploy their technology, including the US Department for Homeland Security, the Singapore government, the Australian government, and the Eurostar.
However, most recently, the company has very much been at the centre of a lot of nationwide debate around the introduction of Covid status certificates and the interoperability of vaccine passports internationally. This is due to the fact that in January this year, iProov announced plans to develop technology for vaccine certificates, having received a grant from Innovate UK to fund the pilot project.
Andrew Bud CBE is the Founder and CEO of face biometrics firm iProov. He is also the Chair of the Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF), the global trade association of the mobile content and applications industry. I invited him on the podcast o talk about the role that biometrics will play in a post-Covid world in wide a range of industries.
We also discuss how Covid status certificates will be integrated into public life and the developing conversation around their use.
Advanced Human Imaging has developed and patented a proprietary dimensioning technology that enables its users to check, track, and assess their dimensions using only a smartphone privately and accurately. Building off success in apparel and fitness, AHI is now redefining how the smartphone is used for insurance assessments, remote medical consultation, and timely interventions of chronic disease and oncology.
The technology is a smartphone-based biometric software. They are a B2B company partnering with digital health (diagnostic and remote monitoring), fitness and apparel companies across the globe. They have recently announced a spat of partnerships to integrate their biometric software into their partner's platforms.
The company has also partnered with Triage Technologies to develop Derma AI, an advanced system to identify dermatological conditions capable of accurately classifying skin conditions from an image captured on a standard smartphone camera and processed by deep neural networks. Using the largest proprietary database of its kind in the world, the AI analytics engine can classify 588 common or rare skin conditions in 133 categories – including all categories of skin cancers.
Vlado Bosonac shares the story behind Advanced Human Imaging and his grand vision for the company.
With more companies adapting to a hybrid work model, business leaders are looking for the best ways to create an engaging and productive environment for employees in the office and at home. Sam Liang built his company and product, Otter.ai, to develop solutions for this very challenge.
Otter.ai is a tech tool that takes live meeting conversations and turns them into highly accurate, collaborative meeting notes, all in real-time. It has transcribed 100 million+ meetings and 3 billion+ minutes and works with Dropbox, IBM, UCLA and more.
Sam joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast and shares why he believes it is essential to adopt speech and natural language processing AI technologies. We discuss how it can develop an understanding of ever-changing physical and contextual environments and human-to-human interactions. Sam also discusses the best solutions that leaders should take into account when adapting their businesses to the new hybrid work model.
When thinking about Goodyear, you probably think of tyers. But if you take a peek behind the curtain, you will find the recent launch of SightLine. It's a suite of intelligent tire solutions that use AI and sensors to help fleet managers and drivers predict breakdowns, minimize downtime and monitor tire pressure and wear for safer and more cost-efficient mobility – think of it as a Fitbit for tires.
Erin Spring, Senior Director of New Ventures, at Goodyear joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to talk about the recent launch of SightLine and the importance of sustainability and tires. We also discuss the future of mobility and how SightLine is helping enable seamless, safe, and reliable mobility for all vehicles starting with cargo vans serving the field service, construction, and last-mile delivery industries.
After several years of serving on YL Ventures' Venture Advisory Board among 100 global CISOs and cybersecurity executives from Fortune 100 and high-growth companies, Ryan Gurney is now looking to take a more active role in fostering the success of early-stage startups as a full-time CISO-in-Residence. He brings the experience of holding leading security roles in both startups and global enterprises to provide Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs with unparalleled guidance on achieving product-market fit and customer success.
Ryan is also the Former Chief Security Officer (CSO) at Looker, a business intelligence software and big data analytics platform acquired by Google for $2.6B, now part of the Google Cloud Platform. Prior to the acquisition, Gurney served as Looker's CSO, leading security and compliance and helping Google and Looker integrate and centralize key security processes post-acquisition.
Previously, he also led all security functions at Zendesk in his role as VP of Information Security, where he played a key role in the company's successful IPO. Additionally, he held security leadership roles at Engine Yard, eBay and PwC.
Ryan shares his story and career in tech. We talk about supply chain management and explore where customer and company data is going, who administers it, how it's protected, and what it costs. We also discuss IP protection, API security, and much more.
Creator+ is a new film studio and streaming platform for digital-first storytellers. The company was co-founded in 2021 by Benjamin Grubbs and Jonathan Shambroom, and is backed by PETRA Group and Freestyle Capital, along with prominent creators, technology founders, and entertainment industry executives.
Built from the ground up with the community and better economics in mind, the studio team (based in Culver City) has more than 100 films under their belt. It also includes prominent industry execs: Adam Wescott (Head of Content Studio), Ben O’Keefe (Head of Diversity and Impact), Nick Phillips (Head of Production), McKenna Marshall (Director of Development).
Unlike ad-supported or subscription-based models, the whole idea is to allow more creative control through an end-to-end platform that provides everything passionate storytellers need to take IP to feature-length films - from financing and production to marketing and distribution.
Benjamin Grubbs joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share his ambitious vision to build an entire ecosystem for creative talent where they have more ownership of their audience.
Tomorrow's business applications will be built differently than they are today. The rise of AI-enhanced business logic and data as a product will enable business analysts and users to create new models and roll out business/domain products. Anup Nair, SVP and CTO of Mphasis Digital, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast in a conversation about building a business platform through data modernization.
We discuss low-code/no-code solutions and how ecosystems will have hundreds, if not thousands, of self-learning and ever-growing models. Every business is currently navigating uncharted digital waters. We explore building new ecosystems and what the apps of tomorrow will look like.
About Mphasis
Mphasis applies next-generation technology to help enterprises transform businesses globally. Customer centricity is foundational to Mphasis and is reflected in the Mphasis' Front2Back™ Transformation approach. Front2Back™ uses the exponential power of cloud and cognitive to provide hyper-personalized (C=X2C2TM=1) digital experience to clients and their end customers.
In addition, Mphasis' Service Transformation approach helps 'shrink the core' through the application of digital technologies across legacy environments within an enterprise, enabling businesses to stay ahead in a changing world. Mphasis' core reference architectures and tools, speed and innovation with domain expertise and specialization are key to building strong relationships with marquee clients.
Anthony Mayer the VP of Engineering, GetSafe, moved from Silicon Valley to the very rural part of Germany, famous for its vineyards rather than tech and startup hubs. But his mission is to drive disruption in the insurance industry was just getting started.
Here in 2021, he leads a team of 20 engineers from more than ten different nations who are all challenged to rethink the role of insurance in a digital-first world. Through the GetSafe app, they bring insurance to the smartphones of over 200,000 users. The technological platform creates speed and flexibility in one of the slowest and most inflexible businesses in the world.
I learn more about Anthony's journey and how InsureTech enables users to cancel insurance policies daily, change details or report claims via an app. We also discuss how the technological platform is their foundation to expand quickly, analyze countless data points and adjust the entire insurance experience for their users. With $53 US million in funding, Getsafe is one of Europe's top 10 funded insurance startups, operating in Germany and the UK.
An analysis of Freedom of Information responses obtained by data leader, Qlik found 80% of UK police constabularies used data analytics to support their response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The development of data analytics use cases accelerated as forces across the UK relied on data to help them respond to the changing crime landscape during periods of lockdown. Those constabularies that introduced dedicated analytics dashboards and applications to manage their pandemic response built them to support crime forecasting (63%) and geo-map crime (58%).
Many police forces also used data to monitor and track the impact of Covid-19 within their constabulary. For example, over three-quarters of respondents who created new analytics dashboards monitored cases amongst employees (83%) and identified which employees were isolating (79%).
However, it also revealed critical areas of opportunity where constabularies can expand their use of analytics to support even better outcomes in policing real-time decision-making, data-sharing, Upskilling police forces in data predictive analytics and forecasting.
I invited Adam Mayer from Qlik and Will White from the Avon and Somerset Police to learn more about how they are working together to leverage data analytics technology and explore the new world of data-driven policing.
I learn how data was integral for managing changing crime demand at Avon and Somerset during the pandemic. We discuss how Qlik dashboards helped to monitor breach reports and fixed penalty notices issued, as well as locations of enforcement activity. We also talk about how Avon and Somerset quickly understood and adapted to the new and emerging risks of policing the pandemic.
Behind the scenes, Qlik dashboards enabled teams to achieve data democratization, empowering the workforce to make informed decisions based on the same information. As a result, all staff made consistent decisions that kept the community safe and staff protected.
I don’t have to tell you all that scams and robocalls are a hot topic and threat to consumers. Unfortunately, as scammers get more sophisticated, so does the technology used to prevent them. With call centers now open again globally and robocall volume returning to pre-pandemic levels, I wanted to learn more about what T-Mobile is doing in the fight to keep consumers protected.
It’s been just over one year since T-Mobile launched Scam Shield, a suite of advanced scam-fighting tools, and the company just shared news about successfully using Rich Call Data and continuing to lead the charge toward more advancements when it comes to protecting consumers.
T-Mobile’s Grant Castle, Vice President, Engineering Services & Quality Assurance, explains the recent STIR/SHAKEN deadline and its impact on everyday consumers in a language that everyone can understand. In addition, we discuss what T-Mobile and other wireless providers are doing to help fight scammers today. Grant also shares his insights on current consumer perceptions.
We also talk about how Number Verification provided by STIR/SHAKEN, coupled with free Caller ID provided by T-Mobile Scam Shield, ensures that the calls they receive are authenticated as coming from the phone number displayed in Caller ID and have not been spoofed. This makes Caller ID even stronger in the fight against scams and robocalls, and with Scam Shield, all T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, and Sprint brand individuals, families, and small businesses get free Caller ID.
Harshit Jain MD is the Founder and Global CEO of Doceree, the first global network of physician-only platforms for programmatic marketing. With Doceree, he aims to address the acute problem of the rising cost of healthcare by bringing in efficiency and effectiveness in marketing to physicians by pharma brands on digital platforms with methodical use of data and creativity.
As a healthcare innovator, he drives health transformation across the globe, delivering life-changing, creative and sustainable ideas. Recognized as Elite 2020 Disrupter Award by premier global PM360 Magazine for his venture, Harshit has addressed some of the biggest health challenges – Immunization, Vitamin D deficiency, Diabetes by creatively and innovatively using data.
In his over 13 years of professional journey, he weaved together his domain expertise of medicine and his marketing acumen to come up with out-of-the-box ideas and campaigns in the healthcare space. An accomplished speaker Harshit played a key role in making India win the first ever Black Pencil – the highest honor at D&AD Awards through the Immunity Charm campaign, a brainchild of his.
Today, I learn more about the idea behind the start-up and physician-only platforms for programmatic marketing. We also discuss how physician marketing and the role of technology in this space.
Coupa Software (NASDAQ:COUP) is the cloud platform for business spend management (BSM). Coupa has a reputation for empowering companies around the world with the visibility and control they need to spend smarter and safer. But I wanted to learn more about how Coupa is helping businesses to use technology to make more ethical spending decisions.
Donna Wilczek, Coupa’s SVP of Product Strategy and Innovation discusses the launch of eight new features that put Environment, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) right at the forefront of crucial business investment and spending decisions – hopefully inspiring businesses to operate much more sustainably and with a far greater sense of social purpose in future.
Despite the tremendous pressure on businesses to implement and execute ESG initiatives, most struggle to get started, make programs actionable, and measure them. Coupa’s technology is focused on helping businesses better manage their spending and achieve social impact goals, turning what is often rhetoric and intention into measurable actions.
Companies such as IKEA, AXA, Procter and Gamble, and Nike are all using Coupa’s software to improve and measure their ESG initiatives. More than $2.6 trillion worth of business spending has passed through Coupa’s platform, which shows the scale of how much money could be redirected to diverse and sustainable suppliers.
We discuss why technology is so important for companies looking to spend more ethically and the difference that spending more with ethical and diverse suppliers can make. I learn how Coupa's software works - and how companies use it to improve their sustainability and diversity efforts.
Today's guest is David Vorick, the Co-Founder and Lead Developer of Sia, a decentralized cloud storage network that ultimately allows its users to have more control over their data.
With the launch of Skynet, Nebulous’s focus shifted from building the leading decentralized data storage platform to enabling a user-controlled, truly decentralized internet. As they embrace the rich legacy and the solid foundation of Sia and assimilate their new mission, I learn more about how their brand is evolving.
We discuss the future of data ownership, the perils of everything being owned by corporations. We explore how blockchain and other decentralized technologies can give back control over our own lives. We discuss how this extends not only into users but also into creators and publishers as well. I learn more about their mission to build a future where people are no longer vulnerable to the arbitrary de-platforming decisions of megacorps and random advertisers.
Paul Miller is the Chief Technology Officer at Wind River, a global leader in delivering software for intelligent connected systems. With nearly three decades of telecommunications and advanced technology leadership at both large companies and successful startups, he is currently focused on Wind River's edge virtualization and AI solutions, including Wind River's market-leading 5G cloud offering based on StarlingX.
Prior to joining Wind River, he was the Chief Technology Officer of GENBAND. He has led the architecture and development of various switching, IMS, IP media, call control, and web applications solutions employed by multiple tier-one operators worldwide. His last eight years have been focused on OpenStack, SDN, and NFV automation technology, including operation of a multi-site, multi-cloud infrastructure, multiple Tier one CSP VNF deployments, and a significant NFV patent history.
Paul's contributions throughout his career have enabled many communications service providers worldwide to create new revenue streams while dramatically reducing operating costs.
In today's episode, we explore 5G applications and use cases beyond telecom and how they can enable new revenue streams for operators. We also discuss disruption around cloud-native networks and what businesses should be thinking about when building intelligent systems in the era of 5G and AI.
Ericom Software recently announced the release of ZTEdge, an all-in-one zero trust cloud security platform designed specifically for midsize enterprises, a market underserved yet highly vulnerable to cyberattacks. Ericom's CSO, Chase Cunningham joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discusses the market, positioning, and why this product is an industry-first for midsize enterprises.
Large enterprises have accelerated their adoption of zero-trust security in response to the increased levels of cyberattacks experienced during the pandemic. Equally vulnerable, midsized enterprises and small businesses have the same need for zero-trust security protection. Still, existing solutions are too complex, too expensive, and too resource-intensive for many of them to adopt.
ZTEdge provides a solution that is right-sized for the needs of this market. It offers a comprehensive solution that reduces cyber risk, cuts complexity, and improves performance, all at price points dramatically lower than competitive offerings.
We explore the following key areas:
Identifying Users and Authenticating Devices: connects the right people and devices to the right apps and resources by using password-based or passwordless authorization and multi-factor authentication.
Secure Web and Internet Access: protect users as they interact with the web and email by leveraging URL filtering, anti-virus scanning, anti-phishing protection, remote browser isolation (RBI), and more.
Secure Remote Private Application Access: provides a simple way to connect remote workers with private cloud or on-premises applications, using Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) capabilities.
SaaS Application Access Control: offers dedicated ZTEdge tenant IP addresses allowing organizations to enforce IP-based access policies to secure apps like Office 365 or Salesforce, thereby eliminating credential theft risks.
Network Protection and Monitoring: segments and monitors networks using machine learning-powered micro-segmentation and granular network traffic analysis – stopping threats from spreading.
User-Branch-Internet Connectivity: integrated SD-WAN capabilities allow an organization to securely connect users and offices and securely route branch traffic directly to the ZTEdge cloud and internet, eliminating the need to backhaul branch traffic over costly MPLS circuits.
Erik Fogg is the co-Founder, and Chief Operating Officer at ProdPerfect joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share his startup stories and discuss how AI in testing is changing software development.
Software development, especially testing, is terrible at using data. It relies too heavily on "human smarts." We can do better. Our own mindsets can explore the art of the possible, what's been done before, and what we have to accept, hold us back from being able to improve the business processes we're responsible for (and ourselves)
Corporations are, unfortunately, the best systems we have right now to help humans flourish (the education system is too calcified and slow to adapt). However, by crafting deliberate cultures around learning and growth, we can turn corporations into little utopias where our people thrive.
Machine Learning is coming for parts of all of our jobs. We should embrace it and accelerate its adoption to help humans spend their time doing what they're great at and what they love. Erik shares how ProdPerfect has been successful because they were first-time founders and very stubborn. He shares how they broke a lot of rules that they didn't even know they were breaking. Erik also expands on why he believes founders need to have nerves of steel to hold the line and do the right thing.
About Erik Fogg
Erik Fogg is the co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at ProdPerfect, fixing E2E software testing with Machine Learning and good operational design. In addition, ProdPerfect automatically builds and maintains E2E test automation by analyzing user journeys on web applications.
Erik graduated from MIT with a bachelors and master's of science in Mechanical Engineering, and prior to ProdPerfect fixed and led operations in factories, mines, refineries, and hardware startups.
In a market expected to grow to $17 billion by 2023, Everlaw is an AI-powered e-discovery platform that helps teams uncover the needle-in-a-haystack pieces of information that can make or break a case. As the digital universe expands rapidly, litigators and internal investigators are tasked with mining through mountains of data and documents, most of which end up being irrelevant.
Everlaw can process up to 500K documents per hour and is 5x faster than the nearest cloud competitor, with its largest case reaching 68M documents. Both data stored and the number of cases on the platform has more than doubled YoY.
AJ Shankar, CEO, and Founder of legal tech company Everlaw joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. AJ offers an overview state of technology in the legal industry in the US and the complexities of investigations and discovery in the digital age, where unimaginable amounts of data are created each day.
I learn how Everlaw is helping law firms, corporate legal departments, government agencies, and journalists to transform the way they handle the troves of data to uncover the truth in their investigations and cases. AJ also shares what the future holds for the legal industry for cloud-based e-discovery solutions.
Omnitracs helps drive the transportation and distribution industries through innovative software and SaaS fleet management solutions. Companies of all sizes trust them to improve visibility into real-time action for back-office and dispatch teams. Their tech creates a more efficient driver experience through intuitive workflow and compliance tools that enable streamlined communications. I wanted to explore how tech is helping leadership teams make improved business decisions through actionable insights into fleet data.
Ashim Bose, Chief Data and AI Officer at Omnitracs joins me in a conversation about transportation intelligence and the growing need for accelerated delivery services in a post-pandemic world. We also discuss insights gained from the Omnitracs Delivering on Demand: Consumer 2021 Insights Survey.
Consumer preferences and needs have shifted during the pandemic, putting more pressure on fleets to deliver on these promises. With consumers becoming more dependent on delivery services during lockdowns, stay-in-place orders, and times when leaving home was simply not safe, trucking (and the drivers behind the wheel) became their lifeline.
We discuss how the survey found patterns in the growing usage of—and dedication to—deliveries as a primary mode of receiving goods (vs. in-store experiences) and, subsequently, consumers’ wants moving forward.
Danish game developer Bright Star Studios was founded in 2018 by games-industry veterans. Their goal is to reinvent the usual pay-to-win mechanics and loot boxes common to free-to-play games and instead develop a player-driven economy that allows gamers to earn rewards through in-game activities, including creating unique, tradable NFT items. Through the blockchain, gamers from across the world can build their own world and create tangible income from the game.
The company also recently announced that videogame veteran Randy Breen has joined the Ember Sword development team as an advisor. With over 18 years of industry experience at Electronic Arts and LucasArts, Breen will help the Bright Star Studios team deliver on its vision of creating an immersive MMORPG with a true play-to-earn economy.
Breen has an illustrious career in the games industry. His career began at Electronic Arts, where he grew from Assistant Producer to Executive Producer and Creative Director before becoming the head VP of Development at LucasArts. During his time there, he guided many beloved Star Wars games to PC and console, including Star Wars Battlefront, MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies, and BAFTA award-winning RPG Knights of the Old Republic. Bright Star Studios will harness this wealth of experience and expertise to help bring Ember Sword to life.
Bright Star Studios recently announced that it secured over $2 million in funding from multiple investors to help deliver on its vision for Ember Sword. Last week also saw the successful completion of the game's first land sale that sold out in just six hours, with all of the regular plots being purchased in under an hour.
The sale of 12,000 in-game plots of virtual Solarwood land generated a total of over $1.5M. Bright Star Studios intends to use these funds to further the title's development, enabling the team to create a high-quality and immersive player-first gaming experience supported by an innovative play-to-earn economy powered by the blockchain.
Today's guest is Callum Adamson. Despite growing up in the shadow of a rockstar father Big country musician Stuart Adamson), Callum was actually raised in a household with little money. After dropping out of an Aeronautical Engineering degree, he worked unpaid at a friend's startup and slept on his floor.
During this period, Callum considered the broken tech talent model. Businesses big and small now need to change at such speed that they cannot find the skilled workers to do this quickly enough without paying extortionate fixed costs for large consultancies.
To address this issue, Callum founded Distributed using profits from Bitcoin investing. From a London HQ, Distributed uses its AI-enabled platform to project manage a global community of on-demand, highly skilled software developers. This connects skilled tech workers with customers such as Capita and the Ministry of Justice. They can tap into the community and use as much or as little resource as they like at any one time – for simple or complex projects – offering the time and cost flexibility of freelancers with the capacity and quality assurance of consultancies.
As a result of these trends and efforts, Distributed just completed a Series A funding round and continues to grow rapidly, expand its freelance community and deliver projects for more businesses.
We discuss why the tech skills gap is an illusion and how the world is full of undervalued and poorly organized resources. We also talk about why freelancing will become the preferred profession. With the advent of remote workforces and increased flexibility, people will realize they can work for multiple clients and get paid more than traditional employment.
I learn how Distributed aims to provide its community with perks and career development you wouldn't usually get as a freelancer.
Shane Neman, the founder of Neman Ventures, joins me in a conversation about PropTech. We also discuss how COVID has pushed more investment into property technology. Shane also shares what emerging technologies he's excited about.
Shane Neman has always been a problem solver and a consummate optimist, which are traits that have been significant advantages in his life as a serial entrepreneur. His experience and expertise in business span many industries, from technology and telecommunications to real estate and hospitality.
After earning a computer science degree from NYU, he started three tech startups (two of them – EZ Texting and JoonBug – were acquired) with hundreds of employees and tens of thousands of customers. He's a prolific backer of startups including Impossible Foods, Convoy, Prose, and Universal Standard, Apostrophe, MeetMindful, MapAnything, VinePair, Smylen, Hyperice,, Teamflow HQ, ResiDesk, Symmetry Systems and more.
He's also a real estate investor and developer with more than two dozen large-scale properties across the US ranging from commercial shopping and industrial centers to residential buildings.
Rackspace Technology CTO, Jeff DeVerter joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss the changing face of digital transformation.
In previous years - digital transformation was relegated to a corner or department of an organization. This is largely fueled by a few key factors:
· The changing/expanding IT buyers within an organization.
· The rising digital fluency of businesses.
· The adoption of RPA and low-code / no-code solutions.
· The transformation to cloud-native development techniques within organizations.
These four trends are driving a dramatic amount of transformation within organizations which are resulting in greater agility, productivity, revenue, and profits for those who are willing to embrace change. Now for those who aren't, they are actively being left behind. Each of these results is occurring in every industry - in every geography today.
While there will be an estimated 40 billion connected devices by 2025, a big limitation to fulfilling this technology's potential is that 90% of the world's surface doesn't have access to cellular service or WiFi. While existing satellite data services like Iridium and Starlink are rapidly growing, these services are prohibitively expensive for IoT device users and manufacturers who don't require high-speed, high-cost connectivity.
A new Silicon Valley satellite technology startup, Swarm, is addressing these issues by developing a low bandwidth, low-cost service that commercially launched in February. The service is ideal for a wide range of IoT use cases in industries ranging from agriculture to logistics to maritime to transportation.
Founded in 2016, Swarm is committed to making data and communications accessible to anywhere on the planet for just $5/month. Swarm's combination of uniquely small satellites (think the size of a grilled cheese sandwich) and user hardware deliver low bandwidth (think 90's modem speed) data services at the industry's lowest cost (1/10th the cost of traditional data services) and highest value to customers.
Ben Lomgmeir, co-founder and CTO of Swarm, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the potential impact the company's data services could have on the IoT market.
YouGov and Auth0 recently published their new global research, ‘The Login Experience Customers Want’, revealed that most organizations fail to meet consumer expectations around login technology. Steven Rees-Pullman, SVP International at Auth0 joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share more insights from the research.
Auth0 and YouGov’s study consisted of two surveys, questioning more than 8,000 consumers and 1,200 IT and marketing decision-makers who work for businesses that offer an app/online service to customers (excluding sole-traders) across six global markets: the UK, France, Germany, Australia, Singapore, and Japan.
The study found that consumers around the world want greater choice in login technologies, and actively seek them out. However, many businesses are still falling short on consumer expectations and risk frustrating their users, losing sales, increasing churn and opening themselves up to credential stuffing attacks as a result.
As an example, the statistics show that consumers are more likely to sign up to an app/online service if they can use MFA (47%), biometric logins (48%) and passwordless (30%) login technologies. Yet only 27% of UK businesses currently offer MFA, biometric logins (14%) and passwordless (13%). The research goes on to explore a widening gap in expectations – with consumers wanting to use digital services but prepared to take their business elsewhere if the login process is clunky or frustrating.
Steven discusses the report's findings in more detail and shares what it means for the identity management landscape and how the desire for ease and security is driving consumers to seek out modern identity solutions for a better UX.
Technology and language are eerily similar, and if you learned how to code then you've also learned a language. When Megan Miller was living in Madrid, her host mom would always tell her to aprovechar la experiencia: to take advantage of her time there. Now, she wants to help people take advantage of the tech tools available to learn and incorporate Spanish into their daily lives, without needing to invest thousands on expensive immersion trips abroad.
Megan shares her story and tech background and how it led her back to her "roots" of Spanish. I learn more about how it has allowed a series of shifts in perspective; whether it's a right-brain, left-brain thing, or just plain worldly experience. One of the most inspiring aspects of this conversation is how she didn't fit into the typical IT stereotype and didn't fit in with the huge educational conglomerates: so she created her own bubble.
Megan now offers professional and certified IT and business translation services from Spanish to American English. Using her CSM and PMP certifications, she manages the scope, timeline, and translation using agile methodologies to make sure the words, tone, and intent translate to a professional technology-based audience
Ash Finnegan, digital transformation officer at Conga, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily to share insights from the company’s latest study regarding the current state of digital transformation across EMEA.
Drawing upon over 20 years of experience in the digital space, Ash argues that companies need to rethink how they transformation their teams, processes, and technology to ensure they maximize revenue yield, align teams and truly connect the customer experience
Often initiatives are rushed or short-sighted, and COVID-19 has only accelerated this issue. According to Conga’s latest research, only 36 percent of all projects relating to the transformation of commercial operations are considered somewhat successful, with 95 percent of leaders citing that their organization needs to improve its revenue operations.
On the podcast, Ash discusses how companies should approach transformation initiatives as they begin their post-COVID recovery plans. Drawing upon Conga’s recent study, we explore:
Conga’s Digital Maturity Model: how Ash approaches a customer’s transformation programme, establishing clear objectives.
The state of DX: why COVID-19 has proven commercial transformation is critical, but not necessarily easy to implement.
Future of work: streamlining workflows and enabling further collaboration will be the key drivers to the post-COVID economy and hybrid workforce
Erich Joachimsthaler, founder and CEO of Vivaldi, as well as a renowned strategy consultant and author of The Interaction Field, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. His consulting firm has helped companies such as American Express, Samsung, and Coca-Cola transform their customer and marketing strategies to enhance their business models. The firm frequently achieves $1.2BN in revenue growth in 6 months for one client.
In his book discusses his take on the future of business, culture, and tech. In the pages, he addresses hard-hitting questions such as: how do you create a culture of innovation? How did Sony miss what Apple captured? Today, Erich shares his insights on why today’s companies fall into three categories and why.
We talk about what it takes to become an “interaction field” company and why it’s imperative and discuss the future of business in a pandemic era and what big tech companies should look to drive innovation. Erich also shares how John Deere, Alibaba, Amazon, and other tech companies are getting it right… or wrong. Finally, we explore the fundamental change in mindset that all business leaders need to embrace for success
Peter Jackson, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Exasol, believes that data teams have room for all sorts of people, from the technical masterminds to the data storytellers. In today's episode, Peter shares how the best data scientist he ever had in one of his teams had a philosophy degree from Warwick University; he was creative, curious, and could turn insights into compelling arguments.
We discuss how if we concentrate too much on STEM, then we'll have people who understand the numbers and stats. But, still, they won't necessarily have the skills to articulate the meaning of that data and turn them into actionable insights for the business. Bringing information to life and allowing everyone to see the business value hidden inside company data is critical.
We talk about why business leaders should recruit people with an arts background so teams can create narratives from data to aid storytelling. Combining a mixture of people and their different skills and abilities will make the translation of data more powerful.
Hydra Energy is the world's first Hydrogen-as-a-Service (HaaSTM) provider for commercial fleets looking to reduce costs and emissions today with limited risk and no up-front investment. The company's innovative approach sources green hydrogen from leading chemical partners and provides clean fuel to fleets at below-diesel prices, enabling a rapid and economic transition to cleaner trucking.
In exchange for long-term, discounted fuel contracts, Hydra quickly converts semi-truck fleets to a proprietary hydrogen injection system helping operators optimize truck performance, fuel efficiency, and emissions reduction regardless of payload and weather.
With Hydra Energy's retrofit technology, hydrogen tanks and gas handling components are installed behind the truck cab. This is where the hydrogen is stored. Each truck has 30kg of hydrogen on it.
A hydrogen injection manifold is installed in line with the air intake, blends hydrogen and air before entering the engine block. This is how hydrogen is injected.
A dedicated, secondary controller is installed behind the truck dashboard, which controls hydrogen flow. When the driver presses the pedal, it signals the master OEM computer, which the secondary Hydra controller intercepts.
It then injects the required hydrogen needed to produce 40% of the required power demand directly into the air intake, eliminating the need to modify the engine block. By using existing semi-trucks, and Hydra's Hydrogen-as-a-Service infrastructure, you can have hydrogen today. There's no need to wait for entirely new vehicles and fueling infrastructure to be designed and built at some point in the future.
With as high as 40% diesel displacement, Hydra trucks can run up to 1,000 km/a day burning 24 kilos of hydrogen, even with the heaviest payloads and in the heart of winter. There's no need to worry about range either, as Hydra trucks can seamlessly switch to just running on diesel if the hydrogen runs out.
Hydrogen technology for large internal combustion engines enables seamless switchover without losing fuel efficiency, range, power, torque, and payload capacity. I invited Jessica Verhagen to share the story behind the company and how they plan to propel low-carbon hydrogen trucking solutions.
Ben Waber is the president and co-founder of Humanyze, a workplace analytics company based out of Boston. Born out of the MIT Media Lab, the company’s goal is to help business leaders improve organizational effectiveness.
The company analyzes workplace interactions (over 20 billion interactions, to be exact) to see company-wide trends around how work gets done in order to inform and improve management decisions that positively impact financial performance and the employee experience. Specifically, one of the core focuses of their analysis is the impact of working from home on the workplace, HR, and digital transformation initiatives and how those affect organizational health.
Ben discusses the impact of remote work on organizations across the globe, best practices, and thoughts to consider when returning to work, and the power of data to inform business decisions.
About Humanyze
Founded in 2011, Humanyze is a world leader in understanding team dynamics and work patterns. With over 10 years of research into organization network analysis and behavioral science, led by leaders in the world of social physics and graduates of the MIT Media Lab, they help companies understand how work gets done. Humanyze counts with a global presence spanning the US, Europe, and Asia, and are on a mission to improve the future of work.
Helena Murphy is the Founder and Managing Director of Raising Partners, the investment firm that guides startups through each step of their fundraising process.
Helena started a sustainable clothing e-commerce business straight out of St Andrews University in her native Scotland. She was unprepared for how rocky and opaque the fundraising process would be, and experienced first hand the pitfalls of seeking investment. Helena was left with £100,000 of personal debt after being forced to fold her business, a process that left her feeling defeated and caused her to lose her hair due to stress-related alopecia.
As a result of this traumatic experience, Helena then worked as an in-house consultant for several years in order to help other businesses raise capital and avoid the mistakes she made. In that time, she developed an extensive network of connections, from investors, to accountants, entrepreneurs to lawyers, and became an expert in early-stage investment.
Raising Partners is the company she wished had existed when she was going through her own investment process. Helena and her team are determined to level the investment playing field, demystify the fundraising process, and help deserving businesses flourish.
Founded in 2017, Raising Partners has helped over 110 companies - including the likes of Thread, Celtic Renewables, ARQ, Equipsme, Poppy’s Picnic, Penfold, and Ilumoni - raise over £30 million, through pre-seed to Series B rounds. After an initial consultation, Raising Partners assesses the individual funding requirements of a startup, before creating a comprehensive, tailored investment strategy and proposal.
Raising Partners also provides end-to-end crowdfunding support, introducing new investors to the campaign, creating critical crowdfunding-specific assets, such as campaign videos, investor decks, testimonials, and pitch pages, and assisting with investor communications.
Cultural marketing agency Culture Group and storytelling platform Wattpad have collaborated to produce a whitepaper positioning Gen Zs as "the Creation Generation" because of their love for creating stories and sharing them with the world. Gen Zs grew up with the Internet, which has democratized creation in a way never seen before by allowing everyone to express their thoughts. It is clear that Gen Zs care more about issues and are more willing to express themselves.
Michael Patent, Founder and President of Culture Group, discusses Gen Zs' defining characteristics and how advertisers can tap into Gen Z's uniqueness to produce more compelling narratives. We also talk about how Gen Zs' defining traits change over time, and how this will lead to different behavior, hobbies, likes and dislikes, etc.
About Culture Group
Culture Group is a brand advisory and integrated marketing agency delivering transformative cultural ideas across Asia. They are cultural provocateurs, makers, and thinkers who collaborate with brands to disrupt the norm, shaping consumer moments into brand movements. The company builds unique partnerships between brands and entertainment properties, articulating its vision and executing a strategic approach across all consumer touchpoints. Our client list includes some of the most recognized and well-respected brands in Asia.
Maurice Mortell, Managing Director of Ireland, Equinix – the world's digital infrastructure company joins me on Tech Talks Daily. With over 20 years of experience in the data centre sector, Maurice has been a key figure in the rise of the data center industry in Ireland. Maurice also holds the 2012 ICT Excellence' Person of the Year' honour, awarded based on his invaluable contribution to the ICT sector in Ireland.
Equinix is a global data center and interconnection platform with 229 data centers across 29 countries. The company's objectives are to help enterprise customers mitigate operational risk, significantly reduce exposure to cybercrime, and ultimately safeguard data.
Global trends around digital transformation and regulatory compliance have propelled Equinix's growth trajectory, as more and more top-tier enterprises and providers routinely harness Equinix's trusted global platform to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure that fuels their success.
The company recently commissioned an independent study of 127 senior IT decision-makers in Ireland, illustrating the prevailing sentiments pertaining to the security challenges linked to remote working for businesses nationwide. The survey found that two-thirds of IT decision-makers in Ireland feel more susceptible to data breaches due to the IT strain associated with pandemic-driven remote working.
In today's episode, Maurice shares his story and reveals insights around the significant macro trends driving today's transformation challenges.
Libby Adams, Co-Founder and Chief Advocacy Officer at US publicly listed data analytics firm Alteryx joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast.
Alteryx is a publicly listed $8bn technology giant that generated over $400m in revenue in 2019 and achieved revenue growth of 25% in Q3 2020. Over 7,000 global customers use the company's data analytics software, more than 38% of the Global 2,000, and they have use cases in 90+ countries.
In the UK specifically, Alteryx's platform is used by the likes of Sainsbury's, Gymshark, Anthony Nolan, and ITV to help improve the digital skills of their respective workforces and create an entirely new generation of data scientists in the process. For example, Gymshark, one of the UK's fastest-growing sportswear brands, turned to Alteryx's software to help it survive and easily pivot during the pandemic.
In May, the company hosted its annual Inspire conference. During the three-day event, Libby hosted a panel on Women in Data Science (WiDS), which is part of the annual WiDS Worldwide conference organised by Stanford University and broadcast to an estimated 150+ locations worldwide.
In today's episode, we discuss why up-skilling will be the biggest challenge for organizations in the next 12 months. We also talk about the importance of human diversity for inclusivity in data science and artificial intelligence. Libby shares what needs to happen in primary education to build awareness of data science skills at an early stage amongst young women.
Jeff Wald, best-selling author of two books, including The End of Jobs: The Rise of On-Demand Workers and Agile Corporations. Jeff is also the Founder of WorkMarket (purchased by ADP in 2018 for $135 million), and several other technology companies, including Spinback, a social sharing platform (eventually purchased by Salesforce.com), an angel investor and startup advisor, and serves on numerous public and private Boards of Directors.
Based on hundreds of formal interviews with CEOs, HR executives, and political leaders, The End of Jobs: The Rise of On-Demand Workers and Agile Corporations guides readers through the history of work to understand how companies and workers reacted to the last three industrial revolutions. Jeff asks what lessons we can learn from these revolutions and the current state of the labor market and in order for workers, companies, and societies to prepare for the Rise of the Robots.
Included in the book is the $10 million Future of Work Prize. Jeff challenged twenty leading thinkers of the future of work on their vision for the workforce in 2040. Jeff shares his story and lessons he learned building four companies, investing in and advising hundreds of others. We discuss why new technologies like autonomous vehicles seldom lead to the job losses people expect.
YL Ventures funds and supports brilliant Israeli tech entrepreneurs from seed to lead. With headquarters in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, YL Ventures manages $260 million and specializes in cybersecurity. It accelerates the evolution of portfolio companies via strategic advice and U.S.-based operational execution, leveraging a powerful network of CISOs and global industry leaders.
Andy Ellis was recently named operating partner at YL Ventures, has been inducted into IDG's CSO Hall of Fame. The former CSO at Akamai Technologies will now be supporting YL Ventures' portfolio companies post-investment with product development, go-to-market strategies, and customer engagements.
In today's episode, Andy shares his story and insights from his career. We discuss why VC firms and investing in Israeli cybersecurity startups and why more CISOs are taking advisor/investor roles. I also learn what brings him to Israeli cybersecurity companies.
Jim Archetto of Gaumard Scientific joins me in a conversation about medical training simulations and how they are leveraging HoloLens 2 headsets.
Gaumard Scientific specialize in creating simulators for medical training that are in use at major teaching hospitals, nursing schools, medical military trainings and emergency medical services.
The company recently launched Obstetric MR™, a mixed reality labor and delivery simulation experience that synchronizes holograms with the physical world. Obstetric MR™ is comprised of a HoloLens 2 headset preloaded with software designed to help learners observe the dynamic physiology underlying childbirth. In addition, it brings, for the first time, digital learning content into the physical simulation exercise, allowing participants to link knowledge and skill through an entirely new hands-on tactile training experience.
Sophia Matveeva is the founder of Tech For Non-Techies, a learning community and media company. Sophia has contributed to the Financial Times, The Guardian, and Forbes on entrepreneurship and technology and hosts the top-rated Tech for Non-Techies podcast. She has also guest lectured at Chicago Booth and London Business School, and led the Blackstone x Techstars accelerator at the University of Texas at El Paso.
As a non-technical founder, she has co-created apps and algorithms that have been used by thousands, won App of the Day by Mashable, and were featured by Inc, the BBC and more. Sophia loves helping entrepreneurs and has advised Chicago Booth’s New Venture Challenge and Microsoft x London College of Fashion incubator. She also holds an MBA from Chicago Booth, and a BSc (Hons) in Politics from Bristol. She speaks English, Russian and French.
Sophia Matveeva shares her startup story. Then, we talk about why investors are turning towards non-technical founders and what this means for the industry. Sophie shares advice on how non-technical professionals can transition into a career in tech for non-technical professionals.
Stijn “Stan” Christiaens has a new title at Collibra - Chief Data Citizen. He joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how Collibra is getting data and policies ready for a cloud-native world, ensuring the company complies with growing privacy regulations, protecting data assets, and more.
We also discuss why the most critical priority for this year is increasing and maintaining data quality. Over the past transformative year, Collibra has spent many resources in getting the business to be digital-first. And he knows that data products are garbage in, garbage out, so the outcomes of the product, the user experience, and the smart features all depend on the quality of the data that feeds them.
I also learn why he’s changed his title and what it means. Collibra is putting smart data quality controls at various places and how he plans to organizational data priorities for the rest. We also talk about the EU’s recent announcement to take control around AI and how the proposed legislation will strengthen AI update, investment, and innovation across the EU.
Rohan Pasari is the co-founder and CEO of Cialfo, an AI-driven platform that brings together people, software, and data to simplify college and career counseling workflows. He co-founded Cialfo with the vision to make education accessible for 100 million students globally.
Rohan joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss how EdTech can make higher ed more accessible, how data analytics is transforming the college recruiting process and shares insights into the shift to virtual search and recruitment channels for higher education.
Recent announcements from Facebook and Twitter are signaling growing support for security keys as a means of user protection. Stina Ehrensvärd from Yubico discusses why this is an essential step toward a genuinely passwordless future for all.
Yubico has worked closely with both platforms to support two-factor authentication based on its physical security keys. So while Facebook users have been able to use the hardware to secure their accounts on desktops, the recent announcement sees iOS and Android users now able to do the same.
This adds a critical security layer and prevents a password from being the last line of defense against phishing or other malicious attempts to compromise private information. Importantly, security keys also reduce friction and complexity for users compared to the repeated insertion of One Time Passcodes or similar security features.
Yubico’s mission has always been to make the internet a safer place for everyone – and over the years, it has partnered with tech giants such as FIDO Alliance, Google, and Microsoft to develop appropriate standards and realize this vision. In our interview, Stina discusses the collective impact of these recent announcements and how increased industry collaboration is delivering the highest level of security and convenience to more users online, regardless of device and platform.
I learn more about how Yubico helps companies like Google secure 85,000+ of its employees against online fraud, platforms like Gov.UK to help protect gateways against cybercriminals, and within the UK government and defense departments to secure their security users.
With stakeholder capitalism and conscious capitalism entering the mainstream, we wanted to explore the future of work and how businesses are not just leveraging technology to help run their business but also transform the employee experience.
Danijela Nandi, Senior Product Manager at Citrix Workspace, and Nancy Pautsch, Chief Evangelist of Stakeholder Value (President) of Envision IT talk about how hybrid working and how technology makes teams more productive and helping to build a more conscious culture where everyone has a sense of purpose. They also discuss the ROI of improving employee engagement and wellbeing.
About Envision IT
Envision IT is a soulful company whose business is technology optimization, ensuring that mainstream technologies in businesses today are an enabler to employee engagement and business success (versus being an obstacle).
Nancy Pautsch is the Chief Evangelist of Stakeholder Value (President) of Envision IT, a group of curious and compassionate people growing a soulful company. Envision's mission is to enrich the lives of their stakeholders. Their business is technology consulting focused on optimization to ensure technology is an enabler to employee engagement and business success. Envision is the go-to technology partner for organizations across the U.S.
Nancy has been in the technology industry for 20+ years. Keys to her leadership are a growth mindset and fostering collaborative cultures that breed a grounded sense of purpose while striving for excellence. As a thriving Firm of Endearment, Envision has been lauded locally for their contributions to the community and economy; recognized globally in the technology industry as 'best of the best' for engineering quality, innovation, and customer experience; and highlighted by the Conscious Capitalism movement as a model for stakeholder orientation.
Real Ice is a Wales-based company that has invented a revolutionary renewable energy-powered ice maker to replenish the polar ice caps that are melting as a result of global warming.
The Real Ice machine, developed by recent Bangor University graduate Cian Sherwin, is a windpowered machine that pumps water from under the Ice to the surface, where it freezes rapidly and patches gaps in the sea ice. It also works to thicken the Ice, thus increasing the albedo effect, which is the ability to reflect the sun’s energy back into space instead of being absorbed by the earth.
Still in the prototype phase, the project plans to employ indigenous people of Arctic regions to own, maintain and operate the machines. At the same time, they earn carbon credits which can be sold to companies to offset their fossil fuel use.
By combatting the effects of global warming and ice loss on traditional local communities, Real Ice also hopes to boost the development of Arctic regions experiencing the harsh negative effects of global warming.
Mansour Karam is the Co-Founder of data center network automation company Apstra, which was recently acquired by the networking giant Juniper Networks. With over a decade of experience in network automation and network solutions, Mansour currently works at Juniper as the VP of Products, helping clients deliver on their networking solutions and make the most out of their business with Juniper.
Mansour discusses how automation is essential to minimizing costly mistakes and eliminating human error from mundane tasks in a hyperconnected data center. Mansour also elaborates on the two main areas where automation maximizes productivity in the data center.
We talk about scaling capacity with output so that data center development is not inhibited and processing repetitive tasks, so developers have more time and bandwidth for crucial development. Mansour also explains how automation is essential to minimizing expensive mistakes and provides robust data sets for IT leaders to apply hyper-accurate insights in development.
About Juniper
Juniper Networks challenges the inherent complexity that comes with networking and security in the multicloud era. They do this with products, solutions and services that transform the way people connect, work and live. They simplify the process of transitioning to a secure and automated multicloud environment to enable secure, AI-driven networks that connect the world.
Curve Health is an elderly care telemedicine platform that is installed directly into nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). The company announced a $6m seed round in late 2020, and on May 6th, will announce national partnerships with facilities in Minnesota and California, bringing telemedicine access to the bedsides of hundreds of patients.
The platform is peer-reviewed & proven by the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine to reduce unnecessary hospital transfers from skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) by up to 80%.
About Tim Peck
Tim Peck is the founder of Curve Health. Before founding Curve, Peck earned his MD from NYU, then held a faculty position at Harvard Medical School and was the Chief Resident in the Emergency Department at Beth Israel Deaconess (BIDC). From there, Peck cofounded Call9, a company that was the forebearer to Curve Health and was responsible for changing the landscape of care delivery to nursing homes.
Assaf Morag and Ehud Amiri from Aqua Security join me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss finding from Aqua's 2021 Security Report, which assesses cloud infrastructure risks.
During 12 months, Aqua Security conducted an in-depth analysis of Aqua Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) usage data and found that 40% of users had at least one misconfigured Docker API. But, overall, 84% of users were able to detect and remediate misconfiguration issues using CSPM, which would otherwise have gone unnoticed without manual involvement.
Although cloud-native applications have many benefits, such as allowing more agility by giving more people access to define the environment, it means that many organizations are moving away from a centralized approach to security. Where once there was only a small, highly skilled team of security practitioners making all configuration changes, we now have a modern, decentralized approach. Indeed, a recent IDC survey showed that almost 80% of respondents had at least one cloud security breach over the preceding 18 months.
We talk about Aqua's 2021 Security Report findings, explore the complexity of cloud environments, and discuss some solutions to help mitigate these risks.
With nearly half of Americans currently working from home, and an additional 20% expected to remain that way in the future, the challenge of remote authentication has never been more important. Replacing passwords and updating software are no longer enough as lines blur between work/personal security posture and data subsequently becomes more at risk.
Eric Brown, Senior Manager, Enterprise Identity & Access Management at SAIC, urges that with this change comes a need for organizations to recalibrate their approach to authentication. Eric shares his insights and advises how to secure identities while balancing a simplified user experience. He also discusses lessons learned with SAIC as the company transformed to a remote workforce – including key takeaways related to their multi-factor authentication platform for remote employees.
About SAIC
SAIC is a premier Fortune 500® technology integrator driving digital transformation. Their robust portfolio of offerings across the defense, space, civilian, and intelligence markets includes secure high-end solutions in engineering, IT modernization, and mission solutions. Using their expertise and understanding of existing and emerging technologies, they integrate the best components from their own portfolio and partner ecosystem to deliver innovative, effective, and efficient solutions critical to achieving their customers' missions.
Saic consists of a team of 26,000 driven by mission, united purpose, and inspired by opportunity. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, SAIC has annual revenues of approximately $7.1 billion.
It's just over twenty years since the dot-com bubble burst, leaving economic chaos and unemployment in its wake. In the years following, a little-known project – Google Maps – was in its early stages intending to create more user-friendly maps.
At the same time, Gidi Cohen, CEO of Skybox Security, had a similar vision, only for the cybersecurity space. "In the same way Google Maps allows users to understand their terrain, location and how to interpret traffic lights, we are helping security teams make sense of their IT network topology."
Through a network model approach to security, Skybox has become a trusted partner to large enterprises like P&G, Vodafone and Estee Lauder. Skybox helps these organizations to connect the dots and get better visibility into the threats that lie within their fragmented networks, decentralized, inconsistent configurations and change management processes, unsafe cloud, and network configurations.
Gidi joins me on the podcast and talks about why it's important to understand exposure vs. exploitability on vulnerabilities. We also attempt to demystify security complexity and talk about what is currently keeping CISO's awake at night.
Gidi also shares his origin story and how he married his passions of math, analytics, technology, and cybersecurity to create Skybox. But even as founder and CEO, how he stills rolls up his sleeves to code.
AllianceBlock is building the first globally compliant decentralized capital market. The AllianceBlock Protocol is a decentralized, blockchain-agnostic layer 2 that automates the process of converting any digital or crypto asset into a bankable product. Incubated by three of Europe's most prestigious incubators: Station F, L39, and Kickstart Innovation in Zurich.
It is led by a heavily experienced team of ex-JP Morgan, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs investment bankers, and quants, AllianceBlock is on the path to disrupt the $100 trillion securities market with its state-of-the-art and globally compliant decentralized capital market.
The first globally compliant decentralized capital market, recently announced that it secured funding under the $100M accelerator fund set up to boost the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem, the latest in a series of announcements made in the past week. It's been a huge few weeks for the DeFi powerhouse, which continues to cement its position within the burgeoning DeFi industry.
Rachid Ajaja, CEO and Co-founder of AllianceBlock, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share his grand vision for AllianceBlock.
Ransomware threats are snowballing. Time and again we have witnessed that a ransomware attack on a single endpoint brings down the enterprise infrastructure just in a few seconds. Despite the hype around cybersecurity, there aren't credible solutions available to addresses the most fundamental reasons behind the majority of the cyber breaches – shared VLANs; excessive access granted by traditional firewalls/ VPNs; and legacy protocols over unpatched systems.
While there are many security companies trying to prevent ransomware from getting into your network, Airgap's "Zero Trust Isolation Platform" is protecting organizations even if their perimeter is breached or if they have unpatched vulnerable servers inside their data center.
Airgap's "Ransomware Kill Switch" is a potent ransomware response for the IT organization. Airgap can be deployed in minutes without any agents, forklift upgrades, or design changes.
Ritesh Agrawal, CEO, Airgap, returns to the Tech Talks Daily podcast to talk about Ransomware trends. We discuss how to protect against business disruption caused by ransomware attacks that often cripple organizations.
Liav Chen, CEO and Co-Founder of Humanz joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to talk about the AI-based influencer marketing platform with a twist. Over the years, advertising has migrated towards social media marketing, and today more than ever before, marketing tactics rely heavily on influencer endorsement and vise versa. Currently, this model suffers from influencer fatigue, and both marketers and influencers lack the ability to trust the data.
There seems to be a river of 'dirty money' flowing from buying fake followers, having bots engaged with content, and more. Platforms like Humanz were created to make sure authenticity and real value are being measured and presented as part of any potential collaboration.
Using Humanz's unique technology, based on two main sets of proprietary algorithms and big data analysis, influencer marketing's largest problems face a reckoning. It's a new level of targeting that taps micro-influencers, a vastly underutilized resource in the marketing sphere.
Before co-founding Humanz, Liav spent five years serving in the highly esteemed Israeli Intelligence Unit 8200. This is where he gained extensive experience in DevOps, big data, and machine learning. Chen identified multiple shortcomings in influencer marketing and created the Humanz platform to fix what is broken. Chen built the platform to provide a total scope of data on a content creator's account and its following, allowing for better collaborations, better ads, and greater success with reaching an audience.
Liav discusses how influencer marketing became the new billboard and how Humanz mediates existing flaws and uses AI and big data to do so.
Michael O’Hara, Group Managing Director of specialist IT distributor DataSolutions, joins me on the Tech Talks podcast. The company appeared on my radar when they recently announced that they are aiming to become the world’s first carbon-neutral IT distributor by the end of 2022. As well as implementing measures to improve its own sustainability, the organization has also launched a “Techies Go Green” community to encourage and support partners and other businesses in doing the same.
Michael discusses his ambitious growth plans for DataSolutions and talks about his decision to expand from Ireland into the UK market back in 2016 on the cusp of Brexit and how he has successfully built up the UK arm of the business over the last four years. In fact, the organization was recently awarded the title of Distributor of the Year at the Network Computing Awards 2020, showcasing its increasing influence and growth.
Michael also provides insights into how the business has adapted throughout the pandemic and supports organisations in doing the same through its innovative mobility and security offerings, which have become vital for many companies over the last 12 months. 2020 research by DataSolutions revealed just how crucial such technologies are for both now and going forward, with a third of office workers admitting they would quit if home-working weren’t supported.
CloudSphere helps organizations simplify cloud management by automating governance, minimizing security risks, and managing costs from a single platform. Keith Neilson, Technical Evangelist for the company, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast.
The IDC forecasts worldwide spending on cloud services will surpass $1 trillion in 2024. Keith shares why securing and governing multi-cloud environments is a top IT challenge facing enterprises as cloud adoption accelerates amid the pandemic. I learn how this challenge has driven demand for CloudSphere’s solution, which helps organizations simplify cloud management/avoid costly breaches.
We also discuss the immense cloud governance gaps enterprises experience that ultimately leaves sensitive data vulnerable to breaches. Keith shares how CloudSphere recently released research which found that 32% of enterprises experienced unauthorized access to cloud resources, and another 19% were unaware if unauthorized access occurred.
Keith also discusses why having visibility into which users have access to data and resources is increasingly difficult due to the complex nature of cloud environments and best practices for enterprises to manage cloud access rights.
Ken Fine is the new CEO of Heap, the leading analytics platform helping product, marketing, and customer success teams craft exceptional digital experiences that convert and retain users. Grabbing hold on a company that's outperformed on ARR expectations in the last year and raised $191.1M over nine funding rounds, he's fully prepared to propel Heap even further ahead. And, he's got some friends in high – and unconventional – places to thank.
I wanted to learn more about Ken's story and how he was influenced by his time in the Navy as an engineer designing and constructing submarine propulsion systems. Here in 2021, Ken shares his vision for the future of Heap, building on his 20 years of experience leading growth-stage B2B SaaS companies.
Ken discusses the crucial importance of companies investing in data systems – especially when looking to scale. He also shares more about the principles he lives by and how those will manifest in Heap's product offerings, in turn guiding him in cementing the company's position as the go-to analytics provider.
Rich Waldron is CEO and co-founder of Tray.io. He believes strongly in democratizing the use of software and data for anyone – not just for engineers. He helped create Tray.io to lead the low-code general automation movement so that any business user can have the power to integrate their tech stack and automate mission-critical business processes by themselves.
About Tray.io
The Tray.io General Automation Platform democratizes automation and integration so anyone can easily turn their unique business processes into repeatable and scalable workflows that evolve whenever business needs change. Unlike iPaaS solutions, which are expensive, complex, and code-intensive, Tray.io’s flexible self-service platform makes it simple to build integrations using any API and connect enterprise applications at scale without incremental costs.
Process innovation is today’s competitive advantage since companies can no longer differentiate on their tech stack alone. The promise of SaaS led to an avalanche of siloed point solutions that require businesses to force their processes into rigid, predetermined schema.
The Tray Platform removes these limitations, empowering both non-technical and technical users to create sophisticated workflow automations that streamline data movement and actions across multiple applications. Freed from tedious and repetitive tasks, citizen automators, product leaders, and IT are able to uplevel their skill set with automation to unlock their full potential and do things in a way that’s right for their business.
Teams at leading companies including FICO, New Relic, Segment, and Udemy bring the future of work to life using Tray.io’s solutions. Their motto is simply, Love your work. Automate the rest.™
When watching the latest summer blockbuster movie, you might think that the industry is at the cutting edge of technology. But behind the curtain, Hollywood is actually clunky and slow to change, and nowhere is this more evident than in the IP acquisition process.
Around 50% of all entertainment is based on existing IP (novels, articles, biographies, memoirs, etc.)—this number is closer to 80% in television. Yet, the process of finding and buying the rights is analog and outdated—a person would have to find the source, spend weeks or months identifying the various rights holders, then negotiating the option rights.
With Every network launching a streaming service, there is a voracious appetite for new content. 700+ new shows launched last year. But did you know, in order to launch even one show, it typically takes 80+ story ideas at the top of the funnel?
Cue Story Scout—an online marketplace that curates IP, pre-negotiates all the rights, and allows studios and independent producers to find and option ideas with the click of a button. StoryScout is an immediate marketplace. They do all the finding of cool stories, clear the rights, represent everything and negotiate the deal. Think of it as an Amazon for cool ideas.
Current subscribers include Sony Television, New Line, and Range Media, with sights set on deals with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Warner Bros, NBC, Paramount, HBO, Fox, Sony Pictures, Snap, and CBS. Todd Hoffman, CEO of StoryScout, shares how this kind of tech is hyper-focused for Hollywood’s needs.
Hoffman and his colleagues all come from Hollywood and know what studios are looking for, from super-specific tagging (E.g., Stories set in “Latin America” that are “family-friendly” and “quirky” and are about “divorce”) to film/TV-worthy stories. They’re engineering machine learning tools to help them filter the most interesting, relevant ideas, too.
Daniel Gold is the co-founding partner of Future Energy Solutions. A serial entrepreneur obsessed with helping customers solve their pain points. He's transformed FES from a Florida lighting startup into an industry disrupter and global operation.
FES has multi-billion dollar financial backing and has generated over $200M in energy savings for thousands of customers, including Hilton, Ford, Burger King, Taco Bell, Best Western, and Chevrolet. But where did it all begin?
I sit down with Daniel in a relaxed conversation where he shares his inspiring startup story. I also learn how he created the "Gold Initiative" which offers businesses a complete LED Lighting Installation at no up-front cost, 15 years of free maintenance, no credit agreement, and no catch.
Daniel shares how he knew business owners and managers are cash-strapped, and that's why he's endowed FES with the offer of a cost-free way for them to make major capital improvements, save money over time and become more sustainable.
Here in 2021, FES is an international player in the LED lighting space. Daniel has been recognized by Forbes, Inc, and Fortune and honored by Florida Business Journal for 'Business of the Year.' But it's Daniel's inspiring story that will stay with you long after the end of this podcast episode.
Dr Mark van Rijmenam is the founder of Datafloq and Mavin. Datafloq is the one-stop source for emerging tech, offering C-level Executives information, insights, knowledge, and opportunities to drive innovation with data. The international keynote speaker is also the author of 3 best-selling management books.
I wanted to learn more about his mission to educate people and organizations about how the future of work will revolve around data, decentralization, and automation. In doing so, they could gain a deep understanding of emerging technologies, including big data, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, and how they will change the future of work.
We live in exponential times and simply having a digital strategy focused on continuous innovation is no longer enough to thrive in a constantly changing world. Van Rijmenam discusses how big data, blockchain, and AI will change collaboration and enable a networked society.
The organization of tomorrow will look fundamentally different than today's organization. Those enterprises aware of the upcoming changes can best prepare and achieve competitive advantage in a data-driven society. Consequently, the future of work will require management and employees to take a different approach to create and deliver a product or service.
The future of work will be defined by three concepts: data, decentralization, and automation that will radically change leadership, culture, privacy, and security. Van Rijmenam shares valuable insights around the future of work and how to build a competitive business.
Plivo provides easy and affordable APIs for businesses to develop powerful voice and messaging applications. Applications built over Plivo seamlessly integrate across web and telephony, including Mobile, PSTN, VoIP, and Gtalk. But where did it all begin?
Venky B shares the story behind Plivo and how they serve thousands of innovative businesses in more than 190 countries, such as IBM, GoDaddy, PagerDuty, Deckers Brand, etc., through SMS and Voice APIs.
I learn more about how the company's founders all met over GitHub, and the team signed its first paying customers before they had a commercial offering. Venky recommends launching early, iterate with few anchor customers to build a product marketing fit, and charge as early as you can.
For startup founders, Venky B offers the following advice.
Debt Funding: This was a no-brainer for Plivo, and other companies should consider this route as there is no dilution and helps with short-term investments.
Entrepreneurship: Venky has guided the company to hold out from taking money and being trapped. This route is less taken, and Venky shares the benefits that he has seen thus far from this strategy.
Recruiting: In the early days of your company, find passionate early employees who thrive in an unstructured environment. Additionally, hire generalists early and then form more specialized teams as you scale.
Growth: The first step is finding a product-market fit with repeatability, focusing on making a few customers happy, and keeping an eye on churn.
Global Expansion: Whenever financially feasible, build a local go-to-market team and engage customer teams to create passionate customers.
Anker Innovations, a global leader in mobile charging and consumer electronics, recently announced two products under the AnkerWork product line, including the PowerConf C300, Smart AI-enabled HD webcam, and the PowerConf S500 Portable Conference Speaker.
For many, working from home has been a dream come true, but it also brings its unique challenges; distracting pets, family, poor lighting, and power and cable management issues, to name a few. AnkerWork products have been designed to help address many of these issues, while providing portable solutions and can be easily used in the home, the office, and on the road.
Adam Weissman joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss Anker’s decision to enter the B2B tech space at this moment in time, along with his vision of how the future of work will center on flexibility and mobility. We also talk about where the hybrid work model is heading, how future AnkerWork product offerings will be equipped to address the future of work, and what AI technology can play a stronger role in the new age of work.
O2 and Virgin have almost 40 million customers between them, so it will be a huge challenge to bring their records into one platform. Of course M&As have become increasingly common in the telco industry in recent years, and tongues continue to wag about potential activity involving both BT and Nokia over the next few months.
Data solutions provider Sagacity work with leading telcos, so I invited Harry Dougall, CFO and founding partner at on the podcast to discuss the typical challenges companies face when merging. We explore some of the mammoth data tasks that could make or break M&As, such as joining all the data together in a unified format. A merger of this scale often takes years, especially if customer information is spread across siloed departments.
We talk about the importance of checking for accuracy and records that need to be merged (if somebody was a customer of both organizations). We also discuss how making decisions about which packages are appropriate for which type of customer, where they could be cross-selling services, and identify the most valuable customers to focus on retaining them.
Several years ago, Liberty Mutual developed a “Technology Manifesto,” a six-page document that explained where they were going and what needed to change as part of their transformation journey. It laid out the tools needed to compete in the marketplace and a picture around the types of technology skills employees needed for roles in the future.
Eric Drobisewski is the Senior Architect of Fortune 100, Liberty Mutual Insurance. Eric has more than 20 years of enterprise IT experience spanning many technology verticals, including Telecom, Network, and Cloud services. As a Senior Architect, he’s responsible for more than 40,000 systems across the globe in a highly virtualized environment with a goal of modernizing a significant portion of those workloads for public cloud platforms.
Over the past several years, Eric’s focus has been on Liberty Mutual’s enterprise cloud strategy, strategic enablement, DevSecOps and Infrastructure as Code practices, and driving containerization as the company’s core compute fabric. With the mass shift to remote work, we talk about the technologies that enabled Liberty Mutual’s 50,000 global employees to succeed and various areas of technology the company is continuing to expand to this year.
I also learn how they are aiming to fully pivot to the cloud and reduce their three owned data centers to a single one, with aspirations to get to zero in the future.
Slater Victoroff is the Founder and CTO of Indico. An enterprise AI solution for unstructured content that emphasizes document understanding. Slater has been building machine learning solutions for startups, governments, and Fortune 100 companies for the past seven years and is a frequent speaker at AI conferences.
Indico’s framework requires 1000x less data than traditional machine learning techniques, and they regularly beat the likes of AWS, Google, Microsoft, and IBM in head-to-head bake-offs. Indico recently announced a $22 million Series B raise.
Slater has been building AI, machine learning and deep learning solutions for the enterprise for the better part of the past decade, having worked with everyone from the federal government to two-person startups to the Fortune 100. He has also educated hundreds of business users on successfully implementing deep learning through a simple framework that helps executives rapidly accelerate the adoption of the technology in their businesses.
We talk about The future of AI / Machine Learning, the effect of AI on automation processes, and making STEM more inclusive.
Calvin Brown is a tech founder with experience managing global teams and multi-million dollar software deliverables. His software architecture background, coding capabilities, and keen understanding of the entire process help inform his mindful but competitive approach.
Calvin is fueled by his passion for understanding the nuances of the technical challenges businesses face across all industries. He considers himself a ‘forever student,’ eager to build on his hands-on technical foundation by architecting, building, and teaching others how to master the art of making complex technical issues solvable.
Calvin has developed applications for some of the world’s largest brands. What makes him unique is his dedication to educating entrepreneurs and other tech professionals on how to create the software that we all know and love. The tech group that he created for black coders, Black Men Code, has now grown to over 1,000 professionals. His many publications have aided him in his mission to spread knowledge, educate entrepreneurs and empower them to solve their own technical issues.
Calvin shares how he helps businesses solve problems and run better by providing software-based solutions with an emphasis on innovation, creativity, and common-sense solutions. We discuss the importance of creating space for minorities within the tech industry, and Calvin shares his journey from a lower-middle-class Mississippi home to global tech success. We also talk about how to bring your application dream into reality and explore the future of tech.
Dinesh Malkani is Founder and CEO of Smarten Spaces. His company provides an AI-based technology platform/solutions to transition back to the workplace safely and securely. Smarten Spaces is working with Fortune 500 companies across 50+ cities globally. In today's episode, we talk about hybrid working, back-to-work technology, and the future of the workplace.
About Smarten Spaces
People spend a significant time inside buildings, and they thrive when these spaces are convenient and intuitive. At Smarten Spaces, their vision is to transform all spaces where people spend time, and they do so by designing technology that keeps human behavior and experience in mind.
The company dreams of enabling future-ready spaces that help users optimize for the most value. Our tech solutions allow users to make informed financial decisions based on how their spaces are being utilized while also enhancing the experience of those that interact with the spaces. Better business, better experience.
They believe that technology should be seamless. That's why their configurable solutions are designed for your convenience when planning for and interacting with the spaces of the future. With offerings across workplace management, space management, and tenant engagement, they are currently smartening 90 million square feet globally (and counting).
Rich Rudzinski always had an entrepreneurial spirit and found different ways to express that while growing up. He has been infatuated with computers since he first locked eyes on the sweet 486 Windows machine his uncle got his family in the early 90s. He broke, fixed, and gamed on that computer until he saved enough to build his own machine from scratch.
The top of his class in high school, Rich followed his passion for computers while studying at UCSD where he graduated early with an innovative art/technology major (ICAM), with a focus on building interactive experiences with new technologies.
Rich started his current venture, Tragic Media, in 2009 after working as a technology consultant for a variety of digital agencies. He saw a common theme of project overages, disappointed clients, and outsourcing went awry; and sought to build a company to solve that problem. Initially, a white-label solution for other agencies, Tragic Media now helps businesses of all sizes avoid technology tragedies.
Over the years, the logo and frameworks have evolved, but Tragic still focuses on providing sound technical leadership for non-technical organizations. From the web to apps to the cloud and beyond! They partner with their clients to help them build a technology foundation built to scale. Rich is also in the process of building out a SaaS product for software team reporting and working to grow a sub-brand focused on helping organizations with IoT integrations and system implementations.
I chat with Rich about entrepreneurship, pivoting a business, building processes with technology. We also discuss what emerging technologies excite him.
Here in the UK, the Daily Mail and Guardian Newspapers will give you to completely different sides of a news story. In the US, CNN and Fox News will often do the same thing. But how did we get here? And is there an appetite to return to factual rather than opinion-based reporting?
Tim Huelskamp from 1440 Media joins me in a conversation about the monetization of polarization and how the click-bait structured media world is creating an outrage machine that relies on misleading headlines and sensationalism to sustain itself. I also learn how 1440 media is tackling this problem and the role of technology in helping people find an alternative to their echo chamber and find explore fact base news that challenges rather than strengthens your worldview.
About 1440 Media
Instead of cleverly crafted messaging and media narratives, 1440 provides an impartial view of what’s happening in the world so our readers can form their own conclusions. Scouring hundreds of sources each day, 1440 delivers news with breadth plus depth, thoughtfully curated by experts, in a single morning briefing. We believe news is not about proving one side is right – it should inspire objective conversation that helps you navigate the world around you. While it may sound lofty, our goal is to empower readers so they can lead better, well-informed, more productive lives.
Nick Ford, the chief technology evangelist at Mendix, discusses some of the recent trends that have contributed to the rise of low-code adoption around the world. He also shares some of the most compelling findings from a recent survey commissioned by Mendix about low-code adoption in the manufacturing sector. I also learn more about the recent launch of Mendix 9 and how it can help businesses develop apps up to 10x faster.
About Mendix
Mendix, a Siemens business and the global leader in enterprise low-code, is fundamentally reinventing the way applications are built in the digital enterprise. With the Mendix platform, enterprises can “Make with More” by broadening an enterprise’s development capability to conquer the software development bottleneck; “Make it Smart,” by making apps with rich native experiences that are intelligent, proactive, and contextual; and “Make at Scale,” to modernize core systems and build large app portfolios to keep pace with business growth.
The Mendix platform is built to promote intense collaboration between business and IT teams and dramatically accelerate application development cycles while maintaining the highest standards of security, quality, and governance — in short, to help enterprises confidently leap into their digital futures. Mendix’s “Go Make It” platform has been adopted by more than 4,000 leading companies around the world.
This year, global attention has continued to focus on privacy and data ownership questions within the digital sphere. On a mission to solve these issues and change how data is managed and transferred, Ontology has established itself as the platform of choice for developers, enterprises, and end-users alike.
Having launched its Mainnet in June 2018, Ontology has gone from strength to strength over the last three years, forging tangible partnerships across various industries. I invited Gloria Wu, Chief of Global Ecosystem Partnerships at Ontology Blockchain on to the podcast to discuss their recent partnerships, including:
Daimler — In a move set to transform the experience of drivers all over the world, Ontology recently partnered with the Daimler Mobility AG Blockchain Factory, which was set up to bring the benefits of blockchain innovations and applications to the automotive finance and mobility industry.
Microworkers — To further their mutual aim of empowering microworkers across the globe, Ontology is collaborating with global freelancing marketplace leader MicroWorkers (MW). Following the initial confirmation of the partnership in February 2020, Ontology recently confirmed the integration of its ONTO Wallet with the MicroWorkers platform, facilitating additional payment options for workers.
Binance Smart Chain – In August 2020, Ontology partnered with Binance Smart Chain Adopting its Decentralized Identity Solution for Security Tokenization Offering Projects.
OGQ — Ontology joined forces with social creator platform OGQ in a strategic partnership that allows OGQ to leverage the Ontology blockchain to increase copyright protection for its content creators, while also presenting users with a new opportunity to purchase digital asset content using OEP-4 tokens.
About Ontology
Ontology is a high-performance, public blockchain specializing in decentralized identity and data. Ontology’s unique infrastructure supports robust cross-chain collaboration and Layer 2 scalability, offering businesses the flexibility to design a blockchain that suits their needs.
With a suite of decentralized identity and data sharing protocols to enhance speed, security, and trust, Ontology’s features include ONT ID, a mobile digital ID application and DID used throughout the ecosystem, and DDXF, a decentralized data exchange and collaboration framework.
Mimecast recently released their annual State of Email Security report, which reveals enterprises faced unprecedented cybersecurity risk, including increasing attack volume, the pandemic-driven digital transformation of work, and generally deficient cyber preparedness and training.
The Mimecast report revealed that 61% of organizations were infected with ransomware in 2020. It also found that 79% suffered disruption or financial loss due to cyber preparedness shortcomings.
Jeremy Ventura, Senior Security Engineer at Mimecast, discusses the report's findings and the current threat landscape along with the problems organizations face today. We also discuss what organizations can do to combat threats like ransomware. Jeremy also talks about the importance of email and web security and security awareness training, which the report highlights a lack of.
About Mimecast
Mimecast (NASDAQ: MIME) was born in 2003. Each day, they take on cyber disruption for tens of thousands of customers around the globe and never giving up on tackling their biggest security challenges together. The company built an intentional and scalable design ideology that solves the number one cyberattack vector – email.
The company continuously invests to thoughtfully integrate brand protection, security awareness training, web security, compliance and other essential capabilities. Mimecast protects large and small organizations from malicious activity, human error and technology failure; and to lead the movement toward building a more resilient world.
For a long time, tech existed in the background. Now, Customers want to do business with innovative companies, making marketing new cutting-edge technology (whether it's for mobile orders, contactless payment or online banking) more important than ever before in order to deepen customer loyalty and get continued buy-in.
Dominick Profico, CTO, Mobiquity discusses how technology adoption and the need for contactless tools has led companies to bring their digital offerings to the forefront. We also talk about why this advertising is necessary to see a positive ROI on digital transformation projects and how this tactic can keep brands on the cutting edge of innovation moving forward.
Mobiquity is a global digital consulting firm that helps the world’s leading brands understand, apply, and engage with technology in meaningful ways. We guide companies through the process of designing and building digital products and services that serve a purpose.
Robin Purohit returns to the podcast to talk about the Peritus Assistant. He reveals how it uses AI to source and rank over 25 million answers, tips, and published content on Stack Overflow, related community, and product vendor forums from previous conversations and reported GitHub issues. I learn how It provides DevOps professionals and application developers with recommendations to help them answer support questions on community and vendor sites.
Peritus.ai is a patented cloud-based recommendation engine that provides technical advice when it’s needed most. The company’s current focus is transforming community forums from best effort to a best-in-class support experience by empowering community users to find and answer questions faster. The Peritus roadmap includes use cases for DevOps self-service and IT Support.
The Peritus Assistant, which is available as a free Chrome extension on the Google Chrome Store, is pre-trained with machine learning to empower developers, DevOps engineers, and SREs to answer cloud-native questions.
Rohit Maheshwari, Head of Strategy and Product at Subex, joins me in a conversation about Augmented Analytics and the future of data analytics in enterprises.
Augmented Analytics is one of the latest data and analytics trends that is gaining considerable traction. Many organizations have realized the importance of Big Data and its role in decision-making across the business. However, this sheer volume of data available to organizations is making effective interpretation a real challenge. According to Forrester Research, less than 0.5% of all data is ever analyzed and used. In contrast, a mere 12% of enterprise data is used to make decisions.
According to IDC Forecast, this will only make it worse with the growth in IoT-connected devices, which is expected to generate 79.4 Zeta Bytes (ZB) of data across 41.6 billion devices. We talk about how leveraging augmented analytics will greatly accelerate transformation projects in enterprises and the typical roadblocks to AI adoption for decision analytics.
We also discuss how organizations can adopt augmented analytics technology, including connecting disparate and live data sources, finding relationships within the data, creating visualizations, and helping human users effortlessly share their findings across the entire organization.
The "search engine wars" are heating up. But Google, Yahoo, and Bing are not the only players in the game. One of the fastest-growing search engines in the U.S. is Ecosia (Ecosia.org). Ecosia is an ethical tech and not-for-profit search engine that aims to tackle the climate crisis by planting and protecting trees around the world.
As a certified B-Corp, Ecosia joins the ranks of companies like Patagonia, Ben & Jerrys, and Allbirds, who have met the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance. This "eco-friendly" alternative to other search engines can track the number of trees they are planting with their searches, which helps reduce CO2 and the impact of climate change.
The company is founded on green principles and has built solar farms that produce enough renewable energy to power its searches twice over. The excess actively removes dirty energy from the grid. Ecosia is also currently the largest financier of native tree restoration in the world.
Ecosia is now the fifth-largest search engine in the U.S. and is rapidly adding new users and planting trees. For every 45 searches, Ecosia plants a tree, and it has now planted over 120 million trees across 9,000 planting sites worldwide.
Ruby Au (Head of Ecosia North America) shares the story behind Ecosia.
Avi Freedman is the co-founder and CEO of Kentik, a network observability company. He has decades of experience as a technologist, networking executive and is also a professional poker player.
Before Kentik, he was at Akamai for over a decade, as VP Network Infrastructure and then Chief Network Scientist. Prior to that, Avi started Philadelphia’s first ISP (netaxs) in 1992, later running the network at AboveNet and serving as CTO for ServerCentral.
Avi discusses lessons learned throughout his career, including how his poker skills have helped him in the tech industry.
Jingming Li is the former vice president and CTO of Alipay, where he spent seven years helping to build the company which lifted millions of people out of poverty in China. He is now setting his sights on doing the same thing for creators through a new company and service, TrovaPage, Which has already been used by thousands of entrepreneurs to build, market, and bill for services, ranging from yoga instruction to guitar lessons, to small restaurants, to non-profits.
While the market for e-commerce solutions for selling products is competitive and mature, it has failed to develop a comprehensive solution for creators that want to easily build, market, and monetize their own business. Current solutions such as Yelp or Fiverr are either too expensive, lack the necessary functionality, or are overly complex for creators to use, and trying to get a handle on all of the CRM, social media, invoicing and bill payment solutions needed to run a business is beyond most small businesses and creators.
Jingming discusses why he is motivated to create millions of creator-driven businesses and what he learned at Alibaba and his time under Jack Ma. I also learn how it has helped him drive his innovation at TrovaPage.
Mike Lynch shares his startup story, the idea behind Darktrace, and how we still need to get better at turning ideas in university seminar rooms into saleable products. As an investor and technologist, Mike also shares what sort of ideas and pitches he would like most want to see and how AI will change the legal industry.
Dr. Mike Lynch OBE FREng FRS is a celebrated technologist, entrepreneur, and investor. Having founded and lead some of the UK's most successful tech companies, including Autonomy, Blinkx, and Cambridge Neurodynamics, Mike then created Invoke Capital in 2012 to create and support world-leading fundamental tech businesses such as Darktrace and Luminance.
Referred to as the UK's answer to Bill Gates, Mike read Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, where he also gained a Ph.D. and held a research fellowship in adaptive pattern recognition. He was awarded an OBE for Services to Enterprise in 2006, is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was elected to the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology in 2011.
Dr. Shaka Bahadu, Harvard College, Cornell Medical and Stanford grad, who is the is the COO and co-founder of Cipher Skin.
Cipher Skin: Cipher Skin is a data company founded in 2017, built on technology that translates the physical world into actionable insights. Cipher Skin’s patented technology, Cipher Mesh, is a network of sensors that can be printed on any textile and wrapped around anything—a person, a pipe, a bridge. This technology captures gapless data and translates it through proprietary software to provide instantaneous, visualized data and diagnostics.
Because of Cipher Skin’s versatility, there are nearly unlimited applications, from physical therapy and training to continuous monitoring in pipeline management. The brainchild of combat veterans, Cipher Skin has also countless military applications. At its core, however, Cipher Skin melds next-gen hardware and software to help make sense of our complex world.
Having recently scored Series A funding last month, Cipher Skin has found great success working with physical therapists, athletes, and in June 2020, the Department of Defense—in which they were awarded a $1.5M contract working directly with soldiers to further develop its product set and assess range of motion during field training.
Shaka talks about the future of data technology, and its potential for a variety of industries, in addition to his entrepreneurial journey and what led him to start Cipher Skin with his co-founder and CEO, Philip Bogdanovich.
Varun Talwar, CEO of Tetrate joins me on today's episode in a discussion about advancements in the service mesh sector and the pros and cons of the next generation of cloud networking. I learn how Tetrate is an enterprise-ready service mesh company that is on a mission to connect the world's services and create the next generation of cloud networking. The company’s roster includes clients such as, FICO and the DoD.
As an industry leader and veteran, Varun has nearly two decades of global experience across the technology sector. Not only is he the co-founder of Tetrate, but he is also the co-creator of the gRPC and Istio projects -- he served as the PM on those projects during his tenure at Google. Varun is passionate about creating a safer and more responsible path to modernization for enterprises.
ART AI is the world’s largest gallery of AI-generated art. Our gallery displays thousands of original designs authentically created by artificial intelligence. We embarked on this fascinating expedition to explore how artificial intelligence can generate art that people can emotionally connect with.
Since the beginning of time, art has served as a tool for emotional expression. It was used to evoke feelings, inspire ideas, and offer new creative perspectives on the world around us. Following the rise in technological development, new age mediums started to form as extensions of the human mind, opening the gateway to new waves of arts that were never possible before.
As passionate believers in both art and technology, the team was greatly intrigued by the idea of developing artificial intelligence that would be able to affect people emotionally while inspiring creativity and innovative thinking.
Ben Kovalis, co-founder and CMO at ART AI, joins me on the podcast to discuss how they use artificial intelligence to create one-of-a-kind artworks generated entirely by computer algorithms. Even more incredible, it teaches itself to create more and more mesmerizing pieces over time.
I learn how what started as a clever idea has grown past anyone’s wildest expectations, captivating artists and art lovers around the world. We discuss how AI-generated art will affect our world and our homes and what it takes to train a computer to generate something that usually takes human artist months.
Gabriel Engel is the CEO and co-founder of Rocket.Chat, the leading open-source team communication platform that allows users to chat securely on the web, desktop, or mobile and offers the choice of both Self-Managed and SaaS options.
Rocket.Chat is used by companies and individuals from a variety of sectors ranging from education and technology to financial, non-profit, governmental and public services. Rocket.Chat Marketplace launched in September 2018, enabling users to build, browse and download apps on Rocket.Chat’s newest app ecosystem, allowing for easy customization of the platform with a range of plugins, themes and integrations with other key software.
Gabriel founded Rocket.Chat in 2015 and is passionate about collaboration tools, open-source and new tech. Prior to Rocket.Chat, Gabriel co-founded Konecty, and worked as Product Manager for Business Innovation and Mobile Applications at Vodafone Global Enterprise. Gabriel’s long-term vision for Rocket.Chat is to replace email with a real-time federated communications platform. Watch this space!
We discuss the death of email and the rise of chat platforms. We also explore what the future of work and the successes of a distributed workforce might look like. Finally, we tackle big topics around WFH, security, privacy, control, and the value of Open source communication.
Twenty years ago, fleet managers provided drivers with paper maps and driver scorecards and wished them well on their delivery. Today, fleet managers and drivers have taken on an entirely new role: technology professional.
With advanced telematics tracking solutions and the development of AI and machine learning in recent years, those in the fleet world have become innovators and adapters in their own right, using new technology to optimize routes, IoT for preventative maintenance, and AI video monitoring technology to capture a driver’s every move to keep them as safe as possible.
IntelliShift, a connected vehicle, and asset management solution, has been around for two decades of this transformation through their parent company, VTS, and has seen first-hand how driver behavior monitoring solutions like their AI Video has led to fewer accidents and lives saved.
John Cunningham, founder, and CEO of IntelliShift (and VTS), discusses how roles have drastically changed in fleet management over the last twenty years he’s been CEO. He also shares how customer behaviors have shifted with this transformation and the futuristic tech he foresees taking center stage in fleet management – think virtual reality and electric vehicles.
E-commerce technology has never been hotter. Marcus Startzel can joins me on the podcast to discuss the future of the direct-to-consumer market, data-driven marketing for brands, and more. Marcus is a trusted and experienced executive leader with a track record of driving growth for several technology-centric organizations for more than 20 years.
As CEO of Whitebox, a Baltimore-based company dedicated to being an end-to-end e-commerce technology partner, Marcus helps brands and manufacturers maneuver the challenges and find success within the modern-day marketplace.
Under Marcus' leadership, Whitebox raised a Seed Round of $2.6 Million in 2017, a Series A investment of $7 Million in 2019, and a Series B funding round of $18 million in 2020.
Marcus is no stranger to driving growth for companies, having been a senior leader with several organizations leading up to and during their IPO or acquisition. Before joining Whitebox, Marcus served in various senior leadership roles within AppNexus, a cloud-based software platform that enabled and optimized programmatic online advertising, ultimately helping lead efforts in their 2018 $1.6B acquisition by AT&T. Marcus joined AppNexus through its acquisition of MediaGlu, a cross-device technology company where he served as chairman and CEO.
Through 2020 when the global pandemic had forced millions of people indoors, online shopping grew 44%, representing 21% of total retail sales - the highest growth ever recorded. This explosive industry growth has helped Whitebox see impressive growth of their own: revenue in 2020 grew more than 300% year-over-year; the company also reports that direct-to-consumer shipments grew more than 300% over the first half of 2020 and had 141% growth year-over-year from 2018 to 2019.
Additionally, as a partner in brands’ entire e-commerce journey - from factory floor to customers’ front door - Whitebox has invested in expanding its warehouse real estate; in 2020 the company moved its headquarters to a larger space in Baltimore, taking over a 365,000-square-foot space that previously served as an Under Armour distribution center. With this move and expansive growth in Las Vegas and Memphis, Whitebox now occupies nearly 900,000 sq. ft. of warehouse space.
As a technology and fulfillment partner within the e-commerce marketplace, Whitebox works with large established brands such as McCormick & Company, Ricola, and French’s, as well as challenger and established digital-native brands such as Super Coffee, Roar Organics, Made Good, and ChicoBag.
Whitebox’s growth has helped the company of 125 employees secure several industry awards, including being named “Best in Tech” 2020 by the Baltimore Business Journal and “Growth Company of the Year” by Technical.ly. Marcus was also recognized by E-Commerce Weekly as a 2020 Top 100 Influencer in E-Commerce.
Kathy Hannun is the co-founder and President of Dandelion Energy, the largest residential geothermal company in the United States. Dandelion transitions homeowners from fossil-fueled to geothermal heating and cooling using their custom geothermal drilling suite and Dandelion Air heat pump. Before founding Dandelion, Hannun was a Rapid Evaluator at X, Alphabet’s innovation lab, where she focused on finding “Moonshots,” i.e business opportunities to harness technology for large-scale positive impact.
She initiated Dandelion as an X project and then launched it into an independent startup company in May 2017. Dandelion has since raised millions in funding from top venture capitalists, set a new standard for geothermal quality and cost- effectiveness, and empowered homeowners to avoid over 100 million pounds of carbon emissions and counting. In February 2021, Dandelion announced a $30M Series B funding round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
The company has partnered with Con Edison utility to promote heat pumps as an alternative to natural gas heating and successfully advocated for increased policy support for heat pumps throughout the Northeast.
In addition, Dandelion has increased public awareness of the benefits of ground source heat pumps through stories in publications media such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fast Company, WIRED, Bloomberg, and TechCrunch and many others. Hannun has been recognized as a TED Fellow, a DOE C2E Award recipient, one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, and as one of MIT Technology Review’s “35 under 35.” She graduated from Stanford with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and an M.S. in Computer Science.
BandLab is where musicians and music fans worldwide can come together to make, collaborate on, and share music. The platform offers an easy, all-in-one solution for the modern social musician. It is wholly owned by BandLab Technologies and is the flagship digital product in the organization’s portfolio of music experience brands.
BandLab combines music-making and collaboration tools, like the world’s first cross-platform DAW with social features like video sharing, messaging, and discovery. In 2017 it launched a hardware division dedicated to producing affordable, high-quality audio hardware.
Since 2015, BandLab’s mission has been to break down the technical, geographic, and creative barriers between creators, collaborators and the music community. BandLab has empowered more than 30 million registered users to date.
Meng Ru Kuok and his team of elite music tech aficionados have continued to bring innovative ideas to BandLab, and will continue to see growth over the next few quarters, and beyond. After hearing that BandLab is currently matching established player GarageBand in new mobile downloads, I invited him onto the podcast to find out more.
Jonathon Hensley is CEO & chief creative officer of Emerge. His passion for designing and developing digital products and services and gaining support from the critical audiences involved in their inception and growth led to the authoring of his latest book entitled, Alignment.
Growing up in Silicon Valley at the onset of the digital evolution transformed his life. Jonathon's fascination with the digital world and how people engage with technology led him to pursue his passion in the industry for over 20 years. Over the last two years, he met with over 50 industry insiders, organizational leaders, product managers, designers, and engineers as he delved into my work, research, and writing on Alignment.
Alignment in product transformation encompasses four levels; individual, team, organizational, and market. Understanding these levels is paramount to moving your organization through product transformation. Part one of the book focuses on what Alignment is, and why it’s so critical to the success of digital product and business transformation.
Part two provides a straightforward, honest look at why so many digital product and transformation initiatives fail or underperform. Part three explores what leading with Alignment looks like today. It sheds light on the fundamental knowledge and skills necessary to build teams to navigate the digital product life cycle and transformation.
Part four reveals the baseline from which every successful digital product initiative must start and the elements and guiding forces that make up a strategic foundation. Finally, part five explores the connection between your digital product strategy and team performance, rapidly accelerating the delivery of results.
Craig Lawrence and Neal Dikeman recently founded Energy Transition Ventures. Backed by two operating companies from the GS Group of Korea, the new fund Energy Transition Ventures (ETV) will focus on investing in renewable energy with a focus on network, computing, and intelligence technologies impacting and enabling the energy sector as it works towards decarbonization.
Craig Lawrence joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story and Energy Transition Ventures mission. I learn how they are focussing on how network, computing, and intelligence technologies can enable the energy sector as it works towards decarbonization.
Craig previously held venture capital roles at Accel Partners and senior executive positions at leading companies driving the energy transition.
Roles included Vice President of Products at energy analytics software startup Treverity, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at SolarBridge Technologies - one of the leading residential solar inverter manufacturers (acquired by NASDAQ:SPWR), and General Manager of Residential Solar at SunEdison, one of the pioneers in solar project development and financing.
HITLAB is an AI-based music technology company partially owned by Akon servicing artists, brands and fans. The digital media and entertainment company is revolutionizing the way cultural content is discovered, produced, and consumed. I wanted to learn more about how they use technology to engage consumers and create strong interactions between consumers and brands.
Michel Zgarka reveals more about the company's Digital Nuance Analysis (DNA) patented technology. I also learn more about its Digital Emerging Artist Showcase using DNA software. Finally, we discuss the important partnerships with digital platforms like TREND and Boomplay along with the company's current and future plans to become a major player in AI-music-specific developments.
Michel Zgarka CEO, HITLAB is an experienced executive with a successful career of over 35 years in the productions, communications, marketing, financial engineering and business development fields. He is highly skilled in strategic and creative planning, marketing and personnel management for the media industry.
Mr. Zgarka has produced, directed and distributed numerous film and television productions for the international marketplace, including “GUMMYBAR” which garnered over 6 billion views on YouTube. He has been a guest speaker at over 50 international entertainment industries events as well as the Delegate general of the Montreal Israeli Film Festival whose celebrating its 13th year anniversary in 2018.
Myoshia Boykin-Anderson shared her inspirational journey in tech and startup story. Myoshia truly represents the “American Dream.” As a native Houstonian and a proud graduate of Jack Yates Senior High School, Myoshia saw some of life’s most difficult times, but she didn’t let that stop her from striving for a better future.
In November 1998, with no savings and no college degree, Myoshia got her first taste of entrepreneurship by starting her first company. She was able grow it to a multi-six figure operation before closing it in 2007. After taking the lessons learned from that experience, she launched her second company in January 2009.
Myoshia is now the award-winning founder and CEO of one of the leading IT Consulting companies in the country, AndTech Solutions, LLC. Over the past 11 years, under Myoshia’s leadership, AndTech has grown into a multi seven-figure consulting firm providing custom application development and other technology services to some of the top U.S. companies and organizations.
They’ve implemented health plans responsible for managing over 56 million members across 25 states and consulted with small businesses in creating custom application solutions to meet their technology challenges.
What makes this even more impressive is that Myoshia has done this with grit and hard work as a self-made businesswoman with no formal higher education or college degree. Myoshia is proud to hold Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE), Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) and Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) certifications and sits on the Executive Board of C-STEM, an organization whose mission is to inspire the next generation of innovators and thought leaders. Myoshia and her husband are parents to two adult children and are based in Houston, TX.
Businesses are struggling with mass employee burnout, turnover, and a mental and physical health crisis fueled by the state of the world. Many are turning to technologies to show employees they care. But tech without humans does little to support employees and further exacerbates these issues.
Tech can deliver care at scale, bring culture to life in remote workspaces and reach employees wherever they are. But, tech can’t provide true human interaction, continually outperform other apps and platforms, or be successful without reinforcement from leaders and managers in an organization.
So how do business leaders find the sweet spot that helps them show their employees that their business cares while humans pick up where the tech leaves off? Henry Albrecht, CEO of Limeade (an employee experience company) discusses how his company that built a business on sounding the alarm on employee care has found a greater purpose catalyzed by the pandemic.
Henry also compares EX technology’s benefits and how to deliver care at scale, and its limitation. I learn more about how companies can develop an experience that best supports their employees.
Bob Romeo, CEO of Anaqua joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Anaqua is an IP management and innovation software company with a great story. Its software and services help corporations and law firms gain a true competitive advantage from their intellectual property.
Over fifteen years ago IP leaders from Ford Motor Company and British American Tobacco identified an important gap within enterprise software solutions. Managing IP with patchworks of commercial and homegrown systems left them with unreliable data that increased their costs and exposed them to risk.
They took matters into their own hands by collaborating on a new web-based, unified system for intellectual property – a comprehensive software platform capable of managing and automating the full IP lifecycle of patents, trademarks, designs, trade secrets and contracts. That collaboration was the beginning of Anaqua – the world’s first web-based unified platform for intellectual property.
From the start, our technology leadership and product innovation has been driven by our customers. Today, Anaqua’s AQX software is used by nearly a million IP executives, attorneys, paralegals and administrators in corporations and law firms all over the world. Many of the best-known brands and most innovative products were conceptualized, evaluated, protected and monetized through the AQX software platform.
In February 2021, Anaqua acquired global IP cost estimating software provider Quantify IP. On the heels of PATTSY WAVE, the acquisition continues the acceleration of Anaqua’s law firm growth strategy and supports the company’s commitment to delivering IP solutions that address the diversified and evolving needs of today’s IP management market.
I learn more about how Anaqua will continue to leverage technology to support innovators in an increasing number of ways, helping them improve lives across the world.
Shane Nolan from IDA Ireland joins me in a discussion about how the use of AI has evolved over the years and the guest shares his predictions for how it will continue to revolutionize business. I also learn how Ireland is addressing the AI skills gap talk about overall tech talent in Ireland, government investment in AI and Ireland being the first to offer a master's degree in AI).
We discuss the topic of AI as a Service (AIaaS) and how is it being utilised. We also talk about the potential benefits and risks AIaaS has to businesses along with who are the top players in AIaaS already and which industries are likely to adopt it. Finally, I learn more about what makes Ireland such a great base for these top tech/AI providers
About Shane Nolan
Shane has been with IDA Ireland for over 18 years and currently heads up both IDA Ireland’s Technology and Emerging Business Divisions leading teams. These teams manage the relationships with the largest technology investors in Ireland and also work with fast-scaling technology and digital start-ups to help them leverage Ireland as part of their growth.
Shane previously led the organisation’s Digital & Consumer business and, before that, its business in AsiaPac and Emerging Markets. Shane was also based for a number of years in IDA’s Silicon Valley office and has held other strategy and business development roles in his time with IDA. Prior to IDA, Shane worked for a number of start-ups in telecommunications and mobile software in technical and business development roles.
About IDA Ireland
Ireland continues to win international investments from global corporations because it is seen as a business location where the workforce, as well as being highly qualified, has a unique capacity to improve, to innovate and to initiate new ideas, new processes and new ways of working that can make business more dynamic, more efficient and ultimately more profitable.
Ireland’s inward Investment Promotion & Development agency, IDA Ireland (Investment Development Agency) is responsible for the attraction and development of foreign investment in Ireland. Today, Ireland is home to companies such as, Facebook, Sanofi, Intel, Yahoo, Adobe, Microsoft, SAP, Liebherr, HP, Apple, LinkedIn, Zalando, Deutsche Bank, Google and Amazon.com, to name just a few.
If you sell web-based software for a living and ship code that references an unregistered domain name, you are asking for trouble. But what about when the same mistake is made by a Fortune 500 company? That's the case for Fiserv, a $15 billion firm that provides online banking software and other technology solutions to thousands of financial institutions, which has been using an unclaimed domain.
Ilia Kolochenko at ImmuniWeb joins me on the podcast to provide a different perspective on this news story, combining legal and tech. Based in Europe and having studied two Masters in legal studies in the US, Ilia has unique observations on the continuously evolving differences between European legislation, including GDPR compliance and the varying laws that each of the 50 US States follows.
A cybersecurity expert and law school graduate, Ilia talks about the rise in cybersecurity issues from a legal and technical point of view - for individuals and businesses. We also discuss the innovations of attackers in response to businesses implementing different security tech and practices.
About ImmuniWeb
ImmuniWeb is a global application security company operating in over 50 countries, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Most of ImmuniWeb customers come from regulated industries, such as banking, healthcare, and e-commerce. ImmuniWeb® AI Platform leverages award-winning AI and Machine Learning technology for acceleration and intelligent automation of Attack Surface Management and Dark Web Monitoring. The data is later leveraged for a threat-aware and risk-based Application Penetration Testing for web, mobile, and API security testing.
Dr. Steven Shwartz began his AI career as a postdoctoral researcher in the Yale University Computer Science Dept. He has been a founder or co-founder of multiple companies. His Esperant product became one of the leading business intelligence products of the 1990s, and, more recently, he co-founded Device42, which has won many awards as a fast-growing tech company. He has also helped fund many startups as an investor, including Tangoe, which had one of the best-performing public offerings of 2011.
His recent book Evil Robots, Killer Computers, and Other Myths: The Truth About AI and the Future of Humanity” expresses a refreshing perspective on AI. It explains why AI will not take over the world or take all our jobs, why self-driving vehicles won’t dominate our roads for a long time, and other topics.
Sophie Chiche is a French American entrepreneur, optimistic and intuitive. She's fueled by the desire to share, stimulate, and inspire meaning. Her lifelong dedication to exploring the question of "why" has taken her all over the world, where she's presented speeches and connected with movers and shakers like Arianna Huffington and Nelson Mandela with the goal of advancing human consciousness.
Technology was supposed to make us more productive, make our life easier, and give us more time to do the things we love. But we lost our way and neglected the art of daydreaming as we stare into a screen. What if we dared to combine technology with self-awareness, personal productivity, and freedom?
Sophie speaks to those who are open to exploring new habits that fuel success as she imparts inspiration and encouragement. She'swritten for several renowned international publications, served as a coach for high-powered entrepreneurs and executives in large corporations, and helped craft businesses and social ventures of all shapes and sizes.
She's earned masters degrees in business and journalism in her native city of Paris, France and added one in psychology soon after she moved to Los Angeles in 1993. She's given two successful TEDx talks and co-authored the well-received book, "The Power of Personal Accountability: Achieve what Matters to You." Her latest book, "closer to my bones," is expected to come out later this year.
Do you feel that your brain keeps churning at the end of the day, and you find it challenging to make time for your priorities? Or do you think there is more to life, and now is your time? If this sounds familiar, sit down with Sophie and me as we discuss how we can make tech work for us, rather than the other way around.
Kevin D’Silva is one of the pioneers in intrapreneurship, the process of encouraging employees to drive impactful innovation from within enterprises. He created the blueprint for the modern intrapreneur by founding Nestlé’s employee-driven innovation accelerator, inGenius. Across 108 countries, 63,000 Nestlé employees - nearly a quarter of the conglomerate’s total headcount - have generated 6,575 new ideas and launched 70 cutting-edge solutions that address some of the world’s biggest problems.
Kevin is now CEO and founder of Ideateplus, an innovation consultancy that guides companies through the intrapreneurship journey, helping them to launch new products, increase staff engagement, boost revenues, improve customer service, and reduce costs and wastage. Here’s an article Kevin recently wrote for City A.M. on how intrapraneurship can help to foster a culture of creativity and innovation -
Kevin joins me on the podcast to discuss how some of the best examples of innovation have come from within - products invented by employees within large organisations include the Post-it Note, Sony PlayStation, and McDonald’s Happy Meals. We also talk about why intrapreneurship can enable large companies to be more agile and launch new innovative products, and in turn fend off challenger startup competitors.
I learn more about Ideateplus, including its Rapid Innovation Process and why, in the era of remote working, keeping staff engaged by encouraging them to contribute to internal innovation is more important than ever.
Meddling, the artist discovery platform for record labels, is unveiling a new version of its service built specifically for music publishers to discover songwriters.
Meddling founder Travis Rosenblatt joins me in. conversation about how the music industry and world of technology are colliding. At the forefront of A&R, Meddling delivers indispensable data and tools to help subscribers turn knowledge into action. Meddling brings together real-time data on global music markets, cutting edge technology like deep learning metadata compilers, powerful analytics, communications tools, and tracking capabilities to ensure total digital A&R coverage.
Travis Rosenblatt is a former major and indie label A&R turned self-taught software developer & entrepreneur. His first company, Meddling, has provided modern artist discovery services to the majority of major labels since 2015 and continues to expand to serve other companies with digital A&R coverage needs.
Rosenblatt's third company, Signal, is attempting to drag royalty payment infrastructure into the 21st century. He absolutely adores music as well as the industry and will keep poking it with a stick. That's how he shows his love.
Sienna is a privacy-first and cross-chain decentralized finance platform where you can privately swap, lend and convert your tokens into their private equivalent. The wSIENNA (wrapped SIENNA) is an ERC-20 version of the native SIENNA token running on Secret Network (SNIP-20).
I invited Cheif Evangelist of Sienna, Monty Munford, onto the podcast to learn more about their recent launch and explore what happens when privacy meets DeFi.
Before Covid, Monty Munford was a keynote speaker on technology after speaking at more than 200 global events. He was moderating panels and conducting fireside chats with names such as Kim Kardashian, Steve Wozniak, John McAfee, Brock Pierce, Ghostface Killah, Brian Solis, and more at the world's best tech events.
He was previously a weekly tech columnist for Forbes in New York, the Telegraph in the UK and have contributed to MIT Tech Review, Mashable, Wired, Newsweek, TechCrunch, The Guardian, The Independent, Times of India and continues to write regularly for the BBC and The Economist. He is even an Ex-Bollywood villain. as well as Evangelist
José Pinto from Aragon joins me in a conversation about decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). José manages legal matters and ensures the legal compliance of Aragon — the platform for building & running decentralized autonomous organizations.
We speak about how DAOs are making strides in the legal sphere as of late, with Wyoming’s Blockchain Bill No. 38 having just passed through the legislature. We also talk about the enormous flexibility DAOs will enjoy with this legislation approved and how DAOs will structure their affairs using any mix of statutory filings, legal agreements, or smart contracts to organize in the long term.
About Aragon
Aragon is currently undergoing a transition to consolidate its digital juror network — is well known for underpinning more than 1,600 global, permissionless and decentralized communities. DeFi projects like AAVE, Curve, and mStable also use Aragon's platform and services for financial transparency, asset management, and protocol governance. Vocdoni, acquired by the Aragon Project earlier this year, has also been developing digital voting solutions that will stand to benefit from legal developments such as this.
Today, I explore the topics of Customer-Cloud Shared Responsibility, Zero Trust Computing, and Emerging Threats with Joseph Davis, Cybersecurity, Data Privacy, Business Risk, and Information Compliance Advisor for the US Health and Life Sciences fields at Microsoft.
Joseph is part of a global team of former CISOs, cybersecurity leaders, and Azure security subject matter experts, the Microsoft Security Solutions Area (formerly CSG), who advise Microsoft's strategic customers on their cybersecurity, information compliance, data privacy, and risk management strategies.
Chief Security Advisors strive to solve Microsoft's customers' toughest security challenges by leveraging Microsoft's end-to-end enterprise security, compliance, data governance, and information lifecycle management solutions. Joseph strives to accelerate Cloud adoption, migration, and modern workplace transformation through innovative cybersecurity products, engagements, and programs.
Johanna Baum is the founder and CEO of Strategic Security Solutions (S3) Consulting and is a CPA in the state of Georgia with over 20 years of security, eGRC, IDG, and SAP technical and strategic advisory experience. Her vast expertise in the security and compliance field has served both industry and large consulting organizations.
Johanna sought to build an organization that approached security and identity initiatives differently. She wanted a community of experts focused on the holistic needs of the client and their employees rather than simply a technology reseller. She also sought to change the approach of boutiques looking to build the entire employee, not simply utilization-driven targets without empathy and investment in the individual.
Johanna founded S3 Consulting in 2005 to provide strategic professional services and guidance around security, eGRC, and IDG services for Fortune 2000 companies. Since beginning the company 15 years ago, Johanna has been hands-on in providing successful assessment, implementation, and deployment solutions throughout the full life cycle of both technical and strategic initiatives.
Identity threats will increase exponentially, causing organizations to focus on prevention: Identity attacks are also happening faster. In 2021, the focus is shifting from authenticating identity and authorization to controlling access.
Even if a business keeps the attack contained, they still have a significant issue – identity was compromised. Increasingly, organizations will take cyber security awareness training to better secure and manage user identities and scrub for inactive identities. Talking points/key messages: tips / best practices for ensuring strong identity. What does identity mean?
Also, with the rise of ‘contactless’ everything means authentication will become more complex. Amid COVID-19, e-commerce, online banking/payment systems, contactless travel, and other transactions are rising, however they require a high level of identity assurance and authentication.
In 2021 and beyond, preventing credential compromise will depend on stronger, more complex authentication security and identity validation. Increasingly, an individual’s identity will become their credentials (face scans, finger prints, etc.) We also discuss how enterprises are slowly shifting away from enterprise password use and over to more secure alternatives.
Sovryn is a decentralized application allowing users to trade Bitcoin on Layer 2 in a permissionless, noncustodial, and censorship-resistant way. It enables users to leverage Bitcoin up to 5x and earn interest without sacrificing their security or privacy.
Sovryn is like a company, except that it runs entirely on bitcoin and is not incorporated into any centralized organization. In other words, it is a fully remote, novel type of company that is fluid, distributed, and powered by Bitcoin.
The company has developed an exchange and programmatic USD coin system leveraging the RSK Bitcoin sidechain, and it is actively looking at other BTC Layer 2 technology to scale its services. Sovryn likes RSK's technology because it is based on the existing Ethereum technology stack, making it interoperable with the entire Ethereum defi ecosystem.
Edan Yago joins me on the podcast and shares how the members of the Sovryn team refer to themselves as "Bitcoin Mutants" rather than "Bitcoin Maximalists." The Mutants understand that Bitcoin is key, but they cannot leverage the decentralized tech being built elsewhere. They see the Ethereum and altcoin ecosystem as an opportunity for Bitcoin to conquer as the defacto money and trading pair.
We discuss how the Sovryn team sees Bitcoin as the main building block of the new decentralized economy and think that Bitcoiners should not settle for centralized technology solutions.
As regular listeners will know, I am fascinated by our new proactive rather than reactive approach to healthcare, and the role tech plays in that change. We already monitor our steps, heart rate, calorie intake and can even have an ECG machine on hand. Today, Caroline Loew, CEO of Glympse, joins me in a conversation about biotech innovation.
Caroline shares their mission to detect diseases earlier and help develop better therapies so that people don't become patients and return to health faster. We discuss their novel technology: activity-based biosensors that are bioengineered and tunable to any protease-mediated disease.
I also learn how Glympse's technology can measure and predict the trajectory of a disease in a non-invasive, real-time, functional readout that is clinically actionable.
Glympse Bio is pioneering an in vivo sensing technology dedicated to transforming disease monitoring. The company has built a product engine enabling the rapid development of tunable and bioengineered activity sensors for multiple indications, including fibrosis, cancer, immunology, and infectious diseases.
The technology has been validated in 10 different diseases using multiple delivery methods and a broad range of analytical readouts. Glympse aims to improve healthcare globally by serving the needs of patients, clinicians, researchers, drug developers, and payors to help advance the science and our understanding of human diseases.
In 2020 at the start of the pandemic, Accenture Interactive predicted we were entering the beginning of the 'Virtual Century.' The shift towards virtual solutions resulting from Covid-19 would permanently affect ways of communicating across learning, working, transacting, and consuming.
Now, almost a year on, Mark Curtis, Head of Innovation at Accenture Interactive, can discuss the lasting impact of this trend and why it is more important that organizations streamline the hurdles of going virtual all experiences. Companies need to look at how they utilize technology to remain viable, connect with their customers, and create a positive environment for their employees.
Mark joins me on the podcast to discuss what's next for the workplace, the innovation of tomorrow, and how organizations can overcome the growing digital disconnect.
What's next for the workplace – There is no such thing as an 'old normal' anymore, just old processes and technology. Regardless of what the future workplace looks like, the value of being physically present has been forever diminished. In 2021 businesses need to take a holistic approach acknowledging how alterations across talent acquisition, control, and technology can influence and foster different working environments remotely.
The innovation of tomorrow – Creativity has been able to shire through throughout the pandemic, driven by technology. From TikTok to Microsoft Teams, 2021 will see platforms creatively repurposed and products increasingly perceived as unfinished tools adapted in more inclusive designs for larger audiences. Businesses can tap into this trend, viewing their customers not just as end-users but as creative co-collaborators
How organizations can overcome the growing digital disconnect – while businesses must create new, people-focused, digital workplaces and adjust how they convey and use technology, 2020 has also seen a new challenge – empathy. More and more people are feeling excluded digitally. Mark can discuss how empathy is crucial to the design of new systems and the implementation of new technologies.
Rod Reasen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Springbuk, which recently raised a $20M series round. Rod has started 7 companies, sold 4 of them, and 2 are still ongoing concerns. He is a trailblazer, innovator, and visionary who sees trends at the macro level and tries to inspire others to see what he sees.
In 1 year, Rod: flew a fighter plane, drove a NASCAR 172 mph, bungee jumped off Victoria Falls Bridge. He has been to Africa 5 times and has visited 27 countries in total. He has seen the poorest of 3rd World countries and has hung out with some of the richest people in the world, which has given him a breadth of perspective on what's wrong in the world and what's possible.
At Springbuk, Rod drives the company toward the goal of "preventing disease with data." He believes that a company's mission - and adherence to the mission through bad times - plays a significant factor in whether it will succeed.
Rod shares his story and talks about the state of healthcare, employee benefits programs, and how technology can improve employee health outcomes while saving employers money.
A recent study found that COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of digitization of customer interactions by several years. Michelle MacCarthy, Global Head of Customer Success at Unit4, believes these changes are here to stay and companies must adapt by building online customer communities.
These communities allow for large organizations to collaborate with others in the industry on a peer-to-peer level and helps with accessibility to information sharing. Communities can be grouped by industry or by the service they are currently employing.
Join Michelle and me as we discuss customer communities and why organizations should get started now.
While most organizations today have racial bias response protocols and remediation strategies, Panther Data Solutions' Racial Bias Alert™ is the first proactive solution to provide an immediate deterrent to racial bias in an organization.
Dean Haynesworth, CEO of Panther Data Solutions, shares his story and how they leveraged technology to monitor racism, sexism, and bias in the workplace. Dean also spearheads Black Progress Matters, which funds Panther Solutions. It is an incubator for startups led by founders of color and provides minority staffing direction.
Dean shares the inspiration behind creating Panther Data and the racial bias alert tool. We discuss the biggest hurdles for many organizations today regarding bias and the black progress matters tech incubator hopes to accomplish.
According to various studies, having a healthy building has many benefits to organizations, such as improved productivity, attracting and retaining talent, and better occupant health. But in the last year, the entire world also turned its attention to creating a cleaner, safer indoor spaces amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
Change has been a constant theme for the world in recent months. It’s been business as unusual. Many of us have changed where we work, how we socialize, how our children learn, how we shop, and more. The full extent of our new normal is still unknown. What role will tech play in analyzing air quality, safety & security, and helping to create healthier spaces?
Manish Sharma, CTO & Vice President at Honeywell Building Technologies shares how they are developing emerging technologies that ultimately create healthier environments for commercial buildings.
Approximately 2,217 startups were founded in 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to meet new industry demands, many of which were spawned by large enterprises. As a result, these organizations began using digital transformation as means of survival to accommodate remote work operations.
However, rapid-paced deployment of innovative technologies often leaves the door for potential cyberattacks -- such as the recent Parler breach -- which is why security must be top of mind, especially for startups. To address this, startup companies must look beyond their internal security teams and leverage external security researchers via a bug bounty or vulnerability disclosure program (VDP) to help identify and disclose vulnerabilities before bad actors can exploit them.
After reading how Bugcrowd is trusted by more of the Fortune 500 than any other crowdsourced security platform, I invited their CEO, Ashish Gupta, onto the podcast to learn more about this topic.
More enterprise organizations trust Bugcrowd to manage their bug bounty, vulnerability disclosure, attack surface management and next-gen pen test programs. By combining the largest, most experienced triage team with the most trusted hackers around the world, Bugcrowd generates better results, reduces risk through remediation advice, and empowers organisations to release secure products to market faster — with no hidden fees.
Samer Al Moubayed is the CEO of Furhat Robotics, one of the world's fastest-growing social robotics companies. Furhat's 'Social Robot' is highly customizable and allows for building very sophisticated robot personalities.
Companies such as Disney, KPMG, and Honda are already utilizing Furhat for employee training scenarios, HR purposes, and day-to-day operations with customers. It also comes with its own SDK and flexible development platform which allows each individual unit's "personality" and capabilities to be tailored to desired functions.
As a former specialist for robotics R&D at Disney, Samer has learned very early on in his career that robots can also be more than mere appliances or tools. They can be beloved, helpful companions for even the smallest or most vulnerable members of society. It's this exact thought on which he founded his company Furhat Robotics in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2016 after his time with Disney.
About Furhat Robotics:
Headquartered in Sweden, Furhat Robotics are pioneers in social robotics, where robotics technology meets a sophisticated, adaptive language AI capable of picking up social queues and communicating in real-time over forty languages.
The newest line of robots has a built-in camera with facial recognition software and a silica mask that uses projected, customizable facial animations to make the interaction between humans and machines as lifelike and seamless as possible.
However, the plans Samer and his team of visionaries have for their growing invention do not stop merely providing services for businesses. They are currently looking into the field of psychology as well, where they conduct experiments in empathic capability to ultimately be able to use their creation in child psychology and assist with care for patients with Alzheimer's or dementia.
The world looks so much different than it did this time last year. In just 12 months, the global workforce shifted remote and gone is the day of the desk. Approximately 80% of the total workforce, or 2.7 billion people, now make up the deskless population, including sales reps, customer service advisors, technicians, and more.
Those new to remote work faced issues arising from a lack of digital tools to aid with productivity, inability to access real-time information, and dated communication/reporting systems that do not reach consumers on mobile devices.
To survive in 2020, companies were forced to evolve fast. Now aware of the vast disparity between traditional office technology and deskless tools, top management is taking action to accelerate the development of deskless tools.
Ashish Joshi from goDeskless explores this topic with me in today's episode. We discuss how their AI-powered workforce automation platform was designed for the frontline deskless workforce. We also talk about the lessons learned from 2020's mass push towards a digital workforce.
Luca Rossettini is the CEO and founder of Italy-based D-Orbit, the global market leader in the space logistics and transportation services industry with a track record of space-proven technologies, successful missions, and customer outcomes.
The company is committed to helping companies profitably and sustainably maximize the opportunities to do business in space today and into the future. Having developed proprietary space logistics technology and transportation solutions, they are accelerating the growth and development of a trillion-dollar space economy, including human expansion into space.
With an incremental strategic approach to the space marketplace, D-Orbit is delivering successful customer outcomes today while developing advanced products and services for the needs of tomorrow. In today's episode, I learn how D-Orbit has successfully flown 44 payloads into space.
We discuss how just as companies on Earth depend on logistics providers, the future of space (including satellites, human expansion, etc.) will also require logistics companies. D-Orbit is the first company to address these needs. This could include satellite life extension, active debris removal, interplanetary logistics, and more.
About Luca Rossettini
Luca Rossettini is CEO and founder of D-Orbit, Expert at the Space Advisory Group of the European Commission, Board member of AIPAS (space SME industrial association), Board member of Confindustria Florence, and corresponding member of International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). He is an aerospace engineer with a Ph.D. in advanced space propulsion, awarded with honors by Politecnico di Milano. He holds a Master in Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability and a Certificate in Technology Entrepreneurship from Santa Clara University, California.
Ryan Kelly is a marketing leader at Domino Data Lab and author of the world’s first-ever children’s book about data science. But he didn’t write this children’s book to encourage the next generation to get passionate about future careers in data science. He also wrote it to inspire a passion for problem-solving.
Ryan believes that our world is full of problems, and our future relies on the passion and willingness of future generations to solve them. He was also tired of trying to describe to his daughter what he did at work. I invited him onto the Tech Talks Daily podcast to learn more about the story behind Florence, the Data Scientist.
Domino Data Lab powers model-driven business for the world’s most advanced enterprises, including over 20% of the Fortune 100. Its Enterprise MLOps platform speeds up the development and deployment of data science work while increasing collaboration and governance to scale data science into a competitive advantage.
The platform enables thousands of data scientists to develop better medicines, grow more productive crops, adapt risk models to major economic shifts, build better cars, improve customer support, or recommend the best purchase to make at the right time.
Since the dawn of the Internet, advertisers have been targeting consumers in an increasingly invasive and distracting manner, resulting in users fighting back by installing ad blockers, privacy-based browsers such as Brave and even going so far as to delete their social media accounts entirely.
Furthermore, big tech has been aggressively collecting and monetizing user data without consumers knowing how, where, and when their data is used. It's against this backdrop that Permission.io was born to change the status quo via their platform that empowers consumers to own their own data and to be compensated for it.
By returning control to users, consumers are properly rewarded for their time and attention, and advertisers are assured of reaching a willing and truly engaged audience. Google has partnered with Permission.io to bring permission-based ad solutions to its users.
Permission.io is powered by the ASK token, the currency of permission, which allows users to earn ASK by securely sharing their data and opting in to receive relevant ads and content. Marketers can "ask permission" and deploy ASK on their own channels as an incentive to drive loyalty through personalized ad campaigns, thereby increasing ROI, driving conversions, and building consumer trust.
I invited Charles Silver onto the podcast to discuss how Permission.io is solving critical problems in the privacy/data puzzle for a new Web. Charles is a start-up business expert who has built several enterprises from the ground up to successful exit. I learn about the story behind Permission.io and how the platform enables businesses to connect with individuals on a permission basis, building trusted, transparent, and interruption-free relationships.
NETSCOUT, one of the leading cybersecurity and network diagnostics firms, recently revealed the findings of its bi-annual Threat Intelligence Report. The report provided insight and analysis into the unprecedented nature of Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks in 2020. Darren Anstee, Chief Technology Officer for Security at NETSCOUT, shares insights from the report.
We discuss who the suspected attackers are and how the attacks have differed over the last year. I learn how attackers focused on COVID-era lifelines such as healthcare, e-commerce, finance, and educational services with complex, high-throughput attacks designed to overwhelm and quickly take them down.
We talk about what business leaders need to be aware of when it comes to a DDoS attack and its impact. Darren also shares how NETSOUT helps businesses with the challenges presented by DDoS attacks.
Kathleen Delaney, the CMO of Kofax, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. Kathleen is an innovative marketing leader and digital strategist who has lead her team towards amazing accomplishments because of her ability to navigate and innovate complex projects. An example of this has was displayed through Kofax's recent "Work Like Tomorrow" rebrand campaign.
With over three decades in marketing leadership roles, Kathleen joined Kofax in 2018 to lead the private-equity owned company through a massive rebrand. Dubbed the Work Like Tomorrow campaign, Kathleen dusted off the company's previous brand promise and coordinated a global effort to change its image of being a legacy technology company to its current position as a leader in the Intelligent Automation space.
The campaign drove roughly 2.0B impressions in 2019 from over 1K global media placements, leading to a nearly 20% global share of voice, from almost zero in 2018. It also led to analyst recognition, including placement in the Gartner RPA Critical Capabilities report
Kathleen reveals the best practices she learned from a successful global rebrand and her market-tested strategies for driving revenue, increasing profit, and invigorating brands.
From Moses and his stone tablets to Elon Musk revealing his plans to colonize Mars, people have been leveraging the persuasive power of presentations for thousands of years. But while the basic elements of a great pitch have remained the same, today’s most successful presenters employ a host of hi-tech tools to drive sales like never before.
James Ontra from Shufflrr shares how AI, cloud storage, and machine learning are changing the presentation paradigm — all while saving time, increasing productivity, and helping businesses put their best foot forward.
With over 30 million PowerPoint presentations created every day, it’s no surprise that the internal presentation situation at most companies is a tangled morass of out-of-date, redundant slides. It doesn’t have to be this way. James also explores how top companies are cleaning up the quagmire and reclaiming their digital assets.
Movie theaters. Marriage. Mayonnaise. These are just a few of the things millennials have been accused of killing. Here’s one more thing you can add to the list: old-fashioned PowerPoint presentations. In their place, a new generation of spontaneous, interactive presentations are infiltrating the business world — James reveals how to take advantage of this emerging trend to reach a valuable new audience.
Stephane Giraudie, a mobile/SaaS entrepreneur, is an expert in developing forward-thinking solutions. He currently heads up Cloud Communications at Dolby, which acquired his company, Voxeet, in 2019.
As founder and CEO at Voxeet, Stephane pioneered in-flow communications, enabling leading apps in telemedicine, e-learning, and collaboration to significantly improve their users’ experience while creating new revenue streams. Previously, Stephane was one of the patented early innovators of digital photography and built corporate sustainability and philanthropic fundraising solutions.
Stephane joins me in a discussion about the future of how we Meet and Connect. We discuss the future of employee and customer engagement depend on interactive, audiovisual experiences. We also talk about how the increase in consumer listening and user-generated content has created a boom for audio-first businesses.
Bode Miller, two-time overall World Cup champion and six-time Olympic medalist, recently announced his new tech venture, SKEO. The concept for the digital ski platform concept was pioneered by Martin Kawalski—CEO of Snowcookie Sports and European physician with a Ph.D. in neuroscience.
Intrigued by the idea of a smart connected ski and recurring winter ski injuries seen during his orthopedics rotations, Kawalski shifted his focus to hone in on education and preventability measures. Using a proprietary algorithm to fine-tune body position, edge control and improve safety like never before, SKEO will enable skiers of all levels to go farther and faster while mitigating risk.
Meet the physician-led Swiss startup, Snowcookie Sports. I wanted to learn more about how they invite every user to analyze and improve their skills, exchange stats, embrace safety, and enjoy their time on the slopes.
I also learn more about the tech behind the digital ski platform that measures, coaches, and ranks your skiing to level up.
Martin Kawalski shares his story and talks about the free app, optional wearable sensors, and how the proprietary algorithms can propel skiers further, and faster.
Greg Miaskiewicz is a security expert, product designer & serial entrepreneur. Previously, founded and sold a bot detection startup (Swarm) in 2016 to Integral Ad Science, then led R&D into advertising fraud at Integral, leading up to Integral’s $850mm sale to Vista in 2018.
Miaskiewicz is currently CEO & Co-Founder at Capbase, a venture-backed fintech startup, and advisor at Golden and Mobius Acoustics. Capbase is a digital back-end for your startup: Incorporation, cap table management, stock issuance, corporate governance and compliance in one single platform.
Today, Miaskiewicz joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share how to avoid pitfalls when dealing with equity, contracts and compliances. We also discuss fundraising for a startup in the middle of a pandemic and the lessons learned he from selling a startup in Silicon Valley.
According to AppAnnie, fewer than 3000 apps are making more than US$1,000,000 a year from paid downloads, in-app purchases, and subscriptions. This reality has given rise to a whole ecosystem of mobile marketing tools to help app publishers focus on growing audiences, not creating a sustainable business. Dan Burcaw founded Nami because the marketing tools built for the mobile industry's growth era didn't help app developers succeed in the subscription era.
Dan has founded companies on the forefront of profound technology waves: open source software, smartphones, and cloud computing. He describes himself first as a serial entrepreneur, a repeat startup founder, and CEO. His startups have built or powered world-renowned products used by millions of people around the world. Dan's career has also been shaped by wisdom attained from tenures at two technology giants: Apple and Oracle.
After two decades of entrepreneurship, Dan took a year-long sabbatical to innovate himself. This startup-like effort to elevate all aspects of his performance is the foundation for his next entrepreneurial endeavors. He's now ready for the next wave.
In today's episode, Dan shares how he wrote code that ended up on a submarine when he was 17 and an incredibly cool Steve Jobs and Apple story. I also learn how Nami is the smartest service to help you launch, scale, and optimize your mobile app subscription business.
On the Tech Fusion Podcast, we explore how technology empowers employees and organizations to unlock innovation, engage customers, and be productive—anytime, anywhere. We talk with Citrix and their partners to learn more about how they are collaborating to solve real-world problems.
At Star2Star Communications, they are on a mission to help organizations to overcome the reliability and quality limitations of other communications technologies. The company has built its reputation around unifying customers' voice, video, fax, instant messaging, and presence management into a single, easy-to-use system.
In today's episode, Mick Miralis from Star2Star and Citrix's Nitin Sharma discuss the future of intelligent workspaces and how they are evolving for connected workers. The guests also talk about building a cohesive environment that enables connected workers to be effective and productive while removing complexity and friction between applications. We also learn more about how Citrix and Star2Star are collaborating to bring this vision to life.
The world has changed. Retailers are experimenting with augmented technologies and virtual reality, robots are moving from factory floors to front-line response, and 3D printers are being used to manufacture masks en masse.
Mark Hughes, regional VP for UK and Ireland at Epicor, the ERP cloud solution provider, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Although everyone is talking about ‘Industry 4.0, Mark reveals how factories have undergone a revolution, with manufacturing and supply chain industries already moving from the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) to the fifth.
We discuss how manufacturing leaders have also increasingly valued the benefits that automation can bring to their business. For example, companies including GE and Merck have rolled out RPA to automate back-office elements.
We also talk about how developments like nanosensors and CRISPR gene-editing technology are driving change among grocery retailers looking at how it could potentially impact the products they sell. Mark what he thinks the future of factories will look like. Finally, we explore the radical redefinition of how organizations use technology, people, and processes to fundamentally change business performance.
Rick Hall is a software entrepreneur focused on the analytics market. He has led the development of over a dozen software products and taken several companies from the early stage to an eventual sale. Rick led a group in the purchase of Aginity in March of 2020 and has taken over the CEO role as a result.
Aginity was an early innovator in Analytics Management and launched Aginity Pro early this year. The product is off to a fast start attracting 13,000 subscribers in the first nine months, and is set to grow by more than 250% through 2021.
Rick joins me in a conversation about how companies can effectively manage their analytic initiatives and the role tech should play. We also discuss the processes and technology companies need to succeed with analytic programs and the evolution and current state of analytics technology.
For over 200 years we Wiley has been helping people and organizations develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. They develop digital education, learning, assessment, and certification solutions to help universities, businesses, and individuals move between education and employment and achieve their ambitions.
By partnering with learned societies, Wiley supports researchers to communicate discoveries that make a difference. Its online scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly journals, books, and other digital content build on a 200-year heritage of quality publishing.
At the recent Dynatrace Perform event, I got chatting with Wiley's CIO and CISO, Sean Mack. The visionary technology executive has extensive experience in DevOps, infrastructure, security, enterprise applications, development, and program management.
As an innovative leader driving global business strategy and transformation, I wanted to learn more about how Wiley is bridging the higher education gap by delivering content solutions in new and innovative ways to enrich the learning experience.
Wiley is an education-focused platform that takes companies from dysfunctional models to mature, globally scalable, world-class organizations, aligning business strategy and execution. We discuss the changes in their customers' usage since the pandemic and how the shift to remote learning has impacted the company.
We also discuss why they adopted the Dynatrace platform and what benefits they have leveraged.
Spin provides dockless electric scooters in more than 60 markets in the US, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Charlotte, and Miami. Their regulatory team led the nation’s first stationless mobility permit system with the Seattle Department of Transportation.
It’s also the micromobility arm of Ford. The company prides itself on putting riders’ safety first, working closely with local governments, and scaling its fleet responsibly.
Head of Spin Europe, Felix Petersen returns to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss the launch of e-scooter trials across the UK. Almost six months have passed since the trials were announced, with Spin successfully launching several public-hire e-scooter schemes around the country.
Felix also discusses Spin’s European e-scooter strategy, Key learnings from the successful e-scooter trial, E-scooter usage trends in the US and Europe. We also talk about how to build a genuinely sustainable transportation solution and the future of micro-mobility.
I also learn more about Spin Valet that allows people to call a micromobility scooter from their phone, in the same way, they would an Uber or Lyft. In combination with Spin S-200’s front and rear cameras, GPS technology allows Spin to precisely locate each scooter. If needed, Tortoise’s team of remote operators can safely relocate the vehicle at a slow rate of speed (2–3 mph).
NICE surveyed over 1,000 global contact center decision-makers in UK, US, Australia and Canada. Findings show rapidly growing role of digital channels for customer interactions, increasing investments in digital channels, artificial intelligence, and contact center technology for seamless omnichannel experiences for customers.
I invited Paul Jarman, CEO NICE inContact to learn more about the NICE inContact 2021 Customer Experience (CX) Transformation Benchmark.
About NICE
When the world's leading companies want to improve their business performance, increase their operational efficiency, prevent financial crime, ensure they're fully compliant, or enhance their safety and security, they talk to NICE. The company prides itself on leveraging technology not only to transform experiences but ensure they are also extraordinary and trusted
About Paul Jarman
Paul Jarman holds the position of NICE inContact CEO. Mr. Jarman is responsible for the enterprise, midmarket, government organizations and business process outsourcers (BPOs) who operate in multiple divisions, locations and global regions.
A pioneer of the cloud movement, Mr. Jarman was instrumental in guiding inContact from its roots in telecommunications to its strategic offering of cloud-based contact center solutions and has been a part of every major enhancement the company has made since 1997.
As part of inContact's strategic shift to a contact center software provider, he spearheaded four software acquisitions and two telephony acquisitions. He led inContact's successful addition to the NASDAQ and under his leadership, inContact has experienced strong compound annual growth rate in software revenues over the past three years.
Mr. Jarman has spent his career building a service-driven business focused around both customers and employees, resulting in a strong corporate culture with high retention rates of both groups. Prior to joining inContact, Paul was an executive with HealthRider, Inc.
Paul has a contagious energy and is always pushing the limits to grow the company and drive market leadership. He follows the mantra of Abraham Lincoln, "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."
Biometric technology allows companies to uniquely identify a person based on one or more characteristics deemed unique to a particular individual, such as their face or physical fingerprint.
However, in a pandemic world, both your hands and face end up covered by gloves and masks, so relying on those traditional second-factor authentications (2FA) methods could increase friction and hurt the end-user experience.
UnifyID helps identify and authenticate individuals based on how they move and walk, leveraging machine learning algorithms and sensors in smartphone devices.
Common use cases:
- Contactless payments
- Physical access to a building
- User authentication
- Fraud reduction on payments platforms
UnifyID Founder and CEO John Whaley shares how biometric technology is shaping the future of authentication.
Tomer Afek is the CEO and Co-founder of Spacemesh, a fairly-mined programmable cryptocurrency platform powered by a novel proof-of-space-time (PoST) consensus protocol. Spacemesh is free open-source software that aims to become a core Internet protocol for blockchain computation.
Previously, Tomer has more than 20 years of experience across the tech, digital, and finance industries. Tomer also spent seven years as an Investor at Evergreen Venture Capital, one of Israel's oldest and largest VCs, where he led the company's Internet and New-Media investments.
Tomer shares the story behind Spacemesh and the social meaning at the heart of the company. I learn more about precisely what Spacemesh is, why they are building Spacemesh, the implications for future generations, and why it will be more decentralized than current currencies.
When Jonathan Baktari, M.D., was arguably at the peak of his medical career as a triple board-certified physician, he saw an opportunity to try something new. Taking everything he’d learned as a doctor, medical director, and educator, he launched two businesses—a vaccine clinic and a drug-testing enterprise—that are driven by technology and designed for fast, customer-centric service. Now, as those businesses grow, he’s continuing to write his second career chapter as a health care CEO.
Dr. Baktari’s company e7 Health was named the best technology company in the healthcare space in 2019. e7 Health could best be described as “the Uber of preventive medicine” in that it is a systems company that has invested heavily in developing their own electronic cloud-based software to leverage technology for the benefit of their operation, patients, and clients.
In addition to vaccines, antibody testing, and many other medical services essential to employers around the country, e7 is now providing at home COVID-19 tests for individuals and companies all over the US. Dr. Baktari has always believed that helping others was the ultimate achievement in life. Now, as a business leader and sought-after speaker, he’s excited to share his expertise in tech entrepreneurship, COVID-19, preventative health, and many other topics with your listeners.
Mark Cusack from Yellowbrick Data joins me on the podcast
to talk about Real-time data warehousing and the future of faster, more flexible cloud data warehouses and why it's a must for data professionals and IT leaders from all industries.
We talk about how 2020 has challenged enterprises to find new ways to succeed and grow. I learn how data warehouses will become a critical capability for enabling real-time business decision-making and why the separation of data warehouse compute and storage will become standard.
About Yellowbrick
Yellowbrick is the world’s fastest data warehouse for hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Enterprises rely on Yellowbrick to power critical business outcomes and get answers to the hardest business questions for improved profitability, better customer loyalty, and faster innovation in near real time, and at a fraction of the cost of alternatives.
Yellowbrick offers superior price/performance for thousands of concurrent users on petabytes of data, along with the unique ability to run analytic workloads on-premises, in a private cloud, and/or in any public cloud and manage them in a simple, consistent way—all with predictable pricing via annual subscription.
About Mark Cusack
Before joining Yellowbrick, Mark was Vice President for Data and Analytics at Teradata, where he led a variety of product management and technology teams in data warehouse and advanced analytics groups. He was also Chief Architect of Teradata's IoT Analytics effort. Mark joined Teradata in 2014 when Teradata acquired the startup RainStor, where he was a co-founding developer and Chief Architect. Prior to RainStor, Mark was a lead scientist in the UK Ministry of Defence.
Karim Marucchi, CEO at Crowd Favorite, a global firm that specializes in digital strategy and web development for companies like Starz, Salal Credit Union, Lexus and National Geographic. Karim has more than 20 years of experience in specializing in enterprise-grade digital strategy and has taken many companies public, managed M&As
We discuss:
- Digital transformation trends that enterprises must be in front of in 2021;
- What the future holds for data collection, the benefits of WordPress, and the role of open-source software in 2021;
- The latest digital transformation experience platforms (DXPs) trends and happenings; and
- What tech leaders need to know about open-source software in 2021.
We discuss how Crowd Favorite has elevated enterprises' website experiences for each site visitor and helped accelerate enterprises' digital transformation. - Optimization for the new Google update and what this means for enterprises; and much more
About Crowd Favorite
Crowd Favorite’s mission is to connect the digital experience to the human experience. Founded in 2007, Crowd Favorite was the original WordPress agency focused primarily on enterprise clients. Over a decade later, they evolved into a multi-discipline, digital consulting firm specializing in enterprise-grade digital strategy and elite Open Source development.
Crowd Favorite empowers organizations to achieve their full digital potential by focusing on the comprehensive landscape of their business and the unique challenges they face. Then, by connecting their financial and operational obstacles to world-class digital strategy, web development, and digital support services, the optimal technology solution is put in play.
Handprint a tech platform that is looking better to bridge the gap between business activity and sustainability initiatives. They do this by tapping into consumer action. Handprint strives to ensure that every sale is climate-positive and assures transparency in all financial transactions by leveraging blockchain.
To date, Handprint works with NGOs such as Worldview International Foundation (WIF) and Yayasan Gajah Sumatera (YAGASU), some of the world's leaders in reforestation and mangrove conservation and counts the likes of leading Swiss-born F&B firm SaladStop! as one of its earliest partners.
Mathias Boissonot, Co-founder and CEO at Handprint, shares his insights on how businesses can better integrate their sustainability investments into each consumer interaction. In the age of digital shareability, we also discuss how companies can leverage novel technologies to maximize the visibility of their sustainability initiatives to appeal to a social-media-savvy generation.
Headquartered in Silicon Valley, with offices in Toulouse and Tokyo, Airbus Ventures is a fast-moving, early-stage venture capital company that independently funds and supports startups impacting the aerospace industry. Airbus Ventures has helped aspiring innovators reach new dimensions of achievement since 2015.
From its founding, Airbus Ventures has embraced the heritage of its mothership Airbus in adaptive innovation, system, thinking, and international mindset,
'Building on this heritage, 'Airbus Ventures closely supports its portfolio of companies to better understand, team, and promote their founders' businesses – and now, with new Japanese investors alongside, they are confident that we can add to global scale and system play for all their entrepreneurs' growth worldwide,
I invited Lewis Pinault on to today's episode of Tech Talks Daily to learn more about their story and mission to accelerate humanity's ascent of the Z-axis, from the ground to deep space.
Dr. Lewis Pinault is an Airbus Ventures Partner based in Tokyo, managing Airbus Ventures' activities in the Asia Pacific region. Advising and supporting Airbus innovation projects for over a decade, Lewis also designed and led incubator and innovation centers for the UK Government's Digital Catapult, EDS, Shell, and others, building from his own mid-career experiences as a NASA researcher trying to link startups to large corporates.
His lifelong passion for exploring the oceans and space seeking the most advanced technologies available first brought him to Asia as an engineer and corporate planning analyst with Nihon Kokan.
Prequel is a photo and video editing app with unique effects and editing tools. The product regularly reaches the top 10 in its category. The app has 30m iOS downloads and on Android. Over 2M prequels are created every day, and the company has around 2.1M followers on Instagram and 1.7M on TikTok.
In Prequel, art and technology meet together to bring unique effects and editing tools to their users. They don’t follow trends but invent them. To fulfill that goal, their team turns to various fields of expertise. They have created a technological laboratory where their experts, from graphic and product designers to software engineers and R&D specialists, work together to develop and grow the product.
Headquartered in New York City and with offices in Moscow and Kaliningrad, They believe in thinking outside the box and expanding the boundaries. Timur Khabirov Co-founder, CEO at Prequel, shares the story behind the company and how the technology that enables everyone to enhance their creativity.
Many brands are starting podcasts and are then disappointed by the number of downloads. One way to maximize your podcasting is by live-streaming the recordings to your existing social communities like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. Other channels to consider include Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, and Amazon Live.
In his fourth book, “Going Live”, Christoph Trappe covers how any brand can make live streaming part of their content strategy and integrate it into Create Once, Publish Everywhere. I invited Christoph on to the podcast to talks about his book and his authentic storytelling project.
We discuss why and how live streaming can give your brand a competitive advantage and how to show your brand’s authenticity and humanness. We also talk about the technologies and strategies that will help you build your success.
The Esports industry has exploded in recent years and is not slowing down, but the industry remains extremely top-heavy and built around sponsorship and advertising revenue, rather than consumer revenue and participation. Challengermode is looking to turn the current industry model on its head - creating value for all esports stakeholders from the bottom up as well as the top down.
After major success in Europe, running millions of competitions for millions of players, Challengermode is currently gearing up to expand into North America this year, and is currently valued at over $40m. I invited: Robel Efrem from Challengermode onto the podcast to find out more.
Robel himself, has an incredibly impressive resume; he speaks four languages, has been nominated for the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award three times, and has founded two companies in the last 10 years - the first which resulted in a successful exit and the second which is Challengermode, which received a $12m investment from Alibaba, with other investors including Telia Ventures, GP Bullhound, Back in Black Capital and Swedish soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Next-gen air purifier CEO Christoph Burkhardt sees the current HEPA filters as outdated 70-year-old tech that move the air not clean the air. That is why he is creating more sustainable purifier products with OneLife, a company backed by German engineers to produce the world's most efficient air purifiers. They are launching revolutionary plasma filter technologies that will protect us unlike any other purifier on the market.
We discuss the outdated air purification technology being used in public spaces such as subways, elevators, offices, etc and why he is concerned about the air we are currently breathing."
Real estate is the largest expense for most companies. More than a trillion dollars is put towards unused (but leased) space. But for buisness leaders paying expensive leases, how much office space do they need? And how do they know how many people are in the building?
The second challenge is how space used in a world of hybrid working? Are certain amenities empty while others are always crowded? Some businesses even have entire floors occupied by five people. This year, two of the most significant opportunities are optimizing real estate during a pandemic and designing real estate spaces, so employees/customers have exactly what they need and need it.
When COVID hit, Density Founder and CEO Andrew Farah realized that bringing people back to the office safely, it would require new types of real-time data to ensure social distancing. They created go/wait screens for customers that gave people the necessary information to know when it was safe to enter and launched new sensors that gave even more insight into usage. Things started to take off in three months, Density had seen more revenue than all of 2019 combined.
Andrew went on to raise a $51M Series C from Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Jason Calacanis, and others to scale further. By the end of the year, the company had nearly doubled in size and signed a record number of Fortune 100 enterprises, universities, governments, warehouses, etc.
There was no way to forecast what 2020 would hold, but Andrew was able to turn one of the worst scenarios facing any founder into the fastest growth period in company history.
In today's episode, Andrew shares the journey he has been on and talks about how their technology sits above any open space and gives a real-time view of that information. There are no cameras to track people or behavior -- on purpose. Its privacy-focused and highly advanced tech uses infrared light, artificial intelligence, and depth data to determine what's happening below.
Imagine the room you're in right now represented by billions of dots, with your movement shown as different colored dots lighting up in that space. Then A.I. analyzes what's happening from there.
Eric Adler is the CEO and founder of Flume, a smart device that wraps around your water meter and detects leaks and water usage across your entire property - inside and out. He was studying chemical engineering in hopes of designing a product that would have a positive environmental impact.
Flume is a purpose-driven business that came about because in 2014, California was experiencing its worst drought in 1,200 years. Officials encouraged ways to reduce consumption, but no one really knew how much water they were using.
Eric designed Flume when he was a grad student at Cal Poly to provide a better way to share high-definition water data with people and the communities they live in. Now, Flume puts the power of water consumption and conservation in consumer’s hands, protecting their home, and improving their relationship with our most precious resource.
Over the last twelve months, people worldwide sheltered in place to stem the spread of COVID-19. As a result, video gained a new level of prominence in a wide variety of fields – from online lessons to virtual business meetings to streaming content.
Tom Livne is the CEO and Founder of Verbit, the world's leading AI-powered transcription and captioning platform that recently raised $60M in Series C funding. Verbit leverages Natural Language Processing technology to provide over 99% accurate transcripts and captions to diverse customers in the education, legal, media, and enterprise sectors.
Verbit harnesses the power of artificial and human intelligence to provide a smart transcription and captioning solution. Built on adaptive algorithms, it is the only technology that generates the most detailed speech-to-text files to provide over 99% accuracy, delivered at record-breaking speed.
Smart AI technology supports on-demand CART services for real-time results. Verbit's customized solution helps organizations maximize their audio and video files' potential by making information searchable, accessible, and actionable.
Tom joins me on the podcast to share how Verbit's platform has played a key role in ensuring that all media shared in classrooms, workplaces, and online platforms is accessible.
The switch has been flipped - and there's no going back. In today's episode, Heath Spencer, CEO of TraitWare, and Anil Kumar from Citrix join me in a conversation about the importance of cybersecurity. With remote work and hybrid working here to stay, I learn how Traitware and Citrix are working together to help companies adapt to their new digital surroundings.
As we approach the first anniversary of COVID-19 lockdowns, the enterprise has seen enormous change. Experts say that remote and hybrid working is likely here to say. According to a recent Upwork survey, by 2025, 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely, an 87% increase from pre-pandemic levels." One area hugely affected by remote work is cybersecurity.
As cybercrime increasingly tops the news, it is critical for all enterprises to ensure that solid cybersecurity plans are in place. But where do we start? Fortunately, there are solutions that drastically reduce the risk of attack and make life easier for the entire company while also saving on costs in the process.
If I were to ask you, what does ROKU mean to you? I imagine you would immediately think of streaming players and smart TV apps. But did you know that Roku also works with 90% of the Ad Age top 200 advertisers?
In 2020 Roku introduced OneView- the ad buying platform built for TV streaming – to the market. OneView reaches the most cord cutters of any ad platform and bring identity and viewing data from America’s #1 streaming platform. OneView’s device graph covers an estimated 4 in 5 homes in America. Even if an advertiser doesn’t want to buy ads through OneView, they can still add their existing deals into OneView to improve targeting, avoid ad collision, measure deduplicated reach, and more.
Louqman Parampath joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the background on OneView Roku's Ad Platform built for TV streaming. I learn more about the impact of COVID on the TV/ad industry and the importance of first-party data in advertising. We also talk about how streaming uniquely positioned to help advertisers reach their goals, the future of programmatic in streaming and it streaming is changing the ad funnel.
In today's episode, I want to learn more about the role mobility plays in enabling employees to be productive as the nature of work continues to evolve given the pandemic. Joseph Boyle is a listener of the show and also CEO of Truce software and is the perfect person to talk discuss these topics.
Truce provides a contextual mobile device management (CMDM) platform so businesses can ensure safe and appropriate device use by employees at work. In February new research gauged workforce sentiment on whether employees believe mobile devices enable or inhibit productivity at work.
It also looked at how workers' views of mobility have shifted over the past year due to the pandemic evolving the nature of work for many (e.g. fewer people going into physical offices, as one example) and whether they believe increased usage is leading to more blurred lines between work and personal lives.
They found, for example, that 62% of respondents said they agree mobile phones or tablets play a key role in helping them be productive at work. Over a third said their mobile device usage at work has increased more or significantly more than a year ago. Another interesting finding: 56% of those surveyed believe it's their right to use their personal device on the job.
Founder and CEO of Method Media Intelligence (MMI) Shailin Dhar joins me on the Tech Talks Daly Podcast in a conversation about Ad fraud, Ad-tech, and giving advertisers a path to be more successful. I also learn more about their mission to bring trust and transparency into the fragmented online advertising ecosystem.
After his experience working at ad-networks and in the affiliate marketing space, Shailin began speaking out against ad-fraud in 2014. Called the “Fraud Crusader,” Shailin takes ad-fraud very seriously because of the wider implications to the economy and integrity of the open internet.
Working with international advertising trade bodies, agency groups, brand advertisers, ad-tech firms, and ad-verification companies to fight advertising fraud has solidified his reputation as a leading expert on the topic.
Shailin’s time working independently since 2014 led him to found Method Media Intelligence in 2017 to take his crusade to the next level by teaming up with like-minded experts that can help make a real impact on the industry.
Shailin is a firm believer in “Knowledge is Power.” Having written many publicly available articles and research pieces on the topic of ad-fraud, Shailin’s goal is to increase the level of awareness across the industry.
About MMI
Method Media Intelligence offers comprehensive digital admeasurement to ensure validity, measure viewability, and support brand safety & suitability while covering every transaction and respecting user privacy. Its core product MMI360 offers complete protection of digital ad budgets and provides clear data and guidance for verification, analytics, supply path optimization, media planning, and billing reconciliation.
Innovation can be disruptive, so MMI supports all change management for its customers in their journey to having transparency in online advertising.
The pandemic has forced many businesses to digitize and do so in a smart way. Those who weren't technologically ready to respond to an unprecedented shift in how business was done quickly struggled to keep the pace. In some unfortunate cases, companies have folded. Having an IT architecture that can pivot quickly and seamlessly as a business' needs change is now critical.
The MACH Alliance was formed in June 2020 to help enterprise organizations navigate the complex modern technology landscape. It aims to guide and show the business advantage of open tech ecosystems: Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless. All MACH Alliance members meet certification principles. The Alliance welcomes technology companies and individual industry experts who share the same vision for the future.
MACH Alliance president Kelly Goetsch discusses how the pandemic has forced IT leaders and the C-suite to rethink their IT architecture. We talk about how businesses can cut ties with a long-term platform partner despite spending millions on them over many years. We also discuss when it makes sense to stick with an incumbent commerce platform when there are "cheaper" or "slicker" platforms out there.
I learn how the Alliance has had an immense amount of traction by way of members and ambassadors joining and companies inquiring about starting their transition to MACH. I ask what the rise of the Micros-service, API-driven, Cloud, Headless (MACH) ecosystem means and if it now makes sense to ditch what you have and go 100% MACH?
2020 brought massive disruption from COVID-19, and the abrupt shift to a remote workforce In March created holes in the cybersecurity landscape for malicious actors to exploit. Amid the pandemic, the harrowing spike in cyberattacks toward the government, hospitals, education institutions, and even security firms forced all enterprises, large and small, to take a closer look at potential vulnerabilities, starting at the API level.
I have invited Cyber Security Veteran Jasen Meece from Cloudentiy onto the podcast today to talk about how he sees the landscape right now and explore some of his predictions for the road ahead.
Jasen Meece, CEO and Board Member of Cloudentity, joins me on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily. Jasen is a dynamic, results-oriented executive who leverages technology products and services to achieve business value-based transformation efforts. He has over 20 years of leadership experience in IT, driving both internal and external facing organizations.
Cloudentity is a provider of dynamic authorization solutions for modernizing and integrating legacy applications and cloud services. Unlike traditional security models based on roles or lists that present multiple points of security failure, Cloudentity dynamic authorization grants or denies access to applications, data, or other sensitive assets in real-time based on policy and according to the context of the user and transaction.
Studio Z specializes in social media-enabled open air photo booths for weddings and events. Established in 2012, the company aims to give their clients all the fun of a photo booth with high-end quality photos they can share and treasure forever. The company is based in NYC and has partnered with world-class brands such as Estee Lauder, Lego, and Warner Bro Pictures to name a few.
Since COVID, the company has evolved and is helping brands create digital experiences at virtual events too. I felt compelled to find out more after learning how they have built a reputation on being the masters at using experimental marketing to boost brand awareness and help companies stand out online and offline.
Founder Zach Schiffman has a vast amount of knowledge in brand activation, experiential marketing, modern branding, stage management, and production technology! And not only does he run an exciting business, but he is also the floor manager for the Today Show!
Zach joins me on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily in a discussion on Photo technology in the event industry and brand activation world. I learn how technology has evolved and then pivoted in the covid era.
While the number of female CEOs increased to over 25 percent in 2020, there are still many industries where women leaders are under-represented, including industrial lighting/manufacturing.
Dialight is the world leader in industrial LED lighting technology, and its solutions are supporting over 2 million LED fixtures globally. But this tech company wanted to change the narrative when it comes to the gender gap. In 2020, the company announced the permanent appointment of its first-ever female CEO, Fariyal Khanbabi.
Fariyal Khanbabi has already demonstrated great success in her early months in the C-Suite. One example is the creation of the Dialight Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Dialight aiming to transform the lives of people in need in local communities where the company does business, focusing on supporting children and youth causes. In 2020 alone, the foundation raised over $61,000, more than tripling its initial fundraising goal.
Fariyal attributes much of her leadership skills to her early childhood years, where she lived on a shipping vessel as the only eight-year-old amongst a crew of primarily adult men. Through this unique upbringing, she learned to thrive as the “only” woman in a male-focused workplace, but also where she experienced her first of many C-level management lessons that have made her the business leader she is today.
About Dialight
Dialight is a global leader in improving sustainability, safety and operational efficiency for its customers by providing high-efficiency, long-lasting LED lighting technology for industrial applications. With over a million fixtures installed worldwide, Dialight's class-leading technology reduces energy use, cost and environmental impact for customers and is certified to a broad range of international standards. The company's operations are headquartered in the U.S., and it is listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange under the ticker DIA.
Muzik is a disruptive innovation lab and technology company specializing in wearable devices built for culture by culture. It currently works with icons across the worlds of sports, music, fashion, and technology to create products that empower you to listen, create and share in exciting new ways.
When I heard that they were building the first camera/headphone, which allows users to merge sound, photos, and video, utilizing voice and touch, I had to find out more. Muzik CTO Kevin Calloway joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the announcements and share more details on VISION's SDK for developers. I learn more about what this might mean for the future of video streaming and connectivity.
Like the GoPro, VISION's camera offers POV-style video that can be live-streamed, and thanks to the SDK, it can be customized to individual or enterprise needs. For example, a real estate agent can easily operate a POV-style virtual tour of a home using the headphones and incorporate it into their own branded applications. Another key differentiator is that the camera will stream at the eye-line level, allowing for a realistic user-experience unlike anything else on the market.
Corey Nachreiner, CTO at network security company WatchGuard Technologies, and Marc Laliberte, a senior security analyst at WatchGuard join me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Corey and Marc discuss the state of the security market and share their security predictions, including prominent attacks and infosec trends that the WatchGuard Threat Lab research team believes will emerge this year.
I learn more about the tidal wave of automated spear-phishing campaigns, how hackers are infesting home networks with worms, and how attackers are swarming VPNs and RDPs as the remote workforce grows. We also discuss the key steps organizations can take to improve their security posture.
About Corey Nachreiner
Corey Nachreiner is the CTO of WatchGuard Technologies. A front-line cybersecurity expert for nearly two decades, Corey regularly contributes to security publications and speaks internationally at leading industry trade shows like RSA. He has written thousands of security alerts and educational articles and is the primary contributor to the Secplicity Community, which provides daily videos and content on the latest security threats, news and best practices. A Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Corey enjoys "modding" any technical gizmo he can get his hands on and considers himself a hacker in the old sense of the word.
About Marc Laliberte
Marc Laliberte is a Senior Security Analyst at WatchGuard Technologies. Specializing in networking security protocols and Internet of Things technologies, Marc’s day-to-day responsibilities include researching and reporting on the latest information security threats and trends. He has discovered, analyzed, responsibly disclosed and reported on numerous security vulnerabilities in a variety of Internet of Things devices since joining the WatchGuard team in 2012. With speaking appearances at industry events including RSA and regular contributions to online IT, technology and security publications, Marc is a thought leader who provides insightful security guidance to all levels of IT personnel.
About WatchGuard
WatchGuard Technologies, Inc. is a global leader in network security, endpoint security, secure Wi-Fi, multi-factor authentication, and network intelligence. The company’s award-winning products and services are trusted around the world by more than 18,000 security resellers and service providers to protect more than 250,000 customers. WatchGuard’s mission is to make enterprise-grade security accessible to companies of all types and sizes through simplicity, making WatchGuard an ideal solution for midmarket businesses and distributed enterprises. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.
Today, with massive numbers of connected devices and as industries transform to deliver truly innovative services and experiences all connected to the web – from voice assistant devices and video streaming platforms to connected and autonomous cars – the delivery and protection of data over the internet to offer a seamless experience is more critical than ever.
In light of this, I invited Michael Gooding from Akamai Technologies on the podcast. Akamai is the world's largest cloud delivery platform. It is crucial for many companies, from gaming and mobile networks to tech firms and manufacturers, as a result of its Edge platform and Content Delivery Network, which ensures customers and businesses are agile, fast, and secure.
With its vast network, Akamai has unique security and web performance offering. Its experts can view and defend businesses from the growing attacks against armies of bots around the globe. Michael Gooding joins me in a conversation about the importance of edge computing (Scalability & performance).
We also talk about the history of edge computing, bandwidth restrictions at the core of the internet, and the exponential growth of devices.
What would happen if technology built a bridge between famous people and fans? Imagine your favorite footballer, actress, comedian, reality star, or YouTuber to wish a family member or friend a personalized video message. Meet memmo. An app that is using technology to creating personal connections between fans and celebrities.
After thinking for a long time about the positive and emotional effect that occurs when you have personal contact with inspiring people, the idea of memmo came to Gustav Lundberg Toresson and Tobias Bengtsdahl, when they sat each night as guests at different wedding dinners.
During many lengthy speeches, often a little too internal for everyone to appreciate, the evening suddenly stopped. A video clip featuring the bride's main idol was presented, with some playful lines about how it could have instead been the bride and he - with a big congratulations to the lucky groom. A few miles south on a similar event outside Paris, all of the wedding guests suddenly sit in unified laughter.
A French football player has been shown via video clips during dinner, and the mood is quite different from what it was before. The same questions arose in both Gustav and Tobias' minds - how had they managed to get hold of the videos, and is there a way to share these positive experiences more often?
One answer led to the other. Getting hold of these profiles was not a simple story. Personal contact with agents or the profiles themselves was just the beginning, and the implementation of the video was another process. A complicated gift, which nevertheless was more than worthwhile. The reactions to these clips were unbeatable and something that more people should be aware of - at least Gustav and Tobias thought so, and the idea of memmo was born.
memmo is a platform that offers personalized video messages from well-known profiles to their fans and followers. As a customer, you send a request for a specific message - a greeting, an internal joke, or some fancy words for a big speech - and the profile decides what videos they want to perform for the predetermined price. The video is recorded, sent, and paid for directly via our platform.
Gustav Lundberg Toresson joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind memmo and his vision of leveraging technology to create personal connections between fans and their idols.
Today, I want to explore the world of connected dental space with a Brooklyn-based technology company called Toothpic. The company is minimizing the risk of major dental work with an approach that it's calling Smart Dental.
Smart Dental is based on applying new technologies like Teledentistry, 3D Mapping, IoT-connected toothbrushes, and augmented reality. It shifts care from treatment to prevention with the enablement of new diagnostic approaches such as AI pattern matching to guide dentists' diagnoses. It heralds an era of ultra-personalized oral care for patients.
Through an app, users upload pictures of their teeth which are then assessed by a network of dentists on an ongoing basis. Patients no longer need to wait for appointments and have up to the minute access to their dental records. The improvements in dental health are significant.
Toothpic was founded by Mark Moore, an Irish-born former physicist, back in 2016. Mark started developing the concepts around Smart Dental after his father (a dentist) diagnosed a dental issue from a picture Mark sent him while studying Nanotechnology at Trinity College, Dublin.
If it was possible to accurately make a diagnosis from an iPhone picture, what could be possible if IoT, AI, and Data Analytics could also be applied? Toothpic now numbers around 50 employees in Brooklyn (HQ) and Dublin, counts Mark Zuckerburg's father as a senior advisor, and works with a number of the major insurers in the US (inc Blue Cross) and oral care providers (inc. Phillips).
Mark joins me on the podcast to talk about the rise of smart dental for patients, making dental practices dental secure and the role of technology in the evolution of dental insurance polices.
Hear.com, the largest online retailer of medical-grade hearing aids, is launching a new line of hearing devices that features next-gen technology in a sleek and nearly invisible design. The global health-technology company starting its journey in 2012 and has since helped over 100,000 customers get on the path to better hearing using the latest technology.
The company is also introducing new features, including speech boost and Zen mode to their devices, including the must-have components found in today's top-of-the-line hearing aids. Speech boost amplifies the clarity and volume of voices during conversations, and Zen mode provides an ambient soundscape for ultimate relaxation.
Rick Rutter joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss the hearing aid tech revolution, how hearing aid tech isn't what it used to be, and the recent launch of next-generation hearing tech from hear.com
Feargal O’Neill is the CEO of Gamma Location Intelligence Services, a company that has offices in Dublin (Ireland), Manchester (UK), and Bilbao (Spain). The company integrates software, data, and services to help clients reduce risk through location intelligence.
Gamma Location Intelligence works with insurance companies, delivering location intelligence data through its Perilfinder platform to better support risk assessment across areas, including subsidence and flooding. At the end of last year, Gamma carried out research that found climate change is to put 1.2M GB properties at flood risk by 2050, while subsidence will affect 1.9M.
The company also provides data insights to the retail industry via its Storecast solution to enable network planning and the measurement of convenience. Such data could prove valuable to retail businesses in the recovery period following the pandemic as they plan to analyze their store locations and target market behaviors.
Feargal has 25 years of experience working in the location intelligence sector and has great ambitions for the company, including expansion into even more markets. Today, he shares his insights about the value that location intelligence can deliver for businesses and how Gamma Location Intelligence′s technology solutions are innovating for their clients.
Order-to-cash is often neglected, but there are clear benefits to digitizing this process – you can increase efficiency, adopt remote working, and optimize cash management and working capital. Artificial Intelligence is no longer confined to science fiction; finance professionals are already using AI in their daily lives to automate processes successfully and increase efficiency.
As technology gets smarter, a company called Sidetrade is leading this digital revolution. For 21 years, Sidetrade has pioneered O2C automation technology. Their innovative use of AI, intelligent automation, and collaboration technologies can help companies accelerate cash flow, reduce bad debt, resolve disputes quicker and optimize working capital.
This week, CFOs and senior leaders from top global organizations are gathering online to attend Sidetrade's 2-day virtual summit on 15th – 16th March. Before hitting the stage, I sat down with Sidetrade CPO Rob Harvey to discuss what new innovative digital technologies can help streamline the O2C process.
Sign up for the virtual sessions at the summit of your choice and explore ways in which you can leverage the challenges of the current environment in order to accelerate cash generation.
Insight Partners recently released a report highlighting the resilience of software ScaleUps and research around how software ScaleUps, graduates of startups, are catalyzing economic growth and fueling job creation amid widespread economic hardship.
The report surveyed 300 global software leaders on scaling and the factors enabling rapid business growth. Lonne Jaffe, Managing Director at Insight Partners, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the report findings.
I learn how the the majority (71%) of software leaders are highly focused on scaling, with most expecting to scale within 3–5 years – showing continued plans to prioritize growth iIn the near future. Elsewhere four in five (80%) Scaling Focused companies forecast that their investment in scaling activity will increase through 2021.
ScaleUps displayed their resilience through quick pivots amid the pandemic, shifting to policies aimed at securing revenues. Most ScaleUps introduced concession strategies to retain customers (55%), and nearly half (48%) made premium product features free to all users during the pandemic.
Insight Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software ScaleUp companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight Partners has invested in more than 400 companies worldwide and has raised through a series of funds more than $30 billion in capital commitments.
Insight’s mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on software expertise to foster long-term success. Across its people and its portfolio, Insight encourages a culture around a belief that ScaleUp companies and growth create opportunity for all.
CesiumAstro builds high-throughput, plug-and-play phased array communication payloads for space and airborne platforms. Cesium's full-stack, multi-mission hardware and software products enable a diverse range of commercial and defense objectives.
Backed by Airbus Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and additional key investors, CesiumAstro is at the center of this evolution, with a configurable, adaptable product portfolio that extends the quality and cost of terrestrial data networking to new frontiers.
Shey Sabripour is the founder and CEO of CesiumAstro, Inc. Shey has nearly three decades of leadership success in design, development, and execution of LEO and GEO telecommunication satellites, launch vehicles, and other interplanetary space vehicles.
During his 24 years of continuous career with Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Shey served as a design engineer, technology innovator, program manager, and ultimately, the Director of Spacecraft Design responsible for an organization of 370 engineers, scientists, and business professionals in missions ranging from $100M to $1B.
From 2001 through 2005, Shey served as the Director of Agile Payload Program, where he led a multidisciplinary team for design, development, qualification and successful flight of the first Lockheed Martin Commercial Active Phased Array Payload. His last program at Lockheed Martin was in the design, development, qualification and production of the United States Navy's first MUOS communication satellite. Shey was recognized 14 times by Lockheed Martin Corporation as a visionary innovator and program leader. He was named person of the year in 2005 at Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems.
From September of 2014 to December of 2016, Shey served as the CTO for Firefly Space Systems, a startup rocket company in Austin Texas. In that role, Shey was responsible for technical and program management of the Alpha Rocket. He was instrumental in growing the small team of 11 engineers to more than 160 in 2016. His team successfully bid and won the NASA VCLS mission and two DARPA contracts at Firefly.
It all began at a hackathon in 2015. RapidAPI was made by developers for developers so they could have one place to access APIs and Microservices and build applications more efficiently and easily. Today, RapidAPI is the world’s largest API Marketplace where over 1 million developers can find, test, and connect to tens of thousands of APIs — all with a single account, single API key, and single SDK.
Software developers can also share and collaborate on internal APIs using RapidAPI for Teams, a common workspace to publish internal APIs and share public API subscriptions. In turn, organizations can use RapidAPI Enterprise to create a centralized hub environment to help developers reuse and connect to existing APIs faster while providing IT with enterprise-wide visibility and governance of API consumption.
Iddo Gino, CEO of RapidAPI joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. We talk about the Growth of the API Economy through the pandemic and beyond. I lear how developers are not just using APIs to connect apps and services, they are using them to build new digital business models and services and to drive innovation.
They use APIs like Lego blocks, putting them together in different ways to create new products and services. This is how companies will transform their business - by empowering the developer. We discuss how RapidAPI helps developers and their organizations accelerate digital transformation efforts and API use cases they are seeing.
New Orleans is becoming a hotbed for entrepreneurial activity, and Patrick Comer intends to contribute to the growing startup energy in the region. With a background in research, data analysis, and technology development, the next new thing of course, combines all three.
Patrick Comer founded Lucid with a vision to democratize data collection by applying programmatic technology to market research. Lucid is now the worldwide leader in enterprise marketplaces for sampling. Since its inception in 2010, Lucid has become one of the most successful tech startups in New Orleans, with hundreds of employees across the globe.
The company has evolved to democratize market research through programmatic technology -- effectively helping global brands (like Spotify) understand changing consumer sentiments and how to best market to these new personas. All through data provided at what was previously an unprecedented pace and scale for the market research industry.
Patrick also coined the term ResTech. ResTech is a comprehensive term for the software and tools that help platforms, agencies, and brands target, deliver, and analyze their insights initiatives. Patrick shares the story behind the company that now far exceeds $10 million in annual revenue.
Patrick shares his belief that ResTech has the power to provide marketers with a clear roadmap to success. It helps marketers remain on the pulse of their customers’ changing sentiments so that they can understand what makes them tick, what they care about, and how to best appeal to them through personalized and targeted messaging.
I used to hear parents proudly discussing screen limits they imposed on their kids. But fast forward 12 months when those same screens are essential to their education and entertainment, most parents would agree things have changed.
When researching the topic, I came across an inspiring story of Estelle and Douglas Lloyd, the husband-and-wife entrepreneur duo & founders of kids' edutainment app Azoomee, who are on a mission to make all childrens' screen time count.
As new parents, Doug and Estelle quickly realized that the most innocuous search terms on their kids' computers could result in utterly inappropriate and even psychologically damaging web pages being served to their young children. Azoomee was born out of the necessity to allow the couple's kids to browse and enjoy the internet freely without the risk of stumbling upon adult content.
The topic of children's online safety has never been more pertinent than during lockdown. The fact is, the internet remains an incredibly dangerous playground unless carefully curated for young people. Screen-time is suddenly all the time, with most children now relying largely or entirely on their tablets, phones, and laptops for their education - so this needs to be an absolute priority for parents.
The couple are advocating for a wholesale reimagining of education, driving for a holistic approach to learning, bringing it out of the drudgery of 'go to school/go home', and making learning something that happens organically, enjoyably, round-the-clock, and most importantly of all - safely.
Azoomee is a global media company, and app development studio focused on engaging entertainment applications for kids. Available across connected devices and platforms, Azoomee offers a vast library of inspiring and imaginative TV shows that foster curiosity and wonder in kids.
BAFTA-nominated and winner of multiple awards, the Azoomee app delivers a unique selection of action-packed games, brainteasers, puzzles and creative activities so that kids can build their imaginations and sense of wonder.
Everything's handpicked, so kids are safe to explore. Azoomee is loved by children worldwide and can be downloaded for free from the App Store and Google Play store, and found on connected TVs and via our partnerships with Amazon, O2, Vodafone, and many other platforms around the world.
Douglas Lloyd shares the story behind Azoomee and how it helps keep kids safe online by ensuring all screen time is positive screen time. We also discuss the potential of 5G and AR to bring education to life for kids.
Many technology leaders struggle to be highly connected to their teams and fully engaged with their families. They are wicked smart, high IQs, and know their business like the back of their hands. They live in a tech world that is rapidly changing; and unfortunately, many are under tremendous stress.
It is not their fault - they don't have time, energy or knowledge to think about engagement, connectedness or emotional intelligence with their teams. Fortunately, it is possible for them to become deeply self-aware of their behaviors, identify solutions for their specific challenges and fully engage and connect with their teams and their families.
After spending 20+ years in corporate software and security companies, Tenice Wehmeyer began partnering with security and software leaders to create curiosity of the ripples and level of engagement they have with those around them – both inside and outside of the office. Then using this self-awareness, we create new ripples of productive impact with their team, peers, and key stakeholders and the energy to devote to their life outside of work.
After reading how Tenice coaches Cybersecurity leaders to have a greater impact by being connected and engaged with those who matter most, I invited her on to the podcast to learn more. Tenice shares her story and how she is helping others
Dan McGaw is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker. He is also the Founder and CEO of McGaw.io, an analytics and marketing technology consultancy. Coined as one of the original growth hackers, he has led the teams at Kissmetrics.com, CodeSchool.com, UTM.io and more.
In 2015, Dan was selected to be a United States Ambassador of Entrepreneurship by the United States Department of State, where he had the privilege to advise the government, universities, and private corporations on how to build entrepreneur ecosystems.
Dan takes a deep dive into MarTech and discusses how to leverage Amazon-like automation & and personalization strategies without having an Amazon-like budget. When people think of advanced personalization, they often assume it is complex and out of reach for them. However, with the right data taxonomy and structure, 1 to 1 personalization across email, text, ad campaigns, and on-page optimization, can be achieved, a lot easier than you think.
As each customer enters the funnel at different stages, Dan shares how companies can build an advanced personalization journey that increases conversions through each stage, without the need for expensive back-end developer resources.
Emarsys empowers digital marketing leaders and business owners with its omnichannel customer engagement platform built to accelerate business outcomes. By rapidly aligning desired business results with proven omnichannel customer engagement strategies — crowdsourced from leading brands, their platform enables their customers to accelerate time to value, deliver superior one-on-one experiences, and produce measurable results.
This industry-specific, outcome-driven approach combined with a customer-centric personalization, actionable AI, and a fully integrated Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) can deliver transformational results.
Alex Timlin is the senior vice president of verticals at omnichannel customer engagement company Emarsys. Alex leads the company's world-class client success organization to drive adoption and growth across 2,000+ clients in more than 100 countries — empowering them to better communicate with their contacts and customers across billions or engagements.
Alex joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss how technology has changed the retail industry, the rise in online shopping, and digital channel engagement mean for brands. We also discuss the latest news on the impact of the ASOS acquisition of Arcadia brands Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge, and sports brand HIIT.
Raffi Jamgotchian has been in the cybersecurity and IT field for over 25 years, first in corporate finance and later as the owner of his own firm. Currently, Triada Networks supports boutique investment firms. Raffi recently co-authored an Amazon bestseller called "On Thin Ice" with 30 other cybersecurity experts.
Raffi shares insights from the book and his journey in tech. We also discuss how you can learn from making mistakes and taking losses in business, and you can overcome challenges in business.
Triada Networks provides data security, business continuity, and IT solutions. Boutique investment firms and small businesses deserve cybersecurity and IT solutions that give them a competitive edge, not take it away. I learn more about their mission to empower businesses and employees to leverage the best technological solutions so they can grow.
Le Wagon is a coding bootcamp that teaches students to develop web applications from scratch. Our cutting-edge curriculum and world-class teachers give students all the skills and tools needed to kick-start their tech career, land a job as software developers or product managers, or launch their own startup.
Today's guest is Boris Paillard, founder and CEO of Le Wagon. We discuss why we're currently seeing such a high demand for data science skills.
As the demand for these skills continues to increase, it's essential to understand what's driving this demand. Boris shares his expert perspective on these factors and can also cover the broader trends shaping the data science sector, including:
- Widespread digital transformation of companies – At a significant pace, across all industries
- Decision making rooted in data, not individual judgment – The scale of large companies prohibits effective, individualized judgments
- The historic data skills gap – Why it existed, and what's changing
Peter Voss is a Serial Entrepreneur, Engineer, Inventor, and a Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence. Peter started out in electronics engineering, but quickly moved into software. After developing a comprehensive ERP software package, Peter took his first software company from a zero to 400-person IPO in seven years.
Fueled by the fragile nature of software, Peter embarked on a 20-year journey to study intelligence (how it develops in humans, how to measure it, and current AI efforts), and to replicate it in software. His research culminated in the creation of a natural language intelligence engine that can think, learn, and reason -- and adapt to, and grow with the user. He even coined the term ‘AGI’ (Artificial General Intelligence) with fellow luminaries in the space.
Peter founded SmartAction.ai in 2009, which developed the first AGI-based call center automation technology. Now, in his latest venture, he is taking that technology a step further with the commercialization of the second generation of his ‘Conversational AI’ technology with a bold mission of providing hyper-intelligent hyper-personal assistants for everyone.
In addition to being an entrepreneur, engineer, inventor and AI pioneer, Peter often writes and presents on various philosophical topics including rational ethics, free will and artificial minds; and is deeply involved with futurism and radical life-extension.
Aigo.ai is the first personal personal assistant that becomes smarter and more personalized as it learns from you and your network (people, devices, other AIs), essentially becoming your ExoCortex. Based on a highly advanced ‘cognitive architecture’ – implementing the ‘Third Wave of AI,’ Aigo will change the way we communicate with each other - and our network of family, friends, and devices.
A global leader in EdTech, D2L is the creator of Brightspace, the world’s first integrated learning platform. The company partners with thought-leading organizations to improve learning through data-driven technology that helps deliver a personalized experience to every learner, regardless of geography or ability.
D2L’s open and extensible platform is used by more than 1000 clients and almost 15 million users in higher education, K–12, healthcare, government, and the enterprise sector—including Fortune 1000 companies. The company has operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Brazil, and Singapore.
D2L’s Chief Strategy Officer Jeremy Auger discusses how technology is shaping education driven by COVID. Auger explores the current and future role of technology in education, closing the education tech gap, opportunities for edtech/municipality collaboration to push advancement forward, and the future of learning.
As Chief Strategy Officer, Jeremy is directly responsible for corporate strategy development, intellectual property strategy, mergers and acquisitions, and government relations at D2L. With a strong commitment to client success and a desire to constantly evolve the state-of-the-art, Jeremy joined the D2L team when the company was founded and continues to take a leadership role in driving the organization’s success within the online education industry.
Prior to joining D2L, Jeremy came from a strong technical and business background involving work with numerous high-tech companies throughout North America. Specifically, he has been actively involved with eLearning and technology companies for over fifteen years.
While talk in 2020 has focused on interpreting the new normal, this discussion has been altogether shortsighted. Instead, we should be thinking about what a better normal looks like beyond the pandemic.
The research in this year's 2020 Legal Trends Report from Clio aims to further our vision for what this better normal could look like, based on what they have seen so far.
The Legal Trends Report uses aggregated and anonymized data from tens of thousands of legal professionals in the United States. This year, the company has adapted and expanded their analysis to provide more up-to-date data on law firms to better identify the challenges faced during the global pandemic in 2020. George Psiharis, COO, Clio joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share insights from their Legal Trends Report.
George Psiharis is the Chief Operating Officer at Clio, the leader in cloud-based legal technology. Specializing in customer success, business development, and data operations, George has worked extensively with law schools, bar associations, and other legal professionals to help make information on cloud computing and law firm economics increasingly accessible.
Clio is powering the future of legal services for lawyers and their clients through a suite of cloud-based solutions, including legal practice management, client intake and CRM, online payments, and client-attorney communication and collaboration software. Clio has been transforming the industry for over a decade with 150,000 customers spanning 100 countries, and the approval of 66 bar associations and law societies globally.
Clio continues to lead the industry with initiatives like the Legal Trends Report, the Clio Cloud Conference, and the Clio Academic Access Program. Clio has been recognized as a Deloitte Fast 50 and Fast 500 company and a market leader by G2 Crowd.
François Cazor is the Co-Founder & CEO of the fast-growing technology company Kpler. François shares his inspiring tech startup story, which began after a chance meeting in New York in 2009. At the height of the financial crisis, they noticed that financial organizations began to jump into CO2 trading. Realizing that there was little transparency to this, in 2009, Cazor and Maynier set about building the first real-time intelligence platform for this market, eCO2Market.
Despite being a successful, expanding company, almost overnight, the rules on CO2 trading changed due to the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol beginning in 2012 - eCO2Market was effectively finished. To keep the company alive in some form, Cazor and Maynier consulted and also paid interns with their household savings while searching for another idea.
Kpler became an instant success. Much like the CO2 market, until Kpler, there had been little to no transparency of the commodity market. Within the first quarter of its foundation in 2014, the company was already cashflow positive.
Like flight radar, the Kpler terminal tells you precisely what’s going on in commodity markets in real-time. This helps commodity professionals (traders, analysts, charterers, etc.) better understand the market and make well-informed business decisions, maximizing business opportunities while reducing risk.
Using advanced technology (AI, machine learning, satellite imagery interpretation), the platform has the ability to crunch over 10 million data points from over 500+ different sources each day to provide real-time, global intelligence about the physical flows of crude oil, refined products, LNG, dry bulk, and more (25+ commodities in total).
By refining such volumes of raw data into real-time information, Kpler has disrupted intelligence in traditionally opaque commodity markets - thanks to Kpler these markets are much more transparent today. It works with over 600+ companies and has over 5,500+ users for the Kpler terminal and in H1 of 2020, the company went over $30 million+ in bookings.
What does Epson mean to you? I suspect you might immediately think of printers. But after learning about their Moverio smart glasses and a focus on sustainability, I wanted to learn more about how the pandemic challenged Epson to examine the sustainability of all its technologies.
We all have a role to play in building a better future. For Epson, being a sustainable company means being mindful of every aspect of their organisation – from the smallest lightbulb to the largest factory. It fuels their innovation, drives growth, motivates their workforce and, ultimately, to contribute to society. It is also an essential part of how they work with our partners across the supply chain.
Daniel Quelch, Sustainability Manager at Epson, joins me on the podcast to discuss how the societal shift in where and how we work has created new opportunities for companies to focus on more sustainable tech. I also learn how smart glasses can provide remote technical assistance to printers capable of printing labels for restaurants that have pivoted to takeaway-only.
I also learn why sustainability is an important part of Epson's Japanese heritage, and it's ingrained throughout the company.
The ability to make informed decisions based on data and insights is the future of decision-making. Business intelligence has been making waves throughout organizations because it provides useful information and data that allows executives to make decisions for the good of their business.
Organizations are increasingly using new generation decision intelligence tools to get a more accurate and efficient view of their growing volumes of data. However, the implementation of decision intelligence can further bolster these insights, leading to more context (from both customers and operations) and overall better decision-making by executives.
With all this in mind, I have invited Imam Hoque, Chief Product Officer at Quantexa, on the podcast today to discuss the value that decision intelligence can provide and why relevant and timely context is essential to business success.
More than a decade ago, Quantexa founders pioneered network analytics. Now, they’ve combined the same innovative approach with the latest data and analytics technology to help organizations identify and connect the relationships that matter the most to empower better operational decisions.
Imam has more than 31 years’ experience in the IT industry and pioneered Quantexa’s network analytics, saving billions of pounds in fraud and financial crime across government, banking, and insurance. He led Quantexa through two rounds of funding and is responsible for driving Quantexa’s strategy to expand into new sectors and propositions, including business development and credit risk.
As an expert in AI, Imam empowers organizations to drive decision intelligence using new technologies.
SetSchedule is the technology innovator revolutionizing the real-estate business and data services. The company’s multi-patented agnostic leads marketplace and SAAS products suite leverage AI-powered predictive data, trend insights, and automated marketing software tools to deliver better business efficiency to agents, teams, brokers, and other vertical markets.
Roy Dekel is CEO and Co-Founder of SetSchedule. Preceding SetSchedule, Roy sold billions in financial products and prior to trends, institutionalized the buy and hold residential lifestyle model, managing a lofty residential portfolio. Before moving to California, Roy grew up in Israel, a child of Romanian refugees. He served as a first lieutenant in the Israeli Defense Forces of the Navy Seals.
We talk about the new patented software and developments at SetSchedule. I learn how artificial intelligence and machine learning software in real estate will affect the industry moving forward. Roy shares his experience creating a company to use innovative technology and cutting-edge tools to disrupt the real estate industry and maximize efficiency for both real estate agents and home shoppers.
MuleSoft is a SalesForce company famous for its integration and API platform. It makes it easy to connect data from any system to create connected experiences faster. It also enables insurance companies to modernize legacy systems, bring new products to market faster, and extend distribution channels. I wanted to learn more about how MuleSoft drives digital engagement and transforms the policyholder experience.
Jerome Bugnet Senior Manager, Digital Transformation Solutions at MuleSoft. I invited him on the podcast to explore the world of InsurTech and how the rising expectations from consumers are changing the industry. We talk about re-imagining the insurance ecosystem and what the future of insurance might look like.
Global lockdowns have forced consumers online, and the result is a much more digital-savvy market. As a consequence, consumers have come to expect a much-improved digital experience from their providers. For insurers, this requires urgent investment in the technologies and capabilities that power digital customer journeys, such as analytical tools that can crunch vast sets of customer data to provide a more personalized experience.
Jerome argues that we're at the start of a fundamental shift in the way insurance services are provided. Instead of owning customer relationships, insurers will increasingly offer their services in concert with those from other industries, such as banking and retail. The result is a single, unified experience from the customer's perspective, in which they don't interact with individual providers at all. We already see insurance services bundled in with products such as internet-enabled home security devices: in Jerome's view, this is just the start.
In Jerome's view, the main obstacle to achieving this new business model is that many insurers' IT systems are arranged in departmental silos with compartmentalized processes, limiting their ability to innovate quickly or partner with others.
With Twitter recently hitting the headlines for silencing President Trump, many have questioned if tech giants now possess more power than governments. With increased polarization in society, many also blame tech and social media for division rather than uniting the global community.
How did we get here? And how do we stop a tech lash from building and get back to leveraging technology to bring us together? Dentons is the world's largest law firm, and I wanted to learn more about their experiences with legal policies in technology. Victor Boyajian and his colleague Michael Drobac from Dentons share their insights on legal challenges they see in technology. We also discuss what excites them about tech's future in society and Legal Tech.
Victor Boyajian heads Dentons' Global Venture Technology practice. A recognized leader in his field, Victor focuses on representing emerging growth technology companies and Fortune 500 companies in a broad array of venture capital, private equity, securities and strategic transactions from Silicon Valley to Boston to New York and around the globe.
He counsels senior executives, boards of directors and venture firm principals on a wide range of issues, including business strategy, finance, mergers and acquisitions, executive compensation, board governance, intellectual property and litigation strategy, and he has been recognized for his deep network among venture firms and investment banks.
Victor has been recognized by Chambers USA as one of the leading practitioners in the sector. Under his leadership, Dentons has been ranked among the top 10 nationally in venture capital deals, as reported in Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst. He has also been selected as one of AlwaysOn's Power Players New York City.
Drawing from deep experience in the private and public sector, Michael Drobac's practice straddles the intersection of technology and public policy. He helps clients from the tech and telecommunications sectors develop messaging to define and execute outreach strategies, while advocating before Congress and federal agencies in support of policy objectives.
Michael's experience working in the private sector — which gave him an understanding of key public policy issues facing the global Internet industry — combined with insights on legislative processes acquired during his years on Capitol Hill, afford him an ability to provide advice informed by both perspectives. He was recognized by The Hill as one of the top lobbyists of 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, and was named a Government Relations Trailblazer by the National Law Journal in 2019.
He previously worked as head of government affairs for digital streaming giant Netflix. There Michael established, and served as the first director of, Netflix's Washington, DC, office, where he identified and developed the first official set of short- and long-term policy goals for the company on federal, state and international policy issues. He also advocated before Congress and other federal agencies in support of policy objectives including net neutrality, interconnection access, privacy, accessibility rules, taxation and copyright issues, and represented the company in market expansion in Canada and Latin America.
Employees can now work anywhere and everywhere thanks to a long list of remote working tools and productivity apps. But remembering which app you saved your document, message, presentation, report, video, project plan, or a task list can be frustrating.
Onna is an eDiscovery startup that raised $27M during the lockdown. The latest funding round was led by Dawn Capital, with participation from Dropbox, the Slack Fund, and existing early investor Nauta Capital. Onna also works with Slack, Dropbox, Fitbit, EA and Lyft.
Salim Elkhou shares the story behind Onna and how it uses machine learning to help consolidate knowledge and discover information across multiple connected apps. I learn how it helps companies find information that would have otherwise been scattered across multiple remote work applications (i.e. Gmail, Slack, etc).
Throughout his career, Salim Elkhou recognized a gap with the rise in popularity of cloud-based and hosted enterprise apps. He started a successful eDiscovery business, eStet, a service provider acquired by EY, that created custom technology solutions to enhance the litigation strategy of corporations, AmLaw 100 firms, and boutique law firms. In 2015, he realized that a technology-based solution was needed to address the growing discovery problem at scale and founded Onna.
He saw that knowledge can become quickly fragmented, making search between applications manual and time-consuming, and slowing down overall performance and productivity. Risk and compliance issues get tougher too, especially given the fact that many governments are strengthening regulations. So, Salim started Onna with a mission to make the totality of people and organizations’ proprietary knowledge accessible, useful and secure.
Point Health is a digital healthcare startup on a mission to make healthcare easy to find, easy to understand, and easier to afford for members of insurance plans and healthcare sharing organizations. The company recently announced the intent to acquire The Karis Group, an Austin-based company with 25 years of experience in healthcare billing negotiation and patient advocacy.
Member retention and loyalty are big problems with insurance companies losing an estimated 33% of members each year. Point Health intends to help solve part of this problem through a new technology platform for payors. Matthew Dale joins me on the podcast to discuss the issue of healthcare accessibility in the US; why is transparent pricing so critical? and how technology can solve this problem.
I also learn how healthcare billing is such an incredibly complex system in the US but how technology is changing tech change that. Matt shares how technology is helping families navigate thousands of dollars in healthcare bills each year.
Matt’s career with healthcare began in 2000 when Karis was in financial constraints and his father asked him to come work (for no pay) as a patient advocate right when Matt was graduating from college. He took on the challenge. After a year, The Karis Group was profitable and he was the second-largest shareholder.
From there, Matt worked for Karis for nearly a decade before leaving to found a series of successful startups which he grew to the point of acquisition. His ultimate mission, making accessible and quality healthcare a human right for all, brought him back to The Karis Group in 2017 to take responsibility as Vice President of Strategic Planning. In 2020 he became CEO and oversaw the acquisition of The Karis Group by Point Health. Matt now serves as CEO of Point Health.
In the Citrix Ready Podcast series, I explore how technology can empower people and organizations to unlock innovation, engage customers, and be productive—anytime, anywhere. In today's episode, I learn more about how collaboration and hybrid working environments are reshaping the future of work.
It recently occurred to me that Microsoft, Citrix, and AMD were all playing roles in how I was working. But we only think of them as solutions in their own right. So I wanted to try and get people from all 3 companies onto the podcast to understand the role that they play in our working life.
Kevin Raines, Senior Product Marketing Manager for HPC at Microsoft, Isidro Gonzalez, business development executive with the AMD, and Nitin Sharma, product and solutions marketing strategy all join me on the podcast. We discuss how they are collaborating together and reshaping and reimagining how we work anywhere and everywhere.
Kevin Raines is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for HPC at Microsoft. He has over 25 years of Information Technology experience, including worldwide project implementations, managing opportunity life cycle, delivering mission-critical projects, and managing a $200+ million portfolio. The Enterprise solutions have yielded strong ROI, greatly improved operational performance, increased customer revenue, and developed the foundation for continuous improvements.
Isidro Gonzalez is a business development executive with the AMD Radeon Technology Group. He has over 20 years of enterprise software marketing experience, specializing in adding value to corporate organizations through strategic partnerships, product alignment, and GTM execution. Combines a clear understanding of customer needs with the nuances of technology and current market trends to guide organizations to leading market positions worldwide.
Nitin Sharma is a leader in product and solutions marketing strategy at Citrix. He is responsible for designing and executing global, companywide go-to-market strategies for digital workspace solutions. With a passion for solving business problems with technology solutions, he has held various solutions sales and marketing roles—targeting audiences at all levels: executive, line of business, and IT.
Auvik Networks recently released its 2021 Network Field Report which surveyed IT pros across North America and looks at how in-house IT admins manage their networks and the current state of network management practices. Steve Petryschuk joins me on the podcast to share insights from the survey.
I learn how there appears to be high network confidence with low network knowledge in some organizations. For example, more than half of IT pros have incomplete knowledge about how their networks are configured, yet 77% of these same people also report a high or very high confidence in their networks.
We discuss how this could indicate a potential mismatch between perception and reality, with IT pros unaware of the weaknesses in their network management practices. I also learn how only 36% of organizations back up their network device configurations daily or weekly, despite additional data showing that configuration changes are frequent.
Founded in 2011, Auvik’s cloud-based network management software keeps IT networks around the world running optimally by automating and simplifying network management. Auvik is one of the fastest-growing North American technology companies, and is a winner of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50, Deloitte Fast 500, and recognized as the #1 ranked Canadian company in the FT Americas’ 500 Fastest Growing Companies 2020.
As AI adoption grows, how are companies working to manage risk and stay ahead of the pack? Deloitte's third annual survey suggests how leaders' thinking is changing as applications become pervasive throughout the organization.
Beena Ammanath, executive director of the Deloitte AI Institute shares insights in relation to Deloitte's latest State of AI in the Enterprise survey.
We talk about the biggest skills gaps, the most in-demand technology skills, what companies are looking for, and how employees and leaders at all levels can best prepare themselves for the new normal by prioritizing disruptive technologies like AI.
In addition to the tech skills gap and training, Beena also talks about employee anxiety about being replaced by machines, and how leaders and employees can work collaboratively to downplay the fear. Ultimately, humans and robots can and should work together.
Beena is Executive Director of Deloitte AI Institute and leads Trustworthy AI. Beena is an award-winning senior executive with extensive global experience in AI and digital transformation, spanning across e-commerce, finance, marketing, telecom, retail, software products, services, and industrial domains with companies such as HPE, GE, Thomson Reuters, British Telecom, Bank of America, e*trade and a number of Silicon Valley startups.
She is also the Founder of the non-profit, Humans For AI. A well-recognized thought leader in the industry, she also serves on the Advisory Board at Cal Poly College of Engineering and has been a Board Member and Advisor to several startups. Beena thrives on envisioning and architecting how data, artificial intelligence, and technology in general, can make our world a better, easier place to live for all humans.
Today's guest is Joe Hyrkin, CEO of Issuu, the Omni-channel content tools and publishing platform. The Issuu Story Cloud enables millions of marketers, brands, and creators, and publishers globally to digitally share and monetize their longer-form quality content and create content marketing materials.
As someone that creates a wealth of content, I am curious how Issuu makes it possible to create something once and distribute it everywhere. By taking your PDF, images, and text and transform them using your design and Issuu's templates to give you a native experience on desktop, mobile web, app, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and all other social media.
I learn how the pandemic has affected Issuu and how their customers used the platform. Joe shares how they started to see a flood of menus being posted as restaurants scrambled to respond to online ordering and takeout needs. Some even posted QR codes of Issuu formatted menus in storefront windows so patrons could view the menu and order food over the phone from the safety of their cars.
Issuu also noticed an influx of real estate brochures, property flyers, and market reports from realtors. With restrictions on in-person showings and office walk-ins, the entire real estate industry began to adjust its sales process.
Joe has more than 25 years of experience in start-up and growth technology leadership globally, covering stints in Asia, Europe, and the US, from early-stage through to IPO. He is also a frequent thought and industry leadership contributor to the likes of Inc., Entrepreneur Magazine, Recode, Techcrunch, CNBC, FoxBusiness, Bloomberg and has spoken at conferences and events globally, including Web Summit, Founders Forum, Horasis Summit, The Wrap's Grill Summit, The Issuu Generator's Summit among others.
Spiceworks and Ziff Davis B2B joined forces to offer customers unparalleled access to the world's most active and influential technology buyers.
Robin Peto, Managing Director at Spiceworks Ziff Davis, joins me on today's Tech Talks Daily episode. Robin is responsible for directing the organization's research strategy, as well as leading a team of subject matter experts and talented researchers to help inform clients' mission-critical priorities. She offers insights grounded in her 20+ year career in the B2B tech sector.
IT departments everywhere have rapidly deployed technologies to maintain business continuity during the rapid rush to remote work in the global health crisis. The massive move to work-from-home policies spurred shifts in hardware, software and services spend and will continue to make waves as many companies stick to flexible working arrangements permanently.
To gain perspective on how this great shift will influence IT in the coming years, SWZD surveyed more than 1,000 technology buyers in companies across North America and Europe. To provide context into the magnitude of the shifts expected in 2021, the report tracks tech trends over three years.
Robin reveals insights from their 2021 State of IT report. We discuss changes in IT and tech spending during the pandemic. We also talk about shifts in business communication tools, the future of business chat apps, remote working security concerns, and workers returning to physical offices/workforce of the future.
Regular listeners will know that I have featured HCL many times on this podcast. We have discussed the digital transformation of Man Utd, Cyber Security Fusion Centers and even spoke to them from the show floor at the Adobe Summit in Vegas. Today, Kalyan Kumar, CVP & CTO, IT Services, HCL Technologies, joins me on the podcast.
Drawing on his experience of working with more than 200 customers across Europe, including the likes of Deutsche Bank, Asda, and Anglo American amongst many others, Kalyan discusses how COVID-19 disruption has led to greater demand for AI solutions amongst global enterprises, but also why he urges businesses to remember there is no ‘plug and play’ options – careful planning is crucial.
We explore the topic of AI and sustainability: and how the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted a gap in businesses’ bottom-up approach to sustainability, leading many to turn to AI. He can give you the low-down on specific use cases – from helping chefs cut food waste in half through ‘smart bins’, to making fast fashion more sustainable through an AI and blockchain-powered platform.
We also discuss who is responsible for plugging the AI skills gap. Is the onus on enterprises to reskill staff to take their place in the augmented workforce? Should employees take their own initiative and train themselves up using MOOCs? Or are governments and universities responsible for teaching AI-related skills to employees of all ages? Kalyan shares his thoughts on how society can work together to solve the talent shortage.
Organizations are already partnering with technology leaders to identify the right upskilling, reskilling, and micro-skilling initiatives that can efficiently close these AI skills gaps. Kalyan talks through the specific steps already being taken by organizations to improve employee proficiency with software suites and develop collaborative skills in harnessing AI to optimize back-office processes.
Brendan Kavanagh, CEO of Olive Group. The Irish-founded EdTech company joins me on today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. We talk about how they are leveraging technology and their strategic five-year partnership with the UK's National Open College Network (NOCN) Group.
As part of the strategic partnership, they'll be launching a new best-in-class virtual learning platform, 'vLearn,' which will bring virtual learning services to over 2000 training providers and colleges globally, including the UK and international markets.
vLearn launched this year with market-leading virtual support materials for apprentices across some of the most popular Apprenticeship Standards. The platform will then be rolled out to the wider NOCN Group as part of a 12-month project to deliver unrivalled digital support to customers.
The platform's key features will include digital materials to support the delivery of qualifications, virtual classrooms, and one-to-many online exam proctoring. The NOCN Group educational charity offers a range of integrated services, including endpoint assessment, regulated UK and international qualifications, access to Higher Education, short courses, assessment services, as well as consultancy and research services.
Founded and headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Olive Group produces low-cost, high-end online training courses to help more people access affordable education and help businesses onboard, train and upskill staff. Since its establishment in 2006, the company has trained more than two million people across the world and created digital learning content in 27 languages.
Employing 600 people across 12 countries, Olive Group produces world-class digital content using the latest technological innovations to engage learners and save businesses 85% of the costs associated with the delivery of classroom-based training courses.
LivePerson makes life easier for people and brands everywhere through trusted Conversational AI. Its conversational cloud platform empowers consumers to stop wasting time on hold or crawling through websites and message their favorite brands instead, just as they do with friends and family.
The company has 18,000 customers, including leading brands like HSBC, Orange, GM Financial, and The Home Depot. They use their conversational solutions to orchestrate humans and AI at scale and create a convenient, deeply personal relationship — a conversational relationship — with their millions of consumers. LivePerson was also named to Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies list in 2020 and is a founding member of EqualAI.
Alex Spinelli joins me in a conversation about all things AI. We discuss the potential AI backlash, and people will respond as we move into and past the through of disillusionment part of the hype cycle. I also learn more about how AI made it possible to get to this critical moment of the first COVID vaccinations and what we can expect next for the healthcare industry.
We also discuss why AI ethics and fighting bias in decision-making is more critical than ever. Alex shares insights on the tools and technologies that will finally be put in place to fight this bias, going further than just standards and talk.
Alex Spinelli leads the technology organization at LivePerson, overseeing all R&D globally. Before LivePerson, he was global head of Alexa OS for Amazon, running a large, distributed team of developers around the world, and leading the development of the core software systems and capabilities that underpin the Alexa platform.
Before joining Amazon, Alex served as CTO of McCann Worldgroup — one of the world's largest marketing organizations with 24,000 staff across more than 100 countries — and CTO for North America and Asia-Pacific at AXA Technologies, where he built large-scale grid computing for predictive modeling. At Thomson Reuters, he oversaw product and technology for news and media, including real-time, AI-driven news curation for financial professionals.
Alex has also held executive technology leadership positions at TheStreet.com and MTV Networks as CTO of Comedy Central. Alex started his career as an engineer in New York City, working on real-time data feeds. He has an MBA from Duke University.
Digital Remedy is proof that success can be found with the right combination of people and technology. The digital media solutions company is leading the tech-enabled marketing space. But it was co-founded by Mike Seiman while still a college student at Hofstra University in the early 2000s. The company has grown quickly and is now a major player within the crowded digital advertising landscape.
Mike Seiman is now the CEO and Chairman and joins me on the podcast to share his startup story. I also learn more about FLIP, a proprietary OTT and CTV platform that allows users to track statistics like app installs, site visits, checkout amounts, and store visits.
60% of advertisers planned to shift their ad dollars from linear TV to either CTV or OTT in 2021 – and among this group, 81% cited targeting and efficiency as a reason. Mike discusses the growth of programmatic CTV video ad growth and how it is impacting their client's ad spend toward this space. We also talk about how the pandemic has changed the availability of CTV video impressions.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most critical mega-trends in business in recent years. It streamlines transactions for higher productivity and automation of routine tasks such as production lines, banking, insurance companies, and so on.
Founded in 2018, BeyondMinds has built the first enterprise AI solution that is universally applicable and easily adaptable. The company delivers hyper-customized, production-ready AI systems that enable companies to overcome the massive failure rate in AI adoption and rapidly implement ROI-positive transformations.
The company has more than 70 employees, with the majority being AI technologists. They have offices in New York, Tel-Aviv and London. Clients include Fortune 1000 companies, including Microsoft, Samsung, KPMG, and numerous leading defense companies and financial institutions.
Most recently, the company raised $15 million series A funding, co-led by leading Israeli venture capital fund Grove Ventures and private investor Marius Nacht.
Rotem Alaluf is the Co-Founder and CEO of BeyondMinds. He shares how they have built the first enterprise AI system that is universally applicable and easily adaptable. Alaluf is passionate about creating more stable and accurate ways of bringing AI to production, ultimately accelerating the adoption of AI in ways that we see and feel in the real world.
Prior to founding BeyondMinds, Rotem worked in the defense technology industry as a researcher in a variety of fields, including optimization, natural language processing (NLP), and vulnerabilities of AI systems. Rotem has a B.S. in both electrical engineering and physics from Israel’s respected Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology.
Weka offers WekaFS, the modern file system that uniquely empowers organizations to solve the newest, biggest problems holding back innovation. Optimized for NVMe and the hybrid cloud, Weka handles the most demanding storage challenges in the most data-intensive technical computing environments, delivering truly epic performance at any scale.
Its modern architecture unlocks the full capabilities of today’s data center, allowing businesses to maximize the value of their high-powered IT investments. Weka helps industry leaders reach breakthrough innovations and solve previously unsolvable problems.
Ken Grohe is the newly appointed President of Weka and CRO. He brings 30 years of B2B SaaS, sales, and data science experience to the table and joined Weka as they accomplished 600% growth in 2019. Ken joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to chat about how the critical role of storage in successful AI initiatives. We talk about the emerging high growth AI/ML markets and the emerging role of the CDO.
We also discuss enriching people’s lives by enabling faster product innovation, such as autonomous driving vehicles, and driving better business outcomes by enabling faster data analytics.
Grohe comes to Weka from Samsung’s Stellus Technologies, a leading data systems company that addresses the way companies capture, store, access, and process the unstructured data, where he served as CRO and drove the company’s overall go-to-market strategy. A highly seasoned veteran of the industry, Grohe previously served as President of SignNow, SVP and GM of Barracuda Networks, and CRO of Virident, a Western Digital Company.
Grohe also had an impressive 25-year career at Dell EMC, finishing as VP and GM with a focus on the global flash business. With over three decades in the SaaS and storage industry, Grohe has deep experience and possesses a rare dedication and passion for winning that is based on a customer-centric perspective. In addition to his roles at major tech companies, Grohe is an advisor and board member of many Silicon Valley fast-rising companies.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak recently published his 2020 Spending Review and kicked off the new £5bn UK Gigabit Broadband Programme. Even though the promise of full-fiber is great for 85% of the population by 2025, it’s imperative it’s delivered, so the whole country has access to it.
To help accomplish that, Zen has focused on full-fibre for 2021 and upgraded its core network. Paul Stobart, CEO, Zen Internet, the UK’s largest independent telecommunications and technology service provider, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast.
Paul has been in the technology industry for over 20 years, 16 of those years being in CEO positions at Sage (business software), CPP (financial services), and Tunstall Healthcare (healthcare technology), and has developed a strong belief that having inspired people inside a business will deliver superior financial returns.
We discuss why full-fibre is key to the growth of the UK in 2021 for businesses and what other tech investing in full-fibre enables for companies. Paul also shares how Zen is investing in its core network to allow every customer to access full-fibre and why he left a multi-national company like Sage, where he grew the company from £120m turnover to £1.3bn, to join Zen.
Last year, I attended the Dynatrace Perform event in Las Vegas and interviewed their CEO John Van Siclen. This year Dynatrace has made several announcements aimed at helping organizations overcome existing challenges with IT complexity and transform faster to meet today's business needs.
Steve Tack, SVP, Product Management, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to talk bout some of the big news coming out of the event. We talk about the Infrastructure monitoring enhancements, and by expanding its automatic and intelligent observability with native log support for Kubernetes and multicloud environments, Dynatrace is enabling teams to drive faster innovation.
I learn more about the Dynatrace Software Intelligence Hub and how within just a few clicks, Dynatrace customers can access an ecosystem of 500+ technologies from leading providers including AWS, and Google, enabling them to build and manage customer Dynatrace extensions without additional code.
We also discuss the extension of Session Replay and business analytics to native-mobile applications, and now organizations in even the most highly regulated industries – financial services, health care, government – can optimize mobile app performance, feature adoption, and conversions.
Steve shares more details about the Cloud Automation Module and how the new module enables DevOps and SRE teams to automate operations and continuous delivery processes to deliver higher-quality cloud-native apps faster and with less risk. Finally, I learn more about how they are broadening application security coverage with enhancements that will empower DevSecOps teams to make more informed decisions.
With almost 20 years of experience in software support, engineering, and product management, he's just as comfortable with performance technologies as he is with competitive cycling. His broad business consulting and market development expertise bring a relentless customer focus to the product organization. As he teaches the kids on his lacrosse and soccer teams, speed is important―but it takes clear strategies and endurance, and velocity to win the game. He brings them all together for Dynatrace.
Kevin Ruef co-founded 10-8 Systems after exceeding multiple companies’ sales records (both domestically and internationally). With more than a decade in sales, his experience ranges from B2B, B2G, and B2C. Since the company’s start in 2019, Kevin is responsible for business development, strategic partnerships, and business operations.
Kevin Ruef, the co-founder of 10-8 Systems, shares the story behind launching 10-8 Systems on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast. 10-8 Systems is a cloud-based computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system for first responders, law enforcement, EMT, firefighters, and other government agencies.
FEMA used the software in the Bahamas during Hurricane Dorian. With the help of their system, 500 people were rescued! They have since been contacted by organizations ranging from security to search-and-rescue across the world, such as in Africa, Australia, Canada, the European Union, and Caribbean countries.
10-8 Systems' computer-aided dispatch software leverages technology to provide public safety agencies with the most up to date information and pinpoint precise location information to better help response time and connectivity. I learn more about how their technology helps revolutionize the way first responders handle emergency calls.
The coronavirus pandemic is the kind of unpredictable, global catastrophe of staggering proportions that comes along not just every few years but perhaps once in a hundred years. What started out as health crisis, has quickly developed into an economic crisis spurring social unrest across the world. And yet, despite the widespread distress, the picture is more complex than it may seem. For some companies, the crisis has and continues to, provide opportunities for new growth.
A timely book by a visionary business practitioner, Nitin Rakesh, CEO, Mphasis, and an award-winning academician, Jerry Wind, Lauder Professor Emeritus, Wharton bridges the worlds of industry and academia to bring you the knowledge that can help your business thrive in the new world. The book defines 8 key principles that form a highly adaptive framework, that gives businesses the tools to adapt and succeed in a new reality.
When Nitin Rakesh and Jerry Wind started collaborating on the book prior to the 2020 pandemic, these 8 principles were concepts on the best ways to navigate disruption that needed further exploration. However, today, having incubated the ideas for a period and encountering the unprecedented crisis, this book is a game-changer for the business community. Any business, large or small, can customize and implement a winning strategy by using the eight principles and tools clearly outlined here to seek out opportunities for long-term value creation in a post-pandemic world.
Nuvei, one of the world's largest payment technology providers, has partnered with companies all over the world to create seamless commerce experiences, specifically in the esports and online betting industries. Motie Bring, Chief Commercial Officer, Digital Payments, Nuvei, joins me on the podcast.
We discuss how local marketplaces like Etsy are going global and how markets are shifting towards global eCommerce. We also talk about the rise in the esports and sports betting industries and how payment technology providers are creating seamless commerce experiences. I also learn more about how COVID-19 has accelerated the shift to eCommerce.
Motie Bring has over 18 years of experience in payments, holding various management and leadership positions in related industries. He served the last seven years in senior management roles at WorldPay (acquired by FIS in 2019), most recently as General Manager EMEA, Global Enterprise eCommerce, while also heading up the global commercial gambling teams. Prior to this, he was responsible for leading the company's iGaming and digital content relationship management groups.
Deloitte’s annual 2021 Tech Trends report examines how enterprises have adapted to fluctuations, accelerated digital transformation, and overall emerged resilient amidst a year of disruption.
Although COVID-19 rendered even the best-laid of January 2020’s plans useless, the crisis has driven change in an important and unexpected way and CIOs are already charting a promising path toward the future. The 12th annual Report discusses the opportunities, strategies, and technologies that will drive confidence in new planning and implementation during the next 18 to 24 months.
The 9 trends fall under three categories:
- The Heart of the Enterprise: Strategy, Engineered; Core Revival; and Supply Unchained focus on the alignment of organizational and technology strategy. These components of the enterprise are complex, but imperative for success, and must work in concert to support each other.
- A Better Experience, Inside and Out: Bespoke for Billions: Digital Meets Physical and Rebooting the Digital Workplace explore merging digital and physical experiences to drive more value for customers and employees. DEI Tech: Tools for Equity discusses increasingly sophisticated tools to support organizational DE&I, which is the spark that powers innovation.
- Data: The Art of the Possible: As enterprises move further towards automation, human capacity can be augmented at scale. MLOps: Industrialized AI; Machine Data Revolution: Feeding the Machine; and Zero Trust: Never Trust, Always Verify represent three specific opportunities for enterprises to realize more value through industrialization.
Scott Buchholz Emerging Technologies Research Director and Government and Public Services CTO at Deloitte Consulting, joins me on the podcast to discuss this year’s Trends!
Despite holding up remarkably well during the pandemic, the early disruption to the supply chain has served as a wake-up call to the agriculture sector. Consequently, an industry that has typically been five-ten years behind the technology curve is (finally) coming to recognize the potential of AI as a catalyst for (arguably, much-needed) change.
A recent survey by Proagrica, the world's largest data and tech business serving the ag sector, looked into attitudes towards AI across seven core sectors: government, healthcare, insurance, legal, science/medical, banking and agriculture.
It found that AI has risen up the agenda in agriculture - here are some key findings:
- 87% of agricultural respondents believe that AI technologies played a role in slowing the spread of COVID-19.
- 76% of agricultural respondents say they've increased investment in AI in the last year against an average of 68% across other sectors
- 87% of agricultural respondents state that their company offers training on AI technologies, up from 81% in 2019.
Lindsay Suddon, Chief Strategy Officer for Proagrica, joins me on the podcast to discuss the findings. As one of the original architects of Proagrica, Lindsay's focus continues to be on strengthening Proagrica's ability to provide a wide range of data-centered solutions to a variety of industry segments across the supply chain, unlocking value for all.
Under Lindsay's time with Proagrica, the division has transformed itself into a technology and data business, acquiring a variety of best-in-class assets such as GateKeeper, F4F (Adaptris), and SST. A large part of the strategy involves organic innovation and development, bringing together existing and acquired assets to create new, valuable products and solutions; smart insight-driven data analysis that helps drive the industry forward; managing risk and driving productivity; and profitability and compliance.
The world order has changed overnight. The IT organization is under more pressure and scrutiny than ever before. In addition to ensuring security, there is a strong argument in favor of modernizing enterprise infrastructure. Trusted by leading managed service providers, Airgap’s patent-pending enterprise-grade Agentless Zero Trust Isolation platform addresses some of the fundamental security and networking challenges faced by the IT organizations.
Ritesh Agarwal, CEO, Airgap, joins me on Tech Talks Daily and shares Airgap’s core capabilities, the roadmap, and their vision. I learn more about how Airgap’s Zero Trust Isolation Platform offers defense against cyber-threat propagation. Airgap’s patent-pending agentless solution works for any user and any device accessing business assets from any location and it can be installed in a few minutes without any forklift upgrades.
Banks, retailers, and healthcare institutions have been some of the biggest targets for hackers for years. With large networks, hackers can breach platforms and access financial institutions' data, retailers' customer payment information, and patient files. With this looming threat continually growing in complexity, cybersecurity organizations need to share threat information to develop a roadmap to defeat malicious actors.
This is best done through Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), where cybersecurity professionals can anonymously share these details about threat vectors for others to be on the prowl for. So why are organizations so hesitant to do so?
Neal Dennis, Threat Intelligence Specialist at Cyware, discusses why it's imperative for the cybersecurity industry to share threat information (hackers do it, so shouldn't we?) and how this could help prevent the next Capital One Marriott breach. He also debunks the misconceptions of threat sharing and ISACs that many organizations may have.
Cyware Labs is a product-based cybersecurity provider headquartered in New York, USA. Cyware offers a full-stack of innovative cyber fusion solutions for all-source strategic, tactical, technical, and operational threat intelligence sharing & threat response automation. Cyware's Enterprise Solutions are designed to promote secure collaboration, inculcate cyber resilience, enhance threat visibility and deliver needed control by providing organizations with automated context-rich analysis of threats for a proactive response without losing the element of human judgment.
Cyware solutions are pushing the boundaries of current security paradigms by utilizing advances in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Security Automation & Orchestration technologies to empower enterprises in adapting to the evolving threat landscape. Cyware's clients include Fortune500 financial, healthcare, energy and defense organizations, multinational retail corporations, trade associations, industry groups (including ISACs and ISAOs), non-profits and government agencies.
Paul Palmieri is the Co-Founder & CEO of Tradeswell, the first real-time trading platform for e-commerce brands that helps them sell more successfully across digital platforms. Paul helped define the mobile advertising industry and led Millennial Media to IPO. He's now taking a similar approach to help brands scale and take advantage of a $3T e-commerce opportunity.
As CEO of Tradeswell, Paul now works with brands like McCormick's Spices, Frank's Red Hot, and Rare Beauty Brands, using AI to improve sales and margins and empowering them with valuable customer insights to grow their business.
Paul recently launched the company with backing from leading venture capital firms like SignalFire, and he shares his journey, from entrepreneur to investor, where he saw hundreds of DTC companies and passed on investing in them because margins were too thin, and some of the early results he's seeing from brands using the platform.
I learn how they help bridge the gap between humans and machines, giving them the insights they need that have traditionally been left in silos and behind walled gardens. Paul also shares details of the solution that provides synchronous optimization across key functions, including marketing, assortment, inventory, forecasting, promotion, and pricing, all in real-time.
Paul is a visionary, leader, and investor who helped define the mobile advertising industry and the app economy business model. As co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Millennial Media, Paul built an industry-defining team and platform and oversaw its $1.4 billion IPO. As Managing Partner of Grit Capital Partners, he is a successful investor in early-stage technology companies, leading a high performing early-stage venture capital fund.
Paul previously led consumer mobile data for Verizon in the early stages of mobile internet growth, where he and his team struck deals with some of the world's largest technology, brand, and entertainment companies, building a 4.5bn business in just five years. Early in his career, he led one of the earliest outsourced e-commerce logistics businesses that combined technology platforms with consumer distribution in the telecommunications space
Next Pathway is the automated cloud migration company that the
Globe and Mail recently named one of the hottest cloud start-ups. Today I am joined by Chetan Mathur and Clara Angotti in a conversation about the importance of cloud migration and how the cloud can provide a competitive advantage.
We also discuss why companies with the agility of the cloud will be set up for long term success and how businesses are using the cloud to reduce cost and increase operational efficiency.
Chetan Mathur is the Chief Executive Officer of Next Pathway Inc., the Automated Cloud Migration company, named Canada's hottest cloud start-up by the Globe and Mail in 2019. Mr. Mathur is responsible for providing senior leadership and counsel to ensure the company is at the forefront of the ever-changing technology landscape.
In addition to Next Pathway, Mr. Mathur has established and grown two other information technology firms. He founded Sage Information Consultants in 1992, an international technology integrator that specialized in complex financial services software. Mr. Mathur oversaw Sage's growth to become a leading supplier of IT consulting services for global banking and financial institutions. He negotiated the sale of Sage in June 2000 to a NASDAQ listed company.
Clara Angotti, President, and Founder of Next Pathway Inc. has been named a recipient of the prestigious Canada's Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award by the Women's Executive Network. She received her award in the "Entrepreneur" category. This is the second time Clara has been recognized as a Top 100 Award Winner; Clara received this award previously in 2011.
Railsbank is the pioneer and innovator in the global Banking as a Platform (BaaP) sector, enabling banks, businesses, and brands to define the future of consumer and SME finance. Currently, Railsbank is live and enabling customers in the UK, Europe, SE Asia, and the US.
The Railsbank platform enables marketers, product managers, developers to take their financial product vision and rapidly prototype, launch and scale their vision using its open finance platform, financial operations, regulatory licensing, and rich set of APIs.
Dov Marmor joins me on the podcast to talk about banking as a service and its next frontier, credit as a service. We discuss the difficulties of building credit cards for fintechs and new use cases that credit card as a service could unlock. We also talk about why building on a platform is a faster way to test ideas, get market feedback, and build a unique value proposition using a standardized set of tools.
Dov Marmor has led two of the top FinTech platform businesses in banking and international payments. Formerly GM and Head of BaaS at Green Dot, Dov grew that business 3X over 2.5 years, launching enterprise programs including Intuit TurboCard, Uber Debit/Money, Stash Banking, Wealthfront Debit, and many others. Prior to that, he launched the US business of Currencycloud, building over 20 new programs and expanding the teams and operational processes for scale.
Viasat is a global communications company that believes everyone and everything in the world can be connected. For more than 30 years, Viasat has helped shape how consumers, businesses, governments, and militaries around the world communicate. Today, the Company is developing the ultimate global communications network to power high-quality, secure, affordable, fast connections to impact people's lives anywhere they are—on the ground, in the air, or at sea.
Viasat recently expanded its operations in Europe and setting a foundation for its upcoming ViaSat-3 satellites by purchasing the remaining 51% share of Euro Broadband Infrastructure (EBI), the wholesale broadband services business created as part of Viasat's former partnering arrangement with Eutelsat Communications.
In today's episode, Rick Baldridge shares Viasat's plans for KA-SAT, as well as Viasat's broader commitment to Europe and its road-map to ensuring ViaSat-3 his supporting a full suite of offerings to consumers and businesses. I also learn how Delta recently selected Viasat's in-flight connectivity to revolutionize the customer experience.
Rick Baldridge is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Viasat, Inc. He is responsible for the executive and operational leadership of the Company, with a focus on building and growing a customer-centric organization that will continue to deliver compelling global services and products.
Rick oversees the corporate strategy and operations for the organization, guiding and evaluating the Company's three operating segments (Broadband Services, Government Systems and Space & Commercial Networks) and cultivating and maintaining relations with the investor community.
DXC Technology (NYSE: DXC) helps global companies run their mission-critical systems and operations while modernizing IT, optimizing data architectures, and ensuring security and scalability across public, private, and hybrid clouds.
With decades of driving innovation, the world’s largest companies trust DXC to deploy the Enterprise Technology Stack to deliver new levels of performance, competitiveness, and customer experiences. Learn more about the DXC story and our focus on people, customers, and operational execution
However, what put them on my radar was the recent news that DXC Technology and Microsoft are collaborating to power a more personalized, intelligent, secure, and modern workplace experience for global enterprises.
I wanted to learn more about how DXC and Microsoft were joining forces to deliver a solution and suite of services called DXC MyWorkStyle™. Michael McDaniel shares how they enable employees to work, connect and collaborate — with a more consumer-like, end-to-end digital workplace experience.
Michael McDaniel is vice president and general manager of Modern Workplace at DXC Technology. He is responsible for DXC’s Modern Workplace business, leading innovation and growth, managing all activities and global staff, and achieving customers’ expectations.
GSD&M are the agency behind work for brands that include the United States Air Force, Capital One, Southwest, the Great Chicken Sandwich War of 2019 - remember the chicken wars started by Popeyes - oh yeah, it was GSD&M that came up with it. They were recently tasked to launch the first-ever brand and recruitment campaign for SPACE FORCE.
Maria D'Amato made a name for herself as a brilliant creative mind and smart technologist. A formative partner to clients like Southwest Airlines, Capital One, Pizza Hut, United States Air Force, and others, she has created or been integral in the creation of some of GSD&M's smartest work. For instance, this year's creation of an enormous virtual jigsaw puzzle, the 'Million Piece Mission'. It even made it made into the Guinness Book of World Records!
Perhaps her biggest achievement at the agency so far is her leadership role in helping to establish experience design as a discipline. The formalization of the XD practice—now immersed across all work streams —has fundamentally altered the way the agency approaches problem-solving. GSD&M's XDs fuse a deep understanding of users' behaviors with technical expertise and pursue innovation to the traditional creative workflow.
Maria joins me on the podcast today to share her story and how they are using technology to help brands come alive across every single touchpoint.
Matthew O'Connor is the CEO and co-founder of AdQuick. This first online platform allows brands, agencies, and individuals to complete the entire process of planning, buying, executing, and measuring out-of-home (OOH) advertising campaigns anywhere in the world.
Out-of-home advertising includes billboards, bus benches, transit stations, vehicle wraps, as well as spaces on cartops, rooftops, and bike-share kiosks, to name a few.
In the past, OOH campaign planning has been a painfully tedious process, requiring dozens of phone calls, comparing prices and inventory, multiple copies of cumbersome spreadsheets and hundreds of back and forth emails, and the like. Technology changed all that.
The out-of-home advertising industry has made significant advancements with technologies, particularly workflow automation, to eliminate up to 90% of the back and forth to execute a campaign. This saves B2B and B2C organizations significant time and money while making it easy to incorporate out-of-home ads into their overall marketing campaigns.
I learn more about how AdQuick is leveraging technology to reshape the out-of-home (OOH) advertising industry and bring it into modern times. We also discuss what role outdoor media will be playing in 2021 when things open back up in the UK, US, and around the world.
The ongoing trend toward Industry 4.0, coupled with the pressures of 2020’s climate have accelerated the urgency of AI. Industrial organizations lack AI expertise, but it’s become a matter of survival. This is driving the creation of a new category, “Industrial AI,” with startups like C3 and legacy industrial players like Aveva and AspenTech (NASDAQ: AZPN) racing to win.
In Aug., Aveva acquired an AI company to get a leg up, and AspenTech launched an entirely new business unit, AIoT Hub, to pivot its business focus entirely toward Industrial AI.
AspenTech took on the approach of operationalizing Industrial AI – including (un)supervised and reinforcement learning – for industrial customers. Their aim is to accelerate time to ROI by creating a centralized AI Hub to simplify data management and build a self-optimizing plant of the future without the traditionally needed AI technical skillset. It’s still early days for Industrial AI, and there’s much to be learned.
Frédéric Bastien discusses the challenges of this Industrial AI category, the different players (startups vs. legacy), and the specific AI technical approaches required for Industry 4.0.
Boson Protocol aims to change the world of commerce by enabling enterprises, organizations, and customers to bridge the divide between decentralized digital technologies and the transfer and trade of physical goods.
Creating the de facto infrastructure to achieve this with minimized arbitration, cost, and trust, Boson Protocol is taking eCommerce to the next level with use cases including; loyalty and rewards, crypto exchanges, games, and tokenized networks, amongst others.
Leading the charge at Boson Protocol is serial entrepreneur Justin Banon. Justin previously spearheaded the Travel Experiences Division of Collinson, where he managed a group of global loyalty rewards platforms, including LoungeKey, Mastercard Airport Experiences, and Priority Pass. The latter of which he scaled twenty-fold from $50m to $1bn per annum revenue during his tenure.
Boson Protocol recently closed an oversubscribed SAFE fundraising round, which saw the investment of 8 Outlier Ventures partners, among other notable investors.
Justin shares how the use of eCommerce is compromised due to the industry's centralized, monopolistic nature. We also discuss exactly what 'dCommerce' is and how a decentralized approach to eCommerce can allow parties to engage in online commercial activity in a trusted, safe and fair environment.
The events of the year have proven that video as a business tool is a must-have. The global “safer at home” orders have sped its growth, with the power of video growing exponentially and putting traditional media in the catch-up phase. But what’s next for the category as we head into the unknowns of 2021?
According to Brightcove, the global leader in video for business, video media usage has been up 40% year over year for the majority of 2020 - establishing that the future for all organizations, from entertainment and sports to retail, enterprise, media publishing and more, is rooted in video.
Brightcove recently released its Global Video Index Year in Review, which showcases video data throughout 2020 and what this means for video in 2021. Brightcove CEO Jeff Ray talks about the evolving trends of video as a necessary medium for storytelling and how businesses need to utilize it in 2021 to remain competitive and profitable.
Jeff also shares how he saw an opportunity to seize on an evolutionary moment in time through video. Over the past year, Jeff has worked with partners across categories, including major events like the Tribeca Film Festival, NAB Show, and even Willie Nelson’s “A Night in Austin” COVID-19 aid benefit, as well as organizations like Cvent, DocuSign and ServiceNow to help them pivot to video during the pandemic and remain connected and engaged with audiences.
Jeff discusses specific data from the report on how video usage has increased in different industries this year, as well as insights into how organizations need to use video in order to grow.
Today, I speak with the CEO who co-founded two successful startups before the age of 30, was responsible for growing the social gaming company Lolapps to 100 million users worldwide, and is now revolutionizing the way software bugs are detected and fixed for tech leaders like Twilio, Instacart and Adobe.
Brian Rue founded his first tech company Lolapps while still a Stanford University student in 2008. He left school to dedicate himself full-time, ultimately leading Lolapps to acquire the social gaming company Roflplay. One of their most popular games, Ravenwood Fair, had more than 25 million players worldwide.
While he was at Lolapps, Brian, along with his co-worker and eventual co-founder Cory Vivok, experienced a new reality that building software can be quick and painless. And, in doing so, it allowed for quicker release cycles, leading to shorter times between an idea to users enjoying them, and, overall, the ability to be more creative.
In 2012, Brian was inspired to build something that would let every developer experience the magic of building software. Rollbar is a company that has helped more than 5,000 customers and 23,000 paid users process more than 40 billion errors – resulting in 9x increase in releases per year.
We talk about why Brian founded Rollbar and what problems he was trying to solve for developers. We also discuss how most businesses aren’t paying enough attention to their code and are paying for it with unhappy developers and customers.
Brian envisions a world where software is easy to understand, bugs are easy to reproduce, and software can fix itself. He shares his tech predictions for 2021 and what the biggest challenges for developers and what trends we can expect to see across the industry.
A team of scientists, engineers and technicians at Honeywell have built what is currently the highest performing quantum computer available.
With a quantum volume of 64, the Honeywell quantum computer is twice as powerful as the next alternative in the industry. That means they are closer to industries leveraging our solutions to solve computational problems that are impractical to solve with traditional computers.
“What makes our quantum computers so powerful is having the highest quality qubits, with the lowest error rates. This is a combination of using identical, fully connected qubits and precision control,” said Tony Uttley, president of Honeywell Quantum Solutions.
Brian Neyenhuis, commercial operations leader at Honeywell Quantum Solutions joins me on Tech Talks Daily. He shares Honeywell’s progress in quantum computing in 2020, where he sees it going in 2021, and the types of applications quantum computing can be used for.
Jeff Schwartz, a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP, is the US leader for the Future of Work and author of Work Disrupted. Schwartz is an adviser to senior business leaders at global companies focusing on workforce and business transformation. He is also the global editor of the Deloitte “Global Human Capital Trends” report series, which he started in 2011.
COVID-19 fundamentally changed the way humans work with technology. As organizations position themselves for 2021, Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends report points to “superteams” as a make-or-break factor for growth.
Superteams are powerful combinations of people and technology, leveraging their complementary capabilities to enable greater innovation and productivity at a speed and scale not otherwise possible. Business leaders who are best positioned to thrive in 2021 know that technology is not a substitute for workers. Instead, artificial intelligence and automation technologies can augment the human capabilities of agility and resilience on display this year to a great effect.
Jeff Schwartz joins me on the podcast to discuss the report findings and how organizations can adopt superteams to reimagine how work gets done. Jeff also discusses why some organizations haven’t yet embraced superteams as a widespread strategy but how the executive perspective on AI is shifting, with executives recognize that the use of technology and people is not an “either-or” choice a “both-and” partnership.
Jeff also talks about his new book, Work Disrupted: Opportunity, Resilience, and Growth in the Accelerated Future of Work.
Ed Boyajian, President and CEO of EDB, joins me on today's Tech Talks Daily episode. We talk about how open-source technology and principles are rebuilding global collaboration. We also discuss how tech companies will need to embrace diversity to accelerate innovation and why Postgres is the technology to watch, especially with hybrid cloud deployments on the rise. Finally, Ed shares his 2021 predictions for Postgres and the broader open source community.
Ed drives the development and execution of EDB's strategic vision and growth strategy in the database industry. Ed joined EDB in 2008 after six years at Red Hat, where he rose to Vice President and General Manager of North America. He played a central leadership role in the development of the modern business model for bringing open source to enterprises.
Before that, he was Vice President of Red Hat's global OEM business, responsible for all partnerships, including the early Linux adoption by HP, IBM, and Dell. As a 15+ year veteran of the open-source software movement, Ed is a seasoned enterprise software executive who emphasizes that EDB must be a technology-first business to lead the open-source data management ecosystem.
Ed is adamant that great technology, above all else, drives market leadership. Ed believes strongly in the importance of investing in partnerships across the open-source and commercial software and hardware ecosystem. Ed served as a Captain in the U.S. Army and trained as an Airborne Ranger. Within EDB, he coaches and encourages each employee to hone leadership skills. Ed is known for his passion, relentless energy, and strategic leadership.
The global pandemic has forced Billions to change their behaviors — how they interact, how they manage their money, and how they make payments. In September 2020, in partnership with Propeller Insights, Marqeta surveyed 2,006 Americans to find out how this last year has impacted consumer buying habits and the payments landscape as a whole.
Mobile wallets have been called the “next big thing” in payments since Apple Pay was introduced in 2014. Consumer and merchant adoption rates of digital wallets told a slightly different story, however, with adoption growing steadily but falling short of the hype. This all changed when the world changed in 2020. Mobile wallet adoption has surged in the last year, becoming one of the preferred consumer payment methods throughout the pandemic.
I invited Vidya Peters from Marqeta onto the show to explore the report and learn more about how mobile wallets are now at the forefront of the evolution of payments. As the Marqeta Chief Marketing Officer, I also learn how Vidya was named #1 on the Top 25 Women Leaders in Financial Technology list.
Marqeta is the first global modern card issuing platform, providing the most advanced infrastructure and tools for building highly configurable payment cards. With its open API, the Marqeta platform is designed for businesses who want a simple and tailored way of managing payment programs so that they can create world-class experiences and power new modes of commerce.
New data reveals the competing – and sometimes conflicting – challenges and priorities of IT leaders from 2020 that are shaping IT’s agenda for 2021 when it comes to managing risk.
According to a new global survey, 72% of IT leaders and 52% of employees agreed that security is the biggest issue when it comes to unaccounted for and unmanaged technology. It seems that IT’s continuous efforts to reinforce security best practices may finally be paying off. But there is a lower level of awareness for additional issues, especially among employees, with 16% believing unaccounted for and unmanaged technologies do not cause any business problems whatsoever.
