Tech Talks Central: Recent Episodes
Tech Talks Central
The Tech Talks Central web radio covers all the hot topics and trends in the connected world and features interactive interviews with thought leaders, as well as movers and shakers of the tech industry. It’s a joint venture between entrepreneurs working in the mobile and technology field and people who love the radio waves!
Helen Keegan, organiser of Swedish Beers and Mobile Advertising Expert, Ilicco Elia, Head of Mobile at DigitasLBi and Rafe Blandford, Mobile Strategist at DigitasLBi discuss mobile trends and what they expect to see anew, at this year’s Mobile World Congress. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Choons n’ Chat with Helen Keegan and her friends is back for Mobile World Congress 2018 where else? Yes, once more in Barcelona. This time Helen Keegan, organiser of Swedish Beers and Mobile Advertising Expert hosts Rafe Blandford, Mobile Strategist at DigitasLBi and Paul Swaddle, Chairman and Co-founder of PocketApp. They get together to discuss mobile trends, what they expect from this year’s Mobile World Congress, and interestingly enough they don’t shy away from hot topics like the new GDPR, that comes into full affect May’18; and ethics, involving the use and development of AI use cases. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Helen Keegan, the organiser of Swedish Beers; Paul Stringer, Head of Mobile at Equal Experts; Alex Barth, VP of Business Development at Mapbox; and Jeff Beene, Head of New Devices at Orion Labs, got together, during the Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona, to discuss smart cities, what’s happening right now and what we should be expecting. The podcast was sponsored by Equal Experts and hosted by Tech Talks Central.
Yiannis Rizopoulos speaks with Luca Verre, founder of the startup Chronocam, which develops a unique artificial vision and cybervision technology to be used for autonomous navigation and new IoT applications. Interviewed by Yiannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Vicki believes she discovered an innovative solution to the “I need 2 or 3 mobile phones” to separate “my different identities”. She spoke with Rob Grapes, from Graphite Software, about “spaces” and how they are segmenting your ONE phone -at kernel level- to serve your different profiles including a…hidden one. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Venetia talks with Founder and leader of Qualcomm's healthcare subsidiary Qualcomm Life, Rick Valencia, about the two finalists dueling out to win the 10 million dollar tri-corder XPrize in the next 2 months, the path of getting to connected care being the standard of healthcare the Connect event he created to connect the tech industry under the responsibility to work together on bringing health innovation to scale for consumers as soon as possible.
Venetia talks with Lennart van der Ziel and Nick Yap - the team that created "Travis the Translator" a device that uses AI, Voice Control and Gesture Control to translate in 80 languages in real time. The boys explain their plan to break the language barrier around the world bringing people together. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Venetia talks with Carl Tonsgard of Crunchfish a company that's developing AR and VR gesture control for the classroom. Carl shows us the devices and explains how they will help kids and teachers in classrooms around the world. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Rafi Zauer, head of marketing at Essence, discussed about their newly deployed home care system for seniors and people with special needs. Their software algorithm creates and monitors behavioural patterns, notifying their carers at varying levels of alarm. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Vicki spoke with John Shier, senior security advisor at Sophos and experienced security expert, about why we need to take every precaution when it comes to privacy and our mobile phones. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Nikolaos Isaris, Deputy head of the IoT Unit at the European DG Connect office, discusses with Vicki about their newly established unit on IoT and actions they’re taking on promoting IoT while provisioning for standardisation, regulations, security and privacy. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Iikka Salo co-founder and CEO of Trybe talks to us about their mobile app at 4YFN during Mobile World Congress 2017. You know how they say “it takes a village”? Well that’s exactly what the guys came up with, a smart way to connect the hungry with those who love and are great at feeding people, all while making a connection, a community, a “tribe”. Crazy right? Well, if you pay the rent checking spreadsheets 9 to5 but have mad skills in the kitchen, there’s no reason why you couldn’t cook for your neighbors and make a pretty penny while you’re at it. Trybe is SaaS enabled marketplace for independent chefs to set up, operate and promote an online food business. With over 1000 chefs and 10,000 customers so far, Trybe connects chefs who prepare food with the hungry patrons who are looking to purchase some excellent quality eats. Hey! Step away from the microwave and explore your Trybe, I bet a real person is making you dinner, around the block, with love, and no, it is not your mother. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Anna Sort aka @LostNurse, CEO of Play Benefit, and a World of Warcraft hard core gamer talks about gamefication and health. She explains how she got involved and what BeEnergy is trying to accomplish. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Adrian Domenech, CEO of Vitcord, tells us the story his community connecting and engaging people around the world through video at 4YFN during Mobile World Congress 2017. In this real-life-honest-to-goodness tale Adrian unfolds the process of how users contribute their videos through Vitcord to create a living 'mosaic', a continuously evolving body of experiences that come together to tell a life story. Vitcord and its growing community is creating a new way of seeing the world through video. We all create content individually on a daily basis, but in this hyper-connected digital environment Vitcord makes us collaborators through an app that allows us all to add clips of an event creating unique content that grows as our community of contributions grow. With Vitcord, events and social media viral content take on a life of their own enhanced and embellished by each of our personal perspectives while still remaining unique enough to call our own. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Paul Gailey Alburquerque, founder of Everywoah, talks to us about their experience in NUMA Barcelona and the company’s 360 video middleware apps for mobile VR, and ‘mojo’ - mobile journalism at 4YFN during Mobile World Congress 2017. Paul explains how they develop white label 360 video player apps for creator studios, broadcasters, and brands seeking Android, iOS, webVR, and other VR distribution of their virtual reality content. He tells us how Everywhoah supports journalists and broadcasters going mojo with 360 video tools, customizable workflows, feature enhanced publishing, and integrations with APIs and hardware that can make any freelancer out there give big on site outfits a run for their money. The company also develops instant 360 preview app tools for 360 directors and VR storytellers to benefit from smartphone powered real time stitching aids that can accelerate and guide the filmmaking process. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Venetia talks with Campbell Foster, Director at Adobe Primetime, about Adobe’s strategy around 180 VR cinema, TV, and cross-device solutions. They discussed Adobe's first big project with with Coca Cola for a 180 VR ad that would run during the viewing of a 180 movie.
Venetia talks with Siri Sung Marketing director of BISECU a startup that developed a smart bike lock that works with your phone to help you "forget the lock and enjoy the ride". Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Esteban Redolfi is the Director of 4YFN. Vicki asked him all sorts of questions on 4YFN 2017; how many startups and investors are participating; how many people they’re expecting and what the future beholds. Vicki says he was a great interviewee with a strong sense of what collaboration entails. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
We talk with Brendan O'Brien , Co-Founder & Chief Innovation officer Aria Systems during Mobile World Congress 2017. Brendan, an IoT and connected car monetization expert, explains how (IoT) has created an entirely new market in the automotive industry with connected car services that are driving new streams of revenue growth and transforming the industry. He explains how much of the connected-car opportunity is “recurring revenue” due to the way connected car services are consumed, measured and paid for. We talk about connected cars being the new big thing and Brendan explains how industrial applications for these connected vehicles could be just as profitable. Finally Brendan gives us the scoop on companies like Audi, Cadillac, Subaru, Ford and GM who are already getting on the bandwagon of leveraging innovative connected car services. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Skolkovo is the state owned innovation centre, in Moscow, with over 12 hundred startups under its wings. Vicki interviewed Alexey Belyakov, Vice President of Skolkovo Foundation, Maxim Zharenov, Director and Taisiya Yarmak, Head of International PR about Skolkovo, its aims as an innovation centre and its strong points. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
We interviewed Pedro Concalves, COO for Hi Jiffy. He explains how the hotel chatbot works over Facebook messenger, communicating with potential customers, directly. Their strongest advantage is the sort of customer service they provide with a human touch. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Vicki interviewed Anthony Rovito from All The Foodies. "All the Foodies" is a creative cooking network show with a hipster twist. Random chefs or wanna-be-chefs prepare the recipe in a very aesthetic video, explaining in 2 minutes the story behind the recipe. You can look up their videos on Facebook at AllTheFoodiesSpain. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Gesture and face recognition including emotions is the next big thing in the future of driving and safety when it comes to the automotive industry. Rony Greenberg, Vice President of Development at EyeSight talked with Vicki about how poker gave him the idea to work on face recognition. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