Snow Software CIO Alastair Pooley joins me on Tech Talks Daily to dive deeper into the findings. On joining Snow, Alastair championed the idea of launching SaaS services and established both a hosting and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) function to support such growth. This provides the infrastructure and Support for over 200 customers who have adopted such services and provided a path to future growth for the business.
By adopting a SaaS/IaaS approach to IT services Snow has managed to pass $100M of ARR with barely any owned infrastructure. Over 90% of Snow’s IT lives either with a SaaS provider or in the public cloud. This is achieved on a zero-trust design which focuses on building single sign on capabilities with strong cybersecurity controls. Alastair also initiated, and now oversees, the cybersecurity function at Snow to provide a central risk and compliance function for the business.
COVID-19 forced many industries to rethink their use of technology. Many of which you wouldn't automatically associate with tech. As teaching went from the classroom to remote learning, I wanted to learn more about how Citrix and its partners were working together to work beyond their traditional IT infrastructure and embrace new equipment that is transforming education.
After learning more about how Citrix and Wacom were working together to ensure this transition was much easier, I felt compelled to share that story with you all. Todd Smith from Citrix and Mindy Thielges from Wacom join me in a conversation about transforming our students, teachers, and parents' approach to education through technology.
Mindy Thielges is a Senior Sales Specialist at Wacom. Mindy is an evangelist for digital pen and ink technologies in education – and is a key player in Wacom's growing education initiatives across K-12 and higher education.
Before joining Wacom, Mindy spent 15+ years focused on education technology as a sales leader, in addition to delivering professional development workshops for teachers on 3D printing and robotics, and also spearheaded a workforce initiative to provide certification training in computer-aided design software for displaced mechanical engineers.
Mindy's passion for education is driven by seeing how the teaching tools she has sold over the years connect students with each other while they learn critical thinking skills and spark their creativity to design a better world.
Todd Smith is a Sr. Sales Engineering Manager at Citrix Systems. In this capacity, Todd manages a team of technical sales professionals providing customers and partners with modern workspace solutions for business challenges. He has been responsible for the healthcare vertical, as well as emerging products. His particular areas of expertise include; digital transformation, the delivery of mission-critical applications, desktop and server virtualization, mobile computing, disaster recovery, IT compliance, information security, and green IT.
Prior to Citrix, Todd has worked in the technology industry for more than 30 years in multiple industry verticals including; IT Auditing and Consulting for HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, ITIL, and ISO certification and compliance, IT Consulting, Program Management, Outsourcing, and IT Operations Management, Application Development and Management for Financial Services, and IT Services for Transportation Systems. Todd earned a BS in Computer Science from Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, and resides in Danvers, MA.
As the world continues to cope and battle with COVID-19, the Internet has become a lifeline for billions of people to work, learn, access critical information, and stay connected with friends and family. According to United Nations estimates, only 53.6% of the global population has Internet access. Some reports indicate that nearly 42 million Americans still lack broadband internet in rural areas.
As a result of the pandemic, countries worldwide are compelled to reckon with the repercussions of a digital divide within their borders, and many are accelerating efforts to connect the unconnected. However, the digital divide is a complicated issue, and it is essential to distinguish the lack of land-based connectivity from there being no internet connectivity available at all.
With growing innovations and a lot of buzz around space recently, satellite technology prevails as the only fast, affordable, and sustainable solution that can address the glaring connectivity deficit the pandemic has illuminated.
Mark Wymer from Hughes Network Systems joins me on the podcast to talk about the technologies that are helping to connect the unconnected worldwide (e.g., cellular backhaul, community wi-fi). We also discuss the evolving/emerging satellite technologies that help create a ubiquitous network, including how 5G, LEO, MEO, and GEO satellites will work together to achieve multi-path connectivity.
Hughes Network Systems is the global leader in broadband satellite technology and services for home and office. Its flagship high-speed satellite Internet service is HughesNet®, the world’s largest satellite network with over 1.5 million residential and business customers across the Americas.
For large enterprises and governments, the company’s HughesON™ managed network services provide complete connectivity solutions employing an optimized mix of satellite and terrestrial technologies.
The JUPITER™ System is the world’s most widely deployed High-Throughput Satellite (HTS) platform, operating on more than 40 satellites by leading service providers, delivering a wide range of broadband enterprise, mobility, and cellular backhaul applications.
To date, Hughes has shipped more than 7 million terminals of all types to customers in over 100 countries, representing approximately 50 percent market share. Its technology is powering broadband services to aircraft around the world.
Gary S. Chan is an information security management consultant focused on helping businesses stay secure and meet compliance obligations. Companies hire Gary to help them build or improve their cybersecurity programs. Today, he joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how companies can build information security that makes pragmatic sense.
We discuss the current and future state of cybersecurity and why small companies need to think about cybersecurity, and how to do it within budget. We also discuss how large enterprises can build effective and efficient cybersecurity programs and talks about security innovation.
Gary has 16 years of experience, four security certifications, and an electrical engineering and computer science degree from MIT. Having worked in over a dozen countries, Gary has deployed security solutions to multiple state agencies, built the information security program for large-cap companies, mentored cybersecurity start-ups, and given seminars on cybersecurity.
Competition is on the rise, advertising costs are going up, and target market buying habits are changing. For you to evolve and adapt quickly, you need to be testing. You need to test fast, and you need to test often to grow and scale effectively. Your website might look great, but is it optimized and delivering results?
Increasing your online sales isn't a matter of closing your eyes, throwing a dart, and hoping you hit the bullseye. There's a proven, methodical, and scientific process for creating an online sales engine that predictably and continually increases your profits, month after month and year after year. But I wanted to learn more about the technology that makes it all possible.
Today's guest is Justin Christianson. He is a self-proclaimed numbers junkie and a digital marketing veteran. Not to mention a Father, Husband, and #1 Bestselling author of "Conversion Fanatic: How to double your customers, sales and profits with A/B testing".
Justin is also the co-founder and President of Conversion Fanatics, a full-service conversion rate optimization company, helping companies like Burt's Bees, Dr. Axe, and many others improve their results.
Justin shares tips on marketing growth, conversation optimizations, user experience optimization, scaling, starting/growing/managing a business, eCommerce marketing, and analytics-driven marketing.
You can learn more about Justin at http://conversionfanatics.com/.
Dronamics, the world's leading middle-mile cargo drone developer and operator, recently unveiled the first five airports in its European network of cargo droneports. The Dronamics European Droneport Network is the world's first cargo droneport network. It includes private airports and airport groups operating more than 35 airports in 11 European countries, connecting 300 million people with low-cost same-day cargo service.
The company will operate same-day flights within the network using its proprietary "Black Swan" large cargo drones, each with a capacity of 350 kg and range of up to 2,500 km, reducing time, cost and emissions by up to 80% compared to traditional air cargo.
Svilen Rangelov, Co-Founder and CEO of Dronamics, shares his mission to enable same-day air deliveries for every single person on the planet at a cost that everyone everywhere can afford. I learn more about how this Bulgarian startup wants to reinvent e-commerce with its cargo drone and how drone technologies can help supply chains become lockdown-proof during the pandemic
When something goes wrong, tech teams don't have the luxury of logging a support ticket. When I heard about Peritus, an AI recommendation for technical support, I felt compelled to find out more.
Robin Purohit is the co-founder and CEO of Peritus.ai, a Bay area startup that is tackling technical support for developers and engineers. He was previously a senior executive at BMC and HP Software, where he led multi-billion dollar business units for IT management, application delivery, and security.
AI chatbots for customer support are getting significant attention and investment in industries ranging from retail to financial services to employee help desks. However, an important area neglected is support for engineers and developers who are driving IT innovation.
These technical users have little patience for pre-wired chatbots without industry context and view opening a support ticket as the last resort. Instead, they look for insights from trusted experts on Community Forums, such as Stack Overflow or vendor-sponsored communities. When done well, community forums can create both user loyalty and deflect costly support cases.
Peritus, an AI recommendation engine for support automation, recently announced the results of its first IT Industry Forum Benchmark that examined over 12 million posts and responses on over 50 leading IT industry forums for vendors and open source technologies such as Cisco, MongoDB, and Kubernetes.
The benchmark study zeroed in on four key metrics:
- The number of posts that were resolved
- How quickly the average length to resolve each post was resolved.
- Whether posts were resolved by the first response,
- How many experts answered the bulk of the questions.
How secure are your passwords? Have you ever used the same password on more than one website or app? If one of those sites suffers a breach, hackers will attempt to use the exact details on popular websites such as NETFLIX, Amazon. PayPal etc.
An average person has 70-80 passwords. A strong password's key aspects are length, a mix of letters (upper and lower case), numbers, and symbols, no ties to your personal information, and no dictionary words. Nobody can remember them all, and it's not safe to write them all down.
In today's episode, I explore online security fails and how to avoid them. Gary Orenstein is the CCO of Bitwarden, a password management app that embodies the password security for all mindset.
It's the only open-source solution focused on enterprise AND individuals: Source code transparency means it is easy to review, audit, and contribute to the Bitwarden codebase, keeping it secure under the world's watchful eyes.
Gary shares tips for businesses to seamlessly transition to using a password manager and how to outsmart phishing scams. We also discuss how both individuals and companies.
Did you know that a high percentage of missed school days in emerging markets are due to dental problems caused by poor dental care practices? Or, that 90 percent of global health problems, including COVID-19, would be solved if all of us washed our hands seven times a day?
In this podcast, Thomas Serval, CEO of Baracoda Group, discusses how health issues can be prevented through daily care and wellness practices. His company is creating new smart objects for the bathroom—mirrors, bathmats, toothbrushes, and so on—connected by an open operating system, CareOS. The smart bathroom ecosystem Baracoda and its partners are developing is privacy-first, but the data and insights generated can help people proactively prevent diseases and support better health practices over the long-term.
We talk about Thomas’ 17 years of experience at CES, where Baracoda has consistently introduced award-winning daily healthtech innovations. This year marks the fifth year in a row of garnering CES Innovation Awards.
At this year’s virtual event, Baracoda unveiled the Themis smart mirror, named a CES 2021 Innovation Awards Honoree. Themis provides a privacy-first wide range of health and wellness capabilities: skin analysis, product recommendations, makeup and beard tutorials, daily temperature checks, smart alerts, fertility cycle reminders, and more—all in a compact form factor with a 10-inch screen at an accessible price. The company also showcased Baracoda BBalance, the smart bathroom mat that checks weight, balance, and posture—also a CES 2020 Innovation Awards Honoree.
Not many people think of the bathroom as the hub of preventative health practices, but this enlightening podcast will change your mind. New connected objects can help you spot suspicious moles that might signal skin cancer, check your temperature and heart rate, and determine whether or not you are brushing your teeth effectively.
Learn more about Baracoda’s daily healthtech innovations, the company’s strategy, and the impact it could have on your health through better daily care—all in the privacy of your bathroom.
Thomas Serval, Co-Founder Chairman and CEO - Baracoda
Former senior executive at Microsoft and Google. A graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, and of the Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique (ENSAE), Thomas filed his first patent - a Bluetooth barcode scanner - in 2000, and co-founded Baracoda the following year. Thomas is a serial entrepreneur and a visionary leader. He transforms large companies, as much as the daily life of consumers, through his disruptive innovations. Thomas is a board member of Arte and Younited Credit.
Jeroen Corthout, Co-founder at Salesflare, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. We talk about why people don't use CRMs and how to fix that. We discuss why a CRM is even more critical today with remote selling etc. We also explore the future of CRM and the impacts of data automation, sales automation, AI, and other emerging technologies.
I also learn more about the startup story behind the company. For those that don't know, Salesflare is an intelligent CRM that is attractive to startups and small businesses. It's a zero-input sales pipeline tool that thinks and works for its user, not the other way around. No more manual data entry. Salesflare fills out your address book and keeps track of all interactions with the people you're in contact with.
Its technology takes data from social media, company databases, phone, email, calendar and hands it to you in automated customer timelines that tell you everything you need to know. You just have to write the emails, make the calls, and have the coffee. Never miss a deal again. Salesflare will tell and remind you what to do about leads so deals can't fall through the cracks anymore.
Visual pipelines and powerful insights put you in full control of your sales funnel. Intuitive and easy-to-use, Salesflare turns complexity into simplicity so you can turn leads into customers. Salesflare works wherever you work and with whatever you are working with. It can be used on desktop, mobile or just from a sidebar in your email inbox (Gmail and Outlook). Get even more out of Salesflare by integrating with 400+ other productivity tools, such as Google Apps, MailChimp, Trello and Slack.
Kognitiv Spark is a tech company and Microsoft MRPP gold partner recognized for its competency in the secure, reliable, and network agnostic applications of Mixed Reality for remote support.
Its flagship product, Remote Spark, is an industrial-grade platform that allows a remote worker to establish a low-bandwidth, secure audio-video call with a subject matter expert when they need help solving a complex problem.
The expert, who can be located anywhere in the world, can then see what the remote worker sees and use holographic assets to support the task, all the while keeping the user heads-up and hands-free. RemoteSpark can facilitate the transfer of photos, files (PDFs, Microsoft Office documents), and multi-step animated holograms.
IoT data can be tied to holographic assets and represented to remote workers for increased situational awareness. AI can be leveraged for the delivery of task-relevant assets.
Ryan Groom is Kognitiv Spark's Co-Founder and CTO. An accomplished software developer and author, Ryan achieved his first published software application in 1992. Two software books co-authored by Ryan were published in 1997 and 1998, followed by a Security Publication for Microsoft in 2004. Ryan was the Security Business Guide for About.com, a New York Times web property from 2006 to 2008.
With his experience and expertise in networking, software development, and security, Ryan formed the company CyberSecure in 2002. CyberSecure became Microsoft Canada's first Gold Security Partner and won the 2004 Microsoft Canada Impact Award for Excellence in Security Solutions for the work done with the Toronto Police Department.
The company was wholly acquired on September 1st, 2004. Shortly after the acquisition of CyberSecure, Ryan joined VE Networks as Chief Engineer and later became the Chief Technology Officer, which resulted in a successful patent filing.
Ryan has consulted for some of the biggest IT companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, and Bell Canada. In his spare time between holographic computing, Ryan films for his TV show Trekkit and helps out with the local Scouts Canada troop.
COVID-19 forced many industries to rethink their use of technology. This is incredibly true for construction – one of the oldest, largest, and least digitized industries in the world (only slightly ahead of Agriculture in its adoption of tech).
Construction cannot simply stop, but when the global pandemic tried to do just that, 2020 became the year that finally forced construction – an industry that remained a holdout – to officially adopt a new approach to getting work done through the use of technology.
Procore is a construction management software platform. The company is on a mission to connect everyone in construction on a global platform. It was founded in 2002, and Wyatt Jenkins joined the company earlier this year after leading product Patreon and Shutterstock.
I invited him on the podcast to discuss how 2020 became the year that the construction industry went digital and tech's role in transforming the construction industry, and what's ahead for the industry in 2021.
I learn how this transformation is creating mountains of data that can be used to improve efficiency and effectiveness within the construction industry. It is also placing a burden on construction companies to decide how to best operate with a whole new set of tools.
Mark Donnigan builds disruptive innovative startups. Mark's superpower is architecting go-to-market plans and marketing motions that drive real business outcomes for technical and product-centric founders. Mark's growth and market development experience spans 20 years as a transformative B2B marketing and business leader, driving demand, brand development, and strategy for startup and growth-stage companies.
Mark joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to talk about what a go-to-market engineering process looks like and how to leverage category design to build your market. We explore the latest MarTech trends and why demand gen is the responsibility of the entire company, led by marketing.
Mark also shares why he feels today's CMO is a business strategist and an ecosystem/domain expert as much as a marketer. He also advises how to act as a Wartime CMO and what behavior differentiates wartime from peacetime.
Alicia Asin Perez is the CEO of Libelium, a Spanish company she founded back in 2006 to monitor and improve the efficiency of everything from agricultural crops and water quality management (for instance helping beluga wales in Alaska) to smartphone detection and smart city management using digital technology.
As an example, Libelium's technology is currently being used above the tomb of Tutankhamun to collect climatic data (relative humidity, temperature) and measure fracture aperture behavior above the tomb. The tech is even now being used to monitor water quality for the Scottish Salmon Association!
Alicia is extremely focused on using digital technology for environmental and sustainability purposes, hence why her company does so much work in this area. Libelium now has around 150 employees around the world and customers in more than 120 countries.
Alicia shares her journey to becoming a tech CEO, balancing family life with two children while building and financing a global tech company with ongoing projects in every continent around the world. In 2015, Alicia became the first Spanish woman to win the National Entrepreneur Award and has gone on to collect many similar awards and speak at lots of international events.
I also learn how Libelium designs and manufactures technological solutions to make the Internet of things possible. Alica shares how Libelium’s wireless sensor platform allows connecting the physical and digital worlds.
2020 saw millions of people adapt to remote working across the globe. As a result of the pandemic, businesses including Twitter and Microsoft, to name a few, have committed to long term remote working plans for their employees.
However, how do these businesses, who may not have had remote work strategies in place before the pandemic – adapt to this way of working? How do new remote companies continue to hire employees worldwide while remaining fully compliant with individual country laws and regulations?
Remote was founded in 2019 by Job Van Der Voort and Marcelo Lebre to simplify how companies employ global talent. Their entire team works remotely in countries around the world. They don’t have any offices because we believe that people do their best work when they are free to work where they choose.
Before founding Remote, Job Van Der Voort worked as a neuroscientist and was the VP of Product at GitLab, the world's largest fully remote company. I invited Job to join me in conversation on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share how they help unite international payroll, benefits, compliance, and tax for businesses in one place.
For innovative companies of scale, DailyPay is the leading no-cost, on-demand pay experience platform. It delivers transparent, compliant, and seamless integration with existing payroll systems. Employers who offer DailyPay can reduce costs substantially by out-hiring the market and keeping employees longer, because employees with financial peace of mind are happier, more productive, and have stronger relationships with their employers.
The senior management team at DailyPay spent years at AOL, Goldman Sachs, and LendingHome. DailyPay is backed by leading venture capital firms and world-class strategic investors. The Company is headquartered in New York.
Since its inception in 2015, DailyPay has partnered with over 250 companies like Kroger, Burger King, Vera Bradley, and Sprinkles Cupcakes to provide employees real-time access to earned pay, with the end goal of empowering Americans to have more control of their earnings to better save, spend and invest.
Jason Lee, CEO, and founder, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. We talk about why the traditional monthly payroll system is outdated in a digital age and on-demand world.
Before founding DailyPay, Jason spent nearly two decades at Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he founded and led the Global Structured Equity Group. Jason is an active angel investor and is a member of the Forbes Finance Council.
Veryable is a marketplace for on-demand labor for manufacturing and distribution, which provides businesses with higher productivity and fewer administrative burdens and workers with flexible work arrangements.
Noah Labhar is a startup founder, CTO, and podcast host. Noah shares his startup story and personal experience building an engineering team of non-CS grads.
In a tech startup, how do you get from an idea on the back of a napkin to a fully functioning product? Code Story is a podcast hosted by Noah featuring tech leaders, reflecting the roads they travelled and the products they created.
He interviews tech visionaries on his show, digging into the critical moments of what it takes to change an industry and build & lead a team that has your back. Code Story is a window into the digital startup world. In their own words, tech veterans share what it feels like to create a world-class product, how to recover from critical mistakes, and how to scale your solution to the masses.
We talk about all this and the shifting landscape for on-demand workers, and the tech hurdles Noah has overcome in his career.
Useful Links
https://noahlabhart.com
https://veryableops.com
https://codestory.co
Arsen Avakian, founder/former CEO of Argo Tea and current co-founder and CEO of Cooler Screens, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Cooler Screens recently announced its largest round of funding yet, backed by Microsoft and Verizon.
I learn how Cooler Screens has secured a multi-year collaboration with Microsoft focused on bringing an immersive digital experience to brick-and-mortar retail environments. Through the collaboration, Cooler Screens will work with Microsoft to scale the delivery of its immersive digital media and merchandising platform hosted on Microsoft Azure to retailers and product brands. The companies will also explore additional integration opportunities to deliver enhanced experiences to customers.
Cooler Screens is transforming retail cooler surfaces into IoT-enabled screens. Their media platform reimagines the brick-and-mortar shopping experience for consumers in the cooler and freezer aisle while delivering new marketing opportunities and smart merchandising for brands and retailers.
Employees work directly with proven leaders as an integral part of the development and growth of our company. Their digital- and design-led culture allows our team members to think creatively, challenge the status quo, and use their abilities to change the face of retail forever.
Arsen also shares his plans for the future of the first-of-its-kind media and merchandising platform that leverages smart screens powered by AI and IoT.
Liam Delap, Digital Automation Leader and Director of Enterprise at Pypestream, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast.
Liam is a CX automation and Conversational AI evangelist and has served as an enterprise technology consultant and leader throughout most of his career, working with many Fortune 1000 organizations to transform their customer's digital experience.
At Pypestream, Liam enables both existing and prospective clients with insight into how to craft their automation journey using Conversational AI for optimal success. His dedication to understand each client's environment and needs allows Liam to design custom solutions that always ensure an outstanding return on investment (ROI).
Pypestream is a conversational AI platform that optimizes the customer experience at the enterprise level. Pypestream has been in business for five years. They are venture-backed, with 38M raised and seeing increased success as the pandemic forces large companies to think outside of the call center box when outsourcing customer support.
We talk about AI Chatbots and using artificial intelligence to automate customer experience. We also discuss the effects of the CoronaVirus pandemic on CX and the technological changes they have forced.
Ads can be complicated. Ajala Digital is on a mission to make them simple. Run by a former Google employee, the company is a certified Google Partner specializing in mobile, search, video, shopping, and display ads.
Pamela Wagner is the founder and CEO of Ajala Digital. A company that has worked with more than 2000 companies to grow their businesses through paid ads.
In 2017, Pamela was made Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and her insights have been featured on all major media platforms, such as ABC News, Forbes, Yahoo, Mashable, MSN, the Washington Times, Google Startup Grind, and many more.
Before founding her company, she worked at Google, and the accomplishment she is most proud of is Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro at 22. I invited her on to the show to talk about how to grow/scale companies through Google Ads & Google Analytics and manage Google Ads (or paid ads in general) effectively in-house.
Many of putting tech geniuses such as Steve Jobs or Elon Musk on a pedestal. Equally, self-imposed limitations and imposter syndrome prevent us from building the next Amazon out of a garage like Jeff Bezos. But how can the average Joe or Joanne be the next Silicon Valley Tech Genius?
How did some tech founders create breakthrough products and grow their startups into household names? How did one tech entrepreneur convince an investor in a brief car ride to sign a term sheet for 4 billion dollars?
They are tech geniuses—software programmers and startup founders with a magic touch and a special mystique. They capture the imagination of our media, as they turn simple ideas into highly profitable, billion-dollar businesses. But the tech genius is not exactly what you might think.
Shawn Livermore tackles this subject head-on in his Amazon Best Selling Business Business Non-Fiction Book called Average Joe: Be the Silicon Valley Tech Genius.
Average Joe dispels the myth of the tech genius, explaining how these clever nerds work their wonders. But in a surprising twist, it also helps anyone become the myth themselves.
Using new concepts and tools like the Slow Create Framework, the Mindless Work LADDER, and Sustainable Mystique, anyone can up their game and go from average Joe to tech genius.
Have you eaten and drank too much over the holiday season? Have you already uttered the words, New Year, New Me? In today's episode, I want to explore our relationship with food and the increasing role that technology plays in managing our diet.
I invited Tracy Stuckrath onto Tech Talks Daily to discuss the apps and tech solutions that she recommends. We also talk about the food tech scene and community and how more people are turning to technology to manage their health and wellbeing. Tracy shares the tech trends that could help people with dietary requirements, lays to rest a few myths around food allergies and dietary requirements.
Tracy Stuckrath is an event planner and international speaker with food allergies based in New Bern, North Carolina. She launched Thrive! Meetings & Events in 2010, changing the trajectory of her event planning career to educate organizations on how to feed attendees with dietary needs.
Tracy has co-authored two books — Humans@Work and You@Work, working on her third (Eating at a Meeting), and has been named Top 25 Women in the Meetings Industry, Meetings Industry Change Maker and one of the Top 500 Event Professionals in North America for her work on the topic of inclusive food and beverage.
Tracy's Eating at a Meeting podcast explores various topics on food and beverage (F&B) and how they impact individual experience and inclusion, sustainability, culture, community, health and wellness, laws, and more. Her mission is to share authentic stories that illustrate the financial, social, emotional, and mental impact food and beverage have on individuals, organizations, and the earth.
Millions of cryptocurrency users face a challenging problem when it comes to staying compliant with tax laws. Due to the way the digital asset is treated by governments around the world, it is most often subject to capital gains and losses rules similar to stocks, bonds, and other forms of property.
This sparks a wide variety of problems for consumers, cryptocurrency exchanges, tax professionals, and other platforms that need to provide both cost basis data and fair market value data to properly report the asset for tax purposes.
CryptoTrader.Tax is a platform built to solve this challenge, and with its 2018 partnership with tax giant TurboTax, it is now bringing cryptocurrency tax services to the mainstream. The company is often referred to as The TurboTax for Crypto Investors.
David Kemmerer is a veteran in the crypto space and co-founder and CEO of CryptoTrader.Tax, a tax reporting software for Crypto Investors. He joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the fascinating story of how he got started in Crypto and what we can expect in the coming years in this exciting new field.
David is a thought leader in the cryptocurrency industry on all things tax-related. His work has been featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, Venture Beat, CoinTelegraph, and many other publications. David has also spoken at industry events like the LA Blockchain Summit, TF Blockchain Conference, and more.
Quuppa has raised the bar for advanced location systems, delivering the world’s most open, accurate, and reliable location positioning thanks to a unique combination of Bluetooth®, the Angle-of-Arrival (AoA) and Angle-of-Departure (AoD) methodologies, advanced location algorithms, and management software tools that have been developed over the course of more than 15 years.
To date, the Quuppa Ecosystem has more than 180 partners around the world who use Quuppa’s open positioning platform to deliver accurate, cost-effective location solutions to companies in a range of industries, including manufacturing and logistics, retail, healthcare, sports, law enforcement, and security, government, asset tracking, and others.
Fabio Belloni, CCO, Quuppa, joins me on the podcast to talk about their all-in-one indoor positioning systems that enable unmatched accuracy, safety, and reliability. I learn more about how Quuppa offers highly accurate positioning using a multifaceted, data-driven approach that applies to a seemingly endless number of use cases.
We also discuss the importance and power of location service technology and how by providing real-time insights into key environments, businesses, and lives can be protected and improved, especially in an increasingly challenging world.
Blockdaemon is a blockchain deployment facilitator. What Heroku does for the cloud, they do for blockchain networks: easy one-click deployment, management, and supervision of nodes, no matter in what configuration.
Their solution is fully portable, allowing you to switch networks and chains with the click of a button, so you don't have to worry about picking the perfect network configuration from day one. The company also supports the blockchain developer ecosystem with best-of-breed dev-ops advise.
Konstantin Richter, CEO/Founder, Blockdaemon, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. Konstantin shares his background as a software developer, and how he came to enter the world of crypto/blockchain. We discuss the origins of Blockdaemon and how the company has evolved over the past three years.
Other topics up for discussion is the institutional adoption of DLT. The pros and cons of institutions entering the sector and how we can bring institutions into crypto the right way. Finally, why nodes are important scaling up blockchain networks and democratizing the control of nodes in a network.
Entersekt is an innovator of mobile-first fintech solutions. Financial services providers and other enterprises rely on its patented mobile identity system to provide both security and the best in convenient new digital experiences to their customers, irrespective of the service channel. Dewald Nolte, Chief Strategy Officer at Entersekt, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast.
A recent Javelin report found that account takeover fraud is trending at the highest loss rate, up a staggering 72% over the prior year. Initially, AI-driven behavioral biometrics was used primarily to prevent this type of fraud. However, more recently, its application has expanded to identity proofing in light of the massive data breaches and enables risk-based authentication in payment apps.
According to Dewald, advances in AI will continue to drive even more capabilities, but its behavioral biometrics isn’t multifactor authentication – it must be combined with a robust digital-certificate-based ID to consumers’ devices.
When there is enough interaction in an existing user journey to allow behavioral analytics to seamlessly slot in and perform well, then it’s an ideal use case. In situations where user interaction and data are limited, it would be better to use other tools in the authentication stack rather than forcing a use case to adapt to a technology.
Infrastructure for personal data access, storage, and portability. Dataswift liberates the value of personal data. Untethering it from central silos and distributing it to individual Personal Data Accounts. Fully owned, fully accessible, fully permissible.
Irene Ng, leading data privacy expert and CEO of Dataswift, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. We discuss big tech's responsibility in protecting data privacy and the importance of the ethical data economy. Irene also shares her controversial opinion about why big tech is actually undervalued and why big tech's problem isn't the monetization of data; it's the lack of transparency.
Irene Ng is an entrepreneur, academic and market design economist, Professor of Marketing and Service Systems at WMG, University of Warwick, a Turing Fellow. She is the inventor of personal data accounts (patent pending) for a new asset class of personal data owned by individuals themselves and also the CEO of Dataswift.io. Irene was also previously named one of the 50 women to watch on the Female FTSE Board Report in 2019 and was called a "Data Guardian" by BBC.
Envisics is a globally-renowned dynamic holography pioneer. Since 2010, Envisics has been developing holographic technologies for augmented reality head-up displays (AR-HUDs) and automotive sensor systems. The advancement of Envisics' technology has the opportunity to transform automotive displays and revolutionize the in-car experience.
In partnership with the world's leading automakers and tier-one suppliers, Envisics is making the future of holographic technology a reality for smarter and safer vehicles. With a successful track record of commercializing its technology, Envisics has been qualifying its next generation of holographic technology for series production.
Already in use in more than 200,000, the company recently raised $50 million Series B from blue-chip automotive companies Hyundai Mobis, General Motors Ventures, SAIC Motors, and Van Tuyl Companies (VTC) to revolutionize holography and the in-car experience.
Dr. Jamieson Christmas developed an early passion for holography as a massive fan of Star Wars, and later earned a doctorate at Cambridge University, where he attained his a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, where he focused on creating real-time holography for displays.
In his current role as Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Envisics (formerly Two Trees Photonics, which was acquired by DAQRI), Envisics emerged in 2017 to specialize in the development and supply of holographic technologies for the automotive market.
Jamie discusses his journey and origins of Envisics as well as the recent partnerships and where the company is bringing true augmented reality holographic head-up displays (HUDs) and holographic sensing systems to the automotive sector for multi-use applications and how this will drive future innovations for safer navigation and an improved driving experience.
I learn how Hyundai Mobis, General Motors Ventures, SAIC Motors, and Van Tuyi Companies invested $50M in Envisics for In-Car Holography.We also talk about how automotive leaders back pioneering holography startup to fast-track the development of technology already used in more than 200,000 vehicles.
One of the traditions in the UK is to watch the Queens Christmas Speech on Christmas Day. I thought I would offer an alternative for tech fans where I look at where we are now and what the following year in tech will look like.
For many of you listening, I suspect you will have a drawer of different headphones depending on whether you are traveling, exercising, or wanting to avoid distractions and interruptions in the office. But today, I want to explore the technology and innovation that is transforming the Audio that brings to life the music, audiobooks, and podcasts that we consume.
Bluetooth LE Audio is a new industry standard that will extend the capabilities of classic Bluetooth and offer up new possibilities for wireless audio use cases, with capabilities such as broadcast, multicast, and audio sharing.
Qualcomm has worked closely with the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) and is helping to further the wireless audio ecosystem evolution. This includes innovating integrated technology platforms that support the current Bluetooth standard alongside LE Audio, which is critical for ensuring end-products are fit for purpose in the real world.
Guy Gampell joins me on the show to discuss Qualcomm's audio innovations and technology. We discuss how the New Ultra-Low Power Bluetooth Audio SoCs will improve the true wireless sound. I also learn how Qualcomm's breakthrough adaptive active noise-cancelling technology is Designed to Deliver Increased Comfort, Consistent Performance, and Improved Sound Quality for True Wireless Earbuds.
I also look under the hood to learn how the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 888 Mobile Platform, with the Qualcomm® FastConnect™ 6900 connectivity system, brings mobile-side support for Bluetooth 5.2, LE Audio, aptX audio, and other features providing further interoperability benefits for sound quality, wireless audio robustness, and responsiveness.
Inpixon® (Nasdaq: INPX) is an indoor intelligence company specializing in capturing, interpreting, and giving context to indoor data so it can be translated into actionable intelligence.
The company’s indoor location data platform ingests diverse data from IoT, third-party and proprietary sensors designed to detect and position all active cellular, Wi-Fi, UWB, and Bluetooth devices. It uses a proprietary process that ensures anonymity.
Paired with a high-performance data analytics engine, patented algorithms, and advanced mapping technology, a multitude of industries leverages Inpixon’s solutions to do good with indoor data. This multidisciplinary depiction of indoor data enables users to increase revenue, decrease costs, and enhance safety.
I invited Nadir Ali on to the show to learn more about how Inpixon customers can take advantage of location awareness, analytics, sensor fusion, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to uncover the untold stories of the indoors. We also talk about contact tracing solutions for companies, schools, offices, and governments and how they provide them with indoor mapping analytics that can pinpoint potential threats.
I also learn how Inpixon distinguishes between online users in a specific space using 3-5 meter accuracy – making it a preventative tool to help avoid cross-contamination in public spaces. Finally, we discuss how these sectors can return to normal amid the uncertainty.
Nadir Ali leads Inpixon with a collective two decades in enterprise software, business analytics, and information technology. For over 15 years, in his executive-level roles at Inpixon (formerly Sysorex), he has tapped into the $12 billion industry of indoor positioning and data analytics, growing to $23 billion by 2021. Nadir is a leading expert voice in the indoor intelligence and location technology industry
The rise in cyberthreats has led to breaches that can shut down IT systems, leak client data and intellectual property and potentially halt production - and enterprises need to have an immediate response to security threats. But Open Systems, a secure access service edge (SASE) is a pioneer delivering a complete solution to network and security.
The company helped Mikron Group, the Swiss-based manufacturer of customized automation solutions, respond more quickly and effectively to security threats and shift to a unified managed detection and response.
Like many companies, Mikron enabled Microsoft Azure Sentinel SIEM (security information and event management) as part of its Microsoft 365 E5 license to bolster cybersecurity. However, Mikron CISO Rolando Galeazzi found himself buried in threat alerts, unable to separate the true threats from noise. “Bad actors don’t care about company size. It’s impossible for a small team to monitor cyberthreats 24x7,” said Galeazzi
Mikron already worked with Open Systems’ SASE platform for a secure, cloud-based SD-WAN. But then he learned the Open Systems’ Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service is built on top of Sentinel, allowing him to still make use of Mikron’s investment in Microsoft and enabling seamless integration across both Sentinel and SASE.
Ric Longenecker, CISO shares how the integration created a 24x7 security operations center for Mikron and increased the speed of Mikron’s average time for security change requests from 72 hours to 15-30 minutes.
Ric joined Open Systems as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) in 2020, after following the company with growing respect for the better part of a decade. A seasoned security leader with global experience in the Government, Energy and Consumer Services industries, he remains strongly passionate about security and enablement in a fast-changing world.
Ric holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University, a number of certifications, and is strongly involved with multiple industry groups and associations in the US, Europe and Israel.
Avalon.Ai is an AI company dedicated to developing real-time enterprise solutions connecting customers with end-users through smart technology. In germinating global ecosystems, Avalon.Ai brings together many of the world’s best minds and talent to generate the greatest impact in solving worldwide challenges like the COVID-19 Pandemic and America’s Opioid Epidemic through its pipeline of AI technologies.
Americans are increasingly turning to opioids as depression and anxiety worsen during this pandemic, yet U.S. treatment centers are still shut down or turning away patients suffering opioid addiction. How can America help stop the opioid epidemic as it worsens and COVID persists?
Dr. Sean McMillan, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in alternative treatments to opioids, works with a team of over 400 doctors called the Army of Warriors who seek to end opioid addiction. They are also piloting Avalon.ai, an AI platform to assist in opioid detection and treatment.
We discuss the causes of opioid addiction and how doctors are using Avalon.ai for opioid detection. We also discuss why opioid addiction is now worsening during COVID-19 and what steps can be made to help stop it.
Josh Little is the founder of four tech companies–Maestro, Bloomfire, Qzzr, and Volley, collectively used by hundreds of millions of people. With two successful exits and a third pending, he's currently on a mission to save the working world from death-by-meetings with his fourth creation, Volley.
Volley is a conversation tool that allows you to have asynchronous conversations with your team, colleagues, and customers. I wanted to learn more about the problems and opportunities for workplace communication. Specifically, how to free up your calendar and increase productivity by turning synchronous meetings and calls into asynchronous conversations.
Josh talks about combatting Zoom Fatigue, how to meet less, and communicate more. Could the answer be Navigating the space between Slack and Zoom? We explore the art and science of conversation and creating a safe space for brainstorming.
We also discuss the problem with group dynamics and going remote without going crazy. If you dread the great plague of productivity and dream of a lifestyle that consists of fewer meetings, you will love today's conversation.
Founded in 2011 and venture-backed by Amazon and Comcast Ventures, SevenRooms has dining, hotel F&B, nightlife, sporting, and entertainment clients in more than 250 cities worldwide. From neighborhood restaurants to international, multi-concept hospitality groups, SevenRooms is a hospitality platform that helps operators unlock guest data's full revenue potential.
By combining operations, marketing, and guest engagement into one front-of-house solution, the platform allows operators to maximize profits, build brand loyalty, and enable personalized guest experiences.
Joel Montaniel, CEO & Co-Founder of SevenRooms, returns to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast for a catchup on how their data-driven hospitality platform combines operations, marketing, and guest engagement tools.
The last time we spoke, we talked about the tech that's transforming the hospitality industry. It has been a challenging year, and I wanted to learn more about what we can expect in a new hospitality era in a post-COVID world. How will technology help meet guests evolving expectations? And what role will SevenRooms play in that future? These are just a few topics we cover.
Apstra delivers Intent-Based Networking software to streamline Data Center network management. Its tailored solutions automate the build, operations, troubleshooting, and security of your data center network. Guided by innovation and simplicity, we free your team to focus on business imperatives.
These days, enterprises are relying heavily on distributed data centers. But managing a distributed data center comes with its management and agility challenges. To avoid major disruptions and remain reliable, networks need to self-diagnose and make pivots when required.
The problem is that to maintain this agility, companies using distributed data centers can't pivot unless they have the right automation approach. By enabling a best of breed software, updating processes to reduce human error, and maintaining a strong network foundation, companies can do just that. So what is the delay?
Zack Zilakakis, Tech Evangelist at Apstra works closely with industry leaders to help define vision, strategy end execution. I invited him on the podcast today to learn more about how to solve these problems and more.
We discuss the ins and outs of managing distributed data centers with automation and how organizations and channel partners can quickly identify what vendors are delivering the best plug-and-play software to solve data center challenges.
We also talk about how data center agility allows organizations to remain more competitive in their industry by allowing network engineers to focus on strategy rather than fire fighting.
BERG Health is a Boston-local biotech that leverages AI and patient biology to accelerate drug discovery and development for oncology, neurology, and rare diseases. They partner with the likes of Boehringer Ingelheim, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, among others, to drive key drug development.
BERG is also working with the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Lab to blend BERG's AI platform with the Summit supercomputer to map out and repurpose drugs. They intend to help stop the progression of COVID-19 in patients.
The company also recently announced a new study published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, which they conducted in collaboration with the University of Oxford and Virginia Commonwealth. The study identifies why COVID-19 is more prevalent in African American populations and how to treat it using existing ACE inhibitors and ARBs.
Dr. Niven R. Narain is Co-Founder, President & CEO of Berg, discusses what they are working on across all working drug pipelines and biotech's future amid and beyond COVID.
Today's guest is a pioneer in technology development at the intersection of Biology and AI and is the inventor of the Interrogative Biology® platform. It has unraveled actionable disease insight leading to de novo and repurposed development of a deep pipeline of oncology products, metabolic, rare, and CNS diseases. Namely, BPM 31510 currently in Phase 2 trials for cancer covered by over 650 issued and pending US and international patents.
Precisely (formerly Syncsort) recently hosted the inaugural virtual Data Integrity Summit in conjunction with releasing a new IDC Research paper outlining the changing role of data across industries and emerging technologies. The summit included speakers from MasterCard, Apria Healthcare, and Creditsafe, and keynotes from IDC analysts.
Precisely CEO Josh Rogers joins me on Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss how data integrity is currently helping local authorities in New York and Florida improve accuracy of COVID-19 contract-tracing efforts.
I also learn how the report found that 56% of respondents indicated a general lack of trust in data quality within their organization. This lack of trust can be traced back to data silos within organizations. In fact, 95% of organizations are integrating data across hybrid cloud environments. Data silos inhibit data from having appropriate context, which is key when thinking about using that data effectively, ultimately creating a greater lack of trust.
Precisely provides businesses with increased accuracy and consistency in their data through four key areas that make up data integrity: data integration, data quality, location intelligence, and data enrichment. By ensuring the integrity of its data, a company can make confident business decisions.
Josh discusses what data integrity is and how it helps businesses across various industries improve their bottom lines and provide insight into the critical role trusted data will continue to play moving forward.
Belfast-based Peter Keeling, CEO, and Founder of Diaceutics – the originator of the world's first diagnostic network for precision medicine.
Having floated on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange last year, Diaceutics is firmly committed to addressing the most pronounced issues hindering the traditional cancer testing landscape.
Peter has driven Diaceutics to become a leader in innovative solutions that enable Pharma to leverage diagnostic testing globally. With over 30 years in international healthcare, Peter is a thought leader in precision medicine commercialization, a respected speaker at industry events and has published widely. Peter has also spent two extended periods in applied industrial research, including a year at MITís Pharmaceutical Program.
The problem is a lack of collaboration between precision medicine stakeholders. It led to a broken testing ecosystem where only 50% of eligible patients in oncology getting access to the right treatment.
The Diaceutics' Network solution has been purpose-built to solve the broken testing ecosystem by enabling the industry-wide collaboration needed to get every patient the treatment they deserve
I wanted to learn more about the company's story, how they are leveraging technology, and insights from their precision medicine readiness report. The second Report in their Axis for Change series analyzes the broken diagnostic testing ecosystem impeding the delivery of precision medicines today and recommends a collaborative industry solution.
Peter also reveals that The Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) testing market will expand to $3.6 billion in the United States by 2025 – up considerably from just $125 million today. But currently, only half of the patients with advanced NSCLC are receiving the right drug.
Formstack is a SaaS-based forms-driven workflows platform that helps organizations streamline data collection and management without code. With Formstack, businesses and teams of all types and sizes can easily create and use online forms to automate repetitive business processes and tame data chaos.
Formstack’s no-code online form builder saves time by automating workflows, document generation, and eSignature collection. Because the forms are effortless to build, easy to publish and simple to manage, anyone in an organization can pinpoint areas for improvement and gain deep data insights.
Formstack maximizes value from existing enterprise data investments and minimizes rip-and replace by working with what you have. The Formstack Platform uniquely offers 2-way syncing with enterprise systems of record and has over 40 pre-built integrations with major applications such as Salesforce, Mailchimp, HubSpot and Paypal, enabling customers to keep data accurate across enterprise platforms.
Founded in Indiana in 2006, Formstack is a remote-first company with 220 employees who live and work all over the world. Chris Byers is the CEO of Formstack and runs the day-to-day operations of the company. His goal is to deliver on the company’s mission to "transform the way people collect data and put it to work."
We discuss why so many digital transformation initiatives fail and the key considerations to ensure success. We also chat about how low-code/no-code tools can help with a smooth transition during digital transformation and help organizations adapt quickly to survive.
I learn how businesses can leverage tech to streamline workflows, automate manual tasks, and fix broken processes - securely, in the cloud and without code - turning everyday tasks into remarkable results.
Shadow was created in 2015 to design and develop the PC of the future, with a simple vision: free users from physical hardware constraints by giving them access to a powerful, cloud-based computer. A high-performance PC based entirely in the Cloud, this ground-breaking service provides access to a fully-featured high-end Windows 10 computer via any internet-enabled device, including a laptop, tablet, and smartphone.
Free from hardware failures in their highly secure and local data centers, Shadow targets one of the most demanding types of PC users: gamers. Their goal is to meet gamers’ expectations as proof that their technology can be adapted to virtually every PC need and usage. Shadow employs a team of passionate, highly skilled developers, as well as experts in business, law, marketing and distribution, and gaming.
I invited Shadow CEO Mike Fischer onto the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to learn more about the tech that makes it all possible.
Mike is a leader in interactive entertainment, including executive positions at Amazon and Microsoft, CEO of game publisher Square Enix America (Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider) and head of publishing at Epic Games (Fortnite).
I learn how all the user needs is an internet connection. No more hardware FOMO; no more worrying about having to update security software; no more worrying about software updates–Shadow does all this for you. And, if you’re socially conscious, this produces less e-waste for the environment.
Manuel Heyden, CEO, Co-founder of Nextmarkets, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. He started his career in 1999, founding his first online marketing company at the age of 19. Since then, Manuel has followed his passion for product development, design, and online marketing, especially in the financial technology sector.
After spending two and a half years in investment banking with ABN AMRO Bank in Frankfurt and London to establish an online brokerage company, he founded the social trading company, ayondo, in 2007 and sold most of his shares in 2014. Manuel holds a Master of Science from European Business School, Oestrich-Winkel.
Manuel shares his vision for Nextmarkets and how he and his team are passionate about improving the way private investors trade on the stock markets through education. I learn how Europe’s commission-free online broker considers itself as an exchange coach, analyst, and trading platform in one.
In a world of up and downs, private investors can be accompanied by more than a dozen trading coaches in an innovative way, so that the term “curated investing” has been created. I also learn more about the technology that makes all this possible.
Nextmarkets, with offices in Cologne and Malta, currently employs 35 people and is backed by leading venture capitalists such as Peter Thiel, Falk Strascheg, and the publicly listed FinLab AG.
Improving experiences is why InMoment exists. The company is on a mission to help its clients improve experiences at the intersection of value--where customer, employee, and business needs come together.
The heart of what they do is connect their clients with what matters most through a unique combination of comprehensive data, modern technology, and human expertise that helps executives--and the companies they lead--recognize the power and value of customer and employee experiences.
With their years of Experience Improvement (XI) Solutions and Experience Intelligence (XI) Platform, they ensure businesses understand and own the moments that matter--to transform experiences today that deliver the highest business value tomorrow.
Eric Smuda, VP of CX at customer experience (CX) platform, InMoment, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. We discuss how the CX space has shifted throughout the pandemic and what trends he thinks will dominate 2021.
I also learn more about how they have recently rolled out a new suite of solutions aimed at experience improvement to better meet its clients' shifting needs due to the pandemic. But more than anything, I'm interested in how InMoment achieved its goals through a unique combination of data, technology, and human expertise.
Integrated Specialty Coverages (ISC) is a Program Administrator dedicated to underwriting excellence, client service, and customer experience. As an innovative industry leader, ISC has built an end-to-end insurance platform by connecting a broad network of insurance markets and distribution channels.
ISC uses sophisticated systems and analytics to revolutionize how complete programs are underwritten and operated. With their most recent strategic partnerships, ISC has expanded their programs from commercial property, and hospitality, including bars, taverns, and nightlife, to now offer long-haul trucking and a wide variety of contractor's coverages, including general liability workers' compensation.
Matthew Roselle, Chief Operating Officer, Integrated Specialty Coverages joins me on Tech Talks Daily and shares the story behind the company.
Matt rapidly grew his business and was selected to become a District Manager in 2004. Over the next six years, Matt built a multi-line general agency to nearly $50 million of annual premium and was recognized in the top .5% of all brokers nationally.
Matt also talks about leveraging AI and third party data to drive low loss ratios as his own company produces loss ratios for carrier partners between 10-15% lower than industry averages.
Matt's company ISC is unique in that most of its technology team on the west coast had no prior experience in insurance. We talk about how to build a team that marries carrier/insurance expertise and relationships with programs and AI platforms.
DeFi has been the big success story in crypto this year but what does the future of finance actually look like and how do we get there?
Building a bridge between traditional and decentralized finance and seeking to unlock trillions of dollars in capital is AllianceBlock, an organization which is building the world’s first globally compliant, decentralized capital market. Backed by three of Europe’s most prestigious incubators: Station F, L39, and Kickstart Innovation in Zurich, AllianceBlock is led by a heavily experienced team of ex-JP Morgan, Barclays, BNP Paribas, and Goldman Sachs investment bankers and quants.
Rachid Ajaja is co-founder and CEO of AllianceBlock. With a decade of experience in investment banking, Rachid worked as a Quantitative Analyst in leading investment banks Barclays and BNP Paribas. He has a degree in Computer Science and Signal Processing from IMT Atlantique, and a Master’s degree in Probability Theory, Stochastic Process, and Quantitative Finance from Université Paris Diderot.
AllianceBlock is building the first globally compliant decentralized capital market. The AllianceBlock Protocol is a decentralised, blockchain-agnostic layer 2 that automates the process of converting any digital or crypto asset into a bankable product.
Incubated by three of Europe’s most prestigious incubators: Station F, L39, and Kickstart Innovation in Zurich, and led by a heavily experienced team of ex-JP Morgan, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs investment bankers, and quants, AllianceBlock is on the path to disrupt the $100 trillion securities market with its state-of-the-art and globally compliant decentralized capital market.
Mobile connectivity has long relied on physical SIM cards. However, as eSIM technology revolutionizes mobile, the need for physical SIM cards is declining rapidly and digitally disrupting traditional notions of phone usage. eSIM brings wide-ranging benefits to consumers, enterprises, and IoT solutions.
Mobile phone users can switch carriers instantly connecting their devices digitally without physically locating and changing the SIM in their device when traveling or on home soil. It has also enabled new smaller device categories, such as smart-watches and fitness trackers. It is opening up avenues of universal connectivity for laptops, raising the bar on IoT's potential.
Since 2011, Sim Local has made it its mission to keep people connected, seamlessly, wherever they are. I learn more about their mission and how eSIM will transform the way the world connects to mobile network.
So what's the barrier for consumer and operator adoption? Gary Waite, Head of eSIM Strategy, discusses everything eSIM, from what it is, the technology behind it to the benefits for both consumers and mobile operators alike and its expected rise in the coming years.
Gary has 30 years' experience across the telecommunications and mobile sector and has been key to the success of SIM technology ever since its inception. He has worked for companies including Telefonica and is considered a world expert on eSIM, NFC, Mobile Wallet and M2M/IoT.
JFrog is on a mission to enable continuous updates through Liquid Software, empowering developers to code high-quality applications that securely flow to end-users with zero downtime. The world’s top brands such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Uber, VMware, and Spotify are among the 5,000+ companies that already depend on JFrog to manage binaries for their mission-critical applications.
Gal Marder is the vice president of global DevOps acceleration and has worked with numerous development teams at some of the world’s largest companies. Even as security becomes embedded within DevOps platforms and development processes under the umbrella of DevSecOps, many organizations are still failing to embed a security mindset within all stages of the software development and development lifecycle.
Gal has some interesting insights on some of the ongoing changes in how companies are integrating security within DevOps practices including:
Security must be iterative. Security must mimic software development and become an interactive process. Gone are the days when the security team conducts an exhaustive review and audit of software code after the application development is completed. The better approach is to incorporate security at every stage of the development process.
Patch fast or die. As software release schedules have accelerated to a daily event, the potential for software vulnerabilities has also increased. Rather than viewing this as a problem, security teams should view this as an opportunity to match the rapid pace of software development with the rapid identification and fixing of these vulnerabilities.
Ignore software licenses at your own peril: 80% of software is built using open source components yet many developers fail to understand the rules before embedding it within their software.
Exasol is passionate about helping companies to run their businesses smarter and drive profit by analyzing data and information at unprecedented speeds. The company develops the world’s fastest in-memory database for analytics and data warehousing, and offers first-class know-how and expertise in data insight and analytics.
The in-memory analytic database is the first to combine in-memory, columnar compression and massively parallel processing, and is proven to be the world’s fastest topping the list in the TPC-H Benchmark tests for performance.
Exasol is committed to helping organizations with their data challenges by offering them an analytic database that performs, has an open framework and is easy to use. The solution is designed to scale from commodity hardware to Hadoop and co-exists with any infrastructure, whether on-premise or in the cloud. The company also offers an easy migration path, an easy installation process and a solution that is future-proof.
Companies that depend on Exasol to analyze their data in real-time include Adidas Group, GfK, IMS Health, King, Olympus, myThings, Sony Music and Xing.
As Technology Evangelist at Exasol, Eva Murray is focused on building awareness through specific industry and technology campaigns, which involve content creation, events (virtual), and enablement sessions for partners and customers. She uses a variety of formats, including blogs, podcasts, press and analyst interviews, webinars, and workshops.
Using her expertise in data visualization and specifically Tableau for businesses of all sizes, Eva works with prospects and customers to ensure they can maximize the value they get from their investment in analytics.
I wanted to learn more about how Eva’s involvement in the Visualize Gender Equality” project is designed to harness the power of data visualization to raise awareness of extreme gender inequality. Eva shares her experiences working in a male-dominated industry and overcoming the struggles brought about by gender bias in the world of data.
We also discuss the growing prominence of the Chief Data Officer (CDO), the buzz around ‘data literacy,’ and how organizations need to introduce not just a digital transformation but a data transformation too. Finally, we discuss how intelligent use and the understanding of data are integral to the success of charities and other non-profits.
Do you ever wish you could accurately foresee disruptive and technological change and utilize it to actively shape your future and lead your team and your company to greater success and competitive advantage? Daniel Burrus believes you can turn disruption & change into opportunity and advantage.
Daniel Burrus is considered one of the World’s Leading Futurist Speakers on Global Trends and Disruptive Innovation. The New York Times has referred to him as one of the top three business gurus in the highest demand as a speaker.
Daniel has delivered over 3,000 keynote speeches to corporations, associations, and professional organizations worldwide. In his presentations, he blends timely and provocative insights with just the right amount of humor and motivation to enable his audiences to take positive action
Burrus is a strategic advisor to executives from Fortune 500 companies helping them to develop game-changing strategies based on his proven methodologies for capitalizing on technology innovations and their future impact. He is also the author of seven books, including The New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller Flash Foresight, as well as his latest book, The Anticipatory Organization: Turn Disruption and Change Into Opportunity and Advantage.
Speechmatics is an AI-driven speech to text provider. The company powers applications that require mission-critical, accurate speech recognition using its any-context speech recognition engine. Its technology is used by enterprises in scenarios such as contact centers, CRM, consumer electronics, security, media & entertainment, and software.
Speechmatics processes millions of hours of transcription worldwide every month in 30+ languages. Having pioneered machine learning voice engineering, Speechmatics enables companies to build applications that detect and transcribe voice in any context and in real-time. Its neural networks consider acoustics, languages, dialects, multiple speakers, punctuation, capitalization, context, and implicit meanings.
Katy Wigdahl, Speechmatics CEO, is an experienced C-Level exec and was the company's CFO before taking over as their first female CEO officially in August.
Katy has noticed the different languages of male and female leaders. From defining words differently – "ambition" or "optimize" – to more or less frequently referencing first or third person, she believes that dissecting the language of leadership can help us better understand how organizations led by men or women act, react and measure success differently.
We discuss the different languages of male and female CEOs, encouraging women in technology, and the lessons Katy has learned when moving from the CFO to CEO roles. Finally, we talk about the importance of closing the "accent gap" in AI-driven speech recognition technology.
HypeAuditor is a comprehensive set of tools to discover and analyze influencers on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, verify their authenticity, and track the results of influencer marketing campaigns. It also developed a unique withing influencer industry tool that allows doing in-depth market researches and competitors analysis. All services are based on machine learning algorithms.
Alexander Frolov, CEO, co-founder of HypeAuditor, joins me in a conversation about how AI is reshaping the influencer marketing industry and why more companies should begin to implement the technology for their influencer marketing needs. We discuss how using AI/ML can detect fraudulent activity on social media.
I learn more about how they use tech to find and perfectly match the best influencers for brands. This tech is essential in discovering emerging trends on Instagram and YouTube while also boosting ad campaign performance while tracking account growth over time.
We explore how technology will impact the future of influencer marketing. Finally I learn how Hype Auditor is providing analysis of influencer marketing campaigns for brands along with advanced Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok analytical reports.
For the last 20 years, CWJobs has been the home for tech jobs. They match employers from all industries with the most relevant tech talent through our innovative product technology and unique candidate audience. Its CV Database has over 1.2 million skilled candidates.
The UK tech skills gap is set to narrow, as leading UK tech job board, CWJobs' reveals over half (55%) of non-tech workers contemplating a career change have considered or begun the process of moving into a tech or IT-based role since the pandemic.
Dominic Harvey, Director at CWJobs, said: "Tapping into this new pipeline of future talent will help alleviate the gap by supporting and offering training to those willing to learn and upskill. Going forward, businesses must be open to welcoming individuals into the industry, considering various job backgrounds, levels of experience and the transferable skills that new candidates can bring to the role and their company. In doing so, the tech job market will remain agile and robust, offering unique opportunities for all."
Dominic shares how as businesses recognize the increased value of IT and technology support, the 'Turning to Tech' report by CW Jobs found that nearly half (45%) of IT workers said their company is currently actively recruiting for tech-based roles.
This news comes following the CBI's announcement that £13bn will be needed to retrain adults by 2030 to support the future economy. I learn more about the report's key findings and how over a fifth (22%) of all workers have undertaken online tech training courses since the pandemic hit to enhance their employability and ensure they are adaptable to the future world of work.
Dominic also shares how over eight in 10 (81%) IT workers would welcome talent from outside the tech industry, with almost three in 10 (28%) supporting this as it would help close the skills gap. Finally, we discuss how IT support (33%) and cybersecurity (23%) are top priorities for tech skills needed.
Fugro is the world's leading Geo-data specialist, collecting and analyzing comprehensive information about the Earth and the structures built upon it. But I wanted to learn more about how this technology is making different areas that you probably don't think about.
For example, did you know that Seafarers working in today's cargo industry undergo many physical and mental challenges in their work? Many seafarers make significant sacrifices to gain the qualifications and experience needed to work in an offshore environment. However, there's evidence that these workers may be particularly prone to emotional exhaustion and burnout, which can take a toll on mental health.
Seafarers tend to work as part of small crews. Most work long hours and have contracts that require them to be at sea for up to twelve months at a time. This can often lead them to suffer from loneliness, isolation, and in some cases, depression.
Ross MacFarlane, USV Policy and Public Affairs Advisor at Fugro, is focused on seafarers' mental health and well-being in the maritime industry. He shares how technology supports mental health and improves seafarers' working conditions, automating processes, and limiting the time spent at sea.
I learn how seafarers often have minimal communication with family and friends while offshore due to a lack of connectivity, time zone differences, and long working hours, which can all contribute to mental health difficulties.
Paul Coggins is the CEO at Adludio who’s revolutionary ‘Sensory Ad Science’ technology delivers 10x results for blue-chip clients – like Unilever, Nestle & PayPal – compared to traditional mobile advertising solutions. The company’s accomplishments include being named ‘Best Advertising Company’ at the TechCrunch Europa Awards 2016, and winning MOMA’s ‘Best User Experience’ award.
Adludio has also been listed in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100 ‘Ones to Watch’, and ranked in the Deloitte Fast 50 for the second year running, making it one of the fastest-growing adtech companies in the UK. We last spoke in February this year when the world was a very different place.
I invited Paul back on to the podcast to learn how the pandemic has affected their business. We discuss the importance of data-driven decision making and how Adludio focuses on creative data as opposed to audience data.
On the topic of data-driven creative, I learn what gives Adludio an edge over everyone else who focused on audience data vs. creative data. We also discuss proprietary algorithms and how their data science team helps them provide a unique engagement approach for better performance.
I also learn more about their Brand impact optimization. A system of mini-surveys that measure key soft metrics in real-time and feedback loop to creative optimization and data collection
Olive builds artificial intelligence and RPA solutions that empower healthcare organizations to improve efficiency and patient care while reducing costly administrative errors. The company is on a mission to AI workforce makes healthcare more efficient, more affordable, and more human - improving your bottom line today.
Rohan D'Souza is the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Cybernetics. For more than a decade, Rohan has led product development teams at healthcare technology companies KenSci and eClinicalWorks, where he oversaw successful build-outs of various healthcare technology solutions.
In his current role, Rohan oversees the day-to-day operations of the cybernetics division. Rohan is also a nationally recognized leader in interoperability and a champion for the adoption of standardized API's across the siloed health systems.
In today's episode, we discuss the $51 million funding to accelerate Olive's AI workforce for healthcare and how Olive's AlphaSite adoption with Gundersen Health System will power a scalable AI workforce to improve the patient experience.
We also discuss their recent partnership with Verata Health, which is tackling the $31B prior authorization challenge and how the company combined technologies to unlock conversational applications for artificial intelligence solutions.
Tori Reichman is the VP of Customer Success of the Vault Platform. I wanted to learn more about the tech behind the groundbreaking workplace misconduct and resolution app that empowers employees and protects employers.
Record. Report. Resolve: Vault has a simple mission; to change the world of work by giving companies and their employees a safe place to record, report, and resolve misconduct in the most human, confidential, efficient, and legally sound way possible.
Tori benefits from a 15-year career as an HR Generalist, Change Management Consultant, and Start-Up Leader, so she has great insights into the actual application ofVault Platform for HR functions as well as the specific challenges they face.
Tori has also built relationships with executive teams at multinational enterprises across industries and is passionate about putting people at the center of everything to help companies build a more ethical and successful culture.
She thrives in chaos, loves finding solutions to complex problems, builds great teams, and spends time working out how she can bring more value to her customers. Tori believes that good communication can avoid - or at least solve - most problems, and a bit of negotiation will get you a long way.
I learn more about Vault’s ongoing mission to use technology to remove unconscious bias and rebuild trust between employers and employees.
We discuss how the Covid discrimination feature is benefitting employees and employers. Tori also shares her thoughts on how the Vault Platform can advance equity and racial equality in the workplace.
I recently read how a phishing scam was discovered in Google Cloud Services, the latest sign of hackers quickly evolving to attack these environments. To fully protect themselves from the growing threat, organizations need to adopt a Zero Trust policy that can be enforced across the cloud.
Pulse Secure also announced Pulse Zero Trust Access (PZTA), a cloud-based, multi-tenant secure access solution that enables organizations to provide anywhere access to multi-cloud and data center applications with Zero Trust assurance.
I invited Scott Gordon back on to the podcast to learn more about how organizations can scale Zero Trust protections to their entire infrastructure, including cloud or multi-cloud environments.
Scott Gordon is the Chief Marketing Officer at Pulse Secure, responsible for global marketing strategy, communications, operations, channel, and sales enablement. He possesses over 20 years of experience contributing to security management, network, endpoint, data security, and risk assessment technologies at innovative startups and large organizations across SaaS, hardware, and enterprise software platforms.
Previously, Scott was CMO at RiskIQ and ForeScout (FSCT). He has also held executive and management roles at AccelOps (acq by Fortinet), Protego (acq by Cisco), Axent (acq by Symantec), and McAfee.
Pulse Secure suites uniquely integrate cloud, mobile, application, and network access to enable hybrid IT in a Zero Trust world. Today, more than 80% of the Fortune 500 and over 20,000 enterprises (and 18M end-points) and service providers across every vertical entrust Pulse Secure to empower their mobile workforce to securely access applications and information in the data center and cloud while ensuring business compliance.
Leadfeeder is a startup based in Helsinki, Finland. Their roots are deep in web analytics and have been the successful pioneers of web analytics technology development in Northern Europe. Their mission is to bring web intelligence into a business. Leadfeeder CEO Pekka Koskinen joins me in a conversation about lead generation technology.
Pekka shares his vision for lead generation technology, which includes using AI to pinpoint the exact moment across that journey for the salesperson to engage based on the purchase intent of the prospect.
He also shares a variety of lead generation tips, including why the need to focus on the first party and not third party intent data. Third-party intent data is interesting, but build the foundations based on your data.
The company recently announced that Pipedrive selected and integrated Leadfeeder's AI-powered, lead automation technology as a key component to Pipedrive's new lead generation and management toolset LeadBooster 2.0 announced in Fall 2020.
I also learn more about the latest news and developments with Leadfeeder and how they have experienced 70 percent year on year growth.
Bennett Byerley launched Verb Energy with three friends out of a dorm room at Yale, cooking and delivering caffeinated bars to friends for studying. From there, they’ve scaled their business to target precisely what their customers want – personalized communications and ordering via text, flexible and easy to use subscription models, and exciting new flavors and have no intention of stopping.
Verb Energy is a text-to-order energy brand that delivers healthy, tasty energy bars with the same amount of caffeine as a shot of espresso, but through all-natural ingredients, straight to your doorstep. At the core of the brand is the belief that there is nothing more powerful than human energy and that when a person feels their best, they can do amazing things.
They started Verb to make people feel incredible by delivering energy in a healthy, convenient, and delightful way. Now, they are striving to change the way people get their energy and bring more humanity to how companies interact with people.
I invited Bennett onto the podcast to share his inspirational tech startup story, which began in a Yale dorm room. I also learn how they’ve scaled their business to target precisely what their customers want – personalized communications and order via text, flexible and easy to use subscription models, and exciting new flavors and have no intention of stopping.
The Boston-based startup has raised more than $5 million from Global Founders Capital, with Nebari Ventures, Great Oaks, Supernode Ventures, FJ Labs, Kevin Ryan, and other strategic angel investors.
Esri UK provides world-class geographic information systems (GIS) and has the single largest pool of GIS expertise in the UK. Every day millions of decisions are powered by GIS, helping businesses become more profitable and public service more efficient through a better understanding of location analytics.
The UK is in the midst of a housing crisis, with a lack of appropriate homes keeping people off the property ladder – and many stuck in unsuitable homes. Despite good intentions from those at both a central and local Government level to provide sufficient affordable and social housing, the slow progress made over recent years makes it clear that we need improved technology and new tools to model a way forward.
The government recently published the UK Geospatial Strategy, which recognizes the potential of location intelligence technology for the UK economy. Under Housing and Local Planning, the strategy states that “Innovation in property-related technology…is transforming how developers find land and evaluate building potential, how local authorities and residents approach planning, and how homes are bought, sold or rented”.
There are three key areas where location intelligence can help local authorities and housing associations improve the provision of housing: mapping local infrastructure, identifying the right schemes/projects for local needs and assessing housing capacity.
Charles Kennelly, chief technology officer, Esri UK, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about all this and much more.
Experian is the world’s leading global information services company. During life’s big moments – from buying a home or a car, to sending a child to college, to growing a business by connecting with new customers – they empower consumers and their clients to manage their data with confidence.
Experian also helps individuals to take financial control and access financial services, businesses to make smarter decisions and thrive, lenders to lend more responsibly, and organizations to prevent identity fraud and crime.
Today, I learn more about investment in AI and Machine Learning since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and how these trends can continue. Shri Santhanam, Experian’s EVP of global analytics and AI solutions discusses these trends based on newly-released data from Experian’s Global Insights Report, which looked at businesses across ten countries, which found:
• Nearly 70% of businesses have used either AI or Machine Learning to help manage their businesses in the current marketplace.
• Almost 60% of businesses are increasing their budget for analytics and customer creditworthiness in the next 12 months.
Shri champions data innovation and enables organizations of all sizes to apply AI and analytics so they achieve their business goals. Shri discusses how businesses can allocate these investments to better leverage AI and ML data. We also talk about why AI and ML will continue to dominate data analytics and how the pandemic has changed the AL/ML landscape of the future.
Having been a Citrix Premier Technology since 2003, eG Innovations has developed key expertise in Citrix technologies. Their solutions are used to monitor some of the largest Citrix deployments in the world.
eG Innovations provides IT performance monitoring and digital intelligence solutions that automate and dramatically accelerate the discovery, diagnosis, and resolution of IT performance issues in on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.
Many of the world’s largest businesses use eG Innovations' solutions to enhance IT service performance, increase operational efficiency, ensure IT effectiveness, and deliver on the ROI promise of transformational IT investments across physical, virtual, and cloud environments. But role will they play in the future of work? and how are Citrix and eG working together?
Barry Schiffer from EG and Ed Duncan from Citrix join me in conversation about all this and much more.
Honeywell Building Technologies (HBT) is a global business with more than 20,000 employees. HBT creates products, software and technologies found in more than 10 million buildings worldwide. Commercial building owners and occupants use our technologies to ensure their facilities are safe, energy efficient, sustainable and productive
Peter Fehl, head of the building management team at Honeywell joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss “the anatomy of a healthy school”?
Many schools seems stumped when it comes to how to make their buildings safe and are delaying an in-person return. While others think that simply opening the windows will eliminate risk. Peter discusses how schools need to take a holistic approach to allow a safer return and that no one change will make the difference.
We talk about how much like the human body, all the systems need to work together – HVAC (the lungs), video analytics (the eyes), AI (the brain/nervous system), touchless-access (the motor system), and UV light sanitation (like the immune system). If one of these systems is not functioning properly your (or your school’s) health is at risk.
We also discuss how school administrators can address the holistic health needs of schools and how this approach will be critical in schools returning and staying in-person this year.
Jonathon Hensley is co-founder and CEO of Emerge, a digital product consulting firm that works with companies to improve operational agility and customer experience. For more than two decades, Jonathon has helped startups, Fortune 100 brands, technology leaders, large regional health networks, non-profit organizations and more, transform their businesses by turning strategy, user needs, and new technologies into valuable digital products and services.
Jonathon writes and speaks about his experiences and insights from his career and regularly hosts in-depth interviews with business leaders and industry insiders. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two boys. Originally from Silicon Valley, Jonathon got into the digital product space inspired by the incredible people developing new technologies all around him and the possibilities they unlocked.
All this fueled his curiosity to understand how technology transforms the ways in which people live and work. That curiosity continues to drive him today, as he works to help businesses harness technology. His work focuses on helping leaders define the value they want to create in a succinct and tangible way; where to focus, why, and what it will take to achieve that outcome. His favorite part is going beyond the idea and mapping how you bring together people, data, and processes so that clients can succeed.
We also talk about alignment and why it is so important. I learn why so many digital initiatives fail and all about his new book.
IQVIA is a human data science company inspired by the industry they serve and provide solutions that enable life sciences companies to innovate with confidence, maximize opportunities, and ultimately drive human health outcomes forward.
Their approach is human data science – a discipline that advances their understanding of human health and allows stakeholders to make better, more insightful decisions and discover breakthroughs.
The ROI for research and development within the pharmaceutical industry has decreased from 10.1% in 2010 to just 1.8% over the last ten years. This drastic decrease directly results from fewer drugs being brought to market due to delays in drug development, specifically the regulatory processes with more than 2,000 new or modified FDA regulations since 1998.
Working in siloed departments inadvertently creates data silos, preventing valuable data and insights from being shared across departments. These valuable insights could offer more end-to-end visibility to help identify potential issues that could threaten patient safety more quickly, reduce costs, improve efficiencies of regulatory compliance reporting, and open up more opportunities for future innovation.
With cross-functional data visibility, pharma companies could take advantage of existing data to optimize the industry's drug development process to bring drugs to market faster.
I invited Joe Rymsza, Vice President, Global Pharmacovigilance and Regulatory Technology Solutions at IQVIA, on to the podcast to talk about all this and much more.
In his current role, Joe leads a global team of incredibly talented professionals in the US, Europe, Japan, and India that develop, deploy, sell, market, and support IQVIA's leading SaaS, management & technology consulting and hosting and managed services solutions.
Tony Jamous is the CEO & Founder of Oyster, the remote work employment platform. Before that, he was president of Nexmo, a Vonage Company. He joined Vonage as part of Vonage's acquisition of Nexmo, Inc. in June 2016.
The company is on a mission to remove the barriers between talented people and great full-time jobs globally. They believe it should be easy for any company to hire any person, no matter where either is located in the world.
Now more than ever, smart companies can't allow their HQ location to dictate the size of their talent pool. Your next transformative hire could be anywhere. They also believe the most in-demand knowledge workers today want to leverage a global career perspective, the freedom to live where they want, and the security of full-fledged employment with benefits.
However, the flow between talent and opportunity worldwide is still blocked by the costs and legal complexity companies face before they can fully employ in another country. Cross-border hiring is still arcane, remarkably un-transformed by software, and ripe for disruption.
I learn more about the story behind the software platform created to solve the complexities of giving full-time, full-fledged employment to anyone in the world while providing a delightful experience to employers and employees.
DXone is described as a next-generation crypto intelligence and trading platform. With plans to expand beyond blockchain markets, DXone CEO Luciano Nonnis and his team built a platform swift enough for traditional markets but tailored first for digital assets.
Luciano joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. Luciano discusses the recent surge of bitcoin, the gentrification of the crypto industry, and how the team is unifying the old and new financial paradigms and bridging crypto and traditional markets by deploying a sophisticated and highly performant global trading hub.
I also learn how DXone systems are built from the ground up by financial, crypto, and engineering experts, providing traders, investors, and analysts with an innovative revenue-sharing model and feature-rich trading platform.
Luciano co-founded the world's most popular and largest self-sustaining crypto education groups in the German language (Alles über Kryptowährungen und Blockchain). He founded Crypto-Coach, a non-profit online and offline education center.
He also ran a major cryptocurrency mining facility in Austria, formally one of the world's top five Dash miners. An entrepreneur to the core, Luciano is pragmatic about the crypto industry and focuses on bridging the gap between the cryptocurrency and traditional finance industries.
Vincit is not just another software company. It is on a mission to restore faith in the future with human-driven digital transformations. They help their customers with holistic digital transformation, design & develop software for all kinds of uses & devices, and maintain them for you. Vincit was also named in Fast Company's list of Best Workplaces for Innovators 2020 worldwide.
The company also prides itself on keeping complex things as understandable and easy-to-use as possible. Today's guest is Ville Houttu, Founder and CEO of Vincit, California. Previously, he helped the Finnish company to reach 350 employees and make it public on Nasdaq First North marketplace. After the IPO, he moved to California to start Vincit's local subsidiary.
During the first two years of operations, he has built a team of 30 developers in California, acquired OC's two hottest digital branding agencies, XTOPOLY and Devise Interactive, and was named the 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year by the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce.
We talk about the modern tech work culture in a post-COVID-19 world and why it is not entirely remote. We also discuss why the future of industrial and digital transformation is agile and customer-centric.
Last week, a new Playstation and Xbox arrived. The video game industry is now worth $146bn, and that's before the holiday season gets underway. But, the entire industry is about to be revamped by more than just new hardware.
Microsoft unveiled its Netflix-style cloud gaming service in Sept with the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. New research from Clarivate reveals that more than four in five gamers who do not currently play cloud games say they will start cloud gaming in the next twelve months.
In its report 'Cowboys, combat and candy: cloud gaming through the lens of IP' on levels of innovation and brand creation in the $146 billion gaming industry as evidenced by patent, trademark, and domain name activity, Clarivate explores the drivers of change both in terms of technical transformation and also the companies behind it.
Clarivate's databases power research around the world for major universities, brands, and organizations across the globe. Just recently, it also went through a $900M acquisition with CPA Global and have offices around the world.
Ed White, Head of Analytics, IP Group at Clarivate joins me on Tech Talks Daily to explore the report in greater detail. I learn how cloud gaming through the lens of IP', found that improving the user experience through innovations in cloud infrastructure has seen the most patent activity. On average, we recognized 300 to 500 inventions annually year-on-year over the past decade.
Maria Gotsch is the President and CEO of the nonprofit venture capital fund Partnership Fund for New York City and Co-Founder of the FinTech Innovation Lab, a New York City-based accelerator program that pairs fintech startups with leading financial institutions.
Maria has been called New York City's "Fintech Ecosystem Architect" by Institutional Investor magazine and has an unparalleled view of how major financial institutions are sourcing and incorporating technology into their businesses.
Maria has a unique vantage point as a guide to emerging fintechs and liaison to the world's leading financial institutions. Maria also has the enviable position to know what types of technologies financial institutions are working to adopt and what technologies are most promising.
For more than ten years, Maria and the FinTech Innovation Lab have helped fintechs conduct hundreds of proofs-of-concept, with 14 alumni companies having been acquired after graduating from the Lab. We discuss the best practices for fintech startups trying to partner with or sell themselves to financial institutions and what's coming next in fintech.
I also learn more about the state of the New York City tech/fintech ecosystem, given the COVID-19 pandemic and what the tech community is doing to help bring New York back.
You can learn more about the fintech lab and its application due December 1 at fintechinnovationlab.com.
Lee McQueen, the former winner of The Apprentice and leader of the award-winning business, Raw Talent, shares his story and how it led to his latest tech startup. McQueen has a genuine passion for developing solutions that enable organizations to select and develop people.
Phoenix51 is a new technology platform enabling data driven decisions & bringing people assessment into the digital age. Underpinned by a core understanding of talent analytics's importance, he is a firm believer that a data-driven approach to assessment will define the next epoch in talent assessment and beyond.
I learn more about Phoenix51, a tech platform for remote hiring & onboarding. There is already a host of blue-chip clients on board, including Reach PLC, IHG, CenturyLink, Tottenham Hotspur, TP/ICAP, and Mediacom.
We discuss how the HR technology-enabled platform allows organizations to make data-driven decisions at every stage of the employee journey, from hiring through to benchmarking, training and retention, guaranteeing the highest return on investment from selected talent.
The platform creates digital frameworks and scorecards that allow organizations to assess and interview against key behaviors and competencies specific to a job role in vertical and horizontal hiring. It also takes essential interviewing and assessment to the next level by automating the data, giving candidates and employees incredibly accurate and detailed feedback.
However, at the heart of everything, it's not the technology that excites McQueens, but it's engaging and making a difference with people.
The Connected World is only as strong as the people who protect it. NETSCOUT delivers service visibility and protects the digital infrastructure that supports our connected world.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks are coordinated attempts to disrupt the regular availability and performance of a targeted website or online service by flooding it with traffic, and they have been on the rise in 2020. Recently, Netscout has published data focusing on the UK since the start of the year.
The data showed how attacks had changed significantly compared to previous years, with the key findings being:
• Attacks destined to the United Kingdom increased by 62% year-over-year, bandwidth spiked 56% upwards, and throughput increased by 43%.
• Since the global COVID-19 Pandemic in early- to mid-March, the number of observed attacks increased month-over-month.
• The most common DDoS vector for attacks against the United Kingdom during this period was DNS Reflection/Amplification.
In today's episode, Darren Anstee, CTO at Netscout, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. We explore the current trends around DDoS and what businesses need to be aware of in terms of risk and risk mitigation.
I also learn more about Netscout's Adaptive Service Intelligence (ASI) technology continuously monitors the service delivery environment to identify performance issues and provides insight into network-based security threats, helping teams to quickly resolve problems that can cause business disruptions or impact the user experience.
Topia is an HR tech company specializing in Global Talent Mobility, helping businesses deploy, manage, and engage employees anywhere in the world. The arrival of COVID and a shift to remote working is responsible for an increased need for the Topia tech platform. Many employees can now work from anywhere and everywhere. But it creates a series of challenges.
Steve Black, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Topia, believes data is changing the world and wants to be part of it. I invited him onto the podcast to learn more about the story behind Topia. We also discuss the following:
The massive demand from organizations struggling to monitor tax exposure and automate payroll withholdings. Why companies need a way to track newly remote workforces to optimize tax obligations, save up to 25%+ per year in local tax obligations, and mitigate the risk of penalties and audits that target distributed workforces.
The UK government’s controversial campaign to get workers back in the office. Steve doesn’t think the incentive is there and predicts we’ll see more companies going the way of Siemens—working remotely 2-3 days a week forever; impact to local economies (those that rely on foot traffic like retail) will be big.
Controversial “employee tracking.” People are traveling for the weekend and being required to tell HR where they went. Despite many believing this is a violation of privacy, Steve argues companies need this information for the safety of all employees as we look at COVID-19 hot zones.
Today, there is a huge gap in public access to data-driven, actionable health information — information that can potentially affect the decisions we make about our care. Consumers make more informed decisions about where to eat dinner or what car to buy than who gives them healthcare. How is tech changing this?
David Vivero is the co-founder and CEO at Amino. A healthcare financial wellness benefit that eliminates barriers for employees, and their families, to access affordable, high-quality medical care. They do this by combining data, design, and consumer-first thinking.
David believes there are differences that matter in health care, but without data, it's been hard to see those differences and thus choose care accordingly. By using their data to uncover powerful insights and publish stories like we have about C-sections, they hope to help individuals answer important questions about their care.
Ultimately, David and his team believe that this kind of transparency can move the needle on improving health care quality and outcomes.
I wanted to learn more about how technology enables Amino to offer guidance features that curate each user's personalized matches for in-network facilities and provides concierge appointment booking with nearly every doctor in America.
I invited David onto the podcast to talk about all of this and explore the latest health tech trends. We also discuss the importance of convenience and user experience in healthcare technology.
Ericom Software is a leading provider of Zero Trust secure access solutions that protect organizations from advanced cybersecurity threats. Leveraging innovative isolation capabilities and multiple secure remote access technologies, Ericom solutions enable secure policy-driven access to mission-critical cloud and on-premises business systems and resources, including the public Internet, without impacting end-user productivity.
John Peterson joins me on the podcast to talk about the Application Isolator. I learn how it provides enterprise organizations with the capability to add zero-trust network access and micro-segmentation controls to their existing VPN infrastructure, offering an alternative to costly software-defined perimeter technology.
John is a Michigan bred, 30-year serial entrepreneur, executive leader, technology evangelist, and innovator with small, medium, and large company experience. I have worked in numerous capacities that have included efforts in Research & Development, Technical Support, Sales Engineering, Product Management, Marketing and Product Marketing. I specialize in assisting companies in their growth efforts to go IPO.
Throughout his 30-year career, Peterson has held leadership positions at multiple security companies, including a number of startups that he helped to scale and guide toward successful acquisitions or initial-public-offerings. Most recently, he was founding Chief Product Officer at cybersecurity innovator Stellar Cyber.
Before Stellar Cyber, he was General Manager of Cybersecurity Products for Comodo and VP of Enterprise Technology at Barracuda. Earlier in his career, John held product and go-to-market roles at Juniper Networks, Fortinet, Websense (now Forcepoint), Montego Networks, and Netscreen.
Jennifer Bisceglie is the founder and CEO of Interos, an AI-powered multi-tier, multi-factor risk management platform that helps customers understand risk in their multi-tier, global supply chains. With a team of analysts, Interos researched and assessed individual suppliers, providing customers complete supply chain maps, identifying risks, and alerting businesses to areas that required attention.
Keeping pace with the growing complexity of global supply chains required finding a faster way to keep pace with the complex risk-influencing events that occur every day. In 2015 the company took a massive leap forward, embracing the power of emerging technology and beginning development of an automated platform that would provide multi-tier, multi-factor risk scoring on a continuous basis.
Today their knowledge graph contains and analyzes information on over 50 million relationships, making it the world’s largest company database. Using this technology coupled with natural language processing, and machine learning, Interos ingests over 85,000 information feeds, processing 250 million risk events per month.
Interos instantly visualizes the most complex multi-tier, 3rd party relationships updating and alerting to changes in risk along five factors– financial, geographic, compliance, cyber and strategic.
With 25 years of industry experience managing risk in the global economy, Jennifer leads the company in helping F500 companies and major government entities assess risk factors through automating the discovery and response to third-party risk in every tier of global supply chains.
Before Interos's use of AI, the ability for real-time, continuous monitoring of the health and stability of a company's hundreds of thousands of business partners was near impossible. The company has seen exponential growth as a result of its innovative approach to automation, achieving 961% revenue growth since January 2019.
Evident through Interos's 500% increase in inbound requests since March 2020, the onset of COVID-19 has driven a greater need for visibility into risk - a level of visibility that can only be achieved through the use of technology.
As a woman business owner, Jennifer is also a long-time advocate for empowering other female entrepreneurs, working on behalf of organizations including Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), where she served as a chairperson from 2010 – 2016. Jennifer was also previously selected as the U.S. delegate to the W(omen’s) 20, an engagement group to the G20 focused on addressing gender inequality.
The e-signature market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 34.7% to reach $9,073.1 million by 2023.* The demand stems from surging security concerns among enterprises, an increasingly challenging regulatory environment with more stringent requirements for authentication and compliance, a growing global e-commerce market, and environmental concerns fuelling the paperless movement.
Additionally, the Coronavirus pandemic, which has a profound effect on the nature of work, can only drive further adoption of technologies that enable decentralized collaboration, expanding the e-signature and video conferencing market.
Syngrafii – A LegalTech/regtech company is offering a compelling and enhanced alternative to other eSignature providers and has many applications across Fintech, financial services, legal, automotive leasing, and real estate, to name a few sectors.
Syngrafii provides a complete suite of products including eSignatures, and a video signing room (VSR™). VSR is a patented, all-in-one electronic signing solution that allows the signing and witnessing of documents in a secure live video-conferencing session.
VSR preserves the biometric protection of a traditional signature, mitigates the risk of fraudulent behavior, provides enhanced consumer protection, and lowers the environmental impact of in-person signing. Nonrepudiation is built into every step. It is the only remote signing solution that is fully compliant with remote swearing, commissioning, and notarizing – mitigating potential legal issues with virtual signings.
Syngrafii also provides a remote wet ink signature using Syngrafii’s robotic LongPen – enabling viewing a document in one location and a wet ink signature application in another. Syngrafii, CEO, Matthew Gibson, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss all this and much more.
The average home now has an increasing number of connected devices. The so-called Internet of things (IoT) are adding an always-online connection to almost every new home appliance, from refrigerators to toasters and doorbells.
It has been reported that every second, around 127 new devices are connected to the Internet, and it's also predicted there will be 75 billion IoT devices by 2025. But these home devices could be attacked by hackers to steal consumer data.
Many organizations stress the importance of protecting connected devices like smartphones or smart speakers; however, consumers overlook a list of other IoT devices when thinking about security in their homes.
Hidden in plain sight, smart appliances, connected light bulbs, or routers can be used as a gateway for hackers to infiltrate home networks and steal data. Still, they are not typically called out as security threats. With more devices being added to the market daily, what do consumers need to know to protect themselves from a hack in their own home?
Brad Ree, CTO of the ioXt Alliance, shares his mission of building confidence in Internet of Things products through multi-stakeholder, international, harmonized, and standardized security and privacy requirements, product compliance programs, and public transparency of those requirements and programs.
We discuss the vulnerable devices in the consumer IoT market and examples of hacks. I learn what consumers need to know to protect themselves from hackers. We also discuss the importance of global security standard adoption in the IoT industry.
Matt Body is an ex MoD penetration tester turned mobile security specialist. He has reverse-engineered hundreds of mobile malware samples reviewing the techniques used by cyber crooks to steal data or money from their targets. With this information and knowledge, he has helped craft an AI-based system to help thwart mobile malware with Traced.
I recently learned more about what threats businesses face on their mobile devices. For example, the rise of Stalkerware is even affecting users in Apple's walled garden. But 61% of companies still say they have no employee mobile protection whatsoever.
However, I wanted to learn more about how machine learning can detect suspicious apps. But also why just detecting apps isn't enough. Matt shares with me Traced's vision to make the invisible visible. It's about creating software that shines a light on threats that are invisible to traditional forms of detection.
It's about transparency in pricing and making sure their software protects people by being easy to understand and effective. All while respecting users' and employees' privacy by being transparent about what you're doing and why.
Matt shares the inspiration behind building a different kind of security company. A company that understands and talks about the threats that businesses face every day, rather than the ones that get the best headlines or induce the greatest fear.
Zuryc is a partner to its clients, solving business problems with technology solutions. By eliminating the burden of traditional IT obstacles, Zuryc’s seasoned professionals deliver an experience focused on security, scalability, and speed.
With a keen ability to anticipate tomorrow’s needs today, Zuryc pairs customers with technology that evolves as business goals change and that anticipates and avoids obsolescence. Zuryc leverages over three decades of experience in the information technology industry, with service areas including security and cyber defense; IT as a Service (ITaaS); cloud technology; business technology; and hardware.
Zuryc stays ahead of the curve in making insurance agents, financial advisors, and, most importantly, their clients financially successful at every stage in their lives. PlanFacts is a suite of web-based financial planning tools for lead generation, Social Security maximization, retirement planning, insurance needs analysis, estate planning, and business continuation.
I wanted to learn more about all this, but also the relationship with Citrix. Cyrus Hurly from Zuryc joins me on the podcast with Chandrika Srinivasan from Citrix. We talk about how together they are building a new future of work and how to avoid past obstacles and serve the evolving needs of businesses. Most importantly, I learn how, together, they are focusing on serving a billion users.
For the tens of millions of people across the US, managing chronic conditions, weekly doctor's visits, and prescriptions continue to rise, along with their collective cost of care. But everything about your health is connected to everything else: your body and mind, your doctors and medications, your diet and sleep habits, your happiness or unhappiness.
After reading this, I invited Eric Hamborg of MOBE to find out more about using technology to join up the dots. MOBE was founded in 2014 to address a gap in the healthcare system for people who may not be receiving the assistance they need to address their unique and persistent health challenges
Eric shares his journey with MOBE and how their algorithm uses data science. We also talk about how technology is creating a more proactive and reactive approach to healthcare.
The event industry has been hit harder than most by COVID. I wanted to learn more about how event producers and organizers can overcome the pandemic's obstacles with technology. I also want to explore how virtual platforms be leveraged to ensure that virtual events are on par with physical events.
Jasper Donat is the CEO of Branded, the company behind AllThatMatters, Music Matters, Gaming Matters, Digital Matters, Sports Matters, the YouTube FanFest, and It's a Girl Thing.
Founded in 2002, Branded is recognized as a top 10 Event Marketing Agency by Marketing Magazine. Branded partners with organizations to create, produce, and commercialize integrated multi-media platforms that connect, engage, inform, and entertain consumers.
In the past decade, Branded has live-streamed hundreds of events from Asia to North America to the Middle East. Over the past few months, All That Matters has begun its metamorphosis, transforming itself into an always-on conference, networking, and content experience.
We dare to look towards the future and a post-pandemic world where the industry could host hybrid events. Could future event revenue consist of physical and virtual paying attendees? What are the secrets to good and bad online events? Join Jasper and me as we talk all about all this and much more.
ICON is one of the world's largest decentralized networks, scalable for public and private blockchain use cases. ICON is used for real-world applications in banking, healthcare, education, government, and more.
Recently, ICONLOOP, a top blockchain enterprise company in South Korea, helped launch a COVID-19 contact tracing app for Jeju Island, Korea's most popular domestic tourist destination. The app uses ICONLOOP's Digital Identity solution to tie each person's verifiable credential to a record stored on a highly secure private blockchain network.
I chat with Min Kim about all this and much more. Min Kim has 15+ years of experience in the financial and technology industry. He started his career in Deutsche Bank's technology investment banking division in San Francisco, later becoming COO at Tapas Media and CSO at DAYLI Financial Group, Korea's largest fintech holding company.
Min discusses connecting blockchain to the real world and how governments and institutions in every vertical can integrate blockchain technology to deploy private, secure applications. Min also expands on real, live use cases like ICON's decentralized identity technology for Shinhan bank's remote KYC, Jeju Island contact tracing, and Saramin HR certificates.
Since COVID, board and leadership teams have had to make most senior hires in enterprise tech entirely without in-person meetings. For example, HIEC has appointed tens of executives and board directors worldwide into enterprise tech without any in-person meetings, including CEOs and board members. Who would have ever thought that a few months ago?
How do you build relationships with your new Exco/Board? How do you assess your own leadership team when you can’t meet them over coffee/wine/dinner? How do you collect all the data points you need to make an impact after your 90 days?
Tim Robson and Anita Sands join me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about all this and more. We also explore how to create belonging for new hires and the organizations generally, so they culturally stick and build trust even when working remotely.
Tim Robson has spent two decades in executive search, appointing Independent Board Directors, Board Advisors, CEOs, and C-Suite Executives in the technology, software, and professional services industries around the globe. His clients include a mix of Venture Capital, Private Equity, and leading Fortune 500 organizations, and he is one of the founding Partners of H.I. Executive Consulting, the global search firm.
H.I. Executive Consulting (HIEC) is a leading global executive search firm focused on hiring Board, CEO, and Senior-level executives globally. HIEC was established to disrupt the traditional approach to executive search by placing a premium focus on hiring transformational leaders across the sectors they serve.
Anita Sands is a U.S. based board-director, author, and speaker. A former Fulbright Scholar, she holds a Masters in Public Policy and Management as well as a Ph.D. in Atomic and Molecular Physics.
Anita is also a regular contributor to Forbes.com on the topic of leadership and strategy, and along with her colleagues at Propel Performance Group, advises organizations and leaders around the world on how to thrive in conditions of ambiguity and change.
Do you find the news experience frustrating? News outlets that were respected in the past are now increasingly partisan and biased. That's led to thousands of new sources, but it's hard to know which ones to trust. When you finally find an article you want to read, you're often asked to buy a full subscription just to read that one article.
Arjun Moorthy and his team had those same frustrations, so they decided to apply their skills gained at Stanford, IIT Madras, and Waterloo to solve this problem close to their hearts and help the world to love reading news again. They believe that the best news enlightens us, brings us together, and improves our communities. But can they do that with technology and eliminate bias?
Arjun joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share how they are helping people get the most credible stories on critical trending news topics. The Factual analyzes the credibility of over 20,000 stories every day on dimensions such as diversity of references, neutral tone of writing, author expertise on the topic, and historical site scores. Its aim is to deliver the most credible stories on the critical trending news topics every morning with The Factual newsletter.
When it comes to engaging with customers digitally (as we all must do nowadays, vs. face-to-face), leading with empathy and capturing the human experience has never been more important. SundaySky CEO Jim Dicso shares how customers Kaiser Permanente, DISH, and Comcast successfully used emotionally intelligent multimedia to better connect with customers and improve the customer experience (CX).
The campaigns his team is building with household brands guide other marketers that want to engage customers more quickly over digital while having limited data about the individual, including:
Contextualizing customers' first experience with a brand by creating interactive media that lets them guide the journey or get to self-service assistance faster
Using buildable, modular video and multimedia
Converting static text pages (How we're making your trip safe during COVID; Here's the discounts we're providing our members as a result of COVID) into dynamic media that re-engage customers contemplating a purchase in the future.
SundaySky is transforming customer experience for the world's most demanding brands, enabling them to deliver video-powered experiences that drive breakthrough outcomes at moments of consequence across customer journeys.
With SundaySky's Video Experience Platform, brands generate millions of unique digital experiences annually that transform high-stakes moments of consumer frustration, confusion, or indecision into moments of engagement that delight and inspire customers to action.
Proven with companies like 1-800 Contacts, AT&T, Citi, Staples, UnitedHealthcare, Verizon, and many others, SundaySky's unparalleled platform and unmatched domain expertise equip brands to achieve step-change business results and quantifiable value from increased revenue, reduced costs, lower churn, and higher customer satisfaction.
Many Americans want to transform law enforcement in the U.S., evident in both the non-stop protests and in recent polling. But while there is an appetite for change, the exact ways police departments should move on from here has been less clear.
Envisage Technologies, creators of the Acadis Readiness Suite, are sparking engaging discussions around the keys to building and managing tomorrow’s police department. Acadis is the most comprehensive public safety training and compliance software platform for officer performance management, use of force reports and cases, decertification, and analytics, and used by nearly 2M first responders nationwide.
Ari Vidali is the founder and CEO of Envisage Technologies, a unique software company developing training and compliance ecosystems for Law Enforcement, Public Safety and Military professionals. Envisage is the sixth high-tech enterprise for which Vidali has served as the lead founder and visionary.
His current work spans a host of interconnected disciplines: next-generation training/learning architectures, cloud-based learning, social media applied to public safety, automation of high-liability training, complex logistics management, operational automation, and pervasive readiness technologies.
During his 20-year career, Vidali has been instrumental in developing innovative readiness strategies for Military, Public Safety and Law Enforcement commands. As a visionary, inventor, frequent speaker and award-winning writer on the subjects of technology in support of readiness, he has been featured in numerous national and international publications.
Today’s businesses won’t see tomorrow without embracing tech-enabled disruption and adapting and evolving to meet the demands of the digital future.
The path to an Autonomous Digital Enterprise—a state in which intelligent, integrated, value-creating functions operate with minimal human involvement across every facet of the organization and its ecosystem—begins with solutions that maximize the efficiency of your existing operations so you can deliver the innovative services and capabilities that attract and retain customers.
From core to cloud to edge, BMC delivers the software and services that enable over 10,000 global customers, including 84% of the Forbes Global 100, to thrive in their ongoing evolution to an Autonomous Digital Enterprise.
BMC's solutions help IT with artificial intelligence, automation, optimization, performance, security, and service management, covering everything from mainframe to multi-cloud. The BMC portfolio of open, scalable, modular technologies ensures that our customers can run and reinvent their businesses for growth and competitive edge while optimizing cost, performance, and security—just as we do, every day.
Ayman Sayed was named president and chief executive officer of BMC Software, Inc., in October 2019. Before joining BMC, Ayman was president and chief product officer of CA Technologies, a $4.25 billion Fortune 500 company, where he was responsible for the vision, strategy, and development of their portfolio of products and solutions.
During his tenure, he led a significant transformation of CA into higher-growth businesses, including infrastructure software management, security, automation, and DevOps.
Ayman previously served as senior vice president at Cisco Systems. He led the Network Operating System Technology Group, responsible for the software on which nearly every Cisco networking product runs. He helped Cisco pioneer the programmable networks arena and drove innovation broadly across networking software, which enabled the evolution of the intelligent network to support application awareness and the Internet of Things.
I invited Ayman onto Tech Talks Daily to share his vision for BMC as well as for the multi-cloud, big data, and automation spaces. He also shares how as we navigate the pandemic and head into 2021, enterprises need to use automation to drive innovation that will further business agility, customer centricity, and actionable insights.
As the world continues to plunge through a pandemic and struggling economy, sales teams need all the tools they can get to generate leads now more than ever before.
While searching for contact information or company stakeholders is helpful, what about finding the critical information that tells customers a potential prospect's spending habits, credit scores, capital raises, etc. that would indicate the organization's actual market value?
Zembles is a first-of-its-kind "ProspectTech" lead-gen platform that recently unveiled its First Identification Technology. The Zembles platform creates sales efficiencies, arming sales teams with the most promising target companies and individuals based on its data-cloning intelligence.
Powered by one of the largest databases of U.S. businesses, Zembles finds prospects that bear an uncanny resemblance to a company's best customers – and then prioritizes them based on their financial health and credit risk.
Jim Swift, the founder of Zembles, discusses how they are using AI to make sales searches operate more like Spotify or Netflix by offering customized sales leads and information on those prospects such as data analysis of annual B2B purchasing data from companies across industries in the company's credit scores, capital raises and news coverage.
Swift also shares additional insights that drive to fix the broken model of manual sales prospecting.
ThousandEyes is a real-time map of the Internet. Companies that rely on the Internet rely on ThousandEyes for instant visibility into what's breaking, where. The company delivers visibility into digital experiences delivered over the Internet and has been dubbed the "X-Ray machine of the Internet."
The world's largest companies rely on the platform, collective intelligence, and smart monitoring agents to get a real-time map of how their customers and employees reach and experience critical apps and services across traditional, SD-WAN, Internet, and cloud provider networks.
ThousandEyes is used by some of the world's largest brands, such as Microsoft, Slack, and Twitter. It also works with 8 of the 10 top global software companies, 20 of the 25 leading SaaS, 6 of the 7 top US banks, 80+ of the Fortune 500, and 150+ of the Global 2000.
Yogi Chandiramani, VP of Solutions Engineering, shares how they help their clients understand how the Internet and networks work worldwide, solving connection complexities from global networks to users. We discuss how the Internet really works and why its infrastructure is not ready for modern cloud technologies.
We also talk about how COVID has affected networks around the globe and what to expect from the future of the web.
Martin McKay founded Belfast-based Texthelp, an international education technology company in 1996, to help people with communication difficulties. Its products are used in both the education and corporate sectors by 29.7 million people across North America, Europe, and Australia.
Martin has tracked the industry through decades of change. EdTech started as a tool for those with special educational needs or learning a second language. But now remote learning strategies are commonplace due to coronavirus school closures. He also has an inspirational story to share too.
Given the rise in interest and demand in EdTech – particularly amidst COVID-19, Martin discusses the evolution of EdTech and how the landscape is different across the different territories, and what the future holds.
We also explore the evolution of EdTech over the past few decades, the real benefit of EdTech for the broader education industry, the challenges EdTech faces, and how the usage of EdTech has been implemented around the pandemic.
Christopher Rigg is an innovative senior leader with extensive experience in the corporate setting as a technology and operations executive and in the consulting setting as a managing partner, delivery partner, and account leader. He is intently focused on leveraging Technology to improve client experiences, increase revenue, and enhance operational efficiency.
Christopher appeared on my radar when I read that he said, "Technology will change. Resources will come and go. But the most important thing is understanding your north star vision and the technologies that are shifting and evolving to help you continue your growth, regardless of the underlying changes."
During Amazon's annual conference, a reporter asked Jeff Bezos what's going to change in the next ten years, and here was his response: "Well, certainly, in 10 years, many things will evolve; Technology will change. Machine-learning Technology, in particular, will evolve very significantly over the 10-year time horizon.
But I would always encourage people, when they think about ten years, to ask the question, what won't change? That's the more important question. You can build strategies around things that will be stable in time. In that 10-year vision, there are a bunch of things at Amazon that are not going to change.
One of them, maybe the most important one, is that we will stay customer-obsessed instead of competitor-obsessed. We will work on maintaining that culture." [Jeff Bezos on Planning for the Future in Uncertain Times]
I wanted to learn more about this and how EKI's #ShiftHappens campaign aims to educate on how businesses can thrive during the ever-increasing digital shift currently underway. I learn more about how they will be producing a series of webinars, podcasts, whitepapers, and social media content regarding the shift that we're all experiencing.
Bain Capital Tech Opportunities aims to help growing technology companies reach their full potential. They focus on companies in large, growing end markets with innovative or disruptive technology where they believe they can support transformational growth.
They invest in fundamental long-term tailwinds as technology penetrates across industries, creating a large and growing number of investment opportunities. The team focuses on five priority sub-verticals: Application Software, Infrastructure & Security, Fintech & Payments, Healthcare IT, Internet & Digital Media.
I invited Darren Abrahamson, Managing Director, Bain Capital Tech Opportunities on to the Tech Talks Daily podcast to find out more. Darren joined Bain Capital in 2005 and is a Managing Director on the Bain Capital Tech Opportunities team, based in Boston. Darren has served as a director at Blue Coat Systems, CentralSquare Technologies, SunGard Availability Services, Vertafore, and Viewpoint Construction Software.
Prior to joining Bain Capital, Darren was a consultant at Monitor Group, where he advised in the technology, pharmaceutical, and energy industries. In our conversation, I learn more about the impacts of the global pandemic on tech investing and the road ahead for tech startups.
82-year-old Greg Copeland is the founder of FileBank. This multi-million dollar-a-year enterprise manages physical and digital assets for the Metropolitan Opera, Doctors Without Borders, and the New York City Ballet. Three hundred regional schools and municipalities are also run out of its massive Archive Center in Oakland, New Jersey, which has grown expediently during these challenging times – mostly because companies are looking to move their physical files to digital assets.
Greg is looking to take FileBank nationwide, solving a big problem for big and small companies – digitizing files as more companies declare that they are allowing employees to work from home and other employees are hesitant to head back to the office.
Greg joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the evolution of Filebank and the lessons he has learned after a lifetime in tech.
Blocktivity. described Telos as a high-capacity network and one of the most active blockchain platforms in the world. Telos features a robust, third-generation blockchain governance system including advanced voting features and smart contracts that can be fully configured to meet the needs of any developer.
Created by developers for developers, Telos extends its state-of-the-art blockchain and governance features to all DApps on its platform, delivering the best user experience in the marketplace. Telos also supports the blockchain ecosystem by serving as an incubator and accelerator for decentralized applications.
Douglas Horn is the Whitepaper Author and Chief Architect of the Telos public blockchain. He is also the Founder and CEO of GoodBlock, a dApp development company, which creates cutting-edge dapps, tools and games.
Prior to blockchain, Douglas worked in the entertainment and gaming industries. He has written and directed award-winning feature films and designed and produced mass-market games for Disney, Pokémon, Warner Bros., and other brands. But how did he go from films and videogames to blockchain?
Douglas shares his story and his journey at Telos. We also talk about the road ahead and what the Telos community can expect in the future.
According to Deloitte, nearly every company in the world will be using robotic process automation (RPA) in some form within the next five years, as attempts to automate manual tasks in verticals like operations, HR, and accounting have fallen short. Gartner also estimates that by 2024, low-code application development will be responsible for more than 65% of application development activity.
JIFFY.ai, the first-ever unified enterprise automation innovation company structured to have a lasting social impact over the next several decades, today launches to help enterprises optimize business functions, focused on finance and operations.
The company is pursuing a responsible path to AI innovation and has a customer base that already comprises Fortune and Global 1000 companies. Our goal is to set a new standard for business at the intersection of entrepreneurship and innovation,” said Babu Sivadasan, CEO and co-founder of JIFFY.ai.
“Across our entire team, we’re dedicated to tackling the effects of automation on the workforce, not just by accelerating the path to profit for businesses, but also through our foundation arm. We’ll invest in programs to re-train and up-skill workers whose jobs may be displaced.”
With a focus on creating lasting social impact and improving the lives of workers whose livelihoods have been affected by automation, the company’s largest equity shareholder is its non-profit organization, Paanini Foundation.
Babu Sivadasan shares how the foundation will offer job training and placement assistance programs for people impacted by automation in the workplace and how it will tackle demands from its corporate partners and existing client base.
Omnitracs helps drive the transportation and distribution industries through key innovative software and SaaS fleet management solutions.
Companies of all sizes trust them to improve visibility into real-time action for back-office and dispatch teams, create a more efficient driver experience through intuitive workflow and compliance tools, enable streamlined communications for better customer service, and help leadership teams make improved business decisions through actionable insights into fleet-data.
Michal (Mic) Yariv discusses how the supply chain and trucking industry leverages data analytics to react to the pandemic in real-time and keep much-needed goods moving. She also shares how she has led an initiative to supply truckers with real-time alerts about COVID-19 cases in regions they were driving through as well as updates on stay-at-home orders, mask requirements, and restaurant and rest stop closures.
We also discuss location intelligence and leveraging data to provide information about mechanics, food, rest stations, as well as calculate how long truckers are likely to spend at warehouses and where they need to go within those locations.
Finally, we talk about the technology that provides real-time micro-weather information for truckers, helping them make decisions on the road that increase safety and efficiency. For example, if heavy rain is approaching, a driver can turn off cruise control before hitting bad weather.
Live in Their World is helping companies and organizations use VR technology to tackle workplace cultural issues and help employees develop and practice new skills for a respectful engagement at work. Today, VR is an immersive technology that many HR executives are starting to embrace to train employees on workplace issues from racism to sexism to hidden systemic biases.
Especially in the wake of new Black Lives Matter protests, Live in Their World (LITW) hopes to use Virtual reality to help people better understand others by putting them in their colleagues' shoes, allowing organizations to use the technology to help create a more diverse and more inclusive work environment.
By immersing employees in realistic digital environments, virtual reality can lead to mind-bending experiences, such as making users feel as if they have swapped bodies with someone else, letting them see first hand what it's like to be discriminated against or treated in an uncivil way.
According to Harvard Business Journal, Incivility costs an estimated $14,000 per employee per year through sharp declines in employee performance and effort and lost time. Managers spend a total of seven weeks each year on average of addressing employee conflicts and their effects, not counting increased turnover or legal costs.
Even more specifically, nearly a third of adults in the US, UK, France, and Germany have experienced or witnessed racism in the workplace, according to research from Glassdoor, making it even harder to retain staff from ethnic minorities.
Robin Rosenberg, Ph.D., CEO and Founder of Live in Their World and shares with me how the company uses virtual reality to address issues of bias and incivility in the workplace and upskill employees for respectful engagement.
She is a clinical psychologist, and prior to starting her company, she had both psychotherapy and coaching practices, wrote college textbooks, and taught psychology classes at Lesley University and Harvard University.
Robin combined her interest in immersive technologies with her coaching and clinical experiences to foster in employees a deeper understanding of how and why other people may feel slighted or marginalized and how to approach such interactions differently.
She's also been interested in virtual reality (VR) for years and was the lead author of a study to investigate using "VR for good." She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Francisco.
Alliantgroup specializes in the Research & Development tax credit, which is a wage-based credit that allows businesses to essentially fund and pay for R&D to find a new way of doing things. Rick Lazio and the alliantgroup team have already helped thousands of companies across a variety of industries secure millions from this credit in the first few months of 2020 alone.
During the pandemic, it’s been more critical than ever for businesses to quickly innovate with technology to meet new consumer and society needs. Rick shares examples of their innovative work and how the R&D credit has allowed companies to expand and increase innovation to strengthen business across the country. But Rick has an inspirational story to share too.
Rick Lazio is a former US Representative from New York serving in Congress from 1993-2001. While there, he became a strong advocate for small businesses by sponsoring the successful Small Business Tax Fairness Act. After Congress, Rick moved to the private sector, working for JP Morgan Chase as a Managing Director and then Executive Vice President.
Rick is committed to his continued interest and support of small to mid-sized businesses by brokering his insight and experience in the public and private sectors to provide strong job growth incentives. This interest has extended into his civic and philanthropic work in New York with the Committee for Economic Development and the Association for a Better New York.
Alliantgroup’s mission is to strengthen American businesses by helping US companies, and the CPA firms advise them to take full advantage of federal and state tax credits, incentives, and deductions available to them.
The US government has legislated these powerful programs to help businesses grow and successfully compete in the US and abroad. I wanted to learn more about how they have helped over 16,000 companies claim more than $8 billion in tax incentives!
In this episode of the Citrix Ready Podcast series, I wanted to explore one of the tech's unsung heroes, application monitoring. Traditionally, a dashboard would warn IT teams something was wrong, and they would react to the problem as users jammed the service helpline asking for updates.
In 2020, businesses need to be more proactive and address a problem before it becomes a problem. When browsing the Citrix Market place, I learned that Scoutbees by Control Up helped monitor business app availability proactively and notifies teams in advance about any issues.
I invited Allen Furmanski from Citrix and Gadi Feldman from Control Up to learn more about the relationship between both companies and how together they are making monitoring great again.
Allen Furmanski is a Senior Alliance Platform Solutions Architect with the Global Alliances Team focusing on joint solutions and go-to-market initiatives with key industry partners. He is a passionate IT professional, Citrix evangelist, creative problem-solver, and public speaker. In his time, Allen enjoys traveling, digital photography, and trying new cuisines.
Gadi Feldman is the creator of Scoutbees.io at Control Up. The SaaS Application monitors the availability of your EUC published resources and notifies you in advance about any issue. We talk about all this and explore how the relationship between Citrix, Control Up, and their customers are evolving in a world of digital experiences.
New research from Adobe into the online shopping habits of UK consumers between March and June found that online marketplaces, such as Amazon, were four-times more popular than retailers’ own websites and apps, demonstrating the appeal of quick, convenient, one-stop shopping experiences to customers online as well as offline.
The research found that since March, 69% of Brits regularly shopped online, and that more than half of them (57%) made a purchase from an online marketplace, compared with just 13% who bought directly from retailers’ websites. This suggests that even with more time on their hands and restrictions to shopping in-store, consumers were drawn to the broad product ranges, robust delivery infrastructure and limited steps between logging-on and checking-out that characterise marketplaces.
Additionally, between March and June, the average online shopper made 11 purchases from an online marketplace, and just three from an online retailer.
Commenting on the findings, Peter Bell, Marketing Director, EMEA, at Adobe, said: “Many brands and retailers already deliver great digital experiences, but to break the dominance of the marketplaces and attract customers to their sites and apps, they need to capture their attention in ways that marketplaces can’t. That could be through hosting exclusive content, giving early access to sales or specific products, or even offering subscription or membership options that make the shopping experience even more convenient and seamless.
Peter Bell, Marketing Director for EMEA at Adobe joins e on
The Tech Talks Daily podcast. Peter has over 25 years of experience in marketing and retail, contributing to the success of a portfolio of brands from Microsoft and MSN to Xbox and Windows.
We discuss how businesses have adapted to this widespread adoption and evolution of digitisation, pushed into a few months as a result of Covid-19, alongside Adobe’s latest insights around shopping trends throughout the pandemic.
Peter also talks about how retail is set to evolve as a result of Covid-19 and how the pandemic will likely impact high street retailers along with the technologies they may adopt moving forward. I learn more about what steps retailers need to take to remain on the cutting edge of the customer experience.
Jim McCarthy is the co-founder and CEO of Stellar Tickets (www.stellartickets. com) and Goldstar (www.goldstar.com), a company that sells millions of live event tickets to millions of people on behalf of more than 5,000 venues and producers each year. An e-commerce veteran, Jim has spent his entire career in high-growth businesses and likes to share his knowledge and insight with others.
Jim is also the editor and main contributor to SellingOut.com a website for live entertainment and arts marketers. He’s the curator and co-founder of TEDxBroadway the sold-out annual event dedicated to the question: “What’s the Best Broadway Can Be?” He’s spoken at conferences all over the world, including TED, SXSW, INTIX and more. His articles have been in Forbes, Fast Company and Business Insider
Jim shares his current mission of enabling artists and organizations to create high-quality online content — helping them find success in this new era where online events are transforming the entertainment landscape. We also discuss online events during the COVID crisis, the future of live events, and pivoting using technology.
PiChain uses AI and Blockchain along with Deep Domain Expertise to ensure Sustainable Compliance Management. They help Compliance and Regulatory Professionals to make better decisions by ensuring upto 93% reduction in False Positives.
Shubhradeep (Shub) Nandi is the CEO, and Co-Founder of PiChain, a RegTech company on a mission to make compliance sustainable. The serial entrepreneur is also a mentor, global speaker, and a quest to achieve sustainable compliance for 500 Enterprises by 2025.
Shub joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his insights on how Regtech firms provide banks & various financial institutions with reliable & sustainable tech tools to ensure compliance. I learn more about how the company also researches and develops DeepTech systems that can proactively learn, solve and automate compliance problems for financial institutions.
Luminar AI challenges the traditional approach of presets and sliders with the ability to use adaptive Templates and human-centric edits powered by AI.
With traditional photo editors, creating the perfect photo is a time consuming process that involves moving dozens of sliders. Many seek to use presets to speed this up, but there are severe limitations. Presets tend to only work on images that are virtually identical to the original.
To change this tedious and frustrating process, innovative companies race to embrace Artificial Intelligence. But some creatives have been skeptical about its effectiveness and limitations. Their fears center around a loss of control and a homogenization of creative output. This does not need to be the case, if AI is properly trained.
With Luminar AI, Artificial Intelligence is woven throughout the entire editing process. The AI has been trained with expert input from artists, photographers, colorists and scientists. Luminar AI offers creatives the ability to save time and obtain consistent quality throughout their images. Luminar AI brings the perfect balance of technology and human innovation.
With Luminar AI, we wanted to ensure that AI not only was easy to use, but that it also provided creatives a way to express themselves. Through our unique 3D depth-mapping and segmentation technologies, we’re able to recognize the contents of a photo, recommend edits and then allow creatives to refine every aspect of that recommendation,” said Alex Tsepko, CEO of Skylum.
“Doing this lets creatives retain their unique style in their edits without tedious, manual work. Professional results, but in a fraction of the time.”
After hearing this, I invited Alex onto the podcast to learn more.
The widespread decision corporations have made to allow employees to work from home is a great thing. But the rapid move to remote working has left many businesses ever more vulnerable to cybersecurity threats, including increased risk of browser attacks, unsecured wireless networks and inability to remediate remote security incidents.
Within this new set of working from home dynamics, corporations need to be ever more agile in their security posture. One of the greatest deficiencies facing security teams in enterprises is their lack of agility, while at the same time, attackers are more agile than ever.
Attackers are highly innovative and can use the latest technology to their advantage, while security organizations are often hamstrung by the difficulty in adding a new solution to the network or making an important change, or slow to change procedures since change management is so difficult.
In fact, the opening up of company networks to comply with work-from-home mandates driven by COVID-19 has only exacerbated the problem, and refocused entire business strategies around being able to connect workers to each other and cloud-based applications securely. This is causing businesses to adopt new security tools at an unprecedented rate, requiring a greater need to have the visibility to understand what to deploy where.
Zeev Draer from Niagara Networks talks about the big operational differences between attackers and defenders and how that has put security groups at a severe disadvantage especially in today's remote work environments. He also discusses steps that enterprises can take to put a faster, easier pace of innovation in place while minimizing risk and, just as important, developing a different mindset to stay one step ahead of attackers.
In the current climate, it seems that most businesses have finally agreed that the old way of doing things is just not going to cut it anymore. But where do you begin to build an innovation strategy or a culture of innovation? And how can tech help business recovery in a post-covid world?
A company called Sidetrade uses artificial intelligence to empower marketing, sales, and finance teams to grow sales and accelerate cash. Sidetrade also identifies untapped business opportunities on the customer journey with Aimie, its Artificial Intelligence platform.
Mark Sheldon was appointed group CTO of Sidetrade in July 2019, after the British AI start-up he co-founded, BrightTarget, was sold to Sidetrade. After a consultancy and in-house career in the software and digital transformation space, he now oversees Sidetrade's global R&D strategy, leads a team of data engineers and data scientists, and oversees the company's annual Coding Academy for college and university leavers.
Mark also recently opened the company's newest tech hub in the centre of Birmingham, backed by £30m investment for new jobs in R&D and community engagement. Mark is also sharing his story and offering his advice for would-be and current entrepreneurs and those looking help grow tech in the West Midlands at the Birmingham Tech Week event.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Mark shared his insights around how to anticipate technological evolutions in AI. He discusses how to stay at the forefront of innovation, hiring, and keeping tech talent. Finally, Mark also shares the global R&D recruitment drive at Sidetrade and how listeners can get involved.
We’re in the midst of an information revolution, and monitoring is at the center of it. Businesses are moving from asking, “What happened?” to predicting what’s coming, solving problems before they start and using data to unlock opportunities.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a change already well underway in customer experience – namely that the digital experience is now inseparable from the customer experience. An effective business strategy now relies on a seamless customer experience.
Mark Banfield, CRO LogicMonitor, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss what this looks like in a post-COVID-19 world and how effective monitoring is essential to maintaining the digital customer experience.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning turn from sci-fi to everyday realities, LogicMonitor's technology is enabling businesses to see what’s coming before it happens. They collaborate closely with our customers to understand their risks and anticipate their needs, providing insights that unlock their vision.
We discuss how effective monitoring is essential to maintaining the digital customer experience. We also discuss why it's more important than ever to ensure your applications, tools, and services are available for your remote workforce.
From drug and device discovery and development to regulatory approval, drug reimbursement to lifecycle management – they all need to make smart decisions that give you an advantage in a fast-changing market.
The pharma and healthcare sector faces unparalleled upheaval: increasing pressures on research and development teams to show a better return on investment, difficulty keeping abreast of complex regulatory and pricing and reimbursement environments, and the race to get the best deal in a competitive business development arena.
Informa's Pharma Intelligence is the trusted partner of all of the top 50 global pharmaceutical companies and the top 10 contract research organizations (CRO's) – providing timely intelligence and insight to make authoritative decisions.
The pharma business model has worked for hundreds of years and was completely upended that because people are staying home, messaging people directly. How will tech help the industry adapt?
I invited Katleen Richardson to learn more about how technology is helping pharma companies to open their lines of communication and stop relying on sales representatives and doctors to reach consumers (whether this is through text messaging, chatbots, video messaging, etc.)
We discuss how pharma needs to understand the importance of one-on-one interaction, building relationships, and trust. I learn how pharma as an industry isn't inherently innovative; it focuses on product innovation as opposed to internal innovation.
Jason Du Preez, the CEO, and co-founder of data privacy provider Privitar joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Born in South Africa, he launched Privitar in London in 2014 and has since taken the company global, recently securing $87M in funding, including a $7M investment from Privitar customer HSBC bank which takes them to a grand total of $150 million.
After witnessing the lack of consideration for data protection when adopting big data platforms firsthand, Jason shares his insights and experiences within the space. We discuss how CEOs can make data privacy part of their leadership roadmap. On the topic of HR and bias data, we explore what it means for leadership.
We also talk about COVID-19 and its effect on how businesses approach data privacy, especially as we see an increase in contract tracing in the workplace and beyond. Finally we discuss the ethical concerns surrounding data privacy and how businesses can move forward without jeopardizing employees’/customers personal data or productivity.
The world order has changed overnight. The IT organization is under more pressure and scrutiny than ever before. In addition to ensuring security, there is a strong argument in favor of modernizing enterprise infrastructure. Trusted by leading managed service providers, Airgap’s patent-pending enterprise-grade Agentless Zero Trust Isolation platform addresses some of the fundamental security and networking challenges faced by the IT organizations.
Ritesh Agrawal, CEO, Airgap, joins me on Tech Talks Daily and shares Airgap’s core capabilities, the roadmap, and their vision. I learn more about how Airgap’s Zero Trust Isolation Platform offers defense against cyber-threat propagation. Airgap’s patent-pending agentless solution works for any user and any device accessing business assets from any location and it can be installed in a few minutes without any forklift upgrades.
The big insurance carriers cover Telehealth, but due to the lack of set standards for private health insurance companies, billing has been haphazard, reimbursement spotty and confidence low. Now that telehealth appears to be the future of how we support our most at-risk, we must make sure that it is accessible both logistically and financially.
However, there is a growing digital divide as elderly patients who do not have smartphones and wi-fi are slowly getting left behind. MedSign and Qortex are making this transition easier and much more affordable.
The Qortex platform was specifically designed to focus on reducing ER visits and early readmissions from recently discharged or chronically ill patients by providing 24/7 virtual connectivity to their healthcare providers while recovering in the comfort of their homes and does not require expensive or complicated smartphones, tablets, or computers. Simply plug Qortex into a TV and receive healthcare services anytime.
The Qortex system is currently available to hospitals, physician groups, CHHAs, home care agencies, insurers, government agencies and others throughout Florida, New York and California. Tom Conroy shares their solution along with how and why millions have been denied access to cost-effective Telehealth solutions that ensure patients are safe and secure from Coronavirus and other issues.
Sanjeev Sularia, serial entrepreneur and technology evangelist. He is currently the CEO & Co-Founder of Intelligence Node, a big data lab leveraging machine and deep learning to help the retail industry with pricing and merchandise optimization globally.
Sanjeev started the retail intelligence company in 2012 as a small startup with a mission to empower retailers to grow in the Age of Amazon using data-driven competitive insights. Fast forward eight years later, and Intelligence Node has built the world’s largest retail product database, which feeds the growth of more than $600 billion in retail revenue globally.
Sanjeev Sularia joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how the global pandemic has created a permanent shift in the consumer shopping experience. The strategies retailers should implement to adapt to this new reality, and his predictions for what retail will look like in 2020 – and beyond.
We also explore the key findings from the Intelligence Node’s consumer survey, which reveals that consumers are eager to shop, but more cautious about how they spend their money this holiday season. We also talk about how convenience and selection stores paved the way for pricing optimization; and why other retailers should follow suit.
Clear is a blockchain-based settlement company transforming transactions for telcos. Last month, three of the world’s largest telecommunications companies, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, and Vodafone successfully finalized a trial automated settlement of roaming discount agreements using a solution developed by Clear.
Eran Haggiag, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Clear blockchain technologies joins on today's episode. Eran understands the reconciliation of mobile roaming payments is a time-consuming, costly, manual process that results in major delays in revenue recognition, discrepancies between partners on invoices, and high costs in disputes that follow.
The WEF estimates commercial disputes cost up to $870bn per year. I learn how Clear is changing the way telecoms operators interact with each other, moving from a manual paper-based process to algorithmic blockchain-based smart solutions, allowing them to interact seamlessly with less disputes and more time to focus on results.
We discuss how the telecoms industry is benefiting from Clear’s solution, how the solution works, and what the tangible outcomes have been following recent projects with leading industry operators Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, and Vodafone;
We also talk about why the telecoms industry is the perfect example for how automated payment and contract solutions can transform how companies interact with each other, making it faster and more transparent, while allowing players to focus resources on what matters most.
Tristan Pelligrino joins me in a conversation about the power of podcasts and how you or your business can launch a podcast with a helping hand. We also discuss how important it is for tech companies to be able to articulate their value to the world.
Tristan is the Co-Founder of Motion, an agency that helps tech companies get noticed, engage their prospects, and become thought leaders in their industry. He is also the host of Tech Qualified - A Podcast for B2B Tech Marketers.
With Motion, Tristan can combine his firsthand experience in technology with his marketing expertise to help tech companies develop unique content, position themselves as the choice in their industry, and ultimately show the world their value.
Tristan shares how he helps tech companies use genuine conversations to generate business demand and talks about the power of conversation to fuel content marketing. Tristan also shares how they are helping tech companies get noticed, engage their prospects, and become thought leaders in their industry.
Where did it all begin? Tristan's early career began with consulting, working for large firms such as Oracle and IBM. During his early years, Tristan learned how much of a challenge it was to articulate technology's value. From there, he created a done-for-you podcasting service that is built for technology companies.
Starting a podcast can be challenging when thinking about storytelling, cover art, interview techniques, hosting, recording platforms, and equipment. Both Tristan and I share our experiences in hosting and managing podcasts and how not to make the mistakes that so many new podcasters make.
Decentralized finance applications are currently being built on protocols that were not designed to meet the needs and requirements of DeFi services. Radix uses significant technology innovations to be the first layer 1 protocol specifically built to serve the rapidly growing DeFi industry.
Radix focuses on the three drivers of DeFi growth:
Access: Despite the rapid growth of cryptocurrency, it is difficult and expensive to get money in and out of the DeFi ecosystem. Radix’s user-centric, vertically integrated approach makes on-ramping and off-ramping simple, secure, and as frictionless as possible.
Liquidity: Liquidity is the lifeblood of the global economy, yet most of the world’s tokens and assets have limited liquidity fragmented across platforms that do not effectively interoperate. Radix provides native functionality for projects, developers, and market makers to create and access liquidity pools at the call of an API.
Choice: The network effects of a public ledger are based on both the number of users and the number of connections between assets/applications on the platform. By standardizing and simplifying the way financial assets are represented on Radix, these asset code blocks can be easily scaled.
Friction in the financial system costs $71 billion annually, and DeFi can only change this if we lower the barriers to entry and make it easier to get assets in and out of the ecosystem.
Piers Ridyard is a Y Combinator alum and the CEO of Radix. I invited him on the podcast to share his mission and how they are turning challenges into opportunities.
With $6 million in startup funding, I learn how Radix is accelerating DeFi by making on-ramping and off-ramping secure and frictionless, providing access to liquidity for investors, developers, and market makers.
There has been a lot of doom and gloom this year. But in Phoenix, rather than closing its borders, they are inviting tech companies to do business in what is affectionately called the connected place. As a result, Phoenix is thriving.
Earlier this year, seven software-as-a-service (Saas) companies selected by the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) participated in a virtual trade mission with designated experts from London and Greater Phoenix to discuss key market entry strategies in the UK as an initial starting point into Europe. Greater Phoenix is now home to more than 350 Saas companies and is one of the country’s fastest-growing software and IT hubs.
The Metro Phoenix Export Alliance (MPEXA) Global RISE, a program of GPEC and funded by JPMorgan Chase, also supports Greater Phoenix-based companies seeking to grow their business by engaging in the global marketplace. RISE stands for Resources, Innovation, Strategies, and Execution.
The local companies were selected earlier this year, and we’re scheduled to attend a coordinated sales mission to the UK in March to establish institution channels. Due to the pandemic, GPEC pivoted and stood up the virtual program to further its commitment to creating a more robust export-centric economy. International trade represents an opportunity for local businesses to create jobs, attract capital, and grow the Greater Phoenix economy.
Working closely with experts, each participant developed a digital roadmap for the UK, participated in educational seminars, and received resources covering the most-pressing issues tech companies face in growing their business globally. They were also each given a $3,500 grant to help execute strategies.
The first-year program has been in the works for more than a year in a collaboration between the Global Cities Initiative, a joint effort of Brookings and JPMorgan Chase, and Greater Phoenix stakeholders. Chris Camacho serves as the President & CEO at one of the longest standing public-private partnerships for economic development across the country.
GPEC has fueled the regional economy by helping more than 850 companies, creating more than 154,000 jobs and $20.4 billion in capital investment.
Some of the more notable projects include Apple, Deloitte, Infosys, Creighton Medical School, Silicon Valley Bank, Zenefits, GoDaddy, Yelp, Amazon, Garmin, General Motors, and many others.
At Cygilant, they are passionate about helping organizations of all sizes build a comprehensive enterprise-class security program. The company has an ambitious goal to be the #1 customer-centric organization in the IT Security industry.
Acting as an extension of their customers’ IT teams, Cygilant, a pioneer in hybrid security as a service, provides continuous security operations based on best-of-breed technology at a fraction of the cost of alternate solutions. Cygilant is also a trusted advisor to organizations that need to improve their IT security and compliance posture and protect against cyber threats and vulnerabilities.
However, there is an inspiring story at the heart of this company. Former Formula 1 race car driver, Rob Scott is president and CEO of cybersecurity provider Cygilant. But I wanted to learn more about how being a professional race car driver has impacted his career and share some of the lessons learned while racing that have shaped his career as a top executive.
Rob joined Cygilant with a proven track record of accelerating a company's growth and helping them capitalize on new markets and opportunities.
Since becoming CEO of Cygilant last year, Rob has helped re-create the company by strengthening its leadership team, cornering a crowded cybersecurity market by appealing to resource-constrained medium-sized businesses, and most recently, opening a new office and security operations center (SOC) in Belfast, Northern Ireland – in the middle of a pandemic.
In addition to his Formula 1 career, Rob is a great storyteller with no shortage of tales from his diverse background and job experiences that resonated with me.
There is currently a need for consolidation and convergence of cybersecurity solutions. Businesses are searching for a more scalable and flexible platform approach that delivers threat prediction, prevention, detection, and response in a single solution. Only then can IT untangle the number of point-solutions.
A company called Netsurion has made a giant stride in leading this convergence by bringing AI-driven threat prevention into an already strong managed threat detection & response platform. Netsurion is a managed security service provider that converges network management, threat protection, and compliance readiness for SMBs and service providers.
A.N. Ananth is the chief strategy officer of Netsurion. With an extensive background in product development and operations for telecom network management, he has consulted for many companies on their compliance strategy, audit policy and automated reporting processes. Ananth is a leading expert in IT security and compliance with over 25 years of experience in IT control and operations and frequently speaks on these topics.
Flexibility and security within the IT environment are two of the most important factors driving business today. I learn more about Netsurion’s cybersecurity platform and how it enables companies to deliver on both. Ananth shares how Netsurion’s approach of combining purpose-built technology and an ISO-certified security operations center gives customers the ultimate flexibility to adapt and grow, all while maintaining a secure environment.
During 2020 more than 50 million freelance workers will enter the workforce. By 2025 open talent systems are predicted to be the predominant employment model. Re-source is a new consulting business run by Barry Matthews who has a track record of spotting disruptive trends and launching businesses that enable them.
2020 has seen the world of work transform before our eyes. The global freelance workforce has been augmented by millions of skilled workers looking to engage in new, creative ways while businesses look to reduce their fixed costs and move to flexible, resilient, as-a-service delivery models. A diverse range of technology platforms match this supply and demand, enabling immediate access to the best global talent and competitive advantage for those that get it right
Sourcing models are being disrupted, intelligent automation is rapidly maturing and open talent eco-systems are accelerating fast. Accessing the power of the crowd alongside more traditional internal, freelance, outsourced and automated delivery models requires a new way of thinking and a new way of sourcing
Barry and I chat about the potential of the open talent economy to transform global business and how and why he believes re-source can help them to do it.
Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) is a networking systems, services, and software company. They provide solutions that help its customers create the Adaptive Network™ in response to their users' constantly changing demands. By delivering networking technology through high-touch consultative relationships, the company prides itself on building the world's most agile networks with automation, openness, and scale.
Craig Williams, Chief Information Officer at Ciena, joins me on today's Tech Talks Daily episode. Craig talks about the CIO's evolving role and how they need to focus more on connection with team members and less on dry technology. He also shares his insight into setting up a remote team and how Ciena had a large chunk of its staff remote even before COVID-19 hit.
Craig has 25+ years in business and technology transformation spanning multiple industries in complex and varied environments, including High-Tech, Department of Defense (DoD), Commercial and Academic industries.
As CIO, he seeks to level the employee/customer engagement experience through a work anywhere, anytime on any device philosophy. He enjoys cultivating and inspiring teams to solve business problems while creating a "delight the customer" attitude. I learn more about his people philosophy, " Hire and retain "PHDs"- people who have Passion, Heart, and Drive for what they do.
ANote Music is the European marketplace for investing in music royalties and was founded in Luxembourg by Marzio F. Schena, Matteo Cernuschi, and Grégoire Mathonet in January 2018. ANote Music has identified the power of music as the next big investment opportunity and created a bridge between the music industry and the capital markets.
It enables publishers, record labels, and artists to sell music rights, introducing them to a new system of financing, as well as offering users a new investment opportunity and the chance to own shares in promising artists. In January 2020, ANote Music closed a €500,000-plus funding round, led by the European music industry’s foremost players.
ANote Music is also supported by Luxinnovation, the Luxembourg national innovation agency, providing access to government funding for the startup. They also recently announced it will officially launch to the public on 28th July, 2020.
It will allow users to invest in music, own rights from content creators, and earn returns through the royalties that are generated over time. The platform also offers new and innovative funding methods for artists, connecting them to financial markets for the first time.
Marzio Flavio Schena is CEO and Co-founder of ANote Music, the European marketplace for investing in music royalties. Prior to co-founding ANote Music in 2018, Marzio was a fund manager at Woodpecker Capital, specialising in global equities and derivatives. He is a member of the Global Shapers Luxembourg Hub, a community of entrepreneurs formed by the World Economic Forum to drive dialogue, action, and change.
Marzio also has 5 years of experience in the event management industry in Milan, Italy. He holds an MSc in Finance from Bocconi University, studied at UCLA (US), and was enrolled in an MBA Program at INCAE (Costa Rica).
Attention is the most limited resource in marketing. But what if you could see your design through the eyes of your customers and make data-driven decisions. A company called Attention Insight has created a first of its kind AI based platform for consumer attention monitoring. It is also a part of Google for the Startups spring cohort.
Predict visual attention with eye tracker precision. Attention Insight is visual attention prediction algorithm based on deep learning. Within minutes it will accurately predict where people will look while engaging in your content.
The AI-powered design analytics allows you to see websites through the eyes of users. Learn how users engage with designs, improve user experience, measure against your competitors and make data-driven decisions. It's also based on deep learning technology and trained with 30 800 eye-tracking studies data. Attention heatmaps are 90% accurate as compared with eye-tracking research studies.
Kamilė Jokubaitė, CEO, Attention Insight, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. We talk about how AI is shaping the future of marketing. I also learn more about the story behind Attention Insight.
My guest, Max Kirby is one of the thought-leaders in Digital Identity and Data Privacy, he leads Cloud Solutions at Publicis Groupe - that’s one of the big players in the agency world - and he is helping his clients adapt to new technologies and data privacy laws as they come out. He’s also a big believer in the next phase of the internet: the decentralized web.
Max is an expert in Digital Identity, or who we “are” on the web. He speaks from his philosophy background and technology career to help make this complex topic simple. Advancements in technology are leaving everything else to catch up, and it can be messy and difficult to understand. The proliferation of sensors, biometrics (soon to be bionics), public cloud and AI are creating new gaps in our laws and political lives and shifting our moral principles along with who we are.
Abstracting the underlying essence of technological concepts, Max helps the layperson understand advances in technology and how our principles might change as technology progresses. Max spends his professional days working with the internet giants (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) and platforms to better his client’s strategies and help them become modern, customer-centric organizations.
Max’s optimistic passion comes through his explanations of how technology can advance business and politics without compromising what makes us human. His areas of expertise cover the growth and meaning of cloud computing, the opportunities and perils of using personal data, and the next frontier of the internet: the Decentralized Web.
After reading on Business Insider and USA TODAY the tech behind Fever Free and how it helped keep 2000+ WeeCare daycare businesses safe and open, I felt compelled to find out more.
WeeCare Co-Founder, Matt Reilly, shares how they built the Fever Free app to help businesses, schools, and cities reopen. Fever Free allows organizations to verify all individuals are healthy before interacting each day through virtual fever and symptom checks, powered by its patent-pending AI.
K-12 schools and preschool centers are signed up to implement Fever Free as part of their reopening plans, restaurants are using it to keep employees and customers safe, assisted living facilities are signing up to keep elderly patients and staff healthy; the list goes on.
If you're not familiar WeeCare is the largest network of in-home childcare in the United States. They help parents and childcare providers find and provide childcare without all of the stress that normally comes along with it.
We discuss how since the pandemic, they built AI-powered temperature check technology in their app, so that families and daycares can verify they are healthy before interacting each day. I also learn how businesses in all industries are now using the app to reopen safely.
Learn more about WeeCare: https://weecare.co/
WeeCare full directory of daycares across the United States: https://weecare.co/daycare-near-me
Learn more about Fever Free virtual fever and symptom checks: https://feverfree.ai/
Technology is becoming increasingly prevalent in our day-to-day lives both at home and at work. As organizations shift operations to support more remote working, employees are finding that once where collaboration was face-to-face, technology has taken its place and their work-life is now predominantly digital.
While technology plays a helpful and critical role in our daily work life, it can also distract us and become counterproductive. As our lives become more technology integrated, employers have a responsibility to ensure the products and systems they deploy to support the digital wellbeing of employees. Join us to discover how Citrix and Flexxible IT are taking on this new responsibility in these ever-changing times.
In the era of the post-lockdown, digital transformation will be crucial in enabling organizations to reopen safely. Enabling line managers to work remotely, staff to keep better track of new hygiene regimes, and sensors to monitor social distancing provisions in real-time will contribute to keeping both frontline workers and consumers safe.
Digital transformation can be used by organizations to empower the frontline workforce. Enabling frontline staff to log incidents, communicate with their line managers, and digitally check-in when carrying out a task will help frontline morale and an organization's bottom line. But how?
I invited Over-C CEO, Michael Elliott, on to the podcast to learn more. Over-C is a leading provider of workplace management and analytics. It is currently deployed across a number of sectors to help clients with frontline staff management, including Thomond Park (the home of Munster Rugby), ScotRail, and Southside Shopping Centre.
From serving as a search-and-rescue pilot to founding Over-C, Michael has been a truly unique career. The story of Over-C began when Mike ran his own manned security guarding company – Akita Security. He soon realized that he – and the industry – had a major problem: when asked for insights into the efficiency of the service he was providing, Michael couldn't get his hands on the information he needed to answer them. He had no visibility.
When an incident occurred, he was often the last to know: by then, it was too late to either act or rectify what had happened. Mike shares how he made it his mission to change this industry for the better. He sold his security company and founded Over-C.
EKI-Digital has helped large organizations identify and capture billions in revenue and cost efficiencies. Started in 1998, EKI-Digital has served clients around the globe specializing in government, retail, and financial services.
I wanted to learn more about their unique combination of technology and industry expertise that allows EKI-Digital to offer solutions to help clients move from uncertainty to possibility.
Mo Sahgal leads the Data Engineering practice at EKI-Digital. The practice brings AI-driven data solutions to help clients identify, build, and commercialize the value of data for competitive and strategic advantage. He is also spearheading EKI’s #ShiftHappens campaign to educate businesses on using their data to survive and thrive during these rapidly changing times.
Mo has published many Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse articles in several industry journals, including DM Review, B-EYE Network, and BI Review. He is a communicator across all levels of an organization — adept at building delivery organizations and mobilizing and managing multicultural, international teams.
I wanted to learn more about how they are helping businesses at a time when there is a need for faster, easier data integration, and monetization is increasing at an accelerated pace.
On the subject of AI Solutions, we talk about running a data-driven enterprise and data-driven innovation for enterprises & universities. We also explore the first steps to creating a data-driven organization, managing and optimizing your data-led innovation programs.
As an attorney and serial entrepreneur, Ajay Agrawal has spent years working with contracts within the private legal sector and built his first company, UnitedLex Corporation, to more than $300M in revenue. In his latest venture, SirionLabs, Ajay is working to streamline contracts for modern businesses' needs.
With 4x customer growth over the last 18 months, SirionLabs is a leading contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform that uses AI to bring businesses into the future. But what problems are they solving with technology?
Despite the rapid digitization of contracts in our largely subscription-based economy, only 15% of Fortune 500 companies are tracking their contracts' performance - resulting in up to 15-20% of the contract value being lost as value leakage, which translates to $2-3T lost annually.
While legacy tools to help manage contracts exist, they usually focus only on contract creation and storage. There's a massive opportunity to take CLM to another level by allowing companies to go beyond signature into the operation stage of a contract to easily manage their risks, obligations, and entitlements.
The company is already trusted by 200+ leading organizations including BP, Vodafone, and Unilever. SirionLabs has saved its customers over $2.2B. With decades of experience, Ajay shares his expert insights into new and exciting technologies that modern enterprises need to bring improved visibility and collaboration across enterprises.
Ajay discusses the larger role that AI will play in strengthening relationships between buyers and suppliers and the key to building trust over the long term. He also walks through successful case study examples as to how he's helped these businesses achieve operational excellence and why this can be transformative in challenging economic times that we live in now.
White Ops is the global leader in bot mitigation. They protect more than 200 enterprises—including the largest internet platforms—from sophisticated bots by verifying the humanity of one trillion online interactions every week.
The most sophisticated bots look and act like humans when they click on ads, visit websites, fill out forms, take over accounts, and commit payment fraud. They stop them. The White Ops Bot Mitigation Platform can detect, prevent and outwit bot populations of every level of sophistication.
They get inside their adversaries’ OODA loops with proactive adaptation. Their unique approach to bot mitigation put them in the lead role to collaborate with the FBI, Google, Facebook and many other partners in the takedown of 3ve, one of the largest botnets ever defeated.
White Ops is a pro-privacy, pro-human organization. Their privacy-sensitive code detects bots without tracking humans. And that privacy-centric approach has earned the trust of our partners and allowed us to reach an enormous global scale. Their code runs in countless websites and apps every day, affords us a footprint larger than any single anti-virus or threat detection platform on the internet.
I wanted to find out more about their mission at White Ops to protect the internet by verifying the humanity of every online interaction and disrupt the economics of cybercrime. On my quest for knowledge, I also uncovered an inspiring backstory that began in 2012 in a Brooklyn sci-fi bookstore.
Michael Tiffany, President, and Co-Founder White Ops, shares the story behind White Ops, The takedown of the 3ve botnet in partnership with the FBI and Google. We also discuss other more recent fraud investigations such as ICEBUCKET (Largest Connected TV botnet to date) and Terracotta.
Most AI breakthroughs are driven by deep learning. However, current models and deployment methods suffer from significant limitations, like large energy and memory consumption, high costs, and hyper-specific hardware. Hardware advancements have gotten deep learning deployments this far, but for AI to meet its full potential, a software accelerator approach is required.
Dr. Eli David, a pioneering researcher in deep learning and neural networks, has focused his research on the development of deep learning technologies that improve the real-world deployment of AI systems, and believes the key lies in software. Bringing his research to fruition, Eli has developed DeepCube, a software-based inference accelerator that can be deployed on top of existing hardware (CPU, GPU, ASIC) in both datacenters and edge devices to improve deep learning speed, efficiency, and memory drastically.
For example, some of his results include:
•Increasing the inference speed on a regular CPU to match and surpass that of a GPU, which costs several times more
•Increasing the inference speed on a GPU to equal the performance of 10 GPUs
Nasuni enables organizations to store, protect, synchronize, and collaborate on files across all locations at scale. Nasuni Cloud File Services™, powered by the Nasuni UniFS® global file system, leverages cloud storage to modernize primary NAS and file server storage; archiving; backup; and disaster recovery, while offering transformational new capabilities for multi-site file sharing.
By combining the low cost, unlimited capacity, and durability of object storage from leading cloud vendors such as Amazon, Azure, Dell EMC, and IBM, with the high performance, security, and broad application compatibility of traditional file storage, the Nasuni subscription service improves workforce productivity, simplifies IT operations, and reduces IT costs.
The world’s largest companies in 12 industry sectors rely on Nasuni to maximize the business value of their file data and ensure business continuity.
Traditional backups, often an organization’s last line of defense again a disaster, are outdated and costing them time and money. Configuring incremental and full backup schedules, or pulling backups across the WAN to a central site, are cumbersome at best, unreliable at worst. So are babysitting backups to find out if they worked, and rotating and refreshing tape and disk media. And in the end, it still takes days or hours to recover.
David Shaw, chief science officer of Nasuni, discusses the alternatives to backups. We talk about continuous file versioning, which continuously loads file deltas to the cloud for safe and easily accessible storage, making the recovery processes easier, and more critically, faster (within minutes), minimizing costly downtime.
David also shares real-life anecdotes about customers who were able to recover files within minutes and maintain productivity without breaking stride.
Tech is often blamed for creating echo chambers and encouraging binary thinking. I wanted to learn more about how you can be informed — not influenced — with Newsy's anti-partisan approach to news. Get the facts without pundits and opinions. For people who aren't satisfied getting only the loudest part of the story, Newsy delivers honest, in-depth context on stories that matter.
How do they do it? What is the role of technology? And how has the network has been able to run smoothly during the pandemic? Blake Sabatinelli, CEO of Newsy, the next-generation national news network, reveals more and shares their mission.
Before joining Newsy, Blake oversaw video strategy at Newsy's parent company, The E.W. Scripps Company. Blake has a long history in both news and digital strategy. A native Texan, he started his career as a digital producer at ABC Action News in Tampa. He was later promoted to executive producer, managing a team of producers and overseeing editorial operations. Blake later led the digital strategy and operations at WJLA and News Channel 8 in Washington, D.C.
Typewise was started in Switzerland with the vision is to enable a digital world that genuinely respects user privacy. Its mission is to build the most secure and intelligent human-machine interface by developing text prediction technology using artificial intelligence (AI) that is private-by-design.
They envision Typewise's technology to power every human-machine interaction across mobile, desktop, wearable, and brain-computer interfaces. Their purpose is to deliver productivity through intelligence that safeguards user privacy.
Their first product, Typewise Keyboard, is the next-generation keyboard explicitly designed for two-thumb typing on smartphones.
The Typewise Keyboard idea originated after realizing that our current keyboard was designed for typewriters in the 19th century and is not fit for the mobile age. Yet, it is the most central interface of the smartphone. We use it 76 times every day across all kinds of apps.
Typewise Keyboard reduces typos by 4X through their patented honeycomb layout. It enables typing in multiple languages simultaneously and features autocorrection and text completion that genuinely understands the user. Most importantly, it doesn't transmit any typing data to the cloud but performs its AI magic fully offline.
In light of recent privacy scandals (e.g., Cambridge Analytica), more users turning to privacy-friendly apps (such as Signal/Telegram), and increased skepticism of Chinese-made apps (many keyboard apps are Chinese).
David Eberle shares how the tech start-up has also closed an $850K seed round to build out its typo-busting, 'privacy-safe' next word prediction engine designed to run entirely offline.
Marga Hoek is a member of Thinkers50. She is that rare combination: a true visionary on sustainable business and capital and a successful, innovative business leader who understands and applies the commercial realities of business. Marga is also the award-winning author of The Trillion Dollar Shift.
The Trillion Dollar Shift is the first ever business book on the opportunities the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals open to business and capital. It features over 50 inspiring business case studies, across every sector – from agriculture to energy to ICT and advanced technologies.
They explore how businesses – from global giant Unilever to ground-breaking social enterprises like Grunfos, GSMA and Evaptainers – are tackling challenges, successfully working towards sustainable development goals and strategizing for the future.
Marga is considered one of the most influential thought leaders leading the way in the transition towards a sustainable world. She is unique in demonstrating how today’s ICT’s and technological innovations can be a huge force for good and has a strong track record in the financial sector.
Marga shares her experience working with the UN and sustainability goals. We explore the challenges tech entrepreneurs will face after the crisis is over and talk about creating a shared value business model in these uncertain times. We also discuss her award-winning book, The Trillion Dollar Shift, the focus of her TEDx talks, and the lessons she learned from interviewing ten prominent CEOs across the world.
According to Bain's recent survey, automation of business processes is rapidly scaling up, with the fallout from the coronavirus likely accelerating adoption. Thanks to automation, companies revealed cost savings of roughly 20% on average over the past two years.
The report projects that automation could spread through US companies 2-3 times more rapidly than in previous transformations in agriculture, manufacturing, and construction.
That being said, more than 7.5 trillion dollars of business-to-business sales orders are still manually processed in North America alone, and on average, customer service representatives spend a third of their day keying in purchase orders.
Manufacturers and distributors understand this problem better than most, as they're drowning in customer inquiries at a time when staff are working from home without their typical tools. Automation can reduce costs, create resource efficiencies, scale to thousands of trading partners, and improve the customer experience.
Sandy Shen, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, said it best: "This is a wake-up call for organizations that have placed too much focus on daily operational needs at the expense of investing in digital business and long-term resilience. Businesses that can shift technology capacity and investments on digital platforms will mitigate the outbreak's impact and keep their companies running smoothly now, and over the long term."
Conexiom, a cloud-based sales order automation solution that companies like Grainger, Genpak, Diversey, Prysmian, Compugen, and many others use to eliminate manual order processing, is validating Bain's findings with unprecedented year-over-year company growth of more than 70%.
Ricardo Craft talks about accelerating automation for business resiliency, as companies aim to re-emerge from the COVID-19 fallout with modernized processes tied directly to measurable business value.
Founded in 2007, Evergent set out to tackle challenges faced by global digital media, entertainment, and telecommunication providers. These providers were struggling to find new revenue streams and best adapt to developments transforming the industry on all levels:
- Technological Advances — from new devices to new ways to access content forever changing the competitive landscape.
- Evolving Consumer Demand — individual choice and independence had become increasingly important for digital content consumption.
- New Delivery Models — including direct-to-consumer channels required establishing and managing the integration of all subscriber interactions throughout the user lifecycle.
Evergent responded by developing a modern, frictionless, business enablement solution that would help its customers delight their customers. The Evergent Revenue and Customer Management Platform offers a solution that helps companies reduce time to market for products and services, minimize subscriber churn, simplify complex monetization models, and run back-office processes more efficiently.
Evergent customers include cable and satellite companies, telecommunication and wireless organizations, and media and entertainment businesses worldwide.
Today's guest is Vijay Sajja, who shares the story behind the company. We discuss the current state of the OTT streaming landscape the impacts of COVID-19 on OTT streaming services. We also discuss how OTT streaming services can compete in this overcrowded market and how subscription services can benefit from digital transformation.
Right now, your potential customers are actively searching and either finding you or your competition. Are you trying to build your online reputation, become the ultimate authority of your niche? Or increase conversions through authority marketing and dramatically increase your business?
Today's guest talks about how you can do all that and more.
Kris Reid is known online as the coolest guy in SEO. He was on a mission to get ranked to the first page of Google, be on front-page news, get trending, and get his name boosted to the world. But how did he do it? I invited Kris on to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to learn more about his tech journey.
Kris shares how he followed his passion. He shares SEO tips and tricks, along with reputation management. We also discuss the importance of content planning, performance analysis, and how to create predictable revenue streams.
https://ardorseo.com/tech-talks-daily/
Dr. Darren Schulte is the CEO of Apixio where they are using data to move medicine from a practice to a science. Improving healthcare outcomes requires access to the right data at the right time. Apixio is advancing value-based care with data-driven intelligence and analytics.
I wanted to learn more about how their AI solutions for risk, quality, and clinical insights unlock actionable information from administrative data and unstructured clinical information. The results drive better clinical decision-making and a smarter approach to healthcare. We also discuss how COVID-19 has impacted healthcare.
About Dr. Darren Schulte
Before joining Apixio, Darren served in executive leadership roles at Alere Health, Anvita Health, and Resolution Health. Darren co-developed twenty-five clinical measures endorsed by the National Quality Forum to measure ambulatory care quality using electronic data. He is a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of healthcare analytics and quality improvement.
Darren received his B.S. degree from U.C. Berkeley, his M.P.P. degree from Harvard, his M.D. from Stanford, and trained in Internal Medicine at University of California, San Francisco. Darren serves as a Board of Trustee at the Chinese American International School in San Francisco. He is the co-author of two US patents.
Infor is a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry. With 17,300 employees and over 68,000 customers in more than 170 countries, Infor software is designed for progress.
Hyper-automation is set to be one of the largest tech trends emerging in the wake of COVID-19. With a renewed focus on driving organizational efficiencies, businesses should shift to a hyper-automation mindset to streamline day-to-day operations, improve customer and employee satisfaction, and protect the bottom line.
To remain competitive in the post-COVID landscape, businesses must develop robust cloud strategies that can combine data across AI, ML, NLP, process mining, and other technologies needed for hyper-automation.
Rick Rider, Vice President, Product Management at Infor, believes the scope of automation will evolve from discrete tasks and transactions based on static rules to automating knowledge work. This will require moving beyond RPA to developing a hyper-automation strategy that focuses on optimizing digital processes from IT infrastructure to customer-facing applications.
Rick discusses the 3 pillars of a winning hyper-automation strategy:
- Clear roadmap: Work with business leaders and trusted partners to define a clear roadmap to achieve specific business goals.
- Augment with AI and ML: Determine how AI/ML functions will perform in conjunction with other components of your business and augment human capabilities to achieve end-to-end process automation.
- Maximize impact with cloud technology: Establish a clear view of all data sources, then leverage cloud technology to deliver that data to applications for intelligent process automation.
Clarivate provides trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. They have built some of the most trusted brands across the innovation lifecycle, including the Web of Science™, Cortellis™, Derwent™, CompuMark™, MarkMonitor™, and Techstreet™. Today, Clarivate is on a bold entrepreneurial mission to help customers reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing innovations.
The company is on a mission to change how the world’s risk-takers and trailblazers create life-changing innovations. They believe that human ingenuity can change the world and improve our future. Clarivate is a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. Our vision is to improve the way the world creates, protects, and advances innovation.
Jerre is Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Clarivate plc. Jerre served as CEO of Churchill Capital Corp until its merger with Clarivate in May 2019. He has led and been on the board of over 50+ companies. He is also a high-net-worth philanthropist who started a children’s hospital in Iowa and created mental health centers across the US.
We discuss how cross-global teams can collaborate amid a pandemic after an acquisition and bridging company cultures after an acquisition. We also talk about why are entrepreneurs are so important to the post-COVID economy and how COVID will impact the way people work.
Finally, we explore the top trends Jerre is seeing in the health tech sector.
Qualcomm is a wireless technology innovator and the driving force behind the development, launch, and expansion of 5G. When we connected the phone to the internet, the mobile revolution was born. Today, their foundational technologies enable the mobile ecosystem and are found in all 3G, 4G, and 5G smartphones.
They bring the benefits of mobile to new industries, including automotive, the internet of things, and computing, leading the way to a world where everything and everyone can communicate and interact seamlessly. But there is much more the company than 5G and mobile connectivity.
With networks pressured more than ever by simultaneous work and school-from-home, surging on-demand video streaming, and latency-sensitive real-time gaming, the newly opened 6 GHz spectrum is the solution to meet the moment.
The latest platforms introduce Qualcomm® Tri-Band Wi-Fi 6, offering simultaneous operation in 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz frequency bands. Setting a new industry benchmark for scalability and performance, the Qualcomm Networking Pro Series Platforms are the first to offer support for up to 2,000 simultaneous users while designed to deliver full network capacity in an unprecedented 16-stream Wi-Fi 6E configuration.
Choosing from four scalable Wi-Fi 6E offerings, manufacturers can develop products with applications ranging from home Wi-Fi mesh systems to enterprise access points targeting business, large-venue, and campus networks.
"The newly opened 6 GHz spectrum and the advent of Wi-Fi 6E are important industry milestones that promise to usher in a new wave of Wi-Fi innovation that will bring exceptional wireless experiences to life.”
“We see this announcement from Qualcomm Technologies as a positive step forward in what’s possible for networking across the industry,” said David Henry, senior vice president of Connected Home Products and Services for NETGEAR.
Rahul Patel senior vice president and general manager of the Connectivity & Networking Business Unit for Qualcomm Technologies Inc talks about all this and the new Snapdragon 865 Plus 5G Mobile Platform.
In this episode of the Citrix Ready Podcast series, I explore how technology can empower people and organizations to unlock innovation, engage customers, and be productive—anytime, anywhere.
A2K Partners are creating future of work solutions for right now problems and helping companies thrive in a crisis and economic downturn. I wanted to learn how they are helping organizations retool, optimize, and automate to innovate through any disruption.
A2K Partners is also a Citrix partner. Both companies are leading businesses throughout this turbulent period together and helping them turn challenges into opportunities.
Ray Wolf, CEO, A2K Partners, and Danijela Nandi Senior Product Manager at Citrix Workspace share how organizations can boost productivity, engage consumers, and empower their people to connect, collaborate, and innovate anywhere—on any application, any device, any cloud, at any time.
O3 World specializes in digital ecosystem consulting and custom design and development delivery, using new and emerging technologies like AI, voice, IoT, and conversational design. Clients such as Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, La Colombe, Caron Treatment Centers, Vertex, and SEI, as well as emerging companies like Gettacar, work with O3 World because of the agency's long-term approach to strategy and innovation.
Tim Breslin, chief technology officer, O3 World shares how COVID-19 has impacted digital transformation and business continuity, and the industries hit the hardest. He also reveals how to create an immersive digital experience. We also explore trends and fads in AI & ML in digital products.
Tim Breslin has 20+ years of experience in the e-commerce, digital products, marketing, data, and customer experience industries. As a software engineer who quickly transitioned to the digital product space when it was in its infancy (working in leadership roles at Digitas Health, Razorfish, The Onion, and more), Tim continues to lead many brands' digital product, digital transformation, and tech strategies.
Reducing the cost of electric vehicles (EVs) while maintaining performance and drivability is the most significant hurdle to EVs' scalability and mass adoption. Put simply, OEMs are struggling to offer a mass-market EV that is similar to an ICE-equipped car in its performance (speed, range, torque, driving experience, etc.) and its price.
To meet the performance curve of traditional vehicles, OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers must resort to over-spec motors, two motors, or weighty and costly batteries. With limited performance and often low reliability, lower-cost vehicles serve only a niche (urban mobility) market, not suitable for mass adoption. Without sacrificing performance and drivability, OEMs cannot bring down the cost and stand to lose a significant share of the automotive market – the affordable EV.
Current government incentives aimed at speeding up the adoption of EVs by subsidizing costs are unsustainable in the long term. Without a significant change to the efficiency of their components, EVs will remain at either too high a price point or too low a performance level. There needs to be a technical innovation that makes EV technology at least equivalent to the 100+-year-old traditional car.
Moran Price, CEO, and Co-founder IRP systems discusses how automakers can leverage new technologies to change the industry paradigm, transforming EVs from luxury status item to upper-middle-class staple, and bringing them to the mass market.
About IRP Systems
IRP Systems is removing the last barriers of electric vehicle adoption by making electric mobility technology affordable for the mass market and accelerating its adoption worldwide. The company's uniquely innovative, patented electric powertrain technology is changing a paradigm in the EV industry.
Current solutions on the market require OEMs to choose between lowering the cost while limiting the performance or having a high-performance vehicle that is too expensive. IRP Systems' TrueDriveTM portfolio of electric motors and controllers offers an unprecedented level of powertrain efficiency, which optimizes battery use and allows for a smaller battery at a reduced cost.
IRP's reliable offering is backed by the company's experience designing unique systems to meet the stringent size, weight, and quality standards of the aerospace industry.
Inside Real Estate, a Salt Lake City-based has just acquired a pricing technology tool called dashCMA. The acquisition will further Insider Real Estate’s technology capabilities and help guide agents and brokers through the difficult pricing environment created by the pandemic.
Inside Real Estate’s CEO, Ned Stringham, shares how the company made an acquisition during this time and how the real estate industry overall can embrace technology integration and learn valuable lessons to come out of this pandemic stronger than before.
We also discuss trends and data in the residential real estate market and insights from the recently released COVID-19 Industry Outlook and interactive dashboard.
Ned is a recognized entrepreneur, business strategist, and technology investor. Ned earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and founded and ran Impact Partners, a management consulting firm based in Sydney Australia. He also co-founded (1998) SBI Group, a digital marketing and technology consulting firm acquired by Aquantive, where Ned joined the Board.
Ned joined Inside Real Estate, as a partner in 2012 and helps shape the vision and strategic direction of the company. We talk about how real the estate industry overall can embrace technology integration and learn valuable lessons to come out of this pandemic stronger than before.
Spin provides dockless electric scooters in more than 60 markets in the US, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Charlotte, and Miami. Their regulatory team led the nation's first stationless mobility permit system with the Seattle Department of Transportation.
It's also the micromobility arm of Ford. The company prides itself on putting riders' safety first, working closely with local governments, and scaling its fleet responsibly.
As the company expands across Europe and recently launched in the UK, I wanted to learn more about how technology is enabling Micromobility to deliver a convenient, clean, and cost-effective travel choice instead of buying a car or using ride-hailing services that increase congestion and pollution.
In the US, Spin has seen its ridership bounce back faster than public transit, competing with both walking and driving. It makes sense, wanting to be out in the great outdoors than cramped next to a man spreader on the tube or train.
Felix Petersen, head of Europe at Spin, discusses the current deployment of e-scooters in the UK and Europe. We also talk about using tech to build sustainable transport solutions and how E-scooters' usage patterns have risen since Covid-19.
Dentons is the world's largest law firm, delivering quality and value to clients around the globe. But today, I want to finally bust the myth that law firms are slow to adapt to technological change.
From Berlin to Utah, whether your aim is an IPO or an M&A transaction, or to transform your industry, Dentons are gathering their insights and sharing thought leadership to help businesses drive their success at dentonsventurebeyond.com
Victor Boyajian heads Dentons' Global Venture Technology practice. A recognized leader in his field, Victor focuses on representing emerging growth technology companies and Fortune 500 companies in a broad array of venture capital, private equity, securities, and strategic transactions from Silicon Valley to Boston to New York and around the globe.
Victor counsels senior executives, boards of directors, and venture firm principals on a wide range of issues, including business strategy, finance, mergers and acquisitions, executive compensation, board governance, intellectual property, and litigation strategy. He has been recognized for his deep network among venture firms and investment banks.
His clientele reflects a cross-section of industries, including software, digital media, mobile, and Internet/e-commerce. He also devotes a significant amount of time to advising universities, federal labs, and corporations seeking to commercialize technology and protect their IP rights.
Chambers USA has also recognized Victor as one of the leading practitioners in the sector. Under his leadership, Dentons has been ranked among the top 10 nationally in venture capital deals, as reported in Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst. He has also been selected as one of AlwaysOn's Power Players, New York City.
We discuss everything from robotic temperature screening at building entrances to driverless vehicles and automated cleaning systems.
During my IT career, I remember noticing that Plantronics and Polycom made almost every headset in a call center or speaker in a meeting room. Here in 2020, Plantronics and Polycom are now Poly, the global communications company that powers authentic human connection and collaboration.
Poly offers a vast set of smart endpoints for unified collaboration span personal and group communication systems, with a full range of headsets, desk and conference phones, and video collaboration solutions. But they also provide cloud software and services, advanced management, analytics, and insights that drive first-rate business decisions.
Face to face, we sift and sort millions of verbal and non-verbal cues to glean meaning. I wanted to learn more about how Poly is finding new ways to inject these cues into audio and video communication to replicate the face-to-face experience. To build intimacy. To break walls and span the distance. To nurture the simplicity and beauty of human connection. One to one, one to many, many to many.
Paul Clark, Senior VP and EMEA MD for multi-billion communications brand Poly joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Paul is responsible for everything from market strategy to brand development in EMEA and has played a vital role in guiding the company through the uncertainty of both Brexit and COVID-19.
We discuss how the workplace is being shaped by the unique challenges of the past year. I learn how office and homeworking technologies are evolving to meet these challenges. For example, meeting spaces will be equipped with touchless solutions for safer collaboration. We also explore how the relationship between employers and employees changes as a result and ultimately gives employees more freedom to work in ways that suit them best.
Gaurav Kapoor – COO MetricStream, discusses why companies should have integrity at the heart of the business strategy, particularly following the coronavirus pandemic and looming recession set to be worse than 2008.
After the 2008 financial crash, it became clear that no company is too big to fail. Banks and financial institutions have been held to the highest standards and scrutinized by regulators, shareholders, and employees alike.
The consumer's voice is now stronger and louder than ever owing to the rise of social media, and companies need to be aware of their influence during these challenging times. News of company scandals frequently graces the headlines, and reports of businesses appearing to capitalize or act unethically during this time will not go unnoticed or be forgotten by the public any time soon.
Gaurav explains the importance of organizations acting with integrity and draws on his own experience of changing company culture for the better. His advice includes placing ethics and integrity at the core of the business strategy, setting the tone at the top, investing in holistic, regularly assessed governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) programs and ethical technologies to keep an organization on the right track during the pandemic and beyond.
Gaurav has been involved with the company since its inception and as the COO, is responsible for the overall Go-to-Market Strategy, Sales, Marketing, Customer Advocacy, and the Partner and Community Ecosystem.
Until 2010, he also served as the CFO of MetricStream.
Previously, Gaurav held executive positions at OpenGrowth and ArcadiaOne. Prior, he spent several years in business, marketing and operations roles at Citibank in Asia and in the U.S. He also serves on the board of Regalix, a digital innovation and marketing company.
Tradeshift is a $1B unicorn supply chain payments platform used by 1.5M companies across 190 countries, including 150 of the Fortune 500. Co-Founder and CEO, Christian Lanng, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company and his positive vision for the road ahead.
From Google to Amazon, many companies were founded just before or during a crisis. Leaders today will have to take a page from this book to come out on top. So as much as COVID represents a global tragedy, it's also an opportunity to reset and rebuild in a way we failed to in the 2008 Financial Crisis.
The answer is digital + finance as default. This is the way to make processes resilient. From eliminating 30-40-year-old paper-focused models to utilizing platforms like Zoom and continuing the same service customers are used to.
We also discuss how many organizations implement high-level tech like AI, RPA and blockchain internally, but 54% still rely on paper-based processes, which leads to widespread waste, lengthy processing times, lack of supply chain transparency, and suboptimal decision making.
By contrast, they should digitize every level of the supply chain. That means every participant from banks, suppliers, and buyers needs to connect across the broader supply chain ecosystem. Internal digitization is excellent, but keep in mind that globally, just 8% of trade transactions are digital.
You can learn a thing or two from your routine outside the office. Bank statements, boarding passes - nothing is paper-based anymore. Take a page from social media's book, where relationships are digital and connected via online ecosystems.
Vintro Makes It Easy to Pitch Global Business Leaders Looking to connect with a venture capitalist, founder, Fortune 500 CEO, or Nobel Prize winner? On Vintro, you get guaranteed attention and insights from leaders who can elevate your business. I felt compelled to learn more about the inspirational story behind the company.
Noor Sugrue, the founder of Vintro and founded the company while she was in high school. I invited her onto Tech Talks Daily to learn more about how the platform is democratizing access to level the playing field for entrepreneurs and help as many new businesses succeed.
Noor Sugrue grew up in an entrepreneurial family. From a young age, she saw the struggles it took to launch and grow businesses, from endless travel to vast chunks of time spent trying to connect with the right person to get feedback, pitch ideas, and build partnerships.
Noor founded Vintro in late 2017 after watching an episode of Shark Tank, the US version of Dragon's Den. She became fascinated by what happens to the thousands of businesses that don't get selected to be part of the TV program, let alone secure the investment of a' Shark.'
Today, Noor is about to start her second year at the University of Chicago and aims to combine her studies with running the Vintro platform. Noor says: "Great ideas can come from anyone, anywhere in the world. But an idea dies without the right resources.
Now everyone can have guaranteed direct access and engagement from the world's most important leaders. They always said it was about 'who you know' as much as 'what you know' - we didn't think that was fair - so we fixed it."
After reading about the devastation to the theatre community and the rise of the low touch economy, I wanted to find a little hope for the future and how technology helps create opportunities at this challenging time.
For example, Broadway is expected to be closed for the remainder of 2020. An entire industry and people's livelihoods hang in the balance, but I think most of us want to get back out there and enjoy life and see live events again. So I invited Micah Hollingworth from Broadw.ai (Pronounced Broadway AI) onto the show. We will learn more about how the company uses AI in a typically technologically untouched space Broadway.
Broadw.ai is the leading AI platform solution for Broadway shows, which improves the visitor experience and provides a more seamless ticket purchasing process for its guests. Through leveraging Broadw.ai's technology, Broadway guests are not only able to purchase directly from an AI-powered virtual assistant via the show's official website but also through Facebook Messenger and Amazon Alexa. Broadw.ai's partnering shows include world-renowned musical Wicked, and the longest-running musical in Broadway history, The Phantom of the Opera.
As we adjust to a new low touch economy, I learn more about how Micah has created something that enables Broadway guests to not only able to purchase directly from an AI-powered virtual assistant via the show's official website but also through Facebook Messenger and Amazon Alexa and wherever their customers are.
Micah shares the origin story of Broadw.ai and the latest technology developments on Broadway in the last 12 months, along with future tech trends. We discuss the market adoption of AI technology and the Broadw.ai platform.
We also explore how voice purchasing will change the ticketing landscape. I learn how AI/Machine learning is being used for faster and more accurate customers' responses using conversational intelligence tools.
Live streaming has gained immense popularity over the years, with COVID-19 acting as a catalyst to push the industry further. For business owners, live streaming bridges the gap between them and their customers, helping them better understand their clients' needs and helping customers feel more connected to businesses – both of which are key to ensuring brand loyalty and retention.
Be.Live is helping content creators & SMB's grow their communities by creating the most engaging live shows on Facebook & Youtube. I wanted to learn more about how businesses can create customizable and engaging streams with zero installation and no setup with an out-of-the-box professional look for their stream.
Daniel Mayer, the co-founder, and CEO of BeLive, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story. He founded two web-based broadcasting startups like AweVid, among other exciting business endeavors. He shares his experience of leading a global team of over 30 people in five countries and helping the company grow its user base nine-fold
We discuss how live streaming is the ultimate marketing tool to help businesses of all sizes promote their brand, interact with, and engage with their audience and grow their business. I also learn how BeLive takes the benefits of live streaming one step further by allowing companies to connect with their communities engagingly and profitably, giving them the tools they need to build brand recognition and community via live streaming.
Mike Whitmire is the co-founder and CEO OF FloQast, a close management software company that helps rapidly growing companies, particularly pre-IPO and public companies, close their monthly financial books with greater accuracy and speed.
Mike started his career as an accountant at one of the Big Four, and then worked in the accounting department of Cornerstone OnDemand, a high flying software company where he helped prepare the company for its IPO.
From these experiences, Mike was inspired and motivated to leave the accounting profession and found a company focused on automating and improving the accuracy of accounting operations, moving it from a world of thousands of spreadsheets and pages of checklists to modern software.
Seven years later, FloQast is an emerging leader in close management software with over 1000 customers, including many public companies and late-stage, pre-IPO private companies such as The Golden State Warriors, Yelp, Zoom, and Lyft.
I learn more about how FloQast helps pre-IPO startups and public companies, close their monthly financial books with greater accuracy and speed. Mike makes the mundane world of audit workflow management to the cloud and amortization reconciliation sound exciting by sharing his story and the problems that the business solves in a language that everyone can understand.
Mike also shares how for the 4th year in a row, FloQast has been named one of LA Business Journal's top companies to work at, ranking #1 overall for tech companies.
Martin Rand has been an entrepreneur for many years. He was a product manager at Skype, created VitalFields (which he later sold to Monsanto) and now, is the founder and CEO of Pactum.
Pactum is an AI-based system that helps global companies
to autonomously offer personalized, commercial negotiations on a massive scale. The system adds value and saves time for both the Pactum client and their negotiation partner by aligning their values to determine win-win agreements via an easy-to-use chat interface that implements best-practice negotiation strategies.
The web-based tool's applications range from supplier negotiations for online marketplaces to enterprise and retail procurement negotiations. Pactum is currently working with Walmart to renegotiate contracts and has been signed on as a partner with DocuSign.
The company is based in Mountain View with engineering and operations in Estonia. It's backed by founders of Skype and TransferWise and built by luminaries from Skype, Starship Technologies, and the Government of Estonia's e-Residency program. But all are agreed on Pactum's vision of artificial intelligence, improving business relationships while safeguarding humanity with ethical AI.
Pactum is particularly useful in the current situation, as companies are losing money and needing to renegotiate contracts. Pactum saves money for retailers while also getting the best deals for vendors- all without human interaction on the company's side.
Businesses worldwide have been forced to leverage technology and work differently over the last six months. Many now want to continue that momentum. I wanted to find a guest who is passionate about the subject and working with the tech that is changing things but also has the ear of many of the world's biggest organizations.
My search took me to Andrew Gross from Crestron, one of The world's leading innovators of advanced control & automation systems for the office, campus & luxury home, and their tag line is reinventing how people live & work.
So I invited him on the podcast today to discuss the types of technologies that will support a safe yet collaborative return to offices following the pandemic. I learn more about how occupancy sensors make sure new capacity limits aren't exceeded in meeting rooms and how automated meeting start technology forgoes the need to touch A/V equipment (detects people, starts meeting tech)/
We also talk about the need for easily transportable (rolling) conference room equipment that can turn any space (lobbies, hallways, any larger areas) into a meeting room for easy social distancing. The ability to control meetings and share presentations and content from a personal device without the need to touch shared conference room equipment is also increasing in popularity.
In a world where employees now expect to be able to work from anywhere, I also learn how enhanced real-time video conferencing and whiteboard technology is making employees that are socially distanced across meeting rooms and even remote employees feel like they're right there.
Peter Newhouse, Unilever Global Head of Reward, and Ken Charman, CEO of uFlexReward, share the story behind the bespoke HR data consolidation platform.
The platform extracts all the necessary data from payroll, pension systems, benefit supplier systems, share administration systems, and so on, as well as the value of non-monetary rewards, making this data available in real-time.
Thanks to this technology, Unilever is now able to experiment with allowing employees the freedom to choose how their reward is allocated in a way that goes well beyond the flex benefits that employees are familiar with. The company can also understand each employee's cost in real-time, which is crucial for regulatory compliance and effective reporting and analysis.
After the platform became instrumental at Unilever, the multinational has spun it out into its company, uFlexReward, to make it available for peer organizations. I learn more about how total reward data is especially critical right now for organizations trying to respond to the impact of Covid-19, be that through reducing headcount, cutting reward spend, pausing pension contributions, and more.
Inken Kuhlmann-Rhinow is Marketing Director EMEA at HubSpot, where she has been working since 2013. She leads the EMEA team and is responsible for a diverse group of marketing professionals who execute go-to-market strategies, improve Hubspot's brand awareness, and support local sales teams. In addition, Inken oversees and ensures the creation of local campaigns and collaborations with regional sales teams to deliver high-quality leads.
In 2018, Inken won the Great Manager Award on behalf of Hubspot - an award for managers who have a meaningful impact on their team. Inken's nomination was due to her dedication to the high performance of her team and their personal development.
We discuss the topic of experience disruption. I learn how it's giving customers a new, different experience that pleases them and keeps them returning for more through the use of new modern technologies and techniques (think Netflix and Spotify).
We talk about giving customers an experience they didn't know they wanted and making interactions with brands frictionless.
Peter Yared is a 7x founder with more than $500M in exits. He joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his insights and tips with business leaders on how to stay afloat during these uncertain times based on his experience starting and selling six successful startups.
Peter is currently the CEO and founder of InCountry, the world’s first Data Residency-as-a-Service platform, and can talk about the realities of running a startup during a recession. We also discuss what CEOs and founders need to do now and the things that can wait.
Financial planning shouldn't be perceived as clunky, traditional, or outdated. It should be something that's important to people, and therefore needs to have the most beautiful and seamless user experience.
BetterTradeOff is a Singapore-headquartered FinTech start-up that is revolutionizing financial planning with a holistic life-planning solution that simplifies and demystifies the financial planning process.
It also has a direct-to-consumer solution called Up, which provides people with a do-it-yourself tool to explore and understand different financial choices and outcomes, allowing people to make better financial decisions.
The company won the 'Global FinTech Hackcelerator,' which was organized by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). It also won the 'DIAmond Award – Most Innovative Start-up' at the most prestigious InsurTech event in the world, the DIA Conference 2018.
Shannon Cullum, CMO at BetterTradeOff, shares how they are providing some of the world's leading financial institutions with a collaborative tool that allows advisors to work together with clients on a plan to finance and protect their dreams.
We also discuss what financial planning should prioritize as an industry. For example, how Hyper personalization and digital experiences can delight customers and improve their lives.
Gopal Sharma, CTO, and co-founder of Diamanti joins me on Tech Talks Daily. I learn how the Kubernetes management company is supporting companies rapid migration to cloud-native applications. As a former lead engineer on Cisco's UCS, the seminal project that launched the hyper-converged server market, Gopal shares his interesting insights on the data center infrastructure market.
Moore's law states that the number of transistors in a circuit doubles about every two years, helping to increase processor performance. The end of the laws' effectiveness means that we are no longer seeing performance gains from processor advancements. We explore what that means for the future of computing that has been historically tied to advances in speed to drive higher application performance.
Gopal also discusses the end of Moore's Law and its means for future innovations in supporting cloud-based applications.
Victor Ho, Co-Founder, and CEO of Fivestars returns to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Victor co-founded Fivestars following his work at McKinsey & Company, where he helped build out loyalty and customer engagement strategies for premiere Fortune 50 brands.
He started his career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and holds three degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, where he triple majored in Industrial Engineering, Rhetoric, and Business Administration.
The company provides local small businesses with a simple solution to process payments and automate marketing. Under his leadership, Fivestars drove $3 billion in local sales last year, grew its customer base to 60M users who make 10M monthly in-store visits to 14,000+ merchants.
However, today we talk about how COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on small businesses and why small businesses are worth fighting for. We also discuss how to survive; SMBs need to focus on building relationships with their customers. And fintech may be their saving grace to do this.
We discuss how payments technology can power financial recovery for local businesses, who are increasingly out-gunned by Amazon.
Mphasis applies next-generation technology to help enterprises transform businesses globally. Customer centricity is foundational to Mphasis and is reflected in the Mphasis' Front2Back™ Transformation approach.
Front2Back™ uses the exponential power of cloud and cognitive to provide hyper-personalized (C=X2C2TM=1) digital experience to clients and their end customers. Mphasis' Service Transformation approach helps 'shrink the core' through the application of digital technologies across legacy environments within an enterprise, enabling businesses to stay ahead in a changing world.
Mphasis' core reference architectures and tools, speed, and innovation with domain expertise and specialization are key to building strong relationships with marquee clients.
Nitin Rakesh, Chief Executive Officer at Mphasis, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. He takes pride in leading an applied tech company, where it's cool to be a geek. His teams are driven every day to empower enterprises to embrace digital transformation journeys by optimizing assets, inculcating a learning culture, and pivoting approaches in preparation for an exciting, digital future.
Nitin's big passion is enabling his team of driven technologists, customers, and their end-users to stay ahead of the curve by leveraging next-gen technology to solve big and small enterprise IT challenges creatively. He also believes that change is the only constant and is inspired to steer his team towards enabling their clients to be agile, iterative, and future-ready in today's digital era.
We talk about his new book, Transformation in Times of Crisis, that includes eight principles to create opportunities in a crisis and defend against disruptors or become one. I learn more about how to build a framework to develop your implementation strategy.
Taylor Brown, COO, and co-founder of Fivetran has a unique startup story. He and his fellow co-founder, CEO George Fraser, have known each other since they were toddlers. Their two families used to vacation together at a lake in Wisconsin – a tradition that spans four generations – and Taylor and George still make this pilgrimage each summer to Wisconsin.
They crossed paths in San Francisco several years ago and decided to start Fivetran from George's tiny apartment in San Francisco. After getting accepted to Y Combinator, George and Taylor emerged to build Fivetran – fueled by its core values of integrity, initiative and "1 Team, 1 Dream."
Backed by Andreessen-Horowitz and other VC's, Fivetran has more than 1,000 customers and is poised to disrupt the data integration industry. The company's mission: making access to data as simple and reliable as electricity. Over the past year, the company has also increased revenue by more than 150 percent and more than doubled its global team, which is now at approximately 350 employees.
The company has garnered a long list of awards over the past year, including the Deloitte Fast 500, Gartner Peer Insights Customer Choice, Y Combinator Top Companies, and a Great Place to Work. But I want to learn more about the unique story behind this tech startup.
WolfePak provides Business Automation Software for the oil & gas industry. Upstream, midstream, services companies and investors rely on WolfePak to improve margins by running their businesses more efficiently, reducing costs and increasing revenue. WolfePak comes with "Expertise Built-in" - exclusive accounting functionality and best practices for the oil & gas industry.
WolfePak streamlines and simplifies complex processes like revenue distribution, joint interest billing, division order management, production accounting, A/P automation, contract management, and more. I wanted to learn how WolfePak puts mobile technology into the hands of field personnel that simplifies the collection of oilfield data, eliminating hand-written run tickets and even pumper tickets.
Ryan Lailey, CTO, WolfePak Software joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his thoughts on how oil and gas companies transitioning back to the office, and what digital workflow decisions need to be made now. We also discuss best practices and future technology integration, including tighter security for hybrid work environments, digital document management, storage, Financial, and business automation.
There has been a lot of hype around the potential for AI in the manufacturing industry, but historically, AI has been too expensive or complex to deploy at scale. But now, with pressure to maintain quality products and keep up with irregular consumer demands with fewer people on the factory floor, new solutions are emerging.
With this in mind, Neurala launched VIA (Vision Inspection Automation): new software to help manufacturers ensure quality inspection on the production line while scaling with increasing consumer demands.
With less data required and faster training, VIA was created to improve ROI by increasing inspection rates, decreasing human intervention, and allow smaller batches of product to be inspected. It will also enable production facilities to avoid wasted resources by catching defects early while giving manufacturers the flexibility to train and run multiple AI models based on changes in products they produce or levels of consumer demand.
Dr. Massimiliano Versace, the co-founder and CEO of Neurala, and the company visionary joins me on Tech Talks Daily. After his pioneering research in brain-inspired computing and deep networks, he continues to inspire and lead the world of autonomous robotics.
He has spoken at dozens of events and venues, including TedX, NASA, the Pentagon, GTC, InterDrone, National Labs, Air Force Research Labs, HP, iRobot, Samsung, LG, Qualcomm, Ericsson, BAE Systems, AI World, Mitsubishi, ABB and Accenture, among many others. His work has been featured in TIME, IEEE Spectrum, CNN, MSNBC, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, Fortune, TechCrunch, Venture Beat, Nasdaq and many other media.
Max is a Fulbright scholar, has authored dozens of academic publications, holds several patents and two Ph.Ds: Experimental Psychology, University of Trieste, Italy; Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University, USA.
OneStream, a CPM-finance platform, secured Unicorn status following a $500M investment from PE firm KKR and a $1B valuation. Currently, OneStream is working with major brands like UPS, Fruit of the Loom, and The Carlyle Group.
Tom Shea is the founder and CEO of OneStream Software. He was the original founder of UpStream Software in January of 2000, where he invented and architected UpStream TB and later UpStream WebLink. These products pioneered a new space called Financial Data Quality. They achieved a better way to manage data quality for Hyperion products by providing a packaged product (UpStream/FDM) every company could use.
Tom's passion and real strength stems from a deep, unique understanding of finance that leads to truly innovative and revolutionary products. Tom began working on OneStream XF more than eight years ago. His vision is to change the entire CPM ecosystem with a solution that combines power and flexibility with ease of use, deployment, and maintenance.
In today's episode, we discuss the drivers and business insights that companies should be monitoring for economic recovery. When re-starting hiring in a post-pandemic economy, we explore how to balance needs and revenue.
When competing with industry giants, I learn more about why OneStream has its own eyes on an IPO. Finally, we dare to look at the future of finance, and we share real use cases for AI and ML and what we can learn from the acceleration of digital transformation.
A&E is a digital agency that has the largest client portfolio of Fortune 500 companies such as Wells Fargo, J&J, P&G, and Netflix. Ther founders, Amra Beganovich and Elma Beganovich, have garnered 2+ million followers across social media. They are based in New York and have worked with high-profile brands such as Theory, Dr. Marten’s, Desigual, ESPRIT, Nicole Miller, Uber, Smartwater, Burt’s Bees, and Make Up For Ever.
However, I wanted to learn more about their back story and how they left traditional careers behind an economist and an attorney to start their digital agency and also bust a few myths around influencer marketing. I invited Elma onto Tech Talks Daily to share their journey.
Elma is Georgetown Law attorney turned founder and digital marketer with her sister and partner, Amra Beganovich. She is the creator behind Amra & Elma, an influencer marketing agency based in Manhattan, as well as Influencer Magic by A&E, proprietary software that matches brands with influencers according to their target demographic. She leads business development efforts with Fortune 500 companies, agencies and digital networks, and oversees A&E’s press relations
When brick and mortar is closed, I learn how influencer marketing can stimulate eCommerce spending and direct buying. We also discuss the important analytics and metrics when working with influencers and how businesses can measure ROI with influencer marketing by leveraging the latest tech tools and different KPIs to set.
Ray Brash is the CEO and Chairman of PPS, formerly Prepay Solutions. He has amassed over 20 years’ experience in retail, e-commerce, finance, and information services. Before joining PPS in 2004, Ray was finance director at The Economist, and previously held leadership roles at United News & Media, Telstar Electronic Studios, Kingfisher and PwC.
PPS has a successful track record of delivering programmes that are innovative but also deliver scale to leading fintechs (such as Monese, Tide and Coconut). Many players can do one or the other, but few do both, and this is therefore a true strength of PPS, providing reliable services to challenger banks and supporting its customers’ day-to-day financial needs.
In partnership with parent company, Edenred, PPS drives the migration of mobile payments technology and is the beating heart of the digital payments industry in a wealth of sectors including banking, retail, mobile and travel.
The company has served over 210 client programmes across 30 + countries around the world, processed in excess of 2 billion transactions worth the total value of $36 billion across fintech, corporate payments and retail portfolio and is Europe’s biggest Apple Pay issuer.
Ray joins me on the podcast to share how PPS has launched the first-ever e-money wallet to offer credit with koto - providing two different ways to select and repay credit based on the users immediate need. We also discuss how supported retailers such as Sainsburys during COVID-19 with launches of Volunteer Shopping Cards, enabling friends and helpers to shop on behalf of the elderly, disabled and vulnerable who were unable to shop for themselves.
David Bartels Broker/Owner Help-U-Sell Full Service Realty joins me on Tech Talks Daily. David is one of America's Top 100 Real Estate Agents who believes the US real estate sector primed and ready for a phase of deep recalibration post-pandemic, powered specifically by blockchain technology.
David is a distinguished expert in real estate negotiations, distressed property solutions, foreclosure avoidance, and real estate investing. It has some interesting takes on how the current pandemic has significantly impacted the global real estate sector. He shares his vision to empower prospective home sellers to market and sell their homes themselves;
We also discuss how, for too long, prospective home sellers have been forced to choose between two extremes on the home selling spectrum – bloated full-service agent fees versus the uncertainty of navigating the home selling process independently.
I also learn why only 8% of prospective home sellers grapple with the prospect of marketing and selling their home themselves, without enlisting the services of full-fee agents. However, the latest technological innovations can create a more consumer-centric model while addressing the legacy sector issues that have placed too much power in the hands of full-service agents.
Zane Venture Fund is a woman-led venture fund investing in early-stage, tech-enabled B2B, B2C or DTC companies, with exceptional diverse founders, and teams. Their mission is to catalyze the proliferation of world-class organizations led by diverse founders and teams building tech-enabled solutions by providing capital access and support to companies that can capitalize on these resources to scale their business.
Shila Nieves Burney is the founder of Atlanta-based Zane Venture Fund. An entrepreneur at her core, Shila is dedicated to reinventing the world of venture capitalism with – and for – the next generation of diverse entrepreneurs.
In June, Shila and ZVF announced the Zane Access Pre-Capital Program, a new program aimed at helping these entrepreneurs from the very beginning of their startup journey. This 12-week program, sponsored in part by Techstars’ Brad Feld, is specifically focused on providing and supporting diverse founders (women, POC, LGBTQ+, etc.)
The Zane Access Program is a first-of-its-kind approach to leverage our network and provide these early-stage founders with the strategy they need to accelerate growth, gain traction and get founders thinking about how to go down the right funding roadmap for their companies – be it venture, crowdfunding, or a different option.
Alex Lutskiy is the Co-Founder and CEO of Innovecs, a global software development company. Under his leadership, Innovecs became one of the fastest-growing US companies, according to Inc. 5000 in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
The company is also recognized on The 2020 Global Outsourcing 100® list by IAOP and is one as the youngest on the list. Alex founded Innovecs in 2012, starting with three team members - now we have 800+ people on the team. Moreover, Innovecs is achieving +65% YOY growth for the last three years. Before Innovecs, Alex held several executive management positions at CitiGroup, Ipsos, and GlobalLogic.
Alex shares valuable insights from his success story, change management, human-to-human approach, and tips and tricks on entering emerging markets. He also reveals a few tips and tricks for growing from 3 people to 800+ employees and achieving +65% YOY growth for three years in a row;
I learn more about their the human-to-human approach in B2B business and why emotions and relationship are exactly what drives the business. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities for tech companies in emerging markets in a virtual world without borders where entrepreneurs’ mindset has changed.
25% of the Fortune 50 trust Samasource to deliver secure, high-quality training data and validation for the technology teams driving humanity forward. From self-driving cars to smart hardware, Samasource fuels AI. But I wanted to learn more about the story behind this tech success story.
Founded over a decade ago, its teams are regarded as experts in image, video, sensor data annotation and validation for machine learning algorithms in industries including automotive, navigation, AR/VR, biotech, agriculture, manufacturing, and e-commerce. Their staff are driven by a mission to expand opportunities for low-income people through the digital economy. Their social business model has helped over 50,000 people lift themselves out of poverty
Here in 2020, the pandemic is affecting every tech sector - including AI. But what exactly have been the effects on AI so far? How will companies in this field be impacted in the long-run? Do they need to pivot their business models? These are just a few topics Wendy Gonzalez, President and Interim CEO of Samasource discusses with me.
As the leading training data company fueling Silicon Valley’s AI, Samasource has seen firsthand how the pandemic has affected the entire industry. Given Samasource’s vertical expertise, Wendy takes a deep dive into how the autonomous vehicle and virtual reality industries are being impacted.
We discuss how AI/ML companies are pivoting business models to adapt to new times and how they are using AI to fight against COVID-19. We also discuss how this pandemic will change the investments made into AI and what AI leaders need to prioritize right now to be successful post-pandemic
We live in a time where busyness is a badge of honor. Time off can seem like a forgotten or even despised concept. Although this is a tech show, as it's Sunday, I wanted to explore how time off and leisure will be the essential skills and competitive advantage that keep you happy and unique.
Many are working from home for the first time. It can be challenging to find work/life balance. Taking time off isn't about extravagant vacations; it is about finding small ways to take breaks throughout the day. Today's guest is Max Frenzel. He is an AI researcher, digital creative, coffee lover, writer, beatmaker, and Co-author of Time Off, a book about finding success without the stress.
Many of the greatest minds in history knew about the importance of time off. But this is not an outdated concept. Even though most of us seem to have forgotten about it, time off is just as applicable (and essential) now than ever. Today, people who are recognizing this ancient wisdom are reaping tremendous benefits from it.
Mario Ciabarra, CEO of Quantum Metric (SaaS platform that delivers behavioral and predictive analytics for major global brands like Neiman Marcus, Lenovo, Lululemon, etc.), returns to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast.
As a teenager, Mario worked in retail, identifying which customers needed help choosing products. Growing up through the digital era, he questioned how companies could do this digitally with both scale and speed – providing the best customer experiences to increase brand loyalty, drive higher revenue, more digital channel adoption, and reduce costs.
Fast forward to 2015, Mario founded Quantum Metric, a platform for Continuous Product Design (CPD), which is a fundamentally new approach to this idea, helping organizations deliver digital products that have a greater impact, both quickly and reliably.
Under Mario’s leadership, Quantum Metric has seen rapid adoption from Fortune 500 eCommerce, travel, entertainment, and financial services companies. Securing a $25M Series A capital raise in 2018, Quantum Metric’s customer base, team, and revenues have more than tripled in 2018 and 2019.
Mario discusses how CPD is empowering a new generation of cross-functional teams, where Product, Marketing, VoC, Ops, and Engineering work together to discover, analyze, and align on what next project will make the most substantial impact to their business in real-time. He also shares tips for startup founders on overcoming the biggest challenges in getting companies to adopt and embrace your tech,
We also explore how the trend of CPD is increasingly empowering a new generation of cross-functional teams, where Product, Marketing, VoC, Ops, and Engineering work together to discover, analyze, and align on what next project will make the largest impact to their business in real-time.
BAE Systems is one of the world's leading global defence, security, and aerospace companies. The company recently announced an Applied Intelligence spin-out, cybersecurity venture called SOC.OS. The announcement is considered another milestone in what has been an eventful and remarkable few years for its CEO, David Mareels.
David is a graduate of BAE Systems' demanding SIGMA leadership programme. His journey with the company has taken him from project engineering management in Portsmouth, to a Eurofighter Typhoon program in Warton, before settling in Applied Intelligence in 2018. During this time, he became involved in the corporate incubator programme, taking a lead role at SOC.OS.
SOC.OS is a SaaS product and can be thought of as embedding an extra analyst into the team, one who can remember every interconnected relationship between every alert produced from each security tool, even if generated weeks and months apart. SOC.OS continuously operates, analyzes, triages, and prioritizes the most important incidents before escalating it to the IT security team for further review via a graphical user interface.
I invited David onto the podcast to learn how technology is transforming multiple industries. But also learn more about David's journey from engineering graduate to CEO.
Rakuten Advertising is the leading global provider for marketing and advertising services and technology. Working with agencies and brands around the world, Rakuten Advertising brings together unique media inventory, a global affiliate network, advanced machine learning, and consumer insights to deliver experiences that increase brand awareness and marketing performance – while pushing the advertising industry forward.
Stuart McLennan, Senior Vice President, APAC Region at Rakuten Advertising shares his insights on affiliate marketing and the
Holiday Shopping Report - https://bit.ly/2EdSr6t
He has a proven track record of building and managing high-performance teams, delivering multiple reorganizations and changing management initiatives to ensure the prospect consolidation position as The World’s #1 performance agency.
Highly experienced in creating go to market narratives to meet clients’ changing demands across data, analytics, and digital paid media, securing significant new business revenue and existing client cross-sell revenue.
We explore the impacts of COVID-19 on publisher networks and industries such as travel, hospitality, and luxury brands. But also how can these sectors can evolve and potentially bounce back. With online shopping experiencing massive growth, we also talk about motivating users when shopping at home.
Finally, we attempt to bust a few myths and misconceptions in the industry and learn how the marketing landscape will continue to evolve.
As banking systems struggle to survive the impact of the current pandemic, customers look to their banking providers seeking financial aid, stability, and accessibility to banking services. Before the pandemic, banks were figuring out how to renovate their legacy models and deploy advanced technologies.
Fast forward to 2020, and banks are suddenly on the fast track to not only replace traditional operational tools with digital options but meet increased demand and provide full-fledged services to customers without displacing the trust that existed before.
John Dangoia, Head of Product Management for the U.S. and Europe at Finacle, is a dynamic product and operations executive with 25+ years of experience leading growth in industry-leading banking and insurance businesses. Before joining Infosys, John was Vice President of Product Management at Fiserrv in support of the company’s Financial & Risk Management Solutions (FRMS) Group.
Finacle is used by leading banks in over 100 countries to serve more than 1 billion people and has aided numerous banking systems with their digital transformation initiatives. Finacle is part of EdgeVerve Systems, a subsidiary of Infosys.
We discuss how the shutdown of physical branches and manual processes being unavailable have led to the profound significance of the access to digital services. But banking modernization has suddenly become an urgent feat, leaving banking management questioning which programs genuinely make a difference to the end-user.
We explore why focusing on providing solutions that offer the most significant relief to customers is imperative during a crisis, and the banking system’s role in helping the economy recover from a global pandemic.
Greg Kefer from AI-powered COVID-19 chatbot company, LifeLink, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. In today's episode, I explore the Chatbot benefits for healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies as the landscape in healthcare continues to evolve.
COVID-19 has left healthcare providers in dire need of support - both on the front lines and back-of-house (call centers are seeing a 10x increase in volume!). In response, health systems like Jefferson Health, Memorial Health, and Banner Health have all quickly deployed chatbots like LifeLink because of its unlimited capacity to pre-screen and schedule appointments for patients.
I learn more about how this sudden need has pushed chatbots into the mainstream and transforming it overnight. Greg shares chatbots' new mission-critical role in the healthcare system and what this means for the "new normal" of healthcare.
Yuval Rooz, co-founder and CEO of Digital Asset, is working with developers to incorporate blockchain approaches that simplify how distributed applications and processes are built and interconnected between organizations to easily drive business transactions.
Previously, he served as both the CFO and COO. In this capacity, Yuval hired the majority of the company’s executive leadership, established its global presence, and oversaw its acquisition of four technology startups. Before DA, Yuval held positions at Citadel and at DRW Trading, where he managed an algorithmic trading desk and helped launch DRW Venture Capital.
Digital Asset has an interesting, developer-friendly, open-source application platform called DAML. With DAML, developers can easily build and deploy multi-party applications on any distributed ledger platform or database; blockchain experience is not required.
As the demand for developers with blockchain skills continues to rise (Linkedin listed it as a top-ten in-demand skill for 2020) this is a great solution for developers to expand their talents in the dAPP space or enterprises keen to expand product offerings.
Companies such as ASX, HKEX, Amazon, Tencent’s WeBank, and others are using DAML to build new trading platforms built on blockchain or for software development to launch and deploy new products and services on a blockchain or a traditional database.
Yuval joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how blockchain is evolving from technology focused on the financial services industry to one that is being adopted across vertical markets such as healthcare and retail.
I also learn how VMware recently joined the company’s Series C financing round. With the investment, VMware joins technology leaders Salesforce Ventures and Samsung Venture Investment Corp (Samsung) as investors in Digital Asset and its growing ecosystem of DAML partners.
QA Supermarket provides comprehensive QA testing services on-demand and with competitive, completely transparent prices. The company is on a mission to offer Manual Testing as SaaS. The startup was founded by current CEO Paul Belevich, whose previous roles include Product Development Director at Blue Lithium (acquired by Yahoo!) and GM of Wargaming Research and Development Center in Austin. Most recently, he was founded software development company Software2Life.
I wanted to learn more about how they found a way to change a long, boring, and difficult application testing to an easy, transparent, and hassle-free one. We talk about the differences between Automated and Manual testing. We discuss what trends they are noticing in the industry. We also bust a few myths and misconceptions in the world of application testing,
Dectec is a Behavioural Science consultancy where they help clients predict future market responses and applying their insights across far-reaching sectors, including banking, telecoms, and retail. The company was created to provide the most accurate and best value forecasts available on how people will behave in new situations.
The team are enthusiastic proponents of behavioral research, randomized controlled trials, and data modelling. Founded in 2002, they are based in London and are staff-owned and are members of the Market Research Society and Management Consultancies Association.
I wanted to learn more about how they model human behavior to reveal the responses to different scenarios, giving clients a significant edge over their competitors in choices across range, pricing, communications, and offer. Dr. Henry Stott is the Co-founder of Dectech and a passionate proponent of doing more randomized controlled trials in business.
Henry has over 25 years of commercial experience across retail, finance telecoms, and other sectors. Before Dectech, he helped to create Oliver Wyman's Risk practice. We talk about what factors drive people's behavior and decision making. We also explore the alternative methods out there to predict the 'future', and I learn how accurate they are.
A team of NASA researchers seeking a new energy source for deep-space exploration missions, recently revealed a method for triggering nuclear fusion in the space between the atoms of a metal solid. I felt compelled to find out more.
Lawrence Forsley is a senior experimental physicist with NASA, research fellow at the University of Texas, and CTO of Global Energy Corporation.
During the past 45 years, he has worked with laser fusion, mirror fusion, tokamaks, modular bremsstrahlung sources, sonoluminescence, and bulk Pd/D electrolysis and the patented co-deposition protocol.
Lawrence specializes in temporally, spatially, and spectrally resolving infrared through gamma-ray energy photons, charged particles, and neutrons. He is an author or co-author of over 40 scientific papers and book chapters.
In his spare time, he’s developed and deployed autonomous seismic sensors around the world and applied space-based Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (DInSAR) to places hard to write home from, let alone pronounce.
We discuss the methods to drive and monitor condensed matter nuclear reactions in industrial, US Navy, and NASA laboratories, with an eye toward a clean, energy-rich future.
Extended Threat Detection and Response (XDR) is an emerging hot category that I wanted to learn more about. My curiosity led me to Hunters.AI, which is the first autonomous threat hunting solution. It's a pure-play vendor-agnostic XDR startup noted in the Gartner report. For CrowdStrike users, Hunters extends threat detection beyond the endpoint and enables XDR capabilities.
Hunters.AI generates and delivers actionable visualized attack stories allowing organizations to more quickly and effectively identify, understand, and respond to attacks. Uri May Co-Founder & CEO, Hunters, reveals how XDR has emerged as the next-gen successor to EDR and SIEM solutions. He also shares why it's different and what it brings to the IT security stack.
On the subject of missed signals, I learn how XDR finds legitimate threats while filtering out the noise and why a vendor-agnostic approach is essential to success. Finally, we discuss how Hunters grants XDR capabilities using AI for autonomous threat hunting.
Regardless of how a business looks at flexibility, workplace innovation continues to advance at high speed, evolving into a more natural and integrated aspect of life and dominating modern workers' expectations. The shift in traditional work's rhythm creates assumed challenges that may be intimidating for organizations trying to adapt.
Pushing aside misconceptions and uncovering the truth about flexible work can accelerate an organization's path to delivering a successful balance of work and flexibility to all its employees, regardless of age or working preferences.
Jed Brown, SVP of Product & Design at Fuze joins me on Tech Talks Daily to explore the three main misconceptions that prevent flexible work from being successful throughout organizations, and importantly explains how the right technology will not only kick-start flexible work now, it can also prepare a business for what's to come, keeping them open to the future too.
About Fuze
Fuze is a global cloud communications provider for the enterprise. Its intuitive unified communications and contact center platform enables seamless transition between calling, meeting, chatting, and sharing powered by the industry-leading intelligent cloud architecture. Fuze empowers the digital and distributed workforce to communicate anywhere, anytime, and across any device. Founded in 2006, Fuze is headquartered in Boston, MA with offices around the world.
Daniel Theobald is the CEO of Vecna Robotics. His company recently raised $50M for their Series B and has been helping automate materials handling for global clients like FedEx. Daniel is a passionate leader who is dedicated to the idea that technology can be used to improve life for everyone on the planet.
Daniel is also a co-founder of Mass Robotics - an independent, non-profit organization serving as the innovation hub for robotics and connected devices in the Greater Boston, MA area, so he has his pulse on the innovation of the robotics industry. But I wanted to learn more about the robotics company that believes the future belongs to those who empower humans.
We talk about how robotics, AI and automation help keep the supply chain running, the importance of robots and humans working together to increase workflow efficiency, and what the robotics industry needs to do to push interoperability forward. We also discuss why humans and robots are better together.
AWeber delivers powerfully-simple email marketing software specifically designed for small businesses. Since 1998, They have helped over 1,000,000 small businesses around the world grow their businesses by giving them the tools and knowledge they need to connect with their prospects and customers.
AWeber is a 100% remote-first team. That means they work from the comfort of their homes while making an impact on customers around the world. they value collaboration, flexibility, and entrepreneurial spirit — not what you wear or where you choose to do your most productive work.
They also believe that an incredible culture is not about where you work, but about the people that you work with.
When a utility embarks on a capital project, they’re doing so to serve their customers better, comply with regulations, and/or build the value of their asset network—and they’re increasingly making drones a part of their efforts.
Utilities are using drones across the capital project lifecycle. Whether to inventory assets, monitor current project work, or evaluate pre-completion performance, project managers achieve greater data breadth and precision. Not only does this help justify CapEx spend, but it also enables better project management.
PrecisionHawk, the market leader of commercial drone analytics, has seen first-hand the challenges of keeping utility asset databases up-to-date. During routine inspections for all of their utility clients, PrecisionHawk has found discrepancies in location data for up to 50% of poles. And while ground teams typically find that 10% of poles are out of compliance, they have, on average found that the number is actually 25-30%.
As a solution, Drone technology is implemented to accurately geolocate all pole assets, convert imagery and data into metadata for quality assurance, and execute strategic business decisions accordingly with substantial evidence.
Robert Henley joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about how utilities leverage drone technology to improve their asset management systems and validate capital projects tied to critical infrastructure.
Sporting leagues are beginning to unveil their plans to return to play, and the NBA is planning to return at Walt Disney World. When exploring the future of sport, leagues must start thinking about the live stream viewing experience will look like for fans. They also have to consider if platforms are capable of supporting the influx of people tuning in from home and how they'll be able to replicate the in-person fan experience at home.
Jed Corenthal, the CMO of Phenix (real-time streaming technology platform), discusses what platforms must prioritize seamlessly delivering virtual experiences that will keep fans happy. If games are delivered in real-time and synchronous streams, the opportunities to engage viewers are endless – from trivia games to switching up camera angles and even selling merchandise – but this is all only possible if livestream technology is up to par.
Phenix has customers on five continents, and all focused on delivering a superior user experience by reducing latency, maintaining a high-quality stream, and reaching large audiences. I learn more about how they were challenged to create compelling interactive mobile content to keep viewers engaged throughout the Oscars broadcast with short development timeline.
Disney/ABC selected Phenix and its partners to deliver the first ever Official Oscars Trivia Game. During commercial breaks, the game featured a real-time "audience cam" capturing celebrities chatting and socializing.
The 2019 Oscars digital experience was nominated for an Emmy Award. Jed shares this and many more stories.
Did you know there is a massive labor shortage in the cybersecurity field? It has been estimated that, on a global scale, there are over 1 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs—and if history is any indicator, that number is likely to increase.
So how do we solve the labor shortage in the cybersecurity industry? Think women. Right now, women in cybersecurity represent a mere 11% of the industry worldwide. That means that the cybersecurity industry is missing out on almost half of the population’s talent pool, during a period in history when cyber-crime poses one of our most menacing threats.
So how do we solve the labor shortage in the cybersecurity industry? I invited Amie Wei to Tech Talks Daily to talk about the opportunities for women in cybersecurity and learn more about her inspirational journey in tech.
Amie is the founder of the cybersecurity company Stellar Cyber and has 20+ years of experience building successful products and leading teams in data networking and telecommunications.
Amie also has extensive working experience for early-stage startups, including Nuera, SS8 Networks, Kineto Wireless, and well-established companies like Nortel, Ciena, and Cisco.
Before founding Stellar Cyber, she was actively developing Software Defined Networks solutions at Cisco. Aimei enjoys building a product from its initial design to its final launch. Aimei has an M.S. in Computer Science from the Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, and an Undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the Tsinghua University of China.
Rafael Sweary, co-founded WalkMe, the leading digital adoption platform, in 2011. Previously, Rafael was the co-founder, CEO, and then President of Jetro Platforms, which was acquired in 2007. Since then, he has funded and helped build a number of companies both in his role as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Ocean Assets and in a personal capacity.
WalkMe, pioneered the Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) to empower business leaders to realize the promise of their technology investment by transforming the user experience in today’s overwhelming digital world. With WalkMe’s enterprise-class guidance, engagement, insights and automation platform, employees are more efficient and productive.
Executives have better visibility into digital usage, and organizations maximize the full value of their digital assets and successfully guide their enterprise through digital transformation. WalkMe has raised over $307 million to date, and its DAP is used by 2,000 enterprises across all industries, including 30% of the Fortune 500.
Rafael joins me on Tech Talks Daily to speak on the Next Normal caused by COVID-19, and how to thrive in the next normal, organizations need to reinvent their digital strategy by encouraging workforce agility, redefine customer journeys, and accelerate tech modernization. We also talk about digital transformation and digital adoption.
Gary Saarenvirta, founder/CEO of Daisy Intelligence, is recognized as one of North America’s preeminent authorities on artificial intelligence. Gary is a passionate evangelist for the application of A.I. and reinforcement learning in strategic merchandising decisions. He’s not afraid to challenge the status quo when it comes to the advantages of deep learning over traditional approaches to data mining and analysis, both in speed and precision.
Gary’s 25+ years of experience includes managing the analytics practice at LoyaltyConsulting Group and leading IBM’s analytics and data warehousing practice areas. He entered the workforce with an aerospace engineering degree (so yes, he’s even a trained rocket scientist). Today, his focus lies in making A.I. an indispensable tool for data-driven businesses.
Using autonomous machine intelligence, Daisy helps global organizations drive revenue and profit growth by transforming massive quantities of consumer data into better and smarter business decisions. Daisy specializes in retail merchandising solutions and insurance fraud detection.
For retailers, Daisy’s A.I. platform transforms a massive amount of transactional data to do promotional product mix and price mix optimization while taking into account cannibalization,forward-buying, stock-outs, and more.
Gary joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about driving growth for retailers and insurance companies through enterprise A.I. technology. We discuss how global retailers and insurance companies are often drowning in data, yet struggling to gain any practical insight from this ever-growing pool of data -- inside of which lies the keys to creating a better customer experience and significantly better financial results.
Keren Moynihan is co-founder and CEO of Boss Insights, a company that uses big data and AI to accelerate lending from months to minutes. Boss Insights started with a vision to empower lenders to measure businesses on merit and credit. In an era where tech giants have increased customer expectations, lenders and private capital providers are challenged to offer complete and personalized solutions.
Boss Insights' data platform gives lenders the clearest view of their business customers. The platform accelerates small business and commercial lending from months to minutes. It also increases sales opportunities for other financial products.
Their mission is to provide banks and credit unions with a real-time understanding of their business clients, enabling them to offer customer delight. But I wanted to learn more about how they are helping financiers to empower and measure business vision?
To obtain a better understanding of the scale of the problems out there at the moment. Keren also explains how the US CARES ACT led to $659 Billion being approved through the SBA and the challenges that quickly arose as a result. But she also shares her insights on how the crisis led to banks, credit unions, and Fintechs collaborating in an unprecedented manner.
We also discuss how technology will continue to improve communication and collaboration between borrowers and lenders.
Ericom Software is a leading provider of Zero Trust secure access solutions that protect organizations from advanced cybersecurity threats. Leveraging innovative isolation technology and software-defined perimeter principles, Ericom solutions enable simple, secure policy-driven access to mission-critical cloud and on-premises business systems and resources, including the public Internet, without impacting end-user productivity.
John Peterson, Chief Product Officer of Ericom Software, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. He is responsible for product strategy and helping to define and support Ericom’s go-to-market activity. Most recently, he was founding Chief Product Officer at Stellar Cyber. In his 30-year career, John has held executive positions at Comodo, Barracuda, Juniper, Fortinet, Websense, Montego Networks, and Netscreen. He was a key member of four companies that went public and three that were acquired. John served as a United States Marine and holds multiple patents.
We talk about Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and how this new security concept can co-exist with Zero Trust. SASE can be thought of as a unified vision on how an organization can achieve Zero Trust for their network, and based on the fact that networks have changed, the security that protects them must change as well. This integration streamlines processing simplifies access and reduces latency while enforcing security. It also requires a network and network security architectures to be rethought and rebuilt from the ground up.
I also learn how SASE can greatly improve network security without burdening the user.
Steve Grewal is the former CISO, CTO, and CIO for the U.S. Dept. of Education, and currently, the CTO, Federal, for data management company Cohesity. He is working with government agencies to address cybersecurity issues, specifically the growing number of ransomware attacks.
In 2020, we have already seen many high-profile ransomware attacks against hospitals, state, municipal, and government agencies and organizations. This includes Los Angeles County, Fort Worth Independent School District in Texas, ExecuPharm, Boston Children’s Hospital, and more. Malicious hackers will continue searching for their next target, and ransoms will continue to be paid.
However, many fail to realize that there are strategies for combating ransomware attacks, which ensure that a ransom does not need to be paid, regardless of its severity. As the global pandemic puts an enormous financial strain on many private and public sector organizations, it is more important than ever for organizations to know what to do in the case of a successful ransomware attack.
Malicious hackers will continue searching for their next target, and ransoms will continue to be paid. However, many fail to realize that there are strategies for combating ransomware attacks, which ensure that a ransom does not need to be paid, regardless of the severity of the attack. As the global pandemic puts an enormous financial strain on many private and public sector organizations, it is more important than ever for organizations to know what to do in the case of a successful ransomware attack.
Neil Sahota is an IBM Master Inventor, United Nations (U.N.) Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) Advisor and Faculty at UC Irvine. With 20+ years of business experience, he works with clients and business partners to think disruptively and create next-generation products/solutions powered by emerging technology. He is also the author of Own the A.I. Revolution, a practical guide to leveraging A.I. for social good and business growth and was named Best Business Book of 2019 by Soundview.
Neil’s work experience spans multiple industries, including health care, life sciences, retail, travel and transportation, energy and utilities, automotive, telecommunications, media/communication, and government. Before his current role, he was a thought leader, consultant, and practice leader in IBM Global Business Services, where he led the sales and delivery of consulting engagements in business strategy, new product development, revenue optimization, process improvement, and business/system integration.
Neil has lived and worked in Ningbo, China, where he was involved in economic development projects, gaining extensive experience in assisting companies and entrepreneurs in defining their products, establishing their target markets, and structure their companies. He is a member of several investor groups and a director of various tech companies. Neil resides in California and spends a significant amount of time traveling the world to participate in business development and global expansion projects.
We talk about creating a "Tech for Good" mindset to drive social enterprise/entrepreneurship and building the ecosystem to bring business, technologists, and government together to solve problems. Neil also shares why Moonshots are good but we also need "Earthshots" - solutions to help tackle some of the big problems of our planet and society.
Red Points protects brands and their content in the digital environment through their proprietary technology, which employs machine learning algorithms to scan the internet and identify all violations and infringements.
As a result, the company is the preferred brand protection partner for some of the leading global brands and content owners in the sporting, entertainment, fashion, editorial, and software industries. They have also been tagged as "one of Europe's hottest tech companies" by Wired.
Juan Galdeano, CTO, Red Points, has over twenty years' experience in software development. He is designing and implementing the fast-moving Red Points technology. Under his leadership, the Technology Team aims to deliver the best online brand protection technology.
Today we talk about how online counterfeiting is an issue that's running rampant globally across industries). It's estimated that by 2022, counterfeiting will be a $4.2 trillion industry, and global damages from counterfeit goods are expected to exceed $323 billion.
Even the most tech-savvy consumers are tricked by these false ads, resulting in lost revenue and a hit to a brand's image. Through Red Points, brands are now beginning to use AI and machine learning to detect and remove counterfeit goods across the internet (from Amazon to the smallest copycat website).
I also learn more about the advent of eCommerce and social media advertising. It is spurring exponential growth of counterfeits and piracy online and how AI is powering technology like image recognition to track brands, patterns, and products.
After months of being locked down, many are returning to the office and sitting in meeting rooms to discuss the lessons they have learned over the last few months. What will your busy be doing differently? And what does the future of work look like in your organization?
SEMrush is a SaaS product used by over 5,000,000 marketers worldwide. For the past 11 years, SEMrush has grown into an all-in-one marketing suite consisting of more than 40 tools and reports that help companies market better online. The company began analyzing the impact of COVID-19 on online behavior to reveal industries and companies that have been hit the hardest or boosted.
On top of being one of the best keyword research tools worldwide, SEMrush now helps users fix technical website issues, improve the health of their backlink profile, and track local rankings on both mobile and desktop. In a nutshell, they have their finger firmly on the pulse of the web.
Their vision is to create the only tool a digital marketing team would ever need to improve their online marketing results, ensure a smooth workflow between team members, and save time on routine tasks. Today, Olga Head of Global Marketing at SEMrush joins me in a conversation where we discuss Market Winners By Search Data And Traffic Trends, Industries That Have Suffered the Most, and How the consumer demand has been changing within the past few weeks.
I also learn which industries have seen the most significant spike in traffic and which products top the most searched online.
George Arison shares how he saw Uber coming before Uber did. In 2007, he co-founded Taxi Magic, which today books millions of yearly rides with service in 50 US cities. Prior to working in technology, George ran a parliamentary campaign for a leading opposition party in his native country of Georgia and published a book titled Democracy and Autocracy in Eurasia.
Here in 2020 he is the co-founder of Shift, an online marketplace disrupting the used car industry. George immigrated from Eurasia to the United States as a teenager and no sooner began his career as a project manager for Google before going on to co-found the first on-demand mobile transportation booking technology, Taxi Magic (now known as Curb), two years before Uber was even created.
I learn more about how Shift is an e-commerce startup on a mission to change the car-buying and selling industry. George shares his goal to transform the burdensome life event into a delightful experience, bringing trust and simplicity to the peer-to-peer used car market.
Shift is the new way to buy and sell cars: on your terms, at your door. Backed by leading Silicon Valley investors and poised for enormous growth, thy bring together cutting-edge technology and dedicated people to create an unparalleled experience for both buyers and sellers.
George is an incredible innovator and businessman with an inspirational tech startup story to share.
Bryan Clayton is CEO and co-founder of GreenPal, an online marketplace that connects homeowners with local lawn care professionals. GreenPal has been called the "Uber for lawn care" by Entrepreneur magazine and has over 100,000 active users completing thousands of transactions per day.
Before starting GreenPal, Bryan Clayton founded Peachtree Inc., one of the largest landscaping companies in the state of Tennessee, growing it to over $10 million a year in annual revenue before it was acquired in 2013. Here in 2020, if you live in the US, you can open an app on your phone and have someone come and cut your grass.
I learn more about his story that began when he was pushing a lawnmower many years ago and how he went on to scale to the whole of the US and maybe even the UK in the future. Bryan's vast experience in entrepreneurialism, small business growth, marketing, and bootstrapping businesses from zero revenue to profitability and exit make this a must-listen for startup founders.
Almost no business is immune from the need for quality software development. The act of building quality software, and shipping it quickly, has become the core engine of value creation in companies across all industries. CircleCI allows teams to rapidly release code they trust by automating the build, test, and delivery process for both mobile and web apps, either in the cloud or on their own private server.
Thousands of leading companies, including Samsung, Ford Motor Company, Spotify, Lyft, Coinbase, PagerDuty, Stitch Fix, and BuzzFeed, rely on CircleCI to accelerate delivery and improve quality.
CircleCI was named a Leader in cloud-native continuous integration by Forrester in 2019 and has been named to multiple Best DevOps Tools lists. CircleCI is the first CI/CD tool to become FedRAMP certified and processes more than 30 million builds each month across Linux, macOS, Docker, and Windows build environments.
Jim Rose returns to the Tech Talks Daily podcast for catchup after the recent $100 million Series E funding round. He also shares his thoughts on the recent acceleration of DevOps and CI/CD.
CI/CD is a practice that has moved from "bleeding-edge" to mission-critical. If there's a screen between you and a customer, there's a piece of code needed to be maintained to keep the interaction alive. Jim also shares how they are helping businesses accelerate their delivery of value through software.
This might be through working with Facebook on their open-source machine learning library, Pytorch, or with a non-profit creating low-cost ventilators to help COVID-19 patients in the developing world.
More than ever, software needs to work perfectly. Businesses must monitor, optimize, and scale every app in any cloud. As consumers rely on digital services during the pandemic, companies are seeing increases in site traffic that are causing performance degradations and other technical challenges.
Insights from Dynatrace found increases across industries in key website performance metrics. In this episode, I learn about increases across industries in key website performance metrics, how unpredictable changes in demand, and how organizations in retail and the governments turn to automation and AI-assistance to deliver essential business outcomes both efficiently and cost-effectively.
For example, SAP CX –is seeing a 50% increase in page impressions on customer sites compared with peak times (i.e., Black Friday), so it is using AI to automate operations to ensure proactive responses to issues. As a result, SAP CX spends less time firefighting, leaving more time for product innovation.
Kroger – as a leading grocery retailer, Kroger is an essential business on the frontlines of the pandemic, so keeping business up and running 24/7 is paramount. With the help of AI, the company can proactively address site issues before customers are impacted.
DXC Technology – working with the Flemish government, DXC Technology developed an application to process requests from local businesses for financial support in response to COVID-19. Leveraging AI, the organization has automated its development pipeline, allowing it to create new features faster, multiplying the team’s productivity and, ultimately, helping the Flemish government provide financial support for its citizens.
Alois Reitbauer VP, Chief Technology Strategist at Dynatrace, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to expand on these insights. We also discuss how the ability to identify the exact root cause and impact of problems wherever they occur before a support ticket is raised should be a priority.
Keeping the lights on everything from backend applications, underlying cloud infrastructure, and networks to mobile apps and devices needs a different approach to APM.
Thinklabs was founded in 1991 by Clive Smith, an Electrical Engineering graduate of Caltech. The name implies the company's goal - think deeply about problems that matter and develop imaginative solutions. Smith has always had a passion for medical electronics, sound, music, and signal processing.
In the mid-'90s, Smith read a Circulation paper, indicating that stethoscope acoustics had not improved since Laennec built the first stethoscope in 1816. Physicians confirmed that even top-of-the-line conventional stethoscopes did a poor job of amplifying heart and lung sounds. Thus began Smith's obsession to re-invent the stethoscope.
The concept of an electronic stethoscope was not new. For a century, the road to perfect auscultation was littered with the carcasses of failed efforts. Smith started experimenting. Technologies were tested, rejected, modified and retested. The key breakthrough came with a question: How can one create an electrical analog to the acoustic pressure changes in a conventional stethoscope?
All the benefits of advanced electronic technology would then accrue and the authentic sound of the stethoscope would be preserved. Physicians would not require any ear retraining. A completely new transducer was needed.
Clive Smith went on to design the One Digital Stethoscope. But I want to find out more about that journey and the Thinklabs One motto of never stop inventing. We discuss how doctors and patients are leveraging new technology for remote medicine.
As more enterprises embrace cloud transformation, IT and data teams face increased pressure to harness the power of data and analytics for business intelligence.
Hybrid cloud and multi-cloud strategies are key to big data analytics. New data regulations and cybersecurity vulnerabilities are creating roadblocks for IT teams looking to use data for business intelligence, which is why data virtualization and data governance are top priorities in 2020.
AtScale is an intelligent data virtualization provider for advanced analytics. The Global 2000 relies on AtScale to provide a single, secure, and governed workspace for distributed data. The AtScale platform powers business intelligence and machine learning resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions at scale
AtScale Co-founder, Sarah Gerweck, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. She previously served as chief architect and has been instrumental in the design and development of AtScale's award-winning technology and creation of a global development presence.
Before AtScale, Sarah was lead architect at Yahoo, where she was responsible for the design, deployment, and management of the company's Advertising Insights product, including the world's largest Analysis Services deployment.
Sarah provides an overview of the company, its founding story, and the problem it's trying to solve in the marketplace. She also discusses the recent company announcements, including AtScale's Covid-19 project and platform updates. We also talk about her journey and what it's like to be a C-level female executive in the notoriously male-dominated tech industry.
Wheel is leveraging technology to change the way healthcare works with quality virtual care at scale. I wanted to learn more about how they empower clinicians on the front lines of patient care in telehealth and move healthcare forward as a result.
Wheel CTO Chris Norris once said that his generation's best minds are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks! It was at that moment that I realized he was the perfect guest for the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. I invited him to share his vision for the future and how they are helping clinicians and the industry deliver better care for all.
Norris has a rare track-record of taking four startups in a row to IPO, $150m+/unicorn acquisitions. His success with the demands of both startups and enterprises is a result of his focus on the customer, and a consistent drive for entrepreneurial innovation. He has also built businesses and products from the ground-up and scaled teams, technology, and process 10-100x.
The pragmatic decision-maker takes pride in being an authentic servant leader who puts my people first and creates 'no politics, no BS' cultures. We discuss how the medical industry is behind on technology innovation-which ultimately burdens the clinician and the ways Wheel is taking a unique approach to telehealth by providing a platform that can more effectively scale services while empowering clinicians.
We also talk about the power of data and analytics to reveal virtual care patterns and insights that could exponentially improve how healthcare is delivered. For startup founders listening, we explore taking startups through rapid growth phases by maintaining a fast pace of progress while cultivating a transparent culture.
Although this is a daily tech podcast, we also talk about the importance of empowering teams to focus on the experience of their end-users, clinicians, and clients to build the best possible healthcare solutions.
Despite consumer’s growing reliance on online marketplaces (especially during social distancing) many still don’t have an adequate level of assurance for verifying customers (e.g. many only require an email, username and password).
Meanwhile, other online marketplaces leverage hundreds of different behavioral biometrics and knowledge-based parameters for verifying customers. But the disadvantage there is that the additional security layers slow down the verification process, which can lead to lost customers (especially younger generations).
Another largely unknown fraud technique that’s a particularly significant, common threat amid the COVID-19 outbreak involves using SSNs stolen from recently-deceased individuals and public or breached information to create synthetic identities (and even synthetic families with a spouse and kids).
Cybercriminals then establish creditability for those synthetic identities using a variety of tactics, such as making online transactions and leaving a digital trail of breadcrumbs – allowing them to eventually load up on loans and credit, spend it all and vanish. Sanjay can discuss this growing threat, how identity theft is changing during the pandemic, and how businesses and consumers can help prevent it.
Sanjay Gupta from Mitek discusses how online marketplaces are leveraging biometrics in customer onboarding and how they can balance security with usability. We also talk about how cybercriminals are capitalizing on the recently-deceased and creating synthetic identities and synthetic families.
When we think of video games and technology, we usually think of the development of the games themselves, with sophisticated engines and impressive graphics. But esports is showing that technological innovation lives outside the game as well, with streaming services racking up increasingly larger audiences.
Now a new tech player has entered the esports arena. Esports One has an incredible fantasy esports platform for fans of League of Legends (with more games planned for this year). The game itself is a salary-cap style fantasy game, but the tech behind it is pretty amazing. Matt Gunnin, CEO at Esports One, reveals more about the first all-in-one fantasy esports platform with real-time predictive data.
Since COVID-19 forced most of the world indoors, esports has seen an influx of new fans, new participants and new partners, many from outside the esports world. For these new fans, the world of esports may seem confusing and foreign. Matt and his team at Esports One have created a fantasy esports experience that is at once familiar (pick players in a salary cap-style league.)
Since early February Esports One has seen a dramatic increase in numerous traffic KPIs for their fantasy platform, including a more than 300% increase in users. Matt also shares how their unique approach to data + predictive analytics is proving to be a hit with fantasy esports fans of all stripes.
I learn how they use Computer Vision and Machine Learning technology developed at MIT and CalTech to record everything that happens in every League of Legends game. They've got 2.3 billion data points, from 10+ years of games and around 100 million players. It's an incredible trove of data. So incredible in fact, they can predict, with 90% accuracy, who's going to win a match just a few minutes after it has started.
From contact tracing to four-legged drone delivery devices, trying to discover what the most effective "new normal" looks like post-COVID involves a significant degree of new A.I. applications most companies and consumers are largely unfamiliar with or even fear. How can users and hyperscalers alike better understand new designs of AI/ML, that way we as a society can implement the best practices to come out of this pandemic unscathed?
Myplanet has been working behind the scenes on this task for years. Over the past decade, Myplanet's team of mastermind developers have been on the heels of various cutting-edge A.I. solutions for a range of Fortune 500 companies such as Uber, Google, Delta New Balance, SoftBank, Salesforce and more.
Jason Cottrell—CEO and Co-Founder of Myplanet shares the look on the numerous projects Myplanet has already taken a hand in developing, and AI/ML designs the company is currently working on to help curb COVID-19.
Jason also discusses the importance of normalizing AI technology to solve some of the world's biggest issues, and how much of the existing technology we're familiar with is actually the same as what consumers sometimes fear.
Rana el Kaliouby is an Egyptian-American computer scientist and entrepreneur in the field of expression recognition research and technology development, which is a subset of facial recognition designed to identify the emotions expressed by the face.
Rana joins me on Tech Talks Daily to speak about her book, Girl Decoded. The captivating memoir provides an intimate view of her personal transformation as she follows her calling–to humanize our technology and how we connect with one another.
A number of years ago, el Kaliouby had an "a-ha" moment: what if our technology could understand us in the same way that we understand one another? That set her on a path to pioneer the new technology category of Emotion AI. Girl Decoded chronicles Rana el Kaliouby's journey from a "nice Egyptian girl" to a woman carving her own path as she revolutionizes technology. But decoding herself–learning to express and act on her own emotions–would prove to be the biggest challenge of all.
We also discuss Rana's work with Affectiva to humanize technology. An MIT Media Lab spin-off, Affectiva created and defined the technology category of artificial emotional intelligence or Emotion AI. Having evolved beyond emotion detection, Affectiva is now pioneering Human Perception AI: software that can detect not only human emotions and cognitive states, but also behaviors, activities, interactions, and objects people use.
Affectiva's in-cabin sensing AI enables leading automotive OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, ridesharing providers, and fleet management companies to build next-generation mobility that adapts to complex human states. Affectiva's technology is also used by 25 percent of the Fortune Global 500 companies to test consumer engagement with ads, videos, and TV programming.
Rana also touches on the potential for Affectiva's technology to help us all stay connected during this time of social distancing.
Estonia's government created a first of its kind program called e-Residency, which lets users set up electronic residency in the country and now boasts Pope Francis as a member. But it's doing far more than making headlines around the world: It's also allowing small businesses who'd never have dreamed it was possible to work in the international business community since Estonia is a member of the EU.
Working there used to be extremely cost-prohibitive, but with e-Res, it takes just over $300. Ott Vatter, managing director, e-Residency in Estonia joins me on Tech Talks to share the benefits e-Residency's popularity has brought to his small country.
I learn how the program hooks users up with its lauded transparent business environment and then allows members to do business in the EU without all the regular hassle. It got its start for the export of Estonian services, but five years in it's now benefitting companies around the world.
Ott also discusses the challenges of creating a "digital first" nation and how it became a cornerstone of Estonia's identity, as well as how governments can help build business, and the importance of updating legacy governmental processes.
LeddarTech provides a versatile and scalable auto and mobility LiDAR platform based on the unique LeddarEngine, which consists of a suite of automotive-grade, functional safety certified SoCs working in tandem with proprietary LeddarSP signal processing software.
The company is responsible for several innovations in cutting-edge mobility remote-sensing applications, with over 70 patented technologies (granted or pending) enhancing ADAS and autonomous driving capabilities.
LeddarTech also serves the mobility market with solid-state high-performance LiDAR module solutions for autonomous shuttles, trucks, buses, delivery vehicles, and robotaxis. These modules are developed to support the mobility market but also to demonstrate the capabilities of LeddarTech’s auto and mobility platform as a basis for other LiDAR suppliers to build upon.
Frantz Saintellemy, President and Chief Operating Officer
Engineer, innovator, and internationally recognized expert in advanced technologies joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Frantz has over 21 years of experience in the electronics and automotive sectors, with specialized knowledge in automotive, autonomous driving, AI, IoT and automation applications, and business and product development, applications engineering, global sales, and marketing.
He is a dedicated entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is also Co-founder of Groupe 3737, an incubator and innovation center that houses more than 30 companies and start-ups, in addition to offering a framework for ideation to revenue generation.
Frantz joined LeddarTech in September 2017, having previously served as VP and General Manager of the Automotive and Industrial Division of Integrated Device Technology (Nasdaq: IDTI), a California-based company specializing in a broad array of complete mixed-signal solutions.
Before IDT, Frantz was President and Executive VP of Global Sales and Marketing at ZMDI AG, a global supplier of MEMs-based sensor solutions for automotive and industrial applications acquired by IDT in December 2015.
Throughout his career, Frantz has produced numerous patents and technical innovations. He also founded and co-founded many successful start-ups and corporations, including SMGT Inc., Q-Links Home Automation, Groupe Reno-Metrix, Capital Plus, and OMNI Global, and sits on several boards and advisory committees.
Frantz also holds degrees in electrical engineering, business and marketing, and is also a graduate of the MIT Sloan Engineering Fellows Program on Innovations and Global Leadership.
Domenic Perri always believed the journey of building meaningful, authentic, and long-lasting relationships is the most important foundational element of a successful profession and thriving business. Maybe, one of his favorite speakers, Esther Perel, says it best: "The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives."
Domenic's tech journey began at BRAK Systems, working closely with the founder, Robert Herjavec of ABC's "Shark Tank," where we pioneered enterprise cybersecurity in Canada and acquired by AT&T Canada. He joined Vertex US in 2019 to build a foundation of quality relationships and help our early-stage founders accelerate their growth thoughtfully.
Vertex Ventures US Vertex US is an early-stage venture capital firm that backs companies transforming industries through software and data. With investments including LaunchDarkly, PerimeterX, and Desktop Metal, Vertex US brings pioneering experience to pioneering enterprises.
Before Vertex US, he spent his entire career in Corporate Development and Business Development, including at Dropbox, leading a global team responsible for product ecosystem partnerships, go-to-market, and distribution partnerships.
In his career, Don has worked at Juniper Networks as Senior Director of Corporate Development responsible for M&A and partnerships. Before that, he held senior roles at Caymas (acquired by Citrix), and Internet Security Systems (IPO then acquired by IBM for $1.3B). I also wanted to find out more about his time in Tesla's M&A team to lead the integration of Grohmann Automation (700 employees) on-site in Germany.
Domenic shares his tech journey and talks about corp dev strategies for startups as we get accustomed to changing the digital landscape.
Stress-related mental and physical health issues are on the rise. Despite an abundance of mindfulness apps, and a rise in the popularity of meditation and yoga, effective relaxation is harder than ever to achieve and not something easily mastered in a short time. Stefan Chmelik has designed and developed a small, pebble-like wearable that can offer users deep immediate relaxation to help fight everyday stress and anxieties - in just 10 mins per day called Sensate.
New wearable targets vagus nerve to improve health and reduce stress, Sensate was originally created for PTSD sufferers but is now available for everyone. Its game-changing Infrasound (low-frequency vibration) Resonance Engine transmits sound at multiple frequencies for immediate relaxation.
BioSelf Technology has developed pioneering, clinically validated, wearable technology that offers a solution for a time-poor generation to the exponentially growing stress pandemic. More than ever, the world needs a shortcut to emotional regulation in this global crisis. Regular relaxation and meditation are well established as the most effective ways to self-manage stress; however, few people have the time to learn or practice this important skill. But how can tech help?
Stefan shares how BioSelf, the company behind Sensate created a paradigm-shifting wearable device that decelerates stress in real-time. I learn how it also uses Patent Pending novel technology, which was developed and has been in operation in a Harley Street clinic over the last three years with highly successful patient results.
Konica Minolta is an example of a global enterprise – nearly a century old – that has evolved its business to stay competitive in today's ever-changing landscape – parlaying strengths in cameras to copiers, to its own digital transformation that allowed it to become a major player in IT and IoT services. But the company wasn't able to change overnight; there had to be an inflection point.
Going against the advice of a leading global business consultancy, Konica Minolta's North American CEO made the decision to acquire All Covered, an IT services startup, because he saw the need - both among his customers and internally - for trusted IT services and support with true digital transformation consultants.
The collision of a digital-first, service-provider mindset with a global hardware-provider mindset was the catalyst for change that Konica Minolta needed. The strategy was not to rebuild their entire business model from scratch but to bring in an agile partner that could lead by example and identify small areas for growth that would kick-off a gradual transformation process.
Now, Konica Minolta, with All Covered, is one of the few global enterprises that has changed its business model – from hardware maker to service/hardware hybrid – without changing the fabric of its values. Jon Clemons and Navin Balakrishnaraja join me on the podcast to share how All Covered has impacted education and the healthcare IT industry.
Navin is the National Practice Director, Healthcare IT Services at All Covered. He has more than 18 years of demonstrated experience in planning, building, and delivering IT services in the US, China, and India for different business verticals. Navin also has vast experience in providing strategic directions in the areas of IT governance, IT strategy, program management, and vendor management.
As the National Solution Architect for Education, Jon's primary focus is to lead the direction of All Covered's Education Practice nationwide in all technical aspects as well as sales enablement and go to market strategies. In this role, he developed processes and procedures for bidding and quoting network infrastructure solutions to education clients.
We currently grow enough food to feed the population twice over, yet more than two billion people experienced moderate or severe levels of food insecurity in 2019, equating to around 26.4% of the world’s population. It’s an unsustainable model at a time of elevated demand and digitization (like traceability systems etc) can manage the advocacy, source, and safety of food.
Jason Murphy is Managing Director, IoT Retail for IMS Evolve, a company whose technology for the past twenty years has helped food retailers change their refrigeration practices to extend stock shelf-life and increase the supply of perishable foods for consumption. It does this with a platform that automates and maintains commercial fridges and freezer systems by collecting and managing the vast volumes of data being generated. The technology is currently in use across as many as 20,000 sites globally.
Jason shares how supermarkets have adapted quickly during the pandemic to ensure the nation stays fed and how connected systems such as contactless payments, self-checkouts, and shop services have enabled social distancing without upgrades or extra staff.
We discuss how digital innovation, such as customer flow tracking and footfall analytics allow one-way and one-in-one-out policies to be rolled out efficiently; and how IoT connectivity across the ‘cold supply chain’ has meant stock levels remain high. Jason also talks about the rapid digitalization of the food supply chain - from agriculture all the way through the chain to the home, where wastage is excessive.
The workforce of the future is more than robots and holograms. In fact, the future of work is already influencing business decisions in ways that were once visions in the minds of workers. From 5G connectivity to boundaryless communication, the modern workforce is pushing full speed ahead into a new definition of work, and businesses have the responsibility to embrace it.
Fuze is a global, cloud-based unified communications platform that empowers productivity and delivers insights across the enterprise by enabling simplified business voice communications, flexible video conferencing and always-on collaboration. In a nusthell, they combine voice, video conferencing, and chat in one easy-to-use application people use at work.
Amanda Maksymiw is the director of content marketing at Fuze and an award-winning marketer. Amanda takes a left-brain/right-brain approach on all projects and believes that great content drives growth lives in that intersection. We discuss how businesses can embrace the future of work, today.
I learn more about how IT leaders can take full advantage of the changing work landscape, the key strategies to understand and implement to prepare their workforce — whether they are spread across countries or continents.
More than 17 million Americans have filed unemployment claims as a direct result of economic uncertainty caused by COVID-19; PepUp Tech sees this as an opportunity to invest in skills training to drive more talent into the growing Salesforce ecosystem.
The company offers free virtual Salesforce skills training programs designed to provide skill advancement opportunities to individuals whose employment prospects have been negatively affected due to the COVID-19 epidemic and members of underserved communities.
Selina Suarez is the executive director at PepUp Tech, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the number of underrepresented people in tech. Selina joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share more about the skills training program and the company’s mission.
I learn more about the immeasurable impact the program has on its student’s livelihood and future career prospects (600% more earning power). We also discuss the power of the Salesforce ecosystem and the opportunities that exist for displaced workers.
We discuss the story behind this nonprofit company that is dedicated to increasing the number of underrepresented people in tech. Selina shares their goal of inspiring individuals to learn about computer science and technology, gain access to people and careers in these industries and ultimately give back to their communities.
Learn now that PepUp Tech is empowering the next era of tech through education and gives motivated, underserved students the access, skills, mentors, and confidence needed to begin careers in tech.
TO THE MARKET (TTM) uses technology to help create transparent supply chains for retailers and brands, enabling them to source and manufacture socially and environmentally responsible products at competitive prices, lower minimums, and faster turnaround times. They have built a growing network of more than 100 suppliers in over 20 countries.
Historically, one of the U.S. manufacturing challenges has been that retailers and brands must go through brokers. You provide brokers with the necessary specs, and they come back with options for who can deliver your product and at what price. The markup is significant, and the buyer is essentially sourcing from a black box — there is minimal transparency with this model. The TTM platform works as a broker. It has a vast network of thoroughly vetted suppliers who bid on projects.
Jane Mosbacher Morris, the CEO & Founder of TO THE MARKET (TTM), was named on Fortune's Annual Greatest Leaders list because of her work activating TTM's network of suppliers to source personal protective equipment (PPE) in early March.
Morris’s organization matches big buyers—like Target and Mastercard—with a global network of nontraditional manufacturers, mostly women-owned and based in vulnerable communities.
In March, dozens of TTM makers retooled their operations to produce masks, gowns, and scrubs. Barely 30 days later, the personal protective equipment (PPE) began rolling in. Morris has orders for over 1.2 million units in the U.S. and hopes to eventually distribute in Kenya, Ghana, and India too.
We discuss the global pandemic and how the team handled pivoting. We also discuss the supply chain of the future and how this will make companies think differently about how they procure/source post-pandemic and technology's role in making it a reality.
TrustArc has a reputation for leading the wave of innovation, transforming privacy compliance and risk management. They helped start the industry in 1997 with industry-leading privacy certifications to build consumer trust across websites, mobile apps, and the cloud.
The company also pioneered using SaaS technology starting in 2010 to operationalize privacy management for consent, privacy assessments, data inventory, and much more. They introduced privacy intelligence into their Platform in 2018 to simplify compliance management for the GDPR, CCPA, and hundreds of other global regulations.
Hilary Wandall is SVP Privacy Intelligence and General Counsel of TrustArc Inc. She leads the TrustArc Privacy Intelligence, Research, Legal, Regulatory Affairs and Policy, and Business Development teams to design and develop the company’s privacy frameworks and Knowledge, Intelligence, and Assurance Products. She also serves as Corporate Secretary of TrustArc.
Hilary joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the implications of contact tracing, and the slippery slope leading to government surveillance. We also talk about the impact of telehealth on data privacy rules such as HIPAA.
We explore the impact of remote work on data privacy as workers handle consumer data on personal devices. I ask the question, does your employer have the right to access your health information if you contract the virus, or are they even responsible for knowing if you have tested positive or negative?
Finally, I learn more about the expectations for enforcement for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) beginning July.
RS Components (RS) is a trading brand of Electrocomponents plc (LSE: ECM), a global omni-channel solutions partner for industrial customers and suppliers. It has also been supporting and inspiring generations of engineers since 1937. I wanted to learn more about that heritage and how they have evolved with technology too.
The world’s leading electronic products retailer offers more than 500,000 industrial and electronic products, sourced from 2,500 leading suppliers, and provide a wide range of value-added services to over one million customers. The company also has operations in 32 countries, trades through multiple channels, and ships to over 50,000 parcels a day.
RS supports customers across the product life cycle, whether via innovation and technical support at the design phase, improving time to market and productivity at the build phase, or reducing purchasing costs and optimizing inventory in the maintenance phase.
Mike England, COO at RS Components joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the rich history of the company, and they have not been afraid to pivot, embrace innovation, and leverage technology. Mike also shares the moment when he noticed his teenage kids, juggling multiple video calls, across a myriad of screens on smartphones, tablets, and computers. This moment offered a glimpse into the future and the expectations of employees in 5-10 years' time.
NGRAVE Co-Founder and CEO Ruben Merre is a serial entrepreneur who launched his first business when he was 8 years old. He has led & launched many international tech projects, including several automated algorithmic trading platforms.
Prior to launching NGRAVE, Ruben worked in strategy for Deloitte and Hedera and helped launch Belgium's first automated online investment platform. But his current mission is to eradicate the loss and the malicious hacking of your cryptocurrencies.
Every single day, millions of dollars are stolen from users' wallets. Cryptocurrency theft topped a record $2.5 billion in 2018 and an astounding $4.3 billion in 2019. But almost two years ago, the three co-founders of NGRAVE came together to build a solution that they would entrust with their very first to their very last bitcoin.
Whereas competing wallets like Ledger and Trezor rely on a USB or Bluetooth (giving them attack vectors), NGRAVE removes the need for any connection, it uses QR codes to remain fully air-gapped even when creating accounts and conducting transactions. NGRAVE also uses firmware that has earned the highest security certification in the world, EAL7.
For the first time ever, you no longer have to worry about any third party - not even NGRAVE - potentially finding or figuring out your key. Existing solutions give you a key, so they may have a database holding all the keys they ever made, including yours. They also rely completely on the interior chip for generating your key, and also here, there could be backdoors, as has been proven in recent history.
I learn how ZERO introduces a whole new key generation process that not only relies on the interior chip, but that also includes your biometrics and your surrounding light. Ruben also shares the secret to their hugely successful Indiegogo Campaign
Sam Englebardt is an established media and tech investor, a licensed attorney and content producer who has created, acquired and/or financed a broad range of traditional and digital businesses and dozens of films and television shows over the past decade.
However, he also a Co-Founder and Partner at Galaxy Digital, a blockchain and digital assets merchant bank, and the Head of Galaxy Interactive, a $325M fund that focuses exclusively on companies and projects with particular emphasis on video game studios, esports, digital objects, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), lifestyle applications and related infrastructure tech.
Galaxy Interactive is one of the world’s largest dedicated video game and interactive content and technology investors with principal investments in player-owned virtual economies (Mythical, Immutable, Ember Sword), large-scale persistent virtual worlds (Playable Worlds, High Fidelity), skill-based gaming, hyper-core and social simulation MMO (N3twork, Avia Games, Lightheart, Big Run Studios, Dazzle Rocks), two-way live streaming interactivity (Genvid, Azarus), and several others.
After recently Googling the Metaverse, I learned that it is a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet. But I wanted to learn more in a language that everyone can understand.
So, today, I want to talk about building the metaverse. What is it? What are the technological, legal, economic, social challenges to building and scaling it? And how should we think about identity in and across virtual worlds? Can the metaverse be occupied by anonymous or pseudonymous avatars, or will true identity be a necessary condition?
We talk about all this and discuss which companies will matter most to the creation of the metaverse over the next decade? Will incumbents win or will it be created by a start-up(s)? Hit play to find out more.
It is the shared interest for search engines and the exploitation of Big Data that led François Goube and Tanguy Moal to join forces to create Cogniteev, the company behind the data platform OnCrawl.
With over 15 years experience in search and semantics, François Goube, serial entrepreneur, and Tanguy Moal, NLP expert and Data geek wanted to build the most advanced research technologies accessible to the greatest number of people. And it was already proven from their previous experiences that they were able to build products used by millions of people (Exalead, JobiJoba...).
In 2013, OnCrawl was born. Built from an industrial consortium with Cdiscount - the leading French e-commerce website - the team behind OnCrawl managed to develop a SEO crawler able to analyze millions of pages - in a short period of time - and at a competitive cost. They then understood that a large number of SMBs but also larger companies needed that technology previously held by Fortune500 companies.
These are just a few reasons why they decided to democratize such a solution by officially releasing OnCrawl in 2015. OnCrawl provides a scientific approach to search engine optimization by delivering reliable and accurate data that can be used to monitor, understand and optimize a website’s performance on search engines results.
François Goube joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about their new platform called OnCrawl Labs. Entirely based on Data Science and Machine Learning and offering a portfolio of ready-to-use algorithms. It allows companies to predict their online and SEO performance with robust data and SEO features not yet available on the market.
We also discuss why SEO will become more and more technical in the future and explore the rise of data science in the SEO industry.
Link to our data science platform: https://labs.oncrawl.com/
Link to OnCrawl website: https://www.oncrawl.com/
nChain is the world’s leading provider of enterprise-grade blockchain solutions, helping businesses and organizations realize and protect the value of their data. nChain boasts the largest team of blockchain developers globally and a leading portfolio of novel blockchain I.P. nChain is committed to helping clients maintain competitive advantage in business through more efficient management of data.
The company has a vision of a world where people, businesses, and organizations are yielding significant value from a more efficient data economy. The company is in the business of enterprise-grade public blockchain solutions and security that is scalable and business-ready. The team is also backed by two Bitcoin heavyweights, Calvin Ayre and Craig Wright.
Collectively, they believe that data is going to be the single most important commodity over the next 5-10 years, and the only way that is possible is if it is captured and made actionable. This is where nChain, which manages and uses BitCoin S.V.’s technology comes in.
The CEO, Dave Washburn, shares his unique perspective that he brings to the business. Before joining nChain, David spent 17 years in capital markets and is a PHD Physiology & Biophysics. This blend of both traditional industry knowledge combined with nChain’s deep bench of blockchain and bitcoin experts, makes this an interesting company to watch.
It’s not for nothing that representatives of the Suisse and Norwegian national banks are in talks with nChain to explore digital national currencies.
Bonjoro is an app for sending individual personalised videos to welcome and onboard new customers and clients. It allows your customers know just how much you care about them. I wanted to learn more about how brands can stop spamming with impersonal, generic messages and craft something meaningful instead.
Matthew Barnett joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind Bonjoro. He reveals how he grew a team in 6 countries over 3 years, with a 97% non-Australian customer base. I also learn how highly personal video messages help build trust, love and convert customers for life.
We also discuss the growth of personalization at scale in the marketing mix and how asynchronous video creates advocates and superfans.
I recently discovered an under-tapped online tool that leverages technology to serve as a very streamlined and holistic platform for all of us to help one anothe from a distance. Supportful is the only all-in-one online crowdfunding for support platform that's relevant to the current climate of hardship. Not only right now, but in the weeks and months to come.
Unlike more prominent name online crowdfunding tools like GoFundMe, Supportful has allowed people to raise funds for a cause/person but also takes it a step further. The portal provides e a singular, virtual place to crowdfund support in other ways, such as transportation, meals, and babysitting.
Given the fact that people everywhere are experiencing a range of hardships from financial and job loss to hospitalization and isolation, the team is gearing up to launch a new and dedicated page to curate COVID-specific support efforts.
I wanted to learn more about how we can use our new age and culture of online connection during this pandemic to help each other. For example, it's helping people with basic living expenses, shipping groceries, creating care packages, creating virtual tip bars or happy hours for local bars, coordinating wellness check-ins, scheduling digital entertainment for the elderly.
Nicholas Emerson Mazzone, Founder and CEO of Supportful.com joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind this free online platform. We discuss how they are using technology to provide friends and families going through hardships with the tools and resources they need to get help in meaningful and practical ways.
The Economic Value of Prevention in the Cybersecurity Lifecycle report was recently released by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by cybersecurity provider Deep Instinct. The report delineates the savings that organizations could actualize per incident if effective preventative measures are implemented, which range from around $300,000 to over a million USD depending on the nature of the attack.
The study uncovered an interesting discrepancy: although a whopping 70% of cybersecurity professionals believe preventative security measures improve cybersecurity posture and reduce overall security costs, only 21% of their organizations’ budgets are allocated to attack prevention.
Steve Salinas joins me on the podcast to address how deep learning is making preventative cybersecurity a reality. I learn more about how Deep Learning is a fully autonomous system that can learn from all the available raw data, as an expert’s technological knowledge does not limit it. It provides the best unknown cyber threat prevention, detection, and response with the highest detection rates of unknown malware; while generating a near-zero false-positive rate.
Since Deep Learning is input-agnostic, I also explore how it can protect any new type of device, endpoint, mobile or server, and type of operating system, against a broad range of file-based or fileless attacks, with a low impact on performance. The Deep Learning brain handles most of the security, in almost zero-time (milliseconds). It also provides administrators a very user-friendly management console (deployed in the cloud or on-prem) to view all of the relevant information.
ASML makes machines that make chips, the hearts of the devices that keep us informed, entertained, and safe. Devices that improve our quality of life and help to tackle the world's toughest problems. They build some of the most amazing machines that you will ever see, and the software to run them.
Never satisfied, they measure performance in their units that begin with pico or nano. ASML has been around for more than 35 years and companies with that kind of longevity are not always thought of as fast-moving, quick thinking, problem solvers. But as with everyone, ASML faced some major issues serving their customers during the Coronavirus required isolation.
ASML is a manufacturing company that makes large scale machines responsible for creating tiny microchips for all of the major chipmakers around the world. Keeping those machines up and running is a necessary part of the ecosystem. If the machines break once they are in a customer's lab, then the products we use every day like cell phones and computers, won't get made.
So, some engineers at ASML partnered with one of the US-based customers and piloted an AI-based solution to spot-checking the machines and keeping them running smoothly. They use Microsoft HoloLens and smartphones to simulate an onsite visit!
Peter Peusens, Director of Customer Support DUV Operations at ASML, shares how they could keep their EUV lithography technology up and running even when they couldn't be onsite with their customers. I also learn how ASML used augmented reality to maintain business continuity and customer support during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The global pandemic separated families around the world for months. It also highlighted the digital divide between generations. Many were given a wake-up call that senior family members were locked out of the world of photo sharing, video calls, and instant messaging. They have been left out of the digital communications that we all take for granted.
GrandPad is a digital health company that develops engagement solutions to improve the health and well-being of older adults by reconnecting them to families, friends, and caregivers through technology that is safe, reliable, and easy to use.
The company recently expanded capabilities when an increasing number of home health agencies and other healthcare companies were turning to GrandPad to facilitate video visits during COVID-19 restrictions prohibiting in-person care.
The GrandPad is a purpose-built tablet for people over the age of 75. It's the first mobile device of its kind. It addresses usability, security, and connectivity issues that are often roadblocks for integrating remote monitoring and telehealth into professional and familial caregiving settings.
The company's secure cloud platform with built-in LTE and web applications allows care teams and family members to engage remotely with older adults without depending on wifi connectivity. GrandPad enables a variety of interactions, including video calls, sharing essential care-related emails and messages, and conducting multi-party video care conferences between family members and a patient's continuum of caregivers.
Scott Lien is GrandPad's Chief Executive Officer, leading the company as it builds a platform that empowers seniors of all ages and technological skills to connect with family, friends, and caregivers. Having previously developed user-friendly software for companies such as Target, Best Buy, and Bank of America, as well as having led the mobile technology innovation group at Intuit.
With GrandPad, I learn how Scott strives to create a world where no seniors are lonely or isolated from digital communication.
SecurityScorecard is the global leader in cybersecurity ratings and the only service with over a million companies continuously rated. SecurityScorecard’s patented rating technology is used by over 1,000 organizations for self-monitoring, third-party risk management, board reporting, and cyber insurance underwriting; making all organizations more resilient by allowing them to easily find and fix cybersecurity risks across their externally facing digital footprint.
SecurityScorecard is the only provider of instant risk ratings that automatically map to vendor cybersecurity questionnaire responses - providing a true 360-degree view of risk. But, I wanted to learn more about the story behind the company and their recent Presidential candidates get smart cybersecurity report.
Aleksandr Yampolskiy is a globally recognized cybersecurity innovator, leader, and expert. As co-founder and chief executive officer, Yampolskiy has led the company since its beginnings in 2013 to become one of the world’s most trusted cybersecurity brands. His vision is to create a new language for cybersecurity by enabling people to work collaboratively across the enterprise and with external parties to build a more secure ecosystem.
Prior to founding the company, Yampolskiy was a hands-on CTO at Cinchcast and BlogTalkRadio, the largest online talk radio and podcast hosting platform. Prior to that, he led security and compliance at Gilt Groupe, where he managed all aspects of IT infrastructure security, secure application development, and PCI compliance. Yampolskiy has a B.A. in mathematics and computer science from New York University and a Ph.D. in Cryptography from Yale University.
Synctuition is an Estonian born startup offering a unique relaxation experience technology. By using the incredible power of 3D sound, Synctuition goes far beyond meditative relaxation providing an immersive mind travel experience that cannot be compared to any other audio mediation in the world.
In its first year, it has become one of the world’s leading mindfulness apps with over four million users in Europe, the U.S., and Asia. In 2019 the startup was also selected by Google as one of the Top 10 fastest-growing startups in Europe.
With the world on the brink of a mental health crisis due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Synctuition, the mindfulness, and mind relaxation app backed by well-known scientists and experts recently announced that their platform will be made free to people in 14 countries.
The announcement comes as the company reports a surge in demand and usage over the past few months, becoming one of the top five highest-grossing mindfulness apps globally. The app has now been made available for free from the now until 31st July 2020 to the United Kingdom, Ireland, United States, Canada, Amsterdam, Australia, Belgium, Estonia, Dubai, Israel, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
Led by veteran tech leaders from Estonia, Synctuition offers free access to the app at a crucial time as the COVID-19 pandemic affects the mental health of people worldwide, with federal agencies and experts warning of a wave of pandemic PTSD and other mental health issues on the rise. The WHO has warned that in public mental health terms, the main psychological impact to date is elevated rates of stress or anxiety.
As people worldwide endure the lasting impact of the pandemic – especially quarantine and its effects on many people’s usual activities, routines, or livelihoods – levels of loneliness, depression, harmful alcohol, and drug use, and self-harm or suicidal behavior are also expected to rise. But can technology help solve these problems? Michael Burich, COO, and Co-founder of Synctuition shares their mission and also talks about the tech startup scene in Estonia.
Deepgram is an automatic speech recognition startup that uses end-to-end deep learning technology to train speech models to learn under complex, real-world conditions—regardless of customers' unique vocabulary, accents, product names and acoustic environments. It's an entirely new approach compared to the other players in the space, like Google, Amazon and Nuance.
CEO Scott Stephenson, came up with the idea for Deepgram while researching the creation of dark matter in a bunker two miles underground as a Ph.D. student. In the few hours that weren't devoted to his research, Scott recorded audio from his life, 24,7, and realized there wasn’t a tool available that would help process his recordings and pinpoint valuable timestamps.
The company has since raised $13.9m to date and intends to use the funds to expand operations and its business reach. I invited Scott onto the podcast to learn more about his tech startup story. Scott shares how they are helping enterprises unlock the potential of their audio data with custom trained speech recognition built for accuracy and scale.
Scott also reveals how businesses are using Speech Recognition APIs to empower their business and what makes Deepgram stand out in a crowded market place dominated by tech giants.
Marek Zmysłowski is a Polish-born entrepreneur and executive, focused on online businesses in Frontier and Emerging Markets, author of "Chasing Black Unicorns. How building the Amazon of Africa put me on Interpol Most Wanted list."
Silicon Valley meets Indiana Jones – Chasing Black Unicorns is an autobiography written by one of Poland's most respected internet entrepreneurs. Witty and humorous, the book covers many dramatic and often dangerous events.
Before moving to Nigeria to set up the 'Amazon of Africa,' Zmysłowski worked for one of Poland's most prominent financial services companies and is the founder of many online ventures in Central Europe. While establishing the first online network of funeral services in Poland, he had to overcome challenges from criminal gangs running the market sector.
His businesses in Nigeria have also made him enemies, powerful individuals who have corrupted police and government officials to stand against him. Overnight, Marek became an international fugitive and was put on the most wanted list by Interpol, an organization with a history of being manipulated by corrupt regimes. Zmysłowski describes this and many other events, putting them in the context of African history and cultures, a continent he is now deeply in love with.
The book reveals an engaging story of an entrepreneur who scales big businesses in Africa. Marek's experiences show the behind-the-scenes business building for many of us on the exotic continent and investor relations and the fight against big competition.
Marek also co-founded Jumia Travel – Africa's Biggest Hotel Booking Portal listed on NYSE as part of Jumia Group and HotelOnline.co – a Travel Technology Company. In 2014, he was chosen as one of the Ten Most Important People in Tech by IT News Africa Magazine. He is a Lead Mentor at Google's Launchpad and World Bank's XL Africa Program
Outform is a global retail innovation agency that works with some of the world's leading brands, including Absolut, Motorola, and Peroni. MD, Simon Hathaway is a pioneer of retail experience, working with technology that is transforming our expectations of shopping and leading the way in the future of retail experience.
The company recently released the iDISPLAY Thermometer, which is designed to instill a sense of trust and safety in people across industries as they re-commence everyday activities, and public gatherings post COVID-19. I learn how the company continues to find innovative ways to do their part in flattening the curve.
The non-contact infrared thermometers enables customers to invite users back in stores, schools, and work, in a cost-effective, efficient, and safe way. Backed by the world's leading technology in infrared thermopile arrays, the iDISPLAY Thermometer uses Heimann, Melexis, or Omron Sensors to capture temperature in a contactless, frictionless, and accurate way. Within a matter of two seconds, iDISPLAY Thermometer can read body temperatures, alert users, and designated associates if they have a fever.
Given the current 'work from home, stay at home' world we're now living in, Simon discusses how he's had to adapt to meet clients' needs in these weird times. More generally, Simon also provides expert insights on the role of retail innovation in the evolving retail industry and how to create successful in-store activations.
Simon shares examples of the seven technologies Outform unveiled at EuroShop, and the role innovative technology has to play in retail. We also talk about how they provide brands and retailers with transformative shopper insights by leveraging technology.
Phil Schraeder is CEO of GumGum, the artificial intelligence company focused on computer vision and natural language processing. Since 2008, the company has applied its patented capabilities to serve a variety of industries from advertising to professional sports, with more to come.
Essentially, the company unlocks the value of images and videos produced everyday across the web, social media, and broadcast television. They teach machines to solve hard problems across the media industry. The company serves contextual marketing in line with content users, helps marketers and right holders understand the media value of their sponsorship investments, and introduces the content safety analysis engine that finds what is relevant or what is dangerous.
In February 2020, they raised $22 million from existing investors Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, NEA spinout NewView Capital, and Upfront Ventures – bring their total to nearly $60 million. In addition to a walk-through into their technology, Phil shares the new neuroscientific research that explains why contextual targeting is an effective digital advertising tactic.
The findings come from a study GumGum conducted in partnership with neuro analytics company SPARK Neuro, which examined how an ad’s contextual relevance to content influences consumers. Ads with the most contextual relevance elicited 43% more neural engagement and 2.2 times better ad recall, the study found. It also revealed that contextually relevant ads inspired a statistically significant increase in purchase intent.
I learn more about how GumGum is doing their part surrounding education around how to stop the spread of COVID-19. They have partnered with the Ad Council to support the #AloneTogether PSA initiative discussing the importance of social distancing. Additionally, this year, in partnership with the Ad Council, they began developing GumGum Smile, a unique platform experience aimed to amplify the Ad Council’s messaging initiatives.
Co-authors Douglas Ferguson & Karen Holst have spent the last 20 years in the trenches bringing new ideas forward within organizations. They have learned what it takes to launch innovation within a company and has covered the gamut of organizational types from state government agencies and military armed forces to startups and large public corporations.
Reflecting upon these experiences, they noticed that while no one company or organization is like the other, there are common patterns that were almost universal.
Assembled from these observations and insights about innovation and bringing new ideas to life, the Start Within framework was created to provide a way to assess your situation, how it relates to the unique nature of your company, and what tools and actions are appropriate for you to move forward.
In the book, Karen and Douglas argue that most of us already have everything we need to enjoy a fulfilling career in our current companies, if only we can push for the big innovative changes we care about. This type of intrapreneurship can be challenging, which is why the book outlines a process ranging from accessing organizational preparedness to prototyping, and how to turn a "no" into a "yes."
I learn more about the story behind Start Within and their mission to help anyone who wants to innovate within their company, take ownership of their work, and design the career of their dreams.
I recently learned how Estonia's government created a first of its kind program called e-Residency, which lets users set up electronic residency in the country and now boasts Pope Francis as a member. But it's doing far more than making headlines around the world: It's also allowing small businesses who'd never have dreamed it was possible to work in the international business community.
Since Estonia is a member of the EU, working there used to be extremely cost-prohibitive, but with e-Res, it takes just over $300. In charge of the digital government and society as well as telecommunications and post areas.
Siim Sikkut, CIO of Estonia is responsible for setting the strategy and policies to launch and steer strategic development initiatives and regulations. He also represents the government in the EU and other international organizations, commenting and collaborating on policies concerning technology and digital adoption.
From online banking to e-school and digital prescriptions, most everyday tasks are carried out digitally in Estonia, with the country embracing its moniker "e-Estonia." But the countries digital revolution has also fostered a business environment that boasts the highest number of unicorns in Europe. There are 7.4 startups per 10,000 inhabitants in Estonia.
Bolt, Transferwise, Salv, and Funderbeam are just a few examples of successful Estonian unicorns that have taken root there, a manifestation of Estonia's innovation-driven society. It is now attracting venture capitalists from around the globe looking for the next big tech unicorn, trying to follow in the footsteps of Estonian companies with valuations exceeding $1bn.
Siim joins me on Tech Talks Daily for a chat about the rapidly growing tech scene and how the government supports it. He also shares the secret sauce of how the capital city of Tallinn has become a hotbed for ex-pats and entrepreneurs.
By pairing software developers with consumers who offer critique in real-time, MOD Devices, German-based effects processor developer, aims to develop products that create a community. Founder and CEO Gianfranco Ceccolini established MOD to encourage a dynamic addition to the creative economy community.
Ceccolini notes, "In this world of total connectivity, our platform catalyzes the interaction between artists and musicians with a unique community-driven approach. The direct contact provided by this group fosters the collective. This conversation drives not only the development of the audio plugins but also the devices themselves. We feel that connecting the minds behind the tools with the creative community using them is in step with a new model of digital collaboration and directness."
This marketplace for unique ideas was inspired by the urge to create a community that can be easily adapted by beginners. While simultaneously catering to expert musicians who want to express themselves, MOD created a simple first step solution to both parties.
I invited Gianfranco on the podcast to discuss his creative economy idea in depth. We also talk about how their project was funded on Indiegogo in just 24 hours and how he built an audio processing platform that unleashes musicians' creativity.
Upstatement officially opened its doors in 2008 but was born during late nights at the Syracuse University student newspaper. That's where founders Mike, Jared, and Tito met before graduating to the newsrooms of The New York Times and Boston Globe. But they don't come from a typical agency background, and Upstatement doesn't look like your typical studio.
Their team is filled with curious, versatile designers and engineers who all do a little bit of everything: Designers develop. Engineers sketch. Everyone contributes to creative concepts (because the best work comes from diverse teams). That's why nothing they do is cookie cutter. It's much more about daring to dream big, looking for fresh challenges, and push themselves.
Here in 2020, the company provides design leadership for a diverse client list: publishers, products, non-profits, and the world's most remarkable brands. All unified by strong stories and the desire to make a positive impact.
Tito Bottitta joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about how Upstatement is connecting with doctors on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic to build the COVID Protocols product. Tito shares how they are helping the team of over 50 Brigham and Women's Hospital physicians, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, and nurses from multiple different divisions, organize the vast amounts of incoming info, and decide next how best to share it.
From a technology perspective, I learn how Upstatement is building something useful around obstacles like hospital firewalls, etc. We also discuss what it's like designing quality work under extreme pressure (time & safety). The latest iteration, viewable at covidprotocols.org, came together thanks to Dr. Lee and Boston-based digital design and engineering studio, Upstatement.
Through the partnership, Upstatement rapidly worked to find user base value in the tool while keeping it as a Google Doc by rebuilding potential caching problems that sending tens of thousands of people into a file at once could pose - making them a major key player in the project's success. The tool also had to be something useful built around obstacles like hospital firewalls, etc.
Tito shares their inspirational work across three projects that are leveraging technology to create a unique approach to making a difference against the global pandemic.
- COVID Protocols - Captures emergent medical conventions that help doctors make life-saving decisions on the front lines. In association with Brigham & Women's Hospital. Read more about it on Medium.
- COVID Safe Paths - A privacy-first contact tracing app that could help us flatten the curve and return to normal. In association with MIT, Path Check Inc., and others. Read more about it on Medium.
- Project Z - Think of it as Yelp for COVID safety. Find the local businesses that are doing the most to keep you safe. When you have to go out, do it with confidence. In association with a group of silicon valley founders & V.C.s.
AIMS API is an AI tech company that uses machine learning to solve some of the problems in searching through large catalogs of music. Their technology takes the next step from the current way of searching with keywords and metadata. It allows you to do searches similarly to the way your brain identifies similarities in music.
By analyzing an audio track, the AIMS algorithm will find you more similar music in a given music catalog. This is extremely helpful for editors, music supervisors, and other creatives in the media industry. AIMS have used the technology to create tools that help music professionals, publishers, and record labels work smarter and faster than ever before
AIMS CEO and co-founder Martin Nedved joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his tech startup story. Nedvěd knows the struggle firsthand. He spent fifteen years running Studio Fontana, the biggest production music sub-publisher serving clients around Central Europe and managing sub-publishing deals with partners around the world.
With AIMS business development lead Einar Helde, he shares how he founded an agency to collect neighboring rights royalties for production music performers and libraries in Europe. He’s also been running a production music catalog for nearly a decade.
Nedvěd also knows the challenges that rights holders and music teams face and how the pace of production has skyrocketed while budgets shrink. Music supervisors and library owners need to do a lot more with less, and this “more” often involves digging up the right music fast from catalogs with millions of tracks.
I also learn more about the recent collaboration with UNIVERSAL PUBLISHING PRODUCTION MUSIC (UPPM) which is integrating AIMS' similarity search technology on all UPPM websites worldwide.
The application modernization market is projected to reach $16.7 billion by 2022, and according to recent data, nearly 50% of decision-makers planned to prioritize app modernization tech this year. That said, almost half of those CIOs also say that the most significant barrier to modernizing processes or systems is cost – a barrier that might pose detrimental in the future – and Modern Systems is working to help change that narrative with customers.
While the industry clearly understands how imperative it is to remain agile and modernized in the digital world, not all realize the importance of app modernization as a critical first step in that process. Brandon Edenfield, Managing Director of App Modernization for Modern Systems, an Advanced Company joins me on the podcast to further explore the topic.
Modern Systems was acquired last July by Advanced -- the UK's third-largest provider of software and services -- and the two have melded to create a global modernization powerhouse. It has 35+ years under their belt transforming legacy environments, whether on the mainframe or locked in outdated UNIX environments.
It has also completed 500 application modernization projects and 2.5 billion+ lines of code. The company's approach for the mainframe to cloud transition is an incremental one, and they leverage their unique Modernization Platform as a Service (ModPaaSTM ), a collaborative cloud-based platform.
Clients of both Advanced and Modern Systems include The New York Times, GE Capital, Hargreaves Landsdown, Deutsche Bank, the US Department of Energy, the State of Utah, and CIBC. We discuss all this and much more in today's episode.
Global Processing Services (GPS) is the issuer processor enabling many of today's most high-profile fintech innovators and disruptors, including Revolut and Starling Bank. It is certified by Mastercard and Visa to process and manage any credit, debit or pre-paid card transaction globally.
Neil Harris is the chief commercial officer at GPS. I invited him on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to learn more about the payments technology provider powering challenger banks, digital wallets, and fintech companies. With over 14 years of experience in the payments industry, Neil's key focus includes driving customer success by delivering added value and creating efficiency through technology.
Before GPS, Neil was Head of Business Development at Bottomline Technologies, an innovator in business payment automation technology. He was Co-founder and Vice President of Global Sales at Access Pay, a provider of cloud-based global payments and cash management solutions.
Neil is also Chair of the Financial Inclusion Committee at the Emerging Payments Association. He is part of a leading taskforce to provide benchmarking capabilities within the industry to determine the level of impact fintechs have in tackling financial inclusion issues. Neil was also part of the UK Fintech Trade Mission to Austria and Switzerland, which sought to promote UK payments technology.
We talk about the positive economic impact of financial inclusion and how it will be driven forward, amidst an impending global recession.
LinkSquares is a web application tool designed to help legal and finance teams work smarter. The AI-powered contract repository automatically finds and extracts key terms and meta-data from contracts and provides key insights with deep search, custom reporting, and analytics.
LinkSquares also saves high-growth companies hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars by eliminating manual contract review and the need for outside counsel.
By capturing and analyzing every contract created and stored, LinkSquares gives legal teams and their constituents full visibility into their contract repository's data, content, and liabilities from inception through a company's evolution.
In February, the AI-powered SaaS contract management and analysis tool raised $14.5 million in Series A financing led by Jump Capital. That meant The company has raised $21.4 million to date and will use the funding to expand its engineering, sales, and product teams and build out its solution portfolio.
Vishal Sunak, CEO of LinkSquares, explains how they have proved its commercial value in the market, and steadily leading in AI-driven contract management product innovation. With over half a million contracts under management, LinkSquares helps its hundreds of customers understand and better mitigate risks and liabilities in minutes, not months.
I learn how Companies such as DraftKings, Fitbit, Twilio, Asurion, VMware, and Pendo rely on LinkSquares to elevate their internal value, reputation, and productivity by eliminating time spent on manual and ineffective processes so they can protect their companies with confidence.
As a business, your online interactions have never been more important. The coronavirus has changed the way we’ll be conducting business for the foreseeable future. Now, more than ever before, your customers are turning to you online for rapid responses to their queries across multiple platforms, and real-time information about your hours and delivery services.
A company called Uberall is empowering some of the world’s biggest brands and agencies to deliver a memorable ‘Near Me’ Brand Experience — from online interactions to offline sales. The ‘Near Me’ Brand Experience consists of all the online touchpoints that a consumer has with the local outlets of a brand, from finding, persuading, buying and recommending, to returning as a regular customer.
Uberall’s solutions enable multi-location brands to easily manage search and discovery, engagement, and conversion in real-time on all online platforms — mobile, voice, and desktop — across websites, mobile apps, store locators, search engines, maps, social platforms, and advertising networks.
I invited Greg Sterling, VP Market Insights on Tech Talks Daily to find out more. The digital marketing and search expert talks about what SMBs and multi-location brands should be doing to weather the crisis. We also discuss the impact that COVID-19 is having on digital marketing and how to prepare for recovery.
IoT is growing with around 50bn IoT devices forecast by 2025.
At the same time, other developments like Autonomous Cars, Smart Cities, 5G, AI, and Blockchain are shaping a new dynamic of interoperability and integration. All of which is driving the transition to the internet of value.
Vodafone partners with businesses of every size and are embracing positive change through digital communications technologies. They are working with the world's largest multinational companies, fast-growing enterprises, Government teams, ambitious start-ups, and small businesses across the globe.
However, Vodafone is much more than mobile, fixed, and unified communications. The company isdeveloping the capability to leverage their IoT SIM to generate PKI and also incorporate a SIM wallet to equip IoT devices to be part of the economy of things. I wanted to learn more about how it will provide the capability to transact peer to peer and how the blockchain also acts as a trust anchor/ledger for IoT device interoperability (Security and Authentication).
Smart Cities/Smart Citizens are also developing to act as a service provider for things, and a possible purchaser of data generated by IoT devices. Recent developments in Smart Buildings and IoT Payments also show how Vodafone is approaching these challenges.
After seeing David Palmer talk about Blockchain, IoT, and 5G for Vodafone Business, I invited him on to Tech Talks Daily to talk about what it all means for technology communications and enterprises.
Mark McClain, CEO, and Co-founder, SailPoint, has over 20 years of experience developing and leading innovative technology companies. Under Mark’s direction, SailPoint has grown from a collection of fresh ideas into a publicly recognized leader in the identity management software market.
Mark recently released his first book Joy and Success at Work, which delves into his history and experience as a tech entrepreneur; navigating complex market conditions, boards, IPOs and scaling; trying to disrupt an industry while ensuring a strong culture for employees; how to embrace key employees’ exits and why long-term success starts with hiring.
When it comes to starting up and scaling, Mark stresses the importance of building your core team: the first twenty-five to fifty people you hire are critical to future success not only from a business perspective but also from a cultural perspective. Think about building a company like a construction project – you have to lay a strong foundation first as everything that follows will rest on top.
I invited Mark onto Tech Talks Daily talk about all of this and also discuss some of the core concepts he explores within his book.
Michal Magdziarz, CEO and co-Founder of DeepCrawl, the technical SEO cloud-based platform, joins me on the podcast. Michal has spent the last 15 years in the SEO and web business industries, and the last nine years with DeepCrawl. Currently, he leads business strategy and growth while steering the company through a dramatically changing industry.
Michal has a unique background in the tech industry and has seen the 100M websites grow to almost 2 billion. Today he shares how he has seen web services evolve over the last decade. We also discuss why the web is far more complex and dynamic now, why brands need to adapt and how brands can be using SEO to accelerate growth and mitigate losses.
Lynda Spiegel is a professional resume writer whose 14 years as a Global Human Resources executive means she knows how your resume will be viewed by recruiters and hiring managers. She is also a frequent writer and speaker on job search and networking skills and also a member of The Wall Street Journal‘s Experts Panel.
As a recruiter, she has posted jobs on LinkedIn, so she also knows how to write a LinkedIn profile. I learn how you can improve your chances of being found by your target employer by articulating your professional brand and the specific accomplishments that differentiate you from every other candidate.
I invited her onto the podcast to share a behind the scenes insights that will improve your chances of getting an interview. We also chat about how you can ensure your application stands out in a world of AI-driven application tracking system and much more.
John Jonas has helped thousands of entrepreneurs succeed in their business by doing outsourcing differently. He created the world’s largest website for finding Filipino Virtual Assistants, OnlineJobs.ph, which has over 500,000 Filipino resumes and over 100,000 employers from around the world using it.
Since 2005, John has taught hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs how to profitably delegate to VAs in the Philippines (and get their lives back in the process). With help from his own VAs based in the Philippines, John has created an outsourcing empire that allows him to work 17 hours/week and spend most of his time with his wife and 5 kids – traveling, golfing, cycling and living his ideal life.
John shares his expertise on how to hire rock star virtual assistants, helping business owners accomplish time freedom, and helping talented individuals overcome the economic challenges of living on an island. We also discuss when you should hire a virtual assistant? Why the Philippines? and how to find a good VA.
AT NexTech AR Solutions Corp they are developing a proprietary Augmented Reality (AR) advertising platform that uniquely engages consumers by connecting them to brands and retail locations through a fully immersive AR experience.
With a focus on their two core technologies, augmented reality and holographic telepresence, NexTech AR offers innovative solutions that can be harnessed across a wide range of industries. Harnessing these technologies allows us to bridge the physical and the digital worlds, pushing the boundaries of branded communication and user experience in a disruptive new way.
It is the first publicly traded augmented reality (AR) company (OTCQB: NEXCF /CSE: NTAR) and the fastest growing “pure-play” AR company. It is also the first to market with its patent-pending WebAR e-commerce 3D shopping solution.
The fourth transformation has begun. So I invited Evan Gappelberg CEO/Founder at NexTech AR Solutions to join me on Tech Talks Daily. Evan shares his startup story and the role serendipity has played in his success.
Finally, we talk about the recent acquisition of Jolokia, which is a virtual events webcasting live streaming software company. I learn how these combined companies make it possible to launch AR first Virtual conferences
In our last interview, you might remember Gary Vee telling me in 2019 that "Joe Rogan is going to eventually sign a $100 million-plus deal to go exclusive on a platform because of the level of attention he has." We all know what happened next.
After interviewing Gary Vaynerchuk twice on this podcast, you could be forgiven for thinking that you know his story inside out. But today, I want to explore his softer side of Kindness, humility, and helping others. As part of TikTok’s ongoing efforts to use the platform to make a positive impact, they partnered with GaryVee for a one-of-a-kind 12-hour TikTok LIVE stream.
In the first hour and a half, Gary raised $100,000 and was not stopping by repeatedly asking the audience to share, tap the treasure chest, and donate as much as possible. Jay Strongbow donated $100K and Will.I.Am donated 25,000. Those that feel they are too old for TikTok took comfort from Joey Fatone who declared, "I'm 43-years-old some people say TikTok is too young for you but I say no - I'm having a lot of fun here."
The streaming event raised nearly $900K on the live-stream, with an additional $250,000 donation from Patriots owner Robert Kraft. With the TikTok match, this means Meals on Wheels raised about 2.3 million yesterday. I wanted to find out more about the story behind the #ALLINCHALLENGE on TikTok and why it means so much to Vaynerchuk.
We also talk about how he has been coping and working from home taking Zoom calls instead of living on planes.
A lot is happening in the drone space right now, with one of the big stories being the emergence of open-source for drones. Auterion has found itself an interesting niche in the industry, developing a drone operating system and analytics platform based on open-source R&D that is rapidly gaining traction. Think iOS vs. Android (Auterion).
Auterion enables drone manufacturers to focus on their hardware, so they no don't have to worry about developing and continually updating the software layer that controls the aircraft and captures and manages the data. This reduces R&D costs and enables companies to focus on innovating new applications and payloads and focusing on key differentiators.
Auterion is building an ecosystem of hardware platforms unified around a single software system, with a consortium of companies mounting a credible challenge against market leader DJI, chipping away at their market dominance. GE Aviation, Freefly, Avy, Impossible Aerospace, Quantum-Systems, and several other companies already use Auterion, with more in the works.
At the heart of Auterion is PX4, the most used flight control software (in terms of units) in non-DJI drones. The project was started by Lorenz over 10 years ago and today counts more than 8000 users (individuals and companies) and 600+ contributors. Because the project is open source (and is permissively licensed) it has gained broad adoption worldwide and is today comparable to "the Linux" for drones. Hundreds of companies build components, products, and solutions that are compatible with these open standards.
Lorenz Meier Co-Founder of Auterion joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share the story behind the software platform designed to make large-scale drone operations simple, safe, and fully integrated in workflows.
Aaron Upright co-founded ZenHub in 2015 as a company to empower software development with flexible workflow and organization within GitHub using a fully-featured integrated project management platform for Agile development.
ZenHub helps development teams build better software faster. Aaron currently serves as the Head of Strategic Accounts, managing both strategic partnerships and customer relationships, while helping current and prospective users get the most out of their experience with ZenHub.
Previous to founding ZenHub, Aaron was at tech incubator AxiomZen, where he focused on developing go-to-market strategies for early-stage companies. It was here that Aaron formed ZenHub.
I wanted to learn more about the GitHub extension that first become popular with Github users at midsize companies, and how it has attracted a fan base at the enterprise level. Aaron joins me on the podcast to share his story and his beliefs around software development.
We also discuss prioritizing creativity along with efficiency without diminishing creativity in the software development cycle and why stiff adherence to a particular tool or methodology needs to be a thing of the past.
Aaron also talks about the importance of building trust among teams and offers tips for incorporating the best of Agile development while fostering each contributor's power. Finally, I learn why distraction is the greatest enemy of productive software development.
After a seven-year tenure as Chief Security Scientist at Bank of America, Sounil Yu joined YL Ventures as CISO-in-Residence. The move will also help the firm help entrepreneurs better understand enterprise customer needs and navigate during this increasingly difficult COVID-19 environment and beyond.
Sounil is also the creator of the OWASP Cyber Defense Matrix and DIE Resiliency Framework. His vision is to put the Cyber Defense Matrix to the test to see how well it can help entrepreneurs discover capability gaps in the market and reveal common patterns that can be applied to develop solutions that can fill those gaps.
Sounil joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about the tools needed to meet infrastructure security challenges from a workforce that is suddenly 100% remote and how companies can apply the Cyber Defense Matrix to rationalize technologies when budgets are going down.
We also discuss why CISOs make such good advisors to VCs, putting them to work on behalf of startups to make better solutions (YLV convenes 80 CISOs from Fortune 500 companies on its advisory board).
Fuze is a global cloud communications and collaboration software platform for the enterprise. Through an innovative and consumer-inspired unified experience, Fuze enables seamless transition between voice, video, messaging, and content sharing. Fuze empowers the digital workforce anytime, anywhere, and across any device.
As VP of Brand and Corporate Marketing, Lisa Walker oversees brand strategy, public relations, customer advocacy, content, and creative at Fuze. Additionally, Lisa chairs the Fuze Women's Network, a community of women within the organization focused on opportunities for development of women in technology.
Prior to Fuze, Lisa ran brand and product marketing for Forrester Research (NASDAQ: FORR), where she oversaw the launch of successful new products including the CX Index and Executive Programs, and led the company through a successful rebrand in 2015. Prior to Forrester, Lisa ran marketing and communications for Gather.com, an early social network that later became Skyword, a leading content marketing agency.
In today's episode, we talk about how businesses can embrace the future of work. The workforce of the future is more than robots and holograms. In fact, the future of work is already influencing business decisions in ways that were once visions in the minds of workers. From 5G connectivity to boundaryless communication, the modern workforce is pushing full speed ahead into a new definition of work, and businesses have the responsibility to embrace it.
We also talk about eliminating gender bias in non-promotable work tasks.No one likes a messy house - or a messy office. But still somehow, not everyone is held equally responsible for the upkeep of either space. According to analysis from University College London, on average, women spend 16 hours a week on household tasks, while men spend just six hours.
Finally, we also talk about the top 3 misconceptions surrounding flexible work. Regardless of how a business looks at flexibility, workplace innovation continues to advance at a high-speed, evolving into a more natural and integrated aspect of life and dominating the expectations of modern workers.
The shift in the rhythm of traditional work creates assumed challenges that may be intimidating for organizations trying to adapt. Pushing aside misconceptions and uncovering the truth about flexible work can accelerate an organization's path to delivering a successful balance of work and flexibility to all of its employees, regardless of age or working preferences.
Beyond regulations, there's also infrastructural changes to today's internet, beginning with Google's decision to phase out third-party cookies. Why does this matter?
Aqilliz is a blockchain solutions provider addressing the many issues currently plaguing the platform economy. Founded by a team of advertising industry veterans, entrepreneurs, and experienced engineers, Aqilliz is able to identify sector-specific challenges in the field of digital marketing to develop bespoke, blockchain-based solutions.
Within a rapidly crowding platform ecosystem, the exchange of value now takes place at unprecedented rates and across multiple destinations, with marketers struggling to efficiently manage campaigns, connect with consumers, and track results. Powered by Zilliqa's high-throughput blockchain platform, Aqilliz is able to tip the value scale, restoring the balance between brands, platforms, and consumers of content across a largely fragmented industry ecosystem.
Gowthaman Ragothaman is the CEO of Aqilliz, a blockchain solutions provider that looks to address issues across the platform economy. Affectionately known as G'Man across Asia's advertising community, his career spans over 20 years across the continent, having held multiple positions during his tenure at the WPP group of companies. Throughout his career, G'Man has worked with leading global FMCG conglomerates, such as PepsiCo and Unilever.
Most recently, G'Man was the Global Client Lead at WPP and Global Blockchain Solutions lead at GroupM, where he looked to introduce blockchain-based solutions and distributed ledger technology to WPP clients worldwide. G'Man also previously served as the Chief Development Officer for the Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa (APMEA) region at Mindshare.
G'Man shares his background and what prompted his decision to leave behind the world of traditional advertising at WPP and transition to form Aqilliz. I learn more about Aqilliz and what challenges they hope to solve.
With the rise of privacy regulations, we also discuss the leading challenges that marketers need to contend with today.
The customer journey is often misunderstood, and the effect on sales can be massive (Hubspot recently revealed that only 24.3% of salespeople exceeded their quota last year). In today's episode, I explore the impact of AI-powered customer data intelligence on enterprise sales productivity and performance.
In enterprise sales specifically, with its lengthy buy-cycle and maze of decision-makers, timing is everything. To gain a competitive edge, reps should engage with target prospects as soon as the customer journey begins, i.e., when internal key stakeholders realize that change is both inevitable and critical to the bottom line.
Regardless, enterprise sales reps need concrete data insights into their customer's actual problem, their level of urgency, and the financial case for change in advance of their first prospect engagement—as all subsequent decisions will flow from it. Arming reps with AI-powered customer intelligence is vital to elevating both productivity and performance.
According to Salesforce, teams are twice as likely to prioritize leads based on data analysis of "propensity to buy" rather than on intuition, and high-performing sales teams are 1.5 times more likely to base forecasts on data-driven insights.
The Databook Customer Intelligence Platform combines predictive intent data, real-time insights, and time-saving productivity tools to improve selling performance across the enterprise. Every sales rep that uses Databook, regardless of experience or skill set, can deliver the right pitch, for the right audience, at the right time--building true, sustainable customer value from the first conversation.
Databook's CEO, Anand Shah, developed an innovative platform that's utilized today by some of the world's leading companies that identify which accounts to prioritize, which buying groups have pain/urgency, and offers access to a hyper-personalized point of view for enterprise reps to engage the customer.
We talk about how AI-powered data insights are transforming sales by offering a crucial headstart on the customer journey.
I explore the world of voice technology and dare to look beyond asking a digital assistant a question and explore how it can transform how we interact with it the world. Tobias Dengel, CEO of WillowTree— one of Inc. Magazine's "fastest-growing private companies of 2018" and one of Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 for 2019, joins me on Tech Talks Daily.
WillowTree creates digital products for big-name consumer brands like HBO, National Geographic, Johnson & Johnson, and Pepsico. Tobias regularly talks about the implications voice technology has for many industries (retail, finance, medical, etc.) He also recently wrote an op-ed that addresses how voice will transform financial services for MarketWatch.
Tobias is deeply involved in re-inventing the digital space. He helped create geo-location for AOL Local. Just as AOL is extinct, Tobias believes strongly that Siri and Alexa will face extinction soon enough. They will, in his informed view, be replaced by "Voice 2.0" — a multi-modal experience of humans speaking and getting text/graphic results.
The voices will be diverse and non-binary. A good deal of WillowTree's Voice 2.0 focus is financial transactions. Tobias sees a coming transformation in mobile transactions, but he also has much insight to offer on a variety of related topics from how voice will transform various industries from healthcare to consumer goods.
WillowTree is a full-service mobile agency focused on creating world-class digital products for partners. WillowTree Inc. has released over 400 consumer and enterprise applications for businesses, including General Electric, PepsiCo, Johnson & Johnson, Time Warner, Turner Broadcasting, Wyndham Hotel Group, 21st Century Fox, Zappos, and many others.
Onapsis is more than your typical application cybersecurity company. They are different because their solutions help eliminate the costs and risks preventing you from building better, smarter, and more dynamic applications faster and more securely.
Gartner recently acknowledged the importance of mission-critical business applications by highlighting one of the security capabilities of the Onapsis platform. Upon hearing this, I felt compelled to find out more.
They call themselves "The Tribe" in tribute to their Argentinean roots. But they take their name Onapsis from the Onas, an ancient, hardy, nomadic tribe indigenous to the Patagonian region of southern Argentina. Like the ancient Onas, they are proud people who work together as a team and rely on other members of The Tribe to help us succeed.
Juan Pablo "JP" Perez-Etchegoyen, CTO of cybersecurity firm Onapsis joins me on Tech Talks Daily. He is responsible for the design, research and development of Onapsis' innovative software solutions, and helps manage the development of new products as well as the SAP cyber-security research that has garnered critical acclaim for the Onapsis Research Labs.
He is regularly invited to speak and host trainings at global industry conferences including Blackhat, HackInTheBox, Troopers, and SAP TechEd/DCODE. Prior to joining Onapsis, Juan Pablo led many Information Security consultancy projects for Companies in Latin America, EE.UU. and Europe. His strongest experience is in the field of Penetration Testing, Web Application Testing, Vulnerabilities Research, Information Security Auditing's and Standards.
JP discusses what enterprise practitioners need to know as they migrate business-critical applications to the cloud, including how traditional on-prem security tools fall short and who is responsible for protecting the applications before, during, and after migration.
JP explains what vulnerabilities can be exploited if apps remain unprotected. As the founding member of the Cloud Security Alliance ERP Working Group, he also shares site key findings, and best practices from the organization's research.
Rahul Gandhi is a co-founder and the CEO at MakeSpace, a full-service storage company based in New York that is revolutionizing the 38 billion dollar storage industry. Rahul co-founded MakeSpace in 2013 along with his two co-founders based on their various experiences with self-storage during Hurricane Sandy. They designed MakeSpace to transform the antiquated storage industry, combining innovative technology with a customer-first approach to service.
MakeSpace utilizes data and machine learning to provide a convenient and seamless self-storage experience. Through AI-driven algorithms, customers are able to store and retrieve their items on-demand, receive optimal pricing, easily schedule appointments, track their pick-ups in real time, leave reviews and tip through the app, and view a secure photo inventory of stored items.
Rahul shares how he has leveraged technology to disrupt the storage industry and the need to adapt more technology within the sector. He also speaks to the benefits this has on cities and urbanization, his journey as an entrepreneur, and more.
Jason Wu is an experienced digital currency entrepreneur solving real-world problems with blockchain technology. With a Masters in B.A and Supply Chain Management, the founder and CEO of DeFiner, a true peer-to-peer fintech network for digital savings, loans, and payments, shares his unique insights.
Powered by blockchain technology, DeFiner’s decentralized financial (DeFi) platform enables users to effortlessly lend, borrow, and earn digital assets within a global network. DeFiner removes the friction and costs associated with conventional financial services and instead offers maximum flexibility to set one’s own rates and terms. DeFiner also eliminates the need for third parties from its financial ecosystem, by using an immutable blockchain to track all loans and transactions, providing ultimate security for users.
A key player already disrupting the USD 100 trillion loan market, DeFiner was recently accepted onto the TechStars Accelerator program. By creating revolutionary banking solutions, DeFiner is working to make lending and borrowing smoother, faster, cheaper, and above all, more secure.
Relational database management systems have been the mainstay of IT departments since they were first commercially introduced by Oracle in the 1970s. But over the past decade, a new generation of database categories have taken over as the top choice for enterprise IT projects.
In the past few years, developers have started to reach a consensus about which of these “specialty database categories” can best handle specific use cases where relational databases haven’t kept up. According to DB-Engines, the database management categories with the fastest user growth in the past two years are Time Series databases, Graph databases, and Key-Value stores. During that time, relational database usage has stayed the same or declined slightly.
Organizations now track, measure and analyze metrics from a wide range of sources that provide new data every second. According to IDC, the amount of data being produced worldwide is expected to grow nearly fivefold by 2025 to 175 zettabytes per year, driven by the proliferation of IoT sensors, serverless infrastructure, containerization and microservices.
Most of this is time-stamped data generated at high frequency and in great volume that requires rapid ingestion and real-time querying to extract maximum value. This means that the future of tech innovation will require real-time system observability, with granular insights to make more precise decisions to optimize operations and improve customer experience.
Paul Dix, creator of InfluxDB (open-source time-series database) and the founder and CTO of InfluxData joins me on Tech Talks Daily. With over two decades of experience helping companies like Microsoft, Google, McAfee, Thomson Reuters, and Air Force Space Command build software, Paul has unique insights to share on how and why time-series data is going to be the biggest hurdle and opportunity for tech organization in the future.
In the real world, you don’t need big promises about transformation, or the endless “exploratories” that accompany them. You need progress. Transformation isn’t a process or a product. It’s an outcome - the result of a thousand steps in the same direction.
Progress is what makes transformation possible. By combining deep industry expertise, data-intelligence, world-class engineering, and seamless delivery, we’re setting out to prove why it’s time for a new approach to making progress.
Kevin Mar-Molinero, director of experience technology at Kin + Carta Connect, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. He’s got a deep interest in accessibility and inclusive design, with a personal passion and story behind it. He explains the potential that the ‘purple pound,’ which is worth over £249bn, presents.
Kevin shares why he is so passionate about designing with empathy when it comes to digital transformation and is well-versed on what’s not currently happening - and what needs to happen - to engage with a part of the community that’s sizeable, but often overlooked.
Kevin believes that in a society where our differences are increasingly recognized and celebrated - not to mention a society that is getting older - it is vital from both an economic and ethical perspective that we respond to the changing design priorities that come with this.
Kevin provides expert insight into the problems with accessibility legislation regarding digital design and why so many brands do the bare minimum, reacting rather than leading. We also discuss what they’re missing out on as a result, in attracting revenue, innovation and diverse staffing.
Patientco is a payment technology company headquartered in Atlanta, GA founded specifically to re-think the healthcare payment experience. The company believe that patients and health systems deserve better than the status quo. So they built easy-to-use technology that ensures health systems maximize patient payments.
Patientco CEO and Co-founder Bird Blitch joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Bird is an entrepreneur who is striving to make the patient financial experience an economic growth engine for health systems. He came up with the idea for PatientCo after he and his wife had their first child and were subsequently flooded with bills from several different providers. Bird found this process to be overwhelming and created PatientCo to make healthcare payments easier and more convenient.
As an entrepreneur striving to make the patient financial experience an economic growth engine for health systems, I learn where the idea came from and what inspired him to solve these problems? We also talk about the issues regarding billing in the healthcare industry and how technology can be used to combat these problems and much more.
Billions, maybe trillions of times a day, people around the world touch something made better by Qualcomm. It could be the smartphone in your pocket, the tablet on your coffee table, that wireless modem in your briefcase. It could even be that navigation system in your car or that action camera strapped to your chest.
Who is Qualcomm, and what do they do? They are engineers, scientists, and business strategists. They are from many different countries and speak many languages. They come from diverse cultures and have unique perspectives. They focus on a single goal, inventing breakthrough technologies that transform how the world connects, computes, and communicates.
However, over the last few months, our world has dramatically changed. Will 5G will move from a buzzword to reality as 5G-enabled smartphones hit the market and carriers began offering 5G service? I invited John Smee VP Engineering, Qualcomm 5G Wireless R&D Lead onto the podcast to find out more
John is the 5G R&D lead responsible for overseeing all 5G research projects, including end-end systems design, standardization contributions, advanced antennas, radio, hardware, and software prototype implementations, as well as external engagement with wireless operators and vendors worldwide.
Over the past 15 years, he has taken on roles of project engineering lead, systems lead, and algorithm designer on a variety of projects focused on the innovation of wireless communications systems such as 3G, 4G LTE, and 802.11 WiFi.
A particular area of focus has been taking advanced system designs and signal processing techniques from theory through design, simulation, standardization, implementation, and productization. John has also worked closely with business and product teams to define features, requirements, and timelines for successful product launches.
Daniel Scrivner has an inspirational tech startup story to share. His journey took him from college dropout to Head of Design at Square to CEO of Flow. The simple project management software is used by teams at Apple, Shopify, TED, and Harvard to manage projects and tasks, collaborate and stay productive.
Daniel's path to success has been anything but typical. He's now considered a leader in his field, with numerous design awards and accolades under his belt and a client roster that includes household names like Nike and Disney. So I invited him onto the podcast to learn more about his story.
While the brightest minds in Silicon Valley are working to get us addicted to likes, retweets, and notification badges, I learn how Daniel views this as the "anti-metric". He explains why he believes the path forward for Flow lies in building a tool that gets more powerful the less you need to use it.
When it comes to setting your brand apart from the pack in an increasingly crowded space, companies must stand out to survive. Brands that understand what they are, what they're not, and what they stand for come across as singular and authentic in an ocean of me-too mediocrity. Daniel also explains how thoughtful design imbues meaning, expresses values, and sparks connection.
Great designers know that what you cut is as important as what you keep. So while the competition rushes to add new bells and whistles, Daniel has been pruning Flow's feature set to perfection. Daniel also reveals more about his peculiar hobby — studying centuries-old companies operated by the same family for generations.
Fascinated by their ability to stand the test of time, Daniel shares the wisdom he's gleaned from their rich history and how the lessons of the past still apply today.
Fujitsu RunMyProcess and Citrix have been working together on a collaboration that consists of Fujitsu’s low code platform, RunMyProcess, and Citrix Workspace. With this technology partnership, companies can increase efficiency and productivity by utilizing RunMyProcess’ core capabilities of rapid integration of systems (SaaS, on-premise, etc.) and development of custom applications that will route to Citrix Workspace.
The joint solution provides a robust and secure digital workspace where enterprises can transform their employee experience in various phases depending on their transformation journey:
- Integration: Integrate workspace with front and back-office systems
- Automation: Automate workflows across silos to increase productivity
- Co-Creation: Co-Create new applications to transform the way work is done.
Tien Nguyen (Fujitsu RunMyProcess.com), Bryan Janes (Citrix), and Manjunatha Gali (Citrix) join me in a conversation about the employee experience transformation journey. We discuss how employees want a simple, intelligent, and reliable experience that enables them to work when, where, and how they want and be their most productive.
I learn how combining Citrix Workspace with Fujitsu RunMyProcess, companies can quickly and efficiently deliver it across all types of SaaS, on-prem, and even legacy environments.
About the Guests
Tien Nguyen, head of global partnerships at Fujitsu RunMyProcess.com. Passionate about driving digital transformation with his partners by bridging technology and business value together to deliver outcomes. Tien has a proven track record of developing strategic business relationships with alliance and channel partners to produce incremental revenue. He is focused on strategic execution, systematic processes, and solution-based methodologies.
Bryan Janes has over 20 years’ experience with end-user technologies in the enterprise, across their design, deployment, and operation. Having previously worked for companies such as UK Post Office IT Services, Nokia, Infor, CSC, he has witnessed the impact of many technologies trends. Bryan also has a deeply-held belief that technology should be an enabler, not an end in itself. Working at Citrix for the last seven years as a Global Solution Architect and Director within the Global System Integrators Group, he works with key strategic partners who are helping customers transform their business and workforce experience.
Manjunatha Gali seasoned technical marketing leader with over 12 years of experience in the IT industry. I have executed quality leadership in managing numerous technical programs and projects for multiple Citrix and partner product integrations. Passionate about Citrix products, partner marketing, and alliance marketing, backed by impressive technical skills in multiple virtualization and cloud platforms.
This year has already been defined by outdated and vulnerable security systems, crippling ransomware attacks, and escalating nation-state cyberwarfare concerns. Many of those risks have been exacerbated by people working from home at scale.
The question remains: Are enterprises and governments prepared to battle the cyberattack onslaught if we look back to a pre COV9D-19 world, the first two weeks of the year centered around cybersecurity hysteria?
Toby Olshanetsky, co-founder and CEO of prooV, argues that while organizations recognize the importance of stringent cyber defense evaluation procedures such as red team and penetration testing, many businesses cut corners due to time and resource constraints.
Traditional proof-of-concept methods can no longer keep pace with the global threat of cyberattacks. However, Toby points to AI advancements that can now simulate sensitive enterprise data to hasten how companies identify, evaluate, and deploy cybersecurity solutions.
Varnish Software is a pioneer in high-performance content delivery and works with major the top 5 streaming providers in the U.S. The company delivers advanced solutions for customers but also grow revenues, reduce costs, and increase profitability. But many are unaware of the technology that is powering 10+ million websites and that their caching technology is used across every industry to accelerate content delivery and protect critical infrastructure.
James Whyte, General Manager of Varnish Software U.S., a high-performance content delivery network, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Having spent the last five years working to help customers deliver optimized content via streaming, web-delivery, and even building their own content delivery network, James shares his insights.
We discuss why the industry needs to build instead of renting CDN and the importance of providing streaming viewers a fast experience in an oversaturated market. We also talk about how companies can benefit from a web and API acceleration that is faster and scalable. Finally, we explore what life will look like on the other side of the global pandemic.
Varnish Software is a pioneer in high-performance content delivery and works with major the top 5 streaming providers in the U.S. The company delivers advanced solutions for customers but also grow revenues, reduce costs, and increase profitability.
Anodot Autonomous Analytics is a machine learning anomaly detection platform that independently monitors business metrics and locates critical incidents. But This turn-key solution autonomously learns behavioral patterns within times series data, so that it can immediately pinpoint anomalies across a large scale and continuously anticipate future values.
Anodot alerts operate in real-time and offer context, correlating high-impact incidents to related factors, to support root cause analysis. This capability has helped users to dramatically reduce time to detection and resolution. The pioneering technology is trusted by industry leaders across telco, eCommerce, fintech, adtech, gaming, and more.
Anodot co-founder Ira Cohen joins me on the podcast to discuss how businesses can leverage machine learning to tap into human perception and identify critical business incidents. I learn how much glitches cost companies across industries and how to prevent them.
We explore how the Data Scientist role has evolved over the past decade, as well as where it is going. We also discuss the current trends in data analytics and how those trends will impact companies looking into the future.
Who is Kunal Johar? Some say he is a tech-savvy, blunt-speaking, highly productive startup founder with a rock-solid technical foundation and incredible business acumen. In his early career, he received accolades for his technological prowess at the Department of Defense and NATO.
After leaving the government, he formed a consultancy where he architected software systems for two companies that went on to receive Inc 500 status.
The consultancy was just the appetizer for his real dream - to build a product company. He continues to realize this dream at OpenWater, a company he co-founded with Timothy Spell. With revenue doubling year over year, he plans to make OpenWater his avenue to promote his views on how businesses should be.
Inspired by Tony Hsieh and Ben Horowitz, he believes companies must treat employees and customers fairly at all costs and especially when tough decisions need to be made. But I wanted to learn more about his story and what got him where he is today.
Kunal Johar, as previously a part of the US government and is incredibly passionate about education. His software empowers Fortune 1000, Universities, Non-profit events, and associations to better organize awards and fellowships to students. He also feels that integrity is one of the most important components of a successful tech company.
In 2020 they also launched their Virtual Conference product based on the needs of an association conference with 1000s of concurrent sessions that needed to go virtual. The response to our product within our client base has been overwhelming.
I learn more about how the unique software for non-profits and schools – helps to organize awards, grants, scholarships, fellowships, abstracts, and more in one platform. It also created the tech behind the Inc. 5000 awards
We discuss why integrity is such an important facet of any startup and why diversity is so s important to a team. With so many startup and tech discussions coming from Silicon Valley, we also talk about how has the tech scene is thriving in DC and the east coast of the US.
Is the task of searching for leads and chasing your ideal prospects taking all of your time? Or preventing you from selling as much as you should and want to? What if you could delegate the cumbersome work so you could spend 100% of your time on more value-added activities.
James King Baskin is the founder of Outsource Kings and shares his mission to leverage technology to help businesses get their time back. On average, his team is making 3,000-5,000 phone calls a week. But I wanted to learn more about the story behind Outsource Kings.
I learn how he came to live in Colombia and manage a team in the Philippines. We also talk about how they focused on one niche in the beginning and grew inside that niche but then expanded to other niches and are still growing.
ON Semiconductor (Nasdaq: ON) is a Fortune 500 company driving energy efficient innovations, empowering customers to reduce global energy use. The company is a leading supplier of semiconductor-based solutions, offering a comprehensive portfolio of energy-efficient power and signal management, logic, standard, and custom devices.
The company's products help engineers solve their unique design challenges in automotive, communications, computing, consumer, industrial, medical, and military/aerospace applications. ON Semiconductor operates a responsive, reliable, world-class supply chain and quality program, and a network of manufacturing facilities, sales offices and design centers in key markets throughout North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific regions.
Joseph Notaro shares how they are using technology to help engineers solve their unique design challenges in automotive, communications, computing, consumer, industrial, medical, and military/aerospace applications. I learn how ON Semiconductor is reducing road traffic accidents and saving nine lives per hour with its ADAS systems and sensors.
We also discuss the latest developments in ON Semiconductors automotive safety systems, energy-efficient semiconductor-based innovations, the latest developments in ON Semiconductors automotive safety systems, and what developments we can expect to see in the next decade.
Do you remember when Foursquare launched at SXSW in 2009? For those that don't, it was a huge location-based social network, which let people check in to locations to share with their friends and earn badges. In 2014, Foursquare split its main app into two separate apps, the Foursquare City Guide and Swarm.
Swarm let users check in to locations and earn mayorships and other stickers, focusing on the social utility that was eventually de-emphasized in favor of lifelogging. Foursquare City Guide, on the other hand, used past check-in data and data from Swarm to power a Yelp competitor, giving users a way to find great restaurants and experiences in their area.
In short, here in 2020, Foursquare labs have evolved. But today's guest is Max Sklar from Foursquare Labs. Max is a software engineer and new product developer by trade, with a focus on machine learning, content discovery, and prototyping.
The bulk of his work as a machine learning engineer was at Foursquare, where he built Foursquare City Guide's critically acclaimed 10-point venue rating system and the Marsbot app. More recently, he led the development of a causality model for Foursquare's Ad Attribution product and now works at Foursquare's innovation lab. He's also the host of The Local Maximum Podcast.
We talk about machine learning, rapid prototyping, building products, emerging technology, the state of the tech industry, Silicon Valley, Foursquare, and much more.
Ollie Horn is a stand-up comedian from the UK. He got his first taste of stand-up comedy while treading the boards while a student at Oxford University. After failing to be a lawyer, and doing fairly well in the world of startups, Ollie now tours the world performing stand-up comedy and is a mainstay at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He helps growth-stage startups with their messaging, storytelling, and growth strategy.
Ollie reveals the skills he has learned as a stand-up comedian to help startup founders raise money, hire people, and make sales. and why he believes that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools that any tech entrepreneur can use to connect their big ideas with the real world.
I also learn how the role of a stand-up comedian is to have empathy for the audience, and that's precisely what a startup founder needs - empathy for their end-users (to truly understand their persona and the problem they're solving), their investors, and other stakeholders.
Open Raven is the modern data security platform that brings visibility and control to an organization’s data protection program. From mapping data stores in clouds and corporate networks to identify the data within. The platform is designed so that discovery, query, and response capabilities can be readily extended to match the most complex and demanding environments.
Open Raven CEO, Dave Cole, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Dave shares how they launched Open Raven out of stealth in February to help companies course-correct the pressing security issue of accidental data exposures that are now happening in record numbers. For example, the data leaks of 1.2 billion Facebook users and the entire population of Ecuador late last year.
Dave believes shares that it's not nation-states that are the biggest cause of data breaches crippling organizations. It’s actually the lack of good data hygiene. We discuss why the data hygiene problem is plaguing the industry and what companies can do to get a better handle on it.
Before starting Open Raven, Dave was chief product officer at CrowdStrike and Tenable. He currently is the host of the Security Voices podcast, so he’s an excellent resource with years of security experience.
Agiloft CEO and founder, Colin Earl joins me on Tech Talks Daily. The software industry veteran has over 25 years of experience as a developer, product manager, and CIO. Colin worked at IBM, General Electric, and three start-ups before founding Agiloft in 1991. Colin also won a Gold Stevie® Award for "Entrepreneur of the Year" in the 2018 American Business Awards.
Colin's vision was to accelerate the building and deployment of enterprise business applications by removing the need for manual coding. Under his leadership, Agiloft has achieved this goal, creating a market segment for agile business software.
Over three million users at organizations ranging from small enterprises to U.S. government agencies and Fortune 100 companies depend on Agiloft's top-rated product suites for Contract Management Software, Service Desk, and Custom Workflow.
Gartner, Inc. also recently announced the results of its first-ever Magic Quadrant for Contract Life Cycle Management* solutions. In an analysis of the top 12 vendors and their performance, Agiloft was named a CLM solution Leader.
However, I wanted to learn more about their newest product release that includes out-of-the-box A.I. tools and custom A.I. functionality for contract management. Colin shares how they are helping customers to create completely custom A.I. capabilities on its no-code platform to drive efficiency, visibility, and security in commercial processes.
We also discuss the open A.I. Engine for advanced contract management automation and how Agiloft is the only no-code contract management platform today that provides open A.I. capabilities.
Rich L. Stuppy, the Chief Customer Experience Officer at Kount, joins me on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily. For more than a decade, Rich has been involved in developing fraud mitigation, compliance, and big data strategies.
Rich came to Kount after 14 years with a fortune 50 retailer. His background in enterprise-class systems, machine learning, and analytics have shaped KKount'stechnology into an industry-leading platform helping clients scale their business while at the same time reducing fraud, risk, and loss.
In his role as Chief Customer Experience Officer, Rich is responsible for client success, data analytics, and ensuring KKount'susers have the best customer experience. Collaborating directly with customers, he works to inform Kount's product roadmap, identify new and emerging threats, and drive innovation for ultimate customer satisfaction.
Rich regularly works with executives from all areas of the commerce, payments, and fraud-prevention ecosystems to discover trends and develop strategies that create value. Rich is a highly sought-after speaker for industry events and has addressed audiences around the world on several topics surrounding payments and fraud.
I learn more about how Kount's Identity Trust Global Network delivers real-time fraud prevention, account protection, and enables personalized customer experiences to more than 6,500 leading brands and payment providers.
We also discuss how Kount Control is leveraging technology to help retailers and banks personalize their customer's experiences based on the level of trust present within every interaction -- from account creation to login, payments, and every step in between.
Many people are currently questioning their reality as the global pandemic tightens its grip on the global economy. Many are asking, is my safe job? and seeing interest rates on their savings drop considerably. Many are beginning to look at how they can invest in their future in an uncertain time. Could digital assets be the answer?
In today's episode, I want to explore how a Flippa is helping people buy digital assets and websites. I look wanted to learn more about how specific niches, safer investments, and how to obtain strong returns. For anyone interested in alternative investments and tech, you should find a lot of value in this episode.
Founded in 2009, Flippa exists to support the small business ecosystem so that any business owner or buyer can sell or acquire a business. Flippa is the leading platform and network connecting online business owners with buyers all over the world.
Co-Founded by the Founders of 99Designs and SitePoint, Flippa aims to help small business owners find their exit, in an easy to use and safe environment. I invited Blake Hutchison, CEO at Flippa, back on to my podcast, to learn more about the platform that makes it easy to buy and sell digital and online businesses.
We discuss how the shift to online retail is growing faster now than ever before. I learn also learn how the passion economy is thriving and people are building micro-communities and making money from them.
Dominic Wells is the founder of OnFolio and authority in buying, selling, and growing online businesses. He is also known for bootstrapping Human Proof Designs to 7 figure revenue and exiting in early last year. In fact, during 2019, he bought 20+ websites valued from $30,000 to $500,000.
Dominic joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to talk about the lessons he has learned from investing in online businesses (specifically content/affiliate based sites rather than eCommerce) and getting above market-average returns. We also explore best practices when scaling remote teams and content marketing for SEO.
Dominic has been building, buying, and selling content websites since 2012. Since 2016, He has been helping others do the same. With a lot of trial and error, losing his own money a few times, he has become successful at repeatedly buying websites and operating them at scale.
After overcoming the common difficulties with all doing this, such as cost creep, asymmetrical risk, and identifying a good asset, Dominic shares everything that he has learned.
Privafy is redefining how to protect Data-in-Motion. Data-in-motion has rapidly become the most vulnerable part of every organization's information and communication architecture.
As organizations embrace the openness of the Internet and move data and applications to the cloud, traditional network security technologies and systems are no longer effective in protecting data as it moves between cloud workloads and applications.
The Internet is now the new network – affording businesses and employees to easily connect with customers, partners, and each other from any location. But as data traverses between locations – it's increasingly at risk from a multitude of vectors and threat actors.
Privafy's security-as-a-service application secures data wherever it travels. The company's cloud-native technology integrates all the functionality of traditional point solutions, such as encryption, firewall, DDoS protection, IDS/IPS and DLP technology, to provide comprehensive data protection as it moves between locations, clouds, mobile devices, and IoT.
Guru Pai joins me on the podcast to talk about the blurring of boundaries between home and the workplace and why it is an unsettling factor for many enterprises. We also discuss why WFH employee solutions often don't have the same protection/monitoring as in the home office-- as result compromises away from work premises will increase --explain some examples like an attacker tailgating into the enterprise, etc.
Guru also provides his five predictions of why and how digitalization and security will change in a post-COVID-19 world. Today's guest is an industry veteran with over 30 years of experience leading and scaling high-performance organizations ranging from startups to large global firms. A results-oriented executive, Guru co-founded Privafy with a mission to fix the currently flawed approach to securing Data-in-Motion.
Before Privafy, Guru served in senior roles at Verizon Communications, where he was responsible for overseeing the products, services, and operations for all of Verizon's businesses. Before Verizon, he served in varying senior executive roles at companies such as Sonus Networks, AT&T/Bell Labs and Motorola. Guru is also a successful entrepreneur, having founded technology startups within the networking and big data and analytics industries.
For major global events like the Super Bowl, Black Friday, elections, and breaking news, speed and security are paramount to ensure that websites run properly and that internet users are happy. The secret sauce that gives Fastly the power to handle 639 billion internet requests a day lies in the mind of Tyler McMullen.
Self-taught from the age of 9, Tyler learned to program from the books in his local library in central Pennsylvania before he even had a computer to work on, and got a job developing software at 16.
Fast forward to 2011, and Tyler is crashing on a friend’s couch when he meets Artur Bergman who is now Chief Architect and Executive Chairperson at Fastly and the rest is history. At Fastly, the two have sought to create a space in which developers can experiment without fear, and leverage their creativity to usher in the future of the internet.
To this end, Tyler has spearheaded multiple open-source programs aimed at empowering innovating at the edge. A great example is Fastly Labs, a first-of-its-kind research and experimentation arm that allows developers to test drive in-progress projects and get inspiration to execute new ideas safely, at-scale.
Tyler shares his story and how his non-traditional background set him up for success at Fastly. We also discuss how his commitment to developers set Fastly up for success on the public market and how open-source is driving innovation in the IoT world
On today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I learn more about Ontology, a high-performance enterprise blockchain that is consistently reaching targets on its steady rise to the top. Powered by the Ontology Coin (ONT), the distributed collaboration platform allows businesses to enjoy the benefits of smart contracts and tokenization while retaining control of their sensitive data.
Having launched its mainnet in June 2018, Ontology enables mainstream blockchain adoption by providing enterprises dipping their toes into DLT waters with an ecosystem that supports choice. With a primary focus on delivering a robust, speedy, easy to use platform, Ontology affords businesses the flexibility to design a blockchain that best suits their needs.
Its features include ONT ID, a mobile digital ID application, as well as DDXF, a decentralized data exchange, and a collaboration framework to solve issues related to identity security and data integrity. Together these applications work to transfer data ownership into the hands of the user.
Erick Pinos, Ecosystem Lead of Ontology's Americas Operations, graduated from MIT, where he was President of the MIT Bitcoin Club and a researcher at the MIT Digital Currency Initiative. Erick joins me on the podcast to talk about the Ontology story so far and its future plans. We also discuss why Ontology's bespoke technology is an industry game-changer for developers, enterprises, and end-users.
The Eventador Platform is a high performance, enterprise-grade engine for running continuous stream processing jobs. Users can now materialize stateful and queryable views of data using ANSI SQL for use in applications, notebooks, machine learning models, and more.
The company recently launched the first end-to-end, produce-to-consume stream processing platform. The Eventador Platform 2.0 removes the need for additional database, web server, load balancing, or other complex infrastructure, which means developing streaming applications is now faster and less costly than with current, often piecemeal stream processing systems.
Kenny Gorman, founder, and CEO of Eventador, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company, their latest announcement and their vision for the future.
Rich Penkoski is a principal and deputy CEO—Markets for Deloitte Consulting LLP, responsible for defining and delivering the industry-specific insights and solutions clients need to solve their most complex business challenges. He also serves on the Deloitte Consulting Executive and Management Committees, the Deloitte USA Board of Directors and as chairman of the Board, Deloitte Consulting Management GmbH & Co. KG.
Rich has led many of Deloitte’s largest Finance and IT-enabled transformation programs and has served many of Deloitte Consulting’s most significant clients across Financial Services, Retail, and Consumer Products. He believes that measurable and sustainable value is only achieved when strategy, implementation, and ongoing operations are delivered through a combination of business acumen, technical excellence, and extensive industry depth.
Though we often hear about the value and importance of digital transformation—who exactly should be driving these efforts within an organization? The Chief Technology or Information Officers are usually top of mind, but the Chief Financial Officer is equally as influential. I invited Rich onto the podcast to discuss how CFOs are leading the way as key players and incubators of digital transformation.
Rich also shares his experience in leading many of Deloitte’s largest financial—and information technology-based digital transformations, and I learn how CFOs and the wider C-Suite can collaborate to drive successful digital transformation efforts.
The human-machine relationship is evolving. Up until now, our relationship with technology has been primarily command-based for utilitarian purposes. With today's advancing artificial intelligence, that's all about to change. Now more than ever, people want products that are personalized and easy to use, fully understand them, and anticipate their needs.
Unlike digital assistants, digital companion agents provide much more than just a voice user interface – social AI entities that proactively interact with each user. They interpret a myriad of sensory data to understand the context of their user and environment that create effective, empathetic experiences that drive the desired outcomes from your product.
Intuition Robotics enables the creation of relationships between humans and machines that influence behaviors and emotions through digital companion agents, powered by the company's cognitive AI engine, Q. The company offers Q to 3rd parties, starting with automakers, to transform their products into dynamic, white-labeled digital companions. Q also powers ElliQ, the company's internal product aimed at improving the lives of older adults. They have recently secured a $36M funding round to further the development of the Q platform.
Intuition Robotics was also named one of Fast Company's most innovative companies for 2020. I invited, Dor Skuler - CEO, Co-Founder of Intuition Robotics onto Tech Talks Daily. We discuss building digital companions that create a relationship between humans and machines.
I also learn more about the story of how they created ElliQ - the sidekick for happier aging which improves the lives of older adults.
Employers are finding that remote workers are more productive and less stressed, and it seems that people who work remotely want to continue working remotely. Before the global pandemic, 80% of workers say they'd turn down a job that didn't offer location flexibility. Is that still the same? Has remote working lost its shine?
As the world of work continues to evolve and change, teams will need to decide when and where to use a remote workforce. But first, companies will need to take a look at their hiring practices and make sure they are reaching the growing majority of workers who require flexible working conditions.
Companies can start by creating quality job postings that outline the limits of location flexibility. A section on the careers page must be targeted at attracting remote workers as well in order to keep candidates interested. Recruiting programs, including AI solutions that source and contact passive candidates, should also be upfront about work from home flexibility in order to create quality leads.
After hiring a remote worker, it is critical to set aside some initial time for onboarding. An initial project allows them to showcase their skills and enable the employer to then evaluate after completion. This gives your new employee a chance to show their eagerness and initiative while allowing you to assess how the employee fits within your company and overall culture.
Vinita Venkatesh, VP at Mya Systems, reveals how businesses can ensure teams will attract remote talent and onboard them properly.
Solid Power CEO, Doug Campbell, has had quite the journey as an entrepreneur. He started early adulthood as a formerly troubled teen without a clue as to what he was going to do with his life. After a stint as a professional mountain biker, he decided to get a college degree and has since founded two CO-based startups – Solid Power (Solid-state batteries for EVs) and Roccor (next-generation deployable spacecrafts reducing the cost of access to space).
Doug joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his startup story and talk about the benefits of all-solid-state batteries compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries. We also discuss his future vision for the energy storage market and the role that technology will play.
Solid Power is an industry-leading developer of next-generation all solid-state batteries. These solid-state batteries provide a major improvement in energy density, safety, and reliability compared to the best lithium-ion cells available. Together, these performance attributes can enable profound performance improvements of battery-powered devices such as electric vehicles, medical devices, aircraft, and satellites through increased run time, increased safety, and lower cost.
Established in 2012, Solid Power has assembled a world-class team of battery researchers and engineers. The company occupies a 21,000 square-foot facility located within the Colorado Technology Center in Louisville, CO, along with the front range of the Rocky Mountains. Solid Power's facility is being outfitted with a state-of-the-art multi-MWh, roll-to-roll pilot production line.
The pilot line will support early product sales into beachhead markets, and by focusing on repeatable and scalable manufacturing, the facility will allow our technology and processes to scale towards automotive-grade performance.
Woodrow Levin was playing fantasy football with the CEO of Draft Kings when one of his players got hurt, causing him to lose a bet. What started as a joke about buying insurance for players quickly spiraled into "what if I can offer insurance/extended warranties on all online products?" It was on this premise that Extend, an extended warranty company that works with online retailers responsible for over $11B gross annual sales, was founded.
The company has since raised $16M in VC funding. Extended warranties have become a big business with more than $45B a year in plans sold. Only the top 1% of merchants (Amazon, Costco, and BestBuy) offer extended warranty, leaving a massive portion of the market unable to offer their customers protection plans.
By leveraging machine-learning technology and a network of top-rated insurance companies that cater to merchants of all sizes, Extend now offers a solution to the rest of the market to drive incremental bottom-line net income. But also increase overall purchase conversions, and create loyal customers with a digitally native customer experience.
However, I felt compelled to find out more about the story behind Woody's tech journey and how serendipity is just as important as technology.
How are you spending your lockdown time? Do you spend more time trying to find a movie or boxset to binge than actually watching anything? A mobile app called Stardust asks you to rate your fave shows and movies and will provide you with a personalized selection of content.
Stardust is also a mobile community of film & TV fanatics sharing video reactions to movies and shows. Think of it as a social network-oriented around entertainment; it also drives movie attendance and TV tune-in by encouraging discussion amongst friends and fans.
If you love movies and TV and spend most of the time talking about movies and TV, the Stardust App might offer you a way to entertain and connect with like-minded souls.
Stardust was born out of CEO Derek Forbes’ burning desire to discuss every episode of Game of Thrones in deep detail immediately after it aired. Observing a lack of social platforms dedicated to providing such an experience, he designed a niche social platform specifically for movie and TV-lovers. But I wanted to learn more about the tech behind Stardust.
Ashley Fauset shares how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are both growing at a rapid pace within the entertainment industry. Websites, mobile apps, and streaming services alike are ingesting information around users’ preferences, usage habits likes, and dislikes.
I learn how Stardust is using technology to bring the discussion of movies and shows to life, amplified with the power of mobile, video, and social media. We also discuss the importance of user-generated content in social media platforms and how they will continue to leverage technology to drive Stardust forward.
Richard Baker is the CEO of Wattbike, a company that sells home cycling machines targeted towards professional cyclists and avid bikers. Richard joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about how technology is being incorporated into the cycling world and how it can help cyclists – from professionals to amateurs – improve overall performance.
However, Wattbike isn’t just the choice of elite road and track cyclists. World and Olympic champions across all sports use Wattbike to train smarter, push harder, and improve performance. Watt bikers include endurance cyclist and world record holder, James Golding. 2 x Olympic silver medallist, Commonwealth & European swimming champion Jazz Carlin and even England Rugby Head Coach Eddie Jones.
I learn how technology is becoming incredibly valuable to those obsessed with performance when measuring just heart rate, and calories aren’t enough. As an avid cyclist himself, Richard shares the difference in understanding data can make in training, as well as the drastic improvements they have seen in the space over the past few years.
We also discuss real ride technology and cutting edge analysis and unrivaled accuracy.
Minnie Ingersoll joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share her inspirational journey in tech. We discuss how she turned an idea into a Series D, 9-figure online business and how she is now a venture partner at L.A.-based seed-stage firm TenOneTen Ventures.
Minnie started her career as an early product manager at Google where she was classmates with Marissa Mayer. Minnie co-founded the Access nteam; a cross-functional product, policy, and engineering team that spun off Google Fiber. After 11+ years, she left Google to begin her aown entrepreneurial journey as the co-founder and COO of Shift, an online marketplace for used cars. Minnie learned a lot of lessons hiring hundreds of employees and scaling a $100M+ business.
Here in 2020, Minnie is a partner at TenOneTen Ventures, which is a Los Angeles based early-stage venture capital firm. The company invests in entrepreneurs that apply data and technology to disrupt existing industries, or create new categories entirely.
I wanted to learn more about how this team of technologists who believe technology can help shape the world and the belief that ‘having the data’ leads to the best decisions. Minnie shares her journey in tech, her work with TenOneTen Ventures, and how she even finds time to host the LA Venture podcast too.
Tim Reilly, the CEO of Zettaset, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a discussion about the common myths associated with encryption. I learn how enterprise organizations need to look beyond these myths and understand how encryption can support the security of digital technologies such as containers and Kubernetes.
Tim has more than 25 years of successful public and private experience in the high-tech industry, filling key operational roles within product line business units and venture capital-funded companies through all stages of growth.
During his time at Zettaset, the company has successfully grown its software-defined encryption portfolio to provide a comprehensive data protection solution across all physical, virtual, and cloud environments. Before joining Zettaset, Tim was VP Finance & Operations at Trapeze Networks, where he helped build the company into a leading provider of wireless LAN equipment, which was later acquired by Juniper Networks.
Tim also served as VP Finance at Nicira, a network virtualization company (acquired by VMware), netVmg, an internet traffic optimization company (acquired by Internap), and in various financial roles at WorldxChange, a global telecom carrier. He has a BS in Accounting from the University of Southern California and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Zettaset is a software-defined encryption solution that can be transparently deployed across all physical and virtual enterprise environments. Unlike traditional appliance-based solutions, Zettaset is a cost-effective, software-only solution that is easy to deploy, does not impact performance, and scales with your business from on-premise to the cloud.
What do Mark Zuckerberg's home, the University of Notre Dame, the biggest casino in Reno, and Shopify's offices all have in common? They're all powered by Crestron technology. Who is this $1.5B silent leader that's transforming how we live, work, learn, and play? Crestron was founded in 1971 and has come a long way from its A/V nerd roots.
Here in 2020, Crestron is at the forefront of cutting edge technology that is, in a nutshell, making our lives easier. Crestron is partnering with companies like Apple and Amazon to connect all facets of our lives. For example, in a Crestron-powered meeting room, you could say, "Alexa, start my meeting," and you will automatically be dialed-in to a conference line with your presentation displayed on the screen.
However, meeting rooms aren't all they're doing. Crestron's circadian lighting is helping improve productivity AND sleep schedules. Its smart home technology is customizable and easy to use. They're making "smart" hospital rooms that improve patient and physician experiences.
Recently, Crestron announced a new partnership with Logitech to deliver a premier video conferencing, room control, scheduling, and management experience for rooms of any size.
These workplace solutions pair the Crestron Flex C series with Logitech MeetUp, Logitech Rally or Logitech Rally Plus to deliver a complete unified communications experience for small, medium, and large rooms. Each system is compatible with Microsoft Teams Rooms® or Zoom Rooms™, providing greater choice and flexibility for customers.
In addition, each system includes room booking capability powered by Crestron Room Scheduling, as well as a Management portal powered by Crestron XiO Cloud™, that seamlessly integrates Logitech's Sync APIs, aggregating Logitech, and Crestron products into one common management platform.
I invited Nic Milani, executive director at Crestron onto Tech Talks Daily to share how this partnership came about and what the two companies hope to provide to their customers? Nic also talks about how it will enable support teams to easily manage all of the technology in a meeting room with a simple set of tools, while also providing key insights about how employees work and how the workspace is being utilized.
I learn how Crestron and Logitech technology works together to provide customers a seamless room experience from videoconferencing to advanced room controls such as lighting, occupancy sensors, wireless presentation, source switching, and beyond.
QualiTest is the world’s largest pure-play software testing and quality assurance specialist. They design and deliver solutions that leverage deep industry-specific understanding with cutting-edge testing technology.
The company has expanded rapidly over the past year, moving its headquarters to London, opening additional offices in India, Portugal, Mexico, and the US, and completing acquisitions such as their recent acquisition of Algotrace.
The company also has ambitious plans to reach $1B revenue goal in 5 years. Norm Merritt is the global CEO of Qualitest. He has a proven track record of running highly-responsive and successful technology-enabled service businesses.
Norm has run large business services firms such as iQor, where he led a turnaround of the $600 million business outsourcing firm. He has run various other companies like ShopKeep, a SaaS business and MortgageIT, an online mortgage origination business.
He also led an advisory practice helping mid-size CEOs drive success through the use of technology. Norm graduated cum laude from Brigham Young University and from the Harvard Business School with an MBA.
We discuss the importance of software testing before implementation and how businesses can make it easier to integrate software testing across multiple industries.
With experience growing businesses through organic growth and through acquisitions, running large BPO companies like iQor with a revenue of $700M, as well as later-stage start-ups like ShopKeep, he also shares the biggest lessons he has learned along the way.
Ryan Denehy is a 3x entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Electric. Having experienced the pain and frustrations that many business owners encounter in managing their IT infrastructure and support needs, Ryan's light bulb idea to create a cloud-based, real-time, 24-7 IT Support ecosystem laid the foundation for Electric's vision to redefine IT Support for a new generation.
Electric is the world's first all-in-one IT support solution for small and midsize offices delivered in real-time. Through a chat and web interface, personalized service, and flat-rate pricing, Electric enables companies to assess, deploy and manage their technology at a fraction of the cost and headaches frequently experienced with traditional IT managed service providers.
Electric's core package includes troubleshooting, systems administration, security, and network management, and on-site assistance.
Last year, Electric hit the headlines for successfully raising $25M as part of a Series B financing round led by GGV Capital with participation from existing investor Bessemer Venture Partners. To date, Electric has raised $38M. But I wanted to learn more about where it all began.
Ryan shares how he was running his previous company in San Francisco in 2013 and wrongly assumed that IT was an outdated and unnecessary concept for a modern company.
- Who’s going to set up computers for all the new hires?
- What software should we put on them?
- How do we revoke access if someone leaves?
- How do we manage administrative access to all of our documents and apps?
- What happens if we get hacked? How do we prevent from getting hacked?
- The wi-fi is out...now what?
One evening he started Googling stuff like “IT startups” “modern IT platform” “Zenefits for IT” - nothing. He couldn’t believe that the only solution was going on Yelp, finding a local consultant, and dealing with the most out of date, old-fashioned, inefficient processes to get this stuff done.
Crazier still, it became clear that even small businesses like his were continuing to buy and use more technology. Technology forms the backbone of all the work we do - somebody needed to fix this. Listen and learn more from Ryan who shares his inspirational story.
A few months ago, I read that Americans are sitting an average of 13 hours a day! According to the British Journal of Sports Medicine, this sedentary lifestyle increases the chances of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Still, it also negatively influences your posture, causing lower back pain. Your bad posture could be causing your lower back pain. So, moral of the story, don't get trapped by the "sitting disease.
However, it occurred to me that at a time when people worldwide are working from home at scale, many are probably sitting down for even more extended periods.
Upright Pose aims to fix the world's slouching problem with one, small consumer product. It uses patented technology to determine when the user is slouching. Using a slightly noticeable vibration, Upright's devices let the user know when they are slouching and straighten up! Their products, Upright Go and Upright Go 2, provide realtime feedback for the user, giving them a full analysis of their training sessions and their progress.
With the growing importance of workplace health and wellness in general, Upright has become a power player in the consumer technology industry, especially in the health and wellness market. I invited Ori Fruhauf to the podcast to learn more about Upright Go and how it can improve our posture during our increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
Today's guest also provided me with 15% code of all products, and it can be redeemed at www.uprightpose.com. Simply use the code- Techtalks.
Stringr is a marketplace that allows media organizations (such as TV news stations) to buy video from both amateur and professional videographers. The media organizations can preview all footage. If they like what they see, they can immediately download the video. Once they do, you (the videographer) will get paid the next business day!
It seems that we are are all glued to 24-hour news channels at the moment, and we are all following the same narrative. As you all know, I like to focus on human stories and learn how people are leveraging technology to show a more positive glimpse into the future.
Stringr was started by two friends – one a former news producer and the other a product manager and consultant who started his first company in high school. Lindsay Stewart spent over 10 years in TV news producing segments for ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, and Bloomberg, among others. That's when the idea for Stringr came to her.
Lindsay Stewart joins me on today's episode to share her story and how the idea for Stringr came to her working in a busy newsroom. Here in 2020, I learn how Stringr is a hugely successful business thriving in a period of uncertainty by helping independent videographers and media outlets.
Today, whether through lift-and-shift or re-architecting, almost every large enterprise has carried out some migration to the cloud, with increasing pressure on IT operations to manage a hybrid big data architecture effectively.
The trending problem: Large enterprises are running enormous big data clusters with thousands of nodes that require full-stack visibility to optimize application performance, support SLAs, uncover infrastructure inefficiencies and minimize MTTR (mean time to repair). They need to make Spark apps run faster and stop Hadoop clusters from blowing up. They need to deal with any malfunctioning workload as quickly as humanly possible.
The solution: In the quest to control cloud spend, analytics are key. To meet budgets, organizations need more transparency to determine usage patterns; understand average peak computing demand; map storage patterns; determine the number of core processors required; treat nonproduction and virtualized workloads with care, and more.
According to Gartner, “Most monitoring solutions, while valuable in their own right, have not optimized the process of troubleshooting performance and availability problems. Users often complain of limited visibility with too few tools or too much complexity with too many tools, and everything in between.”
Big data teams ultimately need powerful in-depth insights to visualize and optimize big data operations instantly, at scale, access a single dashboard for all big data environments, and initiation of automated infrastructure optimization.
Ash Munshi, CEO of Pepperdata joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the importance of removing the blindfold to control cloud spend. We also discuss how businesses can stay rightsized post-migration.
Scalyr, the log management, and observability company, today announced the availability of the first cloud-based log analytics platform capable of ingesting over 250TBs of data per customer in real-time. As a result, Scalyr customers can upload, search, analyze, and retain data at an enterprise scale, at a cost that is orders-of-magnitude below current industry standards.
Scalyr believes that every company should be able to affordably collect, retain, and use all of its application and infrastructure performance data to maximize system and product insights, reduce MTTR, improve SLAs, and optimize performance.
“We code-named this project ‘Sonic Boom’ because we aimed to break through the sound barriers of scale and costs that have prevented many companies from moving log management and analytics to the cloud,” said Christine Heckart, CEO at Scalyr.
“The amount of event data that modern organizations must collect, store, and analyze continues to grow exponentially, while budgets do not. Today’s announcement is Scalyr’s answer to this critical issue. This is a watershed moment that will fully transform observability tools into a baseline business utility.”
Christine Heckart, Chief Executive Officer of Scalyr, is a veteran of the technology industry, having worked for iconic companies including Microsoft, Juniper Networks, Cisco, and NetApp. I invited her onto the podcast to learn more about Scalyr and what their Sonic Boom breakthrough will mean for businesses.
Scalyr is the log management and observability platform for the new stack. Purpose-built to handle the scale and complexity of modern cloud architectures, Scalyr changes the dynamics of delivering healthy applications by allowing engineers to troubleshoot problems quickly and focus on doing what they love – coding.
With 96% of searches completing in under one second and thousands of active users, Scalyr has transformed logs from an afterthought into an advantage. Scalyr’s rapidly growing customer base includes NBCUniversal, Business Insider, Valentino, Giphy, Zalando, and OkCupid.
Mavenlink is a modern software platform for professional and marketing services organizations. It is the only solution that helps services firms establish an operational system of record that facilitates their business lifecycle, including key capabilities like resource management, project management, collaboration, project accounting, and Business Intelligence.
Roger Neel, co-founder and CTO of Mavenlink for over 11 years, is an accomplished web designer, Ruby on Rails engineer, thought leader in agile software development, mentor to startup founders and software developers, and a strong advocate for pair programming.
There are a lot of people working from home at scale at the moment, and many people will not be able to switch off and overcompensate. Roger joins me on Tech Talks Daily to explore the topic of burnout. Roger states that "one of the major factors that contribute to overwhelmed staff members is a lack of focus of vision from management - resulting in too many conflicting projects and priorities.
For example, if you give someone 20 tasks and say they're all critical, they'll be overwhelmed. If instead, you're more focused and do a better job prioritizing, people are less likely to wind up overwhelmed with their task list."
Jeff Kofman, an Emmy award-winning journalist and former war correspondent, thinks that AI might help solve the problem of disinformation if used rightly. Now CEO and co-Founder at Trint, an AI-based transcription company, Jeff witnessed a number of issues plaguing journalists all converging at once: fewer resources, less time, and more disinformation.
Jeff believes that by shortening the time to access information for reporters (and the public) - and eventually leveraging AI to help people ID relevant parts of manuscripts - the war against disinformation campaigns is more easily fought.
Jeff has lived the workflow that Trint is transforming. In more than three decades as a reporter, foreign correspondent, and war correspondent, he estimates he has manually transcribed thousands of hours of interviews, speeches, lectures, and news conferences.
Trint goes beyond automated transcription to provide the world's most innovative and collaborative platform for searching, editing, and getting the most out of your content. But I wanted to learn more about the story behind the company.
The idea for Trint was first hatched at the Mozilla Festival in London, an annual coding conference in London that showcases cutting-edge media innovation. It was November 2013; Mark Panaghiston, Mark Boas and Laurian Gridinoc were previewing a prototype of software that linked manually transcribed text to its source audio. It was a new concept in both audio and transcription: they found a way to glue a piece of text on the screen to its source audio file, stitching each word of a transcript to the exact time that word was spoken.
The trio of developers was introduced to Jeff Kofman. Jeff was still working as ABC News London Correspondent but he was also teaching a university course on 21st century journalism, which was why he was attending Mozfest. He immediately took an interest in the technology the team was demonstrating. Jeff asked Laurian if automated speech-to-text could be added to the software along with some way of correcting the machine-generated errors. If so, they could turn the world of tedious, time-consuming, and costly manual transcription on its head.
"It's an interesting idea," said Laurian. "We could try it." "I felt like I was looking at the future," Jeff remembers. "It was a real light bulb moment. I remember saying to the guys, 'This is what the future is going to look like. We can get together and see if we can make it work, or we go our separate ways and one day a few years from now one of us will walk into a coffee shop and see someone working on a platform like this that automates transcription.'"
That chance encounter began a journey into entrepreneurship, invention, and the world of startups.
Nikolas Kairinos, founder and CEO of the Fountech.ai, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Nikolas has been working in the artificial intelligence space for over 30 years, during which time he has focused on developing novel AI solutions to make the world a better place. Amongst other projects, he has overseen the development of a lead generation software solution and a personalized learning tool.
Fountech.ai is the umbrella company to three specialist AI firms: Fountech.Solutions, Fountech.Ventures and Fountech.Science. Fountech.ai is driving innovation in the AI sector, helping consumers, businesses and governments understand how this technology can make the world a better place.
More recently, Nickolas and Fountech.ai received widespread national coverage in likes of ITV News, The Daily Mail, Metro, and The Daily Express for a survey of over 2,000 UK consumers investigating public trust of AI. The results are striking! Most notably, over a fifth (22%) of consumers would trust AI to handle political negotiations (such as Brexit) over politicians. In comparison, more than a quarter (28%) would trust AI to care for an elderly relative.
We discuss these findings in greater depth, as well as touch upon what a lack of AI education could mean for future tech developments. Given the wider debate surrounding the EU’s AI regulation, enjoy this timely and interesting interview with Nickolas.
Artists have long used technology--from photography to Photoshop--to push their ideas into new territory. Playform offers the latest opportunity for artists and creators to explore the edge of technological possibility and express their humanity. It harnesses AI’s power and turns it into the perfect co-creating companion.
Last year, AICAN gained international acclaim as the first AI-artist awarded solo exhibitions at such galleries as HG Contemporary and SCOPE New York. Now, a team of scientists and artists have transformed AICAN’s revolutionary technology into a “creative soulmate” for visual thinkers: Playform.
Playform utilizes generative AI to enrich creativity rather than replace it. Playform is the only user-friendly software that allows artists to custom train the AI with their own images and provides a variety of features for experimentation.
Its ‘Sketch to Image’ tool transforms simple sketches into full-fledged images with color, texture, and stunning detail. Artist Devin Gharakhanian partnered with Playform to develop the ‘Creative Morph’ tool, used to create his portrait series as seen at the SCOPE Art Fair.
Most recently, artist Qinza Najm exhibited her Playform collaborative series at the National Museum of China, attracting over 1 million visitors!
Dr. Ahmed Elgammal, director of the Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, joins me on the podcast to talk about the relationship between technology, art and much more.
Buffer & AngelList recently released the state of remote work report. The findings all pointed to a surge in companies going remote- 63 percent of companies now have remote workers. But since that report was released, it feels like most of the world is currently working from home.
That means that companies worldwide have workers signing into Slack, Instagram, HubSpot, Google Docs, and many other Cloud-based platforms on a daily basis. From multiple locations across the world. While the remote trend shows a huge productivity increase amongst workers, some executives are left with a few unanswered questions about how to handle security.
SafeGuard Cyber, the leading provider in end-to-end digital risk protection, has some tips for addressing the remote security issue.
Really understand your risks: Before you can address your security risks, you must understand what they are.
Think about all of the tools your organization uses in its daily operations, tools that make business processes more efficient. CRM has moved to Salesforce, Marketing spends their time on social media, and Sales are using social media and collaboration apps, like Slack, to communicate faster.
Your employees are on the frontline of data protection: Educate everyone on your staff about security protection. Security teams need to work closely with stakeholders to ensure all cloud environments are secure, and avoid the shadow IT trap.
It’s a matter of empowering your employees to use these apps securely so they can do their best business, not saying ‘no’ to ignore the problem. Instead, teams should work together to understand what tools are needed to conduct business, and why they need them. By developing a close relationship you avoid being asked for approval at the last minute, or worse, finding out the team adopted an app without asking.
It’s the little things: Your employees use the chat function on Teams and Slack for quick collaboration. For example, an employee might send a team member a link to the proposal they are working on in Slack. Then follow up with a link to a GIF about how tired and hungry they are. As a company, your focus might be on policies that ensure the proposal is in line with compliance regulations and is not shared externally.
Jim Zuffoletti, CEO of SafeGuard Cyber, talks about all this and the future of cybersecurity in a remote world.
SE2, an Eldridge Industries business, is a leader in technology-driven third-party administration services for the U.S. life and annuity insurance industry. SE2 currently administers nearly 2 million active policies on behalf of its 25+ clients. SE2 has over $100 billion in assets under administration and handles more than 200,000 new business applications annually.
Vinod Kachroo, CIO of SE2, was a 22-year executive at MetLife, Prudential, and AIG before coming to SE2. He's the visionary responsible for leading innovation at SE2 to develop a future-proofed technology platform. Vinod has 30 years of experience driving transformation, and he's committed to generating growth and ensuring that all SE2 associates not only fulfill their potential but increase it exponentially.
Vinod is also a sought-after speaker, author, and futurist. He's not only able to create a vision for innovation, but he's also able to take a complex idea all the way through planning and execution.
Vinod joins me in a conversation about the growing impact wearable technology has on consumer expectations within the life insurance industry. He shares his insights and findings from a recently published report that found 85% of adults would improve their health and fitness habits for lower monthly life insurance premiums.
Vinod talks about the role customer engagement plays and how gamification has become an incentive for consumers to live healthier lifestyles. We also discuss the insurance industry's shift to tailoring coverage offerings to fit individual insurance and wellness needs, along with the importance of creating digital experiences that consumers of today and the future will expect.
Fjord, the design and innovation consultancy for Accenture Interactive, believes that the next step for AI is a generation of systems that blend it with human intelligence to empower people to cope with increasing complexity in the workplace and enhance the human experience. Businesses must reposition their thinking and reimagine how to design AI for the human intelligence around it.
With this in mind, I invited Connor Upton onto the podcast to learn more about the urgency with which organizations need to rethink their overall approach to AI, moving away from just ‘adoption’ into long term strategic implementation at scale.
As businesses accelerate their adoption of AI, Connor reveals how they will see a dramatic impact in the below three areas through unlocking the full potential of humans and AI working together:
- Enhancing the human experience through extending human’s perceptual capabilities like vision, hearing or helping us learn better
- Empowering people in complex systems and driving trust in AI through designing interfaces that make the logic of AI visible and open to human direction
- Envisioning and developing new products and services and how designers use AI to do this
Connor Upton is the Regional Data Design Director for Fjord EALA. He is based in the Dublin studio, which sits at the heart of Accenture’s multidisciplinary innovation hub, the Dock, where he fosters collaboration between designers, data scientists & software engineers.
Connor applies human-centric approaches to the design of complex work environments and has published and spoken widely on this topic. His projects cover multiple domains, including public safety, manufacturing, and sustainability. He is keenly interested in how interactive visualizations can support collaboration between human and artificial intelligence.
During this period of uncertainty and fear of technology, I want to add some much-needed positivity to the current narrative. I recently watched a TED Talk by Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Chief Executive Officer at Socialbakers, about how Artificial intelligence will unleash the potential in each of us.
When I researched the company, I also learned how COVID-19 is changing behavior on social media for both brands and users. As someone that likes to focus on how technology can make a difference in transforming businesses and re-shaping the industries, Yuval is the perfect guest for this podcast.
Socialbakers is a trusted social media marketing partner to thousands of enterprise brands and SMBs, including over 100 companies on the list of Fortune Global 500. Leveraging the largest social media data-set in the industry and machine learning, they are helping brands engage & grow their customer base through content personalization based on actionable AI-powered audience insights.
With more people working from home and consuming digital content, I learn how COVID-19 is changing behavior on social media for both brands and users. But also how it has shifted the balance of the marketplace.
Will artificial intelligence take over the world? Yuval Ben Itzhak takes me on a journey of technology and human capabilities.
Much of the world is currently embracing remote working at scale. There have been many reports about how to navigate around the challenges that it might create for businesses. But today I talk with a company that was built on remote work.
Acceleration Partners is a global partner marketing agency that has been entirely remote for its 13-year existence. Amidst growth to 170+ employees, they've also been recognized for industry performance and company culture with an organization built on a foundation of remote work.
If asking your entire team to telework seems like a drastic step or worst-case scenario for your organization, here's the good news: most businesses are capable of thriving in this environment under the proper conditions.
Robert Glazer, CEO of Acceleration Partners, who's led his large team of remote employees effectively for over a decade, shares his experience on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Robert is a founder, author, speaker, and expert in elevating performance in both business and life.
Robert also has a passion for helping individuals and organizations build their capacity to outperform and was ranked #2 on Glassdoor's list of Top CEO of Small & Medium Companies in the US. Under his leadership, Acceleration Partners has become a recognized global leader in the affiliate marketing industry, receiving numerous industry and company culture awards.
Acceleration Partners has received several prestigious awards and accolades for both our client services and culture, including “Best Agency” (International Performance Marketing Awards), “Best Workplaces” (Inc.), “Best Places to Work” (Glassdoor), “Most Committed to Work-Life Balance” (Digiday). All of which highlights what can be achieved on the foundations of remote working.
ChartHop is an organizational management platform empowering leaders and team members alike to see the past and present of their organization and design its future. It enables businesses to visualize, plan and analyze their organizations within minutes. Customers can structure and analyze people's data by multiple factors, including location, salary, stock grants, number of direct reports, gender, and more.
In a nutshell, ChartHop makes organizations run and scale better. ChartHop plays well with 20 plus platforms, including ADP, BambooHR, Carta, Greenhouse, Lever, SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, and more. Based in Brooklyn, New York, ChartHop was founded in 2018 by Ian White.
“Technology shouldn’t hinder HR and People teams from being strategic business partners or supporting employees — it should empower them,” Ian White, ChartHop’s founder, CEO and CTO.
In today's episode, I wanted to learn more about how ChartHop leverages technology to enable leaders to understand their organization in real-time more clearly. I also wanted to explore if this technology can finally break through information silos and unearth hidden biases so leaders can take action and affect change.
Ian White joins me on today's edition of Tech Talks Daily, to talk about all of the above and how they emerged from stealth today with $5 million in seed funding.
JULABO manufactures, distributes, and sells highly precise temperature control equipment used to support research, development, and innovation in numerous industries including academic/scientific research, aerospace, automotive, analytical labs, chemical labs & manufacturing, biotechnology, cannabis, clinical testing, material testing, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, semiconductors, and more.
I wanted to learn more about how technology is transforming its business and solving problems for their customers. vDelivery, LucaVision, IoT, Holographic Displays are just a few areas I wanted t to explore, so I invited Dr. Dirk Frese onto the podcast.
Dr. Dirk Frese is a scientist and biochemist with a background in sales and leadership for scientific equipment companies and manufacturers. He is also the V.P. Sales, Marketing & Service at JULABO USA, and founder of Wisdom.
Much of the technological innovations are focused on product/instrumentation innovation. But with his deep passion for technology, Dirk explains how it can also be used to drive customer engagement and experiences. I also learn how they applied technology to enhance their business when they first started offering vDelivery five years ago.
We discuss how JULABO USA has been implementing AR/VR technologies to reduce service wait times for customers. Dirk also shares the inspiration behind LucaVision and reveals why he turned to holographic displays after growing increasingly concerned about the amount of money being spent on shipping equipment to and from tradeshows.
Technology is changing every aspect of their business, and even IoT sensors are being added to machines post-production to help track equipment performance, service, and maintenance needs. Our conversation covers a wide range of emerging technologies and how they are being used in the business world. But, it's human storytelling at the heart of the business.
David Allison recently wrote that Millennials continue to be blamed for ruining everything from the diamond industry to homeownership, and, in response, joke that Baby Boomers destroyed the planet and can't work smartphones. Except it's not a joke. These statements do nothing but push us further apart.
In the closure of his recent article, he advised that we all have to stop using demographics labels to paint each other with broad brushes. The inconvenient truth is that although we try to pigeonhole people, the reality is that age, gender, income, marital status, education, number of kids—none of it indicates any similarity. We're all the same age now. Some of us just haven't figured that out yet.
David Allison is the Founder of The Valuegraphics Database, the world's first global dataset that can change the behavior of any target audience 8X more effectively than ever before. He is a best-selling author, internationally acclaimed speaker, and the leading advocate of values-thinking as the new best practice for organizational decision-making.
In retrospect, the path to his work today seems like a straight line. Working on campaigns for some of the biggest brands in the world, building an award-winning marketing creative firm, and writing three influential books on communications strategy left him questioning a fundamental concept of marketing.
In a post-demographic era when age, gender, income, and education no longer restrict how we choose to live, he wondered, why are we still using demographics to predict and influence how target audiences behave? He sold his firm in 2015 and worked with a team of university researchers to launch, collect, and analyze a half-million surveys about why groups of people behave the way they do.
The data was immediately clear on two points. First, demographics were a shockingly ineffective way to understand how groups behaved. More importantly, leveraging shared values turned out to be the most powerful way to trigger behavior. Now, for the first time, there was accessible, customizable, empirical data that proved what we value determines what we do.
Further data analysis revealed that we waste 90% of our time and money trying to engage target audiences using demographics. What could we do with 90% of our financial and human resources redeployed elsewhere? What if we only did things that people cared about? Wouldn't the world be better off if everything was based on the values we share?
Since then, David has been focused on defining a new post-demographic era where values-thinking influences everything we do. His background consulting, writing, speaking, and creating simple stories from complex ideas has helped amplify the global shift away from outdated demographic ideas.
I learn more about his mission is to change the way we look at the world. His latest book, We Are All the Same Age Now: Valuegraphics and the End of Demographic Stereotypes was the number-one global marketing best-seller within 48 hours of its release. Kirkus Reviews called it "A genuinely original contribution to marketing literature," and INC Magazine named it one of the top ten leadership books of the year.
David talks about building an award-winning marketing creative firm and writing three influential books on communications strategy, which left him questioning a fundamental concept of marketing.
Because of the powerful interests behind it, the plastics industry dominates most conversations around waste and sustainability, and the truth about solutions and circular materials is often hidden behind doctored research and metrics. As a result, consumers are continually blamed for the problems we’re facing, and Aluminum is often overlooked and misdefined.
Did you know that the only genuinely sustainable beverage container is Aluminum? Or did you ever stop to think about the technology that makes it possible to ensure the empty can of coke is recycled and back on the shelf within 60 days?
Ball Corporation, the world’s leading supplier of aluminum cans and bottles, is working on a lifecycle assessment (LCA) of aluminum beverage packaging that demonstrates that recycled Aluminum is the most sustainable and lowest carbon packaging material. This is compelling, given that 75% of Aluminum is still in use today, and aluminum beverage packaging has the highest recycling rates and yields of any standard beverage container.
Ball Corporation supplies innovative, sustainable aluminum packaging solutions for beverage, personal care, and household products customers, as well as aerospace and other technologies and services primarily for the U.S. government. Ball Corporation and its subsidiaries employ more than 18,300 people worldwide and reported 2019 sales of $11.5 billion.
Adam Shalapin joins me on Tech Talks Daily for a deep dive into the technology that makes it possible for Aluminum to be recycled an infinite number of times without losing quality. I also learn how they can also be recycled to take on a new life as a car, laptop, or bicycle.
With an endless amount of movies and shows across an overwhelming number of streaming services, VUniverse was created with one solution in mind: to be able to answer the time-consuming question…what should I watch?
Have you ever found scrolling through every streaming service exhausting? Today's guests noticed none of the recommendations provided by streaming services were really personalized or tailored to their taste.
It has been reported that it takes the average viewer 20 minutes to find somehting to watch. Even if you know what you are looking for, it can be challenging opening and closing Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney Plus, YouTube TV, HBO, and Apple TV to see which platform has the license this month.
Today's guests didn't want to keep googling were a show or movie was streaming. They built VUniverse to make the ever-expanding world of streaming services easier so that you can spend less time searching and more time watching. But what is it?
VUniverse is a personalized movie and show recommendation platform that enables users to browse their streaming services in one app—a channel guide for the streaming universe. Using artificial intelligence, VUniverse creates a unique taste profile for every user and serves smart lists of curated titles using mood, genre, and user-generated tags, all based on content from the user's existing subscription services. Users can also create custom watchlists and share them with friends and family.
VUniverse was also recently named as one of the top 5 finalists in the AI & Machine Learning category for the 2020 SXSW Innovation Awards. But the event was later canceled due to the Coronavirus. On the one hand, I was struck by the impact of a new business having its big moment snatched away. But on the other, I realized with so many people working from home; online streaming has never been more popular.
I invited Evelyn Watters, CEO and Monica Brady, COO onto the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share their journey and also their insights on the world of online streaming.
For the last four years, I have been covering the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas from the Venetian hotel. This year's event was going to be even more special as it had merged its event with Magento. But we all know what happened next.
However, the show must go on and Adobe is hosting the Summit virtually. So, I will be attempting to take those conversations I would normally be having face to face on the show floor and chat with the guests virtually too.
Mindtree is a global technology consulting and services company, helping enterprises marry scale with agility to achieve competitive advantage. In a nutshell, they provide technology solutions to make businesses and societies flourish. The company is also an Adobe Specialized Business Partner and the perfect company to explore emerging digital customer experience trends.
I also want to learn more about emerging technologies, solutions and how businesses are leveraging them to become experience-driven. Anshuman Singh, General Manager & Head of Digital Strategy & Consulting at Mindtree joins me on today's edition of Tech Talks Daily.
Anshuman leads Mindtree Interactive, globally. Mindtree Interactive designs & builds compelling experiences to deliver the brand-promise through persuasive content and friction-less transactions for consumers, customers, partners, and employees. Additionally, he also represents Digital Team in Europe.
Digital team provides Interactive, Data Science & Engineering and Cloud services across various sectors like Retail, CPG/ FMCG, Manufacturing, Travel, Transportation, Hospitality, Technology, Media, Services, Banking, Financial Services & Insurance.
Anshuman reveals more about their born to be digital mantra. We also talk about leveraging augmented reality (AR) to enhance customer experience, the immediate impact of AR and how are companies innovating with AR/
For an Internet in flux, Web 3.0 takes on new meaning in its imagined proposition of a far more synergistic, secure, and ultimately trustless economy. And yet, having not truly witnessed the arrival of a breakout application or critical mass, it seems that the investment thesis for Web 3.0 is getting ahead of reality - or is it?
LongHash Ventures, the global blockchain incubator, and investor is laying down the building blocks of a native Web 3.0 blockchain economy. With the LongHash Hatch Program having raised over $11 million to date, LongHash Ventures is committed to catalyzing the growth of the next generation of blockchain startups. Shi Khai, Chief Operating Officer at LongHash Ventures, and a former management consultant at McKinsey have an intimate knowledge of the intersection between real-world deployment and technical innovation. With an eye on the practical nuance of Web 3.0 adoption.
In today's edition of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, Shi Khai shares insights on unpacking Web 3.0 and reinventing the legacy of the Internet for purpose and profit. On the subject of adoption, we discuss how blockchain is already building a community for it. We also explore the dichotomy between 'Don't be evil' and 'Can't be evil';
As a global blockchain incubator and investor, I also ask how blockchain startups can make their startups attractive to investors and join the Web 3.0 blockchain native economy.
Alex Collmer, the founder and CEO of VidMob, the world’s premier technology platform to help brands more intelligently use data and scale their mobile advertising creative. Since founding the company in 2015, he has raised more than $45M and counts many of the world’s leading brands and agencies as clients.
An engineer by training, Collmer’s career has always been at the intersection of technology, design, and consumer entertainment as those sectors have evolved. Prior to founding VidMob, he was the co-founder and CEO of Autumn Games, a premier publisher of video game franchises. Under his leadership, Autumn Games developed successful partnerships with such personalities as Jimmie Johnson, the 7-time NASCAR champion and companies like Def Jam, the leading urban culture brand, as well as the award-winning fighting game franchise, Skullgirls.
VidMob focuses on designing technology to make human creativity more scalable, accessible and efficient, enabling brands to understand which creative attributes are driving performance.
Built on a proprietary pipeline of machine learning services and data processing, and integrated with social platform APIs, their technology service - Agile Creative Studio - provides precise creative insights that are immediately actionable.
Over the past two years alone, VidMob has seen its revenue grow by over 35 times, and is currently an official creative partner of Facebook, Instagram, Google/YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn among others.
Its roster of clients includes global brands such as Bayer, Intercontinental Hotel Group, Ikea and Neutrogena, as well as disruptor brands like True & Co and Acorns. VidMob also works with global creative and media agencies including Publicis, Ogilvy and Universal McCann.
I learn more about how VidMob focuses on designing technology to make human creativity more scalable, accessible, and efficient, enabling brands to understand which creative attributes are driving performance.
Dmitriy Akulov is a tech innovator and entrepreneur whose story is plagued with war and innovation. At 26, the young entrepreneur has earned a name for himself within the world of technology. But I wanted to learn more about his inspirational story.
Having outlasted the war in Ukraine. Akulov recalls daily bombings, tanks on the streets of Donetsk, and armed militia traveling freely throughout the place he called home. While the war went on outside, Akulov remained persistent.
Akulov went on to become a leading force behind some of the largest names in the tech world, including, PerfOps, jsDelivr, and Prospect One. Prospect One specializes in web performance, server management, and high availability systems. We also develop complex software that allows people to scale their systems and websites.
Akulov started jsDelivr, a free- multi-CDN for open course projects, at the age of 16. Today, the platform is one of the largest in the world, serving over 65 billion users on a monthly basis. Clients include some of the world’s largest websites, including multiple government sites.
Akulov’s track record of success in the tech startup world has taken him around the globe with the purpose of building products that revolutionize life for real people. I learn how he has travelled around the world motivated by a mission of building products that transform the lives of real people.
A company called inRiver believes that every product tells a story.
They are on a mission to redefine the way e-commerce product marketers and merchandisers work. By providing product information management (PIM) products and services that help create, update, refresh, maintain and distribute content about products globally, they help businesses to drive increased revenue, customer satisfaction, and brand equity.
More than 1000 brands and 400 customers across 19 countries rely on them to efficiently control the product flow for their globally recognized brands. I wanted to learn more about the story behind the company and how they leverage technology.
However, I also wanted to explore how inRiver and their clients are coping with the global pandemic. Although the Coronavirus has caused mass quarantines and social distancing across the globe, making us feel isolated, there are more and more stories of "togetherness" that need to be heard. Today's guest shares some of his optimism for the future.
Johan Boström is a senior business leader with over 20 years of experience leading international technology companies and is one of the founders of inRiver. Before founding inRiver, Johan held leading positions at DDMM, Sema Group Consulting, and UDK. He has worked with PIM, e-commerce, and content management since the mid-1990s in both EMEA and North America.
We talk about how B2B e-commerce is changing and how technology is not just disrupting in the DTC space with retail e-commerce companies, but also old, slow-to-change industries like industrial manufacturing. With such a vast amount of solutions and technologies in the martech stack, Johan also shares a few tips that we should prioritize.
Tito Jankowski and his team created Negative because they were frustrated. The climate is in peril and they didn't want to sit back. So they did their homework and realized that lots of others cared about the climate, but the problem seemed too big, and they didn't know how to help.
I wanted to learn more about their story and how they worked to make climate action closer to home and tangible. With their first product, the Negative Bracelet, they are offering a physical symbol of climate action, something you can see, feel, and use to get inspired to take further action while also supporting cutting-edge climate technology.
Tito explains how they teamed up with two of the world's leading climate technology startups: Climeworks and Carbon Upcycling Technologies. Their innovative machines can capture CO2 from ambient air and then it's pumped underground and turned into stone. This locks up the carbon for good.
In a nutshell, the Negative bracelet is made with captured atmospheric carbon emissions. This stuff would be heating up our planet. Now it's tied up your wrist.
The bracelet's beads are where the magic happens. Each bead is a blend of atmospheric carbon and naturally-sourced clay. These atmospheric ingredients didn't exist outside the lab until recently, so we're still learning what's possible. Their ultimate goal is to make a bracelet that is 100% atmospheric carbon (Air Diamonds, anyone?!), and this bracelet is the first step in that direction.
We also discuss their Kickstarter Campaign and how they were on the front page of the platform for over a month.
Brian Verne is the CEO of WAVE, sports media for the next generation of fans. The company builds communities and enables two-way conversations on the consumer's platform of choice.
Verne also previously founded Phenom, an angel-backed sports technology company. Phenom, an angel-backed startup based in San Francisco, CA, and a 500 Startups Batch 16 company, was founded out of a desire to give young athletes a voice. He built the largest community of young athletes, enabling them to talk about the products that they love and share stories about their athletic achievements.
Today I want to learn more about how WAVE powers many of the most popular brands at the intersection of sports and entertainment on the social and digital platforms that Gen Z and millennials think of today as television. In just two years, WAVE has become one of the largest digital publishers in the world, generating over 2.5B video views and 90M+ engagements per month. WAVE has over 40M followers/subscribers and reaches over 300M sports fans each month.
However, with the Coronavirus pandemic stopping sport across the globe, I also wanted to learn more about how they are overcoming the challenges that COVID-19 is bringing to their business. But also why they are optimistic about the future and how they are creating opportunities.
In a time of uncertainty where we are all surrounded by hype, fear, and all things related to the Coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19 alerts, I want to bring in hope, optimism, and new solutions via this daily tech podcast. Today, I wanted to learn more about Design Sprints and how they can help teams unite even when working from home.
If you have ever found yourself asking, What are Design Sprints? Why are Design Sprints so valuable? When should teams conduct Design Sprints or just want a few tips for running a successful Design Sprint and what to do with the information after the Design Sprint is over, you are in a for a treat today.
Voltage Control was founded by Douglas Ferguson, an entrepreneur and technologist with over 20 years of experience. With his unique combination of expertise in technology, product strategy, and design thinking, Voltage Control offers trusted guidance to companies who want to jumpstart their product or project with an impactful innovation workshop. Austin-based Voltage Control designs and leads custom innovation workshops and Design Sprints, as developed by Google Ventures.
In addition to workshop facilitation, Voltage Control engages with organizations for Digital Transformation, Innovation Training, Corporate Summits, and Strategic Planning. Douglas is also the author of Beyond the Prototype, a new book that offers a six-step plan for companies struggling with the shift from discovery to launch.
Prior to Voltage Control, Douglas held CTO positions at numerous Austin startups, where he led product and engineering teams using agile, lean, and human-centered design principles. While CTO at Twyla, Douglas worked directly with Google Ventures running Design Sprints and now brings this experience and process to companies everywhere.
Douglas also recently published his first book, Beyond the Prototype, which offers a six-step plan for companies struggling with the shift from discovery to launch. Douglas is active in the Austin startup community where he serves on the board of several non-profits, mentors startups, and advises early-stage ventures. He spends his free time patching up modular synthesizers, playing guitar, and taking photographs. He graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Join me in learning from Douglas, who outlines everything companies need to know before, during, and after conducting a Design Sprint.
At a time where a global pandemic is forcing us all to work and think differently, I also believe it could be an excellent opportunity to share the challenges that all businesses are dealing with right now. Maybe we could all learn from each other by sharing stories of how we are overcoming the difficulties caused by the Coronavirus outbreak.
I want to learn more about how people and businesses are leveraging technology to get through this period of unprecedented uncertainty. John Lincoln is CEO of Ignite Visibility, and he joins me on today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. He is one of the top digital marketing agencies in the US and an Inc. 5000 company.
Lincoln is consistently named one of the top marketing experts in the industry. He has been the recipient of the Search Engine Land "Search Marketer of the Year" award, named the #1 SEO consultant in the USA by Clutch.co, most admired CEO and 40 under 40.
Lincoln has written two books (The Forecaster Method and Digital Influencer) and made two movies (SEO: The Movie and Social Media Marketing: The Movie) on digital marketing. He is a digital marketing strategy adviser to some of the biggest names in the business.
With 85 employees and over 160 clients, Lincoln leads Ignite Visibility.
Agency specialties include digital strategy, SEO, CRO, Social Media Marketing, Paid Media, Conversion Rate Optimization, Email Marketing, Amazon, and Analytics. All work is entirely custom and tailored to the individual online business model. I learn how the company can improve your online presence and increase your bottom-line.
We discuss voice tech, digital marketing, SEO, and how the COVID-19 outbreak is changing the digital landscape. But why there are many reasons to be optimistic about the road ahead.
As the global pandemic continues to spread, both consumers and businesses now have a very different set of goals to what they had when they started 2020. As the world faces a period of uncertainty, businesses must strive to be significant, not successful. Helping customers rather than selling to them is the fresh approach that we all need.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a new level of uncertainty. But how can you or your business actively shape the future? My search for answers led me to the New York Times Bestselling Author and Technology futurist, Daniel Burrus. He told me, “If you look around, nobody’s moving or buying, and everybody is hurting. But this presents every business with an opportunity to help their customers and grow their brand by doing something extraordinary.”
In our podcast interview, Burrus advised we should all shift our focus to be a significant business and a significant leader. Success is all about you. Significance is about what you do for others.
Daniel Burrus is considered one of the World’s Leading Futurist Speakers on Global Trends and Disruptive Innovation. The New York Times has referred to him as one of the top three business gurus in the highest demand as a speaker.
Daniel has delivered over 3,000 keynote speeches to corporations, associations, and professional organizations worldwide. In his presentations, he blends timely and provocative insights with just the right amount of humor and motivation to enable his audiences to take positive action
Burrus is a strategic advisor to executives from Fortune 500 companies helping them to develop game-changing strategies based on his proven methodologies for capitalizing on technology innovations and their future impact. He is also the author of seven books, including The New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller Flash Foresight, as well as his latest book, The Anticipatory Organization: Turn Disruption and Change Into Opportunity and Advantage.
Rytis Lauris, the co-founder, and CEO of Omnisend, a marketing automation platform joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. I wanted to learn more about why email marketing alone isn't effective in a digital age.
As a successful entrepreneur, Rytis has spent the last 10 years building and bootstrapping startups and getting involved in the eCommerce world. Rytis discovered eCommerce marketers have very particular needs pertaining to automation. Since then he has been on a mission to use Omnisend to empower small and medium-sized eCommerce merchants.
Omnisend started life in 2014 as an email marketing platform called Soundest. From day one, they made it their priority to put e-commerce marketers at the center of every decision they make. At the time, that meant empowering them with simple yet impactful email marketing tools.
Three years later, they set out to offer even more to our growing number of customers and their growing businesses. They expanded from an email service provider to an omnichannel marketing automation platform. And they launched a new mission: to Make Marketing Relevant. Since then, they have helped thousands of eCommerce marketers build lasting relationships with their customers by sending relevant messages to the right people, at the right time, using the right channel.
Omnisend has become a top-rated app in the Shopify App store and has been listed in the G2’s selection of the Top 50 Products for Marketers 2019 and the Top 100 Software Companies in EMEA. But I wanted to learn more about the story behind the company.
We also discuss how businesses are overcoming the challenges caused by the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
The Smart Cube researches, analyses, and addresses the needs of businesses in today’s intelligence age with tailored sector-specific solutions. Primarily serving the CPG, Energy & Chemicals, Financial Services, Industrials, Life Sciences, and Retail sectors, they work with a third of companies in the Fortune 100, helping them make smarter decisions, accelerate value and gain a competitive edge.
Prasad Kothari, VP Data Science, and AI join me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. We explore several data science and AI topics and discuss the future of AI/Machine Learning/Data Science.
Prasad is an analytics and data science leader who has worked extensively building high-performing teams for various organizations and has provided consulting to many fortune 500 clients. At The Smart Cube, he focuses on helping clients realize the value of data science to solve priority business problems, including customer analytics, marketing analytics, RWE/RWD, and supply chain analytics.
He has also been able to help clients leverage data science to drive innovation and top-line and bottom-line impact. Prasad has published healthcare data science research papers across leading journals, such as the American Journal of Public Health and American Journal of Psychology, as well as published books in AI. Further, he is part of the editorial board of leading research journals.
Prasad has collaborated with several universities in the US and given guest lectures on Quantum Machine Learning, NLP/NLU, topological data analysis, and computer vision research. He spends his weekends reading AI books and listening to Indian classical music.
In Hyun-Suk Kim's CES keynote presentation, the Samsung Consumer Electronics President and CEO declared the 2020s the "Age of Experience." This "decade of human-centric innovation" is all about customization and personalization through intelligent, cutting-edge technology.
For example, 3D configurators make online buyer experiences fully user-focused. It gives customers complete control. "3D rendering provides a hyper-realistic experience that allows a user to fully customize a product and see how it interacts with the real world, all with the same fluidity you'd expect while playing a modern video game," said PureWeb's James Henry.
James Henry is the CTO at PureWeb, an interactive 3D streaming service focused on photorealistic 3D visualization, configuration, and simulation. I invited him on to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to talks about interactive technology in the Age of Experience.
James shares his extensive experience leading international software organizations. James has set and led strategies for startups, turnarounds, and pivots in a variety of industries experiencing rapid technology change (e.g. oil & gas, healthcare, telecommunications, CAD, gaming, construction, emerging technologies).
I learn how PureWeb’s patented smart streaming technology enables anyone to publish, collaborate and interact with massive data files, including photo-real 3D simulations and game engine projects. It deploys this on any cloud or hardware device without coding, moving or copying the source data.
Bitfury Group, leading security and infrastructure provider for the Bitcoin Blockchain, has launched a music entertainment division named Surround last year, the first initiative of which is a fully interoperable digital ecosystem for the tracking, storing, and monetization of music and entertainment copyrights.
Secured by the Bitcoin Blockchain, the platform is capable of capturing 100K transactions per second in immutable form and completing tasks such as user authentication, metadata management, and split royalty payments. The ecosystem enables a dynamic marketplace and the creation of commercial APIs for third party partners and developers.
Providing users with a dashboard where they can track these transactions in real-time, Surround aims to ensure transparency and trust, as artists are empowered, and payment procedures are incentivized. This mission is grounded in the industry wisdom and experience behind Surround’s founding team led by CEO and co-founder Stefan Schulz.
Schulz joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talks about Surround and how the platform deploys blockchain technology. Schulz was a founding member of Universal Mobile and has over twenty years of experience in the music industry.
Tanzil Bukhari might be Europe's top programmatic expert. He led DoubleClick's EMEA business before Google acquired them. After that, Google kept him on for ten years, overseeing the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.
Now, programmatic is facing mounting challenges – from ads being placed next to hate speech and terrorist videos, to bots taking advantage of the automation to steal billions from brands.
Tanzil joins me on Tech Talks Daily for a chat about the future of programmatic and how it can adapt to these threats. Tanzil recently joined DoubleVerify, the global leader in authenticating digital media to make sure ads are brand-safe, fraud-free, and viewable.
DoubleVerify is a leading software platform for digital media measurement, data, and analytics. I learn more about their mission to be the definitive source of transparency and data-driven insights into the quality and effectiveness of digital advertising for the world's largest brands, publishers, and digital ad platforms.
We also talk about how the technology platform provides advertisers with consistent and unbiased data and analytics that can be used to optimize the quality and return on digital ad investments. Since 2008, DV has helped hundreds of Fortune 500 companies gain the most from their media spend by delivering best in class solutions across the digital advertising ecosystem, helping to build a better industry.
Artificial Intelligence makes it easy to detect subtle patterns in data, enabling businesses to make more informed decisions. Using AI is a major priority for companies. However, many do not know what data they should be collecting in the first place.
GNY is launching a new SAAS tool on the AWS marketplace that enables businesses to check the AI-readiness of their data, along with support from their team to learn how they should strengthen their data. GNY is already helping businesses improve their user engagement by 100% and predicted next-day sales with 75% accuracy.
Cosmas Wong, Founder, CEO of GNY, joins me on today's edition of the Tech Talks Daily. Cosmas is a London based tech investor and entrepreneur who has been building companies for more than 20 years. He has his roots in corporate finance and private equity lawyer in London and Singapore, and has worked with large and small companies around the world.
Cosmas also has a broad background in corporate structures, business strategy, and implementation, intellectual property, and investments. He has a keen interest in innovative data-driven solutions for businesses.
In 2010, Cosmas co-founded Enso Financial Management LLP, a New York-based financial services data platform to service some of the world's largest hedge funds. Enso was eventually sold to iCap plc in 2016. Cosmas' interest in data solutions and, in particular, Artificial Intelligence and the blockchain, led him to establish Grey Jean Technologies in New York; the genesis of the GNY platform, and then GNY.IO in Jersey, UK.
We discuss how they are helping businesses unlock the hidden value in their data with a machine learning platform that is secure, affordable, and customizable. GNY is the first company to decentralize advanced machine learning software across the nodes of a blockchain - effectively using blockchain to reinforce and distribute machine-learning tools.
I also learn how any business can optimize data-driven business decisions securely with machine learning, at a fraction of the cost of our competitors. Think of GNY as your plug and play machine-learning assistant. Free to download, and you only pay for what you use with our GNY and LML utility tokens.
Sean Harper is the co-founder and CEO of Kin, an insurance company built from scratch on modern tech to make it easier and more affordable to insure a home (especially in areas prone to extreme weather).
The insurtech startup is on a mission to fix home insurance through intuitive tech, affordable pricing, and world-class customer service. Launched by seasoned financial tech entrepreneurs Sean Harper and Lucas Ward in 2016, Kin is committed to serving catastrophe-prone regions and coastal homeowners most impacted by climate change.
As a self-proclaimed tech geek, Sean has spent his career developing apps to revolutionize antiquated industries. When he realized that the homeowner's insurance industry was still being managed unlike any other consumer financial products today (relying on paperwork, legacy IT systems, and distribution through local brokers), he saw an opportunity.
Sean co-founded Kin as a tech-based insurance agency in 2016 and has grown it to a fully-licensed home insurance carrier supported by a team of over 100 employees. With a focus on world-class customer service, insurance literacy, and smart coverage, Sean and his team are changing the way insurance is done.
I learn what inspired him to embark on this InsurTech startup journey? We also discuss how tech is changing the home insurance industry. But the impacts of climate change on home insurance too.
Have you ever wondered how you could leverage your incredible online professional network to improve your face-to-face business and community? Or what would happen if you built and nurture your online network to benefit your offline life too? These are just a few reasons why Sarah Elkins decided to tear down the barriers between online and offline and connecting beyond the keyboard.
At this year's No Longer Virtual (NLV) event, Sarah Elkins once again revealed that her secret power was getting people to do things they wouldn't usually do. As the world went crazy and travel bans became the norm, I hopped don a plane to travel 3,700 miles to connect beyond the keyboard in Chicago.
NLV enables a group of people from all over the world to connect beyond the keyboard. As someone who is passionate about sharing and learning from the stories of others on my podcast, it was easy to see why I was so attracted to the event.
I wanted to try and capture why so many people traveled far and wide to attend NLV 2020. Listen to this year's attendees who share why they attended and ensured that NLV wouldn't be just another canceled event in 2020.
I learn how Sarah took a significant risk and faced the pressure of planning an event with international attendees in her stride. But, filling a room of people that intimately shared their stories of success and failures to learn from each other is genuinely priceless.
Amy Blaschka, Heather Younger, Melissa Hughes, Kevin Strauss, Arlene Mendoza & Hannah Bratterud also share what NLV means to them.
As someone that covers many tech events and attends conferences all over the world, it was being surrounded by these eclectic, smart, talented, open, and fun people that left me feeling both inspired and empowered.
Maybe, you would like to join me at next year's No Longer Virtual, where I will be the guy with the big beaming smile excited to be once again, sharing and learning from the shared paths, journies, and stories of my online connections.
I recently read a fascinating story about a particle physicist turned co-founder of an AI-based language learning app called Lingvist and felt compelled to find out more.
Mait Müntel was part of the Higgs boson discovery team at CERN, where he was frustrated by being unable to speak French fluently. In typical scientist fashion, he decided to look at the French language as a mathematical problem that could be fun to solve-- and soon used CERN's machine learning capabilities to run his language-as-math hypothesis, then began building out software to test it.
Within a year, he was able to study French for 200 hours, then pass a high school French test. So he left to start Lingvist, a company that uses AI to create personalized language experiences, with 1.4 million language users.
Mait joins me on Tech Talks Daily to chat about how machine learning is significantly accelerating the language learning process, and how important scientific theories have been to Lingvist's success.
I learn how he got the idea to approach language learning like a mathematical challenge and decided to build his own solution instead. Mait's prototype drew upon the machine learning work he had used while searching for the boson particle, along with the basics of language statistics and cognitive science theory.
After learning with a homemade prototype for 200 hours, he put himself to the test and took a high-school-level French exam, which he passed with a strong score. That was the seed from which Lingvist took root.
Mait took those principles he had used to teach himself and started developing them for anyone to use, with the goal of significantly accelerating language learning and reducing inefficiency in the learning process.
They built the proof of concept after receiving the Prototron Grant, a seed-funding initiative for budding startups, in March 2013. In 2014 Lingvist was selected from a pool of over 1,500 applicants to participate in the world-renowned TechStars London accelerator program.
Today, Lingvist is an eclectic team of more than 40 languages and technology lovers hailing from around the world. Members include alumni from Skype and CERN, and specialists in areas ranging from AI and computational linguistics to UX and product development.
Dentons is the world's largest law firm, delivering quality and value to clients around the globe. You probably don't automatically associate the law firm with autonomous vehicles. But autonomous vehicle technology and legislation is a hot topic that Denton's is passionate about.
Last year Dentons launched its Driverless Commute blog geared toward the latest news and analysis on the autonomous vehicle (AV) industry. Authored by Dentons' Autonomous Vehicles team, the Driverless Commute interprets emerging innovations and implications facing the AV sector.
It is an extension of a popular, long-running weekly email digest of the same name that will allow for a more nimble publishing of legal and policy analysis of the fast-changing automated car landscape. It also provides insightful analysis of the current regulatory environment, monitors public perception of AV technology, covers the global race to market, and highlights pilot programs, including shuttle buses, package delivery vans, robo-taxis, shared-fleet vehicles, truck convoys, and row-cop tractors.
Leveraging the Firm's experience serving the automotive, technology, and renewable energy sectors, Dentons' Autonomous Vehicles team was launched to act as a source for companies navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of laws and regulations relating to the development and deployment of AV technology. Dentons' Autonomous Vehicles team is made up of attorneys and professionals from across the Firm's Public Policy, Corporate, Energy, Litigation, Insurance, Intellectual Property, and Venture Technology practice group.
Eric Tanenblatt is the Global Chair of Public Policy and Regulation of Dentons, the world's largest law firm. He also leads the Firm's US Public Policy Practice, leveraging his three decades of experience at the very highest levels of the federal and state governments.
Mr. Tanenblatt, a renowned lecturer and political counselor who's widely regarded as one of the nation's preeminent public policy thought leaders, has served in the administrations of three US presidents and as a senior advisor to a US senator and governor, and held a US Senate-confirmable post governing a federal agency.
He also has a passion for shepherding disruptive companies and industries through the complicated web of law and regulation, and often writes and speaks about the innovation economy. He leads Dentons' global autonomous vehicles team and authors a popular weekly digest tracking the most consequential regulatory, political, and technical developments in the world of automotive autonomy.
We explore The Global Guide to Autonomous Vehicles 2020, and take a look at the top issues and challenges facing the development and advancement of autonomous vehicles worldwide.
Businesses globally reported investments in digital reinvention totaling more than $100 billion between 2016 and 2018, and yet most reported poor returns on their digital investments. The fallout? The disconnect between concept and execution.
IT directors and CIOs face mounting pressures to transform operations as we near the brink of a digital revolution, but when it comes to rollout, things breakdown when employees are faced with poor user experiences or lack the insights needed to execute change successfully.
One of the most impactful first steps to evaluate digital success is the tools your employees use to do their day-to-day work. Integration across productivity tools are playing a massive role in remedying this problem. We’ve hit a critical point in enterprise app overload, with multi-solution integration across technology providers as the only way forward.
For these reasons alone, I invited Doodle CEO, Renato Profico onto the podcast to talk about how productivity tools like Doodle are streamlining the workplace operations and enabling effective digital transformation results.
Renato shares his experiences managing a global tech firm and the role of collaboration technology. We also discuss why businesses need to focus on integration across enterprise tools to prevent app overload and the future of work as digital natives take over our workforce.
Brands around the world are demanding more authentic stories to share with their audiences. A company called Shootsta sat back, smiled, and decided to change the way video gets created.
Calling out a professional crew can cost between $5-$7k. This is a budget many businesses can't afford. Not to mention the hassle of trying to organize your CEO for what should be a 5-minute shoot. Because of this, video output is irregular, the messages are mixed, and there's no consistency for viewers.
The team behind Shootsta came from the corporate video production world and constantly had clients tell them that they wanted to produce internal, marketing, or promotional videos every week. Still, it was just too hard and too expensive. They realized if they could equip companies with the right gear and training, they could film their own content, and they could do all the heavy lifting with the post-production. And that's when Shootsta was born.
Mike Pritchett, Founder & CEO Shootsta, joins me on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily. Mike has over 14 years of experience in the video production industry. Starting his career behind the camera then moving into post-production, as a visual media communications expert, he now specializes in directing and project management.
Mike spent four and a half years of his career traveling across Asia, producing promotional and corporate videos for an international media company. He is the co-founder of Australian charity Kenya Aid leading him to be a guest speaker for The United Nations Young Professional Conference. He has also been a lecturer at the Digital Marketing Institute, on the effectiveness of video marketing.
Mike Founded Trapdoor Productions Pty Ltd in 2006 and built it up to include a suite of fortune 500 clients, including Adobe, Nikon, Rio Tinto, Campbell Arnott's, Schweppes, and many more. Trapdoor were also finalists in two categories at the 2015 Business Excellence Forum.
Over the past decade, Mike has switched his focus from video production to business, completing the Australian Institute of Company Directors Course in 2012. His passion is now to build a thriving international company that meets a growing demand for corporate video.
Apple, Google, Adobe, and others are canceling their big events as part of Coronavirus prevention guidance. But many are turning to technology and virtual conferences to make their announcements. Matchbox Virtual Media is a startup located in Montreal that helps create meaningful conversations but virtually.
The increasing demand for virtual conferences is making it a very busy time for them. The Matchbox website, currently states "We are currently processing a high volume of requests due to concerns of event cancellations related to COVID-19. If you're interested in taking your event online, we got you! These requests will be prioritized."
The company began just over a year ago and help host virtual conferences. They recently held a virtual event for CPA professionals across the country which saw 249 attendees taking part in conversations spread over 2 days and 4 sessions.
There were a total of 33,000 words exchanged between them and over 980 connections made! Matchbox CEO and Founder Arianna Rehak joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company.
When Arianna was 7-years-old she lugged her toys and art supplies onto her front lawn with a sign bearing the title of my new venture: Rent-It. For a small price, her neighbours could rent out anything from a fairy stencil to a red marker. She made $1.15 in one day's work, but she attributes that to bad price pointing. From that day on, her entrepreneurial rigor only got stronger, but more significantly, it became more pointed.
Ariana calls herself a student of human nature, which has guided both her channels of learning and her career direction. She has learned that good intentions are not enough to get things done, and it is her ultimate goal to use both critical and creative thinking to achieve maximum impact.
Arianna shares with me how they are helping organizations produce virtual events that foster meaningful conversations.
Tony Saldanha is the author of "Why Digital Transformations Fail." After a 27 year career at P&G where Tony was VP, Global Business Services, Next Generation Services, he is now CEO of Transformant, a consulting firm that provides advice to boards and CEOs in Fortune 500 companies on digital transformation. During the past year, he has advised C-suite leaders in more than 20 Fortune 100 companies.
Tony joins me on today's edition of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss what two simple things can be done to counteract digital transformation failure. We also discuss how Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain are being implemented in large, complex organizations and why it is critical for organizational leaders to get their organizations ready for a digital world right sooner rather than later.
Phil Strazzulla is the founder of NextWave Hire, along with a new side project Select Software Reviews. Before that, he was a student at Harvard Business School and previously worked as a venture capital investor at Bessemer Venture Partners.
However, I wanted to learn more about the inspiration behind his career in tech. Phil was originally from Cohasset, MA, where he grew up, wrestled, and then moved on to NYU to study finance and explore NYC.
After getting his MBA from Harvard, Phil started SelectSoftware as a side-hustle, which is a site dedicated to providing in-depth and unbiased reviews of business software. SelectSoftware is an excellent example that entrepreneurs don't need a fancy business idea to create a sustainable business that reaches six figures a month.
In today's episode, we discuss his practical tips on starting and growing a side-hustle. I also learn more about how he began his career as a self-taught coder who bootstrapped his way to tech startup success.
I also learn more about how there is an average of 10 hours of research required before businesses buy HR Software. But how Select Software Reviews can reduce this through unbiased, expert research that relies heavily on the expertise of forward-thinking users from the global community.
Dandy is a venture-backed digital health tech start-up founded by Toni Oloko and Daniel Hanover. Dandy combines in-person dental treatment with advanced virtual care to deliver optimal patient outcomes while improving the dental experience for both patients and doctors.
Every day I explore how technology is transforming a different industry. But after 1,100 interviews, I don't think I have covered the world of dentistry, and the impact technology is having on it. Is it because the industry has been slow to implement technology? Or am have I been blindsided?
I recently discovered a company called Dandy that aims to get the technology, high-quality restorations, and the support dentists need to take their dental practice into the future. Dandy Founder, Toni Oloko joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his insights and how he is trying to bring density into the digital age.
We also discuss the problems that modern dental technology helps solve and how the industry has evolved.
Wouldn't you rather your life be measured by the number of lives you've helped succeed? In the really old days, much of our working-class society revolved around Masters, who would take on apprentices and bring them up in a trade.
We've mostly lost that kind of education in our everyday lives, and it's a shame. Part of the reason is that, as individuals, we often fail to recognize that we even have something worth teaching and sharing, or because we don't feel we've achieved a sufficient level of success to be seen as "Master" by someone else.
That's all wrong. Every one of us has something to offer, and we're more than worthy. Sure, maybe you need a certain level of success in order to carve out the time to help others, but that's a straightforward journey. These are a few of the challenges that Don Jones tackles in his book Be The Master.
It explored new ways to recognize that you are worthy of sharing what you know. It's a step-by-step, actionable guide to defining and achieving whatever you see as "success." And it's a way of using that success to help other people achieve theirs - and in turn, becoming even more successful yourself.
Don Jones currently works for a company that develops self-paced learning content (videos, interactive projects, and the like) to teach information technology subjects to people all over the world. But I wanted to learn more about his inspirational journey in the tech industry.
Prior to that, he was mainly known for being a big fan of Microsoft's Windows PowerShell, a product that's included with their Windows operating system and which is designed to facilitate the automation of IT administration and operations. It's also available cross-platform as just "PowerShell," these days.
Don Jones has written, and co-authored numerous books on PowerShell and Microsoft has recognized him with their annual MVP Award since 2003. Don also help run PowerShell.org, the PowerShell Summit events, the Scripting Games, and a slew of other PowerShell-related things.
Don can also be found speaking at several conferences worldwide each year, mostly about PowerShell and even teach classes, both public and private, about the technology.
I have also agreed on a permanent discount code (good for all our products in all formats) at Manning Publications for listeners to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Simply use the promotion code podtechtalks20.
Costanoa Ventures back tenacious and thoughtful founders who change how business gets done. The firm's investments include companies such as Alation, Demandbase, Directly, Kenna Security, Return Path, Roadster, and Quizlet.
Mark Selcow is a partner at the early-stage investor in enterprise software. Mark invests in companies like LivelyHSA, Quizlet and Skedulo.
Prior to joining Costanoa, Mark was a serial entrepreneur and operator, who led organizations in the enterprise software and consumer Internet sectors. He co-founded and served as President of two companies-- Merced Systems and BabyCenter. BabyCenter was sold to Johnson and Johnson in 2001 and Merced Systems was sold to NICE Systems in 2012.
As a former founder of two startups and now investor, I invited him onto the podcast to learn how raising VC money previously as a founder has impacted his investment style and process and why he invests in enterprise technology versus consumer.
We also discuss the interesting industries and trends he's tracking today. (areas where technology is helping workers become better and more adaptive performers; how and why technology is reinventing the financial and insurance markets).
David Hassell is a business columnist, speaker, and serial entrepreneur who believes that when leaders institute cultural practices that support each person in being their best self, high performance and uncommon loyalty naturally result.
As co-founder and CEO of 15Five, David and his team have developed industry-leading continuous performance management software that helps leaders and managers drive high performance by bringing out the best in their people.
With a degree in computer engineering, David began his career in “beige cubicle land”, working 10 to 11 hour days from a windowless computer lab in Roseland, NJ, doing work that he described as “soul-crushing.” David realized that it wasn’t the work itself, nor the environment that were to blame, but it was the organization’s poor culture and the lack of context that was given to him about his work.
How did his work impact the company, the world, anyone? This launched David into a near decade long inquiry and exploration where he studied a vast range of subjects, from productivity to psychology (and everything in between) and attended seminars on topics ranging from personal development to business.
“While I may not have been consciously aware of it at the time, what I was really seeking was a sense of meaning & purpose, I was seeking to become my Best-Self.” - David
A conversation with David is an opportunity to share his expertise in management, workplace productivity, employee performance, and effective leadership skills with your audience.
David formerly served as President of the San Francisco chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Inc., Entrepreneur, Wired, Fast Company, the Financial Post, and was named by Forbes Magazine “The Most Connected Man You Don’t Know in Silicon Valley”.
In this episode of the Citrix Ready Podcast series, I explore how Citrix and Zoho are working together to solve real-world problems for businesses. Today I want to learn more about the Citrix Developer Program. We also talk about micro apps, and how Zoho syncs up with Citrix in this domain.
About John Panagulias
John has over 20 years of experience building technology partner programs, strategic alliances, and marketing at multi-billion-dollar technology companies such as Sun Microsystems and VMware. He is currently Director of Developer and Partner Programs at Citrix, where he leads the Citrix Ready Program and the new Developer Program for Citrix Workspace.
Prior to Citrix, John was a Sr. Marketing Manager for Cloud Solutions at VMware. During his time at Sun, he held positions in Market and Business Development, Partner Marketing, and Web Strategy.
About Citrix
Company Profile: Citrix (NASDAQ: CTXS) is powering a better way to work with unified workspace, networking, and analytics solutions that help organizations unlock innovation, engage customers, and boost productivity without sacrificing security.
With Citrix, users get a seamless work experience, and IT has a unified platform to secure, manage, and monitor diverse technologies in complex cloud environments. Citrix solutions are in use by more than 400,000 organizations, including 98 percent of the Fortune 500.
About Vinay Chandrasekaran:
Vinay navigates complex business and technology relationships by working with senior executives to establish platform standards and set engagement strategy for Zoho and it's technology partners. He also leads the strategy and execution of product-enabling partnerships to fuel Zoho, including identifying new opportunities where partnerships can help accelerate product growth.
With a passion for entrepreneurship, marketing, and technology, Vinay enjoys solving complex business problems with technology solutions; he has held various business development and growth roles at Zoho.
About Zoho:
Founded in 1996, Zoho Corporation is the software company behind three great brands: Zoho, ManageEngine, and WebNMS. With 45+ apps, Zoho covers nearly every major business category, including sales, marketing, customer support, accounting, and back-office operations, and an array of productivity and collaboration tools, Zoho Corporation is one of the world's most prolific software companies.
Zoho is privately held and profitable, with more than 8,000 employees. Zoho is headquartered in Austin, Texas, with international headquarters in Chennai, India. Zoho respects user privacy and does not have an ad-revenue model in any part of its business, including its free products. More than 50 million users around the world, across hundreds of thousands of companies, rely on Zoho every day to run their businesses, including Zoho itself.
For more information, please visit www.zoho.com
Join the Citrix Developer Program - https://www.citrix.com/community/citrix-developer/
Get Your Test Instance - https://developer.cloud.com/citrix-workspace
A singer with a vision for a new single is looking for a producer. She asks around, finds a guy who’s a friend of a friend, and sounds promising. They come to terms, she pays him--only to get ghosted. She’s got no track, and now she has to raise money from scratch, doubling the cost of the single. Stories like this happen regularly to artists, managers, and other music professionals.
The issue of how payments in the music industry should be handled is a hot topic of discussion. Creators rightfully want to make sure their work is appropriately compensated in the complex webs of digital production, distribution, and marketing.
BandPay is a fully customizable payment platform that is introducing a simple solution to the delays, errors, and losses that slow down many music professionals’ transactions and creative output.
The platform streamlines two-party agreements by setting up deadline-based milestones in a given project and assigning payments to each milestone. This builds accountability and minimizes errors, especially with the feature that guarantees that funds are available to complete a transaction.
It establishes trust by ensuring all parties, from musicians to producers to social media influencers, stick to their side of the agreement. Centralizing all payments in one platform is bound to revolutionize cost management and revenue maximization in the music business.
DeCarlos Garrison is a music marketing expert, artist manager, and tech entrepreneur based in Orlando, Florida. He started his career as a college rep for Def Jam Records in 1995, later becoming manager of street team promotions.
DeCarlos teamed up with developer Gleb Teper and spent several years designing and building products to eliminate key pain points in music creation, management, and accounting. Together they created Bandpay, an app that links payment to project milestones to decrease friction between creative collaborators.
I invited them both onto the podcast to find out more about how they are reducing friction and increasing trust between people making music and undertaking other projects together.
Anand Chandrasekaran is the founder and CTO of Mad Street Den, an Artificial Intelligence company, powering the Retail Industry with its Image Recognition platform, Vue.ai.
Anand comes from a long history in academia, with a PhD in Neuroscience, a Post Doctoral Fellowship in Neuromorphic Engineering at Stanford. As a Neuroscientist turned entrepreneur, he develops a platform for intelligent agents Mad Street Den.
The company is headquartered in the Bay Area, California with offices in Seattle and Chennai (India). Vue.ai, the company's first vertical, works with marquee retailers, brands, and marketplaces across the globe, transforming the fashion industry's operations through intelligent automation.
Prior to Vue.ai, Anand worked as a Research Scientist and Consultant developing machine learning solutions for companies including IBM and DARPA. He has also used his scientific background to develop the most advanced retail AI + computer vision solution for brands around the world.
We discuss how the company's 'neural network' of products alleviates time-intensive tasks such as manual data entry, inventory management, and catalog tagging. I learn how it enables up to 30hrs in time saved per person per week so they can focus instead on creating amazing customer experiences.
Anand shares their journey as a company and how they've scaled the platform since launch in 2016, to power commerce in over 180 countries for brands like ThredUp, Levi's, Macy's, and more. He also reveals what's next for Vue's platform and how they've successfully built a global company of 175+ employees, with 50% women, many at the executive level.
CRUXPay is a decentralized protocol for blockchain naming and payment system. It enables users to create CRUX ID, which can be linked to the user's blockchain addresses. Using CRUX ID, users will be able to send, receive, and request payment. Additionally, users will be able to securely connect to any service/dApps on any device anywhere in the world.
The company insists that CRUX ID is completely secure and tamper-proof. It is generated by your wallet using your local public/private keys and is secured by hash power of Bitcoin by registering your CRUX ID on the bitcoin network. But I felt compelled to find out more about what makes this solution different than all the others out there.
Ashish Singal, the Co-Founder, and CEO of CRUXPay is also a hacker to the core and has won almost every major Hackathon in India, including those hosted by Sequoia, Google, Amazon, and LinkedIn. While working at Amazon as a Software Development Engineer in 2014, he led the internal team in building Amazon Prime's 1-hour delivery model.
Ashish Singal joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast in a conversation about the trends and technology that are shaping the broader adoption of cryptocurrency payments. We also discuss the potential pitfalls or otherwise of Libra's digital currency adoption.
I learn how crypto payments are outpacing modern payments technology and how crypto payments are a potential disruptor to modern banking systems.
In this featured partner series called Citrix Ready podcasts, I explore the technology integrations that Citrix has with its partners. In this series, I invite guests from Citrix and their partners to spend some time with me to share how they are solving real-world problems for businesses. Not on their own but by working together.
In this episode of the Citrix Ready Podcast series, I explore how Citrix and Traitware are working together to solve real-world problems for businesses. I hear how customers are leveraging Traitware to provide insights to admins on the key utilization of the apps and tasks users perform within.
Secure login by Traitware® replaces usernames, passwords and PINs. Thereby, TraitWare® reduces identity theft and transaction fraud. More importantly, we improve the user experience. Improved user experience drives adoption of security best practices.
Heath Spencer, CEO-CMO Traitware believes in positive outcomes that work for all involved and no matter what challenge may come his way, his competitive nature will ensure success. He is the former Founder and CEO of Full Throttle Tahoe LLC and has extensive sales and marketing experience with Chase International.
As a Technical Marketing Manager at Citrix, Anil Kumar is responsible for Building and owning an Ecosystem of Networking, Security, and Cloud technology partners. He is also a subject matter expert on the Citrix cloud, networking and security products, and services. Anil is also responsible for developing and managing a test infrastructure in-house/on-prem and on Cloud for proof of concepts and for partner product verifications
Together, we discuss how Traitware is bringing its next-gen authentication to the Citrix Market Place. The Passwordless login is already here and bringing an alternative to credential management and risk. We also discuss how Traitware can substantially increase security while simplifying access to digital and physical resources through the elimination of the need for traditional usernames and passwords.
I also explore the evolution of Citrix Workspace and how Citrix is helping to power a smarter, more flexible way to work. With credential phishing being tied to traditional credential management, we talk about how Citrix and Traitware are working together to create an alternative future of authentication. Passwordless MFA and its advantages in Virtual environments are just one of many topics we cover in today's podcast.
Strathearn Design is run by Sam Horodezky, a 15+ year veteran of the UX space. Sam has founded and grown 2 UX teams from scratch. Sam has directly managed all stripes of designers and seen both successful and unsuccessful UX initiatives from up-close.
The company specializes in exec level guidance on product design. Although Sam loves technology, but like's to apply a skeptic's lens.
Sam recently returned to his native town Toronto, after 20 years in the US, to found his own consultancy, Strathearn Design. Previous to this, he held senior product management positions at Teradata Marketing Applications and Qualcomm Inc. Sam holds an MS in cognitive science from UC San Diego, and six patents from the USPTO.
Right now, it seems that everyone is talking about user experience and the experience economy. As regular listeners will tell you, I do like to bust a few myths and right a few wrongs on this podcast, so I ask Sam finally lay to rest some of the misconceptions around what is UX? and also what isn't UX?
Sam shares his story and how he founded and grew 2 UX teams from scratch and the biggest lessons he has learned along the way? We also discuss the increasingly blurred lines between B2B and B2C and what this means for UX.
From phone screens to semiconductors, military defense capabilities, and self-driving cars, a diamond can be applied to a number of different technologies to make them operate more efficiently. Diamond is stronger and harder than industry standard smart screen glass and runs much cooler than silicon, the traditional material used for semiconductors. Currently, companies like Lockheed Martin are using diamonds to enhance the survivability of fighter jets and drones.
Formed in early 2013, AKHAN Semiconductor, Inc. (AKHAN SEMI) is the global leader in diamond semiconductor technology. The primary aim of AKHAN SEMI is the development and manufacture of next-generation Nanocrystalline (NCD) based materials & devices.
The company's comprehensive Miraj Diamond™ platform is at the center of AKHAN's ability to manufacture next-generation diamond semiconductor technology. The platform enables the fabrication of complex devices such as high speed/power transistors, RF, and microwave electronics.
Adam Khan, CEO, and Founder of AKHAN Semiconductor, talks about how diamonds are grown, what differentiates them from jewelry, and how they are planning to use diamonds in the next generation of technology.
Adam has authored several patents and technical publications and is also a frequent speaker on Diamond Semiconductor & Clean Technology. As a result of his award-winning research, which he began as an electrical engineering student at age 19, Adam is the inventor of the Miraj Diamond® Platform.
Adam has also served as a speaker and expert witness to a variety of Federal bodies, including the U.S. House Space, Science, & Technology Committee, and the U.S. Department of Energy. He has been everything from a CleanTech Open Midwest Innovation Summit winner, a Forbes 30 Under 30, to a Modern-Day Nikola Tesla in the International Documentary Film' Tesla's Children' (2016).
PX was founded in 2010 as ReviMedia by two demand-gen experts and best friends. Frans and Bas began with a mission to deliver best-in-class customer acquisition solutions to marketers. Overcoming the obstacles of an arcane, opaque, and highly-fragmented industry, they built a thriving business and continued to invest in technology.
That near decade-long experience and investment resulted in the PX platform and a new corporate identity: PX. The focus and solution have evolved, but the mission continues unchanged.
Here in 2020, it claims to be the world’s first transparent customer acquisition platform, providing a single marketplace for companies to acquire customers from hundreds of vetted and sought-after sources.
The company provides solutions for marketers to grow and efficiently scale their customer base, and is active in the Home Services, Financial Services, and Insurance industries. Its headquarters are in New York City, with offices in Amsterdam, Panama City, and Odessa, Ukraine.
PX also has clients in the home services, financial, automotive, and insurance industries, including ADT, LendingTree, Vivint Smart Home, and Progressive Insurance, to name a few. But I wanted to learn more about their proprietary technology in the space, so I invited, Co-founder, Frans van Hulle on to the podcast.
Frans shares how the company provides a mar-tech solution for marketers to grow and efficiently scale their customer base. But he also shares the story behind the business and how other entrepreneurs inspire him.
We also explore how PX is using technology to change the industry and what emerging technologies excite him at the moment.
In today’s digital age, AI is being used in all sorts of different capacities to help humans better understand the world we live in. So, why aren’t more tech companies deploying AI to help us better understand our children in the age of technology?
The use case for AI in parenting is simple. AI can provide a watchful eye over children online and give parents insights into their activities. Tal Guttman, CEO and Co-Founder of Jiminy, the AI-powered parental awareness app, shares his insights as to how this kind of software works, and what exactly parents & children can gain from its use.
Guttman is the former head of strategic innovation at 8200, where he built a social intelligence network with 10,000 users, and director of core platform at Windward, where he was in charge of turning maritime big data into risk indicators.
We talk about the story behind the company and how they wanted to give their Kids a phone without putting a screen between them and to sleep well at night without wondering what’s hiding in their text messages. I learn how they created a solution that would spot things like loneliness, cyberbullying or toxic phone usage.
However, they also wanted it to tell them what game they’ve been having fun with lately, or who their favorite YouTuber was last week. The team at Jiminy believes that each problem is actually an opportunity, for parents and kids, to talk and learn.
Jiminy is an app that helps parents learn more about their children’s lives, with alerts, fun facts, a weekly report, so you can be aware of the good and the bad. They do this by combining expertise in clinical psychology, education, and advanced machine learning and big data.
Odo Security is focused on the challenges that organizations face in this new digital reality defined by the cloud, mobility, and increasing demands for agility. The leader in zero trust remote access and management recently announced the availability of privileged access management.
OdoAccess supports web, SSH, RDP, and database protocols. The Odo zero trust architecture enables administrators to provide the least privileged access to company resources on-premises and in the cloud while receiving full visibility on all user activity, with minimal effort on the part of security teams.
Every access attempt is treated as suspect until authenticated and authorized. Users only have access to those resources they have been authorized to see, which are presented in an easy-to-use SaaS-like interface.
I invited Or Zilberman, the CEO of Odo Security onto Tech Talks Daily to learn more about the story behind the company and where it is heading.
Founded in 2011, SquareFoot is a new kind of commercial real estate company that helps companies win at finding their next (and next) office, providing transparent access to inventory, brokerage services, and a flexible space offering. But it also brings together technological innovation and human expertise to solve clients’ needs.
SquareFoot raised $16 million in 2019 in a Series B financing round led by DRW VC, with Triangle Peak Partners, RRE, Rosecliff, and senior real estate executives. But they have raised $29 million in total since its founding. I invited SquareFoot Founder/CEO Jonathan Wasserstrum onto the podcast to share his tech startup journey.
Jonathan founded SquareFoot in 2011 as a new kind of commercial real estate company that helps companies win at finding their next (and next) office. Based in New York City, SquareFoot provides transparent access to inventory, brokerage services, and a flexible space offering. The company has executed over 1,200 leases to date.
Wasserstrum began his career in commercial real estate as part of the International Capital Group at industry leader Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), where he advised foreign and domestic clients on more than $3 billion worth of transactions globally.
He attended Columbia Business School, where he earned his degree in May 2012. He also has a BA in Economics from Emory University. Outside of work, Jonathan is interested in the three B’s -- bourbon, buffalo wings, and brass bands.
Recycling and the necessity for greater sustainability have been top of mind for years. As climate change continues to accelerate, many feel they are doing their part by increasing their recycling efforts, especially of plastics.
However, the uncomfortable truth is that most plastics cannot be recycled and will sit in a landfill or burned. According to the Plastic Pollution Coalition, about six times more post-consumer plastic waste is burned in the U.S. than is domestically recycled. While plastic that makes it to a landfill will stay for thousands of years and may never truly disintegrate.
The convenience afforded to us by e-commerce, globalization, and plastics is destroying the planet. Consumers are wising up and choosing brands based on their commitment to sustainability. Accenture found that more than 80% of people surveyed said they felt it was "important or extremely important" for companies to design environmentally conscious products.
As we continue into 2020, this sentiment will be the driving force behind the pledge for the adoption of sustainable packaging from large corporations. However, while it is admirable to make that pledge, are large corporations truly equipped to make the switch?
As the founder and CEO of VentureFuel, a leading innovation consultancy, Fred Schonenberg joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to talk about how new innovations in sustainable packaging from startups will facilitate the move to greater adoption by large corporations. We also discuss the types technology and innovations being used to create sustainable packages
For over 15 years, Fred has introduced new formats, first-to-market opportunities and is known for his award-winning creative solutions and ability to forge strategic partnerships to grow revenue. He is a frequent speaker at industry events such as SXSW, Ad Tech, Advertising Week, IAB, OMMA, and thought-leader published in everything from The Huffington Post, Business Insider, Media Post, The Drum, Tech.co, Creator Magazine, Advertising Week, Event Marketer, etc.
I also learn how VentureFuel helps established companies discover and implement new technologies that drive measurable growth. Described as "the secret weapon" to top corporate innovators, their "Excelerator" is a repeatable innovation framework that delivers consistent cutting-edge solutions with tangible results.
VentureFuel has helped over 100 established companies (Netflix, Beam Suntory, General Mills, Microsoft, Hershey's, The Chicago Cubs, etc.) discover breakthrough technologies and innovations that drove growth, competitive advantage, and tangible results such as 18.7% sales lift, over $10 million in savings and purchase intent increases of 5x.
Dynata is the world's largest first-party data and insight platform.
With a reach that encompasses 62 million consumers and business professionals globally and an extensive library of individual profile attributes collected through surveys, Dynata is the cornerstone for precise, trustworthy quality data.
The company has built innovative data services and solutions around its robust first-party data offering to bring the voice of the customer to the entire marketing continuum – from strategy to innovation, to branding, advertising, measurement, and optimization.
Dynata serves nearly 6,000 market research, media and advertising agencies, publishers, consulting and investment firms and corporate customers in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The company also has a reach that encompasses 60+ million people globally and an extensive library of individual profile attributes collected through surveys.
I invited Jackie Lorch, VP, Global Knowledge Management of Dynata onto the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to talk about the global research around data privacy. The mistrust between consumers and companies is at an all-time high, according to new data by Dynata. The Data Privacy & Trust report surveyed consumers in nine countries, including the US, to get their perspectives on data transparency by companies, the value exchange, familiarity and privacy.
Topline findings include the facts that 70 percent of consumers agree that companies have been dishonest about how personal data is used. 80 percent of consumers would be more willing to share data if brands were more transparent about their plans for that data. But only 27 percent would feel more comfortable sharing data if “valuable benefits” were offered in exchange.
We further discuss this research and implications to brands, why we need to fundamentally change how we think and talk about transparency and “the value exchange.” We also explore and where we’re at in our evolution around data ownership and privacy.
Vuzix is a leading supplier of Smart-Glasses and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies and products for the consumer and enterprise markets. The company wowed crowds in Las Vegas, where the upcoming Vuzix Labs Smart Swim product received two CES 2020 Innovation Awards in recognition of its outstanding design and engineering.
Imagine watching Netflix while swimming. Smart Swim, an innovative smart glasses accessory for swimmers, is the first smart glasses product born out of Vuzix Labs, a newly created rapid development product and engineering division of Vuzix.
Earlier this month, Vuzix also unveiled its newest AR Smart Glasses - the M4000. The M4000 utilizes Vuzix's latest see-through waveguide optics and is built with Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR1 processor for smooth and high functioning operations.
Paul Travers is the founder of Vuzix and has served as President and Chief Executive Officer since 1997 and as a member of the board of directors since November 1997. Before the formation of Vuzix, founded both e-Tek Labs, Inc. and Forte Technologies Inc.
The driving force behind the development of Vuzix products. With more than 30 years' experience in the consumer electronics field, and 25 years' experience in the virtual reality and virtual display fields, is a nationally recognized industry expert. We discuss the recent developments at Vuzix as well as the AR industry as a whole.
In a featured partner series of Citrix Ready podcasts, I explore the technology integrations that Citrix has with its partners. In this series, I invite guests from Citrix and their partners to spend some time with me to share how they are solving real-world problems for businesses. Not on their own but by working together.
In this episode of the Citrix Ready Podcast series, I explore how Citrix and Apps2Digital are working together to solve real-world problems for businesses. I hear how customers are leveraging Apps2Digital to provide insights to admins on the key utilization of the apps and the tasks users perform within.
I explore how Apps2Digital helps customers with their applications in Citrix environments. App performance, rationalization, packaging, and deployment are just a few topics we discuss. From a Citrix standpoint, I also learn more about how this works with micro apps and saas apps, where users can only perform tasks of that app specific to their role.
Nigel Woods is a Technical Evangelist specializing in all aspects of End User Computing, Desktop Virtualisation, Cloud Computing, Desktop Transformation, and Application Delivery. With over 20 years of EUC experience and involved in start-up to sale of the first Citrix based DAAS in Europe and then starting up EMEA for FSLogix to completion with the acquisition by Microsoft, Nigel now heads up Business Development for Apps2Digital for EMEA.
Nitin Sharma is a leader in product and solutions marketing strategy at Citrix. He is responsible for designing and executing global, companywide go-to-market strategies for digital workspace solutions. With a passion for solving business problems with technology solutions, he has held various solutions sales and marketing roles—targeting audiences at all levels: executive, line of business, and IT.
40% of the jobs that exist today will not exist in 10 years’ time. Fuelled by technology, change is coming at a rate that exceeds our ability to adapt. What got past generations here, won’t get the next to where they want to be.
Rapid technological change means we must all keep learning. Our ability to adapt can be measured by our adaptability quotient (AQ) which is becoming a big talking point for those serious about their future career success.
In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I want to learn more about AQ, or adaptability quotient which is the first-ever holistic metric of adaptability in the workplace. At Adaptai, their aim is to not only quantify and provide insight into AQ but also to help individuals and organizations to improve their ability to adapt in the fastest period of change in human history via their future coaching and digital training programs.
They measure adaptability across three core dimensions (ACE):
Ability (your adaptability skills), your Character (the innate aspects of Self that determine the ways in which you may approach adapting), and Environment (how your environment can help or hinder your adaption).
Together with twelve sub-dimensions, such as Grit, Resilience, Mindset, and Learning Drive, they can give an accurate picture of where you are in terms of your AQ journey. AQai are working collaboratively with experts, universities, professors, leaders in psychology, people analytics, and human behaviour to build a robust and accurate measure of human adaptability in the workplace.
Ross Thornley, co-founder of Adaptai joins me to talk about they are making a difference. I learn why people are moving from EQ to AQ and why it’s the key to the future of work.
GetApp is an online resource for businesses exploring software products. Its comparison shopping platform and free interactive tools help buyers compare software products side-by-side and navigate the world of software purchasing. GetApp features software research, insights, trends, and validated user reviews, giving buyers the tools they need to make informed decisions for their organization.
GetApp is also a Gartner company. But it was their State of Analytics in HR report that caught my eye. GetApp recommends that employers can set their teams up for success in 2020 by auditing HR processes and then using analytics to improve these processes and reviewing embedded analytics features to see what tools are already at the team’s disposal.
Employers can also use data analytics to improve staff retention. For example, some employers may find that there is a correlation between longer commute times and the likelihood to quit. To prevent staff from leaving, employers can have proactive conversations with employees and offer more flexible working options.
Using analytics to spot these trends could be very beneficial for companies, as employee turnover can cost a 100-person business up to $2.6 million per year. Lauren Maffeo, an associate principal analyst at GetApp, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to talk about all this and much more.
Lauren covers the impact of emerging tech like AI and blockchain on small and midsize business owners. She has also been cited by sources such as Information Management, TechTarget, CIO Online, DevOps Digest, The Atlantic, Entrepreneur, and Inc.com.
In 2017, Lauren was named to The Drum’s 50 Under 30 list of women worth watching in digital. That same year, she helped organize Women Startup Challenge Europe, which was the continent’s largest venture capital competition for women-led startups.
Lauren has served as a mentor for Girls in Technology’s Maryland chapter, and DCA Live included her in its 2018 list of “The NEW Power Women of Tech”. Lauren was also shortlisted for the Future Stars of Tech Award in AI and Machine Learning by Information Age in 2019.
HeyHuman is the transformative communications agency, specializing in neuromarketing, brand, content, social and experiential. They create Unusual Everyday™ Ideas that connect with people and change behaviours to kick-start brand and business growth.
Before they launched HeyHuman, their journey began by thinking about the behaviours of successful Human Brands and how they echoed the behaviours of people who they connect really well with in real life. They then looked at these human brand behaviours as the most important ones for them as a group of people.
The company now helps brands grow by thinking differently about people, brands, and marketing. We make this happen through their MindKind™ approach and Unusual Everyday™ Ideas. Our clients include Diageo, Merlin Entertainments, Mondelez, SlimFast, Natures Menu, and Typhoo.
I invited Aoife McGuinness, Neuroscience Consultant at HeyHuman, onto the podcast. Aoife is a neuroscience consultant based between London and Berlin. Working in the intersection between art and science, she analyses how the brain processes communications at HeyHuman and creates multisensory experiences with electronic music collective, Universe of Tang.
I learn more about how brands can use neuroscience to adapt their storytelling. We also discuss the value of multisensory experiences in marketing and the impact of neuroscience on social media strategy. However, in an over digitalized world, we also talk about how brands can become more 'human.'
Described as the "Airbnb of Luggage," Stasher is a sharing economy solution for storage. They realized that people don't want to drag their suitcases, backpacks, or more around a city when they just have a few hours before they have to depart.
They created a global network of hotels and stores with extra space where travellers can find affordable, convenient storage for their belongings. Secured with the same standards as a hotel check-in, Stasher partners with leading brands like Premier Inn, Accor & Hotels.com to provide storage worldwide.
The service has no size restrictions and award-winning customer support. Pick the most convenient location to store your bags and book easily online from just £6, €5, or $5 per item for up to 24 hours. Each bag is also fully insured up to £1000. Book online now and get instant confirmation.
How did it all start? People were always asking to store their stuff at Anthony's home near King's Cross. When Matt asked, Anthony replied, "Sure, but I'm charging you for it." This joke was the lightbulb moment. On 21 September 2015, they incorporated CityStasher Ltd (now Stasher).
Fast forward to 2020, and the travel tech startup secured a $2.5 million funding round and was featured in TechCrunch, Forbes, and Yahoo. I invited Jacob Wedderburn-Day, CEO & Co-Founder at Stasher onto the podcast.
Jacob oversees operations, finance, and strategy at Stasher. Prior to co-founding the startup in 2015, he graduated BA Economics & Management from Oxford University and MSc Economics from UCL. He's passionate about entrepreneurship, economics, and football.
In May of 2020, bitcoin (BTC) will see its next halving. But what will the reduction of the reward for successfully mining a block mean to its value? Speculation has probably played a part in already pushing the price over the $10,000 price barrier. But hopefully, we have all learned a few lessons, and people won't make the same mistakes as a few years ago.
In a world where doing your own research is paramount, I have been a big fan of Robert Beadles for some time due to his open and honest approach. Robert is the co-founder and president of Monarch, a crypto wallet with 340,000 users.
Monarch aims to create a robust ecosystem of consumer, business, and investment solutions that are powerful, simple & easy to use. The company is on a mission to empower people with the ability to control all aspects of their financial kingdom from the palm of their hand.
Whether its buying and selling crypto, converting crypto to fiat for merchants and consumers, paying for goods and services in crypto, soon, using crypto for recurring payments, Monarch has it's sights set on empowering the people.
Robert is also the host of Crypto Beadles, a YouTube channel with nearly 90,000 subscribers, where he educates his audience about blockchain technology and crypto-assets.
Robert invites crypto projects on to his platform to learn more about it and let the audience decide whether it is of value or not. In many ways, he feels like a kindred spirit, so I invited him onto the Tech Talks Daily podcast.
As Bitcoin and the crypto markets experience an early 2020 rally, many investors are eager to learn the best strategies for digital asset investing and trading. Robert shares his insights on what investors should know about investing in BTC, ETH, and other top assets. We also discuss how to evaluate potential crypto investments, their risks/upsides, and how crypto investing compares to traditional trading.
YL Ventures funds and supports brilliant Israeli tech entrepreneurs from seed to lead. Based in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, YL Ventures manages $260 million focused on deep-technology sectors and specializes in cybersecurity.
The company accelerates the evolution of portfolio companies via strategic advice and U.S.-based operational execution, leveraging a powerful network of Chief Information Security Officers and global industry leaders. The firm's track record includes successful, high-profile portfolio company acquisitions by major corporations, including Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, CA, and Proofpoint.
I chat with Roger Hales, who has become the CISO-in Residence at YL Ventures. The former Chief Information Security Officer of Informatica - a $1+ billion annual revenue software development company talks about privacy and data protection risks to a company?
We talk about the value of attending events such as RSAC and CyberTech Tel Aviv. We also discuss the latest big tech and privacy trends that are dominating conversations in conferences around the world.
Roger's legacy in technology and information security extends across multiple verticals, including financial services, healthcare, eCommerce, biotech, and education, so for these reasons alone, it's a pleasure to get him back on the podcast.
Today, more than 80% of the Fortune 500 and over 20,000 enterprises (and 18M end-points) and service providers across every vertical entrust Pulse Secure to empower their mobile workforce to securely access applications and information in the data center and Cloud while ensuring business compliance.
Sudhakur Ramakrishna is CEO of Pulse Secure and joins me on Tech Talks Daly to talk about a variety of security trends that will be impacting the tech industry in 2020. We discuss the impact that the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend is having on security in the enterprise and What Zero Trust is going to mean to the enterprise in 2020.
We also talk about the evolution of security, SaaS, and Cloud before tackling Hybrid IT and the expanded attack surface too. Meanwhile, I learn more about how Pulse Secure provides software-driven Secure Access solutions that provide visibility and seamless, protected connectivity between users, devices, things, and services.
Sudhakar Ramakrishna is CEO of Pulse Secure, where he oversees all aspects of business strategy and execution. With nearly 25 years of experience across the Cloud, mobility, networking, security, and collaboration markets, Sudhakar joined Pulse Secure from Citrix.
At Citrix, Sudhakar served as the senior vice president and general manager for the Enterprise and Service Provider Division, where he had profit and loss responsibility for approximately a $2.5 billion portfolio of virtualization, cloud networking, mobile platforms, and cloud services solutions.
Before Citrix, he was at Polycom and was president of products and services. Sudhakar has also held senior leadership roles at Motorola, 3COM, and US Robotics and brings significant experience in strategic planning and execution, organization development, and incubating and scaling new businesses to Pulse Secure.
Sudhakar earned his master’s degree in Computer Science from Kansas State and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Sudhakar is a member of the board of directors at Health iPass. He has significant experience as a board member and advisor of Public and Private companies.
Dynatrace provides software intelligence to simplify enterprise cloud complexity and accelerate digital transformation. With AI and complete automation, the all-in-one platform provides answers, not just data, about the performance of applications, the underlying infrastructure, and the experience of all users.
Many of the world's largest enterprises, including 72 of the Fortune 100, trust Dynatrace to modernize and automate enterprise cloud operations, release better software faster, and deliver unrivaled digital experiences. But this story could have had a very different ending. Dynatrace CEO John Van Siclen shares the story where they were forced to disrupt rather than be disrupted at Perform2020 in Las Vegas.
John Van Siclen, Chief Executive Officer of Dynatrace, is a native Californian and long-time Silicon Valley exec. As a tech entrepreneur, he's made a career of building highly successful companies in competitive growth markets. CRN Magazine named John a "Top 25 Disrupter" for his relentless focus on breaking the mold and championing new business models. And in 2019, Comparably recognized John as one of their Top 25 CEOs across all US companies over 1000 employees.
Upon moving to the east coast, John joined Dynatrace as CEO in 2008 and established headquarters for the company in Boston. Over the past 12 years, Dynatrace has grown from 60 employees to over 2200 today. Balancing a keen focus on customer success with relentless innovation to anticipate disruptive opportunities, Dynatrace has emerged as both a market and technology leader in the rapidly growing software intelligence market.
With strong growth and market-leading product, Dynatrace became a public company in the summer of 2019, trading on the NYSE under the ticker 'DT.' John is a graduate of Princeton University, the father of 4 boys, and a US Pond Hockey Seniors Champion.
On today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily podcast, I learn more about the story behind the success of Dynatrace. Looking to the future, we also discuss how a more proactive approach to APM is the new standard, and automation is no longer just a nice to have.
This week I am reporting live from the show floor at Dynatrace Perform 2020. Today, I speak with Mark Kaplan, director of IT, BARBRI, about their digital transformation story.
At the core of The BARBRI Group Companies is BARBRI Bar Review, which has helped more than 1.3 million lawyers around the world pass a U.S. bar exam. The company also provides online J.D., post-J.D. and international programs for U.S. law schools, and specialized ongoing training and certifications in areas such as financial crime prevention, eDiscovery and cyber awareness, security and protection.
The BARBRI Group, founded in 1967, is a Leeds Equity Partners portfolio company headquartered in Dallas with offices throughout the United States and around the world. It has also has helped more lawyers prepare for the bar than any other company and is now positioned to meet the legal education needs of both law students and attorneys throughout their academic and professional careers.
BARBRI's leading legal and education experts cultivate better prepared, engaged students who are more likely to succeed, which translates to lower attrition rates at law schools and higher bar passage and job placement rates.
Mark Kaplan shares their LegalTech success, and digital transformation story with me on the show floor at Dynatrace Perform in Las Vegas.
This week I am reporting live from the show floor at Dynatrace Perform 2020. Today, I speak with Prakash Kota, CIO, at Autodesk about their digital transformation story.
Autodesk makes software for people who make things. If you’ve ever driven a high-performance car, admired a towering skyscraper, used a smartphone, or watched a great film, chances are you’ve experienced what millions of Autodesk customers are doing with their software.
Autodesk gives you the power to make anything. Over 100 million people use Autodesk software like AutoCAD, Revit, Maya, 3ds Max, Fusion 360, SketchBook, and more to unlock their creativity and solve important design, business, and environmental challenges.
The software runs on both personal computers and mobile devices and taps the infinite computing power of the cloud to help teams around the world collaborate, design, simulate and fabricate their ideas in 3D.
Prakash joined Autodesk in 2005 and leads the company’s global IT organization, which manages critical technology systems supporting worldwide enterprise applications and infrastructure. His primary focuses are building talent, customer and employee experience, operational excellence, industry partnerships, and positioning Autodesk for global scale.
Prior to being CIO, Prakash held various other roles, including VP IT, senior director of infrastructure and enterprise operations, and senior director of global enterprise operations. Kota holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Madras and an M.S. in electrical engineering from Oklahoma State University.
Once again, Dynatrace is bringing together thousands of technical experts, industry leaders, and some of the world's biggest brands at its Perform event. As well as reporting all the latest news and announcements, I also wanted to hear from leaders, and their digital transformation stories live from the show floor.
Known as an innovator in the shoe industry for more than 90 years, Rack Room Shoes offers a wide selection of nationally recognized and private brands of shoes for men, women, and children in comfort, dress, casual and athletic categories.
As an industry leader, Rack Room Shoes’ outstanding selection, trusted brands, superior customer service, convenience, and value help the company remain poised for great achievements for years to come. But how did they approach the digital transformation of its traditional business?
Kevin McNall, Director, Digital Projects at Rack Room Shoes, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss their long history and how he has seen technology transform their business. We also talk about the benefits Rack Room Shoes has seen and what he expects to see from using Dynatrace.
Matthew Glotzbach is the CEO of the largest user-generated consumer learning platform in the US, Quizlet. He is also a friend of the podcast and returns today for his third appearance in four years
Matthew has experience working as a mechanical engineer, on product at YouTube, and was on the founding team of Google Apps—where he worked for over a decade. He led Quizlet from an early stage startup shortly after its founder Andrew Sutherland launched the company when he was 15 years old, all the way to its $20M Series B funding round in 2018 and milestone of 50 million unique monthly users and named to Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 of the fasted growing companies in North America.
While he's worn many hats, Matthew is, more than anything, an advocate for using technology to make education more accessible to students around the world. On today's tech podcast we explore why edtech funding is on the rise and I ask if we can expect the momentum to continue.
I learn what makes Gen Z students different than previous generations and how modern learning is evolving to meet their needs. We also discuss the role of AI and machine learning in the larger education ecosystem and why education technology is built to complement rather than replace human teachers, and how interactive tools create longer-lasting learning.
SyncDog challenges the status quo and changes the game on how organizations empower their mobile workforce. The company prides itself on enabling companies to reset expectations on how employees can get work done on the go.
Although almost all companies today have employees who want or need the ability to work outside the four walls of the organization, the current mobile security solutions being utilized today still have them tethered to their laptop and office – They still utter the phrase “I’ll get to that once I’m back at my desk” far too often.
Your employees should be able to do their work from wherever they are. SyncDog combines of a suite of office applications (email, calendar, contacts, office editor, file share, location services, messaging, etc.) along with an architecture that protects and secures your mobile workforce through FIPS 140-2, AES 256 bit encryption that finally removes the technological struggle of having to choose between increased security or increased productivity.
SyncDog recently announced their unrivaled support for small businesses and franchises by reducing the complexity and costs of outfitting and enabling employees with mobile devices. Onboarding new employees can be especially challenging for small companies as they often lack the time, resources, and manpower required to piece together the data and apps employees need to get the job done and then load them onto a mobile device that’s familiar to the end-user.
SyncDog CRO, Brian Egenrieder, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to talk about all this and much more. He is a veteran sales strategist and leader of more than 25 years in enterprise software. His experience includes building the sales processes around software solutions, enterprise applications, and SaaS/Cloud computing to the Fortune 500 Commercial Market and U.S. Federal Government.
Brian also works closely with CEO Jonas Gyllensvaan to build on existing traction in Banking, Government, and Healthcare.
As technology continues to advance, the workplace will need to adapt to meet the new expectations of the workforce. The usage of traditional IT models is causing regulatory hurdles for many financial firms. As a result, many financial service firms have begun their quest for upgrading technical infrastructure, both at the backend and the front-end.
DevOps brings security along throughout the process chain, monitoring errors and failures at the very instance of the occurrence, making this an increasingly essential tool for financial service organizations. Dinesh Venugopal, President at Mphasis, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to talk about this subject and much more.
As President, and Member of the Executive Council, Dinesh is the global head for Direct-Core Business and Digital across industry verticals. With over 20 years of cross-functional leadership experience spanning strategy, technology innovation, M&A, and marketing, Dinesh has been instrumental in catalyzing Mphasis growth through focus in delivering business value and delighting customers.
Under Dinesh's leadership, Mphasis has transformed its solution, and services portfolio has enabled Direct-core business to grow faster than the industry. Also, Mphasis is now consistently ranked as #1 or #2 service provider by our top 5 Industry-leading customers.
The new-age digital-first companies like Amazons and Googles of the world are moving along a mile a minute. Innovating on modern software delivery practices and deploying software updates rapidly to take their business forward at incredible speeds and agility has become the norm.
We talk about how a new standard and how high expectations for service that can be tough for other businesses & industries to match up on, particularly ones in highly regulated businesses such as financial services. While financial services continue expanding their digital capabilities, the ability to deliver new software-based services efficiently becomes exceptionally critical.
However, we explore how DevOps is changing the game and how the financial services industry has not only played catch up but has been an industry-leading the change. I learn how it is speeding up innovation and how adopting modern software delivery practices, including agile, continuous delivery (CD), and DevOps.
Ampverse is a gaming and eSports entertainment company that was founded by senior Twitch and Media executives in Asia. Ampverse aims to engage and develop top gaming talent to create meaningful partnership opportunities with brands, game publishers and agencies.
The business will operate across three distinct units, designed to galvanize and nurture a powerful community of gaming and esports influencers and then create attention-grabbing, entertainment formats with brands:
Ampverse Influence: An extensive portfolio of top esports influencers with tens of millions of followers, generating over 500 million monthly views.
Currently operating in Thailand and Singapore. Ampverse has plans to rapidly roll out across Southeast Asia in the coming months having recently closed their seed fundraise from strategic gaming and entertainment investors across Southeast Asia.
How? Ampverse Talent represents the commercial interests of top-tier gaming and esports talent, offering talent management and development in order to help them realize their full potential. While Ampverse Publishing is a creative studio focused on building unique creative formats and co-branded intellectual properties with brands.
Charlie Baillie, Co-founder at Ampverse joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to talk about the future of the gaming industry and what makes Asia so attractive to the gaming and eSports industries.
We also discuss the hurdles that lie ahead for eSports industries and the intersection of gaming and emerging tech.
Paul Coggins is the CEO at Adludio who’s revolutionary ‘Sensory Ad Science’ technology delivers 10x results for blue-chip clients – like Unilever, Nestle & PayPal – compared to traditional mobile advertising solutions.
Adludio is 1 of the UK’s fastest-growing B2B software scale-ups: having quickly launched in 3 continents, delivered ad campaigns in 70+ countries, & grown revenues 40% month on month, Adludio qualified for the Sunday Times 2019 Tech Track “Ones to Watch.”
The technology-driven ad company on a mission to drive and redefine the future of mobile advertising. Adludio also specialises in using technologies including augmented reality and 3D effects to bring ads to life on mobile.
Paul Coggins joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to not only share his journey but also talk about the evolution of the advertising industry. He shares his insight into why mobile-first advertising is the future of advertising and 2020 trends for the advertising industry. I learn more about exactly what sensory advertising and why it matters.
Zvi Frank is a serial entrepreneur, former Israeli Air Force pilot and Emmy Award-winning producer who currently serves as the Co-CEO and founder of Copilot, an automated customer experience (CX) management platform for consumer electronics.
He, along with partner and fellow pilot Tsiki Naftaly, developed the aptly named Copilot while working together at Zemingo, Israel’s largest mobile services house, where Frank previously served as the Executive Chairman since 2013.
At Copilot, he drives the overall strategy and vision for the development of the first CX solution exclusively for IoT and connected products. Get a detailed analysis of each user’s behavior to better understand which features they are using.
The platform delivers on the promise of IoT (Internet of Things) by offering manufacturers of connected consumer products and smart home devices the opportunity to automatically engage end-users with meaningful, data-driven, and behavior-based communications. Companies that employ Copilot improve onboarding, reduce product returns, boost product ratings, and open new channels of revenue, giving them a critical advantage that increases overall customer satisfaction and builds Lifetime Value.
Zvi Frank join me on Tech Talks Daily to shares his story as a pilot and Emmy-Award winning producer turned entrepreneur. We discuss everything from his biggest obstacle that he overcame as an entrepreneur to the tech trends in the consumer electronics space that he anticipates we will see in 2020.
Try to imagine a scenario where you have an accident or are in a healthcare crisis and can't communicate. When you need it most, you cannot communicate with doctors, nurses, or other caregivers to share your wishes.
How do you ensure sure the right people are contacted no matter where they, or you, are? Want to be an organ donor, or perhaps not, and make sure your wishes are clear? Very often, a family member will be forced to make decisions on your behalf, but what if technology could ensure your voice is still heard should the unthinkable happen?
Selfie culture has become the norm in our world. Kim Kardashian West has published an entire book of selfies, and Ellen DeGeneres' Oscar selfie went viral in seconds. Jeff Zucker noted in his TEDx talk if we're going to use selfies to indulge every aspect of our lives, why not use them in ways meaningful to our health?
Jeff joins me on this daily tech podcast to explain how one can and should record videos of themselves, highlighting their health wishes in advanced healthcare planning.
"Nobody should have to live in fear that they'll have a health crisis and not have a voice in their care," said Jeff Zucker, ADVault's CEO. "As Jamie Dimon has said many times and every CEO here knows, the chaos and confusion that surrounds a health emergency, chronic disease, and elderly health crisis touches many people and directly impacts economic productivity. Recent advances in technology have made 2020 the year when person-centered care is a cost-saving reality."
Jeff Zucker is the CEO and Cofounder of MyDirectives®, the world's leading all-digital advance care planning platform that empowers users to create, store, update and share high-quality digital advance care plans, or upload a paper advance directive and portable medical order in case of a healthcare emergency.
This gives the person and their loved ones the assurance that their voices can be heard if they suffer a health care crisis and cannot communicate with doctors, nurses, or other caregivers.
MyDirectives works with personal health records and electronic medical record vendors, as well as healthcare providers and payers, to ensure that all information is securely available on-demand — whenever and wherever needed.
Go Instore is a unique technology that closes the gap between the online and offline worlds. They appeared on my radar after reading how they partner with leading global brands, including Dyson, Porsche, Cartier, Marriott International, and Knight Frank.
Go Instore provides website customers shopping for high ticket and premium items with the opportunity to engage in a human-led one-to-one shopping experience, instantly connecting them to an intelligently matched instore product expert via HD live video.
As online shopping continues to grow in popularity for consumers, Go Instore is able to deliver the unrivalled customer experience previously only associated with a physical visit to a brand or retailers store, with the convenience and comfort of shopping online.
The ability to combine the huge visitor traffic potential of websites with the significantly greater conversion rates associated with visiting a store, dramatically increases purchasing and engagement amongst brands and retailers using the solution. Go Instore combines these two strongest assets from each channel to deliver a new, premium method for retailers and brands to engage and sell to their customers.
Go Instore is redefining the online shopping experience by adding a human touch to the digital world, rapidly marking itself as an invaluable asset to brands and retailers in this ‘new retail era’.
The consultative approach uses the strengths of your brand, people, and physical locations to deliver an enhanced customer experience, which increases sales and customer satisfaction.
Retail is not changing – it has changed. Ecommerce is not emerging – it is fully established as a means for retailers to sell to customers. However, this doesn’t mean that physical stores are redundant. In fact, 76% of all transactions still happen in the store. The challenge retailers are having is finding ways to account for the increasing costs of the stores, while meeting the preferences of their customers. - André Hordagoda
André Hordagoda CEO & Co-Founder, Go Instore, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to talk about how they are humanizing customer experiences in the digital world.
Cameron Worth, is the CEO and founder of SharpEnd, the London-based The IoT Agency. Cameron is a pioneer in helping brands harness IoT. SharpEnd has also become the first ever IoT agency to be recognised as ‘One to Watch’ in Econsultancy’s Top 100 Digital Agencies Report – the definitive listing of the UK’s leading digital agencies.
Cameron is a regular speaker and writer on how brands can leverage technology innovation to build their presence in a connected world. He’s also a consummate public speaker and has spoken at Cannes, the Festival of Marketing, Ad:Week Europe and New York, DMA, the Connected Consumer Conference, Mobile World Congress and the IoT World Forum.
Cameron's particular sectors of expertise are FMCG, CPG, beauty, cosmetics, smart packaging, connected homes, smart spaces and retail innovation. SharpEnd’s mission is to help brands get closer than ever to consumers by connecting packaging, retail and experiential activity. Their clients include Unilever, Pernod Ricard, Böen Wine, Nestlé and Pepsi - so he understands the client landscape from the front line.
Cameron joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his insights on the impact of innovation at scale, smart buying, and the impact it has had on brands owners like Mattel, Pernod Ricard and PepsiCo the retail and packaging landscape of the future.
OST is an integrated, cross-functional business technology firm bringing together strategy & insights, digital experiences, connected products, data center transformation and enterprise managed services as they work alongside clients to optimize and grow their businesses.
At OST, they are helping their customers bridge the distance between insights, technology, and strategy—in smart, meaningful ways that yield transformative results. But I wanted to find out more about their mission to change how the world connects.
Meredith Bronk, President, and CEO of OST joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. She joined OST as a Project Manager and was promoted to Chief Operating Officer for several years before being named President and CEO. Her diverse experience has created a unique combination of strong analytical and interpersonal skills.
Meredith’s servant attitude and commitment to the success of others is an excellent representation of OST’s dedication to its employees and customers.
Meredith shares her inspirational story as a female who rose to the top in a male-dominated industry. I learn how OST is bringing creative solutions to clients and leveraging technology while maintaining a strong organizational culture. But how her passion, and empathy are equally as important as technology in their vision.
I also find out more about the tech scene in West Michigan and how women in tech are making a big impact.
Kyle Campbell is a 3x startup founder and current CEO of CTO.ai, a platform that makes it easy for startups to empower teams through automation of DevOps tasks without writing any lines of code. At the core of CTO.ai's mission is to uplevel developers by giving them the tools to perform like senior engineers and make teams 10x more efficient.
Why does this matter? To keep up with this digital transformation, companies of all sizes are competing for technical workers. But there's a major deficit of talent. With over 1 million tech jobs anticipated to be left unfilled by 2020 in the US, this poses a greater threat to scaling businesses than access to capital.
As a result, companies pay for a handful of deep technical expertise whose time is often misallocated to training new developers or wasted on time-intensive, tactical tasks -- adding up to just about $300B of lost productivity every year.
That's why after hearing first hand from founders who tried to get him to be their full-time CTO, Kyle went about creating a platform to meet what he saw as an unmet need. I invited Kyle onto Tech Talks Daily to learn insights into the technical talent crisis facing startup teams, and why they should care.
We discuss what to consider when it comes to future workplace environments, such as:
- The increasing complexity of problems facing today's enterprise - it's like a snake trying to eat an elephant!
- How collaboration, not competition, will drive the success of tomorrow's startups
- How technology is making highly technical jobs more accessible to junior employees
- How automation is creating operational efficiency and creating superhuman devs that allowing them to do more impactful work.
Kyle also shares more information about the recent announcement of the $7.5M round from Slack Fund and Tiger Global that was featured on TechCrunch.
Founded in 2017, CTO.ai is a Slack-backed start-up that provides an open registry of shortcuts to help technical leads at startups quickly scale developer teams and streamline developer productivity 10x. Kyle has successfully guided the company to team to 60 full-time staff, profitably, with a 400% revenue increase over the last 18 months.
Previous to CTO.ai, Kyle founded 'Retsly,' a company that helped developers access real-estate data from multiple listing services. Retsly was acquired in 2014 by leading real estate technology company Zillow, where Kyle continued to lead the execution of Retsly's original vision by creating a safe and reliable platform upon which to build innovative real estate software.
Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Kyle is a self-taught developer and has been programming since the age of 8. As an investor and advisor to a wide range of technology startups, Kyle's mission is to democratize DevOps to help the next generation of workers reach their full potential.
Payman Taei is the founder of Visme. Over 3.5 million users use the leading Visual Communication tools from over 100 countries. It used by leading Non-profits and Fortune 500 companies that include IBM, WorldBank, Capital One, and General Dynamics.
However, many people don't know the story behind the success of the company, which began bootstrapped on a 10K budget. This wasn't an overnight success story. It took him 18 years and plenty of painful mistakes to turn this into a success.
As an avid technologist, Paymen loves new trends and keeping up with the ever-evolving internet. His background in biology led him to truly believe in the art of evolution.
"Everything changes in time. You either follow or create new trends or will be left behind." Payman Taei
Payman started HindSite Interactive with a mere $170 to pay his way through college. Over the last 16 years, he and his team have worked with over 300 companies large and small from all walks of life. Frustrated with the lack of easy-to-use tools to empower non-designers to speak visually, he went on to create Visme.
The "Swiss Knife of Visual Content" bootstrapped to profitability within 18 months of launch and helping businesses, non-profits and individuals to improve the way ideas are visualized into engaging presentations, infographics and other forms of visual content.
I learn more about this easy-to-use online design tool that enables anyone to create engaging Presentations, Infographics, Banners and more. But I also learn more about the story behind the company that is empowering everyone to communicate visually.
Dentons is the world’s largest law firm and recognized by prominent business and legal publications for its innovations in client service. But, they are also pioneering the intersection of technology innovation and the legal industry and also exploring legislation and regulation around emerging technologies.
I have already spoken to guests from Dentons about smart cities and autonomous cars. But today I want to explore the effects tech, and legal tech is having on the emerging Cannabis industry,
Ausra Deluard is a member of Dentons’ national Health Care practice group, resident in the Oakland office. Her current practice focus is on helping clients in the nascent cannabis industry achieve their business objectives by advising them on the sector’s rapidly evolving laws and regulations.
Ausra’s experience in high-stakes antitrust litigation in the M&A context and in civil and criminal investigations was excellent preparation for counseling companies in avoiding the liability risks of operating in a highly regulated consumer industry.
Ausra meanwhile continues to advise clients in a range of sectors on contentious and non-contentious antitrust matters relating to proposed acquisitions, gun-jumping, global pricing and distribution policies, competitor collaboration, licensing arrangements, interlocking directorates, and pharmaceutical settlements.
She has handled numerous “second request” merger investigations before the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission for clients in the cannabis, tobacco, health care and technology sectors, using cutting-edge technology to efficiently and cost-effectively manage HSR Act investigations and persuasive advocacy to resolve substantive competition law issues.
Robert Niemiec is the Managing Partner at Twisthink where he manages business strategy, day-to-day team leadership, and business development.
Throughout his 15 years of entrepreneurial experience and 18 years of senior-level corporate experience, Robert has a proven track record of building high functioning, diverse teams that achieve success and deliver results.
Robert Niemiec created Twisthink as an experiment to test the belief in the value of twisting together the skills of design and technology for the purpose of innovation. For nearly 2 decades, Robert has been leading his team to serve Fortune 500 clients as well as entrepreneurial start-ups with speed and excellence.
Some of their clients include Whirlpool, Stryker, Herman Miller, Crown Equipment, Lutron, and BISSELL. Robert brings a unique background and perspective to the world of digital innovation, with a strong focus on methods to understand stakeholders’ unique problems, unmet needs, goals, and constraints.
Twisthink’s fresh eyes approach allows the team to imagine new business opportunities and create exciting new user experiences through their “relentless empathy” for the end-user. Robert Niemiec returns to the podcast to discuss how they are helping companies create the ideal user experience, which allows their customers to become leaders in their industries and accelerate growth.
We discuss the importance of focusing on innovation excellence over operational excellence. Why it’s important for business leaders to lean into change in today’s digital age and why design thinking is a proven process for creating successful IoT or AI solutions.
We also talk about why the digital edge is the most intriguing place for product innovation to occur and explore the power of a cross-functional team that contains both left-brain and right-brain thinkers. All this is washed down with inspiring stories of digital stories of innovation that unlock new business value.
Digital stories of innovation that unlocked new business value (including industries like healthcare, industrial, residential, automotive and manufacturing) The power of a cross-functional team that contains both left-brain and right-brain thinkers.
A report by Accenture showed that 75% of customers are much more likely to buy from a company that knows who they are, their personal preferences and can recommend relevant products or services.
Welcome to the experience economy.
The experience is now more important than the product, and the last best experience that anyone has anywhere has become the minimum expectation for the experience they want everywhere.
How can businesses not only keep up but raise the bar too? Joel Montaniel is the CEO & Co-Founder of SevenRooms, a data-driven hospitality platform that combines operations, marketing, and guest engagement tools, where he leads business strategy and sales.
From neighborhood restaurants to international, multi-concept hospitality groups, SevenRooms is a hospitality platform that helps operators unlock the full revenue potential of guest data.
By combining operations, marketing, and guest engagement into one front-of-house solution, the platform allows operators to maximize profits, build brand loyalty, and enable personalized guest experiences.
Joel joins me on the podcast to discuss how they are helping clients and share real-world examples of how to be an experience maker. We also look into the future at how voice tech will help brands deliver personalized experiences through the hotel minibar, restaurant, and nightlife venues.
Other topics covered are the increased role of guest data – from remembering allergies and preferences to customized marketing and loyalty rewards (imagine an allergen-free mini bar for your gluten-free child during your hotel stay).
As sustainability becomes more important, we also talk about how tech can help eliminate food waste and how predictive technology will evolve to inform restaurants’ ordering to minimize food waste and maximize profit margins.
Sonny Patel is the 25-year-old CEO and founder of Insurmi, a conversational-AI powered customer engagement platform for insurance carriers. But it's the human story behind the company that both resonated and inspired me.
While working as a sales director and financial advisor at a local life insurance company, Sonny realized the process of buying and selling insurance was unnecessarily cumbersome and outdated. He went to work to develop a solution that would simplify and take the guesswork out of the insurance buying process.
Today, Insurmi is being used by a number of top-tier global insurance carriers, including several from the Fortune 500, to not only easily generate new business online but also streamline customer claims and deliver excellent customer service through conversational AI. In September, he secured $1M to grow his team at Insurmi's headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona.
In today's episode, Sonny shares his journey and what he believes it takes to disrupt a legacy industry. We also discuss the challenges he's faced as a 25-year-old in a relatively "grown-up" sector. Finally, we talk about why he believes AI is the future of insurance, and how other industries can leverage it for sales, customer engagement, and save costs.
Art+Logic's Bob Bajoras has noticed something interesting often happens when clients first lay out a problem they hope the software team can solve: "They'll present the problem in the form of the solution," he notes. "We then get to ask, 'Why do you want to do that? What's the problem you want to solve?' What they're suggesting will work, but with our understanding of what can be done with software, we often realize we could do more than just that. This leads us to a solution that does more than expected."
The recent news that Amazon, Apple, and Google are working together to create a new standard for smart home communication is a rare display of unity amongst the giants of our interconnected worlds. But will their work be successful? Is this the right time for this? Why now?
These are just a few topics that we discuss on today's podcast. Bob Bajoras, President of Art+Logic, an innovative software development firm for over 25 years, who have worked with Google and Apple in the past, has some thoughts on the plans.
Because none of these companies have dominated the smart home field yet, Bajoras sees this plan as a truce more than a standard. Bajoras' and Art+Logic's extensive experience in designing for all things IoT make them thought leaders on this subject.
Art+Logic is a software development firm that designs, develops, and delivers high-level tech solutions for their clients. The company specializes in mobile apps, web software, desktop software, IoT, and has recently branched into product development where they are putting their software expertise to use contributing to the evolution of new hardware.
Since 1991, Art+Logic has built a strong reputation solving tough technical problems that other firms couldn't, relying exclusively on their talented team of dispersed North American engineers, designers, and developers to get the job done. They pioneered remote work, allowing them to bring on the best talent possible regardless of their location.
Their design team is on the cutting edge of human-centered computing, focusing on building beautiful user interfaces and seamless experiences. The Art+Logic development team ensures that their clients benefit from the most effective, efficient, and reliable technologies for their projects.
Datto offers business continuity and disaster recovery, networking, business management, and file backup and sync solutions, and has created a one-of-a-kind ecosystem of partners that provide Datto solutions to businesses across the globe.
In Datto's Global State of the Channel Ransomware Report, it revealed that SMEs may be continuing to take the ransomware bait, but MSPs are now enabling two-factor authentication to double down on ransomware preparation against their list of future ransomware attack targets: IoT devices (64%) and social media accounts (63%).
The average ransom requested by hackers in 2019 has increased too, costing $5,900 (£4,800) now compared to $4,300 (£3,500) in 2018. That's a 37% increase, and despite this increase, 24% of MSPs reported clients having paid the ransom to recover their data. But outsourcing IT services reduces the ransomware threat.
Ryan Weeks, CISO, Datto join me on this daily tech podcast to talk about the findings in the report and explore the Ransomware threat landscape.
As Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Ryan is responsible for directing and managing Datto's Information Security program. Ryan spent 11 years securing enterprise applications, systems and sensitive customer financial data at FactSet Research Systems, where he orchestrated all facets of the global information security program.
Ryan holds a B.S. in Computer Information Systems from Ithaca College, a M.S. in Information Assurance from Northeastern University and has industry security certifications including the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and the Certified Information Security Manager (CISM).
Shreesha Ramdas is an entrepreneurial executive with a track record of launching and growing products in competitive markets. He also has General management experience in product development, Growth Hacking, and go-to-market strategy & execution.
Shreesha is the CEO of Strikedeck, a leader in Customer Success Automation. Strikedeck is a Customer Success Platform that helps businesses deliver outstanding customer experiences while maximizing the value of their customer relationships. Founded by industry veterans with a proven track record in marketing automation, Strikedeck has enabled innovative customer-focused companies to optimize the deployment of precious resources to reduce churn, grow revenue, and maximize customer lifetime value.
However, Strikedeck was acquired by Medallia in 2019. Medallia is the pioneer and market leader in Customer Experience Management. Medallia's award-winning SaaS platform, the Medallia Experience Cloud, leads the market in the understanding and management of experience for customers, employees and citizens.
Medallia captures experience signals created on daily journeys in person, digital and IoT interactions and applies proprietary AI technology to reveal personalized and predictive insights that can drive action with tremendous business results.
Together, Medallia and Strikedeck, uniquely, will promote seamless, 360-degree views on customer account health, including information on renewals, product adoption and usage, subscriptions, billing, and more. The combination will also provide clients intelligence on where to focus and how to improve the B2B customer journey and the ability to manage the entire lifecycle of business customers.
Both companies use deep artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics to understand the risks and opportunities for every customer and to uncover issues and obstacles in the overall customer journey. But I wanted to learn more about how the Strikedeck and Medallia partnership is designed to round out B2B and B2C offerings in CS and CX. But also what it means for businesses.
Shreesha joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story, the future of CS and CX, and his predictions for 2020.
Coveo uses AI and intelligent search and recommendation technologies to personalize millions of digital experiences for customers, partners, dealers, and employees.
However, Coveo for Commerce is transforming the way businesses sell online and its AI-powered solution is helping to deliver relevant buying experiences that is driving business growth. But I wanted to find out more about this experience intelligence platform.
Coveo for Commerce is enhancing product and content discoverability, detects buyer intent, and automatically merchandizes personalized product recommendations that make business sense.
“The experience economy is built on data and AI. Tech-first companies have trained people to expect personalized, relevant, and unified experiences. With Coveo, every business can be an intelligent experience leader.” Coveo Chairman and CEO Louis Tetu.
However, personalization alone is not enough; businesses also want to increase the profitability of their customer lifetime journeys. In today's episode, I explore how this experience intelligence platform stitches together content and data, learning from every interaction, to tailor every experience using AI.
I learn how Coveo for Commerce connects and unifies product catalogs and product-related content to provide shoppers with comprehensive, relevant information in their shopping experience. We also discuss how structured product catalog data can blend with unstructured content.
Mark Floisand is Chief Marketing Officer at Coveo joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about all this and more. He has over 20 years of marketing, sales and general management experience in the technology industry, spanning blue chip and start-up companies across three continents, including Apple, Adobe, BusinessObjects, SAP, Total Defense, Untangle and WeVideo.
Mark was most recently with Sitecore, a Coveo technology partner, where he led product marketing. Mark holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; and an MBA from the University of Durham in the UK.
Last week 175,000 people from165 countries make their annual trip to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Over 4,500 global companies and tech startups showcased new and innovative tech. The media desperately searched for the best ideas hidden inside 2.9 million net square feet of exhibition space.
After following the news online, I was a little disheartened around new tech that didn't seem to solve any real problems. Samsung's Ballie is a tennis ball-like robot that beeps and rolls around following its owner and captures special moments. But this seemed at odds with our new privacy-aware state,
With the increasing awareness around climate change, I found myself wondering if Charmin's Bluetooth-controlled robot bear that brings its owner a spare toilet roll is the best use of our resources? But rather than turn into just another bitter tech columnist, I went in search of a more positive and optimistic view.
Over at Finn Partners, they have a talented mix of researchers, strategists, designers, technologists, content specialists, and campaigners. With over 800 people across three continents, I knew they would have someone that attends CES every year that could talk about the trends they have seen over the years and what stood out at this year's event.