How about a smart palette? You might think of it as trivial, but GSMA surely thinks different, as it has awarded RM2 with the innovation award for its Smart Palette. Vicki interviewed Christopher Gibbs at the Innovation City and discussed about their geolocation enabled long lasting palettes with amazing opportunities for the assets business. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Vicki was in the Innovation City speaking with Intel and AT&T on IoT and sensor kits, that cut back time and cost for ventures who are looking for ways to get into the Internet of Things era and wanna start small. Dipti Vachani, Vice President General Manager of strategy and solutions IoT Group at Intel, and Sunder Somasundaram, Director of IoT solutions at AT&T discuss Intel’s LIQD program and their IoT development partnership. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Ever wanted to get started with sensors and create your own Internet of Things? AT&T has a starter kit solution for developers with limited development knowledge. Vicki discussed with Richard Finn, Lead Product Marketing Manager at AT&T, on the IoT starter kits available. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Bas Van Abel, Founder and CEO of Fairphone talks to Vicki about the concept behind the mobile phone Fairphone. It all started from the awful mining conditions in Congo. It’s not often we talk about fair construction. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Gregor Gimmy founder and head of the BMW Startup Garage talks to Tech Talks Central and Vicki about the term he’s coined "Venture Client", where a big corporation avoids the usual accelerator model and goes straight to being the client of the startup, supporting and growing it in the process. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Daniel Cohen, Product Director at Fluid Ads, a UK startup, discusses with Vicki about their easy to use HTML5 ad creation platform. Daniel says it takes a few minutes to create a proper HTML5 ad on their platform -with limited technical knowledge- instead of the usual 4 to 5 days. Check it out! Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Vicki talks with Maya Thomine Desmazures, from La French Tech and finds out what France is doing for its ecosystem of startups. Ever wondered how you can move your startup to Paris? There’s a VISA for that now. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Yiannis Rizopoulos speaks with Suresh Subramanian VP of Global industry relations of Iconectiv, an Ericsson subsidiary on the standards of the MZM and Internet of Things era, security and authentication. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Anastasia Krithara, research associate at the Insititute of Informatics and Telecommunications (IIT) of NCSR "Demokritos" talks about IASiS, an EU funded project that seeks to pave the way for precision medicine approaches by utilising insights from patient data. It aims to combine information from medical records, imaging databases and genomics data to enable more personalised diagnosis and treatment approaches in two disease areas – lung cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Speech to text and vice-versa is a technology that is driving a lot of AI innovation. One of which is virtual interactive assistants like Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. Aimilios Chalamandaris, CEO and Co-founder of Innoetics shares with us their 10-years journey, starting an NLP (Natural Language Processing) spin-off out of Athena Research and Innovation Centre up to the point of getting acquired by Samsung Electronics. He shares with us the main factors that made the acquisition possible and what are the next steps for Innoetics. If you are a researcher and trying to productise and commercialize your project or idea then this is an interview you should listen to, as Aimilios shares his insights on what skills you need to develop to become a businessman and an entrepreneur. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Modern powerful computers open a whole new era for the application of the Monte Carlo method for the simulation of physical systems of higher complexity. The Monte Carlo simulations are important computational techniques in many areas of natural sciences and have significant application in particle and nuclear physics, quantum physics, statistical physics, quantum chemistry, material science, among many other multidisciplinary applications. In the heart of the Monte Carlo simulations are Pseudo Random Number Generators (RNG). The primary objective of the proposed network is a systematic development and implementation of the state of the art new generation of Pseudo Random Number Generators based on Kolmogorov-Anosov K-systems, which demonstrate excellent statistical properties, into a multidisciplinary usable product. Senior researcher George Savvidy explains how this rather theoretical problem also finds many applications in everyday life. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Nassos Katsamanis, researcher at the ILSP Lap for the Athena Research Centre, and VP of Engineering for the Behavioral Signals startup, discusses the origins of the team and their research. He explains how the US based startup is using speech data, AI and deep learniing for behavioral modeling, in real time, and how their findings can be used by companies who produce large quantities of speech data. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Combustion processes (SCS) are advantageous for the production of nanomaterials, as an express and simple technology; using this method, which allows the creation of a unique morphology and metastable phase composition, particles of high purity can be obtained. Senior researcher at NCSR “Demokritos”, Professor Galina Xanthopoulou, talks about the application of this technology for tuning crystal lattice structure, nanoparticle size; explaining how this could be an efficient breakthrough for the production of nanomaterials with ordered properties. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