Barry Reicherter is a senior partner at Finn Partners and has a passion for Digital Insights and Ideas. The Digital transformation and innovation leader joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss what he saw at CES. We also discuss the conversations he was monitoring online and those he heard on the show floor.
With more than 20 years of experience in digital marketing, Barry leads Finn Partners' Insights team focusing on online and social media research, analytics, planning, and measurement for clients operating in consumer, healthcare, education, government, public affairs, travel, and technology sectors.
Holding positions at AOL, Porter Novelli, Active.com, Sage Software, Widmeyer Communications and Finn Partners, Barry's body of work has been focused in the digital strategy and measurement for clients such as Hyundai, CapitalOne, American Express, Amalgamated Bank of Chicago, American Express, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Steelcase, Rosetta Stone, HP, Nestlé, Pfizer, Chase, Pearson, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, and Reed-Elsevier.
Barry is also a frequent speaker-panelist at industry conferences. Recently Barry joined the faculty of the Kogod School of Business at American University as an adjunct professor of digital branding for the M.B.A. program.
Software Design Solutions provides embedded system software development, desktop application development, and software process improvement consulting. The company prides itself on decades of expertise to learn new best practices in agile embedded software development.
Ed Kuzemchak is an expert on the Internet of Things and the founder of Software Design Solutions. As an embedded software thought leader, I invited Ed back onto this tech podcast to shares his experience around the challenges and pitfalls of designing intelligence into objects.
As an embedded software thought leader, Ed Kuzemchak is well-versed in the challenges and pitfalls of designing intelligence into objects. His experience across multiple industries has afforded him unique insights that he can share with companies looking to create, update, or improve their own IoT technologies.
While CES focuses on the shiny new tech solutions and buzzwords, I wanted to look under the hood of these emerging technologies. Ed explores the real challenges and opportunities that surround the internet of things (IoT)
In today's conversation, we talk about the convergence of low-cost networking (NBIoT/Cat-M1) and how power-efficient highly capable edge nodes are changing the IoT landscape. We also explore the unique challenges of IoT in industrial control settings (harsh environments, legacy equipment, IT vs. OT, security).
As we look beyond the smoke and mirrors of the tech hype, we look beyond the impacts of 5G and talk about the role of Fog computing in a world where edge nodes are becoming more and more capable. We also dare to ask, do you need Machine Learning for your IoT application? Or is good old fashioned heuristics what you really need?
According to Statista, live music industry revenue in the United States is on track to reach 11.99 billion USD in 2021 (up from 9.28 billion USD in 2015). But what setbacks could stall this foreseen growth? One of the greatest challenges plaguing the live music industry is a lack of robust data, a problem that live music data company Viberate is perfectly positioned to solve.
On the Viberate platform, entities are organized by event, festival, artist, venue, genre, subgenre, city, and country. Entities are crowdsourced with the help of over 20 thousand contributors, and each and every entry is then curated by a team of 70 full-time database curators.
Viberate also taps into the API's of major ticket vendors, which provide tens of thousands of events daily (contributors can add events manually as well). Artist profiles are also rich with content and always up-to-date, since Viberate sources the content from entities' official sources and enrich the content with metadata.
To date, the Viberate database includes 1/2 million artists, 1/2 million events, 150,000 venues, 5,000 festivals. But it's the success that it is delivering to artists that is the most impressive part of this startup story. But it's the success that it is delivering to artists that is the most impressive part of this startup story.
Viberate Co-Founder and COO Vasja Veber joins me on the podcast to discuss how Viberate is solving a major pain point in the live music industry. Vasja tells me how "You can't develop anything using the current data in the live music business. It's just too unstructured. It's also hard to keep the information updated. Standardization is our only way forward."
Viberate aims to standardize and map the entire global ecosystem for live music, becoming something akin to IMDb, a single, verified, and artist-approved source for music information. To accomplish this, the Ljubljana-based startup uses a carefully calibrated mix of crowdsourcing and curation, and blockchain, incentivizing contributors and supporting artist control of assets and information.
"Blockchain has become the long-overdue catalyst for the music industry to update its policy and business models toward music-makers and to provide quick and seamless experiences for anyone involved in creating or interacting with music," notes Viberate advisor, blockchain advocate, and musical innovator Imogen Heap.
"Anything that involves music-makers being independent and having space where they can reach out to anybody who wants to make business directly with them is a really positive thing."
Vasja Veber explains how he and his team are doing for music what IMDb does for the movies.
It seems that almost every website now has a chatbot. Some are quite good, but many create more frustrations than they solve. Meanwhile it has been reported that we all spend 43 days of our lives waiting on hold.
I wanted to get a company that stands out from the crowd in this area, and it didn't take long for me to find the perfect guest.
Ada, the market leader for Automated Customer Experience (ACX), is disrupting the customer service sector with a fundamentally new approach that brings an automation first strategy to drive cost savings and improved CSAT.
Ada replicates manual behavior with machine learning freeing up expensive agents to pursue more meaningful, urgent tasks on behalf of customers. With Ada's transformative approach to customer service, businesses are evolving their customer service departments from cost centers into profit centers.
Air Asia is an excellent example of the power of Ada's automation first strategy. They fly 100 million passengers per year and used to struggle with customer support wait times of more than one hour. Within 30 days of launching Ada, the wait time for customers is now less than one minute. AirAsia is now generating millions in annual revenues because they've automated meal plan purchases, ticket changes, and more.
In 2019, Ada was also included in Gartner's Competitive Landscape: Virtual Assistant Platforms, Worldwide and recognized as one of the leading vendors leveraging linguistics, machine learning, and knowledge programming to create conversational user experiences.
I invited Ruth Zive, Ada's head of Marketing, on to this daily tech podcast to learn more about how Ada is transforming how people work and how businesses design their customer service organizations.
Eric Navarrette, Chief Marketing Officer ARwall, joins me on the podcast to reveals how their augmented reality technology is fixing issues for entertainment studios that utilize a Hollywood staple: the green screen.
ARwall is an AR technology company that has created the first AR display that requires no headset, no goggles, no smart device. Its spatial imaging technology is four times faster than anything equivalent on the market.
The green screen replacement has already been used for projects by studios like Netflix, Syfy, and HBO, and made an appearance on the HBO series Watchmen red carpet. But problems does this tech really solve?
Post-production can be time-consuming and expensive, often pushing film and television projects past deadlines and budgets. After spending over two decades founding startups and leading in the advertising space, ARwall Founder and CEO Rene Amador developed a breakthrough solution: digital backdrops that display realistic, VFX-heavy sets in real-time, with no "fix it in post" required. The invention spectacularly replaces the green screen.
The 'ARwall' significantly reduces editing costs and cuts down on filming time for production teams. With VFX that studios would have needed to add in post-production already present on-set, ARwall shortens project pipelines and budgets, helping film and TV projects stay on-pace with today's heightened viewing cycle.
ARwall is also helping solve problems for businesses in post-production with real-time technology, staying innovative in a fast-paced industry. Eric returns from CES after winning an award for 'Best AR Experience for ARwall' and reveals how they are using AR to transform an entire industry.
Learn How Trintech is Making Accounting Faster, More Efficient and Human.
Trintech Inc., a pioneer of Financial Corporate Performance Management (FCPM) software, combines unmatched technical and financial expertise to create innovative, cloud-based software solutions that deliver world-class financial operations and insights.
In today's episode, Derick Schaefer, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Trintech joins me to talk about Trintech's mission to take the drudgery out of accounting, making it faster, more efficient and more human. We also talk about why the best kind of innovation comes from customers.
I learn more about his passion for causes outside of tech, including local theater and water conservation. He breeds cattle at his ranch in Texas too.
As Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Trintech, he is responsible for leading its software engineering, cloud operations, information technology, and information security functions. Schaefer has spent over 25 years in a variety of software leadership roles, including the last ten years running large scale SaaS and PaaS operations.
Before joining Trintech, Schaefer led engineering, information security, and compliance for Silicon-Valley based Digital Insight (an NCR Company) who provided online banking and mobile solutions for community financial institutions. Schaefer also received his Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and his MBA from The University of Miami.
On today's podcast, I want to spend some time thinking about the individuals who must "be present" every day to do their jobs as these are the unsung heroes that make up the majority of the global workforce.
However, they are not as frequently considered in discussions about work-life balance, career growth, employee experience, and creative benefits. A new book is daring to challenge yesterday's mindset while strategically looking at the future of work. It reveals eye-opening insights on the positive outcomes for employers who invest in their workers' experience.
"Being Present" challenges readers to consider the differences in the employee experience between laptop-toting office workers and the frontline workforce, with the goal of inspiring leaders to strategically and creatively build frontline workplace capability, development, productivity, flexibility, empowerment, and trust.
Written by some of today's most respected leaders and practitioners in human resources, workplace technology, and the future of work, the authors share new ways to create and build frontline workplace capability, productivity, performance, empowerment, and trust. Joyce Maroney joins me today to discuss these topics and much more.
Joyce Maroney is the executive director of the Workforce Institute at Kronos Incorporated. She founded the Workforce Institute in 2007 to provide a platform and forum to research and discuss workplace issues relevant to leaders of both salaried and hourly teams.
Workforce Institute content, including research, opinion pieces, and podcasts, can be found at www.workforceinstitute.org. Before joining Kronos in 2006, Joyce served as vice president of services, products, and recruitment outsourcing at BrassRing and held management positions in marketing, sales, and operations for companies such as Lotus/IBM, Software AG, and Wang Laboratories.
Jason Davis is co-founder and CEO of Simon Data. Simon Data is a customer data platform (CDP) that provides enterprise marketers at brands including Blue Apron, Venmo, Equinox, and Peloton with live and personalized data to monitor purchasing trends and predict customer behavior.
These transformative brands are part of the fuel behind Simon's success recently marked with a fast follow $25M Series C funding round. On today's podcast, Jason discusses the state of the CX today – where it fails us, how CDPs are delivering on the promise of Big Data and Business Intelligence solutions.
“Over the last year or so, we have seen an uptick in older companies positioning themselves as CDPs to try to take advantage of the buzz around the category, without offering the capabilities of a true CDP. As the market matures, these follower companies have struggled to keep up - recent acquisition news around Acquia/AgilOne and Amperity/Custora is evidence of this.
However, these acquisitions do highlight the increasingly critical role customer data plays in driving marketing strategy, as well as the importance of having a competitive product in this new category." – Josh Neckes, President/Cofounder, Simon Data
After the recent Acquia / AgileOne acquisition news. Jason also shares his perspective on what this means for the industry and why we can expect to see more M&As in 2020.
I also learn how Simon Data his helping brands across industries achieve a unified customer view. On the subject of customer data privacy, we also discuss if CDPs will get to a place where we're not just okay for data to be shared.
Since 2005, the mobile-enabled workforce has grown 11 times faster than the total workforce, with more than 92 million mobile-enabled workers now in the U.S. alone and a growing number of companies allowing use of personal devices to make balancing the demands of work and personal life easier.
Motus recently announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind solution that makes it possible for companies to easily and accurately reimburse employees for the business use of their personal mobile devices. As the world’s foremost experts on reimbursement, Motus developed the Fixed and Variable Rate (FAVR) reimbursement methodology.
After the IRS recognized FAVR as a tax-free reimbursement option in 1992, Motus used it to transform how companies reimburse employees for personal vehicle use. With this new solution, Motus applies the same FAVR code to mobile devices for the first time, allowing companies to fairly, accurately and compliantly reimburse employees for this rapidly growing mixed-use asset class.
As recent trends in employment law now require employers to recognize even small tasks performed by employees on their personal devices as work, fair and defensible reimbursement is more important than ever. Organizations often face legal action over inaccurate expense reimbursement – and lawsuits have begun to include disputes over accurate mobile device reimbursement.
Motus CEO Craig Powell joins me on this daily tech podcast to discuss the announcement in further detail, including why he believes this is a huge stepping stone in helping to accommodate the needs of the future workforce.
Craig also discusses how the company’s recent acquisition of Wireless Analytics made this possible and shares the strategic vision Motus has for the future of reimbursement for mobile-enabled workforces.
Craig is the visionary of Motus with experience leading companies to achieving market leadership within their industries. As President and CEO, he is responsible for the vision, strategic direction, cultivation of key relationships and tone of the winning culture at Motus.
Did you know that every website has 15 seconds to keep the attention of its audience? As humans, our attention span is now less than that of goldfish at 8 seconds and your visitors will form an opinion about your site in 5 seconds. Finally, if your website fails to load within 3 seconds, users will leave and never return again?
What’s even more eye-opening is how much seemingly minute increments of additional load time actually impact the outcome. A mere 100s of difference can cause conversion rate to drop by 2.4%. A page loading 1 second slower can see their conversion rates plummet 21.8%, and a page loading 2 seconds slower could find 36.5% of their conversions lost.
If you want users to stay on your page, then statistics hurt even more – with a 2-second delay causing a 62.1% average increase in bounce rate. Meanwhile, many retailers are filling their websites with trackers that are increasing load times and creating negative experiences for their visitors.
These are a few areas that I wanted to explore on this daily tech podcast. Today I have invited Jeremy Tillman back onto the podcast from Ad Tracker experts Ghostery who recently released their 2019 Retail Tracker Tax Report. Ghostery revealed insights to analyze the specific tracker stack of 12 retailers’ websites to expose the hidden cost of certain trackers.
Ghostery found that many retail websites in this study suffered from frivolous trackers that were found to negatively impact customer experiences. Some of the worst-performing websites belonged to Everlane, Footlocker and Urban Outfitters, which all had the biggest discrepancies between default load time (load time with all trackers in place) and load time with trackers blocked – with a difference between load times of 6 seconds, 5 seconds and 5 seconds, respectively.
Although these three retailers did not have relatively high numbers of trackers on their websites among those analyzed, the trackers they did have were attacking performance. Jeremy reveals other findings from the report and much more.
The US healthcare system is one that I don't fully understand. But I have a few friends who have received a few big bills at the end of treatment, so I wanted to learn more about it. Technology is revolutionizing the healthcare industry with continuous advancements and procedures in the operating room. But, I also wanted to explore how it's influencing payments in healthcare.
Health Payment Systems (HPS) is a Milwaukee-based company that has plans for a major expansion in 2020. The company enhances the healthcare billing experience for consumers, employers, and providers.
Terry Rowinski joins me today to talk about emerging healthcare technology. He provides insights on how emerging healthcare technology trends can enhance the patient experience through improved payment processes.
We also discuss the basics of stop-loss insurance, when to encourage clients to use level funding, and reducing costs with self-funded plans. But I also use the time t learn more about the tech startup scene in Milwaukee. Afterall Sharing is caring!
While Terry has spent the last five years in the healthcare and patient billing industries, his senior leadership has made a positive mark in logistics, E-commerce, and online retail, including guiding retail giant Kohl's Department Stores Inc.'s online merchandising launch as VP and GMM of E-commerce.
Terry's commitment to thriving work environments and amazing customer relationships has made him a highly sought-after motivational and keynote speaker for groups and events ranging from 5-5000.
The first generation of social media apps encouraged us all to take our friends, put them online, and communicate with them online. What would happen if we used technology to do the opposite and bring people together?
When I learned that anew social networking platform called Pod wants to help users make connections the old-fashioned way by leaving our homes and meeting in person for a face to face conversation, I felt compelled to find out more.
I quickly learned that Pod has already gained over 5 million users on its web platform and also recently launched a free app for iOS & Android. I invited Dr. Jo Webber, serial software entrepreneur, and the founder and CEO of Pod onto this daily tech podcast, to learn more about the social networking platform that puts people on the map.
We discuss how technology is creating loneliness among millennials and why meeting face to face is key to business networking. I also learn more about exactly what Pod is and how the platform helps users make friends easily in real life.
Jo has a wealth of executive and software product experience, having served as the chief executive officer for multiple private and public software companies in the fintech, cybersecurity, and scientific software markets.
Jo is also the Chairman of the Board for the Los Angeles - based Saas company Edlio and also serves on a non-profit board. Before Pod, Jo founded the youth digital payment B-C startup, Oink. Forbes featured Oink as the Paypal for Kids in 2012, and the Oink app won the SIIA Codie Award for the Best Commerce Solution in 2015.
Jo was also the recipient of the Woman of the Year in Technology award in 2014 from the International Business Awards group. She graduated from Nottingham Trent University with a BS in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Quantum Physics.
In 2015, Mario Ciabarra founded Quantum Metric to help enterprises understand where they can improve their digital customer experience. Previously founding and exiting an APM startup that solved where enterprise applications can be improved, Mario saw the natural next step was to solve where the entire digital journey could be improved too.
Here in 2020, Quantum Metric's Digital Intelligence Platform gives cross-functional teams real-time, out-of-the-box insights to easily and proactively identify, prioritize and act to help their clients maximize the business impact of their web and native apps.
I wanted to learn more about how the platform's intelligent analysis enables modern enterprises to deliver exceptional online experiences quickly. Mario joins me on the podcast to talk about how businesses can make the most of customer data to tell the story of digital consumer experience for companies.
Mario shares his passion for understanding what's causing customers the most amount of frustration that has the most significant impact on the business, and getting executives to put themselves in the customer's shoes – basically feeling their pain – and matching that to business impact.
For example, if a website has an issue with its search feature that affects 2 million customers vs. an issue with it's Check Out/Shopping Cart page that's affecting 500 customers and actively costing a brand money, the latter should be prioritized. It's a game of working smarter, not harder and using time effectively.
Join Mario Ciabarra and me as we discuss how businesses can overcome large-scale technology challenges to thrive and survive in the experience economy.
Conversations around data and privacy are already dominating conversations in 2020. We have already discussed the impacts of the California Consumer Privacy Act CCPA and GGDPR on yesterday's episode, and today I want to explore how businesses should prioritize data risks to their business.
I chat with Roger Hales, who has become the CISO-in Residence at YL Ventures. The former Chief Information Security Officer of Informatica - a $1+ billion annual revenue software development company talks about the role of the CISO and how he has seen the role evolve.
YL Ventures funds and supports brilliant Israeli tech entrepreneurs from seed to lead. Based in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, YL Ventures manages $260 million focused on deep-technology sectors and specializes in cybersecurity.
YL Ventures accelerates the evolution of portfolio companies via strategic advice and U.S.-based operational execution, leveraging a powerful network of Chief Information Security Officers and global industry leaders. The firm's track record includes successful, high-profile portfolio company acquisitions by major corporations, including Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, CA, and Proofpoint.
Roger Hale is YL Ventures' CISO-in-Residence. In this role, he imparts his 30 years of industry experience towards the firm's due diligence process by vetting candidates and concepts in the pipeline and its value-add services to its portfolio companies.
Roger proactively supports the ideation processes of up and coming entrepreneurs, advises them on the industry's greenfield opportunities, and helps YL Venture portfolio companies remove communication roadblocks with customers, refine their positioning, and validate their go-to-market strategies.
Previously, Roger directed and managed the global information security, risk, and compliance of some of hi-tech's most notable players. Most recently, this included his position as VP and CISO at Informatica. Prior to this, he served as CISO at Inkling Systems, Senior Director of Security Architecture and Engineering at Symantec, and the first ISO at Brocade Communications.
Roger's legacy in technology and information security extends across multiple verticals, including financial services, healthcare, eCommerce, biotech, and education. He has a proven track record of delivering effective strategies that align information lifecycle management with specialized business objectives, information assurance, and risk management.
Exploring the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) With Vanessa Wu, Rippling's General Counsel
The Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) caused significant confusion and forced companies to clean up their act online when it was introduced in Europe last year. Now, a new set of regulations, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), is about to go live in 2020 and is giving businesses something else to worry about.
As we continue to redefine the entire landscape of how online user data is to be handled, I explore the impacts of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) With Vanessa Wu, Rippling's General Counsel.
I also learn how Rippling is the first way for businesses to manage their HR & IT — from payroll and benefits to employee computers and apps — all in one, modern system.
In 90-seconds, a company can onboard a new employee and set up their payroll, health insurance, work computer, and third-party apps like Gmail, Microsoft Office, and Slack. It's the only platform that unifies every employee system and automates the administrative work behind each.
Vanessa Wu currently serves as the General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Rippling, the first employee data system of record across all of a company's HR and IT systems. In this role, she oversees all legal and compliance issues, including corporate governance, product counseling, and regulatory compliance, and influences emerging privacy legal frameworks and data protection strategy.
Prior to Rippling, Vanessa was the General Counsel at LiveRamp, Inc. (NYSE:RAMP), a global leader in identity resolution and data marketplace services for the advertising and marketing ecosystem. Vanessa also previously worked in private practice at the international law firm Latham & Watkins LLP, where she advised technology companies on high-stakes litigation, merger control, and regulatory proceeds involving the intersection of antitrust, data protection, and privacy.
Vanessa graduated, cum laude, from Princeton University, and from the UCLA School of Law, where she was order of the Coif. Vanessa is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) and serves on the advisory board of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).
Vivek Patni, CEO, and Co-Founder of Lavanya Plus, joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about the recent launch of WeMa Care. The new CareTech solution is aimed at helping businesses – including fintech heavyweight Global Payments – to provide advice, support, and referrals so informal carers can arrange care services on behalf of their loved ones.
For context, there are 8 million informal carers in the UK, with 18% of full-time workers also providing some form of unpaid care for someone close to them; of them, 88% say their employer provides no support; 46% feel lonely or isolated as a result of their caring responsibilities, and 82% do not feel comfortable talking about their caring responsibilities at work.
Vivek reveals why he believes that CareTech could ease the ever-increasing pressure faced by informal carers. He also believes that such technology can also help businesses to offer some long-overdue support to employees, who currently feel torn between fulltime employment and care responsibilities.
As we approach the cold winter months that will impact vulnerable individuals and, consequently, the people who care for them, I explore how CareTech could help employers provide greater support to their families.
Try to imagine a decentralized financial future where banks are irrelevant and the people hold the power. Today's guest is on a mission to fight the status quo is turning this vision into a reality.
Richard Dennis is the founder and CEO of TemTum (TemTum.com), the efficient, quantum-secure, ultra-fast, and environmentally friendly cryptocurrency. He is a globally recognized cybersecurity and cryptography expert and one of the world's leading lecturers on secure networks, blockchain, and encryption.
Dennis has a significant body of published research. He delivers presentations on next-generation solutions across a wide range of subjects, including Bitcoin wallet vulnerability, an analysis into the scalability of Bitcoin and Ethereum, and a formal analysis of the Temporal block.
As a former member of the Cypherpunk community at 16, Dennis went on to study Mathematics and Computer Science before becoming the world's youngest cryptography lecturer at the University of Portsmouth.
For cryptocurrency, blockchain needs to take the next step in its evolution. I learn how temtum is aiming to do just that by helping to secure a truly distributed, decentralized, and democratic future for finance where transactions are secure, traceable, transparent using the quantum attack resistant architecture that their experts are world leaders in.
Built on years of academic research, we discuss how temtum features unmatched security and maximum transaction times of 12 seconds, plus no risk of a 51% attack.
I also learn how temtum is set to announce the launch of its web wallet, which allows any internet-connected (from phones to cars) to conduct crypto transactions. During one recent test, temtum turned a BMW into a full-service node on the network, facilitating device-to-car payments.
Unqork is the industry pioneer no-code enterprise application platform that helps large companies build, deploy, and manage complex applications without writing a single line of code.
Companies like Liberty Mutual, Goldman Sachs, and John Hancock are using Unqork's drag-and-drop interface to build enterprise applications faster, with higher quality, and lower costs than conventional approaches.
Unqork first appeared on my radar when it recently closed an $80 Million Series B Funding Round Led by CapitalG. I wanted to find out more about the story behind the company and how this latest funding round is driving the no-code enterprise revolution.
Unqork CEO Gary Hoberman talks about how they enable brands to bring complex, regulated products to market without writing a single line of code. Gary is a 24-year financial technology veteran, holds eight patents, was the youngest-ever MD at Citigroup, and is a nationally recognized thought leader, having been featured in such publications as Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, and Financial Times.
Prior to Unqork, Gary was Executive Vice President and Global CIO for MetLife, overseeing technology across 47 countries and managing a $1.2 billion budget. Gary Hoberman has spent the last 24 years helping top financial institutions bring transformative solutions to market.
As you all know, the ways we interact as humans are continually evolving. However, Email, the most dominant form of contact in today's world, has not adapted to the fast-paced communication of the 21st century.
If you're like me, you have Outlook for work emails, a Gmail for personal emails, a Slack for team collaboration, and a Skype for client meetings. Consistently flipping through apps is time-consuming and honestly fairly annoying.
In today's episode, I learn how Spike is a one-of-a-kind platform that combines emails, chats, calls, team collaboration, and tasks – all in one place.
Dvir Ben-Aroya is the co-founder and CEO of Spike. He has over 20 years of executive experience leading technology and internet companies. As an entrepreneur, he is passionate about creating SaaS businesses and nurturing them throughout their entire lifecycle. When he's not talking about how to improve modern communication, you can find him surfing with friends or running after his three boys.
Dvir joins me on this daily tech podcast to share why they set out to tackle the problem, going where no other email platform had gone before and created the world's first conversational Email. Could upgrading the way we work, save our teams time, sanity, and a lot of headaches?
As we are at the time of year where we are all open to change and setting goals to reach inbox zero, I learn more about how we could all declutter our inboxes with Spike if we embrace conversational Email.
On this daily tech podcast, I enjoy exploring how technology is transforming our world. But what if tech could actually change the world for the better?
Meet a global CleanTech 100 company making it easy and profitable for building owners to help stop climate change. Carbon Lighthouse is on a mission to stop climate change by making it easy and profitable for building owners to eliminate carbon emissions caused by wasted energy.
The company’s unique approach to Efficiency Production goes deep into buildings to uncover and continuously correct hidden inefficiencies that add up to meaningful financial value and carbon elimination that lasts.
Established in 2010, the company has served over 500 buildings, cutting the carbon emissions equivalent of three power plants and delivering an average financial return of 14%. Our clients include Tesla, Kilroy Realty, Durst, Related, Stanford University, Wilson Meany, and Dostart Development.
Transforming the way energy is used in commercial buildings is one of the most impactful ways to make a difference. Commercial real estate contributes 20% of US annual carbon emissions. At Carbon Lighthouse, they approach the challenge by first focusing on reducing and cleaning the energy consumption of the built environment.
I wanted to learn more about how to amplify the environmental impact of each engagement; their non-profit arm participates in government auctions to reduce the supply of pollution permits available to power plants in the United States.
Brenden Millstein, CEO at Carbon Lighthouse, joins me on this daily tech podcast. I learn more about how two Berkeley natives not only became fast friends; they went on to become lab partners in middle school and later donned coats and goggles together in the physics department at Harvard University.
They discovered they had everything they needed right in front of them, both the means and the motivation to form a catalyst for change.
One of the traditions in the UK is to watch the Queens Christmas Speech on Christmas Day. I thought I would offer an alternative for tech fans where I look at where we are now and what the following year in tech will look like.
I also answer a few questions from listeners to this daily tech podcast.
The rise of the experience economy is changing how we travel and where we stay on our trips. Rather than walking into a faceless lobby of a hotel and soulless room for a few nights, people are looking for something unique with character that is Instagram worthy.
GetMyBoat is leveraging technology to change the way the world goes boating by powering the largest boat rental and charter marketplace. With over 130,000 listings in 184 countries and 9,300 locations, there is an experience for new boaters and seasoned sailors alike.
Launched in San Francisco in 2013, GetMyBoat empowers owners of every type of watercraft, from kayaks and sailboats to powerboats and yachts, to post their watercraft for rent or charter. From California to Croatia, their users can search, find, and book their dreamboat. Experience the water.
The company is on a mission to use technology to open up the world of boating for both renters and owners. Boating enthusiasts get the benefits of worldwide inventory without the cost or headache of ownership. And as the average boat is only used 8% of the year, boat owners get the chance to make owning a boat more affordable by earning some income from their under-utilized asset.
GetMyBoat has been described as both Uber and Airbnb on water. I invited Val Streif, head of marketing for GetMyBoat onto the podcast to find out more about how this easy-to-use app, for boat lovers all around the world had sent over 60,000 people out on the water.
I also learn more about how the app is pushing for standardization of the boat rental industry as a whole and putting systems in place for captain verification, price transparency, and other areas.
Monitoring unlocks new pathways to growth by expanding what's possible for businesses and advancing the technology behind them. LogicMonitor seamlessly monitors infrastructures, empowering companies to focus less on problem-solving and more on evolution.
I wanted to learn more about how they help customers turn on a complete view in minutes, turn the dial from optimization to innovation, and turn the corner from sight to vision. Mark Banfield joins me on the reveals all on my daily tech podcast.
We discuss the changing nature of today's work environment and how it is causing organizations to evaluate the best ways to monitor their IT infrastructure. I also learn the most common mistakes businesses make in IT performance monitoring.
However, LogicMonitor is much more than just another SaaS-based performance monitoring platform. We also discuss how performance monitoring is also being used to help business growth and the migration of workloads into the cloud, etc.
I also learn more about LogicMonitor's recent announcement around an early warning system for AIOps.
Mark is a seasoned leader with a history of developing international go-to-market strategies for high-growth businesses. He comes to LogicMonitor from Autotask (acquired Vista in 2014 and merged with Datto in 2017), where he was most recently Senior Vice President and General Manager, International.
In his previous role, Mark was responsible for establishing and operating all international offices and grew Autotask's international business to around 50% of the total company's revenue. Prior to Autotask, Mark held various sales management roles at Innopath and SmartTrust.
It feels like every business and brand are increasingly focussing on creating unique digital customer experiences to provide the wow factor. As the experience economy gathers place, we need to remember that we can only improve what we can measure. But is there a way to test the effects of these new experiences that we are creating?
Applause, the worldwide leader in digital quality and crowdsourced testing, helps hundreds of leading brands improve the quality of their digital experiences by testing with real users, on real devices, in native languages, under real conditions.
Applause recently launched Applause Labs, the industry's largest innovation team dedicated to the quality and testing of applications. Applause Labs also released the first and only enterprise-quality benchmarking tool – the Applause Quality Score (AQS).
Leveraging 11+ years of data on digital quality issues, the AQS will deliver insights into clients' overall quality at the build, release, and product level, along with other benchmarking features. This is the future of digital quality and will impact most of the apps on your phone right now.
I invited Doron Reuveni onto the podcast to talk about how important digital quality is to brands today, and how Applause Labs and the AQS will empower these businesses to meet their customers' high expectations for digital quality.
Doron Reuveni is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Applause. Since founding Applause (formerly uTest) in 2007, Doron has led the creation of the crowdtesting market and solidified Applause's position as the market leader. Doron's leadership has made him an internationally-recognized expert in software development, testing, and entrepreneurship.
Although the idea of "in-the-wild" software testing through a crowdsourcing model was a radical notion when Applause was founded, today, it has become an integral part of the software development process for thousands of companies worldwide.
Under Doron's leadership, Applause has evolved into an enterprise-grade solution, meeting the complex requirements of the world's most influential brands. Doron's vision has transformed Applause into the digital quality leader through expanded product offerings, investment in its SaaS platform, and growth in our global community of vetted digital experts.
Wowza Media Systems is the recognized gold standard of streaming, with more than a decade of experience working with 35,000+ organizations in 170+ countries.
Retailers must adapt to thrive and survive in the digital world. They also need to ramp up their efforts quickly if they are serious about genuinely connecting with their customers.
I recently read a case study outlining how global retailer Jewelry.TV (JTV) adapted their sales strategy to connect with their changing consumer demographic. This change has resulted in significant success for the retailer.
Just as online shopping transformed retail twenty years ago, live streaming plays an integral role in transforming e-commerce today. Dubbed live commerce, this convergence of video and shopping helps close the gap between customer and product, improve engagement, and drive sales.
Demographic shifts spurred this digital transformation. By letting customers select when, where, and how they engage — be it on their living room television or a mobile app while riding the subway — JTV broadened their reach to attract a younger population.
Wowza Media Systems was the company that built the platform, so I invited David Stubenvoll, Chief Executive Officer and Cofounder on this tech podcast to discuss the study and help offer guidance for other retailers looking to invest in technology to drive sales.
David Stubenvoll is a streaming-industry veteran, launching Wowza Media Systems with Charlie Good to fill a stark void in the industry: the lack of flexible, robust media server software on which to build reliable streaming.
Wowza is Dave’s fifth new business venture, having previously served as entrepreneur in residence at Adobe Systems and as CEO/cofounder of Freeworks. Dave has also held senior positions at Intuit and served as president of GALT Technologies (an Intuit subsidiary).
Scalefast is changing the way brands do direct-to-consumer eCommerce, by empowering them to regain the control and simplicity they need to create an exceptional shopping experience, directly from their online storefront.
By joining forces through the Scalefast Commerce Cloud, brands can deliver localized and personalized direct-to-consumer shopping experiences while leveraging the volume and data of an entire brand ecosystem.
In the past year, subscription services have exploded from a niche market to a model that shoppers are familiar with – with brands like Dollar Shave Club and Hello Fresh gaining traction – now over half of online shoppers use subscription box services. But while shoppers are willing to in convenience and value over time, subscription churn rates are high, and consumers will quickly cancel services that are not delivering on their expectations.
I invited Mike Schwartz from Scalefast to talk about the ways DTCs can navigate subscription services successfully?
We discuss how DTCs can create successful subscription services through:
Specialization: Whether that means finding a niche or offering customization, curated, and personalized services that allow users to think less about the things they need.
Serving your current audience: Before offering subscriptions to the public, test the waters with current customers first who already trust your brand
Avoiding hiccups: Subscription customers value convenience– and will notice if there is a change in the quality of service. Rent the Runway’s recent mishap could have been avoided by planning for volume and logistics in advance, and putting backups into place to keep things running smoothly during upgrades.
I also learn more about the story behind Scalefast and how they plan to continue leveraging technology to empowering and help them thrive in a digital age.
Abhi Yadav, CEO and co-founder of Zylotech, a self-learning B2B customer data platform that was spun out of MIT joins me on Tech Talks Daily.
Zylotech is pioneering customer analytics, offering marketers the ability to engage their customers on a deeper and more personal level than most other martech. The Zylotech CDP Platform transforms how marketers can completely understand their customers through data.
Powered by AutoML, the platform unifies internal and external data, and enables ongoing micro-segmentation, non-obvious pattern discovery, and recommendations. Results can be activated through most marketing tools to be used in cross/upselling and retention marketing.
Zylotech has been at the forefront of solving customer retention problems since launching out of MIT by experts and industry veterans in 2014. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Zylotech has grown to include a world-class team of data scientists, engineers, and product development leaders.
Abhi is a tech entrepreneur with experience at many stages of the lifecycle - startup/bootstrap, VC and M&A. He's worked with enterprise brands across retail, tech, and financial sectors, including Dell, Palo Alto Networks, Keurig, Staples, Oracle, Cisco, Staples, and others. He is an engineer with an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
In addition to general entrepreneurial and tech topics, Abhi and I discuss the findings from a new report from The Relevancy Group, which revealed that 83% percent of marketers using a CDP has seen significant improvements in business as a result.
I learn more about technology's impact on the transformation of the overall marketing organization. We also explore how marketers can bridge the gap between customer data and analytics -- a pain point that's rapidly growing in today's marketing landscape.
I chat with the CEO of a company that is perfecting the technology to make viable organ replacements a safe, accessible, and affordable reality.
Heart disease is the #1 cause of death in virtually all developed countries throughout the world, but one company looking to change the way we treat heart disease is BIOLIFE4D. Based out of Chicago, BIOLIFE4D is a pioneering biotech company laser-focused on leveraging advances in life sciences and tissue engineering to 3D bioprint a viable human heart suitable for transplant – lifesaving technology that gives patients the gift of time.
Operated by seasoned business leaders and guided by world-class biomedical engineers and life sciences experts, BIOLIFE4D is driving a movement to transform the treatment of heart disease. I wanted to learn more about how they are perfecting the technology to make viable organ replacements a safe, accessible, and affordable reality.
While leading CMCS, Steven simultaneously conducted more than two years of in-depth research into the specific processes and technologies of the 3D bioprinting and regenerative medicine field – and quickly recognized the nearly unlimited financial and human potential of this emerging market.
Coupling his vast hands-on experience in medical manufacturing with extensive research and a partnership with industry-leading experts he formed BIOLIFE4D, a regenerative medicine 3D bioprinting company with the goal of facilitating the biological printing of viable human organs for utilization in patient-specific human transplantation.
Steven Morris joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about their recent milestone, the benefits of printing a mini heart, and how bioprinting can revolutionize healthcare, and this is the closest anyone's ever gotten.
Duane Brown has been called a digital nomad by friends after living in 6 cities across three continents and visiting 40 countries around the world. After leaving Toronto, Canada in 2011 to gain an international view of the world, he has worked for Telstra in Australia and brands including ASOS, Mopp (bought Sept. 2014), Jack Wills and Grant Thornton while in London, UK.
After London, Duane went traveling in Asia for 10 weeks and then came back to Canada and got a job with Unbounce. That job allowed him to work on more PPC landing pages than any marketer in the world. He now lives in Montreal, Canada helping ecom & SaaS brands grow through data, CRO and marketing.
Duane runs a digital marketing agency called Take Some Risk. He has helped brands including ASOS, Jack Wills, and Mopp grow through PPC (pay per click) marketing and CRO. I invited him to join me on Tech Talks Daily to share his fascinating story.
We talk about how to grow any business through PPC campaigns and the digital marketing landscape. But, beyond the tech talk, we discuss Duane's traveling experience, and he visited 40-countries and working as a digital nomad.
Emailage was founded in 2012 and is helping companies significantly reduce online fraud. Through key partnerships, proprietary data, and machine-learning technology, Emailage builds a multi-dimensional profile associated with a customer’s email address and renders a predictive risk score. Customers realize significant savings from identifying and stopping fraudulent transactions.
I invited Rei Carvalho, CEO & Founder at Emailage joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company and reveals why an email can be the most important weapon in your fraud prevention
arsenal?
Rei is an experienced entrepreneur and the founder of Emailage. He is a computer scientist with more than 20 years of experience in data security, effective software creation, and efficient management. Rei also enjoys playing drums, soccer, and spending time with his family and friends.
Wildcat Venture Partners seeks the wildcatters of the 21st century (tech entrepreneurs) who prospect, refine, and monetize digital oil (data) to become the next market disruptors and category leaders.
The company invests in B2B and B2B2C startups leveraging key technologies such as Machine Learning/AI, IoT, and Cloud & Mobility in the following markets: Digital Health, EdTech, Enterprise SaaS, and FinTech. But I wanted to learn more about the story behind Wildcat and obtain valuable insights for startup founders who listen to this daily tech podcast.
Bryan Stolle is a Founding Partner at Wildcat, where he focuses on investments in FinTech, EdTech, quant marketing, and technology that addresses elder care. His specific areas of interest include software as a service (SaaS) and platforms that enable alternative credit, payments, and insurance, as well as those that support the post-K-12 educational market and the growing elder care market. Concurrently, he is a General Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, which he joined in 2007.
Growing up under two generations of self-made businessmen, Bryan’s work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit are deeply rooted in his youth. As a teen, he competitively raced motocross, taking on jobs delivering newspapers and making pizzas to support his racing passion. His early love of athletics has led him to view his role in venture capital as more of a coach or mentor to entrepreneurs who are embarking on a journey he’s also taken. When not at work, Bryan is a sports fan, cheering on his teams: the Texas Longhorns, Golden State Warriors, and San Francisco Giants.
A serial entrepreneur, Bryan, created more than $1 billion in realized liquidity for his investors as a founder. He oversaw the creation, go-to-market, and market growth of product and service offerings that have achieved more than $2 billion in revenues, and has raised more than $1 billion in venture, public market, and investment management capital.
As founder and CEO of Agile Software (formerly, NASDAQ: AGIL), Bryan led the creation of a new category now called product lifecycle management (PLM). He led the company through a public offering and secondary offering that raised over $500 million. He executed on almost two dozen private and public M&A transactions and steered a major strategy shift that led to the eventual acquisition of the company by Oracle.
Secret credentials are indispensable in the Internet-driven life. Text passwords/PINs are still the most used form of secret credentials. Biometrics is being promoted for authenticating the digital identity of the humans with text passwords/PIN as a fallback system. Text passwords seem insufficient but are not harmful.
Biometrics is insufficient and appears to be harmful in terms of data breach/stealing and spoofing. What can be a viable solution in this crisis situation?
Debesh Choudhury rejoins me on the Tech Talks Daly Podcast.
Debesh is a hardcore researcher and innovator with 24+ years of hands-on experience in defense research and information security. He also got 16+ years of experience in teaching electronics and communication engineering in the higher education arena.
Besides having a Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay,
India, he also enjoyed his two years postdoctoral stint at the
University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan. Debesh was fortunate to have collaborated with celebrated American Scientist late Prof. H. John Caulfield. In 2011, they invented a new direction “Artificial Color Perception using Microwaves.”
Debesh worked on 3D shape sensing and recognition for quite some time. His method paved down a way for 3D human face recognition. He also developed an asymmetric cryptosystem for privacy protected biometric security.
Since leakage of biometric databases can cause permanent damage to the citizens' privacy and security, and also biometrics is less reliable
than text passswords, Debesh and a group of researchers are proposing to have a sustainable digital identity platform using a non-text graphical password system.
Debesh has formed a LinkedIn group "Identity Crisis: The Future of
Password Security" to critically explore the field and find a
sustainable identity solution.
In an increasingly cashless world and online banking, where do parents begin to teach your children how to manage cash? Rather than telling young people what they should be doing when it comes to money, the team at gohenry is helping kids learn the ropes for themselves.
The upshot is that our product gives kids a safe space to learn and occasionally make mistakes: no debt, no overdrawn accounts, and with the option for parents to jump in and help out if needed.
Ultimately, they want every child to graduate from gohenry with confidence, independence, and money sense. Most importantly, they want them to be fully prepared for the digital economy and the rise of a cashless society. But what is it?
gohenry is a debit card (Mastercard) and app with unique parental controls for young people aged 6 to 18, which helps them learn good money habits and empowers them to earn, save, spend, and give safely and responsibly.
Launched in the UK in 2012 with a mission to help millions of kids be good with money, gohenry was the world's first financial education tool built for the digital generation. gohenry launched in the US in partnership with Mastercard in 2018.
Founded by parents, designed for kids and teens, gohenry offers a debit card and app with unique parental controls for kids aged 6-18. Parents use gohenry to help their children spend safely and learn good money habits, and it also helps to make allowance easy and to spark positive conversations about money with their kids.
Dean Brauer, Co-founder & Executive Vice President at gohenry joins me on the show to share the story behind the company. I learn how gohenry was grown by a small group of friends who wanted a simple, meaningful, and common-sense solution for kids' money management.
When Aman, Steve, and Jon first launched Toast as a consumer payments app for restaurants, they quickly found that they were blocked at every turn by tired, dated, legacy point of sale systems and that restaurants of all sizes were in search of a better solution. One that was easy to deploy could be accessed from anywhere, and intuitive to use.
In July of 2013, they launched Toast Point of Sale. Built on Android and based in the cloud, Toast was quickly embraced by the restaurant community in our hometown of Boston and grew quickly from there. Through word of mouth the growth of our community continued to accelerate.
In fact, to this day, 1 out of every 5 new restaurants on Toast comes as a referral from an existing customer. Today they remain passionately focused on serving our community of restaurateurs. I wanted to learn more about the story behind Toast and the evolution of restaurant tech as consumer preferences develop.
Steve Fredette is President and co-founder of Toast, where he leads product and innovation initiatives. Prior to Toast, he worked on mobile app development before the iPhone came out, creating the first Flickr and Shoebuy.com apps.
At Endeca, now Oracle, he co-founded their mobile commerce business, building the product team and driving sales, marketing, and services to over $10 million in revenue in two years. Today, we talk about the growth of voice ordering will impact restaurants in 2020. We also explore how technology up levels the customer experience in a restaurant setting.
The International Trademark Association (INTA) is a global association of brand owners and professionals dedicated to supporting trademarks and related intellectual property (IP) to foster consumer trust, economic growth, and innovation.
Members include more than 7,200 trademark owners, professionals, and academics from 191 countries, who benefit from the Association's global trademark resources, policy development, education and training, and international network.
I try to use this podcast to unite the tech and business community to share insights and overcome real-world challenges with technology. So, when I heard that the International Trademark Association had a unique podcast focusing on innovation and intellectual property that featured Audrey Dauvet as a host, I felt compelled to find out more.
I wanted to learn how Audrey uses the medium to give the floor to individuals with a 360-degree vision to help brand owners, IP lawyers, and marketing and finance professionals (and beyond!) stay curious and agile in an ever-evolving environment.
The host of Brand & New joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss the intersection of innovation and intellectual property, the impact of new technology on brand owners, intellectual property offices, and consumers. We also explore the ways she has and hoped to change her listeners' perceptions.
Audrey also built and implemented its anti-counterfeiting programs deployed in key markets around the world. She then became Vice President Legal, Compliance & Corporate Affairs for Pernod Ricard Americas, in New York.
d1g1t is an enterprise-level wealth management platform engineered to meet the needs of all firms providing investment advice, managing investment portfolio or selling wealth management products to individual investors and families.
d1g1t has already signed 11 clients responsible for managing approximately CAD$50 billion of assets under management (AUM). The company signed its first US client - BBR Partners - ranked #8 on Barrons’ Top 50 RIA Firms for 2019. The company is currently speaking with several large banks and building on its momentum to expand its footprint in the U.S.
The firm also recently announced a strategic partnership with CI Financial, an independent Canadian company offering global asset management and wealth management advisory services. As part of the agreement, CI will deploy the d1g1t technology platform across the firm’s advisory businesses and is making an equity investment in d1g1t equal to 9.5% of the company.
This builds upon their Series A financing which saw Purpose Financial, Extreme Venture Partners, Portag3, Illuminate Financial, angel investors and d1g1t clients invest over CAD$12M to fund the continued growth of its enterprise wealth management platform. I felt compelled to find out more about how d1g1t is transforming this space through technology.
An Internationally recognized Quant and Fintech entrepreneur, Dr. Dan Rosen is also an Adjunct Professor of Mathematical Finance at the University of Toronto, and was the first Director of the Center for Financial Institutions at the Fields Institute.
Dan has also worked with numerous financial institutions around the world, lectures extensively on risk and portfolio management, financial engineering, and Fintech innovation, and has authored numerous research publications and several patents.
In 2010, he was inducted a Fellow of the Fields Institute for his “outstanding contributions to the Fields Institute, its programs, and to the Canadian mathematical community”. Dan was the co-founder and CEO of R² Financial Technologies, acquired by S&P Capital IQ in 2012.
ABBYY is an innovator and leader in artificial intelligence (Al) technology including machine learning and natural language processing that helps organizations better understand and drive context and outcomes from their data.
The company sets a goal to grow and strengthen its leadership positions by satisfying the ever-increasing demand for AI-enabled products and solutions. Its technologies are used by thousands of enterprises in finance, insurance, transportation, healthcare and other industries, helping organizations make intelligent business decisions.
Research firm Cognilytica reported that between documents, images, emails, online data, and videos, up to 90% of the content in the enterprise is in the form of unstructured data, which is growing at an astounding 55%-65% per year.
At the recent ABBYY Content IQ Summit in Nashville, attendees learned about the use of A.I. to transform and process unstructured and structured data. This is extremely important because if you think about any customer-facing process, it consists of unstructured content.
ABBYY Chief Innovation Officer Anthony Macciola joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share how businesses are leveraging A.I. enabled skills to understand enterprise content and processes. Deloitte, KPMG and other companies will be there sharing their experiences using A.I. in their content.
We discuss the future of automation and the impact of robotic process automation (RPA), and how businesses are leveraging AI-enabled skills to understand enterprise content and processes to make intelligent business decisions.
For over 20 years ComplianceLine has been the premier provider of ethics and compliance solutions. ComplianceLine’s continuous improvement culture and pursuit of quality over short term profit affords clients the industry’s best tools in assisting the identification of unethical, illegal and questionable behavior.
The ComplianceLine team provides helpline and sanction screening services in 50,000 locations worldwide through highly trained, tenured, and caring compliance- minded professionals focused on improving the lives of our clients through excellent service. ComplianceLine clients include many of the largest healthcare and higher education organizations in the world.
Giovanni Gallo, Co-CEO of ComplianceLine, joins me on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast. We explore the use cases and how technology is transforming multiple industries. I also learn why these services are critical across industries from higher education to energy to finance and insurance.
Giovanni Gallo's career has included working in innovative startups and advising multinational companies on strategic growth initiatives. While guiding growth-oriented healthcare providers (home health, infusion, institutional pharmacy, and healthcare IT). This enabled him to understand the impact that compliance can have as a key driver of quality and key to helping organizations achieve their mission.
As Co-CEO and Chief Development Officer of ComplianceLine, Giovanni enjoys seeing people thrive in the workplace by developing solutions that enable compliance professionals to be more effective in their jobs so they can successfully protect their teams and meaningfully serve their missions.
Solve.Care is a global healthcare blockchain technology company. Using innovative approaches, they are working to solve the complex problems that plague healthcare around the world.
The Solve.Care journey began when they realized that the current healthcare system is failing us. Too complex and involving too much bureaucracy, the system is unbearable, even for the healthy. If you or a loved one becomes ill, then you unavoidably become mired in an endless cycle of attempting to coordinate medical care.
For these reasons, they began to build a patient-centric platform, one that actually connects people, and coordinates benefits, care, and payments. Since setting off on this journey, they have built a global community of tens of thousands and growing.
Today, the core Solve.Care team numbers over 100 full-time specialists, working worldwide, with hundreds more contractors and advisors. Solve.Care was also awarded the Most Innovative Blockchain Project Award at the Blockchain Life 2019 Forum in Singapore.
Solve.Care CEO Pradeep Goel is a healthcare executive with a relentless focus on improving the administration, coordination, quality, and efficiency of care. He is also armed with over 25 years of healthcare experience as CEO, COO, CIO and CTO in insurance, benefits administration and public programs.
Pradeep has been passionate about designing and building solutions for public programs, such as Medicaid, the Children Health Insurance Program, Medicare, SNAP/TANF, the Child Welfare Program, and other health insurance and health information exchanges.
In his time, he has built four healthcare IT companies and taken them to the top of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, INC500/5000 fastest-growing companies vlists multiple times. Pradeep is also in the rankings of the 100 Most Promising Entrepreneurs Worldwide, as compiled by Goldman Sachs.
I invited Pradeep onto this tech podcast to learn more about Solve Care and what motivated him to establish a decentralized healthcare platform built on blockchain technology.
As consumers, we have an insatiable desire for instant gratification. Any book, TV show, movie, or album that pops in your head can be on your device in seconds. You can grab a date on Tinder, meal on OpenTable, flight to Paris, hotel room all using the smartphone. But as a business, how can you meet these rising expectations?
Supply chain professionals are feeling the pressure of customer demands for faster, cost-effective, and more transparent delivery. On today's podcast, I want to explore the very real pressures that are preventing supply chain professionals from meeting the expectations and demands of today's consumers.
A recent study called the "Delivery Economy Uncovering Misalignment In the Supply Chain" by project44 revealed that 73% of supply chain professionals are pressured to improve and expand delivery capabilities, requiring improved collaboration across stakeholders. I felt it was a topic I had to learn more about.
project44 CEO Jett McCandless joins me on the podcast and shares how he has been creating a digital infrastructure to eliminate inefficiencies. As project44's founder and CEO, I also learn how he has seen the problems in the logistics and delivery space firsthand every day for 20 years.
project44 is the world's leading advanced visibility platform for shippers and logistics service providers. It also connects, automates, and provides visibility into key transportation processes to accelerate insights and shorten the time it takes to turn those insights into actions.
Jett reveals how customers are leveraging the power of the project44 cloud-based platform and increasing operational efficiencies, reducing costs, improving shipping performance, and delivering an exceptional Amazon-like experience to their customers.
Connected to thousands of carriers worldwide and having comprehensive coverage for all ELD and telematics devices on the market, project44 supports all transportation modes and shipping types, including Parcel, Final-Mile, Less-than-Truckload, Volume Less-than-Truckload, Truckload, Rail, Intermodal, and Ocean.
Sierra Wireless is the world's largest maker of wireless embedded modules and gateways and has shipped more than $150million devices worldwide. Sierra Wireless has helped thousands of companies connect millions of things and machines to the internet with customers ranging from energy to automotive to healthcare and enterprise.
Whether it is a solution to help a business securely connect edge devices to the cloud, or a software/API solution to help manage processes associated with billions of connected assets, or a platform to extract real-time data to make the best business decisions, Sierra Wireless works with their clients to create the right industry-specific solution for their next IoT endeavor.
Marc Overton is responsible for Sierra Wireless Solutions and Services and joins me on today's episode of The Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Marc joined Sierra Wireless in 2017 from Cisco Jasper, where he was Managing Director, Global Innovation and Sales for the Cisco IoT business.
Prior to this role, he was Head of Global Operator Strategy & Business Development at Cisco Jasper. Before joining Cisco Jasper, Marc was SVP and Co-GM, EMEA for First Data, where he launched connected payment solutions, and VP of Wholesale and IoT at EE, where he ran the MVNO business, which included 27 mobile partners hosting more than 6.5 million subscribers and generating 2.5 million IoT connections.
Earlier in his career, Marc held senior positions at Orange, as well as Hutchison 3G UK, Europe's first 3G mobile operator. Marc earned his undergraduate degree in Politics from the University of Exeter, an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge, and a Master of Business Administration from Henley Management College.
In the age of AI, cloud computing, big data, analytics and mobile, anything seems possible. But creating real value fast means having the courage to act on the big ideas, and it means having the ability to rapidly and reliably build high-quality software that translates vision into reality. You bring the former. Originate the software development partner brings the latter.
“To us, success in innovation is never about having great ideas -- those are common. It’s about executing on those ideas in a way that compels people to avail themselves of that innovation. To do that, we must infuse design into every aspect of our business, from engineering to operations, and we’re thrilled to have Mirco lead us in this effort.” Brent Cohen, CEO of Originate.
The concept-to-launch innovation firm is behind some of the most meaningful digital transformations for both blue-chip firms and startups. But when I learned that the company has brought on renowned designer Mirco Pasqualini as its Global Head of Design, I felt compelled to invite him onto the show.
Mirco brings 25 years of experience leading a wide variety of clients in their design journeys. Most recently, he was Head of Design at Ogilvy for 6 years. He’s also held positions with R/GW and Arc Worldwide, and published a book in 2018, Agencies & Brands in the Experience Economy.
I learn more about how Originate designs and builds bespoke digital products to solve complex problems for the world’s most recognizable legacy brands and leading startups. As the technology industry's secret weapon for innovation, we also discuss how Originate guides organizations in future-proofing their businesses by turning disruptive ideas into real-world opportunities.
Women are taught at a young age to be alert and aware in the real world, but now are learning to be more concerned with the data they are sharing online too. With women-centric apps including period and pregnancy trackers sharing sensitive data with Facebook or even employers, it is no surprise that women are concerned with their data privacy.
In fact, according to a recent IBM survey conducted by The Harris Poll, 83% of women feel it's important to be able to opt-out of having their data shared with third parties, while only 69% of males say the same. Other interesting highlights from the report
- 82% of females say it's important companies use encryption and identity theft protection security measures; 72% of males say the same
- 77% of female say it's important to have the ability to fully take back or retrieve personal data; 68% of males say the same
- 88% of females are concerned that their pictures shared on social media are compromised; 70% of males say the same
- 95% of females are concerned that their medical history is compromised; 86% of males say the same
I invited IBM's CTO of Data Privacy. Cindy Compert onto the podcast to discuss the survey. We also discuss why consumer apps should be focusing on women's concerns over data privacy.
Cindy is a technical visionary driven by wanting to make a difference around the world, advancing the health, safety, and well-being of others. She believes that Data Security and Privacy are key enablers to realizing the benefits of the digital and Cognitive enterprise.
Cindy is also an active member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), a Certified Information Privacy Manager/Certified Information Privacy Technologist, and co-author of “Information Governance Principles and Practices for a Big Data Landscape”.
Report Details
Harris Poll: www.ibm.biz/harrisprivacy2019
IBM Institute for Business Value, "Build Your Trust Advantage" study: www.ibm.biz/buildtrust
ExpressVPN recently revealed that 60% of Brits still feel unprepared for Brexit in its "Brexit: Consumer Digital Readiness Report." The study looks at the digital impacts of Brexit — including online shopping, access to content and data protection — and consumers' understanding of these issues.
It also reveals that most British do not fully comprehend the implications of Brexit, and 62% think that Facebook bears some responsibility for the outcomes of Brexit.
"There's a lot of discussion about Brexit, but what's missing is conversations around the potential digital impacts," said Harold Li, vice president, ExpressVPN. "With digital technology impacting almost every aspect of consumers' daily lives, it is no wonder that many, especially Millennials, are concerned about Brexit's impacts on their digital habits."
Millennials have also consistently had the most concerns across all three digital impacts of Brexit: online shopping, accessing content, and data protection. Millennials are also almost twice as likely to be worried about the digital implications of Brexit, with more than 80% of Millennials sharing concerns.
Interestingly, Baby Boomers have consistently ranked the lowest when it comes to awareness of the potential digital impacts of Brexit across all topics. Yet, they also claim to be the most prepared for Brexit, as compared to other age groups. 65% of Baby Boomers said they do not understand the full implications of Brexit, but 52% said they feel personally prepared for Brexit.
The study was conducted by Propeller Insights on behalf of ExpressVPN. It was done in September 2019, with more than 1000 consumers in the UK, ages 18+. All survey responses were nationally represented to the UK population for age, gender, ethnicity, and region. See the overall raw data here, and the age breakdown of data here.
Harold Li joins me on my daily tech podcast to reveal more insights from the report and talk about the road ahead for ExpressVPN
The insurance industry is a 5 trillion dollar market worldwide that is highly digitizable. With a data-driven business model, a company called Getsafe sees itself as a technology company active in the insurance industry - not the other way around.
The company based in Heidelberg, Germany, is using technology and artificial intelligence to help people identify, organize and protect what they care most about in life: With a few clicks, customers can learn about, buy, and manage insurance on their smartphone – simple, social and fair by design.
Using a radical mobile-first approach, Getsafe has already achieved app usage rates four times higher than those of direct digital competitors: 35% of customers return to the app every month. Smart algorithms helps to identify insurance fraudsters at an early stage and to objectively design the insurance process for customers again.
Together with partners such as Munich Re and venture capital investors such as Earlybird, Getsafe is building one of the world's leading digital insurers. The company was founded in 2015 by Christian Wiens (CEO) and Marius Blaesing (CTO). I invited Marius on the show to learn more about the story behind GetSafe.
As the CTO and Co-founder of Getsafe technology and prototyping are what gets Marius fired up. I learn more about the digital insurance provider that is becoming the market leader for millennials in Germany and about to expand throughout Europe.
Spacemesh is a fairly-mined programmable cryptocurrency platform powered by a novel proof-of-space-time (PoST) consensus protocol which is provenly secure, proof-of-work free, race-free, and highly incentive-compatible.
The platform is designed to achieve three main objectives; to create a fair cryptocurrency that will become a global means of payment; to ensure the fair distribution of that cryptocurrency; and to establish a global programmable infrastructure for tokenized apps, communities and economies.
Spacemesh is created, maintained, and secured by ordinary people from around the world who run the software on their existing desktop computers. Anyone can join the decentralized Spacemesh blockchain computer without requiring permission, simply by committing some of the free space on their hard-drives. Running energy-density proof-of-work (PoW) computations or buying a dedicated expensive mining hardware is not required.
I wanted to find out more about how it is resistant to Application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and has fewer barriers-to-entry than proof-of-stake (PoS) based blockchains. I also wanted to learn more about its vision to become the core Internet protocol for blockchain computation and is fully open-sourced.
Spacemesh co-founder Aviv Eyal joins me on the show to talk about the road ahead for the company. I learn how this entrepreneur and technologist has a passion for building consumer digital products and services that are useful, innovative, easy to use, and have a great user experience.
Aviv is also a universalist software designer that has a track-record building high-quality full-stack systems, native apps, server, and backend stacks all the way from conception, design, project management to production, and users growth with small teams and limited resources.
Over the years, he has been serving mainly in Co-Founder/CTO roles in innovative startups, where he always makes hands-on product and technology contributions while also driving the higher-level strategic technology decisions, team building, and growth, and IP.
Virtual Instruments recently evolved into Virtana and continues to deliver the industry's only real-time monitoring and AIOps platform for mission-critical IT infrastructure — from the data center to the public cloud.
Virtana is the result of products and technologies from several different companies coming together: Virtual Instruments, Load Dynamix, Xangati and most recently Metricly and Netuitive. The combination of these entities has allowed us to become a leading provider of hybrid infrastructure monitoring, analytics and automation solutions.
John Gentry, Chief Technology Officer and SVP Business Development at Virtana returns to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share his unique perspective on the latest buzz-worthy technology: AI-assisted IT operations, also known as AIOps.
Much like the hype cycle we experienced with the cloud a few years back, we're now moving past the buzzword phase and into the reality of meaningful "smart technology" initiatives such as AIOps. John has witnessed that people are slowly but surely understanding that this technology may not be the 'easy button' they initially thought it was, but he can also speak to the value of true AIOps for helping companies maintain their extremely complex IT systems, thus resolving IT issues before a single customer is impacted.
John also talks about the rebranding of the company and their mission to provide unprecedented visibility into the performance, health, and utilization of hybrid IT infrastructure — empowering their customers to guarantee the performance and availability of their mission-critical applications and proactively prevent application slowdowns and outages.
Conga is the leader in end-to-end Digital Document Transformation (DDX). The Conga Digital Document Transformation Suite drives segment-leading ROI by simplifying and automating intelligent data, documents, contracts, signing and reporting.
In a nutshell, the company has a reputation for automating business productivity through end-to-end Digital Document Transformation. Conga recently made two announcements that captured my attention in the tech headlines. The first is a recent study with Vanson Bourne that found that the key to unlocking the potential of digital transformation is something organizations spend countless hours in every day, but may easily overlook: documents.
In fact, documents are so imperative to a business’ success that according to the research, 89% of organizations say the key to successful digital transformation is getting a grip on their everyday documents.
Conga also recently announced an integration with Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud to help manufacturing companies better their sales processes and achieve greater visibility in the contract process – a key step in successful digital transformation.
Daniel Incandela is CMO at Conga and a former guest which officially makes him a friend of the show. I invited him back onto this daily tech podcast for a much-needed catch-up. A creative, strategic thinker, Daniel has more than 15 years of digital and marketing industry leadership experience.
Daniel has led creative teams across myriad industries including the arts, sports and entertainment, sales, cloud, and marketing automation, which has earned him industry awards and a designation on the prestigious Indianapolis Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 list.
Daniel also previously served as CMO at Return Path, and held leadership roles at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, ExactTarget, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
Kula Partners is an agency that helps B2B manufacturers digitally engage buyers, serve customers, and outsource their competition online and Synchrostack enables organizations using WooCommerce to integrate their online store to any other system in their business.
I wanted to learn more about how Kula Partners is committed to helping B2B manufacturers craft digital experiences that transform how they engage buyers, serve customers, and outpace their competition online. So I invited them onto the show and they happily obliged.
Jeff White, the co-founder of Kula Partners and developer of Synchrostack and he joins me on the show today. Jeff is a cool Canadian who provides real-world examples of how technology is transforming businesses and reshaping industries, especially in the international manufacturing sector.
A User Experience (UX) and usability expert, Jeff began building sites for the web over 25 years ago. He leads the design and development practice at Kula Partners, Canada’s first Platinum HubSpot Partner agency. A number of years ago, Jeff returned to NSCAD University as a sessional professor, bringing his understanding of web standards to a new generation of design students.
Jeff is also a passionate advocate for usability and an open web that is accessible to everyone, Jeff frequently speaks on web design, usability, accessibility, marketing and sales at events such as HubSpot’s Inbound conference. He is also the co-host of The Kula Ring, a weekly podcast that focuses on talking technology, marketing and sales with some of the most interesting minds in manufacturing marketing.
However, in today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily podcast, Jeff shares how he leverages technology with his manufacturing clients and how he helps them overcome challenges with emerging technology.
Imagine you're surfing the web to read about the latest round of political debates, catch the score from last night's football game, or even make a simple online purchase -- all pretty common mobile activities. Would you expect any of the websites you visit to inject malicious code or malware on your device? Probably not. Well, it turns out you might want to think again, as sites that appear to be "good" may not be as safe as you think.
Nearly half of the internet's most popular websites are deemed "risky," according to Menlo Security's 2018 State of the Web Report. Even more troubling, at least 42% of the sites have used server software known to be vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks, had distributed malware or even launched attacks at some point in the past, or had suffered a security breach within the past 12 months.
I invited Kowsik Guruswamy, CTO at Menlo Security, to discuss known critical issues with popular websites and the potential impact for users? Kowsik also sheds light on how 10% of "good" websites are actually bad, how the web browser, or other site functionalities, serve as one of the primary conduits for delivering malware, and what can be done to easily defend against these issues.
Kowsik also considers himself as an entrepreneur, polyglot hacker, app tinkerer, DevOps dude, cloud whisperer, startup advisor, speaker, and a blogger/writer. With a diverse hands-on experience in product development and vision, including gaming, network & application security, performance, NoSQL, cloud, DevOps and polyglot frameworks.
I learn how he also has a unique perspective on connecting unrelated dots together in unique ways. A passionate, lead-by-example kind of CTO that can inspire a team to do amazing things.
After seeing Sanja Kon at Magento Live in Amsterdam talking about the future of online payments, and the role of UTRUST in that future, I invited her onto my daily tech podcast. Thankfully, she said yes.
At UTRUST, they believe digital currencies are the money of tomorrow. Utrust helps merchants easily accept digital currencies for goods and allows buyers to pay with them. One merchant at a time, they are revolutionizing how payments happen. For merchants, reaching a growing base of customers using digital currencies is easy: online or off.
In a recent conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk about how emerging technologies such as blockchain will affect businesses, he advised, "Anybody in the middle, from the person that makes the product to the person that consumes the product, is vulnerable. Technology is coming after you, and if you're in the middle, you need to pay attention to that statement."
Crypto cuts out the middleman, and lets merchants keep more of their profit margin. Getting an edge on the competition is easy with their ready-to-be integrated API & plugins for major e-commerce platforms - and with the ability for our dev team to tailor it to your business.
The Utrust platform went live in 2019 when football club S.L. Benfica came on board as the first merchant and the first major European football club to accept cryptocurrency. Utrust has since added Phone House Portugal to its growing list of merchants.
Sanja Kon is a senior digital executive with more than ten years and has previously worked at eBay and Pay Pal. She is also a TEDx speaker and leadership coach. Sanja shares her vast experience in developing and executing global digital strategy, delivering sustainable revenue growth in multinationals within the E-Commerce, Fintech and telecommunication industries.
As the V.P. of Global Partnerships at UTRUST, Sanja's primary focus is to partner with key international players to improve the accessibility of digital assets and increase cryptocurrency merchant adoption.
Virgil Wong is the global practice head of DX/Creative at HGS Digital, a digital transformation company. He is also co-founder of Medical Avatar LLC, a digital health company creating time travel simulations to improve healthcare delivery, reduce health care costs, and improve outcomes.
HGS Digital has built a reputation for helping enterprises create simple, frictionless digital experiences that solve complex problems. They help businesses increase revenue, engage customers, optimize operations, and improve people's lives. The company also provides the strategy, design, and technology needed to successfully become a digital innovator in your industry.
A recent Adobe report found that a majority of CMOs (64%) are making customer experience (CX) and digital transformation a priority. Implementing the right digital strategy is more important than ever. I invited Virgil onto my daily tech podcast to talks about the emerging/2020 trends in digital customer experience and digital marketing.
While "digital transformation" has become a buzzword, I learn how HGS Digital makes it happen with technology-agnostic, high-end digital strategy and solutions that create frictionless customer experiences and solve complex business problems such as:
- Converting more online shoppers to buyers
- Growing CPG brands' direct to consumer sales platforms
- Helping the largest healthcare insurance companies innovate CX
- Automating and simplifying online travel bookings
Helping Fortune 100 companies, such as McDonald's, build positive online reputations
Virgil talks about all this and much more on today's episode. After listening, please share your thoughts, expertise, and insights by contacting me.
Zapevo is a data-driven platform for luxury goods (new & pre owned) and services, empowering customers with an AI driven valuation tool. The help company enables customers to enjoy a high value shopping experience, without overpaying for their goods.
A unique feature is its value prediction model, based on Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning algorithms. But I wanted to learn more about the human story behind the Vietnamese startup scene.
Ari Pham is the founder of WatchSignals. Her tech startup is bringing transparency in the niche market of pre-owned luxury watches. WatchSignals is a meta-search and comparison platform to enhance the shopping experience of watch collectors, buyers, investors with price analysis and prediction of luxury watches with the help of A.I. and Machine Learning
AI in financial services is a growing trend. With AI, FinServ companies are increasingly able to ingest and analyze data from a variety of channels in a timely and accurate manner - dramatically impacting on customer experience, acquisition, and retention.
North Carolina-based Stratifyd is a technology company providing an end-to-end AI-powered customer analytics platform to companies worldwide. The platform utilizes unsupervised machine learning, natural language understanding, topic modelling, predictive intelligence, sentiment analysis, and more to help solve the unique problems enterprises face.
Stratifyd is already deployed by blue-chip companies in sectors spanning CPG, automotive, pharma, insurance, and Fortune 500 financial services companies. The Stratifyd’s platform enables companies to efficiently tailor marketing efforts, increase customer retention, improve products and services, and boost revenue based on the timely and accurate analysis of unstructured data.
The platform’s sophisticated AI-powered engine is also able to ingest complex data feeds and rapidly deliver real value in the form of actionable insights – all delivered via an easy to use interface which requires no prior knowledge of natural language processing or analytics by the end-user.
The Firm also recently closed a $25 million Series B investment led by Georgian Partners who are investors in growth-stage SaaS-based business software companies that harness applied artificial intelligence, conversational AI, and trust – along with participation from previous investors.
Derek Wang, Co-founder and CEO, Stratifyd, joins me on my daily tech podcast to share the human story behind the tech company. He grew up in Beijing and received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Shortly after, he – along with the company’s two other co-founders – began conducting government-funded research on the ways AI could be used to ingest, analyze, and visualize unstructured data.
During this period, Derek found strong use cases while working with Bank of America, Microsoft, and Motorola Solutions. This post-doctorate work was the foundation on which Stratifyd was built. Under Derek’s leadership, Stratifyd is recognized as an innovator and global force in the customer analytics industry. As the company continues to grow, Derek is looking towards the future.
I learn how he is currently focusing on Stratifyd’s vision to take data and AI democratization to the next level.
Founded in 2015, CodeSignal is the first company to develop an objective automated skills-based assessment platform that can be used as a standard for technical recruiters and employers. The company is now helping big organizations like P&G, Robinhood, Lenovo, and Uber make smarter hiring decisions for their technical hires.
The CodeSignal's Machine Learning algorithm has analyzed terabytes of skill assessment data to develop the Coding Score, which is a predictor of a developer's coding and problem-solving ability, and technical interview performance.
"Amazing things happen when a group of incredibly smart people work in unison to change the world. As a leader, your job is to create that environment." Tigran Sloyan Chief Executive Officer
Here in 2019, more than 50% of software engineers are self-taught. So if a top programmer didn't attend an elite university, how can they prove their chops to potential employers? In the current state, technical hiring and testing during the interview process has been called a "bloodbath," and often leads to mis-hires or missed hires because what is being tested isn't actually realistic or relevant to the job at hand.
I invited Tigran Sloyan back on to my daily tech podcast to learn more about the Certify solution. We discuss how it allows recruiters to make data-driven hiring decisions based on the skills that candidates show through real-world coding assessments.
We also discuss how it streamlines the technical recruitment pipeline to help HR professionals move away from a reliance on traditional resumes. But also how tech can reduce subconscious gender, racial, educational, and socioeconomic bias in hiring.
Edgewise makes an automatic microsegmentation solution that enables enterprises to create zero-trust environments. Zero trust and microsegmentation are hot topics in the information security landscape at the moment, with Gartner recently listed it as a top security priority, second only to better network hygiene.
Edgewise founder and CEO Peter Smith joins me on my daily tech podcast to share his expertise and insights. The serial entrepreneur built and deployed Harvard University’s first NAC system before it became a security category.
Peter brings a security practitioner’s perspective to Edgewise with more than ten years of expertise as an infrastructure and security architect of data centers and customer-hosting environments for Harvard University, Endeca Technologies (Oracle), American Express, Fidelity UK, Bank of America, and Nike. Most recently, Peter was on the founding team at Infinio Systems where he led product and technology strategy.
Historically, attempts at microsegmentation have been long, complicated and expensive, taking up to a year to complete. Once “done,” it’s never finished - as applications and data stores get moved around, they leave a vulnerability until the policy is updated. And with the dynamic nature of the cloud where things change daily, simply repurposing firewalls (the current approach) is not adequate or efficient.
I learn how Edgewise brings a unique approach to creating zero trust. First, machine learning maps the network and eliminates non-critical pathways, reducing the attack surface. Then, with a single click, it microsegments the network.
Edgewise’s innovation is to tie policies to the applications themselves, versus the underlying IP address. Peter explains zero trust and microsegmentation in a language that everyone understands. We also discuss why current methods are outdated and cannot support the dynamic nature of clouds and containers.
Jason Davis is co-founder and CEO of Simon Data. Simon Data is a customer data platform (CDP) that provides enterprise marketers at brands including Blue Apron, Venmo, Equinox, and Peloton with live and personalized data to monitor purchasing trends and predict customer behavior.
These transformative brands are part of the fuel behind Simon's success recently marked with a fast follow $25M Series C funding round. On today's podcast, Jason discusses the state of the CX today – where it fails us, how CDPs are delivering on the promise of Big Data and Business Intelligence solutions.
You know you're an established industry when you're drowning in complexity, with Frankenstack at the center. As Simon Data works as a standalone and also plays nice in the CDP sandbox with everyone, Jason shares the advice he gives customers around when they can get more value out of their Frankenstack and when it's time to rip and replace.
I also learn how Simon Data his helping brands across industries achieve a unified customer view. Jason talks about what's ahead in 2020. On the subject of customer data privacy, we also discuss if CDPs will get to a place where we're not just okay for data to be shared.
On a more personal note, Jason holds a Ph.D. in Machine Learning and is responsible for some of the IT infrastructure powering Etsy. I ask Jason what it's like to give up Google and academia to bootstrap a startup.
Large concert venues and sporting arenas have the problem of trying to serve 14,000 people during an interval. But is there a solution to the long lines of people wanting food, drink, and merchandise? Billfold prides itself on being cashless POS for the event industry that actually works.
The simple checkout process increases onsite sales from 20-40%. Fast and easy implementation - Staff love it: easy to use, no cash, no change, and no bank cards. They do it by streamlining event operations and changing guests' spending behaviors.
Billfold is a wireless point-of-sale system that delivers RFID technology to on-premise payments at large-scale events and venues and helps boost customer spending. Patrons use Billfold's self-serve kiosks to activate RFID wristbands onsite and create a secure connection to their credit cards in less than 30 seconds.
Alternatively, if the wristbands are mailed out prior to the event, guests can activate them on their computer or phone directly through the event website. Once the wristband has been activated, patrons don't need to return to the kiosks to add more credit. Instead, they enjoy easy and secure transactions in fast-moving lines to purchase beverages, food, merch, and instant ticket upgrades.
Event operators receive real-time sales data sorted by individual staff, bar or vendor, helping them respond better to the needs and preferences of their customers. In addition to the extensive reporting features, event organizers can use Customer Journey Reports to engage with attendees based on their purchase history.
Billfold POS is a collaborative project built by event operators Stas Chijik and Benjamin Roshia, and a highly qualified development and design team under Albert Akbashev's direction. Chijik and Roshia have years of experience in large-scale event operations and live music productions in addition to their owner-operator history with The Brooklyn Mirage/Avant Gardner.
Stas Chijik joins me on my daily tech podcast to share how Billfold provides full deployment support and consumer insights so that their partners can focus on producing great events and experiences for their guests. But most importantly of all make it easier for attendees to grab food and drink without waiting in line.
Formed in 2010, Bleeding Bulb is a strategic digital development shop that fell in love with small businesses. It was a match made in heaven. What caught their eye was the need for growth and services that were, at the time, unaffordable for smaller firms. Everyone likes to root for the underdog, right?
One of the things they found interesting about small businesses is that they are waiting to blossom into their own, like teenagers finding their way. Searching for purpose and identity. Full of potential, but needing a little guidance to find the right path.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. But Bleeding Bulb wants to be a part of your tribe, and they don't care how corny that sounds. Frank Goodman, the founder of Bleeding Bulb, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his inspirational startup story.
Frank reveals how Bleeding Bulb is on a mission to make the small business owners more productive while keeping their overall business costs low. Frank also shares why he believes that a company's core values contribute to its success. But it's Frank's personal story that steals the show.
The serial entrepreneur from Washington, D.C. helps small businesses lower overhead, leverage more online visibility and increases sales, dedicated to raising the small business success rate through growth strategies, websites, and apps.
Frank's journey saw him progress from a trouble-making D student to an accomplished Engineer and business owner who was also named on the 2018 Black Enterprise Modern Man 100 list. But after talking with Frank today, I get the impression that he is just getting started,
Mary L. Gray is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and Faculty Affiliate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.
Using the tools of anthropology and critical media studies, Mary explored how material conditions and everyday uses of technologies transform people's lives, particularly in places where technological access is hard to come by.
I invited Mary onto the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to talk about her book "Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass," which she co-authored with computer scientist Siddharth Suri. In the book she explores the lives of people paid to train artificial intelligence and, increasingly, serve as "humans in the loop" delivering on-demand services.
Hidden beneath the surface of the web, lost in our wrong-headed debates about AI, a new menace is looming. I learn how services delivered by companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast, invisible human labor force.
These people doing "ghost work" make the internet seem smart. They perform high-tech piecework: flagging X-rated content, proofreading, designing engine parts, and much more. An estimated 8 percent of Americans have worked at least once in this "ghost economy," and that number is growing. They usually earn less than legal minimums for traditional work, they have no health benefits, and they can be fired at any time for any reason, or none.
There are no labor laws to govern this kind of work, and these latter-day assembly lines draw in--and all too often overwork and underpay--a surprisingly diverse range of workers: harried young mothers, professionals forced into early retirement, recent grads who can't get a toehold on the traditional employment ladder, and minorities shut out of the jobs they want.
BarBend is the leading online source for strength sports news coverage, analysis, and opinion pieces. But did you know that the founder grew two very different online brands to more than 1 million online visitors a month each? On today's podcast, I wanted to find out more about the inspiring tech story behind the building of this niche community.
David Tao joins me on my daily tech podcast and talks about how to scale and grow your site to one that partners with major household names and why niche content is key to all your marketing efforts. I also learn how BarBend grew from a small content site to one that is now the official media partner of USA Weightlifting that raised $825,000 in seed funding.
BarBend's Co-Founder and Editorial Director, David Tao, is a veteran of the health & fitness industry, with nearly a decade of experience building and running editorial teams in the space. He also serves as a color commentator for both National and International weightlifting competitions, many through USA Weightlifting.
David graduated from Harvard University and served for several years as Editorial Director/Chief Content Officer of Greatist.com. In addition to his work in the health & fitness industry, David has been a writer for Fortune and Fortune.com, as well as a contributor to Forbes.com, Slate, and numerous other outlets across the web and in print.
Today's guest is especially passionate about the intersection of strength sports and quality, professional media coverage — overlapping interests shared by the BarBend editorial team and which drive their content strategy each and every day.
David is a proud Kentucky native. In his free time, David is a voiceover actor and can be heard in animated films, independent shorts, music videos, commercials, and podcasts.
Regular listeners will remember that I spoke with MOBI co-founder Josh Garrett several times on this tech podcast before Tangoe acquired them at the end of last year. Tangoe provided traditional telecom expense management while MOBI offered managed mobility services. Together they now offer Tangoe Fixed, Tangoe Mobile, and the just-launched Tangoe Cloud.
Tangoe provides Enterprise Technology Management solutions to the world’s biggest brands, helping them streamline complex technology environments — for fixed, mobile and cloud. Tangoe helps companies like Chevron Corporation, Northern Trust and UPS save more than $100 million in IT spend each year.
Through one complete solution, the Tangoe Platform gives IT and Finance departments a centralized view of their enterprise technology programs, expenses and asset management. The Tangoe Platform includes Telecom Expense Management (TEM), Managed Mobility Services (MMS), and Cloud Expense Management (CEM) solutions.
I invited Josh back on to the podcast to learn more about how they are helping businesses identify everyday opportunities to improve their mobile workforce productivity. We also discuss how they are using tech to help add value to existing management processes and policies.
LastPass by LogMeIn recently released its 3rd annual Global Password Security Report which covers password use in the workplace. The report dives into password hygiene findings from 47,000 organizations worldwide, including the use of security measures like multifactor authentication and single sign-on.
This report comes on the heels of the FBI’s revelation that attacks on 2FA are increasing, with secondary tokens or one-time codes lacking the security provided by a more robust MFA solution. LastPass can speak to why a multi-layered approach is necessary for true online security.
Highlights from the report include unsurprising news that password sharing and reuse remains a common practice in most businesses and employees reuse a password an average of 13 times. But multifactor authentication (MFA) use is on the rise with more than half of companies globally (57%) now have employees using MFA, up 12 percentage points from last year’s report.
The password struggle is real, especially for employees at small businesses – Employees at small businesses have an average of 85 passwords to manage compared to 25 passwords for those at the largest companies. Employees at small businesses reuse 10-14 passwords compared to just four among employees at larger organizations.
Yaser Masoudnia, Senior Director Product Management, Identity Access Management, at LogMeIn shares insights from the LastPass Global Password Security Report 2019.
Itron, is a publicly-traded smart technology company enabling utilities and cities to safely, securely, and reliably deliver critical infrastructure services to communities in more than 100 countries. The company also recently completed its inaugural Smart City Challenge. The competition brought together the cities of London and Glasgow and tech startups to solve difficult city challenges.
Itai Dadon, director of smart cities and IoT at Itron advised, “The inaugural Itron Smart City Challenge shows how we are applying technology for a purpose. While these solutions were purpose-built to address specific needs defined by the sponsoring cities, river safety and noise pollution are common concerns for cities worldwide. We invite cities from around the world to collaborate with Itron to launch the next set of open innovation challenges.”
Itai Dadon, Itron’s director of smart cities and IoT joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about the company’s work with London and Glasgow. We also talk about the innovators who participated in the challenge.
I learn how The Smart City Challenge showcased how Itron is enabling cities and technology innovators to work together to solve problems and improve citizen wellbeing. Using Itron’s standards-based developer tools, the winning companies created integrated IoT solutions that leverage Itron’s IoT networks in the Cities of Glasgow and London.
Mike Vesey has founded companies providing transformative solutions for the global enterprise. He has developed award-winning products in unified communications, service operations, security, and data management.
Mike co-founded DBVisions Inc producing enterprise-grade content management and security platform that was later acquired by a leading CMS provider.
Mike went on to found VCI Inc with a focus on identity and security integration for global organizations. VCI developed the enterprise Single Sign On solution for Microsoft Live Meeting. VCI was the exclusive Microsoft integration partner for deployment of Live Meeting into complex, global enterprise environments.
VCI has supported and maintained complex identity management integrations with some of the world's largest organizations. This success led Mike to design IdRamp, a decentralized integration fabric focused on automating identity security and application interoperability.
IdRamp is a decentralized identity service to simplify integration, improve security and continuously innovate your business. With IdRamp you can easily integrate and orchestrate multiple identity silos. Tailor authentication and access control policies according to your business strategy.
Add decentralized self-sovereign identity to any business strategy. Through distributed authentication, IdRamp secures the identity threat surface by eliminating the need for public network-facing identity and access management systems.
I invited Mike onto the podcast to learn more about his tech startup story and IdRamp. I also learn more about how IdRamp is providing adaptable digital bridges that interoperate across all generations of identity management.
Ekata provides global identity verification solutions via enterprise-grade APIs for automated decisioning, and Pro Insight, a SaaS solution for manual review for cross-border businesses to grow revenue by maximizing their predictability of good transactions.
The product suite is powered by the Ekata Identity Engine (EIE), the first and only cross-border identity verification engine of its kind. It uses complex machine learning algorithms across the five core consumer attributes of email, phone, name (person or business), physical address, and IP, to derive unique links and features from billions of real-time transactions within Ekata’s proprietary network and the data licensed from a broad spectrum of global providers.
Ajay Andrews, VP of Product, joins me on my daily tech podcast. We discuss how businesses, such as Alipay, Stripe, Airbnb, and Microsoft, rely on Ekata’s solutions to approve more good transactions, reduce friction, and find fraud.
Ajay talks about the current identity verification landscape and how the market is projected to reach $20 billion by 2020. We also discuss the key steps organizations can take to build customer trust and smooth online customer experience.
Ajay leads the product management and data science teams at Ekata, and has 10+ years of experience working in consumer finance, payments, e-commerce, productivity apps, and identity/fraud in both Asia and the US. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.
As the holiday season approaches, do you dread receiving gifts that you don't want or need? Seasonal socks, soap sets, and toilet joke books? I wanted to explore how tech is changing our gift-giving culture and why crowd gifting apps offer the perfect solution to such problems.
Yiannis A Fafalios, co-founder of WhatWeWant shares the difficulties that he faced with gift-giving. I l learn why he built a tech solution that would make the process simpler and inherently less stressful. He also talks about what it's like to launch a tech startup/ build an app with his immediate family.
The team at WhatWeWant also recently surveyed over 2,000 UK consumers to uncover how many Brits receive unwanted gifts and what they do with them, and found that 53% of UK consumers have received an unwanted gift over the past 12 months and as a result, 43% of the recipients have admitted to regifting their unwanted presents.
20% revealed they have thrown away ill-fated presents without using them and 43% have one or more gifts they have never opened or used sitting in their house. Meanwhile, evidence suggests that the gift-giving process is unpleasant for both parties:
WhatWeWant app enables gift givers to share the cost of gifts with family and friends. It allows users to create a gift for an upcoming event for themselves, or for someone. The app notifies your friends and family so they can contribute towards your gift; and you can send a link to your gift to your family, friends, co-workers and anyone else who might want to contribute too.
The money is saved in a secure account until the price of the gift is reached. Once you’ve raised enough, the money can be withdrawn so you can go ahead and buy what you want.
Since 2001, the Denim Group have been helping their clients create resilient software that can be deployed to withstand attacks. They do this across the portfolio of software that clients have, and also do it at scale across the enterprise.
I wanted to learn more about how their software development background helps them bridge the gap between security and software development, which enables their clients to build more secure software faster. Dan Cornell joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about all this and much more.
A globally recognized application security expert, Dan Cornell holds over 15 years of experience architecting, developing, and securing web-based software systems. As the Chief Technology Officer and a Principal at Denim Group, Ltd., he leads the technology team to help Fortune 500 companies and government organizations integrate security throughout the development process.
Cornell is a sought-after speaker on topics of web application security, speaking at international conferences including the RSA Security Conference, OWASP AppSec USA and EU, and Black Hat Arsenal. He has also appeared as a guest speaker at institutions such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has published papers on topics ranging from data security to high-end graphical simulations, as well as an IBM Redbook on building server-side Java applications for the Linux platform.
Today's guest is also a recognized expert in the area of web application security for SearchSoftwareQuality.com and has been quoted as an expert in SC Magazine, Network World, CSO Magazine, Dark Reading, and many more.
Today's guest is Akshay Bhargava, SVP at Malwarebytes, the $200M (US)/a year privately held cybersecurity company. Malwarebytes proactively has built its reputation on protecting people and businesses against dangerous threats such as malware, ransomware, and exploits that escape detection by traditional antivirus solutions.
Malwarebytes protects more than 60,000 businesses and millions of people worldwide, using AI and machine learning to catch new threats rapidly. Akshay is one of Silicon Valley's most prominent experts on cybersecurity and related issues facing the world, and believes that computer security is an individual right.
Under his leadership, Malwarebytes has created software based on anomaly detection and behavior matching that exceeds conventional antivirus programs to trip up hackers and block ransomware. We talk about the most significant threats in cybersecurity facing organizations today. But we also look at the risks that the average person needs to be concerned about.
While Akshay works in a highly stressful field, he is one of the calmest and most focused people you'll meet. He credits daily yoga and meditation. He says anyone can do it and, "Regular practice can make a profound impact on one's mental, cognitive, and emotional intelligence, especially in today's fast-paced and high-pressure environment."
Back in my IT support days, Malwarebytes helped me remove malware from many machines over the years. This is just one of the reasons why I was so excited to speak with Akshay.
The team at Holloway grew up with big expectations around the possibilities the internet would bring. They envisioned a brave new world where anyone could find anything, learn anything. But out of this explosion of knowledge, we also got the foolishness of popups, banner ads, and how-to articles written by who-knows-who.
Today, learning on the internet is a long and winding scavenger hunt. We sometimes stumble on that rare reliable source, other times we are forced to accept something that "seems legit," and otherwise still do our best to filter out flat out falsehoods. The thing is, others have faced and overcome almost all the big challenges we face in our life and work.
Instead of having access to the knowledge of those who've been there and done that before, we're left to run on an endless treadmill reinventing wheels and tumbling down pitfalls. So Holloway was created to devote ourselves to building a corner of the internet that provides access to the consolidated wisdom of experts.
Holloway works directly with top professionals like Brad Feld to write its professional guides that never go out of date, so that entrepreneurs, founders, and employees can learn the essentials of building a business from those who have done it.
Holloway's guides also have no ads. They're incredibly easy to read. They have topics on raising venture capital, equity compensation, and technical recruiting + hiring, and more to come. But what about the startup story behind Holloway?
I invited Andy Sparks, co-founder, and CEO at Hollway onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about his vision and lessons learned from his startup journey.
When Andy Sparks was nineteen, he tried to start a microbrewery with a friend. That was the moment where he got hooked on business. After learning that it was illegal to own a microbrewery before turning twenty-one, he got a job at a startup, DOmedia. A year or so later, he joined an iOS and web development shop doing an odd combination of product design and sales.
Thousands of TechCrunch articles later, Andy was convinced he could start his own company. I left for greener pastures, packed up everything that would fit in his Ford Focus, and moved to California with his two dear friends.
After 500 Startups and a rude awakening to the challenges of starting a business, we shuttered our startup. Shortly thereafter, he joined Danielle and Kevin Morrill to start Mattermark and spent almost four years building that business. In the fall of 2016, he left Mattermark and started Holloway where he is now solving the discovery problem for long-form content.
Andy admits that the whole journey of starting companies is hard as hell, and has gotten all the silly ideas like "doing it for the money" out of his system. Holloway is a pure labor of love—it's something that he believes can do some real good in the world.
Owl Labs is a software-led hardware company dedicated to creating a better workplace experience for today's hybrid workforce of remote and in-office employees in over 20,000 businesses. The Meeting Owl is the first intelligent all-in-one 360° video conferencing device that combines video and audio to simplify your meeting set up.
The company's products use emerging technology such as artificial intelligence to bring teams together for better work. While focused on its core hardware, the company is developing advanced software technology to reinvent the conference room ecosystem and make it smart.
The Meeting Owl product line is driven by Owl Labs' proprietary Owl Intelligence System™. While sitting in the center of the table, it uses vision and voice recognition to automatically shift the camera to focus on whoever is speaking.
This creates a fully immersive experience for those who can't be on site. Both products are compatible with all popular video conferencing platforms (i.e. Zoom, Google Meet, Skype for Business, etc.) and accessible to nearly all businesses at a sub $1,000 price point.
Frank Weishaupt is the CEO at Owl Labs, creator of the smart conferencing camera Meeting Owl. Weishaupt previously served as SVP of Sales at CarGurus and played an instrumental role in the company' company's growth, leading to a successful IPO in October 2017.
Before joining CarGurus, Weishaupt served as Chief Operating Officer at Jumptap, leading to an acquisition by Millennial Media. He also served in executive roles at Yahoo! and Criteo, which had a successful IPO in 2013.
In our featured partner series of Citrix Ready podcasts, we explore the technology integrations that Citrix has with its partners. In this series, I invite guests from Citrix and their partners to spend some time with me to share how they are solving real-world problems for businesses. Not on their own but by working together.
In this episode of the Citrix Ready Podcast series, I explore how Citrix and IGEL Technology are working together to solve real-world problems for businesses.
IGEL delivers powerful unified endpoint management (UEM) software that is revolutionary in its simplicity and purpose-built for the enterprise. The company’s world-leading products, including the IGEL Universal Management Suite™, IGEL OS™-powered thin and zero clients, and all-in-one thin client solutions, deliver a smart and secure endpoint management experience that shifts granular control of thin and zero client devices from the end-user to IT.
Guests
Sagnik Datta is a product leader working for Citrix as a Technical Marketing Manager driving partner route-to-market strategies. With 8+ years in the hi-tech industry, Sagnik led several technical programs to increase the adoption of Citrix products, solutions, and services in horizontal and vertical industries.
Sagnik holds a bachelor’s degree from BITS Pilani and is passionate about technology, spending initial years as a quality assurance engineer, and eventually specializing himself to drive various outbound product managerial and alliance business development functions.
Jim Airdo Vice President of Strategic Alliances at IGEL Technology
Jim Airdo oversees the fast-growing global ISV partner ecosystem for IGEL driving increased confidence for customers using multiple hardware and software solutions to access workspaces in the cloud via the Next-Gen OS from IGEL.
Airdo’s longstanding business philosophy has always included a heavy focus on going to market with partners; thus his “Partner Led” commitment has led to strong, enduring, trusting relationships with worldwide distributors, global systems integrators, and value-added resellers.
Airdo brings over 25 years of technology experience to IGEL and has a wide range of industry experience across workspace management, EUC, virtualization, and cloud computing.
Prior to joining IGEL, Airdo held executive-level sales and business development leadership roles for innovative software technology companies such as FSLogix, Microsoft, AppSense, BMC Software, and he also played a seminal role in the early development of Citrix Systems in building their enviable systems engineering team.
Jim resides in South Florida with his family, where he plays hockey, eats tacos, and serves on the board of Live the Life South Florida and Lauderdale Lead.
Cypherium is a highly scalable and robust smart contract platform. The hybrid design features a joint Proof-of-Work (PoW) and HotStuff (Also adopted by Facebook's Libra) consensus mechanism that can achieve thousands of transactions per second without sacrificing decentralization.
Cypherium also implements a Turing-complete virtual machine for smart contracts that runs on Java, the most widely-utilized and reliable programming language in the world. This enables us to democratize the development of smart contracts and lower the barrier to blockchain adoption for existing enterprise.
Sky Guo is Chief Executive Officer at Cypherieum. His extensive knowledge of blockchain consensus, transaction, and cryptographic algorithms stems from his background in computer science. With a B.S. from Pepperdine University and a degree in Entrepreneurship from Draper University, Sky also serves as a columnist for China's top financial media outlet.
Sky joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about how they are focused on addressing the key shortcomings of existing public blockchain infrastructures, where scalability seems to come at the cost of decentralization in every corner of the ecosystem.
As a result, slower, more centralized blockchain infrastructures have hindered the commercial adoption of distributed ledger technologies. By providing a truly decentralized and scalable framework, combined with an accessible and intuitive user interface, Cypherium lays a comprehensive foundation for developers to create groundbreaking apps capable of transforming the future of business, law, and enterprise solutions.
Unlike many second- and third-generation blockchains that abandon Satoshi Nakamoto’s original permissionless, trustless consensus mechanism, Cypherium is built on the valuable innovations of previous blockchains. The platform’s unique consensus mechanism provides unprecedented transaction throughput and contract execution time through HotStuff, while leveraging an ASIC-resistant PoW system that maintains a thoroughly decentralized node election.
Francisco Webber is co-founder and CEO of Cortical.io and inventor of the company’s proprietary Retina technology. This technology applies the principles of cerebral processing to machine learning and natural language understanding (NLU) to solve real-world use cases related to big text data. Cortical.io 2 solutions are based on the actual meaning of text, rather than on statistical occurrences.
Francisco’s interest in information technology developed during his medical studies, when he was involved in medical data processing. Over the course of two decades, he explored search engine technologies and documentation systems in various contexts but became increasingly frustrated with the limitations of state-of-the-art statistical methods.
Francisco recognized that the brain was the only high-performing system when it came to natural language understanding. While closely following developments in neuroscience, he formulated his theory of Semantic Folding, which models how the brain processes language data. In 2011, he co-founded Cortical.io to apply the principles of cerebral processing to machine learning and text processing and solve real-world use cases related to big data.
Cortical.io provides natural language understanding (NLU) solutions that enable large enterprises to automate the extraction, monitoring, and analysis of key information from any kind of text data. By understanding the meaning of text, Cortical.io Retina software reduces the time and effort it takes to complete business-critical data search and review processes.
Cortical.io solutions can be quickly trained without supervision in the specialized vocabulary of any business domain and in multiple languages. I learn how their enterprise-grade technology is implemented at multiple Fortune 100 businesses, covering a wide spectrum of use cases.
Francisco Webber joins me on my daily tech podcast and talks about how their unique approach is inspired by the latest findings on the way the brain processes information. It helps businesses solve many open NLU challenges like meaning-based filtering of terabytes of unstructured text data, real-time topic detection in social media, or semantic search over millions of documents across languages.
Vertex U.S. is part of the global Vertex Ventures network of funds. In addition to the U.S., the Vertex Global Network is comprised of affiliates in Israel, China, Southeast Asia, and India. They seek founders who want to tackle fundamental challenges. People who identify with a problem or concern that’s kept them up late at night — broken tools, broken lines of communication, broken processes, broken boundaries of trust.
Sometimes this will require new skills; sometimes it will require different processes. Sometimes, it will require a completely new organization. Whichever of these is necessary is ultimately beside the point, because there is just one result when the solution is in place and the naysayers have bought into the vision: Things will simply be better.
Chase Roberts joins me on my daily tech podcast for a conversation about demystifying early-stage investing for startups. We discuss how startup founders will know when it’s time to raise money and the key metrics V.C.’s want to see
Inspired by Clayton Christensen’s book called The Innovator’s Dilemma, Chase Roberts left everything he knew (small-town life and a career in finance) at the age of 25 so he could be a part of uprooting industries with technology.
Eager to learn more about Professor Christensen’s theory of disruption, he stumbled upon a video of him delivering the keynote at a conference for a company called Box. He left his job three days later and sent a cold email to Box’s recruiting team seeking to help write their own story of disruption — they hired him.
In the half-decade that followed, heheld various roles in sales, channel, and commercial partnerships at Box. He led the growth for what became Box’s largest reseller channel and helped launch partnerships with companies including Microsoft and Canon.
Before joining Vertex US, Chase led large technology partnerships at Segment, where he was the first hire on the business development team. At Segment, he built partnerships with AWS, Facebook, and Google among others. He also helped launch Segment’s startup program, which gives thousands of startups access to the tools and knowledge necessary to implement data analytics in their products and growth strategies.
Now at Vertex US, Chase invests in early-stage founders developing software or API applications that apply new business models to existing industries, founders building for the future of work, or those using enterprise tech to tackle traditionally “non-tech” industries like real estate, finance, and construction.
ImagineBC is a collaborative project built by entrepreneurs, tech enthusiasts, and dreamers. Their goal is to create an online community where you can regain control of your data and discover new ways to monetize your own personal information.
In a world where big tech is making money off your data, they want to give you – the individual – the advantage. With ImagineBC, you own all your data. Everything is stored securely, and you're the only one with the key to access it.
Through blockchain technology, they aim to be as transparent as possible about how they make money. ImagineBC earns a 10% fee from each completed transaction. I invited Erik Rind onto my daily tech podcast to share the story behind ImagineBC. I learn more about how he launched ImagineBC with a simple rallying cry that can resonate with a global audience.
"The status quo says it's okay that Facebook and Google profit from your data. We say that money should go in your pocket." Additionally, a recent eSecurity Planet article reported that over 95% of American internet users are concerned with companies collecting and selling their personal information without their consent.
ImagineBC was conceived as a result of this growing outcry from individuals seeking to regain control of their online data from companies who have long profited from it.
We discuss how using both blockchain and AI/ML technologies, ImagineBC wants to remedy this crisis by providing a secure platform within a mobile app to store one's data. We also talk about opportunities to monetize one's data, as well as offer efficient alternative methods of advertising for businesses who wish to join the community.
Remote collaboration on audio projects is not where it should be, especially when working with video. Asynchronous back-and-forth communication can kill creativity in the studio. Laggy, jittery feeds, over compressed streams, and unworkable delays distract users and ruin sessions.
Tech-obsessed musician and audio engineer Ameen Abdulla learned this the hard way, working with coastal clients on important post-production projects from his Twin Cities studio. “I lost a ton of clients,” he recalls. “I worked with a company in Minneapolis that had an LA office and does production in both places. They liked working with us.
They suggested that we could take on LA shows, but do a remote scenario for post-production. Nothing worked. We tried so many things from expensive hardware boxes to existing software, but we couldn’t get around network and routing issues. Delays were just too big. Quality was too compressed.” Abdulla decided to tackle the problem, creating Soundwhale.
Soundwhale is a remote collaboration solution for audio post and music production that allows users to create content and exchange ideas. It’s meant for clients and collaborators that cannot be in the same room. Users can connect over the network and listen to the same audio, communicate, and make changes during the creative process in realtime.
Soundwhale is geared towards all users. Users with little or no audio experience can connect with voice talent and musicians and record them directly in Soundwhale. More experienced users that want to edit, mix, or produce can connect and stream from external software like Pro Tools.
Communication occurs through audio, video, or text chat. Post-production mix reviews can occur from a distance as the client will receive a live audio mix that’s locked to picture. Any changes to the mix will happen in realtime as the client gives direction to the mix engineer.
For the third consecutive year, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have reported a significant increase in targeted cybersecurity breaches. A newly released global survey found that attacks against the U.S., U.K., and European companies are growing in both frequency and sophistication.
Further, nearly half (45%) of the 2,000 respondents described their organization's IT posture as ineffective, with 39% reporting they have no incident response plan in place.
The 2019 Global State of Cybersecurity in Small and Medium-Sized Businesses report underscores growing cybersecurity concerns best illustrated through the year-over-year trends dating back to 2016. The survey, commissioned by Keeper Security, measured responses from 2,391 IT and IT security practitioners in the U.S., U.K., DACH, Benelux, and Scandinavian.
"Cybercriminals are continuing to evolve their attacks with more sophisticated tactics, and companies of all sizes are in their crosshairs," said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, The Ponemon Institute.
"More businesses are experiencing highly-targeted, sophisticated, and severe cyberattacks than ever before, yet the results of our study show they aren't doing enough to close the gap," said Darren Guccione, CEO, and co-founder of Keeper Security.
"We sponsor this annual research with Ponemon because we want SMBs to understand that no target is too small for cybercriminals, and it's not enough to simply be aware of the cyber threats that exist. It's critical that these businesses take the next step toward cybersecurity preparedness and get a strong prevention strategy in place."
Continue the conversation with Neil Hughes, Darren Guccione, and Larry Ponemon for an informative webinar where you'll learn about the biggest threats to SMEs in EMEA and the three easy actions you can take to protect your company.
US (Oct. 30) - https://www.keeper.io/2019-ponemon-webinar-us
UK & Europe (Oct 31) - https://www.keeper.io/2019-ponemon-webinar-emea
I recently witnessed a beautiful way to end the MagentoLive event in Amsterdam. Joost Rigter helped 2,000 attendees see what the world looks like without seeing, if only for a short time, and learn to adapt to change.
How do you deal with technological and transformational change? How do you find light in the dark? How do courage, humour, acceptance and self-confidence ensure that obstacles are actually much smaller than they seem?
Joost Rigter takes audiences on a journey with him during his lecture and shows you in a quite literal sense. Because, ‘there is always just a light switch somewhere’, according to Joost. Joost Rigter’s vision is an eye-opener, his lectures an experience and a source of inspiration.
This explains Joost’s popularity as a speaker for the world of business, both nationally and internationally. From Shell to Walt Disney, from Deloitte to KLM and from the UWV to ABN AMRO, his story suits every company.
Until the age of 26, Joost Rigter could see. Today he only sees 0.8 percent. A rare eye disease made Joost almost blind within ten years. It meant a complete turnaround, nothing would be the same anymore. But is life less beautiful now? Absolutely not, according to Joost. Different, but also very beautiful. This fact is at the heart of Joost Rigter’s lectures. A unique, but very recognizable story about change.
Wyebot is a data-analytics driven platform for WiFi ecosystems designed to help organizations, large and small, with a viable, reliable, and secure solution that can help handle their highly-trafficked networks.
Its vendor-agnostic Wireless Intelligence Platform analyzes, optimizes and, using the patent-pending AI-based engine and market-leading multi-radio sensor, automatically provides problem and solution identification resulting in a 90% reduction in mean-time to problem resolution, a 50% reduction in WiFi problem tickets, and reduction in onsite problem-solving visits by up to 80%.
“We are excited to announce the broad availability of the Wyebot WIP and to bring robust WiFi assurance solutions to enterprise and educational facilities nationwide. Today’s business need for constant connectivity has created a burden on IT departments to keep an entire organization connected – especially difficult with the proliferation of distributed enterprises and campuses,” said Roger Sands, CEO, Wyebot.
“Organizations can’t afford the lost productivity that occurs when their WiFi isn’t working or they are unable to access critical applications and information in the cloud.
I invited Roger Sands onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about the patent-pending AI-powered engine. I learn how it automatically identifies performance issues and recommends solutions both reactively, when the issues are occurring, and proactively before they impact users, ensuring maximum performance across the network.
Calabrio CEO Tom Goodmanson discussed how technologies like automation, AI, and analytics can help companies deliver a richer human interaction.
Human interaction is becoming a luxury. In the era of excessive screen time, cyber trolls, hacking, catfishing, fraud - tech has done a lot to hurt the way we interact. Now it’s time for tech to make it up to us.
With poor customer service costing businesses more than $75 billion a year, companies simply cannot afford to delivery anything other than exceptional customer experiences. And while there’s great irony in the idea that humanizing the workplace depends on artificial intelligence and analytics, learn how it makes perfect sense.
Almost every aspect of our lives has been transformed by technology. But we are starting to see the inefficiencies with outdated traditional office software such as PowerPoint.
How we present, crucial, and valuable information has changed very little in the last 20 years. But how can organizations maximize their content? And how can they inspire audiences rather than send them to sleep?
Shufflrr makes presentations better for everyone across the enterprise. It is the leading presentation management technology, letting users visualize and format all files as slides, so they are easily accessible and "ready to present" at a moment's notice. It transforms single-use presentations and makes them easy to reuse, on-demand.
In so doing, companies are able to get a better ROI on their marketing content, control their brand and message, all while making it easier and faster for the employees in the field to give a successful presentation that drives business. Shufflrr is presentation management.
James Ontra, Shufflrr's CEO, co-founded the company with his sister Alex Anndra. I invited him onto this daily tech podcast to learn more about the story behind Shufflrr and how he is going to save us all from death by PowerPoint.
James Ontra talks about the components of presentation management and why presentations are an essential part of the marketing mix. We also discuss the presentation's role in business communications and why presentations are a crucial part of the sales funnel.
As a long-time sufferer of imposter syndrome, I have been waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say that's it mate, we are onto you now. But guess what? Nothing happened, and I now find myself with 1,000 interviews with tech leaders from all over the world.
Over the last four years, I have spoken with tech leaders from Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, Sony, and Lenovo. I have also learned how technology has transformed Manchester United, Real Madrid, F1 Racing, and even Fender Guitars. Then there were the surreal moments that Talk Show Host Wendy Williams and Star Treks William Shatner came on the podcast for a chat.
However, it was the startup stories of bootstrapping entrepreneurs that really inspired me on this journey. Individuals that came across a problem and left their day job behind to create a solution that will help others. It's a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. But I hope that some of these stories will help and inspire others on their journey too.
In today's episode, I look back at some of the highlights and critical lessons that I have learned along the way after chatting with over 1,000 tech leaders from all over the world. Maybe one day, I will gather these lessons and quotes for a book called something like "Lessons learned from chatting to 1,000 tech leaders."
Speaking of books, my first book will be released next year. After watching hundreds of TED talks, I have created a guide book on how any organization or entrepreneur can stay successfully innovate. My publisher has just sent me a copy of the first book cover draft. You can find out how to win a copy in today's episode.
The secret sauce behind the success of this daily tech podcast is the audience. With listeners in 165 countries, it's you and your input that ensures we feature as many voices and opinions as possible. Together we can ensure that none of us get too comfortable inside an echo chamber that supports rather than challenges our worldview.
I hope you will continue to join me on this ride and prove to the world that technology really does work best when it brings people together.
At MagentoLive Europe, Adobe announced the creation of a new organization within the Digital Experience business to support the unique needs of SMB and mid-market companies to connect with their customers in new and meaningful ways.
The dedicated sales, customer success and support organization is led by Gary Specter, formerly vice president of Magento global sales and customer success, and taps the proven success of the Magento and Marketo teams in serving the needs of growing companies.
This effort is aimed at building on Adobe's strong heritage in the small and mid-market customer segment across its Creative Cloud and Document Cloud product portfolios and highlights Adobe's commitment to extending enterprise-grade capabilities to help them differentiate and grow.
What does all this mean for the digital landscape, the open-source community, Magento customers, and small to medium-sized businesses that cannot afford Adobe products? I sit down with Gary Specter to talk about the latest announcements and the road ahead for Magento.
Jason Woosley is a seasoned technology executive with over 20 years of proven success in building high-performance product development organizations at scale. I invited Jason onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about Adobe Announcements at this year's Magento Live event.
We discuss the new commerce capabilities for SMBs and Mid-market Merchants such as the Amazon Sales Channel Extension for Amazon's U.K. Marketplace and how the Amazon Sales Channel in Magento is now available for the Amazon U.K. Marketplace, with support for additional European territories arriving next year.
The extension for Magento Commerce and Open Source removes the barriers to entry for merchants that are trying to gain a strong position with Amazon while also managing their owned channel. It also allows brands to quickly and easily integrate their catalog, establish a bi-directional data flow, and start managing listings from their Magento admin.
Jason Woosley explains that since Imagine 2019, their work with Product Recommendations powered by Adobe Sensei has garnered a lot of enthusiasm from their customers as it enabled brands to leverage data and insights to drive real-time relevance and personalized experiences.
At MagentoLive Europe, I learn more about the announcement and that in January of next year, they will be opening the Early Access Program to Magento Commerce customers. Once the program kicks off, participating merchants will be able to embed the feature in their Magento storefront and reap the benefits immediately.
We also discuss the opportunities and challenges ahead facing business leaders and how Adobe's increasing suite of products is helping to transform e-commerce.
Tim Robson, Managing Partner at H.I. Executive Consulting (HIEC), a globally-dispersed executive search firm, joins me on my daily tech podcast. The company works to fill tech-focused c-suite roles and was established over a decade ago to disrupt the traditional approach to executive search.
The secret to their success is a focus on digital and technology across all sectors they serve. The rapid globalization and digitalization brought by breakthrough technologies have given rise to new types of disruptive leaders spread across the global hubs in the traditional and transformative functional areas of all sectors.
I learn how HIEC is devoted to nurturing clients and organizations with this new wave of leaders through a forward-looking vision, globally joined-up team, and bespoke consulting approach for each.
Operating across 13 offices in North America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific, unified by one global P&L and delivery model, they have cultivated a new professional standard that challenges the competitors in their field.
Tim Robson's global experience and industry knowledge makes him a much sought out search executive amongst the clients looking for international industry knowledge and experience.
He also works extensively with Private Equity firms on initial as well as transformational management team build-outs for their portfolio businesses, as well as major Technology, Technology Services, and Business & Professional Services companies that are seeking to grow in their markets and beyond.
As a result, amongst others, Tim's clients include Fortune 500, 'Big 4', and leading Private Equity companies globally. Before co-founding HIEC, Tim led his own boutique Executive Search firm, where he and his team specialized in providing C-level search and consulting services to the clients in Strategy, Management Consulting, I.T.I.T. & Business Outsourcing, and Technology Services industries across Europe.
He founded the firm after a successful ten year run as a search consultant for other London-based boutique search firms.
Tim holds a Law Degree from Birmingham City University.
Did you know that artists only get paid if you play a song on a music streaming service such as Spotify for more than 30 seconds? These new trends are changing the way the creative process for musicians. But, a company called Entertainment Intelligence (Ei) is also changing the way the music industry collects, views, and utilizes data.
Ei is unique in its ability to seamlessly blend information, including social, playlists, sales, and consumption data from a limitless number of sources, tracking and analyzing information at breath-taking speed.
Charts are helpful if you’re part of music’s top 10%, but what about the other 90%? Public data analytics dashboards look cool, but what do they really tell us? Music data analysis experts Entertainment Intelligence (Ei) have established a whole new approach to help artists and labels see where they stand with fans--and to guide them to better marketing and creative decisions in a global music market.
Using a large body of granular data, it has generated a powerful set of Indie Benchmarks (iB) that offer actionable insights to independent labels, artists, agents, and marketers on par with the internal tools used by the majors.
“Charts are an artifact of the physical retail era when we only really cared about how many units were moving out of the store,” notes Ei founder Greg Delaney. “Data like total overall sales or follower counts are of extremely limited use; how many people go and unfollow an artist or playlist, for instance?”
Ei founder Greg Delaney joins me on my daily tech podcast to share the story behind the company and how they are helping artists. Greg is an innovative and versatile technologist with experience across a wide range of industries, from banking and finance to transport, entertainment, and manufacturing.
Having established, run, and sold a number of start-ups, Greg explains how he is now using his experience to help other small and growing businesses evolve through technology. I learn how Ei uses listener-level data direct from DSPs like Apple and Spotify, anonymizes them across its client base, which includes labels like Concord, Domino, and the Secretly Group.
We also explore how they apply machine learning to uncover relevant audience patterns and peer artists, creating truly useful benchmarks for independent music professionals.
Open Systems was founded in 1990 as a security integrator and Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP). In 2012, as software-defined networks came into their own, they transitioned into a leading provider of secure SD-WAN globally. They have been a leader in the field ever since and currently operate in more than 180 countries.
Co-headquartered in Zurich and Silicon Valley, they consider innovation is their birthright. The company combines next-generation technology, machine learning-enhanced operational processes, and the world’s top engineers to deliver an end-to-end, fully integrated SD-WAN for their customers.
I invited Moritz Mann onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about SD-WAN (software-defined networking in a wide area network). Moritz Mann studied at the Dualen Technical College Baden-Württemberg (DHBW) in Lörrach, Germany. He holds a degree in Information Systems. Additionally, he has earned a Bachelor in Business Administration from Open University in Milton Keynes, UK.
After finishing his studies, Moritz Mann joined Open Systems AG directly. Between 2012 and 2017, he held the responsibility for Mission Control Operations in Zurich and Sydney after having worked in different roles in Development, Professional Services, and Sales. In mid-2017, he became the Chief Product Officer, responsible for product development in the market.
We discuss increasing network safety for IoT using SD-WAN and how endpoints can be connected to respond to the changing nature of a network. I also learn how SD-WAN can be implemented using simple, rapid configuration, so IoT endpoints have bandwidth support.
Finally, we explore how SD-WAN can provide insights that deliver the best customer experience. But while also allowing enterprise stakeholders to remove the complexity of network management and shift focus to business growth.
Jim Delkousis is the CEO and Founder of Persuit, a small tech firm that is working with some of the biggest names in the Fortune 100. But Jim's tech journey is not your average tech startup story.
Delkousis spent 15 years as a high-powered lawyer in Australia and Dubai, then decided that the industry wasn't doing its client's right. Nobody knew what a fair price for lawyers was, so everyone overpaid. Jim quit his job and moved to the US to build Persuit - a firm that lets clients offer up legal projects for law firms to bid on.
Persuit is early in its journey. But they've already signed up clients like Walmart, Citi, Shell and Johnson & Johnson, to name a few. They all love Persuit for the simple reason they get a better price from law firms and - for the first time - actual data on the industry.
A team of lawyers and engineers, provided the team at Persuit with an acute understanding of the unique requirements of legal and technology to build a platform that even lawyers love.
In addition to taking the pain out of the RFP process, Persuit allows clients to:
- Drive Healthy Competition among their Panel Law Firms
- Build Centralized & Scalable Processes
- Scales AFAs * Unlock Data-Driven Insights
- Promote Collaboration With Law Firms
However, the real star of the show is the very human story behind this legal tech company. An unconventional founder disrupting a huge industry is possibly one of the most inspirational stories that I have heard.
After reading about that Bill Gates believes that Probiotic pills could bring an end to malnutrition, I felt compelled to out more about how biotechnology is changing how and what we eat. My online search quickly led me to Sun Genomics, which is harnessing the power of genomic sequencing to improve the quality of your microbiota.
Sun Genomics is a unique precision probiotic that creates a custom-formulated probiotic tailored to one's unique DigestiveDNA and is the world's first tailored probiotic.
After reading more about the San Diego-based custom probiotic startup, and I invited their CEO, Sunny Jain onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about the story behind the Company.
Sun Genomics was founded by CEO, Sunny Jain in 2016, and the Company's story began with the birth of his son. When his son began suffering from digestive distress, Sunny went to find a probiotic. But he quickly found himself standing in front of the probiotic aisle AKA the "Wall of Confusion."
Sunny quickly realized there wasn't a probiotic solution available. Instead of choosing a supplement at random, Sunny took tons off the shelf that day, and instead of going home, he went to the lab and began testing probiotics, sequencing his son's gut microbiome, and researching strains that best matched his son's gut microbiome analysis.
Sunny reveals what customers should be looking out for when staring at the endless list of probiotics. He also reveals more about biotech startups and their role within the health ecosystem to solve major health crises beyond gut health.
The average person spends more than 90,000 hours of his or her life at work, making it more important than ever that employees feel productive and happy in their environment. Companies and employees alike are realizing that today's current iteration of the workplace, the open office leaves a lot to be desired.
ROOM has positioned itself at the center of this conversation as a solution to the workplace's most pressing issues: lack of privacy and dwindling productivity. They believe that modern workplaces need to be flexible, agile, and able to respond to the shifting needs of an organization.
Their booths are cost-effective, high quality and are becoming an integral part of modern design for all types of companies, from startups to Fortune 500s such as Uber, Salesforce, JP Morgan and Google. But when I heard they had also launched in the UK, I invited their CEO and founder, Brian Chen onto my daily tech podcast to find out more.
Brian Chen, is no stranger to open plan environments, having spent the majority of his career working with and advising tech startups, where he routinely found himself exposed to constant noise and distraction. He's a Y Combinator alum, and was a founding member of Bluesmart, a smart luggage company that pioneered a new category of connected consumer travel accessories.
Deb Muller is driven by an obsession to do things the right way, particularly in employee relations, where she has spent her career championing excellence and effectively managing workplace investigations.
After serving in executive HR roles at numerous Fortune 500 companies like Honeywell, Citibank, and Marsh & McLennan, Deb launched HR Acuity to create technology with built-in expertise and equip organizations to manage employee relations more strategically.
Deb provides a wealth of real-world experience and guidance to help companies strengthen processes, transform workplace culture, and elevate employee relations as a strategic driver of business success. I invited her onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about her HR Tech startup story.
While conducting workplace investigations at high-profile companies like Honeywell and Citibank, Deb Muller realized there was no standardized or formal training for HR professionals working in investigations, which put organizations at risk for potential lawsuits.
To solve the issue, Muller founded the tech platform HR Acuity to help companies identify, track and investigate employee issues, which is now being used by companies such as Lyft and LinkedIn.
About HR Acuity
While you can't prevent every employee relations issue, you can change how you respond. HR Acuity is the only technology platform specifically built for employee relations management.
HR Acuity's SaaS technology that empowers you with built-in intelligence, templates and reporting so you can conduct best practice, fair investigations; uncover trends and patterns through forward-looking data and analytics; and provide trusted, consistent experiences for your people
In our featured partner series of Citrix Ready podcasts, we explore the technology integrations that Citrix has with its partners. In this series, I invite guests from Citrix and their partners to spend some time with me to share how they are solving real-world problems for businesses. Not on their own but by working together.
Today, I learn how Citrix, Stratodesk and NComputing created an alliance to create an alliance that brings truly differentiated solutions to the market. I also learn more about NComputing's long history with Citrix and their expertise in developing & delivering thin client solutions. I'm also excited to learn why they picked the Raspberry Pi platform to enhanced their thin client portfolio.
As a leading partner to the Citrix Workspace Hub program, today's guests share a few success stories around about customers adopting the Citrix Workspace Hub solution. We also learn about their challenges and how the solution benefits them. Finally, we get a Sneak peek on what is next for NComputing's Workspace Hub solution.
Roger Cao is responsible for strategy, vision and engineering management of Citrix innovations in workspace transformation, workflow automation and AR/VR. Combining advanced analytics, AI and IoT capabilities for data driven context and user experience to create the most advanced cloud for powering company's digital workspaces.
Hernan Contreras is an experienced sales professional with more than 15 years' experience selling software, computer hardware, and networking solutions. Hernan feels privileged to disrupt the VDI marketplace with top of line OS enabling their customers to make business decisions which best fit their organizations.
Stratodesk breaks the chains of hardware manufacturers by allowing you to centrally automate your endpoint management no matter what vendor of endpoint devices you have including Raspberry Pi!
Rich Severson is a seasoned Thin Client industry veteran. As a senior solutions engineer, he plays a key role in driving Stratodesk's continued global growth. This includes expanding core business and our growing workspace IoT offering.
This is not the first time that Rich has played a pivotal part in transforming the future of a company. In his previous role at NComputing, he helped the Thin Client manufacturing leader and Stratodesk partner become the globally recognized brand that it is today.
Richard Sah is the Chief Technology Officer at NComputing and leads the planning & development of product portfolios and new technology initiatives.
Richard brings over 20 years of product management, marketing, engineering & development experience in technology, and is passionate about creating new innovative solutions to transform the cloud computing era. Richard also an has extensive hands-on experience ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies and has a successful track record building a new ecosystem and infrastructure from the ground up.
After spending two years of working in a corporate IT department 9-5 and then working on my side hustle and recording podcasts 7-midnight, I finally decided to go it alone.
In May this year, I went from listening to Gary Vaynerchuk on the commute to an office with no windows to traveling 5,000 miles to Las Vegas to thank the man who inspired me to follow my dream in person. I even got to record a podcast with him at the Magento Imagine event with more than a little help from DRock.
Looking back, this was the moment when my journey came full circle. I thanked Gary, and we went our separate ways. But the universe was not finished with us just yet. Last week I found myself at the WCIT event in Armenia with Kim Kardashian, Alexis Ohanian, Serj Tankian from System of a Down, and Gary Vaynerchuk.
Once again, I found myself in a room with Gary Vee with a chance to hear his thoughts on the latest digital and tech trends. Gary shared why businesses need to pay attention to the explosive growth in audio content and why he believes that Joe Rogan is going to eventually sign a $100 million-plus deal to go exclusive on a platform because of the level of attention he has."
We are living in a world where our newsfeeds and social media timelines are attempting to demonize technology and deliver a vision of a dystopian future where machines rule the world. Thankfully, Gary Vaynerchuk has a much more positive outlook and advises everyone to get into accountability and stop demonizing technology.
"If you're a 28-year-old truck driver, and you know that autonomous vehicles will be arriving in 20 years when you will be 48 years old. Is it an autonomous truck's fault? Or is it your fault for not creating a new skill and getting a new job?"
We discuss how we have been here before and can learn how technology has transformed our lives and business throughout history. "People used to not have traffic lights, and somebody used to get paid to help you get through intersections."
"Does everybody cry when they get to the airport, and they go through a machine now, not somebody who checks your passport? No, they're happy because they don't want to wait 15 minutes." Gary went on to say that if you only care when your own job is in jeopardy, it makes you a hypocrite.
Share your thoughts and insights from today's interviews by commenting below.
Lantern Pharma, is a pharmaceutical company that uses AI and ML to rescue "failed" cancer drugs.
The clinical-stage pharmaceutical company is developing new classes of precision cancer drugs with novel mechanisms of action, and also rescuing or revitalizing abandoned or failed cancer drugs using machine learning techniques, genomic data, and precision oncology trials.
Lantern Pharma recognizes that the high cost and low success rates in oncology drug development largely stem from the inability to appropriately stratify patient populations prior to enrollment, and also from the inability to fully elucidate mechanisms of action that can suggest potent combinations.
The startup's approach leverages its RADR(TM) platform to provide rapid, meaningful insight to both of these central problems in oncology. Lantern is also focused on accelerating personalized cancer therapy development through the use of AI and genomic-based patient stratification.
I invited Panna Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, and President of Lantern Pharma onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about how much of a critical role technology is and will continue to play in the fight against cancer.
Lucidworks builds AI-powered search solutions for many of the world's largest brands. Fusion, Lucidworks' advanced development platform, provides the enterprise-grade capabilities needed to design, develop, and deploy intelligent search applications at any scale.
Companies across all industries, from consumer retail and healthcare to insurance and financial services, rely on Lucidworks every day to power their consumer-facing and enterprise search apps. The company also recently hit the headlines after raising $100M to expand in AI-powered search-as-a-service for organizations.
The team at Lucidworks is made up of seasoned Silicon Valley veterans and brilliant newcomers from all over the world. And they all have something in common: they know that there has to be a better way for teams to access and distribute information relevant to their organizations.
The company created a platform enabling the enterprise and digital commerce businesses to connect users with the data that they need to make decisions and move forward. I invited Lucidworks CEO, Will Hayes onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about their technology and the story behind their success.
Will joined Lucidworks in 2013 as our Chief Product Officer and was appointed CEO in 2014. He has over 15 years of product, marketing, and business development experience. Prior to Lucidworks, he was head of technical business development for Splunk, where he was responsible for defining the company's market category and key product feature sets.
He created and led the company's global partner program, building an ecosystem of consultants, developers, resellers, system integrators, service providers, and technology partners. Earlier in his career, Hayes served as a software engineer at Genentech, where he built solutions that supported the sales and drug development teams in their field activities.
Commonwealth Joe Coffee Roasters is a leading tech-enabled specialty coffee company offering full-service, kegged beverage programs with Nitro Cold Brew and other craft beverages on tap. With one coffee roasting machine, three friends from college, and his mother, CWJ's current Master Roaster, Julia Peck, Commonwealth Joe Coffee Roasters, was born.
Earlier this year, Commonwealth Joe raised $4M in funding to invest in Kegerator vending machines, which are created by Smart Beverage Technologies. They leverage the latest advancements in telemetry and workflow automation to deliver beverages to CWJ's partners. But I wanted to learn more about what smart beverage technology is and how technology is transforming the coffee machines in offices throughout the US.
Alex Kilkka, Chief Technology Officer at Commonwealth Joe joins me on my daily tech podcast to reveal more about how they are using tech to transform beverages.
Accedian is a leader in performance analytics and end-user experience solutions. The company provides its customers with the ability to assure their digital infrastructure while helping them to unlock the full productivity of their users.
The company appeared on my tech radar after learning how the company is used by 75% of the top 50 communication service providers, including Verizon, Comcast, Cox Communications, and others. Enterprise customers include Thomson Reuters, L'Oreal, Goldman Sachs, and others.
The team pride themselves on being committed to empowering their customers with the ability to see far and wide across their IT and network infrastructure. But with a microscopic ability to dive deep and understand the experience of every user. Why? To help them to delight their customers every time.
I invited Sergio Bea from Accedian on to my daily tech podcast to find out more. As Vice President Global Enterprise and Channels, Sergio draws on more than two decades of telecom industry experience in his role in directing Accedian's enterprise and global channel strategy.
Sergio has worked for Fortune 500 global corporations in key strategic roles throughout his career, with prior roles across various disciplines, including sales, business development, strategy, consulting, and services.
Sergio draws on more than two decades of telecom industry experience in his role in directing Accedian's enterprise and global channel strategy. We also discuss how his experience has helped him grow Accedian, as well as provide an update on the company and the network and application performance industry?
Over the last couple of years, Dawid Jacobs has noticed an increasing number of people jumping onto the Identity Management bandwagon. But without any knowledge thereof, even zero knowledge regarding fingerprints, biometrics etc.
Frustrated by seeing more and more people posting inaccurate and in many cases false information, Dawid asked to come on my daily tech podcast to set the record straight.
Dawid Jacobs is a prominent Identity Management Specialist in South Africa. He received intensive training in the South African Police Service as a Fingerprint Expert and Crime Scene Forensic Investigator (CSI).
During his career in the South African Police Service as a Fingerprint Expert, he identified, matched and verified Hundreds of thousands of fingerprints and crime scene fingerprints. On numerous occasions, Dawid was called on to testify in the highest courts of South Africa in his Expert capacity to authenticate the identity of individuals involved in various crimes.
Dawid also compiled study material on Fingerprint Identification and the Investigation of Crime Scenes for Forensic educational institutes. He has also been invited to various conferences, published media, radio and television shows in South Africa to provide professional input on Identity Theft and how to Protect an Identity.
Dawid has been part of the creation of the first Pro-Active Identity Protection and Verification system which allows for various methods of Authentication which include Automated and Physical (Forensic) Fingerprint Identification Systems, a Verified Trust Exchange solution and Blockchain Identity Attestation solution.
All these solutions are based on the Critical importance of optimized accuracy in the enrolment phase of an Identity, utilizing Forensic Protocol procedures.
The Identity Management Solutions Dawid has been involved in, was created for the Global market and focusses on making every individual economically inclusive as well as to reinstate trust between institutions and their customers.
Diverse Authentication Library (Pty) Ltd (DAL) is comprised of “Identity Management Specialists” with over 100 years of collective experience in Automated Biometric Identification Systems (AFIS and ABIS), law enforcement solutions, expert fingerprint analysis and forensic expertise from around the world.
DAL is a South African company focussing on providing niche services in the Identity Management arena. By combining Identity Management with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) principles with our experience and expertise a “Disruptive Innovation” was created – Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS).
A fully independent solution to “Know Your Customer” (KYC) that not only proves who the person is or where that person can be reached, but also returns trust between Institution and client. They link the Single Existing Real-World Human Being to the Cyber-World Single “Digital Twin” with forensic protocol and have therefore also optimized the Self-Sovereign Identity principle, to a REFERENCED Self-Sovereign Identity. Our form of regulatory compliance is just what the “FinTech" revolution has been crying out for.
DAL is a total Independent Identity Management solution service provider, with no bias to any country, government or political party.
The DAL MASTER Identity is a Permanent Persistent Identifier of the Single Existing Real-World Human Being.
All Identities stored and protected by DAL remains the ownership of the registered owner thereof. DAL is only the custodian of Identities with the consent of the owner in the Independent Global Referenced Identity Library.
Benedikt Bunz is the inventor of Bulletproofs — a next-generation form of Zero Knowledge Proof technology. After reading how it is proven to be more effective and secure than its predecessor, I invited the Stanford cryptography expert onto my daily tech podcast.
I learn how Benedikt is employing his invention with his new project Findora, which is building distributed ledgers to decentralize the entire financial industry. Findora aims to unlock a new epoch of finance where users control their own data, identity, and financial assets. Using Bulletproofs to guarantee confidentiality, Findora will build an open banking platform, and peer-to-peer lending platform, and a smart asset ecosystem.
Benedikt is also a researcher interested in applied cryptography especially as it relates to cryptocurrencies. His work focuses on enhancing the privacy, usability and security of protocols that are somehow related to blockchains.
Currently, Benedikt is pursuing his Ph.D. in computer science at Stanford and advised by Dan Boneh. He is also a semi-professional runner and enjoys traveling, especially in inconvenient vehicles.
Zapier lets SaaS users create integrations that push data between hundreds of best-in-breed web applications without having to write any code or wrangle APIs.
Zapier also gives people internet superpowers by letting them easily connect and automate the apps they use. Partners, including Salesforce, Intuit, Google, and Dropbox, utilize Zapier to offer their customers integrations with 1,500+ apps. The Zapier Developer Platform enables developers to add APIs for private or public use.
The company is in a unique position as the connector between the most popular business apps in the workplace. But this also lets us see the new software trends from some of today's most productive workers. These are the people adopting apps that help them achieve more in less time.
The company analyzed the usage of over four million users across 1,500+ apps to determine which apps are growing the fastest. The report revealed that apps from around the world are now competing for head-on with the best of Silicon Valley, as five of this year's fastest-growing apps have headquarters outside the United States—and two are built by global, distributed teams.
The report also highlighted how Integrations have made us stop worrying and love these new apps. Over half of surveyed regularly use five or more apps, and over 17% use nine or more apps. We're not using one software suite for everything—we're switching between apps and relying on integrations to ensure data is where we need it.
Zapier co-founder Wade Foster joins me on my daily tech podcast to share insights from the report and how these trends are reshaping the digital landscape.
You know how it feels to go on a hike or be surrounded by nature. You come out more relaxed, refreshed, and energized. Imagine if you could recreate the feeling of being immersed in a forest through music.
Thanks to PlantWave, this experience will soon be available.
With PlantWave, your phone becomes a way for you to connect to nature, rather than feeling separate from it. PlantWave turns a plants’ biorhythms into music.
Just attach two sensors to a plant’s leaves and PlantWave connects wirelessly to an iOS or Android device running our app. The app has instruments we’ve built for plants to play.
Digital technology has made life easier in many ways, however, as we’ve advanced technologically, we’ve welcomed increased stress and distraction into our lives. — JOE PATITUCCI / FOUNDER
PlantWave detects slight electrical variations in a plant via two electrodes placed on the leaves. These variations are graphed as a wave, which we translate into pitch messages or notes that are routed to play instruments.
Other characteristics of the wave are translated into messages that give a plant the ability to change the textural qualities of those sounds. The result is a continuous stream of pleasing music that gives you a sonic window into the secret life of plants.
Data Garden is building a bridge from a world of digital distractions to a life of physical presence. — JOE PATITUCCI / FOUNDER
Jon Shapiro produces biofeedback music performances and built an online learning platform for music education. He led in developing the supply and fulfillment chains for their previous product, MIDI Sprout. He continues to lead software development and joins me onto the Tech Talks Daily Podcast.
We talk about the PlantWave Kickstarter campaign, and I also try and convince Jon to take PlantWave and the Data Garden Quartet to the Greenfields at next year's Glastonbury Festival.
If you had an idea for a product that doesn't even exist yet, how would you bring that idea to life? Have it made? Simple as that. Gembah handles design, pre-production, sourcing, and logistics for people and companies who want to build better products.
On today's tech podcast, Zack Leonard president and founder of Gembah shares how listeners can turn their idea into a full-fledged design. We discuss how Gembah product designers can take an idea–as simple as a napkin scrawl or just the glimmer of a concept–and produce multiple designs for you to review.
Spotted a trendy product in the market? Make a better one and leap ahead of competitors. Manufacture an affordable, functional, beautiful, and more durable product. I learn how the team pinpoint the perfect factory from a worldwide selection, then combine it with their experience and leverage it to get a better price than most companies could on their own.
As the President and Founder of Gembah, Zack has helped E-Commerce Brands, Amazon Sellers and Promotional Products companies create new products that have sold for 7-Figures in Revenue. Zack lives in Austin, TX with his wife and 2 dogs.
Zack was also on the ground floor of the unicorn company Instacart – helping build the Texas markets from $0 to 7 Figures in weekly GMV, build the national supply forecasting system and fostering partnerships with Whole Foods, Costco, and HEB.
George Gray, CTO of Ivenix joins me on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast to talk about the first-ever IV pump to be cleared under the FDA's stringent guidelines.
Ivenix is a medical technology company with a vision to eliminate infusion-related patient harm. The company was founded to develop innovative solutions to transform infusion delivery. Ivenix designed an infusion system from the ground up to streamline medication delivery and bring legacy technology into the digital age.
The Ivenix Infusion System includes a large volume infusion pump supported by a robust infusion management system designed to set new standards in usability, medication precision, and interoperability.
It is the first-ever IV pump to be cleared under the FDA's more stringent guidelines and was adopted in 2014 in an attempt to reduce skyrocketing costs associated with infusion-related errors, pump recalls and security breaches.
To give you a sense of just how far-reaching this is, more than 12 million patients were recently affected by a data breach at the American Medical Collection Agency, along with another 7.7 million LabCorp patients.
George Gray joined Ivenix in December 2011 as Vice President of Software Development and Chief Information Architect and later served as CTO and VP of Software & Information Systems. George is responsible for overseeing all research and development activities, as well as user experience design and testing.
George discusses why cybersecurity and interoperability are critical to device security and how connected devices present an enormous security risk to hospitals and medical centers.
Vidsy is the creative technology engine powering mobile video ad creation for the world’s leading brands. Their technology, combined with a global community of 6,000+ vetted creators and fully managed services, are empowering brands to intelligently transform their digital advertising for an ever-evolving world of mobile video.
Vidsy also provides opportunities for creators based in over 70 countries and is a global creative partner with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter. In 2017, the company was awarded Facebook’s Global Innovator for ‘Creativity in Video’.
Besides finding talent, this area has not been commoditized like media planning and buying have. As a result, brands tend to struggle to create short-form ads as it's not easy to pack a meaningful narrative into a shorter slot. However, a new generation of mobile creators understand this and can create business-driving results, fast.
I wanted to learn more about how businesses of all sizes can harness a network of global creators to produce video ads across all digital platforms at scale. Gerard Keeley, CEO of Vidsy, joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about how they produce video ads across all digital platforms at scale for brands, including L’Oreal, Ubisoft, Barclays, Adidas, Rakuten, Warner Bros.
We also discuss while technology can enhance human creativity, it simply can’t replace it. Technology may drive media, but humans drive creative.
Zero Trust Security - the concept of "never trust, always verify" - was a term coined by Forrester back in 2010. However, with the prevalence of data breaches today, this concept has taken on a larger role and interest among companies when it comes to security.
Furthermore, most data breaches are found to be caused by internal threats and human error. This means companies must not only be monitoring for threats outside of their organization, but also internally.
A couple of Gartner's Top Security Projects for 2019 include detection & response, and cloud access security broker (CASB). This should come as no surprise as companies continue to adopt SaaS applications and need AI/machine learning to keep up with the monitoring of all their users and data. A recent Capgemini report also found that 61 percent of enterprises can't detect breach attempts without AI.
Machine learning helps companies protect against hackers and account takeovers by knowing locations, devices, IP addresses and times of a typical employee logging into a company's SaaS application, which provides valuable insight regarding unusual account behavior and can be a sign that a user account has been compromised.
Machine learning can also help companies understand who exactly is accessing company documents, who the documents are being shared with, where the documents were downloaded from, who is modifying the documents and more.
I invited ManagedMethods CEO Charlie Sander onto my daily tech podcast to discuss this topic further.
ManagedMethods, is a leading provider of cloud application security solutions for mid-market companies, K-12 school districts and local governments. ManagedMethods provides an award-winning solution that empowers organizations with full and continuous control of cloud application data, including Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365.
ManagedMethods' API-based cloud security solution helps organizations gain data security against internal and external breaches by leveraging AI and machine learning-powered threat detection.
Igloo is a leading provider of digital workplace solutions, helping companies build inspiring digital destinations for a more productive and engaged workforce. Offering a suite of modern features and solutions for today’s evolving workplace, Igloo partners with customers to address challenges related to communication, collaboration, knowledge management, culture and engagement.
In addition, Igloo offers the ability to integrate with leading enterprise and cloud apps like Office 365, Google Drive, Salesforce, Zendesk, Dropbox, and Slack. The company has also helped clients (some of which are completely remote) like Hulu, Leidos and Heifer International (90% remote) move beyond traditional intranets to all-encompassing digital workplaces that improve communication, knowledge sharing, collaboration, and culture.
Igloo was named to Deloitte’s 2015 Fast 50 and Fast 500 – recognized as one of the fastest-growing public and private technology companies in Canada, and North America respectively. Igloo is a SaaS company that doesn't just provide the technology, but solutions and support to solve unique business challenges. These are just a few reasons why I invited Mike Hicks onto my daily tech podcast.
Mike Hicks brings 20 years of experience to Igloo and leads all marketing efforts, including responsibility for bringing new products and services to market. Mike is a recognized leader in global enterprise software marketing and his career includes senior roles at integrated communications agencies and global enterprise software companies.
Prior to joining Igloo, Mike led enterprise marketing and global demand generation for the software portfolio at BlackBerry through their shift to being a software-driven company. We talk about Mike's road to success and also cover the following topics.
The collaboration tool wars as Slack falls into the background + Microsoft Teams comes to the forefront
The impact the rise of remote work is having on today’s workplace
Why the intranet never died, just transformed into the “digital workplace”
PatSnap has brought together the world's most comprehensive R&D dataset in one easy to use the platform to help innovation leaders analyse tech trends, assess new opportunities, conduct competitor intelligence and maximise return on IP assets.
By combining millions of data points from patents, licensing, litigation and company information with non-patent literature, PatSnap provides the world's most innovative organisations with a new intuitive source of information to accelerate their R&D.
Academy by PatSnap is a free online learning hub with over 600 minutes of video, arranged into bite-size courses for R&D professionals and innovators. I felt compelled to find out more.
Duncan Clark, Head of Academy by PatSnap academy.patsnap.com joins me on my daily tech podcast. With over ten years' experience supporting and subsequently working in marketing teams, he enjoys translating data insights or technical information into pragmatic advice that drives business outcomes or inspires customers.
Duncan is also a keen advocate of new technology solutions that improve our interaction with the world around us, especially in the fields of mobile tech, the mobile web, wearable technology and the Internet of Things.
Intrigued by the speed of innovation in this area he especially loves it when technology and science combine to solve big world problems. I enjoy competitive analysis, go-to-market strategies, market research and presenting data to others in a way that engages and excites.
Bram Cohen is an American computer programmer, best known as the author of the peer-to-peer (P2P) BitTorrent protocol, as well as the first file-sharing program to use the protocol, also known as BitTorrent which grew to over 40% of Internet Traffic.
Bram is also the co-founder of CodeCon and organizer of the San Francisco Bay Area P2P-hackers meeting, the co-author of Codeville and was also featured in 2005 Time's 100 Most Influential People. But here in 2019, he is the CTO, Chairman & Co-Founder of Chia.
The Chia Network is a decentralized open-source global blockchain which is less wasteful, more decentralized, and more secure. It is inspired and similar to the Bitcoin blockchain, but in Chia the resource is not computing power, but disk space.
To achieve this, the “proofs of work” used in Bitcoin are replaced by “proofs of space”, so disk-space becomes the main resource. This is combined with “proofs of time” to come to a decentralized “Nakamoto-style” consensus that validates transactions.
I wanted to find out more about the man who created BitTorrent sitting in his living room on a laptop, as an unknown programmer in San Francisco. But more importantly the incredible work he is doing right now with Chia. Bram Cohen joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast, to talk about all this and much more.
Ohi is building the “Amazon Prime Now” experience for e-commerce brands, providing Amazon levels of speed and data intelligence to every other company.
The platform is helping e-commerce companies position inventory into micro-warehouses within cities, and provides the technology to enable fulfillment from these spaces – replacing the existing 3PL network with one capable of doing one-day and same-day delivery at a low cost.
Ohi also enables businesses to extend your brand experience from checkout to box opening, with Ohi’s same-day and on-demand delivery. Ohi’s partnerships mean you can do away with cardboard delivery boxes, making your customers feel special with presentation bags, or by not using packaging at all.
Ohi’s AI is helping growth-stage companies like you find their second, third or fourth fulfillment centers across the US, without the commitment of long-term leases and expensive integration. After learning that they have also secured 2.9M in seed funding, I invited Benjamin Jones, Founder & CEO at Ohi on to my daily tech podcast.
I learn how they are making eCommerce more environmentally friendly and sustainable.
91% of SMBs Think Online Customer Reviews Are Critical, And a whopping 60% say they respond "all the time" or "frequently."
Uberall, Inc. recently released data on how small- and medium-sized businesses feel about online customer reviews across platforms like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook, Instagram, Google, and more. For the survey, more than 300 SMB owners were asked a series of questions about their relationship with customer reviews and the role they play in their overall business strategy.
"Online reviews are essential to SMBs," said Florian Huebner, Founder & Co-CEO of Uberall. "SMBs typically play in a crowded marketplace, making positive reviews a critical differentiator and a major lead-generation tool."
Uberall is a global leader in location management technology. Its flagship Location Marketing Cloud platform solution empowers the world's biggest brands to connect with their customers and turn online interactions into offline sales.
Uberall gives businesses central control of their digital presence and online reputation. They enable them to easily manage brand interactions in real-time on all digital platforms—mobile, voice and desktop—across websites, mobile apps, store locators, search engines, maps, social platforms, and advertising networks.
The Location Marketing Cloud provides a consistent, accurate digital brand footprint that helps businesses capture new customers and maximize revenue for every location.
Uberall is headquartered in Berlin, with additional offices in San Francisco, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Cape Town. Its clients include Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders from all over the world.
Florian Huebner, Founder & Co-CEO of Uberall joins me on my daily tech podcast to share insights from the report. We also talk about how Uberall is solving a new set of digital problems for its customers.
Huawei today unveiled its ground-breaking HUAWEI Mate 30 Series at an exclusive launch event in Munich. The world’s first second-generation 5G smartphone provided the wow factor to audiences who were watching the live stream all over the world.
Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, said: “The HUAWEI Mate 30 Series unleashes the full potential of the smartphone. The era of 5G is an opportunity to rethink smartphone technology and the HUAWEI Mate 30 series is the ultimate expression of what’s possible.”
HUAWEI Mate 30 Pro introduces the Intuitive Side-touch Interaction feature to replace the side volume buttons with invisible virtual keys. This feature also allows users to customise the volume key position on either sides of the device and makes HUAWEI Mate 30 Pro the most integrated, all-in-one design smartphone currently available. Together, HUAWEI 3D Face Unlock and In-Screen Fingerprint provide high levels of biometric security and convenience.
Turn the device over and the iconic ring design of the quad-camera system immediately stands out, surrounded by a metallic ‘halo’. Mirroring the design of a DSLR camera and designed to be held comfortably, the beautiful HUAWEI Mate 30 Series makes the user the focus of the crowd, attracting all the attention.
The HUAWEI Mate 30 Pro also features HUAWEI Acoustic Display Technology to deliver high-quality audio through a sound-emitting display. There were also several other products such as the Watch GT 2, FreeBuds 3, and Vision TV unveiled too. But the biggest headline was the absence of Google's Apps.
I wrote an article about how this could be a turning point for the tech industry on my weekly tech column at Tech HQ. But I invited Paul Lipscombe from Mobile News onto my podcast to share his thoughts on insights from the big event in Germany.
BloomReach helps companies around the world move fast to create, measure, scale and continuously improve the customer experience.
They believe that velocity comes from the ability to adapt quickly to the next touchpoints, channels, and expectations.
So their next move was to design AI-driven search and merchandising tools, next-gen content management system, and digital experience platform architecture to be the most flexible on the market.
They now solve everyday frustrations for marketers, developers, and eCommerce professionals. Not to mention the deeper technology issues sitting at a company's digital core, so that businesses can deliver a fantastic digital experience to every visitor.
When I also learned that they have teams, based in Mountain View, Dallas, Boston, Amsterdam, London, and Bangalore, I had to find out more. I invited Bloomreach CTO, Xun Wang, on to my show to discuss why they are on a mission to become the world's leading customer experience platform for digital business.
Xun Wang is passionate about technology and engineering. He led the transformation of Medallia's entire cloud infrastructure to a modern, scalable, efficient, and cost-effective platform. He also led the development of the world's highest quality cloud gaming platform: Nvidia's Geforce Now from idea inception to launch.
Blue Microphones is part of the Logitech International portfolio of brands. Regular listeners will be familiar with the range of microphones such as the Snowball and Yeti microphones. But today we will be talking about the release of the Yeti X.
We are living in a digital world where all generations are creating content and streaming online. Gamers are streaming on Twitch. Vloggers have made a name for themselves on YouTube, entrepreneurs stream Facebook and LinkedIn Live is bringing waking up the boardroom to the possibilities around streaming online too.
As a result of this explosion in content creation, Blue has announced the Yeti X. A Professional USB Microphone with Blue VO!CE Software for Creators and Streamers which enables content creators to dial-up professional vocal effects and custom presets at the push of a button.
A four capsule condenser microphone array delivers exceptional focus and clarity, high-res LED metering provides visual, real-time feedback for vocal levels, and a multi-function smart knob provides instant control over essential mic functions.
Combining traditional Blue audio quality with innovative new features, Yeti X is the ultimate tool for creators who want to deliver professional content and build their audience. Additionally, new features like high-res LED metering and a multi-function smart knob make it easier than ever to deliver professional results for gaming, streaming, and podcasting.”
Yeti X is plug and play on Mac and PC and includes advanced Blue VO!CE audio software, a suite of broadcast vocal tools and effects that makes it easier than ever to achieve professional on-stream sound quality. Creators can quickly access and select a variety of professionally-tuned presets for broadcast, radio voice, male and female voices, and effects such as crisp and modern, warm and vintage and more.
In addition, Blue VO!CE gives creators access to professional effects including noise reduction, expander, gate, de-esser, EQ, compression and limiter. The Yeti X also features an 11-segment LED meter that goes from green to red, so streamers can check and adjust their vocal levels at a glance and easily maintain professional sound quality while live on camera.
An illuminated multi-function smart knob provides precise control over mic gain, mute, and headphone volume. The smart knob also controls the blend of microphone signal and computer sound, so creators can quickly adjust the amount of computer audio versus microphone audio that is heard in the headphones.
Blue VO!CE is accessible exclusively through Logitech’s free, easy-to-use G HUB platform, enabling content creators to manage mic gain, headphone volume, monitoring preferences, and pickup pattern selections right from their desktop.
Streamers can also match the color and design of their desks by personalizing the color of Yeti X’s LED lights. Yeti X is also compatible with the Blue Sherpa companion app, which features quick and direct control options from your desktop to help you get the most from your mic.
Doug Sharp, senior global product manager, desktop streaming and broadcasting solutions at Logitech joins me on my daily tech podcast. We talk about the release of Yeti X and much more
Chisel’s purpose-built AI solution for commercial insurance reads unstructured insurance data 400 times faster than a human with greater accuracy. The solution automatically recognizes over 500 insurance-specific data points, including limits, premiums, deductibles, coverages, exclusions, and more.
The advanced platform and intelligent workflows automate high volume, mundane processes like policy checking, quote comparison, submission triage, and prioritization. By digitally transforming routine underwriting and brokering activities, commercial insurance carriers and brokers can double their business and deliver a better customer experience without adding staff.
Chisel won Gold at the 2019 Zurich Innovation World Championship and the ACORD InsurTech Innovation Challenge in 2018. Ron Glozman joins me on my daily tech podcast to share his start-up story that was founded in a university dorm room.
A technology enthusiast at heart, Ron Glozman founded Chisel AI with a vision to leverage AI to help industries like insurance which deal in high volumes of unstructured data and manual processes digitally transform.
Ron was recently named on the 30 Insurance Innovators to Watch list published by Digital Insurance and is also an under 30 AI leader and CEO.
Fulphil inspires and enables university students to get involved in targeting their city's toughest social issues. Students form teams and compete in Fulphil's annual, themed, case competition designed to create and launch for-profit social enterprises which target specific problem areas.
Fulphil selects each annual theme in consultation with their partners, including local social enterprises and city administrators while connecting students to the proper resources from the ideation to scaling process. And every year, they award seed capital to the winning team to help them meet their company's needs to fulfill their city's needs.
Tiffany Yau, the founder of Fulphil joins me on my daily tech podcast to share her inspirational tech story. Tiffany is passionate about creating sustainable social impact through social entrepreneurship and more importantly, community empowerment.
Tiffany is also the recipient of the 2019 Greater Philadelphia Social Innovation Award, and been recognized by Generocity, Social Innovation Journal, Philadelphia Citizen, Wharton Business Radio, and Penn News as a social entrepreneurship thought leader.
I learn how she launched Fulphil and also Hult Prize Ivy in 2017 with the goal of empowering ambitious youth to pursue their passions through entrepreneurship.
Byron Reese is the CEO and Publisher of Gigaom, one of the world’s leading technology research companies, and also regularly writes at Gigaom Publisher’s Corner. He brings his experience as a technologist, a passion for history, and his proven business acumen to illuminate how today’s technology can solve many of our biggest global challenges.
The following quote alone was enough alone for me to get him on the podcast today. “Technology is empowering. It augments us. And yet today, many are being told they should fear technology. In my writing, I reject that and offer a different narrative, of how technology can bring about a peaceful and prosperous world for all.”
Byron's new book "The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers and the Future of Humanity," is an excellent read for those looking for a more positive narrative about the impact of tech on our world and using 100,000 years of human history as his guide.
I invited him on to my daily tech podcast to talk about the issues around artificial general intelligence, robots, consciousness, automation, the end of work, abundance, and immortality. With 25 years as a successful tech entrepreneur, with multiple IPOs and exits along the way, Byron Reese is uniquely suited to comment on the transformative effect of technology in the workplace and society at large.
“The biggest problems of tomorrow will not be a lack of jobs but a shortage of humans to take advantage of all of the opportunities technology will offer.” – Byron Reese
We are living in a digital age where many journalists focus on writing about a dystopian future inspired by fictional writing. By contrast, Byron shares why he writes books that explore the wonders of the world of tomorrow about the future of work and life.
Rich Aberman is the co-Founder and CSO at WePay, which is a payments partner to the platform economy. I invited him onto my daily tech podcast to share his background having started WePay as a side project on his way to law school.
In today's interview, Rich offers a little more depth into how WePay started as well as its evolution over the past 11 years, specifically related to the company's acquisition by JP Morgan Chase in a deal valued at $400M.
We tend to hear that financial services are ripe for disruption. But Rich expands on why he thinks that the next disruptor won't be a neobank or an addictive app, but commerce software. We also explore the lessons that he learned from a successful exit and how he guided WePay through multiple pivots, a successful exit and then integration
I also learn how WePay recently launched Same-Day Deposits to offer faster payments to their customers at no additional cost. While other payment processors can take up to 72 hours to complete a payment, as both a bank and a processor, WePay enables same-day deposits.
This will be hugely beneficial, particularly to SMBs that rely on fast payments to keep their business running. This feature will also be unique to Chase, which is the only bank with a fully owned payments business.
The new functionality will help tens of thousands of U.S. small businesses that use platforms like BigCommerce and Xero to get paid faster. It also showcases the combined capabilities of a Silicon Valley financial technology company joining one of the world's largest, most admired financial institutions.
Ada Xiao is the Chief Strategy Officer of PlatON joins me on my daily tech podcast. We discuss how PlatON is solving the privacy and scalability problem for decentralized network with privacy-preserving computation & verifiable computation.
PlatON is a next-generation computing architecture that aims to facilitate secure, seamless, and open data sharing for the public good. Through Privacy-Preserving Computation (PPC), PlatON breaks down data silos and enables secure data exchange and collaborative computing for enterprise users. With its open-source data marketplace, PlatON supports and incentivizes individuals and businesses looking to both monetize and utilize data resources.
PlatON addresses limitations in scalability and security by way of Verifiable Computation and privacy-preserving encryption capabilities, currently enabling real-world usability across a variety of global industries, including advertising, healthcare data management, IoT and decentralised AI, financial services, as well as key management systems.
Ada Xiao is the Chief Strategy Officer of PlatON where she focuses on developing, communicating, and sustaining PlatON’s strategic initiatives. One of the first employees and the former Head of Business Development at Wanxiang Blockchain Laboratory, Ada also led all Asia Pacific-related blockchain investments and partnerships at Fenbushi Capital.
Ada is a seasoned player in the global capital markets and asset management space, having previously worked for prominent investment banks and financial institutions in Hong Kong, including Goldman Sachs and UBS Global Asset Management. Ada obtained her MBA from Columbia Business School, and her Bachelor of Arts from Trinity College, University of Cambridge.
What do Mark Zuckerberg’s home, the University of Notre Dame, the biggest casino in Reno, and Shopify’s offices all have in common? They’re are all powered by Crestron technology.
Who is this $1.5B silent leader that’s transforming how we live, work, learn and play? Crestron was founded in 1971 and has come a long way from its A/V nerd roots. Today, they’re at the forefront of cutting edge technology that is, in a nutshell, making our lives easier. Crestron is partnering with companies like Apple and Amazon to connect all facets of our lives.
For example, in a Crestron-powered meeting room, you could say, “Alexa, start my meeting,” and you will automatically be dialed-in to a conference line with your presentation displayed on the screen.
Meeting rooms aren’t all they’re doing. Crestron’s circadian lighting is helping improve productivity AND sleep schedules. Its smart home technology is customizable and easy to use. They’re making “smart” hospital rooms that improve patient and physician experiences.
Crestron’s director of enterprise technology, Dan Jackson joins me on my daily tech podcast to talks about what the technology-powered world of the future looks like. We talk about how technology is transforming the workspace and what changes are on the horizon.
Dan Jackson has been working at Crestron since January 2006. Prior to that, he held positions with Elexos and Zemma Technologies. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering & Economics from Northwestern University and is based in New York.
It has been a few years since true wireless earbuds arrived on the scene. They often come with onboard storage, activity tracking, heart rate monitoring, and much more. Apple's AirPod's and Huawei's FreeBuds 3 all keep the same "toothbrush" form-factor which is not for everyone.
These are just a few reasons why one of the standout products at IFA 2019 for me was the Jabra Elite 75t. They have now been engineered to last longer and designed to fit better and they don't look like you have an electric toothbrush head sticking out of your ear.
The Elite 75t is specifically designed to provide enhanced comfort through its optimal earbud shape and size. The earbuds have been extensively tested for a secure fit, so users can be confident that the earbuds will stay put. Perfect for someone like me who cannot run more than a few feet without my Apple Earbuds falling out of my ears.
Taking it one step further, Jabra also collated valuable insights on user needs and preferences to determine the primary barriers to a true wireless experience. Jabra is also seeking to address consumer demand for more battery life, better fit and ease of connectivity with the newest addition to the Elite range.
The Elite 75t offers up to 28 hours of battery life with the charging case and 7.5 hours without. The earbuds feature fast USB-C charging to ensure users will never run out of battery when on the go. Based on consumer feedback, Jabra also enhanced the ease of use of the charging case by ensuring easy access and adding magnets.
René Svendsen-Tune, CEO at Jabra, said, "Our biggest news at IFA 2019 is also our smallest yet and is a result of our dedication to listening to and providing for changing customer expectations for a truly wireless experience."
After swinging by the Jabra show booth at IFA 2019, I invited Tanni Toft from Jabra onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about how they listened to customer feedback to innovate and create a unique true wireless experience.
Millo Appliances is a food-tech company on a mission to inspire the global community to adopt a healthier and more sustainable diet by developing innovative solutions for simple, enjoyable food preparation.
Founded in 2016, the company created the Millo blender, a smart, simple, and silent device. Millo is the blender reimagined and reinvented as a smart gadget for our busy lifestyles. Inspired by minimalist design and crafted with materials of the highest quality, Millo seamlessly blends into any environment, fitting in with other smart devices.
Its technology makes it three times quieter than the average blender and allows it to do things that other appliances can’t. Millo doesn’t need any buttons - it can be controlled from anywhere on its 360-degree, touch-sensitive surface, as well as via its own smartphone app. It is cordless, fully portable, and can make up to 10 smoothies on the go with just one charge.
Millo is powered by a brushless engine with an integrated magnetic coupling. This innovative technology, called AirDrive, was developed and patented by Millo’s Founder and CEO Ruslanas Trakselis, who was inspired to create it after seeing his daughter play with a
toy with two dancers that were spun magnetically.
Ruslanas, an avid athlete who does marathon and triathlon training in the early morning, decided to reinvent the blender after becoming frustrated by the mess and noise caused by making his post-workout smoothie with a regular blender, which often woke up his family.
Millo Appliances has raised a total of €1.5 million in investment. Its Kickstarter campaign in 2017 raised over €100,000 and saw over 300 reservations for Millo in less than 30 days.
Millo’s Founder and CEO Ruslanas Trakselis shares the startup story that began with an idea in Lithuania and has taken him to the show floor at IFA in Berlin.
YL Ventures funds and supports brilliant Israeli tech entrepreneurs from seed to lead. With headquarters in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, YL Ventures manages $260 million and specializes in cybersecurity. It accelerates the evolution of portfolio companies via strategic advice and U.S.-based operational execution, leveraging a powerful network of CISOs and global industry leaders.
The firm’s track record includes successful, high-profile portfolio company acquisitions by major corporations including Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, CA, and Proofpoint.
John Brennan, YLV partner joins me on my daily tech podcast.
With an increasing number of enterprises looking to blockchain for business applications, the very nature of decentralization is being called into question.
The recent Senate hearings on Facebook's Libra highlight that any project whose value can be distorted by a central authority, as is the case with Libra's consortium of just 27 nodes, cannot be classified as truly decentralized.
While some projects reject decentralization in favor of business benefits, others remain focused on delivering on the original promise of blockchain technology.
Co-founded by preeminent blockchain authority and Cornell professor Emin Gün Sirer, and seasoned software engineer Kevin Sekniqi, AVA Labs is one such project that is focused on developing a "platform of platforms" for blockchain applications, with the bold goal of challenging established players such as Ethereum.
AVA's Avalanche protocol facilitates high throughput and scalability and, in combination with the network's unprecedented flexibility - allowing nodes across the system to utilize different scripting languages - AVA opens up a whole new level of decentralization for Proof-of-Stake protocols, bringing them in line with the level of decentralization offered by Bitcoin.
Kevin Sekniqi, Co-Founder & Chief Protocol Architect at AVA Labs joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast, shares his mission to build a payments rail and computation engine based on the breakthrough Avalanche family of consensus protocols.
Before this, Kevin was a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Cornell University, researching distributed systems, cryptography, security, and economics. He previously did research and software engineering at many prominent organizations, including Microsoft and NASA. Kevin also previously co-founded an AI company focused on hyper-parameter optimization.
On today's tech podcast, Aries Wang, Co-Founder of Bibox sits down with me to talk about the digital asset exchange based on AI technology.
The top ten cryptocurrency exchange platform, Bibox, has officially launched in Europe with fiat-to-crypto currency trading of the Euro (EUR) with Bitcoin and Ethereum now open. But I wanted to dig a little bit deeper and learn more about the story behind the launch.
Looming economic uncertainty means that European citizens are increasingly looking for alternative investment opportunities and BiboxEurope appears to be meeting this challenge by offering access to new economic possibilities for retail and institutional investors looking to build their own digital asset portfolio.
Aries discusses why Europe's concise regulatory and legal framework for cryptocurrencies makes it a hotbed of development. We also discuss how the future of cryptocurrency trading and A.I will become inextricably linked as well as his experience as a partner for Blockwater Capital, a leading digital asset fund.
About Aries Wang
A serial crypto entrepreneur and seasoned investor in Blockchain, Aries (Wanlin) Wang is always on a fast-paced upswing. Within a year of co-founding Bibox digital asset exchange, Wang has led the team to bring the exchange to a top ten position on CoinMarketCap and the exchange now has become a staple of the crypto world.
In ten months, Bibox reached a stable daily trading volume of about US$200 million. With its delicate selection of tokens, the current valuation of the company is at an astounding US$50 million.
While developing Bibox exchange, Wang joined BlockWater Capital and went on investing in top-tier projects. BlockWater Capital is one of the largest blockchain funds in South Korea and Aries Wang is the only partner from outside of South Korea.
With the strong belief that the current disruption of crypto-economics and blockchain is only the beginning, BlockWater Capital developed a diversified high-quality portfolio, and was an early investor in Fusion (fusion.org) and Fantom (fantom.foundation).
Every year Forrester puts out a report with top recommendations for cybersecurity leaders. This year, Forrester listed the most persistent problems for CISOs, and introduced “vendor sprawl.” The number of security solutions within enterprises -- which operate in silos, unable to integrate or communicate with each other -- is undermining companies’ security posture, and are exacerbating staffing gaps/skills shortages.
However, there's a bottom-line impact to all of this. Companies are spending billions in cybersecurity annually, and security teams are getting slammed. For example, 32% of IT pros ignore alerts, unable to keep up with the resulting noise.
This is where ReliaQuest comes in. ReliaQuest recently announced
GreyMatter, a first-of-its-kind platform that connects data from disparate cybersecurity tools to improve security operations, and allows customers to proactively identify and addresses threats to allow better response times.
ReliaQuest's average customer has $10B in revenue -- some of the largest global enterprises, who as a result of their partnership have
improved threat detection by 4X in less than 90 days and reduced security system downtime by 98%.
The company has also helped decrease security spend by 35%
due to more efficient defenses. I wanted to learn more about this progress and how ReliaQuest's business has been booming with increased revenue of 451% in a three year period.
ReliaQuest Founder and CEO, Brian Murphy joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about all this and how ReliaQuest has become the first national cybersecurity partner of 3DE, bringing cybersecurity awareness and education to high schools
Alex Eremia trained as a data analyst and has experience building eCommerce and web products. Alex also worked at Google Express, where she was part of the team to create the first Google eCommerce experience for the Google Home and helped reach positive order margins for some stores.
Most recently, she founded Bingewith to help everyday content writers match the prowess of Bloomberg by engaging their audience with insightful audio content.
BingeWith provides an audio player "play button" for any webpage - so users with dyslexia or those who prefer to digest content via voice can easily read content on a webpage, PDF, eBook or online article. Using intelligent technology - the player can locate which content on a page is relevant and read it in a variety of tones and speeds.
Back in 2016, I had an idea to bring a human voice to my column at INC magazine by embedding a podcast interview with the startup I was writing about at the bottom of the article. The idea was that visitors could learn from startup stories and then hear the human voices behind it afterward.
However, INC decided it wasn't for them and wondered if I could focus on listicles such as "5 ways to be a better entrepreneur," so we went our separate ways. For these reasons alone, I was incredibly excited to hear more about how Alex is transforming written articles into audio content and how everyone can listen to the internet with BingeWith.
Alex Eremiajoins me on my daily tech podcast and shares her startup story that has taken her from being a Google analyst to voice tech innovator launching BingeWith. We also explore her experiences with voice tech and artificial intelligence.
Terminal is a company that is putting a unique twist on the remote work experience. They're building offices of remote teams (not just hiring remote workers) in places they've identified as emerging innovation hubs with skilled tech talent so that startups can access engineers all over the world -- not just Silicon Valley. This includes places like Montreal, Vancouver, and most recently Guadalajara.
I found myself fascinated by the story behind Terminal and how it was founded in 2015 with a mission of pushing the world forward by bringing global opportunities to talent. Its founders all shared a common struggle: an inability to find enough engineering talent to scale their businesses because the demand for engineers far exceeded the supply of talent.
They knew they had a market-level problem that required a macro solution. That's when they conceived of Terminal — a way for forward-thinking tech companies to avoid the war for talent altogether by building remote teams of skilled engineers around the world.
Today, propelled by the same mission, Terminal taps into engineering talent around the globe who want to do meaningful work at innovative companies.
Dylan Serota, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Terminal joins me on my daily tech podcast. We discuss how the startup is building remote teams and offices across emerging innovation hubs to help scale (engineering teams/IT operations).
Under his leadership, Terminal has attracted multiple rounds of investments, opened four Terminal Campuses and helped top technology startups like Eventbrite, Hims, Bungalow, and Dialpad recruit engineering talent.
Dylan brings over ten years of entrepreneurial and enterprise experience. Dylan was an early employee at Eventbrite, where he rose to become head of the platform and led the company in building a third-party developer ecosystem and platform partnerships. Dylan currently also serves as an advisor to Bus.com, a technology-powered marketplace for private/ride-share charter buses.
The company is backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Thiel Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Atomic, David Sacks' Craft Ventures, and Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang as an angel investor, and clients include Him's, Bungalow, Eventbrite, Dialpad and Ever AI. Some of the companies that use Terminal include Hims, Bungalow, Eventbrite, and Bluescape.
We also discuss startups can compete with the tech goliaths
in the hiring wars. Overcoming the remote work mind block, and
genuine roadblocks. Tangible actions that leaders can implement
in their companies to ensure remote workers feel included and apart of the company and retention strategies for remote workers.
devToM is a cloud-based, AI-powered SaaS-solution for product development designed for maker's, product owner, product managers and entrepreneurs in a DIY package. devToM generates unique insights to augment product development to the market journey of a new product idea/ product improvement concept.
While many companies employ entire departments devoted to product development, Venkat and Raj from devTom saw the need for a software solution that allows inventors, entrepreneurs and businesses to launch new products quickly and at a minimal cost.
The cloud-based software includes insights, tips and resources that guide a user and optimizes the quality of each stage of the development cycle. devToM’s proprietary AI modules provide additional support, gathering data on your product and processes, which speeds the process and optimizes your ability to have a successful launch.
I invited Venkat and Raj onto the show to share the story behind devTom learn more about their journey.
Venkat has spent the last two decades creating and getting successful products to the market. He has held leadership roles in engineering and technology in Automotive and consumer product industries.
Raj is a technology entrepreneur who has worked on the product development teams of Nokia, Microsoft and built several new products as an electronics engineer and launched them as product owner/ manager that has won several product innovation awards. Raj mentors young entrepreneurs in the UK in his free time.
KZen is the company behind ZenGo, a mobile app that enables users to simplify how they secure their crypto. With conversations increasingly focussing on how to increase adoption of blockchain and crypto, I was intrigued by how ZenGo is approaching the problem of crypto wallets being too complicated or insecure for mainstream users.
The team at ZenGo believe that one day, all physical and digital assets will be represented on a blockchain. After failing to find a suitable solution, they decided to make the crypto economy more accessible to everyone and build one themselves.
The "keyless wallet" is a radically new approach to crypto asset management that requires no passwords, no specialized hardware, and no complicated backup schemes. In addition to the convenience, they have completely removed the single point of failure that plagues the industry today.
After reading how ZenGo now supports the Libra testnet, I wanted to find out more about how users can send and receive Facebook's new cryptocurrency, Libra. Although the testnet funds don't hold any real value and are only for testing purposes, it's where we are heading that excites me.
Co-founder and CEO Ouriel Ohayon joins me on my podcast to share how they are providing increased security and a great customer experience too.
We also discuss how they hope that ZenGo will make it easier for everyone to participate in the crypto economy. Maybe even unlock new areas of innovation, and lead to more financial freedom for people around the world.
We are living in a digital world where people expect what they want and when they want it. There is a sense of immediacy and urgency in every action, purchase, and communication. This has made a massive impact on so many industries such as retail, hospitality, technology.
However, in the real estate industry, buying homes, building commercial spaces, remains a long and frustrating process. But. mobile-based offerings are making it possible to have processes happen so much more quickly and efficiently.
According to Jeff Berman, general partner at Camber Creek, mobile applications are changing how real estate is managed, accessed, experienced, bought, and sold, giving individuals more control and visibility into their homes and offices.
The shift towards mobile offerings is accelerating the speed at which real estate transactions happen, the demands made by customers on property managers and owners, and the connectivity generally within the industry.
More than enough to capture my attention, so I invited Jeff onto the show to find out more. We discuss the advancements of technology and mobile-based offerings in real estate. We also explore how they have changed and impacted the industry and how things work.
Camber Creek is a VC firm that focuses solely on investing in technologies for real estate. Jeff spends his days studying and examining tech companies that are making waves in real estate or have the potential to and is based in New York City.
In addition to coordinating investments in numerous portfolio companies, Jeffrey is a current or past board member of Nestio, Bowery Valuations, Vedero (acquired by Murata), and SalesWarp. Jeffrey brings close to two decades of executive experience in the real estate industry. He also received a BA from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Polymath is a decentralized platform that makes it easy to create security tokens. The Security Token Standard (ERC1400) spearheaded by Polymath embeds regulatory requirements into the tokens themselves, restricting trading to authorized participants only.
There has been a great deal of hype surrounding blockchain and crypto. But there is an argument that the technology is underhyped rather than overhyped. So what is holding back progress?
The success of any new technology is often determined by the level of mainstream adoption. If blockchain and crypto are going to shake its image problem and get more businesses on board, we need to have more conversations. These are just a few reasons why I invited Graeme Moore onto the podcast.
Graeme is the author of B is for Bitcoin which was the first-ever ABC book about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. The book enabled readers to learn their ABCs while also learning about open, global, transnational, borderless, censorship-resistant, permissionless, digital money.
Here in 2019, Graeme is the Head of Tokenization for Polymath, the decentralized platform that makes it easy to create security tokens and conduct security token offerings. The platform simplifies the complex technical challenges of creating a security token and aims to bring the multi-trillion dollar financial securities market to the blockchain.
Earlier this year, Polymath also announced Polymesh, a purpose-built security token blockchain, in collaboration with Charles Hoskinson, Co-Founder of Ethereum and Cardano. We explore all this and dare to answer the question. Is crypto winter really over?
E-scooters and dockless bicycles are appearing in cities' bike lanes in great numbers. Whatever your opinion, there is an incredible demand for single-occupant vehicles for people looking for an environmentally friendly commute. But it is creating challenges for both providers and government agencies.
How can micro-mobility work for citizens, cities, and service providers? and what is the ridable technology that is making it all possible? These are just a few topics up for discussion in today's tech podcast.
I wanted to learn more about the technology behind the micro-mobility industry so I invited Jack Mudd from Onewheel onto the podcast. We discuss the future of the micro-mobility industry learn more about the self-balancing, electric board that is bridging the gap between recreation and transportation.
Their newest board, Pint has recently launched and brings the convenience and fun of small electric vehicles to the masses with a vehicle that is less expensive than most personal transportation options available now.
I explore how Onewheel and Pint are aiming to revolutionize the transportation industry and what the future has in store for the micro-mobility industry.
After nearly 1000 interviews, with some fantastic guests including household names such as Gary Vaynerchuk, William Shatner, Wendy Williams, as well as tech giants like Microsoft, Sony, Adobe, Lenovo, and IBM, and even sports teams, Real Madrid and Manchester United, it's clear that we've created a bit of a monster here.
After four years of hosting the Tech Blog Writer podcast, I am making a brave decision to rename the show to the "Tech Talks Daily Podcast." Both the show and the community we have created together has evolved into something much bigger than I had originally anticipated.
On the podcast, I always talk about how every business must leverage technology and continuously evolve. So I figured maybe I need to do that myself too. But before doing it, I just wanted to grab you all for a quick chat, a regrouping and see just how far we've come in in the last four years together since I first won the LinkedIn Top Voice award back in 2015.
I also wanted to move the show away from being about me the Tech Blog Writer and more about how business leaders, startup founders, and the audience are all leveraging technology to change their world. It's also about sharing these stories so we can all learn from each other. Welcome to Tech Talks Daily.
In today's catchup solo show, I invite anyone attending IFA 2019 next week to meet up with me for a chat. I also talk about potential giveaway ideas for listeners when we celebrate 1,000 interviews.
On my daily tech podcast, I enjoy exploring how technology is transforming businesses, reshaping industries, and even changing lives.
Today's guest is my good friend Sarah Elkins who I met in Denver at her No Longer Virtual conference.
One of the reasons I invited Sarah back onto the podcast today is to share how she is leveraging technology to transform both her life and business.
Using tech to tear down the barriers between online and offline
After supporting and receiving support from online connections throughout the world, Sarah found herself wanting to connect with people beyond the keyboard. What if you could leverage your incredible online professional network to improve your real life, face-to-face business, and community?
The result was her online connections flying from all over the world to meet in a room in Atlanta, Denver, and next year, Chicago. As someone that also believes in connecting with listeners, guests in real life too, I will also be connecting with her beyond the keyboard in Chicago in 2020.
Using tech to launch a podcast
Your stories don't define you, but how you tell them will. If relationships are the key to happiness, communication is the doorway, and communication is most engaging when we use stories as our foundation.
In Sarah's podcast series, you'll hear personal stories of professionals who have identified pivot points that shaped their careers. These stories will resonate with you, you'll nod your head in understanding, and then we'll dig into the lessons from each of those situations. When she is working with clients, she reminds them to listen for understanding, not to respond.
During her podcast, she asks that you listen to consider your related stories and to listen and consider which stories in your life might have similarly impacted you.
Using tech to publish a book
Sarah then set out to crowdfund her new book "Your Stories Don't Define You, How You Tell Them Will" using a platform called Publishizer.
In the book, Sarah will help readers understand the stories we tell and why. The intention of this book is to improve self-reflection and improve relationships as a result.
In today's podcast, I learn more about how Sarah once again turned to technology and the online community to bring her book to life using Publishizer. We also disucss how the crowdfunding platform matches authors with publishers.
Authors write proposals, readers pre-order copies, and publishers express interest to contact authors. Publishizer queries publishers based on pre-orders milestones at the end of the campaign. The author receives a range of offers and selects the best one.
About Sarah
Sarah is a keynote speaker, Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, and has been hosting a successful podcast for nearly two years. Her keynote and coaching clients are diverse, including science and higher education non-profits, medical professionals, startup teams, and local, state, and Federal agencies. She is described as "down to Earth" and as having a "practical approach to stories as a communication tool."
Sarah shares how she has leveraged technology to launch her own conference, podcast, and book. But, all with the same goal in mind, using technology to bring us all closer together.
Every aspect of our lives and work has been transformed by technology. Businesses of all sizes all have an increasing number of devices and applications that play a crucial role in the success of their company. On the Citrix Ready podcast, we explore the future of work.
I speak with a member of the Citrix team and one of their partners to learn more about how they are working together to build a better future and more efficient workforce. On this episode, we bust a few myths and explore exactly what Citrix means to businesses. We also discuss the impacts that Citrix App and Desktop Virtualization is bringing to the digital landscape too.
We also learn more about NVIDIA, GPU, and vGPU in a language that everyone can understand. However, the most exciting aspect of today's conversation is the blossoming relationship between NVIDIA and Citrix. We discuss how NVIDIA and Citrix perfectly complement each other and are working together to help businesses overcome real-world challenges.
Roberto Moreno, Principal Product Manager for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops joins Konstantin Cvetanov, Sr. Solution Architect at NVIDIA to discuss the following:
- The market trends driving migrations to Windows 10
- Considerations that customers should keep in mind when moving to Windows 10
- How Citrix technology helps deliver the same user experience on a Windows virtual desktop, over the network, as a physical Windows device
- The NVIDIA’s Windows 10 MAP program
- What customers learn more about Citrix, NVIDIA and the value of vGPU for Windows 10.
About Roberto
Roberto is a Principal Product Manager for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, based out of Florida. Previously a field consultant with 8 years of experience working on large and complex Citrix deployments in many countries and across different business verticals. He is also a distinguished speaker and has presented insightful sessions at Synergy events, as well as a Citrix Certified Instructor.
About Konstantin
Konstantin Cvetanov is a Sr. Solution Architect at NVIDIA. He specializes in GPU Virtualization and is squarely focused on increasing adoption and implementation of NVIDIA vGPU solutions among strategic customers.
Konstantin is an avid speaker has been presenting to audiences on a range of topics and working with members of the community to increase participation and leadership among peers.
In addition to well-known IT events, Konstantin regularly delivers training to engineering audiences from NVIDIA channel partners helping them acquire the expertise necessary to implement NVIDIA solutions in the field.
Anu Gupta has spent more than 20 years cutting her teeth in the worlds of retail, technology and private equity organizations. Currently, Anu serves as COO of Jyve, the leading platform for in-store flexible and skilled labor.
Jyve is a technology company that’s redefining how, when, and where we work. Jyve’s Skills-as-a-Service platform and on-demand talent marketplace matches enterprise businesses like large brands and retailers with certified workers (aka “Jyvers”) to execute in-store jobs.
Jyvers accomplish a variety of tasks, including auditing, brand ambassadorship, display building, e-fulfillment shopping, merchandising, ordering, and stocking. Jyvers choose their own hours and get paid by the job, enabling flexibility and acceleration in their professional growth.
The future of work will be about connecting needs to skills, and making those connections will require a platform for a Skill Economy workforce. Jyve is that platform.
Anu joins me on the podcast to discuss how Jyve's technology helps enable retailers to expand their labor capacity while minimizing costs, mitigating the impact of turnover rates and making it easier for in-store employees to succeed.
Throughout her career, she learned first hand of the massive pain-point impacting the retail industry: $252.5 billion is lost annually due to a lack of access to labor that is skilled and certified to effectively and quickly meet in-store execution and needs.
Led by Anu’s deep experience in retail, technology and problem-solving, Jyve is solving this pain-point for retailers by creating a first-of-its-kind Skills-as-a-Service Platform. Jyve’s platform uses machine learning to intelligently match businesses’ in-store execution needs with the right skilled labor - Jyvers - to the needs of the retailer, at the right time.
This also improves work for Jyvers, allowing them to grow in their careers and new challenges in different workplaces. Payment by task, not by the hour, allows Jyvers to know how much they will make each day and can make more if they can complete jobs more efficiently. Jyvers also received unprecedented autonomy of their schedules, unlike traditional gig workers.
Cybersecurity is a $100 billion industry. If feels like our newsfeeds are bombarded with stories about breaches on an almost hourly basis. We are becoming increasingly aware of the costs around phishing schemes, and data breaches. Most recently, Baltimore racked up a nearly $18 million tab recovering from a ransomware attack that shut down numerous city departments.
While the market is crowded with hundreds of solutions to prevent an attack, there is one risk that many people overlook. There is increasing evidence that the traditional web browser should be at the top of the risk list.
When it comes to browsers, few—if any—companies take the time to thoroughly scrutinize or vet their options and many default to whatever is pre-installed on their device. The browser is critical for many aspects of a business. Most companies today rely on a “free” version vulnerable to threat actors, making it the most expensive software they have.
Authentic8 founder Scott Petry, a 20+ year Silicon Valley veteran and joins me on my tech podcast to highlight the dangers the humble web browser. I learn why the web browser is an aberration in the IT software stack and explore the real cost of this seemingly “free” tool?
We also talk about the lessons he learned from founding Postini, which was an e-mail, Web security, and archiving service, which has been owned by Google since 2007. In addition to sharing his recipe for success for launching security startups, Scott also sheds light on why 30 years after the birth of the World Wide Web, organizations are still relying on this outdated tool.
Today, trying to access and integrate web data into computer systems is done using legacy web scraping tools and techniques. These legacy approaches leave organizations with incomplete, poor quality, unreliable and out-of-date data, resulting in high costs, and unacceptable business risks.
To successfully leverage web data and gain competitive advantage, organizations need a Web Data Integration solution. With a complete and enterprise-ready Web Data Integration solution, businesses can extract, prepare, and integrate all of the relevant data on the web that they need to boost their business and create competitive advantage.
I wanted to learn more about how Import.io’s Web Data Integration solutions are bringing the world’s data to business applications, analytics platforms, data warehouses, and AI systems. I also wanted to explore how this can drive insights and a competitive advantage for organizations.
Gary Read, CEO at Import.io joins me on my daily tech podcast. Is it possible to realize maximum business advantage from web data while minimizing business risk? I learn how Web Data Integration solutions must be highly scalable, cost-effective, fast to implement and easy to use and they must reliably deliver high quality, ready to consume data.
Gary prides himself on helping an incredible team of people to build a truly transformative company by enabling an easy way to create structured data from anything that is on the web. Previously founder & CEO at Nimsoft and CEO at Boundary.
Businesses today are finding it increasingly valuable to share data beyond their own enterprise data warehouse — both inside and outside their organizations. Some are using data to surface key insights between departments or between companies, while others are using it to help monetize their data.
While historically data sharing has involved the copying and/or movement of large data sets, data warehouse vendors like Snowflake have made it easier than ever to share data between organizations or groups of organizations.
While the ability to share data with ease has increased, mechanisms for sharing the accompanying business logic and modes of analysis alongside the data itself are still lacking. This business logic is extremely valuable because it contains a consistent interpretation of the data, designed by data experts, that simplifies analyzes and unifies metrics between data consumers.
Daniel Mintz, Chief Data Evangelist at Looker, joins me to talk about how data sharing is transforming businesses and helping to provide a competitive edge. We also talk about their recent announcement that Looker is joining the Google Family
Throughout his career, Daniel Mintz has focused on how people interact with data and how they can use it to get better at what they do. He's passionate about the way analytics can help tackle the world's toughest challenges. Previously, he was Head of Data & Analytics at fast-growing media startup Upworthy. Before that, he was Director of Analytics at political powerhouse MoveOn.org.
Daniel has appeared in numerous media venues, from NPR's All Things Considered to MSNBC's The Last Word to The New York Times and The Washington Post. He is a regular speaker at conferences including Google NEXT, AWS re Invent, eMetrics, the Big Data Innovation Summit.
In nearly 1,000 interviews, I thought I had covered every area in life that has been transformed by technology. But I was wrong. As I found myself looking for ideas for a giveaway and to celebrate the upcoming milestone on the show, I came across Katie Cunningham and how she is disrupting party planning with technology.
LYFETYMES, is an all-in-one celebration platform on a mission to revolutionize party planning with innovation and technology. The founder is even exploring ways to bring machine learning and artificial intelligence into the mix too.
In a nutshell, LYFETYMES is an innovative one-stop celebration platform, and the marketplace is transforming the party planning process for celebrations. LYFETYMES is an All-In-One Free Party Planner, an innovative end-to-end digital marketplace that helps connect all the steps in planning a celebration in one convenient place from ideation to memories.
“There is not an end-to-end solution, outside of weddings, that’s focused on the millions of other milestones in life. People spend a lot of time and money to make these moments memorable, and LYFETYMES wants to help enable people to celebrate easier and also build a platform to connect the Market Network with Communities” said Founder, Katie Cunningham.
“We are focused on building the best comprehensive tools and will continue to innovate the experience with Video, Virtual, Visualization, ML & AI. Our goal is to not to be ‘one and done,” but the trusted go-to place from a Pregnancy Announcement to Planning a Life Celebration of The possibilities are endless, and we are excited to be part of families across the world.”
I invited Katie Cunningham onto my daily tech podcast to find out more and how she is using technology to improve how we party.
All over the world, people are discovering that it has never been easier to set up their own business. But what happens when the time comes to walk away? How would you sell your business or your life's work? d the Especially if your business serves an international audience and is appealing to international buyers.
Founded in 2009, Flippa exists to support the small business ecosystem so that any business owner or buyer can sell or acquire a business. Flippa is the leading platform and network connecting online business owners with buyers all over the world.
Co-Founded by the Founders of 99Designs and SitePoint, Flippa aims to help small business owners find their exit, in an easy to use and safe environment. I invited Blake Hutchison, CEO at Flippa, on my podcast, to learn more about the platform that makes it easy to buy and sell digital and online businesses.
I learn more about how Flippa's marketplace sees over 4500 listings monthly, and the buyer base is growing fast with over 280,000 registered buyers, which are growing at over 5000 monthly. With Websites and online businesses selling for as little as $500 and as high as $5 million, you should find today's episode incredibly enlightening.
Learn how Flippa is enabling small business owners around the world to exit successfully.
Zilliqa is the world's first high-throughput public blockchain platform designed to scale to thousands of transactions per second. It brings the theory of sharding to practice with its novel protocol that increases transaction rates as its network expands.
The platform is tailored towards enabling secure data-driven decentralized apps, designed to meet the scaling requirements of machine learning and financial algorithms. Zilliqa has been under research and development for two years. It has powered several ground-breaking deployments commercially to date.
On this daily tech podcast, I understand that we will have people listening both in and outside of blockchain space. As we focus less on price volatility and more on increasing education and mainstream adoption of blockchain, I invited Amrit Kumar, co-founder at Zillqa onto my podcast.
I wanted to learn more about exactly what "Sharding" is and also the release of the Zilliqa mainnet earlier this year. All in a language that everyone can understand.
Amrit Kumar is the Co-Founder and is the Head of Research for Zilliqa. We explore what the future has in store for Zilliqa. We also discuss life inside the blockchain industry and the challenges that they encounter along the way.
Amrit holds a Ph.D. from Université Grenoble-Alpes, France and was hosted at Inria's Grenoble center. Prior to his Ph.D., he obtained an Engineer's diploma from Ecole Polytechnique, France, where he studied Computer Science and Mathematics. His research interests broadly span security, privacy, and applied cryptography.
Ericom's Zero Trust Software-Defined Access is a platform that helps organizations to isolate their interactions with web & cloud services securely. It also securely & centrally manages next-gen access to their business-critical systems.
Companies need to control who gets what access, to which data accurately. The philosophy behind a Zero Trust model assumes that attackers can come from within and outside of the network, so no user or device should automatically be trusted.
Traditional security technology such as firewalls, intrusion prevention, and VPNs are based on the assumption that there is already a secure perimeter established. Zero Trust claims the opposite. Organizations are not to automatically trust anything inside or outside its perimeters by default.
The goal of Zero Trust is to reduce organizational risk by preventing unauthorized users such as cybercriminals or insider threats from accessing pertinent data, applications, or services.
David Canellos, Ericom Software's President and CEO, joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about their Zero Trust Security approach. We discuss how we need to encourage greater education around remote browser isolation.
We also discuss the cyberthreat landscape and some of the most prevalent threats.
For over 25 years, Ericom has delivered remote access, secure connectivity, isolation, mobility, and virtualization technologies to thousands of customers worldwide, allowing seamless user interactions with mission-critical systems while maintaining productivity and optimizing the user experience.
The internet has given us opportunities to connect with one another like never before. Yet, most sites we use today have barely tapped that potential. Gregory Magarshak believes in the power of well-designed tools to improve people's lives and bring about positive social change.
Gregory Magarshak, creator of Groups (iPhone) and Calendar (Mac), joins me on today's tech podcast to talk about his road to success that included reaching 7 million downloads. I also find out more details about Qbix and how they have developed a platform that brings together communities, people, and social app developers.
Qbix builds apps for all kinds of communities, helping them accomplish things together while retaining control over their own data. Essentially it combines functionalities of the top online community applications like Facebook, Meetup, Slack, and more on a decentralized server.
They also protect personal data from third parties and allows online communities the freedom they need to own their brands and grow their networks. As the platform is currently the framework for an app for presidential candidate Andrew Yang, we also talk about the role of technology in politics.
I learn how Qbix is useful for special interest groups, universities, or anything that doesn't want the risk of centralized platforms selling their data and compromising privacy. We discuss a wide range of topics, including the importance of local networks, decentralization, data privacy, freedom of speech, social, and networks.
Robin Alex is an expert in marketing, IT software tools and is the founder of Innovate Fast. He also has over 20 years of experience in the technology and marketing industry.
I invited him onto my podcast to discuss how automation is changing, what automation tools are useful for businesses to use, and how and when to use these tools.
We also discuss how Robin has seen technology transform marketing in his career and how marketing automation continues to evolve. I also ask what conversations he is having with clients and try to learn more about trends around business challenges and how technology is fixing them.
About Innovate Fast.
Innovate Fast is a full-service marketing agency based in Dallas, TX.
Their process is designed to convert visitors into long-term fanatics, to create & rebuild connections with customers, and to make things seamless & successful.
Innovate Fast also prides itself on its strategic approach that is specifically tailored to its customers. Smart marketing efforts provide their clients with g ROI because they believe that tactics without strategy are useless. They also ensure that they send the right signals which are most relevant to your business. They also use marketing strategies that allow you to build a stronger customer base and enabling enterprises to grow organically.
GeoTel is the leading provider of telecommunications infrastructure data in geographic information system (GIS) and Internet-based spatial technologies for over 16 years. Their highly developed databases encompass 2.6 million miles of carrier fiber routes; more than 440,000 cell towers and rooftop sites; over 1.6 million fiber-lit buildings; and over 9,000 data centers and central offices across more than 7,200 U.S. cities.
The multi-layer, attribute-rich maps allow for a variety of custom searches that includes lit, dark, metro, and long-haul fiber; as well as specific carriers, cell towers, broadband, and wire center boundaries.
With more than 600 telecom carriers in the U.S. including RBOC and ILEC data, our fiber optic maps designate individual telecom carriers with several distinct attributes. New and existing businesses can use GeoTel’s fiber lit buildings data set to locate buildings with fiber connections and to determine which carriers service those buildings.
They take telecom infrastructure data and make it tangible. By layering this data in GIS software or by viewing it in their web-based platform, they make it possible to analyze detailed fiber optic maps and other telecom data sets. These integrated data sets are digitized onto the highest quality digital street maps, digital elevation models, aerial photography, and 3-D imagery.
Executive Vice President of GeoTel Communications, Eric Cabading joins me on my daily tech podcast. I learn more about location-based intelligence & geomatics and the kind of problems GeoTel solve for their customers.
Eric also reveals how Fiber Location, Wired Real Estate, and Geo-analytics can Drive Business Intelligence. We also talk about emerging tech trends around AI and 5G and how they will improve geospatial technology.
Dave Chapman, Cloud Strategist at Cloudreach joins me on my daily tech podcast. Dave has a great tech background, with 20 years' experience working with technology, including stints with BP, the British Government, and British American Tobacco. Now he's cloud strategist with Cloudreach, a software-enabled managed services provider with clients like Volkswagen, the Economist, and Omnicom.
On today's show, we discuss how the big 3 cloud providers (plus Alibaba) are competing in Europe and the US. We also explore how the cloud is reshaping company cultures and how the move to multi-cloud will change the competitive dynamic
Dave can also be found on the Cloudbusting podcast by Cloudreach too. I learn how he regularly discusses Cloud technology with guests and what it means to organizations and people in general. Dave tells me how in each episode they simplify jargon to equip their listeners with the knowledge they need to make informed and practical decisions about cloud adoption, deeper exploitation, and its wider benefits and impacts.
About Cloudreach
Cloudreach is a leading cloud solutions provider that has always liked to do things differently. Across their outcome-driven consulting and managed services, it's through its software, application focus, and cloud culture that makes the difference.
As an original partner of the public cloud providers, they help enterprises take advantage of the public cloud and its infinite resources. They know that when technology is central to business strategy, better performance follows.
Supercharged by a migration and management software platform called Cloudamize, they are also trying to bring simplicity and absolute confidence to data-driven decision making. Cloudreach is also a part of Blackstone's portfolio of companies. Blackstone is one of the world's leading investment firms with assets under management of over USD 360 billion.
Nok Nok Labs was founded to transform online authentication for modern computing. The company is backed by a team of security industry veterans from PGP, Netscape, PayPal & Phoenix, and have a deep experience in building Internet-scale security protocols and products.
The company’s products transform authentication by enabling end-to-end trust across the web using authentication methods that are natural to end-users and provide strong proof of identity. I wanted to learn more about how their solutions are providing organizations with greater flexibility to utilize strong authentication solutions in adaptable ways.
Phil Dunkelberger, CEO of Nok Nok Labs, and former CEO at encryption pioneer PGP Corp joins me on my daily tech podcast. Nok Nok Labs is also the co-founder of the FIDO Alliance, the organization that is led by tech industry giants such as Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Amazon, etc and created industry standards for authentication.
With over 30+ years of tech/security industry experience going back to his time in the Valley at Xerox PARC, Phil shares a wealth of perspective that shares around hot issues related to:
- How privacy, tech policy and global regulations are both helping and hurting consumers
- What’s next on the horizon for end-user authentication - challenges, benefits, unique use cases, and more.
- The changing world of mobile payments and customer experience;
We also discuss how technology solutions can enable businesses to scale their authentication systems to meet the challenges posed by the rapid growth of users utilizing different Internet-connected devices.
What happened when your tech podcast host, put down the tech for a week and went off the grid? What travel apps did he use before he went away? Learn this and the answers to a few questions from the listeners.
Insolar is building an open-source enterprise-grade blockchain platform to enable seamless interactions between companies and unlock new growth opportunities powered by distributed trust. It creates cost efficiencies and new revenue streams and powers transformative business models.
Lesley Czuma, Director of Sales Development and Media Relations at Insolar Technologies, joins me on my daily tech podcast. We discuss how Insolar has recently been accepted into Blockchain in Transport Alliance. BiTA has quickly grown into the largest commercial blockchain alliance in the world, with nearly 500 members that collectively generate over $1 trillion in revenue annually making this a big deal for the company.
We explore what this means for businesses and I also learn more about the Go Live for the Insolar Project which is scheduled for Autumn.
About Today's Guest
Lesley Czuma is a multi-lingual marketing-communications professional with international experience from seven countries. She is Director of Sales Development and Media Relations at Insolar Technologies, and has held leading positions with METRO Cash & Carry, several international development organizations, and an engagement project sponsored by the European Commission to bring together citizens and Heads of State and Government.
Specialties include branding, general PR and political PR, and press communications. Lesley holds a degree in Marketing and a PhD in Political Science. She lives in Moscow and when she is not uncovering the revolutionary power of blockchain, she likes to teach yoga to her colleagues, study Chinese, and explore the secrets of Kamchatka and Russia‘s countless treasures.
Blis is the global pioneer in location data. Their proprietary technology and platform is helping agencies and brands use location data to better understand consumer behavior, allowing for effective targeted advertising to drive business outcomes.
The company believes that where you go defines who you are and advertisers must capitalize on these insights for meaningful marketing experiences across devices. Their technology filters and scales location data, giving advertisers access to the most accurate location events, location data and unique devices.
The data is then applied across the apps that matter most to their consumers. Clients are supported by service experts or can work in a flexible service model of their choice. Since creating the world's first location data technology platform in 2004, Blis has grown to be a global company with 17 offices operating in every region of the world.
Blis’ clients include all major holding companies as well as leading brands in top verticals including Samsung, McDonald’s, HSBC, Mercedes Benz, and Peugeot.
Alex Wright, Head of Insight at Blis joins me on my daily tech podcast. Alex has spent a decade working in insight roles across a diverse range of media owners in radio, print and cinema, and most recently at OMD International where he was the EMEA Insight Lead on the Google account. Alex uses this perspective to understand the role mobile location data can play in audience profiling.
We discuss how much of tech innovation is evolutionary, not revolutionary. We also explore some of the location data misconceptions that you may have been reading about.
The Factom® Protocol is a blockchain utilized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other leading enterprises.
The technology provides high throughput and easy integration into legacy systems, without the need to handle cryptocurrency. The protocol allows fixed costs to accurately budget projects, while securing unlimited data via simple API integrations.
The Factom Protocol also provides an enterprise-grade, developer-friendly platform to efficiently build blockchain solutions. Factom has demonstrated its ability to act as the standard in data integrity for government and industry, with real-world use in medical research, courtrooms, border security, and more.
Paul Snow is the founder and CEO at Factom. I invited him onto my podcast to learn more from the creator of the first blockchain technology built from the ground up, to solve real-world business problems.
Paul’s innovative approach to software and application engineering has spawned a litany of inventive open-source companies and solutions that have paved the way for Factom. A true open-source evangelist, Paul also acts as Founder and Chief Architect for DTRules, an open-source project he founded in 2004 to make Decision Table based Rules Engines available to all sorts of projects.
Paul and I discuss:
- Developments with Factom protocol and in Factom Inc, the high profile partnerships the network has secured, and upcoming milestones for the company
- The wider context of enterprise adoption of blockchain technology and the barriers to entry for traditional business rooted in blockchain’s lack of accessibility
- The importance of improving the security of data storage and sharing for enterprises and whether or not this use case can be blockchain’s killer app
Corentin Denoeud, CEO and Co-founder of Blockchain Studio is on a mission to increase and facilitate blockchain usage while accelerating and securing the implementation of decentralized applications for businesses. But I wanted to find out more about his journey and what inspired him to make a difference by leveraging emerging technology.
As a serial entrepreneur, Corentin co-founded Wijet, the largest taxi jet airline in Europe, where he served as CEO for 10 years before moving into the world of blockchain.
Founded in 2018, Blockchain Studio’s first application software suite Rockside connects enterprises to blockchain and enables developers to navigate the transition to blockchain infrastructure — from building to monitoring applications for production in a scalable and secure manner.
Corentin Denoeud joins me on my tech podcast to talk about all this and much more. I also learn more about how Blockchain Studio is a creative software studio which strives to increase the knowledge on blockchain, to facilitate the usage of this technology and to accelerate the implementation of DApps for businesses.
Talespin creates transformative XR (virtual, augmented, and mixed reality) business solutions. Founded in 2015, the company leverages its proprietary XR technology platform to create virtual reality learning and training applications, support workforces with augmented reality field tools, and improve workforce intelligence with mixed reality.
With offices in Los Angeles, California and Utrecht, The Netherlands, Talespin is changing the way organizations and employees around the world experience work. Talespin combines expertise in immersive technology development, learning design and user experience, and artificial intelligence (AI) to enable enterprises to build a more collaborative, inclusive, and productive future of work.
What is their vision for the future? In the future of work, we will be better humans. With higher EQ and empathy; informed cultural sensitivity and enhanced capabilities to communicate, learn and lead. Our capacity to share knowledge across language and cultural barriers will be accelerated with artificial intelligence and mixed reality visualization.
In one lifetime we will master more than we ever imagined as virtual reality enables us to reach the “10,000 hours” of human experience needed to master a skill. Together, with technology that unifies rather than isolates, the workforce of the future will be collaborative, inclusive, and productive by design.
Kyle Jackson, Chief Executive Officer at Talespin joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about the role that virtual, augmented, and mixed reality will play in the future of work. We also talk about how he is busy disrupting the future of work through a radical change in enterprise tools.
Kylie explains how immersive (VR, AR, MR) applications will change the way we engage, educate, and empower the next generation of the workforce. I also learn how behind it all is the Talespin spatial intelligence management platform. A cross-application, foundational, and multi-purpose data and user management layer to connect the immersive roadmap to enterprise ROI.
XStream Trucking, a design and engineering company focused on connected hardware for the commercial vehicle industry that recently announced a Series A Funding.
“Fuel is often the largest cost for commercial trucking fleets and our products can help large fleets save millions each year,” said Daniel Burrows, CEO of XStream Trucking. “XStream Trucking’s proprietary technology and state of the art processes addresses a previously neglected area of truck aerodynamics, and we are thrilled to have the support of Autotech Ventures and Calibrate Ventures.
However, I wanted to explore the story behind XStream too. Established in 2014, XStream Trucking supplies active aerodynamics to the long-haul trucking industry. Its flagship technology, TruckWings™, automatically closes the tractor-trailer gap, reducing a fleet’s fuel bill without requiring additional actions by the driver or any trailer modifications.
Founded out of Stanford University, XStream Trucking has won awards in several DOE competitions including National CleanTech Awards and CalTech’s FLoW competition. TruckWings are currently deployed within carrier fleets that average more than one million miles per week.
Since launching the first road units in October 2016, XStream Trucking has seen tremendous adoption with fleets covering more than 1 million miles per week.
With current fuel prices at an average of $3.14 per gallon, and with a median heavy-duty fleet fuel economy of 7.5 miles per gallon, a truck driving an average of 120,000 miles per year has a potential annual fuel savings of more than $2,000 when factoring in a conservative 4% efficiency increase.
TruckWings technology has been tested in the wind tunnel, on the track, and in real-world over-the-road conditions. The greatest fuel savings has been proven in over-the-road tests where real-world cross-winds are taken into account, producing fuel savings beyond 5% on average.
CEO Daniel Burrows joins me on my podcast to talk about how technology is transforming the shipping and logistics topics industry. Topics include Aerodynamics and fuel savings. We also discuss how XStream’s technology is influencing the future of logistics and reduces carbon footprint.
ForgeRock is on a mission to transform the way organizations approach identity and access management. They are enabling businesses to deliver trusted digital relationships that improve the personalized customer experience and, ultimately, drive greater value.
They make it happen with the best identity platform for securing anything, anywhere, on any device. Because at ForgeRock, they believe identity is the center of everything.
As we pass the first anniversary of GDPR, it presents an opportunity for business leaders to evaluate their privacy and consent strategy to ensure it treats consumer-controlled data sharing across cloud, mobile, and IoT sources as a business imperative and shifts innovation toward consumer trust.
Nick Caley, Vice President - Financial Services and Regulatory at ForgeRock joins me on my daily tech podcast to explore the successes and challenges one year after GDPR went into effect. Nick shares his insights on how to address top privacy business challenges by:
- Empowering end-users with rich consent and privacy capabilities
- Breaking down identity silos and to get to a single view of and for the customer
- Keeping customer data accurate and protected
We also talk about GDPR from the consumers perspective where rather than experiencing a new era of data transparency, the most noticeable impact of the new regulation has been a significant worsening in their internet experience. It seems there is still a great deal of work to be done before GDPR truly fulfills its primary goal of putting users back in control of their personal data.
As the Founder & CEO of Aliste Marketing, Alicia Williams is the marketing professional mastermind behind the visionary concepts. She helps clients transition from unseasoned startups into unfettered successes. Her impressive personal accomplishments and passion for helping fellow entrepreneurs realize their own dreams has garnered her numerous accolades. These include the 2016 Outstanding Women of Family Business Award Recipient, recognition as one of the Worcester Business Journal’s 40 Under Forty, and the honor of being the Spotlight Entrepreneur for Capital One Spark.
At age 21, Alicia launched her new venture from her laundry room during an economic recession when entrepreneurship was highly discouraged. Alicia refused to believe that her creativity and passion were limited to the 9-5 corporate realm, and more than a decade later, she continues to break the status quo as an industry leader.
Alicia’s gift for out-of-the-box creative strategies with real metrics to show ROI have won her a dedicated client base as well as the attention of branding giants like Microsoft and Staples both of whom have invited Alicia to present her take on marketing strategy.
She’s also a Certified Women-Owned Business, HubSpot & Sharpspring Partner Certified and Constant Contact Certified Authorized Local Expert. As a valued media commentator, Alicia has been featured on USA Weekly, Authority Magazine, Thrive Global, CMS Wire and CBS Radio The Sports Hub.
Alicia is also the author of a boundary-pushing marketing book, which lifts the curtain to give readers a glimpse at a highly actionable, step-by-step marketing plan that helps puts you, the business owner, in control of your own destiny.
Today’s streaming services offer access to every song ever recorded at the click of a button, which has changed the way we listen, but in choosing to focus almost entirely on playlists and recommendations, music has become more about discovery algorithms and less about the artists that make it. Until now.
Introducing URSA: the only music streaming platform where artists can post content directly alongside their songs and albums, including photos, videos, additional artwork, lyrics, and liner notes. Ursa is also the first streaming service that brings the global network of industry professionals to the forefront with linkable credits (patent pending), offering an exciting new approach to music discovery.
Ursa’s mission to frame artists at the center of the streaming experience gives fans an opportunity to go deeper with the artists they love as they’re listening, and redefines what makes a great music streaming platform: not only a place we go to listen, but a community for engagement.
Ursa was founded by artists and musicians Chris Jones (singer/songwriter – stage name Chris Grace) and Chad Royce (drummer – Swimmer, Leona Naess, Darediablo, producer/songwriter – Meshell Ndegeocello, Girls Generation, Hot Chelle Rae, Big Time Rush, JTX, and Ricky Smith).
Having come up in the New York music scene of the late 90’s and beyond, both Chris and Chad have performed on countless stages throughout the world and have recorded a multitude of albums and songs as side men, as producers, as songwriters, and as artists. This authentic insider perspective has shaped Ursa into a music platform uniquely aware of the challenges artists and professionals face in today’s digital music landscape.
Chris Jones joins me on my daily tech podcast to share the story behind Ursa and what we can expect from the platform.
Dataiku is a leading Enterprise AI and machine learning platform. As we become more reliant on technology, Dataiku believes humans are responsible for working through issues of governance, trust, ethics, and sustainability of systems ensure that the progression to AI is one that is controlled and calculated.
Florian Douetteu, co-founder and CEO of Dataiku joins me on my tech podcast to share his bold perspective that humans are the not-so-secret essential ingredient to designing, implementing and transforming AI.
Florian is an evangelist for data transparency and can provide expert analysis on the myths and realities of this AI era. I also learn more about how Dataiku recently hosted a conference in both New York and London about Human-Centric AI called EGG.
In addition, it’s imperative AI innovations are based on models people can explain and understand and that won’t later cause catastrophe.EGG embraces the idea that there has been a profound shift in enterprise data practices with the growth of data science, machine learning and AI.
However, many organizations overlook the importance of having a human touch to propel these technologies forward responsibly and sustainably. This year’s conference will explore the concept that machine learning and AI go beyond algorithms and datasets.
About Dataiku
Dataiku is the centralized data platform that democratizes the use of data science, machine learning, and AI in the enterprise. With Dataiku, businesses are uniquely empowered to move along their data journey from data preparation to analytics at scale to Enterprise AI.
By providing a common ground for data experts and explorers, a repository of best practices, shortcuts to machine learning, and AI deployment/management, and a centralized, controlled environment, Dataiku is the catalyst for data-powered companies.
TraceLink is the world's largest integrated digital supply network, providing real-time information sharing for better patient outcomes. Leading businesses trust the TraceLink Life Sciences Cloud to deliver complete global connectivity, visibility, and traceability of pharmaceuticals from ingredient to patient.
A single point and click connection to the Life Sciences Cloud creates a supply chain control tower that delivers the information, insight, and collaboration needed to improve performance. It also reduces risk across global supply, manufacturing, and distribution operations.
The TraceLink digital supply network is used by businesses across the globe to meet strategic goals in ensuring global compliance, fighting drug counterfeiting, improving on-time and in-full delivery, protecting the product quality and reducing operational cost.
I take a deep dive around what's coming up in the pharmaceutical supply chain. I learn how TraceLink is digitizing the supply chain and how it is helping the pharma supply chain industry comply with new regulations. For example, the EU Falsified Medicines Directive and the US Drug Supply Chain Security Act.
The company has been working since its inception to build the world's largest digital supply network, intending to build an interoperable system for the supply chain. This will also enable the tracking and tracing of counterfeit drugs – and increase patient safety as a result.
TraceLink also recently announced that the FDA had approved its Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) pilot submission for network solutions. In the pilot, TraceLink will be leveraging blockchain, and digital recalls across its digital supply network and collaborating with participants from across the pharma supply chain to enhance patient safety while addressing challenging business processes.
Paul Cianciolo, senior vice president of business management at TraceLink, joins me on my tech podcast. He reveals more about TraceLink's digital supply network for the pharma supply chain and its impact.
Cianciolo is responsible for working collaboratively with customers to create, nurture, and innovative new solutions and services. All to help realize TraceLink's shared mission with partners to achieve end-to-end pharmaceutical supply chain security and patient safety.
Kainos provides digital technology solutions that enable companies to work smarter, faster, better. Their clients are predominantly in the Public, Healthcare and Financial Services sectors, and include well-known global organizations and large government departments.
However, when I looked a little closer Kainos, I discovered that they are consistently recognized as one of the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For. The company is also passionate about giving something back to the communities that they live and work in.
When I learned that Kainos’s latest expansion will be coming to Birmingham’s iconic Alpha Tower and that they are aligning with West Midlands Mayor Andy Street’s economic strategy, I felt compelled to find out more about their plans and the ambitious target for the region to create 29,000 digital and creative jobs by 2030.
I invited Russell Sloan, Digital Services Director at Kainos onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about their work with West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street and plans to help Birmingham to become a global digital leader.
From entry-level to experienced tech professionals, Kainos has been working to identify local talent across the whole spectrum, and for the coming year has sights set on hires with experience working in data, product, design, and engineering.
Kainos has fostered strong relationships with local universities and schools as it builds the next generation of digital talent, with more than a quarter of its 80 Birmingham hires having graduated from local universities.
A number of the students hired were identified through the Kainos Academy – a training and recruitment program offering a range of courses and work placement opportunities, which has helped over 5,000 people since its launch.
We also discuss how also want to build on the success of their regular A.I.Camp and CodeCamp events to develop even stronger relationships with leading universities, local schools, government departments, and other businesses.
The freelance economy provides flexibility but results in fewer relaxing vacations according to a new report from HoneyBook. New data reveals that 43% of solopreneurs have felt the need to hide their vacations from clients because they don’t want to appear unreliable.
HoneyBook, the business and financial management platform for creative entrepreneurs and freelancers, today released the first report dedicated to examining the vacation habits of self-employed Americans. This
report comes at an important time since the number of individuals who choose self-employment over traditional “nine-to-five” jobs continues to grow.
Key data from HoneyBook shows that, regardless of age or gender, a whopping 92% of freelancers work on vacation, a symptom of our
“always-on” work culture.
The majority of freelancers work on vacation because they feel they must. According to the research, 92% of freelancers work on vacation, and the majority do so not because they want to, but because they feel obligated. Furthermore, 43% of respondents have, at some point, felt the need to hide vacations from clients.
I wanted to find out more about the findings in the report and also learn about HoneyBook's mission to support the rise of the creative economy by providing business management tools that give freelancers back the time to do the things they love and the confidence to take a break when they need it.
Oz Alon, Co-Founder, and CEO at HoneyBook joins me on my tech podcast to share the latest trends surrounding the rise of solopreneurs in the gig economy era. Leading a team of innovators, big thinkers, and creative problem-solvers, I also learn more about his mission to help small business owners succeed in doing what they love.
Oz also shares how he is building tools that empower solopreneurs to run their business on their own terms.
CloudShare enables on-premise apps and solutions to use the cloud unchanged. Providing an intuitive user experience and creating turnkey solutions to support software companies' business life cycle from R&D to training, sales enablement, and support.
However, today's B2B buyers are different. In overcrowded marketplaces, organizations must boost sales funnel efficiencies and drive higher conversion rates to ensure they won't lose a customer to the competition. I wanted to explore how businesses are adapting to these changes.
CloudShare also recently announced the availability of their sales enablement solution. But I wanted to learn more about how it will reduce sales friction, illuminate buyer journeys, and empower teams with advanced analytics.
After these announcements and the news that CloudShare had extended its Virtual IT Labs Solutions to the Google Cloud Platform. I thought it was time to catch up with their team.
On today's tech podcast, I speak with CloudShare's VP of product, Michal Frenkel. Her mission is to translate CloudShare's vision into reality. Michal brings to CloudShare many years' experience in product and project management along with extensive experience as a software developer. Michal holds an MSc in Computer Science from Bar-Ilan University.
During this episode, we discuss how organizations can:
- Better manage the sales funnel and align internal teams.
- Onboard prospects and a roadmap of a successful customer journey.
- Showcase prospects and customers the value of your software
Lotame is the leading unstacked data solutions company that helps publishers, marketers and agencies find new customers, increase engagement, and grow revenue.
The company prides itself in its real-time data management technologies, and global data marketplaces. Lotame also provides a clear choice for clients looking for a flexible, scalable and cost-effective alternative to the walled-off offerings from large MarTech stack companies. As the pioneer data management platform thirteen years ago, Lotame has continuously innovated to become the trusted data solutions company for enterprises around the world.
Way back on episode #846 I spoke with Jason Downie, Chief Strategy Officer at Lotame over in Maryland USA. But this time I wanted to catch up with their London office here in the UK. Christopher Hogg, EMEA Managing Director at Lotame joins me on my daily tech podcast.
We discuss trends and expected growth in the data space this year. I also ask if the changes with Apple an Google are going to impact data targeting? and if industry needs for DMPs have changed.
Chris Hogg leads Lotame’s European operations where he is responsible for maintaining and increasing existing business and overseeing new customer acquisition. Chris has more than 14 years of experience in digital ad technology and operations for Independent News and Media, France Telecom – Wanadoo / Orange UK and Unanimis. Chris has held senior management roles for the last 6 years, successfully recruiting, training and leading large teams to deliver commercial results.
MaRS Discovery District is the largest innovation hub in North America. Based in Toronto, they support 1300+ startups working in cleantech, healthtech, fintech AI, and many more.
In the past couple of years, tech talent has surged from the US to Canada, thanks to welcoming immigration policies, world-class AI research institutions (like the Vector Institute), and government support. VC funding has followed - hitting record levels.
MaRS CEO, Yung Wu, has played a big role in that transformation. He's helped shepherd Toronto from being an afterthought in the tech world to a city known for innovation and diversity.
Beyond leading MaRS, Yung has an interesting background and has had a dynamic career. He's an immigrant to Canada and a serial entrepreneur. He has created, led and directed private and public companies spanning a range of industries, including mobile analytics & big data, enterprise software, financial services and pharma. Yung has also been recognized as one of Canada's Top 40 under 40 leaders.
On today's podcast, MaRS CEO, Yung Wu joins me in a unique conversation that touches on the broader tech ecosystem. We also discuss what's happening in Canada and how Yung's own journey has informed his role today, leading one of the largest innovation hubs.
Many will know RR Donnelley (RRD) as the company that prints the phonebooks. However, RRD understood that the world is quickly evolving, which is why they evolved their business from phonebook-printer to a full-blown marketing solutions company that helps much of the Fortune 500 create, manage, deliver, and optimize their multichannel marketing.
In fact, RRD was recently ranked at #8 in the U.S. Ad Age Agency Report. Here in 2019, RRD is a leading global provider of multichannel solutions for marketing and business communications.
With more than 50,000 customers and 43,000 employees across 34 countries, RRD offers a comprehensive portfolio of capabilities, experience and scale that enables organizations around the world to effectively create, manage and execute their multichannel communications strategies.
Whatever the medium, message, size or screen, RRD is connecting your brand to your audience with an entire spectrum of integrated services and technology.
I wanted to learn more about how RRD is using its deep industry knowledge and broad range of capabilities to help its clients better connect with their customers, from marketing programs that generate new customers to critical business operations.
Doug Ryan, president of Marketing Solutions at RRD joins me on my daily tech podcast to share the story behind RRD’s evolution to a top agency and what a successful marketing program looks like in 2019.
Doug leads RRD’s Marketing Solutions segment, which leverages an integrated portfolio of data analytics, creative services and multichannel execution to deliver comprehensive, end-to-end solutions that drive marketing ROI.
Doug is responsible for RRD’s direct mail, in-store marketing, digital print and digital solutions businesses. Doug joined RRD in November 2017. Prior to joining RRD, Doug served as President, North America, of Digitas, digital pioneers in one-to-one marketing. Doug was at Digitas for almost eight years, where he grew the P&L by $500 million.
When the New York Times launched its first web presence, new CTO Andres Rodriguez faced a major challenge – how to scale web services from 10,000 internal users to millions of subscribers. Andres’ IT team could have purchased racks of web servers and load balancers. But building out The Times’ data center wouldn’t withstand the massive number of hits to its site when a major story broke.
Instead, Andres turned to Akamai, whose use of the internet to replicate and cache content globally provided scale a single enterprise couldn’t match. His early use of what is now considered a cloud service was a huge success.
As The Times began digitizing more of its content and production workflows, Andres soon encountered his next big challenge – how to store, protect, and manage the files that were doubling in size and number every year. He could have purchased racks of NetApp NAS devices, backup solutions, and disaster recovery infrastructure. But this hardware-based model could no longer support the magnitude of file growth.
A new file services approach uniting the performance and access of NetApp with the scalability, stability, and global reach of Akamai was needed. Andres’ idea for “NAS Unified” – Nasuni – was born.
Andres Rodriguez, founder, and CTO of Nasuni and former CTO of the New York Times joins me on my daily tech podcast to discuss what enterprises can do to ensure their data and cloud storage is AI-ready
Unstructured data is a growing source of value, but traditional ways of storing, sharing and protecting the data--especially across multiple locations--are not keeping up with the demand for lower cost, more efficient and smarter infrastructure.
Andres outlines steps organizations can take to harness unstructured data for new capabilities, including how to modernize your applications for high-performance while placing files and metadata correctly, so scaling will still be cost-effective.
Andres can also shares a few anecdotes on how global firms in engineering, architecture, construction, and other industries were able to take these steps to accelerate digital transformation.
At the end of every episode of this podcast, I say that technology works best when it brings people together. But Dayn Amade is using technology to unite communities in Mozambique to save lives. I felt compelled to learn more about his inspirational story.
An African solution to an African problem, the Community Tablet is the first digital school, which runs on four to six large LCD screens, powered by solar panels transported by a trailer (which can be attached to anything – from a motor vehicle to a donkey).
In recent weeks Ebola has once again been making headlines, with Congo struggling to deal with the latest wave of the disease, and Western NGOs pledging new funding to battle the problem. Dayn Amade says aid efforts are being hindered by the fact that people don’t even believe Ebola exists, so the most important thing to focus on is educating communities about the problem.
I invited Dayn onto my tech podcast to discuss why a new digital approach can help increase understanding. I also learn how it is helping overcome issues of ‘otherness’ and trust using animation and video while engaging people so they are aware of the risks and how to protect themselves. For example, The Community Tablet was able to reduce cholera cases by 60% in just 4 months.
We also talk about the importance of closing the loop by providing health services such as the administration of vaccines or the taking of blood samples. Dayn reveals how they are creating digital health identities for those in rural communities, producing data cards to track vaccine history from person to person, record personal data. He also explains how this big data can help to identify trends and be used in wider campaigns
Starting in the early 90s, Citrix established themselves as the key solutions provider that pioneered secure remote access, to securing app delivery on different endpoints. In the 2000s, this evolved into enabling enterprise mobility. Here in 2019, the company is on a mission to create a true digital workspace that addresses the pain point/demands of end-users and IT admins.
Our world has been transformed by technology. There are now more devices and applications in the enterprise. So what does this mean for the future of work? Citrix Workspace is aimed at changing the way people work in the new workforce. The goal of the Citrix Workspace and the Workspace with intelligence was unveiled at Citrix Synergy 2019 and ensures end-users are using technologies that make them more productive.
What does this mean for you and your business? I have joined forces with Citrix Ready to interview Citrix partners and learn how together they are building the future of work. On today's episode, I interview Nitin Sharma from Citrix and Trentent Tye from ControlUp.
About Nitin Sharma
Nitin Sharma is a leader in product and solutions marketing strategy at Citrix. He is responsible for designing and executing global, companywide go-to-market strategies for digital workspace solutions. With a passion for solving business problems with technology solutions, he has held various solutions sales and marketing roles—targeting audiences at all levels: executive, line of business, and IT.
Trentent Tye
Trentent Tye was first introduced to Citrix in 2011. Originally an Active Directory administrator, seeing Citrix XenApp in action was immediately engaging and he sought to know more. Applying for a Citrix position with no Citrix experience, Trentent became a Citrix Administrator by promising to become an expert efficiently.
From here, he was introduced to complementary technologies like Microsoft's App-V and UE-V and became a Microsoft MVP in 2015. He achieved the Citrix CTA designation in 2017 to highlight his prowess in Citrix technology and then achieved the Citrix Technology Professional (CTP) in 2019. After experiencing the challenges in Health Care and Oil and Gas environments, Trentent joined ControlUp to further his passion for making people's lives better.
About Citrix Ready
Citrix Ready identifies recommended solutions that are trusted to enhance the Citrix Delivery Center infrastructure. All products featured in Citrix Ready have completed verification testing, thereby providing confidence in joint solution compatibility. Leveraging its industry-leading alliances and partner ecosystem, Citrix Ready showcases select trusted solutions designed to meet a variety of business needs.
Through the online catalog and Citrix Ready branding program, you can easily find and build a trusted infrastructure. Citrix Ready not only demonstrates current mutual product compatibility but through continued industry relationships also ensures future interoperability.
About ControlUp
IT management is crowded, but is ready for a revolution. There are literally dozens of products that help monitor or analyze an IT infrastructure. Only ControlUp focuses on what matters most: Being able to easily find the root cause of IT issues, remediate directly from its UI vs. having to rely on several tools, and strategically analyze historical resources, usage, and issues data.
Slice Labs Inc., the insurance engine leading tomorrow’s cloud-based, on-demand digital services ecosystems, recently announced Slice Mind, a new business unit of Slice, powered by an insight engine to help companies with personalization, experimentation, simulations, predictions, risk modeling, and product recommendations.
Slice Mind combines AI, machine learning and behavioral psychology into an engine that transforms data insights into actions in order to deliver real business value and advantage for companies looking to future proof themselves.
I spoke to Slice Labs’ CTO, Stu Basermanon episode #855 of this podcast back in May. But I recently learned that Slice has hired a new Head of Cyber, Jocelyn Getson. I thought this was a great opportunity to learn more about what the company has been doing since we last spoke.
Jocelyn has a keen interest in the on-demand space and improving the customer experience across all touchpoints in insurance. With her expertise in cyber insurance, she understands the pain points that, specifically, SMBs face when it comes to IT infrastructure and how insurance can help fold in a layer of security that’s needed at the onset of a small business strategy.
Today, we talk about cyber-related topics, her vision for what the future of insurance looks like, how technology plays a crucial role across the insurance industry, and much more.
Jocelyn shares also shares her passion that encompasses identifying, building, and implementing risk-based programs for a diverse array of partners, including manufacturers, retailers, smart home technology providers and insurtechs. Her approach to building and launching successful cutting edge products is collaboration and partnership.
Jocelyn is also a frequent speaker and contributor to industry conferences and events. She also holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration, with a concentration in Marketing from the University of Arizona.
LastPass by LogMeIn is known for managing your passwords and online life, so you don't have to. They have made going online easier and safer, and supporting all of our browsers, operating systems, and mobile devices since 2008.
However, there is much more to this story. LastPass Enterprise scales SSO and password management for teams small and large, helping IT be more secure, maintain compliance, and increase the productivity of the organization. LastPass was also acquired by LogMeIn in 2015 for $110 million. But how would these two companies work together?
LogMeIn, Inc. simplifies how people connect with each other and the world around them to drive meaningful interactions, deepen relationships, and create better outcomes for individuals and businesses. With millions of users worldwide, their cloud-based solutions make it possible for people and companies to connect and engage with their workplace, colleagues, customers, and products anywhere, anytime.
Dan DeMichele VP Product Management, Identity Access Management, LogMeIn joins me on my tech podcast. We discuss how they are addressing the growing cyber threats to the SMB market – especially in today’s changing workplace with BYOD and remote work.
Verizon’s 2019 Data Breach Investigations reported that 43% of small businesses fall victim to data breaches, and many SMBs don’t have the resources to implement robust security programs – let alone user-friendly programs that make it easier for employees to comply.
The average organization has at least four IT security objectives coming in the next year, including securing data, securing new technologies as they’re adopted and reducing risk. Although they will have competing priorities the risks of not managing identity are unthinkable.
IT teams are likely motivated to prioritize security and invest in identity because they’ve seen the consequences of failing to do so. But I learn how LastPass Identity provides simple control and unified visibility across every access point, without the hassle of managing multiple solutions.
We also discuss how small businesses can build their programs to meet the needs of today’s workforce, beginning with an identity management strategy.
Contentsquare is a digital experience insights platform that helps businesses understand how and why users are interacting with their app, mobile, and web sites.
The company computes billions of touch and mouse movements and transforms this knowledge into profitable actions that increase engagement, reduce operational costs, and maximize conversion rates.
Using behavioral data, artificial intelligence, and big data to provide automatic recommendations, Contentsquare empowers every member of the digital team to measure the impact of their actions easily and make fast and productive data-driven decisions to optimize the customer journey.
I invited Jean-Marc Bellaiche back on to my daily tech podcast to
talk about the recent news of Salesforce partnering with Contentsquare to make its actionable customer behavior metrics available through its Commerce Cloud Marketplace.
With Contentsquare’s exclusive engagement and revenue metrics (Content Attractiveness, Revenue per Click, Hesitation Time, etc.), Commerce Cloud clients can quickly see how to streamline their product search process, tailor customer journeys, and optimize content for conversions.
I learn more about how Contentsquare, which works with brands like GoPro, Sephora, Walmart, Ikea and is the first and only globally available experience insights solution on the commerce marketplace.
We also talk about how this partnership validates that experience insights should be part of any e-commerce stack so that understanding and optimization can happen right in the build environment.
On today's podcast, we have a fantastic tech story. The founders of Origin are Chris Prucha (ex-Apple) and Joel Ong (ex-Google). They had the vision to change manufacturing as we know it by making 3D printing (or additive manufacturing as it's known in manufacturing) viable mass production.
By leveraging the powers of mass computation and mass connectivity to the opportunity to make parts, they are aiming to help manufacturers build better products at a lower cost, more sustainability, and to help get products to underserved remote places throughout the world.
Origin came out of stealth late last year. On, May 20th, the company unveiled its new commercial-grade 3D printer. They also recently announced a partnership with one of the world's leading shoe brands. Chris Prucha joins me to share their story and how they are changing the world of manufacturing with 3D Printing.
Hazelcast CEO, Kelly Herrell has an inspirational story. He put himself through graduate school by working on a commercial fishing boat for 18 hours a day, 7 days a week for 110 straight days in the unforgiving North Pacific each year.
Here in 2019, he spearheads Hazelcast, an in-memory computing company providing services to JPMorgan Chase, Charter Communications, Ellie Mae, UBS, National Australia Bank, SigmaStream and many more.
According to Kelly, this boom in in-memory computing is spurred by the need for extreme speed among Global 2000 businesses, as mere microseconds of delay can now mean billions in payment fraud undetected, missed e-commerce transactions or even failing to predict an industrial disaster.
Hazelcast offers the fastest data processing on the market for the largest, most data-intensive companies, making it central to the growth of the category. Essentially, the leading in-memory computing platform company addresses the growing demand for enhanced application performance, speed and scalability.
Hazelcast’s in-memory computing platform is comprised of two core products: Hazelcast IMDG and Jet. Hazelcast IMDG is an in-memory data grid built and proven to provide the performance at scale required by the world’s largest organizations.
Hazelcast Jet, is an ultra-fast, application embeddable, stream and batch processing engine capable of supporting real-time streaming data. The company also offers Hazelcast Cloud, a fully managed, low latency data layer for cloud-based workloads at any scale.
Hazelcast’s customers include six of the world’s 10 largest banks and 36 of the Fortune Global 500; its technology is deployed at nearly every major credit card company, five of the world’s largest e-commerce companies and four of the largest telecommunications companies.
Hazelcast CEO, Kelly Herrell joins me on my tech podcast to share his inspirational story.
Adobe recently announced that it is bringing its Document Cloud to Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics 365, making it easier for licensees of both to quickly convert files into PDFs and into Acrobat.
Adobe, working with Microsoft, is delivering superior digital document experiences to millions of joint customers, changing the game in workforce productivity.
“Whether onboarding an employee, signing up a new customer, or completing a critical sales contract, great experiences start where the document does, in Adobe Document Cloud,” said Ashley Still, vice president and general manager, Digital Media, Adobe.
I wanted to learn more about how Microsoft and Adobe share a common vision of the workplace of the future—one that is centered on teamwork and collaboration. Lisa Croft, Group Product Marketing Manager at Adobe joins me on my daily tech podcast to reveal more about the blossoming partnership between Adobe and Microsoft.
With Adobe is working closely with many some of the world's biggest brands, we also explore some of the common trends and challenges around digital transformation strategies. But also how Adobe and Microsoft are working together to provide solutions to these challenges.
Lisa has 20+ years of experience in the technology industry utilizing various enterprise software solutions. Her experience includes pre-sales, client development, project management, marketing, software development and customization, and training for large customers.
Lisa also excels in managing and supporting multiple sales personnel, customers and projects across a large geographic area. Her extensive experience in preparing presentations and customized demonstrations to various audiences and mediums augments her strong expertise in forms design, workflow analysis and design, systems integration, and accessibility.
Aerohive uses Cloud Management, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence to radically simplify and secure the Access Network. Cloud-Managed Wireless, Switching, Routing, and Security technologies provide flexibility in deployment, management, and licensing.
Credited with pioneering Controller-less Wi-Fi and Cloud Management, Aerohive delivers continuous innovation at Cloud-speed that constantly challenges the industry norm, allowing customers to rethink what’s possible.
Its innovations and global cloud footprint radically simplify Access Network operation for 30,000+ customers and 10+ million daily users. The leader in cloud-managed networking recently unveiled two new innovations that further strengthen Aerohive’s cloud-managed networking vision.
Through extensive interviews with customers, partners and industry analysts, Aerohive has identified that the enterprise demands not just a fast network, but a F.A.S.T. future:
- Flexibility in deployment, hardware, licensing, expansion, and upgrade options.
- Actionable Insights driven by ML/AI to better understand and automatically characterize and optimize infrastructure and clients.
- Security across the network, to protect against the rising tide of cyberattacks.
- Technology Innovations that provide new features, functionality, comparative insights and hardware developed and delivered at Cloud-speed to meet ever-increasing demands placed on the infrastructure by an ever-increasing amount and diversity of clients connecting to the infrastructure.
"Our vision for the future of enterprise networking, and these new technologies we’re launching tackle those challenges head-on. Aerohive is giving the enterprise the flexibility, insights, security and advanced technology they need for their networks to successfully support their growing businesses today, and tomorrow.”
Mathew Edwards, Director of Product Marketing at Aerohive joins me on my tech podcast to tell me all about their journey and vision for the future.
Elizabeth Lawler is an accomplished serial entrepreneur and C-level operator with more than two decades of success in designing, developing and leading startup organizations, with two notable exits in her rearview.
Today, as Co-Founder of xxAngels, Elizabeth and her emerging, Boston-based angel group are dedicated to bridging the funding gap for women entrepreneurs through early stage investments. In addition, Elizabeth serves as the Co-Founder & CEO of Appland, an emerging tech startup in the DevOps space that is operating in stealth mode until further notice.
As the former Co-Founder and CEO of Conjur, Elizabeth built the DevOps-focused security company from scratch, which was sold to market leader CyberArk for $42M in 2017. Prior to Conjur, Elizabeth was the Chief Data Officer at Generation Health, which later sold to CVS Caremark.
Before Elizabeth took the leap into entrepreneurship, she leveraged her P.h.D. in epidemiology and climbed the organizational ladder within MAVERIC to achieve the Deputy Director role, where she developed essential startup skills that have been instrumental in building her ventures.
Elizabeth prides herself on being an articulate communicator, experienced professor, and a published author of numerous recognized articles. As a firm believer that egos should be eliminated from company decisions, she strives to lead by example.
When Elizabeth is not buried in her work, fueled by an innate desire to constantly create and innovate, she competes in off-road races and enjoys spending time with her family.
As we approach four years of the Tech Blog Writer Podcast and approaching one thousand episodes, I feel like shaking things up a little. But I want a little guidance from you my listeners on how the show will evolve and grow to ensure we keep going for another thousand episodes.
What kind of shows do you like best? Which guests have you enjoyed the most? Is there anyone you would like me to get back on? And what else would you like me to cover more of? And finally is it time for me to retire my old catchphrases? Any guidance you can offer will enable me to help build the show that you want.
Podcast Sponsorship
As a guy that listens to podcasts, it seems that nearly every show I listen to as the host reading ads for Fresh Books, or Zip Recruiter but I wanted to try and do somehting a little different.
As this show is all about learning how technology is transforming multiple industries and help businesses understand how they can leverage emerging technologies. I wanted to try and work with a featured partner that is a big name in tech and get them on once a month to talk about tech and maybe get a few of their customers online too.
After months of searching, I have carefully chosen Citrix Ready as the featured partner to work with on this show. What does this mean to you? Once a month I will be bringing on Citrix and a high profile customer to talk about the kind of work they are doing together and maybe bust a few myths too. I expect this partnership to bring even more big-name guests talking about real problems that are valuable to the listeners.
Finally, I hate to be that guy, but whatever device you listen to the podcast and whatever platform, would you mind leaving a quick rating or review? It should only take you a few seconds. The reason me and every podcast hosts asks that question is we are all battling algorithms that determine who will discover their podcast.
Smartlands is a global security token issuance platform designed for the 21st-century crowdfunding. Smartlands aims to bring together token issuers and investors by creating blockchain-based securities backed by digital ownership of shares in multiple asset classes.
Smartlands Platform is built on the Stellar network and employs advanced blockchain technology with fast, cheap, secure transactions and extended capabilities. I invited, Arnoldas Nauseda, Smartlands CEO onto my daily tech podcast to find out more.
Arnoldas Nauseda has a history of corporate and entrepreneurial experience in finance, technology, and real estate. Before joining Smartlands, he spent four years as a full-time entrepreneur, developing businesses in the fields of technology, fintech, and robotics.
Arnoldas started his career in a United States retail bank, then continued it across different geographies, as well as other industries such as real estate, consumer, consulting, fin-tech, private equity, venture capital, and technology. He held financial, entrepreneurial, and business development executive positions in these areas.
Arnoldas also has over ten years of real estate finance, project management, and development experience. Being a small developer himself, he has been involved in 20 different residential and commercial real estate transactions and developments. He has previously worked in finance and investment through private equity and at V. Paulius & Associates, a design, construction, real estate, and investment management company.
His academic background includes receiving an MBA in Finance from Concordia University Wisconsin, graduating with an international executive MBA at the Baltic Management Institute (part of
HEC, Paris), Innovation and Entrepreneurship studies at Aalto University Business School, Finland and completing Fintech Programme at Oxford Said Business School, UK.
Brian Bertacini is the founder of AppSec Consulting, a cybersecurity consulting firm based in San Jose, CA and recently acquired by BSI (British Standards Institution). The company built a reputation as a trusted security partner that goes beyond compliance and checking boxes. It also provides comprehensive solutions for organizations that are serious about real security.
"Merging with BSI is the natural next step for AppSec Consulting, providing a huge opportunity for both our clients and employees alike. We are delighted to benefit from BSI's global reach and a broader range of services, which – when combined with our proven cybersecurity expertise – will allow us to further expand and flourish."
Since 2005, Brian has built and grown his company around a remote work model that gives his employees work-life balance and the ability to work from anywhere. AppSec specializes in security testing, strategic consulting, and helps its clients build the right cybersecurity model for their businesses.
I invited Brian onto my tech podcast to talk about the state of security consulting, how he’s grown his business leading up to this acquisition, how to successfully implement a remote work culture and how BSI is looking to grow in the Americas.
With over 20 years experience in information technology including positions in software and application development, systems engineering, large-scale application integration, project management, IT governance, information security, and compliance, I wanted to learn more about Brian's journey.
We talk about how he co-founded and built an IT services company that delivers security testing services, security solutions and technology integration, education and training, and compliance assessment and validation services.
I also ask Brian what advice he would give to other startup founders and discuss what lessons he learned on his journey.
CPG brands account for almost half of Amazon's private label sales. Pre-Amazon, legacy CPGs would've been the beneficiary of that demand. With Amazon's private-label business expected to grow to $25 billion by 2022, what can CPGs do to fight back?
Fractal Analytics is supporting the world's biggest CPG's such as P&G and Unilever. Their CPG division lead, Ambo Bose, joins me on my tech podcast to share how legacy brands are using artificial intelligence to win the war against Amazon for customer loyalty.
Ambo has helped drive Fractal’s growth and stature to become the No.1 global provider of analytics solutions to the CPG and Retail Industry. The seasoned analytics professional and business leader has enjoyed 20+ years split equally in the CPG industry with P&G and PepsiCo and in the analytics industry.
Fractal has more than 1,200 consultants spread across 15 global locations including the United States, UK, and India. Fractal has been featured as a leader in the Customer Analytics Service Providers Wave™ 2019 by Forrester Research, a Great Place to Work by The Economic Times in partnership with the Great Place to Work® Institute and recognized as an ‘Honourable Vendor’ in 2019 magic quadrant for data and analytics by Gartner.
Do you have an idea? A solution to a problem? But you don't know how to grow your good idea into a great startup? We Are Nova take cofound, invest, mentor, and build tech businesses from idea stage to market.
How We Are Nova partner with talented people to conceive and scale digital business models that open new markets or disrupt existing ones. They have a seasoned team of over 200 professionals experienced in successful digital innovation.
I invited Andrew Dean onto my podcast to learn why many find it so hard to get a tech startup off the ground and how to find help before you have a team & a prototype. We also discuss how to validate a problem/idea, without building anything and why you don't have to give up your job and put all your own cash in to achieve success.
Nova has developed a scalable methodology that increases the chances of investments succeeding, and we make active investments in seed stage opportunities. Consequently, 48.85% of our startups are succeeding.
Andrew is currently looking after Nova's growth, picking the right organizations to partner with, and the right people to cofound tech startups.
Having worked for many large global brands such as Unilever, ASICS, and Lexus, to name just three. Andrew has experienced the internal and external workings of these brands across the globe and throughout Europe.
Andrew is also proudly a digital geek with a passion for new technologies, digital developments, and the way humans interact with the rapidly changing world.
In a world of audits, compliance and health and safety. How do you unite office staff, remote workers and contractors together and ensure the entire workforce supply chain is safety compliant? The days of giving someone a video and form to sign on their induction day and then forget about it are long gone.
I recently discovered a company called Work Wallet that is solving this problem with technology and bringing the dream of a paperless office to life. Work Wallet is a mobile app and cloud-based system specifically designed to reduce risk and blind spots in a business, giving employers full transparency of their workforce supply chain.
Work Wallet’s “Mobile First” service, allows employers to provide their employees up to date, real-time information, enabling a stronger information sharing relationship between employer and employee, especially when managing employees working at off-site locations.
Work Wallet is transforming health & safety, but it also has an incredible startup story behind it too. I invited Jonathan Gray onto my podcast to learn more about his inspirational startup story that began after being made redundant.
Jonathan is also CEO of Greendog and Work Wallet and reveals his mission to transform businesses through app technology.
Amid reports of e-commerce shutdowns and slowing store sales, the global retail climate has been a chilling one. With the modern consumer no longer interested in transactional purchases at the checkout counter, retail in the 21st century is all about the experience. Accordingly, the onus falls on retailers to deliver a cohesive journey, one that unifies different channels and platforms.
A retail marketing solution with over 700,000 application downloads so far, HotNow empowers consumers to gain exclusive access to discounts, deals, and promotions via the HOT Token. HotNow has partnered with reputable merchants such as McDonald's, Baskin-Robbins, and Dunkin’ Donuts to further build out its ecosystem, which includes a marketplace and a game, Evergleam Hill.
Nithinan Boonyawattanapisut, CEO and Co-Founder of HotNow, joins me on my daily tech podcast. As one of the leading tech innovators and entrepreneurs within the blockchain, retail, and digital advertising
space, Nithinan provides greater clarity on why the 21st-century consumer is outgrowing existing models of engagement.
We also discuss the role of disruptive technologies in delivering out-of-the-box solutions. Now that we can all agree that the curation of the customer experience is a matter of right product, right time, and right channel, I ask how companies can leverage on the token economy to reconcile the differences?
As the retail industry becomes captained by the customer, Nithinan explores how experience-based differentiation will aid businesses and companies in capturing their loyalty. From offline-to-online and virtual-to-value, I learn how the retail industry is adapting to swift changes across the landscape.
What is the secret of creating two websites that generate over a million views a month each? This is just one of many questions I want to ask the hugely successful Kenny Kline who has experienced exponential growth online by combining passion and technology
Kenny Kline is a serial entrepreneur in digital technology and fashion. He is the co-founder of several online brands including BarBend and managing partner at JAKK Media. Kenny has helped grow BarBend from a small content site to one that is now the official media partner of USA Weightlifting and has raised $825,000 in seed funding.
JAKK Media owns and operates some of the web’s favorite brands across a range of interests: fitness and health, sleep, home security, and more. Each is run by a team of writers, editors, videographers, and designers who love producing content that’s as accurate as it is engaging.
By contrast, BarBend is the leading online source for strength sports news coverage, analysis, and opinion pieces. Kenny joins me on my daily tech podcast to explain how he grew two very different online brands to more than one million online visitors a month each.
Kenny also advises how to scale and grow your site to one that partners with major household names and explains why niche content is key to all your marketing efforts in 2019.
Listen to Kenny's story of how this serial entrepreneur in digital technology and fashion grew his online businesses. Kenny also provides some invaluable actionable tips for listeners.
Have you ever noticed how the cameras on your smartphone get getter every year, but the audio to your videos is still incredibly poor? Mikme is introducing the world’s first fully wireless recording microphone that captures studio-grade audio at the push of one button. Standalone or via USB. Simply everywhere. The Mikme application completes the whole experience.
They built Mikme to enable musicians, filmmakers, journalists, podcasters, and vloggers to create content fast, in excellent quality and with mobile devicess.
The team listened to thousands of customers who purchased the original Mikme Microphone and the need for an invisible microphone solution for recording audio from their smartphone or camera videos. The result of the feedback is Mikme Pocket that also includes a lavalier, clip-on microphone.
These are just a few reasons why they made Mikme Pocket — specifically designed to deliver professional audio for your videos captured via smartphone or camera. It's invisible, failsafe, and easy to use.
Philipp Sonnleitner, CEO & Founder and head visionary of Mikme joins me on my podcast to provide an update on the new Mikme Pocket. A dedicated musician and idea generator, Philipp has worked for AKG as a Product Manager in the professional and consumer audio business, leading several products development teams.
Mikme is based in Vienna/Austria. A team of passionate artists, designers and engineers with a proven track of designing, developing and manufacturing consumer and professional audio products. Team members have won over 200 design awards, holding 100+ patents and have worked with world famous brands such as JBL, AKG, Samsung, Audio and others.
Tracy Stanley is a social scientist with expertise across creativity, intrapreneurship, employee engagement, and organizational change. Her focus is on helping organizations build great places to work where creativity and innovation flourish and workers are highly engaged. She has also spent some time as an innovation consultant at Cisco and many big tech companies.
Tracy joins me on my daily tech podcast to learn more about her story and creating a culture of innovation.
Bio
Tracy loved the adventures of The Secret Seven as a child: a small troupe solving mysteries together, often on their bicycles. Their exploits inspired her career in foreign lands and interest in what makes a great team.
Today, Tracy is a Social Scientist with expertise in employee engagement, organisational change, knowledge management and intrapreneurship. She has lived and worked in Asia and Europe in addition to her native Australia undertaking a range of senior human resource management and consulting roles.
Organisations are complex places and Tracy is keen to help leaders create work environments where creativity flourishes and workers are engaged. She knows there are many things that everyone inside an organisation can do to build a workplace where it’s great to show up every day.
Since completing her PhD which investigated the characteristics in the work environment most contributing to employee engagement and creative behaviours, she has written two books. The first book Engagement Whisperer: A quieter and more collaborative approach to inspiring your team outlines a ‘softly, softly’ approach to lifting engagement. Her most recent book Creativity Cycling: Help your team solve complex problems with creative tools was co-written with creativity expert Barbara Wilson. This book describes how Barbara and Tracy have helped others solve complex problems and reimagine the future.
Transferable skills: Thinking differently. Selling the value of change. Delivering inspiring presentations. Curiosity, creativity and tenacity. Riding bicycles.
Contentstack the pioneer in API-first, headless CMS technology – accelerates and simplifies content management across today's and tomorrow's digital channels, including web, mobile, and IoT. From desktops to smartphones, from kiosks to smartwatches, from billboards to jumbotrons, from dashboards to VR headsets – content is delivered with the push of a button and optimized for every screen, device, and channel.
I invited Neha Sampat, CEO, Contentstack onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about her story and how Contentstack is using AI to help its customers (including Miami HEAT, Marriott, Martha Stewart) create a better digital experience.
We discuss how AI is changing the content generation process. Neha also talks about how its capabilities, including those of natural language processing (NLP) and natural language generation (NLG), can help accelerate the process of content generation.
Neha is a recognized industry leader, a proponent of diversity and an outspoken advocate for women in leadership. She can be found appearing on keynote stages or expert panels discussing her experiences as an entrepreneur, a female leader, or her company's role in the future of technology.
Previously, Neha was Founder and CEO of Digital Experience Platform Built.io®, which was acquired by German software powerhouse Software AG in September 2018. Built.io® – a 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant Vendor and 2016 Gartner Cool Vendor – provides a digital experience platform to help organizations accelerate their digital transformation.
Neha was named in “San Francisco Business Times Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business” in 2017, is a “San Francisco Business Times 40 under 40” honoree and one of “50 Women in Tech Dominating Silicon Valley” in 2015. Neha was most recently honored as “CEO of the Year” by Aragon Research in December 2018.
Starburst gives analysts the freedom to work with diverse data sets wherever their location, without compromising on performance. Using Presto, the Starburst Distribution of Presto provides fast, interactive query performance across a wide variety of data sources including HDFS, Amazon S3, MySQL, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Cassandra, MongoDB, Kafka, and Teradata, among others.
Founded by the largest team of Presto committers outside of Facebook, Starburst is the only company providing enterprise support for the Presto project. Originally invented and open sourced by Facebook under the Apache License, Presto is the fastest growing SQL engine driven by a community of users --- from small companies to the Fortune 500.
According to Justin Borgman, CEO of Starburst Data, the largest contributor to the Presto open source project outside of Facebook, there are three key items to keep in mind when creating a data architecture that can stand the test of time:
- Separate compute and storage
- Use open data formats
- Future proof your architecture with abstraction wherever you can
By adhering to these three items, enterprises preserve their optionality, enabling them to better control costs and gain the most from the architecture investments. But each item plays a specific role in creating optionality.
I invited Justin Borgman onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about data architecture freedom and much more.
Justin has spent the better part of a decade in senior executive roles building new businesses in the data warehousing and analytics space. Prior to co-founding Starburst, Justin was Vice President and General Manager at Teradata (NYSE: TDC), where he was responsible for the company’s portfolio of Hadoop products.
Prior to joining Teradata, Justin was co-founder and CEO of Hadapt, the pioneering “SQL-on-Hadoop” company that transformed Hadoop from file system to analytic database accessible to anyone with a BI tool. Hadapt was acquired by Teradata in 2014.
Hootsuite, the global leader in social media management, trusted by more than 18 million customers and employees at more than 80% of the Fortune 1000, recently announced the launch of a Google My Business app integration in the Hootsuite platform and its new Google Preferred Partner status.
This is Hootsuite’s second major Google integration launch in less than a year and is a testament to Hootsuite’s commitment to deepening its product integrations and alliance with Google.
Hootsuite also recently unveiled seven new chatbot building platforms in its App Directory. These new services will enable unique use cases and integrations that will help customers engage key audiences, grow their following, and obtain a full view of the social conversations impacting their brand.
They also support the integration of Facebook messages in Hootsuite Inbox. I also learned that Audi Italia utilizes chatbots to dramatically increase engagement with their audience of Audi Fans through user-generated content related to the vehicle and brand. I felt compelled to find out more and invited them onto the show.
Jeremy Wood, VP of Product Marketing at Hootsuite joins me on my daily tech podcast to share his insights into how advancements in conversational AI and why it is the driving force behind bots.
Jeremy leads the Product Marketing organization, focused on strategically shaping and bringing Hootsuite's products to market. He has more than 19 years in global marketing experience with SMB and Enterprise Saas businesses.
Proud and loving dog owner, Jenny had a shocking experience when the pet sitter she hired off Craigslist stole money and faked her own death. Realizing other people were having the same experiences (and worse!) when hiring dog walkers, babysitters, and handymen, or using home sharing and ride-sharing companies, she developed the idea for SafetyPIN Technologies.
After consulting with experts in technology and criminal behavior and profiling, she began to pull the pieces together. She then left her career of 20 years as a CEO for a health and wellness company to bring her idea to life.
I wanted to find out more about the story behind SafetyPIN Technologies and the new universal trust badge that's been approved by the former White House security chief and forensic profilers. Jenny Thompson joins me on my daily tech podcast to share her startup story. We also talk about her mission to transform the security level of the sharing economy, which included a unique behavioral review that is proving to be unmatched.
Jenny Thompson is a mission-driven startup executive, author, and natural-born marketer who has documented success in building brands from scratch and driving measurable growth to benefit shareholders, employees, and customers alike.
Today, as Founder of SafetyPIN Technologies, Jenny has developed an innovative background check methodology that offers a universal trust badge for approved applicants, verifying peace of mind for the national sharing economy.
Prior to SafetyPIN, Jenny spent more than two decades supporting the Agora Companies, including her role as CEO of NewMarket Health. During that time, she grew the company from $2 million to $70 million, oversaw the migration of the company's digital marketing transformation, and was responsible for 14 brands.
Jenny is also the noteworthy creator of the 3-Day Business Cleanse, a novel process that helps companies get "unstuck" using a review, eliminate, and rebuild philosophy.
Pex delivers independent video and music analytics & rights management services to enable creators, rights holders, and marketers to find, measure, and leverage the value of content across the Web. The Pex attribution engine allows online video and music platforms and apps to programmatically authenticate content before users upload.
The fingerprinting and lookup capabilities of Attribution Engine stem from the established technology on which it is built. Pex's algorithms, which have been powering Pex products for the past few years, allow for content identification with matching segments as short at 0.5 seconds in length, melody matching, and detecting compressed, cropped, or otherwise modified copies.
To date, Pex has signed all major music labels and publishers as clients, supporting everything from their DRM efforts and licensing to A&R and marketing. In addition, Pex counts as clients major movie studios, brands, and ad agencies using its services to track their content across platforms to get a better understanding of its impact.
However, I wanted to explore the story behind PEX and how Rasty Turek learned about entrepreneurship in the most unexpected way possible. I wanted to learn more about this startup story. On today's episode, Turek reveals how he built a company that flies in the face of tech work-life imbalance, and that encourages both performance and outside passions.
NEM (XEM) is one of the oldest blockchain platforms on the crypto landscape and has a passionate community. But, I wanted to find out more about NEM Ventures.
NEM Ventures is the venture capital and investments arm of the
NEM blockchain ecosystem, which serves to manage the NEM Community Fund. Much like Cardano’s Emurgo, It works like a VC, that will back projects based on their commercial viability, quality and ability to enhance the NEM ecosystem.
Along with receiving funding from NEM Ventures, successful projects that align with the ethos of the NEM community will be provided with expertise from the team. NEM will also incentivize the open sourcing of non commercially sensitive software, benefiting the creativity, productivity and accessibility of other projects in the NEM ecosystem.
The company also recently announced an investment in the ridesharing app, Mobi 28, which provides a safe and affordable carpooling alternative. First hitting the Australian market in Melbourne, Mobi leverages the NEM blockchain to change the face of commuting.
NEM Ventures has developed a reputation for exploring ways to utilize blockchain to promote social change. Dave Hodgson, Director, and Co-founder of NEM Ventures joins me on my daily tech podcast and reveals what type of projects NEM Ventures look to invest in.
Dave is someone who enjoys defining and helping achieve business outcomes with technology agnostic and non-technology solutions. As crypto winter comes to an end, I also ask Dave to share news around how NEM is gearing up for the Catapult launch later this year.
Fast. Flexible. Staffing Reinvented. Wonolo, which stands for “Work Now Locally,” is an on-demand staffing platform that is changing the way businesses find talent for their immediate labor needs.
The company is on a mission to create flexible opportunities for individuals to make extra income, learn new skills, and change their lives. At the same time, they are saving companies money by connecting them with talented people within minutes.
However, when I looked a little closer I discovered the intriguing story behind Wonolo which began working inside the Coca-Cola Company. They were motivated by wanting to solve one pervasive problem. How do they ensure cans are always on the store shelf? When a warehouse worker calls out sick, a driver is caught in traffic, or a merchandiser can’t work overtime, how can we find the talent to get the product on the shelf?
Meanwhile, they observed a growing segment of frontline workers, often part-time or unemployed, struggling to find additional work around their busy schedules. Some already had the right skillsets to get that product on the shelf, others had the capability to quickly learn.
The convergence of these two insights began our journey to not only create a smarter way to match supply and demand but to redefine the pool of talent available to get work done.
Today, Wonolo helps connect thousands of businesses with tens of thousands of Wonoloers. What started with getting Sprite on the shelf evolved into giving anyone the opportunity to Work Now Locally - making Wonoloing the future of work for frontline jobs.
On this show, I like to bust a few myths, and today we explore how baby boomers are leveraging hiring apps to find blue-collar work. Wonolo recently released a blog post highlighting its internal data from all completed gigs on the platform last year.
Beatrice Pang, the VP of strategy and finance at Wonolo, joins me on my daily tech podcast to share more insights on the data and how a hiring app like Wonolo helps Boomers find flexible work in retirement. We also talk about:
- The average number of gigs Baby Boomers work per week
- Top job categories Boomers tend to pick
- Average job ratings by employers compared to younger generations
- A breakdown of Boomers’ earnings across Wonolo’s largest markets
In 2014, The parent company of Vistaprint and other Web-to-print brands changed its name to Cimpress N.V. The company invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of proprietary software and production technology, in order to evolve its operational capabilities into a shared mass customization platform (MCP).
Cimpress set out on a mission to transform this technology investment by advancing its proprietary computer integrated manufacturing technologies. The end goal is was to enable the company to mass customize personalized and unique physical products in small quantities at an affordable price.
Here in 2019, Cimpress N.V. (Nasdaq: CMPR) continues to invest and build customer-focused, entrepreneurial, mass-customization businesses for the long term. Mass customization is a competitive strategy which seeks to produce goods and services to meet individual customer needs with near mass production efficiency.
Cimpress businesses include BuildASign, Drukwerkdeal, Exaprint, National Pen, Pixartprinting, Printi, Vistaprint and WIRmachenDRUCK.
Eugene Hsu, VP of Platform Strategy at Cimpress joins me on my daily tech podcast to explain how autonomous technology teams can help businesses respond rapidly to change. We also explore how it can promote innovation, experimentation, and drive decision-making closer to customers. Yet, autonomy without some guardrails can result in a technology organization without a clear direction or purpose. To balance this, some alignment is necessary, but how much and what style?
Hsu talks about how senior leaders can find the right balance of autonomy and alignment. In his role, Hsu explores the competitive landscape of mass customization and advises leaders on how platform strategies can be applied to their businesses. He has held various positions in innovation, software engineering, and computer science research, and has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.
Four friends - Rajaraman, KPS, Krish, and Thiyagu - started Chargebee in a room in Rajaraman's apartment in Chennai, India in June 2011. The goal was to build a company together. Today, they are a global team of truth-seeking problem-solvers who are fearless idealists who genuinely believe that they can change the world.
Chargebee is a subscription and recurring billing management solutions company that helps businesses manage their billing, payments, subscriptions and invoicing services efficiently. Founded in 2011, Chargebee offers a SaaS solution that simplifies billing complexities and operations for subscription businesses, while delivering seamless customer experiences.
In a world where everyone from Apple to Majestic Wines are focusing on subscription models to secure recurring revenue streams Chargebee is making quite a name for itself. The SaaS platform helps businesses manage and grow their revenue by automating subscriptions, billing, invoicing, payments and revenue recognition processes and it provides key reports, metrics and insights into their subscription business.
The emerging leader in SaaS subscription management and recurring billing solution is currently used by thousands of customers across 53 countries. It also announced expansion of its international operations with the opening of its European Headquarters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Chargebee also recently raised $18 Million in Series-C led by Insight Venture Partners. But I wanted to find out more about the inspirational story of how four friends would go on to help businesses leverage the subscription economy.
Krish Subramanian, Co-founder & CEO of Chargebee joins me on my daily tech podcast to share the story behind Chargebee. I also learn how the new headquarters will enable Chargebee to better support growth and service opportunities across Europe.
In 2010 New Day at Work was founded with a simple goal: Challenge the traditional desktop and their suppliers and rethink how employees get their job done. With the rapid increase of web-based applications vs. Windows-based applications and urge for simplicity.
The application landscape is changing rapidly. With all the applications moving to the browser, the traditional desktop approach is no longer viable for most businesses. As a result, they built Workspace 365. The platform enables users to deliver a modern, role-based workspace to your customers.
Integrating and simplifying Office 365, providing Single Sign-On and integrating legacy Windows applications in one complete digital workspace.
Founder and CEO, Erik Nicolai, joins me on my daily tech podcast to share the story behind New Day at Work and Workspace 365.
2Hz, is a developer of voice and audio technologies and applications aimed at enhancing call clarity and productivity. After hearing that the company has released its patented Krisp noise cancellation and voice enhancement application on Windows and Mac OS, I felt compelled to find out more.
The new AI-powered Krisp removes background noises and adapts to each person's voice resulting in unparalleled call quality. Krisp mutes noises in both directions of the call, plus it seamlessly integrates with all conferencing apps including Skype, WebEx, Zoom, Slack, Hangouts Meet and more, independent of the users microphone or headset.
2Hz developed and trained a deep neural network to address two fundamental challenges with audio and video communications: muting background noises bi-directionally for all users on a call, and providing clear speech throughout the call. But I wanted to find out more about the story behind this technology.
The result of the company's research of tens of thousands of unique noise distractors, voice types and languages, became Krisp, an application that at its core requires no dependency on specific microphones or speakers and cancels all extraneous noise types during calls.
"More and more professional calls are taking place from noisy, distracting environments- open workspaces, coffee shops- even the home office, and we want to fix that for everyone," said Davit Baghdasaryan, CEO of 2Hz.
Davit Baghdasaryan, CEO of 2Hz joins me on my daily tech podcast to tell me all about the release and the problems they are solving with technology.
Webroot, a Carbonite company, harnesses the cloud and machine learning to reliably predict and protect against cyber attacks in real time. Webroot secures businesses and consumers worldwide with endpoint and network protection, security awareness training and threat intelligence services.
Earlier this year, Webroot was acquired by Carbonite, an endpoint and server backup and recovery provider serving customers ranging from small businesses to enterprises. Together, they are leading cybersecurity and data protection company.
“The combination of these two companies creates a unique and powerful data protection and cybersecurity solution for our customers and partners,” said Mohamad Ali, Carbonite CEO.
I also recently learned that Webroot is leveraging the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) to more efficiently scale and update its threat intelligence platform. The partnership has allowed Webroot to understand – and help businesses defend against – new attacks in near-real-time, which is critical because attacks are evolving increasingly quickly.
Webroot’s CTO Hal Lonas joins me on my daily tech podcast to discuss the partnership, including how SDSC’s computational power can be ~100x more cost-efficient than other solutions. We also talk about the importance of public/private collaboration in cybersecurity.
In a digital world where cyber attacks are evolving quicker than most people realize, we explore business trends and bust a few myths in cybersecurity.
Do you think that parking should be easier? Think of how you booked your last flight. Or rented a flat, booked a hotel, bought car insurance, or even found a date. Businesses like Sky Scanner, Rightmove, Laterooms, MoneySupermarket, and Match.com all spring to mind. These online businesses have only been around for a few years. They’re relatively new and yet they’re brands you recognize.
YourParkingSpace is aiming to be the online business that springs to mind next time you want to park your car, whether it’s a for a few hours near the shops or for a few months near to your office. From private driveways to lock-up garages and commercial car parks, you can find a huge array of spaces at YourParkingSpace, with new spaces being added every day.
The platform is also giving homeowners an opportunity to earn more than £2,200 a year by simply renting out their driveway to another motorist. Thanks to some great publicity in many national newspapers and both ITV London Tonight and BBC Breakfast the company quickly grew to become one of the most popular places to rent out a parking space.
Charles Cridland Technical Director & Co-Founder originally founded the company back in the summer of 2006. Back then it was a pure driveway rental platform, built to allow individuals to boost their income by renting out their unused driveway.
Charles now heads up the development and marketing side of things, overseeing the implementation of new features on the site and our latest marketing initiatives to get the word out about what they are doing. Charles joins me on my daily tech podcast to share the startup story behind YourParkingSpace and what the future holds for the company as we head towards a new era of electronic cars.
Greg Shepard is a seasoned veteran in building and running sustainable growth businesses. Greg is also a serial angel investor and startup growth consultant who has spearheaded 12-15 company exits throughout his career. His former company, AffiliateTraction, was acquired by eBay Enterprise Marketing Solutions in January 2016 as a part of a cross-brand deal totaling $985M.
The following April, the company was rebranded Pepperjam during a transaction that earned them the prestigious “Tech Deal of the Year Over $250 million” award as well as “Private Equity Deal of the Year Over $500 million to $1 billion,” “Cross Border Deal of the Year Over $500 million to $1 billion,” and “M&A Deal of the Year Over $500 to $1 billion” awards.
The $985-million-dollar deal comprised of the purchase and the selling of more than 14 companies, including AdAssured, another company founded by Greg, and garnered Greg a spot among the elite in performance marketing.
Greg served as Pepperjam’s Chief Strategy Officer during 2016, charting the company’s trajectory for future products and service offerings, before transitioning into the role of Chief Technology Officer in 2017 to execute on the vision and strategy defined during his time as the Chief Strategy Officer.
Prior to AffiliateTraction, Greg was involved with and/or co-founded a number of online retail merchants, online publishers, SAAS affiliate tracking software, and online directories; all of which were acquired. Greg has served on numerous advisory boards, is a regular contributor to industry publications such as; Forbes, Fortune, and Adweek, and is a frequent speaker at conferences around the globe; including the 2017 Annual Tech Summit for Permira.
Most recently, he has been authoring a book titled: ‘Meet the BOSS - The Agile Playbook for Startups slated to publish in Q4 of 2019. Alongside the book will be a TED talk.
However, it's the inspirational story behind Greg's success and his lust for life that will stay with me forever. This episode is a must listen for any startup founder and contains many valuable insights from a hugely successful career.
Today's guest is Jonathan Rouach, CEO and Co-Founder of QEDIT, the enterprise solution for preserving data privacy on the blockchain. The company also recently received the European Commission Seal of Excellence.
Based on zero-knowledge proof cryptography, co-invented by Turing
Award winner and QEDIT scientific advisor Professor Shafi Goldwasser,
QEDIT is a privacy layer for blockchain technology. QEDIT enables secure collaboration between companies using sensitive data while ensuring regulatory compliance.
Using QEDIT, it can be proven that data on the blockchain is stored and transferred without revealing any confidential details, and while ensuring regulatory compliance. The company has existing partnerships with BT, Thales, BNP Paribas, and Deloitte.
Jonathan talks about zero-knowledge proofs in a language that everyone can understand. He also discusses how an enterprise-ready privacy layer can accelerate blockchain adoption with the highest privacy standards.
Steve Newman is the Founder and Chairman of Scalyr. Steve learned to program at the age of eight and is a lifelong engineer and entrepreneur. Scalyr is the sixth company he has founded. His most recent company prior to Scalyr, Writely, was acquired by Google and turned into Google Docs and Google Drive, two mainstay products now used by 800 million people daily.
After four successful years at Google, he left the company to create Scalyr and tackle a problem that even the best minds at Google couldn't figure out how to solve. Scalyr is the unified observability & log management platform designed for modern application development & deployment.
Scalyr offers a cloud-based platform for high-speed log management and server monitoring. Founded by one of the creators of Google Docs, Scalyr brings the speed and ease of use normally found in consumer apps to an incredibly powerful server monitoring tool. 96% of all queries complete in under a second, and there's no need to learn a complex query language. Notable customers include OkCupid, Zalando, Grab, CareerBuilder and Wistia.
Steve Newman shares his path to success -- from getting acquired by Google to life after the tech giant. He also speaks passionately about his empathetic approach to leadership and innovation, including when he knew it was time to bring in a new CEO (former CISCO president).
It's an issue technical founders grapple with all the time, but few talk openly about.
Presearch is an open, decentralized search engine that rewards community members with Presearch Tokens for their usage, contribution to, and promotion of the platform.
The new search engine does not store searches or identifying information and allows users to select their preferred search engines from more than 80 options including Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, and Facebook. Presearch is available as a browser extension on Chrome, Firefox, and Brave browsers.
In a world where one company controls 77% of all searches, influencing trillions of dollars in spending, shaping perceptions and effectively acting as the primary gatekeeper to the Internet, a new, open and community-driven search engine could be described as a necessity.
I invited Colin Pape, the founder of Presearch onto my podcast to learn more about how Presearch has an innovative go-to-market strategy to target the most frequent searchers - web workers - and gain early adoption.
We also talk about their mission to provide Internet users with an alternative to the search hegemony that dictates where most of us learn, engage and spend our valuable attention and resources.
We have people listening in 165 countries. Some will be working in the heart of the blockchain and crypto industry. However, some will have limited knowledge and others will be emerging from hibernation after the crypto winter and wondering what zero-knowledge proofs are. It's time to get everyone up to speed and solve the adoption problem together.
The Loopring Foundation is a blockchain research organization focused on decentralized trading protocols. The open-source Loopring Protocol provides a fundamental building block for non-custodial exchanges (DEXs) and other applications that incorporate trustless token trading.
The protocol is designed to solve the three main problems of centralized exchanges: security, transparency, and liquidity. Essentially, Loopring enables people to build decentralized exchanges on top of their own wallet. It also allows people to trade in confidence, anonymously and safely in a decentralized way.
I invited Matthew Finestone, the Director of Business Development at Loopring onto my tech podcast to learn more about the road ahead. We also discuss the future of decentralized exchanges, the lessons learned from the last bull run, as well as the emergence of zero-knowledge proofs in cryptocurrency.
We're just over a year into GDPR and its clear marketers are still floundering. Consumers want personalized experiences but don't want to give up their data to get it – so what are marketers to do?
Digital experience company Acquia got to the root of the problem in its recently-released Closing the CX Gap: Customer Experience Trends Report 2019, which surveyed more than 5,000 consumers and 500 marketers across Australia, Europe, and North America.
Findings from the research shed light on the perception gap between consumers and marketers, what consumers care about and how marketers can best reach them. I invited Acquia's CMO, Lynne Capozzi onto my tech podcast to explore some of the interesting findings among US consumers and marketers, including:
- 56% of U.S. consumers feel that in their total experience with most brands, their marketing is mostly ineffective
- 69% of all US marketers believe technology has made it harder, not easier, for them to offer customers personalized experiences
- 80% of US marketers feel their customers wants higher levels of personalization than they can currently offer.
- Compared to other countries, U.S. marketers are less likely to be focusing on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) or Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in the next 12 months.
As companies expand, information becomes siloed and important conversations and business decisions happen behind closed doors. Threads breaks down these barriers, ensuring better communication and business outcomes. But what is the answer?
Ex-Facebooker and startup founder, Rousseau Kazi created a company called Threads which is on a mission to help businesses keep their entire staff informed through inclusivity and transparency.
Threads launched out of stealth in February and is designed by former employees from Facebook, Slack, Instagram, and Twitter. The company raised $10.5 million in an investment round led by Sequoia Capital. This also includes other investors such as the CEO’s of Glossier, Stripe, and TaskRabbit, among others.
Unlike many entrepreneurs looking to get their idea off the ground, Rousseau was determined to onboard investors aligned with the company’s mission of embracing diversity and inclusivity. So, he established a 50/50 gender-equal cap comprised of some of the most well-respected leaders in and out of the valley.
Rousseau Kazi shares his startup story and vision for the future of Threads on my daily tech podcast.
In 2013, like many a tech giant (Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft) Signal started life with three people in a garage. The garage in question was located in Belsize Park in North London and belonged to the Benigson family. David Benigson’s parents not only handed over the use of their garage but were also the inspiration behind the initial idea for Signal.
The family’s successful executive search business sent an email newsletter that they were manually curating content for on a daily basis. Compiling the most recent and relevant stories from reliable sources each day for the newsletter was laborious. The idea to use artificial intelligence to automate the process was born.
Signal AI is a media monitoring, reputation management, regulatory compliance and market intelligence platform powered by artificial intelligence. The platform analyses over 5 million articles a day, pulling out quotes, companies, themes, people and sentiment. It understands everything it reads and extracts what matters.
Over time, the system learns what is most relevant to each user to create truly personalized insights and results, from share of voice and coverage data t.key messaging and trends .
Together with its partners, the company is building an ecosystem that sits at the heart of the knowledge economy, from risk management and regulatory compliance to M&A pipeline development. Ranked as one of the UK's fastest growing companies by the Financial Times, Signal A.I. recently opened offices in NYC and Hong Kong and is emerging as a leading authority in distilling facts in this era of fragmented news sources.
After appearing on my tech radar, I invited Signal-AI’s Founder, David Benigson onto my tech podcast. David provides his unique insights on how machine learning software is rapidly changing monitoring services for the government, legal industry, finance, and advertising.
Pillar was founded to help brilliant people pay off their student debt. The startup is on a mission to make it as easy as humanly possible for people to achieve financial well-being. Pillar is starting by helping people reduce their student loan debt, which is a $1.5T dollar problem that affects over 44M people in the United States.
By doing the hard work of managing people's finances for them, the team at Pillar believe they can help people keep more of their hard-earned dollars and get out of debt faster, which will lead to a healthier, stronger, and more equal world. After reading how Pillar is the easiest and most effective way for people to manage, pay off, and save money on their student loans and how the average Pillar user will pay off their loans 4 years faster, I wanted to find out more about the story behind their mission. My curiosity helped me uncover the very personal story of Michael Bloch. Once an early employee at DoorDash managing $100M in business at age 24, he founded Pillar after his wife was about to graduate law school with $300k in student loan debt. After trying to find the best solution for themselves, they just ended up more confused, so, Michael dropped out of Stanford Business School to start Pillar and solve the student loan problem. Michael went on to leverage emerging technologies such as machine learning but also ensure that Pillar was simple to use. Here in 2019, early users have already linked $50M worth of student loans into the platform. I wanted to find out more about the startup story behind Pillar and when Michael's wife was faced with $300k student loans, he was inspired to build a solution that would go on to backed by $5.5 million in seed funding led by Kleiner Perkins. Pillar co-founder and CEO Michael Bloch joins me on my tech podcast to share his personal startup story.
Before going solo, I would leave my home at 7 am and not return home until 6:30 pm. But I made the most of my commute time and found myself reading, watching, and listening to content created by Gary Vaynerchuk. But rather than passively listening, I wanted to take his advice and run with it.
I was also inspired by DRocks story too and how he got his job working for Gary Vee. Fast forward five years, and my journey came full circle as I got a chance to thank the guys that inspired me to follow my dream at the recent Magento Imagine event in Las Vegas.
We tackle a wide range of topics such as digital-first giants and the rise of consolidation which is putting an end to the need for intermediaries. We also talk about how people care about privacy in theory, but then don't live it. For the most part, people always go with convenience and the product.
"If you are not recognizing that technology is going to put you out of business, then you are very naive."
As this is a tech podcast, Gary shares his thoughts and excitement around emerging technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and blockchain. We discuss how 5G has the potential to disrupt every industry.
Outside of technology, I also ask Gary what advice he would offer younger people listening who are passionate and hungry for success. But they want it right now How can they learn to overcome that impatience and focus on the actual long game?
"The number of people that take diet pills, and sign up for a quick fix and health benefits, grossly outweigh the people that eat right and exercise right every day. And that's what happens in business. Everybody thinks there's a course a shortcut, you know, I'm going to make all my money in Bitcoin and be out and be a billionaire next year.
A shortcut mentality is inherently in people, I believe it's because they worry too much about other people's judgment. Patience is unbelievably not on the pedestal than it should be."
This interview is not about hero worship or online follower counts, it was just a perfect example of how technology can bring people together. A couple of guys from the opposite sides of the Atlantic met and share their stories. But, I want you to share yours too.
My door is open to each and every one of you wherever in the world you are listening or reading this message. Together we can share your story with the world and inspire others too.
DHL is the leading global brand in the logistics industry. The DHL family of divisions offer a portfolio of logistics services ranging from national and international parcel delivery, e-commerce shipping and fulfillment solutions, international express, road, air and ocean transport to industrial supply chain management. With about 380,000 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide, DHL connects people and businesses securely and reliably, enabling global trade flows.
Each day I explore how technology is transforming multiple industries. I also try to bust a few myths from the world of tech too. For example, many people would not automatically associate DHL with technology. But the company is playing a huge role in the success of e-commerce companies and startups.
Lee Spratt has been Chief Executive Officer of DHL eCommerce Solutions Americas since 2008. Lee has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Florida Atlantic University. Lee joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about how DHL is helping companies drive out supply chain costs, automation and route optimization in particular for e-commerce retailers and market place sellers.
In a digital age where the speed of exponential change is moving at breakneck speed, many believe that big global companies are too slow to adapt to change. I learn how DHL is busting a few myths and helping businesses of all sizes meet the rising expectations of their customers as the experience economy continues to gather pace.
Autonomic is building the first open cloud-based platform that connects and empowers tomorrow’s mobility systems. The Transportation Mobility Cloud will connect the diverse components of urban mobility systems — connected vehicles, mass transit, pedestrians, city infrastructure, and service providers — with the goal of orchestrating a safer, more efficient and sustainable transportation network.
Autonomic’s Transportation Mobility Cloud (TMC) also enables any developer or automaker to easily build new transportations experiences with APIs that provide vehicle data and driver behavior. These new experiences include routing self-driving cars, managing fleets or helping residents plan transit journeys.
It is a flexible and secure platform that provides the necessary building blocks for smart mobility applications, such as routing self-driving cars, managing large-scale fleets or helping residents plan transit journeys. Since launch in 2016, the TMC has already been adopted by companies like rideOS (AV mapping and routing), Spin (micro-mobility), and Alibaba Cloud (connected cars in China).
The startup was acquired by Ford last year. I wanted to find out more about how the future of the company and how Autonomic is connecting the fragmented transportation ecosystem.
Gavin Sherry, CEO of Autonomic joins me on my daily tech podcast. We discuss the constant stream of new players in mobility and how collaboration, not competition is the key to an efficient and sustainable transportation network.
Gavin is a passionate technology and business leader with experience in cloud, distributed systems and database systems. Prior to Autonomic, he was Vice President of Engineering at Pivotal, and led the Greenplum Database R&D group.
In 2019 alone, 843.9 million people are expected to use online travel booking services (OTA). Global revenue of OTAs is expected to reach $424.6 million. The numbers will grow as the winning combination of technology and the advent of online travel agencies (OTAs) continue to usher in a new era of choice, mobility, and ease for travelers.
Gone are the days of physical travel agencies––today, with a simple click or the swipe of a thumb, you’ve booked your next getaway. Yet, while OTAs are becoming a regular fixture in our everyday lives, they remain plagued by inefficiencies, ranging from high commission fees for hotel partners and the ever-intensifying phenomenon of fake reviews for users.
Offering up to 40% and an average of 15% savings on bookings, Travala.com is the leading blockchain travel booking platform transforming the future of the online travel industry. A proven platform with over 567,928 properties across 210 countries and territories, spanning 82,311 destinations, Travala.com leverages and innovative application of blockchain technology and token economy to deliver a streamlined booking process and a fairer pricing system for consumers and merchants alike.
Matthew Luczynski – Co-Founder & CEO at Travala joins me on my daily tech podcast. I learn more about how this next-gen online travel agency (NOTA), is providing a revolutionary, easy to use booking platform combining decentralized technologies and tokenized incentive structures.
We also talk about how Travala changes the relationship between the consumer of the future and their travel shopping using tokenization to increase incentivization and encourage growth in the ecosystem.
A seasoned marketing and technology entrepreneur, Matthew is a veteran in the travel industry, having worked on a number of enterprising startups within the space. Compelled by the aim of driving real-world blockchain adoption, he co-founded Travala, a travel ecosystem which leverages
on the token economy to provide consumers with a fair, trusted, and transparent platform.
In addition, Matthew is also the founder of the Wanderlust application, a location-based meet-up travel application designed for users to connect based on their specific interests.
Concordium is an open source blockchain that integrates ID-verification and is designed to allow anyone access to run applications in a secure, distributed blockchain network. Concordium aims to help users reduce internal infrastructure requirements, streamline processes, and consequently introduce huge cost savings. Concordium’s proof-of-concept was released in January 2019.
The Concordium Foundation’s goal is to make the Concordium Network the world’s first identity-validating, regulatorily compliant blockchain network, designed to provide both a solid store of value and the global backbone for keeping track of the world’s transactions. The Concordium Network features a protocol-layer ID/KYC mechanism, which will ensure that every user on the network is identified, and every transaction involves provenance tracking.
The idea behind the Concordium Network is to create what will become an automated global forum for transaction logging. A resource any user, company, business, or public sector agency can tap into to run smart contracts and other services, leading to considerable efficiency gains and cost savings, and creating network growth by rewarding participants for enabling the network’s operation.
Concordium has an extremely impressive team, comprising Danish business tycoon and Co-founder of Saxo Bank, Lars Seier Christensen (Chairman), Vice Chairman of Volvo Cars, Lone Fønss Schrøder (CEO), Former Vice Chairman of NASDAQ, Hans-Ole Jochumsen (Advisor), among others.
I invited Lone Fønss Schrøder onto my show to learn more about Concordium. Schrøder has a decade of experience in senior management and fintech and has served in numerous C-list roles, including leading positions at A.P. Møller - Mærsk for 22 years, and CEO for Wallenius Lines 2005-2010. Lone is a co-founder of the fintech company Cashworks, and also serves as chairman of Nustay, vice chairman of Volvo Cars and as a member of the board of directors of Ikea.
Passwords and pins are passé. A recent study shows that at least 770 million biometric authentication applications will be downloaded worldwide by 2019. The numbers are staggering, 65% of mobile transactions will be secured using biometrics by 2020 and 99% of smartphones will be biometrically enabled by 2021.
In the Internet of Things (IoT), it is reported that more than 20 billion objects may end up connected. All of these devices will either need many more passwords — which will be impossible to remember and/or hard to protect — or unique biometric information to identify us.
Biometry operates in three different modalities. They can be a human feature like your fingerprint, iris, or the shape of the veins on the back of your hands, facial recognition and many other physical features. They can be behavioral like the way we walk and run, or the way we hold our phones.
Behavorials are based on the repetitive way we behave, and such data can be used to build motion repertoires, or a collection of habits, which define us. Or they can be physiological, which is the data that comes from the live function of our bodies. Examples of the latter would be voice recognition, heart rhythms, or brain activities. And in our case, the same technology can be used for strong encryption in addition to identification and authentication.
Aerendir Mobile Inc.™ is the pioneer of a novel physiologic biometric authentication system called NeuroPrint™ (NP™). This novel identification and authentication biometric technology, which they refer to as the Touch Technology™ captures live signals from the individual’s unique brain cortex and motricity.
The neuro-proprioceptive system sends unique NeuroPrint™ signals that can be sensed by existing hardware in smartphones and tablets without the need of any other internal or external device. This unique signals are nearly impossible to hack.
Martin Zizi, MD-PhD, CEO of Aerendir joins me on my daily tech podcast. We discuss his invention of Neuro Print™, the cloudless physiological biometrics technology for authentication, identification, and encryption.
Avanan is an enterprise cloud-native security firm that earlier this year raised $25 million in Series B funding from existing investors StageOne Ventures. But, recently the company also released its Global Phish Report.
The report analyzed 55.5 million emails sent to organizations using Microsoft Office 365 and Google G Suite. The study reveals that 25% of phishing emails bypass Office 365 security, using malicious links and attachments as the main vectors.
Other concerning findings include that 33% of emails containing a link to a site hosted on WordPress and 98% of emails containing a crypto wallet address are phishing attacks. These numbers are likely to increase as hackers design new obfuscation methods that take advantage of zero-day vulnerabilities on platforms such as Office 365 and G Suite.
Over the past decade, phishing attacks have become the most widespread digital threat to organizations around the globe. For most organizations, phishing is the number one email security threat, outranking both malware and ransomware. These attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and difficult to detect, even with the aid of artificial intelligence to support the effort.
Employees are bombarded with spear phishing, extortion, credential harvesting, and malware attacks. The cloud email platforms by themselves cannot reliably block emails containing malicious language, links, or attachments. Gil Friedrich, CEO at Avanan joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about everything else the report uncovered.
Arpan Sheth is a detail-oriented software development manager with experience building systems supporting millions of users. At Twitter, he leads engineering teams that build user-facing ad products that help Twitter generate hundreds of million dollars in revenue.
Arpan likes to forge strong stakeholder relationships and lead, motivate, and influence his teams to deliver high-quality software products. He has deep experience in building consumer software products from scratch and scaling it to millions of users.
Before Twitter, Arpan was a Director of Engineering at Saavn for 7 years. His work helped Saavn scale from 200,000 users to almost 75+ million users, and he led efforts to build secure and scalable 75+ APIs, subscription systems, web presence across desktop and mobile platforms, voice-enabled device integration with Google Home, Sonos and Amazon Alexa, Programatic Ad Systems to manage the full ad campaign life cycle, etc.
Saavn was acquired by Indian Telco Jio. Arpan is a senior member of IEEE and has been invited to be a judge at Webby Awards, Stevie Awards, Edison Awards and SIAA Codie Awards. He holds a Masters degree in Information Management from University of Washington and holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Engineering.
Arpan lives in the Silicon Valley with his wife and daughter. He loves spending time with his family, cooking interesting food, and learning new technologies
Did you know that one-third of every dollar spent in healthcare today is used for high-volume and repetitive data-driven administrative processes? The challenge has grown from the digitization of the healthcare industry, but new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) may also prove to be the answer.
I recently came across a company called Olive that builds artificial intelligence and RPA solutions that empower healthcare organizations to improve efficiency and patient care while reducing costly administrative errors. I invited Sean Lane, CEO and Co-Founder at Olive to share his expertise in and insights.
We discuss
America’s growing trillion-dollar administrative burden in healthcare
New applications of AI and ML in healthcare
Hiring AI-based digital workers to support human colleagues
How AI can reduce errors that impact patient outcomes (insurance eligibility, etc.)
Sean is a technology entrepreneur with a deep background in national security and healthcare. Prior to starting his first company, BTS, Sean served as an intelligence officer at the National Security Agency and completed five tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. After BTS, Sean shifted his focus to healthcare and founded Olive (fka CrossChx), a technology company that focuses on building an AI workforce to transform the healthcare industry.
Sean is also the founder of Betamore and the Digital Harbor Foundation among others. He is a graduate of Miami University and his recognitions include an Honorary Doctorate of Public Service, the Bronze Star Medal, and Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year.
Coda started when they asked themselves: In a world full of applications, why do documents and spreadsheets still run everything? Why haven’t they changed in over 40 years? And what would we build if we started from scratch?
They made it their mission to rip the document down to the studs and build a new set of building blocks that would empower people to make docs as powerful as apps.
Meet Coda (coda.io), a new doc that blends the flexibility of documents, the power of spreadsheets and the utility of applications into a single canvas, so anyone can make docs as powerful as apps.
Companies like Cheddar, Spotify, and Uber as well as small businesses, such as Hudson Baking Company, have been building Coda docs to create solutions for their problems. I invited Shishir Mehrotra, CEO, and Co-Founder of Coda, Inc., onto the show to find out more.
Shishir Mehrotra is also the Director of Spotify Technology and served as Strategic Advisor to the Chief Executive Officer from December 2015 to May 2017. He served as Vice President of Product and Engineering, Youtube/Video at Google Inc. Mr. Mehrotra has served as a Director of Product Management for Google TV Ads and YouTube Ads at Google Inc. He also served as Director of Program Management at Microsoft.
As someone that worked closely with bringing the Microsoft Office email client to the market, I learn more about his story. We also discuss the inspiration behind Coda and making docs as powerful as apps and rethinking productivity from scratch
At roOomy, they are on a mission is to help users better visualize their space through the power of 3D, augmented and virtual reality. Buying a home is a big decision, and for both the real estate professional and the buyer, seeing a home in its best light makes all the difference. For home furnishings retailers, giving customers the invaluable ability to “try before you buy” with the nimbleness of shopping online is roOomy is becoming such a critical part of their partners’ content and e-commerce strategy.
The company strives to make its technology the next best thing to real life paired with turn-key, scalable services. They have also grown their modeling and rendering capacity capabilities to transform not tens, but thousands of products and rooms, in addition to partnering with cutting edge AR technologies, like Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore.
I wanted to learn more about how they are shaking up the way these industries create and feature their best assets, with solutions that tailor to both their customer's design, quality and cost needs.
Pieter Aarts, co-founder, and CEO of roOomy joins me on my daily tech podcast to share the story behind the company that has decades of experience in graphics, 3D, augmented reality and virtual reality design.
Pieter also shared his vision to lead the world in 3D, augmented and virtual reality technology in the interior decorating space. Bringing more than 25 years of diverse industry experience to the roOomy team, including entrepreneurship, management, and sales, Pieter knows a thing or two about strategically driving success. His passion for proactively seeking the cutting edge drives roOomy’s mission of helping Real Estate professionals and home buyers visualize a home’s space through the power of 3D, AR and VR. Born in the Netherlands, he is a traveler at heart.
The team at Axonius often jokingly refer to themselves as the most “boring startup” around, but their industry peers don’t see it that way. The company just so happens to be one of the hottest in cybersecurity having been named “Most Innovative Startup” at the recent RSA Conference and SC Magazine’s “Rookie Security Company of the Year”.
Axonius is a cybersecurity asset management platform providing actionable visibility and policy enforcement for all assets and users. Essentially the company is solving what they call the least sexy part of cybersecurity, which is the asset management problem. But once again, they are being incredibly modest.
The RSA Conference is the world’s leading information security conferences and expositions, announced that Axonius was selected winner of the fourteenth-annual RSAC Innovation Sandbox Contest. A panel of leading venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and industry veterans judged the contest and named Axonius RSAC’s “Most Innovative Startup 2019.”
“I am blown away that the judges recognized a problem as mundane as asset management to be the winner this year,” said Nathan Burke, chief marketing officer of Axonius. “It is amazing that a really big and nagging problem that hasn’t been solved yet is something that the judges decided is worthy of winning.”
In its fourteenth year, the RSAC Innovation Sandbox Contest is a leading platform for startups to showcase their groundbreaking technologies that have the potential to transform the cybersecurity industry. In the past five years alone, the RSAC Innovation Sandbox Contest’s top 10 finalists have collectively seen 14 acquisitions and have received over $2.2 billion in investments.
Past winners include companies such as Phantom, Invincea, UnifyID and, most recently, BigID. For a more complete picture of where past RSAC Innovation Sandbox participants stand today, visit the RSAC Innovation Sandbox Leaderboard, powered by Crunchbase, for updated status and funding totals.
I wanted to learn more about the Axonius story and what inspired them to solve a nagging problem experienced by every business but hadn't been solved, until now. Nathan Burke joins me on my daily tech podcast to share his journey with Axonius and also the inspirational story of exactly how they earned the award of the “Most Innovative Startup 2019.” at the RSAC Innovation Sandbox Contest
Dr. Heidi Jannenga PT, DPT, ATC/L, is the co-founder and president of WebPT, a leading rehab therapy EMR platform for enhancing patient care and fueling business growth. She regularly speaks at technology, entrepreneurship and leadership events, and national PT industry conferences. But where did her tech startup journey begin?
In 2006, Heidi Jannenga was a leading sports physical therapist and multi-clinic director, was looking for ways to improve her practice’s bottom line. After identifying dictation and paper documentation management as two of her business’s biggest costs, she started looking for a less expensive solution to documentation and enlisted the help of Brad Jannenga, a seasoned technologist with three successful SaaS platforms under his belt.
Heidi knew she needed something that would not only fit her workflow as a PT, but also would be affordable, intuitive, and easy to implement in her clinic. The more Brad and Heidi shopped around, though, the more discouraged they became. That was when they decided to partner and develop her business’s ideal software solution. Brad started shadowing Heidi to gain a deep understanding of her workflow and documentation needs. In the evenings, the two would regroup and map out how the software should work. Then, Brad would get to coding and Heidi would get to testing. And piece by piece, WebPT—a web-based physical therapy EMR—was born.
Heidi and Brad officially launched the software in 2008. Within three years, their cloud-based idea grew into the leading physical therapy software on the market. Today, as president and co-founder, Heidi leads WebPT’s product vision, branding efforts, and company culture, while advocating for the physical therapy profession on a national scale. Since its launch, WebPT has evolved from a startup into one of the nation's fastest-growing privately held companies, employing more than 500 people, while helping nearly 80,000 Members run better, more efficient practices and improve care delivery.
Headquartered in the historic Warehouse District in downtown Phoenix, WebPT has also been listed on Inc. Magazine's list of the nation's 5000 fastest-growing companies five consecutive years in row—earning it a spot on the prestigious Inc. Honor Roll—and ranked on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list in 2016.
Hedi joins me on my daily tech podcast to share her tech startup story from idea to securing funding and enjoying fantastic success. This story will be invaluable to other startup founders searching for inspiration.
Imagine started eight years ago with a grand vision: to connect the global eCommerce community. Today, it brings together 3,000+ eCommerce experts, including merchants, agencies, and technology providers from over 50 countries.
Gary Specter, VP Commerce Sales, and Customer Success, Experience Business, Adobe addressed the audience at Imagine 2019 by saying "The magic and power of Magento comes from all of you. Our biggest accomplishment is our community."
Gary has been with Magento since 2015 and leads a winning global team comprised of: New Sales, Channel, Customer Success, Pre-Sales, Business Development, Support, and the Professional Services Team.
Gary is also a strategic sales leader with a 20+ year track record of building cohesive, passionate, high-performance sales and services organizations across multiple vertical markets including retail, distribution, manufacturing, technology, and finance.
Before Magento, Gary successfully ran international and domestic sales teams at NetSuite, IBM, and Sterling Commerce. With a strong understanding of sales enablement, operations, process, and execution, Gary focuses on building goal-oriented, winning teams and cultures that incorporate a commitment to excellence, accountability, and corporate citizenship while exceeding financial and customer satisfaction goals.
I invited Gary Spector onto my daily tech podcast to talk about e-commerce trends, the experience economy, voice search, and conversations with customers at Imagine 2019.
Here at Imagine 2019 event, I want to explore the role of IT in eCommerce and how a company can shift away from internal IT hassles to a customer focus.
With its increased popularity, the needs of SHOEBACCA.COM customers changed. The company offered an expanded line of products and started to look beyond eBay and their website. They focused on growth through innovative technologies, competitive shipping processes, and professional customer service.
With over 700,000 SKUs in their system, SHOEBACCA.COM needed to streamline their inventory data by organizing and simplifying their structure. They needed to optimize their merchandising while handling a massive product catalog, and they needed to connect to multiple marketplaces.
Their customers love to shop at Amazon, eBay, Rakutan, and the Walmart website, so that’s where they needed to sell. SHOEBACCA.COM decided to create an eCommerce system that could scale their growth, integrate their current systems, and sell customers the perfect sneaker wherever they start their journey.
Tom Finney, Director of IT, at Shoebacca shares the story of how SHOEBACCA Grew Revenue x15 in Just 3 Years by using Magento and seeing the IT department as business enablers.
Here at the Magento Imagine 2019 conference, Raj Nijjer, VP of marketing at Yotpo revealed insights from a new report, “The State of D2C Marketing 2019.” The report takes a candid look at the changing marketing & advertising landscape and the strategies contributing to the skyrocketing success of many of today’s Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) brands.
I invited Raj Nijjer onto my podcast to talk about the key points in the report such as the ranking of where D2C brands will be spending their marketing and advertising dollars in 2019, particularly amongst Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Instagram.
We also discuss how D2C brands are investing in a variety of online experiences, and why this strategy is quickly outpacing and outperforming, traditional advertising methods.
Toluna provides consumer insights designed to empower success in today's on-demand, global economy. Powered by the fusion of technology, expertise, and the largest global community of influencers at the ready, Toluna delivers rich, reliable, real-time insights to individuals and companies of all sizes.
I wanted to learn more about how its automated consumer insights platform, TolunaInsights™ underpins everything they do. Phil Ahad EVP, Head of Products and Strategy at Toluna joins me on my daily tech podcast to share how Toluna is committed to promoting Insights on Demand, an entirely new way for businesses to obtain insight and understand constantly shifting consumer sentiment and taste in the on-demand economy.
Slice Labs Inc., the insurance engine leading tomorrow’s cloud-based, on-demand digital services ecosystems, recently announced Slice Mind, a new business unit of Slice, powered by an insight engine to help companies with personalization, experimentation, simulations, predictions, risk modeling, and product recommendations.
Slice Mind combines AI, machine learning and behavioral psychology into an engine that transforms data insights into actions in order to deliver real business value and advantage for companies looking to future proof themselves.
A May 2018 Celent report, Digitizing the Customer Experience: A New Framework, mentions the importance of effective use of data. Data is more readily available than ever and can be used to drive a personalized relationship with customers. However, coordinating data across multiple channels, combining internal and external data to deliver a personalized transaction and continually engaging with the customer in meaningful ways will require digital capabilities.
Slice Mind provides companies with actionable recommendations that will help protect and grow their business through simulations, predictions, experiments, nudging and personalization. Available to both Slice Insurance Cloud Services (ICS) users and the general public, Slice Mind will enable companies and their customers be better protected against risk due to its ability to predict potential claims, among other capabilities.
Slice Labs’ CTO, Stu Baserman joins me on my daily tech podcast to dive deeper into the tech behind Slice Mind and how the insight engine works.
Cloudian specializes in “object storage” for enterprises, a form of unstructured data storage that eliminates the scaling limitations of traditional file storage, enabling enterprises to quickly grow deployments without hitting a cap.
According to Gartner, 80% of enterprise data will be stored in some form of object storage by 2021. Cloudian’s platform provides infinite scalability and allows users to access data from anywhere in the world, offering “hybrid cloud” deployments that combine cloud and on-prem computing.
Besides enabling the ability to easily access and manipulate large objects often consisting of video, images and other unstructured data, Cloudian’s storage solution results in lower costs, more consistently managed security and compliance with data governance policies.
Mike Tso, CEO and co-founder of Cloudian joins me on my daily tech podcast. After Mike’s former company (Gemini Mobile Technologies) lost 66% of its workforce after the 2008 recession, he created Cloudian with a unique culture based on three key attributes for employees to model – hungry, humble and honest.
In 2018, Cloudian announced $94 million in Series E funding, and recently the company was named one of the best cloud computing companies and CEOs to work for in 2019 based on Glassdoor. I wanted to find out more about the story behind Cloudian.
We also discuss the changing data landscape. How the rise of AI, machine learning and IoT is causing data to pile up to the point where it’s no longer manageable and how Cloudian is changing the way enterprises manage their data.
I learn how other storage vendors are seeing a declining market share, but Cloudian is experiencing rapid growth backed by prestigious investors including Goldman Sachs, Intel, and Fidelity. Cloudian has more than 300 customers, making it the most widely adopted independent provider of object storage solutions.
Conga is the leader in end-to-end Digital Document Transformation. From collaboration and creation, through contract management and negotiation, to agreement and e-signature, the Conga Suite has set the standard for automating business productivity and CRM investment through end-to-end Digital Document Transformation.
The Salesforce Platinum ISV Partner produces the highest volume downloaded paid app on the entire AppExchange. In fact, more than 900,000 users in 85 countries across virtually all industries rely on Conga applications to drive digital document transformation, including Hilton Worldwide, Schumacher Group, and CBRE.
Jason Gabbard, Head of AI Strategy at Conga joins me on my daily tech podcast. We discuss Conga's digital document transformation suite, and the release of Conga AI Analyze, a new product that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to unlock actionable business insights from digital documents and contracts.
Over the years, publishers have given much their inventory over to Facebook, and they’ve gotten dinged for it. Facebook gets revenue from user engagement, and the publisher doesn’t own or control distribution.
In response to realizing they’ve been taken advantage of by the walled gardens, we’re witnessing the renaissance of email for publishers. Publishers have realized they have a logged-in channel that only they own: email. And now, email newsletters are acting as a bulwark against Facebook and their ilk.
Kerel Cooper, SVP Global Marketing at LiveIntent joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about how publishers are fighting against the walled gardens with email. We also discuss why LiveIntent created their own email MarTech stack and work with over 2500 publishers including CondeNast, The Washington Post and The New York Times.
We have all read about the retail apocalypse. But what if the future of retail was not e-commerce or bricks and mortar. What if it was something else?
SHOWFIELDS is a four-story, 14,707 sq ft space at 11 Bond Street in NYC and home to a rotating selection of nearly 30 brands (including quip, The Farmer’s Dog, Shopify’s first physical presence and more). It's built on a big idea of becoming the “the most interesting store in the world”
Tal Zvi Nathanel, CEO of SHOWFIELDS, joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about the future of retail and how the industry is evolving industry. With SHOWFIELDS, Nathanel has created an entirely new approach to the brick & mortar approach that makes opening a store as easy as launching a website.
The retail industry veteran reveals why retail is evolving to focus on experiences and community building–not just sales. We also discuss
C-commerce or “consumer commerce,” a term coined by Nathanel to define the innovative retail concept that bridges the gap between physical and digital retail.
Gigster accelerates the delivery of digital transformation applications, giving companies the agility to thrive in a software-defined world.
The company envisions a future where the best ideas flourish and provide great choices for customers to enrich their lives. Today, a few digital-native companies are disrupting almost every industry. Gigster believes in democratizing this capability—enabling all companies to build their own digital DNA to create life-changing products, engage their customers and empower employees.
This vision requires a global network of talented people who can realize their full potential. We believe the best software will be built by those who are inspired by their work, can choose their work environment, and are rewarded for pure contribution—in the company of equally passionate colleagues.
After hearing how Gigster has grown more than 30% and is rapidly approaching the $50 million annual revenue, I was excited for an opportunity to learn more about their story and the road ahead.
Christopher Keene CEO at Gigster joins me on my daily tech podcast. Chris joined the Gigster team as CEO earlier this year. He previously sold his company, WaveMaker, to VMware, where he redefined VMware’s strategy for cloud computing and helped drive the $400 million Pivotal spinouts.
Chris share his insights around their tech trends report and why we should be looking to IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and providers of machine learning APIs to release more inclusive datasets that combat embedded discrimination and bias in AI.
We also talk about how Gigster is helping tech startups better gain access to the tech talent needed to scale.
Have you ever looked up Drake, tried to go to drake.com, and realized that it has nothing to do with the artist? You'll have to go to drakeofficial.com to find his information, as even the world's most prominent artists don't always own their ".com" site.
DotMusic Limited is announcing that the global music community has prevailed in finding a solution to this problem, as ICANN has awarded
them the rights to the .MUSIC top-level domain name extension and will move to contracting soon.
For the first time in Internet history, members of the global music community will be able to register their own www.yourname.music web address.
"This is a new digital era for the global music community," said DotMusic founder and CEO Constantine Roussos. "For the first time in Internet history, music community members will be able to register their own exclusive, verified, and trusted .MUSIC domain name."
I wanted to learn more about the inspirational story behind .MUSIC that involved beating global companies, Google and Amazon, leading domain registries, Donuts, Radix and MMX, and other interested groups. Constantine Roussos joins me on my daily tech podcast to share his story.
Constantine Roussos is a Greek-Cypriot entrepreneur, musician, songwriter, engineer, and producer. Constantine has engineered and produced albums by artists and bands that include A Family of Snail, Katie Quinlan, Some Change from US, A Pigeon's Rhythm and many others.
Constantine publicly spearheaded the .MUSIC global music community-led initiative in 2008 to provide the global music community with a verified, trusted and secure .MUSIC domain name extension to create a safe haven for legal music consumption, connection, and engagement. Today, the .MUSIC Initiative is supported by music organizations with members who represent over 95% of global music consumed.
As the crypto community dares to debate if the crypto winter is finally thawing, some will begin dreaming of Lambos again. But before you do, have you ever wondered about your responsibilities to pay taxes on your gains? Anyone that has ever googled "How to Report Cryptocurrency on Taxes" will quickly discover how complex it can be.
NODE40 Balance is a robust cryptocurrency reporting software that integrates directly with major cryptocurrency exchanges. Members of the blockchain community transacting in, trading, or mining digital currency, have likely triggered a taxable event and can be unaware of how to properly disclose these transactions to the government.
Sean Ryan, Chief Technology Officer designs NODE40's technology roadmap and plays an active role in business development activities. He oversees key service offerings including blockchain hosting, blockchain accounting, and cost basis analysis. He continues to spearhead technology initiatives in the blockchain space and works closely with strategic partners to deliver highly scalable and fault tolerate solutions.
The specialist blockchain accounting firm behind the Balance cryptocurrency reporting software has also unveiled a new tier for Balance designed specifically for professional accountants and tax preparers. The upgraded Professional tier allows Certified Public Accountants (CPAs), bookkeepers and tax professionals to track clients separately under one master account and offers shared access when sensitive information must be requested.
Every day employees produce thousands of documents, presentations and emails. But they don’t always use the latest company standards. Templafy makes following company document and presentation standards the path of least resistance.
Templafy is one of the fastest growing IT companies in Scandinavia. Its software solution is helping the branding, compliance and IT teams in large enterprises to govern and optimize the way employees create documents, presentations, and emails in Microsoft Office and Office 365 applications, making best-practice company content accessible right where employees work.
Having already secured prominent global enterprises, law firms and Big 4 professional services firms as clients (many with over 20,000 employees worldwide) and they are rapidly expanding into new markets.
I wanted to learn more about how Templafy has created a smart way to manage, dynamically update and share business templates and brand assets throughout your organization, from anywhere and from any device. Strategic Account Manager, Jean-Marc Chanoine joins me on my daily tech podcast to reveal all.
We also discuss how both people and technology are the core of Templafy and the real drivers of their success. Jean-Marc also shares his personal and unconventional route into the world of tech where he has gone from working on legal cases to facilitating digital transformation across the enterprise.
Jean-Marc is also fascinated by the trend he sees with how other 'old-school' professions are going new-age. He told me how "entrepreneurs and start-up culture seem to be driving lawyers out of the courthouse and into Silicon Valley."
In the last week, we’ve seen layoffs from major publishers like BuzzFeed, Refinery29 and Verizon. Monetization in the era of the duopoly is harder than ever. What can publishers do to compete? Their first-party audience data might be the key to unlocking new revenue. But how?
I invited Jason Downie, Chief Strategy Officer at Lotame, the most popular data solutions company for publishers (Bloomberg, etc.), to talk about how publishers can take advantage of their data for greater monetization, as well as revenue diversification.
Lotame is an unstacked data solutions company that helps publishers, marketers and agencies find new customers, increase engagement, and grow revenue. Its real-time data management technologies, global data marketplaces, and award-winning customer service make it the clear choice for clients looking for a flexible, scalable and cost-effective alternative to the walled-off offerings from large MarTech stack companies.
As the pioneer data management platform thirteen years ago, Lotame has continuously innovated to become the trusted data solutions company for enterprises around the world.
Are you filling your smart home with CCTV cameras and burglar alarms? Did you know that the biggest threat to your home and your belongings is a water leak, not a burglar or intruder?
Flo is a first of its kind and proprietary water monitoring and control system for homes and buildings that virtually eliminates flooding caused by plumbing failures, saves billions and empowers conservation.
Flo is proactive and preventative in its approach to leaks, performing self-diagnostic checks on the vital signs of the plumbing system to ensure its integrity. Eight months ago I spoke to the guys at Flo technologies who were leading the way in InsurTech and I recently learned that they have recently undergone a few changes.
Flo Technologies and Safeco Insurance are teaming up to help homeowners prevent water damage and save money. Through the new pilot program, independent agents will receive the knowledge and technology they need to help homeowners protect their homes from water damage, which is the second-most frequently filed homeowners claim.
As the founder of Flo Technologies, Gabe Halimi created a first-of-its-kind device that is pioneering the plumbing industry and now the world of InsurTech. Gabe returns to my daily tech podcast to update listeners on their progress.
One of the tech trends I am repeatably reading about is how businesses should leverage technology to power digital experiences. But the questions many business leaders are asking is how should they do it? And what does it look like compared with how they might be working now?
These are the things that I think about and why I'm excited to get Todays guest, Yext’s EVP of Commercial Business Dave Lehman onto my daily tech podcast.
Yext is on a mission to give companies control over their brand experiences across the digital universe of maps, apps, search engines, voice assistants, and other intelligent services that drive consumer discovery, decision, and action.
Today, thousands of businesses including brands like Taco Bell, Rite Aid, and Steward Health Care use the Yext Knowledge Engine™ to manage their digital knowledge in order to boost brand engagement, drive foot traffic, and increase sales.
Dave Lehman is Yext’s Executive Vice President, Commercial Business Unit, leading small business and midmarket sales strategy. Dave brings twenty years of technology and sales experience at some of the world’s leading technology companies to his role.
Prior to joining Yext, Dave was Chief Revenue Officer of Campaign Monitor, where he doubled the company’s bookings in the first twelve months and led sales and customer success at Captora. He was also Vice President of Commercial Sales at Salesforce, where he founded the company’s office in Chicago, growing it by 400 people in two years, and specialized in delivering solutions to midsize and small businesses.
We talk about how Yext is helping businesses and also discuss their recent partnership with Adobe that allows customers to leverage Yext to increase the discoverability of the facts about them in their Adobe-power properties.
DRONAMICS develops unmanned aerial systems for shipping commercial and special cargo applications. They are on a mission to democratize airfreight and lower the cost of shipping in emerging markets. To achieve this, they are developing a new type of cargo airplane – small, unmanned and extremely fuel efficient.
It can transport 350 KG over 2,500 KM for a cost that's 50%+ lower than other airplanes. It flies autonomously, can be monitored and managed remotely via satellite, and the whole system costs less than a sports car.
At first, it didn't sound possible, but they keep proving it is, which is why they have called it “The Black Swan”. It can land on short and unpaved runways, enabling on-demand point-to-point flights and speedy same-day delivery even to the most remote locations that would otherwise take days to reach over ground or sea.
The company is are starting with domestic air networks in African, Asian and Latin American countries with fleets of the Black Swan, taking advantage of the multitude of small airfields that are often unused, training local personnel as drone and logistics operators, and partnering with local industry to provide a valuable lifeline of getting goods in and out of small, remote, mountainous and/or island communities within hours at a cost that is often below even road transportation.
I wanted to learn how technology like this can transform whole economies so invited Svilen Rangelov Co-Founder of DRONAMICS onto my daily tech podcast. We also discuss the startup scene in Sofia Bulgaria.
Cleo, based in the suburban Chicago town of Rockford, IL, has been quietly but swiftly gaining ground by solving a big issue for companies facing IT modernization. Cleo has been helping businesses get all their internal applications, including those connecting to external partners and customers, to work together seamlessly.
The cloud integration software company is focused on business outcomes, ensuring each customer’s potential is realized by delivering solutions that make it easy to discover and create value through the movement and integration of enterprise data.
The mission at Cleo is to simply help companies build trusted relationships across their partner ecosystem today while providing all the control and visibility they need to advance their business tomorrow. It's a simple approach that seems to be working out very well.
In Feb, Cleo announced a six-year CAGR of 31% and 45% increase in year-over-year new subscription bookings. The drive to cloud integration, SaaS applications and the building of new ecosystems have also fueled Cleo’s more than doubling of its cloud business in 2018.
“Businesses today are actually creating inefficiency by trying to solve B2B integration and application integration separately -- but they are not separate challenges,” said Mahesh Rajasekharan, CEO of Cleo. “We believe traditional approaches to tackling business integration are wrong, a view wholly supported by the burgeoning demand for the robust capabilities delivered by Cleo Integration Cloud.”
Mahesh joins me on my tech podcast to talk about the corporate strategy that is driving Cleo’s consistent, fast growth and much more. As President and Chief Executive Officer of Cleo, I also learn more about how the global software company delivers ecosystem integration software solutions to help companies discover and create value across their multi-enterprise ecosystems.
An experienced business leader, Rajasekharan has expertise in business strategy, operations, sales and marketing, supply chain management, SaaS technologies, enterprise software, consulting services, private equity, acquisition integration and P&L management. Since joining Cleo in 2012, he has built the company into a global integration software leader, overseen tremendous revenue and geographic expansion, and shaped the company’s reputation through thought leadership, product innovation, and customer service excellence.
On today's daily tech podcast, I want to explore the timely topic of biometric authentication. Recently, Jumio – the global leader in online identity verification and biometric authentication – launched Jumio Authentication.
This new video-selfie authentication tool enables users to verify themselves during high-risk transactions and unlock everything from online accounts to rental cars, replacing passwords on any device. Passwords, multi-factor authentication, and knowledge-based authentication are no longer reliable methods as a result of ongoing data breaches.
Most modern businesses do not know with any kind of certainty that the person creating a new online account or logging into an existing account is the person they’re claiming to be – and this is where Jumio Authentication provides a solution.
Jumio president, Robert Prigge joins me on the podcast to discuss the impact biometric authentication will have on the digital landscape, why 2FA and KBA are slowly dying, and how organizations seeking to establish a digital chain of trust with their users need to consider biometrics.
Robert serves as Jumio’s president where he is responsible for all aspects of Jumio’s business. He previously served as Jumio’s Chief Revenue Officer, leading all customer-facing activities including sales, marketing, and support. Prior to Jumio, Robert was the Chief Sales Officer for Gartner Cool Vendor Infrascale as well as Chief Commercial Officer for Kleiner-Perkins’ finance platform CPF.
He also served as the VP of Global Sales & Marketing for the Sterling Commerce Division of AT&T through its $1.4 billion dollar acquisition by IBM. An expert in global business, he is fluent in Japanese and has lived overseas for nearly 15 years.
I recently read a fantastic book called Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company’s Future―and What to Do About it by Tien Tzuo, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Zuora. The books talks about how we're at a pivotal moment in business history, one not seen since the Industrial Revolution. The pure product economy is nearing the end of a 120-year-run and the world is shifting towards services.
Companies like Spotify, Netflix, and Adobe have led the way, but in five years, we'll be subscribing to everything: information technology, transportation, retail services, healthcare, even housing. In Subscribed, Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo (who coined the phrase “Subscription Economy”) explains how the shift to a recurring revenue model really works -- and how business leaders can nail the transition.
Consumers are choosing outcomes over ownership. The world is shifting to subscriptions. The book not only made me think about how subscriptions are impacting my life but how they are changing and creating new business models too.
Zuora’s subscription management platform helps businesses in any industry to launch or shift products to subscription, implement new pay-as-you-go pricing and packaging models, gain new insights into subscriber behavior, open new revenue streams, and disrupt market segments to gain competitive advantage.
In short, Zuora is Powering the Subscription Economy® with our unified order-to-cash system. Zuora supports over 1000 customers worldwide including Dell, Vivint, Schneider Electric, Box, The Financial Times, and General Motors. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Zuora also operates offices in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, San Francisco, London, Paris, Beijing, Sydney, and Tokyo.
I invited John Phillips, MD EMEA at Zuora onto my daily tech podcast to talk about about how Zuora is The Subscription Economy Leader, at the heart of this shift. We also talk about how they are enabling business and subscriber freedom across the globe.
Mastercard is a technology company in the global payments industry. It connects consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories.
As traditional financial institutions embrace fintech disruption, a Mastercard-sponsored study from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services identified opportunities for growth, and partnerships. As new technologies and regulations bring more opportunities and challenges to the financial services industry, nearly two-thirds of established companies are leveraging fintech capabilities for growth.
“In the Game: Traditional Financial Institutions Embrace Fintech Disruption” surveyed 300 senior executives at financial services companies to gauge their views on the opportunities and threats brought about by younger, nimbler competitors that rely heavily on specialized software, algorithms, and technology to offer their services.
The Mastercard-sponsored study showed that traditional institutions are “banking” on brand recognition, customer trust, physical distribution channels, and experience navigating the complex regulatory environments to maintain a competitive advantage. In fact, nearly 80 percent do not feel an immediate threat from fintechs.
However, these same executives recognize that fintechs are a threat in the long term. In fact, 65 percent of these executives worldwide believe that fintech competitors will become a significant threat by 2022. This is due in part to fintechs having their own competitive advantages, including agile business practices, digital-first business plans, and an entrepreneurial mindset.
“This report reinforces the importance of collaboration and new partnerships in sparking innovation and new ways of working,” said Michael Miebach, chief product officer of Mastercard. “Many traditional companies are already using technology to improve their business. Yet, there’s an opportunity to realize greater success by thinking differently and combining experience with the agile nature of fintechs.”
Michael Miebach joins me on my daily tech podcast to share some of the most revealing insights from the report.
Have you ever noticed that Apple has a Twitter account, but never tweets? However, Apple does tweet all the time. You just don’t see it.
Social media has ushered in a new era of “dark marketing.” Today,
90% of Twitter ads, 85% of Facebook ads, 60% of YouTube ads are “dark” or hidden from public view. Instead, the ads are only shown to targeted audiences. This is far from ideal for brands trying to understand competitor campaigns.
Working with some of the world’s most reputable names, BrandTotal is a high-tech and VC-backed agile marketing intelligence company that helps enterprises reverse-engineer the marketing strategies of their competitors.
Their innovative SaaS-based platform is the solution to a growing and problematic phenomenon known as Dark Marketing, which characterizes professional marketers' lack of transparency in the ever-evolving digital marketing ecosystem.
Detecting “dark” posts --- which are becoming more prevalent due to fragmentation of channels, segmentation of consumers, and personalization of content --- is what sets BrandTotal apart. They can detect brands’ public [organic] posts and expose those that are dark and targeted, which cannot be found on a company’s public social media page.
Their software helps clients spot threats and opportunities in real time within their competitive landscape, so they can garner actionable insights and adjust your marketing strategies on the fly. I wanted to find out more about how businesses can leverage this kind of agile marketing, and how BrandTotal can help businesses gain a competitive edge.
BrandTotal CEO and Co-Founder, Alon Leibovich joins me on my daily tech podcast to share his story and why dark marketing is nothing to be afraid of.
After working for several years as a marketing strategist and organizational psychologist, he realized that consumer companies were lacking a crucial input in their marketing planning: competitive knowledge. Before digital, it was pretty straightforward to track the competition in printed publications and on TV, but today, so much marketing is hidden from view in “dark marketing,” or hidden posts.
So together with experts in cyber methods and artificial intelligence, he founded BrandTotal, to help companies gain a competitive edge by illuminating and analyzing their competitors’ dark marketing campaigns. They founded the company in the rockin’ city of Tel Aviv, and have since expanded to the even more rockin’ city of New York.
A recent Deloitte survey found that 76 percent of executives believe AI will substantially transform their companies within the next three years, and MIT Sloan Management Review saw that 91% of all enterprises interviewed expect AI to deliver new business growth by 2023 in their recent study.
With AI now considered critical to success, companies can be quick to jump on the AI bandwagon. While AI can save time and money while improving efficiency, organizations need to ensure they’re ready to add AI to their business strategy in 2019.
I invited Nathaniel Gates, CEO, and co-founder of Alegion, to discuss what steps businesses can take to be AI-ready in 2019, including:
- Obtaining trustworthy, high-quality data required to effectively power AI initiatives – enlisting a solution to clean up, classify and label training data
- Being transparent with employees on AI impacts to the company
- Defining AI goals and ensuring you have the right data to support it
- Conducting cost/benefit analyses to ensure AI projects are worth your company’s investment
A few weeks ago, I watched Jason Woosley on stage at the Adobe Summit reveal how Adobe was building on the $1.68B Magento acquisition by launching Adobe Commerce Cloud. One of the standout lines from the Summit was “Embedding commerce into the Adobe Experience Cloud with Magento enables Adobe to make every moment personal and every experience shoppable.”.
Jason Woosley is a seasoned technology executive with over 20 years of proven success building high-performance product development organizations at scale. I invited Jason onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about the plans for Adobe Commerce cloud, the future of commerce and what this means for businesses.
We also discuss the opportunities and challenges ahead facing business leaders. The Imagine event is also just around the corner and features a keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia and Chairman of VaynerX.
Imagine started nine years ago with a grand vision: to connect the global e-commerce ecosystem. Today, it brings together 3,000+ e-commerce experts, including merchants, agencies, and technology providers across 50+ countries to inspire, advance, educate, collaborate, and enjoy a unique Magento experience.
I will be covering Imagine on this podcast and Jason offers me a few pointers on what I can expect at the event.
HCL Technologies is a next-generation global technology company that helps enterprises reimagine their businesses for the digital age. Their technology products, services, and engineering are built on four decades of innovation, with a strong culture of invention and risk-taking, and a relentless focus on customer relationships.
HCL’s Cyber Security Fusion Centre (CSFC) is opening in Frisco, Texas. The opening of the CSFC represents the next phase in the company’s mission to support secure business growth by providing customers a single point of contact for complete security incident lifecycle support from detection to remediation.
Maninder Singh, Corporate Vice President, Cyber Security Services, HCL joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about the unique approach HCL is taking to empower customers to combat and remediate cybersecurity threats and incidents.
We also discuss the broader cybersecurity topics impacting multiple industries, including:
- Best practices in protecting technology to combat security risks and remediate incidents when they occur
- The importance of a single point of contact in security lifecycle management
- How advanced machine learning algorithms can be used to provide actionable insight to enable security teams to make smart decisions
Glossier once told Fortune that 70% of sales come from word-of-mouth organic connections. While Glossier is shaping the future of beauty by leveraging influencers, there is another company doing the same in education by leveraging teachers & families: meet ClassDojo, the world's most widely used communication app for Pre K-8 schools.
ClassDojo’s growth has been 100% organic, fueled entirely by word of mouth from just a handful of teachers in 2011 to 3.5 million users in 2012 to tens of millions of users in 180 countries today. By focusing on what its community of teachers, families and students asked for (and never spending a dollar on advertising), ClassDojo built a platform that actually suits the needs of its target audience.
From a teacher toolkit to the ability to translate foreign languages on the fly, The ClassDojo is an app that through building and listening to its community is truly revolutionizing the classroom.
The company also recently announced a $35 million Series C round, and the company boasts a Net Promoter score of 76, comparable to the world’s most-loved consumer brands including Glossier, Nike, and Disney.
Sam Chaudhary, Co-founder & CEO at ClassDojo joins me on my daily tech podcast to share the inspirational startup story. We also discuss how the ClassDojo community has been the key to their success and how they are using their community to continue growth.
Petuum provides an AI software platform that allows enterprises to design, build, experiment, customize, operate and own vertical AI solutions in a wide range of industries and areas, such as healthcare, industrial manufacturing and utilities, financial services, telecommunications and more.
Today’s AI solutions tend to be specialized in specific applications and functions and rely on maintenance by a select few developers, but Petuum solution will enable enterprises of all sizes and in all industries to become owners, builders and informed users of AI.
Petuum was founded by scientists and professors from Carnegie Mellon University, including Dr. Eric Xing, who is ranked the top CS/AI researcher in the world. The company's mission is to enable organizations to own, build and become informed users of their AI solutions, without relying on expensive talents.
Qirong Ho, Co-Founder, and CTO at Petuum joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about how they are enabling businesses across multiple industries to become owners, builders and informed users of AI.
What does Citrix mean to you? A software company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service, and cloud computing technologies? However, this would just be scratching the surface.
In a world where many of the complex technologies that make our digital experiences possible are misunderstood and largely invisible, I want to bust a few myths on my daily tech podcast and explore the tangible benefits created with digital workspaces and the transformational experiences that we all take for granted.
For example, Citrix recently partnered with the Miami Marlins, whose goal was to deliver better experiences for their fans. I invited Jeroen van Rotterdam onto my show to learn more about how the Miami Marlins are transitioning to the Citrix Cloud platform to create a more intuitive environment, a higher level of productivity and overall improved flow of information.
Jeroen van Rotterdam is executive vice president of engineering, with responsibility for development and delivery of Citrix flagship products for secure delivery of apps and data – anytime, anywhere – on any device or network. Harnessing the innovation power of the company's global engineering workforce, he leads R&D across all hardware and software products and solutions for apps, data, cloud and networking.
van Rotterdam joined Citrix in 2016, bringing more than 20 years of industry experience to the company. Most recently he served as chief technology officer, vice president and distinguished engineer for DELL EMC’s Enterprise Content Division and general manager for its Archiving Solutions product portfolio.
Bill West, the founder of the Learning Alliance, has developed learning solutions for the world’s greatest companies for over 25 years, including Amazon, Microsoft, Bank of America, and leading brands from nearly every industry from finance to consumer products to health care. His businesses won their first international award in CBT in 1989 and now has over 30 international awards to its credit. The company’s groundbreaking efforts were featured on CBS 60 Minutes and cited as “the potential of elearning” in 2001.
I invited Bill West onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about how the Learning Alliance has organized its virtual and augmented reality businesses into Regatta VR. We also talk about how the new company will focus on the exploitation of immersive media technology for corporate training.
Taryn Southern is a woman of many talents. She is a singer/songwriter, storyteller, filmmaker, and AI artist. Regular listeners will remember that the last time we spoke Taryn talked about her blockchain anthem, AI composed albums and music videos that leveraged AR, VR, and 360° technology too. Having already used technology to enhance the creative process, what would Taryn do next?
There is a race between biological intelligence and artificial intelligence. A new sci-fi documentary is chronicling humanity’s quiet march down a new evolutionary path...where man and machine merge as one.
The documentary explores the stories of Anne, Bill, and Stephen - three of the world's first humans with brain-computer interfaces - and the scientists and entrepreneurs on a quest to unlock the secrets of the human brain.
As the subjects each grapple with the unique opportunities and challenges of their implantable technology, we’re forced to reconcile with the larger societal implications. Will the same technology that heals the sick lead to superhuman abilities, telepathic communication, and cognitive enhancement? How will this change what it means to be human…and most importantly, are we ready?
The film was shot entirely on anamorphic lenses, enhanced with obscured natural light, stark contrasts, and symmetrical tableaus of a traditional sci-fi aesthetic. An ethereal soundscape and original score capture the evolution of technology’s place in the natural world...and within ourselves.
Taryn's mission is for viewers to challenge assumptions about the co-evolution of humans and technology, and ultimately - what it means to be human.
The Digital Insurance Group, (DIG), is a leading Insurtech innovator and a next-generation technology partner to insurers, banks, and brokers. Its data-driven insurance platform enables insurers, banks, brokers and other companies to offer fully integrated insurance solutions to their customers at record speed.
The group also works with global blue-chip clients from the likes of Zurich Insurance, Allianz, AON, Santander and many more. Ingo Weber, CEO, and Co-founder of the Digital Insurance Group joins me on my daily tech podcast and shares why he thinks that InsurTech is now a much hotter topic than Fintech.
Ingo has a vision to change the life of millions of people by giving them access to the right insurance and peace of mind in a truly digital way. A passionate leader with 20+ years of global experience in insurance and digital. Track record in building and scaling businesses and successful exits. Senior roles at Swiss Re, GE Insurance and Softbank.
Ingo is also a pioneer in impact investing, having co-founded the world first dedicated PE fund focused on microinsurance and financial inclusion (LeapFrog Investments), now managing in excess of $1bn with focus on the emerging consumers.
Investors include leading organizations like Swiss Re, AIG, Axa, Prudential, Partner Re, RGA, Morgan Stanley, etc. As an Investment Committee Member, he has played a crucial role in investing in more than 20 companies in Asia and Africa, reaching more than 130m low-income people with insurance and financial services.
Fender Play is the complete learning app for guitar, bass and ukulele. The app features step-by-step lessons, progress tracking and exclusive online community of like-minded players and instructors.
Fender has released new updates to its online learning platform, Fender Play, to deliver features faster to its users. The platform is built on a serverless backend using AWS' Lambda and DynamoDB services.
The use of GraphQL is another update which will allow the Fender Play team to build a flexible Application Programming Interface (API) to help future proof the platform's applications. GraphQL provides the user with a more streamlined experience that is tailored to the individual's learning path, while also making the app itself faster and more responsive.
When Ethan Kaplan was 16 he started a fan website for the band R.E.M. The rest of his career extends from there. He is now Chief Digital Officer and General Manager, Digital at Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. I invited Ethan onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about Fender Play's new platform updates to deliver faster user experience.
At Mobile World Congress, F(x)tec, a London-based startup dedicated to bringing back and making better well-loved features missing in current mobile phones and related devices, unveiled its first product, the Pro1, a new premium unlocked Android smartphone with a sliding and angled landscape QWERTY keyboard.
Focusing on consumers who both desire and share a passion for a refined smartphone experience, the privately funded company is developing products for individuals who miss mobile phone technology from the past and now relish the opportunity to re-engage with and enjoy features that never had the opportunity to reach their full potential.
“At F(x)tec, our vision of the ideal smartphone blends a modern handset with the very best features and technology we loved and miss, to create a perfectly balanced package that is delightful, functional, and unique. Our goal is to be the best at bringing back our favourite technology, making it better in a more modern way – that’s technology refined. ” said Adrian Li Mow Ching, founder and director, F(x)tec.
The Pro1 is equipped with a landscape QWERTY keyboard with five staggered rows and a sliding mechanism inspired by the classic Nokia E7 and N950. The slider tilts the screen to a 155 degree angle for optimal viewing. Thanks to a unique and innovative key design, the keyboard provides responsive, tactile feedback with each keystroke.
Adrian Li Mow Ching, founder and director, F(x)tec joins me on my daily tech podcast to share his vision of combining the best of what we used to have in smartphones into a modern device for today - Technology Refined.
NetMotion Software accelerates business-critical applications, hybrid networks, and mobile devices. NetMotion gives IT decision-makers robust intelligence and control over devices, applications, and networks to increase operational efficiencies and end-user productivity.
The company has received numerous awards for its technology and customer support and consistently receives an impressive customer satisfaction Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 91, significantly exceeding NPS averages in the technology and telecom industries.
At NetMotion Software, Joel Windels helps IT departments at major enterprises around the world like AT&T and US Foods manage the performance of their workers’ mobile devices, whether that’s tablets scanning pallets on a warehouse floor or office workers using Office365 on their smartphones from home.
He’s also extremely knowledgeable about how changes like 5G and new Wi-Fi standards will affect mobile workers and the IT departments that have to support their devices, as well as the security risks of an increasingly mobile workforce and how those risks can be mitigated.
As a leading authority on mobile performance management and security I invited Joel onto my show to talk about:
- The growth of mobile workers, both in tech and non-tech jobs like airport baggage handlers and police officers, and the issues that arise when these workers are forced to rely on Wi-Fi or cellular networks to do their jobs.
- The data security risks that are problems for mobile workers and how to avoid them.
- How modern smartphones have become extremely secure, and the risks of getting your data stolen are moving to the network and how data is transmitted, not the device itself.
- How the 5G rollout will help, but not solve many of these issues.
- How NetMotion helps their customers solve these issues
- The growing trend of companies limiting BYOD policies and moving workers towards a mix of corporate-owned and personal devices.
Sphere Identity creates secure, blockchain-based identity systems. By handing control of identity back to individuals, Sphere Identity streamlines customer sign-ups and simplifies data for business.
The company was launched to provide privacy, security and freedom for individuals and businesses across the globe. They are a research and development-driven organization, supported by a diverse team of experts, skilled in digital identity and distribution technology.
When I read the quote by Katherine Noall “It became apparent that identity needed to be solved.” I invited her onto my daily tech podcast to find out more.
Katherine is CEO of Sphere Identity. As a firm believer that automation needs to do more than mirror manual ways of doing things, Katherine applies distributed technologies to architect and build new solutions. Blockchain and distributed technology are used to increase the identity security and internationalism. Katherine has 20 years of international management experience with technology companies such as AT&T-Unisource and Information Builders.
IOST, is an application-friendly, next-generation public blockchain infrastructure, helping decentralized app developers overcome some of the most challenging problems with mass adoption. Today it stands as the most scalable blockchain network ahead of Ethereum, EOS and Tron, solving the scalability trilemma, or having to exclusively select between security, scalability, and decentralization.
Through a “Proof-of-Believability” consensus mechanism, IOST enables Dapps to build and deploy more meaningful services on its platform, helping more everyday users experience the mass benefits of blockchain services. IOST has a global presence, with offices in Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Berlin, San Francisco, New York and Singapore.
It’s been one month since IOST, the application-friendly next-generation public blockchain network, became the first to launch an application-ready mainnet with multiple live decentralized applications (DApps). In the weeks since, IOST has shown tremendous success in growing its network of developers, partners, and users.
On 6 April, the IOST network surpassed a new record, processing more transactions (580,231) than the whole Ethereum network (558,272) within a day. IOST has also processed more than 25 million transactions 1 month since it's mainnet launch.
These figures clock in a rate of growth that outstrips even the leading blockchain projects during their initial months post-mainnet. But, most importantly for this podcast host observing from the outside, we are finally beginning to see adoption and the thawing of crypto winter.
This week, IOST also partnered with Ehang, a China-based autonomous vehicle company, to provide flight data analytics in a new project for the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). The project utilizes blockchain technology to deliver secure and reliable data to prevent data tampering by third parties.
Jimmy Zhong, Co-Founder at IOST joins me on my daily tech podcast to tell me all about the progress they have been making and the road ahead for IOST. Jimmy is also a proud entrepreneur, geek & developer who is insanely passionate about startups and creating new things. Founder & CTO at Studypool (500 startups batch 11), an online academic platform that assists students to get help with their academic questions.
On this daily tech podcast, I enjoy speaking with people and sharing stories about how technology is changing our lifestyle, business and everything in between. Today I want to tackle the world of recruitment and the effects technology is having on the industry.
AkkenCloud is an enterprise, cloud-based platform available for staffing and recruiting agencies, built to streamline front office, interoffice, and back office workflow. With the use of the AkkenCloud platform, customers have seen an increase in efficiency, placements, and profitability.
Managing over 14.8 million candidates and 33,000 users within one platform, the size and success of AkkenCloud customers continue to grow daily. When those figures appeared on my radar, I invited Giridhar Akkineni CEO at AkkenCloud onto the show to find out more.
Very Good Security (VGS) is a data security company that lets companies operate on sensitive data without the cost or liability of securing the data themselves. What makes VGS different from other data security software is the fact it’s built on the premise that malicious parties can’t hack what isn’t there.
The proposition VGS has for the future of data security and privacy is Zero Data. Meaning you have the option to just not deal with data at all. You can run your business and operate with that data while leaving the custody of that data in the hands of VGS.
The idea is like a bank, we give our money to a bank, we don’t try to secure it in our own homes, because we trust banks to be secure and know our money is insured and available to us when we need it.
How does it work? VGS collects and stores sensitive data in its own highly-secure vaults. When customers require access to that data, VGS identifies the sensitive data in transit and—in real time—swaps it out with aliased or surrogate values that retain the same format and functionality of the original data.
Once customers have fully integrated VGS, they’ve removed their system from any direct exposure to sensitive information. This eliminates most customer liability while drastically reducing risk exposure and compliance responsibility.
By shifting secure data flows to VGS, customers can also manage how third parties interact with sensitive data without worrying about data breaches. This means customer dataflows inherit VGS’ security posture and that customers can use VGS as a central control surface to manage and evidence the security of their data that makes compliances like PCI, EI3PA, SOC 2, and HIPAA fast and easy.
Last year, VGS raised $8.5 million via a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. This funding has allowed VGS to scale operations and grow the number of customers it supports.
I invited Mahmoud Abdelkader, Co-Founder & CEO at Very Good Security who shares his startup journey and the road ahead for VGS.
Rutger van Zuidam is the Founder and CEO of DutchChain, a leading ecosystem development agency for open digital public infrastructure and Odyssey an Open Innovation Program which provides a unique collaborative infrastructure for governmental, corporate, and non-profit partners to find breakthrough solutions to complex societal challenges using blockchain, AI, and other emerging technologies.
Rutger has more than 15 years’ experience founding companies across the communications, digital media, and tech sectors. He was previously an Advisor at NOM NV, the regional development and investment agency for Northern Netherlands, and was the Co-founder and Commercial Director of Paylogic, a next-generation ticketing and technology company based in Amsterdam.
I invited Rutger to talk about all the above and Odyssey Hack 2019 which is the world's biggest blockchain and AI Hackathon in the Netherlands.
Johnathan Grzybowski, is the Chief Marketing Officer and co-founder of Penji, an on-demand graphic design service that delivers fast turnaround, simple, and affordable.
After experiencing first hand how difficult it was to find talented graphic designers for his business, Johnathan and his co-founder Khai launched Penji in 2017. Their goal was to provide an innovative solution by making essential tools and resources more accessible and affordable for entrepreneurs, business owners, and leaders.
Penji has been named as “top startup to watch” according to Philadelphia Magazine and mentioned in major publications like Success Magazine, Huffington Post, Forbes, and Inc. Prior to Penji, Johnathan founded multiple marketing related startups and worked for Apple.
Johnathan is also the host of Blind Entrepreneurship, a podcast that has been mentioned as a top business podcast on Apple Podcasts and downloaded over 100,000 times. His mission with his podcast and business is to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs so they too can execute their vision to profitability.
I invited Jonathan onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about his startup story. We also talk about the story behind Penji and creating an unlimited graphic design membership for agencies, internal marketing teams, and startups.
Isobar is a global agency that delivers digital transformation, powered by creativity. They solve complex business challenges through digital marketing, ecosystems and products, driving digital strength and brand loyalty. Isobar clients include Coca-Cola, Adidas, Enterprise, P&G, Philips and Huawei.
In the past few years, Isobar has been awarded over 450 times, including the Digital Craft Grand Prix at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2018, as well as multiple Clio, Webby, and Effie Awards.
Research firm Forrester also named Isobar a Leader in Commerce in its report, “The Forrester Wave™: Commerce Specialist Service Providers, Q4 2018.”
At the recent Adobe Summit, I met with Vikalp Tandon, Global CTO, Isobar. Vikalp is responsible for expanding Isobar’s data and technology consulting offering globally by working closely with the multi-disciplinary teams across Isobar’s 45 markets.
Vikalp has over 15 years of experience in delivering multiple large scale, multi-market technology products, consulting complex technical solutions and establishing offshore delivery teams. Vikalp is tasked with connecting the strong and growing technology and commerce community at Isobar whilst leveraging the agency’s global technology partner relationships with Adobe, Salesforce, SAP Hybris, Sitecore, Magento, Google, Microsoft and more, to further enable Isobar to deliver experience-led transformation for clients.
Sprinklr is a provider of social media and marketing management software used by more than 50% of the Fortune 50 and 9 out of 10 of Forbes’ ranking of the World’s Most Valuable Brands for 2018.
Companies like MGM use Location Insights to help them understand social data on customer experiences at each of their hotels and restaurants, while Microsoft and P&G brands (Olay, Pantene, Secret, Bran, Crest) uses Product Insights to make sense of social data related to specific product features.
Intrigued by Sprinklr's new AI capabilities, product and location insights, I stopped by Sprinklr's booth #919 at the Adobe Summit and met with Sprinklr CMO Grad Conn to find out more about how they are leveraging technology.
Interana is the fast and scalable event-based analytics solution to answer critical business questions about how customers behave and products are used.
The company allows users to analyze and explore the key business metrics that matter most in a data-driven world – such as growth, retention, conversion, and engagement – in seconds, rather than the hours or days it often takes with existing solutions.
Interana also allows customers to discover and investigate these key insights easily through its visual and interactive interface, which makes data analysis a natural extension of everyone’s workflow. Sports media giant Bleacher Report, a division of Turner Broadcasting, relies on Interana to understand the behavior of its users and to inform app development and content optimization decisions.
“The kinds of results Bleacher Report has achieved using Interana are consistent with what our other customers have experienced,” said Interana Founder and CTO Bobby Johnson. “Companies like Microsoft, Comcast, Uber, Sonos, Edmunds, Goodyear, and many others are using Interana for all kinds of applications – including customer behavioral analytics, content optimization, and product innovation – and they’re all seeing similar benefits.
I invited Bobby Johnson onto the podcast to share his back story such as leading the development of analytics tools at Facebook including Scuba, Facebook’s internal data analytics platform to launching Interana and the kind of problems he set out to solve for his clients.
After spending a week talking about unique real-time personalized digital experiences, I felt it was my duty to also explore privacy in a digitally obsessed world.
BestVPN.com is a leading Virtual Private Network review & comparison site that also publishes the latest in cybersecurity and online privacy news. On today's daily tech podcast, I have invited Jo O'Reilly from BestVPN to discuss a variety of topics around privacy.
Jo has an extensive background in the intersection of data privacy and everyday women-focused issues and also wrote her dissertation on how to use social media to empower women. We discuss the prevalence of cyberstalking in today’s online first approach to dating and also in-app dating and social media’s impact on dating.
We also explore privacy tech for the empowerment of women in today’s political climate.
Contentsquare is a digital experience insights platform that helps businesses understand how and why visitors are interacting with their app, mobile, and websites. They compute billions of touch and mouse movements and turn this knowledge into profitable actions that increase engagement, reduce operational costs and maximize conversion rates.
Using behavioral data, artificial intelligence, and big data to provide automatic recommendations, Contentsquare empowers every member of the digital team to easily measure the impact of their actions, and make fast and productive data-driven decisions to optimize the customer journey.
The AI-powered User Experience (UX) analytics and optimization platform is used by many major retailers and brands that include Walmart, Tiffany’s, Avon, and GoPro. The company also recently launched the Digital Happiness Index (DHI), a pioneering metric to help brands measure the quality of the experience they deliver across the web, mobile sites, and apps.
For the first time, IT, product, marketing, and merchandising teams can all track a single digital customer satisfaction score. The Digital Happiness Index nets out the collective impact of the dozens of actions taking place across departments to provide a brand with a single common barometer.
Jean-Marc Bellaiche, Chief Partnership & Strategy Officer at Contentsquare joins me on my daily tech podcast to share exciting developments they have coming down the pike and shares his insights on the retail industry as a whole, including:
- How AI-based solutions help marketing executives better understand and connect with their customers.
- The effect of data privacy on the retail industry, especially in regards to ad targeting.
- How stores are increasingly integrating the digital experience into their brick-and-mortar locations.
- The trend toward hyper-personalization
Cognizant Interactive offers a boutique style agency experience on a global scale, with solutions grounded in human insights. Cognizant Interactive is part of Cognizant, one of the world’s leading professional services companies, and award-winning Adobe partner. Cognizant Interactive was recognized by AdAge as the #1 digital agency network in the US and #3 in the world last year.
Donna Tuths, SVP and Global Head of Cognizant Interactive joins me at the Adobe Summit to share her vision and perspectives on delivering world-class experiences. Donna leads the Cognizant Interactive team in powering the content lifecycle from concept to commerce, bringing experiences to life for clients across industries.
Over the past decade, Donna has disrupted the agency landscape by combining the capabilities of a traditional agency, with those of business, digital and technology consultancies. She has also expanded Cognizant Interactive offerings through a number of successful acquisitions.
On today's daily tech podcast we discuss:
What the future holds for the digital/interactive space, what marketing and digital executives should consider in planning for the next 5 years, and what does it mean to be a modern marketer. We also discuss how original, authentic, and human-inspired content is important for companies and why mastering video content is essential in a social world.
If you or your business wants to know more about what to consider when making a digital/interactive investment and selecting partner – the agency profile of the future, you will find today's conversation invaluable.
Splash is a technology company that powers advanced in-person marketing programs for the world’s leading brands. More than half of the Fortune 500 use Splash to streamline event marketing execution and optimize performance.
From simplifying event asset creation to capturing attendee insights and measuring event impact, Splash enables marketers to reach and connect with target audiences in-person, efficiently scale event programs, and connect event-driven engagement to business results.
After learning that $70 million in tickets have been sold on Splash, 2.8 million check-ins, 21 million RSVPs, and 670,000 events thrown on Splash, I wanted to find out more about the Event Management company.
Amy Barone, CSO at Splash tells me more about how technology is transforming the event industry. Amy is a Marketing and global events leader with 20 years experience working with leading brands in enterprise software, telecommunications, arts and entertainment industries.
Having joined Tableau Software in 2007 as one of the first marketing hires, Amy has continued to drive progress and growth her in roles through its rise from start-up to a billion dollar enterprise. Tableau is now widely recognized as the leader in data analytics, one of the hottest technology sectors.
Amy is recognized as a leader in technology event marketing, has been invited to speak by organizations such as CEMA and ANA, and has served on a number of advisory boards, including Alaska Airlines, Starwood, PSAV, and Choose Chicago. In addition, Amy has been interviewed and published in articles for her work on Tableau Conference, including Convene Magazine and Alaska Beyond.
Medallia is a provider of enterprise Customer Experience Management solutions, substantiated by Forrester Research. Medallia is also recognized for its ability to deliver on its promises, provide thought leadership, implement best practice solutions and provide outstanding customer loyalty.
The experience management platform is dedicated to collecting and segmenting feedback and driving brand growth and improvement. The company is on a mission to create a world where companies are loved by customers and employees alike.
At this year's Adobe Summit, I caught up with Rachel Lane, Digital Solutions Principal at Medallia. As solution Principal for Medallia Digital, Rachel's role is to enable business leaders and their brands to better understand the customer's voice and use it to drive substantial operational improvement. She works across all vertical sectors as a digital expert, advising on best practices, operational digital CEM strategy, and ROI.
We discuss, Digital how brands are missing a key piece of the experience puzzle and the recent news stories relating to customer impact on brand successes.
A small group of innovative Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) is helping their organizations generate on average 11 percent higher shareholder return compared to industry peers by delivering hyper-relevant customer experiences, according to a new report from Accenture. These marketing leaders – the pioneering 17 percent – are driving transformational change at the highest levels of their organizations helping them to respond quickly to changing customer needs.
Way Beyond Marketing – The Rise of The Hyper-Relevant CMO report from Accenture surveyed nearly 1,000 CMOs and more than 500 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) from the largest organizations around the world to understand the impact of marketing in driving business growth. The study found that an innovative group of CMOs are driving significant growth by rewiring their organizations to enable better integration and collaboration to deliver superior customer experiences.
After hearing the announcement at the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas, I caught up with Glen Hartman, Senior Managing Director, Accenture Interactive North America and Global Digital Marketing. We discuss the report and much more on my daily tech podcast.
Accenture Interactive is a more than $6 billion business unit dedicated to helping the world’s leading brands create the best customer experiences on the planet. Accenture Interactive has been ranked by Ad Age as the largest and fastest growing Digital Agency globally for the past three consecutive years (2016, 2017 and 2018).
Recognized as an Adweek 50 honoree in 2018 and previously cited by Forbes as a "top 10 influencer" in digital, Glen leverages his 26 years of experience in digital transformation and omni-channel marketing to help brands engage and delight customers and embrace digital disruption.
Glen leads Accenture Interactive in North America and has global responsibility for Accenture’s Marketing offerings including management and integration of acquisitions: Acquity Group, Fjord, AvVenta, Chaotic Moon, Media Hive, Clearhead, Intrepid, Wire Stone and Meredith Xcelerated Marketing (MXM).
Glen’s market perspectives on digital transformation and customer experience have also been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Forbes and Ad Age.
Hootsuite is the leader in social media management, trusted by more than 18 million customers and employees at more than 80% of the Fortune 1000. Hootsuite's unparalleled expertise, customer insights at scale, and collaborative ecosystem empower organizations large and small to strategically grow their brand, business, and customer relationships with
social.
At this year's Adobe Summit, Hootsuite announced an upcoming integration with Adobe Experience Platform. Developed collaboratively with Adobe, this first-of-its-kind integration will bring insights from social activity to Adobe’s Real-Time Customer Profile, enabling Adobe
customers to deliver omnichannel marketing initiatives informed by their customers’ social media behavior.
Once live, Hootsuite will deliver six integrated Adobe solutions, further
cementing Hootsuite as Adobe’s preferred social media management partner. “With social becoming one of the highest performing customer engagement channels, organizations are looking to better understand the impact of their social strategy on their broader business and marketing objectives,” said Penny Wilson, CMO of Hootsuite.
“This innovative integration between Hootsuite and Adobe Experience Platform leverages social insights to create a unified view of the customer so marketers can deliver personalized content and messaging on the most relevant channels to achieve their greatest ROI.”
While at this year's Adobe Summit, I caught up with Hootsuite CMO Penny Wilson to find out more about the road ahead for Hootsuite. I also wanted to learn wanted to l battle-tested technology, extensive ecosystem, and social DNA to help organizations create human connections at scale.
The world is witnessing immensely disruptive and yet easy to adopt next-generation technologies. This disruption combined with consumer expectations for experience led engagement with “Brands”, is making enterprises rethink and transform their business models.
Digital Transformation is now real and mainstream - not just with retailers, financial institutions & consumer brand companies but even B2B industries like Manufacturing, Utilities, pharma and life sciences, telecom companies are leveraging AR/VR, AI & Machine Learning, IOT, Data and Analytics together with Experience Design to deliver new value chains to their consumers, partners and employees and also transforming business operations.
Business transformation is being discussed not in the board room but in the ideation rooms with Experience Designers (XD) and Technology architects together with business leaders. This transformation is as much cultural and organizational change than technology adoption.
How do organizations (countries and businesses) adapt to Human Centered- Digital Transformation? I explore this topic with Anand Birje, Global Head of Digital & Analytics, HCL Technologies, at the Adobe Summit.
Ansira recently announced that the company has earned three product Specializations as part of the Adobe Solution Partner Program, highlighting our work with Adobe Experience Cloud, including Adobe Analytics, Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Campaign.
Adobe awards Specialization badges to Solution Partners who have certified technical proficiency and validated customer success in specialized solution areas. This development follows Ansira's recent promotion, in December 2018, to Business-level partner in the Adobe Solution Partner Program, and distinguishes the company's knowledge and expertise in a competitive market.
Ansira is a marketing technology and services firm that helps brands orchestrate, personalize and contextualize customer engagements to drive business results. Ansira's experienced marketing practitioners design, implement and manage a unique combination of industry-recognized solutions in customer-relationship management (CRM) and loyalty, through-channel marketing automation (TCMA), and national and local media designed specifically for the brand-to-local ecosystem.
With more than 850 employees globally, Ansira supports more than 150 brands in varied verticals, including automotive, business services, consumer packaged goods (CPG), hospitality, restaurants, retail, and technology. In 2019, Ansira commemorates its 100-year anniversary as an innovative and evolutionary marketing and services firm.
Ansira Chief CRM and MarTech Officer Kelly Jo Sands and SVP of Marketing Technology Sukumar Muthya join me at the Adobe Summit to discuss creative data-driven marketing strategies and their use cases for Ansira’s clients.
We also discuss the strategic solutions they offer clients, like Chili’s, Subaru and Panera, plus the utilization of big-data, AI and bots in marketing.
The Zappos Family of Companies, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, is a leader in online apparel and footwear sales by striving to provide shoppers the best possible service and selection. They carry millions of products from over 1000 footwear and apparel brands.
After learning that Zappos is also located in Vegas, I went rogue and left the Adobe summit to invite Ameen Kazerouni onto the show who is the Lead Data Scientist at Zappos
What is their secret to having grown so quickly? They have aligned the entire organization around one mission: to provide the best customer service possible. Internally, they call this their WOW philosophy. And, they believe that it’s our unique “fun and a little weird” culture that drives the WOW.
Ameen Kazerouni is the lead data scientist at Zappos family of companies. His journey has taken him from undergraduate robotics research, to graduate medical research, to building up a machine learning and big data platform team at a leading e-commerce company.. The goal is to keep innovating, pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved with data and creating architectures that democratize the power of AI and Data to everyone.
We talk about how machine learning impacts e-commerce and customer experience, and how AI and machine learning are helping companies become even more customer-centric. We also chat about Zappos and the role of tech in its success.
A creative digital consultancy, Deloitte Digital helps clients see what’s possible, identify what’s valuable, and deliver on it. They focus on bringing together creativity, strategy, insight, and technology to build brilliant digital experiences for the world’s leading brands. Across the globe, their work makes lives a little more fun, a little bit easier, and a little more connected, every day.
I catch up with Pradeep Kamat, lead engagement principal
and Deloitte Digital Life sciences leader at the 2019 Adobe Summit. Pradeep is a distinguished technology leader of Deloitte Digital’s practice in the US with nearly 20 years experience in business transformations, cloud technologies and customer engagement. He primarily focuses in Life Sciences and helps his clients drive their customer transformation agenda by building and delivering innovative digital solutions.
Within Deloitte, he is part of Customer and Marketing practice, where we he focuses on Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Sales, Service and Marketing technology implementations. This includes leading projects to launch patient and HCP portals, HCP and patient marketing, end-to-end patient services call center platforms,, patient services operational reporting and analytics, and patient support mobile applications.
In our conversation, we talk about
- Enhancing experiences through data-driven personalization at scale
- How to reimagine the government through integrated digital experiences that put people first
- How to engage patients and health care practitioners through personalized, omni-channel experiences
- How teams can integrate AI into existing workstreams to drive revenue growth
- How CIOs are collaborating with CMOs to align companies’ marketing, business and broader digital strategies
- The role of creative content in elevating the human experience
The year-long crypto winter has continued to take a toll on crypto investors’ sentiments and confidence. Take Switzerland for example, in Q4 2018 alone, the market valuation of 50 largest blockchain companies in the country’s “Crypto Valley” plunged more than 50% to US$20 billion.
Over the same period, however, the number of Blockchain companies surged by 20%, according to a survey conducted by CC VC.
Despite the bear market, the demand for the distributed ledger technology continues to flourish. Amongst the 20% increase in blockchain companies, four of them are classified as ‘unicorns’ — signifying they are already worth billions of dollars. Liechtenstein, an early supporter of the technology implemented legislation to regulate blockchain business models, showing a direction towards adoption.
With that said, how are other blockchain firms fairing on a global scale? I invited David Wachsman, CEO of Wachsman on to my daily tech podcast.
Wachsman is a high-tech communications agency with specialization in blockchain, AI, IoT, gaming, cybersecurity, and fintech. They counsel and support the most fascinating companies and boldest ideas around the world.
David Wachsman is a world-renowned blockchain expert and thought leader. He is a regular speaker at the most highly recognized technology conferences around the world. Recently, David was featured on CNN International, CNN Money, and in New York Magazine.
In late-2015, David founded Wachsman to provide professional public relations services to the rapidly growing financial technology industry with cryptocurrency and blockchain at its foundation. Wachsman has since become a global organization with more than 100 employees based in offices in New York City and Dublin.
David and his team have represented and acted as communications advisors to many of the most indispensible organizations in blockchain, including Dash, Crypto Valley Association, Bitcoin Suisse AG, CoinDesk, IOHK, Lisk, Steemit, tZERO, Jaxx, and Coinsource.
Before founding Wachsman, David led the day-to-day operations for a boutique public relations agency in Manhattan and held roles in advertising, political affairs, and biotechnology. David also elaborates on the relationship between crypto market cap and the growth of blockchain technology and what he thinks the blockchain industry should be focusing on in 2019 to encourage mass adoption.
Our newsfeeds are bombarded by blog posts and articles warning that automation and an army of robots are coming to take our jobs. Mario Arace is helping people embrace technology and become part of the technological revolution before getting replaced by it.
Mario has 25 years of experience as a Global Sales Trader for 4 major banks. As a successful professional in the corporate world for 25 years, he had his passion stripped away by automation and technology. After years of sacrifice and soul searching coupled with endless research, he discovered his true passion for awakening individuals who are unaware of how quickly technology can replace them if they do not embrace it.
Mario wants to help people shift their mindset to embrace fear and obstacles and create their own path to their version of happiness; exposing the lies that society and media have created. Mario’s corporate experience gives him a unique take on his message and he inspires those who are unable to change their thinking towards making choices that result in happiness and success.
I echat with Mario and gain further insights into his mindset and embracing fear, turning pain into power, taking risks, ignoring uninvited opinions, new world order and the rapid advancement of technology.
David Feinman is the CEO of a fast-growing video production company called Viral Ideas and an on-demand video editing service called Flixation, based in Philadelphia, PA.
I invited David onto the show to share his startup story which began when he started his first company at 16 in high school and started The Zombie Run generating 1.4M in 9 months using Facebook advertising and growing viral ideas to 200 clients in 3 Years.
David also shares his insights and lessons he learned on his startup journey.
How the Global leader in critical event management and enterprise safety keeps people safe and businesses running. Faster.
On this daily tech podcast, I explore how technology affects areas that you wouldn't normally associate with technology. Today I wanted to look into a solution that helps people who are caught in the middle of disasters, attacks, business disruptions, and cyber attacks.
Everbridge is the global leader in critical event management and enterprise safety applications that automate and accelerate an organization’s operational response to critical events in order to keep people safe and businesses running faster.
During public safety threats such as active shooter situations, terrorist attacks or severe weather conditions, as well as critical business events such as IT outages or cyber-attack incidents, over 4,400 global customers rely on the company’s SaaS-based platform to quickly and reliably aggregate and assess threat data, locate people at risk and responders able to assist, automate the execution of pre-defined communications processes, and track progress on executing response plans.
The company’s critical event management and enterprise safety applications include Mass Notification, Incident Management, IT Alerting, Safety Connection™, Community Engagement®, Visual Command Center®, Crisis Commander®, and CareConverge™, and are easy-to-use and deploy, secure, highly scalable and reliable.
Everbridge CEO Jaime Ellertson joins me for a conversation full of valuable insights around technology and crisis management.
For 125 years, Quarles & Brady LLP has provided quality legal services to a wide range of industries on a national stage. The firm strives to learn their clients' businesses—to see the horizons through their eyes.
The multidisciplinary AmLaw 200 legal services provider has 500 attorneys practicing at the top of the profession in Chicago, Indianapolis, Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Naples, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tampa, Tucson, and Washington, D.C.
Quarles & Brady have built a reputation on providing sophisticated legal services to clients across the world. But they were also tackling some of the stereotypes around the legal industry being slow to adopt change, innovation, and tech.
Brad Vynalek joins me on my daily tech podcast to discuss legal tech and much more. Brad serves as a counselor and advisor on strategy, exposure, and enterprise opportunity for clients ranging from local start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.
Brad also works very closely with law departments to create and manage budgets and create optimal teams for a variety of legal services in the banking, high-tech, Internet, software, manufacturing, e-commerce, health care, higher education, and tech transfer industries.
Within the firm, in addition to having been elected to the national management committee, Brad holds national roles ranging from client service team leader to national strategy partner. Since joining the firm 20 years ago, Brad's roles have ranged from recruiting law school students and lateral attorneys for the firm nationally to leading mentoring and strategic growth initiatives.
Meanwhile, he also has provided pro bono services for the Volunteer Lawyers Program, Wills for Heroes, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Current Health (formerly snap40) is the most accurate, all-in-one wireless wearable currently approved in the U.S. and EU. The company’s proprietary algorithms continuously analyze data, along with relevant contextual patient information, to offer actionable and proactive insights into the wearer’s health.
Current’s FDA-cleared wearable monitors the human body with ICU-level accuracy across more vital signs than any other all-in-one device on the market. Headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, with an office in New York, Current is venture backed by investors ADV, MMC Ventures and others.
Faced with an aging population and strained healthcare systems worldwide, U.S. and U.K. healthcare providers are deploying Current to change their patient delivery models from reactive to proactive care to produce better patient outcomes.
Current’s approach will help health organizations reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions for patients whose conditions deteriorate after treatment — an expensive and cumbersome clinical burden that costs U.S. hospitals more than $40 billion annually.
Built using the world’s largest real-time physiological data set, Current is the most accurate, all-in-one wireless wearable currently approved for use in the EU and U.S. The company’s proprietary algorithms continuously analyze data, along with relevant contextual patient information, to offer actionable and proactive insights into the wearer’s health.
“At Current, we’re a small team of individuals committed to changing the world through proactive healthcare,” said Christopher McCann, CEO of Current. “Our team worked hard to get here, and it’s just the first step toward monitoring the health of every human being to identify sickness earlier with the goal of saving lives. Today, we’re in the hospital, tomorrow the home, and in the near future, we’ll be everywhere. We are just getting started.”
Current Health CEO Christopher McCann has been on the podcast before, but I invited him back on the show to discuss the advancements in healthcare AI and IoT, and how they are already helping improve patient care.
Ritam Gandhi, is the Founder and Director of Studio Graphene – a London-based company that specialises in the development of blank canvas tech products including apps, websites, AR, IoT and more. The company has completed over 50 projects since first being started in 2014, working with both new entrepreneurs and product development teams within larger companies.
Essentially, the team at Studio Graphene plan, design and build bleeding edge digital solutions and IoT products. They are focused on helping startups navigate the journey from conceptualising an idea that they are passionate about to making it a commercial reality.
Helping jump start ideas is what excites them and are clearly passionately about the fact that a new venture needs the right technology partner to be by their side. I invited Ritam Gandhi onto my tech podcast to learn more about how the story behind Studio Graphene and how they are making a difference.
Having plied his trade as a consultant for over 10 years at the likes of Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Accenture, Ritam established digital agency Studio Graphene nearly four years ago to support UK-based startups.
I take a break from interviewing tech and business leaders to answer questions from the listeners of my daily tech podcast. We talk about which countries are currently listening and where the audience to the show is growing.
On today's solo, show, I also share what areas of the tech industry concern me and reveal the tech gripes that drive me crazy. On a serious note, I advise a listener that is thinking of hiring me to launch her podcast that she should build a podcast around her business rather than the other way around.
Finally, I offer an open invitation to listeners and guests of the podcast that are attending the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas, so join me for a hot coffee, a cold beer or just say a quick hello while I'm in the US.
It's harder than ever for Incubators/Accelerators to get their portfolio companies funded. Investors are more demanding and want to see the numbers behind the story. Revenue projections, customer acquisition costs, lifetime value projections, how they interact with each other, and the assumptions behind the projections. Portfolio companies fail miserably in understanding, presenting, and backing up such numbers for investors.
THE PROBLEM – GETTING FUNDED
Typically less than 20% of portfolio companies are getting funded or receive follow on investments. One of the major reason - they are not getting funded - is because they do not understand the metrics that matter – and do not know how to model their business and present it to investors.
Excel - the business modeling tool of choice – produces models that are either too simplified, or overly complicated... and always error-prone. Investors have no patience for incompetence.
THE SOLUTION – GIVING INVESTORS WHAT THEY WANT
Lean-Case gives Incubators, Accelerators, and their portfolio companies the ability to quickly model and simulate different business models – accurately – and present the metrics in an investor-friendly format. This will dramatically increase the close rate on getting portfolio companies funded.
After hearing how Lean-Case covers more than 10 different business and forecasting models, I invited Eckhard Ortwein, Entrepreneur, business model expert and founder of Lean CASE onto my daily tech podcast to find out more.
Founded in 2012, Mya Systems brings deep AI and NLP expertise together with recruiting domain pedigree to disrupt the recruiting operational model as we know it.
Mya Systems has established itself as a leading conversational AI solution provider serving hundreds of the top enterprises and agencies including 40 of the Fortune 500 and 5 of the 8 largest global staffing firms. The company has raised $32.4M across 3 venture rounds led by top-tier investors such as Emergence Capital and Foundation Capital.
Mya’s proprietary conversational AI platform uses state-of-the-art natural language processing and machine learning techniques to automate outreach and communications with job candidates across the end-to-end recruiting process, enabling recruiters to prioritize their time with candidates most likely to succeed.
Mya quickly gained an A-list of customers and established itself as a leading AI solutions provider in the recruiting industry. The company has raised $32.4M of venture funding in three rounds from top-tier investors including Emergence Capital and Foundation Capital.
The company is on a mission to open up a world of job possibilities for all. Inefficiencies in the existing recruiting model mean the right talent and the right job don't always end up together. Mya’s vision is to create a solution where job seekers get jobs faster, and hiring teams get the most qualified candidates by eliminating frictional unemployment.
I wanted to find out more about the conversational AI recruitment platform so invited Eyal Grayevsky onto my daily tech podcast. Eyal's 12+ years of expertise includes co-managing his family's recruiting agency and founding FirstJob, a job marketplace for early career talent. He is also a founding partner at DoubleTap Ventures, a community for entrepreneurs to share advice.
We discuss how this industry-first Outreach Automation platform has delivered unprecedented results at scale, including response rates of 40-60% and over 2x increase in recruiter productivity for its customers Entegee, ICS and others.
By automating outreach to current and prospective candidates, Mya Systems is also helping large recruitment agencies like Adecco scale efforts to re-engage candidates in their existing database, build new pipelines, automate referral acquisition and manage relationships within their talent community.
I learn more about how Mya has spent the last 2+ years scaling its Outreach solution for many of the largest employers in the world, amassing millions of data points to train its conversational AI in the context of passive sourcing and talent pool management.
The result is a system that can communicate seamlessly with candidates in open-ended, natural and dynamic conversation, delivering dramatically improved engagement rates and candidate experience for a variety of use cases.
AppNeta is the only network performance monitoring solution that delivers deep, actionable, end-to-end network performance data from the end-user perspective.
With AppNeta's SaaS-based solution, IT and Network Ops teams at large, distributed enterprises can quickly pinpoint issues that affect network and business-critical cloud application performance, regardless of where they occur.
The company was also recently named a visionary in 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for network performance monitoring and diagnostics. After also learning how AppNeta is trusted by some of the biggest Fortune 1000 companies, including 3 out of the 5 largest corporations in the world, as well as 4 out of the 5 largest cloud providers, I invited CEO Matt Stevens onto my tech podcast to learn more.
Regular listeners will remember my interview with Joseph Goldberg from Tobii Pro where we discussed how their eye tracking technology makes it possible to know exactly where someone is looking which is an incredibly powerful tool for gaining unique and objective insight into human behavior.
While this information can be used in a wide breadth of study fields, some of the main applications are found within the study of consumer behavior, acquired skillsets, situational awareness, and medical conditions such as Alzheimer's, dementia, and autism.
However, I recently came across a fascinating report that highlighted how Tobii Pro's eye-tracking technology also helps identify what makes an effective broadcast TV commercial in a world full of mobile devices and other distractions.
Tobii Pro's eye tracked participants in their actual homes as they watched TV between 2016 to 2018. Eye tracking provides unique, scientific insights on the elements of a TV commercial that grabbed or dropped viewers’ attention.
Tobii Pro identified the best points to air a commercial and ideal length as well as gender and age differences in attention span. Some of the findings go against traditional thinking on what makes an effective commercial.
It’s a treasure trove of data that’s super-relevant to ad agencies, ad buyers, brands, TV networks and listeners to my daily tech podcast that showcases the continued relevance of television as an advertising medium. I invited Mike Bartels, Senior Research Director at Tobii Pro Insight onto my podcast to find out more about the study.
Mike's team conducts world-class attention research studies using advanced Tobii Pro eye-tracking technology. Their areas of expertise include shopper behavior, user experience, advertising effectiveness, media engagement, and professional development.
I learn more about how Mike and his team at Tobii Pro strive to provide their clients with actionable insights that allow them to literally see the world through the eyes of their customers.
Catalog is a platform that helps digitally native businesses produce branded content at scale to supercharge their online presence. They provide businesses with all the content they need by modernizing the production process with new technology, while aligning with the brand’s creative input, and at a fraction of the time.
The company has been used by National Geographic, Sony Music and 200+ other businesses. Patrick Ip is a digital pioneer, entrepreneur, and Co-Founder of Catalog. But he also has an inspiring backstory. Patrick was at Google serving as a Business Innovation Lead focused on business strategy & social good.
Within social good, Patrick is part of the Google for Nonprofits Marketing Team & the Billion Acts Team, where he works with 13 Nobel Laureates to achieve 1 Billion Acts by 2019. The initiative has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize seven times.
Patrick started Kip Solutions, a social media consulting firm for social causes, which was acquired in February 2013 by New York-based firm Post+Beam. Patrick Ip has been featured on Forbes, Inc. Magazine, ABC, CBS, Star News Australia and many others.
Patrick's start-up, Kip Solutions has been recognized as one of the Top 50 Most Innovative College Student-Run Companies by the Kairos Society and Inc. Magazine's Coolest College Start-ups 2012.
I also wanted to find out more about his awards which include being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (2015, 2016), Google's Platinum Award (Highest honor for an employee at Google), Presidents Volunteer Service Award, Jefferson Award for "Outstanding Service for an American 25 and under"
Tens of thousands of small local stores have been forced to close down over the last few decades and have been Replaced by giant, soul-less mega-marts. Today, 50% of the world’s population does not have access to retail within walking distance.
This could be a matter of life and death. It is also a trillion dollar market, and a huge business opportunity. MOBY's flexible and high-tech corner stores have been hailed by global media as pioneers and the future of staff-less retail.
How do you open a corner store today? You build a store. You decorate it. You install security systems. You hire people to stock it. Then you need an inventory system. You need a payment system (credit card readers etc). Then you need to hire people.
You will also need more systems for finance and overview. Maybe you
can connect these systems. Most probably not. Or you could just buy a MOBY. You fill it up, and wait for the money showing up on your account. And get all the above included.
The three biggest costs in retail are staff, restocking, and rent. By slashing these, Moby is bringing futuristic, 24/7 retail to the streets, from Iquaq, Alaska to downtown Manhattan. Welcome to the future.
I invited, Hannah Lina Mazetti, Co-Founder / Inventor of Moby Mart to learn more about the company and her story.
On my daily tech podcast, I often talk about new solutions that leverage technology. But today, I wanted to explore the world of Blockchain Innovators in Trade Finance. TradeIX are building the world’s first open platform powered by blockchain and distributed ledger technology.
The best way to describe TradeIX is as a ‘Network of Networks’ for global trade finance. It is the most connected and secured platform infrastructure for banks, asset managers, B2B networks and value-added service providers.
TradeIX and R3 also launched Project Marco Polo as a joint undertaking together with over a dozen of the world’s foremost financial institutions active in Trade Finance including BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, ING, and Natwest.
Usually, I would just invite TradeIX onto this podcast to talk about how they are transforming trade finance through technology. But I wanted to try something different. I wanted to get companies based all over the world onto one call and see if we can show how they are all collaborating with each other to reshape trade finance all by leveraging technology.
Today's Guests
Nicole Lefevre is an associate at R3 which is an enterprise blockchain software firm working with a broad ecosystem of more than 200 members and partners across multiple industries from both the private and public sectors to develop on Corda, its open-source blockchain platform, and Corda Enterprise, a commercial version of Corda for enterprise usage.
R3’s global team of over 180 professionals in 13 countries is supported by over 2,000 technology, financial, and legal experts drawn from its global member base.
Andrew Speers is the Director, Product, and Innovation at NatWest within the RBS group. Andrew has been working in the Financial Services industry for over 15 years. During this time he has held various positions with leading global banks in roles ranging from Sales to Product Development.
As a member of RBS Group, within NatWest Trade & Working Capital Services team, Andrew also covers areas such as Blockchain / DLT, Emerging Technology, Digitisation, Fintech Partnership and identifying new and exciting opportunities to help the banks client base to grow and prosper.
Alain Verschueren is the Head of DLT trade & treasury solutions at BNP Paribas which is a leading bank in Europe with an international reach. It has a presence in 74 countries, with more than 192,000 employees, including more than 146,000 in Europe.
The Group has key positions in its three main activities: Domestic Markets and International Financial Services (whose retail-banking networks and financial services are covered by Retail Banking & Services) and Corporate & Institutional Banking, which serves two client franchises: corporate clients and institutional investors
David Sutter is the Chief Strategy Officer at TradeIX and is an experienced Fintech entrepreneur and a blockchain/DLT expert. He was one of the first to foresee the benefits DLT could bring to financial services and in particular trade finance.
Over the past years he helped pioneer and design the technology’s application for trade finance. He joined TradeIX in 2017 as Head of Platform Strategy to develop a roadmap for the trade and working capital finance platform and for the Marco Polo Network.
David also devised an ambitious and ground-breaking vision for the Trade Finance Industry, for the Marco Polo Network and for TradeIX which fundamentally differentiates them from other players and networks in this field. As the Chief Strategy Officer, he will continue defining and designing the future of TradeIX and the Marco Polo Network.
We discuss how Marco Polo is providing cutting-edge open account trade solutions, robust suite of trade specific APIs, sophisticated rules engine, and open, standard core infrastructure. A secure, single source of truth for critical trade data including identities, purchase orders, invoices, shipping and logistics information, trade assets, financing activity, and credit risk is no longer a pipe dream, it's a reality.
Specializing in LTL, full truckload, expedited and managed transportation solutions. I wanted to learn more about how the company is leading the market in innovative logistics technology by optimizing the efficiency of freight movement and matching shipper demand and carrier capacity in near real-time.
I invited Greg Carter, Chief Technology Officer at GlobalTranz onto my daily tech podcast. Prior to joining GlobalTranz, Greg was CTO and SVP of Product Development at Kewill, a global provider of enterprise logistics software to the world’s largest logistics and transportation companies including FedEx, Volvo, Crane, and DHL.
Greg joined Kewill in 2014 to establish a new technology vision for the company and help communicate that vision to the market. At Kewill Greg led a global team of over 500 people and was responsible for product development, IT and cloud operations. Greg moved Kewill’s strategic products to the Amazon cloud, beginning with Kewill’s flagship Customs and Transportation products.
I learn more about how after leveraging its extensive freight agent network, GlobalTranz has emerged as a fast-growing market leader with a customer base of over 25,000 shippers. GlobalTranz was also recently recognized as the 10th largest Brokerage Company in Transport Topics' Top Freight Brokerage Firms.
EdX is a nonprofit, open-source learning destination offering online educational programs and courses at edx.org in alliance with more than 130 member institutions, composed of both leading global universities and colleges, and a diverse group of prominent organizations from around the world.
Founded by Harvard University and MIT in 2012, edX’s mission is to democratize and re-imagine education by increasing access to high-quality education and creating a culture of continuous, lifelong learning. I felt compelled to find out more and invited Adam Medros, President & COO at edX onto my daily tech podcast.
Adam Medros joined edX from TripAdvisor, Inc. where he was Senior Vice President of Global Product, leader of the hotels vertical where he was one of the key members of the team that helped the company scale to a global, publicly traded company with 400 million monthly users and over $1.5 billion in annual revenue.
Medros also has extensive experience in building strong teams and driving innovation. I wanted to learn more about edX continued growth after expanding its global learner base to over 13 million students and offering new, innovative programs and credentials designed to help learners advance their careers.
I learn how edX is focused on transforming online and classroom learning through groundbreaking methodologies, game-like educational experiences and cutting-edge research on an open-source platform.
I recently discovered some incredibly interesting work by Arkose Labs in the sector of online fraud & abuse prevention. Essentially they are helping companies across industries including online marketplaces, airlines, online gaming, travel, online gambling, and more.
Anyone that has used Google CAPTCHAs will testify how these free-to-use platforms can be frustrating. But did you know that they can also be automated bypassed by cybercriminals very easily?
Companies come to Arkose Labs for a preventative solution that exclusively stops abuse before it occurs – without any false positives and zero friction. Using the company’s global telemetry and enforcement challenge, Arkose Labs can validate suspicious traffic and mitigate it – saving companies hundreds of millions of dollars as a result.
I felt compelled to find out more about both the problem and the solution so invited Kevin Gosschalk, CEO of Arkose Labs and pioneer in fraud prevention technology onto my daily tech podcast.
A also learn more about how Arkose Labs has developed an enforcement challenge platform in which automated fraudulent attacks leveraging AI and machine learning can’t bypass – mitigating the amount of bad bots entering a company’s platform.
Admiral Michael S. Rogers of the U.S. Navy and Director of the NSA recently said that data tampering could become the greatest cybersecurity threat organizations face -- from a simple act of revenge by a disgruntled employee, to corporate espionage, or even a nation-state attack.
I speak with Dirk Kanngiesser, CEO & co-founder of Cryptowerk, a Silicon Valley start-up for enterprise blockchain applications on my daily tech podcast. We explore how data integrity and deep fake could be AI's Achilles' heel. Dirk is a technology startup entrepreneur and investor living in Silicon Valley.
Dirk has more than 25 years of startup, operational and investing experience in Europe and the US. He is also an active angel investor and a board member of technology companies both in the U.S. and in Europe.
In an age of manipulated data, deep fake techniques and unending data breaches, companies need to know that they are using pristine data in their AI systems. Toxic data will cripple an organization’s faith in AI and wreak havoc in their business systems.
Before understanding how and why decisions were made, organizations must be able to stand by the integrity of the data used by AI. This might be called verifiable AI -- when an organization can provide immutable proof that the data used by their AI systems is unaltered.
Dirk talks about the emerging threats and explains how AI vendors like SAS, FICO, IBM, and others implement verifiable AI into their products. He can share with your listeners how organizations can build safety measures into the system before it enters the AI algorithm.
Over 80% of businesses don’t know how to effectively market online, that is where Your Social Voice comes in. The company prides itself in being specialists in lead generation, ensuring that you can take control of your business.
Essentially, Your Social Voice helps businesses get heard on social media, and most importantly, build engagement, generate more leads and more sales. By removing the stress of where your next lead will come from, you can focus on what you do best, serving your clients and building your business.
I invited Your Social Voice founder Kim Barrett onto my daily tech podcast and asked him to share his story. Kim got his start in the field of marketing ten years ago and has worked in accounting firms and IT companies, where he focused on growing the businesses’ profitability through better marketing strategies.
Using his expertise with Facebook ads and other online lead generation methods, Kim took his agency from zero to $100,000 per month in sales in under a year. I wanted to learn more about how he has leveraged technology to improve marketing around the world and helping businesses grow to 6 and 7 figures.
I also wanted to hear more about the common mistakes that many are making on social media and what we should be doing to improve engagement.
This week, more than 109,000 visitors from 198 countries and territories attended MWC19 Barcelona, the mobile industry’s premier event. More than 55 percent of this year’s MWC attendees held senior-level positions, including 7,900CEOs.
There were 3,640 international media and industry analysts at the event to report on the many significant industry announcements. Preliminary independent economic analysis indicates that MWC19 will have contributed approximately €473 million and more than 14,000 part-time jobs to the local economy.
Intelligent Connectivity’, 5G was prominent at MWC19 and it was exciting to see a glimpse of that new world, with 5G-enabled handsets launched new products and services, and even the first demonstration of live telemonitored surgery over 5G technology. But what about the handsets?
Although we saw the return of Blackberry and Nokia handsets, it was foldable phones that dominated conversations. The Huawei Mate X appeared to be the star of the show with the most attractive folding phone and the only one with 5G.
As I was unable to attend MWC, I invited Paul Lipscombe, a reporter from Mobile News Magazine onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about what he learned at this year's event.
Today, developers and security teams are at odds. Developers are under the gun to publish code quickly, which could result in sloppy coding errors and could also mean security teams don’t have enough time to review code for vulnerabilities.
Software underpins the world’s most commonly used technology. Windows contains tens of millions of lines of code. The software powering BMW cars includes some 100 million lines. Google’s empire of internet services -- from Google Search and Chrome to Gmail and Maps -- includes about2 billion. But it only takes a single coding error or bug to expose every user.
This is where Semmle comes in. Semmle allows developers to find vulnerabilities across a company’s entire codebase -- no matter the programming language -- in minutes instead of days. Before Semmle, this wasn’t technically possible. Semmle also allows developers to find variants of a known vulnerability across an entire codebase using deep semantic search. This was also not technologically possible before Semmle.
Their technology is like a Google for vulnerabilities. That's the reason that massive companies like Credit Suisse, Dell, Google, Microsoft, NASA and Nasdaq, trust Semmle's technology to keep their code secure.
Oege De Moor is the CEO and founder of Semmle. I invited him onto today's daily tech podcast to talk about how they believe that security is a shared responsibility, a problem that we all need to solve together, with developers, security researchers and the community at large.
I learn how Semmle enables this collaboration by providing technology that helps automate variant analysis: the process of finding all instances of a coding mistake that caused a security incident. They treat the source code itself as a database, and deep semantic analyses can be expressed as simple queries.
This helps bridge the divide between developers and security teams, because now security teams can share their knowledge with every developer, in the form of automated queries, that can applied near time zero in every pull request. Developers love the results because they’re accurate and relevant. The same sharing happens at a larger scale in the community: security teams contribute back their queries to an open source repository curated by Semmle, so best practices are shared.
The Monax Platform is a contract lifecycle management tool which allows consumers to easily procure lawyer-tested agreements and stay in full control of their business contracting. Harnessing a unique combination of active agreements, blockchain technology and a business process modelling engine, the platform is designed to move business legal obligations into the networked world.
Founded in 2014, Monax is transforming the legal industry. A respected blockchain-native Software-as-a-Service company, Monax builds decentralized systems and growing ecosystem applications. It is on a mission to change the way people consume and manage their legal agreements using the Monax Platform, a powerful contract lifecycle management (CLM) suite.
The Monax Platform is a comprehensive toolkit comprising an intuitive interface, first-in-class business process modeling engine and smart contract technology to propel CLM to the digital age. Monax is also one of the co-founders of the Agreements Network, which allows anyone to develop, customize, sell and reproduce legal products.
Casey Kuhlman is the CEO of Monax and joins me on my daily tech podcast to talk about how they are built a platform for smart contracts and legal applications of blockchain technology. Prior to cofounding Monax, Casey was the head of legal information systems at the US Open Data Institute.
A lawyer and international development practitioner for nearly a decade, Casey has worked extensively in the Horn of Africa, including co-founding the first law firm in Somaliland which he was the Managing Partner of for over four years. Casey has also been a New York Times bestselling author, an infantry officer in the Marines, and is an avid participant in open source software development.
Civis Analytics helps organizations use data to gain a competitive advantage in how they identify, attract, and engage their audiences. With a powerful combination of best-in-class data, cutting-edge software solutions, and an interdisciplinary team of data scientists, developers, and survey science experts, Civis works with leading public and private sector organizations to make data-driven decision-making essential to how they do business.
The company first appeared on my radar last year after gaining significant momentum in the public sector industry, more than tripling revenue from Federal, State, and Local government clients since H1 2017. New clients include the City of Boston, where Civis is developing a city-wide analytics infrastructure allowing multiple city agencies to collaborate and serve their residents more efficiently and effectively, and the City of Houston, which is using Civis' data science Platform as a central source of truth to inform and manage Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts and needs by neighborhood.
The data science firm that helps public and private sector organizations become data-centric, also recently announced a set of tools specifically for state and local governments, nonprofits and other organizations looking to increase response to the 2020 Census. Concurrently, they released findings of a new study that identifies the messaging most effective in improving Census responses.
Amos Budde VP, Applied Data Science at Civis Analytics joins me on my daily tech podcast. We discuss the intersection of marketing and data science, particularly as it relates to improving marketing ROI. I also wanted to find out more about their new product called Creative Focus, which allows brands to do data-driven message testing before they put ads in markets.
Poor training almost put Chris Ronzio out of business. But this constant struggle led to the creation of Trainual. After working directly with hundreds of entrepreneurs, Ronzio and his team created a software tool to help organize small and growing businesses.
Trainual is the training manual for modern businesses. It's a simple and intuitive training and process management tool that makes it easy for growing teams to get everyone up to speed and on the same page, fast. The app was built to help business owners, team leaders, hiring and training managers centralize knowledge, organize processes and SOPs, automate training, and create learning systems for building more scalable or sellable businesses.
Unlike other systems, you can group your content by role in the organization, assign it to the right people, and track their progress so you always know that they're up to speed.
I invited Chris Ronzio onto my daily tech podcast to share his experiences as an entrepreneur, consultant, and speaker which has afforded him the opportunity to travel the world, meet amazing people, and absorb diverse perspectives that continue to fuel his imagination.
Every process, every role, every responsibility: consistent, teachable, and centralized in one place. Chris is energized by progress, and driven by process. He also loves producing innovative ideas and making an impact by organizing chaos and getting things done.
M-Files provides a next-generation intelligent information management platform that improves business performance by helping people find and use information more effectively. Unlike traditional enterprise content management (ECM) systems or content services platforms, M-Files unifies systems, data and content across the organization without disturbing existing systems and processes or requiring data migration.
M-Files also breaks down silos by delivering an in-context experience for accessing and leveraging information that resides in any system and repository, including network folders, SharePoint, file sharing services, ECM systems, CRM, ERP, and other business systems and repositories. Thousands of organizations in over 100 countries use M-Files for managing their business information and processes, including NBC Universal, Rovio, and SAS.
However, it was the findings from its 2019 Global Intelligent Information Management Benchmark Report that put MFiles on my radar. The company surveyed 1,500 office workers across multiple global regions and revealed 82% of employees report poor information management is damaging productivity in the workplace.
These findings indicate that many businesses manually store information utilizing outdated hierarchical folder structures across a variety of disparate and often unintegrated systems. Further results revealed that 96 percent of all employees faced difficulty when looking for the most recent version of a document or file and 41 percent reported that information was frequently stored in the wrong folder or system.
Greg Milliken, SVP of Marketing at M-Files joins me on my daily tech podcast to reveal more about the findings in the report and road ahead fro M-Files.
As the leading provider of blockchain education, B9lab is at the cutting edge of all new protocols and advancements in the blockchain space. Their team is comprised of leading engineers, developers and entrepreneurs who share a passion for disruptive technology.
Hundreds of major corporations around the world have counted on B9lab for their blockchain training services — including Accenture, Bank of America, Nissan and Fidelity Investments.
Their Blockstars Programme trains the very finest new talent in the blockchain space, helping both rising stars and established companies find the best fit possible. I wanted to find out more about their Ethereum Blockstars Programme and their goal of finding and training hundreds of developers, and making them job-ready.
With the rising demand for blockchain talent, the need for quality education is ever-present. Co-founder and Community Manager of B9lab, Elias Haase joins me on my daily tech podcast to discuss the role of ethics in blockchain development, as well as how the community is keeping up with the demand for more and more jobs in this space.
With a background in Artificial Intelligence, neural networks, and evolutionary computing, Elias has more than 10 years of experience building and running digital products. A developer by training, Elias previously worked in alternative finance and fintech, building platforms for crowdfunding startups including crowd-investment, crowd-equity, and crowd-lending.
Zestful recently conducted a nationwide survey asking people if they would prefer a $130k salary, or a $100k salary plus Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Spotify, Headspace, a meal delivery service, a gym membership, a $20/month allowance to a charity of their choice, and a $100/month “experiences allowance.” 80% of the survey respondents preferred perks over a higher salary.
Zestful’s new model is already experiencing high usage rates, with 94% of employees who have a Zestful Perk Card using it every month, with an average monthly allowance of $100. Before joining Zestful, many of its customers had perk program usage rates of around 20%.
"Employee happiness is a top priority for so many companies, but the needs of each employee are unique and changing faster than any company can keep up with,” said Zestful CEO and Founder, Mat Vogels. “Individualized perks are becoming a new currency in the workplace, yet there is no easy way for companies to offer their employees what they want in a model that works for everyone.”
I wanted to find out more about how Zestful is enabling employers to offer the most customizable employee perk programs so invited Mat Vogels onto the show to learn more about this refreshing approach.
Dexcom is the leader in continuous glucose monitoring for people with diabetes.
Released in June 2018, the Dexcom G6 continuous glucose monitoring system uses a small sensor placed on a patient’s lower abdomen that wirelessly sends their glucose levels to a smart phone, smartwatch or receiver, allowing them to closely and discreetly monitor their numbers without being required to prick their fingers for diabetes management.
The system also has built-in alerts and alarms that proactively notify patients and their family and friends before their blood glucose reaches potentially dangerous levels. It really is a revolutionary, life-changing device.
Jake Leach is Chief Technology Officer at Dexcom and joins me on this daily tech podcast to share how they are using sensors and wearables to transform the lives diabetics. He is responsible for the leadership of scientific research, engineering, product development, and project management.
Jake oversees the development of next-generation products and leads a large organization of amazing people. His teams are responsible for delivering best in class glucose monitoring technology paired with an exceptional user experience.
HubSpot is a leading growth platform with thousands of customers around the world. Comprised of Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, and a powerful free CRM, HubSpot gives companies the tools they need to grow better.
HubSpot has created a company culture around building connections, careers, and employee growth. How? By creating a workplace that values flexibility, autonomy, and transparency. The HubSpot Culture Code, which has more than 4M views, teaches others about their commitment to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace, too.
The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. HubSpot also has offices in Dublin (Ireland), Sydney (Australia), Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Singapore, Tokyo (Japan), Berlin (Germany), and Bogotá (Colombia). But it's not always been this way. Even companies as large as HubSpot have a startup story too.
My daily tech podcast has startup founders listening from all over the world who will all be at various stages of their startup journey. I invited Kieran Flanagan, VP of Marketing, HubSpot onto my podcast to learn more about the story behind HubSpot too.
Kieran is also an author, startup advisor and mentor with a proven track record in helping SaaS businesses, from start-ups to enterprise-level grow their traffic, users and revenue. He is a thought leader on growth marketing and speaks at events across the globe on the topic.
Join me to learn more about the inspirational story behind HubSpot from startup to a successful public company and the fantastic work that Kieran is involved with.
LBRY is building the ultimate content distribution protocol. This protocol combines blockchain, P2P data distribution, and good old fashioned applications, to provide the first direct-to-audience distribution pipeline without middlemen.
Each element of the LBRY software suite is open-source and available on Github. Anyone can build applications on top of the LBRY protocol or fork existing ones, taking advantage of the LBRY blockchain to meet their content needs for any type of media.
Watch, read, and play in a decentralized digital library controlled by the community, not algorithms. Ultimately, LBRY is a sharing platform that uses blockchain technology to enable users to publish material and get paid for doing so. People using LBRY’s service can monetize their published material with its built-in payment system.
The concept melds together the great technical advantages of both Bitcoin and BitTorrent services for people looking to share content. For an upcoming project, LBRY is offering 200,000 LBC for developers to compete to launch their apps, projects, and social platforms. These competitive designs will allow for grant funding through the LBRY Foundation.
Prior to this effort -- LBRY has approved of 21 projects and gave out close to 1 million LBC for musicians, for conferences to connect people in India, and for video personalities as well as animators to post their work.
Intrigued and wanting to find out more, I invited Jeremy Kauffman, Co-Founder and CEO of LBRY onto my daily tech podcast. Jeremy knows how to build and scale a startup starting from day one.
Jeremy created LBRY because he fell in love with the idea of shared, global content registry that is owned and controlled by no one. Unsurprisingly, he is a longtime supporter of decentralized technology and freedom of information.
Prior to LBRY, Jeremy founded TopScore, a startup that processes millions of dollars monthly in event and activity registrations. He attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he received degrees in physics and computer science.
Tech is transforming, underpinning every sector, driving growth and enabling innovation. It should follow that tech careers are changing too, creating unlimited potential for all - not just tech professionals.
Unfortunately, skills, knowledge, and diversity just aren't keeping pace. _Nology is setting out on a mission to bridge the skills gap, bringing people together, maximising their potential by utilising the tools and techniques required to deliver a tech revolution.
Their vast experience, understanding of the issues and wide-ranging network are already helping to deliver far-reaching solutions. Beyond recruitment, their innovative initiative will underpin workforce planning and encourage the diversity essential to helping businesses in every industry to thrive.
I invited Peter Anstey, co-founder of _nology to out more about how anyone can secure a role in tech by graduating from the technology conversion course and have a job waiting for them afterward. We also talk about the role Opus Talent Solutions play in this too.
Peter also shares his story that began after studying writing at university and found himself as surprised as anyone to be pioneering the next generation of tech talent through a coding accelerator course. Peter knows all too well what it feels like to be unsure about your career path when leaving education, and to feel let down by a system that didn’t provide a clear outcome.
In recruitment, he found the opportunity to help others find their passions and instigating key career moves. This led to opportunities to work with some incredible companies, travelling the world advising on talent strategy and growth.
In that time, he has conducted around 2000 interviews and instigated over 400 career moves and very familiar with the massive skills gap caused by a one-dimensional education system and growing demand for digital talent. Peter is excited to open the doors of the tech industry to a new pool of talent. It’s never too late to find a job you love.
As a potential trade war between China and the United States looms and confusion surrounding Brexit mounts, the strength of traditional fiat currencies such as the Euro and Pound Sterling are being called into question.
It seems likely that the political and economic uncertainty of 2019 has resulted in renewed investor interest in gold as a safe haven from the volatility of international markets, as the price of this “recession-proof” asset trends consistently upward.
Once the exclusive domain of the wealthy, interest in gold as a time-tested investment vehicle is growing. With the rise of tokenization and blockchain technology, it is no longer necessary to invest in gold in bulk -- and pay the steep premium which comes with doing so.
Digix, the tokenization company behind the world’s first gold-backed digital asset class, is just one example of how new technology is opening the gold market to the masses. Digix recently announced the extension of its gold redemption services to Canada, in addition to its two existing vaults in Singapore.
Building upon its partnership with SilverGoldBull (SGB), North America’s largest precious metals retailer, Digix now stores 15kg of gold bullion, offering greater diversification of bullion type and international convenience to its users.
The fulfillment of this partnership between Digix and SGB represents an important step for the intersection between the gold market and blockchain technology, as industry actors seek new opportunities to introduce added liquidity and accessibility.
I invited Kai. C Chnge, Co-Founder of Digix on to my daily tech podcast. We talk about the impact that the intersection between the gold and cryptocurrency markets may have on the reality of millions of investors and would-be investors worldwide.
We also discuss:
- The renewed interest in gold over traditionally less
stable investment vehicles, including fiat currencies - which are often affected by geopolitical and trade affairs; - The potential for 2019 to see further interest, adoption,and relationship building between traditional bullion market players and the blockchain industry.
- The impact will the incorporation of tokenized assets have on the precious metals sector.
On each episode of this daily tech podcast, I explore how technology is transforming every industry. Today, I wanted to explore the impacts that technology is having on television and invited ICM co-managing director - Ted Chervin onto the show.
ICM Partners is dedicated solely to the representation of artists, content creators, authors, artisans, and journalists. Many of the biggest hits in motion pictures, television, music, and publishing were created on the page, on the stage, in front of, and behind the camera by the agency’s clients.
The company has the expertise of a legacy agency, with decades in the business, coupled with the entrepreneurial spirit of its agent owners who bought the company in 2012 and operate it with its client’s best interests at the forefront of everything they do. The firm has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and London.
The agency represents several noted executive producers and other showrunners and has successfully packaged hit shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy;” “Modern Family;” “The Big Bang Theory;” “Criminal Minds;” “House;” “Breaking Bad;” “The Simpsons;” “Sons of Anarchy;” “Frasier;” “Scrubs;” “The X-Files.” and many more.
I also wanted to explore Ted's personal success story and an unconventional path to Hollywood. From a U.S. attorney who once indicted the head of Colombia's Cali drug cartel, to Hollywood, Ted was also named in Los Angeles' 500 most influential people by the LA Business Journal last year.
Agiloft’s powerful contract management solution helps corporate legal professionals to mitigate their contract compliance risk, drive consistency and best practices in document assembly, and automate even the most complex review and approval processes.
Over 3 million users at organizations ranging from small enterprises to U.S. government agencies and Fortune 100 companies depend on Agiloft’s innovative applications for Help Desk, Contract Management, Custom Workflow, and more.
Agiloft specializes in automating processes that are too complex for competing vendors. Our best practice templates and agile technology ensure rapid deployment and a fully extensible system
Its deep configurability provides unparalleled control over legal processes and workflows, allowing decision makers to better realize their organizational objectives.
The company was also recently named PC Magazine “Editor’s Choice” for contract management software for the fourth year in a row. Leading industry analyst firm Spend Matters also recognized Agiloft as the Value Leader in its 2018 Contract Management SolutionMap.
Agiloft CEO and founder, Colin Earl, joins me on my daily tech podcast to share his story. The software industry veteran has over 25 years of experience as a developer, product manager, and CIO. Colin worked at IBM, General Electric, and three start-ups before founding Agiloft in 1991.
His vision was to accelerate the building and deployment of enterprise business applications by removing the need for manual coding. Under his leadership, Agiloft has achieved this goal, creating a market segment for agile business software.
Colin's focus is on growing a world-class team and aligning the interests of staff, partners, and customers. He has an engineering degree from Imperial College, and moved to Silicon Valley in 1986.
Voicea, the voice collaboration platform is launching a new offering to help people attend fewer meetings.
Voicea is powered by an Enterprise Voice Assistant named EVA. EVA uses AI to highlights key takeaways in meetings and creates actionable recaps in real time with either voice command, live tap on the dashboard or simply powered by the AI and your keywords. EVA can join conference lines, on calls, or in-person allowing meeting goers to focus on the conversation knowing that highlights are being captured.
Voicea came out of beta in spring 2018 and has already processed more than 9mm minutes in meetings across all sizes of companies from SMB to the enterprise, with almost 1.5mm highlights and actions from those meetings. The end goal is to turn talk into action faster, have “smarter” meetings and help users get more accomplished at work.
After recently rolling out Teams, which blows open the collaborative nature of the platform and help meeting goes think like senior executives and choose the meetings to attend and gain highlights from the others.
Teams make meetings a structured data asset that can be accessed by entire teams. This enables others who did not attend a meeting to benefit from the ideas and discussions. I felt compelled to find out more and invite them onto my daily tech podcast.
Omar Tawakol, Chief Executive Officer of Voicea shares his vision and talks about how he believes we are missing the boat unless we pay attention to Attention Intelligence.
Dentons is the world’s largest law firm and recognized by prominent business and legal publications for its innovations in client service. But, they are also pioneering the intersection of technology innovation and the legal industry and also exploring legislation and regulation around emerging technologies.
Last year, the global law firm, announces the launch of its Smart Cities/Communities Think Tank. It's a forum for developing equitable solutions for sustainable and prosperous cities and communities that aims to bring together thought leaders from government, academia, industry and non-governmental organizations (NGO). Why? to craft innovative legal, economic, security and policy solutions to help cities and communities leverage existing and emerging technological developments for the betterment of the lives of their citizens.
Dentons launched the Smart Cities Think Tank on the heels of its highly-successful inaugural Smart Cities Summit where more than 150 key industry leaders and policymakers from the public and private sectors discussed a range of critical legal and policy issues facing cities and communities as they make decisions about incorporating 21st century technologies into their physical, digital and social infrastructure.
The Smart Cities Think Tank flows from the vision inspired by Clint Vince, chair of Dentons' US Energy practice and co-chair of the Firm's global energy sector. The think tank has identified "14 Pillars of Success" for a Smart Cities program.
These include: government leadership and public policy; regulation; energy; telecommunications; transportation; buildings and city planning; consumer and community social infrastructure; cyber and physical security and privacy; environment, health and safety; finance, investment and economic development; technology and innovation; water, waste water and waste; NGOs and universities; and smart global approach.
Each pillar is co-chaired by industry authorities, including professionals from Dentons and former or current government, academic, industry and NGO leaders.
"Dentons Smart Cities Think Tank offers our clients innovative and practical options to meet the challenges presented in identifying and deploying technologies and strategies to become a Smart City," said Clint Vince, Chair of Dentons' U.S. Energy Practice.
I invited Clint Vince onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about how Dentons approach to smart cities and what it means for the future.
We appear to be entering a period of expansive email marketing platforms, Adobe’s acquisition of Marketo, Salesforce’s acquisition of Rebel, and Twilio’s acquisition of SendGrid. Last year Campaign Monitor merged with Emma and Delivra to launch a new Campaign Monitor brand and the industry’s most comprehensive email marketing solution.
However, Campaign Monitor also recently acquired Sailthru and Liveclicker which leaves them with five email marketing technology brands.
Campaign Monitor: This market-leading self-service brand focuses on delivering a better experience compared to freemium brands, with a primary focus on high volume email senders trying to drive more engagement with subscribers. With its easy to use marketing tool, marketers are able to send beautiful, targeted newsletters to grow their business.
Emma: Emma’s solution makes it easy for teams of all sizes to create and collaborate on beautiful campaigns. Its focus on delivering powerful personalization in an accessible way ultimately drives more conversions and sales. Emma also allows distributed business or franchised organizations to manage professional email marketing at scale.
Delivra: Delivra offers custom email marketing and automation solutions designed to meet the unique needs of every customer. Its service-centric model focuses on building more sophisticated, custom email solutions for businesses who have advanced email marketing needs but lack the resources to support it.
Liveclicker: Founded in 2008, Liveclicker, a CM Group brand, is a global provider of real-time email personalization solutions for B2C marketers. Since the release of its VideoEmail platform in 2009, marketers have used Liveclicker to captivate consumers and drive program performance. T
Today, top brands such as Bloomberg, AT&T, MasterCard, Lowe's, Hertz and Samsung rely on the company’s market-leading RealTime Email solution to deliver engaging, personalized messages simply and at scale.
Sailthru, a CM Group brand, helps modern marketers drive higher revenue, improve customer lifetime value and reduce churn by using its powerful suite of connected capabilities. Sailthru’s high-performance email, website personalization, mobile marketing automation, and unique integrations power new customer acquisition by leveraging machine learning and first-party data to easily deliver relevant, personalized engagement across all channels.
The world’s most innovative publishers, including Business Insider, Refinery29 and Food52, and the world’s fastest growing e-commerce companies, including Rent the Runway, JustFab, and Alex and Ani, trust Sailthru to help them succeed.
Most interestingly, we have stopped talking about the demise of email. I invited Shane Phair, Chief Marketing Officer at Campaign Monitor onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about the acquisitions of Sailthru and LiveClicker. We also discuss what this means for the future of the company and his view on the industry.
1 in 5 High School athletes will get a concussion and more than 2.5 million young people suffer a concussion in the United States each year. With proper care, most concussions can heal within 10 days, but the overwhelming majority of students, parents, and coaches are unaware of the latest science about prevention and treatment of concussions.
If not treated properly, a concussion may have lasting physical, emotional, and cognitive effects. After two years of research, six months of production, and thousands of hours of user-testing, CrashCourse by Teach Aids provides students, parents, and coaches with the latest medical knowledge on the prevention and treatment of concussions.
I wanted to find out more about they are also using cutting-edge, immersive experiences in VR to appeal to a digital native generation and demonstrate increased empathy and learning. So I invited Dr. Piya Sorcar onto my daily tech podcast to learn more.
Dr. Piya Sorcar is the founder and CEO of TeachAIDS, a Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and an Adjunct Affiliate at the Stanford School of Medicine. She leads a team of world experts in medicine, public health and education to develop software that solves numerous persistent problems in HIV prevention.
Founded at Stanford University, TeachAids is a nonprofit social venture that creates breakthrough software addressing numerous persistent problems in health education around the world. TeachAids uses a research-based design process to develop medically-accurate, pedagogically-grounded, and culturally-tailored animated software to optimize learning and retention in 82 countries.
It is backed by Google, Microsoft, Barclays, UNICEF, and others, and partnered with 250+ governments, school systems, and NGOs around the world. TeachAids was recognized as an innovation that would "change the world" by MIT Technology Review and is a global laureate of the Tech Awards for philanthropy. The Government of Botswana has recognized June 15 as "National TeachAids Day" .
DHL is the leading global brand in the logistics industry. The DHL family of divisions offer a portfolio of logistics services ranging from national and international parcel delivery, e-commerce shipping and fulfillment solutions, international express, road, air and ocean transport to industrial supply chain management.
With around 360,000 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide, DHL connects people and businesses securely and reliably, enabling global trade flows.
With specialized solutions for growth markets and industries including technology, life sciences, and healthcare, energy, automotive and retail, a proven commitment to corporate responsibility and an unrivaled presence in developing markets, DHL is decisively positioned as “The logistics company for the world”.
However, I wanted to find out more about how the company has been transformed by technology. I also wanted to explore how DHL invests and looks after their people to deliver amazing results.
DHL’s Renata Mihich is the managing director for DHL Global Forwarding (DGF) in Canada. She has an interesting and compelling story about her 20+ year career with DHL, which started in customer service in Brazil. She’s moved up the ranks ever since to head up a major sector of the company in Canada.
Responsible for a staff of 350 people, Mihich manages the operations and P&L growth of all six Canadian DHL Global Forwarding branch operations, steering the overall development of country sales teams. Under her leadership, she has successfully steered the DHL Global Forwarding Canada group towards executing group strategy and achieving expected results.
I invited her onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about her success story and how DHL is embracing rather than fearing technology.
Law firms and lawyers have a reputation for being slow to adapt to the new digital world. But, as clients begin to demand better technology and services, all that is about to change, so I wanted to explore the world of legal tech.
Dentons is the world's largest law firm and recognized by prominent business and legal publications for its innovations in client service. But, they are also pioneering the intersection of technology innovation and the legal industry and also exploring legislation and regulation around emerging technologies.
However, when I discovered that Dentons also recently announced the launch of Driverless Commute, a blog geared toward the latest news and analysis on the autonomous vehicle (AV) industry, I had to find out more. Authored by Dentons’ Autonomous Vehicles team, the Driverless Commute interprets emerging innovations and implications facing the AV sector.
It is an extension of a popular, long-running weekly email digest of the same name that will allow for a more nimble publishing of legal and policy analysis of the fast-changing automated car landscape.
Driverless Commute provides insightful analysis of the current regulatory environment, monitors public perception of AV technology, covers the global race to market and highlights pilot programs, including shuttle buses, package delivery vans, robo-taxis, shared-fleet vehicles, truck convoys and row-cop tractors.
As the industry is dynamic and new terminology quickly comes to the forefront, the blog includes hyperlinks connecting readers to outside articles that provide advanced industry data, market research, policy papers, proposed legislation, legal opinions, and information on events and government grant sources.
Leveraging the Firm’s experience serving the automotive, technology and renewable energy sectors, Dentons’ Autonomous Vehicles team was launched to act as a source for companies navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of laws and regulations relating to the development and deployment of AV technology.
Dentons’ Autonomous Vehicles team is made up of attorneys and professionals from across the Firm’s Public Policy, Corporate, Energy, Litigation, Insurance, Intellectual Property and Venture Technology practice groups.
On my daily tech podcast, I invited Eric Tanenblatt onto my show to learn more. Eric is the Global Chair of Public Policy and Regulation of Dentons and also leads the firm's US Public Policy Practice, leveraging his three decades of experience at the very highest levels of the federal and state governments.
The renowned lecturer and political counselor is widely regarded as one of the nation's preeminent public policy thought leaders, has served in the administrations of three US presidents and as a senior advisor to a US senator and governor, and held a US Senate-confirmable post governing a federal agency.
I talk to Eric about his passion for shepherding disruptive companies and industries through the complicated web of law and regulation. We also discuss Dentons' global autonomous vehicles team and the regulatory, political, and technical developments in the world of automotive autonomy.
Xactly was recently named a Leader by Gartner Inc. in the 2019 Magic Quadrant for Sales Performance Management (SPM). This recognition underscores the platform’s unique ability to drive sales performance improvements for its customers and the company’s commitment to broadening its product offering to meet evolving market needs. This is the sixth time that Xactly has been named a leader.
The company’s SPM Suite of products enables sales and finance executives to design, implement, manage, audit and optimize sales compensation management programs easily and affordably. Xactly’s solutions automate the process of aggregating data from disparate systems into a secure, hosted repository, and enable companies to leverage this business data, which is the lifeblood of sales performance management.
Xactly helps companies improve operational performance, optimize sales effectiveness, proactively manage risk and compliance, and maximize profits. The Xactly family of products is used by sales and finance executives, compensation analysts, sales operations and sales professionals across a variety of industries, ranging from SMBs to large enterprises.
When I also learned that their SPM software is used by some big brands, like Salesforce, Hyatt Hotels and Louis Vuitton, I thought it was time to get them on my daily tech podcast. Today's guest is Christopher Cabrera, Founder and CEO of the Xactly Corporation.
Chris is also the author of Game The Plan (River Grove Books, 2014) and co-author of Xactly Sales Compensation for Dummies (Wiley Publishing, 2006), as well as a contributing writer to such industry publications as Inc.com, Selling Power Magazine, and destinationCRM.
Prior to founding Xactly, was SVP of operations for Callidus Software, an on-premise sales incentive compensation automation company. At Callidus, responsible for worldwide sales and marketing strategies, customer advocacy, and strategic alliances. Responsible for acquiring more than 100 customers, growing annual revenues from zero to $100M and a successful IPO in 2003 raising more than $70M.
On this daily tech podcast, I enjoy exploring how technology is transforming multiple industries, especially in areas that you don't associate with technology. Looking back to my IT days, I still remember the days of clunky HR software and found myself wondering how much things have changed and how HR Tech has evolved.
When searching for answers, my quest led me to serial entrepreneur, Rachel Lyubovitzky who is armed with leadership experience that spans the full spectrum of strategic and tactical activities in the software technology industry. She holds Wharton Executive MBA and Brandeis Computer Science degrees and is also an investor in TechStars and Impact Health.
EverythingBenefits revolutionizes every aspect of benefit delivery experience: from streamlining benefits enrollment and management to delivering the best coverage options while driving down costs and eliminating manual process frustration for companies and their employees.
The company is based in New Providence and provides the next-generation of automated benefits technology that uncovers hidden costs, eliminates errors in healthcare for employees and keeps companies compliant. It automatically sends data and selections by employees directly to all healthcare providers (vision, dental, etc.).
They have 3,000 clients and 600+ carriers partners, just moved into a new office. I wanted to find out more about benefits tech, HR tech, and Rachel's story, so I invited onto my tech podcast.
By 2050, older people will outnumber the young for the first time. It is also estimated that there will be over one billion people over the age of 60 by 2025. In our aging population, the proportion of older citizens is increasing rather than decreasing. But, many are battling loneliness and locked out of the digital world and seamless sharing of photos and online conversations.
Scott Lien observed that older people were beginning to feel left out as their children and grandchildren increasingly lived more of their lives online. But he decided to do something about it and developed a tablet specifically for seniors who have no experience using technology, called GrandPad.
The device is aimed at bringing senior users back into the heart of the family, allowing them to share photographs, call, and text without the learning curve. A team of senior testers from over 75 up to 114 proved how a device that is specifically designed for them can make a huge difference.
Scott has already shared his story on my daily tech podcast, but I wanted to invite a medical professional onto the show to learn more about their experiences with older adults and how technology can help them.
Dr. Kerry Burnight has spent her entire professional career on a mission to improve the lives of seniors. She was a professor of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at the University of California Irvine, and she is the founder and director of the nation's first Elder Abuse Forensic Center and national non-profit, Ageless Alliance: United Against Elder Abuse.
Kerry has spoken at The White House and continues to call for solutions to prevent elder abuse. She joined GrandPad because of the firm's ability to prevent one of the most significant risk factors for elders: social isolation. She has also appeared on television to speak as an expert on shows such as The Dr. Phil Show, CBS news, Money Matters, and The Doctors.
A recent report highlighted that 74% of blockchain firms in the United Kingdom cite regulatory issues as being one of their key concerns. This response highlights unease over how GDPR and blockchain will intersect, in particular.
GDPR empowers citizens to delete their personal data at any point, something completely at odds with the immutability of blockchain - a public record that is growing and resistant to modification through cryptography.
I wanted to make sense of how GDPR and blockchain can co-exist in our increasingly digital world and understand where to begin when solving a problem like this so turned to the team at Aeternity for answers.
Vladislav Dramaliev is Founder and director of BitHope Foundation the non-profit organization operates three websites with the aim of promoting cryptocurrency and blockchain adoption in Bulgaria and globally. Vlad is also the digital marketing manager at Aeternity.
Aeternity is a blockchain network developed to integrate the scalability solution in blockchain smart contracts. The company envisions a future based on open-source, public blockchain 3.0 technology empowering billions.
It is a vision that is being realized by a global community of believers, convinced in the disruptive potential of scalable, public blockchain technology. æternity is on a mission to disrupt existing online and offline interaction models and help billions of people benefit from a global sharing economy based on decentralized systems and individual merit.
From a technological point of view, æternity is a decentralized æpps platform that scales through state channels, running smart contracts off-chain. It introduces a new language that supports formal verification and allows to write simpler, safer code.
The VM also accommodates compiled Solidity contracts. æternity uses an ASIC-resistant, memory-bound Proof-of-Work with less than 15 seconds block time. It features an integrated naming system and oracles, which could be used to request and access data from various data providers.
On today's daily tech podcast, we explore the conflict between Blockchain and GDPR. We also talk about the house of blockchain in Liechtenstein which supports projects that share a vision for a future built on powerful, user-friendly decentralized applications.
Blockchain technology Companies in Greater Phoenix have found success and security while innovating in this emerging technology sector and educational institutions are producing the workforce to support its expansive growth. One huge success story is DASH.
Dash is an open-source project that delivers safe decentralized financial solutions. The Dash Project Team builds and maintains an innovative decentralized payment network which acts as the core of an ecosystem of engaged consumers, merchants, and service providers. This network provides users with a private, fast, and fungible digital currency that’s as easy to use as cash, credit cards or PayPal.
While in town, I figured it was my duty to stop by their offices and speak directly with Dash CEO, Ryan Taylor. We discuss why Phoenix is so attractive to blockchain companies and increasingly being chosen ahead of Silicon Valley.
We also discuss tribalism in cryptocurrency and the future for Dash and Dash Pay. Dash recently released it's ‘Biggest Upgrade’ Since Governance System called Dash Evolution 0.13. But, what else can we expect in 2019? Ryan Taylor reveals all.
Last year I spoke to the founder and CEO of Trusona, Ori Eisen about being the leader of the no passwords revolution. During my tour of the Phoenix tech scene, I decided to drop by and catch up with Ori and meet in person to learn more about his story and his award-winning work in the region.
Every year the Phoenix Business Journal recognizes leaders for their strong leadership, integrity, values, vision, commitment to excellence, financial performance and commitment to the community. Oris has been repeatedly recognized for his contributions to the cybersecurity industry and involvement with non-profit organizations that battle daily with the repercussions of cybercrime.
Ori has spent the last two decades fighting online crime and is respected for his business knowledge and leadership. Prior to founding Trusona, Ori founded 41st Parameter – the leading online fraud prevention and detection solution for financial institutions and e-commerce. 41st Parameter was acquired by Experian in 2013.
Prior to 41st Parameter, Ori served as the Worldwide Fraud Director for American Express focusing on Internet and counterfeit fraud. Ori was also the Director of Fraud Prevention for VeriSign/Network Solutions.
Ori is often quoted by industry insiders and receives numerous invitations to keynote industry events and conferences and he holds over two dozen cybersecurity patents.
We talk about the passwordless 2FA integration for Pulse Connect Secure VPN and why so many tech companies are relocating to Phoenix.
During my stay in Arizona, I wanted to explore an inspirational tech startup story in the Phoenix area. Infusionsoft recently announced has rebranded the company as Keap, a name that represents the very essence of the grit and passion small businesses put in each day to keep going, keep serving and keep growing.
With the rebrand, comes the launch of a new product, also named Keap, the industry’s first smart client management software built specifically for small businesses in the home, personal and professional service industries.
For 17 years Infusionsoft has led the market as the pioneer of CRM and marketing automation software for small businesses. The Keap product launch and company rebrand is a signal the company is expanding to serve a new market.
I wanted to learn more about the tech startup story behind the company that pioneered the CRM and marketing automation category for small business and today serves more than 200,000 users globally with its Infusionsoft and Keap products. I visited their headquarters in Chandler, Arizona to talk with Clate Mask, the CEO and Co-Founder of Keap.
Clate is also the author of Conquer the Chaos: How to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going Crazy', a New York Times bestseller which focuses on balancing personal and work life, will becoming successful as a budding entrepreneur.
We talk about the inspirational tech startup story that began as an what they called an Everest mission and developed into a Mars mission to simplify growth for millions of small businesses. Clate shares the highs and lows of building a company and also the thriving tech scene in Phoenix Arizona.
The tech media often takes great delight in revealing the exit numbers for startup founders. It could leave you thinking that all you need is one idea and then exit quickly to retire on a beach drinking cocktails. But this is a long way from the truth. Equally this misleading school of thought will leave people on their own startup journey to feel like their failing. On today's tech podcast, I wanted to tackle that subject head-on and bust a few myths.
For example, Todd Davis is the founder of LifeLock. A google search will tell you that Symantec famously acquired LifeLock for over $2.3 billion a few years ago.
Wikipedia will tell you that Todd won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Top Emerging Company for Orange County and Desert Cities in 2009. He was also awarded the CRM Magazine's Service Elite Award, The Arizona Business Leadership Association's Leadership Award and Arizona Business Journal's 25 Most Admired CEOs in 2009
However, none of these links will tell you is how he faced death and sat and on the cliff's edge unsure if the company would exist the following month during the infamous rollercoaster journey of startup life. I asked Todd to share his story with me in a coffee shop in Phoenix and inspire listeners of this podcast and startup founders all over the world.
We also talk about the thriving tech scene here in Phoenix and why businesses are setting up camp in the Grand Canyon state.
New data from DataStax has found that consumer patience for retail is wearing thin, especially during the holiday season where no one has time to waste.
Key findings include:
- Nearly 7 in 10 (69%) international adults are willing to spend extra to reduce their wait times for services.
- Those who are willing to pay more will shell out, on average, 21% extra to reduce their wait
- In the United States, millennials (age 18-34) who are willing to pay more, on average, will pay 40% over the regular price
- Online service issue complaints likely need to be responded to while the issue is still top of mind, as nearly half (48%) of international adults will only wait 30 minutes or less
- Only 3% of international adults are willing to wait more than 30 minutes for service at a brick-and-mortar retail store
- German adults are least likely to wait 30 minutes (1%), followed by French adults (2%), UK adults (3) and US adults (7%)
I invited Eric Brown, VP of Corporate Marketing and Communications at DataStax onto my daily tech podcast to explore the findings of the report and learn more about where personalization matters most.
About DataStax
DataStax delivers the always-on, Active Everywhere distributed hybrid cloud database built on Apache Cassandra. The foundation for personalized, real-time applications at massive scale, DataStax Enterprise makes it easy for enterprises to exploit hybrid and multi-cloud environments via a seamless data layer that eliminates the issues that typically come with deploying applications across multiple on-premises data centers and/or multiple public clouds.
Horizen (formerly ZenCash) is an end-to-end-encrypted system with zero-knowledge technology over which communications, data, or value can be securely transmitted and stored. It is an integration of revolutionary technologies that create a system over which innovation can accelerate by combining three functions that are traditionally done separately:
1) Transactions
2) Communication
3) Competitive governance.
I invited Horizen Co-founder Rob Viglione onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about their new flagship application, Sphere by Horizen. The product offers unprecedented features such as easy encrypted transactions, secure messaging between users, and the ability to toggle between light and full clients.
So, You've Got A DAO, Management For The 21st Century is a guide which covers the mindset, the skillset, and the communication skills every leader needs in this new world of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations.
Marco Houwen and Grace Rachmany are trainers of leadership in
the crypto space. They are passionate about merit-based staking and how to instill a culture of leadership and responsibility throughout the organization.
The subject of DAO-Leadership is something that fascinates me and the guide covers the essential challenge an ICO faces after raising the money, the execution, and the delivery.
The promise of blockchain and distributed ledger technology is a world where people take back control over their own money, identity, and data.
As an expression of this promise, organizations in the blockchain space are aiming to create Distributed Autonomous Organizations (DAO), foundations and even decentralized and distributed companies.
We can already see the solutions are somewhat clunky. Hard forking of a cryptocurrency protocol is hardly a replacement for democracy. Having everyone in an organization responsible for whatever they want isn’t much of a solution either.
The result is a high level of inefficiency, whether that expresses itself as multiple bitcoin currencies or companies that are unable to respond to customer emails efficiently. We’re also seeing some telling signs of centralization, such as the concentration of cryptocurrency holdings and mining operations.
I invited Marco and Grace onto my daily tech podcast to find out more about how this handbook provides the elements of leadership that are needed for a distributed form of governance for foundations, companies, and perhaps, one day, governments.
Qwire creates collaborative, cloud-based software that addresses significant problems with music licensing and royalty reporting common to companies working with music-for-picture, including some of the largest media companies in the world — film/TV studios, trailer houses, video game development companies, advertising agencies, and professional sports networks — as well as rights holders (e.g. music labels and music publishers) and Performance Rights Organizations.
The company has received over $2 million in additional funding from current and new investors. This will expand the New York and Los Angeles-based company’s sales efforts and accelerate development and enhancement of its cue sheet reporting tools.
“This new investment demonstrates investors’ confidence in Qwire and in our software’s ability to transform music post production and royalty reporting,” said founder and CEO Scott Freiman. “This funding will allow us to take the company to the next level, as we continue to license qwireClear to major film/TV studios, and we bring our next-generation cue sheet management and reporting software – qwireCue – to market.”
I invited Scott Freiman onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about the story behind Qwire.
Software Design Solutions provides embedded system software development, desktop application development, and software process improvement consulting. The company prides itself on decades of expertise to learn new best practices in agile embedded software development.
The company is also able to provide temporary software engineers for projects greater than the scope of its client's abilities and to provide experienced programmers to companies who need to focus on other lines of business.
Ed Kuzemchak is an expert on the Internet of Things and the founder of Software Design Solutions. As an embedded software thought leader, I invited Ed onto this tech podcast to shares his experience around the challenges and pitfalls of designing intelligence into objects.
Having worked across multiple industries Ed reveals his unique insights that will be valuable to companies looking to create, update, or improve their own IoT technologies.
On today's tech podcast I wanted to feature a Tech Startup Story that highlighted that the solution isn't as important as the problem. I also wanted to explore where startups begin when market testing their technology. Not to mention the growing pains and the hurdles of managing of funding once you're lucky enough to get it.
Today's guest is Luke Kervin, the founder & Co-CEO at PatientPop which is the only complete practice growth solution. The company hit the headlines last year PatientPop after increasing their total funding to $75M to fuel product innovation and market expansion.
PatientPop helps providers thrive in the digital age by enhancing and automating each touchpoint in the patient journey — from first impression online to digital booking to post-visit follow-up — PatientPop makes it easy for healthcare providers to attract more patients, manage online reputation, modernize the patient experience, and automate the front office.
Luke has a reputation for being highly motivated, goal-focused, and passionate entrepreneur. Successful track record working with start-up and early-stage companies; participated in two successful exits.
Specialties: Start-ups, E-commerce; Online Advertising; Search & Online Marketing; Analytics; Product Management; Process Management; Strategy; Financial Modeling; Capital Raising; Team Building & Management
Pensa is a leading innovator in autonomous perception systems for retail inventory visibility. Its system uses breakthrough technology –including artificial intelligence, autonomous drones, and computer vision –to see and understand what’s on store shelves, providing crucial data to minimize stockouts, optimize product planning, and boost revenues and profitability.
Pensa is also partnering with top retailers and CPG brands globally to address a trillion-dollar “blind spot” at a critical time for the retail industry.
Inventory visibility is an age-old problem for brands and retailers, and it is only getting worse as e-commerce and physical store shopping combined.
Industry studies report nearly one in 10 items as missing the shelf or misplaced, leading to lost revenue, dissatisfied customers or excess inventory. Pensa’s breakthrough approach uses computer vision to “see,” patent-pending artificial intelligence to learn, analyze and conclude, as well as agile, autonomous drones as roving eyes to automate high-value visual tasks for the first time.
Pensa is also the first company to deliver a broadly scalable system that provides complete, real-time and actionable data and insights, enabling consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands and retailers to automatically and systematically track in-store inventory.
Early trials with major consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands and retailers have shown more than 98 percent accuracy, at a lower cost than other approaches.
I invited President and CEO of Pensa Systems, Richard Schwartz onto my daily tech podcast to learn more. He has repeatedly created and led new organizations to innovate and develop software that has had a significant market impact.
As Pensa Systems emerges from stealth, I invite you to join me in finding out more about this exciting technology.
I am becoming increasingly aware that everyday services that dominate my life such as Uber, Netflix, Amazon, and Grammarly make my easier, but I do not know anything about how the technology under the hood works. I decided to correct this by inviting the co-founder of Grammarly Max Lytvyn onto my daily tech podcast.
Grammarly’s AI-powered products help people communicate more effectively. Millions of users rely on Grammarly every day to make their messages, documents, and social media posts clear, mistake-free, and impactful. Grammarly is an Inc. 500 company with offices in San Francisco, New York, and Kiev.
I also wanted to find out more about Grammarly's public bug bounty program with HackerOne which is a component of Grammarly’s enhanced security strategy, following the success of its private, invite-only program. The initiative also supplements the work of the existing team by creating a backlog for its engineering teams with reports becoming a top priority.
With more than 15 million daily users, keep their data safe is a priority.
Grammarly’s security strategy includes periodic penetration tests, actively growing its internal security team, and increasing awareness about security best practices.
Outside of Grammarly, Max is also a serial entrepreneur that specializes in IT startup management, new product marketing, software development, and offshoring, with experience of working in the educational technology market.
SAP Jam is a cloud-based enterprise social networking suite and collaboration app that helps users connect with employees, partners, and customers. SAP Jam can be utilized to protect company data by collaborating over a secure network. The app helps employees to find colleagues and experts to collaborate with, as well as providing a place to manage and organize projects.
SAP Jam also provides enterprise social networking features such as project collaboration tools, task management, discussions and polls, instant messaging, discussions and chat rooms, document and content sharing, microblogging, and personal profiles.
I invited the Stephen Hamrick, Vice President of Product Management at SAP onto my daily tech podcast to find out more about SAP Jam and talk about how AI in the workplace is falling short, and where it will soon be headed with key advancements made.
Stephen is fanatical about transforming software and the way people work -- making it faster, more efficient, more rewarding, and more human. Unsurprisingly, Stephen enjoys focussing on enterprise collaboration and how to make everyday work both more enjoyable and more impactful. But, is also a tech geek at heart and business-minded by training and experience.
Stephen shares why he thinks that AI, machine learning and natural language processing will impact employee productivity and efficiency across the workplace. I learn how we can expect everything from scheduling meetings to setting deadline reminders is set to change significantly over the next 5 years.
As Co-Founder & CEO of ProfitWell (formerly Price Intelligently), Patrick Campbell is using their proprietary industry data on 8,000+ businesses to help some of the world’s best companies (like Zapier and Wistia) identify the best pricing and growth opportunities that are working today.
I invited Patrick onto this daily tech podcast to tackle the following topics:
The Latest SaaS Growth Trends - More than 25% of all SaaS businesses in the world (8,000+ companies) use ProfitWell. Patrick has access to more SaaS data than anyone, and can share exclusive growth trends that the best SaaS businesses are using.
How to Price Your Products & Services - Too many companies are leaving an enormous amount of cash on the table by relying on faulty data and "gut feelings." Patrick can share how to identify your customer's willingness to pay and what features they value most.
Using Data to Truly Understand Your Customers and Prospects - Patrick encourages businesses to work hard on using data to understand the profile and psyche of their customers by building quantified buyer personas. If you just get in a room and then get aligned on, ‘Here’s who we’re selling to,’ your decisions around product, sales, marketing and operations become crystal clear.
Raising Your Prices and Not Losing Customers - It’s about knowing your customer's price elasticity and establishing value metrics that make the worth of your product abundantly clear.
I also asked Patrick to share his startup story and what advice he would like to pass on to any startup founders listening.
Mynurva is an online therapy service that provides fast and confidential access to mental health counselling via its live video platform.
A qualified GP and Digital Health Entrepreneur, now providing fast access to confidential counselling via Mynurva – which provides live video therapy via a laptop or mobile phone.
Dr Zain Sikafi started Mynurva after working as a GP in London he was taken aback by the number of patients suffering from Mental Health problems. Waiting times for those that he had referred for therapy were at times months. People are suffering in silence because they can't get the help they need due to three main barriers:
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Confidentiality - The majority of patients don't want their employer or family members to know.
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Accessibility - Patients are only able to access NHS Mental Health services for therapy during work hours and on weekdays. For me this is one of the main factors driving the 40% Presenteeism in the UK (people going to work but not performing as well as they should do due to their symptoms).
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Stigma - We know patients don't want their employers to know because they feel it may impact their job, no matter how supportive their employer is. The reality is that only 20% of well-being programmes are utilised.
Mynurva was created to provide confidential therapy to those in work with anxiety or depression who feel unable for whatever reason to visit their local GP. The aim is to provide a service that is confidential, easily accessible from a laptop or phone using secure live video technology and with appointment times not restricted to the business working day.
I invited the CEO and co-founder of Mynurva, Dr Zain Sikafi onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about how they are using technology to help people get back on the route to happiness.
A digital pioneer for mental health services, Zain has been listed as one of the top 10 rising GP stars on Pulse Today and was recently featured on BBC World’s Talking Business programme explaining how technologies like Mynurva can help working professionals overcome the barriers preventing them from getting support for their mental health problems.
Jane.ai is an artificial intelligence platform that makes all of your company's information accessible through chat.
Essentially Jane.ai learns the information scattered across cloud-based applications, documents, and websites and makes it accessible to users through existing communication systems such as Slack, SMS, web, or email.
Jane understands conversational English inquiries and provides a response within seconds. If an inquiry is asked that Jane.ai doesn't yet know, she'll route it to a CoPilot who works at the company for a response, continuously building a Knowledge Base of all the company's tribal knowledge.
Whether onboarding or on the road, asking questions or answering them, stop the wasted time in the search for information. I wanted to find out more so invited David Karandish Founder and CEO of Jane.ai onto my daily tech podcast.
David shares his story and how they are building an artificial intelligence platform to transform the modern workforce. Think of it like a Siri or Alexa for work, but with secure access to all of your apps, documents and your institutional knowledge. David explains "our AI platform is a virtual team member that everyone can chat with to access information."
Jane uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make all of your organization’s information instantly accessible on a conversational interface. She can access and store data on any cloud-based system, capture the company’s tribal knowledge, mine information out of documents, and make it all accessible in the simplest possible way — on mobile, using natural language, without any software to install or any login to remember.
Learn how employees can have their company questions answered instantly, at any time of day and on any device - making everyone more productive, including the IT department.
At CES we have heard the usual debates about which new smartphone is best. Which has the best display? the best camera? Any premium smartphone you decide to purchase will allow you to record or stream HD quality video all around the world. It doesn't matter if we are a journalists or vlogger, video on our smartphones is simply amazing right now.
However, in our quest for visual perfection, it seems that we have neglected audio. Whether it is a holiday video or a podcaster, the internal mic is simply not very good. What is the point in streaming HD video if the sound is inferior?
This is a problem that Philipp Sonnleitner decided to tackle head-on. He is the CEO and founder of Mikme and is passionate about being creative and making music, his goal is to make music creation, the process of writing, making or distributing music easier, faster and more fun for artists and their audience.
Mikme is introducing the world’s first fully wireless recording microphone that captures studio-grade audio at the push of one button. Standalone or via USB. Simply everywhere. The Mikme application completes the whole experience.
Equipped with a built-in flash drive, Mikme stores up to 360 hours or raw audio (24 bit, up to 96 kHz). By using it wirelessly with a mobile device recordings are streamed securely and immediately via a patented Bluetooth protocol to the Mikme App.
Philipp Sonnleitner CEO, Founder and Head visionary of Mikme takes a break from the show floor to speak to me about giving creatives of all levels total freedom for their ideas by designing a simple to use and high-quality tool that can capture creativity on the go.
A dedicated musician and idea generator, Philipp has worked for AKG as a Product Manager in the professional and consumer audio business, leading several product development teams.
Marc Cuban declared that data is the new oil. But, all-too-often huge amounts of data cannot answer the questions that actually matter to businesses. They merely deliver billions of isolated facts and zero intelligence.
A company called DataChemist is attempting to solve that problem by imposing and enforcing real-world rules onto data and by doing so give their customers more insight than ever before. DataChemist is also aiming to make the complicated simple by transforming messy, inconsistent data sets into clean, structured and integrated data.
DataChemist emerged from a EU funded Trinity College Dublin project that built the technical infrastructure for Seshat: the Global History Databank. They are helping Seshat with the unambitious goal of systematically collecting what is currently known about the social and political organization of human societies and how civilizations have evolved over time.
The project has been enormously successful and has provided the platform for a range of statistical studies of historical datasets. On the back of this research and a further commercial implementation with a big Dutch-German multinational, they recently published a book called Engineering Agile Big-Data Systems.
Knowledge Graphs are becoming a big deal in tech. They are on the Gartner Hype Cycle for the first time last year. I invited Kevin Feeney, CEO at Data Chemist onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about their work on Knowledge Graphs and our their global history.
Winston Privacy is a comprehensive internet security solution with a mission to protect consumer data on all devices, including computers, tablets, phones, and smart home devices. Winston resets the default of how privacy works by operating on a distributed private network with proprietary software to ensure that users are safe from pop-up ads, surveillance and hackers.
At this years Consumer Electronics Show (CES) the company revealed a simple hardware device that sits between a user’s home modem and router. The device protects online browsing and identity by scrambling and encrypting internet activity through a constantly shifting, decentralized network built on Ethereum.
In an increasingly growing surveillance economy, Winston is rooted in a mission to help consumers protect their personal data from corporations, government entities and third-party data mining companies.
“While technology has given way to important advancements in our society, the hard reality is we now live in a surveillance economy where everyone’s personal information – from their Amazon cart or Spotify playlist to specific locations they visit in their hometown – is for sale,” said Richard Stokes, founder and CEO of Winston Privacy.
I invited Richard onto my daily tech podcast to discuss that unlike traditional virtual private networks (VPNs), which encrypt internet activity through a central point, Winston’s distributed approach uses a peer-to-peer network to ensure logging is prevented.
The result is significantly faster internet speed gains, compared to VPNs, and a true privacy solution that intercepts and blocks tracking requests. Running at the network level, Winston protects every device in the home from spying, including computers, phones, tablets and smart home devices.
PocketSuite gives professionals to power to schedule appointments with clients, accept payment from clients, and communicate directly with clients. All from a single app.
I recently read how an increasing number of independent dog walkers, barbers and makeup artists are using tech to out-earn software engineers. I felt compelled to find out more about why on-the-go solopreneurs are suddenly in the driver’s seat because of three key technologies working together.
I invited the Co-Founder and CEO of PocketSuite, Chinwe Onyeagoro onto my tech podcast to learn more about the top three factors that give solopreneurs a leg up over some of the best-paid professionals in the US and beyond.
At PocketSuite, Chinwe is responsible for growth, strategic partnerships, and customer success. We discuss how PocketSuite is an office in your pocket that is helping self-employed professionals get booked, paid, and message their clients. The app empowers any service professional to make extra income and run their own business from the palm of their hand.
With the right tools and mindset, any solopreneur can earn a six-figure salary.
It appears that many freelancers and contractors are beginning to realize that to succeed at what they are passionate about they need to let a few things ago and accept that they cannot do everything themselves.
The reason solopreneurs take the leap is to do something that they love and not getting weighed down with admin tasks. I learn how PocketSuite is riding this wave and using technology to help solopreneurs to increase the efficiency of day-to-day business functions, and simplify the customer experience.
Today's episode focusses on how technology is making it easier for anyone to build their own career.
Campaign Monitor is a global software-as-a-service company specializing in email marketing with the mission of providing customers with the tools to create meaningful connections with their audience.
Together with Emma and Delivra, they strive to provide the best product and services for their customers, ranging from email marketing platforms for teams of all sizes to easy-to-use tools that allow marketers to send targeted newsletters to grow their business.
Shane Phair is the CMO of Campaign Monitor. While, unsurprisingly, GDPR has presented challenges for Campaign Monitor, the company firmly believes that this development as saved email marketing.
I invited Shane onto my daily tech podcast to talk about how engagement levels have been affected following GDPR, as well as their overall customer growth.
We also discuss trends around what works and what doesn't work when sending targeted newsletters to grow their business along with the challenges and opportunities in email marketing. I also ask what bad habits marketers should retire in 2019.
The startup story behind Twickets, the free app & website that is enabling fans to buy at no more than face value.
Ticket scalping is negatively impacting the entire entertainment industry. When fans pay more for tickets they spend less on live music, festivals, merchandising and recorded music. In fact, a recent survey showed that nearly 70% of fans will attend fewer gigs due to overpriced tickets.
Meet Twickets, the ethical ticket resale marketplace enabling fans to buy and sell tickets at no more than face value. The company was founded to provide a fairer way for fans to see their favorite artists.
Twickets has already saved fans over $10 million dollars worldwide and is endorsed by some of the biggest artists in the US including Queen, Ed Sheeran, Adele, Elton John, Eric Church, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Foo Fighters and many more.
Forging a new and much needed fair way for fans to see their favorite artist, Twickets now tickets over 20,000 different events each year. Hundreds of thousands of tickets have also been sold saving fans over $10 million as a result and have over 200 partnerships with the world’s biggest artists
Richard Davies, Twickets Founder & CEO has worked in the music and digital industries for over 20 years. Prior to founding Twickets, Richard successfully founded and sold two companies. In 1994, Richard formed one of the first UK digital agencies Good Technology which was acquired by WPP after 6 years of operation.
Richard also co-founded Crunch, Europe’s first music download service, with AOL and Emusic.com as investors which was later sold to Music Choice. In 2005, Richard set up mobile application and commerce specialist Future Platforms which is still independently owned but now run by a separate management team.
I invited Richard onto my daily tech podcast to shares his inspiring journey in both the digital and music industries while also successfully launching and selling two companies. We talk about building trust in the ticketing business through Twickets and Richard also provides a little advice for other startup founders.
IoT-focused company Naran not only builds popular smart home products used by people around the globe, but has also created a software platform that helps small or non-technical businesses leverage IoT to make their products smart.
Naran’s platform MiB IoT also helps companies like hardware startups, construction companies, and large appliance businesses quickly and easily build connected products. With the simple addition of a commodity low-energy Bluetooth chip to any product, and use of the MiB IoT software platform, companies can create connectivity for new product lines or retrofit older products.
Typically, this would require large engineering teams or expensive AWS or Google Cloud contracts to achieve, on top of requiring months of development. In the same way companies like WordPress simplified the website building process, eliminating costly engineering overhead and making it fast and easy to whip up a professional web presence, Naran is hoping to do the same for the IoT software space.
I invited Naram CEO, Terence Park onto my daily tech podcast to share his startup story as a former Silicon Valley engineer from Google and Microsoft who had a passion to create better IoT products and has years of experience in the smart home space.
We also talk about their third year attending CES.
G2 Crowd real-time & unbiased user reviews help you objectively assess what is best for your business. Leverage the crowd, limit your risk, and get what works.
Ryan Bonnici has a unique career path. He started as a flight attendant while still in college in Australia as a way to pay the bills and see the world at a young age. He met an executive of Microsoft on a flight one day which launched him into a career in Marketing for some of the worlds largest and fastest growing companies (HubSpot, Salesforce, ExactTarget, and more).
Now he’s the CMO at G2 Crowd, where he’s driving the growth of the world’s leading B2B technology review platform that’s helping more than 1.5 million business professionals make informed purchasing decisions every single month.
I invited Ryan onto the show today to discuss the unexpected disruption inbound marketing Is making In HR & hiring. For example, traditional recruiting often relies on job ads, head-hunting, and similar outbound; yet, trends are showing these methods to be inefficient and expensive, while only tapping 15-25% of the total market.
Ryan shares his insights on how the recruitment process is taking a shift, in favor of inbound recruiting to attract, engage, and hire excellent talent (all while reducing hiring costs). We also talk about how to use AI & Machine Learning to improve your marketing funnels. When it comes to marketing, analyzing data is a key component of successful campaigns - especially when you’re working with a large customer base.
Ryan has worked with AI & machine learning technologies and has seen them influence his own campaigns significantly. But, he's careful not to exaggerate the current capabilities and advises the best is yet to come.
Goya-Move Helps Parents Get Kids Off Their Screens and Get Moving. The first-of-its-kind App Allows Parents to Call a Technology Time-out Until Set Activity Goals Are Met
Goya-Move, the first-ever mobile application aimed to assist parents in managing their children's screen time by setting step goals. The app, which stands for "Get Off Your Apps," allows parents to set step goals for their children, blocking specific apps until those step goals are met.
Unlike other tools on the market that operate as "parental control apps," Goya-Move promotes digital wellbeing and encourages children to participate in physical activity, making it easier for parents to get their kids moving and off their devices. No Steps, No Apps.
The Goya-Move interface lets kids see their step progress on their device, while parents get to manage and monitor the step progress and app blockage from their own device. With numerous customizable features within the app, Goya-Move makes goals attainable for children, and even adults, of any age. Parents can even credit steps for instances when the child does not have their device on them.
"We believe in a reward-based system at Goya-Move," said Keri Mackey, Co-founder and Marketing Director at Goya-Move. "Rewarding kids with screen time allows for a better mindset toward being active. With this revolutionary app, parents can end the stigma around exercise and get kids moving again."
Goya-Move has created a more reasonable way of dealing with screen time addiction and provides a goal obtainable method for children to learn about screen time moderation and teach them accountability.
I invited co-founders Keri Mackey and Isaac Gredinberg onto my daily tech podcast and find out more about Goya-Move and their upcoming trip to CES 2019 in Las Vegas.
Open, scalable and hardware agnostic, Mojio is the cloud platform of choice for the deployment of secure connected car apps and services. Mojio’s platform delivers a smarter, safer and more convenient driving and vehicle ownership experience to subscribers of major network operators, including Bell Canada, Deutsche Telekom, Rogers Communications, T-Mobile and TELUS.
With real-world data gathered from more than 7 billion miles of driving, Mojio provides a big data analytics framework that uses machine learning to generate actionable insights and unlock new revenue streams for companies throughout the automotive value chain.
However, I wanted to find out more about the story behind Mojio's success. Kenny Hawk is a Detroit native who grew up with roots in the automotive industry. He started his career working on the manufacturing floor at General Motors, but soon found himself leaving Detroit for new opportunities overseas and in Silicon Valley.
Mojio is Kenny’s sixth outing as CEO, indulging his passion for using technology to solve real-world problems. His achievements include winning the GSMA Innovator of the Year Award; setting the world record for low power, smartphone GPS chipsets; and selling over $1 billion in mobile power accessories.
I caught up with Kenny as he begins to prepare for CES in Vegas. I learn more about their mission and also where you can find them at the world's biggest consumer electronics show.
On today's tech podcast, I want to share a story idea with you about Bubble, the visual programming tool that allows anyone to build a custom, a complex website without writing (or even seeing) a single line of code.
Bubble introduces a new way to build an app. It’s a point-and-click programming tool, for web and mobile. No prior coding experience needed. Essentially, Bubble is a visual programming language for web and mobile applications. But how does it work?
The platform allows anyone to easily build and host web applications without writing a single line of code. Users start off with a blank canvas then they can create web pages with a drag and drop feature where users can easily resize maps, text boxes, images and more. Then users can create the logic behind their site by adding blocks to create a chronological action.
It’s an alternative to Ruby-on-Rails or Django and the company hosts all applications on its cloud platform. Some tech enthusiasts initially think Bubble is too good to be true, especially as many platforms have tried and failed to deliver code-free website building, but the platform truly works and an experienced Bubble user can actually build a web app similar in complexity to Airbnb in about week.
To prove how just how easy Bubble has made it for the average person to build a custom, complex website, one of their users decided to try and build a clone of Twitter... They successfully cloned Twitter in only 4 days using the Bubble platform.
However, I wanted to learn more about both the technology and the startup story behind Bubble. So, I invited their founder Emmanuel Straschnov onto the show to find out more. Born in Paris, he studied computer science and mathematics at Ecole Polytechnique and received his MBA from Harvard Business School.
He is also committed to breaking the economic limits of technology and devising solutions that enable innovation and product development without coding software.
After interviewing tech and business leaders throughout 2019, Neil opens himself up to questions from the listeners. In today's tech podcast Neil covers the following areas.
Preparing to Cover CES 2019
With more than 4,400 exhibiting companies and exhibit space of more than 2.7 million net square feet, CES 2018 welcomed the world’s biggest companies in addition to hosting more than 1,000 startups at the Eureka Park Marketplace.
More than 182,000 industry professionals, including more than 63,000 from outside the U.S., convened in Las Vegas to drive the ever-evolving global technology industry forward. 2019 will be even bigger, and Neil talks about locking in 10 interviews a week to try and cover some of the stories behind the companies showcasing their tech at CES.
Neil will also be asking guests for tips on how to get noticed at CES.
New Year, New Me
It's that time of the year where we all want to repent and reinvent ourselves. What is it about the human condition that is drawn to new beginnings and the new opportunities on the horizon?
It's fascinating how we all go through this same process every year but I honestly believe that if you surround yourself with like-minded souls to keep you on your path and make you accountable for your decisions then you can accomplish anything.
Written and Audio Content Goals for 2019
One Podcast recording or one blog post per week will result is 52 pieces of content against your name in 12 months time that will help you position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Neil shares his story and offers a helping hand to listeners who want to follow in his footsteps.
By 2022, Gartner’s latest report predicts 60% of large and global enterprises, and 90% of midsize enterprises (MSEs), will implement passwordless methods in more than 50% of use cases.
In its December 2018 Market Guide for User Authentication, Gartner included Secret Double Octopus as a Representative Vendor in the user authentication category, and for good reason, as they are pioneering the passwordless workplace.
Secret Double Octopus is pioneering the password-free workplace. Its high-assurance authentication solutions are built on provably unbreakable cryptography that is highly resistant to attacks and provide a superior user experience.
The technology behind the company is based on secret sharing algorithms originally developed to protect nuclear launch codes, the app initiates a multi-layered authentication process for users in order to verify or reject the login attempt, payment, or transaction.
Secret Double Octopus is a Business Insider 'Startup that will boom in 2018', PwC game-changer for Global Financial Services Innovation, and recipient of the Frost and Sullivan 'Technology Innovation Award'. Its customer-base includes US, European and Asian companies.
I wanted to find out more about their plans and also what if feel like to be included in Gartner's Market Guide for User Authentication two years in a row. I invited Amit Rahav onto my daily tech podcast to find out more.
Insolar is building an open source enterprise-grade blockchain platform to enable seamless interactions between companies and unlock new growth opportunities powered by distributed trust. It creates cost efficiencies and new revenue streams, and powers transformative business models.
Essentially, Insolar is an enterprise-grade platform with architecture merging the best of cloud, blockchain and distributed technologies to introduce dozens of industry-first features. It is rapidly deployable and solves the fundamental challenges of current enterprise blockchains, including scalability, ease of use, and interoperability.
In addition to the blockchain platform, Insolar provides blockchain services and ecosystem support for companies that are looking to develop and deploy blockchain solutions. Insolar features the most complete and secure set of production-ready business blockchain tools and services to quickly build and launch blockchain enterprise applications, accelerating the progression path from initial proof-of-concept to full-scale production.
According to Cryptomiso, Insolar is ranked #1 among blockchain projects in development activity. It has one of the most impressive teams in the industry, located in Europe and North America, including 35 software engineers with industrial and blockchain skills, and 10 academic blockchain researchers from leading institutions (York University, ETH Zurich, Princeton).
I invited Andrey Zhulin onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about how this open source project has five diversified and proven revenue streams. Andrey Zhulin is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He previously co-founded Instamart, where he built an advanced, scalable technology platform and assembled a cutting-edge engineering team.
Before that, Andrey was VP at Siguler Guff, where he invested in technology companies in the US, Europe and China. He previously worked at Goldman Sachs in the Investment Banking division.
THiNKaha makes it easy to create compelling content that helps turn corporate experts into recognized thought leaders. Are you in need of new content to grow your thought leadership status? Don’t know where to start? Learn how THiNKaha can help you increase your influence with a few of our select products and services by listening to my conversation with Mitchell Levy.
Mitchell Levy is The AHA Guy at AHAthat which is a people publisher who works with various platforms and partners to help people get their AHA messages to those that need to see them.
Essentially, AHAthat is a platform built to allow people to quickly share content (over 47 thousand AHAmessages available to share on social for free) and to author their books quickly (over 300 have written their books in 8 hours or less. )
Mitchell is an accomplished Entrepreneur who has created 20 businesses in Silicon Valley including 4 publishing companies that have published over 800 books. His strategy is focused on spreading inspiration and empowerment to those who want to succeed in life.
He helps experts to be recognized for their expertise. He has an interesting view on where the world is going which you can see in his TED talk. I invited him onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about how he is using technology to offer their audience both inspiration and empowerment.
As this podcast gets beamed all around the world at Christmas, many of you will be spending quality time with your family. There will be 3-4 generations all under one roof, but take a look around, the senior citizens are the only ones not staring down at a device.
Although the older and more experienced generation typically appreciates living in the moment rather than recording it, but are missing out? They are largely invisible from your group WhatsApp conversations and seldom get to see family photos.
GrandPad is a simple and secure tablet computer that digitally connects older seniors to their family and friends. If your older parents have never used a computer or tried to use an iPad but it was too much work for you to get it working, GrandPad is what you need.
Seniors can easily view family photos and videos, play games, see weather for each family member, listen to music, email, make phone calls, video chat, and more. GrandPad arrives at the seniors home setup and ready to go. It includes wireless charging, no confusing choices, no passwords, no credit cards allowed.
GrandPad is a fantastic example of a technology that is transforming how older adults 75+ are staying connected with their families and friends. While Amazon, Google, and Apple are marketing certain products for seniors, they're missing the mark when it comes to design.
A team of engineers are mentored by older adults, so the product is designed appropriately for those suffering from cognitive impairment, hearing loss, and dry fingertips, which are just a few of the issues adults encounter with age.
I invited GrandPad from CEO/co-founder, Scott Lien onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about this inspiring project that is helping seniors stay connected in a new digital world.
In a world where choice is exploding, freedom and human rights are being limited. We are seeing a growing trend of censorship and manipulation of information, leading to oppression.
The current state of affairs is menacing to privacy rights, internet freedom and basic political liberty around the world.
Old centralized systems and technologies were not built with end-user security and privacy in mind. No matter who you are, every day of your life you are just a record in a database – ready to be tracked, looked at and exploited. We cannot keep waiting for the system to self-correct...
Robertas Visinskis is the Founder of Mysterium Network, an open source, a not-for-profit foundation focused on security and privacy, and the world’s first decentralized VPN blockchain project.
With over 13 years of experience in IT, Robertas was previously CEO and CTO of Trustribe, which helped peer-to-peer companies attract and engage more visitors to their websites, as well as built unified e-reputation management platforms. He was also CTO and Head of Product Design at Meta Group, where he was responsible for market analysis, customer discovery, UX design and product implementation.
I invited Robertas onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about the Mysterium Network and it's fast and scalable transport security layer. He also shares his mission to build a P2P decentralized network using multi-hops, relays and an inbuilt micropayments tokenomic model.
Today's guest on my daily tech podcast is Debajyoti (Deb) Ray, the Founder & CEO, of Rivet AI. Artificial Intelligence has applications beyond classification or regression. As a technologist, Debajyoti's focus is on developing generative applications of AI: the ability to create new media, design, and form new hypotheses.
Debajyoti has also worked on economic mechanism design and distributed systems, with applications in blockchain. As an advisor and investor, he also looks for startups that operate in markets that can be transformed by AI and Blockchain, especially those that benefit from second-order effects of these technologies.
RivetAI provides an AI platform for content creators to make production seamless and tools to augment storytelling.
The company was founded by a team of AI experts, from companies like SpaceX, Pixar and Microsoft, who saw the limiting factors in content production and ideation. Their core technology is based on Generative AI - the ability for machines to generate new media, writing, and ideas.
RivetAI is also backed by the some of the most renowned VCs, and continually looking to hire the top talent. But, what role will AI play in Hollywood? AI will not replace the screenwriter Rivet.ai's software aims squarely at admin work.
"Nobody went into filmmaking to do script analysis," advised Ray. For now, the creative aspects of filmmaking are still out of reach of automation, though AI-assisted decision-making on things like budgeting can have knock-on effects for an entire project.
In 2001, Walker Sands set out to make an impression on businesses and the world alike. That mission prevails, as evidenced by their longstanding partnerships and expansion from Chicago to San Francisco and, most recently, Seattle.
In the past two decades, they've cultivated a culture that prioritizes collaboration. While other agencies have struggled to bring PR and digital services together, they have made it their foundation.
This approach has paid off. The company is a six-time Inc. 5000 honoree that has grown revenues 194 percent over the last six years. These numbers are the result of a thriving culture, which Inc., Crain’s Chicago Business and Entrepreneur have recognized in their best places to work rankings.
Annie Gudorf is a partner and Senior Account Director at Walker Sands Communications and leads the firm's Seattle office which is fastest growing tech hub in the US.
Outside of focusing on growing Walker Sands' presence in Seattle and across the West Coast, she manages a talented team in the agency's enterprise software/professional services practice area with the goal of delivering creative and strategic programs for clients.
I invited Annie onto the show to learn more about how she was credited with effectively bringing Walker Sands’ well-established midwestern B2B tech expertise to Seattle. Annie also shares the differences between tech startup founders in the Emerald city vs. the Windy city.
On today's tech podcast, I talk to Oomnitza CEO Arthur Lozinski about "Thing management" Thing management = accurately and timely tracking every detail about the laptops, desktops, monitors, smartphones, tablets; data center gear like servers and switches; sensors and new-age capital equipment central to business productivity and profitability.
Arthur has a background in enterprise software, specifically with SAP. He also has a passion for complex business processes and technology to co-found Oomnitza.
I learn more about Arthur's story and how Oomnitza provides a suite of solutions for IT professionals, including IT Asset Management, Contract Management, and Device Management. Combining mobile and cloud technology, Oomnitza help's IT teams better track, service and manage their company information and assets.
I also chat with Arthur about their new Oomnitza Bot, a new IT asset management chatbot that works within Slack and integrates with Zendesk, a customer service, and engagement platform. The Oomnitza Bot provides a single source of truth and rich intelligence about every asset, enabling automation of the IT support experience. As a result, organizations experience significant productivity gains and cost savings.
Instead of manually filling out support tickets when they have a problem or need, users report issues about an asset from within Slack using the Oomnitza Bot. Once the end user confirms the asset and provides a description, a Zendesk ticket is automatically created.
The Bot also establishes a relationship between the created ticket and the asset (custom object) via Zendesk’s Custom Objects API. The Oomnitza for Zendesk plug-in will display rich asset details for the service desk agent using this relationship and linked object information. This enables IT support to resolve issues faster, based on in-depth information about the asset and its owner.
Frontdoor, CEO, Alain Kapatashungu shares his inspirational story and vision for the future of the Frontdoor App
Frontdoor is an enterprise SaaS platform sold on a monthly subscription basis to real estate companies. The team are dedicated to simplifying work for real estate professionals — from SMB to large enterprise companies.
The vertical SaaS solution is also trusted by some of the most sought-after real estate companies to replace guesswork, pen and paper workflows — to automate and manage their most important business transactions. With a sharp focus on real-time data, productivity, and user experience, Frontdoor is on a mission to power the future of business intelligence.
Frontdoor, CEO, Alain Kapatashungu describes himself as a French entrepreneur. But, it's his tech startup journey that has taken him from the war and genocide in Rwanda to building an artificial intelligence app in Silicon Valley to empower city dwellers.
I learn more about how being a genocide survivor has shaped him as an individual and taught him about perseverance and relentlessness. Alain also talks about how he loves solving problems that have an impact on society.
Alain also highlights issues with venture capital access for underrepresented minorities. Only 1.3% currently have access to venture capital investment as the norm. As a community, Alain explains why we are losing a great deal at diversity.
This is a problem Alain believes we can solve by working collectively as an ecosystem to allow founders that are resilient and perseverant to actually have access to capital.
Tom Ross is the founder and CEO of Design Cuts. He’s a long time creative, and lives and breathes this company! His favorite thing is to see our incredible community growing, whilst staying true to its core values. His ultimate goal is to make Design Cuts the go-to destination for every designer online!
As the founder and CEO at DesignCuts.com, he helped build an incredible community of 400,000 creatives. The company strives to make the greatest design tools and resources affordable for the average designer. But, they are also passionate about educating, inspiring and mentoring their audience with the popular podcast The Honest Designers Show and the Design Cuts Community Forum.
Tom loves mentoring fellow entrepreneurs, helping to guide their business strategy, social media marketing, and branding. On today's tech podcast, Tom shares his inspirational tech startup story of rising to 400,000 global members, helping his customers save $500 million and reaching 500 thousand podcast downloads.
We also discuss the importance of attracting the right traffic rather than chasing numbers and why you should always serve your audience, rather than use them.
Utopia Music is an open platform that translates the world of music data into a form that everyone can understand and benefit from. Learn about how they are empowering and liberating the music industry like never before on today's episode.
Mattias Hjelmstedt is CEO and Founder of Utopia Music. As a serial entrepreneur, Mattias has successfully founded and sold a number of technology companies since the early 1990s. An unparalleled innovator, Mattias’s passion for combining media and tech has pushed him to help transform and build several industries including e-sports and digital TV.
Within e-sports, Mattias was one of the pioneers, designing the first social platforms for games and assisting in the creation of the software still used today to power some of the world’s largest games, including Battlefield. Unhappy with the state of the Video-on-Demand (VOD) services, Mattias was an early architect of VOD for premium film and p2p distribution.
With this knowledge, Mattias was then able to successfully navigate TV’s challenging copyright landscape and help turn online TV into a global reality. I invited Mattias onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about his startup stories and the future for Utopia Music.
Mattias shares his vision of how amazing things can happen when technology is leveraged in the right way. Thanks to tech, they can monitor music being played all over the world. They already track over +100,000 radio stations in real time, every day. And that's just the beginning. Their mission is to create a fast, fair and transparent environment that all music players benefit from.
Ethos is a new kind of life insurance built for people who don't have time for fine print, extra doctors appointments or hidden fees. Ethos uses the power of technology and predictive analytics to modernize the life insurance process and align products with what families want and need during critical times in their lives.
An application is fast and easy, turning a process that used to take weeks into a ten-minute experience for most customers. The company also recently raised a Series B financing of $35 million led by Accel, a leading early and growth-stage venture capital firm. Additional participating investors include Google Ventures (GV), previous investors Sequoia Capital and Arrive, a subsidiary of Roc Nation, and a debt facility from Silicon Valley Bank.
Ethos has simplified and modernized life insurance through its proprietary technology and the company has seen robust growth in 2018, with revenue, customers and applications growing by more than 400 percent in just
the past four months.
However, I invited Peter Colis, CEO and co-founder, Ethos onto my tech podcast to learn more about how the startup story behind their success. Peter shares how the inspiration for Ethos originated in a college dorm many years ago and the rest history.
OpenCrowd is a design and technology firm creating custom Blockchain business solutions for global clients and early startups. For over a decade, they have applied emerging technologies and helped hundreds of satisfied clients crystallize their new business concepts and accelerate the development of new and purpose-driven applications.
The company has established a reputation for building smart applications leveraging blockchain, analytics and machine learning. The team behind OpenCrowd believe decentralized apps powered by machine learning will be the foundation of many cutting-edge innovations in the future.