What is going on in diabetic research? Can we revitalize pancreatic stem cells to prevent kidney failure and help diabetes patients? Dr. Garyfallia Drossopoulou offers valuable information on these very important issues for numerous people all over the world, based on her team research, which is supported by Novo Nordisk, a pharmaceutical company leading in diabetic treatment. She talks about the social impact of their results, the significant improvement of the current therapeutic treatment and their effort for a better quality of life for all these people. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Given the fact that millennials and Generation Z visitors rarely get attracted by the content of museums, even open-air ones, the need to find a kind of “bait” for them in order to visit, is more than an urgent one. Maria Roussou, Assistant Professor in Interactive Systems at UoA and senior researcher at “Athena” Research Center, explains how she tries to offer new and immersive experiences to them, clad in a digital storytelling costume, in the framework of an EU - funded (Horizon 2020) project that exploits the special dynamics of Human - Computer Interaction. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Renée Jiménez, Head Marketing Communications, Manager GSMA talks to us about Hack_D_Gap, the global startup challenge, ahead of Mobile World Congress 2017. Renée sets the context by explaining what the GSMA’s plans for women4tech are, who initiated it, the initiatives planned during the MWC17 and the expected impact of the overall program. While the program, its activities, and the challenge is not exclusive to women she does explain why its creation was imperative in the overall scheme of things at GSMA; focusing on how they want to address gender equality and diversity in the technology sector.
Costas Spyropoulos, Director of Research at the Institute of Informatics & Telecommunications at NCSR “Demokritos” describes the many benefits of the IoT era, when we will have -in only a few years from now- several billions of connected devices all around us, offering terabytes of data and many, many new simple and complex services as an answer to our needs. Dr. Spyropoulos gives some examples of these services in tourism, health, culture, retail and other sectors but he also points out the existing problems in interoperability, privacy and security. He also talks about their research, at NCSR; their own IoT platform and services that use open standards in order to easily extend and foster broad use. Finally, he insists that the public has to be educated on IoT and for that reason, himself and his team participate in conferences to inform the audience and demonstrate best practices. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dr Athanassios Ganas is the Research Director for Active Tectonics, GPS, Geological Remote Sensing at the Institute of Geodynamics of the National Observatory of Athens. His research is focused on earthquakes and in understanding patterns and behaviour of earth’s cluster based on recording signals from satellites.They have also developed an open-data web platform called GSAC where someone can access geological data from Greece and other countries in the nearby region. He also shares some surprising outcomes and discoveries of their research not only in Greece (Lefkada) but also from the US (California), Chile and Italy. Based on GNSS technology and real-time data, Dr Ganas and his research team are able to estimate accurately an earthquake’s magnitude (in just 2 minutes) and run predictive models for location and time of tsunami attacks. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Dimitrios Niarchos, Director of Research at NCSR Demokritos, talks about his specialty - magnetic materials; a multibillion dollar industry with a very bright future and the effort to get to new materials with better properties, that open the way for new markets in the coming Age of Magnetic Materials. Dr Niarchos tells us that his lab in NCSR produces innovative and novel materials like permanent magnets containing less or no rare (and expensive) earths, and has already several breakthroughs to be proud of. They are also working on recording media, passing -in a short of mini revolution- from 2D to 3D recording and, finally, they are putting a lot of research on transformers for mobile devices, having already increased their efficiency to over 95% meaning a longer life for batteries and many benefits for the environment. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Natalia Manola, Assoc. Researcher at Athens University and Athena Research Centre, guides us through the initiatives taken in the EU on open access for data, open source and facility sharing, that aim to ameliorate collaboration among scientists and researchers around the world, in spite of many and different faces of diversity. This initiative, through the Open Air e-infrastructure and other steps (including the implementation of a European open science cloud) funded by major European countries, is closely linked to innovation and it also offers much needed reach to industry and the public. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Alceste Bonanos, a passionate astronomer and Assoc. Researcher at the National Observatory of Athens talks about two very interesting research projects realised by her team: the goal of the first one is to identify over a period of three years all variable stars ever observed by Hubble telescope and make a catalog of them; while the second (which is called Neliota and it is actually an ESA activity taking place at NOA) has to do with the observation and detection of the impacts of really small (with a mass less than 10 grams) objects (eg. debris, meteorites, comets etc.) hitting the surface of the Moon. For the implementation of this project, a rather outdated 1,2 m. telescope near Kiato, Greece, was recently upgraded and special instruments had to be developed. This project -only the 3rd of its kind in the world- will last until Nov ‘18. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dimitris Gavrilis, Senior Researcher at the Digital Curation Unit of the Institute of Information Systems at the Athena Research Centre, talks about digital libraries which is the design and development of knowledge management systems mostly for the humanities. Mopseus, their digital library software tool, which stores text, images, audio files etc. uses complex models with metadata to present information in a much smarter and useful way. Their MORe aggregator, is a flexible metadata aggregator that provides fast curation and enrichment services, like showing coordinates for a specific address or finding links to create semantic relations, amongst other things. The repository is constantly curated through automatic live services that run behind the scenes checking for data degradation, missing links, affiliations and other information. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Konstantinos Giannakopoulos is a Research Officer of the Laboratory of Electromicroscopy and Nanomaterials at the National Center for Scientific Research “Demokritos”. He talks about how technology is now developing, by what he and his peers are doing at the nano and atom scale, where they manipulate matter. Using the information about the composition and properties of materials he says is what has lead to the advanced materials behind everyday things we all enjoy. The technology behind your microphone, your screen, the processors and other elements that interconnect devices, so that we can take and see pretty pictures on a variety of devices, talk to each other remotely or seamlessly, watch a movie, is all the result of working and changing materials at the smallest level. Konstantinos talks about their EU funded project www.materialsfuture.eu where information on materials is available for free in 23 languages as well as, short films, educational games, lesson plans for schools and other cool stuff. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Drakoulis Yannoukakos, Director of Research at NCSR “Demokritos” and Director of the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, talks about hereditary ovarian and breast cancer. Their research involves hereditary factors that lead to cancer in very young women, between the ages of 30-35 and even younger. By analysing the family genome they’re trying to discover the molecular mutations that are responsible for the early onset of cancer, which although it could be blamed on environmental issues is not that often a cause in so young ages. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Ioannis Raptis, Senior Researcher at NCSR “Demokritos”, discusses food safety. He starts out by mentioning several dangerous food scandals like the horse meat in over 10M burgers, the 3K patients fallen sick by e-coli in food, and the tainted baby milk in China. He continues by pointing out the disadvantages of the time consuming methodology used now to analyse food in the lab. The Food Sniffer (www.foodsniffer.eu), developed by his team as a prototype, consists of the sensing chip, the analysis reader and a computer which could mean a tablet or mobile. It’s advantages are it’s very small and can run with a single battery making it easy to use for analysis in the field. After producing the prototype they’re now planning to include the detection of more pathogens and even more miniaturization to make it even more portable. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Sakis Triantafyllakis interviews Dr. Elena Dascalaki, senior researcher at the Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development of the National Observatory of Athens on the energy performance and environmental footprint of buildings. Dr. Dascalaki talks about her work at the Energy Conservation Group of the Institute where they study the behavior and energy performance of buildings, the challenges and the importance not only of developing new zero energy structures but also upgrading existing older buildings to have close to zero energy performance, a feat that is substantial especially considering the large amount of old structures all around Europe. Dr. Dascalaki tells us they were instrumental in helping develop the regulations for energy performance of buildings and says they are working on new strategies to upgrade and refurbish old buildings in Greece and Europe to meet the EU mandate that all residential buildings will have to be built or upgraded to be zero or near zero energy, relying solely on renewable sources by 2020. This project she says will be first implemented for all public buildings which will have to make the switch by 2019. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Evangelia Diapouli, Postdoc Researcher in the institute of Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection at NCSR "Demokritos", talks about their international environmental project which involves linking research discoveries with decision makers ie. state authorities. Their ‘EU Life Program’ funded project offers quantitative assessment for air pollutants, helping officials make informed decisions when it comes to effectively controlling emissions. The team is now continuing their work by researching how these specific concentrations of air pollutants are affecting our lives outdoors and indoors, every day. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