The team is also armed with a development partnership with two emerging Blockchain technology platforms, Hashgraph and Securrency. Their aim? too simply help their clients adapt to these innovations quickly by offering custom services such as enterprise blockchain solutions and smart analytics applications with simplified UX.
MeasureMatch is an on-demand professional services marketplace ecosystem. Our end-to-end platform enables direct, seamless and flexible access to a global, liquid workforce of amazing independent systems engineers and data management, data engineering and data science pros to get important marketing, commerce and customer experience (CX) project work done fast.
It's ok to comparatively think of Uber or Airbnb or Helpling or TaskRabbit, we support the matching of supply with demand similarly, all the way through to contract management, payment processing, ratings and feedback. But that's where the comparison ends.
I invited James Sandoval MeasureMatch, Founder & CEO onto my tech podcast to learn more about their mission to forever change the way businesses access and benefit from data, analytics & technology professional services and talent. On demand.
I also learn how MeasureMatch is taking a big bite of a $30+ billion market of technology & data professional services, starting with a focus on addressing marketing, commerce and customer experience-related business needs.
MeasureMatch is helping every organization to be more successful in a digital world.
Aurora Labs is pioneering Self-Healing Software™ for connected cars to enable OEMs to proactively respond to future vehicle software architectures, processes, and services.
Agile user-centric software development processes create a plethora of continuous opportunities and risks for the OEMs, even after the car has left the production line.
Aurora Labs’ Line-Of-Code Maintenance™ technology uses machine learning algorithms to uniquely address all three stages of a software health solution, future proofing the next generation of software-driven automotive features.
The company has also been named a Cool Vendor by Gartner Inc. in their October 2018 report: “Cool Vendors in Automotive and Smart Mobility”, authored by leading Gartner analysts Carsten Isert and Jonathan Davenport.
The report highlights new and innovative vendors that use AI-powered solutions with the potential to transform the mobility market. Aurora Labs, one of only four companies identified as a Cool Vendor in the report, enables automotive manufacturers to proactively respond to future vehicle software architectures, processes, and services in order to bring vehicles to market faster, today.
According to the report “Software and AI are becoming increasingly fundamental not only to vehicle operational performance but also as the primary interface for systems that frame the user experience. The software age in the automobile is leading to an explosion of innovation around the car.”
I invited Roger Ordman, EVP Marketing at Aurora Labs onto my tech podcast about their Self-Healing Software for cars.
From “fake news” to the lack of diversity in the media, the creative community is hungry for more authenticity and inclusivity. An analysis of Storyblocks data indicates that creatives may be taking matters into their own hands by developing independent media sources—forcing mainstream media to follow suit or fall by the wayside.
Media trends in film and social media indicate that creatives are using more content that accurately depicts the people around us and the world we live in. As digital media makes the world a smaller place, our creative community is searching for video, audio, and images representative of cultures from varying communities around the world.
Creatives are also increasingly searching for templates and audio to aid them in reporting on the news on their own terms. Podcast and YouTube personalities source their templates and audio so they can focus more on reporting the facts. Editing programs like After Effects and Apple Motion come with steep learning curves, but the curves are diminished by customizable templates. Storyblocks has also seen an increase in the number of searches for various templates that help creators save time and meet the demand for more video content. I catchup with TJ Leonard as we dissect the 2019 creative trends report on my Daily Tech Podcast
Christian Teismann is senior vice president and general manager of the Enterprise Business Segment for Lenovo’s PCs and smart devices. He is responsible for strategy, end-to-end customer engagement, and product portfolio including the legendary ThinkPad, Lenovo’s workstations, Chrome and smart office offerings worldwide. He has also successfully led Lenovo’s Global Accounts Business for over 10 years, with clients that comprise the world’s top Fortune 500 companies.
Christian is also acting President & general manager for the North America geography and in that role he is responsible for North America sales, daily operations, growth and profitability of the region -- encompassing the United States and Canada.
Prior to this he was vice president, Worldwide Relationship Model and was responsible for creating Lenovo's sales processes and organizations for enterprise customers, after Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM's PC division in 2005. Christian joined Lenovo from IBM where he was vice president of Sales Operations for IBM's Personal Systems Group.
He holds a degree in economics from the University of Hohenheim and a Masters of Business Administration from the Business Academy in Stuttgart, Germany.
Christian is one of the companies executive experts on the technology behind workplace transformation. I invited him onto my daily tech podcast to explore a few themes such as the unintended consequences of open environments and remote working.
We also discuss the role mobility plays, requiring adaptable solutions to move from open space to coffee shops to huddle rooms and much more.
Keeper Security deal in password management for consumers, SMBs and the enterprise. They’re preparing release a new study from the Ponemon Institute revealing new finding on SMB level security vulnerabilities – most breaches come from within due to negligence or mismanagement of passwords so it’s an easy fix if addressed early on.
I wanted to learn more about how Keeper Security is transforming the way businesses and individuals protect their passwords and sensitive digital assets to significantly reduce cyber theft. As the leading password manager and digital vault, Keeper helps millions of people and thousands of businesses substantially mitigate the risk of a data breach.
Keeper also protects industry-leading companies including Sony, Chipotle, and The University of Alabama at Birmingham. The company also partners with global OEMs and mobile operators to preload Keeper on smartphones and tablets.
Their CEO, Darren Guccione is a serial entrepreneur and inventor who likes to intersect art, science, finance, and technology. But he also has a passion for creating disruptive technologies. Darren is also incredibly knowledgeable on all matters about cybersecurity, and also has an inspirational startup story to share on my daily tech podcast
Healthbank is a Swiss co-operative company that allows individuals to own and control their own health records. What the company is currently doing is moving it's private keys/ownership data to blockchain so that no matter where you are - you will be able to prove that you own and access your medical records.
The company already has established architecture and customer base of 200,000 people and their health records.
It has now also partnered with a company called “Thryve” in Berlin, Germany – they are a spin-off of Fraunhofer Institute, which is a renowned research institution, closely working with Technical University Berlin.
Thryve has provided a single-API solution allows for the integration of data from all different kinds of wearables (more than 200 devices). It harmonizes the data outputs and interprets them for the benefits of the user.
This collaboration brings certain benefits to healthbank users:
Seamless change of wearable devices if you change your mind (e.g. change from Fitbit to Apple without a separate integration)
Interpretation of wearable data (e.g. form heart rate monitoring you can detect quality of sleep, stress levels etc.) on a scientifically proven level
I invited Karsten Stampa onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about how they are aiming to bring healthcare into the 21st century.
33Across is an advertising technology company focused on solving the challenge of consumer attention. Their Attention Platform is the first programmatic solution to unify high-impact creative, quality supply, and true technology-driven scale.
Delivering superior audience engagement to brands and providing publishers with the ability to drive incremental revenue, the platform results in greater efficiency and a better consumer experience.
While online ad spend grew to $88 billion last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, more than 90% of that growth last year went to Google or Facebook. Meanwhile, these two companies – and suddenly AT&T - are seemingly scooping up adtech companies left and right.
So the obvious question is, is it even possible in this new world to be a profitable independent digital advertising company? Or, are all these companies, to put it bluntly, screwed?
Eric Wheeler should have been feeling good. It was July of 2012 and he’d just raised a $13M Series C round. But, the founder and CEO of high-flying adtech startup, 33Across, had an uneasy feeling. One that would soon morph into despair.
Seemingly overnight, 33Across would see millions of dollars in pipeline disappear while it saw its near profitable status turn into millions of loss. That $13M Series C was quickly evaporating. Eric knew he had to make some changes immediately.
Ones that would involve re-inventing the company. All told, 33Across would lose $4M more than planned in the turn-around. Looking back on the experience, Eric says, “What I didn’t realize at the time was how incredibly hard it is to take a business and turn it so quickly when faced with such strong and dominating headwinds.”
Eric shares the dramatic 180-degree pivot the company made and creating an entirely new business model while simultaneously convincing investors and customers (agencies and large brands) to stick with the company. And, the turnaround has been dramatic.
33Across has seen 100% year-over-year growth for the past four years and has effectively gone from zero revenue to an annual run-rate of $100M while becoming profitable. How did Eric accomplish this feat?
“The things that were putting our model out of business - the move to programmatic (automated online) advertising, the need for more transparency, the focus on greater ad quality - were the exact things that we ended up basing the business on going forward.”
Listen to Eric Wheeler's inspirational story on my daily tech podcast.
PubMatic is a publisher-focused sell-side platform for an open digital media future. Featuring leading omni-channel revenue automation technology for publishers and enterprise-grade programmatic tools for media buyers, PubMatic's publisher-first approach enables advertisers to access premium inventory at scale.
Processing over twelve trillion advertiser bids per month, PubMatic has created a global infrastructure to drive publisher monetization and control over their ad inventory. Since 2006, PubMatic's focus on data and technology innovation has fueled the growth of the programmatic industry as a whole.
I invited Bill Swanson and Emma Newman onto the show to talk about how technology can help advertisers ensure their ads are only shown in high-quality online environments and trends and opportunities in mobile advertising.
Guest Info
Bill Swanson - Chief Revenue Officer, EMEA
Bill has been working in the media and digital space for nearly 20 years. He joined PubMatic in 2014, as director of publisher development, and was promoted to the position of country manager, UK. In this role, Bill was instrumental in shaping the UK into a model for other international country operations, signing notable publishers and developing a structure that allowed the business to scale.
Now chief revenue officer of EMEA, Bill is responsible for growing PubMatic’s portfolio of premium publishers and media buyer partners across the region while ensuring the company is in the best position to capitalize on emerging technology opportunities.
Emma Newman, Vice President, UK, PubMatic
As VP UK, Emma is tasked with growing PubMatic’s unique approach to the market, making sure that its customers (both supply and demand) are continually benefitting from its transparent and customer first approach. In addition, Newman helps PubMatic to develop new premium publisher relationships with a focus on growing and monetising mobile and video inventory as well as helping them navigate ad decisioning tools.
Newman joined PubMatic in 2014 as senior director of international marketing, rising to the role of vice president of international marketing within a year. Prior to PubMatic, Newman held roles in marketing and business operations at iHeartMedia (Clear Channel UK), AOL, and Microsoft.
Few people in the world of music technology can claim the amount of experience and credits that David Frangioni has amassed. Frangioni is the recipient of dozens of gold and platinum albums as technical consultant, engineer, and/or programmer, for work with the Stones, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Sting, Bryan Adams, Journey, Styx, Shakira, Rascal Flatts, Ozzy Osbourne, Cher and hundreds more.
He was the in-house engineer in five of Aerosmith’s records and built their recording studios and high-end A/V systems. David also gained notoriety as the official technologist for “The Osbournes” and appeared in multiple episodes of their hit MTV show. Ozzy even jokingly referred to his as “The Rocket Man, only happy when he had a fuse box in his hands!”
On my today's tech podcast, David Frangioni shares his inspirational story behind Audio One’s high-end home tech systems that is loved by rock stars. We also talk about he is using his experience to inspire & develop artists with “IDA”.
Frangioni also shares some of his Rock N Roll stories with Ozzy Osbourne and Aerosmith's Steve Tyler.
Apttus has a reputation as a global gold standard for Quote-to-Cash (QTC) and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions. Apttus’ innovations include Max, the company’s Applied Artificial Intelligence that enables enterprises to achieve superior business outcomes.
I have followed their journey for some time and covered their Accelerate event for the last couple of years. But, since this years event, things have changed at Apttus. Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity investment firm, recently announced that it has become the majority investor the global Middle Office leader.
David Murphy is the new CEO after joining Apttus in October when the Thoma Bravo deal closed. He is one of Silicon Valley’s most highly regarded business executives. Over the past 30 years, Murphy has held top leadership roles driving market adoption and disruptive growth.
I felt it was time I caught up with him to learn more about his vision when he recently flew into London. We also discuss how Gartner, has named the Apttus a Leader once again in the November 2018 Magic Quadrant for Configure, Price and Quote Application Suites.
Connected2Fiber Founder and CEO Ben Edmond discusses the trends impacting the future of the telecommunications industry from not only a technological standpoint but also from a go-to-market perspective.
As the leader of one the industry’s major go-to-market platforms for connectivity professionals, Ben talks about how certain trends will specifically impact connectivity-dependent organizations.
There have been numerous mega-trends emerging in the past few years that will impact the future of the telecommunications industry from not only a technological standpoint but also from a go-to-market perspective. The introduction of 5G, the cloud, and software-defined networks coupled with a “push to the edge” will require a mindset shift in how entities such as network operators and service providers effectively participate in deals and work collaboratively to win them.
Ben also discusses the importance of location intelligence for network providers and its impact on the digital transformation. We also talk about why the emergence of new technologies and trends requires a “trusted ecosystem” approach and how not adopting this could leave companies behind.
On today's tech podcast, I chat with Francesco Baschieri, President of Voxnest and Founder of Spreaker.
Podcasting solution provider Voxnest, recently announced a partnership with DAX, the world's most sophisticated digital audio advertising platform, that will bring publishers in the UK a turn-key solution for creating, monetizing and distributing digital audio.
The deal brings together the expertise of the two companies to enable current publishers of audio content to grow audience and revenue. Additionally, the all-in-one solution will facilitate entry into the growing audio market by publishers who have yet to capitalize on the medium's increasing popularity while giving brands and advertisers the ability to connect with relevant and engaged audiences at scale.
The deal with DAX is also a continuance of Voxnest's goals to support the growth of professional podcasting and deliver value throughout the entire ecosystem. Voxnest customers, including those on the company's Spreaker platform, now have the benefit of DAX monetization, while advertisers can take advantage of advanced targeting and measurement solutions.
Global, the Media & Entertainment group, created DAX in 2014 to give advertisers access to millions of people listening to digital audio through premium publisher brands.
"Accelerating the growth of the podcasting industry is contingent on two factors: audience and monetization. By partnering with DAX, we're making major inroads on both fronts, adding reach to grow audience and opening the advertising opportunity to more brands and more podcasters," said Voxnest President Francesco Baschieri.
"It's an exciting time to be involved in this medium, and we're confident that our easy-to-use, efficient and scalable solution for creating, monetizing and distributing audio content will have a catalyzing effect on creators worldwide."
Ollie Deane, Director of Commercial Digital at Global, said: "The podcasting world is rapidly developing. Through this partnership, content creators now have an opportunity to grow their UK audiences and revenue, while advertisers can understand the impact of their campaigns in more detail than ever before."
On this daily tech podcast, we explore a different industry every day and how it's being transformed by technology. Today I want to explore how the Internet of things (IoT) is paving the way for a new digital world where everything has an always-online connection.
I invited Pavel Bayborodin, CEO and founder of Blynk onto the show to learn more about how they have become one of the most popular IoT platforms. Throughout his career, Pavel has been involved in defining innovative products experiences in Mobile, Web, Ad Tech, Connected Cars and the Internet of Things.
His company, Blynk is one of the most popular IoT platforms for connecting electronic devices to the cloud, designing applications to control them, and managing thousands of deployed products. I also learn how Blynk helps to connect customer’s hardware to the Internet and build ready-made mobile and web applications to meet their business goals.
Natalie Rebot is a Google software engineer turned entrepreneur that created a new device which can be used with your smartphone to upgrade traditional bedtime story telling. Moonlite is described as the first mini bedtime story projector reader that attaches to almost any mobile phone and uses its flash to project imagery onto any surface.
The idea grew organically from Natalie's bedtime ritual with her 3-year-old daughter, Chloe. After using the flash on her smartphone to create shadowplay. It wasn't long before she realized that she could take their routine to another level to create stories and scenes using her phone and innovative design.
Natalie first appeared on my podcast 2 years ago on episode 160. Following a massively successful launch on Kickstarter.com, Moonlite, the #1 children’s reading toy, is back on Kickstarter with a brand new limited-edition Rose Gold story projector, all in efforts to help strengthen children’s literacy across the nation.
Founder Natalie Rebot launched her initial prototype and concept on Kickstarter and funding goals were overwhelmingly surpassed, with more than 60M views to date on the product’s original video. Tapping into that existing momentum, the brand is setting out on a mission to raise awareness of the benefits of reading and ultimately give back to the community.
To achieve this, Moonlite is partnering with Baby2Baby, a non-profit organization that provides children living in poverty with diapers, clothing and all the basic necessities that every child deserves. For each Rose Gold Moonlite pledged for, Moonlite will donate the equivalent of 10 books to Baby2Baby with the goal of bringing the magic of story time to over 60,000 low-income children this holiday season.
Early in his career, Attorney Neil K. Juneja became dissatisfied with the direction of his career in the legal field. At other firms, clients are billed by the minute, treated like just another number, and too often waste valuable time and money on sub-par intellectual property law solutions that leave them exposed and vulnerable to lawsuits. He wanted to create something different – so he did.
For Neil, being a lawyer is about supporting people and their dreams. Whether it is business, innovation, or art, helping passionate people achieve their goals is what drove to be the best marijuana lawyer he could be. Neil shares with me on this daily tech podcast how he always tries to bring a remarkable level of genuine care and humanity that you don’t often find in a law office.
Neil represents clients in the cannabis industry and has successfully filed over 400 marijuana cannabis trademarks and patent applications. He has also represented clients worldwide with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
ISG (Information Services Group) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including 75 of the top 100 enterprises in the world, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth.
The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; technology strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis.
Founded in 2006, ISG employs more than 1,300 professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry's most comprehensive marketplace data.
On today's tech podcast, I chat with Barry Matthews Partner and Head of Northern Europe at ISG. Barry is leading an amazing team of digital architects, helping their clients to select and implement the right technology to meet their specific business needs.
With Specialties including Digital Transformation, Automation, Cognitive Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Networks, Hardware and Software, and Robotic Process Automation, why I have left it 700 episodes before getting him on the show?
So I finally invited him on the show today to learn from his expertise and insights. We talk about the impact of technology on business and cover cloud and as a service, agile, automation and platforms and how combining all of these can be transformative when done well.
We also discuss how to source new technologies at enterprise scale and successfully incorporate them into a global business. Finally, Barry shares his best advice for businesses looking to leverage the latest technologies. Think big, start small and scale fast.
On episode 584 of this podcast, I spoke with Marcus Whitney, the Nashville-based investor, entrepreneur, and president of Briovation. We discussed blockchain and the emerging developments in health technology.
Briovation is focused on analyzing, investing in, and providing open-source blockchain technology to healthcare companies nationwide to nurture innovation and create unity within the space. The Tokenizing Health announcement also includes the public launch of Solaster, Briovation’s first health blockchain invention.
On today's tech podcast, I wanted to find a unique way of exploring the impacts blockchain is having on healthcare. Solaster is now a leading healthcare-focused blockchain company is developing the world’s first interoperability health data standard for Dapps and smart contracts.
However, rather than just hear about another solution from the CEO and founder, I also invited one of their partners on the show to learn how it's actually solving real problems. Good Shepherd Pharmacy and Solaster Health are partnering to bring Good Shepherd's novel pricing transparency and monthly membership platform to the blockchain.
Good Shepherd has served the underinsured marketplace since its inception in 2013 and already has over 1,000 active members. Its model is simple: in exchange for a fixed monthly membership fee, Good Shepherd members have access to medications at little to no cost with no markup.
Solaster Health is a blockchain development platform focused on interoperability for healthcare decentralized applications. And Good Shepherd is a nonprofit membership pharmacy for the uninsured. But what opportunities will this bring to both parties?
All will be revealed on today's tech podcast.
WHIRL is a blockchain-powered “Pay It Forward” crowdfunding platform. What we do is create a whirlwind of mutual self-help around the world. Anyone can launch a campaign regardless of purpose, banking status or borders. Their principle is simple: donate to others – then submit your own fundraising campaign!
Fundraisers raise money without shipping rewards or asking friends and family for charity. Backers earn karma points which impact their own position in WHIRL’s launch queue.
Their mission is to resolve the major problem of today’s crowdfunding – the declining success rates. In order to do so, they created a community which helps each other, eliminating needs in banks and loans, That’s why they limit the number of active concurrent campaigns and ensure everyone gets equal attention and opportunity.
That said, WHIRL is also a socially-driven platform that provides unique benefits to campaigns run by confirmed charitable organizations.
I invited them onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about how they ensure safe blockchain transactions and crypto/fiat payments making WHIRL accessible to contributors across the globe.
GYANT offers a suite of asynchronous virtual care solutions that were created by practicing physicians and providers. They understand that any solution that interacts with patients must be delivered with compassion, demonstrate empathy, and engage sympathetically.
In a nutshell, GYANT addresses and treats the most prevalent yet manageable illnesses that comprise the vast majority of primary care visits (e.g. flu, UTIs, earache, flu etc.) saving money, time, and worry––and making the healthcare experience more convenient and streamlined for both patients and practitioners.
Technology's potential to transform healthcare is huge, and while there has been a lot of progress, it's still not there for people. It takes weeks to schedule a doctor’s appointment. Many stick it out until symptoms go away, or wind up heading to urgent care.
Equally, free online symptom checkers like WebMD aren’t well suited for medical content either. People end up scanning for answers to their symptoms and coming away more scared than ever.
I wanted to find out more about how GYANT set out to bring together the best of AI and real medical practitioners to accurately diagnose common illnesses and share a treatment plan, in minutes on a mobile app. I invited Gyant Co-Founder, onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about his story and vision.
Sam Riley, CEO of Ansarada, a company helping PE/VC firms, large corporations, small companies, their advisors and everything in between manage all their business-critical events like IPOs, M&A, funding, property management, etc. Ansarada has over $35 million in revenue and harnesses the power of AI to apply data and learnings over 20K deals taken place on its platform to predict outcomes of deals.
With customers like Google, JP Morgan, KPMG, Deloitte, Minter Ellison, Sony, Pivotal and others, Sam has built Ansarada into a trusted advisor and tool for companies around the world. But I wanted to learn more about his inspirational tech startup story.
Sam is a borne entrepreneur – starting out by buying and selling light bulbs for a small profit to his neighbors at age 7 to organizing neighborhood car washes as a teenager in Australia’s Blue Mountains to bootstrapping Ansarada from the ground up to the 200+ person international company it is today.
However, the story behind why integrity and trust are at the forefront of his business will blow you away.
Bitcoin and other blockchain powered currencies are under constant security threat from hackers and other agents
Adam Koltun, an Evangelist for the Quantum Resistant Ledger, has expertise in the emerging field of blockchain, and how it relates to quantum computing.
In today's tech podcast, we discuss the basics of quantum computing (bits vs qubits etc.), the limitations of quantum computing, and how it intersects with blockchain technology. New security features to protect against Shor’s algorithm, using a novel signature scheme, as well as private keys and quantum resistant coins will all be explored in our chat.
IOHK is the leading blockchain research and development company behind top 10 cryptocurrency Cardano. They have also recently announced that it will present its research on Ouroboros Genesis at ACM Conference on Computer and Communication Security.
The research tackles critical challenges that exist in proof-of-stake protocols and this latest version of Ouroboros, the algorithm powering Cardano, represents a significant milestone on the roadmap of research that began with Ouroboros and was followed by Ouroboros Praos.
Today's guest is Aggelos Kiayias who is the chair in cybersecurity and privacy at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests are in computer security, information security, applied cryptography, and foundations of cryptography with a particular emphasis in blockchain technologies and distributed systems, e-voting and secure multiparty protocols, as well as privacy and identity management.
On today's crypto podcast, I want to learn more about the technology, Cardano's Ouroboros Protocol, and the humanistic approach that Aggelos is famed for.
Lorem connects businesses owners to a curated, professional network of freelance website developers and designers who can build or improve their website, blog or online store. Founded in 2017, Lorem is the only on-demand freelance marketplace that rigorously vets the experts on its platform and integrates with the most common software tools used by business owners on a daily basis.
The online platform recently secured $2.5 million to expand its on-demand freelance marketplace. Lorem’s funding was led by Flybridge Capital Partners among other investors - including HubSpot, who will be including Lorem into its own marketplace for interested customers.
Now that more than a third of the U.S. workforce alone is actively freelancing in some capacity, however over 50 percent of their time is spent trying to find new projects, rather than working and getting paid.
Meanwhile, business owners are now juggling 15 to 20 different “do-it-yourself” SaaS tools to build and maintain their website, yet each tool requires more technical expertise to set up, customize and manage on a continual basis.
Lorem is attempting to solve these problems by automatically matching entrepreneurial business owners with high-quality freelancers to work on task-based projects at an affordable price.
“Our vision is to empower the modern day business owner to succeed with instant access to high-quality and affordable freelance talent. We aim to build a global network of experts and enable freelancing as the future of work,” said Charlie Fogarty, co-founder and COO at Lorem.
“This additional investment will allow us to continue to solve the problems that millions of freelancers and high-growth companies face in doing business online.”
I invited Charlie Fogarty onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about his grand vision.
2018 has seen major corporations fall victim to hacks and the harvesting of customer information. Millions of customers of some of the most trusted names in business: Cathay Pacific, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, have had everything from their email addresses, phone numbers, and credit card details fall into the hands of nefarious actors.
However, as cybercriminals become more sophisticated -- novel solutions are being developed which may prove effective in combating the hacks and online attacks experienced by companies of every ilk and size.
Loki is a privacy network which will allow users to transact and communicate privately and anonymously over the internet. Users will be able to build applications on the Loki platform, including messaging services, online marketplaces, and social media platforms.
These services will incorporate privacy and data security by default, features which are often at risk on traditional online platforms. Loki maintains the belief that privacy is a human right and aims to empower all individuals to control their digital information by creating privacy tools which can be used by anyone.
I invited Kee Jeffreys, Co-Founder, and Tech Lead at LOKI onto my daily tech podcast to discuss the following:
- The potential for technological solutions to prevent sensitive consumer information from being accessed without consent
- The current failures of centralized databases and the potential benefits of decentralized networks
- The potential applications of privacy-centric technologies, including financial and banking transactions; the transfer of sensitive data, such as government.
We also talk about the blockchain and crypto scene in Australia.
I recently discovered a new eye tracking tool to help UX designers create websites tailored to how people behave online. Through Tobii Pro Sprint, UX designers can conduct online eye tracking studies on test subjects as they navigate a website (live or in the design testing environment).
Their gaze patterns offer an authentic, objective view on online behavior, revealing the “why” behind a particular action. This insight can be used to optimize a site to make it more user-friendly and engaging and in turn, helping lead to sales conversion or a specific call to action.
Apparel retailer H&M is a Tobii Pro Sprint customer using eye tracking to create a clear path of purchase for online shoppers and to validate design decisions on their site. Similar eye tracking studies can be done for online banking portals, music and video streaming services, work portals, pretty much any digital product.
What makes Tobii Pro Sprint unique from other tools is that it completely online with live streaming, recording and collaboration features for UX teams. It makes it easier, faster and more affordable to run an eye-tracking study for UX testing; helping understand online consumers’ browsing habits.
Podcasters, radio producers, and audiophiles are leveraging the power of social video to reach a larger audience with SpareMin’s audio-to-video tools: Audiogram and Headliner.
For example, Headliner is making it easy to create social media videos from your existing audio, video, text, or you can even start from scratch. Whether you're trying to promote your podcast, radio show, blog, website, or business, Headliner is aiming have you covered.
I invited the founder of Headliner, Oliver Wellington onto the show to learn more about how Headliner is used by over 10,000 Radio Producers, Podcasters, and Publishers and generating thousands of videos per week.
Criminals are hijacking programmatic advertising and giving publishers a bad name. Confiant protects publishers' and platforms' reputations, revenue, and resources with always-on anti-malware software that provides protection for desktop, mobile, and video ads.
I wanted to learn more about their sole focus of helping advertising platforms and publishers rid the world of malware and how this focus enables them to evolve quickly and meet their clients' needs for defeating the bad actors trying to undermine the industry.
Programmatic technologies make it easy for criminals to use businesses to infect millions of consumers. But where do they begin to protect their reputation and revenue with anti-malware software that keeps them ahead of the bad guys?
Confiant, CEO and founder, LD Mangin is also a startup veteran that has worked on five and founded two. I invited him onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about how he is working to stop the scourge of fraudulent programmatic ads that are disrupting the market.
New Research from 10K Advisors Indicates the Salesforce Ecosystem May Be Innovating Faster Than Talent Can Keep Pace, Resulting in Great Career Opportunities but Challenges for Customers.
The report found that Salesforce Developer job openings outpace available talent by 4:1, meaning there are 4 job listings for every self-identified Salesforce Developer. For Technical Architects, the highest paid and most in-demand role, that ratio jumps to an astounding 10:1.
10K Advisors found that self-identified Technical Architects make up less than 2 percent of the Salesforce-related profiles on LinkedIn in established markets. In emerging markets that are key to future growth, that number drops to less than one percent. Salesforce reported that the number of Technical Architect jobs has grown by more than 40 percent annually over the last 4 years, indicating that while growth within this crucial role is significant it may still not be enough to keep pace with demand.
Market research has shown that jobs requiring Salesforce skills are growing faster than the overall market and that they pay more than jobs that don't require the Salesforce skill set. Furthermore, deep technical skills are in greatest demand and command the highest salaries -- more than $150,000 annually in some markets.
10K Advisors is a modern consultancy that provides mid-to-large size companies with on-demand access to proven Salesforce talent. Its unique model is flexible, easy to manage and delivers the results business leaders need without the headaches and over-promises they've come to expect from technology consultancies.
With a mission to give people the freedom to excel at the work they love,10K prides itself on creating a trusted community of experienced Salesforce architects, admins, developers and industry experts who get to focus on what they love and deliver great results.
- After returning back in the UK after attending the Huawei conference in Rome, Neil eases back into things by answering questions from the listeners.
Neil dares to tackle the Android vs Apple debate and reveal if the Huawei announcements have changed his mind. He also talks about his favorite events of the year asks the listeners if anyone can turn his idea of Don't Be A Stranger 2018 Tour T-shirt to life.
On today's tech podcast, Neil also looks at tech trends that he is excited about and dares to look into his crystal ball and look at what transformative technologies he believes will dominate 2019.
- 5G
- Web 3.0
- Blockchain
- dApps
- Voice Search
- IoT
Please share your thoughts and comments by contacting Neil
As we head towards a gigabyte society and 5G connectivity is just around the corner I catch up with Walter Ji, President Huawei Western Europe. We discuss Huawei’s innovations in 5G and IoT, consumer strategy across Europe, as well as news unveiled at the Eco-Connect Europe conference.
Each year Huawei spends $10bn on R&D. When you combine this with the fact that and Huawei overtook Apple to be the number 2 smartphone manufacturer many are starting to question how long it will be before Huawei dethrones Samsung?
Did you know that there is a hacker group receiving 5 million a day just by generating fake clicks? or that ad fraud is organized crime's 2nd most profitable source of income?
Angelo Dodaro is the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Adbank a powerful ad platform built on Ethereum, and is known as one of the world's leading experts on the intersection of creative content and digital advertising. Angelo has run several successful ad campaigns for clients at his agency, Multivitamin Media, and has worked with brands such as Tesla Motors, Cara Foods, TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) and Mud Hero.
Angelo is the Canadian representative and on the Board of Directors for the International Decentralized Association of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain (IDACB) and is an advisor and consultant for several blockchain startups including Celsius Network, WELL and HowDoo. His contributions have led to over $70 million in ICO funding for 2018 alone.
On today's tech podcast we talk about cryptocurrency, the blockchain, and what Adbank is doing to disrupt online advertising and how they want to change the advertising industry for the better.
Cockroach Labs is the company behind CockroachDB, the SQL database for building global cloud services. With a mission to Make Data Easy, Cockroach Labs is led by a team of former Google engineers who have had front row seats to nearly two decades of database evolution.
The company has also hit a number of milestones since the 2.0 CockroachDB release in April of this year, including bringing on significant new customers, breaking into new verticals, hiring senior-level strategic roles, increasing headcount by 36%, and opening new offices across the US.
"Enterprises are looking for a distributed SQL database that provides the flexibility and solid performance to support global growth," said Co-Founder and CEO of Cockroach Labs Spencer Kimball. "This means a cloud-neutral solution which can support on-premise, cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud environments. These are solutions that have not been available to enterprises in the past and are not available on Oracle, AWS or GCP, which is also why we are seeing so much growth in the market."
Cockroach Labs' roster of customers continues to grow and includes name brands such as Comcast, Bose, Kindred, Baidu, and Nubank, among others.
The range of industries served by Cockroach Labs speaks to the universal business need for a database solution that not only scales elastically but provides the consistency and resilience required to build services that are always available and never lose data.
CockroachDB's standard of resiliency is a critical feature for companies focused on handling financial transactions at a massive, global scale. This has led to several long-term CockroachDB pilots currently running within Fortune 500 companies in the financial sector and increased interest from businesses that manage financial ledgers across the globe.
Join me on my daily tech podcast where I explore how this tech story began and where they are heading in the future.
Brands are speeding up investment in Artificial Intelligence to gain a competitive advantage in delivering personalized customer experiences at scale by 2020 according to Adobe research.
For example, UK brands are adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) as they race to make sense of customer data and deliver more relevant, personalized experiences while staying on the right side of GDPR.
Adobe research, to be published in a report entitled Context is Everything, reveals an overwhelming majority (91%) of UK businesses view personalization as a priority, although fewer than one third (30%) said they are currently delivering the required level of personalization.
Current levels of personalization are behind key competitor markets (42% in Germany, 35% in Switzerland and France), meaning there is clearly still work to do and more effective data management must be a priority.
More than half (59%) of UK brands surveyed said they cannot process data quickly enough at present, while 52% said that they collect too much data from too many sources. GDPR also adds another layer of complexity to brands’ personalisation strategies.
Over two-fifths of UK businesses (43%) said the EU’s new data protection regulation had held them back to some degree in the drive towards personalization.
AI promises to give brands greater control of their data and a greater capability to analyze it. The research shows UK companies have an aggressive timeline for the implementation of AI for business and customer data analytics. Just under three quarters (70%) of UK respondents plan to have implemented AI for business and customer analytics by 2019, going up to 92% by the end of 2020.
Bridget Perry, Vice President of Marketing, Adobe EMEA at Adobe, said: “UK companies are acutely aware that they need to get closer to their customers and provide more personalized services if they are to stay relevant. The level of analytics required for effective personalization at scale may have seemed impossible just a few years ago, but AI has made it a reality, allowing companies to quickly gain vital customer insights from huge volumes of data.”
I invited Bridget onto my daily tech podcast to find out more about this research.
Marylene Delbourg-Delphis was one of the first European women to settle in Silicon Valley. She has affectionately been called the Duchess of Silicon Valley and is known as a tech pioneer, writer, translator and serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience.
Marylene started her entrepreneurial career in France as the founder of ACI (now 4th Dimension), which published the first relational database for Macintosh in 1985. In 1987, she became one of the first European women to found (with Guy Kawasaki) a technology company in Silicon Valley, where she has resided ever since.
Marylene went on to become the CEO of Exemplary Software (a Hewlett Packard spin-off), Brixlogic (acquired by Diebold), and TalentCircles. She currently sits on the board of several companies (including Virtual reality and Culture Assessment companies), and is a member of the National Council of the University Musical Society (UMS) of the University of Michigan.
Marylene is also a prolific writer who has written a large number of articles as a journalist and a blogger, written countless strategy and technical white papers as a CEO, board members and executive consultant. I authored several books on the history of fashion and fragrances before I started my first technology company, and have translated multiple business books from English to French.
She is also active content curator focusing primarily on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, New Technologies, and People Management. But, today I invited her on the show to discuss her new book Everybody Wants to Love Their Job: Rebuilding Trust and Culture which is a pragmatic guidebook for executives, HR leaders, and employees.
Build a sense of community from day one and engrain meaning into the work! Culture isn’t about “values”: It’s the cognitive and emotional fabric that harbors/crushes belongingness, keys up/tramples diversity, and sparks/torpedoes innovation.
Its vibrancy depends on a company’s leadership paradigms. Build a sense of community from day one and engrain meaning into the work! Culture isn’t about “values”: It’s the cognitive and emotional fabric that harbors/crushes belongingness, keys up/tramples diversity, and sparks/torpedoes innovation. Its vibrancy depends on a company’s leadership paradigms.
AllyO is an AI technology company based in Silicon Valley. It was founded in 2016 with a simple mission - make recruiting delightful and efficient for everyone. It is backed by leading investors such as Google, Randstad Innovation Fund, Bain Capital Ventures and Cervin Ventures.
AllyO addresses the traditional inefficiencies of lost applicants and conversions due to poor candidate experience, high cost of recruiting due to overburdening of menial tasks on hiring teams, and lack of visibility and control for HR leadership. It is re-inventing recruiting by bringing the recruiting process to the applicant rather than taking the applicants to the recruiting process.
AllyO utilizes deep workflow conversational AI to fully automate the end to end recruiting workflow by intelligently engaging through texting over mobile and web. It enables conversational job matching across all talent acquisition channels, intelligently qualifies the candidate specifically for the best-fit role, automates interview scheduling and post-interview interactions, drives retention through post-hire check-ins, and gathers actionable insights to improve overall recruiting performance.
It is used by several large enterprises and has processed millions of applicant interactions to schedule over hundred thousand interviews. As a result, these enterprises have experienced 2-6X increase in applicant capture and conversion rate, 91% application completion rate, and over 50% reduction in cost and time to hire.
On today's tech podcast I chat to Sahil Sahni, co-founder of AllyO to discuss HR trends at large and machine learning topics. We also discuss their inspirational startup story.
Alexa Raad, COO of Farsight Security. Alexa escaped the Iranian Revolution as a teenager – she, her mother and sister caught the last cargo plane out of the country. She went from a prosperous life in Iran to having almost nothing in an instant. But the experience taught her an important lesson – “The only thing in life you have control over is yourself. Only you can control your actions.”
Her parents expected she would become a doctor, but Alexa instead majored in marketing. And with the dawn of the internet, she discovered a passion for technology. She has held senior leadership positions with AT&T, Bell Atlantic and Cybercash and now serves as the COO of Farsight Security.
Alexa shares her journey to the C-Suite, the key threats plaguing the security operations center (SOC) and why internet governance cannot be our only shield against bad actors.
Most of us that have caught an Uber or Lyft will know how surge pricing can help increase the driver's earnings. But have you ever thought of how the times that events end, traffic reports, flight arrivals, weather, etc. can all help increase their earnings too
Pittsburgh based Gridwise is an app that Uber, Via and Lyft drivers use get to get live updates on events ending, traffic reports, flight arrives, weather, etc. Anything that can help increase their earnings.
As drivers, the team at Gridwise understand the pains of rideshare driving and how to address them. Besides helping the drivers, they have a ton of industry data around hot pickup spots, surcharging, etc. After reading a recent report focused on earnings in rush hour), I invited Ryan Green, the CEO and Co-Founder of Gridwise onto the show.
We discuss how the mobile platform that increases rideshare drivers earnings 39% by helping them know when and where to drive.
As an early adopter of tech, it's easy to find yourself with a wide range of hubs and bridges to keep your smart home devices connected in a highly fragmented marketplace. The days of having just a laptop, smartphone and tablet to your home network are long gone.
Tech has transformed our lives and the average home now has family members streaming YouTube, Netflix, and playing video games. But this is only the beginning. Slow cookers, home heating, lighting, and even toasters can all connect to the internet.
Upon looking at my own setup, I noticed I had a number of TP-Link devices and thought I would ask them onto my daily tech podcast and ask them just much has changed. Thankfully, they said yes.
Founded in 1996, TP-Link is a global provider of reliable networking devices and accessories, involved in all aspects of everyday life. With a proven heritage of stability, performance, and value, TP-Link has curated a portfolio of products that meet the networking needs of all individuals.
Now, as the connected lifestyle continues to evolve, the company is expanding today to exceed the demands of tomorrow. I talk the TP-Link about the release of Deco M9 Plus, the smart home Mesh Wi-Fi System.
We also talk about TP-Link's HomeCare, Cybersecurity, Network foundation for the smart home too.
While the value of blockchain often lies in its potential rather than its real-time use, South Korea has gradually emerged as a global leader in real-world blockchain applications.
In August, the government announced its plans to invest nearly $4.5 billion USD towards the development of blockchain, AI, and other emerging technologies. The Ministry of Science and ICT also announced plans to invest an additional $9 million USD to kick start pilot blockchain projects in the public sector.
On today's tech podcast, I invited Jake Choi from the Fantom Foundation to find out more about how the industry is thriving in South Korea. We also talk about how the Fantom Foundation is the world’s first DAG-based smart contract platform.
With his extensive knowledge of disruptive technologies and the overall market in mind, I learn more about how South Korea is helping bring blockchain closer to the mainstream.
Our conversation also covers the following:
- What systematic problems have contributed to the rise of blockchain technology, and how it both mirrors and differs from that of the Internet and mobile technology.
- The strongest use cases for blockchain in today’s market, and how addressing scalability, interoperability, and complexity concerns can expand the technology’s practical applications.
- The advantages and disadvantages behind companies starting out with localized adoptions of blockchain and research projects before going global.
A quick look at the recent news headlines reveales that the payments industry has been under attack. When I delved deeper into this story, I found a recent survey that also revealed that a mass majority (84%) of payments industry professionals believe payments fraud is going to get worse – and soon.
Smaller companies that process online payments are enlisting the help of payment processors - like Stripe, Square, or PayPal - to help them meet stringent compliance standards like PCI DSS. But are they opening themselves up into a security risk?
“The fact that the malware targets sites using a variety of payment gateway providers calls into question the effectiveness of PCI DSS security standards for online businesses, in particular, the absence of a requirement for businesses to know and manage all third-party code present on their sites and apps,” wrote Michael Bittner, digital security and operations manager at The Media Trust.
tCell researchers discovered that hackers can use Cross Site Scripting (XSS) to steal payment information. Any web application component (like a chat window) can become a possible attack vector, but very few non-payment-related components will have recognized the need to implement a PCI-style deep security program.
This is no longer just a theoretical attack -- recently this approach was used on Magento e-commerce customers. And the British Airways hack used this same approach as well.
I invited Matthew Gast from tCell onto my daily tech podcast to find out more about what companies can do to protect customers visiting their website or application from Cross Site Scripting (XSS)
Dean Bubley is a prominent, influential & outspoken technology industry analyst and consultant, specialising in the telecoms, mobile and wireless sector. Numerous clients among global telecom operators, vendors, startups, regulators and industry bodies.
Dean is also regular presenter and moderator at conferences, panel debates, roundtables & podcasts, for network operators, technology vendors and event organisers.
On todays tech podcast Dean diffuses the hype that surrounds tech trends such as AI, Voice Search, 5G, Blockchain and trends in the telecommunications industry.
As someone who was disruptive before disruption went mainstream, we also discuss What excites Dean about the future and the role that technology will play in it.
Live Animations is an international IT company specializing in the development of innovative products with augmented reality (AR) for children.
Live Animations has released 4 world-famous children's books with Little Hippo: "Little Red Riding Hood", "Three Little Pigs", "Velvet Rabbit", "Masha and the Three Bears". Books with augmented reality have already appeared on the shelves of 3,650 Walmart stores in the US. The first edition was 250,000 copies.
In June 2018, Live Animations and Little Hippo received the Parents Choice Award (awarded by the non-profit Parents Choice Foundation to celebrate the best products for children of all ages). This is one of the most prestigious awards in children's products.
On today's tech podcast I learn more about how they are bringing traditional storytelling to life with Augmented Reality. But we also discuss:
How AR can help your product
When you should use AR - what types of projects can AR help
How much does it cost to create AR/VR product
How Enterprise business can use AR
How to increase customer engagement using AR
Mobility Management Software (MMS) leader MOBI recently announced new updates to its software product aimed at connecting all mobile technologies and third-party data integrations with one centralized system. This exposes new insights that will lead to cost savings, enhanced mobility program controls, and a new level of user visibility across an entire mobile ecosystem.
“The enterprise landscape is exploding and evolving with the introduction of new devices, capabilities, and broader adoption of nontraditional mobile endpoints by businesses,” said Josh Garrett, president and co-founder of MOBI. “And while new technology is dramatically improving the way we work, it’s incredibly complicated for businesses to manage profitably, especially when it comes to deploying and managing devices under its ‘virtual roof’.
I invited Josh back onto the show to learn how they simplify mobility management and are improving user experiences. But also how Rosie will join its existing family of Mobots™ to help customers optimize mobile spend. Rosie joins the family of four existing Mobots™: Audrey, Johnny, Otto, and Mikey, who were first deployed in December 2017. Will Neil be the next Mobot in 2019?
As someone that spends far too much time on my smartphone, I often get frustrated by having to switch apps when responding to messages across WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, and so many other time-sucking messaging apps demanding my attention. Could there be a better way?
Fleksy is an award-winning alternative keyboard for your phone and tablet available for Android and iPhone. Fleksy aims to give you full control on customization, productivity, and privacy. With Fleksy, you can share, find and send GIFs, stickers, videos, images, links all from the convenience of your keyboard.
What does this mean? No more switching between apps. You manage everything from your keyboard. Maybe this is why Fleksy counts for more than 13 million downloads on the Google Play and App Store combined.
Thingthing, the company behind Fleksy Keyboard, the fastest and most private smartphone keyboard in the world, announced today that it has successfully secured $815,119 from 446 investors via its latest equity crowdfunding campaign for the Fleksy smart mobile keyboard.
According to comScore’s 2017 Cross-Platform Future in Focus report, the average American adult (18+) spends 2 hours, 51 minutes on their smartphone every day. According to eMarketer, Americans spend 55 minutes a day texting and 25 minutes a day on mobile email.
“In this mobile-first era, an elegant yet sound keyboard experience is paramount for practical, high-function as well as enjoyable use of smartphones and appropriate connected devices,” said Olivier Plante, CEO of Thingthing.
“Plus, mobile phone manufacturers are challenged to monetize users as profits in business have shifted away from the hardware device and toward software and services, and this is where Fleksy is an ideal software partner - especially for brands that need the revenue sharing to better compete with the cache brands.”
I invited Olivier Plante onto the show to learn more about how Fleksy users can access content on any messaging app and perform web searches without having to switch between apps. We also discuss how it was declared the fastest mobile keyboard in the world by the Guinness Book of Records.
Olivier is aiming for the ambitious target of 550 million devices using Fleksy by 2020
When you are enjoying a sports game in a venue with 40,000 other fans enjoying a hot dog and a cold drink, have you ever thought of the tech working behind the scenes? that made your experience special? Today, I want to explore the cutting-edge analytics that can predict the attendance, food consumption and key moments when they will be busiest throughout the game.
E15 delivers next-generation insights based on data, not hunches, to drive business in MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL, College Sports, and beyond. Our team brings unmatched industry intelligence and cutting-edge analytics to sports, entertainment, hospitality, and retail industries to help companies make forward-looking decisions to benefit their business, fans and customers.
Essentially, E15 helps clients to test and implement the best new technology to create a more seamless guest experience – from food and beverage service to merchandise to ticketing, and beyond.
The group also brings together experts across a number of fields – from economics and statistics to psychology, behavioral science and computer science.
As CEO of Levy Restaurants’ analytics subsidiary E15, Jaime Faulkner heads a team of data scientists, analysts, software developers, and engineers, setting a new standard for using actionable intelligence to improve every facet of partners’ operations – from the optimal distribution of hot dogs in arenas to predicting daily attendance.
Jaime is setting the new standard in intelligence, from the optimal distribution of hot dogs in arenas and predicting daily attendance to using technology to enhance guest experience across all touchpoints. In 2015, Jaime was named one of Sports Business Journal’s Women Game Changers in Sports, and named to SBJ’s 40 Under 40 list in 2016.
Jaime’s love of data sprang from an early project estimating the potential future earnings of an NBA player who had been injured. Immersing herself in the stats and building models she discovered a passion for blending analytics with professional sports.
A graduate of Baylor University with a degree in economics, Jaime is still a Baylor Bears fan and loves a hot dog and a cold one on a summer day at the ballpark with her family.
Zinc and Field Technologies Online recently announced findings from a new report “Effective Enterprise Communication: The Foundation Of Strategic Field Service” and some of the key findings include:
- 23% of respondents are using consumer messaging apps - i.e. text, WhatsApp, GroupMe, etc. - which pose risks with security and administration.
- 90% of survey respondents indicated that real-time communication is either mission-critical (50%) or very important (40%) to their field workers being able to do their jobs effectively.
- 70% of field service organizations surveyed say their visibility into field operations could use improvement.
- More than half of survey respondents (53%) reported that their field workers are only somewhat engaged or even somewhat disengaged.
- Further, 50% of respondents said that they need to improve upon their methods of enabling field workers to provide feedback to management.
The report examined how effective enterprise communication enables field service organizations to be more intentional and strategic in their service delivery.
Field service, and deskless workers, comprise anywhere from 72-80% of the global workforce, or about 3 billion people. These workers include field service technicians, hotel staff, utility workers, flight crews, warehouse staff, manufacturing plant engineers, etc.
As these workers are always on the go and not sitting at a desk, the tools and technologies they use to communicate in real time on the job are explored in greater detail in the report.
The findings from the report reinforce what we already know. Real-time communication drives measurable results for field teams, yet deskless workers aren’t armed with easy to use technology built with their unique needs in mind.
Innovative field service organizations who embrace a communication platform built for deskless worker will improve the productivity of their workforce by giving them real-time access to the information and resources they need to get their jobs done.
Zinc CEO Stacey Epstein talks about the new report and the role Zinc plays in the deskless worker industry.
Taryn Southern, singer/songwriter, filmmaker, and artist, recently announced the release of her pop album titled I AM AI. The first ever musical collaboration between a solo artist and artificial intelligence, I AM AI uses a variety of different AI software including Amper Music, IBM’s Watson Beat, Google’s NSynth, and AIVA.
It took a village (literally!) to make Taryn Southern's new blockchain anthem too. New World is the first song to be tokenized with Ethereum smart contracts, allowing 240+ token holders to collaborate on lyrics and own a portion of the song. Each participant will receive royalties from song sales & streams through Trust Troken and delivered to their Ethereum wallet.
The album is distributed through stem.is, a distribution and revenue tracking service that enables royalty payments to be split between collaborators.
It took a village (literally!) to make Taryn Southern's blockchain anthem. New World is the first song to be tokenized with Ethereum smart contracts, allowing 240+ token holders to collaborate on lyrics and own a portion of the song. Each participant will receive royalties from song sales & streams through Trust Troken and delivered to their Ethereum wallet.
The music videos that accompany the singles leverage AR, VR, and 360° video technology too. I invited Taryn back onto the show to learn more about how she is leveraging all of the latest technologies and bringing them into every aspect of the creative process.
“Working with AI not only helped me fortify my creative abilities, it gave me a new language and appreciation for music development and creation.”
Background on Taryn Southern
Taryn Southern is an artist and technologist with more than 700 million views across her videos. Since Taryn uploaded her first song to YouTube in 2007, she’s produced more than 1500 videos, guest starred on dozens of television shows, and hosted several music-related series and specials, including The American Music Awards, The Grammys, The X Factor.
In 2013, her song “Crush” on the Mediabase Top 200 radio charts and she began hosting her own weekend countdown show for Sirius XM’s The Pulse. In addition to her experiments with AI and blockchain technology, Taryn is currently directing and producing a documentary on the future of man and machine.
For everyone listening in Western Europe and The US, many will be getting excited about the holiday season and picking up one of the latest one thousand dollar smartphones. But for billions of people in the world, they are still off the grid with no access to a bank account or a smartphone.
So the next time you are complaining about the cost of your smartphone contract, spare a thought for those on US$10 a day and where smartphone could easily cost half their monthly income.
A company called PayJoy is working with Samsung to bring phones to the global community and those who can’t afford or don’t have credit. Essentially PayJoy brings smartphone technology to customers who otherwise could not afford it.
Their smartphone lock, data science, and world-class platform make consumer finance work where it was never before feasible. PayJoy was founded in 2015 at Stanford University in Silicon Valley, secured over $20M of funding from top venture capital firms, and is now selling to customers across the US and Mexico, with ambitions to reach the 3 billion underbanked consumers worldwide.
It's a fantastic story I want to hear about the big difference they have been aking in Latin America, India, Africa and indeed the whole world.
About today's guest
Mark Heynen is a serial entrepreneur, most recently helping to found and launch PayJoy. He also founded Photo Lab (sold to Dropbox as DropTalk), and led client initiatives/business development/operations from early on at Skycatch.
Mark previously worked with partners across the mobile ecosystem to embed Facebook in mobile devices and launch Android at Google.
Varsity Tutors is a Live Learning Platform that seamlessly connects experts and learners in any subject, anywhere, at any time. To date, students have accessed nearly four million hours of live instruction on the platform.
Experts are available to meet in person or through the company's award-winning online and mobile platforms, which account for the majority of all sessions. The company has raised $107 million in funding from investors including TCV, Learn Capital and The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Varsity Tutors was founded in 2007 at Washington University in St. Louis.
Kevin Gaugush from Varsity Tutors returns to my daily tech podcast. The last time we spoke, we learned about their mission to help people learn and their vision to seamlessly connect experts and learners in any subject, anywhere, anytime. I found myself inspired by their motto of forever learning and always growing.
Recently the platform announced that they now offer Instant Tutoring in every high school and middle school subject. With Instant Tutoring, students can log on via mobile or desktop and be matched with a highly vetted expert in less than 10 seconds. Perfect for late night test prep or homework related questions parents may not know.
"We're continuing to see momentum with Instant Tutoring because parents and students have seen firsthand the benefits of being able to connect with an expert in any subject right from your laptop or mobile phone. Instant usage is up triple digits year over year, with the bulk of demand coming from our middle and high school-aged students."
The recent addition of 77 subjects brings Instant Tutoring to 216 subjects in total, making it the most robust on-demand tutoring service available to students and their families. The platform includes live video chat, a whiteboard, subject-specific tools like a document editor, and session recording and playback functionality.
SparkFund powers organizations by providing access to the latest energy technology in a new and better way - through a simple monthly subscription model backed by a no-risk guarantee.
The company partners with contractors, ESCOs, manufacturers, utilities, and energy retailers to deliver the Sparkfund technology subscription transforming how businesses implement energy technology. SparkFund also seeks to create positive change for the world by deploying solutions that make good business sense and are good for the planet.
An energy technology subscription company focused on procuring, managing and optimizing energy technology for commercial spaces sounds incredibly intriguing, doesn’t it? It was fascinating to hear how SparkFund believes upgrades shouldn’t be complicated or require spending lots of money upfront. And that is why their goal is to change the way energy technology is accessed.
After hearing how they were helping organizations by providing access to the latest energy technology in a new and better way—through a simple monthly subscription model, I felt compelled to learn more. On today' daily tech podcast, I speak with Pier LaFarge Co-Founder and CEO of SparkFund.
Pier is an experienced entrepreneur and changemaker. At ICF International, he co-founded a new ICF service offering focused on energy efficiency finance strategy.
Pier also has experience in financial analysis, working on a major evaluation of loan financing modalities employed by the World Bank under its Climate Investment Fund program.
Nouriel Roubini, Bill Clinton’s former senior economist, recently said that the decline in the value of Ethereum was expected due to its lack of active decentralized applications (dApps) claiming that ‘75% of dApps are crypto-kitties, scammy Ponzi pyramid schemes, and casino games’.
Although Ethereum is still in its infancy, the question of scalability has plagued the popular protocol. Ethereum is only able to process about 10 to 12 transactions per seconds on its mainnet, limiting the type of services dApps could provide.
With this in mind, I invited Daniel Peled, Co-Founder of Orbs, onto the podcast to talk about the future of Ethereum, the mainstream adoption of dApps and much more.
Orbs, is a public blockchain acting as the production layer to complement Ethereum. Daniel believes that adopting Orbs alongside Ethereum allows dApps to enjoy the best of both chains: unmatched security, liquidity and ecosystem integration, together with low-fees, production-ready scalability and a suitable fee structure.
Could the combination of Ethereum and Orbs be the optimal solution for applications with millions of users looking to adopt blockchain? These are just a few areas that we explore on this daily tech podcast.
This entrepreneur’s radical, renegade-style approach to product development has sparked the success of a FinTech company in a league of its own
Mark Kilpatrick was raised in Stevenson, Washington, a community of approximately 1,500 residents, nestled on the northern bank of the Columbia River. As a ‘small town kid,’ Mark fondly remembers opening his first checking account at Riverview Community Bank.
Years later, sitting in the Financial District of Manhattan, in a sleek office overlooking the East River, Mark is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Urban FT - a FinTech company with a large enterprise value. With over 700 clients, 650+ of which are small to medium-sized banks and credit unions, Mark's mission is to empower the ‘little guys.' Reminiscent of Riverview Community Bank, these businesses are the underdogs of the finance space.
Originally trained in graphic design, Mark has taken his passion for drafting beautiful images, stories, and interfaces to the point he is now penned as a UX pioneer and the linchpin of Urban FT’s mission by taking a renegade-style approach to product development. Strategic risk-taking and a passion for radical design have been the recipe for success in Mark’s career, as he continues to be a key element for the advancement of one of the most progressive FinTech brands today.
Since graduation, empowering his community and giving back have been valuable for Mark, both personally and professionally. He has continued to show support for his alma mater through annual giving and establishing his role as co-president of the NYC Alumni Chapter.
In addition, Mark has created a pick-up soccer league for adults, coordinated charity soccer tournaments, and has engaged with Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths program. He is an active member of the Young Entrepreneurs Club (YEC), American Marketing Association (AMA), and the Federal Reserve System’s Faster Payments Task Force.
Fondly remembering his roots as that ‘small town kid,’ Urban FT’s company mission hits close to home for Mark. By continuing to drive the brand’s objective forward, Mark one day hopes to give back by servicing Riverview Community Bank - actively empowering them to compete with the industry titans in the same way Urban FT has done with many others.
snap40 is an AI-enabled healthcare company with the mission to protect the health of every human being. The company recently announced that it has secured $8 million in seed financing led by ADV, with participation from MMC Ventures.
This latest investment round takes them to $10 million, which is the largest seed financing round for a digital healthcare company in the UK.
What makes it special? snap40 monitors the human body in real-time using its wearable device, with accuracy equivalent to ICU monitoring. Using this real-time data, the company’s proprietary algorithms identify those whose health is at risk and proactively bring healthcare to them.
Initially, snap40 is deploying this with top healthcare providers in the U.K. and the U.S. The startup offers a complete, automated picture of human health. Using a wearable device, the company monitors individuals during and after hospital admissions, as well as for chronic health conditions and in clinical trials.
According to initial clinical trials, snap40’s proprietary AI algorithms provide awareness of acute or chronic patient deterioration earlier than standard care. In addition, snap40’s continuous and automated approach provides insights to doctors and nurses about health behaviors that might go unnoticed in today’s healthcare environments, offering improved workflows, reduced stress and better systems of care for everyone.
Christopher McCann, snap40 CEO, and co-founder said, “As a medical student, I witnessed patients live with a long-term disability or die as a result of late recognition of their deteriorating health. This is where technology can make a difference. It’s a moral imperative to use all of our knowledge in science and technology to improve healthcare.
I invited Christopher McCann onto the show to learn more about how they are using AI to recognize illness earlier and enable earlier treatment that can save lives, and it can prepare our healthcare system for the future.
Facebook recently released yet another app, this time to track events. It enables marketers to set up app event tracking without having to add code but the problem is nobody is using it. Do you know how many events are taking place near your home today? and if you wanted to look for a list, how would you find them?
Despite advances in technology, the event landscape is extremely fragmented with event information scattered in multiple places. All of which are typically are invisible to their target audience as virtual press releases get lost in the white noise.
Richard Green, is the Founder and CEO, of Evvnt. The London-based tech startup which has developed a unique event marketing automation software that is transforming the event industry through its event tech. Evvnt are gaining a big reputation both here in Europe and now in the US so I invited him onto the show to learn more.
Through scalable SaaS technology, Evvnt creates a campaign of marketing activity to ensure individual events appear on over 3,500 event listing sites. Since its launch in 2012, Evvnt has had over 30,000 customers across 139 countries. The company is also preparing to launch in the US, having recently entered into an agreement for a $450,000 investment from three US newspaper groups.
Essentially, Evvnt develops a software platform which helps event organizers manage and promote events across event listing sites, calendars, directories, ticketing, social networks and search engines.
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POST
Submit your event just once we’ll amplify it across thousands of sites to reach a potential audience of more than 40 million people. -
TARGET
We can increase your reach with geo-location and category-specific tools designed to speak to your ideal audience on their terms. -
BOOST
We use trusted search engine publishers and keywords to elevate your event’s organic SEO visibility.
On todays tech podcast, Richard shares his story about his passion to fix the problems with the event industry using technology.
I chat with John Ristuccia, Vice President, Professional Services at sales ops firm Optymyze, on my daily tech podcast.
I want to find out more about how John and his team at Optymyze are revolutionizing sales operations with Sales Performance Management (SPM). But also how it combines data science, process automation, enterprise planning, and advanced analytics to enable clients to execute new sales strategies and effectively drive sales performance and sales force productivity.
John also discusses the digital transformation challenges he sees first hand working with large enterprise clients and how sales orgs can overcome them – whether inaccurate CRM data, manual processes, or unclear compensation policies that do little to motivate sales reps.
After over 650 episodes, this is the first time that I tackle the subject of Sales Performance Management and the role of technology in its success. Today I learn how SPM data from Optymyze’s solution addresses a key shortcoming on CRM – adoption.
I also begin to understand how one of the key reasons sales reps don’t update CRM every day is that they can’t see the impact this process has on their own personal bottom line. Instead, layering CRM and SFA with SPM – comprised largely of sales compensation data - gives sales reps insight into how much more money they could actually make if they act upon the insights derived from CRM/SFA.
The motivation is more tangible. For the C-Suite, SPM data also provides a much more accurate picture of corporate performance in real-time with the ability to course correct motivational compensation in real time and streamline payout processes which make forecasting more easily predictable.
iQor is a managed services provider of customer engagement and technology-enabled BPO solutions. With 45,000 employees in 18 countries. It is also the only global managed services provider embedded in the flow between product, people, and services, from point of customer acquisition to sustainable recycling.
They partner with many of the world's best-known brands such as Apple and Microsoft to deliver aftermarket product and customer support solutions that span the consumer value chain, from customer care and receivables management to product diagnostics and repair services.
Things have changed since I last spoke to the team at Iqor and I wanted to find out if their direction has changed now that they have a new CEO at the helm.
I invited Connie Long onto the show to learn more about her story. We also discuss how their award-winning technology, logistics, and analytics platforms enable them to measure, monitor, and analyze brand interactions, improve business processes, and find operational efficiencies that lead to superior outcomes for their partners across the customer and product life cycles.
Connie Long is the senior vice president of operations at iQor, a managed services provider of customer engagement and technology-enabled BPO solutions. Connie leads the strategic planning and business operations, including innovation and data transformation initiatives, for iQor’s hubs in North America.
Universal Reward Protocol is a blockchain-based protocol where retailers can reward shoppers for any shopping behavior, online and offline (store visit, online browsing, purchase, etc.). By accepting to share their shopping data with the network, a shopper earns reward tokens, while the data is used by retailers to build redemption offers that best suit each customer’s needs. Shoppers can redeem their tokens through these exclusive and personalized offers.
Louis Millon, CTO & Co-founder of URP talks about how the Universal Reward Protocol is bringing shopping back to brick & mortar and the effects that Blockchain acceptance will bring to retail space when consumers begin embracing solutions.
At this years Magento Live, the theme of the event was how traditional brands were using technology to drive experience-driven commerce.
For example, if I was to ask you your opinion or what you know about Rossignol, I suspect you would say something along the lines of French manufacturer of Skis, snowboards, as well as related outerwear and accessories. But not necessarily say the word technology at any point.
This is what is so interesting to me and a great example of how tech is not only transforming our lives, its every business and every industry.
Damien Hars is the Head of Digital Marketing & E-commerce at Rossignol and shared the stage with the Magento and the Adobe CEO in a game-changing moment that suggested to me at least that experience-driven commerce just became everyone's business.
The promotional video that followed was a clear indicator to me of just how much tech is changing the business landscape. It no longer matters the size of your business or how much money you can throw at something.
It's about creating meaningful experiences and being able to move much more quickly and adapt. Big businesses are struggling to keep up the pace with legacy systems and the shackles of their internal processes and phrases like we have always done it this way.
The message I am taking home from Magento Live is that transformational change is not just about big business or even the tech industry, it really is about every business and every industry creating experiences to meet the expectations of their customers.
On today's daily tech podcast, I chat with Damien Hars, head of digital, marketing & E-commerce at Rossignol who talks about how digital is changing the sports business and enabling Rossignol to become a global all year brand
DC Thomson is a private company and one of the leading media organizations in the UK. It is headquartered in Dundee, Scotland, with a London base in the world-famous Fleet Street. The company publishes newspapers, magazines and has diversified into new media, digital technology, retail and television interests.
On this daily tech podcast, I am passionate about exploring how industries you would not associate with technology are evolving and leveraging technology without adding the decline of their traditional offering.
Printed media has experienced more challenges than most as we enter the digital transformation. In a digital world where we read what an algorithm recommends for us, I also wanted to learn more about how we can protect those happy accidents in life where we stumble across content by accident.
While here at MagentoLive Europe, I invited Kirsten Morrison and Alan Melrose onto the show from DC Thomson to find out more about how both the worlds of print media and advertising are evolving. We also discuss how they are turning challenges into opportunities by leveraging technology.
Adobe today unveiled its vision and strategy to make every experience shoppable by integrating Magento Commerce Cloud into Adobe Experience Cloud, enabling enterprise companies to create highly engaging, personalized shopping experiences.
Integration with Adobe Experience Cloud’s content management, personalization, and analytics solutions provides an unrivaled offering for enterprises looking to deliver world-class commerce experiences. The company also unveiled a major update of the Magento platform to empower small and mid-market merchants to extend the lead in commerce innovation and agility.
With rising customer expectations and increased competition, brands now compete on the quality of the customer experience they offer over a lifetime of customer engagement, both on and offline. Adobe’s vision for experience-driven commerce is to empower companies to unify end-to-end customer experiences from creation to commerce, driving loyalty and business growth.
“Consumers expect every interaction with a brand to be contextual, intuitive and meaningful, but companies have struggled to consistently deliver personalized experiences across the myriad of touchpoints,” said Mark Lavelle, senior vice president of commerce, Adobe and former CEO of Magento.
“The innovations we are bringing to market enable companies of all sizes and across industries to make every experience shoppable.”
About Magento
Magento an Adobe company, is a leading provider of cloud commerce innovation to merchants and brands across B2C and B2B industries and was recently named a leader in the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce.
In addition to its flagship digital commerce platform, Magento boasts a strong portfolio of cloud-based omnichannel solutions that empower merchants to successfully integrate digital and physical shopping experiences.
Magento is also the #1 provider to the Internet Retailer Top 1000, the B2B 300 and the Top 500 Guides for Europe and Latin America. Magento is supported by a vast global network of solution and technology partners, a highly active global developer community and the largest eCommerce marketplace for extensions available for download on the Magento Marketplace
Ultra is building a first-class PC game publishing platform and marketplace that puts an end to the current distribution monopoly.
Founded in 2017 by Nicolas Gilot and David Hanson, Ultra’s vision is to provide developers with the flexibility of a custom-built platform while bringing exciting innovations and financial incentives to players, making the development of a new breakthrough game distribution platform possible.
Created by industry heavyweights and former Xbox, Atari, Dell, Uber, and Time Warner executives, Ultra plans to disrupt the distribution monopoly in the gaming industry by being fairer to developers, introducing new revenue streams, providing effective marketing tools, and establishing a rich token-based economy.
On today's tech podcast, CEO Nicolas Gilot shares the story behind the company dubbed as "Steam on steroids for PC games" We explore the unfairness and problems in the gaming industry and how blockchain can deliver much-needed trust and transparency to the industry.
Currently, there’s only one application performance management (APM) solution for big data that correlates full-stack performance metrics while providing automated insights and recommendations. It’s done by Unravel Data.
The company has just been named a 2018 Cool Vendor by leading research and advisory firm Gartner in a report titled, “Cool Vendors in Performance Analysis; Analytics and Containers.” Gartner's Cool Vendor research is designed to highlight interesting, new and innovative vendors, products and services.
“Unravel Data was founded off the back of first-hand experience with the frustration of manually troubleshooting performance problems in big data stacks,” commented Kunal Agarwal, CEO of Unravel Data.
“Today, we’re helping enterprises solve their big data problems around cost optimization, service level agreement guarantees, and proactive monitoring and automated remediation so that they spend less time firefighting issues. From our view, recognition from Gartner as a Cool Vendor is very exciting, validates our work, and underscores the momentum we have as we reimagine big data and change the way our customers transform to being data-driven and insight-led.”
But where did it all begin?
Unravel Data was founded after Kunal Agarwal and Dr. Shivnath Babu who experienced the frustration of manually troubleshooting performance problems in Big Data stacks. Not only does the platform monitor and unify system-level data, but it goes the extra mile to track, correlate, and interpret performance data.
On today's tech podcast I learn how these automated insights are helping businesses analyze, troubleshoot, and optimize the performance of big data apps. We also discuss how Unravel recently closed Series B funding and have also announced a collaboration with Microsoft Azure in May.
Kunal Agarwal reveals how Unravel radically simplifies big data operations with built in AI and ML.
SimpleOrder was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2012 by restaurant industry veterans who saw a critical need to bring back-of-house operations into the 21st Century.
SimpleOrder provides restaurant operators with an automated inventory system that provides counts in real-time, reducing food waste while simultaneously streamlining the ordering and replenishment process. SimpleOrder currently helps thousands of restaurants in over 25 countries reduce waste, cut costs and streamline operations.
On today's tech podcast, I want to explore how they are using technology to connect the whole house, from the front-of-house POS to the back-of-house cost management, down to the recipe level. As results, restaurants need only go to one place to get all they need to provide remarkable hospitality.
I also learn more about the story behind the company, from encountering frustrating pain points that inspired them to bootstrap their way to success to the recent acquisition by Upserve and what that means for the future of the business.
The trucking industry is currently reliant on outdated tech fraught with paper trails, long wait times, and numerous middlemen that take advantage of independent truckers by pitting them in race-to-the-bottom competitions for loads.
Rick Burnett is the CEO and founder of LaneAxis, a virtual freight management system that seeks to disrupt the shipping industry by directly connecting shipper and carriers via a proprietary blockchain network.
LaneAxis wants to use blockchain to eliminate these inefficiencies and empower truckers to take control of their industry. Rick has envisioned a unique deployment of Smart Contracts, GPS IoT tracking, and a mobile app that come together to help meet increased demands for shipping and lessen the effects of the current driver shortage.
On today's tech podcast, we also discuss LaneAxis features such as route optimization, freight quality assurance, driver safety logs, and weather alerts.
Lisk is a blockchain application platform whose mission is to bring blockchain technology to the mainstream through an SDK (Sidechain Development Kit) being written in JavaScript, the most commonly used programming language in the world. By utilizing sidechain technology and with a special focus on usability and accessibility, Lisk aims to become the go-to platform for blockchain application development. Headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, the Lisk Foundation raised over 14,000 Bitcoins during its ICO in March 2016. Regular listeners will remember that I spoke to Thomas Schouten on episode 600 of this podcast about how the Lisk Academy is aiming to facilitate the faster adoption of blockchain by the general public. On today's tech podcast, I am talking with Lisk's tech evangelist Rachel Black about how Lisk is working to engage their vital stakeholder community and become the go-to platform for developing decentralized applications. Rachel Black's role as Tech Evangelist involves engaging with Lisk’s developer community through blog posts, events and social media on the latest product developments in order to bridge the understanding across tech and marketing.
Did you know that text messaging has the potential to save millions of lives and billions in health care costs by ensuring patients adhere to their prescriptions?
Every day, millions of people fail to take their medications as prescribed and the resulting personal and financial costs are staggering. Worldwide, non-adherence results in $700 billion in avoidable medical costs.
Non-adherence accounts for upwards of 50% of doctor visits, 40% of long-term care admissions, and more than 50% of hospital readmissions? Texting could provide a simple solution to a devastating problem, especially for managing chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and mental health disorders.
"If adherence therapy were a new drug it would be hailed as a potentially major advance in medical treatment” - Professor Richard Gray
I wanted to learn more about how Curaizon is revolutionizing healthcare and improving drug-adherence through big data analytics delivered via the blockchain. CEO, Nicholas Rumble, discusses Curaizon’s approach to tackling this critical challenge facing healthcare and why blockchain/ICO is the perfect fit for what they want to achieve.
"Increasing the effectiveness of adherence interventions may have a far greater impact on the health of the population than any improvement in specific medical treatments.” The World Health Organization
I also learn how text messaging has the potential to save millions of lives and billions in healthcare costs by ensuring patients adhere to their prescriptions.
On today's tech podcast, we explore how the key to improving healthcare, reducing costs and saving lives could be as simple as helping patients take their medications properly.
We also discuss how the data Curaizon creates is unique and has enormous value to pharmaceutical companies, researchers and governments. Every time a patient uses their CuraServe technology, their data grows in utility and value.
Curaizon™ solves drug non-adherence problem by deploying their technology through national health services. As part of our solution, they collect fully anonymized data about how and when patients take medications.
We also explore how CuraTokens™ is the only way to access this data. Tokens can be redeemed to access the data, which will advance medical research, drive down healthcare costs and save lives.
IDG is the world's largest technology media company. They help their global audience make the smartest technology purchasing decisions. Like many of you reading this, I grew up with Windows For Dummies Books, SQL for dummies and any tech subject was covered by those books that were all made by IDG.
Essentially many of these IDG books transformed how the global community grew to understand the enormous potential of computers and started to think about how they would change the world.
Founder Pat McGovern was a pioneer in the information technology industry, in his own way, he was equally as vital as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. But he never sought the spotlight and many of this contributions have been overlooked.
Pat McGovern, was the man who turned IDG into a $3 billion technology media and venture capital empire and eternal optimist that put people and making a difference first and kept himself in the shadows.
Glenn Rifkin worked with Pat McGovern and has written a book called Future Forward where he shares McGovern's legacy so provides leadership lessons so that others can learn from this inspiring man.
On today's daily tech podcast, you will learn how one innovative leader transformed an entire industry into a global media empire and learn more about the visionary founder and chairman of IDG. A warm and genuinely inspiring story of how tech and media have evolved since 1964.
As a host, I loved learning about how one innovative leader saw an industry need and built a leading global business on the foundation of quality.
A great example of what can be achieved with passion, innovation, and a “let’s try it” attitude. I genuinely hope that Pat McGovern's legacy will live on in every person that listens to this episode.
How do you evaluate millions of different signals when time is of the essence? This was the question that started it all.
In 2009, the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) at Fort Belvoir sought the capability to track national security threats in real time. The solution needed to produce instant results and visualize insights across massive streaming datasets.
Nothing existed in the market that met their needs. Data warehouses were too slow, NoSQL wouldn’t scale and premium in-memory solutions promised real time but didn't deliver. These are the problems that led to the creation of Kinectica.
Paul Appleby, CEO of Kinetica, believes that the data that is generated through business activities has become more valuable than the business activities themselves – heralding this new era he calls the “Extreme Data Economy.”
For Paul, it is apparent that businesses are increasingly facing enormous challenges addressing massive sets of complex data at unparalleled speed, making it almost impossible to maintain business in motion.
In order to understand this era of the data-driven economy, Paul believes it is incumbent upon business leaders and technologists to evolve their thinking around data to the point where data shapes business strategies, drives investments and enables hyper growth.
Guest Info
Paul Appleby is the CEO as well as a board member of Kinetica, where he is responsible for accelerating Kinetica’s growth and furthering the company’s international expansion. Paul has over 25 years of experience successfully building and leading global teams for industry brands and startups alike.
Paul came to Kinetica from BMC Software, where he was President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing. Prior to BMC, he was the Executive Vice President of Global Sales at Salesforce, and before that, Chief Revenue Officer at C3 IoT. Previously, Paul was Managing Director of EMEA and APJ for Travelex, the world’s largest non-bank foreign exchange provider. Prior to Travelex, he held senior executive positions overseeing the Asia Pacific region at both Oracle Corporation and Siebel Corporation.
Earlier in his career, Paul was CEO of Gocorp and Director of both Financial Services and Telecommunications for SAP.
Have you ever wondered how audio technology will impact the leading video streaming platforms in the next 2 years?
The Video Streaming market consists of multiple facets: Live Events, Live TV, Music, Podcast and Talk Radio, User-Generated Video, and Video on Demand. We recognize leading companies in these categories today as Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, ESPN, MLB.tv, DirecTV NOW, YouTube TV, Twitch, iHeartRadio, Pandora Music, Sirius XM, Spotify, HBO Now, and more.
Today, most streaming of live events occurs on laptops and smartphones, which have limited audio capabilities. Streaming platforms simply don't prioritize audio quality as they're more concerned with creating stable connections and increasing video quality. This is largely due to a lack of appreciation and demand for lossless audio among streaming customers.
Consumers are very aware of the inconsistencies in audio volume across content and sessions on these platforms. Video streaming platforms that invest in higher quality audio and solve for these technology obstacles will ultimately surface as the market leaders.
Adam Levenson, VP BD of G-audio Labs (a next-gen audio tech company for AR, VR and streaming media), discusses the current audio challenges and trends that are facing the leading streaming platforms.
He also reveals which companies have recently begun to invest in new audio capabilities, versus those that are falling behind. He can speak to the latest and emerging audio technologies in the market today for streaming platforms.
Greenbox is an interactive touch-screen operated vending machine designed to make medical marijuana purchase experience both easy and efficient. Greenbox will recognize you as a new or returning customer creating a experience tailored to you.
I wanted to find out more about how Greenbox Robotics is bringing automation to the cannabis market and the tech behind the self-serve kiosks that dispense cannabis.
I learn how tech is enabling users to select products via a touchscreen and a robotic arm grabs the selected product. Greenbox Robotics Founder & CEO Zack Johnson reveals more about how an app provides an up-to-date menu of products in the kiosk for shoppers before entering a dispensary. We also discuss how the machines and app also use biometric facial recognition technology to verify customers.
I have received many emails from people on a tech startup journey and enjoy listening to this show because they can learn from the experiences of others. If you are listening to this show today and have your own idea and thinking, how do I get the prototype made, do I start a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign? and Where do I start? you should find today's conversation valuable.
I invited Tom Haflinger from Zendure onto my daily the podcast to found out more about the secret to a successful crowdfunding campaign and learn more about their startup story.
We also talk about how Zendure's new Passport Pro travel adapter has reached its fundraising goal of $30,000 USD in its first full day of crowdfunding on Kickstarter.
Passport Pro: Resettable Grounded Travel Adapter Passport Pro is 16% smaller than its predecessor, Passport, and includes a reusable fuse that can reset with the press of a button.
"Like other travel adaptors, Passport Pro is designed to protect itself and the user from drawing too much current," said Zendure CEO Bryan Liu. "But while most products on the market achieve this with a single-use fuse that has to be replaced, Passport Pro is back in action as soon as the user presses the reset button.
It's one less thing to worry about when traveling." One of Passport Pro's four USB power outputs has a USB-C connector that works with Power Delivery (PD) technology, which can charge many latest-generation electronics substantially more quickly than a typical USB output. With PD, Passport Pro can charge an iPhone X from zero to 50% in just 30 minutes.
SE2 is a leading technology and third-party administration company for the life insurance and annuities industry, that was selected as one of the “20 Most Promising Insurance Technology Solution Providers in 2017” by CIOReview.
The company was selected from a pool of over 300 companies and the list was comprised of companies at the forefront of tackling customer challenges with innovative solutions based on the most advanced technologies available today.
Here in 2018, the company was recognized as a “Top 25 InsurTech Companies for 2018” by CIO Applications.
The CIO Applications editorial board, along with a panel of CIOs, CEOs, CTOs and analysts, evaluated insurtech providers on their ability to assist companies in keeping pace with the technological transformation occurring in the insurance domain.
“The life and annuity insurance industry is rapidly evolving from a product-centric to a customer-centric industry. SE2 uniquely combines its Aurum digital technology platform and deep industry operations expertise to drive accelerated transformation across every element of the life and annuity insurance value chain,” stated Vinod Kachroo, CIO of SE2.
“We are honored to be recognized for our ability to both help insurers optimize their legacy business blocks and drive business growth with innovation.”
SE2 also supports more than 20 insurance companies and services more than 1,000 life and annuity products. SE2 has approximately $100 billion in assets under administration and has been recognized as an industry-leading innovator.
For these reasons alone, I felt that SE2 would be the perfect company to talk with and explore the world of Insurtech. If you are new to this buzzword, predictably, Insurtech refers to the use of technology innovations designed to squeeze out savings and efficiency from the current insurance industry model.
On today's tech podcast, I learn how SE2’s digital platform helps carriers enhance or circumvent the traditional broker model to which the mid-market (primarily millennials) is averse.
Our guest is SE2’s CIO Vinod Kachroo, a 22-year executive at MetLife, Prudential and AIG before coming to SE2.
West Monroe Partners is known for partnering with companies to help them reimagine, build & transform their business with technology.
The company recently read a study shows that, despite a tightening labor market that should be making companies sweat about how to convince their skilled workers to stick around, most of those surveyed ranked employee engagement toward the bottom when asked about their company’s top 10 priorities - and it didn’t even make the cut for 10% of the respondents.
So, what’s it going to take for companies to realize that they can’t take their top talent for granted? In a competitive labor market like this, the Employee Experience is the new Customer Experience - and it’s time companies figured that out.
I invited Paul Hagen, a senior principal in West Monroe’s customer experience practice and author of this report onto my tech podcast to find out more.
Paul Hagen is a senior principal with West Monroe Partners in San Francisco where he heads the firm’s customer experience and innovation strategy.
He is an experienced strategy, customer experience, and marketing professional with over 20 years of market research, human-centered design, technology and digital strategy, facilitation and project management experience and a track record for creating solutions that enable business goals through innovative technology and systems.
qiibee is a Swiss-based loyalty token protocol helping brands around the world run their loyalty programs on the blockchain. Founded in 2015 by Gabriele Giancola and Gianluca Giancola, qiibee builds on strong expertise, existing partnerships, and in-depth knowledge of the loyalty sector.
qiibee’s blockchain plug-and-play solution supports businesses, giving them full flexibility to create their own loyalty programs on qiibee’s protocol.
The first partnership was with coffee brand, Lattesso, where they unveiled the Swiss Crypto Valley’s first loyalty token and proof-of-concept called the Lattessocoin. qiibee has also partnered with other brands across the world including Sausalitos, one of Germany’s leading Mexican restaurant and bar chains, and most recently with foodchains, a Chinese restaurant loyalty rewards program.
I invited them onto my daily tech podcast to talk about how they are helping brands run their loyalty programs on the blockchain, and give loyal customers the freedom they deserve. We also discuss how they are planning on disrupting the $500bn loyalty market and bring the blockchain to millions of mainstream users.
On this daily tech podcast, I am passionate about learning more about some of the things in life we take for granted and also how technology is transforming industries that you do not immediately associate with technology.
For example, ABinBEV has centuries of brewing history and are the world’s leading brewer on a simple mission of bringing people together for a better world. But, brewing the best beer requires the highest quality ingredients and a devotion to perfection.
A successful brewer requires natural ingredients, a healthy natural environment, and thriving communities. This is where we begin to find sustainability challenges such as water, barley, malt etc. In a world where we are increasingly having to do more with fewer resources, where do they begin to tackle an issue like this?
“Today’s global sustainability challenges provide us with some of the greatest opportunities for development and innovation. We want to empower driven and committed entrepreneurs who are solving problems in their own communities" ABinBEv
Through the 100+ Accelerator, ABinBEv mare mobilizing the world’s brightest minds to solve some of the most pressing global sustainability issues. They went looking for partners who can deliver breakthrough advancements in water stewardship, farmer productivity, product upcycling, responsible sourcing, green logistics and more.
Essentially turn to technology, tech startups and entrepreneurs to solve real issues.
Maisie Devine is the Global Director of the 100+ Accelerator and joins me on today's show to talk to discuss the program with me and provide more information on what the program entails, how they will measure success and what future plans are for both the program and for successful members of the program.
Previous to her role Maisie was an angel investor at ZX Ventures – AB InBev’s own global incubator and venture capital arm. Early in her career, she co-founded Savvy: a recruitment app for modern, career-driven women, leading her to be named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2015, among many other notable lists.
Last year I spoke with Real Madrid and Rebel Ventures about how they won the digital El Clásico by beating Barcelona to 100 million Facebook fans. But, this year, Manchester United shoots for success with a “digital experience platform” powered by HCL
When I read that Man Utd has partnered with HCL Technologies to build a digital platform that will foster greater engagement with the club’s 659 million global followers and better monetize its digital channels, I felt compelled to find out more about the digital transformation of Manchester United on my daily tech podcast.
75,000 people can enter Old Trafford on match day but this is only a tiny amount of their fan base. I explore the challenges of reaching over 659 million fans in a digital world and meaningfully engaging with them all to feel part of the Man Utd family.
I learn more about the ongoing digital transformation of the club and desire to provide a real-time, engaging, personalized, and unified experience to Manchester United’s 659 million global followers, which supports the club’s strategy to become a Digital Sports Enterprise.
This transformation is supported by HCL’s extensive market-leading capabilities that enable global enterprises to transform their businesses for the digital age.
At the heart of this transformation is the digital platform developed by HCL, providing the club with a single view of fans across web and app touchpoints, offering fans a one-stop shop for everything Manchester United.
I wanted to find out more about how this platform also enables Manchester United to deliver an unparalleled and unified fan experience and continuously presents relevant club content driven by analytics in an easy to consume premium web and app experience benefitting a club with a 140-year brand heritage.
BizBuySell is the Internet's largest and most heavily trafficked business for sale marketplace, with more business for sale listings, more unique users, and more search activity than any other service.
The company currently has an inventory of over 45,000 businesses for sale and more than 1.4 million monthly visits. BizBuySell also has one of the largest databases of sale comparables for recently sold businesses and one of the industry's leading franchise directories.
The company was founded in 1996 and in 2012 became a division of CoStar Group, Inc. To put this into perspective, they have been around since the days of AOL, Yahoo, GeoCities, Blockbuster, Lycos, and Kodak, but are still thriving, unlike the household names that have been confined to our internet history
I am intrigued about what changes they have seen in this time and how technology has transformed their world.
Have you ever experienced Conference Hangover? You return inspired but quickly realize that won't apply what you learned when you get back to the real world. But, there is a new wave of events that are changing this by ensuring every attendee walks away with real results.
For example, A3C, the Atlanta-based Festival and Conference, recently announced its Creator Complex programming, another important piece in a 14-year journey dedicated to connecting artists and producers with creative professionals and music industry experts.
Attendees consisting of artists and producers won't just walk away with ideas but will be able to get a headshot, master music, make beats, record music, write a bio, develop a website, optimize their YouTube page, audit their social media, and add scratches to their records.
Collectively, A3C's partners will contribute an estimated $100,000 worth of free services and assets to over 500 artists and producers. and people travel from all over the world to attend.
Over the 3-days A3C hosts dozens of panels, workshops, mixers, mentor sessions and interviews with hundreds of tastemakers, thought-leaders, and industry experts. These are just a few reasons why I invited Michael Walbert from A3C onto our daily tech podcast.
“Hip-hop is the most important, influential, and often largest user base for many music tech startups. Hip-hop artists are early adopters and frequently the most engaged community on social and music platforms,” explained A3C Director Mike Walbert.
“We’re looking for companies that are reaching out to music makers. We’re hoping to find and elevate tech startups that promise to transform how music is being created, shared, discovered, marketed and monetized. We feel these are the key elements that affect an artist’s life and are directly impacted by technology.”
Its an inspiring 14-year startup story of using tech to bring people together and also make a difference.
I recently spoke to Tara Kelly about the dangers of handing over the keys to your brand's voice to digital voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa. With voice search being a hot topic, I wanted to explore this topic further, in particular, the increasing privacy concerns that surround this technology.
When I read that the founder of Snips AI wanted to destroy Alexa, I had to get him on my daily tech podcast. Dr. Rand Hindi is an entrepreneur and data scientist. He is also the CEO at Snips, the first decentralized, private by design voice assistant.
Rand started coding at the age of 10, founded a Social Network at 14 and a web agency at 15 before getting into Machine Learning at 18 and starting a PhD at 21. He has been elected as a TR35 by the MIT Technology Review, as a "30 under 30" by Forbes, and is a lecturer at Sciences Po in Paris.
As a previous member of the French Digital Council where he focused on AI and Privacy issues, Rand is the perfect person to talk to about a subject that already affects everyone listening to this podcast.
We discuss the many consumer privacy issues (e.g. government surveillance, hacking) with AI voice assistants like Alexa, which send user data to the cloud. We also explore how and why Snips developed a decentralized AI voice assistant that keeps user data on the device itself so that only you own your data.
Essentially, Snips is a voice platform for connected devices. It enables makers and companies to add a voice assistant to their products. Created in 2013, the vision behind Snips has been to put an AI assistant in every device, making technology so intuitive that it disappears into the background.
What makes Snips unique is that everything runs locally on the device the user is speaking to, meaning no data ever gets sent to the cloud. This guarantees Privacy by Design and resilience to internet outages, making Snips the first ever voice technology to be GDPR compliant.
Keith Ryu, Founder and CEO of Fountain, a hiring and onboarding platform for hourly workers explores some of the hottest industry trends affecting the gig economy.
On today's tech podcast we discuss the following topics and how technology is reshaping the global workforce.
- Issues facing shareable bikes and scooters like Bird, LimeBike and Spin
- Staffing and recruiting problems facing Lyft, Uber, etc.
- The emerging conversation around gig workers’ rights
- Measuring the effect of the emerging gig economy on the U.S.’ workforce
- The ongoing delivery battle between Amazon and the USPS
- Finding the balance of tech talent across your HR departments
About Fountain
Fountain is the leading mid-market and enterprise Hiring Platform for Hourly Workers, built for speed and scale, that is backed by over $11M in venture capital.
Fountain is designed specifically to help address the challenges around high-volume, high-velocity, and high-turnover recruiting within retail, delivery, food/beverage, manufacturing, hospitality, etc.
The world's most forward-thinking companies, including Uber, Safeway, Deliveroo, John Lewis, Grubhub, rely on Fountain to power its large-scale employee hiring and contractor vetting operations.
Since inception, teams across 50 countries have used Fountain to save millions of work-hours, communicate with more than 4MM+ applicants, and provide 400,000 real people with jobs.
Amazon’s Alexa business is projected to be worth $10 billion by 2020. Yet, with so many businesses rushing to adopt voice apps to keep up with the trend, many are missing the mark with brand voice.
Tara Kelly, CEO of SPLICE Software, refers to this rapid (but flawed) adoption as “blood in the streets.” Instead of crafting an Alexa skill to match the brand voice of the company, businesses are leaving it in the hands of the bot, creating a disconnect between the brand and the customer.
On today's daily tech podcast, Tara shares her insights on how to implement an on-brand voice and messaging within voice-apps, to avoid further “bloodshed.”
I also learn a little more about SynthIA™, the intelligent audio system powering SPLICE Software's solutions for Voice.
SynthIA is SPLICE’s intelligent audio system, providing for the creation, storage, and workflow management of synthesized and pre-recorded audio files. SynthIA leverages artificial intelligence and voice naturalization to enable omni-channel deployment of customized speech on both a scheduled and on-demand basis.
Company Background
SPLICE Software blends art and science in creating stronger connections and improving the customer experience for insurers, bankers, and retailers. Their cloud-based Dialog Suite™ uses Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to deliver personalized Voice & SMS messages at critical moments along the customer journey.
Industrial executives and operators are faced with the challenge of doing more with less, while simultaneously reducing excessive resource consumption. Industries such as the food processing, beverage and chemical verticals experience tremendous pressure to make operational processes more efficient, and decrease operational costs and consumed energy. And while many organizations already possess the data they need to execute on these goals, many don’t know it – or they don’t know how to obtain and make use of it. Enter artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. With this transformative technology, organizations can unlock valuable operational data previously trapped in legacy systems to increase outputs using less energy and budget. With AI and machine learning, this asset data can be automatically connected to key business metrics, helping operators measure key performance indicators, predict trends, increase efficiencies and maintain profit margins. Plutoshift is an Asset performance management platform for process industries like food, beverage, water, chemicals, and more. I wanted to learn more about how they are also working with big process manufacturing companies and the role technology is playing so asked them on our daily tech podcast. Prateek Joshi, Plutoshift, CEO of talk talks about topics such as how AI works for IIoT; why the food processing, beverage and chemical industries are eager to harness the power of AI; and how companies can implement AI-driven programs that are as cost-effective as they are efficient.
When searching for mentorship or inspiration I have often encountered a number of expensive courses that not only emptied my wallet but also resulted in being one big time stealer. You need time to complete the course but at the end of it, you are left with a long list of actions that require more...you guessed it, time.
Time is the most precious commodity there is and it’s not renewable like cash. You can always earn more cash, but cannot get back time. The problem with many courses is that they often do leave you with anything of value or real action at the end.
Gary Vaynerchuk was so on the money when he said It’s time to stop saying I’m passionate about something, or talk about what you are going to do next week, next month or in the new year. So I have once again decided to take another class of listeners and help them launch their own podcast and begin 2019 with 8 episodes.
If you have convinced yourself you don't have the technical skills, time to learn or find the never-ending list of options a little intimidating and overwhelming, why not let your daily podcast host do the heavy lifting for you?
After successfully helping listeners launch their own show last year, I am once again offering my services. Here is my pledge, I will work with you to ensure that you begin 2019 with 8 episodes. So you can build your brand, not somebody else’s.
Instead of starting 2019 saying the dreaded words new year and new me before reverting back to your old habits. Why not explore putting your personal brand or business with SEO across iTunes, Spotify, and other platforms without the hassle.
Whether you are a business or an individual, if you would like to enroll in my virtual class to launch your own podcast with 8 episodes and a podcast launch strategy or find out more information.
I invite you to enroll in my virtual class to launch your own podcast with 8 episodes and a podcast launch strategy.
If you have any questions, please contact me.
techblogwriter@outlook.com.
Regular listeners and readers will remember the moment when Antshares rebranded to NEO last year. NEO is China's first ever original and open source public chain project, NEO serves as a smart assets platform.
Smart assets are the combination of smart contract of blockchain and digital assets. NEO also allows for a smarter way for assets registration, issuance, and circulation. Digital assets exist in the form of electronic data and with blockchain technology, digital assets becomes decentralized, trustless, traceable and highly transparent.
NEO's underlying technology supports multiple types of digital assets and uses digital certificates to enable trust for public chain, namely the assets issued by users via digital certificate are protected by law. For more complicated scenarios, users can use smart contracts to enhance and enrich the functions of assets. Besides, users can also create smart contracts with other functions unrelated to assets.
Smart contract, a concept that was first initiated by Nick Sazbo in 1994, has a history as long as that of the Internet. According to Nick Szabo: Smart contract can execute contract clauses when the preprogrammed conditions are met.It is blockchain technology, due to its decentralization, immutability and highly reliable system that provides the very environment for smart contract to embody its value.
On my daily tech podcast, I am on a mission to learn more about how technology is transforming multiple industries in every corner of our ever-shrinking world. Rather than focussing on the buzzwords, I wanted to find out more about the impact Blockchain is having in Asia and also how it is reshaping developing countries.
I also wanted to learn more about the women making big waves in Blockchain and the evolution (so far) in the space. However, we cannot have a conversation about blockchain or crypto without exploring where mainstream adoption of these technologies are coming from.
On today's tech and crypto podcast, I speak with Tamar Salant, NEO Smart Economy- Global Business Development Manager to discuss these topics and using technology to make a difference.
Flo Technologies is on a mission to reduce water waste in homes and prevent water damage with its revolutionary Flo device. Flo’s all-in-one water monitoring and shut-off system detects micro-leaks and other vulnerabilities anywhere in a home’s water supply; in fact, 60% of homeowners who install Flo immediately discover a leak they didn’t know they had.
As founder of Flo Technologies, Gabe Halimi has created a first-of-its-kind device that is pioneering the plumbing industry. The Flo device monitors pressure to detect those tinest micro-leaks in water systems that can add up to thousands of dollars in water waste.
Easily controlled by the free iOS and Android app, Flo also continually learns about a homeowner’s daily behavior and activity, will alert you if it detects an abnormality, and can even automatically shut off the water if something goes wrong.
To date, Flo has collectively saved homeowners 1,141,307 gallons of water, and continues to help homeowners prevent any further damages due to water excess.
I invited Gabe Halimi, CEO, and co-founder of Flo Technologies on to our daily tech podcast to find out more.
Blis is the global leader in advanced location data technology. Their proprietary platform provides businesses with accurate location data and in-depth behavioral insights to serve digital content to audiences that are on the go.
Gil Larsen, VP Americas at location-based marketing company Blis.
Gil was hired to manage the American expansion of UK-based Blis when the New York office launched in 2016. Under his leadership, the US division is now on track to more than triple YOY revenue in 2018, having already doubled total 2017 numbers midway through the year.
Contributing to this growth was the rollout of industry-first cost-per-visit (CPV) pricing model in early 2017 as the industry suffered from major data quality and transparency issues. Blis’ perspective has always been that brands deserve accurate data and verifiable value, creating a high standard in the quality of data used and subsequent insights and analytics reporting.
The company recently expanded into the Chicago, Atlanta, and Washington, DC markets with plans to open additional locations in Los Angeles and Toronto by the end of this year. Earlier this year, the New York City office was certified as a great workplace by the independent analysts at Great Place to Work®.
Openpath is a company that is focused on bringing the IoT solutions consumers enjoy at home to the workplace. Alex Kazerani (CEO) and James Segil (President) co-founded Openpath together after successfully launching and scaling four other ventures.
On today's tech podcast, James and Alex speak bout the future of the workplace and reveal why technology is an integral part of increasing productivity and overall employee experience.
Other Talking Points from the show:
- How Openpath employees can ditch their key cards and instead access their workspace with just their smartphone - all without removing their phone from their pocket.
- How employees can also text or Slack visitors a Guest Pass (a simple SMS link) to grant them temporary access to the office.
- Beyond just the convenience of smartphone access, Openpath also grants office managers access to better metrics on how the office space is used.
- How the system seamlessly integrate with platforms like G Suite, Slack, and Office 365, Openpath enables businesses to better manage the office.
Global brands recognize that live events are filled with potential customers, but often their approach to engagement involves techniques fraught with data and privacy concerns; facial recognition and biometric screening being two especially hot topics.
Direct-to-consumer marketing startup Hurdl has found a solution to this problem, using LED wearables to provide an opt-in experience with off-the-charts 1:1 engagement results.
Hurdl is able to gather audience data by giving fans an LED wristband upon entering a venue, which attendees can choose to activate via SMS. On average, 67% of the audience will activate and 95% of those who do so will answer up to 5 survey questions.
In return they receive special offers, merch deals, and more as determined by the organizer, while their LED wristband allows them to be part of the light show at the event.
I invited Betsy McHugh, the Founder and CEO of Hurdl Enterprises back onto the show to learn how she is pioneering the de-anonymization of persons in event venues with a new kind of entertainment experience.
We also talk about how this wearable technology is bridging the gap between artist and audience while being both accessible and affordable.
On this daily tech podcast, CEOs learn from other CEOS and startup founders learn from others on their startup journeys. As for myself and everyone listening, we learn from them all of them
I recently received an email from Aireka Harvell who is based in Nashville Tennessee and on her own startup journey. She emailed me saying that listening to the episodes of other startup founders have been very helpful and encouraging to her as am an early-stage startup founder.
I invited Aireka onto the show today to share her tech startup story and also tell me all about Nodat which is a fantastic concept and antidote to fake online reviews.
Nodat lets you get connected with best local businesses like restaurants, spas, doctors, gym, anything and everything you need. As a registered user, Nodat allows you share your reviews to your social media for your family and friends to see what you’re up to and share how much you know about a place.
If you are on Nodat, you will know that customer reviews are NOT fake here. On-the-scene video reviews, best offers on services, with additional benefits on referrals. Nodat is your helpful and most HONEST local guide.
Providing you with only the BEST local shops, restaurants, bars, doctors, realtors, and any other type of businesses! Nodat can be a globally local guide to all the best options near you, be it restaurants, local bars, malls or doctors, salons or gym, dentist or pediatrician, realtor or movers, child care or pet care centers or even an accountant. Anything useful & helpful!
Vlad Mkrtumyan, is the Founder and CEO of Logic Inbound, a digital marketing agency based in Seattle. He has been featured on Shopify.com, Geekwire.com, TechCrunch.com, as well as the Blind Entrepreneur Podcast, The Business Marketing Engine Podcast, and many others.
Vlad has an inspirational tech startup story that began at age of 19 with his first startup, Shoplletes which achieved 300k downloads on the android app store with 30 thousand monthly active users. He then graduated with a Bachelor's of Psychology at the age of 20. At only 21, he started Skyreal, a real estate software company, which grew to 13 brokerages in 3 states.
Here in 2018, he is the CEO of Logic Inbound, a 25 person Search Engine Optimization company. However, he also runs 5 different meetups ranging from Cryptocurrency to Web development and spend his free time doing what he loves, connecting people.
I invited him onto our tech podcast to share his tech startup story, why it's so important to give back to the startup community and why he started Cofounders Connect a 3000 person meetup group for Seattle Startup Cofounders to find investors mentors and business partners.
Full Circle Insights delivers marketing and sales performance management solutions to optimize a company's marketing mix and drive more revenue. The company offers multi-touch attribution, comprehensive funnel metrics and lead management technology.
Built 100% on the Salesforce App Cloud, Full Circle Insights' products complement leading marketing automation solutions. Founded by former Salesforce executives, CRM implementation veterans and marketing automation specialists, the Full Circle Insights industry pioneers are seasoned in creating marketing measurement foundations to grow revenue.
Bonnie Crater, CEO of Full Circle Insights joins me today on my daily tech podcast to discuss how the overwhelming amount of data currently being collected is being wasted, inferred incorrectly or used to create alternative facts.
As a CEO of a leading MarTech company in Silicon Valley, I'm looking forward to her insights from the industry and if she can provide tips for harnessing the right data and using it to create actionable insights to inform business decisions.
Cocoon Cam is different from other baby monitor companies. They are a venture-backed startup based in the Silicon Valley. But more importantly, they are changing the whole definition of what a baby monitor is.
The team is applying cutting-edge technologies to give parents the peace of mind they deserve and help keep babies safer and happier. They believe that computer vision (the kind of technology that powers self-driving cars!) can make a much better and smarter baby monitor.
On today's tech podcast I chat with Sivakumar Nattamai about the story behind Cocoon Cam and how the inspiration was the birth of his own daughter. I also learn how his journey began at Tesla and learned so much from being inside one of the world's most innovative startups.
After being surrounded by entrepreneurs he was inspired to try it on his own. Siva shares his inspirational tech startup story where he quit his job to focus on it full time and picked up consulting work to pay the bills. It’s the age-old story of the entrepreneur--but this time, with a baby and a wife to support!
Larry Boyer recently released his book, The Robot In The Next Cubicle. His book is an optimistic and useful look at the coming convergence of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence, and how we can take advantage of this revolution in the workplace.
It's called the Fourth Industrial Revolution--a revolution fueled by analytics and technology--that consists of data-driven smart products, services, entertainment, and new jobs. Economist and data scientist Larry Boyer lays out the wealth of exciting possibilities this revolution brings as well as the serious concerns about its disruptive impact on the lives of average Americans.
Most important, he shows readers how to navigate this sea of change, pointing to strategies that will give businesses and individuals the best chance to succeed and providing a roadmap to thriving in this new economy.
Boyer describes how future workers may have to think of themselves as entrepreneurs, marketing their special talents as valuable skills that machines cannot do. This will be especially important in the coming employment climate, when full-time jobs are likely to decrease and industries move toward contract-based employment.
Larry provides guidelines for identifying your individual talents and pursuing the training that will make you stand out. He talks about how you can promote your personal brand to give more exposure to your unique skills.
On today's tech podcast, Larry discusses how whether we like it or not, automation will soon transform the workplace and employment prospects. This book will show you how to look for and take advantage of the opportunities that this revolution presents.
Connatix is a next-generation video platform that helps publishers deliver successful video experiences without compromise.
Gil Sommer is Head of Product at Connatix and is on a mission to help publishers benefit from video advertising without compromising quality.
To expand reach, Connatix has built an extensive independent syndication network for video distribution at scale. Connatix works with over 3,000 publishers worldwide and in 2018, was ranked #2 in the comScore video metrix.
Founded in 2014, Connatix is a publisher-first company and will always make the decision to help publishers first - and sometimes that means helping advertisers too.
Gil is on a mission to align brand advertisers and publishers as they are fighting with each other but they are really working towards the same goal meaning it would be much more productive for the industry as a whole if they work together.
At Connatix, Gil is in charge of product innovation. On today's tech podcast, I learn more about his story.
Mux is a software company that develops infrastructure and monitoring tools for developers and publishers of online video.
Founded in 2015 by experts in online video, including the creators of the biggest open-source video player on the web (Video.js), the largest transcoding service in the cloud (Zencoder), and the premier conference for engineers working with video (Demuxed), Mux empowers publishers of all sizes to provide high-quality online video viewer experiences.
The company is trusted by leading providers of online video like PBS, Livestream, and Funny or Die, and backed by investment from Accel Partners, SV Angel and Y Combinator, Mux is headquartered in San Francisco, CA
The leader in video analytics has recently released a new product that will revolutionize the way developers monitor streaming quality and outages. This technology will make it possible for engineers to quickly identify and fix problems like the World Cup streaming outage that impacted millions of sports fans this year.
Mux’s Real-time QoS Dashboard will help developers spot and address issues with video streaming as they are happening in real time. This dashboard is the first of its kind. It’s the only one out there that shows the latest measurements and trends as they are happening during the streaming process in real-time.
When we think about autonomous vehicles, we often get stuck in the noisy world of Uber vs. Waymo or the new and improved self-driving cars, but there’s a larger conversation to be had about the value of an open, on-demand mobility ecosystem that supports sustainable, inclusive, prosperous, and resilient cities.
Bestmile’s perspective is that the economic, social and environmental benefits of autonomous vehicles can only be realized when vehicles are integrated in a coherent and coordinated urban mobility system along with existing transportation modes and city infrastructure.
The company was founded in 2014 by Raphael Gindrat and Anne Mellano when they had the idea to create a “control tower” for autonomous vehicles while working on a project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
No one was focusing on a system that allowed companies to operate a fleet and provide a service with autonomous vehicles—now, Bestmile enables the intelligent operation and optimization of autonomous services, regardless of the vehicle brand or type.
Earlier this year, Bestmile closed its Series A funding round and was named to the World Economic Forum’s class of 2018 Technology Pioneers.
On today's tech podcast, I learn how Bestmile is helping its customers and partners, such as Renovo and the EU’s Avenue project, solve the first mile/last mile problem and manage fleets of human-driven and automated vehicles.
With the help Bestmile CEO Raphael Gindrat, we take a deeper dive into the technology and next-generation mobility.
Dr. Manfred Krischke is Co-Founder and CEO of CloudEO an innovative cloud-based collaboration platform and marketplace for Geo-services. In 2011 he led the consortium to buy the assets of RapidEye (5 satellites constellation) out of the insolvency and was interim CEO for the restructured company.
Cloudeo operates a unique, vendor independent and data agnostic geo-marketplace lowering the entry barriers for all stakeholders of geospatial ecosystems: providers of data, application developers and consumers. World-leading content and software providers contribute to an innovative geo-infrastructure that combines data, software, analytics and apps on a highly scalable IT.
I invited Dr. Manfred Krischke onto this daily tech podcast to learn how they are bringing together all those who create, interpret and use geodata.
Internxt is working on disrupting thrilling industries through the use of revolutionary technology. Their first service, X Cloud, is a decentralized cloud storage service, that strives to become a more secure and private version of Dropbox, iCloud or Google Drive.
X Cloud clearly has its sights on being the next big thing in the cloud storage industry. Here is a quote from the Internxt Blog:
"At Internxt, we are working on creating the most secure and private cloud storage service used by corporations and the mainstream market: X Cloud. Our decentralized architecture is fundamentally superior to what is currently in the cloud storage market, as noted in different papers.
However, the journey to building the world’s most secure cloud storage architecture doesn’t end by the simple use of decentralization. Companies like Dropbox have been investing significant sums of time and money in getting their architectures almost 100% hacker-proof.
Although their centralized ecosystems are fundamentally inferior to decentralized ones, we do need to put a lot of work to ensure that one day our architecture becomes more secure and private than theirs, from virtually any point of view.
To achieve this, we still need to improve X Cloud significantly, run significant security audits and eventually, X Cloud will become what was meant to be."
I wanted to find out more about these ambitious plans so invited their 21-year-old founder and CEO onto today's daily tech podcast.
Fran Villalba Segarra is a young entrepreneur, who, before starting Internxt, worked at Hostinger International and started his own web hosting company. He is also part of The Next Web's T500 (2017), which highlight the most talented young entrepreneurs in the digital scene.
The startup story behind the simple, powerful, event software that has sold over €300M worth of tickets sold online by thousands of organisers around the world.
What do tech-savvy conferences around the globe including Web Summit, JSConf, Twilio, Shopify and Strange Loop have in common? The all leverage the clever event management software from Tito.io, a small 10-person, Dublin (Ireland) startup you’ve likely never heard of.
What’s even more interesting is that Tito is on track to process more than half a billion in event ticket sales by 2019. The company has also caught the eye and the angel funding of Amazon CTO, Werner Vogels and Intercom Co-Founder, Des Traynor.
The secret to the company’s success to date? The confidence of event planners coupled with an intense focus on building a great product, creating a great customer experience, and instilling trust within each and every customer.
In a marketplace that’s rife with vendors foisting surprise fees, cumbersome registration, poor UIs and third-party tracking on users, Tito provides a fast, beautiful, transparent & trusted, online ticket experience that’s fully hosted or embedded on a customer’s site in just a few lines of code. Tito’s features have already powered thousands of successful events worldwide.
On today's tech podcast I chat with co-founder Paul Campbell who discusses how Tito has created a growth juggernaut in a marketplace where the headlines are dominated by large competitors including Eventbrite and Bizzabo.
Other topics we address that inspire event organizers to use Tito include:
- If you focus on building a great product that customers want to pay for, it can work out - well.
- if you have a strict data privacy policy and a simple checkout UX - it can work out really, really well for an event management startup.
- If you respect your customer and do not “growth hack” them, they’ll naturally support you and champion you in the marketplace.
- Your customers’ customers’ email addresses are precious and need to be treated as such. Respect your customer’s wishes and never email market to their customers...and the market will come to you.
Hoard, the cryptocurrency wallet, exchange, and payments app that’s simplifying blockchain for everyone.
Hoard is a design-driven blockchain-based company that is integrating investments across cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies for a seamless investing experience. The company was started by a former senior UX designer from Wells Fargo and an AI veteran from the US Department of Defense.
The platform is focused on simplifying the way that everyday consumers can invest and spend their money – whether it’s in Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Fiat – to reinvent the way people bank. CEO Jason Davis and CTO Dan Lipert are seeking to introduce a technology that the world can adapt to, by first enabling individuals to adopt to it.
They have set out to develop a platform and supporting mobile applications to simplify the complexities of cryptocurrency and to tear down barriers of entry so that even your grandma can understand it.
On today's tech podcast, I chat with Hoard CEO Jason Davis to learn more about the Hoard platform and how they plan to break down the complexities of cryptocurrency, launch plans and more.
Ambrosus is a decentralized IoT network for next-generation supply-chains. The company is building a universally verifiable, community-driven ecosystem to assure the quality, safety, and origins of products using blockchain technology.
Ambrosus’ primary focus is on improving supply chains for life-essential products, specifically food and medicine, although the protocol can be applied to almost any complex supply chain.
"Architecturally, our eco-system will allow businesses to seamlessly connect with one another, in order to improve supply chain efficiency, transparency, and security."
Founded in 2017 by Angel Versetti and Dr Stefan Meyer, Ambrosus seeks to set the global standard for decentralized supply chain management and provide quality assurance in enterprise IoT ecosystems.
With offices in Switzerland, Ireland, and Estonia, Ambrosus boasts partnerships with significant global bodies and associations including the United Nations 10YFP, the Crypto Valley Association, Swiss Food Research, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and Swiss Coffee Alliance.
I chat with Angel Versetti, CEO, and Co-Founder of Ambrosus about his vision and bringing efficiency, transparency, and security to global supply chains.
Mapbox, is the leading real-time location data, mapping and design platform for developers, designers and enterprises serving over 1.1 million registered developers, and touching 350 million users every month around the world. You probably haven't heard of them, but you should have.
From finding a coffee spot on Foursquare, a date on Tinder to pinning a vacation spot on Pinterest, to geo-tagging notes in Evernote and Strava maps for runners and cyclists. Even Facebook and Snap are their customers too.
On today's daily tech podcast, I wanted to find out more about the tech we take for granted on our favorite apps. Essentially, Mapbox is a mapping platform for developers. Its building blocks make it easy to integrate location into any mobile or online application, and the company is changing the way people move around cities and understand our planet.
I chat with Matt Irwin who works on business and strategy, humanitarian collaborations, and reveals how he helping to bring Mapbox to governments too.
Darrah Brustein's success is an excellent example of what a life lived "by design" looks like. She has leveraged technology to work with professionals from the global community, but it wasn't always easy for her...
Over the past decade, Darrah has turned to experts around the world for mentorship to help her attain her success and design an intentional life. Stumbling blocks happened along the way, and, as she overcame them, she became focused on sharing with others how they could avoid the same pitfalls.
To give back to others who want to design their lives too, Darrah has brought together 45+ of her mentors and peers into a 3-day virtual summit that's starting Wednesday, September 12th at 10 AM EST.
There's an incredible speaker lineup that includes people like Deepak Chopra, Kat Cole, Adam Grant, Jen Sincero, and Ronny Turiaf!
They and 40+ others will be speaking on a ton of lifestyle design topics for FREE to help you design your ideal life. It's their and Darrah's way of giving back and teaching all of us how we can live a life by design, not by default.
Life just seems to "happen" to so many of us, and, in a lot of cases, it's because we’re accepting the defaults that life throws at us. We are not seeking out to design our lives and create the things we truly desire. By doing nothing differently, we’re accepting a "life by default."
- Day 1: The First Steps To Designing Your Life: Internal Work & Defining Success for Yourself
- Day 2: Fund The Life You Want: Designing Your Career Or Entrepreneurial Journey
- Day 3: Achieving Success Through Intentional Relationship Building & Networks
On day two, I am running a free session for anyone thinking about starting their own podcast, so I would love to see you there for my free session streaming on September 13th at 2:30 pm.
What you'll learn: -
- The biggest mistake that people make is that they get caught up in the tech; tech is only one tool
- Be conscious of what you like/don’t like in podcasts
- Understanding your audience is a must
- What value are you providing to yourself and others? -
- While you learn your craft, be realistic and patient with yourself
On my daily tech podcast, I look beyond the buzzwords to find the real gold and how some businesses are leveraging future technologies today to transform businesses and help them find their way in a digital world.
Lannister Holdings and Lannister Development recently appeared on my radar after discovering they are the first US-based publicly traded blockchain development company in the market today.
Their team of experienced programmers, developers, and software engineers have been helping businesses leverage the web since the arrival of the internet in the nineties. Web 2.00 provided a vision for the art of the possible, but we are now helping take businesses to the next level on a journey to web 3.0 at their pace.
Essentially they are Leveraging web 3.0 technologies for a secure, transparent, decentralized world and the future of your business. Enterprises are not asking for Web 3.O, they are asking for digital transformation, but this is just the start of their journey, and Web 3.0 is their final destination.
Everyone needs a strategy and a roadmap to get to the intelligent web and when IOT inevitably becomes ubiquitous, what underpins it? AI delivers the intelligence and blockchain gives it the mechanism for security and transparency, but this is only the beginning.
So if you are passionate about how technology is transforming the world of business and more interested in tangible results rather than buzzwords, you will love this conversation with Joe Snyder and Chris Brown from Lannister Holdings.
Crypto Podcast Interview with Zhuling Chen.
Zhuling Chen is the Co-founder of aelf, the Asia-based cloud computing blockchain network. aelf is a smart contract platform that will allow businesses to take full advantage of blockchain technology and will transform complex business operations in the future.
An MIT graduate, Zhulin is a consulting veteran at the global strategy consulting firm, Roland Berger, and has advised multiple multinational corporations and governments in the past.
Having graduated from a rigorous MIT-SUTD Dual Masters’ programme with a degree in Engineering in Manufacturing, Zhuling has covered all aspects of the manufacturing business, including fundamental manufacturing engineering knowledge, case studies in supply chain management, and business-related topics.
On today's tech podcast, Zhuling provides valuable insight on the different commercial requirements for blockchain across various industries, and what technical features are best suited for improving system efficiency.
I also learn how Zhuling is an advocate of peer-to-peer learning and an open-source approach to blockchain for advancing commercial adoption.
Understanding the importance of working with people from multiple disciplines to achieve business objectives, aelf recently launched the Innovation Alliance, a coalition of some of the most prominent and influential industry players to provide expert counsel on how to best integrate blockchain technology into business.
aelf recently released its highly-anticipated testnet results, following a successful launch that lay the groundwork for customizable, blockchain-based commercial solutions. The initial testnet achieved 15,000 transactions per second (TPS), which is an important development in the commercialized application of public chains.
The results highlighted three key differentiators to both 2.0 and 3.0 networks already developed and in development: Speed, scalability, and replicability of the testnet. Zhuling discusses the current issues associated with blockchain scalability and just how aelf is striving to overcome these issues.
Our conversation also covers the following areas of the industry.
- The business landscape and latest developments in blockchain in enterprise, including major commercial uses and partnerships.
- Stablecoins - Bridging the gap between fiat and cryptocurrency.
- Asia market trends making their way West.
- Understanding the dominance of Asia-based cryptocurrency exchanges.
- The blockchain space in Asia — Asia as an obvious crypto hub/why Asia is a global powerhouse.
SAP Customer Data Cloud solutions from Gigya is the industry’s only solution based on a consent-based data model. The solution helps businesses nurture trusted relationships with customers by providing them more transparency and control over the use of their personal data. Patrick Salyer, General Manager of SAP Customer Data Cloud, previously the CEO of Gigya discusses how one of the overlooked goals that shows the true value of GDPR preparation is earning the consumer’s trust. It’s a lesson learned from another regulatory watershed moment: Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) and the banking crisis of 2002. Patrick argues that we’re currently in a Sarbanes-Oxley moment, but people just aren’t thinking about it yet. Consider the similarities: * Both protections seek to enhance transparency as a means to curb poor business practices and build trust * Both are “regional” regulations that have global consequences * Both regulations created a need for holistic solutions that span the entire organization * Like the reaction to SOX, many companies are using GDPR compliance initiatives as an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage
The past offers insight into how businesses should react to GDPR: directly address the trigger point of waning customer trust to comply with new regulations and take your business to the next level.
FocusVision is the only full-spectrum research technology business, with a complete suite of software solutions, to capture real-time human insights and analytics.
After winning a MarTech Breakthrough Award in Customer Experience Management I invited their CEO, Zlatko Vucetic onto the show to learn more about how they are working with 18 of the Top-20 Fortune 100 companies, and all of the Top-10 Healthcare and CPG companies.
FocusVision was established in 1992 and was the first company to live-stream focus groups. The company now offers premium tools to gather, analyze and share data for customer satisfaction surveys, brand tracking, focus groups, online communities, communications testing, segmentation, NPS, product testing and more.
With ad fraud, click fraud and bringing programmatic in-house becoming a hot topic in the news, I invited Visto, CEO, Kerry Bianchi onto my daily tech podcast to learn more about Visto and insights from the advertising industry.
Visto is a technology company dedicated to bringing transparency, interoperability and accountability to programmatic advertising. Most recently, Visto released its white paper on multi-platform optimization, which discovered that the best programmatic ROI requires a multi-platform strategy.
The goal was to help marketers, agencies and media companies find the best path to performance, and through this test, they were able to see without a doubt that the ability to evaluate and transact centrally across multiple platforms will drive better return on advertising spend.
Kerry Bianchi discusses what Visto is doing to help the digital advertising swamp as well as upcoming partnerships and product announcements.
Arcus is a fintech startup working to create better financial health for individual people and the financial institutions by using technology to build a more seamless, secure, and enjoyable finance experience.
Edrizio De La Cruz is the CEO and Cofounder of Arcus and immigrated from the Caribbean to the South Bronx at age 11, and immediately started working, but quickly became frustrated that he couldn’t help his parents make ends meet and manage their finances.
However, being so close to Wall Street fueled him with endless dreams, ambitions and possibilities. After spending time in the US Air Force Reserves, he became an Aircraft Engineer at JFK Airport, but became enamored by the world of finance and technology while attending community college.
In spite of not being the ‘traditional fit’, he then kicked off his career as an Investment Banker at J.P. Morgan, and later graduated from The Wharton School. This journey instilled an innate sense of purpose and vision to democratize access to better financial services for everyone. In 2013, this vision sparked the launch of Arcus in Silicon Valley’s Y-Combinator.
In an age of relentless, singular focus on the digital, DASH TWO flies between the tangible impact of outdoor advertising and wild posting, and the digital resonances these ads trigger in thousands of selfies. The digital and outdoor agency shows clients how to set up this virtuous echo from IRL to screen and back again, using ad techniques as old as the printing press and as fresh as the latest social app.
“Outdoor advertising is a big thing because it’s tangible. Digital is intangible,” says DASH TWO Founder and CEO Gino Sesto. “With a social media post, you might see it or you might not. It comes and goes. People are sick of getting that call from their clients saying never saw their ads. A billboard on Sunset will be there for 28 days. They are two different things, a yin and yang, if you will.”
This yin and yang reinforce each other in today’s advertising environment. “What we do makes outdoor tie into social. We have had clients who just wanted to be able to post their wild posting or billboards on social media. That was their main goal,” Sesto recalls. “Even the models in these ads will go out of their way to take a selfie in front of their own picture. They want to get it up on social media.”
To get those perfect posts for clients, Sesto and his team can often be found driving down side streets and through dirt parking lots, scouting out sites to hang an eye-candy mural for a high-end apparel brand or for a European tech company’s big US debut. The next day, Sesto and his team might be hanging out with Playboy bunnies in full regalia, posting flyers in memory of Hugh Hefner, or with Janelle Monae in (chic) overalls, gleefully pasting up artwork from Dirty Computer (a recent success, and yes, Monae came out herself to help).
The mix of scrappiness and savvy needed to pull off this kind of campaign comes naturally to Sesto. He grew up obsessed with music, driving hours down California coast to Los Angeles regularly, just to catch a favorite hip hop or rock artist live. When he landed a job at Sony, he found his other passion: the deal. “I love the negotiation, working with the different parties to get the best value,” he explains.
He brought this passion into play at music companies and then in the agency world, until the Great Recession hit, and everything changed. He found himself out of a job due to downsizing and thought hard about what to do next. He drew inspiration from his grandfather, who grew up during the Great Depression and never forgot the meaning of a hard-earned dollar despite notable financial success. “He taught me the benefits of frugality,” recalls Sesto. “He wasn’t into fancy dinners or flashy cars. He watched what he spent and loved life.”
This ethos influenced Sesto’s own values as he went into business for himself. Tired of the opaque and shady sides of the ad and promo business, he decided that transparency and maximizing small budgets for big impact would be his guiding principles. He had arranged ads of all kinds at his past positions, but found more and more, his clients wanted billboards and other outdoor promo. Really, really wanted it. “You hear this from a lot of entrepreneurs,” Sesto says, “but when customers keep asking for something, that’s what you learn to do.”
Outdoor may sound easy--call a billboard owner, hang a bunch of posters on a wall. But not so fast. “You have to know the site really well, what’s around it, what impression it makes. Clients will often have an area in mind, sometimes down to the intersection, but then you have to figure out the logistics,” Sesto remarks. Wild posting can get competitive, bordering on cut-throat. DASH TWO has built relationships that run from major media companies to small shop owners in key places. These relationships mean large ad agencies frequently call on the boutique firm to help them implement a wild posting strategy.
The combination of expertise in the physical and digital realms sets DASH TWO apart. “Many of our competitors’ core is digital. They are more or less all social,” reflects Sesto. “I feel that’s a foolhardy way of approaching media because there is so much out there. For lots of brands and other clients, traditional media and social just aren’t working. This is why our outdoor business has tripled in the last year or so. People want to expand beyond social media.”
People are still engaging with outdoor ads, however, especially in unexpected places or at big, high-energy events like the Coachella Festival, where social media contributes to an outdoor ad’s impact. DASH TWO will create several site-specific large-scale ads, as well as get clients on more than a dozen well-placed billboards near the Polo Grounds. “For last year’s Lady Gaga mural, fans traveled to take photos,” Sesto notes. “It was out of the way, which was exactly what she and her team wanted.” It was a destination and an experience, the kind only physical ads coupled with digital media can create.
With years of experience from boutique to big-brand businesses and budgets, Anova has established an excellent reputation in North London due to their knowledge, professionalism, creativity, motivation, and dedication to every project.
The team is also passionate about keeping up with the latest technologies that enable them to deliver to deliver tangible results.
However, I invited them onto my daily tech podcast to understand how they are helping small business find their way in the digital world.
Smule is the leading social network for music powered by a family of mobile applications that allow people to play and sing songs together across the internet. The app has 50 million monthly active users belting out over 20 million songs.
At Smule, they believe that Music is more than just listening — music also includes creating, sharing, discovering, participating and connecting. Music is the original social network, with the power to break down barriers, touch souls, and bring people from all over the world together.
When they started in 2008, Smule was just a company with a fun name and a big dream. They wanted to bring music back to its roots and empower anyone to join in. Today, they are a vibrant, global community of music lovers where millions of people across the world come together each day to share their passion for music, make new friends, cheer each other on, and simply have fun.
On today's tech podcast, I chat with Jeffrey Smith who is the co-founder and CEO of Smule. We talk about how he created a new social experience that didn’t exist before, and so changing the name from “Sing!" to “Smule" makes sense because this is about more performance collaboration, also indicating the brand's flagship focus.
Jeff started Smule in June of 2008 with a vision to bring music back to its roots as a creative, participatory medium. For the past twenty-five years, Jeff has co-founded and led businesses either acquired by Novell, Google or gone public.
I recently discovered a Danish tech startup called Templafy that beat 2500 nominees, to reach five national finalists for the Nordic Startup of the Year award.
After hearing the company announce that it has acquired Berlin-based Veodin, making Veodin's popular 'SlideProof' add-in part of Templafy's enterprise communications productivity and governance platform, I invited their co-founder Christian Lund onto today's tech podcast.
Templafy brings custom company templates, brand assets and best practice content together directly inside any office application, streamlining how users create on-brand and compliant documents, presentations and emails. With Templafy, global businesses safeguard their brand integrity and increase productivity through a centrally governed, secure and easy to use platform.
Founded in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2014, Templafy’s team leveraged more than 15 years of experience in template management and document automation to develop an enterprise cloud service solution which is now a global market leader within its category, validated by blue chip enterprise customers on every continent.
SyncThink develops revolutionary eye-tracking technology analytics, now in VR headsets, that give medical professionals objective metrics for visual attention and dynamic orientation.
Based on 15 years of research and 12 granted patents, SyncThink’s first product, EYE-SYNC, is a 60-second, objective sideline assessment that uses eye tracking to evaluate for ocular motor impairments and vestibular balance dysfunction – the two most common and serious components of concussion.
FDA-cleared for detecting eye-tracking impairment, EYE-SYNC is used by leading university athletic departments and medical clinics, from Stanford University to Massachusetts General Hospital, EYE-SYNC is transforming brain health assessment, recovery, and monitoring.
Guest Info
Laura Yecies is the CEO of SyncThink, as a Silicon Valley veteran, she has successfully led multiple startups and top brands. As CEO of SugarSync, she led the company for four years through an aggressive business and product growth phase growing from zero to $25M in revenue and signed several strategic partnerships leading to significant valuation increases.
SugarSync was later acquired by J2Global. She joined the Catch.com team as acting CEO to help develop the company’s business model, where they expanded the product footprint and built strategic alliances, before successfully selling the company to Apple in 2013.
For the six years after leaving Informix, she was the Vice President of the Netscape browser division at AOL where she was responsible for the development of Netscape 7.0 and the launch of the Netscape browser in 23 languages.
After leaving NetScape, she joined Yahoo where she served as the Global General Manager for the Yahoo Mail division. Following her time at Yahoo, Yecies was the VP of Marketing at Check Point Software where she served for three years. Prior to the aforementioned, Yecies led marketing programs and Latin American sales at Informix Software Corp for six years.
She’s been the recipient of many awards such as the 2011 Gold Medal and 2012 Silver Medal for Female Executive of the Year for the Stevie Award for Women in Business, the Inc. 500 — Top Female CEO of 2012, and was a previous U.S. Department of State TechWoman Mentor.
Did you know that 2.4 billion people have no identity? Without legal identity, billions of people are without access to the social and financial services that many of us take for granted today. People without legal identity are socially, financially and legally excluded.
This global challenge is also a huge opportunity. Triggering an estimated investment of $2-3 trillion a year, the potential value that can be unlocked for society is immense. Markets are already reacting to this substantial potential in return of investment for this global agenda.
Joseph Thompson is the CEO and Co-founder of AID:Tech, the company that uses Digital Identity and Blockchain technology to revolutionize how governments, enterprises and NGOs deliver digital entitlements.
AID:Tech is the first company in the world to successfully deliver aid to Syrian refugees completely transparently, the project is also leveraging blockchain technology to make a difference. In late 2015 a camp in Lebanon unwittingly became the first to use blockchain technology as a means of receiving humanitarian aid.
As the first blockchain project to receive funding from both the Irish and Singapore government, AID:Tech recently launched an initiative with PharmAccess to monitor digitally guided pregnancies of one hundred women in Tanzania and marked a significant milestone as the first African 'baby on the blockchain' was safely delivered this month.
Joseph is a highly sought-after thought leader and recognized as one of only ten global SDG Pioneers by the UN for harnessing Blockchain technology and its potential in global development, and in January 2018, he was named as the world’s 22nd most Visionary Leader.
In addition to speaking about how AID:Tech’s platform enables entitlements like aid, welfare, remittances, donations, and healthcare to be digitized and delivered through blockchain technology in a completely transparent manner, we also discuss the following.
- Restoring donation transparency in the charity sector
- Delivering digital identities to vulnerable populations - can this assist in facilitating the integration of refugees?
- Intersecting blockchain with humanitarian aid
- Revolutionising remittance payments for the unbanked
- Bringing social and financial inclusion to the world’s underserved populations
Ryan Coon is the CEO and Co-founder of Avail (formerly Rentalutions), the only all-in-one solution designed for do-it-yourself landlords and their tenants. The platform is used by more than 200,000 landlords and tenants across the United States.
Ryan has been on all sides of the rental process and has a lot to say about how technology is not only making it easier to be a landlord but also making independent landlords more attractive to prospective tenants. I invited Ryan onto or daily tech podcast to look at how they are using technology to transform the PropTech industry.
I learn how the Chicago-based portfolio company is using technology to empower do-it-yourself landlords and their tenants to gain a reputation as "Slack for landlords."
CEO of Pendo, Todd Olson talks about how advanced NPS (Net Promoter Score) analytics is shaping the future of product management and how to retain customer loyalty and engagement in a time where customers are demanding insanely great products at the right price.
Pendo combines product analytics and qualitative feedback to help product teams deliver software that users love. Several leading SaaS companies like Zendesk, Namely, LexisNexis, and Sprinklr are using Pendo to capture user behavior, simplify the product experience, and understand their users like never before - ultimately leading to increased engagement and adoption.
JMP Securities recently listed Pendo a "Hot 100" private U.S. software company based on factors like financial growth, product, leadership, customers, and market potential.
About Todd Olson
Todd Olson is co-founder and CEO of Pendo, a product experience platform that helps product teams create software customers love. A three-time entrepreneur, Todd has experienced the highs and lows of running fast-growth technology companies.
A proficient coder by age 14, he spent his teen years working as a database designer and software architect for MBNA Bank in Delaware. By graduation from Carnegie Mellon University, he’d invented a data integration product, co-founded Cerebellum Software, and raised seed capital.
Cerebellum went on to raise $17 million in institutional capital and hire 65 people, only to shut down when funding dried up during the dotcom era. A role as vice president of product development at TogetherSoft brought Todd to Raleigh, where he eventually started 6th Sense Analytics, which he sold to Rally Software.
After Rally’s IPO, he teamed up with fellow product leaders and technologists from Red Hat, Cisco and Google to launch Pendo in October 2013. The company has since raised $56 million in venture capital, landed more than 500 customers and now employs 170 people across offices in Raleigh, San Francisco, New York and Yakum, Israel. It was named a Top 50 U.S. Startup by LinkedIn in 2017.
With nearly two decades of experience in robotic process automation (RPA) technologies, the company’s CEO, Mihir Shukla, has been a leading voice and visionary in developing this category. He believes in a future where automation will free up employee time to focus on what people do best – think beyond repetitive tasks, be creative and add value to the workplace.
While many aspects of automation are surrounded by negative connotations in mainstream media, I wanted to explore the positive side of how technology
One hundred years ago, work consisted of digging a hole in the ground and planting something. We then moved onto boring, mundane and repetitive tasks. But technology is now liberating workers and enabling them to question inefficiencies rather than accepting them.
Mihir shares his tech startup journey, building Automation Anywhere, and the future of bots in the workplace. We also discuss how tech can help us think beyond repetitive tasks, be creative and more human.
Australian based tech startup MuzeRoom recently launched an app that delivers music news for the artist you are listening to.
When streaming through Spotify, Apple Music, or Google Play MuzeRoom will automatically display music news for the artist that is currently playing. A companion service to streaming services, MuzeRoom enhances a users listening experience by bringing them closer to the artists they love.
Co-founder Ronan Mason explains - “I love using the likes of Spotify and Apple Music, but they don’t offer me much more than the music itself. With MuzeRoom we wanted to change that - offering music fans up to the minute music news, new releases, music videos, and tour announcements for the artist they are listening to. We think that’s the kind of offering music fans are crying out for, but that’s not currently available.”
MuzeRoom has a massive amount of data already driving it. The app pulls its music news from the top 150 music sites and blogs including Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, MTV, and Tonedeaf. And with 220,000 artists tracked, the app has already curated over 400,000 articles - an average of around 685 new articles every single day.
“We wanted to take advantage of the time when a music fan is most engaged - when they are listening to an artist. Too often your music listening experience is not immersive enough, and platforms like Facebook are too cluttered to keep us informed these days. MuzeRoom promotes more of a ‘lean in and discover’ experience which ultimately leads to a more rewarding, engaging, and of course informative listening experience.”
250K music articles a year. 1 brilliant way to filter them. I invited Ronan onto our daily tech podcast to learn more about how MuzeRoom filters music news based on what you are listening to.
The most recent quarterly index from Upwork, identified blockchain development as the most highly coveted skill in the freelance job market, growing more than 6000% since Q1 last year. However, the sudden spike in blockchain jobs comes at a time when blockchain education offerings are still quite limited, creating a chasm between supply and demand for proficient blockchain developers.
Lisk, the decentralized blockchain application platform recently launched the Lisk Academy with the goal of spreading the power of blockchain technology as far and wide as possible through a comprehensive educational platform.
Thomas Schouten, Head of Marketing at Lisk talks about what steps need to be taken to ensure the next generation of blockchain innovators and developers have the right platform to build relevant skill sets.
We talk about how the Lisk Academy is aiming to make blockchain accessible to everyone with simplified guides on blockchain development, use-cases, how-to video tutorials, and an array of additional information.
In making blockchain education interactive and enjoyable, removing obstacles to its integration into the broader economy, and by introducing its benefits and potential use-cases to the world at large, the Lisk Academy is aiming to facilitate the faster adoption of blockchain by the general public.
We also discuss the exciting road ahead for Lisk and the long-awaited introduction of Lisk Mobile.
Today's guest on our tech podcast is Kevin O’Brien, CEO of GreatHorn.
Phishing continues to be a primary security problem for businesses. Think of all the spoofed emails you probably get from people asking for banking instructions or ‘invoice confirmation,’ messages from ‘banks’ that look surprisingly legit but ask for your credentials, and notes from ‘friends’ that look real but have an attachment that wasn’t expected.
GreatHorn is an email security company that was a finalist in the 2017 RSA Innovation Sandbox for its ability to utilize machine learning to automate the identification and remediate advanced email and social engineering attacks.
Kevin talks about the latest techniques criminals use, including the use of display name spoofs, social engineering techniques and increase in Business Service Impersonation attacks, where cybercriminals replicate communications from major brands like Walmart, DocuSign, and the US Postal Service.
We also discuss email security shortcomings in Office 365 and G Suite include end-user alerts (emails that fail DKIM go to workers, not tech pros), limited malicious URL scanning and limited ability to configure or fine-tune security policies.
I also find out more about GreatHorn's useful Phishing Risk Calculator and its annual Cloud Email Security report.
On today's tech podcast, I am proud to share one of the most inspirational tech startup stories I have heard after recording nearly 600 interviews. Andrew Rubin is the founding CEO of cybersecurity unicorn Illumio
Andrew’s fast and unconventional rise in Silicon Valley from a small business owner in St. Louis with little security background only five years ago to fast-tracking Illumio to “unicorn” status just six months after launching out of stealth in 2014 is exceptional.
Of the nine cybersecurity “unicorn” CEOs at companies like Cylance, Crowdstrike, and Tanium, Andrew is the only one without a tech pedigree or deep roots in security. This is one of the reasons why Goldman Sachs has named him one of their Most Interesting Entrepreneurs of the Year for the past three consecutive years.
The key to his success? Mentorship. Andrew says he built Illumio 100% through his mentors, enlisting people like Marc Benioff, Ben Horowitz and John Thomson (MSFT chairman). But what did these tech titans see in an unknown sales guy from NYC?
Andrew shares his unconventional path and inspirational tech startup story to building a $1B+ company and how other non-traditional, non-pedigreed entrepreneurs can rewire their own approaches to mentorship.
In order for businesses to maintain a competitive advantage in the years to come, SMB's need to introduce AI into their sales processes sooner rather than later.
Although AI may seem like something well beyond an SMB’s needs—the truth is that AI already plays a major part in sales team operations. In fact, by 2020, 30% of all companies will employ AI to augment at least one of their primary sales processes.
Software Advice is a Gartner company that was an obvious choice for me to invite onto my daily tech podcast. The fact that Software Advice has already advised over 599,000 buyers on the best software solutions completely under my radar captured my curiosity.
Software Advice is an online service for businesses navigating the software selection process. Advisors provide free, personalized software recommendations, helping companies of all sizes find products that meet their business needs. Software Advice also features objective research by industry experts and reviews from validated users, saving buyers time and resources.
Andrew Friedenthal talks about how businesses can future-proof themselves against competitors adopting AI.
Ronan Leonard built a video meeting (Mastermind) platform using webRTC. As he doesn't write code he went through 3 developers who could not get it to work. I wanted to find out more about how he struggled with finding the right people to bring his vision to life and how other startup founders can learn from his experiences.
We also discuss how at just 23, he helped rescue passengers and fellow staff when the cruise ship he was working on as it sank off the wild coast of South Africa. The event was also captured on camera and watched by over 10 Million people on YouTube.
We also talk about the role that technology has played in his success and a wide range of topics:
● Leverage. Why small business owners overlook this critical step
● The biggest lie we tell ourselves (and others)
● Rituals and Habits trump goals every time
● The age of the sharing economy
● The Peter Principal - How small business hit their level of
On this show I am passionate about covering as many topics as I can about how technology is transforming multiple industries and hopefully together we can learn a thing or too along the way.We are all surrounded by technology but seldom think about the challenges this can bring. We have already spoken about the industrial internet of things this week and the challenges of getting connectivity to an oil field in Nebraska, but today I want to demystify the world of Solar technology. Chris Hiller has been in the solar industry since 2002 and started off as a project foreman/ journeyman electrician running sites and builds. He earned his stripes in the industry installing off grid, grid tie battery back up, micro hydro and wind as well as solar thermal residential and small commercial Currently, Chris is a solutions architect advising teams on the best approach to take with bug solar projects. Chris talks about how solar technology has evolved, how solar technology works, who benefits from solar technology, what the future of solar technology looks like, why solar implementation is increasing in popularity, and much more.
The digital transformation of sports continues to take shape As NFL embraces blockchain with the latest SportsCastr and FanChain deal.
SportsCastr, a live-streaming platform that allows anyone to become a color commentator, announced today that the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), via its athlete-driven accelerator the OneTeam Collective, has acquired a minority stake in the company to power live, interactive video content for fans.
Through this partnership, active and former NFL players will use SportsCastr to provide live commentary across a wide range of professional and collegiate sports, share personal insights, and more. ACE Media, the NFLPA’s content, and production arm, will collaborate with SportsCastr to produce NFL player and other athlete-driven content featured on the SportsCastr platform.
In June, SportsCastr announced FanChain, a cryptocurrency developed for the multi-billion-dollar global sports market. FanChain allows SportsCastr users to earn tokens for participating on the platform, and those tokens can then be used to unlock premium NFL player content (such as backstage access), purchase sports tickets or merchandise, and send virtual gifts to NFL players.
Although SportsCastr is the first platform to support FanChain, the Company is working with teams, media publishers and leagues to add FanChain support, with the aim of making it the ubiquitous token within the sports industry.
Nick Schupak is the Co-Founder and Vice President of Community at SportsCastr and shares more about information about the interactive live-streaming app; and FanChain, the cryptocurrency developed to connect the fragmented sports industry on today's tech podcast.
We have all heard of the internet of things and how it is beginning to transform businesses and smart cities are starting to take shape. But what about traditional industries such as oil, gas, and agriculture that are stuck in remote locations with extreme weather?
These traditional industries have been blamed for clinging to an antiquated and inefficient approach. But despite the technological challenges of these remote locations, companies are turning to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to maintain assets and collect data in real time and improve operational efficiency.
In today's tech podcast episode, I want to explore how technology is transforming traditional industries and highlight challenges that you didn't even know existed.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) shows no signs of slowing down -- the need for real-time data processing, analytics, and rapid response is a top priority across industries, including oil & gas, wastewater, precision agriculture and others.
Meeting these priorities can be problematic through a cloud-based service provider especially in remote locations where internet connectivity is poor. Real-time data processing and analytics are a top concern for IIoT success; the option of embedded intelligence and fog computing must be considered when the cloud is not fast enough.
With over 20 years of RF innovation under its belt, FreeWave Technologies is the undisputed leader. Millions of their best-in-class, outdoor, ruggedized radios have seen action in some of the harshest and most dangerous places in the world.
I chat with Scott Allen, from FreeWave Technologies to discuss how to scale intelligent networks and what software engineers should be focusing on when it comes to designing, developing, deploying and operating industrial apps in real time at the edge of IIoT networks.
Tammy Camp entered the crypto scene back in 2011 by joining Jed McCaleb on the Stellar project. She has enjoyed a phenomenally successful career and was also a previously a Partner at 500 Startups, but it's the future that she is building that really excites me.
Here in 2018, Tammy is the founder and CEO of Stronghold, which is the first Silicon Valley venture-backed fintech startup on distributed ledger technology. The exciting company is also hitting the headlines for all the right reasons and is also working with IBM to create a new stablecoin built on Stellar.
I invited Tammy onto the show today to learn more about her ambition of creating an amazing trading experience with Stronghold. We discuss how new features, flexibility, and a simple, safe trading experience are top of the agenda.
Many will instantly think that Stellar and Stronghold are the perfect fit for each other. Tammy explains that like Stellar, they want to make sending money as easy as sending an email. Banking for the underbanked is another topic the team are passionate about, as well as helping contribute to Stellar’s growth.
“We look forward to putting this funding to work to build a new financial ecosystem where institutions can seamlessly trade and manage assets on behalf of their clients.”
Although we tackle the serious topics around creating new world solution built on trust and transparency, we also discuss her eclectic interests outside of crypto that has even resulted in a few breaking a few world records on occasion too.
Today's tech podcast episode is a must listen for anyone passionate all curious about blockchain, crypto and the brave new world that is currently being built.
Pete Zaborszky is a libertarian techie that has been invested in privacy since before Edward Snowden's revelations. Founded in 2013, his website BestVPN.com has helped millions of visitors gain information on how to protect their privacy in the digital age.
Together with a team of experts, bestVPN.com is dedicated to fighting for people’s privacy and freedom to use the internet when, where and how they wish.
BestVPN.com is a VPN price comparison and review site with three main purposes.
- To comprehensively review and compare VPN (Virtual Private Network) services to help all users of technology choose the best services to enhance their internet privacy and security.
- To educate people on the best ways to stay safe online, with guides for everyone from novices to technical experts.
- To provide up-to-the-minute news on cybersecurity and online privacy matters, and support efforts to educate people on the latest related legal developments.
Pete Zaborszky owner shares his story and how Best VPN are helping users.
With the growing topic of smart home devices and the link to consumer technology/privacy, I invited Erik Charlton onto our daily tech podcast to discuss how many of the current smart home products are not smart at all, but just a glorified remote control that is not practical in busy homes.
Erik Charlton is the CEO of new smart lighting company Noon Home (formerly C-suite at Nest and Logitech). Erik talks about to the evolution of smart home tech, data security challenges, the importance of making tech accessible and -- on a more personal level - the pros and cons of jumping from a big, global brand to a small tech startup.
We also discuss innovation and Erik reveals what it was like working with the tech legend Tony Fadell and we compare stories and my recent conversation with Guy Kawasaki.
About Noon Home
Noon Home creates products that improve our daily experience in the home and that deliver an experience that is significantly better than what consumers live with today.
The Noon Smart Lighting System eliminates the complexities and accessibility of professional-quality layered lighting by delivering it directly to the consumer at a fraction of the cost. Using patented bulb-discovery technology to identify bulb type, Noon works with existing lights and fixtures to create layered lighting scenes that are unique to each mood and activity experienced in the home.
Guest Info
Prior to NOON Home, Erik was part of the founding team at Nest, serving as Head of Business, as well as leading the Product Marketing, Central Marketing, and Sales organizations. Prior to Nest, Erik was Logitech's VP of Product Marketing for the Mouse business.
On today's tech podcast, I invited Zvi Guterman, CEO, CloudShare, onto the show to talk about why organizations are falling behind on cybersecurity training.
We discuss why companies may be OVER-training with full cyber warfare scenarios......and unnecessarily losing time.
Organizations can't solve the global cybersecurity crisis overnight, so why do they spend time skilling up warriors to protect the national grid, instead of their own business systems? (unless the grid IS your business...)
Zvi also expands on:
- How cyber range training can quickly become overkill
- Why cyber talent development needs a scalpel, not a chainsaw
- How to train your staff as quickly as possible
About CloudShare
CloudShare helps software organizations grow revenue, increase efficiency and improve quality by making it easy to replicate complex on-premise IT environments in the cloud, with specialized solutions for training, sales enablement, and sandboxing. CloudShare customers include leading software and cybersecurity companies such as Palo Alto Networks, Atlassian, ForgeRock, Sophos, Dell and HP.
LOT Network (short for License on Transfer) is an international network of companies designed to proactively address the risks and costs posed by Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs) and patent privateering. Its members represent a broad range of industries, including consumer products, automotive, cloud computing and financial services.
Members of the network have agreed to license their patents to the other members of LOT Network prior to transferring their patents to a third party outside the community. Having heard how patent trolls are starting to target the blockchain industry, I invited Ken Seddon back onto the show to talk about how they are protecting businesses against blood-sucking trolls that finding loopholes in patent laws and destroy an entire company.
Guest Info
Ken Seddon joined LOT in April of 2015, bringing over 20 years of experience managing all areas of intellectual property. Previously, Ken was with some of the largest patent holders the world including Apple, Micron, Motorola, Intel and most recently as the Vice President of IP at ARM.
Ken drafted over 300 patent applications while at Motorola and Intel, and managed all US patent prosecution at Intel. As Chief IP Counsel of Numonyx which was later acquired by Micron, Ken led strategic IP Licensing for two years before moving to Apple.
At Apple, Ken developed the IP strategy for future products and acquired and defended patents from PAE assertions. Ken then went on to be the VP of IP at ARM before being selected by the Board of Directors to be the first CEO of LOT Network.
On today's tech podcast, I find out more about a company called VTEX who you might not have heard of but learn how they are transforming the fortunes for some of the world's biggest brands.
VTEX is the provider of cloud-based e-commerce platform used by Sony, Coca Cola, Disney, Levis, GE, Walmart and others in 25 countries with more than 2,300 stores online and $2.3B in gross merchandise value.
VTEX was also recently ranked on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce. The company also recently announced a partnership with global tech consulting firm Nisum to expand its auto-scalable, digital commerce platform that is proven to increase conversion rates by 54 percent into North America.
I wanted to find out more about how VTEX is transforming businesses, helping them through the digital transformation and what the partnership means for retailers and marketers.
With companies offering new hires $1 million signing bonuses, demand is off the charts for blockchain talent. I recently discovered a Blockchain 3.0 platform called Aeternity (AE) that is armed with a troop of idealistic coders determined to bring blockchain to the masses.
The primary force behind any new technology is the people who believe in its potential, therefore the mainstream blockchain revolution hinges on a constantly expanding global community of developers and blockchain enthusiasts. In order to allow the blockchain space to evolve and grow, it must be presented as more than just a buzzword.
As passionate believers in the unlimited possibilities of blockchain technologies, æternity, have recently launched æternity Starfleet, a series of robust incubator and accelerator programs to support the global blockchain ecosystem. A global initiative with hubs in Vaduz, Berlin, and Zagreb, æternity Starfleet will support global projects from seed stage and provide them with up to $250,000 in funding.
With the Aeternity (AE) crypto token sitting in the top 30 of CoinMarket Cap, I was intrigued to find out much more about Aeternity, the cyrpto token AE and the release of their Starfleet Incubator.
On today's tech podcast, I speak with Nikola Stojanow who reveals everything you want to know about Aeternity and more.
Co-CEOs, can this concept ever work? According to research, the answer is no – it almost never works. According to Paul Kenyon and Mark Austin, the answer is yes – it’s the only way Avecto would have achieved the success it has to date, securing 8 million endpoints. The two have been running Avecto together in cohesion for the past decade, but this isn’t their first time leading together.
Mark and Paul worked together as co-founders of the company AppSense. While they didn’t know exactly what technology they wanted to create for their next company, they did know that for their next endeavor the only way it would work is if they were Co-CEOs. Paul and Mark both believe the most successful leaders find their opposite and learn from them every day.
I invited them onto the show today to learn more about their tech startup story and explore the concept of Co-CEOs and how Paul and Mark have made this structure successful.
Guest Info
Mark Austin: leads Avecto's research and development teams, driving the company's constant innovation. He has a background in software engineering and over 25 years of industry experience in all things technical.
Paul Kenyon: is in charge of Avecto’s sales and marketing division. Paul is responsible for promoting the benefits of simple and smart endpoint security to global businesses. He has a background in commercial challenges, with over 800 global brands to draw experience from.
Marcus Whitney, Nashville, TN-based investor, entrepreneur, and president of Briovation talks about blockchain and emerging developments in health technology.
Briovation is a healthcare catalyst and the parent company of Jumpstart Capital (seed funding) and Jumpstart Foundry (mentor-driven accelerator for healthcare startups) and the Health: Further Festival held in Nashville late August and draws more than 2,500 healthcare leaders, investors, and innovators all focused on driving digital transformation in healthcare.
Briovation recently announced its new umbrella initiative, Tokenizing Health, focused on analyzing, investing in, and providing open-source blockchain technology to healthcare companies nationwide to nurture innovation and create unity within the space.
The Tokenizing Health announcement also includes the public launch of Solaster, Briovation’s first health blockchain invention. On today's tech podcast, Marcus also talks about the following topics:
- Blockchain’s impact on healthcare including Briovation’s effort to analyze, invest in and provide blockchain technology to healthcare companies nationwide.
- How blockchain will enable peers to transact directly with one another to develop an optimized, efficient health system. The most important peers in Briovation's view of the health economy are the patient and the provider.
- How a world where patients as customers, health care providers and the necessary value-adding services around patient / provider interactions, can transact (financially, data, bartering etc.) in a safe, trusted manner without having to rely on third parties.
- Why and how public, permissionless blockchains will transform health over the next ten years to be truly decentralized, consumer-centric and efficient.
Marcus also reveals why the time is right for a new type of healthcare conference, why Nashville the ideal location and how Health: Further is designed to create new stakeholder networks that can improve patient care.
After publishing 5-7 interviews with tech leaders for nearly 600 episodes. Neil takes a moment to answer a few questions from the listeners of his daily tech podcast.
On today's episode Neil discusses the following:
- Blockchain and Crypto
- Stellar Lumens
- Brave Browser and the BAT Token
- How to Launch Your Own Podcast
- Podcast Guests
- Tech Writing
If you would like Neil to answer your questions, email, tweet him, or leave a virtual voicemail over at his site www.techblogwriter.co.uk
Pavel Bains is the CEO of Bluzelle Networks, which builds blockchain and distributed ledger solutions for the finance industry. The last time we spoke was on episode 426 in January after Bluzelle successfully closed a $19.5m ICO.
After hearing about the launch of its decentralized database testnet and how they have attracted over 1000 developers, 30+ blockchain integrations including Qtum, Icon & Wanchain as well as a JD.com collaboration, Chinese e-commerce giant that is the third biggest tech company in the world by revenue, I felt a catchup chat was long overdue.
“A new data economy is emerging and Bluzelle is at the forefront of helping businesses and individuals to fully control and monetize their data in this revolutionary new world. The number of decentralized projects and dApp developers that are using the Bluzelle ecosystem right now is testament to this,” said Pavel Bains, CEO of Bluzelle.
“Everyone thinks of Facebook, Instagram, Google and Twitter as free but they are not. We are paying with our personal data but recent headlines show how companies are monetizing, manipulating and mishandling our data. For blockchain projects and decentralized developers that want to change this, Bluzelle is shifting the power and control back to individuals and businesses, who are the rightful owners of the data,” he concluded.
Bluzelle has already started building this “new data economy”, which has the Bluzelle decentralized database at its core. This manages and stores data across a network of nodes around the world, enabling a level of security, reliability, and scalability that the major cloud providers can’t match.
Many of the world’s leading brands rely on PowerInbox email personalization and monetization to drive real engagement, revenue, and results.
I wanted to find out more about how technology-based solutions can help businesses rise above email clutter with high-impact dynamic tools for email marketers. This search led me to PowerInbox, a company that aims to bring emails to life and monetize campaigns to supercharge engagement.
Jeff Kupietzky, CEO of PowerInbox discusses how emerging technology is creating new revenue streams for businesses that can be best utilized through the convergence of AdTech and Martech. Jeff also provides tips for combining the two types of technologies to have the biggest impact on business results.
I also explore how he runs a 100% remote, international team and how his company leverages technology to provide a positive, remote work experience.
Patriot Boot Camp offers a series of programs under the Techstars banner that gives military veterans the tools and connections to launch a tech startup.
Did you know that military vet entrepreneurs are twice as likely to be operating their businesses after five years of operation? And like all startups should know, only 10 percent actually stick around and go on to succeed. So why are military vets more likely to stay in business?
Some of the biggest companies in the US were founded by military veterans like Nike, GoDaddy and FedEx. Vets have historically been successful at starting their own businesses, dating back to after WWII (where 50% of veterans-owned businesses), but vet entrepreneurship has been on a steady decline over the years, now with only 5.6% veteran-owned businesses in the US.
This is because vets don’t have access to resources and supportive communities like they did after WWII. Today’s GI Bill doesn’t provide military and vets with access to low-interest loans to start businesses (like the GI Bill did during World War II).
Patriot Boot Camp (PBC) is on a mission to turn these numbers around by empowering veterans to use the skills attained from operating in a high stress, demanding environments and translate them into successful business ideas of their own.
PBC has already helped over 750 entrepreneurs start successful businesses, with alumni raising over $70M in capital and creating over 1,300 jobs during its six years of operation. Alumni accomplishments range from appearances on ABC’s Shark Tank, acceptance to top venture accelerators like TechStars and Y Combinator and seven successful alumni company acquisitions.
Josh Carter, CEO of Patriot Boot Camo discusses the gaps in entrepreneurial support that military veterans often encounter and much more in today's tech podcast
Pypestream is on a mission to make life easier by allowing businesses to connect with their customers through a secure channel, referred to as a "pype", to provide on-demand sales, marketing and support services.
By leveraging a combination of AI-powered robots and human agents within the pype, companies are able to streamline their customer engagements to garner exceptional cost savings, while maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction
Even enterprises in the most highly-regulated industries can use Pypestream's secure messaging and transactions to interact directly with their stakeholders. With a leadership team comprised of industry experts with decades of experience, Pypestream is serving more than a dozen industry verticals, including insurance, healthcare, utilities, financial services, telecommunications, consumer goods and travel.
Major brands of Fortune 50 companies have extended Pypestream’s Pype to be an outbound messaging system too so that email is used less and less in marketing.
Picture a time when customers have such a deeply personal relationship with a business/brand that they can interact anytime, anywhere around any topic inside a messaging interface. If it’s your birthday, the same system that lets you resolve a billing issue sends you a coupon and happy birthday message in the morning.
I invited the CEO of Pypestream, Richard Smullen onto the show to discuss the major shift taking place in the use of AI and data and how this shift is already bringing brands and customers closer together.
On today's tech podcast, I talk to Benjamin Bilski from the NagaGroup. Fans of the crypto and blockchain space will probably be aware of the NAGA Coin but I wanted to find out more about his story and vision for the Naga group.
Founded in 2015, NAGA successfully IPO'd in 2017 and then acquired the world's second largest ICO investor base with more than 63.000 subscribers in the NAGA token sale (raised > 50m USD) just a few months after the company's debut on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
The NAGA Group AG is backed by some of the world’s largest and most prestigious shareholders, such as mainland China’s largest private multi-hundred-billion investment company, FOSUN Group, the German Stock Exchange (Deutsche Börse AG), as well as Germany’s second oldest bank, Hauck & Aufhaeuser (founded 1796).
Guest Info
Benjamin Bilski, a Forbes 30 under 30 Member, is a serial internet entrepreneur. He is the Founder and Executive Director of one of Europe´s fastest growing FinTechs, The NAGA Group AG. The company performed Germany´s most successful IPO 2017 only 21 months after its incorporation and is valued $250 Million on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
He also is one of the key persons behind the NAGA COIN ($100m Market Cap), a digital cryptocurrency for stock and virtual item trading.
Benjamin also founded Germany´s leading Online-Shop for Fishing & Outdoor equipment, angelplatz.de. He holds a M.Sc. in Management from EBS University of Business & Law. Benjamin is a is a former German swimming champion and was part of the German National Team in swimming.
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Scanmarker looks like a highlighter pen, but it allows you to highlight text in the physical world from a book or magazine, and display on your smartphone or computer screen instantly. For students, this means no more retyping.
Scanmarker Air also enables users to capture, digitize, organize and share text from any paper document, transferring it wirelessly to your computer or smartphone – anywhere, anytime.
The Scanmarker CEO found himself reading numerous books for Social Psychology class and highlighting tens of key paragraphs with his yellow highlighter. He was desperate for a better and less cumbersome way to collect and condense all the material for easier studying and memorizing. This was the catalyst to the creation of our awesome Scanmarker product line, revolutionizing the way people study and boosting their productivity, worldwide.
I wanted to find out more about this journey and Scanmarker is using image processing technology to develop products that deliver unparalleled solutions to help people maximize their time and efficiency. I also wanted to hear real-life feedback stories and experiences from a broad spectrum of people and how Scanmarker is being used by students, researchers, lawyers, administrators, librarians, doctors, teachers etc
On today's tech podcast, I chat with Reuven Regev, Founder, and CEO at Scanmarker to chat about his story and the wide variety of uses for Scanmarker.
KeepSolid is an international product development company headquartered in New York, USA. They offer a wide range of solutions and services – from improved productivity to data protection and internet security – for both individual and corporate clients.
The company believes that it's the reliability of their products provides their customers with a competitive advantage. While practicing the productivity methodology, they take people and companies to the heights of productivity and reliability.
After hearing that KeepSolid has been working on an eSignature app that would offer a cheaper alternative to Adobe Sign, I felt compelled to find out more. I soon discovered that after extensive beta-tests, KeepSolid Sign is now available.
KeepSolid has been collecting users feedback and implementing the most sought-after features. Now, this eSignature software is ready to help small and medium business owners to go paperless. KeepSolid Sign is an app that allows users to remotely sign any kind of document with just a finger, being free from paper chase, and minimizing possible misunderstandings and errors.
It starts as easy as importing documents from Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Evernote, Finder, or Storage. Then these document can be shared and signed in minutes. The app allows to manage the signing order, specify relevant access rights, and add comments to set the record straight. Annotations, like initials, date, notes, and checkmarks, are also available.
Any changes made to the documents won't go unnoticed as the software will send a notification on each. Users can also easily check the status - sent, waiting for a signature, or completed - of the agreement in the app.
Another significant feature is encryption.
KeepSolid Sign protects all documents with random keys and the AES+RSA encryption combination. While the AES-256 allows to quickly encrypt data, the RSA ensures a secure key exchange so that no one can compromise the decryption keys. Moreover, the encrypted users' data is not stored in one place but distributed over several servers without the possibility of its partial or full interpretation. This means that even when some parties intercept your data, they will not be able to restore, decrypt, and aggregate it.
On today's tech podcast, I interview Julia Holovko who tells me all about the KeepSolid Sign App.
Zuora is an enterprise software company that designs SaaS applications and sells access to these applications, using a subscription business model, to client companies.
Cloud-based video conferencing company Zoom Video Communications is one of the first to sign onto the new Zuora upgraded platform. Why? The new features are all about giving the customer what they want. CHANGE. Zoom has hundreds of thousands of customers that often request to upgrade, downgrade, add-on, and renew.
These changes are led by our customer expectations from our own lifestyle. Just like we do at home with Netflix or Spotify. Working with Zuora, flexible enough to manage these subscription changes, Zoom has seen triple-digit revenue growth.
I invited Tom Krackeler on today's tech podcast to discuss how
Zuora is gaining a reputation as the pioneer of the Subscription Economy.
David reveals his valuable insights on new kinds of economic actors called decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) where communities of distributed actors/workers who bring a new form of labor and value to the market- very similar to what we see in hackathons.
This is forming the discourse around the second wave of the future of work- first it was flexible working and side-gigging, now that looks more like empowered individuals coming together in groups to create and unlock economic value.
This structure could very well change/disrupt the current idea of a company or organization and change that into something a lot more fluid and distributed, thanks to new tech (like Deconet).
I am quite excited about this one and how he is using technology to create an alternative future for work.
Would you like free tickets to the Hack Summit Virtual Conference?
- Head over to hacksummit.org
- Register for the event
- Add the code “Fluffypony” to secure free access to the event
Register and then add the code "Fluffypony" for free tickets too.
Hack Summit is the world's largest virtual event and gathering of developers in history, which aims to build awareness and further the advancement of future technologies. Founded in 2014 by Ed Roman, Hack Summit has attracted 64,000 (2014) and 80,000 (2016) attendees and raised over $100,000 for coding non-profits.
In 2018, hack.summit() returns as a special blockchain-themed event, known as hack.summit(“blockchain”). It unites blockchain leaders from around the globe to educate the world on their protocols and to support charitable causes, which promote diversity and equality in programming.
Through speaking engagements, educational sessions and workshops, and a massive virtual hackathon, hack.summit() aims to engage and empower developers around the world to participate in a global community dedicated to building a better future. hack.summit() is brought to you by Hack VC, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco CA.
At this year's Virtual Conference dedicated to Blockchain and Crypto, I caught up with Riccardo "Fluffy Pony" Spagni From Monero before he delivered his fireside chat at the event to learn more about what to expect from the Hack Summit and the future of Monero.
Head over to head over to https://hacksummit.org/ Register and then add the code "Fluffypony" for free tickets too.
As AI percolates into the enterprise, sales organizations have distinguished themselves as early adopters – using AI, for example, to improve forecasting and pipeline analytics, and to manage inbound leads. Gartner estimates that by 2020, 30% of all B2B companies will employ AI to augment at least one of their primary sales processes.1
Yet the technology previously has held untapped potential in the realm of sales readiness – with Brainshark now introducing a solution that creates an engaging practice environment for sellers, and helps managers streamline and prioritize feedback.
Brainshark's Machine Analysis analyzes videos that reps submit through Brainshark's sales coaching solution – often videos of the rep pitching a new product, handling common objections, etc. Machine Analysis transcribes the videos and auto-generates an analysis and score for each submission, factoring in whether sellers adhere to manager-defined parameters, including coverage of key topics, speaking rate, low level of filler words ("um," "uh," etc.) and more.
Managers have the option to sort video submissions by the machine score, before providing their own manual reviews and feedback through Brainshark's coaching solution. Machine Analysis also provides unique, automated insights on rep videos, including:
- Emotion analysis – Every second of the video, Machine Analysis analyzes the seller's facial expression for eight emotions – happiness, surprise, sadness, contempt, etc. – noting their frequency within a submission (e.g., 95% happiness, 2% sadness, 3% contempt, etc.). Managers and reps can replay the video from within Brainshark's platform, viewing the exact moments when emotion changes are noted.
- Personality insights – Measuring the frequency of certain categories of words, the engine detects how often the participant displays traits such as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and an emotional range, to show how sellers could be perceived by buyers.
"AI has an important role to play in the future of sales. For organizations to adopt and embrace it, it's critical to show how AI can augment what sales managers and professionals do – making them even more valuable to buyers," said Jim Dickie in the recent announcement.
Brainshark CEO Greg Flynn also said: "Machine Analysis is the next step for video coaching. With our new technology, sales managers and leaders can create more precise coaching activities and make better, data-driven decisions. Salespeople, in turn, get consistent feedback on important and, sometimes, intangible aspects of their presentations. These are powerful advances in the Brainshark platform, and we remain committed to continuous innovation – helping organizations foster a culture of perpetual sales readiness and greater sales performance."
I invited Sandeep Soman, VP Product and Design at Brainshark onto the show to find out more.
Ople, a B2B software that uses AI to maximize the value of data, aims to solve both simple and complex challenges. Their mission is to ultimately make AI easy, affordable, and ubiquitous for businesses.
I chat with Ople CEO, Pedro Alves about the advantages of using AI in business. We also talk about how AI can serve businesses by:
- Identifying and engaging prospects to simplify the customer journey to sale
- Optimizing supply chain operations and logistics by identifying new efficiencies and opportunities to reduce costs
- Pro-actively engaging customers likely to churn by detecting the behavioral patterns that correlate to customer turnover
- Reducing and preventing fraud through early recognition of the human and technical patterns which precede fraudulent activity
Pedro Alves is the Founder and CEO of OPLE but he is so much more than that too. Inc. Magazine called him a “data science savant” and Wired Magazine called him a “top 10 scientific figures of the year” I invited him onto the show today to find out more.
Acquia is the leading provider of cloud-based, digital experience management solutions. Forward-thinking organizations rely on Acquia to transform the way they can engage with customers -- in a personal and contextual way, across every device and channel.
Acquia provides the agility organizations need to embrace new digital business models and speed innovation and time to market. With Acquia, thousands of customers globally including the BBC, Cisco, Stanford University, and the Australian Government are delivering digital experiences with transformational business impact.
Mike Sullivan was named CEO of Acquia effective in December 2017 bringing 25 years of tech experience from notable companies like Hewlett Packard Enterprise with him.
I chat with Mike about how brands are reaching customers now, how they will in the future and the role of voice-enabled tech for example, which is a significant growth area for Acquia. We also discuss how consolidation moves by major players like Adobe through their recent acquisition of Magento commerce might be bad for businesses.
Mike also talks about the pitfalls of trapping your organization in a single vendor ecosystem and how this can stifle innovation.
Mike Ellenbogen is the CEO of Evolv Technology which is transforming venue security. As adversaries shift their focus towards event arenas, threats have shifted from petty crimes and rambunctious conduct to something entirely different. Threats can come from anywhere and as recent security events have shown, it is not unique to any one place.
After connecting with security executives at some of the largest sports stadiums and event arenas in the U.S., Evolv believes a risk-based approach to security is critical. During today's conversation we discuss:
- What needs to be done to keep patrons safe – including providing protection beyond the walls of a building
- The elements that make up an effective physical security plan
How by embracing a risk management strategy, venues can focus their most rigorous screening on the 1%, rather than the 99%. - How Port Authority police tested the Evolv Edge high-tech body scanner at the World Trade Center PATH station
- What Gillette Stadium is doing to safely secure its own venue and why a superior visitor experience and security do not need to be mutually exclusive
Regular listeners might remember that I interviewed the guys at Send Grid last year. SendGrid was Founded in 2009, after graduating from the TechStars program, and developed an industry-disrupting, cloud-based email service to solve the challenges of reliably delivering emails on behalf of growing companies.
SendGrid is a leading digital communication platform, enabling businesses to engage with their customers via email reliably, effectively and at scale. A leader in email deliverability, SendGrid has processed over 40 billion emails each month for internet and mobile-based customers as well as more traditional enterprises.
I catch up with SendGrid CEO, Sameer Dholakia in London and chat about becoming the first startup accelerator graduate to ever go public (with DropBox following shortly thereafter). We also discuss the story behind SendGrid becoming a leader in email deliverability that processes over 40 billion emails each month for internet and mobile-based customers as well as more traditional enterprises.
Andres Angelani, CEO of Softvision, a digital services company that creates customized experiences that connect consumers to brands. Andres is originally from Buenos Aires, spent nearly 14 years at Globant, and has a unique perspective on the digital economy and what it takes to win, particularly at the global level.
On today's tech podcast I chat with Andres about his vision, experience and how the secret to Softvision tremendous growth and expanding its digital capabilities. Today the company has delivery centers in U.S., Romania, Canada, Argentina, India, and Brazil.
We also discuss:
- Softvision is coming up on its 20 year anniversary, including Andres' one-year anniversary as CEO. He and the company will be announcing new offices, including joint US headquarters; as well as new and expanded relationships with marquee customers.
- How all businesses now want help to become a tech company and lead the way through digital experiences.
- The company is $150 million in billings and has a different organizational model than most companies in its space (it organizes its talent in communities called Guilds and Pods)
- Softvision has a strong client roster, especially in retail (Estee Lauder, Zumiez, Macy's, etc.)
- The company is driving innovation in the digital commerce space, particularly in areas such as AI, blockchain, and several other areas.
GrokStyle is a provider of vision-based AI solutions for retail that recently announced that it has been selected by IKEA to power visual search for the globally recognized retailer’s IKEA Place augmented reality app. With this integration, the AR experience has been enhanced so that users can now easily take a picture to search for a product and visualize it in their home.
GrokStyle has developed award-winning visual search technology to meet the specific needs of retailers. The core technology is based on groundbreaking research conducted by the founders at Cornell University, which is frequently cited by followers in the field of visual search and supported by two National Science Foundation Grants. The company was selected as one of the 100 most promising AI companies in the world in 2017 by CB Insights and won the 2016 LDV Vision Summit Entrepreneurial Challenge.
Guest Info
Kavita Bala is a Professor in the Computer Science Department and Program of Computer Graphics at Cornell University. She co-founded GrokStyle, and serves as Chief Scientist (2015--), and is a faculty Fellow with the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.
Bala specializes in computer graphics and computer vision, leading research in recognition and visual search using deep learning; material modeling and acquisition; realistic, physically-based rendering; and material and lighting perception.
Bala's work on scalable rendering, Lightcuts, is the core production rendering engine in Autodesk's cloud renderer; and her instance recognition research is the core technology of GrokStyle's visual search engine. Her work on 3D Mandalas was featured at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York.
It would be tempting to put Zinc - founded by two former Yammer employees - into the same bucket with Slack, Atlassian, Microsoft Teams and the myriad other “team collaboration” tools that have popped up in recent years. But Zinc is a mobile messaging app aimed at a completely different audience.
In fact, most of Zinc’s users don’t have desks. Their “offices” are trucks, delivery vehicles, or far-flung job sites. This is a massive number of users – in fact, according to Google, “deskless workers” account for between 72 and 80 percent of the global workforce.
Deskless workers universally despise email and rarely even use a computer. Zinc, in many cases, will end up replacing pen and paper within an organization. In others, it replaces existing digital tools throughout much of the company, including email and texting.
Think of Zinc as a highly secure, all-mode messaging app meant for business communications. Zinc customers include companies within the construction, manufacturing, healthcare, and hospitality industries who have to be in constant communication with each other to solve on-the-ground problems for customers.
I chat with Stacey Epstein who reveals more about her story discusses where enterprise communication is headed in the context of deskless workers. We also talk about a recent deal that Zinc struck with GE Digital’s ServiceMax, one designed to allow field service teams to communicate in real-time and also access product information.
GE understands that field workers who are in-the-know work faster, have higher completion rates and are more engaged than those who aren’t. And, are more likely to help retain customers.
Henri Pihkala is the CEO and Co-founder of Streamr, the online marketplace for decentralized, real-time data.
Having recently partnered with both Nokia and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Streamr is essentially creating the app store for data streams that categorizes and showcases publicly available data streams on the Streamr Network. Streamr is empowering consumers to take on the multi-billion dollar personal data market, take back data ownership, and profit from assets that are rightfully theirs.
Whether you’re an individual or a large enterprise, you will be able to sell your information on your own terms without anyone taking a cut. If you are a company or a developer looking to buy data to increase the performance and efficiency of your operations, boost knowledge of your customer base, or create unstoppable apps, Streamr will also work in your favor. Essentially,Streamr is striving to put the ownership of data back in the hands of the individual.
Ex algorithmic trader and serial entrepreneur, prior to Streamr Henri led the development of two high-frequency algorithmic trading platforms.
I invited Henri onto todays tech podcast to talk about Streamr, crypto, blockchain and the future of the data economy.
In today's tech podcast episode, I wanted to explore the rise of podcasts as a storytelling medium and how it differentiates from the visual-focused media society is accustomed to. Audio has a major impact on one's ability to connect to and learn from its content. In fact, the retention rate of auditory learning is 2x higher than reading and 4x higher than lecturing.
Faced with an evolving digital landscape, the Beaver Country Day School, recently installed a podcast studio and have seen for themselves how students use this medium to better hone their communication and presentation skills, as well as achieve a deeper understanding of a subject matter.
With reliance on audio, podcasts offer a more intimate form of media than visual sources do, which has resulted in almost a quarter of the U.S. population tuning in regularly to their favorite podcast. Beaver recognizes that podcasts can meld both education and entertainment to create a greater level of engagement and interest from students.
With students already turning out Serial quality podcasts, it will be interesting to see how the next generation of creators will continue to audio focused media for information and entertainment.
I chat with Rob MacDonald and Margot Amouyal to find out more about how technology and podcasts are helping to enhance education at the Beaver Country Day School.
Campaign Monitor merges with Emma and Delivra to launch new Campaign Monitor Brand. Could this be the most comprehensive email marketing solution suite of three SaaS products in the industry?
Introducing Campaign Monitor’s suite of email marketing solutions
Campaign Monitor brings together best-of-breed email marketing solutions and services to better support the email needs of all businesses by offering the following:
Campaign Monitor: This market-leading self-service brand focuses on delivering a better experience compared to freemium brands, with a primary focus on high volume email senders trying to drive more engagement with subscribers. With its easy to use marketing tool, marketers are able to send beautiful, targeted newsletters to grow their business.
Emma: Emma’s solution makes it easy for teams of all sizes to create and collaborate on beautiful campaigns. Its focus on delivering powerful personalization in an accessible way ultimately drives more conversions and sales. Emma also allows distributed business or franchised organizations to manage professional email marketing at scale.
Delivra: Delivra offers custom email marketing and automation solutions designed to meet the unique needs of every customer. Its service-centric model focuses on building more sophisticated, custom
Cody Bender, Chief Product Officer
Cody Bender is the Chief Product Officer of Campaign Monitor. Before joining Campaign Monitor in early 2017, Cody led Return Path’s Email Certification program and Product organization for six years, working with some of the largest ISPs, ESPs, and email marketers in the world. Before that, he developed and implemented software solutions and telecom engineering for municipalities and governments across the US.
Amadeus Code is an artificial intelligence-powered songwriting assistant. The technology is a new approach that breaks centuries of melodies down into their constituent parts (“licks”) and transforms them into data. By eschewing more traditional methods of musical information transfer--the score and MIDI, for example--Japanese researchers have created a system to generate the kind of endless stream of melody Mozart proclaimed ran through his head.
Composers, producers, and songwriters now have the distilled praxis of thousands of artists and composers dating back to the 17th century, at their fingertips, with the new Amadeus Code melody-maker app.
The app lets users adjust the AI-generated songs in a wide variety of ways. You can limit the era of the melodies it draws on--even projecting possible future hits by setting the parameter to 20xx. You can try more sustained notes or go for rapid-fire staccato. You can play around with lines that sound familiar, using the most common pop song patterns, or that veer off into wild and unexpected places, drawing on less popular approaches.
Once you hear something you like, you can save the entire song or pop out a section, asking the app to regenerate a new song based on that piece. “You can put together a collection of melodies that you connect with in your Song Library,” explains Fukuyama. “Then you can export them as audio and MIDI files to your favorite recording or production software and play around with them a bit more.”
These nuggets may inspire a new twist or turn in a song when you’re stuck. Or they may get you writing something in a whole new style. “We see this as a way musicians, songwriters, and producers can seek inspiration from some of the best songs in history,” says Fukuyama.
“This experience taught me that there was a lot in common between songwriting processes and genetic evolutionary processes,” reflects Inoue. “It convinced me that the feeling that encourages musicians to write songs was essentially the same as humankind’s urges to share and change, and thus ensure high-quality evolution. This astounding fact is one of the things that I want to share with everyone.”
Devbridge Group is a software design and development company that partners with large enterprises in the Financial Services, Manufacturing and Technology sectors to accelerate digital products to market. Founded on the belief that no software should be mediocre, the company creates superior products that address clients' business challenges through product thinking and agile delivery. Devbridge Group has offices in the United States, Canada and Lithuania.
At 27 years of age, Aurimas Adomavicius and his partners founded Devbridge Group. During the last ten years and with no outside funding, Aurimas has grown Devbridge Group into a 30-million-dollar technology powerhouse with nearly 300 employees across five global offices. The company builds strategic digital products for clients such as Grainger, kCura, John Deere, Morningstar, Fitch Ratings, Berlin Packaging, Art Institute of Chicago, and several Tier 1 banks in the US and Canada.
Aurimas' attributes his inspiration to found a software design and development company to his parents and upbringing. His mother, an art teacher at the time, used to take Aurimas along to drawing excursions with students twice his age. His dad, a physics professor, built Aurimas his first computer when he was six. An elegant blend of design and science is what stands at the core of the Devbridge brand today.
Aurimas’ real passion is a never-ending fight against mediocrity in everything that he or the company does. As a result, Devbridge Group has been recognized by the Inc. 5000 four years running, a National Best and Brightest Company to Work For, Inc’s Best Workplace 2017, and a top employer by Inc. Magazine.
SessionM is a customer data and engagement platform that handles complex, large-scale personal data sets for some of the largest organizations around the globe – including enterprise brands like Nike, L’Oreal, Kimberly Clark, Coca Cola, TGI Fridays and others.
Taking advantage of the fact that the SessionM platform unifies customer profiles into a single record, this new feature set will enable client representatives to quickly and simply service GDPR-related requests, including those to opt-out of profiling, “forget”, modify or export all personal data.
Beyond GDPR, SessionM is deeply experienced with helping brands create engaging customer experiences that cultivate brand loyalty.
Patrick Reynolds is CMO of SessionM and dives into the state of customer data platforms (CDPs), how the rise of AI doesn’t mean the fall of marketing jobs as well as what these platforms what they mean for brands and for consumers alike.
Cinamaker recently revealed the first highly accessible pro-quality live streaming and video production platform. The intuitive interface can link up cameras of all kinds, from smartphones to DSLR cameras, and create live streams and on-the-fly “live-edits” by simply tapping a tablet. The approach has led to a new relationship with Panasonic, as well as significant interest from camera OEMs and video software companies.
“Cinamaker is exciting because multi-camera video production no longer requires thousands of dollars in equipment or a large crew to pull off,” says Gary Baker, Cinamaker’s SVP of Corporate Development. “Cinamaker is the mobile-native professional solution for video production and live streaming, with an iPad as the central control board.” The basic functionality is straightforward, though the platform offers a broad range of features and options for pro-level quality and adaptability.
Cinamaker sprang from technology Benjamin Nowak, a serial entrepreneur and passionate tech innovator, had developed as part of another project. He was sitting at a red light when it came to him: the technology he had used to sync multiple music devices for his app Tunemob had another potential application. It could sync multiple camera inputs and change the way multi-camera video gets made.
“It was an epiphany moment,” recalls Nowak, founder and CEO of Cinamaker. “Before I wrote a line of code, I put it all on paper and filed for the provisional patent. We started by syncing two videos, then syncing the recording process. Then we tackled moving media around and transferring it all to the iPad, so that you could edit in real time by touching which camera angle or media you wanted at that moment.”
From that first moment to final product, the vision remained basically unchanged, as Nowak and his team of developers pushed over the course of three years to create a suite of products, from mobile app to hardware, that could get a multi-camera studio setup into a professional videographer or aspiring video creator’s hands for a few hundred dollars.
“We had the seed of an idea and evolved it into a full-blown platform,” reflects Nowak. “What we built is very close to our original patent application. It was a matter of just getting it right. It’s the layers of technology infrastructure and core that you need to get to do the cool stuff. We did it and we’re thrilled with the product.”
Enabled by patented PerfectSync technology, Cinamaker allows creators to capture, record, and switch between multiple cameras of all kinds. They can also record and mix up to eight audio channels and embed media assets. Then, with a tap of the screen, users can live stream to Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, or other platforms and sites for instant distribution. Finally, creators can revisit footage via a live editing workflow, letting them re-edit their recording with the in-app editor--in real time. “We built Cinamaker to save creators and videographers countless hours in post production,” explains Baker. “They can also seamlessly transfer their synchronized media and metadata into the timeline of their preferred video editor for post-production refinement.”
Live workflows, however, make the entire video production process easier, and Nowak and Baker believe many creators will simply edit within the app because of this ease. “Live workflows are a way to simplify video production, and we’ve put them on steroids,” notes Nowak. “Cinamaker uses a live editor workflow time-machine of sorts. You can go back and re-edit based on the footage captured the first time around because all cameras remain in sync. It’s a smarter way to manage multi-camera footage and the Cinamaker innovation that promises to save creators the most time.”
I invited Benjamin onto the show to learn more about how Cinamaker can enable professionals as well as new video creators with professional grade video tools that are affordable, powerful and easy to use.
The Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) is actively working to attract and grow quality tech companies and advocate for the competitiveness of Greater Phoenix.
Chris Camacho, president, and CEO Greater Phoenix Economic Council is wooing tech companies to the Grand Canyon state. During his tenure, GPEC has led the attraction of more than 280 companies creating 47,011 jobs and $4.4 billion in capital investment. Some of the more notable projects include Apple, Silicon Valley Bank, Zenefits, GoDaddy, Yelp, Amazon, Garmin, General Motors and many others.
I wanted to find out more about the region’s approach to connectivity, how it extends beyond the fabric of their community and how as a region, they are on a relentless pursuit of innovation and technology companies here are committed to changing the game.
GPEC believe that connectivity is about their region’s legacy businesses joining forces with emerging disruptors. It’s about our educational institutions working together to produce talent that is job ready and entrepreneurial in spirit. It’s about community organizations listening to their residents and responding in kind. It’s about the internet of things being THE thing in Greater Phoenix.
Chris Camacho reveals all and also how driverless vehicles, cybersecurity, blockchain, wearables, and Industry 4.0 make up the four pillars of ‘The Connected Place.’
The latest app making waves is often a gimmicky, fun trend which we delete within six months of downloading it; but theMyTherapy app is one worth keeping. With technology modernizing and finding new ways of approaching daily life, MyTherapy is doing the same for medication.
Non-adherence to medication is one of the largest issues facing healthcare systems, in the UK and throughout the developed world, and the costs are both human and financial. Only 50% of medication plans are adhered to in developed countries. A Birmingham based study estimated that annual cost of non-adherence to the NHS at £500 million.
Nearly 200,000 deaths a year in the EU are due to missed medication. The MyTherapy app is attempting to solve these problems, providing a comprehensive tool to manage medication. It’s a medication reminder, but with a variety of useful functions: a symptom tracker, an option to share progress and it notifies the user if their medication is running out.
As we head towards a more proactive approach to healthcare than reactive I invited Sebastian Gaede onto this tech podcast to find out more about how MyTherapy is making a big difference.
Workboard is an innovative startup with the ambitious goal of creating a new category called Active Strategy Management to help the C-suite at fast-growth startups and business leaders at enterprise companies to accelerate their growth strategies.
CEO and Co-Founder at Workboard, Deidre Paknad has decades of experience leading large enterprise and emerging startup teams focused on strategic pursuits and is passionate about helping other leaders engage their teams in great achievements.
As a seasoned entrepreneur, she has founded and led several companies, created new market categories and established industry reference models. Her previous company, PSS Systems, was acquired by IBM, where she went on to lead a high-growth global business working with CIOs on IT transformation initiatives.
Her startup Workboard is already making waves, with an impressive roster of clients ranging from enterprise behemoths like Microsoft and IBM to fresh and quickly growing startups. I invited her on to today's podcast to find out more.
Kirk Deis is a writer on Forbes, entrepreneur, and Founder/CEO of the digital marketing agency Treehouse 51. He has built two companies from the ground up and is excited to share his experiences in business and marketing with listeners of this tech podcast.
Kirk is about to launch The Bug Squasher. It’s a powerful new project management tool that streamlines communications between developers/writers/designers, project leads, and clients. But, I wanted to find out more about how one line of code installs The Bug Squasher onto ANY framework
Digital communications have made it easy to broadcast your voice, but the tools to cope with the influx of messages are lacking. Important messages fall by the wayside. I speak with Kirk to find out how he plans to change that.
Machines are biased. Why? Because humans are biased and humans teach machines. With artificial intelligence being integrated into HR departments in an effort to take the bias out of hiring, we need to take a step back and ensure we’re taking the bias out of AI.
HiringSolved, a startup that created the first “Siri-like” AI-powered assistant to help recruiters identify talent and build a diverse workforce, is working on just that with an update to their tool, RAI (Recruiting Artificial Intelligence, pronounced “Ray”). Used by companies such as Staples and Luxottica, RAI has now integrated voice recognition features to make it easier for recruiters to verbally set parameters to identify candidates, whether it’s by gender, skill, job experience or even veteran status. But how can we be sure the AI doesn’t have implicit biases?
On today's tech podcast, HiringSolved’s founder Shon Burton talks about inherent bias in artificial intelligence and how HiringSolved has worked to eliminate bias in their recruiting tool.
Thanks to technology, much of the world as we know it now will be vastly different in just a few decades. Sixty-five percent of children entering primary school today will work in jobs that don’t yet exist. As careers become increasingly technology-focused, access to proper skills training will be essential.
The skills we focus on acquiring must reflect our society’s future. Across the board, interest in STEM subjects is growing fast. STEM is growing quickly, especially in the Midwest of the U.S. According to findings at Varsity Tutors, interest in STEM is not only growing quickly across the U.S. but specifically in the Midwest.
Their data revealed that the Midwest is showing more initiative than the traditional tech hubs (like San Francisco) in STEM skills development. Contrary to what people might think, leading tech hubs like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and New York City are actually not the main source of STEM education growth.
In fact, the largest growth isn’t based in the Bay Area (which saw a 3% decrease in STEM tutoring from 2017-2018). Instead, it’s in the Midwest. Midwestern cities, for instance, saw 40% more growth year over year than the national average in computer science tutoring.
The findings of these reports suggest that you don’t need to be in Silicon Valley to find work. Engineers and developers no longer need to be stationed in a traditional tech hub to find work in tech. With the shifting job market, tech workers can now live anywhere.
I wanted to find out more about how AI and machine learning are continuing to change how Americans interact with technology, and how many are eager to learn more about the technology and how to apply it. On today's episode of this tech podcast, I chat with Kevin Gaugush from Varsity Tutors.
I wanted to find out more about how Varsity Tutors' mission to help people learn and their vision to seamlessly connect experts and learners in any subject, anywhere, anytime. I found myself inspired by their motto of forever learning and always growing.
Cloudinary allows any web application to manage all images in the cloud: upload, resize, crop, detect faces, Facebook & Twitter support, fast CDN delivery.
I wanted to find out more about how the company is using online imagery to drive user experience and how optimal performance not only supports but drives the overall success of any business
I talk to Doron Sherman who is spearheading the rise of the visual internet. We discuss how Cloudinary is helping thousands of websites and mobile applications to manage and manipulate billions of images and stream videos, optimized for mass-scale delivery.
About Cloudinary
Cloudinary provides an easy-to-use, end-to-end cloud-based image and video management solution for the world’s top brands. With offices in the US, UK, and Israel, Cloudinary has quickly become the de facto solution used by web and mobile application developers at major companies around the world to streamline image and video management, and deliver an optimal end-user experience.
Cloudinary has more than 5,000 customers worldwide, including AMC, Answers.com, Bleacher Report, Conde Nast, DoorDash, Fairfax Media, Forbes, Gizmodo, GrubHub, Hinge, Indiegogo, Lululemon Athletica, Outbrain, Stitch Fix, Under Armour, Whole Foods Market, and many others. The tech startup was also voted the "Best Place To Work" in the Bay Area 2018 by the San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley Business Journal.
Apttus Establishes Omni Accelerator, the World's First Innovation Lab for Middle Office Solutions The new research and engineering group to advance applied artificial intelligence, blockchain, and other cutting-edge quote-to-cash capabilities for Apttus' Omni Platform.
By focusing on advancing the Omni platform's capabilities, the Omni Accelerator team will influence Apttus' product vision, roadmap, and thought leadership in the marketplace. The Omni Accelerator team's roots are already woven into successful Apttus capabilities. For instance, the team's fingerprints are on Max, Apttus' successful applied AI for the Middle Office introduced more than a year ago. In addition to applying AI, Omni Accelerator is focusing on blockchain and augmented reality technologies.
Leveraging insight and experience from supporting the Middle Office space's largest customer base, the Omni Accelerator team's primary focus includes:
- Identify emerging technologies that help customers differentiate from their competitors
- Create proof of concepts to demonstrate, test, and measure potential market adoption
- Develop capabilities like autonomous contract negotiation, auto-generated product catalogs
I invited Dan Hopkins, Vice President Innovation at Apttus onto this tech podcast to find out more.
No one ever discusses how expensive AI programs are to run. Did you know that AI enterprises need to spend on average 30% of their funding in computing power equipment? For example, think about how much it would take to develop a Siri-like smart speaking device, you’ll need all types of algorithms that will need to be integrated with high-quality data and go through countless pieces of training in order to create the model of your AI product and most importantly, they need TONS on computing power.
We sit on tons and tons of healthcare data around illnesses, treatments (which drugs work best), cancer early detections, drug costs, etc. BUT why isn’t the industry creating more AI platforms to spot and cure diseases easier by linking all data sets? The Cost.
Today, I chat with Dr. Wang, who has been in the AI space for over 20 years and now works at a blockchain company trying to unite the healthcare industry and run more AI programs. The company is called DeepBrain Chain, and they’re leasing server spaces at major tech companies via smart contacts, which allows companies to run AI programs at a 70% discount.
With Blockchain, companies can track where their data is going who it is being used by and charge a fee create ongoing revenue. Between solving the data sharing issue and the high cost of AI computing, Blockchain will play a significant role in the future of healthcare.
About DeepBrain Chain
The Vision of DeepBrain Chain is to provide a low-cost, privacy, flexible, safe and decentralized artificial intelligence computing platform. They believe that smart contracts are likely to be an important solution to future threats of artificial intelligence and our aim is to implement safe ways for users to employ AI without the threat of human destruction in the future.
Guest Info
Dongyan Wang - Chief AI Officer, Executive VP of DeepBrain Chain Silicon Valley AI + Blockchain Research Center
Dr. Wang has almost 20 years of Silicon Valley experience in artificial intelligence, business intelligence and data science, leading world class, industry award winning, global high-tech organizations as senior executive for Global Fortune 500 enterprises (Cisco, NetApp, Midea Group, Samsung) and a successful startup. He has extensive experience in AI platform, AI products, AI business applications, advanced analytics, data science, big data, and a great variety of cloud and on-premise enterprise applications.
Guy Kawasaki possesses an extensive knowledge of innovation, entrepreneurship, social media, and marketing. First and foremost, he is an evangelist. The term comes from a Greek word that means "bringing the good news."
That's what he does--whether it was the good news of Macintosh or currently the good news of Canva, an online graphics-design firm. He aligns with companies and causes that empower people, foster democracy, and make the world a meritocracy. In addition to his work at Canva, he is a writer (thirteen books), speaker, Mercedes brand ambassador, and an executive fellow at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
Guy is also currently the director and an evangelist for Cheeze. The company is focused on delivering a solution for a lot of people who have become fed up with Facebook and looking for a more private social setting to connect with family and friends. The company has a simple but cool new app, to be called Privy, that lets you create groups and share private photos, videos and everyday moments with family and friends with no ads. It’s currently " in beta " on iOS and it'll be rolling it out sometime during Apple’s WWDC and late June for Android devices.
At this years WWDC keynote, Apple revealed a feature that lets consumers set time limits on social media apps; the demo's target was Instagram, owned by rival Facebook. There seemed to be an increasing realization in the industry that too much social media is not healthy for our wellbeing. I wanted to find out more about the new app called Privy that debuted at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, how Guy Kawasaki got involved with Privy and the conference's theme this year.
In our chat, we also learn more about Guy Kawasaki's story, his time at Apple and the lessons learned from Steve Jobs. We also discuss Privy, what inspires him and what advice he would pass down to anyone listening to this tech podcast while on their own tech startup journey.
Understanding and engaging with prospects and customers in a maximally relevant, personalized way across digital and human channels is an essential activity for all enterprises. However, most enterprises are only beginning to move from one-to-all or one-to-many customer engagement – using a wide variety of point solutions – to an enterprise-wide, thoughtful approach to customer data and personalization.
Mabe this is why I am beginning to see Customer Data Platforms appearing on a regular basis.
Gartner published “A Marketer's Guide to What Is – and Isn't – a Customer Data Platform” and “How Marketers Can Create a Business Case for a Customer Data Platform” earlier this year. Other industry groups focus on the space too. For example, the Customer Data Platform Institute, founded in late 2016, publishes educational materials, news, best practice guides and benchmarks related to CDPs too.
Even with the increased awareness and momentum, there’s still some confusion about this category. I invited Karl Wirth, CEO and Co-founder of Evergage onto the show to find out more.
We discuss what is and what isn't a Customer Data Platform and what a business should be looking to achieve with a CDP.
LastPass by LogMeIn, recently released findings of a new global survey, “Psychology of Passwords: Neglect is Helping Hackers Win,” revealing that despite today’s increased threat landscape and heightened global awareness of hacking and data breaches, password behaviors remain largely unchanged.
Data from the survey shows that 91 percent of people know that using the same password for multiple accounts is a security risk, yet 59 percent continue to use the same password. As a result, individuals’ behavior in creating, changing and managing passwords in both their professional and personal lives is slow to match the rapid evolution of cybersecurity threats.
“The cyber threats facing consumers and businesses are becoming more targeted and successful, yet there remains a clear disconnect in users’ password beliefs and their willingness to take action,” said Sandor Palfy, Chief Technology Officer of Identity and Access Management at LogMeIn.
“Individuals seem to understand password best practices, but often exhibit password behaviors that can expose their information to threat actors. Taking a few simple steps to improve how you manage passwords can lead to increased safety for online accounts whether personal or professional.”
I invited Sandor Palfy onto the show to find out more and how we can protect ourselves against AI-powered security threats.
CircleCI is the leading platform for software innovation at scale. With intelligent automation and delivery tools, CircleCI is used by more than 25,000 engineering organizations worldwide, including Facebook, Spotify, GoPro, Blue Apron, Bleacher Report, and Coinbase to radically reduce the time from idea to execution.
The company also hit the headlines earlier this year for raising $31 million in Series C round of funding. But, I wanted to find out more about the secret of their success.
Hiring the right people is really hard. Estimates put the true cost of recruiting the wrong employee anywhere from $250,000-$850,000 when you factor in hiring, onboarding, compensation, severance, and legal fees.
Not to mention that most tech companies are still dramatically uneven with 70% men. Today I have a great story about how six-time founder and CircleCI’s CEO Jim Rose is tackling these challenges using data-first evaluations and opening up about how they think about hiring differently.
CircleCI CEO, Jim Rose reveals how he completely reshaped the company's hiring process to weed out unconscious bias, decrease staff turnover, improve diversity, and most importantly make sure the right person for the job gets hired.
We also discuss how technology helped him create a diverse and inclusive culture that transformed CircleCI.
On today’s podcast, I chat to Chris Garner, Chief Marketing Officer at Oyster Protocol, a website monetization and distributed storage solution built on the IOTA and Ethereum blockchains, that completed its ICO for its token in November last year.
Oyster Protocol recently reached a beta milestone of 1 Million transactions of encrypted data via its new decentralized storage and encryption service, Oyster Pearl (PRL). The announcement came amidst several high-profile data hacks on companies such as Facebook and Dropbox, which rely on email and passwords for security.
“Companies like Facebook and Dropbox offer convenient tools, but they have no regard for the privacy of users’ data,” said Bruno Block, Founder of Oyster. “By using the highest level of cryptographic encryption, Oyster puts you in control of your data. With no logins, no passwords, and no email addresses, Oyster ensures that you can’t be hacked and your data can’t be seen by prying eyes.”
By utilizing decentralized storage, Oyster effectively works as a puzzle. Files can be broken into many pieces – each piece is then individually encrypted. On its own, each piece is useless to hackers or other third-party observers. Anyone who uses Oyster Pearl essentially purchases a utility token pegged to the size of data storage that they can use to upload. All of this data is anonymized and encrypted with just one private key referred to as the Oyster Handle.
Without the Oyster Handle, the uploaded file is inaccessible. Users can trust that any file uploaded by the Oyster Protocol will be accessible only by the user and that their data will remain secure across the Oyster network for the time period purchased. https://oysterprotocol.com
Have found yourself wondering if the gig/freelance economy could be for you or how it's impacting business owners and professionals around the world?
I wanted to delve into the facts and figures behind the freelancing and gig economy so invited Connor Gillivan from a company called Freeeup onto the show today to report on what he is seeing on the digital landscape.
The FreeeUp Marketplace connects businesses with the top 1% of freelancer applicants in eCommerce, digital marketing, and web development.
Connor also shares his inspirational entrepreneurial story.
As an Amazon seller veteran, eCommerce expert, and outsourcing guru, he is also about building profitable businesses that address specific customer needs within the eCommerce world.
Starting out of his college dorm room, he spent 4 years working with his business partners to build an eCommerce business selling on Amazon.com. With the venture, he sold over $25 million online, worked with over 1,000 suppliers, and have managed over 500,000 products.
After hiring and firing hundreds of remote freelancers and virtual assistants with his Amazon venture, he and his business partner started FreeeUp.com to address the frustrations we were facing on other marketplaces like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer: (1) too much time interviewing and vetting freelancers and (2) too much turnover.
FreeeUp receives hundreds of applications from freelancers each week, interviews them for skills, communication, and attitude, then only allows the top 1% into the network. Those freelancers then make their services available from $5 to $75 per hour.
Filld is a gas delivery app and service based in the Bay Area, who services fleets nationwide and just launched a pilot consumer delivery service in Seattle (they already had consumer service delivery in Silicon Valley). The tech startup was founded in 2015 and has raised over $16 million in capital to date.
Filld is creating a flexible fuel infrastructure so we can live in a world where all forms of energy are more accessible. In a digital world where gas stations are disappearing, consumers can have someone fill up their car while it sits on their drive.
However, Filld is not just about consumers, it also helps businesses such as car2go, Bentley Motors, Volvo, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car that struggle with the time constraints and fraud implications of fueling entire fleets of vehicles.
I speak with Michael Buhr (the CEO and President) and discuss what a future without gas stations looks like and the changing "last-mile" of the retail fueling space.
Mike McKee, CEO of ObserveIT reveals more about how his career as a professional hockey player enabled him to take the lessons he learned from sports and take them into the security space-- most notably the idea of “Moneyball.”
As more and more businesses begin to rely on contractors rather than full-time employees, in today'ss episode focuses on the cybersecurity trend of insider threats and how to protect your company.
Guest Michael McKee, CEO & Director of ObserveIT
Previously, Mike led the award-winning Global Services and Customer Success organizations at Rapid7, served as Senior Vice President CAD Operations and Strategy at PTC, and Chief Financial Officer at HighWired.com. Additionally, he held Analyst roles at Broadview Associates, McKinsey & Company, and Goldman Sachs. Mike played professional hockey as a defenseman for the Quebec Nordiques. He graduated cum laude from Princeton University and received an M.B.A., with honors, from Harvard Business School.
What Is ObserveIT
A lightweight endpoint solution that helps organizations—particularly large enterprises—identify and eliminate insider threats. They provide detection and prevention to enable proactive defense against both malicious and negligent user behavior from employees, privileged users, and third parties.
With ObserveIT, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of security incidents by monitoring user behavior and offering real-time education and deterrence. ObserveIT cuts investigation time from days to minutes and offers full playback of security incidents to improve response times and simplify compliance.
ObserveIT is trusted by more than 1,700 customers in 87 countries and across a wide range of industries.
WEGO Health is on a mission-driven company connecting healthcare with the experience, skills, and insights of Patient Leaders. They are the world’s largest network of Patient Leaders, working across virtually all health conditions and topics.
The WeGo Health network collaborates with startups, life sciences companies, non-profits, agencies, government and all types of organizations across health care. WEGO Health offers enterprise and on-demand solutions that allow organizations to leverage patient experience and expertise in the design, development and promotion of their products and services.
CEO Jack Barrette is super passionate about the role social media plays in hacking healthcare to create a better future for patient treatment - which is an essential discussion in light of the recent #DeleteFacebook movement.
People like Sophie Thacher, a software engineer with type 1 diabetes who hacked her continuous glucose monitor to get more actionable health data then the device allows with its standard interface. Or Dakota Rosenthal, Sophie Thachera 22-year-old with a rare form of hemophilia that prevents his blood from clotting properly. Dakota grew so frustrated with the poor usability of mobile apps for his condition he created a free one of his own, which is now used by thousands of fellow hemophiliacs to manage their health better.
Freelance employment makes up 34% of the U.S workforce, contributing 1.4 trillion to the nation’s economy; and it is estimated that 50% of workers will be full-time freelancers by 2027. However, the current marketplace mainly caters to entry-level tasks, charges high fees, and can take weeks for payment processing. Plus, platforms like Upwork hide contractor’s identities in order to prevent them from working directly with employers.
Now, there's WorkCoin–a ‘Google for Gigs’ professional services marketplace (now in desktop beta with iOS and Android apps coming later this year) that provides verified identities to allow employers to search any term and find relevant freelancers with a hashtag-driven search engine. They've just announced that their platform now has zero commission fees (previously 5%) to enable payments, arbitration, and dispute resolution at no cost to users.
Sony Electronics continues to expand and enhance its Digital Paper product offering with the release of a new “notebook-sized” 10-inch model.
The new model (DPT-CP1) gives customers the same high-performance reading, annotating and note-taking capabilities they have enjoyed with the original 13-inch letter-sized Digital Paper (DPT-RP1).
Taking into consideration recommendations from customers and the company’s intent to continuously improve the overall experience, Sony also announced the new Digital Paper Mobile Application, as well as additional feature enhancements applicable to both the new 10-inch, notebook-size DPT-CP1 and the current 13-inch, letter-sized DPT-RP1.
I last spoke to Daniel Albohn, Global Business Development at Sony North America back in episode 277, but I wanted to catch up with the latest developments at Sony. We discuss how the team is continuously evolving the product after listening to customer feedback and the new Sony Digital Paper Mobile Application.
On today's episode, I wanted to find out more about how technology is increasing the demand for a travel trend called microstays. Defined by Wikipedia as ‘residency in a hotel room for less than 24 hours, choosing check-in time and length of stay.’
Microstays are becoming another lifestyle upgrade made possible by GPS technology on smartphones that allow users to cram more into their days and spontaneously access useful services in any location at any time.
Inherently practical, booking a hotel room for a few hours is a smart modern lifehack for a considerable number of scenarios, from a pitstop for city trippers in between a day of shopping and an evening at the theatre, to a comfortable port in the storm for those with a delayed or cancelled flight.
Millennials are far more creative about the way they travel for business, carving out leisure and experiences in between meetings and conference calls. For Millennials, a microstay will not just be used for the obvious red-eye flight recuperation or comfortable environment for emailing.
Millennials are using the service experientially, saving 75 percent on the cost of a hotel room in some of the world’s best hotels, and enjoying their fantastic services. Imagine checking out of your hotel at 12 pm but having somewhere to charge your devices, catch up with work, have a snooze and shower before your 6 pm flight home.
Check your emails on the W Hotel’s sun deck when in Barcelona and then squeezing in a treatment at its Bliss Spa before a dinner meeting, or a short stay for some hours at a hotel close to Euston Station for all those living in Birmingham when the last train home just left when in London.
BYHOURS is an app that makes all this possible and freeing-up consumers to use their time more creatively. BYHOURS is a global online booking platform and app that enables users to book microstays in more than 3000 hotels for three, six or 12 hours around the world.
I invited the team onto the show to learn more about how it is giving people the ability to respond to immediate needs or lifestyle whims with efficiency and speed.
New Relic’s Chief Product Officer Jim Gochee talks about why CEOs are now fully committed to DevOps and digital transformation and how New Relic is helping customers such as Scripps, Draft Kings and Braze who approached the company for tips and help. We also discuss the top questions and challenges companies face.
As listeners are probably aware, companies of all sizes across various industries shared how they were going through a “digital transformation” and adopting a “DevOps culture” at the beginning of 2017.
Many were pressured to say this because of the hype at the time, and top executives at these companies never really bought into the idea, until recently. Now they’re turning to experts like New Relic, who’s at the heart of DevOps and digital transformation, for help as they become fully committed to the idea.
Audioburst is a revolutionary AI-powered audio search platform connecting audio content and users. With the mission of organizing the world's audio content, every day, the Audioburst AI platform listens to, understands, segments and indexes millions of minutes of audio information from top radio stations and podcasts.
Powered by advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology and a proprietary AI platform that indexes audio segments into searchable “bursts” in real-time, Audioburst is introducing an entirely new way for consumers and businesses to interact with live or recorded audio content across platforms and devices.
The Audioburst experience is already available on several interfaces such as Audioburst Search, a new web and mobile-optimized search engine for finding, discovering, consuming and sharing audio news.
Additionally, developers can access the Audioburst API to tap into the robust Audioburst Content Library and introduce a more dynamic and personalized listening experience for users across in-car infotainment systems, digital assistants, IoT gadgets, smartphones and more.
Audioburst also recently announced partnerships with Samsung Venture Investments and Bose, as the company integrates with the technologies that will be at the epicenter of our home and work environments in the next five years.
What really excites me is the ability to automatically transcribe my podcast episodes through Audioburst Creators, and manage my episode highlights, full episode transcription and share my audio bursts.
I invited Assaf Gad to my tech podcast where we discuss the impact of audio search technology, future of podcasts and radio content
and the opportunity for greater monetization for content creators.
After specialising in exclusive events in unique venues throughout the capital, Shout About London is the creative agency that leading brands want to work with at the moment. After having hosted one of the most talked about events of 2018, I wanted to find out more about the two young entrepreneurs behind Shout About London.
Having set up in 2013 by two under-30 Londoners, Ben Gamble, and Stuart Groves, Shout About has grown exponentially, with the likes of Sky Media, Google, Redbull and Salesforce now calling themselves regular clients. T
Having completed a 24hr Hackathon for Emap and the complete build for the launch of Game Of Thrones at Southwark Cathedral, not to mention securing numerous ‘firsts’ for venues and brands throughout the city, Ben and Stuart aren’t the kind of directors to sit back and leave the hard graft to their employees.
To add another string to their bow, this year Shout About partnered on a new venue, Lost Rivers Leake Street, under Waterloo station on the iconic Leake Street Graffiti tunnel. They have grand ideas for this venue, with a 3-phase development plan already in place. However, in true Shout About style, the fact that the venue is in its shell state hasn’t stopped the brand from hosting some exclusive events.
Wouldn’t we all love to have a personal AI helper that is actually
smart and useful, and moreover, one that is highly personalized to your preferences and activities?
Imagine a super-smart Alexa / Siri / Google Assistant-like app or device that remembers what you told it previously; can hold lengthy conversations; can interact with other assistants, devices, and apps; and that can learn new facts, preferences, and skills via English conversation.
Now imagine that this assistant isn’t just available in one domain, but can assist you using complex software, allow you to control and monitor your home, car, and other devices, in addition to handling a wide range of personal and business requests.
Finally, imagine that this personal AI not only gets smarter as it learns from you, but also as it interacts with other people (and AIs) in your network. Furthermore, it constantly acquires new knowledge, skills, and capabilities via ongoing development.
Just one assistant—aligned with your personal preferences, values, and habits that become increasingly more knowledgeable and capable. Something more like ‘Her’ and less like ‘Dory.’
The core of the AIgo platform is their intelligence engine, which is firmly based on AGI principles and is an implementation of the Third Wave of AI.
Peter Voss, Chief Scientist at Aigo.ai and a pioneer in the artificial intelligence space, is developing the first truly personal personal assistant.
Aigo uses groundbreaking “cognitive architecture” to implement the “Third Wave of AI” - learning unsupervised, instantaneously and interactively. Utilizing a blockchain ecosystem, it will be a community that uses, creates, and trades intelligence for the benefit of all.
The result is an adaptive, super-smart personal assistant that is hyper-personalized to individual needs, desires, and goals - and most importantly, it and all the information and data you share with it is yours, and only yours.
According to Ovum consumer research, the digital assistant installed base is predicted to exceed 7.5 billion active devices globally by 2021. Google’s Assistant is expected to dominate the voice AI-capable device market with 23.3% market share. Samsung, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft will divide up the remaining ¾ of the market.
Peter thinks the answer to this problem lies in a community of individuals who truly own and control their own hyper-intelligent conversational personal assistants and their data. He and his team envision Aigo as the foundation for implementing what they call a true “ExoCortex,” which they define as an everyday, interactive, cognitive extension of ourselves - and you can’t get much more personalized than that.
Factmata is a London-based tech startup that uses artificial intelligence to help social media companies, publishers and advertising networks weed out fake news, hate speech, propaganda, and clickbait.
Essentially, Factmata is on a mission to protect people, advertisers, publishers and other businesses from deceptive or misleading content online. The tech startup believes in the importance of objectivity, quality, and facts. They are combining cutting-edge AI with human community and ingenuity to build a better media ecosystem.
It's not about replacing humans with unaccountable machines in a black box in the name of progress. The team at Factmata believe artificial intelligence should serve people, and be accountable to them.
Tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, internet entrepreneur Sunil Paul and, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark have all invested in Factmata, so I wanted to find out more.
I invited CRO, Anant Joshi onto the show to share the inspirational tech startup story behind Factmata.
Adobe recently announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Magento Commerce, a market-leading commerce platform, for $1.68 billion.
The addition of the Magento Commerce Cloud will enable commerce to be seamlessly integrated into the Adobe Experience Cloud, delivering a single platform that serves both B2B and B2C customers globally.
The Magento Platform brings together digital commerce, order management and predictive intelligence into a unified commerce platform enabling shopping experiences across a wide array of industries.
At the core of every great experience are content and data, which enable the consistent, personal, intuitive experiences consumers have come to expect. Commerce is also integral to the customer experience. Consumers and businesses now expect every interaction to be shoppable – whether on the web, mobile, social, in-product or in-store.
Magento brings Adobe Experience Cloud digital commerce enablement and order orchestration for both physical and digital goods across a range of industries, including consumer packaged goods, retail, wholesale, manufacturing and the public sector.
What is Magento Commerce?
Magento Commerce is a leading provider of cloud commerce innovation to merchants and brands across B2C and B2B industries. In addition to its flagship digital commerce platform, Magento Commerce boasts a strong portfolio of cloud-based omnichannel solutions that empower merchants to successfully integrate digital and physical shopping experiences.
Magento Commerce is the #1 provider to the Internet Retailer Top 1000, the B2B 300 and the Top 500 Guides for Europe and Latin America. Magento Commerce is supported by a vast global network of solution and technology partners, a highly active global developer community and the largest eCommerce marketplace for extensions available for download on the Magento Marketplace.
The announcement left many people with more questions than answers so I invited Errol Denger, director of Experience-Driven Commerce Program & Strategy, Adobe onto the show. We discuss what this new partnership will mean to customers, businesses and the future of both Magento and Adobe.
ChronoBank is reimagining hiring for the blockchain age. Founded and based in Australia following its successful token sale of 5,400 BTC in February 2017, the company has developed the most sophisticated blockchain-based hiring ecosystem in the world. ChronoBank is led by a seasoned executive team with deep domain experience in HR, banking, and fintech. It boasts one of the strongest technical and design teams in the blockchain world and is well-funded to innovate in all sectors of HR, from hiring to workers compensation to lending to insurance.
The HR Startup is now launching LaborX.
LaborX is the leading blockchain-based recruitment marketplace. It is a complete platform that connects companies and job seekers and lets them transact quickly, safely, and easily in crypto.
Using LaborX, job seekers can maximize their hourly rate, avoid payment delays and disputes, and work from anywhere in the world. Companies benefit because of LaborX’s proprietary reputation system, which grades and immutable records freelancer performance on the blockchain, saving them from a costly screening process.
Companies also get access to new types of workers: digital nomads, crypto evangelists, and the unbanked. LaborX offers dramatically lower platform fees (1% vs. 5-20% from traditional platforms), resulting in a savings of $450 per month per freelancer. LaborX is projected to reach 1,000 companies and 100,000 users by year’s end.
I wanted to find out more about how LaborX is integrated into ChronoBank’s multi-currency wallet (ChronoMint) and crypto exchange (TimeX) so I invited Sergei Sergienko onto the show today.
Today we have the CEO and co-founder of ClearSky, Ellen Rubin. Ellen built a career on finding people with outrageous ideas and launching companies that help bring those ideas to fruition. Her first entrepreneur endeavor, Netezza, revolutionized data warehousing before it was purchased by IBM in 2010 for nearly $2 billion. Her second company, CloudSwitch, was named a “Cool Vendor” by Gartner before being acquired by Verizon. She’s been on an incredible journey, lots of adventures and a wealth of experience in the tech industry.
I invited her onto the show to discusses why, despite the hype, leveraging the cloud for storage does not work for every application. Companies need a single, high-performance, low-latency option, and while it makes sense to store cold or archival data in the cloud, hot data, or data used frequently, must be close to users and applications - enter edge computing. Ellen discusses the benefits of edge computing, as well as: * Why Amazon and other cloud vendors shouldn't predicate their business on huge data centers in the middle of nowhere.
* Why IoT applications that require an instantaneous response and user interactivity can't be in the cloud.
* How IT can figure out which data should stay at the edge.
* How the balance between enterprise data centers and regional cloud “hubs” is a challenge IT teams are just beginning to face.
* Why the edge is needed for successful hybrid models and cloud adoption.
Here at the Apttus Accelerate conference in San Francisco, I watched Inhi Cho Suh, the GM at IBM Watson Marketing, perform her Quote-to-Cash Innovator session. On stage, she revealed that 92% of purchases today are influenced by social, digital engagement & experience is now the product. But she also warns that although data is the new currency, acting with integrity is a call to action for all businesses
She also told the audience that "Don’t use your competitors as the bar against which you measure yourself. Ask yourself, what was the last best experience your customer had? Regardless where hey had it. That’s your bar.” - This really resonated with me and I invited her onto the podcast to tell me more about how IBM is much more than a tech company and were ranked a leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for multichannel marketing hubs last month.
I also wanted to find out more about how Apttus' intelligent middle office platform will be coming to the IBM Cloud so caught up with her at the event for a quick chat.
Inhi Cho Suh is the General Manager, IBM Collaboration Solutions. Inhi began her career with IBM in 1998, joining the worldwide customer set strategy team for IBM's Personal Systems Group. She then went on to hold a variety of leadership and management positions focused on strategic growth, development, and marketing.
Most recently, Inhi was the Vice President for Big Data, Information, Integration, and Governance in IBM Software Group, responsible for all areas of the business. Prior to joining IBM, Inhi was a consultant in the education sector focused on international student teaching and counseling for university and professional institutions. Inhi received a Bachelor of Science from Duke University and a Juris Doctorate from North Carolina Central University School of Law. She is a licensed attorney in the state of North Carolina.
According to a recent study from the biz/tech consulting firm, West Monroe Partners, 1 in 3 millennial HR professionals surveyed said they frequently pass on an IT job candidate if they don’t have strong soft skills.
Tech jobs aren’t easy to fill, but you want to make sure your new hire is great both behind and in front of the screen. So, if you’re tired of hiring people who look good on paper but can’t collaborate or write well to save their lives, you should start by hiring a millennial to lead the change.
West Monroe Partners, a business and technology consultancy's latest study “Closing the Technology Leadership Gap,” investigates the state of soft skills, defined as communication, collaboration, conflict resolution, and leadership in technology and IT hiring decisions. Specifically, it pinpoints the lack of focus on soft skills in today’s workplaces as the cause of productivity, innovation and growth issues.
The report found that, while the importance of soft skills has increased significantly over the past three years, many companies don’t train for these capabilities on technology teams – including IT. The study also found that leadership is technology employees’ most underdeveloped soft skill.
“To stay competitive in today’s digital world, business leaders need to enlist a holistic mindset regarding technologists’ skillsets,” said Kevin McCarty, president and CEO of West Monroe. “Some of today’s best leaders come from a technology background, and we need more of them. To remain on the forefront of innovation, companies need to put their technologists in a position to lead. They also must prioritize soft skills and leadership training as part of continued growth and development.”
West Monroe surveyed 1,250 individuals across two surveys made up of 600 HR and recruiting professionals, and 650 full-time employees who regularly work with their company’s technology teams. Key highlights include:
HR Leaders Want Soft Skills (But They Don’t Cultivate Them)
98 percent of HR leaders say soft skills are important in landing a technology position - so important that 67 percent say they have withheld a job offer from an otherwise qualified technical candidate solely because they lacked soft skills.
They ranked verbal communication and collaboration the most important soft skills. Once a hired, however, most companies don’t invest in developing their technology professionals’ soft skills further. In fact, around one-quarter of companies provide soft skills training to line-of-business employees, but not to IT.
Technology Professionals Aren’t Seen as Leaders
HR leaders consider leadership to be the least important soft skill for prospective technology hires. Technology employees often don’t ascend the career ladder, with 39 percent of companies lacking a technology background in the c-suite. This absence affects collaboration between business and tech employees.
Lacking Soft Skills Hurts An Organization’s Ability to Innovate
43 percent of full-time employees say soft-skills-related challenges with IT have negatively impacted their work, which is problematic considering that innovative projects increasingly require employees to work alongside each other.
CEO of BrainCorp Dr. Eugene Izhikevich is a world-renowned computational neuroscientist turned tech entrepreneur and robotics innovator.
Known for his contributions to the theory of spiking networks, in 2005, Dr. Izhikevich implemented the world’s largest thalamocortical model. It simulated one hundred billion neurons and one quadrillion synapses–the same number as the human brain.
His academic career resulted in many peer-reviewed publications and two books on neural networks and artificial intelligence. Dr. Izhikevich’s neuroscience inspired his vision of a world in which robots take care of humans.
In 2009, he founded Brain Corporation with the goal of building artificial brains for robots that were modeled after human brains. Since then, his groundbreaking A.I. research and profound passion for improving the human condition has attracted a team of accomplished scientists, engineers, and innovators from all over the world to help realize his vision.
After nearly 10 successful years, Brain Corp needed a capital partner to expand its capabilities and evolve its proprietary A.I. technology. Dr. Izhikevich pursued funding from one of the world’s largest tech investors, Softbank.
In June 2017, Brain secured $114 million in Series C funding, allowing the company to further develop its A.I. technology and create “brains” for multiple types of commercial and consumer robots.
I invited the AI and robotics company co-founder onto my tech podcast to share insights in the robotics industry and how entrepreneurs can secure investor funding.
Microsoft VP Hayden Stafford said in his Keynote at Apttus Accelerate that "It's not industries that are transforming, it’s companies transforming industries. More precisely it's people transforming those companies."
As sales teams worldwide are increasingly looking to speed up the selling process and do more by leveraging applications like Dynamics 365, Office 365 and LinkedIn Sales Navigator I caught up with Hayden Stafford to find out more about Microsoft's vision and the partnership with Apttus.
We also discuss how the traditional manufacturing space is changing rapidly with IoT and how together with Apttus and Dynamics 365 integrations, Microsoft is readying the manufacturing industry to digitally transform.
Guest Info
Hayden is a senior IT executive with 25 years of professional experience in consulting, marketing and sales at Ernst & Young LLP, IBM Corporation, Salesforce.com and most recently, Microsoft. He has global experience living overseas as well as managing complex global business/IT consulting and sales organizations. He has extensive industry experiences in Financial Services and Health Care organizations.
Prior to taking his new worldwide enterprise sales leadership role at Microsoft where is he responsible for Global Sales for Microsoft's Enterprise Business Applications Business Unit - Dynamics 365, Hayden was the head of industry solution sales at Salesforce.com.
In this role, he was charged with building the new Industry Business Unit (IBU) and driving sales execution across the six focus industries the company deemed strategic to the business. Additionally, given his deep understanding of financial services customers, he was also the global head of the Financial Service Industry across all products where he was responsible for driving the overall strategy and growth of the FSI industry agenda.
Prior to Salesforce, Hayden was a Vice President and Managing Director at IBM. While at IBM, he was responsible for key Financial Markets and Retail Banking customers based in New York City with overall responsibility for global profit, revenue, signings, services delivery and client satisfaction. Key customer locations and business experience included NYC, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Raj Verma is the Chief Operating Officer at Apttus. He is an accomplished executive with experience growing companies at scale and is chartered with growing Apttus’ business while ensuring operational excellence across the company. He is also responsible for Apttus’ go-to-market strategy, sales, marketing and customer success operations.
I wanted to chat with him about the big themes at the Apptus Accelerate event this year in San Francisco. What are the big takeaways? What role is AI playing in their future especially after leading the way by revealing their AI Assistant MAX last year? And of course, there is the big IB announcements and the Middle Office solution Omni.
We discuss how Apptus is a hybrid cloud platform and by working alongside, Salesforce, Microsoft, and IBM they are truly cloud agnostic.
We also talk about Apttus’ Max, the company’s Applied Artificial Intelligence that enables enterprises to achieve superior business outcomes and the lessons learned over the last 12 months.
Jennifer Quinlan from R2i, discusses the future of marketing personalization in the Adobe Think Tank. She’s passionate that brands should be building more customized experienced, tailored to specific needs, but without crossing the line that makes customers feel uncomfortable.
Most recently Jennifer served as North American Digital Practice leader for IBM Global Business Services, Distribution Sector. She led a multi-disciplinary team of digital consultants and practitioners serving consumer products, retail, travel, transportation, and life sciences industries as well as the Digital Commerce practice for NA. Working with leading organizations, Jennifer and her team designed and led digital transformation initiatives in marketing and customer experience, employee experience, and supply chain manufacturing transformation.
Prior to IBM, Jennifer was Senior Vice President at Merkle, a premier digital performance management agency. Over almost a two decade tenure with Merkle, Jennifer was a key member of the leadership team responsible for growing Merkle into the international enterprise agency it is today.
Omni first appeared on my radar when Ripple, the fintech startup behind the controversial XRP token, revealed its first investment after it backed the U.S.-based storage startup through a $25 million round.
Have you accumulated too much stuff over the years and wish you could manage your life like dropbox? Where you could upload the stuff you use once in a blue moon to the cloud and then just get hold of it when you need it?
You don't want a surfboard in your home in Birmingham here in the UK or New York in Feb, right?
At Omni, they are fundamentally changing the way people think about ownership. When you keep your things in Omni instead of your closet, they're everywhere you want them to be: Access anything you need – whenever, wherever – with just a few taps, and Omni will deliver. Rent items you need or want to try from other members of the Omni community and earn extra money by renting out your unused items, all without ever leaving home.
Omni enables everyone to reclaim their space AND keep their stuff. We seek to help everyone live lighter – that is, to live the life they want and have access to all the things they need – no matter the size of the apartment, house, loft, trailer, boat, yurt, or teepee they find themselves calling home.
To date, Omni has raised more than $40MM in venture capital and through strategic partnerships.
This story about accessing things rather than owning everything has it all and an inspiring tech startup journey. From a fantastic idea, Stefan Thomas at Ripple, the Fintech startup behind the XRP token, backing Omni through a $25 million round, to turning to Amazon exec, Brandon Rowan to scale the business.
The tech startup story behind MindTickle raising $27 million in Series B funding to accelerate product innovation.
When someone hears the word “sales,” it certainly doesn’t inspire the thought of “fun”. Krishna Depura, co-founder, and CEO of MindTickle, aimed to address this when he launched the company in 2012: to have fun at work while learning and solving real-world problems. He and his co-founders wanted to create something that provided the flexibility for creativity, continuous challenges for growth and solved hard problems.
MindTickle focused on this avenue after they realized they were able to make the greatest impact in sales and enterprises. When a salesperson joins a team, they need to gain new skills and product, industry and competitor knowledge. In fact, over the last 15 years, 52% of Fortune 500 companies have disappeared; the ones who survive recognize the importance of shifting the conversation from product to relationships – essentially, reinventing their sales behavior.
Today, MindTickle offers the industry's most comprehensive sales readiness solution for closing the knowledge and skill gaps found in customer-facing teams. They make learning fun through on-demand online training, bite-sized mobile content, gamification, coaching and role-play with a data-driven approach, reaching enterprise customers such as Forescout, HPE, and AppDynamics, resulting in a 75% reduction in representatives’ time-to-productivity.
I speak with Krishna regarding his inspiration for MindTickle and how it’s evolved with time to make sales fun and interactive for sales teams using technology and data-driven decisions.
Nozomi Networks is leading Industrial Control System (ICS) cybersecurity with the most comprehensive platform to deliver real-time cybersecurity and operational visibility. Since 2013 the company has innovated the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to secure critical infrastructure operations.
Deployed across five continents, in hundreds of the world’s largest industrial installations, customers benefit from advanced cybersecurity, improved operational reliability and easy IT/OT integration.
Amid escalating threats targeting ICS, Nozomi Networks delivers one solution with real-time ICS monitoring, hybrid threat detection, industrial network visualization, asset inventory, and vulnerability assessment.
Guest Info
Edgard Capdevielle brings an extensive background in successfully managing and expanding markets for both start-ups and established technology companies to his role as CEO. Previously he was Vice President of Product Management and Marketing for Imperva, where he led teams that made the company’s web and data security products leaders in their space. Prior to that he was a key executive at storage companies Data Domain and EMC.
Focused on developing Nozomi’s global business, Edgard’s tremendous passion, energy, vision and drive-to-win is being brought to bear on guiding Nozomi to its next stage of development. Edgard has a MBA from the University of California at Berkeley and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University.
Even in the era of “there’s an app for that,” our largely tech-first culture is reclaiming timeless analog elements. Today the Paper & Packaging – How Life Unfolds® campaign unveils a new limited-edition print publication, Pod Papers Magazine, bringing podcasts to life in a way that has never been done before – in print.
Complimentary copies of Pod Papers will be available exclusively in store at Barnes & Noble locations in the US while supplies last. But, as a tech podcast host, I was fascinated by the concept and had to get them on to my show to find out more.
“Our culture, though increasingly digital, is in the midst of a moment of reflection. For many, turning digital into analog is helping fuel inspiration and creativity,” observes Mary Anne Hansan, president of the Paper and Packaging Board. “Pod Papers is our answer to this cultural moment – it’s meant to be pored over and become a keepsake.”
Podcast listeners can now enjoy the beloved content of their favorite podcasts in a unique, visual form, providing the best of both worlds. The limited-edition magazine features content from eight popular podcasts spanning a variety of genres.
Long time listeners will remember that way back on episode 223, I had the pleasure of talking to Jeff Allen, the Senior Director of Adobe Analytics here on the Tech Blog Writer Podcast when I met him in Las Vegas.
At the Adobe Europen Summit, I bumped into Jeff on this side of the Atlantic and thought it would be a great chance to gran him for a quick catchup chat and thought I would invite you all along to eavesdrop on our conversation.
The last time we met I spotted 6 NBA Hoops games. I quickly noticed that anyone approaching these games machines was advised to scan their registration pass and it seemed their game seemed to populate a metrics dashboard.
It was at this point I discovered that after the announcement of the Adobe Analytics cloud to serve the experience business. Adobe wanted to find a way to simplify the complex world of analytics by showing every user how much data can be obtained by a simple game of NBA Hoops.
Giving the attendees an opportunity to see a real-time dashboard game visualization with an enormous amount of data enabled anyone regardless of their position to instantly understand the power of Adobe Analytics.
Jeff Allen helps navigate around buzzwords, algorithms, and models so you can get to the essence of how data science can move the needle for your organization and can even highlight that via the medium of the NBA Hoops arcade game.
Jeff talks about the challenges retailers are facing with not knowing their customer or their behavior, likes and disliked across all channels and the problems that can cause.
The big trend this year is experiences over products. When I found that Dirk Erat from Airbus was at the Adobe Summit this week, I jumped at the chance to grab a quick chat with him for today's show.
Dirk is the Head of Communications for Airbus Defence and Space, so I want to find out more about how Airbus is using cutting-edge technologies to make their products safer, smarter and more connected.
Airbus is a European multinational corporation that designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aeronautical products worldwide - with roughly 180 locations and 12,000 direct suppliers globally. Airbus is also the second largest space company in the world, as well as a top 10 defense company.
As a leader in designing, manufacturing and delivering aerospace products, services and solutions to customers on a global scale. I wanted to find out more about their aim for a better-connected, safer and more prosperous world.
Aerospace has always been at the upper end of new technology so I am quite excited to get him on today so we can geek out a little talking about planes and space!
Ori Eisen is the leader of the no passwords revolution. But the founder/CEO spent the past 20 years building technology to fight online crime and create a safer Internet, including working as worldwide fraud director at AMEX and then founding + selling his first company called 41st Parameter to Experian for $324 million.
Today's conversation is a must listen for anyone on a startup journey or has a desire to make a lot of money and then retire. We discuss the need to have a purpose and how financial gain is not the answer, it's having your own mission to make a difference. Trusona is his newest endeavor – with the mission to eliminate passwords. The product is so secure that Frank Abagnale, the real-life Catch Me If You Can con-artist turned four-decade FBI vet, has signed on as an active advisor.
While we all commiserate and recognize passwords as the bane of our online existence, it's the only technology from the 60's that hasn't changed that we still use today. Ori’s approach isn’t about just ending the use of passwords, it’s finding a safer, simpler replacement that genuinely reinvents authentication for the modern era.
Here on no passwords day, I wanted to take the opportunity to share his unique experience, inspirational story and deep expertise on this important that is sure to resonate with everyone listening.
The Allianz Group is one of the leading integrated financial services providers worldwide, serving approximately 85 million customers in more than 70 countries. On the insurance side, Allianz is the market leader in the German market and has a strong international presence. The organization operates across a broad range of sectors including commercial, engineering, retail and legal.
Allianz has teamed up with Adobe to overcome a huge challenge.
They want to migrate their complex online world to the Adobe Experience Manager and add the Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions. But this includes more than 15 customer portals with more than 50 application lines and over 20 applications; 10,000 websites for agents, brokers and brokers and 5,000 websites for employees and employers.
Included here is a variety of content pages for more than one million users per month, which can be calculated over 500,000 insurance offers and then - hopefully - our customers. BUT they want to do all that in the next 15 months!
So they are looking for a little help. Therefore they are looking for talented individuals who can accompany them on this journey who are armed with enthusiasm, creativity, and verve.
We have solved many problems on this podcast over 500 episodes and even enabled guests to meet their dream dinner date, today I want to try and gift a fantastic employment opportunity to you all listening.
Whether you are a developer, architect, designer, product owner or business analysts with much or little Adobe Marketing Cloud know-how - Georgios wants you to be part of their big MAKEathon in June, so stay tuned for more info about that at the end of the episode.
If you are like me, you will avoid adverts at all costs. When watching TV, streaming on Netflix or recording a show, so I can start watching 20mins in and fast forward the ads.
While we congratulate ourselves on being savvy and mock the broken ad ecosystem. We need to remember that that content needs someone to pick up the tab, that's how everything works right?
Mirriad is a video technology company delivering in-video advertising by naturally blending brand advertising into popular entertainment content.
Mirriad creates advertising opportunities within existing video content across multiple shows. Advertisers can reach target audiences in a contextually relevant way without interrupting the viewing experience. The new ad format can be used alone or combined with other media and is aligned with existing media trading.
When I also heard that Mirriad is headquartered in London, with offices in the leading advertising markets in the world: New York, Mumbai, Shanghai and São Paulo, I invited Mark Popkiewicz, CEO of MirriAd onto the show to find out more.
I recently read how the digital transformation is ushering in a new era of communications in a white paper by Vonage. Keeping the lead over the competition doesn’t mean having the best products, or lowest prices. Instead, successful companies are closely tied to an organization’s ability to recognize shifts in the market landscape and its capacity to respond by adapting quickly.
The white paper explores how digital transformation is disrupting the traditional business landscape as today’s consumers care more about superb customer service and delightful experiences, rather than making a decision solely based on price or product features.
In the digital era, the customer experience is the new battleground for differentiation. Businesses must make digital interactions personal and contextually relevant with every interaction to thrive and meet today’s consumer’s expectations.
This is a topic that should appeal to everyone listening as it affects everyone listening. I invited Omar Javaid, Chief Product Officer at Vonage on to the podcast to talk about the future of omnichannel conversations and adapting to culture change
From Instagram and Snapchat to social activism and IRL influencers – marketers everywhere are exploring different ways to reach Millennial and Gen Z audiences. These marketers realize that good storytelling is the only way to connect with these audiences – however, what they don’t realize that is that storytelling can very literally mean “reading stories.”
In fact, according to a Pew Research, 18 to 29-year-olds are the more likely to have read a book in the past year than any other generation.
At Wattpad, they believe that good old-fashioned written stories are one way that brands can set themselves apart. Wattpad users are spending 30 minutes every day reading content on their desktops and smartphones and engaging with brands. With new social platforms and technologies focused on compelling entertainment, Wattpad has turned a community of writers and storytellers into invaluable assets.
On today's podcast we look at the role of technology and the value of storytelling in marketing. We look into the specific ways brands are crafting stories to engage audiences (on Wattpad and beyond)
and the best practices for brands to infuse better storytelling into their marketing
It all started in New York City when Elevacao CEO and founder Marisa Warren met Karen Jacobsen, the Australian voice of Siri in your iPhone & GPS devices, in an elevator…
What followed was an inspirational story and friendship that resulted in them both focusing on empowering more women tech founded businesses to get funded.
Did you know that only 3% of tech companies are founded by women, yet when funded they deliver 35% higher ROI than male-led firms! Do you want to change this? Elevacao certainly do too!
Their mission is to empower women entrepreneurs to build successful, innovative technology businesses, while creating collaborative environments where a woman’s ambition to succeed is embraced and actively supported by both women and men.
Their programs are designed to empower and promote women tech entrepreneurs.
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PITCH READY PROGRAM
Lead by a team of experts; they empower women tech founders to get the pitch ready. Thye also help them build and deliver a superior pitch that conveys their story and creates an emotional connection with the audience, backed by a robust business model and go-to-market strategy. -
WOMEN TECH FOUNDERS PITCH EVENTS
In front of a live audience, women pitch to a superior panel of seasoned entrepreneurs, VC’s and angels seeking advice, guidance or funding, to help elevate their business to the next level. -
INVESTOR READY WORKSHOP
A workshop designed to empower women tech founders to get investor ready. With experienced global investors and entrepreneurs, they help their women understand the investor process from initial pitch through to closing the investment round. With a focus on selecting the right investor for their business.
On today's podcast, I learn more about the revolution that is transforming the culture and DNA of an entire generation of women.
Transcription Outsourcing, LLC provides transcription services. They work with government agencies, single practice attorneys and physicians, as well as entire university systems to provide fast, accurate, and reliable transcription services.
Specialties include medical transcription services (including EHR integration), legal transcription services, law enforcement transcription services, academic transcription services, podcast transcription, and financial transcription services. We provide a user friendly, cost effective, outsourcing option for a wide range of industries.
They also work with the Arkansas State Police, University of Colorado Boulder and Denver, VA New York, Lane County Health and Human Services, Colorado Department of Revenue, and the Colorado Department of Healthcare Finance and Policy.
However, I wanted to find out more about Ben's journey and his vast experience in the freelancer economy. We discuss the changes he has seen over the years and how bootstrapping freelancers have evolved from DIY mindset to a DIFM (Do It For Me) movement.
Steve Day started his company ideaMachine Studio in the back of a New York church in 2010, within the first year, he considered cutting his losses and most of his team quit. Fast forward to present day, ideaMachine Studio now has a client list including Xbox, ESPN, and Dove.
ideaMachine Studio offers motion capture and graphics, mixed media, 2D and 3D animation and live draw, it truly specializes in the service that began it all – whiteboard animation. Thriving on culture, imagination, and technology, ideaMACHINE Studio has helped clients grow from zero customers to a million in just a few years.
Today ideaMachine Studio is a leader in the animation industry and pursued by many businesses for creative, technology-based marketing. Steve has directed for Verizon, the United Nations, Sesame Street, the ESPN ESPY awards, Bud Light Superbowl ads, and the Elmo Xbox game.
While Steve’s drawings and animations brought the company into existence, he actually began his career directing for the theater, where his productions won an NYIT award and nomination, a Drama League fellowship, and a membership with the Lincoln Center directing lab. He also directed and developed Son of a Gun a National Music Theatre Conference Winner. ideaMachine has won 21 Telly Awards in 4 years and it has animated for numerous Fortune 500 companies.
Besides dreaming up stories and metaphors, Steve also loves working with artists like Uzo Aduba (Emmy Award winner), Joanna Gleason (3x Tony nom.), Elizabeth Davis (Tony nom.), Tom Green, and Keir Dullea (Golden Globe winner, 2001: Space Od.). But what Steve loves most about ideaMACHINE is “using art to help companies serve others."
I invited him on this tech podcast to find out more about his fascinating story.
I recently discovered an HR Tech company called PeopleDoc that began life in Paris but is now growing rapidly in the US with high profile clients that include Nestle, GoDaddy, and Starbucks.
At PeopleDoc they also encourage businesses to "Join the global movement to be better by being digital." I wanted to find out more about their approach and how they are helping over 800 clients from all over the world prepare for the arrival of GDPR.
We also discuss how Aasonn recently partnered with PeopleDoc to further SAP® SuccessFactors® By providing a complete HR Service Delivery Platform Joint Customers Increase HR Agility and Deliver Better Employee Experience.
About the guest
Clément Buyse is the co-founder and President of PeopleDoc and has the difficult job of making HR easier. He holds a Master's degree in Science from l'Ecole des Mines de Nancy in Business from HEC Paris. Clement is also in charge of R&D, product strategy, product lifecycle, and technical operations. He is fueled by innovation and his mission is to offer high-value solutions for the HR community. His number one metric is customer satisfaction.
About People Doc
PeopleDoc is on a mission to make the difficult job of HR easier. Their HR Service Delivery platform helps HR teams answer employee requests on demand, automate employee processes, and manage compliance across multiple locations.
The cloud solutions include case management, process automation, and employee file management. 100% software as a service, PeopleDoc solutions integrate with existing HR systems, can be implemented in 8-12 weeks, and are designed for agile ongoing use by HR teams serving diverse workforces. PeopleDoc serves 725+ customers or 4 million total end users with a 100% customer retention rate.
Polyup is the world's first “casual modding” digital platform. Designed for math teachers, in particular, the visual, self-paced environment allows for players to freely experiment with numbers and functions through gamified computational challenges that must be correctly modified before the players can advance to higher levels.
The platform will soon scale to feature the ability to modify real-world objects using in-app augmented reality features.
I wanted to find out more about this free and open computational thinking playground and how it enables users to modify expressions, functions, and algorithms to discover the beauty of math.
EdTech startup story with Shaya Zarkesh and Dr. Amir Zarkesh
Today's guests
CO-FOUNDER Shaya Zarkesh is currently a high school junior at the Harker School, a private school in San Jose. He has a passion for STEM and has won numerous awards for mathematics and science research. Shaya also participates in the USA Computing Olympiad at the platinum level. Outside of academia, Shaya regularly participates in Speech & Debate activities and specializes in Policy Debate. He is also an avid soccer player on a competitive team.
CEO AND CO-FOUNDER Dr. Amir Zarkesh is also the CEO and Co-founder of Bluechip Systems. Before that, he co-founded iCelero, which spun off into three companies: Shoppin, Crunch and Bluechip Systems. Prior to that, he co-founded 3Plus1 Technology (acquired by a Private Equity), co-founded Transcendent Design (acquired by Mentor Graphics), and was a principal at Quad Design (acquired by Synopsys). Amir is the co-founder and the President of iBRIDGES a non-profit organization empowering young entrepreneurs. Amir received his PhD in Theoretical Particle Physics and MSc in EE from UCLA.
Using both 3D depth information and advanced artificial intelligence to monitor IR reflectance characteristics, SensibleVision is designed with the most stringent security requirements. Their patented face recognition technologies dramatically reduce the need to type passwords, can save power and battery, and allow recognition in all lighting scenarios. It can allow split-second 3D face recognition assessments and will provide much more robust and secure AI-based authentication.
The companies 3D & 2D solutions, 3DVerify and FastAccess, leverage the power of AI to quickly capture and process tremendous amounts of data across a range of parameters, delivering secure authentication beyond any existing solutions for any device with 3D or 2D cameras.
- Security is instant - users are verified immediately when they move in front of a device.
- Security is constant - continuous recognition so the device is secured as soon as a user steps away, preventing unauthorized access to private information.
- Security is invisible - a great user experience means not having to do anything. No passwords, no intrusive questions, no timers.
- Security is everywhere - their technology works on computers, tablets, and laptops, and maintains the highest level of security on any device.
George Brostoff is the CEO of SensibleVision, a leader in AI-driven 3D face recognition and authentication solutions. His company has been innovating in this field for over 12 years leveraging seven issued patents. I invited him on to the show to find out more.
One of the many things I love about recording this show is busting a few myths and giving people an insight of the tech industry both inside and outside of the Silicon Valley
Today, I want to talk about The booming Internet in China and reveal more about Baidu, the company behind the 4th largest search engine in the world.
With the world’s largest Internet user population—731 million as of December 2016—and a long way to go to reach Internet penetration levels of developed countries, China’s Internet industry is growing in both scale and influence.
And as more and more Chinese users come online, Baidu continues to innovate to meet their changing needs and diverse tastes. they are aiming to serve the needs of our users and customers with products and solutions that prioritize the user experience and reflect our corporate culture – simple and reliable.
Josh Fenn talks about products such as DU Caller, DU Recorder, DU Ad Platform, Facemoji and a little more about the company. Josh and I discuss how Baidu is increasing its online influence with exciting products beyond the Baidu search engine that its famous for.
- DU Ad Platform: Baidu’s global mobile advertising platform, helping developers maximize monetization efficiency and gross revenue.
- DU Caller: Identifies unknown calls and blocks calls from known spammers and unwanted callers.
- DU Recorder: Free, stable screen recorder that captures high-quality videos.
- Facemoji: Supporting over 30 languages and provides thousands of emojis, emoticons, GIFs, stickers and themes
CloudMounter is a cloud manager that works with your cloud accounts and web servers in macOS Finder as if they were local drives. You can mount your OpenStack, OneDrive, Google Drive, Amazon S3 and Dropbox storages and FTP, SFTP, FTPS and WebDAV servers.
After hearing how it also allows users to manage these storages without having to sync or copy your online files to your hard drive. I invited Victor Chinedum-Ezor, Sales Manager from Eltima Software onto the show today to find out more.
Eltima Software is a global software Development Company, specializing primarily in serial communication, mobile, and flash software for Mac OS and Windows.
CorkGuru is a digital wine platform designed to help restaurants enhance their wine program and create better guest experiences. Restaurants can better manage their wine inventory which drives sales for the beverage program and guests have the chance to receive a great experience with accessibility to the platform. The wine inventory system puts wine intelligence at your fingertips through dynamic digital wine lists, inventory management, guest inclusion features, and wine discovery.
CorkGuru today launched recently launched a digital wine platform blending the thrill of exploration people experience in wine label tracking apps with inventory management and business intelligence. The result: deeper, more profitable wine programs for restaurants, more tailored selections for guests, and guidance on new experiences to seek out.
The Pittsburgh-based company is already established with several top restaurants across the country, including the award-winning Bistecca Steakhouse & Wine Bar at the Meadows Racetrack in Pittsburgh and Chef Matt Harris’ Tupelo in Park City, Utah. The platform now launches more broadly, including a mobile app for guests.
“Restaurants often say ‘paper works’ when it comes to their wine lists, but there’s so much more we can unlock for both restaurants and guests,” said Danielle Gillespie, founder and CEO of CorkGuru.
“Typical wine lists can’t capture the moment a guest, craving a full-bodied cabernet, opts for something else because the price point is too high. Smarter wine lists can help restaurants guide guests to the experiences they crave, and those they don’t yet know about.”
Building smart wine cellars
Beverage programs used to drive restaurant profits. However, some reports indicate sales have slowed over the past few years, and restaurants now need to get smarter about managing lists and inventory to recapture that value. CorkGuru helps restaurants control this important revenue stream and improve the guest experience through:
Wine Cellar Builder – a web-based portal for real-time inventory management
Tableside tablet wine lists with dynamic wine descriptions and label images
Wine list data and business intelligence through a partnership with Upserve’s Breadcrumb POS
Simplifying wine ordering
According to a recent Boston Consulting Group survey, more than one-third of restaurant customers rank digital sources as the most influential for discovering restaurant information, and nearly 60 percent have downloaded one or more restaurant apps. CorkGuru helps restaurants cater to these more digitally-empowered guests through:
Scrollable and searchable wine entries on tableside tablets based on taste, color, varietal, preferences and food pairings
Mobile app allowing guests to locate their favorite wine nearby, build a profile and explore new varietals
Special wine promotions, news and invitations from favorite restaurants
“How many times have you been at a restaurant in a position to order wine, but not sure what you want, then feeling pressured to order, you default to something you know, rather than try something new,” said Gillespie. “There are too many good wines and interesting pairings to get stuck in this habit. CorkGuru aims to break guests free from the wine echo chamber.”
Zaius is a B2C CRM has raised $30 million in Series B funding and delivers real-time, cross-channel marketing automation and attribution. But it is also built on a single customer view, for customers including online retailers Polyvore and Moda Operandi. Personalization is where the platform shines because Zaius unifies customers’ behaviors and attributes across channels and devices, there is no better data on which to build your content personalization. From personalized product placement and recommendations to behaviorally-triggered campaigns, Zaius empowers marketers to truly personalize the customer experience.
I invited Mark Gally, CEO of Zaius on to the show to talk about some of the biggest pitfalls in marketing technology and what marketers experience when it comes to customer relationship management. We discuss: * Why ESPs are no longer enough for retailers
* Why most brands aren't prioritizing loyalty campaigns and programs (but why they should)
* Why Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) is the most important metric for retailers and how to calculate CLTV
* What steps retailers should take to strengthen brand-user relationships
Soundfly exists to help curious musicians anywhere achieve their musical goals. Their learning model pairs high-quality online content (courses & articles) with highly personalized 1:1 musical coaching via trained expert musicians called Soundfly Mentors.
Soundfly was founded a couple years ago to fill a gap in credible, accessible music education online. They now serve hundreds of thousands of musicians a month, with daily articles, more than 40 online courses, and a growing roster of experienced Soundfly Mentors on-hand.
In the past couple of years, they have partnered with and worked with some of the best names in music, including Carnegie Hall, NYU, Grammy-winning and -nominated musicians and engineers such as Brian Losch, Joe Lambert, and Marin Alsop, guirar legend Kaki King, YouTube star Andrew Huang, and many more.
Their mentor-based learning model is built on proven educational methods such as project-based learning, social accountability, and recall, whereas most online learning platforms provide only passive experiences.
Soundfly is providing a home for the creative and curious to discover something new and take a leap forward in their musical journey in whatever way works best for them. They stand for a love of learning that works, accessibility, and a celebration of every artist's unique musical voice, regardless of genre, style, or approach.
Guest Info
Ian Temple is a composer, pianist, and entrepreneur. Before founding Soundfly, he was a founding partner and COO for The Future Project, one of the country's fastest growing education non-profits that works with high schoolers to pursue and realize their dreams.
As a musician, he's recorded and produced multiple albums with his original projects, toured North America, Europe, and Asia with his experimental trio Sontag Shogun, and scored works for film and video, including the award-winning short film Rosa: These Storms. Ian is passionate about developing new and better ways to unlock the artist and artistic potential within everyone.
It's my final day here at the Marketing United event in Nashville, but it's also episode 500 of the show? I am grateful for being able to serve my audience and for having the opportunity to speak with inspirational people all over the world and how they are using technology to transform their business or make a difference in the world or remove a problem.
While here in Nashville I bumped into Kathleen Guzman from Liberty Tax. We got talking about how they are attempting to put fun into taxes. As the US prepares to file their taxes ahead of the deadline in a few weeks, we discuss how crypto profits will indeed be taxed.
However, it is the importance of technology, content, and storytelling that is proving to be a major part of their success at Liberty Tax. Kathleen tells me why they have partnered with EMMA Marketing at the Marketing United event.
Marketing United is currently uniting the smartest minds in the industry to share new ideas on the future of Marketing in Nashville, Tennessee. Rather than promoting services, the event is facilitating a discussion around all the key talking points not only in marketing but MARTech too and how technology is transforming the industry.
As a result, it is rapidly becoming the must-attend event for marketers. I have been fortunate to attend the event and soak up
the fantastic speaker lineup and hearing some genuinely inspiring brand stories.
In this episode, I talk to SVP Marketing, Colby Cavanaugh about Marketing United by Emma and the key themes at this year's conference.
Clayton Weiss is the director of cloud services for KeyInfo and discusses what trends he is seeing from his clients that are encouraging them to consider object storage, why it’s a popular choice over file or block storage, how it can address rapid data growth that can come with things like police bodycams, healthcare files, etc. as well as best practices when implementing an object storage strategy.
Mark Cummins is the co-founder of Pointy, a startup that helps local retailers get their products online. Retailers just plug in a Pointy device, and the complete contents of their store is displayed online automatically. Previously Mark co-founded Plink, a visual search engine company that was the first UK-based company acquired by Google in 2010. Mark spent several years at Google post-acquisition, working on the Visual Search team.
Mark was the first person in the UK to sell a startup to Google, when he sold his previous company Plink, which now makes up a huge part of Google image search. Mark and Pointy have some interesting backers like Paul Allen of Microsoft, the founders of Google Maps, Draper Associates and Matt Mullenweg from Wordpress and Michael Birch of Bebo. Mark's co-founder Charles Bibby also designed the security system for London Olympics in 2012
Pointy allows independent retailers to bring their inventory online through their unique device. He's got some great figures on how the "Retail Apocalypse" is overstated and how bricks
and mortar retail is growing. Pointy is reimagining search, creating a database of all of the world's offline products that gives your average bricks and mortar store more of a foothold in the fights against Amazon. Pointy has the ability to create the largest system of distribution warehouses in the world too as a result.
Marty Puranik is the CEO of Atlantic.Net, a leading cloud hosting solutions provider. In the mid-1990s at the University of Florida, internet service was scarce. Out of frustration due to the lack of internet access around campus, Marty set out to become his own ISP.
In order to pay for the internet service, Marty ran a computer repair shop out of his dorm room at the University of Florida. He wasn’t out to change the world; he just wanted internet access.
Within a year, the company had eight employees and over 2,000 customers. As the ISP business cooled off in the early 2000s amid increasing regulations and oversight, Atlantic.Net pivoted to offer colocation and data center services, later adding managed hosting, cloud, and virtualization tools. Now Atlantic.Net runs data centers in New York, London, Toronto, San Francisco, Dallas and Orlando, and is a trusted hosting and cloud services, provider.
Hotwire is a global PR and communications agency dedicated to helping ambitious companies change their game, build their reputation, and stand out from the crowd. The award-winning tech agency was also named 2015 Tech Agency of Year.
From Sydney to San Francisco, the 'team business,' with a ‘one office’ mentality works across our 22 locations, including the UK, US, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Australia.
However, when I heard about their North American President Heather Kernahan's backstory, I invited her on the show to share her story. Heather reveals how she was working to be a CMO shortly after getting her MBA – and her interest early on in learning how to run an agency.
We also discuss how Heather recommends reading at least two pages of something inspiring every day and makes it a priority to bring new ideas to clients and by always learning you are keeping the business moving forward.
About Heather
Heather has spent her entire career immersed in technology, and moved over to Hotwire from Eastwick Communications after its acquisition in 2016. As well as agency experience she has a wide range of in-house knowledge too.
At Autodesk, Heather focused on integrated brand communications and led the development of the company’s first sustainability report, and as Enphase Energy’s global marketing director, she played an integral role in Enphase’s successful IPO and aggressive expansion into Europe.
Heather is also a fierce advocate and practitioner of integrated marketing and believes deeply that customers are at the heart of successful communications strategies.
Audrey Salerno is a quality-driven web analyst at Cars.com who enjoys looking at data in new ways to find actionable insights and new insights into visitor engagement. However, Audrey appeared on my radar when she was awarded the prestige of becoming an Adobe Analytics Rock Star.
The winners of the nation-wide Analytics Rock Star Tour share their smoking hot tips, tricks, and power strategies. These tips are sure to bring the house down and enable you to positively impact your business. This year Adobe is ramping up the fun with prizes for audience members who are willing to pick up the mic and participate with their stars.
I wanted to find out more about Audrey's achievements and also how she will sharing hot tips at this year's Adobe Summit where Rock Stars will share:
- Innovative practices and strategies to get your digital assets singing
- Out-of-the-box thinking on data analysis to optimize your business results
- Real-world tips & tricks that address challenging analytics questions
Meredith Cooper is part of the Creative Cloud Enterprise team for Adobe and doing some great things with Equinox which is a global fitness club that has a reputation for being a provocative brand. The company sees design as being a key part of the experience itself.
Equinox's director of digital design, Cecilia Farooqi joins Meredith top discuss to become experience makers and influence perceptions through creativity, they also have the ability to create members for life.
If we are all buying experiences rather than products, what role does technology and design play in our future? We talk about this and much more at this year's Adobe Summit at the Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas.
I have been able to get you all a sneak of an Adobe sneaks session. This project used AI that analyzes past content (in videos for EX, analyzing everything from people to objects) and it then provides recommendations for future blog content.
Intelligent Content Insights: Content marketing has been a proven way for brands to attract and retain customers. Compared to traditional marketing methods, it is six times more effective in driving conversion. As competition for eyeballs intensifies, AI and data science will soon play a critical role in driving future success.
With this project, marketers can leverage advanced technology and tap an AI assistant for their content strategy efforts. Take a travel site for instance, where an upcoming video series is planned around Summer vacations. The system will analyze the brand’s existing video library, mapping performance data with a tremendous amount of content attributes such as objects, moods and actions.
Commonalities across high-performing assets are identified, and a recommendation is generated for variables including length, format, people and more.
A couple notes on the Sneaks program:
- As these are research projects, there is no formal commitment to product roadmap or release dates. However, Adobe has a good track record, and around 60% of projects in Sneaks make it into product.
- Sneaks, happening day 2 of Adobe Summit, is one of the most popular events at the show. Co-hosted by Leslie Jones this year, it is the biggest unveiling of labs projects for Adobe all year.
Rooly Eliezerov is the Co-Founder and President of Gigya. Regular listeners will already be familiar with Gigya, as we spoke with Jason Rose at last years Adobe Summit. Since then, Gigya has been acquired by German software giant SAP, and Co-Founder Rooly has penned a book entitled, The Digital Identity Crisis, which is released today at the Adobe Summit.
The Digital Identity Crisis catalogs the evolving dimensions of individual identity which have emerged through the digital era and the challenges that businesses today are facing as a result, but how with those challenges also comes an unprecedented opportunity to forge truly personal, lasting relationships with customers which bridge both the digital and physical spheres.
"All of us who are part of the online world are giving away pieces of our identity, inviting other people and organizations to become part of ourselves and changing who we are. If you still think you're the sole owner of your identity, it's time to take a closer look."
I invited Rooly to take a step away from the show floor and join us on today's episode of the Tech Blog Writer Podcast. We discuss the key takeaways and themes coming out of his book, in the context of trends currently surfacing within the digital marketing landscape.
Yotpo is known for helping brands collect and leverage reviews and photos throughout the buyer journey to increase trust, social proof and sales.
Yotpo recently launched Insights to help direct commerce brands analyze customer feedback at scale using natural language processing, sentiment analysis, and semantic grouping. With algorithms trained on a dataset of 32M reviews, Insights uncovers the factors that have the highest impact on customer satisfaction and allows for comparison using industry benchmarks, enabling businesses to invest time and resources in areas that will make an impact.
Insights directly impact bottom lines and increases sales. Campaigns have found that adding a star rating increases purchase rate by 4x, 58% of shoppers spend more when they connect with a brand and consumers spend up to 10% more because of good reviews.
I invited Tomer Tagrin, the co-founder, and CEO of user-generated marketing platform YotPo onto the show to discuss how brands can survive and grow in the world dominated by Amazon.
CryptoMove is a cybersecurity startup led by a father-and-son team. After years of stealth R&D, CryptoMove launched in 2017 and already is working with paying customers in the Fortune 100, Fortune 50, and Fortune 20, as well as federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security.
Security is a key challenge for smart cities, stemming from massive proliferation of data collected, insecure systems that can be hijacked, as well as a generally larger attack surface.
CryptoMove's decentralized edge secure data protection platform fundamentally changes the way data is secured in smart cities. CryptoMove protects data with dynamic movement, mutation, fragmentation, and re-encryption.
I invited Michael Burshteyn - CEO & Founder of CryptoMove onto the show to learn more about the "Moving Target Defense Data Protection Platform."
When you open a bottle of wine this weekend, have you stopped to think of the closure on the bottle? Did you know that there are PlantCorcs™, Natural Corks, Vintop Screwcaps, Syntek Synthetic Corks and Vinolok Glass Closures?
Today's guest is from Vinventions, the most innovative and trusted provider of Complete Wine Closure Solutions worldwide. In order to support its growth plans, the company has completed a successful Group Refinancing with an injection of USD 40 million from existing shareholders.
When I heard that there the company made 2.7 billion wine closures in 2017, giving it a 13% share of the total global closures market and that a combination of innovation and technology is their secret recipe, I invited Chief Innovation Officer Malcolm Thompson onto the show to find out more.
Taryn Southern has nearly half a million YouTube subscribers and her videos have received more than 700 million views online. But the artist and digital storyteller turned to artificial intelligence to create her upcoming album called I AM.
What makes the project unique is the entire album is composed with the help of AI. The music videos that accompany the singles leverage AR, VR, and 360° video technology too. Taryn has also created a new system that enables hundreds of people to collaborate on a song and split the proceeds or royalty payments using Ethereum smart contracts.
An inspirational episode of this tech podcast where Taryn is transforming the entire creative process using AI, AR, VR, Blockchain and 360° video technology
Have you ever searched online for hairdresser, dentist or saxophone teacher? These are just a few examples of businesses that do not have the required skillset to get their business online and why should they? This is not their area of expertise.
Consumers are increasingly searching for services online, and the reality is that many local businesses haven't had the time to catch up. However, UENI is a London based technology company that is getting these local businesses online to level the uneven digital playing field.
Rather than expect business owners to build their own website, as has been the model for businesses without large budgets, UENI builds it for them. To do this, UENI send its team of 'Walkers' all over Europe to find those local storefronts that don't yet exist online.
These Walkers travel on foot to collect details about each business (such as its name, location, and services) using the in-house UENI Walker app. Business owners can then check ueni.com to see if their website is ready to launch now.
In addition to a website, UENI subscribers receive a Facebook Business page, are verified on Google Maps and are listed on a curated selection of online platforms based on the region and type of business.
I invited Christine Telyan onto the show to discuss how E-commerce has revolutionized the way we buy most things, but the service-sector has been left behind. And how UENI aim to change that.
We also discuss how they have already built more than 2 million websites for businesses throughout Europe - and how they are just getting started.
Have you ever wondered how to get crowds to check out your booth to learn more about your company at an event? What lengths would you go to capture the attention of your audience?
Would you build a space truck that looks like something from the set of Seventies TV classic Space: 1999? Assuming you said yes, would you then drive it from driving it from Cape Town to Cairo passing through Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Sudan?
Even then it there was a small matter of shipping to New York and driving down to Orlando. Software company ZaiLab did all that in 300 days to wow crowds at the Enterprise Connect Expo in Orlando, Florida in March 2018.
When I heard this story combined with the fact that ZaiLab CEO Nour Addine is a serial entrepreneur who has built and self-funded ZaiLab from the ground up, I had to get him on today's show.
Nour has also summited Mt Kilimanjaro six times and has created a culture of bringing his employees to complete the challenge.
I wanted to learn more about Nour and his story. We also discuss why the call center is a channel often left out of marketing strategies, and how/why it's critical in providing a genuinely omnichannel experience for customers.
Have you noticed how we are increasingly using our voice rather than fingers for searching online? This got me thinking, in 5 years from now will the SEO and website info we have invested heavily in meaningless if everyone is seeking answers online by asking questions with their voice rather than their fingers?
How do you optimize your site so that your services, or questions that your customers are asking with their voice will get directed to your business?
I recently came across a company called Yext that helps companies manage all of that information. Yext is the leading Digital Knowledge Management (DKM) platform. Yext’s mission is to give companies control over their brand experiences across the digital universe of maps, apps, search engines, voice assistants, and other intelligent services that drive consumer discovery, decision, and action.
Today, thousands of businesses including brands like Taco Bell, Rite Aid, and Steward Health use the Yext Knowledge Engine™ to manage their digital knowledge in order to boost brand engagement, drive foot traffic, and increase sales.
On today's show, I chat with Yext’s Chief Strategy Officer Marc Ferrentino on why companies need to get advice on their voice search strategy now and how it will have an impact on their business.
Marketing Town by Tech Essence is offering the next generation of campaign management, tracking, and analytics technology with their solution. But its the tech startup story behind the company that is even more intriguing.
The Norwegian-born founder of Tech Essence, Ken Leren, has entrepreneurial blood flowing through his veins. Seeing a world of opportunity while working at a marketing technology company, he decided to quit and start a new business from scratch. Before he knew it, he had a growing business in his hands which he now nurtures like a beloved child.
Having identified a gap in the market for performance management software, he founded Tech Essence and launched Marketing Town, a campaign management, tracking, and analytics platform to help businesses realise digital potential through use of technology.
Ken is passionate about – and has extensive technological expertise – in all things digital. In 2017, the digital marketing technology entrepreneur was named one of the top leaders in the industry by PerformanceIN; was highly commended in the Tech Business of the Year category.
Ken was also selected as a finalist for the People’s Champion award at the Startups Awards; he was also included within the MadTech edition of The Fresh Business Thinking Shift 100. Furthermore, in the same year Tech Essence was recognised as one of the top startups in the UK (Startups 100 2017 Index) and was shortlisted for the 'UK Innovation and Entrepreneurship' Award at the UK IT Industry Awards.
I chat with Ken about his incredible tech startup journey that all began when he nervously handed in his notice on his day job to running a successful business.
We also discuss how prepared businesses are for GDPR and how they are you helping them through this transition.
Bryan Miles is CEO & Co-founder of BELAY, alongside his wife Shannon. The leading US-based, virtual solutions company has over six hundred team members—all working from home, remotely thanks to advances in technology.
Without an office, BELAY the company has graced the Inc. 5000 list three times and was awarded the number one spot in Entrepreneur Magazine’s Best Company Culture.
BELAY provides virtual assistants, bookkeeping, copywriting, and webmaster services to leaders and fast-paced organizations. BELAY’s services equip leaders and organizations with the ability to climb higher when and where they need it most. BELAY’s vision is to help clients achieve their vision.
I talk to Bryan about his personal tech startup story that began when he and his wife handed in the notice for the day job on the same day and now spends his days virtually running his company from his porch in Georgia, from the mountains in Jackson Hole, or from the beaches in the panhandle of Florida.
That $1000 smartphone in your pocket is capable of so much more than just endlessly scrolling down. How about putting it to better use? Changing your life, building your own business, community or even launching your own event. Sound far-fetched, well today I want to inspire you to think differently
When today's guest was faced with having to return to work after her maternity leave, she turned to technology and a host of free online tools to help her launch her own business and live life by her rules.
Mums Enterprise Ltd. was founded by Lindsey Fish following her own experiences of starting a business after maternity leave, back in 2014. Starting her first event management business sparked the idea for the Mums Enterprise Roadshow and in 2015 she partnered with Creative Director Lucy Chaplin to bring the vision to life.
Together they planned their first events, which took place in Hertfordshire in June 2016 and attracted nearly 200 attendees. The pair then went on to host three further exhibitions in 2017, this time reaching cities Brighton, London and Birmingham and welcoming over 3500 mums.
This year the duo have ambitious plans to enhance their website offering, so mums everywhere have the chance to find the contacts, tools and the know-how they need 24/7. In 2018 the Mums Enterprise Roadshow will welcome over 10,500 mums across two larger exhibitions in Manchester Event City and Olympia, London supercharging the platform for individuals, initiatives, and organizations to showcase themselves and change women’s lives for the better forever.
With gender equality, flexible working and maternity discrimination making headlines in recent years, Mums Enterprise is spearheading the ‘ flexible work & mum economy’ and working hard to drive change and offer tangible solutions, opening up a myriad of opportunities for women and companies across the UK and beyond.
Pagaya is a fintech company using machine learning and data analytics to reshape the asset management space. They appeared on my radar after recently announced its launch in the U.S. with $75MM in debt financing from Citigroup. Pagaya will use the funding to create a new leveraged fund suite called the Opportunity Fund.
Financial technology has come a long way to improve the experience of individual investors, but there has been little progress made at the institutional level.
After learning that the company also secured a 20-year BlackRock veteran as chief investment officer, I wanted to find out more about how Pagaya is working with the largest lending marketplaces to retool the backend and deliver better returns for institutions.
Founded in Tel Aviv in 2016, Pagaya has raised $200MM in capital to date, mainly from institutional investors. Utilizing state-of-the-art, machine learning algorithms, Pagaya also serves the institutional markets with a focus on independent, alternative asset management.
Being highly data-driven and fragmented in nature, scaling up investments in alternative credit, including consumer credit, demands a new approach--one in which traditional tools & investment strategies become increasingly irrelevant.
Pagaya CEO, Gal Krubiner shares his FinTech StartUp story and how he specializes in innovative & sophisticated credit structure products (ABS structures).
From global leader of Watson for IBM global business services to enterprise artificial intelligence leader Noodle AI, Stephen Pratt has a fascinating story to share.
The tech industry is filled with buzzwords, and many techies hide behind jargon. But anything this going to transform businesses, then it needs to be in a language that everyone understands and not just the IT departments.
For example, I don't think there is anyone that would argue that Artificial Intelligence is going to transform every industry but ask them what it is, and you will get many different answers. I recently came across a company called Noodle AI who were able to demystify AI and put it into a tagline that everyone can understand.
AI is not magic, its just math. And this is encapsulated what this technology is for me. Many over complicate AI, but when you strip it back its just math. Sure on a massive scale and only possible now because of the computing power at our disposal
Noodle.ai is the leading Enterprise Artificial Intelligence applications company. The breakthrough design of Noodle.ai is based on a set of interconnected learning algorithms across supply and demand planning. Founded in 2016, Noodle.ai is led by executives previously with the top firms in data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and management consulting.
Stephen Pratt is an instigator, agitator, and pioneer in creating world-class technology services organizations. He has spent his career building innovative ways to create value for the world’s most important organizations. Prior to Noodle, he was responsible for all Watson implementations worldwide for IBM Global Business Services. He also was the founder and CEO of Infosys Consulting, a Senior Partner at Deloitte Consulting, and a technology and strategy consultant at Booz, Allen & Hamilton.
He twice has been selected as one of the top 25 consultants in the world by Consulting Magazine. He has Bachelors and Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University and The George Washington University focused on Satellite Communications. For fun, Steve plays competitive tennis, races sailboats, and formerly was a crazed rugby player. He enjoys playing acoustic guitar for his children (not ready for prime time)
According to Microsoft, an incredible 97% of consumers will leave a brand based on a negative customer experience. Meanwhile, a recent study by Marketforce revealed that 66% of customers would switch mobile carriers to get better value for their price. Equally, 33% will change wireless carrier to get more flexible plans to fit their needs.
Welcome to the digital world where the personalization of everything is the new currency. If a brand fails to listen to its customers or remove frustrating friction points from archaic processes, loyalty will be sacrificed with immediate effect.
A criminally overused phrase is disrupted or be disrupted. But, lowering costs and increasing flexibility is an approach that many young startups are using against sluggish retail giants. The modern-day equivalent of the David vs. Goliath tale is becoming all too familiar agility becomes the new weapon of choice.
Step forward Mint SIM, the sister brand of Ultra Mobile that is on a mission to democratize communication for all and has its sights set on disrupting traditional wireless models. Mint SIM’s business model focusses on low cost and flexibility to pay for what you need, and not what you don’t need.
"We live in a world where digitally savvy and agile brands like Dollar Shave Club and Casper have completely disrupted traditional business models. We built Mint SIM on similar principles and hope to become the agent of change in the category." Aron North, SVP of Marketing & Creative at Mint SIM.
Armed with T-Mobile’s coverage map, Mint Sim requests that its users pay upfront in multi-month blocks for their insatiable thirst for unlimited voice, text and data service in exchange for lower costs. Tech-savvy wireless shoppers searching for generous data plans at the lowest price will probably stumble upon Mint Sim over the next few months. But, is it worth it?
Choosing a package that is right for you will depend entirely on how much data you consume. A 2GB per month cap for a three-month commitment will cost $15 a month, whereas a more respectable 5GB will set you back $20 per month. Data hungry users have the option of 10GB for $25 is aimed at covering all bases.
There is no such thing as a one size fits all approach to choosing a new provider. A T-Mobile based network combined with a prepaid multi-month commitment will seem completely alien to some. But for those willing to sacrifice speed and coverage for significant savings, Mint might just offer the perfect compromise.
As the communication space continues to evolve, there is an argument that unlimited talk and text plans are looking incredibly dated. The new currency in our mobile-first world is streaming services and messaging applications such as WhatsApp, WeChat, and Facebook Messenger.
Can you remember the last time that you were worried about running out of minutes on your phone? And Does anyone even send SMS messages anymore? In fact, the least interesting we do with our smartphones is make a phone call. But, data caps are one of the biggest frustrations of his increasingly digital world.
These are just a few reasons why data has become the new battleground for Mobile operators. If more users begin to question the relevance of long and expensive commitments to wireless carriers, Mint Sim might find themselves with a game changer on their hands.
An unlocked device and cheap sim deal won't be for everyone, but in a digital age where dating apps like Tinder are king, does anyone need a two-year commitment to their mobile provider that lasts longer than many relationships?
After hearing how mint sold a million GB data in its first year and 2 million GB of data only 6 months later, I invited Aron North from Mint Sim onto our tech podcast share the challenges and opportunities in the industry.
Jay Leopardi is the co-founder and CEO of the entertainment industry’s newest lifestyle brand, Fanstereo. As an industry veteran, Leopardi had an early start in entertainment, which led to his career success as a lifestyle and pop culture branding expert.
Prior to the creation of Fanstereo, Jay founded Bad Boy Branding in 2006 – a full-service brand-building agency that specializes in developing a brand’s image, messaging and the strategic processes behind a brand’s success.
While working with clients including world-famous celebrities, start-up entrepreneurs, and mega-corporations, Bad Boy Branding skyrocketed, with Jay becoming labeled as 'The Master of Reinvention' due to his ability to empower his clients through messaging and branding.
While Jay’s main focus has been on the personal brands of celebrities, many of his most favorited projects have been within the fashion and technology industries.
Working alongside their partner Steve Rois, CEO of professional audio leader Direct Sound, Fanstereo was born in 2017, from the vision of connecting artists and musicians directly to their fans across the globe. Currently, Fanstereo offers consumer-facing products that include headphones, earphones and Bluetooth speakers, designed with cutting-edge technologies from the DNA of Direct Sound. As co-founder and CEO of the company, Jay oversees operations, partnerships, and product development.
I invited Jay Leopardi onto the podcast to learn how his own music career is responsible for his tech startup journey and partnering with artists such Ayo & Teo and Boosie Badazz with Fanstereo's headphone and speaker products.
360 video and virtual reality are taking the buying experience to radical new heights. With access to the full picture and the ability to completely immerse themselves, buyers are no longer reliant on anonymous reviews and guesswork – they can experience the atmosphere first hand.
The technology used to create 360° video and virtual reality is maturing fast. Now people can enjoy exploring property and places from afar, and businesses can attract custom in ways that were not previously possible.
Launched in October 2017 and designed from the ground up for researching in 360 video and virtual reality, 3xplor is all about the emotional connection and buying experience. It takes online exploration to the next level and creates an exciting new channel for commercial enterprises. 3xplor makes searching for property, places and things to do an adventure with 360° tours, video and virtual reality.
I chat to CEO Lisa Hutt about her vision for the future of this technology and her startup story
Today's guest is Jesse Sullivan, the founder & CEO of Alter, a nonprofit on a mission to transform the developing world through high growth entrepreneurship.
The company finds the most promising ventures in developing countries and helps them scale by accomplishing what billions of dollars of aid have largely failed to do: building businesses, leaping over gaps in infrastructural development and creating thousands of jobs locally.
Alter is in four countries—Haiti, Afghanistan, Cuba, Myanmar—and is working with 17 ventures. Alter also recently announced a $1 million donation from the Pineapple Fund and a $2.5 million donation from Chris Larsen, the founder of Ripple.
Despite the negative headlines that we often read, this story demonstrates that cryptocurrency does not only have to make a new class of millionaires, billionaires, and lambo owners—it can support development work and world-changing social investment.
In the past 2.5 years, Alter has turned every donated dollar into four dollars of value-added services in the companies they work with. These companies have created over 1,200 jobs and grown their revenue by a combined $102 million.
We talk about how this tech startup is making a difference using technology and a new way of thinking. Learn how cryptocurrency is already redefining social investment.
John Boncher is the CEO of Cupertino Electric, a tech-powered infrastructure, and engineering company headquartered in the West Coast.
With commercial customers of all shapes and sizes in a variety of industries, Cupertino Electric, Inc. (CEI) is best known for designing and installing first-of-their-kind electrical systems that help customers achieve their vision.
Despite offices in Silicon Valley, San Francisco and the Los Angeles area where many commercial projects are built, CEI also regularly delivers projects across the U.S. for large renewable, utility and data center customers.
This diversified approach provides the flexibility to deploy the right resources at the right time for maximum customer benefit. By offering innovative services based on decades of knowledge and results, this “best of both worlds” offering has continued to fuel CEI’s success.
The company has over 3000 employees nationally and expecting to top $1Billion in revenue this year. They build also build data centers for some of the world’s largest tech companies, some of the largest solar farms in the U.S. and even Levi’s Stadium.
John Boncher shares his story and how technology is influencing the way CEI works. We also talk about the how a lack of trade skills is leaving many job roles unfilled and how kids can prepare to fills these roles.
The demand for workers is only rising as the economy booms, as baby boomers retire and as massive natural disasters – hurricanes, fires, etc. – exacerbate the need for skilled trades workers. Cupertino's toughest challenge is to recruit the next generation of skilled trades workers into the workforce to meet demand and to debunk the myths surrounding the trades along the way.
Hartmut Liebel is the CEO of iQor, a managed services and solutions provider for some of the world's most well-known technology brands. But I invited him on the show today to share his experiences in losing both as a professional tennis player and in business settings, and how these experiences have paid dividends in his role as CEO at iQor.
Former ranked tennis pro Hartmut Liebel is the current president and CEO of iQor, an integrated services partner for some of the world’s leading technology brands.
Liebel has an intriguing background. Born in Germany, he came from a working-class family—his father was a child during WWII. Around his later teen years, Liebel became interested in tennis and was ranked #20 in Europe by the time he was 21. He leveraged his aptitude for tennis into a move to Florida, playing against D1 schools on the college circuit, and quickly propelling himself to #2 in the US.
Liebel (humbly) says he never made much of a name for himself in the tennis world. However, he credits his playing career and the professional experiences that followed as a currency and auctions trader, a tennis coach at Notre Dame, and a financial analyst, to name a few, to his success as president and CEO of a $1.5 billion company.
"You get used to losing", is a comment he makes about both his athletic background and three years of constantly losing on deals as an auctions trader. In short, Liebel has learned a lot about managing risk—particularly insight of knowing how much loss to take before changing your strategy, how much loss is acceptable, and how much/when you need to change based on data.
About iQor
iQor is the only global managed services provider embedded in the flow between product, people, and services, from point of customer acquisition to sustainable recycling. With 45,000 employees in 18 countries, they partner with many of the world's best-known brands such as Apple and Microsoft.
The company delivers aftermarket product and customer support solutions that span the consumer value chain, from customer care and receivables management to product diagnostics and repair services.
Their award-winning technology, logistics, and analytics platforms enable us to measure, monitor, and analyze brand interactions, improve business processes, and find operational efficiencies that lead to superior outcomes for our partners across the customer and product life cycles.
When was your first job? For a large majority of our teens today, they’re not working. (A decline of 30% over the last 40 years due to extracurriculars, sports, music, tutoring, homework, and the list goes on.)
Teenagers have a lot to offer. They’re motivated by opportunity and reward, same as adults. But, it used to be easier for young people to find honest work around the neighborhood.
Enter Skratch, a mobile demand-based platform founded by the father of two teenage daughters. The platform connects Dallas teens with “gigs” in the neighborhood, ranging from dog walker and sports mentor to holiday gift wrapper, garage organizer and mother’s helper.
Today's guest Scott Bennett helped build Skratch to make it easier to post, find, and complete temporary local gigs. It’s an opportunity engine that connects (and benefits) the people on both sides of the equation. And besides earning some money, they can get in the habit of making good habits. Because it’s about today, sure, but their futures too.
Serviced by an app for iPhone, teens sign up, select a gig, and accept it, when their schedule allows. Teens get paid through the app and establish a running work history. Meanwhile, neighbors are starting to connect once again and checking off their to-do lists with the help of the teen next door.
Has an idea ever popped into your head for a great book or TV series? Did you quickly write down your concept or did you simply forget about it? Ashley Boolell went a step further and used technology to turn his idea into a novel.
I invited him onto the show today to tell us more about his book and what could potentially happen when you combine the dark net and LinkedIn. But more than anything, I wanted to find out more about his creative process and how he was able to write, publish and market his own novel 'Killed In'
About the book
'Killed In' is a thriller that was inspired from the Dark Web and LinkedIn, one of the biggest social media platforms present on the world wide web. The main character of the story is a frustrated and alienated barista called Chris Kord. His failure to succeed in conventional society leads him to the Dark Web, where he seeks the recognition that he desperately craves.
Chris creates an underground online platform, called Oblivion, designed solely for criminals. His project is a success but he fails to understand the forces that he is dealing with. Angered by an unruly customer at his coffee shop, he unleashes one of the most dangerous criminal gangs of the platform against the offender, believing that this will not go beyond intimidation. Unfortunately for Chris Kord, it ends up as a horrific murder.
Unable to cope, he tries to run away from the the world that he has created. But Oblivion has other ideas and won't let him escape.
John Sculley is one of America’s best-known business leaders, with one foot in the storied history of Apple technology and the other planted firmly in 21st-century innovations that change the way the world does business. If the legend is to be believed, Steve Jobs walked up to the head of Pepsi, in the eighties and said the immortal line, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?" The rest, as they say, is history.
In his ten years as Apple CEO, he worked together with Steve Jobs to launch the Macintosh computer, desktop publishing, and the first multimedia computers. By the end of his decade as Apple CEO, the Mac had become the largest selling PC in the world and Apple’s revenue had grown over 1000%.
However, I don't want to focus too much on his past because much of it has been documented already.Drawing upon many years of experience as a corporate executive, investor, entrepreneur, mentor, and rainmaker, Sculley has become a sought-after global advisor helping experienced entrepreneurs build a new generation of transformative companies.
I want to know what inspired him on his journey, what he learned along the way, how he is trying to make a difference now, what advice he can offer listeners today and of course what it felt like having Jeff Daniels play him in an Aaron Sorkin movie.
We discuss how his time at Apple led to his current role as a disruptor in the healthcare industry and the future of disruption in the industry. Sculley also talks about what the role of AI will have in healthcare in the future and how he believes healthcare is his “noble cause” while also and revealing an insightful anecdote about Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
Nuxeo, maker of the leading, cloud-native content services platform, is reinventing enterprise content and digital asset management. The company is fundamentally changing how people work with both data and content to realize new value from digital information.
Its cloud-native, hyper-scalable content services platform has been deployed by large enterprises, mid-sized businesses and government agencies worldwide. Customers like Verizon, Boeing, Electronic Arts, and the US Department of Defense have used Nuxeo’s technology to transform the way they do business.
Founded in 2008, the company is based in New York with offices across the United States and Europe. In 2016 Goldman Sachs and Kennet Partners invested $30 million to help Nuxeo accelerate our rapid growth. The company is currently investing heavily in expanding customer success and support, boosting R&D, and increasing our global reach and market presence.
Nuxeo was also named a visionary in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms (CSP) report. As one of the 19 vendors evaluated, Nuxeo was positioned as a visionary based on its completeness of vision and ability to execute on this vision.
Nuxeo CMO Chris McLaughlin has moved from start-up to enterprise and back again. Chris has extensive CMO experience in both the startup and enterprise space, so I invited him onto the podcast to discuss why he left tech behemoth Dell ECM for a nimble company like Nuxeo.
Chris also shares his tips and advice for startup CMOs looking to succeed, including focusing on solving one specific problem you identify (rather than trying to resolve several, unsuccessfully).
It’s easy to lose sight of what has the biggest organizational impact when setting out to accomplish certain tasks as a part of your job description, so it’s important to remain focused in order to move the organization in the right direction.
WWPass is a global cybersecurity company that provides identity, authentication, and access management (IAM) technology. The company battles data breaches and identity theft with advanced authentication and data storage technology to deliver a user experience as convenient as it is secure.
WWPass serves individuals, small and midsized businesses, as well as enterprises in higher education, e-commerce and other industries that need to provide their customers and employees with superior security and convenience.
Given authentication is heating up with the popularity of biometrics I thought it was time to have a conversation with Perry Chaffee, VP of strategy at authentication company WWPass and makers of password manager PassHub.
In a previous life, Perry was in the Air Force and knows the ramifications of data breaches on personal information firsthand, having his files compromised in the widespread OPM hack.
Perry considers himself a leader, project manager & technical marketer on a mission at Worldwide Pass to battle identify theft & data breaches by arming governments, companies & consumers with advanced authentication & data storage technology to deliver a user experience as convenient as it is secure.
On today's show, Perry discusses how companies can get rid of usernames altogether, as well as recapture revenue instead of leaving it on the table with each customers' "Forgot your password?" abandonment.
We also discuss the current flawed authentication process that companies have in place; and how to improve the systems for media/entertainment, e-commerce & retail, financial and other regulated organizations.
Jessica VerSteeg has enjoyed a successful career as a fashion and print model for nearly ten years. During her time as a model, she also was also crowned Miss Iowa US 2014 and placed in the top 10 at the Miss US pageant.
After losing someone close to her due to an accidental overdose of painkillers, she decided to dedicate herself to changing the perception of alternative painkillers like cannabis. She then founded AuBox, an upscale medical marijuana delivery service. But the laws and regulations from state to state and county to county are a complex web to deal with causing the cannabis industry to be fragmented.
Jessica wants to help bring back the trust and respect the cannabis industry deserves, so she decided to build PARAGON. Jessica is focused on providing a blockchain platform the Cannabis industry to become transparent and stay compliant.
Two problems facing the tech industry at the moment are the gender imbalance issues and the bad press around initial coin offerings (ICOs). However, Paragon Coin CEO Jessica VerSteeg has learned that ICOs are restoring that balance and giving women the power to remove limitations and steer clear of biased funding.
Jessica told me how refreshing it was launching her own ICO and discovering that the whitepaper and code mattered more than the gender of the CEO.
After ICOs cut through the bias that she experienced with venture capital firms, she was able to bring the Paragon seed to sell solution to life. On today's show, we talk about how Paragon Coin is using blockchain technology and a cryptocurrency to not only transform the cannabis industry but to also deliver much-needed trust and transparency.
Renowned online marketer, book publisher, and SEO expert Tom Libelt has mastered the whole digital nomad/location independence thing with ease. But I wanted to find out more about his entrepreneurial story and how he learned to hustle from the school of hard knocks.
I chat to Tom about how listeners can make changes and leverage the opportunities technology brings to make a living from a laptop and a wi-fi connection in any location. We also discuss how his team has published over 5000 Kindle Books and the importance of leveraging your content via video, audio, images, and text.
Tom also talks about making sense of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies and how they will shape our future. However, it's his inspirational tech startup story that is the heart and soul of this episode.
PicsArt, the world's largest editing app that's created a new kind of creative community and has evolved beyond its impressive product features to create a new kind of social collaboration. But, I wanted to learn more about how the PicsArt Photo Studio went from a small tech startup in Armenia and grew to be a global company, so I invited the CEO, Hovhannes Avoyon onto the show.
There are 3,000+ mobile-editing tools; the technology rivals the abilities of Photoshop, all on a smartphone. What makes it different from other photo editing apps (beyond its sheer scale) is how it moved beyond just cool product features + built an engaged, creative community. A community that collaborates with each other (+ brands), editing 850M+ images a month and actually sharing that content on other social platforms.
We also discuss how the secret to maintaining an engaged audience, through the growing pains, to this scale and developing technology that inspires creativity. The podcast is essential listening to anyone interested in learning how to grow a mobile-first and free platform to over 100M users
Waze is the social navigation pioneer, leveraging mobile technology and a passionate global community to redefine expectations of today's maps. Waze is home to one of the world's largest networks of drivers who work together daily to outsmart traffic and save time and money.
The app consistently recommends the fastest routes based on real-time driving and data from millions of users. From traffic reroutes to low gas price alerts and relevant offers from favorite brands, Waze is one of the most comprehensive driving companions in the marketplace.
I wanted to learn more about the other features that are probably under your radar. For example, The Waze Connected Citizens Program that connects Wazers, cities and its citizens to collaborate and improve their community. But also answer the question "What's happening on our roads right now, and where?"
I also wanted to understand how the Waze Beacons Program is improving tunnel navigation in cities around the world and became the first scalable, affordable solution to power seamless navigation underground.
After noticing that there too many cars and so many empty seats. The company also launched Waze Carpool to offer a simple, quick, cheap and fun way to commute together. But, the app made a real impact last year in Texas and Louisiana after Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on locals.
The Waze Global Event Partners free program also enables event organizers to work with the company. The free traffic management program enables real-time road closures, full communication with local drivers and up-to-the-minute detours to get drivers to events more quickly, safely and happy.
I invited Finlay Clark, UK country manager at Waze to talk about how the platform is evolving.
Tony Atti is a CEO that is revolutionizing the 100-year-old refrigeration industry and the way we cool everything from soda to flu vaccines and fiber optic cables.
Today’s cooling technologies are seriously uncool. Hospitals, pharmacies, and grocery stores rely on dated refrigeration systems that depend on bulky compressors, uses noisy fans, and cause harmful emissions – a system simply not fit for the modern world.
To solve this problem Tony took a route no one else would even consider: semiconductor technology. Today, his company, Phononic, is a $158M venture-backed company with major investors, including Tony Fadell and Jenny Lee. Phononic has been a CNBC Disruptor 50 Company two years’ running.
Phononic is innovating semiconductor solutions that revolutionize cooling and heating. The Company’s disruptive solid-state approach displaces compressors, heat sinks, and fans with products that are smart and sustainable.
Backed by a diversified and global mix of venture and private equity investors, Phononic’s products can be applied to everything from refrigerators to fiber optics, removing the barriers of traditional incumbents and ushering in a new era of cooling and heating.
When arriving at a concert or big event, most of us seldom think about the logistics behind the scenes. But this is a huge pain point in the industry.
Short-term or temporary staff from dishwashers, servers, bartenders, waitresses that do not arrive as the doors open to restaurants and large venues is a huge problem. A new staffing app called Jitjatjo is aiming to solve that problem by using AI to simplify talent acquisition and streamlining temp role fulfillment
The hospitality industry is notorious for its unpredictable nature, especially with staffing issues such as last-minute callouts, or the difficulty of scheduling according to fluctuations in demand. Jitjatjo is tackling the problem by empowering business owners to fill staffing voids by matching companies with reputable workers able to arrive on location in as little as one hour.
All Talent are employed by Jitjatjo as W2 employees, which removes the time-consuming burden of human resources processes, such as tax forms, payroll, etc., thus allowing managers to focus on building other aspects of their business.
Just like an Uber driver, Jitjatjo users can simply turn on their availability to pick up shifts at restaurants, bars and catering companies and get instantly paid as soon as they clock out.
MeTEOR Education is a leading educational services partner working with education providers to help them create High-impact Learning Environments and High-impact Learning Experiences throughout the US.
As one of the largest providers of learning spaces, including furnishings and interior design services, MeTEOR's focus is the integration of best practices for teaching and learning to drive inquiry-based instruction, effective use of modern classrooms, and increased student achievement.
Although I am fascinated by EdTech and how technology is transforming education, I wanted to get beyond the buzzwords and their book Humanizing the Education Machine Thinking Guide captured my attention.
This new guide provides insights into why transforming today’s teaching and learning environments is at a tipping point. It also shares the steps educators must take to move today’s education model from the traditions born of the Gutenberg Revolution to the transformations emerging from the current Google revolution.
The Thinking Guide is a companion to the book Humanizing the Education Machine: How to Create Schools That Turn Disengaged Kids Into Inspired Learners, co-authored by Rex Miller, principal and thought leader for the future-focused consultancy and organizational performance firm MindShift, and Bill Latham, CEO of MeTEOR Education.
I talk with Bill Latham and learn why getting physical space right, before even thinking about technology is possibly more important than anything.
The tech startup story behind how Wowza partnered with Facebook to launch the first broadcast-quality streaming device for professionals.
Designed in collaboration with Facebook, the ClearCaster appliance is built from the ground up to ensure successful broadcasts on Facebook Live, from any workflow. The appliance offers many innovative and differentiated ways to engage with new and existing audiences on Facebook, including:
- The ability to see comments and Live Reactions from followers, so you can react to them in real time and tailor your content on the fly.
- Talent View functionality, allowing on-camera personalities to see exactly what their followers see.
- An integrated countdown clock that cues the exact moment your stream goes live, eliminating awkward pauses for you and your viewers.
As a single, rack-mountable appliance, ClearCaster makes it easy to connect an editing system or live feed to the internet, and immediately authenticate to publish on Facebook Live. ClearCaster includes inputs for SDI and HDMI connections to easily deliver directly from HD cameras and other professional equipment.
CEO and Co-founder, Dave Stubenvoll reveals how engagement with an audience is quickly becoming the fastest measure of success – not just if someone watched your show.
SuperFan is a new-age media company looking to bridge the gaps between influencers, brands and fans. The company aggregates data from Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook using their proprietary technology and show users their passionate, influential and casual fans that can be filtered by location, gender, interests and keywords.
Brands can also use the tool to mobilize marketing campaigns like local events, influencer content, prize giveaways, and targeted advertising. SuperFan is a SaaS product for brands and offers a premium version to influencers who want to gain additional privileges like having their top fans compiled and exported to them in a CSV file.
SuperFan’s advisory board includes industry rockstars like Ryan Holmes (CEO, Hootsuite), Brandon Steiner (CEO, Steiner Sports), Michael Hyatt (Executive Chairman, BlueCat Networks), Carrick Felix (former NBA player), Karen O’Brien (Vice President of Global Social Media, Western Union), Eliot Robinson (CEO, Dunk), Mark Zablow (CEO, Cogent Marketing), and Trevor Booker (Power Forward, Brooklyn Nets & Partner, JB Fitzgerald Venture Capital).
CEO and co-founder Manu (Swish) Goswami, 20, has built a multi-hyphenate career. He is a serial tech entrepreneur (COO & Co-Founder of Dunk), LinkedIn Youth Editor, TEDx speaker (signed with the National Speakers Bureau & The AAT Project), Fortune 500 consultant (for Google and American Express), venture capitalist (at JB Fitzgerald Venture Capital founded by Brooklyn Nets PF Trevor Booker), and UN Youth Ambassador.
He has also been recognized with the United Nation’s Outstanding Youth Leadership Award, Startup Canada’s Young Entrepreneur Award, and Plan Canada’s Top 20 under 20.
Manu has been quoted and published in over fifty national and international media outlets including Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur, and Mashable for his entrepreneurial and philanthropic advocacy. He has also been recognized as “one of the world’s most accomplished teenagers” by Future Sharks, “one of ten Gen Z experts to follow” by Forbes and the “Face and Future of Canadian Entrepreneurship” by UPS Canada.
Manu has notably spoken at the 71st Session of the United Nations, TEDxUofT, World Business Dialogue, and American Express. He has collectively represented over 600,000 students worldwide. Manu is also a former debater who represented Canada twice at the World Schools Debating Championships leading them to the Grand Final in 2015.
I invited him onto the podcast to talk about social entrepreneurship, future technology and SuperFan.
Bodhala is an AI-powered legal tech platform that takes mass quantity of data, analyzes it, and provides actionable, easy-to-use insights. Founded by Raj Goyle and Ketan Jhaveri, Bodhala’s insights empower in-house legal departments to accurately forecast legal spends and evaluate potential outside representation for significant matters.
Simultaneously, Bodhala allows law firms of all sizes to compete for available business on the merits of performance, not relationships, and effectively plan for the new world of value-based pricing.
The legal industry has always been extremely slow to change, especially when it comes to adopting technology – they are just now realizing the abundance of unstructured data available.
Legal is a $500 billion global industry with a hundred billion in overspend – it is now running much more like a business, with less volatile budgeting, value-based pricing and increased accountability. Every year, there is $16-$18 billion in contestable business among the top 25 most profitable firms in the legal industry, as clients are willing to unbundle work away from historical relationships to leaner firms (whether big or boutique).
Raj Goyle’s background is not primarily in legal tech/legal innovation; his background includes:
- Graduating from Harvard Law
- Acting as the Former Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
- Serving two terms in the Kansas House of Representatives from 2007-2011
- Running for Congress in Kansas’ 4th District against (now CIA Director) Mike Pompeo in 2010
Augmented reality is finding its way into our lives through various apps and services, from Pokemon GO! to Snapchat stickers and other marketing tactics. With the Super Bowl just around the corner, one of the latest ideas for AR comes from Virtex Apps, who has designed an AR app for live NFL games called Virtex Arena.
Virtex Arena is an AR app that is meant to cure dead time at live NFL games. The app consists of a football kicking game and passing game in which fans can collectively participate and compete against each other during timeouts, commercial breaks, and halftimes. The games take place on the actual field, and the app adjusts according to your spot in the stadium. The games also progress throughout the sporting event, keeping track of team scores and engaging fans who want to win. It’s similar to the idea of jumbotron games during sporting events, except that the audience can actually participate and have a stake in who wins.
The Super Bowl in Minneapolis is the first time users will have a chance to participate live either at the game or watching on any television.
I chat to Virtex founder Jeff Green about how Virtex has introduced a way to hold multiplayer augmented reality experiences at sporting events, and it plans to roll out a baseball-themed app using this approach at baseball games for the 2018 season.
Craig Cecilio os the CEO & founder of DiversyFund and I invited him on the podcast today to share his tech startup story. I wanted to learn more about Craig’s 20 years of experience in the industry and how technology is changing traditional investments
Craig reveals how is setting out to democratize the real estate investment process by making alternative assets available for retail investors with DiversyFund. DiversyFund (based in San Diego) is a crowdfunding platform that gives average investors access to institutional-quality real estate investments all through their phone.
As is a frequent speaker on topics surrounding crowdfunding, entrepreneurship, real estate syndication, real estate development, and leadership. We also discuss disrupting old-school investment practices, the rise of crowdfunding, the use of fin-tech in real estate, entrepreneurship and business development.
Today's guest never seemed to know when classical concerts were taking place or where and it occurred to him that it would be useful to create ONE App that could let him know if a show is taking place within easy reach of his location. Rather than download separate apps for The Albert Hall in London and The Symphony Hall in Birmingham he now has one App where all of the countries top venues and orchestras are playing,
The app is being featured on Classic FM a lot at the moment, but what captured my attention was how this one app is aiming to unite, music lovers, venues, performers, orchestras, and promoters
I invited Francis Hornak onto the show to learn how the Jubal App will prove beneficial to all parties involved by encouraging the selling of more tickets for concerts thereby benefitting the venues and artists. Jubal is also aiming to make it easier for music lovers know when shows are on so that they don't miss out on the opportunity of attending while also generating revenue for the employees of Jubal App website, its shareholders including the London Mozart Players.
Did you know that everytime you visit a website, there are hundreds of companies such as Google, Facebook that are tracking your online behavior and a building a profile about you?
Even if you are not being served adverts, many retailers often track your web behavior so it knows what products to promote to you. Sometimes, this tracking oversteps the mark and enters a creepy territory. When I heard how Edward Snowden-endorsed a service called Ghostery, I felt compelled to find out more.
Ghostery is the first browser extension that makes your web browsing experience faster, cleaner and safer by detecting and blocking thousands of third-party data-tracking technologies – putting control of their own data back into consumers’ hands.
Launched in 2009, Ghostery has more than seven million monthly active users who access the tool via the free apps or browser extensions. With its intuitive user interface, Ghostery enables average internet users to protect their privacy by default, while expert users benefit from a broad set of features and settings.
I invited Jeremy Tillman, director of product at Ghostery, onto the show to chat about online privacy.
We also highlight how Ghostery makes it easy for the average user to protect themselves from being tracked online preemptively.
YogaTrail is a platform that connects yogis with their personal yoga world while helping yoga professionals to manage and grow their business.
YogaTrail is on a mission to empower yoga instructors, most of whom are female entrepreneurs. Although they're central to the yoga ecosystem, they're currently neglected by all the apps and companies in the space, and most are struggling to earn a living with yoga. Naturally, their second mission is to make the world a healthier and happier place.
I invited Alex Klein, CEO of YogaTrail onto the show to discuss the following data points and his tech startup story:
Female focus: female founder and 88% of teachers (and 75% of students) are women
500 Startups alumni with some VC & angel backing
50k yoga teachers are using the platform in over 100 countries
Over 5 million yogis have connected with their yoga on YogaTrail
We don't often associate technology with Yoga, but I am fascinated by how it is helping YogaTrail unite Yoga lovers and teachers from all over the world.
GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group) is on a mission to transform the way top professionals share expertise and learn. They curate custom learning experiences with professionals and thought leaders around the world. The company organizes conversations, small group meetings, mentorships, surveys, and other interactions with a membership of more than 375,000 experts and thought leaders.
Essentially, GLG is the world’s largest membership for professional learning. With clients ranging from GE and Cisco to stealth companies and startups, GLG has 500,000+ on-demand experts able to discuss anything ranging from telecommunications to quantum physics, to healthcare. In the past when you needed an expert-level question answered, you would google it and search the internet. Now, when you need expertise, you use GLG and get on the phone with the right expert within 24 hours.
After hearing how GLG serves users at more than 1,400 client companies in 40 countries. I invited their CEO Alexander Saint-Amand onto the show to learn more about how they are using technology to transform the way top professionals share expertise and learn.
Instead of trying to integrate a bunch of different tools that aren't talking to each other, wouldn't it make more sense to have all of those features native on one platform?
Meet Zillable. A new collaboration platform for teams big and small that is removing information silos by combining all the big productivity tools everybody's using - chat, Kanban boards, online document collaboration, cloud storage, note-taking and more - in one place.
Basically, they are trying to eliminate the information silos created by having an app for every little thing by instead giving you one app for everything. It's a place for people to work together, better and forget Slack, Asana, Trello, Google Docs, Evernote, and so on.
With Zillable, you can have all your documents and all your tools in one place. It even integrates with your email. No more searching your devices and threads for what you need - all your content is at your fingertips at the moment you need it.
I invite Emily Duncan to find out more about Zillable and their tech startup story.
The destructive effects of the traditional performance review or annual appraisal are well documented. Rather than motivate staff they demotivate employees. What if an HR Tech solution dared to approach the process differently?
It’s no secret that the digital transformation is on the rise—worldwide spending on tech aiding in digital transformation will jump to almost $2 trillion by 2019. However, only 40% of businesses have a strategy for executing this change.
That’s why Reflektive, the real-time performance management platform, developed new features designed to empower managers and employees to take a more active and agile role in optimizing individual and team performance. The software unburdens HR teams from administrative tasks so they can focus on creating fluid, agile teams that are able to quickly shift and innovate as new technology infiltrates the workplace.
Evolving employee performance management to be more continuous and lightweight. Reflektive have 250+ customers including Nutanix, MEC, Protective Life Insurance, Braintree, Comcast, Ubisoft and more. The company has also raised $42m in capital from Andreessen Horowitz & Lightspeed. We are hiring fast and have grown from 20 to 100+ employees in the last year.
I invited Reflektive, CEO, Rajeev Behera onto the podcast to discuss how new HR tools can empower the entire organization to be more responsive to changing market demands and improve overall business performance—both of which are key for excelling during the digital transformation.
Mike Russell is the creative director at Music Radio Creative. Audio production is his life. Mike is passionate about helping you to sound great! He presents a daily live stream about producing podcasts, cleaning up audio, improving the sound of your voice, creating music, sound design and more.
Music Radio Creative - is an international audio production company. Mike and his team make jingles for radio, DJs, podcasters. Commercials, audio books, explainer videos, audio design for games and anything in between. In an average year they get to work with clients in 190 different countries.
However, you might know him as the voice behind the Tech Blog Writer intro and outro.
Every once in a while comes a new disruptive technology that changes everything. VR has stalled, the headsets are not bringing VR to the masses as promised. Step forward Omegavision which is VR without the headset, and so much more. (Check out the video demo here (https://vimeo.com/249480853)
Omegavision is essentially a VR system that allows you to work within the environment sitting at your desktop or standing. A system that will deliver immersive photography, CGI, and an immersive windows environment all on the same platform.
Omegavision consists of 3 currently issued patents and 3 patents that are in the USPTO system soon to be issued.Vention, a company based in Portland Oregon, is selling the intellectual property to Omegavision. The intellectual property consists of:
- An immersive lens design, the Omegavision lens that captures a field of view of 360 degrees horizontally by 240 degrees vertically. (Patents issued)
- An immersive screen, the Omegavision screen that immerses the viewer in a field of view of 360 degrees horizontally by 240 degrees vertically, where the viewer is actually within the display screen. (Patent Issued)
- Algorithms that plot 3 dimensional (X, Y, Z) Cartesian coordinates to the Omegavision screen.
I invited CEO Frank Harris onto the show to learn more about how the folks at Vention believe that they possess the patent rights to the future of VR
I first came across the unique No Longer Virtual conference in a Forbes article entitled 7 'Can't-Miss' Conferences For Entrepreneurs in 2017. In a digital era where we all have an increasing number of online connections in our lives, Sarah Elkins had a special idea to get these online friends from all over the world into one room so they could truly be No Longer Virtual.
The first event was hosted in Atlanta and was a huge hit for those wondering how they could leverage their incredible online professional network to improve their real life, face-to-face business, and community. Next month, NLV will arrive in Denver hot on the heels of Sarah's recent podcast launch Your Stories, Don't Define You, How You Tell Them Will podcast.
“No Longer Virtual is about leveraging our online connections to improve our offline lives. It will not include keynote speakers. Instead, it's a cohesive curriculum of two-hour workshops co-facilitated by prominent LinkedIn voices, with intended outcomes and a plan for follow up after the conference."
The NLV agenda is designed to help attendees improve their sales, leadership, and personal communication through interactive, engaging sessions on topics like creating authentic, effective content and messaging. But, also about understanding how your personal brand impacts your professional life, how to build an audience online and offline using current technology, and leveraging your experience and relationships to scale and innovate in your business.
I invited Sarah Elkins back onto the show, to talk about this conference leverages the side-conversations between sessions and makes them the foundation of the NLV experience and why she is passionate about connecting beyond the keyboard.
You meet both myself and Sarah Elkins at this years NLV, so why not book your place now and take advantage of the $100 promo code "connect beyond the keyboard".
Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, Republic Wireless leverages the power of both WiFi and nationwide cellular networks and gives consumers the ultimate flexibility to manage costs. The service uses WiFi in the home, office or anywhere else as the primary network for calls, texts and data.
Recognized for offering the best basic plan by MONEY Magazine, a top pre-paid carrier choice by Consumer Reports and for excellence in user satisfaction by PC Mag, Republic Wireless is on a mission to provide remarkably simple and affordable ways to stay in touch with anyone, anywhere, in any way.
Prior to joining Bandwidth, Chris led Corporate Development and Strategy for Motricity, a mobile content platform provider that raised nearly $500M of capital and powered billions of dollars of mobile content transactions for the wireless carriers. Earlier in his career, Chris worked in venture capital at Technology Crossover Ventures and in management consulting at McKinsey & Company. Chris attended Stanford University, and currently resides in Raleigh, NC where Republic is headquartered today.
However, I invited the CEO of Republic Wireless onto the podcast to talk about two new devices, which are aimed at minimizing digital distraction and manage screen addiction. Relay is a smart walkie-talkie that celebrates adventure and encourages kids to leave their smartphone worries behind. The Anywhere HQ is a voice-activated smart speakerphone that lets you make and receive phone calls without a screen too.
Andrew Weinreich is a social networking pioneer and founder of 7 tech startups, including sixdegrees, the world’s first social network. In Predicting Our Future, he interviews leading entrepreneurs to predict massive opportunities for the next generation of startup founders to change the world.
Andrew’s knack for uncovering the next big trends in technology and then building successful companies has established his unique position within the tech startup world. He’s currently the founder of startup launchpad Andrew’s Roadmaps and Chairman of data analytics startup Indicative, as well as advisor to a number of startups.
Secureprivacy.ai helps organizations make their website GDPR & Data Privacy Compliant. Established by Dan Storbaek, former CEO at Skarpline and management consultant and board member at IoT People. Businesses use Secureprivacy.ai to scan their website for legal risks, plugins, and data that make your company non-compliant or at risk of becoming. Information obtained is then used to setup intelligent banner notifications on different pages using different triggers.
The company also enables the automation of GDPR compliance with built-in tools and technologies that allow users to opt-in and opt-out of previously given consent with just one click. This allows administrators to extract reports with visual screenshots of consent provided. All this ensures compliance without having a UX nightmare.
Dan Storbaek, tech contributing writer and former consultant to European enterprises like MAN Diesel & Turbo, Danmarks Nationalbank, L'Oréal, and Pandora, recently gave a talk on the top 10 "Trends in Legal Tech 2018. I invited Dan on the show today to learn more about these legal tech trends and what it will mean for law firms across the world. We discuss the impact of the following in the legal industry:
1) Blockchain time will come in 2018
2) Cloud technology as a security option
3) Increased performance tracking
4) More legal process outsourcing
5) Alternative billing models
We also discuss how SecurePrivacy has just launched a new tool for anyone to enter a website URL and immediately find out if the website is at risk of penalties when GDPR gets enforced in 2018. The tool looks for website plug-ins like Google Analytics, comScore, Wordpress, Facebook, ad networks, etc. to determine if a website is in violation.
On todays episode we hear about a fintech startup story that wants to coin the term "usage-based billing. Mike Trotzke, the CEO of Cheddar, strongly believes that usage-based billing capabilities are key to many SaaS models. In a digital age consumers increasingly expect to pay only for what they use, so I invited Mike Trotzke onto the show to learn more. “The Cheddar platform understands we’re living in a usage-based, real-time world, not a paper-based world, we decided to throw away all of the old paradigms around billing and replace them with a simple metric-tracking engine fused together with billing automation.” We discuss the challenges he sees regarding payment platforms in software development, and the vision he has for the cloud billing sector.
BrandYourself provides tools and services that help people and businesses monitor and improve how their image online, helping to clean up risk factors in search results and on social media as well as build a positive personal brand.
"In today’s age of cyber-bullying, revenge porn, hate sites and inadequate online privacy laws, everyone needs the power to protect and improve their reputation on the web"
The platform consists of a DIY online reputation management software that walks users through the process of monitoring and improving their online presence and reputation management services for both personal brands and businesses. The company has raised over 6 million to date and is headquartered in New York.
"We all leave a giant footprint on the web and organizations increasingly use that data to make important decisions about you. Your online presence now affects your ability to get into college, get a job, or even get a credit card," advises Patrick Ambron, CEO at BrandYourself.
I invited Patrick Ambron onto the show to find out more about the new features which were released after BrandYourself analyzed over 50 million Facebook posts and over 200 million Google results to form a baseline for its machine learning technology, these include:
- Reputation Score technology scans and scores your entire online presence, The Reputation Score is the only technology that accurately scours the web and matches your presence against a comprehensive known database of red flags and reinforcing factors that employers use to screen you.
- Search Result Scanner scans Google for any webpages that could put you at risk. The machine learning engine has learned from over 200 million Google results to be able to accurately flag content in search results that could leave a bad first impression.
- Social Post Scanner scans your social media for any unprofessional posts. The machine learning engine has learned from over 50 million posts to accurately flag social posts that cause hiring managers to reject candidates during online screenings.
- Image Scanner scans social media for photos that could get you fired. The machine learning engine has learned from over 5 million photos to accurately flag images containing behavior that could hurt your career opportunities.
- Reputation Builder guides you through crafting an impressive online presence. The intelligent algorithm learns who you are, then walks you step-by-step through building an online presence that maximizes your earning potential.
San Francisco-based EdTech company, Quizlet is the largest user-generated online learning platform in the U.S. Every month, over 20 million active learners from 130 countries practice and master more than 200 million study sets of content on every conceivable subject and topic. Their mission is simple: To help people practice and master whatever they are learning. Quizlet provides engaging, customizable activities with contributions from people everywhere.
Many of Quizlet’s most popular features have stemmed from hackathons – including Quizlet Live (a collaborative learning game), Quizlet Flashcard Themes and the scan feature, which makes it easy to create flashcard sets from printed worksheets – the company closes down the last two weeks of December so its employees can work on personal projects from home. A sort of informal hackathon!
I chat to Quizlet CEO Matt Glotzbach about why hackathons have become a Silicon Valley staple, and how employees from all departments at Quizlet (not just tech!) have contributed to products that have been released to users.
As global cybercrime costs are projected to reach $2 Trillion by 2019, the CYBRI platform is offering cybersecurity experts on demand for small and medium-sized enterprises.
With over 500 registered US Cybersecurity experts, CYBRI
provides a key opportunity for businesses to access its highly in-demand pool of talent on a per-project or monthly retainer basis. Businesses can request a full scope of cybersecurity needs based on the industry regulations and compliance requirements including:
- Virtual CISO (Chief Information Security Officer)
- Penetration test of system and networks
- Employee training
- Perimeter monitoring with incident response services.
The company is also developing its own secure perimeter monitoring technology that will be launched in the second quarter of 2018. The technology will allow businesses the opportunity to scan their internal systems to spot potential data breach entry points and better protect themselves from vulnerabilities.
“I’m constantly speaking with entrepreneurs and executives who have serious concerns about the privacy and safety of valuable information in their databases and other cybersecurity-related questions” stated Konstantine Sukherman, CEO and Co-Founder.
Konstantine Sukherman is a technology entrepreneur with experience building consumer & business focused software products and teams. Experience in cybersecurity, healthcare, e-commerce, fintech, and education. Passionate about building product & tech teams, brands, and businesses.
Meet Coursera, the world's largest EdTech company with 28+ million learners around the world, 150+ university partners, and more than 2,000 courses. The company was founded by two Stanford professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, with a mission to provide access to quality education to anyone, anywhere.
Last summer, new CEO Jeff Maggioncalda took the reins. Previously he was the founding CEO of Financial Engines (a fintech company helping ordinary individuals invest their 401(k) savings) for 18 years and helped take the company public.
Jeff has an interesting perspective on what's happening in the broader employment landscape and how MOOCs can help. We discuss how technology is causing careers, training, and the workforce to evolve.
Working adults today are facing a need to reskill or change careers, and Jeff reveals why he believes that we need to make it easier for people to gain new skills at all levels of their career. We also discuss where Coursera is heading, their recent $800M valuation and the trends he sees in EdTech.
Paul Martini is not your average leader of a successful cybersecurity company. With his twin brother they blended their skillsets to create a security company to protect the distributed, mobile workforce.
In the early stages of Peter and Paul’s career, the two understood the need for employees to work securely, no matter their location. Following this vision, the two made their life’s work solving this problem and creating a company with the perfect solution
Driven by their vision and passion, they bootstrapped the company and focused on building out robust product capabilities. iboss amassed scores of patents and grew aggressively over the next decade (including raising $35 million Series A from Goldman Sachs in 2015).
Today, with more than 100 patents and patents pending, the iboss Distributed Gateway Platform protects over 4,000 organizations worldwide, making iboss one of the fastest growing cybersecurity companies in the world.
I speak with Paul about how he grew a successful cybersecurity company.
We also discuss:
· Their decision to bootstrap their way into the market
· Growing a successful cybersecurity company in an extremely crowded market
· Best practices/advice for other CEOs looking to grow their company
The Clazio Spark is a new touchscreen home entertainment centre that combines the very best in voice technologies, top content providers, and premium audio.
The Clazio Spark features a seven inch Full HD (323 PPI) touchscreen to navigate the best in entertainment, from film to video shorts to Spotify or internet radio - all based on the popular Android platform, so there’s no shortage of content options.
The device also has impeccable credentials in voice control and interfaces with both Amazon Alexa and OK Google. By incorporating two Far Field microphones the Clazio Spark can pick up the quietest of requests, even in the bustle of a busy household.
In a fragmented digital landscape, I wanted to learn more about how Clazio is uniting technology platforms as this years CES event in Las Vegas.
CES visitors can swing by the AstroReality CES 2018 booth to get hands-on with LUNAR and the entire solar system. The Augmented Reality app will also allow users to follow in the footsteps of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and experience one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind by virtually landing on the moon.
AstroReality’s LUNAR model launched on Indiegogo in September 2017, and hit a massive $210,399 within weeks, smashing its funding target of $50,000 by a whopping 516%.
Hand-painted and crafted using the most accurate and advanced 3D printing technology, the softball-sized LUNAR Pro is modeled to 0.006 millimeters per pixel precision as it features a high-resolution topography based on data captured by NASA’s Lunar Orbiter science team.
With its AR app, AstroReality, weaves together an unparalleled way to experience the moon, in the hand, and through a smartphone. The AstroReality Mini Solar System includes nine mini models using the same precise measurement of LUNAR.
I invited Joanne Dai Co-Founder of AstroReality onto the show to find out more about their unique product and their tech startup story that has gone from a successful crowdfunding campaign to the show floor of CES 2018.
At CES 2018, Sleep Number Corporation provided a glimpse into the future of health and wellness. From identifying and warning of a heart attack to detecting sleep apnea, the Sleep Number 360™ smart bed’s biometric sleep tracking technology and comprehensive sleep database are laying the foundation for an effortless sleep and health platform.
I invited Pete Bils from Sleep Number to find out more about how the 360 smart bed’s robust SleepIQ technology platform integrates sleep science, sophisticated biometrics and artificial intelligence to provide consumers with effortless adjustability and tangible improvements to their health.
We also discuss if this technology could also potentially:
- Detect irregular breathing or heart beat patterns, like sleep apnea or a heart attack – and alert emergency services.
- Identify the flu or other epidemics as they spread locally, and communicate this information to health officials and the public.
- Play a role in monitoring patients outside of a hospital by sharing the related personal data with your doctor to support a diagnosis.
- Monitor recovery following medical procedures, so you can recover at home instead of at a medical facility.
Are you disillusioned with the smartphone market in a mobile-first world where 99% of the devices look the same? One of the things I love about CES is we get to see new and exciting products.
I recently saw the ZTE Axon M which has not one but two screens yes you heard me right. I managed to catch up with ZTE CEO Lixin Cheng at CES and invited him onto to the show to share his thoughts on CES, IOT, 5G and why he believes It is time for the smartphone to be transformed.
On today's show we discuss:
- How the recently-released ZTE Axon M has led the transition in foldable smartphone form factors.
- How ZTE is leading the foldable smartphone category.
- ZTE’s commitment to 5G and how its efforts are advancing technology as a whole
- What ZTE is doing in the IoT space
LyricFind is the world’s leader in lyric licensing, and with the recent launch of LyricMerch, the company is now able to offer consumers the first legal platform to design and create their own custom lyric merchandise.
Darryl Ballantyne originally conceived LyricFind in 2000 and has attended over ten CES events during his entrepreneurial journey. But here has returned for CES 2018 to talk about how LyricMerch draws on LyricFind’s database of millions of lyrics and allows fans to put over one hundred thousand licensed lyrics on a wide range of clothing and household items.
Users select the lines they love, format them as desired from an easy-to-use design interface, and the service will custom print your creation. Meanwhile, rightsholders get royalty payments for the use of their work.
“We see this as a win-win for songwriters and artists, and for fans who love their lyrics,” says Darryl Ballantyne, CEO of LyricFind. “LyricMerch also expands the income possibilities for lyrics rightsholders, helping them make the most of an asset that is growing in significance in the digital era.”
I invited Darryl Ballantyne onto the show to find out more about LyricMerch and what he is looking forward to seeing at CES2018.
CINEMOOD is the maker of innovative, portable mini-cinema projector devices with a content platform for kids. CINEMOOD’s Storyteller is the first cloud-connected mini cinema for families that displays immersive content onto any surface, creating magical, cinematic moments that families and friends can enjoy together.
The Storyteller is also pre-loaded with a parent-curated library of 150+ stories to give kids an alternative to TV, tablets and smartphones experience. Project onto any light surface cartoons, films, digital books, films, listen to music, audiobooks. Support Bluetooth, WiFi.
CINEMOOD also made a name for itself by reaching 123 percent of its Indigogo goal with 17 days left and wowing audiences at CES a few years ago. The product was designed by parents who wanted to give their kids an alternative that allows kids to interact with technology without just staring down at a screen it’s basically a mini portable projector that comes with swappable smart covers that let you turn any wall or ceiling in your house into a personal theater.
They can now be found at CES 2018 at the Sands Conventions Center, Halls A-D, Booth #42570. For those that are unable to attend the biggest tech event in the world, I invited them back on the show to learn about their progress since we last spoke in 2016.
We talk about the technology behind Cinemood and them winning the right to use Disney licensed content in the US and Canada. We also discuss how they've broken the American and European markets with high sales, recent investor updates and what the world can expect from their team in 2018.
Reverb.com — the online marketplace for buying, selling, and learning about music gear recently announced that its new record marketplace Reverb LP is now in open beta. The website will offer record stores, collectors, and music fans an easier and more cost-efficient option for buying and selling records and other physical music formats online.
“The current options for buying and selling records online — whether you run a store or just have a personal obsession, like me — is cumbersome,” said Reverb LP President Dan Melnick, who has more than 400 records from his personal collection on the site. “Based on the success and support we’ve experienced with Reverb.com and the knowledge we’ve gained growing the platform to what it is today, we’re uniquely positioned to provide the record industry with the best online marketplace for buying and selling records.”
Since launching in 2013, Reverb.com has grown into the most popular music gear website in the world, with sales expected to reach nearly $400 million this year and more than 10 million musicians and music lovers around the world visiting the website each month. Many of the same characteristics that differentiate Reverb.com from the competition will set Reverb LP apart from existing platforms, including:
- Lower seller fees. It’s free to list
records on Reverb LP and when an item sells, the company takes just 6 percent, making Reverb LP one of the most cost-efficient options available for selling physical music online. - A live customer service team full
of record collectors, musicians, and music lovers. - Hyper-tailored technology and tools, like
sales dashboards and Reverb Sites, which will allow stores and collectors to create their own branded website with their Reverb LP inventory synced and integrated.
GoSpotCheck is a simple, integrated SaaS platform for companies with large field operations looking for real-time field data and improved execution from their field teams. Its data-driven technologies allow for efficiency in the field and advanced reporting that makes getting more product displayed easier. Working with companies like Under Armor, PepsiCo, Dannon and Anheuser-Busch, GoSpotCheck were seen maximizing performance in the field during the holiday season. I invited their CEO Matt Talbot onto the show to find out more about their future plans to use a $21.5M Series B1 funding round to further develop their leading field execution management platform, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to create the most robust product offering in the business.
Nangians is a young Boston company that’s redefining how businesses measure online success. They help retail brands improve retargeting strategies on social media and other digital channels to track the impact advertising has on revenue. Right now, 90% of marketers are doing retargeting wrong, and it’s costing them billions.
Led by serial Entrepreneur, Rick Calvillo, Nanigans is an advertising automation leader specializing in improving retargeting and ad spend allocation, regardless of the channel. After starting with as simply a Facebook Marketing Partner, Nanigans now works with major brands like Rue La La to help optimize their ad spend and bridge the gap between paid and unpaid social.
While retargeting is nothing new, Nangians differentiates itself on how it measures success. Most marketers look at stats like CPC and last-touch clickthroughs and claim success for driving new customers. But, what about those users who would have bought anyway, even if they weren’t shown an ad? It doesn’t tell the full story. Instead, Nanigans’ platform is based on incremental revenue - the additional lift generated by advertising that would otherwise not have been captured without ad spend. This approach directly ties ad spend to revenue and has helped Rue La La see 6.5x higher return.
I invited Rick Calvillo Nanigans to learn more about the company’s journey, how its approach helps solve for many of the headaches marketers face, and how incrementality can help marketers take back control of their ad spend.
In March 2016, the company launched Cubetto, a coding toy famous for introducing computer programming to children ages three and up without the use of screens, with a record-breaking $1.6 million Kickstarter campaign, becoming the most funded ed tech brand in Kickstarter history.
On June 20, 2017, returning to Kickstarter with a new ecosystem of play maps and activity books that expand play and STEM learning around multi-award winning Cubetto, Primo Toys achieved its goal of $100,000 in just 3 hours and 38 minutes. As of today, just 18 days into its one-month program, the company has raised $500,000. 60% of those funds come from the U.S.
What’s the secret?
American parents today understand the importance of their children learning how to code, and Cubetto offers a unique approach that teaches this important skill to the youngest ever age group in history -- without involving screen time.
The first programming toy approved by Montessori educators worldwide, the Cubetto Playset consists of a friendly robot made of hard-wearing wood, a physical programming board, and a set of colorful coding blocks that make up a programming language you can touch.
Cubetto has won dozens of awards from around the world. At important U.S. professional conferences for educators, such as ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) and ALA (American Library Association), both held just last month, teachers and librarians have repeatedly spoken positively about the product and how it can benefit children. This widespread enthusiasm translates into crowdfunding attention.
I invited Filippo Yacob onto the show to find out more.
The Village School in Houston has mandatory coding for every single one of its middle school students and introduces coding concepts as early as preschool. At most schools, coding is an elective, but Village’s Head of School made a deliberate decision to put everyone through the course.
They have adopted a forward-thinking approach that truly prepares kids to succeed in today’s world of AI and machine learning and for jobs that don’t even exist yet. The school realized that technology must be integrated into every part of their education for this to happen and how in today's classroom, coding is just as crucial as teaching history.
Houston is in line to create hundreds of thousands of STEM jobs in the coming years, but they won't have the workers to fill them unless things change. Gabriella Rowe, Head of School at The Village School is changing that.
The school also has a cool partnership with MIT that gives students real-world STEAM challenges to try and solve for example, flooding in Houston, which became even more real when Harvey hit.
Bluzelle fills a key gap in decentralized infrastructure, offering a database for applications that are built on blockchain technology — the data needs to be stored and organized somehow, and there’s no point using dated technology to do so. Bluzelle's technology has already been used to streamline the otherwise-painful Know Your Customer process for a consortium of global banks, including HSBC. The KYC solution leveraged Ethereum to enable the banks to reduce the time and cost of on-boarding customers, sharing customer data in a secure manner, and facilitate ease of customer data management. Once on-boarded, a customer’s entire profile is encrypted and stored securely and permanently in the blockchain, using a proprietary multi-party key encryption protocol that enables banks to “own” their customer's private data. Data can only be shared with other banks as specifically authorized by the customer. Pavel Bains, CEO & founder of Bluzelle shares the enormous potential for a decentralised database solution.
Analysts and traders are flooded with information on stocks, funds and market volatility. It becomes difficult to read through the noise to discern which news and rumors are reliable or actionable. An oversaturation of irrelevant news across multiple platforms cost hours sifting through content that doesn’t lead to higher returns on trades. Most traders are working with simple and outdated news filters that aren’t complex enough for big data. Most data analytics don’t have sophisticated AI-algorithms to cancel out noise that isn’t impactful.
Accern increases trader’s earning potential roughly 90% over extended use while saving thousands of man-hours sorting through news data. Accern consolidates existing news subscriptions feeds from news sites, blogs, social networks into a centralized news platform to curate the most relevant financial content. Accern works with firms and users to understand their interests to build a custom news channel for them.
Having cut his teeth as a trader at Citigroup, Kumesh saw firsthand the inefficiencies that traders face daily without forward-thinking technology. Between switching from three screens fixated on Bloomberg Terminal, Dow Jones and Thompson Reuters and still missing key stories, Kumesh realized there was a better way for traders to receive actionable news alerts. His mission to provide a competent media analytics platform for the financial services industry was born out of those frustrations he encountered firsthand.
TSO Logic is the third tech startup that Aaron Rallo, CEO has been part of. Prior to that, he held positions at Microsoft and Fujifilm, and spent 16 years building and operating online platforms for large retailers including Walmart, Costco and Tesco. TSO Logic serves Fortune 500 companies and partners with AWS, Azure and other major cloud providers to help enterprises right-size their multiple clouds for their major migration and storage decisions.
His time at companies large and small has been formative in his vision for building a strong team and culture that delivers superior customer service. Aaron shares his startup story and advises entrepreneurs how to: * Create the right interview "gauntlet" to find hires with the best culture fit * Attract top talent and give them something Google or Facebook can't * Use the agile method as a way for everyone on your team to have a voice
There’s a massive amount of opportunity in cloud-based enterprise communication - only about 5% of companies with 250 or more employees have moved communications to the cloud. Global Market Insights forecasts the unified communications market to reach $96 billion by 2023. Big tech players are scrambling to get their piece of the pie - Amazon announcing Chime, Microsoft introducing Teams, etc. I invited Fuze CEO Colin Doherty onto the show to share his thoughts on why the unified communications (UC) market is so hot right now and how the company is poised to dramatically change the way people work. With so much buzz and polarization about remote and flexible work policies, Colin's story on digital workplace disruption is particularly compelling.
As CEO, Colin is responsible for the operational leadership of Fuze. With over 10 years of holding CEO positions in the technology and telecommunications space, Colin has a proven track record of driving profitable growth, operational excellence, and successful outcomes for the companies he leads. Colin joined Fuze from DNS company Dyn where, as CEO, he led the company through its late 2016 acquisition by Oracle. Prior to Dyn, Colin served as CEO of software-defined networking (SDN) leader BTI Systems, which was acquired by Juniper Networks in January, 2016. Before BTI Systems, Colin spent five years as CEO of Arbor Networks, which he led through its sale to Danaher Corporation.
Colin also served as President and CEO of Mangrove Systems, a venture-backed startup in the carrier network segment. Before Mangrove, Colin spent more than 16 combined years at NMS Communications and Nortel Networks in senior sales management positions and managing global business units in Latin America, North America, and Europe for broadband and wireless technologies.
At Crestron they are known for their workplace technology. The company creates automation and control solutions for homes and buildings. They let people control entire environments with the push of a button, integrating systems such as AV, lighting, shading, security, BMS and HVAC to provide greater comfort, convenience and security. All of their products are designed and built to work together as a complete system, enabling you to monitor, manage and control everything from one platform.
However, Crestron appeared on my radar again after announcing that have joined forces with Amazon Web Services to make meetings productive by bringing voice control to conference rooms. Alexa for Business is a new service by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that lets you use Amazon Alexa to voice-enable your workplace. Now, employees can start a meeting simply by saying “Alexa, start my meeting.” From launching a web conference to pulling up presentation materials on-screen, the power of Crestron and Amazon Alexa will help ensure meetings are timely and productive.
“Everyone has a meeting horror story, and it often involves trying to use the technology for collaboration or a presentation,” said Fred Bargetzi, Chief Technology Officer at Crestron. “It isn’t just annoying – meetings start an average of 10-12 minutes late, and unproductive meetings cost American businesses an estimated $37 billion annually. Now, leveraging the power of Amazon Alexa voice control, Crestron can handle it all for you. Today’s announcement is just the beginning – enterprise voice control is going to be a productivity game-changer.”
Crestron and AWS have been working together for more than a year in the residential and hospitality markets, using voice control to optimize living situations. For example, asking Amazon Alexa to set the mood for dinner could lower the shades and lights, and turn on a specific selection of music. Now, the many Fortune 500 companies that use Crestron technology can add similar Amazon Alexa voice-controlled skills to manage their office space.
“Voice control is transforming the way we live and work, so the enterprise skill is a natural extension of our existing collaboration,” said Dan Jackson, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Crestron. “People already love Amazon Alexa in their homes, and importantly, they already know how it works. We’re creating one consistent, responsive experience to anticipate your needs, no matter where you are."
Cliff Lerner shares the inspiration and his story behind his book Explosive Growth: A Few Things I Learned While Growing To 100 Million Users - And Losing $78 Million.
Imagine waking up one morning to find your previously unknown tech start-up all over the news. After years of hard work and unsuccessful investor pitches, your valuation has increased tenfold overnight and investors are suddenly acknowledging your success and banging down your door to throw money at you. Within a few weeks, you've raised nearly $10 million on the basis of just a few phone calls, and every media outlet in the world wants to talk to you.
Sounds like something out of a dream or a movie, right? Well, this crazy story is entirely true.
When Facebook launched its app platform in 2007, it offered free access to hundreds of millions of users for those smart enough to figure out the right mix of marketing, engagement, and analytics--someone like Cliff Lerner.
As a result of explosive growth, Cliff faced numerous challenges and made a few inevitable mistakes. That's also how he lost $78 million, and that's what makes this story so compelling.
Explosive Growth isn't about an uninterrupted rise to success, and it isn't a book that simply lists a bunch of growth strategies without context or practical application--anyone can do that. The marketing strategies, PR hacks, and viral expertise that helped us accumulate 100 million users are all in here. But what's perhaps more valuable are the lessons learned from hard times and a real-time window into the decision making as things were exploding.
Success in business doesn't come from an idea or a formula; it comes from execution. No path is identical, and each key moment presents a decision point that will impact and shape the future of the business. The strategies in this book, coupled with a glimpse into the thought processes behind key decisions in SNAP's journey, will undoubtedly help any entrepreneur better execute in their own business.
Do you know how your home furnace works? Could you tell if your air conditioning unit is running efficiently? The answer is obviously, no. Aside from highly skilled HVAC technicians – most people can’t.
The attitude, therefore, has been to suck it up when bad luck strikes and pay through our noses for whatever the service repairman would charge us. These machines are so critical to the functioning of our homes, isn't it time for more of a proactive rather than reactive approach to these inevitable problems?
LifeWhere is trying to solve home utility problems before they become problems. The company is transforming the home service provider market by introducing predictive analytics for home utilities. The breakthrough LifePulse technology attaches to machines in the home, constantly monitoring utility health. Through applications and cloud analytics, service providers are alerted to a problem before it happens.
Homeowners have a home health dashboard, efficiency advice and warning system to schedule repairs before problems arise. Proactive monitoring allows the service provider to reach out – multiplying customer conversations, increasing subscription contracts and reducing callbacks.
I invited Brian Courtney, CEO LIfeWhere onto my podcast to find more about their mission to create a new category for homeowners and service providers called Connected Home Service, flipping the homeowner relationship with service providers from crisis calling to a feeling of peace of mind and control. I ask Brian how does LifeWhere predict home utility failures before they happen?
Sapho empowers the enterprise workforce with a modern portal experience that triples productivity and accelerates the speed of business. Using micro apps that surface personalized and relevant tasks from existing systems to any device, intranet, or messenger, Sapho gives employees a single view into the important information they need to complete work faster and make better decisions.
The company helps customers across multiple industries to streamline their internal workflows, enable smart decision-making, and increase employee effectiveness and productivity.
The team at Sapho also believe Gartner’s recent recognition as a Cool Vendor is confirmation of their mission to triple productivity and effectiveness of today’s enterprise workforce.
I invited Vice President of Marketing at Sapho, Natalie Lambert on to the podcast to find out more. Previously, she was at Citrix where she held multiple product marketing leadership positions and was most recently responsible for the company’s multi-product solutions, thought leadership efforts, and positioning of Citrix as a leader in digital workplace technologies.
Prior to Citrix, Natalie spent seven years at Forrester Research, where she was the leading expert on end user computing. In that role, she advised clients on technology investments and best practices surrounding the enterprise computing environment. Natalie has been widely quoted in the press, including outlets such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and has written for Wired, Forbes and CIO.com.
TradeIX is rewiring trade finance by providing the most connected and secured platform infrastructure for banks, asset managers, corporates and value-added service providers.
The team behind the success at TradeIX are driving a paradigm shift in the way they facilitate the flow of goods, assets, and credit in global and domestic trade. Built on Blockchain - distributed ledger technology, the platform’s applications, developer tools, and core protocol represent the dawn of the “internet of trade”.
Powered by distributed ledger technology, our API-driven platform, developer tools and core infrastructure, provides a trade ecosystem which is a smarter, better connected, more secure platform for facilitating the movement of goods, assets, and credit around the world.
Most interestingly, they call themselves a team of thought leaders who are instrumental in the creation of a new paradigm in trade and supply chain finance. They have worked with many of the world’s leading financial institutions and global enterprises and have been featured as speakers and panelists at major events for both private and public institutions worldwide.
I invited Robert Barnes, CEO, Tradeix Limited to talk about how they are bringing transformative technology solutions to the world’s $8 trillion trade-finance marketplaces.
DCM Ventures is a venture capital firm with over $3 billion under management. Since 1996, they have invested in more than 325 technology companies across the U.S. and Asia. With offices in Silicon Valley, Beijing, and Tokyo, DCM Ventures empowers our entrepreneurs with hands-on operational guidance and a global network of business and financial resources.
David Cheng is an investment manager at the venture capital firm. David has a particular focus in AI and agricultural tech with companies including x.ai, an automated scheduling service, and Plenty, a vertical indoor farming company that recently raised a $200 million funding round led by Softbank.
I often speak with guests about how technology is transforming multiple industries, but I wanted to explore the emergence or agriculture & food tech. On today's podcast, David Cheng talks about:
- How larger corporations are going to integrate AI (internal AI practices)
- Agriculture & Food Tech - Using AI and Machine Learning for food production
- AI graveyard: AI is tough and expensive to train up (you need massive amounts of bandwidth and a lot of humans to do it)
David is a strong believer in the power of a company’s narrative and is excited to work with talented entrepreneurs to discover those narratives. At DCM Ventures, David focuses on opportunities in the consumer internet, mobile applications, and Software-as-a-Service space.
Having advised venture capital and hedge fund clients in the past as a consultant, David looks forward to utilizing his experiences and knowledge in order to find great companies with powerful stories. David actively supports portfolio companies such as Athos, Coffee Meets Bagel, Life360, MegaBots, Plenty, Roomi, SoFi, Stride Health, and X.ai.
Most recently, David worked as a management consultant at Accenture in New York City where he focused on strategy engagements for Venture Capital, Healthcare, Financial Services, and Technology clients.
Xupo is a brand that secured investment on BBC's Dragons Den but since decided to choose another route bringing on board a new NXD, Mr. B. Watkins (former CEO, Acer EU) and along with one of large distribution partners in the industry. Xupo® is a solution to an age-old problem - losing your marbles over not finding what you are looking for. After misplacing personal items, they decided to create a solution to end this problem once and for all.
With the smartphone, in a sense, becoming an extension of our mind, the team knew there should be an app together with a gadget to help you not lose the things that matter to you so that you have more time otherwise wasted searching. With Xupo you aren’t just connected to keys or laptop, you are also connected to other members of the Xupo community. Bluetooth Smart ™ technology means Xupo can help find your belongings even if they are out of range of your device. You can trigger a crowd search by sending a signal to all Xupo app users. If anyone is close to your item you get an update.
However, I wanted to learn more about that tech startup journey, appearing on Dragons Den and their experiences on the show. But also how they took their product on the road to CES in Las Vegas and the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
I speak with Raj Sark on the podcast who tells me all about the success story of Xupo. However, after embarking on a journey from concept -> product design -> Kickstarter -> procurement -> manufacturing -> fulfillment & distribution and product design from hardware, software, apps & qualifications. Sark has a lot of experience and also offers advice for other tech entrepreneurs who want to appear on Dragons Den or showcase their product at CES in Las Vegas.
Kevin Hrusovsky is the CEO of Quanterix and the Founder of the Powering Precision Health Summit. Kevin has more than 25 years experience leading life sciences and biotechnology companies and believes that accelerating precision medicine is the key to changing our current healthcare system and improving the longevity of the population.
Two years ago, he founded the Powering Precision Health Summit as a way to bring all key stakeholders – including doctors, scientists, patients, patient advocates, investors, innovators, etc., together to discuss how we can accelerate research and turn today’s sick-care into tomorrow’s healthcare. He sees collaboration as the key to advancing our healthcare system and currently sits on the board of several life science companies, to ensure that all medical milestones are capitalized on.
The Powering Precision Health movement represents the intersection of new technological capabilities and the latest medical research, ushering in a new era of medicine: precision health. “Precision health” aims to transform how we approach human health, from scrambling to cure diseases after the fact, to prevention or early detection of disease long before symptoms appear and the disease is most curable.
Kevin believes the ability to track the environment’s impact on our health is key to helping move the needle forward. He grew up in a coal mining town and from an early age became fascinated with how environmental factors dictate our health. He has found that protein biomarkers can track a person’s health as it changes over time, which can enable doctors to spot diseases before they occur, and is working to advance digital technologies that can measure these biomarkers in real time.
I invited Kevin Hrusovsky onto the show about how we are approaching a more proactive than reactive approach to healthcare where traditionally we used to wait until something was wrong. We also discuss how technological advancements are enabling us all to track the environment’s impact on our health in real time.
Voices.com is the largest global online marketplace for audio and voice over products and services comprised of nearly half a million business clients and voice actors. Although receiving two million unique visitors annually and 250,000 transactions are impressive, it's their startup story that will steal your hearts and minds.
This tech startup story has it all. From the moment David Ciccarelli future wife Stephanie mapped out the original idea for a global voice-over marketplace on a napkin, it was clear something special was on the horizon. They got married and now have over 250,000 voice actors registered on the site. But, embracing the pivot rebranding proved to be a key turning point in their startup journey. I invited David Ciccarelli onto the show to share their story.
The report also highlights how the creative community chooses - and uses - voice over, offers a unique insight into what resonates with the modern consumer on both an emotional and psychological level.
Protagonist mines public beliefs in order to empower brands with marketing targeted strategies by understanding their target audiences. They do this by using natural language processing, machine learning, and deep human expertise to identify, measure, and shape narratives. Today, it’s used by dozens of the world’s leading CMOs, business leaders, and foundations. Customers include LinkedIn, Charles Schwab, Wells Fargo, Warner Bros. and many more.
Essentially they are a “Narrative Analytics” company that provides brand data to enterprises for marketing purposes. After hearing about their recent announcement about their newly expanded platform features and capabilities, I invited them onto the show to find out more.
The platform that uses Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning to analyze millions of data points via all media channels (social included) is introducing new marketing and communications offerings to enhance data-driven messaging, channel strategy development and brand signature tracking through the Protagonist Platform.
These additional features include new messaging, channel and influencer playbooks that will allow Protagonist clients, such as LinkedIn, more control within the platform with added education on how to best implement data findings efficiently. Doug Randall is Founder & CEO of Protagonist and talks about how they are helping household names energize their brands, win narrative battles, and understand target audiences.
The Protagonist platform was built on ten years of narrative science that was initially developed to improve the American brand around the world for the US Government. Today, it's used by dozens of the world's leading CMOs, business leaders, and foundations.
Doug has lectured on a number of topics at the Wharton School, Stanford University, and National Defense University; his articles on future technology trends have appeared in the Financial Times, Wired, and Business 2.0.
Sarah Ohle, VP of Marketing Insights at GroundTruth – a company that provides foot traffic location data for retailers, the company predicted Chipotle’s earnings last year stemming from foot traffic.
The company also works with the likes of likes of McDonald's, Taco Bell, BMW, Timberland and L'Occitane – providing foot traffic data for seasonal planning, earnings predictions and better consumer insights.
I invited Sarah onto the show to understand why location tech such a critical aspect of marketing intelligence and how does GroundTruth captures location data.
Sarah leads GroundTruth Marketing Insights & Innovations team, leveraging location insights, marketing analytics, and industry trends to tell powerful stories about consumer behaviors and discern what these actions mean for marketers - today and in the future.
Swanest is a financial technology start-up that develops intelligent investment tools to help investors to build, analyse and manage portfolios in a simple way.
The company also introduced a brand-new online investment tool (Investment Assistant), based on algorithms and designed to help private investors make better decisions when investing in stocks, ETFs or mutual funds.
“Traditional robo-advisors sell pre-made model portfolios, which is very similar to what financial advisors or banks do. However, investors often want to build their very own investment strategies. This ability to build, analyze and manage portfolios, consisting of any stocks, ETFs or funds, is what makes us unique.” - Silvan Schumacher
The four founders started in late 2014 with the initial goal to launch a robo-advisor in Europe so I invited Silvan Schumacher, CEO of Swanest onto the show to find out more.
Envoy is building the office of the future by automating away mundane workplace-management tasks like receiving, sorting and dispensing the myriad of packages we have sent to our offices.
The app allows whoever is receiving packages at the front desk to snap a picture of the label to automatically email the recipient and send daily reminders. Some of Envoy’s Beta users, including Slack, Box, Github and Mindspace have reported saving hours of time per day using the application.
The office of the future is around the corner, and Envoy is its, well, envoy. I invited Larry Gadea, who worked for Google at 19 and later moved on to Twitter, and now enjoying his own startup journey
We discuss how Envoy Deliveries is helping build the office of our sci-fi thriller-induced dreams.
Storyblocks’ CEO, TJ Leonard revealed insights that indicate a shift in attitudes from the 64M searches and 38M downloads across their sites in the last year (365 days). The results suggest that creators are increasingly globally aware and are unwittingly creating a strong increase in demand for diverse and global content.
The data shows that there’s an increasing desire for representation (“LGBT” +782%, “diverse” +27%, and “woman” +21%) as well as for authentic, relatable subjects. ( “candid street photography” +162%, “authentic” +134%, and “real people” +58%).
Trends reflect changes in our day-to-day life. There is a need for authentic and real imagery, steering away from the cliches and unachievable aspirations that advertising previously focused on. People want to see people they can relate to. As our society becomes more openly diverse, content creators need to represent these communities.
Pavia Systems provides much-needed technology solutions to infrastructure projects across the US. They work with both Departments of Transportation and private companies.
What is particularly interesting about Pavia is that they originally were founded to solve the problem of discoverability across infra projects, i.e. to stop the pen and paper approach which (incredibly still exists today), however, in the process of solving this problem they created a new one – massive amounts of data.
As a consequence of this vast amount of data, George White CEO and co-founder of Pavia Systems talks about some of the most interesting innovation in infrastructure such as driverless cars and the requirements they will have, drones in project assessment and making our highways and byways sustainable and reducing the impact on the environment.
The Vienna-based hardware startup Robo Wunderkind develops modular programmable robots for young children: with Robo Wunderkind, kids can just snap the modules together in different configurations to build their robotics creations. Once the robot is built, it can be programmed in an app, which uses a graphical drag and drop style programming. No prior coding or even reading knowledge is necessary. Kids will easily create personalized virtual dashboards and control their creations to solve mazes, go on treasure hunts, play music, navigate around obstacles - the possibilities are endless.
We discuss the following aspects of Robo Wunderkind:
- The first robot that kids as young as 5 years old can build and program.
- Teaches children the basics of coding and robotics.
- Teaches creativity, problem-solving and critical thinking skills through play.
- Kids will grow up understanding the role of technology.
- 14 different types of building blocks and the commands in the app are categorized by color: the most intuitive way of learning for kids.
Essentially, their first product is an educational robot that syncs with intuitive mobile applications to help children understand the basics of programming. Robo Wunderkind was also part of the world’s first and largest hardware accelerator HAX in 2014 and Finalist of TechCrunch Disrupt SF Startup Battlefield in 2015.
A next-gen Bitmoji competitor just came out of stealth and is valued at $100M from top investors. Genies enables you to create a digital clone of yourself that reacts to the news in real-time throughout the day and be shared with friends.
It's like Apple's new Animojis, but more expressive (and without an iPhone X). The creators see this not only as a form of self-expression, but also as a source for news. For example, a Genie could react to news that Elon Musk’s SpaceX landed its Falcon 9 rocket with an avatar shooting into space.
I talk to Akash Nigam, CEO of Genies about how Avatars are about to take off in a major way with advancements in AR and facial recognition technology.
A student team from the University of Michigan won Adobe’s Analytics Challenge in Utah, taking home $35,000 in prizes. The team competed against schools across the US to analyze real data (from MGM hotels) and present the best business solution using Adobe analytics tools.
We talk about how the Adobe Analytics Challenge focuses on giving college students access to Adobe's analytics products and data from real-world organizations and companies and the inspiration behind them entering.
The contest run by Adobe is also cultivating the next generation of data-scientists and helping to close the tech talent gap.
Fastly is an edge computing provider, the infrastructure backbone supporting the technology that everyday internet users depend on. In a nutshell, Fastly builds mini data centers in strategic locations across the globe, allowing users to get access to content faster than ever.
The company currently works with email-killer Slack, streaming music provider Spotify, on-demand booking services like HotelTonight and AirBnb, streaming video players like Twitch and Dish Network, media publications like New York Times, Fast Company, Rolling Stone and others.
It has also achieved over 100% annualized revenue growth in the last two quarters and doubled its overall customer base. After hearing that their edge cloud platform serves over 10% of internet requests and is performing at rates akin to Salesforce, SuccessFactors, WorkDay, Marketo, and other heavyweights I invited Artur Bergman, Founder & CEO of Fastly onto the show to find out more.
PatSnap, the leading provider of cloud-based R&D analytics, has today announced the launch of Playbooks, a series of one-step interactive tools to automate the gathering of market insight and competitive intelligence from R&D data. R&D and legal teams at innovation-focused companies need to know at the early stage of development whether there is IP risk around the projects being worked on, to ensure the organisation’s resources are allocated to projects that have the highest chance of success. The launch of Playbooks will make it possible for those with no prior knowledge of IP to gain the intelligence and analysis they need at a click of a button. The list of playbooks includes: Patent Pruning, Simulate a Merger, Litigation Threat, Litigation History, Patent Value and more. PatSnap has brought together the world’s most comprehensive R&D dataset. By adding IP data, licensing and litigation data, economic data, patent valuation, image and chemical formula search and trademark recognition, PatSnap provides the world’s most innovative organisations with a new, intuitive source of information for use during research. Its Software-as-a-Service platform leverages artificial intelligence, neural networks, machine learning and natural language processing to correlate patents, images and chemical structure similarities into an intuitive, easy-to-use platform for research and development. With over 3000 customers worldwide including PwC, NASA, MIT, China Mobile and Vodafone, PatSnap is fast becoming a globally recognised leader in IP amongst the world's most innovative, intelligent and influential minds. Established in 2007, and with VC backing from Silicon Valley’s Sequoia (amongst others), PatSnap now has around 700 employees, with offices across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and is experiencing rapid growth. I invited Duncan Clark from PatSnap onto the show to find out more.
As we increasingly turn to virtual assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Siri, Microsoft Cortana, and Google, it is already becoming easier to search for information using our voice. Mainstream users are already getting comfortable with speaking to their devices rather than tapping away on a physical or virtual keyboard.
However, we don't all live on the West Coast of the US and this technology often struggles to understand different accents. Fluent.ai is a Canadian company offering OEMs and user interface designers a speech interface solution for their products and services. Fluent's patented approach sidesteps the need to convert speech to text and instead learns to understand the meaning of audible speech - in any language or accent.
The world’s first acoustic voice interface for intelligent devices and user interfaces is proving the advantages of its platform against leading speech-recognition systems with consumer-electronics OEMs and telecom service providers around the world.
Fluent.ai’s artificial intelligence product, the Fluent AI Engine, is an enterprise-grade voice interface that uses a sophisticated neural network and machine-learning technologies.
Fluent AI learns language on the fly like children do – by learning to associate a specific sequence of sounds with an intended command or action. This makes Fluent AI the first entirely acoustic voice interface – eliminating the costly, complex and often inaccurate step of converting speech to text typical of AI voice assistants and speech-recognition systems.
I recently came across some mouth-watering pics on the internet that would give anyone a severe case of the munchies. But I quickly noticed many of the best photos on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter were from a company called Goldbely who call themselves a curated e-commerce food marketplace.
Goldbely finds America’s most unique, creative, and legendary foods from across the country, and ships them to your front door. It’s one of those moments where you see a video or picture of your friend eating something delicious, and you want to try it, except – you’re not in the same city as them. Goldbely solves this and creates a new revenue stream for small and local food shops.
For the first time, people are now able to connect with the foods they remember from childhood/their hometowns, give the gift of nostalgia, or experience the latest viral sensations or most popular food trends.
Goldbely’s model is continuing to disrupt the supply chain and empower small shops to reach new audiences. By taking once obscure and artisanal products and making them available to everyone, Goldbely is uniquely positioned within the space, as it is among the first to offer regional/iconic food heroes with a new revenue stream.
After hearing how Goldbely also raised a $10M Series A to ship food from America’s most popular restaurants, I invited Joe Ariel, CEO, and CoFounder of Goldbely on to the show. We talk about the technology behind scaling local cuisine experiences to a national audience.
With the exploding advancements in technology forever changing how we consume media, I invited Mike Kelley from Grabyo onto the show.
Grabyo is the leading cloud-based video production, editing and distribution platform. Through Grabyo, users can produce, edit and broadcast live videos, with the ability to include interactive data visualizations, highlights and in real-time. Grabyo also enables instant publication through social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Periscope, YouTube, and across mobile apps.
The real-time video editing, sharing and live streaming to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube is also trusted by La Liga, Universal Music & the Premier League.
The company also just announced their partnership with Buzzfeed to deliver and manage the site’s new Twitter Live show, “AM to DM.” We discuss:
- Sports and tech: why traditional 24/7 broadcasting should fear for its life.
- How typical online streaming is no longer sufficient in today’s media-hungry world.
- Industry trends and predictions throughout 2017 and in 2018
“By using video clips to document key moments from the club, our fans feel even closer to the action than before. The speed and efficiency of which we can distribute our video content to social media is a key benefit of using Grabyo.” Tom Coull, Audio/Visual Manager at Southampton FC
Did you know that most businesses that are using data feeds are locked into deals where they typically only use 10% of the features and end up paying for tech they don't use?
Today's guest Rachel Carpenter is the CEO of Intrinio – not only is it hugely disruptive data company which promises to challenge the elite minority of companies such as Reuters and Bloomberg they are also are also linked to Google and Microsoft and have been purchased by large financial institutions.
Intrinio is dedicated to the idea that innovation can only succeed if financial data is easy to work with and priced to move. Co-founded in 2012, by Rachel Carpenter and Joseph French, the team has grown rapidly over the last few years and works tirelessly to deliver high-quality financial data at disruptively low prices. The Intrinio Fintech Marketplace upends tradition, removing financial and technical roadblocks so developers can get to work.
The Dfinity public blockchain computer with unbounded scalability and algorithmic governance to evolve over time. Powered by Threshold Relay & Probabilistic Slot Consensus.
Tipped as the next big development in blockchain - designed to power a web 3.0 generation of applications such as decentralized alternatives to Amazon, Dropbox etc at a fraction of the cost of traditional operations.
I invited Dom Williams onto the show to talk about the "Threshold Relay and Probabilistic Slot Consensus" which, when taken together, enable DFINITY to offer 3-5 second transaction finality – up to 150x faster than Ethereum and over 900x faster than Bitcoin.
This will allow for virtually instantaneous interaction between clients whether it is in the area of financial transactions, file sharing or data transfer and documents it with code that cannot be hacked or modified by malicious third parties.
We also discuss the current spate of ICOs and the introduction of high profile celebrities such as Jamie Foxx and Paris Hilton and Twitter scientists/influencers. As more and people begin discussing coins such as Ripple, Ethereum and LiteCoin or how to invest on Coinbase during the holiday season, we also talk about what warning signs to look out for.
How often are you bombarded with online content, offers and promotions that simply aren’t relevant to you? For example, a company could be sending you offers for a cool shirt… that you just bought yesterday! Or, they’re showing you products and content that don’t map to your interests at all.
Wouldn’t it be nice if someone wrote the book for companies on how to deliver helpful, spot-on personalization? Evergage CEO Karl Wirth has done just that (a first for the industry!).
The 175-page book titled One-to-One Personalization in the Age of Machine Learning. The book describes, delivering personalized experiences at the individual level has been a pipe dream for marketers for over a quarter century.
These capabilities exist for B2B and B2C marketers to reach their audiences, across channels, with helpful, timely, maximally relevant and individualized information, a boon for customers and marketers both. Personalized experiences cut through the clutter – improving customer experiences and loyalty, and increasing engagement and conversions.
I talk to Evergage CEO Karl Wirth about how to deliver 1:1 personalized experiences that delight customers & grow revenues.
We also discuss:
- Why businesses need to care about personalization
- The evolution of the Internet toward personalization
- How machine learning enables real-time, one-to-one individualized experiences
- How to plan for personalization campaigns
- How and why to personalize across channels – website, web app, onsite search, mobile web, mobile app, in-store, contact center, etc.
- The future of personalization
In the world of tech startups, entrepreneurs know that risk comes with the territory. But as your business grows, how do you remain agile like a startup while still insulated from that same risk? How do you innovate safely?
DeveloperTown, an Indianapolis-based software consulting firm, is bringing startup energy and approaches to vital problems in enterprise-sized businesses. Going beyond just building a product, they nudge clients to solve a company-specific problem, with all its industry and human context.
They've created everything from a football prediction app and counterfeit appliance tracker for manufacturers, to a drone-powered, thermodynamic system that tells farmers exactly what seeds and fertilizers to use where.
I invited Mike Kelly, DeveloperTown's Managing Partner, to discuss his vision for the company's present and future in the enterprise ecosystem.
JazzHR is a powerful, user-friendly, and affordable recruiting software that is purpose-built to help growing companies exceed their recruiting goals.
JazzHR's software replaces time-consuming and manual hiring tasks with intuitive software designed to help recruiters and hiring managers find, recruit, and hire the right talent, fast.
The platform helps with posting jobs from one place to all the major sports (Linkedin, etc.) and then allows you to schedule interviews and have other employees rate them based on the interview. You can even extend an offer right from the platform to a person
The company also recently announced that it has closed a $6.6 million financing round bringing the company's total funding to $25M since launching in 2009.
I invited JasHR's CEO, Pete, Lamson onto the show to explore what they are doing and learn more about the current HR Tech Scene. Pete and I also discuss the affects of net neutrality.
The arrival of tech wearables and the Apple Watch allow users to instantly be fed notifications from their phone. Whether it’s emails, messages, social media updates, exercise details or even heart rate, it seems there is a notification for everything. Staying updated 24 hours a day may feed your fear of missing out, but its exhausting.
However, going off the grid, putting your phone away and any tech wearables to enjoy a night of digital detox is looking increasingly appealing. Despite tales of its demise, the humble wristwatch is stronger than ever. Both the craftsmanship and mechanics of the more traditional timepiece provide a touch of class that is absent from tech devices.
Although much of this craftsmanship has been lost over the years, technology is actually uniting the best skills in the world to create something that celebrates the craftsmanship of Victorian London.
The Camden Watch company are fusing the digital and analogue worlds to create something quite unique. Anneke Short and Jerome Robert join me on the podcast to talk about how the Camden Watch Company are a Swiss and British duo, inspired by Victorian Britain and its industrial heritage.
Armed with a Kickstarter campaign that smashed through their £18,000 target in under a week and at the time of recording have reached £41,352 with a few weeks to go.
Anneke Short and Jerome Robert to tell share their crowdfunding story.
Phil Friedman was a Soviet Union refugee who arrived in the U.S. back in 1976, speaking almost no English but well-versed in computers. He searched the ‘Help Wanted’ section of the newspaper and lands a job at one of the oldest manufacturing companies in NYC, where he is praised and consulted for his computer skills.
Against his wife’s advice and knowing he might be fired, he wrote a four-page memo and pitches his new boss on backing a computer outsourcing company called CGS.
Today, Phil is still the CEO of CGS, a global provider of business applications, enterprise learning, and outsourcing services, but the company now employs more than 7,500 professionals across the world.
We talk about his inspirational immigrant entrepreneur success story but also tackle the following topics:
- Why you shouldn’t hedge your bets on one product or service
M&A deals. - Why success lies in finding a leadership fit over a technology fit.
- The CEO’s role in recruitment: how to avoid bad hires that can make or break businesses.
- The top five skills you need to be an entrepreneur that no business school can teach you.
- Why STEM education will be critical for future U.S. business leaders
Marco DeMello is an internationally recognized security and privacy expert with more than 20 years of experience protecting desktop and mobile devices from threats and holds 10 software patents. Previously, he spent 15 years at Microsoft and worked directly with Bill Gates.
Marco was responsible for a variety of projects including the company’s Hotmail acquisition; restructuring the entire Windows security infrastructure; and development of Exchange Server 2007.
He also spent four years as CTO of Sport Runner, where he was instrumental in building a media exchange for the cable TV industry. In 2010, Marco co-founded PSafe Tecnologia SA to provide digital security solutions to consumers in Latin America and has expanded that mission to deliver products globally as PSafe Technology.
Marco has now raised more than $90 million to create a profitable mobile security company that has gone onto achieve 130 million app downloads. I invited him to the podcast to learn more about his story and also the thriving tech startup scene in Latin America.
Tech startups in Brasil, Argentina, and Chile are seldom talked about, and I want to share these success stories that begin life in Latin America and go on to enjoy global success.
Founded in 2009, after graduating from the TechStars program, SendGrid developed an industry-disrupting, cloud-based email service to solve the challenges of reliably delivering emails on behalf of growing companies.
Like many great solutions, SendGrid was born from the frustration of three engineers whose application emails didn’t get delivered, so they built an app for email deliverability. With over 55,000 paying customers such as Spotify, Uber, and Airbnb they help send over 30 billion emails every month.
However, it was the findings of its recent report that made me ask them to come on the show today. The report examines digital communication preferences based on generational differences, as well as looks at the future of digital communication.
I discuss these findings with Scott Heimes, CMO at SendGrid.
Unijem is a tech start-up based in the West Midlands here in the UK. The company has recently released a new product so you can monitor your home from anywhere in the world, straight from your smartphone.
Unlike other smart security systems on the market, Unijem is a 180 degree HD wall light camera that goes on the exterior of the house, rather than just a doorbell. But you can also have a two-way conversation with visitors while you’re away from your property through a specially designed app, available on Android and Apple devices.
The Unijem brand is unlike other brands that update the same product every year. Unijem is more than just a product; it is a brand of passion and dreams to create multiple great products.
Unijem makes products that have the best possible features from the start. Unijem products are therefore complete - a perfect product and a perfect brand.
Jay Carty is the CEO of Unijem and Chief Designer/Creator. He is a former microbiologist who has worked for high profile companies including Seven Trent Water and Cadburys. I invited him onto the podcast to hear about his unique tech start-up story in Birmingham England.
According to a recent study, 64% of enterprises reported the willingness to adopt new tech such as IoT, AI, and wearable solutions within the next 12 months. The caveat? 40% of those respondents see data security as the leading barrier to adoption. With ransomware attacks increasing by 36% this year, providing customers with a compliant, secure platform is more crucial than ever.
Liaison Technologies provides integration and data management solutions to help customers unlock the power of a data-centric approach to their business. Liaison's cloud-based approach breaks down the barriers between data silos to tap into the valuable information needed to make better decisions, faster.
I invited Rob Consoli onto the show today after hearing him say that "data is the new gold" and wanted to explore how they were making a difference.
Augment is a leader in customer experience-driven artificial intelligence (AI). Augment uniquely empowers employees to deliver a superior customer experience by surfacing the best information and answers across the enterprise in real time. Augmented agents deliver improved brand experience through messaging and live chat applications preferred by consumers and then convert more of these interactions into customer delight and revenue. Augment powers Fortune 500 brands around the world.
Unlike first-generation chatbot providers that attempt to remove humans from customer interactions, Augment's "human-in-the-loop" approach allows brand representatives to deliver superior customer experience through live chat applications -- backed by powerful machine learning and a training set of over 100 million interactions. With a founding team of data science and enterprise veterans coming out of parent company Silicon Valley Software Group, the company has raised the first round of Series A funding of $5 million from Silicon Valley Data Capital and JAZZ Venture Partners.
Best of Both Worlds: AI and Humans To enhance the overall customer journey, Augment's innovative technical team of data scientists from Carnegie Mellon University and MIT ingested more than 100 million interactions to parse, categorize and train the Augment customer experience AI platform. The platform's patent-pending, data-driven approach improves agent performance, while increasing overall customer and employee satisfaction. In addition to Dyson, current clients include Fortune 500 brands in the telecommunications, consumer electronics, retail and airline industries.
“We designed Augment with a focus on enhancing rather than replacing the agent workforce,” said Augment Chief Executive Matt Swanson. “Contrary to most chatbot technologies that result in garbled or confusing responses, our platform offers enterprise executives the ultimate Turing Test — their customers are unaware that their conversation is powered by AI.”
Matt Swanson has a background as a technologist in the fields of machine learning and crowdsourcing. With a wealth of experience in early-stage startup development, Matt also advises a number of companies on their technology strategy and serves as the acting CTO of others. Matt also works with enterprises to help incorporate innovation into their organizations.
If you are an employer or recruiter that has ever had the misfortune of trying to choose a résumé from a pile of 50-100, you will know that after about 10 minutes they all look exactly the same. Everyone is a passionate, proactive, team player that is goal driven, flexible, self-motivated multitasking independent individual with a strong work ethic. Equally, as a potential employee, how do you make yourself stand out from a pile of 2 page black and white PDF files or word docs of nothing but plain text?
Microsoft Word is now as old as the Return of the Jedi and the current recruitment process is looking dated or even broken. But, I recently came across a company here in Manchester, England that is using an AI interface that can be edited anywhere or any device using a simple online interactive editor to create a CV/resume that will make you stand out from the crowd.
InfoCV uses Artificial Intelligence to help improve content and layout of your existing CV and produce a digital interactive (mobile friendly) format with a personal URL. All data is securely hosted in the cloud. An easy to use online editor can be used on any connected device, means you can easily update additional information, your picture or company logos to visually enhance your basic CV.
Your own unique URL will enable you to share your new CV by e-mail, text and onto social media to enable you to help promote yourself. If you wish it to remain confidential and ensure only people you have approved can see your CV then tick the box in the control panel, and it can only be accessed with a private password.
I invited Anthony Rose, Co-Founder at InfoCV onto the show to find out more about this tech startup story.
Netsil recently launched out of stealth and simply put, they’re offering a universal observability and monitoring platform for modern cloud applications, AKA a “Google Maps for your Cloud Apps” Most companies are using an increasing number of apps and microservices. But they also create dependencies between each other and the underlying technology infrastructure. Any number of small changes to one app can have unintended impacts on other apps. Netsil’s product “listens” to the activity going on inside a company’s computing environment and provides IT teams with an auto-discovered map of those interactions so they can quickly see how every app is performing. Netsil was born at the University of Pennsylvania, where the CEO was getting his Ph.D. There he hooked up with the other co-founder, a high-ranking engineer at Twitter who was having a tough time keeping all of Twitter’s apps and microservices running. Together they realized that what IT and DevOps teams needed was a map of their cloud app environments. The rest is history, so to say. Netsil now provides observability and monitoring for cloud apps. DevOps teams use Netsil's auto-discovered maps & analytics to assure uptime and performance.
Venzee recently announced “Mesh,” the first Middleware Solution to help businesses connect to blockchain networks
With Years of Experience Bringing System Connectivity and Interoperable Data to Retail and Supply Chain, at Venzee they believe that Mesh will solve a huge problem for the burgeoning blockchain industry.
I invited Kate Hiscox, CEO of Venzee onto the podcast to find out more about how they are able to make data exchange for blockchain networks fast, easy and reliable for any industry.
“Blockchain is poised to be the most disruptive force in business in generations -- it establishes a new level of trust, accountability, and transparency in any kind of electronic transaction,” said Kate Hiscox, CEO of Venzee.
“However, most traditional systems can’t connect to blockchain networks out of the box and, since it’s a decentralized database of immutable records, there are serious concerns about accidentally sharing wrong or sensitive information. With the launch of Mesh, we are able to make data exchange for blockchain networks fast, easy and reliable for any industry.”
RetailTech company CommerceHub is a distributed commerce network connecting supply, demand and delivery that helps retailers and brands increase sales by expanding product assortments, promoting products on the channels that perform, and enabling rapid, on-time customer delivery.
In the past year, their stock price has a lot doubled and they are rapidly growing. Their clients include: Walmart, QVC, Best Buy and Toys"R"Us to name just few.
For almost 20 years, CommerceHub has been providing cloud-based technologies and services that enable retailers to radically expand their product offering without inventory risk.
CommerceHub also makes it possible to achieve 100% compliant integration to any product source, and provides all of the tools necessary to ensure total control over fulfillment, as if the goods were actually owned and shipped by the retailer.
I invited Frank Poore, who is the CEO of CommerceHub to talk about how AI and robots are the future of retail. We also discuss how CommerceHub is disrupting the e-commerce ecosystem and what the future of retail will look like.
Up And Vanished, one of the biggest podcasts of 2017 with more than 140 million downloads and hundreds of media stories, recently announced season 2 is coming in April 2018 with the addition of live events and traditional radio in partnership with Cadence13.
Cadence13 is building a podcast empire that is becoming known as the Netflix of podcasts. The media company currently develops and distributes some of the biggest podcasts in the industry, such as Pod Save America, The Vertical Podcast with Woj, Origins and Pantsuit Nation.
Partnering with the most anticipated podcast of 2018 is another step in elevating the industry overall. But where did it all begin? and how is podcasting evolving?
Spencer Brown, CEO at Cadence13 story began when he started DGital Media (www.DGitalmedia.com) a digital audio engagement company with his partners in 2015. The creation, distribution, and marketing of spoken word podcasts and audio programs was their goal.
Prior to starting DGital, Brown developed and executed the corporate strategy that resulted in Westwood One (formerly Dial Global) becoming the nation’s largest independent creator and distributor of national radio programming.
From inception through 2012 revenue increased from $25 million to over $360 million and employee headcount increased from 40 to over 500 full-time equivalents in over 10 locations across the United States.
Over the last few days, we have heard stories about how a 10-year-old child was able to use their face to unlock their mother's phone. There were also stories about twins being able to do the same with their siblings iPhone.
Although these quick headlines ensure a viral hit for tech websites with thousands of people hitting the share button, there is another inconvenient truth. Most hacks actually occur on the other side of authentication after you have entered your pin or unlocked your phone using facial recognition, which is something seldom talked about.
I wanted to find an expert in biometrics and ID systems that was also passionate about identification as a critical tool for social and economic development. My quest led me to a company called BioCatch.
BioCatch was founded in 2011 by experts in neural science research, machine learning, and cybersecurity. Today, they are leading the way with new innovations and helping to secure the world's largest banks and enterprises from next-generation cyber threats.
As Vice president of BioCatch, Frances Zelazny works closely with the CEO to establish comprehensive marketing strategy, including brand positioning, messaging and execution. Armed with extensive experience with mobile payments, fintech, biometrics, and security technologies, I invited her on to the show to share her insights and expertise.
There are many significant talking points on today's episode such as the CEO of Equifax stepping down following an epic data breach that left SSNs, driver’s license numbers and other sensitive info for 143 Million people vulnerable to hackers.
Frances also highlights how India is building a biometric database for 1.3 billion people. This podcast episode highlights how we all need to understand that there is much more to biometric authentication than facial recognition on the new iPhone X.
We are all creatives now. Whether it be showcasing our holiday videos, streaming our gaming sessions or recording a podcast, we can create almost anything using our smartphone. However, it doesn't matter if you are on the Android on Apple side of the fence, although we are capable of streaming HD quality video, the microphone on our smartphone offers very poor quality in comparison.
Whether you are a musician that need to record work on the go, or journalists and podcasters who need something more capable than their iPhone's microphone, it seems that audio has been forgotten about. In our quest for visual perfection, it seems that audio quality has been neglected.
Mikme is introducing the world’s first fully wireless recording microphone that captures studio-grade audio at the push of one button. Standalone or via USB. Simply everywhere. The device was built to enable musicians, filmmakers, journalists as well as Skypers, gamers and lovers of sound creating content fast, in excellent quality and with mobile devices.
While a 1-inch true condenser, gold-plated capsule ensures this studio-grade sound, its design enables fast recordings. Equipped with a built-in flash drive, Mikme stores up to 360 hours or raw audio (24 bit, up to 96 kHz). By using it wirelessly with a mobile device recordings are streamed securely and immediately via a patented Bluetooth protocol to the Mikme App.
Features like up to 8 track recording, sound adjustment, effect adding, video integration, online sharing make the Mikme Mobile App a professional tool. Mikeme is based in Vienna/Austria and a team of passionate artists, designers, and engineers with a proven track of designing, developing and manufacturing consumer and professional audio products. The team members have won over 200 design awards, holding 100+ patents and have worked with world famous brands such as JBL, AKG, Samsung, Audio and others.
I invited Philipp Sonnleitner CEO and founder of Mikme onto the podcast to find out more. Passionate about being creative and making music, his goal is to make music creation, the process of writing, making or distributing music easier, faster and more fun for artists and their audience. As a creative and musician, he loves to build and design new and meaningful stuff. Whether it's a hardware product, app, cloud service or a small lego machine with my 3 sons.
In a mobile-first world, businesses are now facing up to a new reality that the overwhelming majority of their consumers are face down into their smartphones using messaging to communicate. But they have zero interest in downloading yet another mobile app that will sit on page two of their home page. Capital One is continuing on their quest to be where their customers are and embracing technological change.
Eno is a chatbot that helps Capital One customers manage their money by texting in a conversational way. It leverages artificial intelligence to understand what users need. You can get a quick update on your accounts by texting Eno things like “What’s my balance?” or “How much credit do I have?” and it will provide the information you need instantly. You can also pay your credit card bill by simply texting “Eno, pay my bill.”
As virtual assistants and digital tools continue to become a larger part of today’s world, consumers’ expectations of what a bank can and should do are also continuing to evolve. People know longer think of a bank as an institution that “holds” your money for you until you need it. More and more consumers are expecting banks to take on somewhat of a mentor role, proactively recommending ways that customers can be saving more, spending more efficiently, and teaching consumers how to leverage the latest technology (chatbots, virtual assistants, applications, etc.).
Ken Dodelin leads Capital One's intelligent, AI-powered virtual assistant and chatbot products, digital messaging products (email, SMS and push notifications), and content management. In collaboration with a talented group of product, tech and design professionals, they build innovative products that drive simplicity and value to customers and Capital One.
Regular listeners of the show will remember that in 2016, Ken talked about being the first bank to offer an Amazon Alexa skill to provide customers with financial account access. Here in 2017, I invited Ken back onto the show to discuss the launch of the first natural language SMS chatbot from a U.S. bank.
We have all heard about wearable tech fitness trackers that count steps etc. But I recently came across a new product that's taking things to an entirely new level. Bodytrak is a new hearable solution that combines traditional audio functionality with biometric monitoring. It uniquely measures, accurately and in real time, core body temp (CBT) and heart rate (HR). The device also obtains values for heart rate variability, VO2 and motion metrics, which all help provide information for their embedded algorithms.
This is where the startup is aiming to provide real differentiation (beyond the CBT measurement) from other companies in this space by also providing real-time data analytics that utilizes machine learning, providing insights into each individual users wellbeing status.
For example, for firefighters, they are able to provide real-time monitoring of heat injury (or heat stress), levels of fatigue for long distance drivers and man down type solutions that not only look at the body position but also provide real-time biometrics and communication channels to understand key issues and provide appropriate assistance.
I immediately thought this new technology would be perfect for elite athletes and sporting teams. But what I love about Bodytrak is that they also understand what a game changer it could be for health and safety. After hearing about their ambitious plans I invited Leon Marsh, Founder & CEO, Bodytrak onto the show to find out more about its potential to be a game changer.
On my podcast, I enjoy talking to a wide range of eclectic guests across multiple industries that all share the similar traits. Even areas that people wouldn't traditionally associate with technology are going through a digital transformation of sorts.
Deeper, UAB is a Lithuanian startup that designs, develops and produces smart electronic devices for sports and outdoor activities. Its smart products are now sold in over 50 countries worldwide.
The extended product line is delivering a collection of innovative technologies, including extended casting distance and increased depth range, internal GPS receiver, and other valuable data points, turning anglers smartphones or tablets into advanced sonar system. But, can technology really transform the ancient art of fishing?
Deeper’s first product, a smart wireless sonar for anglers, revolutionized fishing, receiving numerous awards and widespread praise from the angling community. In 2016, the Deeper Smart Sonar Pro + won the Innovation Award for best Wireless Handset Accessory at the at CES, the world’s biggest consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas.
The Deeper Sonar is a smart tool that connects to your smartphone, bringing 21st-century technology to the ancient art of fishing. It creates a symmetry between modern technology that people are using on a daily basis and leisure time also, adding a new aspect to outdoor pursuits.
The Sonar is an incredibly smart piece of kit, small enough to fit in your hand and light enough to be used on a rod. It has also been used by firefighters/police to locate objects such as cars that have been lost below the surfaces of lakes. It is not just a fishing accessory but an important tool allowing anyone to map bodies of water and see below the surface.
Deeper’s passion for innovation and commitment to finding the optimum solutions for its customers led to it receiving the award for Lithuania’s Most Successful High-Tech Company from the country’s President. As someone that is passionate about sharing tech stories from all over the world, I invited Nazim Tchagapsov from Deeper onto the podcast to learn more about their story.
SAP Ariba is rethinking how work gets done in this new, digital economy. It is more critical than ever that your business adapts. How you manage your supply chain – your supplier relationships, your transactions, the business you need to do with your suppliers – is no exception.
SAP Ariba unifies the entire procurement process so companies can spend more time focusing on what matters most, including ensuring that they are operating ethically and sustainably, eliminating any areas of risk that might impact their business and ability to connect with customers.
They’ve created a tool called SAP Ariba Supplier Risk that’s specifically designed to help companies monitor for any areas of risk in their supply chains. I felt compelled to find out if this approach really can transform the world of procurement and the importance of being a purpose-driven company so I invited Alex Atzberger, president at SAP Ariba onto the podcast.
Importance of Being a Purpose-Driven Company
- Customers today have more choices than ever and are increasingly choosing the partner with those companies that share in the same mission and values as they do. Alex is committed to not only leading SAP Ariba with purpose, but also helping its customers lead purpose driven companies as well.
- 87% of global consumers believe business should place ‘equal weight’ on society’s interests and their own business goals. (Edelman Good Purpose Survey, 2012)
- 94% of CEOs say that their company is ‘increasingly held responsible not only for our own actions, but also for the actions of others in our value chain’. (Corporate Philanthropy CEO Conference 2010)
- Meaningful brands outperform the stock market by 120 percent.
Alex Atzberger is responsible for the strategy, operations, go-to-market, ecosystem, and product and innovation functions of the world’s largest business commerce network.
Ease of communication and customer service is the hallmark of any world-class hotel. As such, hotels are looking for new methods to exceed their guests' expectations in these departments. Consumer technology is outpacing business technology, but as customers, we expect personalization and a seamless experience as standard from our hotel stays.
The concept of picking up a landline phone to speak to the front desk feels entirely alien now; this is the age of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Step forward Alice, a hotel operations platform that is blending hospitality with technology.
Alice provides one system for guests, front-of-house workers, and back-of-house staff to communicate and track requests. The unified system means that a guest's request via a text message for, say, more linens, is conveyed to the right worker. Guests can also order services through mobile apps and other methods too.
Essentially, the Alice platform enables each department of any hotel to have eyes and information on any of its guest's requests. However, it also provides a way for the hotel to reach a higher level of communication and empowerment amongst its employees too.
Skift, a company, known for defining the future of travel made their Alice one of their Top Travel Startups to Watch in 2017 and for a good reason. The company has already raised $26 million in a Series B funding round led by online travel giant Expedia.
After learning how guests expect to communicate with hotel staff in the method of their choosing and in a way that's most convenient for them. I invited Alexander Shashou, Co-Founder, and President
at Alice onto the podcast.
We chat about how the platform is changing the way hotels interact with guests and how the customer experience in a hotel is the best marketing to influence them to return.
Biometric authentication is often promoted as the most secure method to access our accounts using our unique individual characteristics. Rather trying to remember a password, we have become the password as new tech devices use fingerprints, facial recognition, eye scans (iris, retina) and even voice recognition.
With the launch of the highly anticipated iPhone X and it's use of facial recognition for users to unlock their smartphone. I found myself asking, just how secure is biometric authentication? I quickly learned that although the authentication method itself is deemed secure, the same old problems could still occur. What if the database leaks and this data becomes compromised?
Debesh Choudhury is an Electro-Optics Engineer and I invited him on to today's podcast to share his insights and expertise.He is a hardcore innovator and researcher with 22+ years of hands-on experience in defense research and information security. But, he has also got 15+ years of experience in teaching electronics and communication engineering in the higher education arena.
Besides having a Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India, he also enjoyed his two years postdoctoral stint at the University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan. Debesh was fortunate to have collaborated with celebrated American Scientist late Prof. H. John Caulfield. In 2011, they invented a new direction “Artificial Color Perception using Microwaves.”
Debesh worked on 3D shape sensing and recognition for quite some time. His technique of 3D object recognition has yielded robust technology for 3D human face recognition. He also developed an asymmetric cryptosystem for multimodal biometric security. A part of his research was presented at the 2016 SPIE Defense & Security Conference in Baltimore, USA.
In his 2016 research paper, Debesh already demonstrated how privacy protection of biometrics can be achieved by multimodal biometric encryption. Privacy protection of biometric data of the citizens is a deep concern because leakage of the biometric database can cause serious damage.
The recent Equifax data breach of 2017 and earlier Yahoo security breach of 2016 have incited Debesh to give his hands to improve data security and privacy. Debesh is now vowed to channelize his expertise in privacy protection of biometrics for solving the data security problems.
Have you ever stopped to consider the implications of what would happen if biometric and other personal data was compromised and became accessible online? If you hadn't, maybe today's podcast will make you think a little more cautiously about biometric security.
Vervoe is reinventing the recruiting experience for startups, and small to medium businesses. Vervoe's task-based simulations evaluate an applicants' skills and style rather than their past employment experience. Employers can then easily rank them through the platform, and only meet the very best at the end. No more tedious résumé screening and time-consuming interviews. With Vervoe, you can hire the right people in 4 days, not 40.
Omer Molad is an entrepreneur and founder of Vervoe. His goal is to reinvent the recruiting experience to make it effective, fair and enjoyable. Omer's experience building teams, and being a candidate himself, has led him to believe that people should be given a chance to show what they can do, not be judged on where they've been.
"Every CEO I spoke to nominates hiring as the number one reason for losing sleep. Building a team is the most sacred activity a CEO can do said Omer Molad, CEO of Vervoe."
As a Co-founder and CEO at Vervoe, Omer promotes Vervoe's mission, leads the company's strategy alongside co-founder David Weinberg, and is responsible for customers, capital, and people. Having been a leader in large corporations, the humanitarian sector, the military, and now a fast-growing startup, Omer has a unique perspective on workplace culture, motivation and what makes teams successful, and his articles on these topics have been featured in leading publications. Omer holds a Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Law with Honours, and a Masters of Law.
Prior to co-founding Vervoe, Omer led a corporate finance solutions team at National Australia Bank, led an international emergency response program at Red Cross, and served as a platoon commander in Israel’s Defense Forces. Omer holds a Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Law with Honors, and a Masters of Law.
10,000ft is a software company that builds tools for innovative organizations and the creative thinkers they employ. They have two products in the market, 10,000ft Plans, and 10,000ft Insights. Both tools are grounded in simplicity and help teams collaborate more effectively.
The company is on a mission to make beautiful business tools that actually work. Get the big picture of your projects, teams, and portfolio. But it's the story behind making more confident decisions with high-level resource planning and collaboration tools that I found intriguing.
Martijn van Tilburg is CEO of 10,000ft, an award-winning software company based in Seattle. As a trained designer with over 20 years of experience, Martijn started his career at Microsoft crafting the user experience for products like Office and Windows.
Tilburg then spent six years as Director of Design for digital agency Artefact where he learned how to run and grow a creative business while working with clients like Adobe, Samsung, HTC, Google, and Amazon.
At 10,000ft, Martijn co-founded a successful software company that relies on a human-centered design approach for both its product creation and internal business processes. The top creative organizations in the world rely on 10,000ft to manage their projects and people with visibility into critical data they need to scale their businesses.
As we look down the barrel of automation, creativity is a critical currency for us to stand apart from machines. I invited Martijn van Tilburg onto the podcast to hear his fresh take on how he’s trying to help advance human-powered innovation starting at the business level.
Brian Murphy is the founder and CEO of ReliaQuest. The company advances the delivery, reliability, and outcomes of IT security for Fortune 2000 organizations in diverse industries.
Since 2007, ReliaQuest has rapidly grown into one of the leading providers of IT security for some of the most recognizable corporations in the world. The company’s co-managed approach is recognized as the emerging standard by industry experts.
The company takes a collaborative approach through co-management, developing custom solutions based on each organization’s risk profile and business goals while leveraging existing investments in security hardware and software.
I invited Brian Murphy, CEO and Founder at ReliaQuest onto the show to talk about winning the EY Entrepreneur Of the Year 2017 award, launching first-of-its-kind, technology-agnostic Cyber Simulator and why Great Place to Work® and FORTUNE named ReliaQuest one of the top places to work.
Seal is the leading provider of Contract Discovery and Analytics.
Having a clear vision into your contractual relationships is critical. Knowing the risks, obligations, and opportunities with third parties is required for dealing with business, legal, or regulatory changes. This visibility is also a valuable and untapped source of intelligence for improving overall business performance.
Incorporating artificial intelligence and natural language processing, Seal’s contract discovery and analytics platform automates the discovery of contracts across the enterprise and brings them into a centralized repository for extracting all of the valuable terms, provisions, and clauses buried in the text.
The company has processed more than 50 million contracts over the last five years. Customers include Aetna, Deloitte, Docusign, Kaiser Permanente and Merck, and many Fortune 500 companies.
Seal's CEO Ulf Zetterberger talks about how AI is advancing content analytics, and how the Seal platform’s benefits of improved efficiencies, cost savings and discovery of new revenue opportunities impact businesses.
IT decision makers continuously juggle mobile security, program management strategy, and future technology concerns, but which innovations worry this group the most? How will digital transformation impact enterprise mobility moving forward?
MOBI, an industry-leading mobility management platform, announced recently results of “Enterprise Mobility in 2017 and What Comes Next,” a study exploring the current and future state of mobility at large multinational companies via a survey of 300 IT decision-makers.
It is no surprise that most respondents see mobile devices and connectivity as essential to their organizations’ success; in fact, more than 80% ranked them as an eight or higher on a scale of one to 10 (where a rating of 10 means they’re 100% essential). But, despite the critical nature of mobility in the enterprise, the growing number of devices creates a complex puzzle for IT managers.
I invited Chris Koeneman from Mobi onto the show to discuss findings in their Enterprise Mobility report and also discuss the importance of managed mobility services and mobile device management.
Dublin: Dave O’Flanagan, CEO and co-founder of Boxever, a customer intelligence and predictive marketing company for airlines and travel retailers.
Dave founded Boxever after realizing how much airlines struggled to effectively utilize the data they had about their customers. In Dave’s eyes, many airlines have lost their connection with their customers and they need to invest in customer intelligence if they want to improve conversion rates, strengthen customer retention, lower acquisition costs, improve customer experience and increase revenue.
Given all the recent airline industry news, I thought it might be interesting to pick his brain about how technology can repair the broken customer/airline relationship.
We discuss:
- How the airline industry can use data to bounce back in the customers' favor.
- The unexpected revelations in airline customer data;
- How AI and machine learning are bringing the customer journey to life.
- Social media’s role in the customer/airline relationship; and
- Gen Z: How airlines can win over the upcoming connected generation
Oblong Industries is experiencing significant growth in 2017 that is being driven by adoption of huddle room technology. Adobe, AirBus, Lockheed Martin and Workday are among the newest companies to invest in collaborations systems that support the future of work to enhance enterprise-wide productivity at the user level. A few other factors are helping driving this trend.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2030 the Millennial generation will make up 75% of the workforce. Equally,
adoption of enterprise video conferencing will increase 400% by 2019 with huddle rooms growing YoY by 10% say Gartner. Welcome to the world of “Empowered offices” — in which workers can choose their conditions and can increase productivity on cognitive tasks by 25 percent.
There are also 45M+ huddle rooms in use globally, but the scale of technology investments are disproportionate to the current number of rooms in use. Oblong is helping companies equip huddle rooms with scalable tools that leverage the disruptive power of spatial-computing technology to help users simultaneously collaborate across multiple data streams in real-time.
“Our technology transforms the way you work, create, and collaborate. The era of one human, one mouse, one screen, one machine is giving way to what’s next: multiple participants, working in proximity and remotely, using a groundbreaking spatial interface to control applications and data spread across every display. This is what Oblong builds. It’s why I’m here.” – David Kung, Vice President, Product Strategy at Oblong Industries
David is responsible for Oblong’s product roadmap and strategy. Prior to Oblong, David served as VP, Creative Director at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online. At Creative Artists Agency, he specialized in emerging technology for clients including Coca-Cola, Sprint, and Hasbro. Previously, David developed enhanced television programs as a Disney Imagineer and was a design lead with Art Technology Group.
Known as the generation of digital natives, it’s become increasingly important that businesses and brands understand Generation Z and how they interact with technology and apps if they want to engage with this demographic more effectively. Who better to offer this insight than Gen Z themselves?
Teen insights, research, and consulting firm The Ambassadors Company recently conducted a teen study, delving into the tech, consumer, and everyday life habits of this new generation of consumers. Surveying a group of thoughtful, engaged, and archetypal teenage ambassadors, the study revealed important insights about teens app use, social media habits, and what factors impact their decision making when it comes to apps.
Important finds:
- Teens aren’t using as many apps as we thought. On average they only use 4-6 regularly.
- Photo sharing, messaging, live-streaming, and peer presence are the most important factors driving teens decisions on social media platforms.
- Spotify, Apple Music, and SoundCloud are the most popular music streaming apps among teens.
- Teens champion convenience and simplicity.
Story Behind The Ambassadors Company
Since she turned 13, Maxine Marcus has been fielding questions from her tech investor father. What did she think about this app? Did this product make sense from her perspective? How would she change it to make it better? Instead of answering and getting back to her life, a different idea dawned on Marcus: What if she offered teen expertise, designed to be organic and honest, to companies who needed it?
The idea for The Ambassadors Company was born. “I had the business model in mind before I ever thought I’d start a company,” says Marcus. “I wanted to do more than work for companies here and there. I wanted to make it my own. I felt I had the right set of tools to bring to the table.” Now 17, Marcus transformed herself from informal advisor to CEO.
The tools Marcus brings are the systems and relationships to elicit quality, honest feedback from a group often dismissed, while being simultaneously courted. The Ambassadors Company gathers input from a team of 25 teenagers, selected from a team of 100, who test products, apps, and services. Instead of awkward hours in sterile focus-group rooms, product response and critique flows as teens integrate products into their natural environment to get the most raw response.
Marcus then harnesses this energy and distills it into incisive analysis for clients, including SoundHound and GotIt! “We provide the brutally honest teen perspective through insights and ideas,” Marcus explains.
Marcus set up a win-win situation for teens, a way for young people to contribute and find meaningful jobs that fit complicated lives. “This kind of work helps teens. It’s a great job that gets them out of the rut of having few employment options,” Marcus explains. “Lots of them get really excited about the work, and it engages the community in a way that helps both sides.”
Clients gain important insights, often early in the development process, into how young people actually make decisions around their product and engage with its features. Marcus tailors each campaign to the client’s stage and needs. “It’s very customizable,” she notes. “We can vary the number of ambassadors and the scope, from testing just one aspect or doing a deep dive into an entire platform.” Marcus then gives her fellow teens five to seven days to interact with the product, giving clients both raw data direct from the ambassadors as well as a summary report.
Teens are the perfect testers in many ways, even for products designed for the general market. “If you’ve grown up with tech and it’s ingrained in your life, you know what works. It’s second nature. It’s intuitive,” reflects Marcus. “If we can’t get it, no one will. We can articulate what products need to do and what makes sense to us. We are being thrown all sorts of stuff. We put on the blinders and look for what’s really good.”
Marcus knows her family’s involvement in tech, as well as her parents’ support and care, has been instrumental in founding her own successful company in her teens. She sees it as a gift she passionately strives to pay forward by helping other young people and showing what teens can do, given the right resources.
“When you’ve been given a lot, you have to do something with it. It’s not fair for you to squander this opportunity. You need to use it,” she opines. “It’s important that I take what’s been given to me and use it in a positive way. I want to build value and create interesting jobs. I want to inspire. I want to be a voice that helps open that door for other people.”
Machine learning technology provider Expat Inc. recently announced the launch of Market Sensei, a stock market prediction platform that features patented machine learning algorithms that give powerful prediction abilities previously unavailable to both novice investors and experienced traders.
The launch of the release follows a beta period where the service attracted several thousand avid users who provided Expat Inc. with valuable feedback about various capabilities and the user interface, allowing the company to make key refinements.
Market Sensei features an accessible UI that makes it usable by novice investors and experienced traders alike. It is powered by patented algorithms that combine various metrics to create a predicted low, high, opening, and closing price for thousands of stocks which are clearly illustrated via the app or website interface. The platform offers reliable predictions for the thousands of stocks listed on the NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX markets.
The complexity of the system was all placed in the back end, so users can receive reliable stock predictions at a glance. Our platform allows users to make daily or long-term strategic investing decisions that are based on predictive data. Patrick Kwete, CEO of Expat Inc.
A core competitive differentiator for Market Sensei is the inherent accountability that is built within the platform. Every stock's prediction data also includes a graphical representation of Market Sensei's prediction accuracy for that stock within the past nine days.
This approach contrasts sharply to financial analysts who release reports but do not have reliable data regarding the accuracy of their predictions. Market Sensei provides users with both accountability and accuracy in a user-friendly structure.
"Market Sensei offers investors a reliable and completely transparent prediction tool for thousands of stocks. It's powerful because people can use it not only to initiate trades but also use it as a tool to judge various investing strategies. And we are the first prediction tool to be completely transparent and accountable, as we show users a dynamic accuracy score so they can see our performance over time."
Omnyway is attempting to empower retailers, banks and brands to build a contextual digital commerce ecosystem that encourages shoppers to use their mobile phone for all aspects of their buying journey. Through dynamic data-rich interactions, the platform offers personalized and relevant promotions, payment processing, and loyalty rewards in the most contextual way to shoppers, which increases average order value for businesses, as well as customer loyalty.
Essentially, the Omnyway platform creates a dynamic digital channel between the retailer and the shopper across all channels of interaction—in store, online, in-app, virtual aisle and dynamic media, using any smart mobile device. Since the company was founded in 2014, it has established itself as a significant player in retail commerce and continues to see strong interest in its platform.
Could the concept of an augmented digital commerce ecosystem that brings the power of the virtual world to the shoppers experience in the physical store by using the mobile phone as the bridge for all aspects of their buying journey be the silver bullet retailers have been searching for?
To keep up in this fast-moving, mobile-first (and soon, mobile-only) world, retailers need tools that speak to how people want to shop and engage today - Omnyway CEO, Ashok Narasimhan.
Omnyway recently completed $12.75M in series A funding to fuel global growth. With its sights set on expanding its customer base in the U.S. and worldwide combined with launching new services on its current contextual commerce platform, I invited Ashok Narasimhan Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director, Omnyway, Inc. onto the show to find out more.
Useful Links
Connect with Ashok Narasimhan on LinkedIn
Visit the Omnyway Website
Frank and Ben Perowsky are working professional musicians. But, they are also a father and son team that have collaborated with each other since the 1980s.
Frank, the elder Perowsky, is a New York City based saxophonist and clarinetist who has worked with Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine, Nancy Wilson, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme and toured with Liza Minnelli's band for more than 35 years.
Jazz drummer Ben Perowsky was born and raised in New York City; as a teen, he played behind his father. His notable career has placed him among a small vanguard of players able to move between jazz, experimental music and cutting-edge pop and rock.
Ben cut his teeth as a youth playing drums for the likes of Rickie Lee Jones, John Cale, Roy Ayers, James Moody, Bob Berg, Mike Stern and Michael Brecker. He has continued to record and perform with pop and jazz legends such as John Scofield, Belle and Sebastian, John Zorn, Dave Douglas, Lou Reed, Pat Martino, Tegan and Sara, Uri Caine, Steven Bernstein, Walter Becker, Vernon Reid, Loudon, Martha and Rufus Wainwright.
The father and son team have collectively 90+ years experience and success in the music making business, playing on countless recordings and concerts. But, technology has transformed music for both generations.
This is an exciting time for the music world. Record labels with funding are practically non - existent. Record stores are gone. Musicians, along with their fan’s generous support are self-producing/releasing their music in an unhindered fashion, putting the power into their own hands.
On a lazy spring Sunday afternoon in Gowanus, Brooklyn (a super fund site with a checkered past), they recorded the Frank Perowsky Jazz Orchestra in front of a handful of listeners, close friends, and family.
Frank and Ben Perowsky decided to launch an IndieGoGo campaign to share this momentous occasion with the world. I talk to Ben Perowsky about why they turned to crowdfunding and how technology is transforming the music industry.
NovuHealth is a consumer engagement company in the health care industry. Combining performance analytics, behavior science and comprehensive technology solutions, they are enabling health plans to better understand, motivate and connect with members.
Thousands of people every year skip necessary health screenings because it's inconvenient, they're busy, or they just don't want to go. Just 25% of adults ages 50 to 64 and less than 40% of adults ages 65+ are up to date on core preventive services such as mammograms, cancer, and diabetes screenings.
At NovuHealth, they have surprisingly learned that a $15 gift card is all it takes to get 80-90% of people to make an appointment. It will even get 50% of people to get a colon cancer screening. The same tactics that keep people coming back to Starbucks, Target, and Hilton are now being used to get people to the doctor.
“There is a huge opportunity for health plans to improve member engagement. Doing so starts with knowing the most effective ways to create meaningful relationships with members,”
As Minnesota increasingly appears on my radar for digital health startups and a thriving healthtech scene, I invited Jordan Mauer, EVP of marketing and engagement at NovuHealth onto the podcast to find out more.
There is currently no way of escaping around the digital transformation revolution in service and indeed everything at the moment. But, to dismiss it as hype or just another fad would be incredibly foolish in an age where disrupt or be disrupted is the new currency.
Michael R. Blumberg is the President of Blumberg Advisory Group, Inc. He is a recognized expert in Field Service and Reverse Logistics in High-Technology industry.
I invited Michael onto the show to talk about how he is helping businesses overcome the increasing number of digital challenges and opportunities that are facing multiple industries.
- Growing top line service revenue
- Marketing & Selling Extended Service Programs
- Servitization of Manufacturing
- Uberization of Service
We also discuss the importance of valid market data and intelligence, knowledge of best practices and industry benchmarks
along with a clear road Map or strategic plan forward. Equally, It's also important to remember that you can accelerate growth rate in a shorter period by working with a strategic advisor or business coach who possesses the skills you are missing.
Michael Blumberg is a Certified Management Consultant with considerable experience in strategic & business planning, market research, mergers & acquisitions, benchmarking, systems analysis, and productivity & efficiency improvement.
Michael Blumberg is a well-known author and speaker. His thought leadership, service system planning, and strategy formulation have positively enhanced the profitability of many organizations across varied industries such as IT, Energy & Automation, Telecommunication, Medical Electronics, Banking, Retail and Consumer Electronics.
Like or not we are all content creators. How many links do we send every day through email, SMS, Whats App, and social media? But in a visual world, it seems even the humble link is looking incredbly dated with a line of underlined blue text.
I recently discovered a startup based here in Manchester UK called Wakelet that allows you to save and organize links from the web into visually appealing collections. The platform allows you to save articles, videos, images, Tweets, and pretty much anything with a URL.
Founder Jamil Khali advised that Wakelet starts where web search ends. As smart as computers and search engines might be in indexing the web, they can only ever do part of what’s needed to organise information.
We need a better way, a way that’s focused around humans. So we created Wakelet to put control back into the hands of people who ultimately use the web. We empower people to organise their own personalised web in a more meaningful and visual way.
Jamil also explained that “While search algorithms help us find isolated pieces of information faster, they don’t know which ones are most relevant to us as individuals.”
“Wakelet brings a human touch to this process, by giving us the ability to easily collect and organise anything we read, view or listen to in a way that’s useful to us and to others.”
I chat to Misbah Gedal about how this social sharing site provides the tools to put humans back in charge.
Google helps you find content, but Wakelit enables you to organize it" -Misbah Gedal of Wakelet.
Configit is a Danish software company that was founded in 2000 as a direct result of groundbreaking academic research by Professor Henrik Reif Andersen and Ph.D. Henrik Hulgaard. Since that time, it has prospered under a highly academic staff of developers and software engineers.The software company is on a mission to solve complex product configuration problems.
All Configit products are based on the patented technology Virtual Tabulation. This technology has redefined what is possible with the configuration in terms of complexity and speed that enables Configit to make software that can handle and utilize complex product configurations in a way that is both powerful to business and easy to use.
Through cooperation with their clients, Configit takes pride in helping organizations with complex configuration problems, as well as participating in shaping the future of configuration software.
Back in 2012, Jaguar Land Rover launched a strategic program to streamline product lifecycle management of new vehicles. The program includes implementation of enterprise-wide product lifecycle management tools from Dassault Systèmes and a new ERP-platform from SAP.
A key component is the ability to manage the configuration of vehicles from the early design phases through to ordering, delivery and maintenance. Jaguar Land Rover selected Configit to develop a new standard platform for configuration management called Configit Ace.
Configit Ace replaces a range of legacy systems to provide a single platform for all authoring and execution of product configuration intent. Configit Ace is the first product of its kind in the enterprise software market.
The company has grown significantly over the years and now has offices in Denmark (Copenhagen), United Kingdom (Warwick), India (Chennai), United States (Atlanta), Germany (Düsseldorf) and China (Shanghai). I invited Professor Henrik Reif Andersen onto the show to learn more about growing a tech company into a global business without sacrificing their core beliefs.
Henrik Reif is co-founder and CEO of Configit A/S. With more than 25 years experience in IT development and research, Henrik Reif holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Aarhus and is a Professor of Computer Science.
As a freelancer, I paid particular attention to a report by Payoneer that surveyed over 21,000 freelancers from 170 countries worldwide about their experience, background, and earnings.
The report reveals average hourly freelancing rates of the freelancing community, to better understand what drives price in the market, and learn how to help freelancers increase their value.
I chat to Payoneer CEO Scott Galit about the following big talking points from the report:
- Which freelance fields earn the highest (and lowest) fees
- How age, education, skills and other factors impact your earnings
- How freelancers worldwide manage their work week
- How satisfied freelancers are with their income and freelance work
Consumers are now browsing more on their smartphones generating over half of all web traffic. But when it comes to clicking the buy button, they still revert to a desktop browser.
Neglecting Brick and Mortar is a bad move too, many brands don’t include local stores in their omnichannel marketing strategies, resulting in missed opportunities to help buyers complete their path to purchase locally.
We need to remember that Digital Influences Physical stores 90+% of retail sales are transacted in-store, but the Internet now dominates the critical first engagements that influence what and where people buy.
Netsertive has revolutionized how brands and local businesses work together to win local customers. The company’s two complementary solutions, MarketWise™ for Brands and StreetWise™ for Local Businesses, enable cooperative marketing by giving brands the capability to activate scaled omnichannel marketing campaigns. The innovative technology combines the company’s deep industry experience with the collective intelligence of its extensive network of automotive, home goods, technology and healthcare clients to deliver unprecedented campaign speed, performance and value. I invited Brendan Morrissey, CEO of Netsertive onto the show to talk about the following pain-points facing retailers today: * Addressing the mobile gap: Consumers are browsing more on smartphones, generating over half of all web traffic, but when it comes to clicking the buy button, they still revert to a desktop browser. * Neglecting Brick and Mortar: Many brands don’t include local stores in their omnichannel marketing strategies, resulting in missed opportunities to help buyers complete their path to purchase locally. * Digital Influences Physical: 90+% of retail sales are transacted in-store, but the Internet now dominates the critical first engagements that influence what and where people buy.
AMZ Insiders is focused on helping new sellers launch their own successful Amazon business. With over $60 million in sales on Amazon per year as a top 50 global seller. The company was also featured on Worldwide Business hosted by Kathy Ireland for a 30-minute segment about their e-commerce success.
I invited AMZ Insiders, Co-Founder, Jamie Davidson onto the show to learn more about how the incredible growth of e-commerce and Amazon. Jamie also highlights the misconceptions people have about selling on Amazon & creating their own Amazon business.
Other topics covered are the most prominent mistakes new sellers make, the time and costs needed to create a successful e-commerce business, best “hacks” to selling on Amazon and the insights the gained from their exclusive meeting directly with Amazon recently.
Ultimately, AMZ Insiders can show you everything you need to know to Build Your E-Commerce Empire On Amazon.
On recent podcast episodes, I have spoken with Real Madrid about becoming the first sporting brand to reach 100m likes on Facebook. Then Umbel the first-party data management platform that empowers sporting clubs to engage better and understand their audience. The Motorsport Network also revealed how they were accelerating the digital transformation of F1 and Motorsport. But, this got me thinking if
But, this got me thinking if technology is also directly impacting actual sports by enhancing skills or continuous improvement.
Under most people's radar, I quickly discovered that the game of golf is being transformed by companies such as Arccos Golf. The Arccos Caddie is golf’s first artificial intelligence (AI) platform, highlighted by real-time “Plays Like” distance calculations that precisely account for the impact wind speed, wind direction and elevation have on how far each shot travels.
Arccos offers advanced analytics for golfers by leveraging the power of data, cloud computing, and machine learning to deliver insights that help golfers of all skill levels to maximize their potential and optimize their enjoyment.
Arccos Caddie analyzes over 75 million shots of users on 368 million geotagged data points from more than 40,000 courses. It then gives caddie-like feedback customized to each player, which takes into account wind speed, wind direction, precipitation, temperature, elevation and more with its new update.
Powered by the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, Arccos Caddie has been further enhanced with refined machine learning and AI algorithms, as well as persistent displays of wind and elevation data throughout the round. These combine to ensureArccos Caddie users can shoot lower scores by harnessing advanced analytics to make smarter, data-driven decisions on the course.
Released in beta this year, Arccos Caddie is the first AI platform for golf. Through a partnership with Microsoft, Arccos uses the Microsoft Azure cloud platform to give insights that are on par with what PGA tour pros get from their caddies.
I invited Sal Syed, CEO, and Co-Founder of Arccos Golf onto the show to learn more about this golf performance tracking System and how an AI caddie in your pocket is helping golfers improve.
Technology is revolutionizing multiple industries as the digital transformation of everything gathers pace. I have recently spoken with businesses and CEOs about healthtech, edtech and fintech, but I wanted to find out more about legal tech. Legal technology, also known as Legal Tech, refers to the use of technology and software to provide legal services. Legal Tech companies are generally startups founded with the purpose of disrupting the traditionally conservative legal market.
SimpleLegal provides modern legal operations software to streamline the way corporate legal departments manage their matters, track and interpret spend, and collaborate with vendors and law firms. By combining e-Billing, matter management, accruals automation, and advanced reporting into one comprehensive solution, they centralize the functions and data needed to make better decisions and more efficiently manage an entire legal department.
Their story started when facing frustration with their own existing software tools. Sure, they did the job, but they were far too cumbersome. One customer likes to use the term “clunky” to describe their former solution. In the Facebook Era, enterprise software shouldn’t be clunky.
Then law firms advised that they didn’t like eBilling software. To them, it’s just one more time-consuming process that has nothing to do with actually taking care of their clients. But, they wanted law firms to like their software. SimpleLegal was then created to be Simple for law firms, too.
The team believes that Software as a Service is fundamentally different than traditional enterprise software. SaaS isn’t just about “no software installation required.” After all, what good is “no installation” if configuring the application is still difficult? User setup, law firm registration, and the seemingly endless list of options are the problem.
SimpleLegal is streamlined Matter Management and eBilling software without all the overhead common in legacy vendors' software. Customers range from new startups to global, public multi-$B companies. Customers use SimpleLegal to get transparency into their legal spend, save time, and save money. I invited Nathan Wenzel, CEO of SimpleLegal onto the show to learn more about how legal tech is disrupting the industry.
BioConnect is a technology company with a fundamentally different approach to "identity." The BioConnect Identity Platform provides secure, frictionless biometric authentication that works across any channel.
BioConnect’s team strongly believes in the importance of flexibility and consumer choice in verifying identity. Consumers want to decide whether to capture their fingerprint, be prompted to speak, scan their eyes, or enter a password.
Merchants and banks also need choices in the way that consumers are authenticated – from who you are to what you do, anywhere across the globe, using any device. By broadening the universe of authentication options, BioConnect provides a level of trust that does not yet exist in the market today
I speak with Rob Douglas, Chairman & CEO, BioConnect about the “Quest for Rightful Identity.” He felt it was his purpose in life to serve a cause bigger than a company. His founding belief was that the 7 billion people on this planet are better served to prove their rightful identity by being themselves for every transaction in life. What happens to your day when you cannot remember your password or have lost your key or card?
With his strong business acumen, Rob sees the impact to fraud and operational friction to corporations, financial institutions, healthcare, education and government organizations that would save billions in costs if they simply interacted with people.
Employee engagement and the antiquated performance review has been a long-standing issue within many industries, and the tech industry is no different. But new research from Culture Amp found that new tech companies may have a leg up on traditional tech companies.
New Tech organizations are some of the most innovative companies in the world. They also compete fiercely for talent - so understanding what New Tech employees need is essential.
Culture Amp recently revealed a report that covers six key areas to focus on to improve employee engagement within new tech organizations, including leadership, learning and development, and company confidence.
I chat to Jason McPherson, chief scientist at Culture Amp, to discuss these findings further.
Parsegon -is looking to revolutionize the digital education landscape. The platform transcribes plain English text to different symbols and visualizations (specifically it is helpful with math, chemistry, and economics).
The team is comprised entirely of college students and backed by Columbia University. I invited Mathew Pregasen onto the show to talk to learn more about Parsegon and also how he is launching the second iteration of Paperspade (a similar tool used by students note-taking purposes) which adds more features and improves upon existing capabilities.
The software is designed to translate natural English language into complex mathematical notation.
"It's not just online math. Parsegon helps students learn the concepts of math through language, not just the visuals."
Guruwalk is a new start-up that is rapidly growing and connecting travelers to anyone that wants to become a free tour guide. The platforms mission is simple, "To build a global community for travelers to have great experiences all around the world and become the reference marketplace for hiring local tour guides."
However, the startup is also using the platform to help people in need, who are passionate about history and culture, by allowing them to earn money thanks to the donations received after the tours. These are just a few reasons why their first efforts are mainly focused in developing countries because it where they can add more value to society.
In six months of travel 180 local guides spread over 55 cities in the world. Although the tours are free, the average tip per tourist is €10, which is a big help for local guides of the most disadvantaged areas in the world.
I chat to Juan Castillo, a young serial entrepreneur from Spain about his travel startup called GuruWalk and how he is helping to deliver free walking tours all over the world.
Right Networks is a cloud-based accounting and business solutions for CPA firms, accounting professionals and small to medium businesses who want to gain all the benefits of cloud-based applications without needing to replace what they use today.
A new Right Networks survey of accounting professionals finds cloud technology driving productivity, reshaping workflow to allow CPAs to deliver more strategic guidance and advisory services.
There is a reason to be optimistic about job growth and an upward trend in the near-term economy, according to those assigned with keeping a close watch on financial data. According to the survey, accounting professionals feel confident about the prospects for increased business growth and stability throughout their industry and the economy as a whole.
I invited Joel Hughes, COO at Right Networks, onto the show to find out more.
Ibotta CEO, Bryan Leach - graduated from Harvard, went to Oxford on Marshall Scholarship and then got his law degree from Yale in 2005. Then after a year clerking for US Supreme Court Justice David Souter and joining a Denver law firm, he quit law after he saw someone on an airplane taking pictures of business cards with a phone.
The observation made him realize that people would rather take pictures of shopping receipts to “coupon” after they buy something than the other way around. Ibotta was born and is now the biggest consumer tech company in Denver, and the third most-used shopping app in the U.S.
Ibotta was launched in Denver back in 2012 and now, with more than 400 employees, 23M downloads, nearly $100M in funding, and partnerships with Anheuser-Busch, Target, Wal-Mart and 1500 other brands. The company is focused on getting millennials to start shopping brick and mortar and help stop the wave of retailers closing physical locations.
Ibotta ("I bought a...") is transforming the shopping experience by making it easy for consumers to earn cash rewards on everyday purchases through a single smartphone app. The company partners with leading brands and retailers to offer rewards on groceries, electronics, clothing, gifts, home and office supplies, restaurant dining, and more.
Having worked with eBay, Drizly, Jet.com, Pumaliterally every brand, to better engage consumers with their phone and get them back into physical stores. To date, they’ve given users more than $225M cash back.
CareerBuilder recently launched a first-of-its-kind talent discovery platform that is an expansion of CareerBuilder’s end-to-end solutions.
As HR turns to tech, this latest addition is reducing the time it takes to source job candidates from hours/days to a matter of minutes and providing an unprecedented level of speed and efficiency to recruiters.
Talent Discovery is bringing data science, machine learning and AI to recruitment/HR, helping to get new employees in the door faster. CareerBuilder is also adding a new, robust onboarding offering via a strategic partnership with SilkRoad too.
I invited Scott Helmes SVP of Product Development at CareerBuilder onto the show to find out more how technology is revolutionizing HR and recruitment.
Home61 is a real estate tech startup with a mission to bring the joy back to home buying and renting. They're also announcing new funding from Founders Fund as well as nationwide expansion in today's podcast.
It's often said that being a real estate agent is like being a tech entrepreneur. The vast majority of agents fail within just a few years because they're essentially launching their own business where they have to take care of everything from marketing/lead gen to legal documents.
Home61 uses automation and a startup accelerator-like training program that teaches agents how to be more efficient with technology. Their agents make $70K in their second year, which is nearly 8x the industry average of $8,930/year for agents with less than two years of experience.
Olivier Grinda is an internet entrepreneur and has successfully transposed and adapted European and American business models to Latin America. In June 2011, he co-founded Shoes4you.com.br, the first fashion brand in Brazil, to sell exclusive collections through monthly online subscriptions.
Top Hat, a higher education startup that's already used in 75% of the major North American colleges and universities. They recently launched the first-ever digital content marketplace for higher education (like Etsy for professors), so that profs and academics can create, share, and collab on interactive, completely digital course materials.
Their aim is to decentralize the antiquated textbook industry (like an airbnb or uber did for their industries), upend traditional, inflated educational publishing, and make course materials cheaper for students. In addition to the marketplace, they are the first edtech startup to have an all-in-one teaching platform through a single channel on students' mobile devices -- where profs can track attendance, assign homework, grade, etc.
I invited Mike Silagadze, Founder, and CEO of Top Hat onto the show to learn more about how they are disrupting the education textbook industry.
AirFox is leveraging blockchain technology to make mobile data more affordable and accessible to millions of people around the world. To do this, AirFox created a new cryptocurrency called AirTokens that will be redeemable for mobile data on pre-paid plans. Users earn these AirTokens by opting to view advertisements in AirFox’s free Android apps. AirFox recently announced it will open an Initial Coin Offering to fund development and launch of the AirToken and a revolutionary microloanprogram that will enable capital in emerging markets. I invited cofounder and CEO, Victor Santos, onto to the tech podcast to find out more about their $15M token sale and if China's move to ban initial coin offerings (ICO) has affected them.
Apttus’ SVP of Global Marketing and Sales Maria Pergolino on what the future of work means for women. Recently Maria has been recognized with a Stevie Award for Women in Business and has been named to both the Top 50 Most Influential People and 20 Women to Watch from the Sales Lead Management Association. Maria and Neil also discuss: * How the future of work is different for women than it is for men * Things that women need to worry about that men do not when it comes to the future of jobs and automation * Areas where women are excelling by bringing a unique perspective to their field * If automation will have an impact on the wage gap * If IT will remain a male-dominated field * The importance of diversity in leaders
COBINHOOD is a next generation cryptocurrency service platform home to the world’s first zero-fee, high-frequency cryptocurrency trading platform.
COBINHOOD believes the evolution of blockchain technology and a decentralized financial landscape will transform global capital markets and business organizations with long lasting impact.
Popo Chen, CEO and CoFounder of COBINHOOD who also founded 17 live streaming, a leading live streaming platform across Asia with more than 5M daily users.
Du Jun, CSO and CoFounder of COBINHOOD, is also a co-founder of Huobi, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in China and founder of the largest cryptocurrency media platform Jinse.com.
I speak to Popo Chen about:
- China’s recent ban on ICOs and industry impact
- Issues plaguing current cryptocurrency exchanges and the need for zero fee options to legitamize the industry
- · ICOs – How they are regulated, how to determine valid investments and how to spot scams
- Recommendations for crypto regulation and how to pull hedge funds and mainstream private equity into the fold
File handling is a major source of frustration for developers, since most of the tools available are outdated, and they constantly have to re-invent the way their file systems work.
Users are also limited to a few sources of files; the uploading takes a long time and is rather unstable, often requiring the user to repeat their actions.
Uploadcare is seamlessly integrated to allow uploading, editing and posting images to a blog, website or app straight from a computer, a mobile device, Facebook or Instagram account, or a popular cloud solution - like Dropbox or Google Drive.
One of the biggest challenges faced by most large organizations is tackling disruption which is brought about by new innovative start-ups. Qmarkets is helping these companies across the globe to overcome this challenge by engaging their employees through a digital collaboration tool which allows them to submit, develop, and evaluate thousands of ideas and solutions. They've already developed solutions for leading companies such as Nestle, Ford, Unicredit, PMI, Lufthansa, and the NHS.
Essentially, the platform offers a set of solutions to tackle a variety of collective intelligence use-cases, including Open Innovation, Citizen Engagement (Democracy 2.0), Technology scouting, Hackathons and more. In addition to the idea management software, Qmarkets offers external crowdsourcing platforms, technology research platforms, live innovation workshops, a predictive market module and much more.
Inspired by the philosophy of "The Wisdom of the Crowds", the team at Qmarkets generate value for organizations by allowing them to receive innovative ideas from their employees, partners and clients. The company pride themselves on helping companies achieve their business goals, from performance excellence, to innovation, to the production of new products. Qmarkets has also partnered with the NHS here in the UK to create the most sophisticated healthcare innovation exchange platform in the UK. When I heard the news they have secured $5.2 million funding to further expand its product roadmap and increase the Company’s presence in the US market, I invited Noam Danon, CEO & Founder of Qmarkets.net onto the show to find out more about how they are helping businesses with innovation.
As one of the leading experts in the world in collective intelligence and innovation management within companies.
Noam Danon has been personally involved in assisting large multi-national companies worldwide create and perfect their innovation management process, and change their corporate culture to enable innovation to flourish.
William Shatner is a Canadian and an Emmy Award-winning actor who became most famous for portraying Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the starship Enterprise. But there is much more today's guest than his career in the Star Trek franchise.
Shatner's 2004 cover version of Pulp’s Common People produced by Ben Folds from his underrated Has Been album is still one of my all-time favorite cover versions and many are unaware that he is also a New York Times Bestselling author. But despite an iconic career, it's his involvement the world of tech startups that is possibly the biggest surprise.
Back In 1997, Shatner teamed up with travel discount site, Priceline.com. Priceline's Nasdaq listed stock (NASDAQ: PCLN) has traveled from approximately $16.00 for the initial public offering, to $1840 more recently where it rests with a US$90 billion dollar market cap. Maybe we shouldn't be too surprised to hear that William Shatner is now back on the startup scene with LottoGopher.
I am very happy to be joining the LottoGopher team. Much like Netflix disrupted the movie rental business and Uber hailing a cab, LottoGopher is disrupting the lottery industry for Americans. Consumers nowadays demand exceptional service, competitive pricing, and the convenience of buying products online. LottoGopher offers a simple, cost-effective way to order lottery tickets online and I look forward to helping their customers dream big! William Shatner
LottoGopher is disrupting the lottery industry for Americans. Essentially, LottoGopher is a lottery messenger service that allows users to easily order and manage their state lottery tickets online using a debit or credit card. By allowing individuals to choose their numbers and safely order tickets for the official lottery drawings in California, LottoGopher makes it simple for users to keep track of their tickets and winnings.
I chat to William Shatner about his iconic career, his love of technology, LottoGopher and another project around twitter called Ubuntu.
In the last few episodes, we have talked about what feels like a never-ending wave of constant cyber attacks, email vulnerabilities and how in the eyes of users and business there are elements of threat intelligence fatigue where people are switching off from their online responsibilities.
But I have come across a cool new product called Inky. The add-on for Outlook and Gmail detects email-based spear phishing attempts. It uses a wide variety of heuristics including machine-learning analysis of the images and text in the message, so it's pretty interesting technology.
I think we can all agree that new phishing attacks are super nasty and resilient to training and existing solutions and this is what inky is tackling.
David Baggett is a Software Entrepreneur and founder of Inky that has been writing and commercializing software since childhood. His goals are the same now as they were then: to solve difficult, practical problems with software.
"I seek problems where the technological and domain challenges pose a significant barrier to entry and thus provide a defensible initial market position" David Baggett - Founder of Inky
Prior to Inky, Baggett was a co-founder of ITA Software, an airfare search company that sold to Google in 2010 for $730 million. I invited David onto the show to learn more about his startup story.
https://inky.com/techblogwriter/
Back in 2010, Steve Martocci wanted an easy way to send messages between him and his friends, not a simple prospect at the time. He created GroupMe, a group messaging platform that was acquired in 2011 by Skype a mere 370 days after its launch for $85 million.
Here in 2017, Steve Martocci now leads product vision as the CEO and co-founder of Splice. With over 1 million users, Splice is rapidly gaining a reputation as the creative hub for the modern musician. The platform allows artists to collaborate on music projects via the cloud (google drive of music production) and offers hundreds of thousands of samples made by world-renowned sound engineers. Splice also gives musicians the ability to rent-to-own music production software.
With everything Splice gives to artists, I invited Splice CEO, Steve Martocci onto the podcast to talk about how Splice is improving the modern musician and the way they approach making music.
Martocci is also a co-founder of the short-distance aviation company BLADE, an active angel investor with investments in Fundera, TransferWise and Flatiron Health, and serves as an advisor to Movable Ink organizations where he promotes the growth of the New York City startup community.
Maintaining the security of critical and sensitive data is no small feat for global enterprises. In today’s cyber reality, even secure fiber optic networks can be at risk of unlawful interception and fiber tapping, or diversion of a transmission for unlawful surveillance. While cloud-based encryption solutions can address this vulnerability, they often do so at the cost of network performance.
Chris Richter is Level 3’s senior vice president of managed security services and is responsible for the company’s global managed and professional security services line of business. With 30 years of experience in IT, Chris has held a number of leadership positions in managed security, IT consulting, and sales with several technology product and services organizations.
For more than a decade, Richter has assisted numerous IT organizations in adapting their premises-based infrastructure risk management programs and security controls to outsourced, virtualized, and shared-infrastructure services.
On today's show, Chris Richter from Level 3 provides an overview of why even secure fiber optic networks can be at risk and the dangers/threats that are facing organizations every day. We also discuss how the increasing security alerts in the media are also responsible for a rise in threat intelligence fatigue and poor cyber hygiene.
I ask Chris, how a typical enterprise can hope to stay ahead of the continuously evolving threat landscape? And how he is helping global businesses address increasing security threats, without sacrificing network performance. What should enterprises be investing in? Is it encryption? Threat intelligence?
Armed with over 25 years of experience in the technology industry, prepare to hear valuable insights from the Senior Vice President, Global Security Services at Level 3 Communications.
Behind Notion's home awareness sensors is an incredible startup story that includes graduating from TechStars, Kickstarter campaigns and raising $10M in funding. The startup is using this money to partner with insurance companies to lower costs for policyholders.
Notion is a hockey-puck sized sensor that users stick above doors, below sinks, next to lights (and many more applications) to monitor their home when they’re away. The sensor connects to an iOS and Android app and will ping users when doors are left open, lights left on, water leaks, smoke alarms are going off, etc. Perfect for guys like me who leave the lights on before I’m about to go on vacation.
I chat to Brett Jurgens Co-Founder & CEO at Notion to learn more about his inspirational startup story and their all-in-one IoT smart home sensor that recently secured $10 million in Series A funding.
Last year, I spoke with Fleetsmith, CEO Zack Blum about how they automatically manage apps, settings, and security preferences across a company’s Apple Mac fleet. The company also offers fleet-wide upgrades to macOS with one click.
Founded by former IT and security leaders from Dropbox and Wikia, Fleetsmith combines world-class product and security engineering with a powerful, intuitive interface that makes advanced Mac management available for everyone.
In the last episode, we talked about how adding disk encryption and firewalls be centrally managed to ensure that MACS are compliant in the same way IT departments look after those on a windows environment.
The problem Fleetsmith set out to solve was that traditional mac management solutions are difficult to try before buying, overly complicated, and require dedicated IT and security resources.
Fleetsmith was founded to address these long-standing frustrations with existing laptop management products. Having already gone through the journey of being labeled as a stealth startup, I wanted to check-in with Zach Blum to see how the company are progressing.
We discuss how Fleetsmith has added new security features for SMBs and making a significant change to their business model to make Mac laptop management accessible to small companies.
The introduction of Fleetsmith Free along with the new Security & DevOps catalog apps that are aimed at solving the most critical IT and security pain points for anyone in charge of company Macs. Zach also discusses why obtaining the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework certificate is a big deal for Fleetsmith.
“Secure by Design” is a core value at Fleetsmith, and is reflected in everything they do. It means that security is not an afterthought, but an inherent part of our company and how we build product—it touches every part of our product and engineering development processes.
Videoblocks is now bringing content libraries together under a new brand called Storyblocks, to Make Room for Millions of Photos in a new image marketplace. With this launch, the artist-friendly Storyblocks offers even more to the creative community. Members save 60% on millions of new photos, vectors, and icons while contributors receive 100% commission.
As part of the rebrand, the company has moved its former sub-brand, GraphicStock, completely under the new Storyblocks identity, but will maintain its video and audio sites as Videoblocks by Storybocks (videoblocks.com) and Audioblocks by Storyblocks (audioblocks.com). The company is building on the evolution of its brand and responding to the high demand for photos, which make up 70 percent of the stock media industry, the new image Marketplace from Storyblocks is home to millions of photos, vectors and icons.
This addition follows the success of its video Marketplace, which has already paid out over $6 million to artists. The new image Marketplace continues the unprecedented 100 percent commission to contributors and cements the company’s position as the most artist-friendly and affordable stock media offering in the industry.
For us, introducing Storyblocks and the image Marketplace were the next logical steps on our journey to becoming first and last place creatives go when working on a project. TJ Leonard, Storyblocks’ CEO.
He also went on to say how the new Storyblocks brand captures their vision of bringing their libraries together into a more unified experience, allowing their members to find the right content quickly, without having to blow their budget or sacrifice quality.
Do you wake up each morning and reach for your smartphone to see how many emails you can instantly delete without reading before starting your day? You are not alone. These are just the emails that make it to your inbox, what about the ones that get caught in the dreaded spam folder. A company called Return Path claims to be the expert in deliverability and is helping businesses get more eyeballs on their emails.
Every day, our customers trust our data and insights to help them optimize their email marketing. Partnered with best-in-class email service providers, we help marketers take their email programs to the next level by driving more response and increasing revenue.
The path to the inbox is a long winding road, and Return Path has created an infographic to illustrate the steps needed to ensure email marketing programs are as successful as possible, and the pitfalls to avoid if you don’t want to be sent to the spam folder.
Anyone that is interested in the path to the inbox can also play a video game on that will test your skills at setting up a successful email marketing program. Once again, the game helps businesses of all sizes understand how they can avoid being banished to the spam folder.
Daniel Incandela serves as Chief Marketing Officer at Return Path. As head of marketing, Daniel oversees global brand, content, creative, demand generation, digital, events, marketing automation & operations, product marketing, public relations and sales development.
Previously, he served as Senior Director of Brand and Global Digital Marketing at the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, where he drove creative & digital marketing strategy for the company across five continents, overseeing corporate marketing, event branding & experience, and all creative.
I invited Incandela onto the show to learn more about how mobile technology has transformed email marketing. We also discuss how emerging technologies and personalization is changing the world of email marketing.
Users that take online privacy seriously have been moving away from file sharing solution services such as Dropbox and towards end-to-end encrypted cloud storage solutions such as Tresorit.
Tresorit is the cloud encryption company providing secure yet user-friendly file sync & sharing for businesses. Tresorit's end-to-end encryption protects user files from data breaches and government surveillance alike.
The Swiss-Hungarian company was founded in 2011 by Istvan Lam, Szilveszter Szebeni, and Gyorgy Szilagy. They are providing secure, yet easy-to-use file sync for more than 10,000 businesses globally, and getting high recognition in the tech industry.
Earlier this year Apple announced its CareKit development framework, designed to create apps that let healthcare professionals continue followup care with patients, is now integrated with Tresorit's ZeroKit, which provides end-to-end encryption of users' account credentials and their health data to the cloud.
I invited Cryptographer and Tresorit CEO, Istvan Lam to talk about the importance of encryption and what it felt like to be featured on the Forbes Europe 30 under 30 in Technology list.
By combining new technology, new data, and human advisers, United Income offers holistic financial planning and investment management aimed at extending the life and potential of money.
With over $200M in assets under management through its private beta launch, the new platform, believed by United Income to be the first of its kind, offers a solution that examines millions of potential future market and life outcomes, creating personalized projections of future changes in spending on health and other items.
“Thanks to advancements in healthcare, people are living longer and are retired longer. But, the market has struggled to find a way to extend the life of money as effectively,” said Matt Fellowes, founder and CEO of United Income. “By harnessing powerful new technology and a growing body of data and academic work, we have been able to invent a new approach to money management that aims to extend the life of money.”
United Income, which raised $5.8 million in seed funding in 2016, is Fellowes’ second financial technology startup. He founded HelloWallet in 2009 before selling it to investment research firm Morningstar in 2014 for $52.5 million and becoming Morningstar’s Chief Innovation Officer.
Millions of people attend sporting events every year. Some go regularly, some not so often. To retain customers, how can sports teams increase their success rate of reaching the right people with deals on tickets, special giveaways, and other marketing promotions? How can they know who they’re targeting?
Umbel is a first-party data management platform that empowers companies to better engage and understand audiences. The company’s client roster includes a variety of organizations including the Indiana Pacers, New York Islanders, San Antonio Spurs and more to help increase ticket sales and sponsorship ROI.
At Umbel, they believe data is the most valuable asset a business can own. With the Umbel data management platform, some of the most recognizable names in sports and entertainment access, acquire, activate and analyze their customer data to increase engagement, revenue and loyalty. Founded in 2010, Umbel is headquartered in Austin, Texas and has raised $28.5 million in venture funding to date.
Lisa Pearson is the CEO of Umbel with 20+years experience in high growth companies. In her multiple executive roles, she's been responsible for setting company vision and strategy; driving business performance through organic growth, global expansion and M&A (on deal team for six acquisitions) and navigating corporate exits including IPO (Nasdaq: BV), LBO (Compass Group) and acquisition (to multi-national holding co. HAVAS, 5th largest agency in the world).
She has been a strategic advisor to the best-known brands in the world including American Express, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Yahoo!, Dell and more. Pearson is also known for building high performing teams including overachieving sales and client service teams, agile product and engineering orgs and strategic marketing functions.
We talk about why first-party data is the future and the importance of identifying unique segments from demographics, behaviors and brand affinities.
Gurbaksh Chahal is a die hard entrepreneur with a passion for innovation & building amazing companies. He is the founder of ClickAgents, BlueLithium, RadiumOne, Gravity4 & The Chahal Foundation.
Back in 2008, Oprah Winfrey introduced Gurbaksh to her audience by saying “My next guest is a high-school dropout who’s worth more than a hundred million dollars.
Although he may have sold his ad-tech company, ClickAgents, for $40 million, Yahoo bought his next ad company, BlueLithium, for $300 million. I wanted to find out more about his startup story and how he got where he is today.
However, I didn't want to talk to Gurbaksh about his past but about his future. The serial entrepreneur has also founded Gravity4, the world's first A.I. big data marketing cloud.
The leading big data marketing cloud also introduces, LydianCoin. Lydian has licensed and has forked the G4 Marketing Cloud to provide pre-paid digital advertising services for the blockchain community, accessible by the Lydian cryptographic token.
This episode offers a fascinating insight into the business mindset of
Gurbaksh Chahal and his refreshing motivations that are his secret to success.
Hackbright Academy is a coding bootcamp for women to become software engineers.
As a leader of the business, Erin Geiger creates vision, strategy, programs and partnerships with employers to #changetheratio of women working in tech. Since joining in 2017 she has grown the business of hiring women engineers beyond the tech industry to include health, finance and government industries needing top tech talent.
She has diversified the types and quality of B2B partnerships by listening and working with employers to design tailored programs to solve critical business challenges. Developed a new team of professionals and is scaling operations for continuous growth to advance the movement of "Diversity & Inclusion in Tech." Thought leader, public spokesperson and champion of diversity to advance Hackbright Academy's mission to #changetheratio of women in tech.
Godard Abel, founder and executive chairman of G2 Crowd, a fast-growing tech startup in Chicago, has been building businesses for more than a decade. His first startup, BigMachines, was sold to Oracle for more than $400 million in 2013. His next startup, Steelbrick, raised more than $50 million in less than four years and was acquired by Salesforce for $360M. But, none of this would have been possible without the underground network of talent that follow him from one venture to the next. He refers to this core group as his startup squad. He’s trained this team on how to grow businesses from the ground-up quickly and efficiently. It includes engineers, designers, sales and marketing reps and customer service specialists. Godard shares his insight on how to build this team with special focus on how to maintain their loyalty through mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs.
Blip Systems is a sensor-agnostic company, meaning that they use multiple data sources, including WiFi and Bluetooth sensors, 3D cameras, people counters and other third-party data sources, to monitor movement, capacity and wait time.
With data, from multiple sources, airports, municipalities and other high-traffic facilities can to quickly and efficiently manage queue and flow, to help reduce overhead, maximise revenue and provide optimum service.
The technology is successfully employed in optimization efforts in more than 25 international airports, including Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, JFK Airport in New York, Copenhagen, Oslo, Manchester, Birmingham, Dublin, Brussels, Geneva, San Diego, Keflavik and Edinburgh.
“Operationally, the airport uses, among other things, the data to monitor line density in real-time, which allows management to respond promptly…”
In recent years, the solution has been rolled out in train stations, ports, ski resorts, amusement parks and at events all over the world.
I talk to Christian Bugislaus Carstens, Marketing Manager at BLIP Systems about Bluetooth/WiFi sensors and the difference they are making all over the world.
Tricentis is a software testing startup with dual headquarters in Vienna and Silicon Valley. The continuous testing platform accelerates testing to keep pace with Agile and DevOps. Armed with the industry’s most innovative functional testing technologies, the company breaks through the barriers experienced with conventional software testing tools—achieving test automation rates of over 90%.
After hearing how Tricentis is recognized as the Continuous Testing leader in both the Forrester Wave and the Gartner Magic Quadrant combined with the fact they have over 400 customers including global names from the Top 500 brands such as HBO, Toyota, Allianz, BMW, Starbucks, Deutsche Bank, Lexmark, Orange, A&E, Vantiv, Vodafone, Telstra and UBS, I invited Tricentis CEO Sandeep Johri onto my podcast to find out more.
Earlier this year Tricentis hit the headlines after securing a $165 million funding round from a single investor, Insight Venture Partners. But, this is unlikely to phase the CEO who should know all about the software testing space considering he led HP's acquisition of industry leader Mercury Interactive in 2006 for about $4.5 billion. But this is not a tech podcast is not about the past, but the tech startup journey to the future.
Recently Triscentist also acquired Australia-based load-testing platform Flood IO too which some heavyweight clients such as AT&T, NEC, ABC, and Bloomberg. “Times have changed. Old performance testing approaches are too late, too heavy, and too slow for today’s lean, fast-paced delivery pipelines,” explained Sandeep Johri, CEO of Tricentis.
“Yet, releasing updates without insight into their performance impact is incredibly dangerous in today’s world—with competitors just a click away. Flood’s technology offers DevOps teams unparalleled flexibility for load testing early and continuously. This acquisition enables us to take our mission of ‘transforming testing for DevOps’ to the next level.”
On this episode, I chat to Tricentis CEO Sandeep Johri about the opportunities and challenges around Continuous Testing and Test Automation for large enterprises.
HYPR is revolutionizing influencer marketing by providing clients with in-depth audience demographics of social influencers
Gil Eyal is on a mission to revolutionize influencer marketing by providing tools that help analyze the audience of every celebrity and influencer in the world, as well as automate the ability to run measurable, targeted campaigns, at scale.
SociallyMined is a digital advocacy firm that drives awareness for issues by leveraging innovative outreach technology solutions to micro-target key influencers—creating a virtual uprising to complement traditional outreach efforts.
Innovative, social media data analytic solution designed to amplify a message by mining big data to create a virtual uprising by leveraging key influencers.
As advertising technology evolves, Gil discusses why the FTC's new guidelines won't impact micro-influencers, who know they can skirt the rules without getting caught.
Matthew David Anthes (SociallyMined.com) and Gil Eyal, CEO of influencer marketing platform Hypr join me in a conversation about the power of online micro influencers
Fillr has developed 'autofill as a service' that seamlessly integrates into your app, enabling your customers to transact faster, boosting your conversions
According to the latest Business Intelligence Report on shopping cart abandonment (Nov. 2016), 78% of consumers who start an online purchase process abandon it, leaving $4.6 trillion worth of merchandise left unpurchased in online shopping carts.
Built on a powerful mapping engine and algorithms developed by analyzing hundreds of thousands of forms, Fillr delivers a highly intelligent autofill as a service, utilizing proprietary Advanced Textual Heuristics™ for highly personalized, accurate and fully automated form-filling.
The increasingly wide range of use cases for Fillr currently includes IoT, messaging and voice. It partnered with more than 20 browsers and OEMs worldwide.
From first-timers to veterans, novelists to photographers, BookBaby have helped thousands prove that it doesn’t take a traditional publishing deal to bring a dream to life. You can do it yourself.
Publish your book worldwide on Amazon's Kindle, iPad, Barnes and Noble's Nook, and many more. Founder/CEO: Steven Spatz talks about how you can do this and much more with BookBaby.
Demonstrating an extraordinary commitment to empowering the independent writer, full-stack self-publishing service provider BookBaby has taken the initiative to produce the largest survey ever conducted in the publishing world, designed to identify and reveal the methods of successful independent authors.
Self-published authors can now enjoy the best of both worlds: Maximizing reach and profits through the benefits of Amazon’s Kindle Select promotional tools, while making the most of BookBaby’s own industry-leading worldwide digital distribution.
Steven loves to hear from authors, editors, and publishers in the BookBaby community with tales of publishing trials and triumphs. To tell him your story, write to steven@bookbaby.com.
Cloudinary was founded in 2011 by a group of high-tech veterans who have worked on a huge variety of web projects during the past two decades and got tired of implementing the same image management solutions over and over again.
Throughout the years, we’ve experienced the evolution in web development frameworks first hand, from crude tools to cutting edge platforms. Nowadays, you can quickly build impressive, fast, scalable and affordable web applications you could have only dreamed of in the past.
However, we still found ourselves spending considerable R&D time managing our services’ images. We never managed to free enough time to perfect our image management solutions.
They decided to make the time and build a service that would offer an end-to-end solution to an application’s entire image-related needs, by developers for developers. Exactly as we’ve always envisioned it.
This is how Cloudinary was born.
The CEO + CTO (Co-Founders) of Cloudinary are hard core developers at heart, and the solution they developed is an end to end image management platform (for developers and businesses) that has a full suite of capabilities. From social (SnapChat to Instagram) to shopping (Amazon, Walmart) we live in a visual world. And imagery is helping to drive a visual economy (people see, click and buy). Cloudinary enables users to manipulate images dynamically to fit any graphics design. Apply effects, resizing, cropping, face detection, watermarks and tons of image processing capabilities. Itai and Tal have created a platform that enables developers and companies to take control over their images/videos - and create a more meaningful and impactful experience for end users - driving business value. Itai Lahan I invited Itai Lahanm, the Co-Founder, CEO of Cloudinary onto the show to find out more. Itai has been managing software teams for the past 18 years, holding executive positions in VC-backed startups. Itai founded several technology companies including Ndivi, a boutique Israeli-based dev shop.
Jason Hart is an award-winning, globally recognized expert and visionary in the World of Cyber Security. Jason continues to raise and educate the profile of Information Security risks and was instrumental in the introduction of the role CSO (Chief Security Officer) globally.
Hart has devoted his time to reducing and researching the risk of password theft and password hacking. Currently, he serves as CTO for the Enterprise & Cyber Security division of Gemalto, the world’s leading digital security company.
A former ethical hacker with decades of experience in info sec, Hart has created technologies to thwart cybercriminals. He was instrumental in developing the role of Chief Security Officer and the world’s leading Cloud Based Authentication Platform.
He has held prominent posts in organizations like Ernst & Young's Information Security Assurance and Advisory Services practice, was CEO of WhiteHat and Cryptocard. He also advises law enforcement and military agencies on cybersecurity, and, is a resource for media such as BBC World News, CNN, CNBC and more.
I recently spoke to Real Madrid football club and how they became the first sporting brand to reach 100 million likes on Facebook. The NFL went through a digital redesign a few years ago too, but I wanted to find out how the digital transformation is revolutionizing the world of F1 Racing and how F1 is going digital.
The Motorsport Network has experienced rapid growth in the past two years to become the world's largest independent automotive and motorsport-related digital platform connecting hundreds of millions of people that love motorsport and cars.
The Motorsport Network, the owner of Autosport, F1 Racing, and Motorsport.com, recently completed a second Global Fan Survey about Formula 1 to build on its record-breaking study in 2015.
The Motorsport Network is the world’s biggest motorsport and automotive media network – featuring major titles including Motorsport.com, Autosport.com, and Motor1.com. But what captured both my attention and imagination was learning about the Formula 1 global fan survey in 15 languages and receiving fan feedback from 194 countries. I invited Motorsport Network CEO Colin Smith onto the show to find out more.
The Ring Video Doorbell lets you answer the door from anywhere with your smartphone. Connects to your Wi-Fi network and works with iOS and Android
“With Ring, homeowners have stopped burglars and package thieves, kept an eye on their property when they’re not home, and communicated with family members and visitors at their doorstep. Continuously inventing is core to the execution of our mission ‘to reduce crime in neighborhoods’ and today’s launch of the second generation Ring Video Doorbell is evidence of that.”
- Removable, rechargeable battery pack (charged through micro-USB port; micro-USB cable included with purchase)
- 1080p HD video
- Two-way audio
- Connects to existing doorbell (8-24VAC)
- 180-degree horizontal motion detection angle
- 160-degree field of view
- Compatible with 802.11 b/g/n (2.4GHz)
- Improved night vision
- Lifetime purchase protection
- Familiar, sleek design
- Interchangeable faceplates
“Over 1 million users, who we call ‘Ring Neighbors’, trust our innovative and industry-first security products to reduce neighborhood crime in a meaningful way,” said Ring founder Jamie Siminoff in a press release.
Regular listeners will remember that I recently interviewed Adobe’s Colin Morris about how voice-based interfaces have suddenly become a significant tool for marketers. But, it’s not just voice: marketers are gravitating both to voice and text-based computer conversation (e.g. chatbots) to engage with customers.
PullString is the only company enabling conversations on Amazon Echo, Alexa Google Home, as well as text-based computer conversations on Microsoft’s Skype and Facebook’s Messenger.
As these platforms surge in popularity with consumers, PullString is seeing a similar surge in demand from companies that want to build branded chatbot experiences on these platforms.
Today's guest is Oren Jacob, and he is the CEO and co founder of Pullstring but also has a very rich history,
Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull had personally chosen Oren to lead Pixar’s internal tech team as CTO, where he worked on Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life, and Finding Nemo.
Webcollage provides the tools to create compelling content, help shoppers select the right products, answer shoppers questions, display feedback and syndicate.
Retailers such as Walmart, Staples, and Lowes have consolidated their SKU content offering using the Webcollage system which is also used by Amazon and retailers such as Costco, Office Depot, Sears and CVS And Walgreens to build out content on their web sites.
Worldwide more than 1,000 manufacturers use the Webcollage platform to syndicate rich product content to a network of global retailer partners that includes more than 600 e-commerce websites. including the likes of John Lewis and Tesco in the UK.
When we arrive on a website, we seldom think about the effort required to produce the rich content we take for granted. Delivering content at scale through pipes to manufacturers and retailers is something that should not be underestimated.
I chat to Webcollage CEO, John Federman to find out more. We talk about retail tech and the rich content behind omnichannel, web rooming and showrooming retail experiences.
Our inboxes are subjected to generic emails from some of the biggest brands in the world. Each morning, we reach for our phone and delete as many of them as we can. Is traditional email marketing broken? And do we need to talk about it?
I recently discovered the 2017 Email Marketing Industry Report. The report answers the question “What’s driving today’s marketers?” by drawing upon a survey of 200 organizations and interviews with over 25 industry leaders at Emma’s annual Marketing United conference. Email might still be king, but modern marketers need to start thinking outside of the inbox.
The report analyzes the goals, concerns, and pressures facing marketers and includes advice and strategies to help them overcome their biggest challenges. The results reveal a number of interesting trends and insights about today’s marketers. Key findings include:
- Marketers are wrestling with conflicting priorities. Most marketers understand that great marketing means putting the customer first, but their internal goals aren’t lining up. 68% say that gaining new customers and increasing revenue are their ultimate measures of success.
- Marketers have the data, but they don’t have the resources. Over 64% point to not having enough time or enough personnel to do the kind of marketing they would like. Only 16% identified lack of data as a pain point.
- Email is still the king. 47% of marketers report that email generates the most ROI for their organization, and 58% plan to increase spending on email marketing during the next year.
Colby Cavanaugh believes it's time to get more from your email marketing. Emma's powerful digital marketing platform aims to make it easy for teams of all sizes to create beautifully designed email campaigns that drive results. Identifying who to target, automating marketing programs and integrate with the technologies they use most to deliver more timely, personalized and effective communications.
On the foot of their €25 million Series A raise earlier this month (one of the largest in Irish history), Plynk is beginning their expansion plans across Europe with the aim of becoming a “verb” in every European language.
Today, sending a photo, video, or chat with a friend has become second nature to young adults. This cohort has become accustomed to the free and instant transfer of data using purely their mobile phone. This is also the generation that can see when their friend is typing. No wonder many find it hard to fathom that a bank transfer can take days.
By offering instant person-to-person payments, Plynk is aiming to remove the awkwardness and complexities associated with sending money to family and friends. Linked to users’ social networks, Plynk users can send money as a message to a single contact or in group chats instantly and with no fees. Once an account is created, users receive a payment account with a dedicated IBAN and virtual Mastercard for online payments.
With Plynk, users send money to a name, not an account number, turning a normally formal and uncomfortable task into a transparent, instant, and social interaction. This intersection between social and payments is an area Charles is avid on exploring, especially due to his experience at both Microsoft and Facebook within the States and Ireland.
I founded Plynk, the money messenger, to make money more fun for people. Money messaging makes money move freely between people. Currently solutions for moving money can get between friends. - Charles Dowd
San Francisco-based Loudr builds products and services that help content creators, aggregators, and music services identify rights holders, secure mechanical licenses, and pay royalties to music publishers.
Powered by technology that parses publishing metadata and matches sound recordings to compositions, Loudr makes it easy for builders and creators to secure music rights clearance and report royalties at scale.
To date, the company has distributed over $1 million in royalties to songwriters and music publishers worldwide.
Chris Crawford, CEO, oversees business and corporate development. He directs negotiations and develops relationships with major music publishers, digital retailers, rights collection societies, and data partners, and drives overall strategy and vision for the Loudr business.
Before launching Loudr, Chris worked with the public relations, institutional sales, and iTunes promotions teams at Apple. A former a cappella director and arranger, Chris is an avid supporter of the vocal music community and speaks regularly on music business events, including panels and seminars in San Francisco, New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, and Boston.
Way back on episode 166 I spoke to Dave Marvit, Fujitsu’s Innovation Strategist and Mohi Ahmed, Director of Open Innovation Gateway on my tech podcast.
Oblong industries produce breathtaking solutions that are best described as like something out of the Minority Report movie, but and in a good way. There is a good reason for that because Oblong CEO John Underkoffler was science advisor to Steven Spielberg.
Many have seen Oblongs tech in Films like the Minority report and the new CBS show called 48 HOURS: NCIS. But they are also winning awards outside of the entertainment industry Oblong's Mezzanine also featured in Gartner's "Select the Right Technology for Modern Meeting Rooms.
The company began life in Albuquerque New Mexico, before moving to Holland only to return to the US and have expanded from the beverage industry into the world of beer, wine, and spirits.
eoStar is a comprehensive Microsoft based solution that integrates essential functionality such as WMS, Voice Pick, Forecasts, Surveys, Web Orders, Mobile Sales and Delivery into a single database consolidating information in a centralized location.
This allows distributors to make the best decisions with the most current information to increasing efficiencies around operations, sales, finance, and administration.
I talk to Paul Rutherford, President of eoStar about modernizing businesses through technology
I recently discovered a company called Woebot, and they've built a smart chatbot (uses AI) to address the growing mental health epidemic. Woebot lives in Facebook Messenger and operates like a personal therapist. They launched on June 6th and their user base is already exploding. Woebot has already seen more 'patients' than a traditional therapist will see in their entire career. Mental health is a pervasive problem that affects roughly 40 million people in the US per year. Stigmas, high treatment costs and lack of qualified therapists mean that people aren't getting the help they need. CEO and founder, Dr. Alison Darcy and her team aimed to take a different approach to tackle it. Sharing a few high-level details below believe that technology can help democratize healthcare. For Woebot, it's about leveraging conversational tech and AI to deliver good therapy. Woebot was built as a simple solution that can be accessed anytime, that learns with every interaction, providing a safe, stigma-free opportunity for people to talk about what's happening for them and get the help they need. Woebot lives on a social media platform that 1 billion+ people log into every day, users can get help when they need it – rather than waiting for their appointment next Wednesday at 3pm. The experience with Woebot is conversational and provides human-like feedback. Woebot also applies the most effective type of treatment for mood disorders (cognitive behavioral therapy) and teaches you things about yourself and the way you think about events in your life. I invited Woebot CEO and founder, Alison Darcy onto the show to find out more. Darcy is also a psychologist and health care designer with over 15 years experience in health tech. I wanted to find more about how why she made a robot that helps people feel happier and understand how we can use technology to develop effective digital health solutions.
Estonia is increasingly being seen as the new European startup hub. There is already an extensive list of Estonian start-ups such as Skype, TransferWise, Guardtime, and Fortumo. But, after graduating from the TechStars Accelerator Academy, Testlio is receiving recognition for all the right reasons.
Testlio helps businesses deliver amazing customer experiences by providing a community of highly vetted testers and an end-to-end QA management platform.
They assemble dedicated QA dream teams from our vetted, experienced, and passionate tester community. The platform seamlessly integrates into the tools that you already use and connects you with the team giving you a high degree of visibility.
Kristel shares her startup story along with the vibrant and thriving Estonian start-up scene.
One of the reasons I love recording this tech podcast is learning how technology is revolutionizing every aspect of our world. When you think about the digital transformation, you don't automatically think of guitars.
Fender Digital is leading the online revolution and modernization of Fender with a new division dedicated to digital education, innovation, customization, and mobile learning.
Micro-Learning ensures that some guitar skills being mastered in less than 2 minutes and personalized curriculums based on the user’s favorite songs all through online learning.
“Ninety percent of people who pick up the guitar will drop out after one year, and we see Fender Play as a solution to that challenge.” Ethan Kaplan
There are 54 million American freelancers alone, and it is crucial for businesses to keep up an environment that can evolve with the fluctuation of the Gig Economy.
Servcorp is the leading provider in luxury shared workspace. Even a small startup can have a private office at the World Trade Center in Manhattan for $1,000 a month, and a virtual office package for as little as $200.
Marcus told the New York Business Journal in March “We believe that not everyone wants to come to work in shorts, ride their scooter to work, play ping pong and have beers at lunch. There will certainly be demand for a premium product in flexible space with a high level of service and infrastructure.”
Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin is a seventh generation descendant of shipping and railroad tycoon, Cornelius Vanderbilt. But rather than take the easy road, she chose her own path as both a musician and entrepreneur.
Consuelo has enjoyed a fantastic career as a recording artist where her first four singles alone hit the Top 20 on the Billboard Dance Charts. Her debut single “Naked” spent 16 weeks on the charts, while your follow-up “Feel So Alive” earned you Billboard’s #2 Breakout Artist honor.
Despite enjoying chart success on both sides of the Atlantic, she also experienced more than a few pain points within the creative industry. Consuelo's entrepreneurial instincts kicked in as she set out to create solutions to frustrations faced by artists on a regular basis.
Ironically, despite mapping out her future on her terms, Consuelo is continuing her family’s legacy of connecting people. Just as Cornelius Vanderbilt bridged the country together for business and trade through shipping and railroads, Consuelo is now doing the something very similar with SohoMuse.
With my start up, I feel as if I am continuing my family’s legacy of connecting people. - Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin Co-founder and President of SohoMuse.
Essentially this new creative platform is a high-tech digital railroad that is bridging artists together around the world from all sectors of the creative industries, all on one platform.
SohoMuse is the first-of-its-kind Vertical Social Network for the Creative Industry. Centered on an exclusive membership-by-invitation-only platform, creative professionals can promote their talents and projects, network and collaborate with other Creatives and source talent across the globe - all within a secure and trusted ecosystem.
Both a community and a portfolio platform, SohoMuse brings together the best talent from all creative fields in one place and provides the tools and features Creatives need to work more efficiently, network more effectively and increase exposure and opportunities exponentially. Members are part of an exclusive global community where those seeking talent can find the best Creative Professionals anywhere.
I speak with Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin to learn more about her story. In this episode, we learn how SohoMuse is aiming to empower and inspire creative professionals to easily connect with one another, for endless growth opportunities in their respective fields.
Useful Links
www.sohomuse.com
Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin
Last year Real Madrid was named the fastest growing sports brand in the world, generating an incredible 1.6 billion video views. But Madrid also celebrated an off-field victory by taking the digital El Clasico Facebook crown after beating Barcelona to become the first football club in the world to reach 100 million likes on Facebook.
The combination of a well-crafted digital strategy, the passion of Real Madrid fans, and the support of Real Madrid players, legends, and celebrities, helped them storm past Barcelona in the final moments to become the first sports club to reach this milestone on Facebook.
The story began when Real Madrid teamed up with leading sports digital strategy and tech venture firm Rebel Ventures to win the digital title. The campaign was one of the most dramatic and widely viewed in social media history, generating over 580M media impressions across the globe.
This has been a show of force by the whole Real Madrid family – I don’t think we have ever seen this type of support for anyone on the platform. To see Rafa Nadel, David Beckham, Cristiano and many others rally their fans to aid you on this historic march to 100M likes has been insane to witness. - Robert Rodriguez - Head of Global Football Partnerships Facebook Sports
I invited Craig Howe, Rebel Ventures CEO and Rafael de los Santos - Global head of digital at Real Madrid onto the show to find out more.
Responsible at Real Madrid of Digital Strategy. Rafael is in charge of defining and implementing the digital strategy across all the areas and business within the club. Managing the different digital channels; owned channels such as the web and the app, second party channels where the club manages a certain amount of licenses for digital games and services or virtual goods
Also focused on growing the online sales. Last, the third party channels, where the social media partners, such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram among others are included. He is also responsible for the digital transformation process where the creation of a digital Platform and video platforms have been crucial for future revenue.
Rebel Ventures CEO, Craig Howe, built his career on two core principles: Shaping a unified vision through leadership and insight, and identifying and evangelizing digital strategy and marketing innovation.
Craig originally launched the business as a consultancy in 2012 to advise US sports leagues, global sports franchises, and early stage technology companies on how to harness and maximize their digital potential.
Rebel Ventures has since grown to become a global leader in the intersection of sports + digital technology, working with iconic franchises such as San Francisco 49ers, Chicago Bulls, Boston Red Sox, Real Madrid, and Liverpool FC to optimize digital strategy and revenue generation.
DFRobot was founded in 2008 and is a robotics and open source hardware provider, catering to hardware engineers, DIY enthusiasts, and interactive designers. Their ever-growing product catalog boasts over 900 components and widgets from sensors, robotic platform, communication modules to 3D printers.
The company has embarked on a mission of driving the future rooted in our corporate culture. A research and development team has continuously innovated with the latest technology and collaborated with various tech giants such as Intel, Microsoft, and Texas Instruments to maximize our impact.
The team at DF Robot strive to promote makers cultures by providing tools, electronics, and training for schools, hacker spaces, and hackathon events. Their technology is aimed at inspiring thousands of DIY hobbyists, educators and researchers from all walks of life and help members of all areas learn, share and make awesome things.
It is hoped that the creation of innovative, user-friendly products will become the building blocks in all kinds of projects and prototypes. Anyone that remembers the joy of tinkering with innovative, modern technology products should embrace and thrive in this supportive community.
I chat to Ricky Ye, the CEO of DFRobot, who is dedicated to creating innovative, user-friendly products that foster a strong community of learning. We talk about LattePanda, the portable single board computing device (40% smaller than an iPhone) that runs a full version of almost any operating system, including Windows 10.
The small computer is compatible with almost every gadget you use every day, such as printers, joysticks, cameras, etc. With all the same technology and capabilities of a regular PC, any peripherals that work on your PC will work on LattePanda.
- Automotive: LattePanda equips cars with the “brain” of an autonomous vehicle by creating a computerized ecosystem powered by Windows 10. Other features include a self-driving central system, dash cam surveillance, sonar sensors for parking assistance and enhanced GPS navigation.
- Gaming: LattePanda emulates gaming consoles, designing and 3D printing customized objects and offering endless access to torrents/online video you can hook up to the TV.
Useful Links
LattePanda Website
DF Robot Website
Liquid Web's managed WordPress solution continues to evolve its service offerings to meet the ever-changing needs of its web-reliant, professional customers. However, the impact web hosting can have on SMBs is seldom discussed.
How to decide what type of web hosting company your business needs is a decision that many will rush in and discover that their support when things go wrong consists of chat bot and a support number with a confusing phone menu.