We had the pleasure to interview Dr. Athanasios Dimoulas in the past and it seems that this interview is as interesting as the previous one. Athanasios Dimoulas is the head of Epitaxy and the Surface Science Laboratory at NCSR “Demokritos” and he gives us an update with the latest developments of new novel materials in nanoelectronics. The explosion of big data and IoT has resulted in a great need for energy efficient smart devices. Dr Dimoulas shares some of the problems and insights with their research on these hard to develop materials like graphene, Weyl fermions and others. He then reveals how crystals could simulate a “particle accelerator” and test some of the fundamental principles and assumptions in high energy, elementary particle physics and cosmology. This could result in discovering new interesting properties and being able to integrate them faster in electronic devices, capacitors and transistors, in the hope of impacting emerging Quantum Technologies. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Combining elements from Internet of Things and social media, the Greek startup company Bioassist offers services that will bring mobile health in the life of every elderly and chronic patient who desires to live independently. Petrina Smirli, the CEO of Bioassist and her team of five, talks about their mobile app called “Πάντα μαζί” (in Greek) or “Heart around” (in English). It bundles homecare and services with social networking, using easy, secure and user-friendly technology. All that is needed, is just an internet connection and a tablet - the app helps the users stay in touch with loved ones while, at the same time, offers real time monitoring of their vital signs and 24/7 support from a dedicated Help Desk; SOS button included. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Humane is a Greek social enterprise, a network empowering people with chronic diseases and disabilities; they believe in these people’s abilities, potentials for work and their power to change society by being an active participant. Ariadne Kosmadaki, herself a pharmacist and a member of the Humane team of ten, describes how they’re developing “reaction products” like T-shirts with messages on them in support of patients with different disabilities and diseases. Their motto is think - care - empower and their goal is to launch a multi-platform for all needs, sell their Humane products in special boutiques in Athens and then expand in different regions, within the EU. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Insybio (from Intelligent Systems Biology) is a bioinformatics company focusing on biomarker discovery while their main product is a software platform to analyze biological data. Christos Alexakos, COO of Insybio, explains that -with the aid of their platform- they research the cause of diseases, not the results, and that’s the first step towards personalised medicine. Meaning, that if we find the right biomarker, we can make drugs adapted to each organism or therapies best suited for each case and the biology of each person. The same platform may be also used for nutrition issues and Insybio has already started a project with international giant Nestle trying to discover biomarkers that can be used to produce nutrition products for personalized diets. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Bloode is a social enterprise aiming to change the perception we have for blood donors in Greece (and not only…), where less than 1% of the population are blood donors. As a consequence, donations cover only half of the blood units needed every year. So, a group of friends created a few years ago a platform matching people in need of blood with donors. Alex Sotiropoulos, a member of the Bloode team, describes what they have done up to now, the actions they have taken and -more specifically- how they try to educate young people and their teachers, so they will become volunteers. He also tells us about the awards they have won and their effort to “export” their solution internationally, as more than 40 countries all over the world face the same problem. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Anni Pakarinen, project researcher at the University of Turku and coordinator of the WellWe project, explains how their platform promotes a family’s healthy nutrition choices, physical activity and wellbeing, utilising available resources in their everyday life. She talks about how the platform takes into consideration the research outcomes they collected from pre-school kids, their families and healthcare professionals from children's centres and health clinics. Their approach includes gamification elements which could potentially make healthy development choices much easier for professionals working in health or social services and children's’ support centres. Last, Anni reveals the next steps and how they are thinking of broadening the scope of the project. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Mobiltron is developing an app called WOVER that uses Artificial Intelligence algorithms and your smartphone sensors to better understand your activities, predict or detect if you are in danger. It all started when a good friend of Stavros lost his life. It motivated Stavros Schizas, CTO & Co-Founder of Mobiltron, to find a solution to prevent such incidents from happening. Stavros explains how their private beta app works, how they fine tune their algorithms and how they transform all the data into insights. He also analyses their business strategy, how they will try to scale their service to more users and which monetisation business models are being explored at the moment. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Everyone has come across the need to get a second or third medical opinion, from a top doctor abroad, only to find it comes at a high cost and it’s difficult to find the right lead. Sorin Dragomir, CEO of Healthcare Software Alliance, explains how Webhippocrates connects patients with top doctors from all over the world on a reasonable fee. He goes on to talk about the story behind the platform and why he personally experienced the need for such a solution. Webhippocrates is in private beta and has already been involved in 40 serious cases in Romania. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Medicine waste is a big issue worldwide. Only in Greece, over 14 tons of medicinal drugs are thrown away while more than 2 million people live under the poverty line. Teti Psarrou, Head of Marketing at GIVMED explains how they’ve managed to create a community of users who donate their redundant medicines to those who need them, but can’t purchase them. They have partnered with several organisations and NGOs in order to make the matchmaking process more efficient. What is remarkable is that the community within the last 4 months has donated drugs valued at 10.000 euros. They are already looking to expand their network outside of Athens and other countries. GIVMED was recently awarded the 2016 judges’ Social Impact Award. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Thanos Stavropoulos, CEO & Co-Founder at Carealia, a spinoff of Dem@Care, a FP7 European funded project. Thanos explains how they worked together with IBM, Philips and several European clinics to build a smart home monitoring system to assist in the care of dementia. Interconnected devices such as retail wearables, ambient sensors and security solutions installed in a smart home, are combined with intelligent algorithms and clinical knowledge to produce insights and support doctors to assess efficiently and remotely patients’ symptoms and behavioural patterns. They are actively looking for early adopters and customers to deploy their smart monitoring system thus they are focusing on nursing homes. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Alex Itsios, Team Manager and Konstantinos Koliousis, Design & UI/UX at Healthy Club introduce us to a very simple, professional meal & exercise planning platform for nutritionists, trainers, gymnasts, clinicians & research centers enabling them to look after their clients in a revolutionary new way and stay close to them at all times. The biggest asset of their platform is the meal planner, which exploits a preexisting database of foods and supplements, allowing clients to achieve easily better performance in their health goals. The project is unique in Greece, created from scratch with only 2 competitors internationally, as they say. Interviewed by Katerina Giosma for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Zetta Korda and Anaxagoras Fotopoulos, two members of the Ingredio team (Dr. Zoe Kournia, the founder and CEO was not available at the time of this interview) explain how their mobile app works: a simple scanning of the ingredient label, on a cosmetic product or food package, with a smartphone camera is all you need in order to check for the toxicity of ingredients correlated with official databases provided by the World Health Organization and the European Commission. This free app (or on a budget subscription for heavier use) presents the toxicity grade of each sole ingredient and overall for the product, helping users and customers make healthy informed decisions about the products they buy. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Katerina Exakoustidou Co-Founder of Vitabroad talks about their full-service facilitator for medical tourism in Greece, which creates personalised medical travel plans, including healthcare services, accommodation, travel tickets, wellness and tourism services for international patients seeking treatment. The quality of their services is ensured, as she points out, stemming from established partnerships with European & American board certified physicians, as well as national and international accredited Greek private, for the time being, hospitals and clinics. Interviewed by Katerina Giosma for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Vangelis(or Vangos) Pterneas, honoured by Microsoft with the title of Most Valuable Professional for his contributions to the technical community and CTO of Kinetisense, explains the impact their product has in motion analysis for patients and clinicians and how they use Microsoft Kinect to accomplish it. Kinetisense is a real-time motion analysis tool for practitioners, physiotherapists and personal trainers. It can analyse the range of motion for the patient’s shoulders, the back, the elbows and the knees allowing the practitioner to understand the improvement (or not) in motion. Kinetisense is useful to clinicians but also to athletes and even dentists, as Vangos explains, due to posture change after dental surgery. He goes on to talk about the rest of the team and the funding the Canadian company has received. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Nikos Naoum, Head of Product and Co-founder at Blueline talks about their mobile app, a real time on demand matchmaking-tool which connects patients and doctors. Although the app has competition they believe that following the ‘Uber’ model of allowing doctors to show real-time their availability, they will be able to serve patients within 2 hours but also motivate doctors to join since this will mean customers for them, exactly when they need them. The team is looking into collaborations with hotels and tourist offices in order to get access to tourists who usually have a hard time finding an available doctor in a foreign country. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central during the eHealth Forum Festival in Technopolis, October 2016.