Now that so many of us have businesses that are entirely dependent on the web, I was refreshed to see that a company called Liquid Web believe that there is no such thing as a “one size fits all” web hosting package.
They also believe in putting customer service at the top of the agenda which is a little unusual for tech service providers. After hearing how the recent news that Liquid Web has appointed former GoDaddy VP Jeff King to the board of directors I invited them on the show today to find out what makes them different to all the other web hosting companies out there.
Liquid Web CTO Joe Oesterling is a Senior Technology Leader with a proven track record of turning strategy into results within start-up, mid market, and Fortune 500 organizations.
The success of Amazon Echo and Google Home is partly responsible for the rise in IoT devices. Home owners are now making home automation a reality and creating an always connected smart home.
The Smart Home is here. Your home network is no longer just connecting laptops, smartphones, and printers, but also thermostats, security cameras, locks, baby monitors, and even microwaves.
All these connected devices are intended to make life easier, but can be riddled with vulnerabilities, inadequate security, and need to be setup and configured - adding new complexity for consumers.
Most homeowners don’t have the skills or understanding to manage the complexity of their home technology ecosystems.That's where Axius comes in! Axius provides management and cyber security for your Smart Home through a piece of networking hardware called the “Axius Hub”.
Owler, the leading community-based business insights platform, recently announced the launch of its inaugural Top-Rated CEO Rankings, which provides a true market view of CEO ratings based on over a quarter million inputs from members of the Owler Community. The ratings break down the most-liked CEOs across the country by industry and city, as well as compares CEOs at public and private organizations.
The ratings break down the most-liked CEOs by industry and city, as well as compares CEOs at public and private organizations.
Owler found that Marketing and Creative, Travel and Hospitality, and Automotive industries have higher rated CEOs than any other industries. Unsurprisingly, the airline industry has the lowest ranking CEOs.
I invited Jim Fowler, Founder & CEO, Owler onto the show to discuss how these executives received high approval ratings from employees, suppliers, partners, and even competitors, to beat out 99.4 percent of other CEOs featured on our platform.
Clint Oram, Co-founder, and CMO at SugarCRM talks about customer relationship platforms and how they are using AI to create to enter the world of relationship intelligence software.
The recent release of Hint which focusses on relationship intelligence by using AI is taking things to a whole new level and helping people build better business relationships through technology.
Clint Oram recently said I have a profound belief that business is about two people helping one another achieve their goals. One person has a problem that needs to be solved...a customer. The other person has the solution to that problem...your employee. Let's connect them together.
I chat with Clint about the importance of relationship intelligence on their customer relationship management platform, how businesses are preparing for GDPR and if they are planning to challenge Marc Benioff's Salesforce in the future.
After two years podcasting and 300 episodes, I invited listeners of the show to leave virtual voicemails of what they like about the show.
Meanwhile, I share what lessons I have learned since I nervously recorded my very first episode and the friendships I have built along the way that is taking me to Denver for the No Longer Virtual Conference
Does a Connected Pet Device Bring You Closer To Your Pet? If you’re a tech-lover you’ve probably scoped out cool gadgets for your cat or dog. But Scollar is aiming to make sure you only need one gadget to cover all of your pet caring needs.
The Scollar pet wearable collar and accompanying app promise to keep track of everything such as pet tracking, pet sharing, training, reminders & notifications. Caring For Your Pet Cat & Dog is about to be made easier with this latest tech smart collar.
The intuitive and fun app guides you through pet setup. The map slider shows where your pal has been in case you have to find him in the future. Feeding & medication schedules are easily managed. Click the training icon to access highly curated videos that make you both smarter.
The app and smart collar work together to keep you in the know about your pet. Scollar is innovating far more than just another pet wearable. They are re-envisioning the pet industry and want you to be a part of our success story.
When I heard that they had already sold $42,000 Scollar Mini smart collars & accessories and have also enabled microchip pet doors and pet feeders to work with their new smart collars for cats and dogs, I invited CEO and founder Lisa Tamayo onto the show to find out more.
Welcome back to the show, as you all know I love how tech works best when it brings people together and I also love how it vastly improves on the old way of doing things.
Awhile ago now I discovered a company called Nexmo were disrupting consumer experience by enabling brands to engage consumers through chat applications. Their API Connects Brands, Chat Applications, and Service Platforms to Reinvent Customer Engagement
Nexmo was acquired by Vonage in May 2016. But Nexmo makes it easy for you to build the personalized, immediate, and intuitive communication experiences that consumers expect due to those rising expectation levels.
Folloze is a provider of an innovative Account Based Management (ABM) Sales Platform, which enables B2B sales teams to use marketing techniques to engage, develop and win their top target accounts.
The technology behind the company is architected for account personalization, while at the same time can scale to support thousands of accounts. This is achieved via dynamically generated content boards, content campaigning, real time account alerts and content and account analytics.
The platform is specifically designed for marketers to enable salespeople to use content campaigns, content automation, actionable account analytics, and other marketing techniques, all from within their familiar sales tools. These capabilities enable sales to act as consultants and educators during the selling process, delivering significantly more value to customers through the buying journey. This account-oriented approach allows salespeople to manage “account-specific funnels” and drastically increase their pipelines.
These capabilities enable salespeople to act as consultants through the selling process, delivering significantly more value to customers and drastically increasing their sales pipelines.
NinthDecimal is a marketing platform powered by location data. It harnesses this data to build a precise understanding of consumers' physical world behavior.
Fortune 500 companies and marquee brands, including Microsoft, Target, Kraft, Comcast, American Express, Starbucks and Toyota, activate this customer intelligence through audience targeting, measurement, insights, and data licensing solutions.
After hearing how the David Staas, the President at NinthDecimal is
passionate about creating technology used by millions of people. I invited him on the show to find out more.
Tonight I invited Josh Garrett from MOBI onto the show to learn how his tech startup journey began with the next door neighbor he grew up with. Garrett is now the co-founder and chief strategist at Mobi
He is going to talk about the rise of Virtual and digital assistants, how IT departments in companies now have to keep track of four or five devices per worker, the dangers of mobile malware and how a particular smartphone brand changed the world as we know it.
As someone that still has IT blood running through my veins, it's a pleasure to get Josh Garrett onto the show as he is responsible for creating the IT road map and strategy for MOBI as it relates to IT infrastructure and overall solutions.
All elements focus on making MOBI an easy company for their customers to buy, implement and utilize.
TechSmith provides software that helps you communicate more effectively with shareable images & videos. Software applications such as Snagit, Camtasia and Coach’s Eye are highlighting the importance of video, visual communications, and how communication is shifting to video.
Founded in 1987, TechSmith Corporation prides itself in providing practical business and academic software products that can dramatically change how people communicate and collaborate.
TechSmith enables users to work more effectively wherever they may be, and ensures that the process of creating, sharing and collaborating around content is simple and intuitive so that others can learn from their knowledge.
I invited TechSmith CEO Wendy Hamilton onto the show to find out more.
In 2014 TED Talk on “Techonomics” discussed the dual-nature of technology’s effect on capitalism and society. Jon has worked extensively throughout the African continent where he founded Appfrica, a tech advisory company, that simulated over $80M in new economic activity and job creation.
He can now be found on an unlikely street in Philly where Southbox is building a haven for business start-ups. Part fund, part studio, it aims to go beyond co-working or accelerator, incubating and building new ventures in the medical, entertainment, and other tech fields.
Multi-industry entrepreneur, investor, and data scientist Jon Gosier is the driving force behind the endeavor. “The idea for Southbox came because over the years I’ve realized I’m good at connecting the dots, pulling the right individuals together to form fast-growing companies that can be successful even after I work myself out,”
Southbox is launching with 8 startups in its portfolio: Wounds A.I. (which uses machine learning to improve medical imaging and chronic wound care), Garvey Labs (a political data gathering company), TimeStamp (a mobile time-tracking app for nurses), Paramount Health (a home-healthcare service from Boston expanding to Philly), Quantified Culture (A.I. assisted talent management for influencers, musicians and entertainers), PhillyNext (a location-based event and venue discovery mobile app), Red Queen Gaming (which enhances video games with automated scripts), and CrashSpot (app-based micro-rentals of residential spaces in 15 minute blocks for people who are traveling and need a place to rest, change clothes, have meetings or nap).
Today's guest is Pep Carrera, Chief Operating Officer of VitalSource Technologies, a leading educational platform technology company.
"We will continue to focus on bringing the best in digital learning technology and accessibility to the learning community." Pep Carrera
VitalSource is a global leader in building, enhancing, and delivering e-learning content.
The Platform Is Transforming Learning
MORE THAN BOOKS
The platform provides instructors and students with immersive, interactive experiences that go beyond the printed page. They also help hundreds of publishers enhance their existing content or create new, customised digital products.
GLOBAL REACH
VitalSource delivers educational content to instructors and students around the world through our website, bookstore partnerships and institutional customers.
LEARNING UNLEASHED
With the most advanced technology and solutions, VitalSource is helping develop brilliant learners one experience at a time.
David Greenberg is the founder and CEO of Updater.
After his last move, he knew there had to be a better way to manage the process. It was insane — the amount of time he spent contacting the utility companies, updating contacts, and so on. He looked for a solution online, and when he saw that none existed, he knew there was a huge opportunity to build it from the ground up.
Greenberg is a former successful corporate lawyer turned tech entrepreneur with a great story to tell.
Updater recently hit a significant milestone by facilitating over 1 million moves in the US and is also approaching nearly 20% market share of all American moves.
Instead of Taking Millions More in investor money, Updater, the 50-Person Company Chose to IPO. Its valuation has increased 400% since listing only 18 months ago.
Hundreds of the most prominent real estate companies in the US (from real estate brokerages to property management companies and relocation companies) rely on Updater’s real estate products to save their clients hours with a branded and personalized Updater moving experience.
I invited David Greenberg onto the show to learn more about how with Updater, users seamlessly transfer utilities, update accounts and records, forward mail, and much more.
While on holiday in Orlando, it quickly became apparent that the good, the bad and the ugly side of technology were available for visitors.
The Orlando Slingshot ride has become a viral success after it caught the imagination of users on social media and the videos of people riding it being seen by millions worldwide. Riders are given a USB wristband containing a video of their ride so they can share their experiences.
Meanwhile, Universal Studios seem to confuse visitors with their locker system before allowing them to enter the line for the Hulk Ride.
If you make it onto the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, you can also buy video footage of your experience and gain Social Media kudos points. But if you buy it and want to share it straight away, you would be sadly be disappointed as it's only available on DVD! What's all that about?
At Universal, you go to a ride only to be turned away and told to hire a locker which has a long line of people scratching their heads trying to get to grips with the system while techies get frustrated at behind them. But this is the point, the world is not full of techies and it should not be designed for them. Simplicity is the key to everything.
Predictably, Disney seems to be stepping up to the mark and are leading the way to create a pure friction and painpoint free world across all of their parks.
Swiping your wrist against a Mickey Mouse mouse sensor to open your hotel room, get immediately onto a ride via a fast pass, pay for your food or send photos of your day directly to your phone, that is a universal language that we all get.
However, Universals Volcano Bay is attempting to raise the bar in waterpark tech with TapuTapu wristbands will be able to alert riders when it's time for them to ride, something that the current generation of MagicBands can't do.
A new platform linking up professionals such as advisers and solicitors with consumers has recently launched called 121with.
The 121with platform enables the sharing and receiving of expertise primarily via one-on-one (1-2-1) live video sessions. After a session, direct and instant payments are made to the ‘Provider’ (the ‘seller’) by the ‘Seeker’ (the ‘buyer’) through Stripe, 121with’s third party payment merchant.
It's a unique idea that uses the technology we all use to get instant help and advice. I invited Joint Managing Director Tom Stokely onto the show to find out more.
While we have been busy concentrating on viruses, malware, firewalls, phishing attempts, and ransomware, how many of you think about social media attacks and social media cyber crimes?
James Foster, ZeroFOX’s CEO, discusses the growing issue of social media cybercrime. He also highlights specific attacks/scams plaguing Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, respectively, and explains his company’s role in keeping users safe.
Foster also talks about what companies and individuals should be doing to protect themselves and what’s on the horizon in terms of future social media attacks.
ZeroFox
ZeroFOX was named "2017 Red Herring Top 100 North America Winner
Leader in Social Media and Digital Security Recognized for Technical Innovation and Financial Performance"
About James Foster:
Foster is a prominent thought-leader on cybersecurity, having spoken on Capitol Hill about the increase in international cyber threats. Prior to his role at ZeroFOX, he founded cyber security firm Ciphent in 2006, which he led to a three-year growth rate of 8900% with 100 employees and 1000 customers by 2010 when it was acquired by Accuvant.
Meet the world’s first AI DJ brain, Muru. Inspired by an Aboriginal Australian term glossed as “journey,” the Sydney-based music technology company transforms metadata, the basic information about every digital music file, and generates extended playlists to fit every taste, every dynamic, by disrupting the way music is classified in the digital realm.
Muru playlists can be generated in a matter of seconds, even when they span hours, by selecting genres or artists as beginning and ending points. It can work on top of any streaming service. Muru can start cocktail hour with some cool jazz and morphs to deep house by the time everyone’s done with dessert. Users can nudge the playlist to evolve in real time, as they adjust parameters from energy to era to popularity. The approach is streamlined and intuitive, yet reflects years of serious thinking into how we relate and move to music.
Muru’s Journeys (the company’s name for its playlists) unfold so seamlessly thanks to a proprietary approach to music classification, one that embraces both the wonders of algorithms and the centuries-old study of what music does to people. Muru aims to make machines think more like dedicated DJs--and find the perfect groove in the process.
Muru allows you to play with four parameters to shift the playlist’s vibe: energy, era, popularity (for when you want more obscure or more popular tracks), and tempo. It lets you favorite or skip tracks, taking things beyond the thumbs up or down, telling the app whether it’s the song or the artist you object to.
“We’ve really worked to understand how to improve experience, by digging way deeper into the digital catalog and social data, by generating rules that reflect people’s response to music, and by creating something people can use easily to hear music that they love,” Johnson states. “And even with the same genres to start and finish, you’ll never get the same playlist twice.”
Guest Info
"Nicc Johnson, Chief Musicologist and Founder of Muru https://www.linkedin.com/in/niccjohnson/
With more than 16 years’ experience as a Musicologist, Professional DJ and Music Curator/Consultant, Johnson has created thousands of playlists. He was a resident DJ at world’s most successful nightclub, Pacha Ibiza and classically trained in Music Theory and Sound Engineering.
As a consultant he focused on Brand Identity and building the right music environment for small/medium type businesses like bars, cafes, restaurants, retail stores, barber shops etc. He now uses tech to apply this experience at Muru.
FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting software service designed for owners of the types of small client-service businesses that send invoices to clients and get paid for their time and expertise.
But it's the story behind this company that captured my attention. CEO and (Co-Founder) Mike McDerment created a company within his company to completely re-platform their product as well as up their game as a company overall.
McDerment has quite an inspirational story to tell which should inspire anyone interested in technology, startups, and entrepreneurial journeys. For the first three years, he ran a business from his parents’ basement and he had reached a point where he had to change as technologies had changed,
StudySync has partnered with McGraw-Hill Education to deliver an engaging digital literacy curriculum that is accessible on all devices, anywhere, anytime!
Students are continually accessing and sharing information, communicating on multiple platforms, and consuming and creating diverse forms of media. In short they are becoming digital citizens.
StudySync is engaging with these digitally-connected students with media-rich learning experiences, real-world topics, and a direct read-write connection while giving teachers flexible digital tools and engaging print resources supporting teaching, differentiation, and standards-based assessment.
StudySync podcasts also offer a new way for students to use digital media content in the classroom while advancing listening and critical thinking skills.
I chat to Robert Romano Founder/CEO at BookheadEd Learning and StudySync to learn more about this 21st-century approach to learning.
The Storybooth digital platform and its multi-channel ecosystem inspire, capture, animate, engage and distribute real stories that kids and teens tell. Through mobile-friendly recording technologies, guided how-to content and an ever-growing catalog of great stories, they make it simple and exciting for kids and teens to tell their own stories, in their own authentic voices, with the possibility that their story, with them telling it in their own words, may get chosen for animation.
Their collaborations with noted YouTubers also allows them to present their “storytime” content in a new, compelling, and engaging way, and grow the audience and influence for the Storybooth episodes produced on the narratives of everyday kids and teens.
It's the use of technology and speaking with children in a language that they understand without being patronizing that really excites me. along of course with using it promote using their unique authentic voices.
I speak with Joshua Sinel from Storybooth to learn about his story behind this exciting new digital platform.
Nearly 200 episodes ago I spoke with the CEO of Payoneer about empowering global commerce by connecting businesses, professionals, countries, and currencies with its innovative cross-border payments platform.
Payoneer empowers global commerce by connecting businesses, professionals, countries and currencies with its innovative cross-border payments platform.
We often here about the world of finance is struggling to keep up in this digital world. While banks cautiously investigate the opportunities around so-called FinTech an entire industry is looking ripe for disruption.
Payoneer is making big waves in the tech world for being a disruptive international b2b online payments company with revenue far north of $100 million.
Thousands of leading corporations including Airbnb, Amazon, Getty Images, Google, and Upwork rely on Payoneer’s mass payout services So invited them back onto the show to find out more.
Payoneer has seen an increase in demand for U.K. merchants looking to expand beyond the EU, as well as digital marketplaces and platforms, opening their doors to foreign sellers, publishers and talent and, as a result, is opening the office despite any fears around Brexit.
I recently discovered that Payoneer had unveiled a new office in London and Cross-border payments are on track to reach an all-time high, with new leaders in global trade arising each year.
I invited Daniel Mayhew from the Payoneer's UK operation and CEO Scott Galit from NYC onto the show to learn more about Payoneer's future plans.
As I binge my way through House of Cards, it got me thinking about all the great shows that got canceled before their time. Such as Deadwood and Firefly etc Then I got thinking about how closed off the Hollywood system is BUT I quickly found a tech antidote to all of these first world problems for TV and films fans.
Filmio is a new kind of entertainment company building a platform for creators and fans to join together where everyone plays, anyone can create, and all share in the benefits.
With their new platform, they have a goal of changing the way the entertainment industry works, like a Venture Capital firm for great films, TV shows, and virtual reality. Their model is simple: Fund, Create, Distribute.
Filmio believes that for too long, Hollywood has been a closed system, where only a select few are able to participate - this new model aims to change that by removing the gatekeepers and giving the power back to the fans and creators, enabling the two to work together to fund the next great film.
I invited Filmio President Ian LeWinter onto the show to find out more.
The Risk IQ platform protects the externally facing digital assets—known and unknown—of any organization from malicious actors.
They allow enterprises to efficiently map and monitor their digital attack surface, pinpoint exposures across their entire business, and dynamically mitigate web, mobile and social threats such as malware, malvertising, and phishing.
Scott Gordon has been in information security for the past twenty years working with leading edge vendors and practitioners. A technologist, advocate, marketer and writer, he has helped pioneer many of the industry’s leading infosec tools and systems that are commonly used today.
Aragon, the decentralized management platform for companies, recently announced that their token sale has raised $25,000,000 USD in less than 15 minutes from 2403 buyers across the world.
Boasting over 5000 test organizations already lined up, Aragon aims to show how decentralized organizations can be more efficient, transparent, cost-effective and accountable.
The Aragon Network will be the first decentralized autonomous organization whose goal is to act as a digital jurisdiction that makes it easy for organizations, entrepreneurs, and investors to operate. The mission of the network will be the development of the Aragon Core contracts, contract upgradability services for all Aragon Core contracts with a built-in bug bounty mechanism, and a decentralized court system.
As outlined in the Aragon Development Plan, a for-profit organization, Aragon Dev will be created, employing a team to work on the Aragon platform, and acting as a service provider for the Aragon Network. Over the course of 2017 and early 2018, development will focus on deploying minor releases each with additional features, laying the foundation for the first major release in late 2018.
Guest Info
Luis Cuende created his first free software project at the age of 12, Cuende was discovered early, with HackFwd awarding him the best underage European hacker at only 15 years of age. He continued to grow his reputation serving as an Advisor to the VP of the European Commission regarding Digital Agenda and entrepreneurship.
Many also know Cuende for the book "I'm 18 and I neither study or work" (2014)
We also discuss cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Etheruem, Ripple, and SiaCoins and how this technology is changing everything.
Does your business need a good alternative to Google Groups, Meetup, Slack, Mailchimp, CRM, and the endless of other tech solutions out there?
The average business now has a growing number of global partners, freelancers, resellers, affiliates, influencers, developer groups. Your next work colleague could even be in a different time zone.
How are businesses adapting to this massive shift? And how do they effectively communicate with them all? Sure many turn to platforms such as Slack, but we need something to remove the white noise, not add to it.
CEO Sharon Savariego has helped build Mobilize to help companies communicate with external groups and individuals in a digital age. Essentially, Mobilize is a single communication hub for groups. It helps you easily communicate with and organize your group members from one place.
Considering that true innovation comes from connecting people, I invited the Mobilize CEO onto the show to learn how they are connecting people in a meaningful way.
RBmedia, a new global powerhouse taking center-stage in spoken audio & digital media distribution tech.
They produce a vast array of exclusive titles and deliver, through their technology platform, over 700k digital content titles in total – ranging from audiobooks to online learning to entertainment and much more. Many believe audiobooks to be the fastest growing segment in publishing, valued at almost $3 billion annually. RBmedia is the largest audiobook publisher in the world.
RBmedia’s tech platform supports mobile devices of all types including smartphones, smartwatches, in-car systems, etc. They reach millions of consumers across 38 countries directly via their Audiobooks.com platform through their mobile platform serving 10,000+ libraries, and via consumer digital resellers like Amazon’s Audible®.
I speak with Audiobooks.com CEO Ian Small to find out more about what the future has in store for distraction entertainmentent
Sony recently announced the evolution of their second-generation Digital Paper (model DPT-RP1), a tool that has become indispensable to professors, scientists, researchers, PhDs, and graduate students in STEM focused careers or areas of study.
Digital Paper is also gaining momentum in legal, financial and medical fields, by professionals who read documents and take notes extensively. The second generation of Sony’s Digital Paper gives users an even better document reading, annotating and note taking experience.
Sony Digital Paper New Features
- Easier-to-read, high-resolution display
- A more responsive touch panel
- Precise handwritten note-taking capabilities
- Wireless document transfer to PC or Mac
- A sleek new device design
Digital Paper gives users the “feel” of pen on paper through a new non-slip panel, useful when highlighting, annotating or erasing on any document. Users can rest their palm on the screen as they write — just like with paper – while taking handwritten notes and keeping digital records for future reference. Annotations and hand-written notes are automatically saved to the internal memory.
I speak with Daniel Albohn Manager of Global Business Development at Sony North America for Sony Digital Paper Solutions to find out more about this exciting technology.
I recently discovered how a Whiskey discovery app is making big waves in the Netherlands.
WhiskySuggest.com has collected nearly 50.000 whiskey reviews and tasting notes from both online and offline publications, and in different languages from all over the world.
The App also extracts all flavor related remarks from all of these tasting notes, combined them, and created Flavor Profiles. Basically, these profiles display what most people will taste in a whiskey.
But there is much more to the app than that, and there is a great story behind it too. So if you like whiskey and would like to understand how technology can help you find a classy whiskey based on your tastes, you will love this episode.
The most wish listed whiskeys of the moment are Highland Park Valkyrie, Ardbeg Kelpie and Glenmorangie Bacalta. All of these have been released during the past few weeks, which explains why they're trending.
If you are unsure what of what to buy your Dad for Fathers day, maybe you should try scanning a bottle of his favorite drink and check out how technology can even now choose the perfect bottle of Whisky based on your own personal tastes and preferences.
Aprimo and Forbes Insights Team Up to Survey Global Marketing Leaders About the Future of Marketing.
74% of respondents cite ‘agility of marketing operations’ as a key marketing challenge. 45% of survey respondents identify ‘technology’ as the most critical factor contributing to the success of their organization’s agile marketing efforts
In a digital-first world, the survey highlights a challenging marketing resource environment within many organizations where technology resources are constrained or totally absent, instead relying on traditional marketing practices.
I speak with Ed Breault from Aprimo and talk about the report and where do businesses begin when thinking about giving their current corporate culture, technology, process and budget support agile marketing a complete overhaul to move forward in a digital first world.
We also talk about how the rise of digital Darnwism is encouraging businesses to evolve through disruption in a world where they must adapt or die
Report details
http://bit.ly/ForbesInsightReport
Chicago-based start-up Codeverse is on a simple mission to teach 1 billion kids how to code and turn today's youth into tomorrow's leaders.
Codeverse is the brainchild of one of Chicago's most successful husband and wife duos, Craig Ulliott and Katy Lynch. The pair met at Where I've Been, Craig's first company, which was acquired by TripAdvisor in 2011 with 10 million users.
Ulliott and Lynch then joined forces to build the explosively popular digital media firm, SocialKaty, which was acquired by Manifest Digital in 2014. Ulliott also co-founded leading loyalty company Belly, and Lynch served as CEO of Techweek.
On this episode, I speak with co-founder Katy Lynch about why they believe that every child should be set up for success as early as possible. They do this by equipping children with the right tools and resources they need to thrive in their ever-changing, technologically-advanced world.
KIDSCRIPT: A KID-FRIENDLY PROPRIETARY LANGUAGE
Built from the ground up purely to teach children to code, KidScript is Codeverse's original, kid-friendly coding language. Using KidScript, children learn the craft of code while bringing their own ideas to life through a simplified programming language. This innovation allows children to see results as they type, providing a much greater understanding of cause and effect, as well as an immediate sense of accomplishment.
Unlike traditional coding, feedback is given in real time, which enables children to correct errors on the spot, and creates an active learning environment. The underlying curriculum is self-guided and adaptive, meeting and challenging children at each individual skill level.
Coding teaches essential life skills beyond the computer screen. It encourages creativity, instills confidence, and promotes critical thinking and problem-solving.
Veem is transforming the cross-border payments process for SMB's –which is a $25 trillion market. There are currently $50 billion in fees due to an antiquated wire transfer system that takes too long, is too complex and is not designed to meet the needs of small businesses globally.
The global payments industry is currently a patchwork system that involves multiple financial institutions and currency exchanges, introducing numerous fees and confusion.
Now, by intelligently routing wire transfers between different payment rails, including blockchain, the company's multi-rail technology connects the disparate parts of the international wire transfer process, bringing the simplicity of consumer payments to small businesses by enabling them to send and receive payments using only an email address.
StackShare is a startup with 100,000+ developers, engineers, managers, and CTOs as users. Silicon Valley's top companies, including Airbnb, Instacart, and Spotify, can share and discuss their tech stacks.
Companies can learn what tech stacks peers and competitors are using, while job-seekers can discover which tools are most in demand and used at their dream companies.
I invited Yonas Beshawred, CEO of StackShare onto the show to learn more about tech stacks.
Over the last few months, I have noticed an apparent move away from full-time staff and the 9-5 worker and a move towards contractors and flexing towards resources as and when it is needed.
One of the bigger problems of the digital transformation for mature businesses is their culture and processes are firmly rooted in the analog world.Whereas the digital world demands that businesses are more agile, efficient and most importantly quicker off the mark.
If they carry on with the old way of doing things, guess what? A startup will remove the pain points and disrupt your business. But what is the future of the workforce and why are businesses are relying on and hiring contractors to meet their company's bottom line.
I invited Ray Grainger, the CEO of Mavenlink, a cloud-based project management firm. Mavenlink partnered with researchers at Gigaom, and together they interviewed 480 executives in the IT, marketing, and business/management sectors.
Mavenlink and Gigaom found that today we are working in a project-based economy, being run by freelancers. Mavenlink put all their findings in a new report titled, “2017 State of Services Economy.”
Mavenlink and Gigaom predict that 40% of American workers will be contractors, service providers, and freelancers by just 2020.
As part of this, Adobe is building stories around how they can see customers leveraging AI and machine learning – and how the technology is impacting industries like retail and travel.
In retail, for example, AI is already being used to predict customer behavior via analysis of shopping lists (with user consent) and provide better recommendations.
Adobe also recently announced a “virtual analyst” within their analytics product, that leverages AI to help brands better act on data.
I invited John Bates from Adobe onto the show to help you all visualize how much of what we have read about in the tech press is now impacting both businesses and consumers in a good way.
Forget the rise of the machines, John talks about united humanity and machines. In a world where Apple Music/Spotify suggest what music to listen to, Netflix determines what you will watch and Amazon what you buy. Bates reveals more about how Adobe is tapping into trends that are actually consumer driven.
Reflektion have been quietly dominating retail by using AI in uncharted areas for a number of years. They were understanding consumer preferences in real time and delivering a 1:1 experience on the fly before it was even a thing.
The company was born by Google/Netflix pioneers and is used by brands like Disney, Godiva, Marmot, and Uniqlo.
Reflektion understands the individual intent and preferences of each customer and intelligently responds in real time. When combined with our knowledge of your brand’s product offerings, these insights allow you to leverage your most relevant content or products to influence each customer at every relevant point of engagement.
I invited Reflektion’s Chief Strategy Officer Kurt Heinemann onto the show tonight to learn more about what we should expect in the e-commerce industry when it comes to tech and the newest trends.
Jason Wilk is better known as the AllScreen and 1DaySports.com Founder, and is currently an active Angel Investor, and Co-Founder Advisor of Mark Cuban-backed WriteyBoard.
But today, I invited him onto the show to talk about his brand new FinTech app Called Dave! The app helps millennials by predicting future expenses and preventing negative balances with a unique spin on borrowing money.
Dave exists because its creators think it's fundamentally wrong to kick people when they're down. A coffee should not end up costing you $38 after overdraft and bank fees.
Upon connecting any checking account, Dave instantly analyzes trends from an individual's bank history and displays their '7 Day Low', a number which represents the lowest Dave forecasts your account balance will get in the next week. It's like a weather report for your checking account. If your '7 Day Low' dips below $0, Dave notifies you to take action.
"We invented this new type of account balance because a current balance just doesn't mean anything if your Netflix bill is due tomorrow and your rent check is going to be cashed tonight." says Dave CEO Jason Wilk, who is working with Mark Cuban on their 3rd company together.
Before she joined Radial, Andrea Dougherty didn’t even know fraud was a thing. Fast forward 7+ years and she’s now a sought-after security expert who’s protecting major brands and retailers around the world. Andrea has teamed with the FBI/police to bust cases wide open – like where a fraudster used a dead man’s credit card to buy a diamond ring (luckily the jeweler was Andrea’s client).
I invited Andrea onto the show to discuss the following:
· Playing by the rules: The best defense against fraud? A good rule. How Andrea uses her technical expertise to write hundreds of business rules to spot bogus transactions. When her rules flag suspect patterns, they’re sent to human analysts who can verify the legitimacy or contact the customer directly.
· The changing face of fraud: Fraud is skyrocketing by 30% YoY. Andrea shares the latest tactics being used by the bad guys, and the cutting-edge methods the good guys are using to foil sinister plots. For example, social selling, which is gaining transaction among retailers due to consumer demand, can open the floodgates to fraud.
· Advice to retailers and brands: It boils down to this – they can’t fight fraud alone. Today’s criminals are too smart; they’re only growing stronger and harder to stop. Retailers aren’t equipped to handle a fraud onslaught. If they don’t work with a security expert, they run a grave risk: canceling half their orders and sales volume, and losing millions of dollars in the process.
Detecting fraud is a balancing act that radial do with a precise combination of machine learning, big data, and human intelligence to deliver the highest fraud approval rates in the industry.
https://www.radial.com/
Wendy Williams is a media mogul, actress, comedian, entrepreneur, designer, and New York Times best-selling author, who is best known for her long-running Daytime Emmy® nominated talk show, “The Wendy Williams Show.”
Prior to achieving success in daytime television, Wendy built a devoted fan base throughout a successful 23-year career in radio, with, “The Wendy Williams Experience,” being a top-rated daily radio show. Syndicated nationally, it aired on WBLS in New York and was listened to by an audience of more than 12 million people.
One of the most popular personalities in radio, Wendy was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in November of 2009 – one of only a handful of women with that honor. In addition to her talk show, Williams also created her own production company, Wendy.
Wendy Williams, is expanding her winning formula into Mobile with the official launch of her new entertainment and lifestyle app, Wendy Digital, available on Apple and Android, starting today. The app aims to provide a fun content-rich entertainment experience that indulges users with a daily dose of pop culture.
Hot Topics
Daily celebrity Hot Topic discussions where you get to chime in with fans.
Suddenly Wendy
Catch exclusive video content and go behind-the-scenes, for a closer look into Wendy’s world.
ETrivia Challenge
Your celebrity and entertainment knowledge and compete for a chance to win prizes.
Shopping Shop Wendy’s
OOTD, HSN Collection, Wendy’s merch and new product recommendations.
I speak to Wendy about why she is launching the Wendy Digital Entertainment & Lifestyle App.
As businesses continue to get excited about machine learning and AI to unlock data. But make no mistake next year the focus will be on GDPR.
Especially considering the penalty for not complying can lead to fines of up to €20 million or 4% of global annual turnover.
Preparing Your Data for GDPR
Whether a company is already operating in the European Union or has expansion plans there in the future, the upcoming GDPR rules will have a profound impact on how all organizations handle, manage, and use consumer data.
I invited Florian Douetteau CEO at Dataiku to discuss his thoughts on the impending GDPR regulation.
In the interview we discuss:
- How to structure your company data to meet the demands of GDPR
- How a company should prepare for GDPR - even if they don’t plan to collect EU customer data.
- What are the best practices for data management?
I recently came across a company called Pollfish and they captured my attention with their intro which went something like:
Don't you want to know what your competitor's customers really think? How can a 'David'-sized app acquire users in a landscape dominated by a handful of 'Goliath' companies?
Answer: Go undercover—now there is a tool that can ask a competitor’s users exactly what they're thinking so apps can optimize their offering accordingly and slingshot around the competition.
The app is using groundbreaking 'behind enemy lines' technology that helps app publishers take down even the most established competitors from the inside.
With Pollfish’s proprietary polling technology via third-party mobile apps, they claim that startups can conduct fast, flexible, economical market research they need to compete with—and even win against—big brands.
App publishers can deliver a customized survey straight to the users of the app of their choosing. Examples could include ridesharing apps targeting Uber users, personal finance apps surveying Mint users, or new social networks questioning Snapchat users.
Neo Technology is the creator of Neo4j, the world’s leading graph database. Neo4j is a highly scalable native graph database that leverages data relationships as first-class entities to help companies build intelligent applications that meet today’s evolving connected data challenges including fraud detection, real-time recommendations, master data management, network security and IT operations.
Global enterprises like Walmart, UBS, Cisco, HP, Adidas Group and Lufthansa and hot startups like Medium, Qualia and Glowbl rely on Neo4j to harness the connections in their data.
With $36M in new funding secured last year, Graph Databases are rapidly becoming an enterprise standard.
Guest Info
Jeff Morris is the head of product marketing at Neo Technology, helping enterprise customers see their world as "graphs" through the connections and relationships they hold with customers, processes, systems and data assets.
Audeze have built a reputation selling award-winning audio products engineered with the latest innovations in science and tech, matched with precision craftsmanship. Cutting-edge planar magnetic technology also delivers an unparalleled listening experience that's renowned by producers, musicians, and audiophiles alike.
Designed and assembled at Audeze’s California factory with industrial style by BMW’s DesignWorks, the company's commitment to research, development, and design is reflected in every facet of their products.
Their EL-8 Titanium claimed its fame as the first set of headphones with a fully integrated Lightning cable. Receiving numerous awards at CES 2016, the SINE was the first on-ear planar magnetic headphone. Now, the iSINE are the first in-ear planar magnetic headphones! But, it doesn’t stop there. At CES 2017, Audeze debuted its latest innovation, the iSINE Virtual Reality Headphones, further impacting the world of audio.
I invited Sankar Thiagasamudram, CEO of Audeze onto the show to talk about the importance of 3D audio and emerging audio technologies.
Chore Check is a great tool for busy parents to raise responsible, money-smart kids! The app makes it easy to keep everyone organized and accountable for household responsibilities.
As a parent, you can track your children's completed chores, send payments, and even distribute their earnings to SPEND, SAVE, and GIVE categories. Chores can even be set to "stealable" so that the first child to check it off earns the credit. When kids login, they can check off chores, track progress, and watch their allowance grow!
I invited Chore Check CEO Ada Vaughan onto the show to find out more.
Crestron is a $1.5B company that builds connected home and office technology. In Dec., Mark Zuckerberg talked about how Crestron powers his home. Many will remember that at the beginning of 2016 Mark Zuckerberg set himself a challenge to build a smart home AI called Jarvis, but his lighting, doors, and thermostat were already controlled by a Crestron automation system.
The company has some pretty incredible conn ected office tech, too, and is currently used by the likes of Facebook and Microsoft.
Crestron also recently announced a new product that will make high-end collaboration technology traditionally reserved for large enterprises accessible to any business.
Crestron are a big deal in the tech world and although their unicorn status but this only tells half the story, so I invited Dan Jackson Onto the show to find out more.
Guest Info
Daniel Jackson
Director, Enterprise Technology, Crestron.
You may have heard about the thriving tech start-up scene in New York, Chicago, Houston or even Tel Aviv, but I recently learned that Ukraine also has a fantastic tech scene too.
MacPaw is a team of like-minded techies, who live in the heart of Ukraine and create apps loved by users everywhere. As true geeks, we never stop exploring tech and looking for ways to make your Mac life better. Not because they have to, but because it’s fun.
You may remember that back on episode 199 I interviewed the CEO of Setapp which was made by MacPaw and offers Netflix for Mac Apps in an alternative app store and they made me realise that I am intrigued about a new tech start-up scene in Ukraine, and I have a contact out there too.
Add these two together, and I was able to convince Julia Petryk, the PR & Media Manager over at MacPaw Inc to come on the show and tell us all about how technology is transforming life in Ukraine.
I chat to Julia about everything from the Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev, the thriving tech and startup scene and even visiting Chernobyl in an episode which is a must listen to those passionate about technology and travel.
I recently read how Gartner predicts 20.8 billion connected things will be in use worldwide by 2020, up from 6.4 billion in 2016.
While Much of the media is focusing on the security concerns of every member of society having hundreds of devices permanently connected online. Others are seeing great opportunity
Twisthink released a great strategy guide entitled SMART, CONNECTED, AND PROFITABLE 5 steps to monetizing your IOT Strategy which is a fantastic read and I was intrigued to find out more.
Robert Niemiec is a managing partner at Twisthink where he manages business strategy, day-to-day team leadership, and business development.
Throughout his 15 years of entrepreneurial experience and 17 years of senior-level corporate experience, Robert has a proven track record of building high functioning, diverse teams that achieve success and deliver results so I invited him onto the show.
From the number of steps we take to the hours we sleep, it's clear we are obsessed with tracking their bodies' data. So why not track sperm? The average sperm count in men has fallen significantly and continuously over the last several decades due to biological, environmental, and lifestyle shifts.
Now, men will be able to take control of their health with a new, FDA-cleared, at-home device called the Trak Male Fertility Testing System. The test allows men to measure and track their sperm counts as "low," "moderate," or "optimal" based on World Health Organization guidelines. The award-winning system allows men to measure and improve reproductive health addressing the growing problem of male fertility, which accounts for 30-50% of all infertility cases…all from the comfort of their recliner.
The Trak Male Fertility Testing System from Sandstone Diagnostics uses centrifugal force to isolate and quantify sperm cells using specially designed disposable cartridges.
I chat to Sandstone Diagnostics Founder & CEO, Greg Sommer, PhD about the Trak Male Fertility Testing System and the label of Fitbit for Sperm
Dale Drew, the CSO of Level 3 covers the following security topics in a conversation with Neil Hughes.
The evolution of the botnet
Botnets are becoming more sophisticated – which means they are becoming harder to detect, track and take down. Dale has some interesting stats around costs to rent botnets and the percentage of internet traffic that is bad/botnet traffc.
The state of healthcare security
Despite breaches increasing in volume and sophistication, only about 1/3 of healthcare organizations are highly concerned over a breach impacting critical care in the next year according to a study conducted by HIMSS Analytics we recently announced.
A few other key takeaways:
Nearly 80 percent of survey participants identified employee security awareness as the source of their greatest concern regarding threat exposure. Respondents identified which systems have the greatest need for network uptime – including those needed to deliver critical care.
The majority of organizations employ multiple risk mitigation practices – and Dale can walk through what those as well as what organizations are looking to do in the next two years.
The big threat for 2017 = Ransomware
Startling recent findings include victims are paying and nearly half of consumers haven’t heard of ransomware.
About Dale Drew
As Chief Security Officer, Dale is responsible for Level 3's Global Global Security Program; Corporate and Product Security Policies, Logical Security, Physical Security, Voice/VoIP Fraud, Managed Security, Corporate Risk, Governance, Federal Programs and Corporate Investigations programs. Dale manages Level 3's centralized Global Security organization that encompasses both responsibility for Level 3's internal assets, and all product and service portfolios.
About Level 3
Level 3 Communications is a premier global communications provider headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, that provides communications services to enterprise, government and carrier customers.
Anchored by extensive fiber networks on three continents and connected by undersea facilities, our global services platform features deep metro assets reaching more than 500 markets in more than 60 countries.
ClearMetal, an edgy logistics tech provider applying AI and machine learning to the massive global logistics industry where a digital overhaul is desperately needed. The $26T per year global supply chain represents nearly 10% of global GDP, but still runs on legacy, pre-internet technology.
The industry is poised for digital disruption as logistics professionals seek new ways to make sense of the supply chain's overwhelming complexities. Just as machine learning and AI have overhauled other industries, they’ve already started to streamline efficiencies in supply chain and create a powerful new digital solution called “predictive logistics.”
By gathering and harnessing siloed supply chain data, adding new data sources, and applying advanced technology, predictive logistics has emerged.
I speak with Adam Compain, founder and CEO of ClearMetal, about how this startup is specializing in predictive analytics within freight transportation.
In 1995, British Medical Journal (BMJ) became the first medical publisher to go online. Now, the company has made history again by bringing their latest research directly to healthcare professionals via the Figure 1 app.
With more than one million doctors, nurses, and medical students on the network, BMJ researchers are using Figure 1 to discuss their work with their target audience immediately after its publication.
Dr. Yusuke Tsugawa of Harvard University was the first BMJ researcher to take part in a live Q&A on Figure 1. He presented research showing that US patients have lower mortality rates when they are treated by foreign-trained doctors.
“The intelligent conversation sparked by the forum was something that just didn’t exist before,” said Dr. Tsugawa. “It’s an incredible way for researchers to bring their work directly to the global medical community“
Dr. Tsugawa’s one-hour Q&A was viewed more than 125,000 times by healthcare professionals in 83 countries and received more than 150 comments and questions from a specialized audience.
BMJ publishes more than 55 medical and allied science journals and was a pioneer of the migration to digital publishing and the development of open access. Figure 1 has since flourished in the open access environment that BMJ helped to create. A partnership is the next step towards bringing open access evidence-based medicine to healthcare professionals.
I interview Dr. Joshua Landy, the co-founder and chief medical officer of Figure 1 in tonight's show.
About Figure 1
Figure 1 is a free mobile app that helps millions of healthcare professionals in more than 190 countries connect, communicate, and collaborate. With 70% of North American medical students now using it as an educational resource, Figure 1 represents the future of medicine. To learn more, go to www.figure1.com.
About BMJ
BMJ is a healthcare knowledge provider that aims to advance healthcare worldwide by sharing knowledge and expertise to improve experiences, outcomes, and value. For a full list of BMJ products and services visit bmj.com/company
Around 3,500 representatives from the largest enterprises in the world braved the unseasonal heatwave in San Francisco to attend the Apttus Accelerate conference over in Pier 48 last week. As the doors opened for the show, word spread quickly about the quote-to-cash solution provider being recognized as a visionary in the 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant for the second year in a row.
It’s easy to see how Apttus have been continuously growing at a phenomenal rate since its humble beginnings in a laundry room. After bootstrapping its way to unicorn status, it can now only be a matter of time that they hit the IPO button.
I invited Apttus CEO Kirk Krappe onto the show to learn about their entire journey and introducing the world's first intelligent agent at Accelerate.
Completed, which is based in San Francisco, is the first verified peer review platform to cover all professionals in every industry. Its mission is to create the most comprehensive profile of an individual on the internet.
A Completed profile will show the full person including constructive feedback that identifies their strengths and weaknesses, helping people improve themselves while at the same time opening the door to opportunities for other people to engage with them in a positive manner.
In the same way that Yelp! users review businesses, Completed.com allows users to rate and review every professional – from a waiter to Fortune 500 CEO – anonymously or using a verified identity.
Completed’s easy-to-use 5-star ratings and reviews, which are verified by the company’s proprietary algorithm, can help professionals identify areas of weakness to improve their work and provide employers an unadulterated profile of a candidate to enable them to hire with confidence.
“Yelp doesn’t identify employees, LinkedIn doesn’t identify weakness, one-off professional reviews sites, like RateMD.com, omit most industries, and professional complaint boards, like RipoffReport.com, are not trusted,” said Zammuto.
“The current professional review landscape is broken, and there is a clear need for a central information source and a trusted review system that provides accurate ratings for all professional in every industry.
I invited Michael Zammuto, CEO of San Francisco-based Completed onto the show to find out more.
For more information, visit: www.completed.com.
Thomson Reuters provides content, expertise, and technology solutions to help lawyers, bankers, and tax and accounting professionals make critical decisions every day.
Digitization is transforming the global media and information industry. Upon learning how Thomson Reuters is leveraging the power of Quote-to-Cash in the cloud to stay on top in this digitized landscape at the Apttus Accelerate event, I invited them onto the show.
Craig Eiter, the VP, Sales Enablement at Thomson Reuters Legal talks about the digital transformation and leveraging the power of Quote-to-Cash in the cloud.
Derek Schoettle, General Manager of IBM’s Watson Data Platform, had a fantastic keynote speech at the Apttus Accelerate event in San Francisco. Demystifying all those not so user-friendly phrases such as AI, Machine Learning, and cognitive business just before lunch was a tough ask but he made it look effortless.
If today's cognitive businesses are already achieving new levels of performance – from improving customer engagement to scaling expertise to driving innovation and growth. I had to find out more.
I caught up Schoettle and asked him to share an insider’s view to the innovation that drives IBM Watson and for providing insight on how to build your cognitive business. Most importantly, the examples of real-world ROI from leveraging Watson for Quote-to-Cash and business performance.
According to a Business Insider report, messaging apps are growing faster than social networks. While consumer social networks have moved aggressively to take advantage of the rise of mobile messaging, there is a huge void in the market for chatting with your extended business network.
Further, LinkedIn users are unhappy with the social network experience due to recruiter solicitations and InMail spam, which no longer makes it the platform to engage with your most valued business connections.
VentureApp is a chat platform for professionals to communicate with their closest business contacts and connect with new partners in their extended business network.
Upon hearing about $4 million funding and that thousands of professionals from DraftKings, Silicon Valley Bank, HubSpot, Drizly, Goodwin Procter, and more, are chatting on VentureApp, I invited Chase Garbarino, co-founder and CEO onto the show to learn more.
Hurdl is bridging the gap between artist and audience using wearable technology and a healthy amount of innovation. Ultimately they are upgrading experiences in the multi-billion dollar live event space which hasn’t seen a change in more than 30 years.
In November Hurdl introduced wearable tech to the live music scene and even became the star of the show at the Country Music Association Awards. Could technology now engage large audiences to create new relationships and personalized euphoric experiences?
The PIXL LED wearable turns fans into interactive event experiences while its patented software provides clients and brand partners a new 1:1 communication network with all attendees for direct, real-time engagement to increase pre-, during and post-event revenue.
Hurdl was one of 11 startups chosen from more than 30,000 applicants worldwide to work in close collaboration with TechStars Music which many of you might remember from episode 204.
"We’re proudly pioneering a new, direct channel for our clients to include and engage their entire audience in a way that I was never able as an artist manager for 12 years,” said Betsy McHugh, Hurdl founder
Betsy has lived and breathed the live music scene having worked with John Mayer and Bon Jovi, as well as in management roles for artists including Keith Urban and Hunter Hayes.
I'm quite excited about how Hurdl is bridging the gap between artist and audience while being both accessible and affordable.
I recently learned how MyRadar has notched up 25 million downloads to become the world's most popular weather radar app. We are living in a world of app fatigue where we don't want any more apps in our lives and we all have a weather app on our phones already which makes 25 million downloads from an overcrowded app store all the more special.
MyRadar is a fast, easy-to-use, no-frills application that displays animated weather radar around your current location, allowing you to quickly see what weather is coming your way. Just start the app, and your location pops up with animated weather!
The app shows animated weather, so you can tell if rain is headed toward or away from you, and how fast and also offers push notifications. But I wanted to learn more about why this app has captured the public's imagination and the secret to securing a global hit so I invited Brad Anderson onto the show to find out more.
Brad is attempting to use mobile technology to change the world and this is just one of many reasons why he is the perfect guest for the Tech Blog Writer Podcast.
It seems we are witnessing headline security breaches on an almost daily basis at the moment. But the finger of blame and accountability could soon be pointing in the direction of the boardroom which should be enough for CEOs to take cyber security seriously.
With Yahoo now holding senior executives accountable for the mishandling of two security breaches, I wanted to investigate if boardrooms still struggle to see the ROI of cyber security.
Step forward Diligent. The company is the leading provider of secure corporate governance and collaboration solutions for boards and senior executives.
Over 4,700 clients and 140,000 users in more than 70 countries on all seven continents rely on Diligent to provide secure, intuitive access to their most time-sensitive and confidential information.
Considering that half of the companies on the Fortune 1000 along with 70% FTSE 100 list are clients, it's clear that Diligent has the ear of the most influential boardrooms in the world.
Brian Stafford, CEO of Diligent Corporation, is highly attuned to what it means to be an effective board member in today’s complex business landscape, so I invited him onto the show to learn more about how boardrooms are tackling the thorny issue of security.
It seems at the moment that Industries worldwide are finding that the digital transformation is ushering them towards commercial and industrial IoT.
Expected to reach $236.5 billion by 2022, the embedded computing market’s projected growth can be attributed to increasing digitization, machine automation and the rise of artificial intelligence.
Advantech is a world-leader in providing trusted, innovative embedded and automation products and solutions. With a portfolio of over 1,000 products and a network of more than 8,000 talented people working in 92 major cities worldwide, the Industry 4.0 accelerator offers a comprehensive Internet of Things (IoT) portfolio, customer-centric design services, and global logistics support.
The billion-dollar company collaborates closely with select partners across a diverse range of market sectors to provide edge-to-cloud solutions for a wide array of applications—driving smart cities, smart factories and the advancement of industrial and commercial IoT—while achieving the collective corporate vision of enabling an intelligent planet.
Advantech has also been named a Microsoft Global IoT Valued Partner and was and is also an Authorized Embedded Distributor in The Americas.
I invited Shawn Jack, Director of Sales & Embedded Ecosystems at Advantech onto the show so he can share his thoughts, expertise, and insights on how faster deployment and scaling of IoT solutions is critical to business all over the world.
Michael Scharf left his comfortable, investment banking career to co-found MyClean. Bootstrapping a $20K website investment into a $9M company is an amazing achievement on its own.
MyClean has over 200 cleaners and 20 office staff employees, has completed more than 375,000 home and office cleans since launching and averages over 2,000 cleans a week between NYC and Chicago.
Michael also runs his company with a lot of non-traditional practices such as:
- Never accepting VC money
- Exclusively hiring W-2, full-time with benefits employees (the industry norm is 1099 contract workers because 1099 labor is significantly more cost-effective)
- Putting people before technology
VideoBlocks Powers through on Path of Industry Disruption. As the first subscription-based provider of royalty-free stock media, today announced the launch of its artist-friendly stock Photo Marketplace that will reward photo contributors with 100 percent commission from their sales.
TJ Leonard, CEO of VideoBlocks advised that feedback from the Videostock community confirmed that people want a simple, affordable, on-demand photo solution.
“The success of our Video Marketplace, helping artists earn more through our unrivaled 100% commissions, as well as the incredible choice and savings we have passed on to our members, gave us the confidence that we could build a truly different kind of Photo Marketplace.”
Companies want continual feedback from customers, but there hasn’t been an easy and automated way to actually get it. Delighted is built around the simple truth that great products come from companies who deeply understand their customers.
Delighted is the fastest and easiest way to gather customer feedback and put it into the hands of those who can act on it. Using the Net Promoter System – a single question and an open-ended comment box – Delighted helps companies align customers’ needs with business growth, measure the customer voice over time and keep customers coming back.
Bose, Target, Uber and other beloved brands of all sizes trust Delighted to collect, distribute and analyze feedback to create more delightful customer experiences.
Caleb Elston is co-founder of Delighted and Worked on Mosaic. Co-founder of Yobongo. VP Products Justin.tv. Advisor to Simpler.
I invited Caleb onto the show to find out more about how Delighted is helping businesses continuously improve the customer experience.
Punch Alert is the first mobile app to help users crowdsource safety for a wide scope of situations.
The first safety app to focus on the responder’s needs, Punch Alert turns any iOS or Android device into a mobile emergency solution. Users report emergencies or suspicious situations to preselected responders with text notes, images, video or audio recordings. Responders can
Responders can crowdsource this information, and redistribute warnings and announcements to the entire community as one mass notification. Instantly after an emergency is reported, responders receive an email, text message and automated phone call with the name and location of the person reporting the emergency.
Responders can screen emergencies as they come in, release them to specific users, distribute emergency plans, communicate with other responders, share content and updates with anyone necessary and completely resolve the emergency – all from a mobile device.
Its a fascinating topic so i invited Greg Artzt CEO at Punch Technologies on the show to understand how they are adding peace of mind to the event industry and ensuring safety and security of our schools, universities, healthcare facilities, and other campus locations.
Storyhunter has more than 20,000 freelance video producers and journalists across 180 countries. With $4.2M in funding the talent marketplace is hitting the headlines for all the right reasons.
Storyhunter proudly counts four of the five largest news organizations and two of the three largest magazine publishers as clients. Other clients include, NBC, CNN International, Time, National Geographic, Discovery Digital, and The Weather Channel, as well as brands including Airbnb, Expedia, Zillow, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Custom Networks: Video producers can organize both new and existing freelancers into their own custom networks e.g. “360 shooters,” “African freelancers,” “Best editors,” and send group messages, or reach out to freelancers individually.
So if CNN needs footage for a breaking news story in your area, they simply dial a creative who is on their books. At least that's my understanding, but to clear this question up and many more questions I invited Jaron Gilinsky, CEO and Co-Founder of Storyhunter onto the show.
Three-quarters of all mental health conditions emerge by the age of 24, but getting help is expensive and 55% of the nation’s 3,100 counties don’t even have a single practicing psychiatrist, psychologist or social worker.
That’s why Aaron Robin (32) has founded the “Uber” of mental therapy offering 24/7 on-demand access to licensed professionals. Called iExhale, it’s recently launched in California (coming nationwide soon)
iExhale is an app that you can download right to your iPhone (Android and desktop in the works) with tons of features for anyone who needs a helping hand, or has a hand to lend:
- Getting started is easy with Meet a Therapist, a free 48-hour period meant to help users and therapists get to know one another with no commitment.
- A therapist will then call on a secure line, and it does not require a monthly subscription so one-off sessions ($64.99) can be booked at any time.
- You can also browse an anonymous social support network that gives you a lot of ways to support others and get supported in a fun and nurturing environment.
- It lets you share your thoughts and feelings without fear of being teased or bullied thanks to safeguards built into the app.
- It’s HIPPA- and COPPA-compliant, and every therapist goes through a thorough vetting process to ensure they are qualified and licensed.
In a recent study teens who were counseled over the phone had just as much success as those who met therapists face-to-face, and research shows that cognitive behavioral therapy, a type of talk therapy, works just as well on the phone or over Skype as with in-person session.
I invited Aaron Robin, the founder of iExhale onto the show to learn more about how technology and our smartphone is ensuring help is always available when we need the most.
An echo chamber is an environment where you only hear viewpoints that already agree with your own opinion. You shout into the cave and the echo comes back. You are rarely challenged because everyone else in your community tends to think in a similar way to you. It is a place that lacks thought diversity.
It is also a concept that is not very well understood in the real world. It needs further research. It is unlikely that anyone lives in a ‘pure’ echo chamber. There are even disagreements about whether the internet has amplified or contracted echo chambers.
However, given how many were surprised by the political events of 2016, it seems that echo chambers exist more than they did previously and having severely negative consequences. Many people want to get out of their echo chamber.
Alice Thwaite is using technology to challenge our world view through reporting stories that don’t commonly pop up on their social media feeds, newspapers or goes against the current narrative. Alice created the Echo Chamber Club
Alice created the Echo Chamber Club to bring some much-needed balance and debate into a world where people reside in their own personalised bubble. The simple concept has captured the imagination of the global community who can tune into a new way of thinking through email, WhatsApp and their podcast.
The success of the club despite having no marketing nor ad spend illustrates how there is a real thirst for a solution to the problems created by filter bubbles and echo chambers.
I invited Founder and Editor-in-Chief Alice Thwaite of the Echo Chamber Club onto the show to find out more.
I was led to believe we were heading for a wireless world but a look behind my TV tells a very different story when I see all those wires everywhere. Not to mention the increasing number of BRIDGES for IoT devices.
We were hoping to talk about the wireless powered home and how GaN (gallium nitride) is making that possible! When it comes to gallium nitride, there is only one man to speak with, and he's truly changing the world at EPC.
He first appeared on EP180 talking about Why Gallium Nitride Is About To Disrupt Silicon then returned on 203 The LIDAR Technology Behind An X-Ray Pill. But he has returned to today to talk about how it can wireless charge anything, and it will blow your mind.
Dr. Alex Lidow, is the CEO and co-founder of Efficient Power Conversion and he is going to talk about how tech will make power cords disappear and how EPC is leading the charge in the wireless space.
http://epc-co.com/epc/Applications/WirelessPower.aspx
I recently read that many organizations around the world are failing to implement effective digital customer experience (CX) strategies, in new research from Dimension Data, .
In fact, just one in 10 organizations (9.5%) considers their digital business strategy to be optimized, leading to disjointed CX solutions.
As digital and automated channels fail to meet user needs, digital is not displacing traditional phone interactions – or reducing cost obstacles – at the speed companies desire.
There are bright points, though, as 81% of organizations cite CX as a competitive differentiator. The top factor driving digital transformation is improving CX, followed by customer demands for digital – with companies reporting benefits associated with improving CX including:
Increased customer loyalty (92%)
An uplift in revenue (84%)
Cost savings (79%)
Its a fascinating report and I felt compelled to find out more so I invited Matthew Saskin, Managing Principal Consultant - Customer Experience at Dimension Data to speak with us tonight
As regular listeners know I am a sucker for wearables devices and love how you can now track our diet, exercise, sleep, weight, heart rate, blood pressure and even create our own dashboards of wellbeing.
But there is much more to wearables than trying to reach 10,000 steps. Monitoring your heart rate and sleep for example not only helps you monitor and improve your health but also help against cardiovascular disease.
Lifetrak Zoom HRV optically streams continuous heart rate data, monitors all physical movements, auto-detects sleep, calculates calories burned based on heart rate intensity, manages ambient light exposure, and syncs data with a mobile app. It’s watertight up to 50 meters and can count laps in a pool while measuring continuous heart rate.
Zoom HRV can automatically monitor physical fatigue to assess personal recovery and provides exertion recommendations for upcoming training sessions.
The device can also measure cycling cadence and heart rate simultaneously if worn on the ankle. It streams continuous heart rate data, monitors all physical movements, auto-detects sleep, calculates calories burned based on heart rate intensity,
But I wanted to take a different angle to look at this wearable, so I invited Lifetrak president Mike Hosey. And also Dr. Harmon on here to understand both the tech and health aspects of this device.
AlienVault is the leading provider of unified security management & community-powered threat intelligence required to detect and act on today’s advanced threats
The platform has simplified the way organizations identify and respond to today's ever-evolving threat landscape. Their unique and award-winning approach, trusted by thousands of customers, combines the essential security controls with an all-in-one platform, AlienVault Unified Security Management.
The power of AlienVault's Open Threat Exchange, the world's largest crowd-sourced threat intelligence community is making effective and affordable threat detection attainable for resource-constrained IT teams.
Tonight's guest is Barmak Meftah, CEO of Silicon Valley-based AlienVault
I have spoken a great deal recently about a personalized digital world where we get what we want, when we want it and on whatever device we have to hand.
SimpleDeal and their newly launched mobile app that allows consumers to find dining deals at nearby restaurants all at the tap of a button on their phones.The instantaneous deal method provides restaurants with the ability to customize unique experiences for customers in real time.
Once again its a great story and indication of where the industry is heading. So I invited Founder, James McKinney onto the show tonight and I'm delighted he said yes.
"Restaurant customer engagement is not the same as it once was. People are looking for 1-2-3 fast, even when they aren't searching for fast food. I wanted to create something that emphasized a strong one-to-one level of engagement between individual businesses and consumers," states James McKinney, Founder of SimpleDeal. "We didn't want to chunk off restaurants
James McKinney has also brought growth and technology to some of the world’s largest organizations and across multiple sectors. With a background in strategic partner development, his strengths are in ideation and execution.
His personal career sales total more than $250 million while his implemented technologies continue to generate profits that have exceeded $1 billion. so if that doesn't leave you wanting more, I don't know what will.
"We didn't want to chunk off restaurants profits or force them to take any losses or hits. Advertising shouldn't be difficult. It's simple, it should garner a return. On the same token finding a place to eat with an amazing offer should be simple as pie. We managed to pack all of that into SimpleDeal and we are thoroughly excited about location-based discovery options within the future."
In this episode, Neil answers questions from the listeners.
Jacob Martin from Canada asks: You have had some guests talking about using customer data to create personalized experiences? Do you think it's borderline creepy?
"You have had several guests talking about using customer data to create personalized experiences? Do you think it's borderline creepy?"
Henry in Bielefeld, Germany asks:
"You recently had a show about the Shure MV88 microphone, would you recommend it for Podcasting?"
Lucas Johnson from Sydney Australia asks:
"In a recent episode, AppyPie spoke about allowing users to create their own AR and VR Apps with no technical knowledge, this is a great opportunity, but how does it combat app fatigue?"
Mattel, the world’s #1 toy company and the ultimate bellwether of where things are going, recently posted a 5% drop in sales during its most crucial holiday season. The industry has changed as ‘toys’ have evolved into technology platforms that now make their debut at CES or even, WWDC.
But I have noticed that non-traditional companies are beginning to take market share and are innovating the future of play in ways the old guard is unable could only dream of.
For example, Anki - a consumer robotics and AI startup - landed two of the top four best-selling premium toys of the holiday season of 2016. As I delved a little deeper, I came across Boris Sofman who is the Co-Founder & CEO at Anki, Inc.
As an engineer and researcher with experience in building diverse robotic systems — from consumer products to off-road autonomous vehicles and bomb-disposal robots — Boris is making it his life’s work to create products that people would not expect to be possible.
Anki’s deep technical prowess puts the company in a unique position to create unprecedented products that astound the world in ways that traditional toy industry behemoths cannot. Unlike toy companies, Anki is made up of a team of Phd graduates and engineers schooled in robotics, artificial intelligence, and sophisticated animation.
It’s a mix of skill sets and an approach that is unique for the industry that will be difficult to replicate. Anki is just one of a handful of companies that are taking the bite out of the toy industry and shaking up retail shelves.
Guest Info
www.anki.com
@Anki
IT managers would like to think they’re at the forefront of innovation, but a new study by Softchoice found that this isn’t always the case.
The study found that 75% of employees wish their IT departments were more proactive in proposing new tools that could help them innovate.
As someone that always tried to be the bridge between IT and the business units or departments, I wanted to find out more about how they can all innovate together.
Francis Li is the vice president of IT at Softchoice, and he offered to come on the show tonight to speak in-depth about the study’s findings and what IT teams can do to inspire innovation across organizations.
Guest Info
http://www.softchoice.com/innovationstudy
Marketers are always looking for new ways to be innovative and creative in their marketing efforts. Leveraging new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning can not only help marketers connect better with their key market, but also influence behaviors. Today, Monitor 360 unveiled the launch of the first-ever narrative analytics technology specifically designed to analyze complex, cross-platform data sets that reflect the underlying beliefs and motivations behind consumer actions. This launch is under a new name of Protagonist. The new platform uses advanced natural language processing and machine learning to uncover the narrative forces that impact a given market, while the company’s team of narrative experts apply high-level evaluation to give actionable meaning to the findings for CMO’s and other marketers.
World Backup Day is a day for people to learn about the increasing role of data in our lives and the importance of regular backups.
This independent initiative to raise awareness about backups and data preservation started out — like most good things on the internet - on reddit by a couple of concerned users. Let’s make this happen!
In this new world of hacking, phishing, whaling, and ransomware, the CIO must embrace perseverance by consistently backing up files on the cloud and ensuring that this data is secure. On World Backup Day (March 31) spring is a great reminder to do so. Think of it as a data center spring cleaning behavior to roust out of its winter hibernation.
I chat with Michael Gaffney, CEO of Leonovus on World Backup Day and encourage listeners to take the pledge.
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I solemnly swear to backup my important documents and precious memories on March 31st.”
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I will also tell my friends and family about World Backup Day - friends don't let friends go without a backup.
Lexia Learning, a division of Rosetta Stone, empowers educators through adaptive assessment and personalized instruction. For more than 30 years, the company has been on the leading edge of research and product development as it relates to student reading skills.
With a robust offering that includes solutions for differentiated instruction, personalized learning, and adaptive assessment, Lexia provides educators with the tools to intensify and accelerate literacy skills development for students of all abilities.
“One of our greatest measures of success is the positive impact our products have on students’ lives,” said Nick Gaehde, president of Lexia.
After picking up three big awards recently for being the Most Valuable Technology in Schools, Best Reading Program and Best Adaptive/Personalized Learning Tool I had ot find out more.
Guest Info
Nick Gaehde - President of Lexia.
http://www.lexialearning.com/
The Shure MV88 Condenser Microphone Turns Your Smartphone Into a High-End Audio Recorder by simply plugging into your phone.
The MOTIV MV88 connects directly to any Apple iPhone, iPod, or iPad equipped with a Lightning connector to capture high-quality field recordings on the go. The mid-side microphone element is mounted to a 90-degree hinge with built-in rotation that allows for highly flexible microphone position, even in video applications.
Five built-in DSP preset modes, plus 5-band EQ, stereo width control, and other advanced features are easily accessed through the free ShurePlus MOTIV Mobile Recording App.
Having impressed me greatly when performing mobile interviews, I invited Soren Pedersen from Shure onto the show to find out more and the understand the best way to use this mobile mic.
Guest Info
www.shure.com
Blend is the world’s leading provider for Brands and Publishers looking to benefit from the deeper audience engagement that immersive content offers. Media entrepreneur, Damian Collier has built the largest library of premium 360° Video/VR films, available to license for use in campaigns across social media, Virtual Reality headsets and WebVR, and we run a global network of expert 360° Video Creators.
Blend also makes it easy for Brands and Publishers to create their own 360 ad experiences all within the browser.
Guest Info
Blend Media also hosts the largest 360 Videos page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/360vidz and regularly activates campaigns to an engaged audience.
www.blend.media
Personalization was a theme that dominated Las Vegas last week across three events. ShopTalk impressed crowds at the Aria, while IBM showcased their InterConnect event at the MGM Grand. Meanwhile, Adobe dominated the proceedings with slick keynotes, glitz, and glamor with an appearance from Hollywood actor Ryan Gosling.
Anyone closely following how digital experiences and the digital transformation is changing our world would have been excited by Adobe's vision of our immediate future. Empowering every person and every organization to provide end-to-end digital shopping experiences using the personalization capabilities of Adobe Experience Manager is unquestionably impressive.
Adobe’s analytics and targeting engine are also designed to adapt personalized experiences in real time based on customer behaviors, preferences, and past purchases. However, Evergage CEO Karl Wirth believes that there’s just not much steak behind the sizzle.
Wirth feels there is a mismatch between hype and reality that has set the market’s expectations for what is possible with personalization. Although he is in agreement that personalized web experiences increase brand engagement and conversion, the CEO argues that personalization is only effective if applied in real-time.
While IBM, Oracle, and Adobe all offer similar capabilities, Evergage, pride themselves on delivering true real-time personalization rather than “next time” personalization which is something they believe their competitors cannot currently compete with. In comparison with the Wizard of Oz, Wirth also wrote a blog post urging marketers to look behind the curtain.
However, the argument on who could offer the best service took a dark comic twist last week as the team from Evergage attempted to troll Adobe at their own event. Gatecrashing the Summit to make the 12,000 attendees aware of an alternative product was an incredibly bold or aggressive move depending on your school of thought.
In reality, it felt much more like a light-hearted and humorous look at the Adobe approach to personalization compared to the Evergage platform.
The #AdobeAlternative hashtag may not have gone viral, but startup succeeded in their mission of delivering a message that there is an alternative solution out there that is marketer-friendly, easy to implement and offers true real-time personalization.
Crashing your competitor's event is becoming somewhat of a trend, and this latest battle was slightly reminiscent of when Utah unicorn Domo hijacked the spotlight at the Tableau Conference by arriving with Flo Rida and Snoop Dogg last year.
When it comes to a marketing technology fight, Evergage was always going to be the underdog against a behemoth like Adobe. But, broadcasting a message that there is more than one way to empower marketers to turn the dream of 1:1 customer engagement into reality can only be a good thing in the name of competition.
Ultimately, competition creates innovation that in turn creates more efficient platforms to ensure that both consumers and business win. Evergage's CEO Karl Wirth recently appeared on my podcast. He talked about how his cloud-based platform delivers real-time personalization to more than 2 billion web visitors, the reasons behind their recent campaign and what caused him to reflect on the Wizard of Oz.
While wandering around the Adobe Summit this week, my keen eye spotted 6 NBA Hoops games. These seem to be everywhere at the moment and are a big hit with start-ups to a such a degree that they have become the new foosball table in chill out rooms.
However, I quickly noticed that anyone approaching these games machines was advised to scan their registration pass and it seemed their game seemed to populate a metrics dashboard.
It was at this point I discovered that after the announcement of the Adobe Analytics cloud to serve the experience business. Adobe wanted to find a way to simplify the complex world of analytics by showing every user how much data can be obtained by a simple game of NBA Hoops.
Giving the attendees an opportunity to see a real-time dashboard game visualization with an enormous amount of data enabled anyone regardless of their position to instantly understand the power of Adobe Analytics.
I tracked down the man behind this fantastic idea, and he is Jeff Allen, the Senior Director of Adobe Analytics. I cheekily asked for an interview, and thankfully he said yes.
So wherever you are listening to the show in the world and whatever you are doing whether it be walking your dog, going for a run or on the commute to work, I invite you to allow me to beam your ears all the way back to Las Vegas so you can evesdrop on a chat with Jeff Allen, the Senior Director of Adobe Analytics
Kevin Lindsay, head of product marketing for Adobe Target and personalization efforts talks about bringing personalization and experiences into business.
After meeting Kevin at the Adobe Summit here in Las Vegas, I invited him onto the show to learn more about the announcements over that last few days.
"provide the ability, through all our marketing solutions, for marketers to be able to market to their consumers as people rather than as separate devices. Typically this is viewed as a cross-device problem. How do I take this group of devices and treat them as the person they actually represent?” Kevin Lindsay - Adobe Summit
The Wyndham hotel group are the world's largest hotel company with 8,000 hotels 680,000 room night 77 countries. But, with the arrival of disruptors such as Airbnb, they decided to move forward with a digital transformation initiative.
The team at Wyndham worked with Adobe to turn a challenge into an opportunity. This fantastic story is a text book example of how businesses should approach the digital transformation.
Change the world through digital experiences and investing in the customer experience is now paramount as the expectation levels of consumers charges ahead with AR, VR, Voice, etc.
Guest Info
Barry Goldstein Chief Digital Officer at the Wyndham Hotel Group and Aseem Chandra from Adobe.
Niko Chauls is the director of emerging technology at the USA Today Network where he manages a product division focused on leveraging new technologies to improve the storytelling experience.
Niko announced on stage at the Adobe Summit that he believes that the VR space is about leveraging presence and empathy.The team experiment, incubate, iterate and fail fast. They also operationalize and empower all of Gannett's 100 local newsrooms and national USA Today flagship brand.
The team at USA Today experiment, incubate, iterate and fail fast. They also operationalize and empower all of Gannett's 100 local newsrooms and national USA Today flagship brand.
After discovering how virtual reality and mixed reality are their current areas of focus at the Adobe Digital Summit, I invited Nico onto the show to find out how the USA Today is pioneering storytelling experiences through VR & AR.
Now that Nck and his team at USA Today believes that VR is a truly new medium and the first since the dawn of the web, maybe it needs the same care & consideration.
Guest Info
Niko Chauls - Twitter @0kin
Gigya provides a customer identity management platform that helps companies build trusted digital relationships with consumers. Used by some big names such as Nike, Forbes, and ABC, it's easy to see why over 500 top brands are relying on Gigya too.
I bumped into Jason Rose at the Adobe Summit - (Digital Marketing Conference) in Las Vegas this week.As the SVP of Marketing at Gigya, Jason leads Gigya's Global Marketing efforts, responsible for developing a world-class marketing team and create a new market around Gigya's Customer Identity Solutions. Jason is responsible for Gigya’s brand strategy, customer, and influencer.
Jason is also responsible for Gigya’s brand strategy, customer and influencer engagement, and helping to support Gigya's product strategy to drive Gigya's demand generation and revenue objectives.
We also talk about the European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the impact this will have on businesses.
Guest Info
Jason Rose - @rosejason
http://www.gigya.com/
Brian Solis is a digital analyst, speaker and author. He is a principal analyst studying disruptive technology and its impact on business at Altimeter Group, a research firm acquired by global brand management consultancy Prophet in 2015.
For the last two years, Brian has tracked the evolution of the autonomous industry. At the end of 2016, he released his inaugural report on the subject, “The State of Autonomous Vehicles: A Who’s Who of Industry Drivers.”
It tracked the state of every automaker, startup and university building technology for self-driving vehicles. Three months into 2017, the deluge of industry news, necessitated a series of significant updates to remain current.
With almost thirty new entries and including over 75 companies, the latest version of the report is now available. While the report tracks and organizes the state of all industry players, the latest round of updates also reveal interesting trends that reinforce the challenges facing the autonomous industry.
Guest Info
@briansolis
Virtual Instruments is an exciting, high-growth Silicon Valley technology company. Since their founding in 2008, they’ve been focused on delivering unparalleled value to our customers through a combination of innovative technology and high-value services.
They have helped to solve some of the most critical IT performance and availability issues in more than 500 of the world’s largest data centers. In fact, their client lists it's like the who’s who of tech with IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, VMWare, HP, etc. all depending on Virtual Instruments.
In March 2016, they also merged with Load DynamiX, the leading storage performance analytics company. The combination of advanced workload analysis and modeling software with extreme workload generation appliances give IT professionals the ability to cost-effectively validate and stress today’s most complex physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure to its limits.
After reading how they have become the leading infrastructure performance management and analytics company, servicing the world’s most business-critical IT infrastructure as it evolves in the software-defined era. I had to find out more.
Guest Info
Philippe Vincent, the former CEO of Load Dynamix and now CEO of Virtual Instruments.
Anyone that is thinking about embarking on a tech startup journey could quite easily fail at the first hurdle and spend far too long on name suggestions and logos etc
Imagine if you could take ideas and logos from creatives across the world thanks to technology and the crowd. Squadhelp provides hundreds of handcrafted brand name suggestions and logos from creatives across the world.
Darpan Munjal has also held various senior level positions with Fortune 500 Companies. As a Divisional vice president (eCommerce) at Sears Holdings, Darpan led the initial launch of Sears.com and led the technology and product teams for Sears.com as well as Kmart.com which generated over $1 Billion in annual revenue.
However, Darpan is now the founder of Squadhelp, an innovative crowdsourcing platform that connects creatives from across the globe with startups and businesses for their branding related projects.
Guest Info
www.squadhelp.com
@darpanmunjal
Everything But The House (EBTH), the world’s largest online (and app) estate sale marketplace, where you can bid on literally everything but the house. Products range from vintage art and jewelry to home decor and collectibles and everything in between.
Emmy-Winning icon Susan Lucci recently made the headlined for auctioning off her prized possessions on the platform. EBTH is a revolutionary platform for one-of-a-kind discoveries. But, what attracted me to the platform is how it is powered by innovative technology.
I invited Everything But The House CEO/President, Andy Nielson onto the show to find out more about the platform and how technology has transformed the business.
www.ebth.com
It seems that whatever problem we encounter in life, we naturally turn to YouTube for a how to fix video rather than read a confusing manual. But why is it in most corporate environments, we are expected to revert to reading 100-page documents written by a burnt out employee with 30 years service.
This is just one of the reasons why Maven Wave is has launched an enterprise video solution called Reveal. Reveal features a familiar video streaming experience combined with enterprise-level security, content management, and analytics. The company recognized the need in the market for a platform that meets the needs of large organizations and is both simple to use and cost efficient.
“The use of video in the enterprise has significantly lagged in comparison to the consumer market. We all use YouTube in our daily lives to learn and communicate, but we rarely use it at work. Maven Wave saw the opportunity to address that gap. Reveal allows companies to bring video to everyone in the workplace while providing control over the video content,” advised Brad Foster, Google Cloud Practice Lead at Maven Wave.
I Invited Brad Foster onto the show to find out more.
Guest Info
http://reveal-video.com/
Appy Pie is a mobile application development software that allows anyone with no technical knowledge to create advanced applications for mobiles and smartphones. There is nothing to download or install, no programming required – just drag and drop.
But enough from me we have Appy Pie’s CEO, Abs Girdhar
How JotForm Takes the Pain Out of Form Building
JotForm helps you create online forms and collect data, all without needing to write a single line of code. With a simple concept of what you see is what you get, it's easy to see why JotForm is so popular.
Creating and designing forms seamlessly from any device to enhance real-time collaboration and offline editing, the latest update 4.0 has taken the simple art of creating an online form to another level.
Steve Hartert manages and leads the global marketing strategy, strategic planning, advertising, sales, public relations and communications activities at JotForm.
Guest Info
www.jotform.com
Most of us would admit they are oblivious the world around them when face down in a phone. Everywhere we look there are human beings with real stories, lives, and connections that represent meaningful collaboration and even opportunities.
James Eder was on the receiving end of several instances of serendipity and these happy accidents changed how he see's the world. Having successfully bootstrapping his first company Student Beans he is now in the process of growing his second called Causr that joins up the dots of those intimate strangers that we see every day but never speak to.
After a learning how a Causr user has already generated a £500,000 business deal as a result of using Causr. I invited James Eder onto the show to learn how many other bigger opportunities he has helped create.
Guest Info
Live on the App Store now my new venture - Causr - A location based app connecting professionals on the go.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/causr/id1129819484?ls=1&mt=8
@causrapp
Many of my guests on the show are Tech leaders that appear on my radar that not only resonate but also inspire or intrigue me.
Abbas Haider is the CTO of xMatters, and after seeing a video talking about how internal collaboration is crucial to digital transformation I wanted to find out more.
xMatters aim to boost IT Operations, DevOps and Major Incident Management processes with intelligent communications. "Turn Insights into Action During Business Disruptions From IT major incidents to manufacturing line slowdowns, virtually every business process generates insights that need to reach the people required to take action"
As most of you listening know by now, I love my tech, but it's how it brings people together and increases collaboration that really excites me.
When I also heard him speak my IT language about the major incident and change management along with how automated chatbots can help in the communication process, I had to get him to on the show.
Guest Info
www.xmatters.com
@xMatters_inc
A serial innovator published author and founder, president, and CEO of SPLICE Software, Tara Kelly (@tktechnow) is passionate about technology’s potential to change lives for the better.
She has consistently channeled that belief into developing technologies that enhance operations, enable better service delivery and improve the customer experience. This has led to the creation three customer experience companies and turning an innovative idea into a patented, proprietary technology (US Patent Number 9348812) that harnesses data streams to create personalized automated messages.
The technology solution was included in Gartner’s “Cool Vendors in Insurance, 2016” report and Forrester’s “IoT and Analytics Startups Can Turn Insurers into the ‘Good Guys’” brief.
I invited Tara onto the show to learn more about her story and how Splice is proving Artificial Intelligence can improve automated customer Care.
I wanted to try something differently for tonight's show. Every episode of the Tech Blog Writer Podcast involves you listening to me interviewing Tech Leaders, CEO's and sharing Tech StartUp Stories. After my two viral written posts about the return of the Nokia 3310, I was invited onto an Australian Radio Show for their drivetime slot.
I thought it would be kind of interesting for you to see what happens when the tables are turned and I'm on the other end of the mic.
So for one night only, I am going to beam your ears all the way to Australia so you can listen to yours truly being interviewed about the smartphone industry on 2SER radio in Sydney.
My Posts About the Nokia 3310
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-people-excited-return-reliable-nokia-3310-neil-hughes
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-smartphone-industry-could-learn-from-resilient-nokia-neil-hughes
I have written numerous articles and recorded several podcasts around how Startups and Technology are Transforming Healthcare Through Data.
Wearable tech is also making us pro-active rather than reactive with our own health too, but I wanted to get someone on the show to illustrate just how much of a difference wearables can make, and how the MedTech industry will evolve for the greater good beyond just counting steps or monitoring your heart rate,
This path led me to Monisha Perkash, CEO, and Co-Founder of Lumo Bodytech.
Lumo Bodytech is a motion science company that combines sensor data and advanced algorithms to optimize human movement for better health, performance, and injury prevention.
Lumo solutions measure and analyze fine-grained motions of the human body and provide real-time, personalized, actionable feedback.
Guest Info
http://www.lumobodytech.com
@mperkash
Ciena Corporation is a global manufacturer of communications network equipment and solutions. Many of the world’s largest carriers and service providers have deployed Ciena solutions in their network; including AT&T, BT, Cable & Wireless, CenturyLink, Comcast, France Telecom, Korea Telecom, Sprint, Reliance, Southern Cross, Tata Communications, Telecom Argentina, Telmex, Virgin Media and Verizon.
Ciena also counts numerous national research and education networks as customers, as well as enterprises in the healthcare, finance, transportation and retail industries for real-time, latency sensitive applications such as disaster recovery/business continuity, SAN/LAN extension, data center consolidation and grid computing.
Specialties Converged Packet-Optical, Packet Networking and Carrier Ethernet, Optical Transport, Software and Services, Data Center Interconnect, Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), and Cloud Networking
I invited Loudon Blair, Senior Director, Corporate Strategy, at Ciena to talk about how we can manage bandwidth killers and continue to force networks to push the boundaries of programmability and intelligence, and whether the technologies underpinning the IoT and VR (particularly the networks) are prepared to handle it
Dataiku DSS is the collaborative data science software platform for teams of data scientists, data analysts, and engineers to explore, prototype, build, and deliver their own data products more efficiently.
The French startup has been profitable for the past three years and also hit the tech headlines last year for grabbing $14 million for its collaborative data science platform
Ultimately this solution enables companies to accelerate the development of in-house business and predictive solutions.This results in a significant increase in efficiency and productivity for the company’s data scientists, business analysts, and product managers.
I Interview Dataiku's CEO: Florian Douetteau to find out more about this startup appearing in Gartner's Magic Quadrant as a Visionary
Techstars Music is a three-month, mentorship-driven startup accelerator program. Each year, they invest $120k into each of the most interesting music-related startups from around the world.
They also provide office space in Los Angeles and access to artists and executives from all facets of the global music business. Techstars Music is supported financially and strategically by the following member companies: Sony Music, Warner Music Group, and SONOS to name but a few.
So after traveling the world searching for the best music startups across our planet, Techstars Music recently revealed their Inaugural Class Of 11 Startups.
Class of 2017
Amper - New York City, NY
Amper empowers anyone to create unique, professional music for their content. With Amper, you can create this music instantly, with no experience required. We’ve combined the highest quality sample libraries with AI to compose royalty-free score on demand.
Hurdl Nashville, TN
Hurdl increases fan engagement and revenue at live events with a unique LED wearable that allows artists, teams and event planners a new 1:1 communication network with both the known and unknown ticket holder.
JAAK London, United Kingdom
JAAK uses blockchain tech to connect music, metadata and rights information. Our goal is to provide real-time consumption data and a standardized framework for low-cost licensing.
Pacemaker Stockholm, Sweden
Pacemaker provides a simple and portable mixtape creation and social consumption experience, powered by the proprietary file format the Recipe, Pacemaker’s Mix Engine and AI DJ technology.
Pippa New York City, NY
Pippa makes podcasting simpler, smarter, and more profitable by enabling targeted ads to be delivered dynamically to listeners.
PopGun Brisbane, Australia
PopGun is a generative music company that measures success indicators from streaming services. We then use that data to train AIs to write music to match consumer habits.
Robin Toronto, Canada
Robin is a personal concierge for concerts and live events. Robin reserves and secures tickets on behalf of fans while providing real-time demand data to artists and event organizers.
Shimmur Los Angeles, CA
Shimmur is a social platform that makes it easy for artists and influencers to have quality interactions with fans. Shimmur flips how social apps usually work; on Shimmur, tribes of fans work together to create content and artists and influencers react and comment.
Superpowered Austin, TX & Budapest, Hungary
The Superpowered Audio SDK provides real-time, low-latency audio rendering for games, VR, music and interactive audio applications on mobile and wearable devices.
SyncSpot London, United Kingdom
SyncSpot uses an AI assistant to create and fulfill free-gift media rewards for point-of-purchase retail promotions. Example: Buy product X, get a free music subscription.
Weav New York City, NY & London, United Kingdom
Weav makes adaptive music via an artist remix console, and we will be the supplier of bio-metric-driven music to workout apps, dance studios, exercise equipment manufacturers and action sports products.
Guest Info
Bob Moczydlowsky (@bobmoz)
@techstars
http://www.techstars.com/
An Israeli company called Check-Cap has developed a small capsule that after being swallowed, actually performs a colonoscopy. GaN's small size and high efficiency - compared with silicon – allowed Check-Cap to shrink an X-Ray machine down to a size that could fit into a digestible pill.
The world’s first “Colonoscopy Capsule” is made possible by a new type of microchip from EPC that uses gallium nitride instead of the traditional silicon.
I invited Dr. Alex Lidow, CEO and co-founder of Efficient Power Conversion onto the show to talk about the technology that enabled Check-Cap to shrink an X-Ray machine down to a size that could fit into a digestible pill.
Guest Info
www.epc-co.com
Merkury Innovations are designers of personal electronics and accessories that combine technology, aesthetics, and value. However, they recently debuted its new Geeni line of smart home products at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
For the last few years, the IoT and smart home conversation has centered around pricey gadgets for the high-end crowd—in part, because that's where the money is, and in part, because that's where innovation always begins.
But anyone that attended the CES event would have noticed that smart home gadgets are no longer for the rich only—with no better example than Geeni, the brand-new line of smart bulbs, cameras, and power solutions, all controlled through one unified, cloud-based app, and ranging from $19.99 to $89.99.
Geeni bulbs and plugs will also be Alexa-compatible, allowing voice control using Amazon Echo, with additional integrations forthcoming. The Geeni line will start shipping to homes around America in Q1 of 2017.
I talk to Sol Hedaya, Category Manager at Merkury Innovations to find out more.
GuestInfo
www.mygeeni.com
Inspired by the classic 35mm camera design, Pixlplay unleashes the power of smartphones for kids to enjoy! It’s easy – simply place your Apple or Android device into
By simply placing your Apple or Android device into Pixlplay to take photos and create fun effects with the included activities and app. Pixlplay protects your device and encourages active and creativity play through photography!
However, it's the story behind this truly inspirational story that is even more fascinating. JP Stoops left his job as a toy buyer for the Discovery Channel Stores and started Airbnb’ing from his basement to start his own company.
Guest Info
@jp_stoops
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixlplay/pixlplaytm-turn-your-smartphone-into-a-fun-camera?ref=229azk
Having seen how VR and AR is transforming entire industries such as healthcare and surgical training I often get frustrated that most people only seeing its potential for video games.
Advances in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are reshaping the way we learn and interact with our world. Workers with access to real-time contextual information, displayed when and where they need it will reshape the workplace and dramatically improve the efficiency, productivity, and safety of the average worker.
For this reason, I wanted to get one of the tech leaders in this space to talk about how VR and AR are transforming our world as you know it.
Eon Reality is making all the right moves in this space with Knowledge Transfer, Education, Edutainment, Interactive Digital Centers, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Entertainment, Mobile Apps, Virtual Reality Apps, Sports Apps, Augmented Reality Apps, Experience Design, Edtech, and Mobile apps for education.
I talk to, Mark Cheben, Global Marketing Director at EON Reality.
Imagine if you could access software apps on your Mac via an all you can eat Netflix style package. MacPaw, the company behind the famous CleanMyMac hard drive cleaner is now enabling Mac users to do just that with their new alternative app store called SetApp.
Get a collection of best Mac apps, in a single folder on your Mac. Setapp is the new way to discover and use apps: sign up, install, and you're all set. 35,000 users signed up for Setapp during the two month Beta period, but it's now available for everyone with a free trial so I wanted to find out more.
I speak with Oleksandr Kosovan, the CEO and founder of MacPaw to find out more about SetApp
Skyler Fernandes is the founder and former Managing Director of Simon Venture Group (SVG), a multi-stage venture capital group focused on investing in the future innovation of retail and commerce, and he is ranked as a PowerList 100 VC.
When he is not performing Ted Talks or creating entrepreneur resources, he can be found investigating what technology will be rocking stores and malls near you in the near future.
Guest Info
@JSkyFernandes
Katerina Stroponiati is the Founder and CEO of Sunshine, the first weather network built entirely on mobile.is the creative visionary, a modern-day entrepreneur, rebel at heart who enjoys finding new paths in what used to be old territory.Originally from Greece, she studied Production Engineering at the Technical University of Crete. In January 2013, she moved to Silicon Valley.
Unlike any weather app out there, Sunshine connects weather and environment with our lives in a meaningful way. The technology uses crowdsourcing and the sensors on our smartphones to connect our environment to our daily patterns like productivity, health, and mood.
I speak to Katerina about her journey and how she is on a mission to use tech to make everyone aware of the environment they live in.
Guest Info
https://thesunshine.co/
Adobe Primetime's video business is a platform that provides television programmers and pay TV providers with the ability to deliver, monetize and personalize television content across any screen.
Adobe Primetime is essentially their TV technology solution, that was recently powered the digital delivery of the Rio Olympics and ths year's Superbowl now work with everyone from Turner and Disney, to Viacom and Comcast.
This is headed up by Jeremy Hefland who many of you know from a startup called Auditude that was acquired by Adobe back in 2011. Fast forward a few years, and we now have Primetime, which is now a key business for Adobe.
Jeremy Hefland is someone who can also offer tips for a startup exec in transitioning to a big company or the best practices on having your company acquired.
Guest Info
@jhelfand
We often here about how tech is changing, improving or disrupting traditional industries. Everyone has heard about Uber and Airbnb, but these ripples can also be felt in other industries too.
I recently discovered VEYO which is almost like an uber for nonemergency medical transportation. The headline that captured my attention was "The Next Generation of Patient Transportation Has Arrived"
Veyo’s model uses advanced supply management, predictive analytics and automated dispatching, and customer-focused tools to ensure people get to and from medical appointments safely, securely and on time every time.
There is more to Veyo's healthcare logistics model than an app and a car but how 72 million Medicaid members access NEMT.
I talk to Josh Komenda, the president of the healthcare logistics leader to find out more.
Guest Info
www.veyo.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshkomenda/
Opportunity (MyOpportunity.com) is a business network driven by real-time interactions and opportunities around you. The company uses a scientific approach to matching professionals based on a real opportunity to do business.
In order to bring professionals together in a more meaningful way, they have built a system for finding sales leads, job opportunities, job candidates, and the ability to network.
Opportunity knows that the future of business is going to be driven by real-time data, and they are at the forefront of this movement to connect people to business opportunities.
The app is currently in use by professionals in more than 190 countries worldwide and they have already connected and referred more than 20 million professionals, building bridges between hiring managers, job-seekers, sales professionals, and networkers.
Virtually everything else is already being automated so startup Opportunity has become the first networking site to integrate artificial intelligence into its platform
I invited the CEO and Co-Founder Janis Krums onto the show who has a few amazing stories to share with us today such as the time he was heading to New Jersey on a ferry when he clicked a snapshot with his iPhone of US Airways Flight 1549 partially submerged in the Hudson River.
He uploaded the picture to his Twitter account and then forgot about it as he assisted in the rescue of the plane's passengers.The deluge of image views crashed the servers of TwitPic, the application that allows Twitter users to send photos with their Twitter updates or 'tweets.'
Guest Info
https://twitter.com/jkrums?lang=en
https://myopportunity.com/
"One of the differentiators between the original Planet Earth series and this series is the technology," executive producer Mike Gunton told the Television Critics Association earlier this month.
Planet Earth II producers spent over three years, 40 different countries, 117 filming trips, and a total of 2089 shooting days creating this jaw-dropping look at our planet.
I wanted to find out more about these significant advances in filming technology and how they are enhancing our understanding of the natural world, not to mention what it's like working with the inspirational Sir David Attenborough.
So before, Planet Earth II Premieres Saturday, February 18 on BBC AMERICA I invited Mike Gunton onto the show today who works for BBC Worldwide and the BBC as The Creative Director of Factual and The Natural History Unit.
Guest Info
http://www.bbcapr.com/epk/planet-earth-ii/bio-mike-gunton.php
To date, the cryptocurrency market is ~$13bn across the leading efforts in the space. I wanted to learn more about what blockchain technology is doing for the world of smart contracts and how it's helping two parties that might not trust each other do business.
Tezos is a future-proof smart contract system that can be used in multiple cases, including decentralized markets, insurance contracts, payment systems, and crowdfunding.
Immutability (the idea that transactions cannot be reversed) comes with the burden of correctness. When dealing with financial agreements worth millions, you want to make sure your smart contract code is right the first time.
Tezos is a smart contract system built with security in mind. That security stems from a unique purely functional and statically typed smart contract language with a full formal specification.
This makes it much easier to subject your smart contract to formal verification, a mathematical process that guarantees the correctness of your code, greatly reducing unintended consequences.
Upon learning that there is no other smart contract language that offers this feature I invited Kathleen Breitman the COO of Tezos (tezos.com), to find out more about this new blockchain platform currently in development
Guest Info
https://tezos.com/
https://medium.com/@kathleenbreit
The Virtual High School that is an online learning pioneer that's probably under your radar. Since 1995, the nonprofit organization has been setting the standard for quality online education.
VHS provides courses taught in global online classrooms for secondary school students and online professional development in 21st-century teaching for educators.
The organization has won numerous awards, including the Stockholm Challenge Award for Global Excellence in Information Technology and is a three-time winner of the United States Distance Learning Association's (USDLA) award for Excellence in Programming and Excellence in Best Practices.
Carol Ribeiro is the CEO of VHS and you could say it's in her DNA as she's been with the organization 17 of its 20 years!
Guest Info
http://www.thevhs.org/
https://twitter.com/carolannribeiro?lang=en
DroneDeploy is an aerial mapping, image capture, and data analytics platform that is bringing drones to the Enterprise. The cloud-based software is enabling simple and reliable drone operations. Users can now create maps & 3D models in two clicks with ver 8 million acres served in 130 countries, I had to find out more.
In a week where the appearance of a 300 strong fleet of Intel’s Shooting Star GPS-controlled drones overshadowed Lady Gaga’s spectacular halftime show forming the shape of the American flag, it seems we have dramatically underestimated this technology.
There is much more to drone technology than marketing videos, drone deliveries, and all those other tech headlines. Did you know drones are already saving businesses both time and money?
Whether it be speeding up construction projects, monitoring highway projects and even transforming the world of agriculture. For example, a combination of a drone and DroneDeploy's software is helping seed and fertilizer retailers collect and analyze data for each field, crop, and variety they sell.
Guest Info
www.dronedeploy.com
@DroneDeploy
The Stuart Cam HD WiFi Camera helps pet owners tend to their fur babies, even when they can’t be there. With the use of smart pet detection technology, the Stuart Cam delivers a personalized Pet Highlight Reel, recapping your pet’s best moments of the day via a fun music video.
Tend Insights have won Innovation Awards for 3 consecutive years at CES in Las Vegas and continue to work with John Deere, Kodak, and Universal to Create innovative products.
Silicon Valley Business Journal named Herman Yau, CEO & Co-founder at Tend, as one of the prestigious ’40 Under 40′ winners. The annual ’40 Under 40′ list spotlights ambitious entrepreneurs under the age of 40 who have disrupted the business world and tech landscape to make a positive and lasting impact on the community.
Tonight's guest is Herman Yau, who reveals more about his story and where Tend are heading.
Guest Info
http://tendinsights.com
Reverb is now the most popular music gear website in the world. Last year, they handled more than $240 million in equipment sales, doubling the previous year's volume and this success was attributed to a combination of technology and innovation.
Our First Chat
http://www.inc.com/neil-c-hughes/how-this-online-marketplace-became-the-ebay-for-music-gear.html
www.Reverb.com
The digital transformation has disrupted almost every industry but the digital revolution is now transforming the world of material things too.Plethora is an SF-based startup redefining the traditional manufacturing process by giving engineers a new way to bring better products to market, faster.
Seamless machining for prototyping and short-run production. Iterate faster with instant pricing and manufacturability feedback.
Nick Pinkston is the Founder at Plethora. After learning how he is passionate about creating value for society by solving real problems and his goal is to democratize the means of production to allow physical products to be created as easily as an iPhone app. I invited him onto the show to find out more.
Guest Info
plethora.com
@plethora
@NickPinkston
Could a combination of innovation, technology and a passion for education make a real difference to our world? Mark Elliott, CEO of Boxlight is proving that it really can.
Boxlight is an interactive classroom technology manufacturer and K-12 education solutions provider. They are using digital technologies to deliver interactive classrooms. And have big plans to revolutionize the classroom for all the right reasons.
Mark Elliott has been the Director Apple, President of Promethean who is famous for transformational interactive whiteboards, student response systems for personalized learning and digital teaching resources before joining BOXLIGHT to become their CEO.
I invited Mark onto the show to learn more about Boxlight and how Labdisc, the all-in-one, hand-held wireless STEM lab for every science is making a difference with personalized learning.
Education is more than just learning facts – it’s also building essential skills. It’s about teaching students to approach learning creatively and with critical thinking. To be innovative in their approaches and thought process. It’s about learning and working together, and being able to communicate their ideas.
I recently discovered that The team that brought you chat-based interior design app Homee is excited to introduce Hutch, an innovative home design experience stemming from the most popular Homee feature, the visualization.
With a laser focus on this uniquely transformative experience, Hutch offers the opportunity to virtually explore your space in a variety of designer curated styles before buying or moving a single piece of furniture.
As someone with a DIY phobia, I love the idea of taking a photo of a room in your home and then have it completely redesigned professionally all from a mobile app.
BUT there is much more to this story than just a mobile app,
they have been on an incredibly exciting startup journey that really has been a rollercoaster ride of phenomenal ups and downs.
Whether it be appearing on ABC’s Shark Tank show, raising $7.14 million in funding from some pretty big names, and receiving a large amount of help from other startups such as the people behind Tinder it's clear the team is learning fast.
It's a great story, so I invited the CEO and founder of Hutch Beatrice Fischel-Bock onto the show today to find out more.
www.hutch.com
I think we can all agree reluctantly or not that tech now dominates our lives. But, I recently discovered that there are some major structural issues with the internet that need fixing.
With IoT, 5G and cloud services ramping up, the internet is being asked to do things it was never designed for and is getting closer to a breaking point. 128 Technology that was founded by a group of technologists and entrepreneurs that are on a mission to fix the internet.
The stealthy startup is led by Andy Ory, the former co-founder, and CEO of Acme Packet, which was bought by Oracle for $2.1B. For those familiar with Acme Packet, this will sound like a natural evolution of Ory’s and his co-founders’ ideas.
Essentially, 128 Technology is re-thinking routing the critical enabler of Internet communications, but a technology segment that hasn’t seen real innovation since the 1990
Guest Info
www.128technology.com
@128technology
With a slight resemblance to Wall-E’s robotic girlfriend Eve, it's easy to see why Aido, the family robot is a big hit on Indiegogo.
Aido is the next generation social family robot. Smart, interactive, and uniquely mobile, Aido is the first social robot that can move around your home/office to help improve your lifestyle. He can play with your kids, help you with household chores, handle your schedule, and keep your home connected and safe.
After approaching $1 million raised in pre-orders with a special 60% off for early investors I invited Arshad Hisham the Founder and CEO at InGen Dynamics Inc onto the show.
Indiegogo Page
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/aido-next-gen-home-robot--2#/
Aido Family Robot Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W58U6mmPrmk
Website
http://www.aidorobot.com/
Awarded "GameChanger" of 2016 by the world's leading tech magazine (T3).
I think most people listening to the show will agree that AR is becoming much more exciting than VR. I recently came across Lumus who are a leading developer of augmented reality (AR) wearable displays.
Lumus creates transparent displays that drive augmented reality eyewear, transforming the way people interact with their reality like no other solution in the market today.
Lumus recently announced a $45 million investment round with an additional $30 million in funding from top-tier strategic investors including Quanta, HTC and others to expand its growing AR display business.
After securing some big investors from tech heavyweights, I invited Dam Emodi from Lumus to find out more.
www.lumusvision.com
Is a combination of technology, data analytics, and the digital transformation responsible for changing the political landscape?
The United States has a new president in the form of Donald Trump. Over the years I have learned to avoid talking about either religion or politics in a large forum as it always ends badly.
But while many are still dealing with this turning point in American politics and his unorthodox run to office, what captured my attention from the outside looking in was how he leveraged technology along with political campaign software to fundraise efficiently, recruit volunteers, and inspire his userbase.
While Hillary Clinton’s lead in the August polls, Trump chose to start spending serious money on data analytics and a bigger digital campaign. His campaign also utilized tools not usually thought of to be software used by campaigns, from creating and hosting their website, to marketing to the right personas, and managing online content.
I don’t want to talk about state sponsored cyber attacks, stories around vote rigging, fake news or political opinions on either side of the fence. But I wanted to understand how both technology and software impacted the US election recently and how this will also affect the electoral process all over the world in this digital age.
I invited Michael Fauscette onto the show who is the chief research officer at peer-to-peer business review platform G2 Crowd. We discuss how a combination of technology, software and data analytics played a big role in Donald Trumps election success.
At the CES show in Las Vegas this year, EPC (Efficient Power Conversion) showcased how GaN is a core technology behind autonomous vehicles, the house of the future without power cords, the connected car, and non-invasive colonoscopies with an x-ray system within a pill.
Replacing silicon, one of the most prevalent types of semiconductor around, with a different material, Gallium Nitride, commonly abbreviated as GaN — or “eGaN,” EPCS new, improved form of GaN.
Silicon enabled Intel to build an entire empire, but could this be displaced by GaN?
This is an episode that you can expect to learn a huge amount and how it appears that the days of Silicon are numbered in this digital age where companies must disrupt or face disruption.
Anyone interested in technology and where the industry is heading will love this episode.
Guest Info Dr. Alex Lidow the CEO and co-founder of Efficient Power Conversion onto the show to learn What is GaN? Why GaN? and where is it heading?
Dr. Alex Lidow, CEO and co-founder of Efficient Power Conversion
Have you ever dropped your phone on the floor the only to nervously turn it over and discover yet another cracked screen? Of course, you have because we all have.
Do you love slim cases, but hate broken screens? The ultra-slim iPhone Limitless cases offer military-grade protection in real and authentic materials like black marble, bamboo wood or kevlar. These cases use Airo Shock protection to give your phone incredible protection.
After watching the team at Mous dropping a phone from a 45ft Crane and the smartphone surviving to tell the tale I invited the Co-Founder James Griffith onto the show to find out more.
Guest Info
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mous-limitless-iphone-case-airo-shock-protection#/
https://twitter.com/jamesgriffithm
BigID is enabling companies to help reduce breach risk, contain liability exposure and address increasing global privacy regulations. Their mission is to help enterprises better protect the privacy of their customers’ personal data through the application of data science.
BigID’s platform gives companies intelligence and governance controls needed to help protect against proliferating privacy risk and the increasing threat of personal data breaches and help drive compliance with privacy and security requirements.
Today’s enterprises often lack actionable data intelligence for the most important digital asset they manage: their customer information. BigID was launched to fill this void, and help protect against risks associated with dangerous hacks and financial loss from personal data theft.
I speak with security veteran, CEO and Co-Founder of Big ID, Dimitri Sirota to find out more about the real ROI of protecting customer data.
Jammber is a platform that manages the entire music production process, keeping track of everyone involved, making sure the workflows, letting collaborators sign off on necessary steps digitally and helping labels and artists file forms correctly in minutes, not months.
The music industry is siloed, fragmented and chaotic. An average album can cost 450 hours in paperwork alone, and too often not getting paid for a project on time or at all is accepted because "that's the way it's always been done." Jammber wants to relieve that pain.
And for the first time, Jammber is capturing data about the creation of a song at the studio level, giving credit where it's due: to the creative individuals on which the music industry is built.
Jammber enriches the lives of people in the entertainment industry, all over the world, by giving them tools that empower and enhance the creative process. Ultimately allowing them to do more of what they love, giving them superpowers they tell their friends about.
In tonight's episode, I chat with Jammber founder Marcus Cobb.
HYPR enables Fortune 500 enterprises to scale biometric authentication across millions of users. More businesses are choosing to Integrate HYPR and deploy a secure password-less experience through fingerprint, voice, face and eye recognition.
The ability to verify online transactions using facial recognition and fingerprint biometrics seems like a natural step forward in the same way that paying for goods by handing over a handful of silver coins is starting to feel primitive. Maybe we need to accept that a humble password is no longer enough to secure our finances.
According to Hypr, the rapid adoption of technologies like "selfie pay" have shown that there’s an urgent need to shift away from passwords and over to “easy to use” identity solutions. They believe that with biometrics being un-revocable unlike revocable passwords, their implementation is an essential step towards ending these kinds of breaches.
HYPR already has a big reputation within and beyond financial services where the company has gained early traction and 2017 seems like it's going to be a big year for them.
www.hypr.com
I have been busy chasing companies down at CES this year and came across a Danish wellbeing app called HelloMind.
HelloMind is a new mobile wellness company that has exploded in Europe (1.2MM downloads) and recently soft launched in the U.S., delivering hypnotherapy through an app to help people conquer challenges and enhance their lives.
Low self-esteem, stress, fear, bad sleep and unhealthy habits sometimes hold us back from enjoying life to the fullest. The good news is these negative patterns can be broken or eliminated according to the people behind HelloMind who encourage its users to Think Better Feel Stronger.
If you are Suffering from stress or low self-esteem? You may not have to invest in a shrink or hypnotist in the traditional sense. The hypnotherapy app claims to offer the perfect fix using your smartphone to get rid of a phobia or strengthen a certain aspect of your personality.
Winner of the CES Innovation Award is the “bed reborn.” in the form of a new smart mattress. Sleep Number’s 360 smart bed will forever transform the way people sleep. The new integrated design includes a proprietary algorithm (powered by SleepIQ technology) and machine learning to intuitively sense and automatically adjust all night for an effortless and optimized sleep experience.
Machine learning features include automatically adjusting if you snore, adding an automatic night light on the bed if you get up in the middle of the night, and pre-warming to toast up your feet on a cold evening. It also connects to an app to offer information on how you’re sleeping.
In addition to the impressive tech embedded in the bed, Sleep Number have had to evolve to compete with the "disruptors" that have popped up in the mattress industry this past couple of years.
After hearing how they are passionate about improving lives through innovative sleep solutions. I invited Sleep Number onto the show to find out more about their vision of a world with connected sleep being at the center of well-being.
Buckle up and hold on tight as we head all the way to VEGAS to chat to the guys at Sleep number who are Proud to be one of Forbes America’s Most Trustworthy Companies and Innovator in smart bed technology with Silicon Valley-based SleepIQ® LABS
ZTE’s Project CSX Crowdsourced Smartphone Comes to Life Through the “Hawkeye” Name revealed at CES 2017.
Continuing with the crowdsourced theme, the Hawkeye phone is available for funding on Kickstarter.
Project CSX eye-tracking, self-adhesive smartphone device. With 540 name submissions from consumers around the world, the Hawkeye phone is available for funding today on Kickstarter at kickstarter.zteusa.com for a discounted price of $199.00.
“Project CSX has been a groundbreaking process and the Hawkeye device sets the stage for us in 2017,” said Lixin Cheng, chairman and CEO of ZTE USA. “As we move forward with this smartphone, we’ll look to continue to integrate consumers every step of the way.”
Continuing with the crowdsourced theme surrounding Project CSX, the Hawkeye phone is available for funding on Kickstarter and is expected to ship globally in Q3 2017.
“With Project CSX, we experimented by turning the typical R&D process on its head and did something completely different within the industry,” said Jeff Yee, vice president of Technology Planning and
Partnerships of ZTE USA. “We believe that the Hawkeye name reflects the spirit and vision of ZTE as we continue to put the consumer first throughout this entire process and will continue to do so in every phone we deliver.”
Project CSX kicked off at CES 2016 when ZTE announced its plans to completely crowdsource a mobile device that the company promised to build in 2017. In October 2016, thousands of consumers from 176 countries selected the winning concept, a device that aims for an easier and smoother user experience with eye-tracking capabilities and a self-adhesive back.
To learn more about ZTE and to keep up with the latest Project CSX developments visit csx.zteusa.com or to become a member of Z-Community, visit community.zteusa.com.
Favro is an online collaboration tool that adapts to how you work, making it easy to plan just about anything with anyone. Used by companies in marketing, development, gaming, law, recruitment and more – Favro is perfect for the whole team and is designed to keep everyone, regardless of their role, on the same page.
The IT strategy is no longer just IT’s responsibility. It now touches multiple departments from finance to marketing to HR. But, getting IT teams to collaborate cross-organization is easier said than done.
At many companies, highly-technical IT professionals are reluctant to embrace collaboration outside of their team or the comfort of their IT department.
While they hold a wealth of information, organizational silos often block this knowledge from outside departments. As IT strategy becomes more of a broader business problem, IT departments will need to step outside their comfort zone and collaborate with other teams.
Anyone interested in learning more about why IT departments should embrace collaboration to improve the organization’s IT strategy will love today's show.
Patric Palm, CEO and co-founder of Favro, chats with Neil about this new online planning and collaboration tool.
"Polk BOOM recognizes that enjoying your music while participating in your favorite outdoor activity, like biking or skateboarding is important, but also realized that being aware of ambient noise and your immediate surroundings is even more critical," said Polk BOOM's founder, Ryan Minarik. "The convenience of portable speakers has listeners blasting music further and louder than ever before. However, consumers still need to be safe while enjoying their favorite tunes. This is exactly why we designed BIT, to keep our adventurers safely engaged through all their senses, by balancing music with surrounding noises."
I caught up with Ryan Minarik ahead of CES to find out more.
You may have seen Legs Jacket by VEAR feature on cool gift guides over the last few weeks. Known as the Stylish Rain Pants that Keep Commuters Dry, VEAR launched on Kickstarter and got fully funded in only 27 hours and has raised over $127,000 at the time of recording this show.
Rain is the number one reason people cycle less. We saw a need for high-performance rain pants with a contemporary stylish design for cyclists and walkers who need to stay dry and comfortable during their commutes,” said VEAR co-founder Valentin Nicoară.
“In the biggest cities in the world, more and more people are biking and walking to work. It’s time for commuters to have a stylish, high-performance pant that becomes a key part of their professional wardrobe on snowy, rainy, damp and cool days.”
VEAR launched on Kickstarter and got fully funded in only 27 hours and has raised over $127,000 at the time of recording this show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_JACzc55MM
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vear/the-legs-jacket-waterproof-and-breathable
31 Events is an email and web marketing calendar solution that leverages the use of Coupons and Tickets that embed into the calendar event for easy retrieval at the time of the event by a URL in the calendar interface. The calendar event then uses all the components of the operating system reminder, including geo-location of the event and integrated notification for driving based on geo-location.
The product is designed to get your customers to your event or to your promotion by making sure they have the correct calendar invitation on their work or personal calendar with the embedded URL for that specific promotion.
Use cases for testing include - event registrations, ticketing, coupons, and appointment setting. We are compatible with all operating systems both desktop and mobile devices. The product uses a simple code generator to embed your event into your email template - we support Mail Chimp, Constant Contact and Exact Target.
In addition, the calendar event can generate the code needed for event promotions on your website with easy to use Event Modals that can be embedded into your website. When a person adds their email address they get a Calendar invitation with Event coupon or Ticket and we track acceptance to the event through our reporting engine.
Guest Info
www.31events.com
The biggest oxymoron in tech, ‘password security’, continues to rear its ugly head with high-profile hacks all over the map, validating that there is no end in sight unless drastic action is taken Marc Boroditsky, VP of Authentication for Twilio discusses how they’re trying to kill the standard password. Backed by early investors like Box CEO Aaron Levie and the Winklevoss twins before their acquisition and now by Twilio, these guys are waging war on the password and bringing 2-Factor Authentication to the masses.
I consider myself very fortunate is being able to interview established tech leaders and people at the beginning of their startup journey every night. If I have learned anything in 150+ interviews its that there are two very different sides to the tech world.
There is the hype, billion dollar valuations and then there is the reality which I think is summed up perfectly in the TV show Silicon Valley.
I'm quite excited about chatting with tonight's guest. He has worked in the high technology and software industries since 1978 as a programmer, salesman, field sales engineer, marketer and now author!
Having worked in tech all his life and seeing how the industry has evolved, meeting Steve Jobs and being amused by the adulation and obsession that surrounded him.
He wrote a fantastic satirical tale called Selling Steve Jobs’ Liver?”
But rather than get into too much detail now, let's get Rick Champman on the show.
It's time to beam your ears all the way to Connecticut in the US to speak with Rick Chapman who has a few great stories to share.
And he is also the author of “In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters,” too.
But that is just one side of how he also juggles his time and passions, as away from the typewriter he is also the editor of Softletter, and happens to also be the COO of a new SaaS startup too.
Capital One seem to be leading with technology by recently launching a "how much did I spend? skill to Amazon Echo. The service is also being rolled out to users of Microsoft Cortana too.
The ability to ask "How much did I spend at Starbucks last month" and receive an instant answer without any hassle is a real game changer and eye opener to those who manage their finances on the go.
I invited Ken Dodelin onto the show to find out more. He's the Vice President, Digital Product Development at Capital One and is waiting to tell us all about the skills available on Amazon Echo and Microsoft Cortana.
As we are right in the middle of the gift giving season, it seemed like a great idea to get the guys from Giftagram back onto the show.Regular listeners might remember that way back on episode 96 they explained their unique concept for gift giving.
Giftagram sends gifts from your iPhone--no address required! In 3 clicks, you can send gifts using only an email address or phone number. Making gift giving as simple as selecting your contact, pick a gift and hit "send." seems like the perfect antidote to this very stressful time of year.
After reading about their tech-focused toy drive I invited them back on the show to learn how cash-strapped individuals who want to be thoughtful but still look for convenience are using Giftagram.
I welcome Jason Reid, CEO and Co-Founder of Giftagram onto the show to find out how they have put the age old tradition of donating toy to those less fortunate than ourselves into the digital age.
Huggle lets you discover and connect with the people who go to the places you go and shows you the places you have in common. The app filters who you connect with based on where you go, what you do, what you're interested in and how you live your life. You are where you go, so let your lifestyle do the talking.
Apps such as Tinder encourage users to keep swiping left or right on human beings with real feelings, passions, and interests and is often a fruitless exercise. These shallow actions also feel incredibly primitive.
Huggle co-founder Stina Sanders recently asked "Are We Swiping Away Our Humanity?" If we behaved in he way that so many people do online, we’d be severely disappointed, depressed and potentially in prison.
Huggle is attempting to change the way people meet around the world for all the right reasons and I felt compelled to find out more.
Guest Info
www.huggle.com
@huggleapp
@stinasanders
Stealth Mac management startup Fleetsmith recently launched with $3.1 million seed round. Deploying applications or forcing app and operating system updates to an entire fleet of Macs is now a reality.
Those working in cybersecurity or IT will also delight in hearing how disk encryption and firewalls can also be centrally managed to ensure that MACS are compliant like the machines in a windows environment.
Fleetsmith features include: * Fully automated packaging and patch management: Apps are automatically packaged and updated across the entire fleet, with optional update enforcement deadlines. * Fleet-wide OS upgrades: Upgrade to macOS Sierra (and future major releases) with one click. * G Suite integration: Securely login and import users with G Suite. * Device inventory: Centralized device inventory that eliminates spreadsheets and offers fleet health insights.
"It's rare to find an IT management solution that delivers a robust set of security capabilities while maintaining a first-class administrator and end-user experience,” said Kevin Mahaffey, Founder and CTO of Lookout. “Fleetsmith does it.”
IT teams historically accustomed to Windows-heavy environments, tools to manage Macs—even as they’ve become more ubiquitous—have not kept up. Current Mac management solutions are difficult to try and buy, overly complex, and require dedicated IT and security resources.
I invited Zack Blum onto the show to find out more.
StressBox is an up and coming holistic fitness brand that combines expressive boxing fitness, powerful life coaching and mindfulness all to incredible relevant music!
Having experienced workplace stress over 3 years ago the founder Liam Joe decided to create a natural solution from the therapies that supported him through his stress. Follow an extremely successful pilot phase, they are now ready to go live with their incredibly unique fitness class.
Liam is determined to decrease the epidemic of work placed stress in this modern society. From Kanye to Nirvana, he uses music as our magic to really get you spiritual moved to make sure stressed professionals not only understand their stress, but help them dominate it.
Throughout the last 2 years, Liam has been researching and producing his natural solution to help more people to prevent and conquer their stress.
So what happens in StressBox?
StressBox is based on 4 layers of Stress where each layer has a positive response to the body, mind, and soul during the 1hour class.
• Positive Energy - Using dynamic breathing exercises to energize the body to awaken from built up daily work tension with a fun warm up.
• Stress Intelligence - Releasing negative emotions such as anger, self-doubt and work frustration. Raising awareness to these thoughts can enhance your Emotional Intelligence. This is influenced by relevant music, powerful coaching, and social partnership Boxing.
• Epic Exercise - Partnership musical choreography boxing with a combination of energetic music and high-intensity boxing.
• Musical Mindfulness - Relaxing the body and mind into our yoga mats with deep breathing and positive visuals.
StressBox offers a completely new well-being experience. Enhancing your stress response, happiness, confidence and health is our aim for every person they connect with.
Creating a powerful, personal, enlightened experience is ultimate goal. I invited founder Liam Joe onto the show to learn more.
Guest Info
@stress_box
@ljblackwood
www.facebook.com/pg/1StressBox/
Now that we are right in the middle of the holiday season, many will be buying their gifts from Amazon as the appeal of their everything under one roof ethos becomes hard to resist.
However, it recently occurred to me that we are losing a certain amount of expertise in certain areas when we buy high-end products. Sure we have the internet, and we can do our research, but sometimes you can't beat chatting to someone that knows what they are talking about.
BUT how can other stores compete with the likes of Amazon? Are the old stores in danger of dying out because of our thirst for instant gratification? Or is customer service what makes those smaller businesses stand out from the crowd? and can tech help with this?
As the world's largest source of photography, video, audio, and the latest trending technologies, including drones, virtual reality, and 3D Printers, B&H Photo Video is known worldwide for its attentive, knowledgeable sales force, excellent customer service, and fast, reliable shipping.
Visitors to the website can access a variety of enlightening articles and educational videos. B&H has been satisfying customers worldwide for over 40 years so I wanted to learn how technology has enabled them to take their expertise from physical stores to deliver a seamless omnichannel experience.
Guest Info
www.bhphotovideo.com
twitter.com/BHPhotoVideo
Natalie Rebot is a Google software engineer turned entrepreneur. She has created a unique new device that launched on Kickstarter this week and has caught parents imagination across the globe.
All too often technology gets a bad rap, particularly when parenting is concerned and must admit that I wince and find it quite heartbreaking when I see a child pulling at their parents clothes as they desperately attempt to get their parents attention while they continue to endlessly scroll down Facebook or Instagram.
After reading how Natalie only one in three parents read stories to their kids at bedtime now because they are too tired or had a long commute home, she decided to do something about it.
Inspired by her daughter "Princess Chloe" she created a fascinating product that turns the phone screen away from both child and parents eyes and transformed the bedtime story at night to enhance the much-needed quality time,
As I came to record tonight's show and perform some last minute research, I discovered that Actress Tori Spelling has just hopped on board the campaign saying
"I'm totally in love with @moonlite.world! It’s a bedtime story projector that clips right to your phone and uses your phone flashlight to project your kids’ favorite bedtime stories onto the ceiling or wall. I’m partnering with Moonlite because I know my kids will love this and I’m down for anything to make story time more fun for my little ones. It’s available now and selling out fast."
As someone that has very fond memories of view master, I felt compelled to find out more about how technology was offering a new slant on one of our greatest storytelling traditions. I felt compelled to learn more.
Kickstarter Page - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1483155071/moonlite-a-bedtime-story-projector-for-your-mobile
Michael Bell is an accomplished global executive with a demonstrated history of innovation, having spent more than 24 years in leadership and product development positions with Intel, Palm, and Apple.
He's had an incredible career in the tech industry and someone I could speak with for hours. He's armed with a wealth of stories from his days at Apple and even has a great tale about the space shuttle.
BUT, do not be fooled into thinking this is all about Michael's past, just like any tech veteran he only looks forwards. Michael is now Silver Spring’s President and Chief Executive Officer.
Silver Spring Networks enables the Internet of Important Things by reliably and securely connecting things that matter. Cities, utilities, and companies on five continents use the company’s cost-effective, high-performance IoT network and data platform to operate more efficiently, get greener, and enable innovative services that can improve the lives of millions of people. With more than 24.9 million devices delivered, Silver Spring provides a proven standards-based platform safeguarded with military grade security.
To top it all, Silver Spring Networks has also been Named a Visionary in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Managed Machine-to-Machine Services, Worldwide.
I invited Mike bell onto the show to find out more.
LiquiGlide is revolutionizing the way liquids move. It is the first and only viable technology that allows viscous liquids to slide effortlessly.
It's the first and only technology that allows viscous liquids such as ketchup, mayonnaise, toothpaste, even glue to slide effortlessly with a coating that makes the inside of a bottle stay slippery.
Watch videos of this technology in action here http://liquiglide.com/videos/
LiquiGlide’s technology was developed in the Varanasi Research Group laboratory at MIT. Dave Smith was a PhD student in Professor Kripa Varanasi’s lab, trying to solve the problem of methane hydrate build-ups in oil and gas pipelines by using liquid-impregnated, slippery surfaces. Seeing some success in this area, they began to think of other applications, including consumer goods and packaging applications.
In 2012, Dave created the iconic glass ketchup video, which went viral, triggering thousands of inquiries from Consumer packaged goods companies wanting to use LiquiGlide’s technology. Shortly following, Dave and Kripa founded LiquiGlide Inc., in the fall of 2012.
I invited Dave Smith and Professor Kripa Varanasi onto the show to find out more.
GoPuff is an on-demand delivery service -- a “convenience store on wheels” -- that’s become a must-have for millennials and college students; now operating across 10 major US cities and continuing to grow at a rapid pace.
For just a $1.95 delivery fee, users order through the app and goPuff delivers in 30 minutes or less! Much quicker than Amazon or Instacart’s 2 hour delivery, with no additional surcharges or surge pricing.
The service is only 3 years old and is continuing to scale nationally at an impressive expansion rate. They were innovative enough to have found a niche in the on-demand delivery space and is blowing up against some extremely stiff competition (i.e. Amazon, Instacart,) consistently delivering orders not only faster than its major competitors, but also for a fraction of the price!
Goodbye convenience store. Get convenience delivered in 30 minutes. Philly • NYC • Boston • DC • Denver • Austin • Phoenix • Seattle • Portland • Chicago
I chat with GoPuff co-founders Rafael Ilishayev and Yakir Gola to discuss how they’re taking on industry giants and share their inspirational story.
www.gopuff.com
Elation Health was founded by two siblings that built a business in their father’s primary care practice. It is now being used to serve more than 5,000,000 patients by 6,000 providers and is backed by some of the biggest names in tech. "I helped found Elation because I felt compelled. I see an immense threat to patient care brought on by inadequate IT systems and a vast disconnect between policy-makers and front-line clinicians.
"I helped found Elation because I felt compelled. I see an immense threat to patient care brought on by inadequate IT systems and a vast disconnect between policy-makers and front-line clinicians. Technology has offered dramatic improvements in so many other aspects of life. Why not this critically important one? That's where Elation fits in, and that's why I'm here" CEO & Co FounderKyna Fong
Elation Health are helping to provide less screen time and more face time using technology. I invited Kyna Fong onto the show to learn more.
Marijuana is now legal for medical or adult use in 28 states, accounting for more than 60 percent of the U.S. population. But conflicts between federal and state law bring unique challenges for marijuana companies.
These conflicts were highlighted by Forbes magazine in an article by Julie Weed who stated reported:
"By law, customers can’t use credit cards to buy marijuana, and banks won’t open accounts for cannabusinesses because they are federally illegal. For the most part, customers pay with cash, stores compensate employees and pay suppliers with stacks of cash, and farmers pay for their utilities and lawyers with bundles of cash"
This is creating opportunities and the rise of so-called Potpreneurs who are aiming to bring regulatory compliance audits into the 21st century ensuring compliance with state law and reducing the potential for involvement by criminal enterprises, gangs and drug cartels.
PayQwick is the only company in the world to my knowledge that solves the legal, cash and compliance challenges faced by the marijuana industry. Upon reading this, I was compelled to find more so invited Kenneth Berke, the CEO of PayQwick onto the show.
I am increasingly fascinated by the world of EdTech. Technology is not disrupting classrooms it's improving them, and it's not replacing teachers it's actually helping them with an entire range of tools to offer a whole new level of education.
Two Examples
Achieve3000 provides the only patented, cloud-based solutions that deliver daily differentiated instruction for nonfiction reading and writing that’s precisely tailored to each student’s Lexile® reading level.
Achieve3000 is the leader in online differentiated instruction, serving millions of students worldwide. For nearly 15 years, the company has been reaching students at their precise Lexile® reading levels to deliver significant reading gains—often double-to-triple the expected gains.
The Achieve 3000 free app enables access to Achieve3000 lessons for all students with active KidBiz3000, TeenBiz3000, and Empower3000 subscriptions.
Essentially Achieve3000 is using technology to accelerate literacy and help students achieve lifelong success.
Renaissance is on a mission to accelerate learning for all. Renaissance’s purpose is grounded in these core beliefs: They believe everyone can be a successful learner and that learning is a growth process: a continual journey from year to year, and for a lifetime.
The company is armed with a conviction that empowering teachers is integral to student success. Every student should have the chance to reach his or her full potential.
Globally, teachers trust Renaissance to spark tremendous math and reading growth. Renaissance helps ensure all students reach their full potential. Students receive the unique attention and quick feedback they need to meet their goals.
Monitoring student progress is easier than you’ve ever imagined thanks to the combination of precise growth data with state-specific, scientifically proven learning progressions.
Saki Dodelson CEO of Achieve3000 and Jack Lynch CEO at Renaissance chat about their partnership, their solutions for learning analytics, differentiated literacy instruction and how they intend to create the school of the future.
Guest Info
www.renaissance.com
www.achieve3000.com
Helpr is on a mission to elevate childcare by providing carefully screened and curated babysitters, booked through an app. Your requested babysitter will arrive at your door in as little as three hours.
After hearing how this uber-style flow is resolving childcare issues by rushing a babysitter to your home that has cleared a strict interviewing process, accreditation, and security clearance.
I invited Kasey Edwards, co-founder of Helpr on to the show to learn more.
Guest Info
https://helpr-app.com/
Twitter: @helpr & @kaseyedwards_
The arrival of smart luggage that can be tracked, weighs itself and much more is starting to become a reality. It wasn't until I began looking for a new case that i suddenly became bombarded with too many options.
On my general geeky tech gadget searches for a new case for my holidays, I came across iFLY Luggage. Although they are not tech as such, they are seeking to change the travel industry by focusing on what really matters: affordable, high-quality, insured luggage.
I invited David Rapps, the Director of Corporate Development at iFly luggage to discuss how technology is changing how we travel. I wanted to find out if there is disruption on the horizon for this industry and how far are we away from smart luggage options appearing?
David and I talk about hew travel tech and old problems such as whether to choose a hard shell or soft shell case? or how hot pack a case correctly. This was my moment to find answers to all my luggage problems both old and new.
Guest Info
iflyluggage.com
SevenFifty is the online platform for the wholesale wine and spirits industry. The company's technology platform offers a robust and real-time database that standardizes disparate data sets and provides educational information on a wide variety of wines and spirits including product details like age and region, labels, and more.
The startup has already raised $8.5M in funding to power the wholesale alcohol supply chain.
Today over 700 distributors across 30 states are present on the SevenFifty platform, representing roughly $20B in combined annual sales. Additionally, over 30,000 buyers are sourcing wines and spirits through SevenFifty, ranging from small and local bars and retail locations, to fine dining restaurants, restaurant chains, and large retailers.
I invited SevenFifty CEO Aaron Sherman onto the show to learn how tech is improving this age old industry.
Savonix is neuroscience democratized. Its digital, research-based assessment delivers a state-of-the-art cognitive and emotional function evaluation. The evidence-based screening is a 30-minute (on average) assessment accessed from any iOS or Android device.
Savonix Mobile is a state-of-the-art cognitive and emotional function evaluation that provides an accurate, accessible, actionable and affordable tool for professional cognitive screening
Until Savonix, cognitive assessment remained locked inside dated, analog processes that are costly, time-consuming and only accessible through a clinician. The test, which is used for screening cognitive and emotional function, is accessible via any iOS or Android device during the open beta. Users can take the set of clinically valid neurocognitive tests to receive results in multiple domains, such as:
- Verbal memory
- Impulse control
- Sustained attention
- Information processing speed
- Cognitive flexibility
- Emotionality
- Working memory
- Executive function
- Emotion regulation
- Decision making
Savonix also raised $1.5 million in seed round funding, led by RoundGlass Partners, with Kickstart Seed Fund, BMNT capital.
I invited Savonix founder Mylea Charvat, Ph.D onto the show to learn more.
Australian entrepreneur David Mayman hit the headlines last year after soaring high across the Hudson River and flying around the Statue of Liberty.
The company is now offering a chance for a lucky individual relive their James Bond or Halo fantasies in real life. The jetpack flies up to 10,000 feet at 100 miles an hour on and it can fit on the back seat of your car.
I invited David Mayman onto the show to learn about the history of Jetpacks and how we could all be heading for the skies much sooner than you think.
JetPack Contest
Would you like to Be the World’s First Civilian Jetpack Pilot?
http://bit.ly/2g60qVv
Littlstar is the leading premium network dedicated exclusively to Virtual Reality, 360 video, and immersive experiences. Littlstar has channels like Showtime, Disney, Discovery, Nat Geo, WSJ, ABC, and more. Viewers can discover, watch, and share the best content on VR devices like Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, Playstation VR, native mobile apps, Google Cardboard, Apple TV, and the web.
LIttlstar has VR partnerships with Bento Box Entertainment (producers of Emmy award winning Bob's Burgers on Fox), Legend 3D (3D conversions and VFX for films like Spiderman, Maleficent, Pirates of the Caribbean, and more), Fusion TV (owned by ABC and Univision), Michelle Phan (Social Mogul and Beauty Entrepreneur behind Ipsy), and more to come.
Littlstar has proprietary technology to stream the best 360-degree video and VR experiences, and has robust analytics and heatmap data for content owners and brands to learn about their audience.
Tony Mugavero is an experienced tech entrepreneur and executive with a media, business, and computer engineering background. He is the Founder and CEO of Littlstar, a premium cinematic Virtual Reality network putting viewers at the center of experiences using immersive technologies. Littlstar has the best VR content in the world from companies like Showtime, Nat Geo, Discovery, PBS, Red Bull, Virgin, Disney, and more.
I invited Tony onto the show to find out more about Littlestar and understand the best way of showcasing your PS VR this Christmas.
www.littlstar.com
Fing, the top ranking, completely free and super-fast network scanner, that’s used by millions of homes and professionals around the world.
The app discovers which devices are connected to any Wi-Fi network, map devices, detect intruders, assess network security risks, troubleshoot network problems and achieve best network performance, with the world’s most popular network toolkit.
With more than a dozen free network tools including; Wi-Fi scanner, port scanner, DNS lookup, ping and service monitoring – Fing is proving to be a must-have network utility.
I invited the CEO of Fing, Domenico Crapanzano to learn about the upcoming Fingbox and how to unlock the following premium network security and troubleshooting features.
Network Security
Identify all devices on your network and block intruders.
Alerts
Alerts for new devices, intruders, device status, network status, family and guests.
24/7 Monitoring
Monitor all the devices on your network, including those essential to your home’s security.
Identify Bandwidth Hogs
Find out which devices are consuming the most broadband.
Internet Speed
See how fast your internet is performing through speed and latency testing.
The #1 network scanning app
Wi-Fi Sweet Spot
Locate the fastest and slowest Wi-Fi spots in your home.
Service Quality
Check the quality of your favorite applications like Facebook and YouTube.
The San Francisco Bay Area is known as the "Innovation Capital of the World" for its many examples of leading technologies and unique business models. Tapping into the collaborative and entrepreneurial spirit of the region, Fujitsu established the Open Innovation Gateway (OIG) to promote collaboration with customers and business partners and to facilitate truly innovative practices.
The gesture-based screen manipulation technology used by Tom Cruise in the film, “Minority Report,” is being introduced to the modern day workplace and completely reinventing collaboration.
The CEO of Oblong Industries and former science advisor to Steven Speilberg, aims to reinvent workplace collaboration with Oblong’s Mezzanine 360-degree visual immersion technology.
Fujitsu, the world’s fifth largest IT provider, currently uses Oblong’s Mezzanine technology to help employees interact in an entirely new, immersive way.
On this episode, I speak with Dave Marvit, Fujitsu’s Innovation Strategist and Mohi Ahmed, Director of Open Innovation Gateway. We talk about how the company is using Oblong’s 360-degree visual technology and why it’s so beneficial particularly for telecommuters.
Check out this four-minute video that brings this to life https://vimeo.com/183888875/efac363039#t=0s.
It wasn't too long ago that people thought Showrooming was going to kill bricks and mortar stores.
For those that don't know, "Showrooming is when a shopper visits a store to check out a product but then purchases the product online from home.
This occurs because, while many people still prefer seeing and touching the merchandise they buy, many items are available at lower prices through online vendors. As such, local stores essentially become showrooms for online shoppers."
Webrooming, on the other hand, is when consumers research products online before going to the store for a final evaluation and purchase."
The waters were further muddied recently when online store Amazon announced they were moving into the grocery market and physical store Walmart announced they were increasing their online presence.
How can we make sense of this e-commerce battlefield?
So I turned to Tom Caporaso, who is the CEO of Clarus Commerce, an e-commerce solutions provider which owns FreeShipping.com,
Tom is not only an expert in e-commerce but is also particularly sought for his knowledge on consumer loyalty, subscription services, and loyalty solutions.
Tom's expert commentary has been shared by Fox Business, Refinery29, CNNMoney, CNET, Business Insider, Inc. Magazine, and more.
So allow me to beam your ears stateside to join Tom and discuss Amazon's plans and how commerce is now affecting both our online and offline worlds.
Guest Info
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomcaporaso
http://www.claruscommerce.com
Most people have heard of IBM Watson Health, but how about Apixio?
Apixio is a data science company for healthcare. Darren Schulte the Chief Executive Officer at the company is excited to be a part of the data-driven revolution in the healthcare industry.
He believes that with the help of cognitive computing in the cloud; we can analyze massive amounts of data to enable care tailored for each.
Technology leaders are increasingly focusing on the digital health experience
Guest Info
www.apixio.com
Powered by its cognitive computing platform, Apixio brings advanced data to healthcare by extracting and analyzing previously trapped unstructured medical record data, giving healthcare providers unprecedented access to groundbreaking insights.
Apixio's computing platform is built upon the insights from analyzing more than 6 million patient charts. The Apixio HCC Profiler solution uses computers to mine medical charts and Medicare reported chronic condition data for payers and providers to more efficiently and accurately conduct risk adjustment activities for Medicare Advantage.
Healthcare startups represent a booming industry. We have all heard about how the Internet of Things. (IoT) will change our world. But have you heard of the Internet of Medical Devices (IoMD)?
The growth of IoMD, and how it's changing the future of connected healthcare is quite staggering. This movement is being adopted by both startups and established health brands. After hearing about how Industry titan GE Healthcare recently announced its partnership with a company called Trice Imaging, the leading cloud-based medical imaging solutions provider. I invited the CEO and co-founder of Trice onto the show to learn about her motivation and secret to her business success.
Åsa Nordgren is CEO and co-founder of Trice Imaging Inc., an innovate provider of technology to the healthcare industry. Trice Imaging has developed a patented and award-winning solution for sending high-quality medical images, stills and videos to cellphones and other communication devices. Trice Imaging has customers in 15 counties. Trice Imaging’s first service Mobile BabyTM was awarded with 2 GSMA Global Mobile Awards, also called the Oscars of the Telecom Industry.
“The ability to almost instantly send images to colleagues is extremely useful,” says Dr. Greggory Devore, director of the Fetal Diagnostic Centers. “I have had several occasions in which I sent images to multiple contributors on a single case study, and using Tricefy is the best way to do that.
Trice is the collaboration platform that gives my offices the possibility to share medical cases in a secure and cost-efficient environment. I look forward to performing live demonstrations with Trice Imaging at ISUOG World Congress 2015 and showing other doctors and clinicians the speed and ease that comes with using this groundbreaking technology.”
Chatlight was designed by a professional photographer who was frustrated with the way people look on screen via video chat and Skype calls. The inventor of Chatlight saw the main problem immediately when Skype was launched. He noticed that people looked dark and/or blurry when video chatting and that, through a photographer’s eyes, the simple solution was better lighting.
Armed with an idea, they turned to a Kickstarter campaign which included over 1,000 enthusiastic and supportive backers who believed in a product that up until now had not even existed. The response to Chatlight's post-Kickstarter survey yielded overwhelming support and has opened doors for Chatlight to be shared with the rest of the world.
I was fascinated by how a photographer and entrepreneur went from idea to a Kickstarter campaign and the incredible journey to ensure that the product became a reality. I invited Henry Geddes onto the show to find out more.
Chatlight now improves the camera lens function and image quality to illuminate Skype users faces and make them look better online.
Guest Info
http://www.chatlight.com/
https://www.thegrommet.com/
As Senior Director, Product Management at Google, Matthew Glotzbach had overall product responsibility for Google's cloud computing applications including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Voice, Google Talk across business and consumer offerings.
Matt was also the Vice President of Product Management at YouTube.
He led the creation of YouTube’s music subscription service, and fan-funding business platforms.
He is now moved into the world of EdTech and is the CEO of Quizlet but this is not his first education-focused initiative. A 12-year Google veteran, he was part of the founding team of Google apps for education.
Quizlet makes simple learning tools that let you study anything.The company consistently ranks in the top 10 free education apps in the iTunes and Google Play stores.
Guest Info
www.quizlet.com
Matthew Glotzbach @mglotzbach
Quizlet
"Master your classes with the leading education app! Create your own flashcards or choose from millions created by other Quizlet users on thousands of subjects. If you're doing standardized test prep for big exams like the SAT or ACT, studying for an upcoming midterm or test, or just need homework help, you can feel confident with these powerful interactive learning tools — inside the classroom or out"
As we enter the run up the holiday season, more and more people will be relying on Amazon Prime to deliver their gifts the following day. It then occurred to me just how much Amazon Prime has raised our expectation levels. We no longer accept to wait for more than 5 days for an online order.
We don't care about how busy the poor local post office is at Christmas because they know Amazon can do it.So I found myself asking HOW can small businesses compete and then came across Shippo
Startup Shippo recently announced a Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures and also welcomed Albert Wenger to our board. Shippo powers shipping for businesses. With one simple, scalable API they have built a solution to help developers connect to a network of shipping providers and print shipping labels in minutes.
Connect with multiple carriers, get discounted shipping labels, track packages, and more with just one integration.Shippo help businesses compare shipping rates, print discounted shipping labels, and track shipments, with a goal of making shipping easy and affordable for everyone.
I invited Shippo founder and CEO, Laura Behrens Wu onto the show to learn more.
Guest Info
https://goshippo.com/
@LauraBehrensWu
Any startup journey or dream career begins with a fascinating story of motivation before any business or lifestyle success is achieved. Rather than chasing money and freedom, most Entrepreneur's just want to make a difference.Over 17 years’ of experience in worker’s compensation, safety, and compliance, and
Luke Anear was armed with over 17 years’ of experience in worker’s compensation, safety and compliance, and entrepreneurism. After managing more than 2,500 workplace injury investigations, Luke had a desire to develop a solution for critical problems in safety and compliance across many industries.
Luke's plan revolutionize safety management resulted in creating SafetyCulture, a cloud-based company dedicated to offering innovative, low-cost, mobile-first products that empower users to have a safe and efficient workplace.
SafetyCulture’s mobile application, iAuditor, is the most widely used auditing app in the world. iAuditor mobilizes all workers—from the front lines to the corner office—to participate in real-time data collection and reporting to quickly recognize and improve workplace safety.
I invited Luke Anear, the Founder and CEO of SafetyCulture to learn more about how technology is transforming the industry while also making Health and Safety exciting.
Guest Info
www.safetyculture.com
Elon Musk's Tesla electric cars are incredibly desirable but let's be honest, they are way too expensive for most tastes.
I recently came across Storm Sondors who is crowdfunding his way to change this by creating the Model Sondors electric car that is projected to retail for under $10,000.
Not only will it look fantastic, but you will also be able to charge it in the same way you would your smartphone, without having to rely on charge stops and the infrastructure behind it.
The creator already has the 2nd largest Indiegogo campaign ever under his belt with the Sondors eBike (né Storm eBike) which raised over $6 million. The bike became the world’s first mass-produced, affordable electric bike.
Despite achieving business and lifestyle success with the freedom that comes with it, any entrepreneur will tell you it's not about money and never about just one startup. The story of Storm Sondors will serve as an inspiration to anyone that believes in dreaming big.
Guest Info
SONDORS Electric Car - https://www.startengine.com/startup/sondors-electric-car
"You likely know the name SONDORS from our electric bike.
They said we couldn’t make an electric bike for $500. But we showed them that we could. With the help of thousands of supporters, we raised $10 million and delivered 15,000 electric bikes. We successfully created the first mass-produced, affordable electric bicycle. The SONDORS eBike is currently the largest electric bike distributor in the U.S. and is sold in 67 other countries worldwide.
Our founder, Storm Sondors, doesn’t like to do things the way they’ve always been done. He creates with accessibility in mind, choosing to start with the basics, rather than adding on to something that has already been created.
As we did with our electric bikes, our plan is to cut out the middleman. You will be able to custom pre-order your car online. You’ll get the all of the features you want without having to haggle with a salesman. And you won’t even have to leave your house. We’ll deliver right to your doorstep."
How many people have your personal mobile number? Apart from your friends, family and colleagues, there is a whole heap of people and organizations that have your mobile number.
When considering our digital footprint we seldom think about how many people have our details and publish our personal details alongside our smartphone number. Facebook and Linked are just a few examples.
The concept of burner phones used to involve carrying around multiple devices, but the Burner app is often a cheaper and more efficient way of managing multiple numbers.
The ability to protect your privacy online or even have a cheap additional business phone number can all now be managed by your one smartphone. If you’ve ever tried to tell someone you’re not interested, and only for them to still pester you, Burner’s Ghostbot can handle that too.
Whether you are a freelancer creating a cheap dedicated business Line or just want to introduce privacy and security onto your phone, maybe you need a burner phone.
I invited the CEO and founder of Burner, Gregg Cohn said onto the show to find out more and understand his mission to empower users with tools to take back control of their communications.
Guest Info
www.burnerapp.com
www.challenge.burnerapp.com
@gregcohn
The World's First A.I. Powered Browser After teasing Ulli at Google and the Pioneer Summit last month, they are finally launching their free, AI-powered, one-thumb mobile browser in the IOS App Store so I had to find out more.
Ulli is revolutionizing the way you browse and search the web on your phone. Navigating on a mobile device is cumbersome: small keyboard, typos, two-hands needed, copy-pasting… For the first time, Ulli brings a smart and seamless experience adapted for your mobile device.
Unlike traditional mobile browsers that require you to navigate back and forth through multiple screens, Ulli provides links that you most likely want to browse next, thus avoiding you to type, search or copy-paste information around.
With the mobile e-commerce market expected to increase by over 50% in the next two years according to a report from GSMA Intelligence, a mobile-native browser is more key than ever for consumers. Ulli is the first web browser that finally opens the door to one-tap mobile.
Guest Info
Ulli Smart Web Browser – A.I. One-Thumb Internet By Biggerpan, Inc.
https://biggerpan.com/
@biggerpan
We often read headlines around how technology is destroying jobs, but there is another side to this modern tale that is not always reported on. There are only 6,500 self-reported data engineers on LinkedIn, but the San Francisco Bay area alone has 6,600 job listings for that same title.
Galvanize are aiming to change all that by providing an education environment where you can become a developer, data scientist, secure a dream job or even build their own tech startup. What other motivation could you possibly need
At every Galvanize campus there are hundreds of students learning industry-leading skills in software development and data science, alongside representatives from the area’s top startups and some of the world’s most prestigious tech companies.
Galvanize works with hiring partners such as Allstate, Amazon, Salesforce, IBM, Pivotal, and Tesla, to ensure that students are prepared for success or embark on a dream career.
I invited the CEO & Founder of Galvanize to learn more how anyone with ambition and aptitude can succeed if they are provided with the skills industry needs most.
Guest Info
http://www.galvanize.com/
@yodeets
Many of us have created incredible online networks through a variety of platforms like LinkedIn and beBee. But, most have never met face-to-face with their followers but feel an incredible camaraderie and warmth toward each other.
Sarah Elkins took this the next level after wondering how to leverage her incredible online professional network to improve her real life, face-to-face business, and community.
She had a vision of a conference that would join up the dots and physically connect with her virtual connections.
A conference with no keynotes, no crowded, awkward "networking" events where you've either painfully introduced around, or observing the small cliques of people who already know each other. She wanted to create a professional development that had not been seen before.
We have all been to many conferences. You know the breaks between sessions, the after-hours conversations in the lobby or the bar when you get to know the speakers and participants?
You know those times when, outside the meeting rooms, you learn more from the others than you did from any of the formal sessions?
Sarah Elkins decided to take a risk and create No Longer Virtual (NLV). A conference that leverages those side-conversations and makes them the foundation of your NLV experience.
Guest Info
No Longer Virtual - http://elkinsconsulting.com/no-longer-virtual-connect-f2f/
@sarahelkins
This week Stephen Hawking revealed that artificial intelligence could be humanity's greatest disaster, but thankfully Flynn Coleman offered balance when she advised AI can be a positive step for humanity.
Flynn Coleman is a international human rights attorney, an educator, an author, a mindfulness, innovation, and creativity teacher, a Huffington Post writer, a TEDx speaker, a social entrepreneur and innovator, a former competitive athlete, a founder and the CEO and founder of Malena, a company that supports economic development and human rights with innovative solutions, such as a proprietary crowd-funding platform and accessible global marketplace.
With a passion for how technology can be a force for the greater good, I invited Flynn onto the show to hear her refreshing outlook.
Guest Info
http://flynncoleman.community/
Twitter: @flynncoleman
The company, Link AKC, is a pet tech company at the crossroads of fashion, science, dogs and wearables. The company is also backed by the American Kennel Club.
Link AKC is dedicated to improving the connection between dog and owner through the data collected in their soon-to-be-announced debut product; a high-tech and high-fashion dog collar wearable. It's basically the dog version of an Apple Watch/Shinola combo.
As a fan of wearable tech, I thought it was my duty to find out more about this tech for pets. What does it do? What's its purpose? Who or what is it aimed at? So I invited Herberto Calves onto the show to find out more.
Guest Info
www.linkakc.com
New RelationshipScience.com Features Information Not Available Anywhere Else, Enabling Anyone to Turn Their Relationships Into Competitive Edge.
Any business owners listening to this show who want to work with influential people or companies are faced with an uphill struggle to get those contacts and begin building meaningful relationships.
For example, if you wanted to reach the top 100 people at Apple, Google or Amazon where you would start?
Linkedin sounds perfect but what if the people you need do not have a social presence?
Relationship Science – the highly-coveted business development technology that has raised more than $120 million from some of the most prominent people on Wall Street – is for the first time announcing that it will make its exclusive database on more than 5 million executives available to the public.
Now, the company is competing directly with LinkedIn by making its database available to the masses. Still sold through subscriptions to large corporations, Relationship Science will now be available directly to individuals on a new consumer website.
I invited CEO at Relationship Science Neil Goldman to find out more.
With the healthcare space seeking to furnish patients with educative information and empower them to make better healthcare decisions, new companies are continuously popping up, making it difficult to separate the best from the competition.
When researching these changes, I recently came across Neil Smiley, who created two patient engagement companies, Phytel who was acquired by IBM and his current company, Loopback Analytics
So I invited Neil Smiley who is the founder and CEO of Loopback Analytics. onto the show to see he can offer any insider secrets to what it takes to succeed in the crowded healthcare market.
Guest Info
www.loopbackanalytics.com
Apps such as Uber have not only disrupted entire industries but have raised our expectations. If we can now hail a cab within a few swipes of our smartphone why can't everything else be that easy?
Step forward a Honcker, the worlds first app that lets users lease a car right from their phone in 3 swipes.
I invited Founder & CEO of Honcker Nathan Hect onto the show to find out its merging the old way and new way of doing things to create a modern solution that is increasing sales.
Guest Info
www.honcker.com
@NathanHecht
KeepTree's patented communication technologies allow people to communicate using video like never before. KeepTree's FutureSend allows users to record videos to be automatically delivered to loved ones now or up to 100 years from now.
Meanwhile, Vift Video Gift Message technology allows gift-givers to record a video message that gets delivered digitally at the same time as their gift. TroopTree allows U.S. military service members to exchange private and secure video mail with their families.
Most of us are probably a little guilty of taking our near perfect lives for granted and I wanted to ask everyone to spend a few moments to listen to this show.
In over 120 episodes this one contains more life lessons than any so far and promise that it will certainly offer you food for thought.
Have you ever been hit by a virus and been prescribed antibiotics? I suspect you have. But before you say nothing to see now imagine it permanently damaged your central nervous system and the doctors gave you months to live.
Jon did not use technology to create businesses for fame and fortune but to help him started recording legacy videos for his children to be delivered at specific dates and times in the future – birthdays, graduations, etc. when he thought he wouldn't be around.
Bvddy is a mobile app that is Connecting people through sports.
Play and compete in the sports you love with people that match your skill level and experience in your community. Find people and places to play your favorite sports while you travel.
Bvddy is the world’s first smart-matching app that connects you to sports partners at your level and in your area. From tennis buddies, to running buddies, to yoga -- or whatever sport you love, we’ve got you covered. Join and get swiping. We match, you play!
I wanted to find out the story behind the Bvddy app, so invited Former tennis pro, founder and CEO of Bvddy, Pedro Ast onto the show.
Guest Info
www.bvddy.com
Twitter: @pr_ast and
Brian Moylan best described Betabrand when he wrote "The company that’s using viral humor and uncensored crowdsourcing to create the future of fashion"
Selling corduroy pants with horizontal corduroy went from a crazy idea dreamt up in a bar to a multi-million dollar business. Betabrand will bring in $25M-$30M of revenue this year and create over 300 new products a year.
After hearing that major brands like Timberland and Pebble use Betabrand to make more informed merchandising decisions before creating a new product I invited Chris Lindland Founder & CEO of Betabrand.com to learn more about his exciting journey and new way of approaching startup marketing.
Guest Info
www.betabrand.com
Anyone that’s recently attended a stadium or arena to see a concert, football game or even conference will have noticed a huge increase in security for obvious reasons. But, things have moved on from a guy patting you down on the door or checking your bag.
I wanted to check how technology solutions are now helping keep people safe.
This search led me to the Qylatron Entry Experience Solution:
It provides an automated, self-service screening experience for sporting events, amusement parks, and airports, and has been used at the Olympics, World Cup, Levi’s Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers and other large venues.
Qylur is helping security deliver the wow factor to venues around the world.
To find out more, I invite CEO and founder of Qylur, Lisa Dolev onto the show to learn more about how the company's journey.
Guest Info
http://www.qylur.com/
Qylatron Entry Experience Solution - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZiT038Vfsk
Zenvoy Business Matchmaker aims to Bring the Right Connections to your Inbox thanks to a Networking algorithm aimed to put the spark back into business relationships.
The best way of describing Zenvoy is it works like a dating site but rather than matching you with love interests, if ensures connections are a good fit for business interests.
Users complete a profile and a proprietary algorithm takes charge to cultivate valuable one-on-one connections that are a good fit for business interests. The platform focuses on associations, conferences, and professionals.
“Research shows that one-on-one networking is more beneficial than ‘working a room’ at an event,” said Bill Webster, Co-Founder and COO of Zenvoy. “If you live and die by referral-based business, Zenvoy can supercharge your networking value by bringing targeted business introductions right to your email inbox.”
Guest Info
www.zenvoy.com
@Zenvoy
Arnie McKinnis has a question for the Tech Blog Writer....
As I continue to chase my freedom and dreams, Arnie wants to know what I have learned on my journey to business and lifestyle success.
Questionmaster - https://twitter.com/amckinnis
A quick look around any office at lunchtime will see a few people trying their best to be healthy by tucking into a small meal in a cardboard box. Meal Kit services seem to be everywhere at the moment and cater for any diet or taste.
An increasing number of people are finding busy workloads and managing after school activities are taking its toll. Getting healthy does not need to be a chore when FreshRealm will deliver healthy quick weeknight dinners to your front door.
Its not just about the food, but the packaging, transportation, cloud-based software, apps and connecting with their customers and their ethical outlook.
I invited FreshRealm Founder and CEO Michael Lippold onto the show to find out more.
Guest
https://freshrealm.co
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-lippold-b5374728
Beyond Norway’s famous fjords, Viking ships and Northern Lights lies itslearning, which has bcome Europe’s largest Learning Management System provider. Founded in Bergen,Norway in 1999 by a group of dedicated students, itslearning’s goal was to create an online platform where teachers could share resources and files.
A great concept where students could complete and submit assignments- all in one place. Itslearning was built on the belief that when you elevate education, you elevate society.
An incredibly bold goal for a company from one of the smallest countries in Europe. But, the Norwegian public education system is one of the most prestigious in Europe, with a higher general level of education than the European average.
Norway is also a leading investor in education and has one of the highest levels of educational attainment, with 82% of the adult population having at least an upper secondary education. And itslearning is now their champion LMS system.
Now in the US, itslearning’s success continues with over 7 million teacher, student and parent users worldwide.
Guest Info
@ArneBergby
@Shoe44
www.itslearning.com
John Schwarz is Founder and CEO of Visier. A leading innovator in Big Data cloud technology, Visier was founded to reinvent the Business Intelligence industry, starting with a focus on workforce analytics.
A forty year software industry veteran, Schwarz was CEO of Business Objects when the company was acquired by SAP for $6.78 billion in 2007. During his tenure, Business Objects doubled its revenue to more than $1.5 billion, improved profitability, and executed seven strategic acquisitions.
After SAP’s acquisition of Business Objects, John oversaw a dramatic continuing expansion of its business as a member of the SAP Executive Board.
I talk to John about why people Are the ultimate resource for the 21st Century: Labor shortages in key sectors, surpluses in others, AI, robots causing upheaval in various industries, and diversity are all hot button issues to companies, governments and employees.
Guest Info
www.visier.com
Phishing is the #1 security concern for 2016, with an unprecedented growth in phishing attacks this year. Over 90% of the year’s hacking attacks began with email and increasingly, attackers are targeting Office365. Find out why.
Guest Info
http://www.avanan.com/
Phishing, security, cyber security, malware
The smart lighting market has given homeowners an easy foot in the door to home automation, focusing heavily on wireless control and timing, but Sengled offers more than a device controlled smart bulb – they offer “Lifebulbs”.
Instead of offering typical simple smart lighting features, Sengled strives to improve consumers lives by adding in additional life-improving elements. Imagine your traditional light bulbs doubling up as JBL Bluetooth speakers for music, Wi-Fi repeaters for accessibility, or security cameras for protection – all accessible from your smart device. Welcome to the world of Sengled!
The Philips Hue might be an impressive remote-controlled lighting system for the home, but Sengled takes it to the next level.
I invited Alex Ruan onto the show to learn more.
Guest Info
www.sengled.com
Jeb Banner is CEO and co-founder of SmallBox, an Indianapolis-based "culture-powered marketing" company founded in 2006.
Jeb has also been known to speak in public on various topics such as his TedX Talk "Everything I know about business I learned from being in a band"
I invited Jeb onto the show to talk about creativity and innovation along with his thoughts on life, business, technology, and music along with how to unleash the creativity potential in your people.
Guest Info
www.smallbox.com
http://jebbanner.com
Former Contestant on Top Chef Masters, Marco Pierre White. Chef Franklin Becker didn’t want to sacrifice the pleasure of a truly good meal to eat “healthy”.
Being diagnosed with type-2 diabetes at the age of 27, and having his son diagnosed with autism set fire to Franklin’s desire to create food that not only tasted great, yet was also healthy. Thus, Hungryroot, a company that makes comfort foods from vegetables was born.
Hungryroot uses vegetables in dishes we all love, but don't typically associate with vegetables, like cauliflower couscous, black bean brownies, and maple chickpea pancakes.
Would I be able to taste the difference between healthy brownies made of black beans and cookies made of chickpeas? What do they taste like?
I invited Chef Franklin Becker onto the show to learn more.
Guest Info
www.hungryroot.com
@ChefBeckerNYC
Cybereason is the world's only military-grade, real-time detection and response platform. Much of its history is classified, but it makes for very interesting if you feel like a quick google after the show.
They are tackling security differently by viewing the market, not from an IT perspective, but the from the adversary's perspective.
In a world where Yahoo suffered a hack affecting 500 million users and Pippa Middleton revealed yet another iCloud photo hack. Not to mention wave after wave of ransomware attacks. I invited the CEO of Cybereason onto the show after hearing about their five-star rating From SC Magazine.
Guest Info
www.cybereason.com
Creatives that are hobbyists or enthusiasts often struggle to get their hands on affordable stock pictures or videos. Even if you do have an expensive subscription, very often you are left with cheeky clichéd footage of men in white shirts shaking hands in a meeting room.
The VideoBlocks.com site offers video content and is often referred to as a sort of Shutterstock for video,
Joel Holland is aiming to undercut the old guard of Shutterstock and Getty with new enterprise products that are more affordable with GraphicStock, AudioBlocks and VideoBlocks.
VideoBlocks customers include NBC, Discovery Communications, MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures, along with ad agencies and individual creators.
Guest Info
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelholland
VideoBlocks.com
Sugru is a moldable glue that sticks to almost anything and turns into a strong flexible rubber overnight. It is made to stick to as many materials as possible forming a strong bond to aluminum, steel, ceramics, glass, wood and other materials including some plastics and rubbers.
Sugru was created by Jane ni Dhulchaointigh, a young designer on a mission to empower people who want to repair and enhance their products
Sugru in numbers:
• Sold in 165 Countries
• Listed no. 22 in TIME Magazine’s Top 50 inventions in the world the year it launched in 2010
• 1000s of different uses
• The first 1000 packs sold out in 6 hours, 5 million mini-packs have now been sold
• Average number of stars given by hundreds of amazon reviews - 4.5/5
I invited Jane ni Dhulchaointigh onto the show to talk about her journey and Sugru's Rebel Tech Kit.
Guest Info
www.sugru.com
https://twitter.com/sugru
@janeonbike
TarDisk adds hybrid storage space to OS X. Unlike any other product, TarDisk merges with your MacBook's internal HD to expand it while keeping all of your files in one place at the speeds you expect. Double or triple your internal MacBook drive in minutes. No slowing down, no compromise.
Time Machine backups, programs and everything else in OS X continue to work as before. The things that you access most are automatically moved to the faster drive. Performance is maintained and even often improved. All with one click...
I invited TarDisk CEO Pierce Schiller on the show to learn more about the worlds first plug-and-play hybrid drive.
Guest Info
www.tardisk.com
A few years ago, tech in the home meant a desktop or laptop computer. We now have our own wireless network with multiple phones, tablets, laptops, games consoles, TV's, music systems all connected. IoT will bring Toasters, Fridges, Washing Machines, etc. online too.
Apple, Google, and Amazon are trying to implement Home Automation. But, I suspect families will need a little help delivering mood lighting, ring-fenced smart central heating, doorbells with cameras that allow them to answer the door from their phones and the list goes on and on.
Many households are now filled with better technology than their office in the city with a dedicated IT department.
HelloTech aims to change all that by bringing IT support to your front door. I recently heard it described as "Uber for IT Support" so invited Richard Wolpert
Co-founder & CEO at HelloTech to find out more.
Guest Info
www.hellotech.com
DUFL is a premium travel service- a personal valet that simplifies business travel by shipping, cleaning and storing your business attire.
DUFL stores your clothing in your personal DUFL closet, and allows you to virtually ‘pack’ by selecting your clothing items from within the app. Once you’ve scheduled your trip, you’ll travel – bag free, and your freshly cleaned and neatly packed clothing will meet you at your specified destination. When you’re ready to head home, schedule a pick up from the hotel and we’ll clean your clothes and have them waiting in your virtual closet, ready for your next trip!
I chat to Bill Rinehart, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Dufl about the exciting future for the company.
Guest Info
www.dufl.com
What happens when you put tech royalty and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musician from one of the greatest bands of all time Talking Heads in the same room?
The answer is RedCrow.
RedCRord is a crowdfunding platform was co-founded by CEO Brian Smith, a former Morgan Stanley financial advisor and wealth manager.
Chairman Jerry Harrison is more than just a rock star with Talking Heads but a serial entrepreneur.
RedCrow is a proprietary technology-enabled financial portal that uses the expertise of the industry leaders and its advisory boards to create the top performing crowdfunding portal. RedCrow’s selective curating process will allow for a disclosure and transparency unlike other early crowdfunding platforms.
RedCrow’s unique investment platform will educate investors and transform the way companies raise funds attracting both investors and entrepreneurs alike. RedCrow Crowd is focused on the Health Care/Social Impact space, presenting investments that make the world a better place.
It's a big honor to speak to these guys and great to see tech and rock n roll working alongside seamlessly. So I will refrain from singing Psycho Killer, Burning Down the House, Once in a Lifetime, Road to Nowhere or Wild Life and concentrate on how tech is has brought these two worlds together to make a real difference to the world by focusing on social impact.
Guest Info
www.redcrowcrowd.com
Building lasting consumer relationships on mobile is made easy at Swrve. They are helping brands meaningfully connect with all their customers.That means turning marketing into conversation, interest into interaction.
Swrve is a mobile engagement platform that handles 9-10 billion events a day on 2 billion devices.
How do brands build relationships with their customers?
How do they orchestrate customer journeys?
How do they segment and target users?
I invited CEO of Swrve Christopher Dean and Sr. Director, Product Marketing Alan Tam onto the show to answer these and many more questions about mobile engagement and analytics.
Guest Info
@Swrve_Inc
www.swrve.com
The secret recipe to create a viral mobile app is something we would all love to get our hands on. Tonight's guest is the chief executive of Smule, Jeff Smith and he is behind some of the most downloaded apps of all time.
Jeff is responsible for a long list of viral hits including Sing! Karaoke, Magic Piano, AutoRap, Guitar! and Ocarina. An organic social community has also helped increase growth by 70%, while 50 million active music creators and curators have become promotional channels for the service.
I invited Jeff onto to the show to learn the secret of his success and the great story of how Sing! Karaoke user Tom Bleasby video duet with Jessie J went viral last , notching up nearly 3.6m views on his own YouTube channel and another 10.3m on Facebook after the star shared it with her followers.
Guest Info
smule.com
@smule
Chad Newell, the CEO of SnapWire which is an innovative take on the traditional stock photo industry.
The platform allows businesses to pitch a brief and photography challenges and pay for the authentic photographs they wanted.
Essentially, Snapwire is an on-demand stock photography marketplaces inviting its photographers to own the business that gets them business
SnapWire reached their initial fundraising initial goal in only 72 hours so I invited Grant Harvey and Chad Newell onto the show today to talk about their story and successfully Launching a Title III Equity Crowdfunding Campaign.
SnapWire is a platform that connects a new generation of photographers with brands and businesses around the world.
Guest Info
https://www.snapwi.re/
@Chads_chats
I recently came across a company called Forter on the Gartner Cool vendors list. They offer an invaluable service to retailers by taking away all the risk of transactions.
Most people listening to this show would have received a call from their bank at some stage to be questioned about recent transactions they did not make.
It's a hassle and you have to wait for new cards to arrive, but for businesses, it's a much biggest problem.
For every 1,000 transactions made in the first quarter of 2016, there were 34 fraud attacks, compared to 15 per 1,000 transactions during the second quarter of 2015, which represents a 126% increase.
I invited Michael Reitblat, CEO and co-founder of Forter to find out more about how it works and understand how raising $32M in Series C funding is making a big difference against online fraud.
Bootler, the newest player in the food delivery game and is set up to create transparency in the industry. Users can now search and discover restaurants that deliver in their neighborhood, growing by restaurant or category. An all in one food and alcohol delivery engine that comprises data from GrubHub, Delivery.com, Door Dash, PostMates and their alcohol provider, Saucey, all in one place making it easier for the consumer. I chat with Michael DiBenedetto who is the co-founder and CEO of the fast-growing Bootler. As food delivery apps begin to take over our smartphones, this Chicago-based food- and alcohol-delivery search engine hopes to bring a one-stop solution that could become the Kayak of food delivery.
Digitization projects often end up with installing huge screens everywhere for wayfinding or just to deliver the wow factor. But, seldom do they tackle the what content? or what do you want to achieve difficult questions?
Fastsigns have created a technological revolution that is helping businesses communicate with their audience in an effective, meaningful and measurable way.
FASTSIGNS CEO Catherine Monson has first-hand experience of the evolution from analog to digital and talks about her journey and the most common mistakes businesses make.
Launched in 2010, GoFundMe is the world’s largest online fundraising platform, with over $2 billion raised so far. The global GoFundMe community of more than 25 million donors is changing the way the world gives.
140 GoFundMe campaigns had been created in a hub the platform created specifically for Olympians, and over $750,000 has been raised for travel and training costs.
I invited the chairman and CEO of GoFundMe, Rob Solomon onto the show to learn more about the platform that is making a real difference to people's lives.
With more than 20 years of experience helping to build some of the biggest names in tech, Rob wants to make GoFundMe the online destination for personal causes.
FinalCode, is a global file security platform provider that has recently joined IBM's PartnerWorld program and were also recently named a ‘Cool Vendor’ by Gartner.
Companies face the monumental challenge of establishing strong and persistent file protection to ensure sensitive corporate information remains protected. Even with massive investments in network security and data leakage prevention systems, leading companies lose sensitive files regularly.
Unfortunately, Data leakage, reputation, compliance and liability risks are amplified due to Shadow IT and employee / contractor turnover, mobile devices, unsanctioned applications, personal e-mail, cloud storage and unsanctioned file sharing services that are outside an IT organization’s oversight.
I invited Scott Gordon, chief operating officer of Final Code onto to the show to explain more about the five-step process and find out more about what services they offer.
Guest Info
www.finalcode.com
Today is a big day for the Tech Blog Writer Podcast and the host Neil Hughes.
It's Neil's Birthday and after just over a year podcasting we reach the 100th Episode.
In this episode, we take a break from interviews and hand over the mic to listeners of the show and also look back at our journey together.
Payoneer empowers global commerce by connecting businesses, professionals, countries and currencies with its innovative cross-border payments platform.
We often here about the world of finance is struggling to keep up in this digital world. While banks cautiously investigate the opportunities around so-called FinTech an entire industry is looking ripe for disruption.
Payoneer is making big waves in the tech world for being a disruptive international b2b online payments company with revenue far north of $100 million.
Scott Galit, CEO of Payoneer, recently won the 2016 winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award, in the Financial Technology category.
After hearing how thousands of leading corporations including Airbnb, Amazon, Getty Images, Google, and Upwork rely on Payoneer’s mass payout services I invited Scott onto the show to find out more.
Guest Info
@Payoneer
www.payoneer.com
An obsession with email tools and a desire to escape the East Coast winter were the initial driving forces behind MIT Engineer Michael Grinich’s startup Nylas. After moving west to help out a friend turned into working at Dropbox and Nest he, in 2014, faced the decision between working for another startup darling or venturing out on his own. He scratched the itch that never left him, email, and set out on his own path.
Nylas is built on the idea that email can become the “database of your life” and that we already use email so much, we should find a way to build a better platform, no matter how many startups want to kill it. Using open-source tooling, Nylas allows developers to build an unlimited amount of new features on the platform, and it’s taken off within the developer community; they’ve reached 20,000 stars on GitHub, ranking them 74th across GitHub’s 3.4 million projects.
Guest Info
@grinich
www.nylas.com
@nylas
With more than 70 million registered hourly workers and 300,000 customer locations, Snagajob is America’s #1 hourly marketplace, creating instant, quality connections so that a job can be secured in minutes.
I invited Jocelyn Mangan, one of FastCo's 100 Most Creative People in Business, and the chief product and marketing officer for Snagajob onto the show to more about the company and their recent $100 million funding.
Guest Details
http://www.snagajob.com/
@jcmangan
Do you remember how unreliable taxi services used to be before Uber? Or when Chinese and pizza were the only food delivery choices before GrubHub and Postmates?
I recently discovered Giftagram. The app is redefining the gift giving process but maintaining the level of thought required to make any gift meaningful. After all its the thought that counts right?
"Giftagram sends gifts from your iPhone--no address required! In 3 clicks, send gifts using only an email address or phone number. Browse Giftagram's curated selection from local boutiques, premium brands and exclusive experiences to find the perfect gift. It's the easiest way to send a gift (or treat yourself to something special). Select your contact, pick a gift and hit "send." Your recipient will be notified and receive their gift in 2-3 days"
I chat with Jason Reid, CEO and Co-Founder of Giftagram, which is backed in funding by some of Hollywood’s biggest executives including Peter Benedek, Jeremy Zimmer, and Jim Berkus.
Guest Info
Twitter - @Giftagram
http://www.giftagram.com/
What phone do you have? Are you fiercely loyal to Android? or Apple?
No matter what brand you have aligned yourself to, the truth is that the market is appearing a little bit....well samey. And yet Analysts wonder why phone sales are dropping off.
Step forward ZTE who had a crazy idea of crowdsourcing ideas for their next mobile device and the best one will get made and go on sale next year. They want to you to submit your ideas!
Upon hearing this I had to get them onto the show, thankfully for us Jeff Lee,VP Technology Planning and Partnerships agreed to come on and tell us all about this fascinating new concept.
Guest Info:
https://community.zteusa.com/docs/DOC-1171
Andrew Filev is the founder and CEO of Wrike, provider of popular social project management software. Growing up in St Petersburg, Russia with a huge passion for technology, he dreamed of one day working in Silicon Valley.
Fast forward to 2016 he is the CEO and founder of Wrike with customers from 50+ countries. Not only does he reside in California, but Wrike has been named “Best Place to Work” for the Second Year in a Row in the Bay area.
An inspirational story about dreams, continuous improvement and bringing in a new project management tool more relevant to creatives and our increasingly digital environment.
Guest Info
@andrewsthoughts
https://www.wrike.com
EventBoard has recently secured another $13.5 Million in Series B and continues dominance in the connected and intelligent workplace of the future.
The modern workplace looks very different from 30 years ago. There are new workspaces, technologies and management styles that focus on productivity and efficiency. Yet, with over 11 million meetings per day and an estimated $37 billion lost each year to unproductive meetings, meetings remain a constant frustration.
With more than 1,700 customers using its tools and data across industries, a shift is happening across businesses that use EventBoard to focus on optimizing people, places, and technology in the workplace.
The Series B brings the company's total funding to $20.5 million and will fuel support for the sales and marketing team to drive innovation around improving the office experience with employee-focused apps and deep data driven insights.
Having already partnered with Google for work & announcing tablet support.EventBoard also integrates with many existing calendar systems, including Microsoft Exchange, and Office 365.
I invited co-founder Zachary Holmquist onto the show to learn more.
Guest Info
https://eventboard.io/
@zholmquist
Jitterbit, the leading provider of fast, agile integration solutions for the modern enterprise, recently announced Gartner has named it a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service.
Enabling customers to amplify the power of their data and applications to improve business processes and performance is the goal of Jitterbit CEO George Gallegos.
"By making it easy for non-developers to quickly connect any cloud or on-premises endpoint across a secure and reliable platform, Jitterbit is answering an enormous demand for companies looking to transform themselves into digital businesses."
I invited Jitterbit CEO George Gallegos onto the show to learn more.
Guest Info
jitterbit.com
@jitterbit
Businesses are migrating to the cloud, but some are unhappy at the speed and scale of the cloud and turning to hybrid solutions. Alfresco wants to accelerate digital transformation and connect people, content and processes to their hybrid solution.
While many are finally admitting that there are not enough women in tech. Alfresco attributes its recent growth to four women (including one former UN deputy CIO) in their C-suite.
With high profile clients such Nike, NASA and Saks Fifth Avenue, it's clear they are doing something right.
I chat to Doug Dennerline who is the CEO and President at Alfresco. But he has a long history in the world of IT where he has seen many changes at tech giants such as Cisco, Skype, and Sales Force.
Guest Info
@ddennerline
www.alfresco.com
Know Your Company is a two-person company that is experiencing steady revenue and customer growth in more than 15 countries. With Kickstarter, Medium and Airbnb on their client list, I had to find out more.
Know Your Company is a software tool that helps you uncover insights into your company that you didn't know before.
Every week, you’ll learn three different things...
- You'll learn how your employees feel about your business, the work, the culture, etc. You'll uncover blindspots in your company. You'll be able to address issues before they turn into bigger problems.
- You'll learn what everyone in the company is working on.Everyone will be on the same page. No one in the company will feel in the dark about what's going on.
- You'll learn more about everyone in the company as people.This could be a favorite recipe or movie. The small connections will bring everyone a little closer together.
I invited CEO Claire Lew onto the show to learn more.
Guest Info
https://knowyourcompany.com/
@cjlew23
CodeFights, a scrappy new startup founded by MIT grads turned Google and Oracle engineers aims to create an online arena for hacker phenoms to hone their coding talents through real-time competitions -
Offering head-to-head battles as well as tournament based play for a massively growing community of coders. They are creating a business around the popular, organized Hackathon’s being held at some of the most innovative companies in the world.
Backed by the former Head of Strategy at Microsoft, they're looking to change the way companies like Uber, Asana and Dropbox hire by giving those without the stacked resume, an opportunity to demonstrate skill, instead of relying on experience.
I chat with CEO Tigran Sloyan about how CodeFights is changing the game for the better.
Guest Info:
www.CodeFights.com
@TigranSloyan
Capital One customers can now check their balances, find out when bills are due or make payments for their home or auto loans – all hands free – by asking Alexa questions such as:
· “What’s my car loan balance?”
· “When’s my car/home loan payment due?”
· “Pay my mortgage.”
· “Alexa, ask Capital One to make an auto payment/due date/due amount.”
I invited Ken Dodelin, Vice President, Digital Product Development at Capital One on the show to talk about the latest developments around technology and innovation.
Guest Info
@CapitalOne
John Hendricks has one of the most engaging entrepreneurial stories you’re likely to read about. As founder of the Discovery channel, he was responsible for broadcasting 100 channels to 1.5 billion people in 39 languages and more than 170 countries.
His book Curious Discovery: An Entrepreneur's Story detailed how he founded the Discover Channel went from a $100,000 second mortgage on his home and the brink of bankruptcy to a $23-billion media empire.
John was niching down and tapping into second screening before it was even a thing.
Here in 2016, he has returned as the founder and chairman of a Netflix of Non-Fiction service called CuriosityStream.
Guest Info
@JohnSHendricks
https://curiositystream.com
@CuriosityStream
Matthew Corrin struggled to find healthy grab-and-go lunch options with engaging branding and was determined to “Starbuck” the must-needed health-casual dining category. In 2005, without any restaurant or retail experience, Matthew opened his first Freshii location.
Fast forward 10 years and there are now 300 units across 85+ cities and nearly 20 countries. Freshii opened its first 100 locations faster than Subway and McDonald’s with no plans to slow down.
I invited the Freshii CEO & Founder onto the show to share his inspirational story that includes our favourite ingredients of technology, innovation, and an entrepreneurial spirit.
Guest Info
https://www.freshii.com
Tom Seery is CEO of RealSelf, the world's largest community for learning and sharing information about cosmetic surgery, dermatology, dentistry, and other elective treatments.
When you think of cosmetic surgery, you don't automatically think of technology, innovation and creating a real difference to people's lives. THIS is the exact reason I invited Tom on the show tonight, it's time to challenge your preconceptions and learn how this technology is used for the greater good.
Guest Info
https://www.realself.com/video/change-500#.V6DwwNArKAw
@realself
@seery
Many people nowadays are always on the go and find it difficult to break away from the hustle and bustle. We are always attached to our phones, checking emails, texting, calling, and checking social media. Believe it or not, the very devices that fuel our addiction can also pave the way to ultimate zen and focus.
An app called Meditation Studio is being credited to helping with stress, anxiety and sleep disorders.
I speak with Patricia Karpas the co-creator of the Meditation Studio App to find out how I can untangle my mind with a mobile app.
Guest Info
http://www.meditationstudioapp.com/
@pkarpas
The Internet of Things (IOT) have changed the way companies do business across so many industries enabling critical data to be supplied in real time allowing smarter and faster decision making across the value chain.
Weissbeerger is the latest BIG DATA company to change the game in how major Breweries and Soft Drink Manufacturers manage their end to end business.
The team at Weissbeerger are working with bar owners on every corner of the globe and understand the need to constantly innovate, bring new customers to the bar, and grow profit.
By installing Beverage Analytics and the full suite of Weissbeerger applications, bar owners can stop guessing and start seeing proven results based on real data and advanced analytics.
Bars that use the Beverage Analytics system have seen increased sales of up to 32% per tap, reduced beer waste by 50%, and increased promotion effectiveness.
I invited Weissbeerger's COO Ilan Sobel onto the show to find out more about how technology and innovation are unlocking incredible value inside bars.
Guest Info
http://weissbeerger.com/
INFO@WEISSBEERGER.COM
The LOT Network (a non-profit first launched by Google) is a group of high-profile tech and auto companies Patent Trolls.
2015 was the biggest year ever for patent trolls with nearly 80% of suits in tech, and LOT Network is one prong of a multi-prong defense for companies as varied as Red Hat, GitHub, Box, Lenovo, etc. With numbers like this - 3M to handle a patent troll suit (on average), 500% growth in patent troll activity in past 10 years, 80,000,000,000 per year in total on patent troll litigation - the issue is pervasive.
I invited Ken Seddon, CEO of LOT Network onto the show to learn more.
Guest Info
http://lotnet.com/
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Patents - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bxcc3SM_KA
Since launching Reverb.com in 2013, David has been working side-by-side with his growing team to make the online marketplace the best place for musicians to buy and sell new, used, vintage and handmade music gear. As the company’s evangelist and product visionary, David has grown Reverb.com into the most popular music gear website in the world. David started Reverb.com shortly after purchasing well-known musical instrument shop, Chicago Music Exchange, and growing frustrated with the process of buying and selling guitars online.
The company expects to handle about $120 million in equipment sales this year, tripling last year's volume.
I chat to David Kalt about how technology and innovation is helping Reverb.com go from strength to strength.
Guest Info
https://reverb.com/
Twitter: @reverbdotcom and
Reverie is incorporating technology into the way they make their mattresses/sleep system to improve our sleep and health. A sleep technology company that has tech plugins and Bluetooth technology inside their beds and mattresses.
I chat o the CEO of Reverie about running an innovation summit where they pull together industry leads to learn from disrupters.
Guest Info
http://www.reverie.com/
@ReverieSleep
DialogTech CEO Irv Shapiro talks about the new Dialog Analytics platform that Uses machine learning to automatically categorize phone calls.
DialogTech has experienced over 300 percent growth in its enterprise client base and nearly doubled its average customer size. They have handled over one billion minutes of phone calls and have over 5,000 enterprises, digital agencies and fast-growing companies as client
You already optimize the customer journey for the search keywords, digital ads, and web interactions that drive clicks. DialogTech enables you to do the same for customer calls, using the same tools you use now for clicks.
Guest Info
https://twitter.com/irvshapiro?lang=en
http://www.dialogtech.com/
Meet Rythm, a neurotechnology company is debuting their first product, an active wearable headband called Dreem. This is the first wearable to go beyond merely monitoring sleep, it actually reads your brainwaves and influences them to sleep better.
I invited CEO and co-founder Hugo Mercier onto the show to learn more about how the Dreem headband is different from other innaccurate sleep trackers and the future of neurotech.
Guest Info
https://www.rythm.co/
Twitter - @HugoMercierR
DR. AMANTHA IMBER is an innovation psychologist, best-selling author, and founder of Australia’s leading innovation consultancy Inventium. With a PhD in organizational psychology, Amantha has helped companies such as Google, Coca-Cola, Disney, LEGO, Red Bull, American Express, McDonald’s, Virgin, Commonwealth Bank and many others innovate successfully.
Inventium has been recognized as one of Australia’s fastest growing companies in the BRW Fast 100 list, and was also awarded the BRW Client Choice Award for Best Management Consultancy.
I chat to Amantha about how companies can overcome their fear of taking risks and understanding that innovation is much more than a buzzword or a breakout room with multi colored bean bags.
Guest Info
inventium.com.au
Twitter @amantha
Book
Over 100 PopSugar content creators leverage Adobe Analytics to closely observe trends and historical data, which is then leveraged in creative ways to generate the best content pieces.
Adobe Analytics is part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud, a comprehensive solution set for brands to effectively engage audiences and deliver the best experience across any platform.
These new tools are enabling PopSugar ito better predict and anticipate the stories that readers (female millennials) will click on.
Chris George is the SVP, Product Marketing, and Sales Strategy at POPSUGAR. I invited hom onto the show to discuss this and how they are getting 35 million views on Snapchat each month.
Guest Info
http://www.popsugar.com
@coachgeorge
The modern day digital ophthalmoscope is here with D-EYE, the portable retinal imaging system for iPhone and Android.
D-Eye helps physicians diagnose a number of different eye conditions, including glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration, blood vessel abnormalities, possible hemorrhages, optic disorders, neuritis, and hypertensive retinopathy.
The product can also be used on a variety of animals, like dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, and even falcons.
I invited Richard Sill, CEO of D-Eyecare to Discuss the portable retinal imaging system.
Guest Info
www.d-eyecare.com
Brainshark sales enablement solutions help organizations harness the power of content to drive sales productivity and effectiveness.
Brainshark has also helped General Electric’s $5 billion GE Digital division operationalize sales and marketing alignment, and enjoy year-over-year growth-year growth. A seamless integration with Outlook and Salesforce of proving impossible to ignore.
Greg Flynn, a co-founder of the company, was appointed CEO earlier this year. He has worn a number of hats at the company – touching nearly every department: business development, sales, products & services, engineering, etc.
Guest Info
https://www.brainshark.com/
@Greg_Flynn
BeyondCore, a data startup that’s spent more than ten years refining a one-click automated business analysis that gives anyone, not just data scientists, the abilities to do advanced analytics.
Their patented technology has been used by more than 20 Fortune 500 Companies and at a recent convention, they were able to showcase its abilities in a quasi-competition where they ended up beating out the likes of IBM Watson.
BeyondCore Automated Analyst asks every question of your data; statistically, validates every answer; explains the story for everybody; Now.
BeyondCore received multiple industry innovation awards such as being selected as a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms in 2016.
I invited Arijit Sengupta, the Founder and CEO of BeyondCore onto the show to learn more about their success and find an answer to the fact that 80% of BI projects fail.
Guest Info
Twitter - @Arijit_SG
https://beyondcore.com/
Julie Smolyansky talks about high-protein kefir. She also shares her inspirational story about using technology and innovation to improve her probiotic range.
Lifeway Foods started in the basement of a family home selling a 150-year-old Eastern European cheese delicacy to Chicago area Russian immigrants. Some years later and following the untimely death of founder Mike Smolyansky, his then 25-year-old daughter, Julie, took over the business and a dramatic reinvention began. Celebrating 30 years this month, Lifeway has become known for being one of the first to bring the probiotic craze to your grocery store isle.
Her protein rich drink, Kefir, is guzzled by everyone from toddlers to body builders, and its popularity has made them $150MM company traded on the NASDAQ.
Guest Info
Twitter - @JulieSmolyansky
Website - http://lifewaykefir.com/
Stephanie Newby, CEO of Crimson Hexagon and founder of Golden Seeds, an investment firm that connects women-led companies with venture investments.
Throughout her 20+-year career, her mission has stayed the same: to help establish equal, socially conscious grounds where people from diverse backgrounds can rise to success. But Stephanie is so much more than her professional achievements.
We talk about her completing a traditional Native American Vision Quest and much more.
Guest Info
@crimsonhexagon
@StephanieSNewby
Huddle is the enterprise content collaboration company that's helping organizations across the globe transform the way they work.
From internal collaboration across teams, to external client engagements, Huddle manages files, tasks, and team communication in one place; so you spend less time organizing documents, managing feedback and searching through email, and more time delivering exceptional results.
Morten talks about the importance of:
Collaboration
Security
File Sharing
Project Management
Alan Tisch Co-Founder and CEO of the one shop stop app called Spring.
In this year of conversational commerce it's easy to see why Spring's sales are currently growing 20% month over month and how they're capitalizing on the growing trend of mobile commerce.
Spring has learned a lot about how customers shop, they've scaled their list of brand partners to over 1,000 (now offering their full catalogs, to go from 1k SKUs to more than 130k.)
I speak to Alan about Webrooming, Shorwrooming, mobile commerce, the rise of chatbots and working with Apple.
Guest Info
https://www.shopspring.com
@alantisch
Art and technology could be the perfect new partnership thanks to Klio. The 4K digital display bringing next generation art to traditional living rooms.
The Klio is a product of Art.com's experimental Labs division and hangs on the wall like an HDTV. This next generation device also allows art sharing via a Wi-Fi connection and a monthly subscription.
In essence, Klio is attempting to bring to the digital art world what iTunes did for music. The device is providing a virtual market for artists and an on-demand download source for art lovers.
Embracing both innovation and technology has enabled the team at Klio to create the new motion-rich art forms of tomorrow. Much of the art on the platform can evolve over time. Users can also change their collection automatically depending on their mood or even time of day to provide a unique digital décor experience.
I invited Paul Golding who is a Brit in Silicon Valley about this fantastic new concept and how technology is helping art evolve.
Guest Info
http://www.klioart.com/
Twitter: @pgolding
Evergage's cloud-based platform delivers real-time personalization to more than 1 billion web visitors, improving demand generation, revenue growth and customer success for over 120 organizations, including Gardener's Supply Company, Intuit, Publishers Clearing House, Rue La La and Zumiez.
Evergage empowers marketers to increase engagement and conversions of visitors and users through real-time 1:1 personalization based on deep behavioral analytics and customer data. Evergage is a 2015 Best in Biz Awards, Golden Bridge Awards and The Stevie American Business Awards winner, a two-time MITX Awards winner and a two-time BostInno "50 on Fire" finalist.
Guest Info
Twitter: @wirthkarl
http://www.evergage.com/
David Baszucki is the founder and co-creator of the online video game ROBLOX.
ROBLOX boasts over nine million monthly active users and over two billion hours played since 2008 with a more than 50 percent year-over-year increase in revenue. The mission is to become the global leader in user-generated gaming and creation for all ages, incorporating new platforms and fresh, exciting ideas from the community every day.
With a unique game on every server, all platforms building and creating together and making huge waves in virtual reality, I invited David onto the show to learn more about his future plans.
I dedicate this episode to my son who has enjoyed playing this game since he was 7 years old. I have watched them both grow over the last 8 years, making this episode a labor of love.
Guest Info
Twitter: @DavidBaszucki
Website: roblox.com
Travelers are turning away from hotel chains in favor of having a localized experience where they can enjoy a unique holiday.
Stayful prices are at least 10% better than any price and provide a personalized travel service from booking to checkout.
The virtual Stayful Concierge is always on hand to help provide local tips, trips etc to ensure you enjoy spend time enjoying your trip and less time in line.
Independent, boutique hotel experiences are unique; they can transform an ordinary trip into an amazing story of discovery. An interesting episode for any travel fans and Cheryl even has an offer for listeners of the show...
Guest Info
https://stayful.com/
Twitter: @cherylrosner Cofounder & CEO Stayful ~~@~~stayful
Richard Sharp is the scientific and technical brain behind the Google-backed company Yieldify. The company forecasts online behavior for more than 500 brands and their millions of e-commerce customers
Yieldify’s email remarketing targets your visitors with messaging and content based on their onsite behaviours, delivering a consistent experience from the moment they land on the site to the moment they return to make a purchase.
Making every interaction count to optimise customer experience and brand revenue is beginning to attract attention for all the right reasons.
After learning how Domino’s Pizza Achieved a 99:1 ROI with Exit-Intent Overlays, I invited Richard onto the show to learn more.
Guest Info
http://www.yieldify.com/
Twitter: @rws26
The Olympic Games are expected to exceed $1B in ad sales across platforms as viewers stream on social media, tablets, TV, etc.
With the Rio 2016 Olympics spanning across 16 days, viewer streaming will differ from one-and-one events like the Super Bowl, and publishers are leaning on dynamic-ad-insertion (DAI) to capitalize on viewing peaks – open & closing ceremony and popular events such as gymnastics to cater to each platform and monetize the games.
Matt Smith of Anvato discusses how DAI will rain ad dollars during the summer Olympics and its value as viewers diversify their viewing platforms. He also talks about how Anvato is bringing 360 Degree Video Capabilities.
Guest Info
http://www.anvato.com/
https://twitter.com/mattsmith0
Partners of snorers wake up grumpy and resentful - not a great way to be in a relationship or start your day.
Most anti-snoring products use intrusive and uncomfortable masks, mouth or nose pieces. Many don’t even work. You know because you have probably tried them.
People snore for many reasons, yet the snoring noise is universally disturbing. So Silent Partner developed an original and comfortable solution that simply quiets the noise.
I chat to co-Founder and CEO Netanel Eyal to find out more about this product and how they smashed their $40,000 target by hitting $700,000 at the time of recording this episode.
Guest Info
Indigogo Campaign - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/silent-partner-quiets-snoring-noise-like-magic#/
http://www.silent-partner.co/
Entrepreneurial ideas that surprise or inspire us are often the result of a personal experience. Maria De La Croix once applied for the role of a barista at her local Starbucks only to be instantly rejected for having blue hair.
Rather than sit around feeling discriminated against for expressing her creative side, she decided to use this experience as an inspiration to follow her own path. The universe has a funny habit of pointing us in the right direction when we least expect it. Being turned away from the behemoth coffee chain delivered an idea that would change everything.
Maria decided to create an antidote to the clone towns that consist of an H&M, Starbucks, and McDonald’s across the globe. Inspired by Airbnb, and Uber’s new way of doing business, she found a way of bypassing the old laws of the industry by not buying physical space.
Wheelys Café was born, and the first high-tech mobile café hit the streets of Sweden. Serving 100-percent organic coffee outside the same Starbucks that rejected her could have been considered poetic justice. But visibly taking more money than the global coffee chain was all the proof she needed that she was doing the right thing.
It typically costs over $500,000 to open a traditional café before adding rent, electricity, and other utilities. Upon learning these costs, she created a solution that would open up opportunities to millions of passionate young entrepreneurs. A completely mobile Wheelys café franchise was made available for just three thousand dollars to the global community.
An organic revolution gathered pace in a world that is beginning to tire of industrial fast-food from big brands. Since they launched, Wheelys café has doubled sales every six months and sold 500+ cafés to 60+ countries.
With over 100 people waiting to buy the next batch of Wheelys, It’s easy to see why this innovative idea has become the world’s quickest growing coffee café chain. The mobility allows the owners to follow the crowds from the train station in the morning to a sports venue in the evening. One owner managed to turn over $1,000 in a day at Santa Monica beach.
Creating a movement of organic mobile cafés in over 60 countries after being rejected from one of the world’s biggest brands is a truly inspirational story. But, its what Wheelys stands for to entrepreneurial people across the globe that are genuinely heartwarming.
Hugely successful fundedbyme and Indiegogo campaigns along with a $2.5 million seed round earlier this year is impossible to ignore. Recently, an invest in Wheelys to grow the movement campaign also proved to be a big hit. A global network of people who want to do things differently are challenging the old way of things.
In particular, young entrepreneurs are enjoying the benefits of taking home 90 percent of your revenue from their own franchise. The alternative of accepting a minimum wage for working in a large brands coffee chain quickly loses its appeal for obvious reasons.
Wheely’s Cafe ticks every box for a modern business. A small start-up cost, almost no running costs, healthy, extremely profitable and most importantly ECO- friendly. The ability to pedal your business around any City is an incredibly attractive option for anyone that wants to make their own way in life.
On my podcast, I spoke with Maria De La Croix about her inspirational story. Large corporate global brands have used environmentalism as a gimmick over the years. But in this age of authenticity and environmentally friendly businesses for the ethically minded, Wheelys Cafe are standing out from the crowd in a city near you.
I chat to the co-founder of ShipBob Dhruv Saxena. The startup is committed to relieving the pain of shipping for small business by handling pickup, packaging, and shipment on their behalf.
In the eyes of consumers, Amazon Prime is the new standard. ShipBob aims to help retailers provide a similar service to their customers too.
With global e-commerce projected to grow between 13-25 % by 2018, ShipBob, is determined to help small businesses scale as they grow, cutting overhead business costs by up to 20-25%. Coming off of a recent 7-Figure Series A round, ShipBob is projecting 500% growth with this round alone.
Guest Info
https://www.shipbob.com/
The story of David Steinberg is nothing short of inspirational. He rose to the top of the Inc. 500 bringing InPhonic to Unicorn status with a valuation of over $1 billion.
Inphonic had to file for Chapter 11 during the financial crisis of 2007–2010. Taking what he learned during the rise/fall of Inphonic, David has now created his 2nd unicorn startup Zeta Interactive that’s challenging IBM, SalesForce, Oracle in the process.
2015 was a record-setting year for Zeta, which included: crossing $200 million in revenue, posting an all-time high in EBITDA, closing their largest acquisition of the CRM division of eBay Enterprise and raising $125 million, led by Blackstone Group’s GSO Partners.
Zeta uses big data, advanced analytics, and machine learning to power marketing programs for hundreds of Fortune 1000 and Middle Market brands. With over 1,000 employees worldwide, the company is headquartered in New York City, with Centers of Excellence in Silicon Valley, Boston, London, and Hyderabad, India, and 12 additional offices around the globe
MyScript is the source of the world’s most advanced technology for handwriting recognition and digital ink management.
With more than 250 million users around the globe using MyScript to harness the power of digital handwriting at work, at home, and on the go, I invited their Vice President, Marketing of Marketing Gary Baum onto the show to learn more.
A great episode for anyone interested in technology, innovation, and artificial neural networks.
Guest Info
http://myscript.com/
I speak with CINEMOOD CEO Mike Bukhovtsev about how this portable projector was named one of the coolest gadgets for Generation Z at CES 2016.
Also learn how this digital fairytale of 15 experts in the content, hardware and software industries from San Francisco, South Korea, Denmark and Russia turned an idea into a huge crowdfunding success.
Guest Info
http://cinemood.com/
On this show, I speak with CEO and co-founder of ClearSky, Ellen Rubin
Ellen built a career on finding people with outrageous ideas and launching companies that help bring those ideas to fruition. Her first entrepreneurial endeavor, Netezza, revolutionized data warehousing before it was purchased by IBM in 2010 for nearly $2 billion. Ellen’s second company, CloudSwitch, was named a “Cool Vendor” by Gartner before being acquired by Verizon.
We talk about:
* What's holding companies back from cloud adoption
- The growing need for a hybrid cloud approach
- Why companies should have an edge data center
- The value-add of colocation companies
Guest Info
Ellen Rubin - Cloud entrepreneur, startup junkie, enterprise infrastructure fan
Twitter - @ellen_rubin
Website - clearskydata.com
Anybody that produces content or is trying to position themselves as a thought leader on platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook will tell you about their frustrations with algorithms.
Despite working hard building their network and interacting with their followers, it appears that the big sites rely on algorithms to determine who will and won't see your content.
BeBee is aiming to fill this gap by helping users build business relationships, rather than just contacts. Connecting people based on the interests or hobbies they have in common seems like a big step forward.
Niching down, simplifying and personalizing everything seems to tick all the right boxes. now that BeBee has 10 million users since launching last year and are aiming for 40 million users by 2017 it appears the sky is the limit.
If you have looked at your LinkedIn timeline thinking what is BeBee? This is a must listen episode.
Guest Info
www.BeBee.com
Inspirational rags-to-riches tech startup story of Allen Shayanfekr and real estate crowdfunding platform Sharestates.
Allen Shayanfekr is the CEO and Co-founder of Sharestates. Allen shares his very personal inspirational journey that started with just a couple of kids hustling to reaching $300 million in total funds set aside for the purchase of loans.
Technology, innovation, and crowdfunding are all transforming the world of real estate, but it's the personal story that steals this show.
Guest Info
www.sharestates.com
When shopping online websites seem to know everything about us and use our browsing habits to offer products based on out browsing preferences. However, when visiting a bricks and mortar store, nobody knows our name, what we like and the only eye contact we have from the cashier is when they want our credit card.
“FiveStars’ mission is to help local businesses turn every transaction into a relationship”
Small to medium sized businesses might not be able to compete with Amazon on price or McDonalds on line speed. BUT if they don't have the personalization, they're completely doomed." advised company’s co-founder and chief executive, Victor Ho.
Having already raised $105 million since it launched in 2011. I believe that FiveStars could go on to reach the "unicorn" status of a billion-dollar company in this digital age where the personalization of everything becomes paramount to both businesses and users.
I chat to Vic Ho about using technology to create an app with social impact and bringing back the "Cheers Vibe" to retailers. After all, sometimes we just want to go to a place where everybody knows your name.
Axonify CEO Carol Leaman talks about how technology is enabling them to make corporate learning smarter.
A modern lesson on the true values learned by turning down a lucrative role at Google to follow her own path. The result in following her heart was her being featured as No. 26 in the annual W100 list of Canada's Top Female Entrepreneurs and phenominal success.
Axonify have earned the reputation as a corporate learning innovator by bringing brain science, adaptive learning, gamification and microlearning to bring e-learning into the 21st century.
Guest Info
http://www.axonify.com/
German company Brewbarrel had a fantastic idea to deliver a product that would allow customers to enjoy their home brewed beer in just one week after receiving the package. The bonus of being able to reate your customized beer from over 100,000 different varieties has universal appeal and already a big hit in Europe.
This simple concept went from idea to thriving business thanks to a Kickstarter campaign. I invited Wolfgang and Marc onto the show from Brewbarrel to discuss their tech startup journey and where it is taking them to next.
Guest Info
http://www.brewbarrel.co.uk/
Twitter - @myBrewbarrel
Award Nomination
The New Media Europe Awards surprised me with an "Influencer Award" nomination. I find myself in the same category as heavyweights such as Tim Ferris, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Chris Ducker, which blows my mind.
Listeners to the show can support me by tweeting a vote for the Tech Blog Writer Podcast.
Episode 50 of the Tech Blog Writer Podcast is a special thank-you to each and every listener. A look back at what we have learned over our 50 episodes together.
The New Media Europe Awards surprised me with an "Influencer Award" nomination. I find myself in the same category as heavyweights such as Tim Ferris, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Chris Ducker, which blows my mind.
Listeners to the show can support me by tweeting a vote for the Tech Blog Writer Podcast.
Copy the Tweet below to vote...
I nominate @NeilCHughes for the 2016 Influencer Award http://newmediaeurope.com/awards #NMEUawards via @newmediaeurope
In the days before crowdfunding was even a thing, Naked Wines were connecting their Angels (consumers) directly with the world's best independent winemakers.
We get everything from supermarkets and it's easy to see how many believe we have disconnected from the world around us. We don’t know or care where our food, clothes, and even wine come from. Naked Wines are using technology to change all that.
There are currently 300,000 Angels investing every month, 130 winemakers across the US, Australia and New Zealand in full-time production just making wine for Naked Wines. As sales hit £100 million a year, I discovered that we are just scratching the surface with this amazing story.
I invited Marketing Director James Bagley and President of Naked Wines Anne Saunders to share their story.
When we strip their story back to discover it’s not about technology, million dollar funding or even wine but an idea and a desire to bring people together and make a difference.
Guest Info
https://www.nakedwines.com/
Twitter: @NakedWines
I chat with KYON CEO, Leon Yohai about every step of his startup journey from a simple idea to smashing past their Kickstarter target and flying around the world sourcing materials to get it made.
What is the Kyon Pet Collar?
Imagine having a mobile app on your phone that contains everything about your dog including vet appointments etc. Now take it a step further and imagine your pets collar communicating with your phone to alert when they are hot, thirsty, cold or even a GPS tracker if they get lost.
Guest Info
www.kyontracker.com
In 2004, Bill Gates declared passwords are dead, but they somehow survived. But all that is about to change.
Users are ready to remove their biggest frustration and 200 of the biggest names in business such as Microsoft, MasterCard, Google, PayPal and eBay are all part of the FIDO Alliance
The FIDO Alliance recently announced over 150 Biometric, and Second-Factor Authentication Products have now been Certified and eBay became the first e-commerce company to directly achieve FIDO Certification. I invited BrettMcDowell, executive director of the FIDO Alliance onto the show to learn more about their plans. Guest Info https://fidoalliance.org/
Austin McChord is the CEO and Founder of Datto and famously declined a $100 million buyout offer from an unnamed security firm back in 2013
Upon reading his quote “My ultimate goal is to build a big, meaningful, iconic technology company. That’s what drives me,” I felt compelled to invite him onto the show to talk about his startup journey and life at Datto.
Guest Info
www.datto.com
@datto (Twitter)
Austin's Twitter Feed - @austinmcchord
As ransomware infections and spear phishing attacks become too familiar, online security is finally being talked about in boardrooms.
Last week I learned how Invincea discovered how ransomware developers are adding a DDoS component that uses an infected machine to attack its own network.
I also learned how Dell uses Invincea on all Its devices and how they have also created secure enterprise endpoint devices by combining deep learning with behavioral monitoring. So I invited Anup Ghosh, CEO of Invincea onto the show.
Guest Info
www.invincea.com
Twitter: @Invincea
Have you ever called to make an appointment with your Doctor only to be told there is a three-day wait? Do you wish that technology will disrupt the healthcare industry and change the old day of doing things?
HealthiestYou is a disruptive healthcare startup that is redefining health insurance and healthcare. Its revolutionary platform has already saved businesses ranging from school districts to major corporations hundreds of thousands of dollars on employee premiums.
CEO Jim Pendergast Talks about how technology is changing the health insurance industry.
Guest Info
www.healthiestyou.com
We are living in the digital sharing economy and where anyone can see an idea turn into a million dollar start-up. Knocki for example hit Kickstarter aiming for $35,000 this week and 24 hours raised 300,000 as I record this episode.
BUT what about the venture capitalists who are looking for the best ideas to invest in? How do you get your idea in front of them?
New Enterprise Associates is a global venture capital firm helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages and sectors.
I invited General Partner Harry Weller onto the show who is one of America’s top venture capitalists with honors including being the Forbes “Midas List” nine years running.
But I wanted to learn more about his passion for technology, his journey and how he enjoys helping others on theirs.
Harry has a wealth of experience in the tech industry and he has enough stories for 10 podcasts, but it’s a massive privilege to get him on here for the first time.
Guest Info
http://www.nea.com/
WineTech - The tech startup story behind the Shazam of wine apps Vivino
I recently learned how Vivino has become the most downloaded app for wine lovers with over 17 over million users. The app contains the world's largest wine library with over 8.6 million wines and users scan 300,000 wines daily.
No more pacing up and down a wall of wine in the supermarket, simply point your smartphone at any bottle to see a review. Many have dubbed it the "Shazam of wine apps" so I invited CEO Heini Zachariassen onto the show to find out more.
Guest Info
www.vivino.com
Paula Long sold the first company she co-founded, EqualLogic, to Dell
for $1.4 billion in 2008 — To put things into perspective this is more than what Facebook paid for Instagram.
She is CEO and Co-Founder of DataGravity, a company that provides data-aware storage for businesses that allows them to look inside their content and discover insights to drive their business forward.
DataGravity is revolutionizing storage and data management by
combining primary storage, data protection, governance, search and discovery into an integrated appliance.
With IT Ecosystems and Cyber Security hitting the headlines on a regular basis, I invited Paula onto the show to hear her thoughts.
I am fascinated by how businesses can enable & activate a change or innovation culture. In a world of constant technological change, why do so many fear and resist it? What is the secret to change leadership?
I invited Chris Laping onto the show to discuss how Putting People Before Things can drive successful change.
The Path to Inspiring Followership
Guest Info
***People Before Things by Chris Laping***
"Project teams feel the joy of making an impact, team members feel nurtured and supported during disruptive change, and leaders feel empowered because they have the loyalty and engagement of their people"
www.peoplebeforethings.co
Twitter: @CIOChris
Mike Rotondo, CEO of Tropical Smoothie Café talks about how the combination of a life changing event and the introduction of technology solutions have transformed his business.
With a 44-percent growth since 2010 it's clear that Tropical Smoothie Café has very healthy prospects.
Mike talks about How Digital Ordering, Mobile Apps, Customer Loyalty Programs are improving the customer experience.
Guest Info
https://www.tropicalsmoothie.com/
https://twitter.com/TSmoothieCafe
As a user that is growing increasingly tired of generic email campaigns that are of little relevance to me. I was interested to discover how marketing personalization is finally about to bring retail into the 21st century.
Reflektion uses technology to capture and analyze each unique visitor's digital behavior and applying machine learning algorithms that deliver on-target digital shopping experiences in real-time.
Clients include The Walt Disney Company and Converse to name but few and claim to increase sales by 20 percent. With an equally as impressive financial backing from Battery Ventures,Hasso Plattner Ventures, Intel Capital and Nike, it's clear this story is one to watch very closely.
Reflektion is run by seasoned tech entrepreneurs and business leaders. They bring together deep and diverse experience in the digital advertising, retail, and software industries from companies such as Google, Oracle, eBay, Monetate, Accenture and others.
I chat to the guys to find out more...
Guest Info
www.reflektion.com
Twitter: @reflektioninc
Suhail Doshi is the chief executive officer of the mobile-analytics software startup Mixpanel Inc. The company was recently valued at $865 million and also have an impressive client list of names such as Uber, Airbnb and SalesForce.
Mixpanel is widely regarded as one of the most advanced analytics platforms in the world for mobile & web. After hearing about moving away from "BS Metrics" and page views to concentrate on understanding users actions and engagement to unlock the real value hidden in data. I invited Suhail onto the show to hear more about their future plans.
Guest Contact Info
Website: www.mixpanel.com
Twitter: @mixpanel
E-Mail: support@mixpanel.com
I chat to author John Hornick of the award-winning 3D Printing Will Rock the World, a book about technological innovation and business, and about how everything will change when you can make anything.
A fascinating conversation and insightful look at how 3D printing will change the world as we know it.
Rooomy recently launched their exclusive 3D Virtual Home Decorating App that is proving to be a big hit with consumers, real estate agents and retailers too.
This visual idea is also proving to be a big hit on Instagram too with over 100,000 followers and growing. I invited co-founder Pieter Aarts onto the show to tell me more about the app and their journey.
www.roooomy.com
https://twitter.com/rooomyapp
I speak with Catherine Murchie from MasterCard about their immediate plans to introduce biometric payments to pay for goods.
So-called selfie-pay is frequently hitting the headlines as the future for secure authentication. As we struggle to remember the humble password we will soon be making online purchases confirm our identity through fingerprints or by taking a photo with our smartphones.
MasterCard has some very exciting plans around biometric payments this summer, so I invited Catherine onto the show to talk about the technology we will all be using over the next few months and understand what else is on the horizon.
How An Ex Microsoft Exec Is Unlocking IoT Data With Buddy.
A closer inspection of the background of this start-up revealed financial backing from Microsoft Ventures and a fund set up by US singer Lady Gaga. This intriguing and inspiring start-up story left me wanting to learn more about both CEO David McLachlan and more about Buddy's journey.
I chat to @DaveMcLauchlan the CEO of the Internet-of-Things analytics platform called Buddy.
You can reach Dave on Twitter or reach out to the team by email holler@buddy.com
After reading about the OrangeTheory and their 60-minute, five zone heart-rate-monitored interval training concept that was using technology improve their fitness levels. I had to get them on the show to hear more.
Backed by the science of post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), the heart-rate-monitored training is designed to keep heart rates in a target zone that spikes metabolism and increases energy. The result is the Orange Effect – more energy, visible toning and extra fat and calorie burn for up to 36 hours after your workout!
The fitness franchise is also on track to open 600 studios by 2017 and is unveiling opportunities for users to run their own too.
I interview David Long from orangetheoryfitness.com to find out more.
I chat to Co-founder & Coo of Frontdoor Alain Kapatashungu who describes himself as a French entrepreneur. Whose journey has seen him travel from the war and genocide in Rwanda to building an artificial intelligence app in the valley to empower city dwellers.
Although still in Beta the team are already seeing an incredible demand for this viewing scheduling solution. Frontdoor advised they are on track to hit 100,000 registered city dwellers (waitlisted) from San Francisco to New York by July 2016 leaving many monitoring the progress of this app very closely.
Frontdoor Details
http://frontdoorapp.com/
https://twitter.com/TheFrontdoorApp
https://twitter.com/akapatashungu
As we continue to add devices to our network, the Internet of Things is creating a wealth of data. How do businesses report and react to this data in real time? How can technology help improve the customer experience and give businesses the competitive edge?
I invited Giles House from Callidus Software onto the show to discuss this growing industry and the benefits this emerging technology can offer businesses.
CallidusCloud: http://www.calliduscloud.com/ Twitter: @CallidusCloud
As technology continues to disrupt almost every industry, we increasingly turn to new tools to be more productive and investigate different ways of doing things.
The humble meeting is in dire need of an upgrade to bring it kicking and screaming into the 21st century and Jason Shah believes he has the solution.
"Jason Shah is the co-founder of Do.com and aims to fix unproductive meetings, by helping users be better prepared and keep better track of what happens in meetings"
Neil chats to Jason to find out more about how Do.com can help you run productive meetings.
After years of hype, we have finally arrived in these tremendously exciting times where technology continues to progress at breathtaking speed. We already have the ability to track every aspect of our health and monitor our blood pressure, heart rate, diet, exercise and sleep patterns on a daily basis without even setting foot in a doctors waiting room and flicking through those out-of-date magazines.
Forget smartphones and TV’s, we are now entering a world where the smart home and car become a reality where almost everything we interact with comes with an always online internet connection as standard. However, many are voicing their concern at the impending security risks that could be about to blindside the unsuspecting public.
www.TechBlogWriter.co.uk
Twitter - @NeilCHughes
It often feels like we have been talking about the impending arrival of the infamous internet of things (IoT) for as long as we can remember, but it has been incredibly difficult for users to grasp the concept of how it will affect their lives. However, all this is about to change as technological innovation will soon be felt by each and every one of us in our own homes.
Are you ready to embrace the concept of the smart home? or does the very thought of it leave you cold? I am genuinely interested in your opinions on this latest trend that will eventually impact us all in some way.
We often hear about how businesses are trying to understand Millenials, but I got news for you, they are now hitting their 30's and thinking about settling down and getting caught up in responsibility the same as the rest of us.
Generation Z is anyone born after 1995, and they are the first generation to be surrounded by five screens that are the smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop and TV since they could walk.
The first wave of Gen Z will be arriving in the workplace, and they have very different ideas to Millenials, so I thought I would ask my son to appear on the podcast to try and get his insights on what his generation like and dislike about the latest tech trends.
The 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas unveiled many mouth watering products this year. For example we learned how Drones will soon be filling the skies and forget Uber, you will even be able to pilot your own drone later the year!
- Driverless cars will be frequenting the roads of the future, and there was even a 1000 horse powered Batmobile
- Fitbit launched a smart watch to take the fight to Apple
- TV screens that you can roll up like a newspaper
- Oculus Rift revealed how VR has now become a reality
Meanwhile, forget IOT its time for the internet of everything as smart homes, life logging and baby tech all ensure that nearly everything in our lives will all connect to the internet.
I invited Special guest Danielle Storey who is the chief innovation officer and co-founder at Smarter Technology Solutions to give me her overview of the biggest tech show on earth.
How Gamification, Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), Online, Mobile and Personalized Learning are the Future of Learning and Development.
However, here we are in 2016 and already we have an almost daily onslaught of headlines on tech sites advising how the impending iPhone 7 will be thinner, waterproof, offer wireless charging and will also controversially drop the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack.
The move will allow Apple to create a sleek, sexier handset, but will also require users to either purchase blue tooth connecting wireless headphones, whereas audiophiles and those who want to protect their thin phone's battery consumption will be obliged to buy a potentially expensive offering from Apple with a lightning connector.
The purchase or upgrade to Apple's latest must have the device is not compulsory and there are a wealth of alternatives with the same features so why is everyone so outraged and what does it say about our society? If you don't like the latest version of a brand's phone, is this really a problem that someone in a 3rd-world country could ever comprehend?
Festive overindulgence has probably resulted in the loosening of a few belts this Christmas, and as the guilt begins to sink in, we can be sure our social media timelines will start to feature your friends and family all singing the familiar chorus of “New Year, New Me.”
However if the mobile App charts are anything to go by, it seems many reading this will have a helping hand to get themselves back into shape. I also suspect a quick look around a typical meeting room in the new year will be enough to confirm that wearable tech as officially reached mainstream status as converts discuss the pressure of reaching the elusive 10,000 daily steps target.
In this Podcast Neil looks at how How Fitbit, Airbnb, Uber and Periscope are changing our world.
Microsoft Surface Outsold Apple iPad in October
Apple's reluctance to create an OSX tablet hybrid and choosing to concentrate their efforts on an iPad with a bigger screen instead could be an incredibly costly mistake. Despite the iPad’s dominance on the tablet sales charts since its arrival in 2010, there now seems to be a slight chink in the armor of Apple’s flagship models.
WinBeta received an early version of an upcoming and report that revealed how Microsoft tablets have overtaken the Apple iPad in October 2015. The study was based on 100 retailers in the United States, that are collectively responsible for over 95 percent of physical products ordered online and has prompted many to wonder if these are early signs indicating a gradual decline in Apple’s fortunes.
Microsoft Listens to 72,000 Complaints and Offers More Cloud Storage
Microsoft has infamously become the leaders of the pack where indecision and backtracking are concerned for some time now so we shouldn't be too surprised to hear they have been caught performing U-turns yet again.
Office 365 subscribers recently learned that the unlimited storage they were promised upon signing up for the service was about to be culled while the limit for free users was also heavily cut back from 15GB to a meager 5GB.
The PR disaster both angered and frustrated their customers in equal measure and their inability to anticipate consumer reaction after downgrading services they use every day was more than a little worrisome for a company that was attempting to drive adoption and attract new users of their OneDrive cloud storage.
After over 72,000 complaints, Microsoft to their credit has offered an apology along with a link to claim back some much needed free storage. Microsoft Group Program Manager Douglas Pierce advised, "In November, we made a business decision to reduce storage limits for OneDrive. Since then, we've heard clearly from our Windows and OneDrive fans about the frustration and disappointment we have caused."
Microsoft is now offering their users of OneDrive an opportunity to keep their existing 15GB of free storage and the 15GB camera roll bonus taking them up to a more respectable 30GB for free. What’s the catch? This allowance will not automatically upgrade, and users have to opt-in to update and save these latest storage changes by clicking on a link before January 31st, 2016.
This is where things get quite interesting because there is also an alternative option. OneDrive users who are over the new controversial 5GB storage cap during the transition early next year will be given a 1-terabyte storage limit for 12 months, and if this isn't enough, they will also throw in a free 12-month subscription to Office 365 too for savvy users who play the game.
It seems that almost every week we are subjected to headlines warning how technology is bringing automation and robots into our world that will imminently threaten millions of jobs.
While machines are taking away repetitive or mundane tasks they also allow people to concentrate on bringing real value to businesses in roles that technology cannot perform.
While traditional jobs may well start to disappear, there are a wealth of new roles and opportunities during this digital transformation. Those that are happy to evolve and move with the changes might even find themselves arriving at the elusive destination of a perfect work–life balance.
Critics might argue that a virtual world of freelancers is incredibly unstable and uncertain for parents raising a family. However, it many cases its quite the opposite, for example if you were made redundant or fired from your current role, you have essentially put all of your eggs in one basket and have to start from scratch.
Freelancers, solopreneursand virtual assistants often juggle over a dozen clients and if they lose one of them they still have others work streams to fall back on.
In this episode, I interview Ruth Cringle who has set up her own virtual assistant business called Admin Elite.
As a big fan of TedTalks I attended a local Tedx event that had the theme "Courageous Creations" for guest speakers.
Many of you know that TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and these events are attended by inspirational people with amazing stories to share both speaking on the stage and in the audience.
I was interested to hear there was another Neil Hughes at the event who was an author of Walking on Custard: The Book For Anxious Humans and was also appearing on stage for his first ever TedTalk.
This podcast is about his story and the day Neil Hughes met Neil Hughes.
In this episode, Neil talks about how Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer game is getting a free-to-play version and also discusses how some Facebook Quizzes such as the hugely popular 'Most Used Words' quiz reveals more about you than you probably realise.
Over the next few weeks, big businesses will be relying on their IT infrastructure to have no downtime during their busiest shopping period.
Predicted figures:
- £1.07bn Black Friday
- £943m Cyber Monday
- £856m Boxing Day
- £4.9bn Total five-week period
With potential costs of £200k an hour for website downtime, will those outside of IT begin to see the ROI of investing in security and network infrastructure?
Meanwhile, Ash Smith from London asks:
As corporate IT departments receive criticism for their sluggishness in a digital age how can we balance good solid effective guardianship and management of IT services vs adopting new technologies that are changing faster than we can implement them in a large organisation.
Inbox Zero is a rigorous approach to email management aimed at keeping the inbox empty.
Unroll.me is an app that brings a Tinder-esque way of cleaning up your inbox by just swiping to unsubscribe and undo years of damage within a few minutes. For example, I somehow have notched up 167 email subscriptions of newsletters, social media alerts and stores that I brought a Christmas gift from in back in 2007 and all have now gone forever after only 5 minutes of swiping.
The app is an incredibly easy way to regain control of your inbox by following the simplistic swiping options and certainly makes you wonder why it has taken this long for something like this to arrive on the scene.
By simply swiping left you can unsubscribe from the email subscriptions you don’t want and no future emails from these senders will land in your inbox ever again.
Waking up in the morning and not having to delete a mountain of emails is certainly a blessing. However, this new super efficient method of decluttering inboxes of newsletters will be seen as a curse to freelancers and entrepreneurs who are desperately trying to build email lists to increase their following or promote a product.
Are We Reading Less?
The literary tug of war between physical books and their disruptive nemesis E-Books continues to divide passionate readers and remains the topic of many a heated debate in book clubs across the globe. But are we actually reading less?
Will You Broadcast Yourself from Periscope to Apple TV?
Despite my initial reservations, there is no doubt that Periscope is becoming a massive game changer that allows anyone to build their own community or digital tribe in a more visual real time manner that even podcasts cannot compete with.
Apple’s Tim Cook famously said “We Believe the Future of TV Is Apps” but the success of Periscope suggests that it could be tuning into each other's living rooms rather than traditional TV channel hopping.
When your favourite artist is playing a gig on the other side of the world, Periscope also enables music fans to tune into the performance and sample the atmosphere via someone else's smartphone.
As live television becomes more and more produced, it can also become less genuine. This is what excites us about bringing Periscope to the Apple TV — the notion that you, your friends and family can share what’s happening in the world right now, together - Periscope
The Periscope launch on Apple TV looks set to be a real game changer.
I have received over 20 E-Mails from listeners who are worried at the dramatic dip in readership figures and their work being featured on one of the LinkedIn Pulse channels.
- Has LinkedIn changed their algorithm to feature blog posts?
- Are LinkedIn only featuring Influencers rather than everyday users?
- Why have my viewing figures taken a nose dive?
- How do I increase my chances of getting featured?
- What kind of content are LinkedIn looking for?
These are just a few of the questions that I have received, so I reached out directly to them to find answers to the questions that writers are currently asking.
Neil looks at the tech and apps available to bring Halloween into the 21st century.
The show also contains a must listen interview with the creators of Rindle that allows you to manage your increasingly growing list of productivity apps such as Gmail, Slack, Trello, GitHub, Basecamp, WunderList etc in one place.
Rindle empowers you to stream information from the tools you already use, automatically generate tasks, and move them through your workflow.
Being able to organise all your tasks in one place is something I am quite excited about and urge all my listeners to sign up to the early beta before it closes. I have a feeling we will be seeing great things from Rindle in the near future so remember who told you about it first.
This week on a special podcast, I bare my soul for my favorite people, my listeners. The results may astound you, or induce uncontrolled narcolepsy... There's only one way to find out! Click the Play button.
Spencer and Neil discuss a wide range of topics such as Star Wars, Dune, earliest tech memories, video games, writing, music, politics, fanboys, trolls, online security, technology and much more.
Spencer Taylor
Neil looks at how Shadow IT is responsible for Slack becoming the fastest-growing enterprise software in history. Will it kill E-Mail? What are the pro's and cons?
This week's question is from Sam Lattimer who wonders why there is greater engagement online from our American friends.
Neil experiences life away from Microsoft Windows and gets to grips with OSX for the first time, only to discover he is a digital hoarder during his digital transitional stage.
This week's question is from Lifestyle Entrepreneur Wellness Coach Robin A Henderson who asks about the importance of online authenticity and Neil tries out the new social media app BeMe.
In this episode Neil looks at the power of Nostalgia and how it is increasingly being used as a sales tactic and for marketing purposes as we all embrace geek culture.
Meanwhile, The growing trend of show-rooming where consumers get hands-on with a product in a physical store before looking it up on their smartphones to purchase online at a lower price is increasingly becoming a thorn in the side of the physical stores inside shopping malls all over the world.
Can Beacons, Indoor Mapping & Mobile Deals Apps Save Shopping Malls From Show-Rooming and online shopping?
This weeks question fromCEO of the European Marketing Network Leahnanne Hobson who asks about how to monetize LinkedIn.
This weeks podcasts looks at the latest anouncement from Apple with the launch of a new larger iPad, Apple Pencil, Keyboard, Apple TV and new iPhone 6S models.
Neil also looks at how 5 applications can boost your productive and help organise yourself to produce regular content on the LinkedIn publishing platform.
- Feedly
- Trello
- Dropbox
This weeks question is from Spencer Taylor
This week's podcast looks at the growing trend of marketing companies using vloggers and bloggers to endorse products with their authentic voice. Does great power require great responsibility and could bloggers unwittingly be sacrificing their integrity?
We also look at the impending YouTube subscription model and the pro's and cons of content being hidden behind paywalls.
This week's question was by Sarah Elkins
Neil returns from an adventure in Norway and answers Arnie McKinnis question around the dark side of LinkedIn.
This episode also looks at the growing trend of websites shutting down their comments section on their website.
Companies are now directing traffic to their social channels away from their own website. Is this a damaging or positive step to make?
Episode 6 features questions from LinkedIn Authors Jacqui Genow and Andrew Brooks.
The following is discussed on this week's episode:
- Writing on Linkedin
- Windows 10 release and privacy issues
- Amazon Prime, Amazon Music and Top Gear announcement
Protect yourself from Windows 10 privacy issues by checking out the information here
It is a huge honour and privilege to have the hugely successful LinkedIn author Dustin McKissen on the show.
Dustin has written over 150 articles on Linkedin that have achieved well in excess of one million views and thousands of shares.
He shares his journey to success and reveals a story of how LinkedIn have recently approached him to film a promotional video in San Francisco.
An all-around nice guy with a fascinating story.
You can find Dustin's phenomenal written work on LinkedIn here
Dustin McKissen is the Founder and Chief Storyteller at M5 Strategy + Branding. He is also a proud member of LinkedIn's Publishers and Bloggers Group. You can find him on Twitter @DMcKissen, or reach him at dustin@m5strategy.com
Episode 4:
A bite sized tech news round-up.
This weeks big stories involve the alarms belles around our online after the Ashley Maddison hack.
Other big tech news stories were the annuncement from Google that they are removing dead business pages from Google+ and has Kim Kardashian just revolutionised Twitter? Did anyone obtain a free ice-cream from Uber last week?
E-Mail me your questions to neilchughes@gmail.com
Neil discusses innovation with Rich Haigh.
It seems everywhere you look online you will find people claiming to be innovative leaders whilst meeting rooms and boardrooms across the globe are full of business men and women getting excited about innovation.
There is an increasing reliance on technology and innovation has become the most overused buzzword in business.
Surely there is more to innovation than it being just another buzzword, but what is it? Can we define what it is?
· What is innovation and what t isn't? Why is it important?
· How do you embed an innovation culture into a business and what mistakes are usually made?
· Is resistance to change still an obstacle or are people more accepting now?
· How do you measure the success of innovation? These are the questions that Neil & Rich discuss.
Neil discusses the latest top tech stories and also answers questions from LinkedIn Writers.
Tech News Round Up
- The disappointing Amazon Prime Day and how the Camelizer brings price history charts to your browser for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
- Charging your phone on the train could get you arrested
LinkedIn writers send in their questions to the Tech Blog Writer Podcast
Marietta Gentles Crawford Advises the importance of the person behind the profile picture on LinkedIn.
Doug Ales asks how to get more engagement and views from blog posts on the LinkedIn longform posting publishing platform.
In this first episode, Neil talks about his blogging journey on the LinkedIn Publishing platform and interviews John White who shares his experiences and success with blogging on LinkedIn.
Show Notes
Exactly 12 months ago today, I was given access to contribute my professional insights on the LinkedIn publishing platform that was being rolled out to its members. One Year later, I have published 83 blog posts that have reached nearly 1 million article views and somehow amassed over 7,000 followers along the way.
The greatest reward I have received from writing on LinkedIn is developing real friendships with like-minded individuals on a similar journey.
There is a long list of real friendships with fellow writers such as John White, Dustin McKissen and Paul Drury along with many others who inspire me to improve. On a recent holiday to New York, I even met with another LinkedIn friend and mentor Tom Ziegler at the White Horse Tavern where Dylan Thomas famously enjoyed his last whiskey.
There are many discussions of how technology is separating us rather than uniting us all. However, my experience of the last 12 months has proved that engaging with your audience and genuine networking that is not used for some kind of cynical self-gain is the essence of how humans learn from each other and move forward.
What Next? Now that my fear of hitting the publish on a blog post is a distant memory combined with the knowledge that engagement is about conversations rather than dialogue, a new idea was born. On average there are around 66,000 people reading my blog posts each month, rather than this remain a one-way conversation, I want to engage with every reader.
The same fear of hitting publish has returned as my first Podcast became available oniTunes, RSS and Web, where I interview the prolific John White about his similar journey on LinkedIn long-form posting.
Podcasting allows me to open up this new communications channel and broadcast your thoughts that I am hoping might even challenge my thought process too. My plan is to offer an open invite to anyone that would like to feature in an interview. You could even just message me from your phone with a recording of a few words with your view on of the latest tech trend posts that I publish here on LinkedIn.
This idea was born out of a moment of madness and a genuine desire to connect with each and every one of my readers. Maybe, John Lennon said it best with the lyrics ‘You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us’.