Do we know how to use our health data and what are the best choices for us? Although we often hear about patient empowerment, are we literate enough to understand what our health data mean? Three health IT professionals have set out to open this conversation, and while during eHealth Week they presented their first panel discussion on the Digital Health Compass, as they have named their quest, we thought we’d ask in person what they aim to accomplish. Anne Moen - President at the European federation for Medical Informatics & Professor at the University of Oslo, Catherine Chronaki - Secretary General for the HL7 Foundation, and Ed Hammond - Director for the Duke Center for Health Informatics & Chai
Steve Lieber, President & CEO of HIMSS, talks about HIMSS, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting a better understanding of health care information and management systems. He explains who their audience is and what kind of services they provide their community. We ask him if they’re working on behavioural change for clinicians and how difficult it is to keep up with the constant changes in informatics and educating their audience. HIMSS started out in the US but during the last years it has been branching out into Europe and Asia. It’s interesting to hear about their approach to growth. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Henrique Martins, President of the SPMS board talks about the NHS implemented services they’re working on in Portugal. He discusses their choices and how these have changed the citizens perception about the NHS. He talks about paperless health; the Open Data portal and its APIs the death certificate connected with the system to avoid fraud; public access to data; their developer community and mobile apps, like the waiting time for a hospital appointment. Most importantly, he elaborates on how by exposing their data they have opened themselves to scrutiny but in the meantime also added significant pressure on providing quality of data and overall efficiency. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Tapani Piha, Head of eHealth Unit in the European Commission discusses eHealth and the European Commission, and how it facilitates member states to learn from each other in order to stimulate growth and development. Mr. Piha participated in the eHealth Network meeting during the eHealth Week, so we asked him how he sees member states performing when it comes to eHealth. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Clemens Martin Auer, Chair for the eHealth Network & Director General at the Ministry of Health in Austria, sat down with us and discussed the outcomes of the 7th annual eHealth Network meeting in Amsterdam, during the eHealth Week. He explains what the objectives of this European Commission voluntary Network, of national authorities responsible for eHealth, are and how they try to accomplish them. The eHealth Network draws up guidelines in the area of eHealth aiming to enhance interoperability between electronic health systems and continuity of care and to ensure access to safe and quality healthcare. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
During the last 2 years we’ve seen several IoT development platforms spring up and they all strive to be the common ground that every IoT app and device will hook up to. Meanwhile, every large IT company is hasty to join, since it still remains foggy which will prevail. This time we decided to interview an Open standards solution, the EU funded IOT open platform, UniversAAL, a free and open enabler for rapid development & deployment of interoperable IoT application that enrich human lives, as their moto says. Saied Tazari - Associated Head, Pilar Sala - Technical Manager, Bruno Jean Bart - Director of Innovation Social at UniversAAL and Homer Papadopoulos, Senior Research Manager at NCSR Demokritos explain what the platform has to offer, compared to other proprietary solutions, and how their main focus now is to develop the market place. They analyse a few case studies, while emphasising on the adaptability and advantages of the platform. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Yvonne Goff - Chief Clinical Information Officer & Richard Corbridge - Chief Information Officer, at the Health Service Executive from the Republic of Ireland, discuss the Irish health ecosystem. Richard talks about their eHealth agenda, Knowledge and Information Plan, e-referrals, the individual health identifier along with other achievements; while Yvonne explains how different stakeholders came together to implement the eHealth agenda. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Hans Notenboom, Global Head of Digital at Philips Healthcare discusses Philips positioning when it comes to health care. They had a dominant presence during the eHealth Week, something to be expected considering Philips is a Dutch company. Hans talked about Philip’s market share in healthcare, its future plans and technologies like it’s portable ultrasound solution, marketed around a subscription model; VR in surgery room planning and design; healthcare & wellness devices and more. He also talks about Philips’ open platform that can accumulate data from several health sources. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Petra Wilson, an experienced legal consultant on EU health directives & regulations, and Director of Health Connect Partners explains the new General Data Protection Regulation (lovingly known as GDPR). Adopted on the 27th of April 2016 it will be applied on the 25th of May 2018, after a two-year transition period, and unlike a Directive it does not require any enabling legislation to be passed by governments. The European Commission intends to strengthen and unify data protection for individuals and to address export of personal data outside the EU. The Commission's primary objectives of the GDPR are to give citizens back the control of their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU. Petra breaks down it’s 8 key points emphasizing on its most important aspects, while she explains what companies and institutions need to focus on and how they can prepare. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
The team got together to discuss podcasting and its intricacies. Prior to sitting in front of our microphones, we interviewed Stathis Koutsogeorgos - founder at Radiojar - and included snippets of his interview in our podcast. We discussed live shows vs podcasts and what each one entails; why TTC chooses to do both depending on circumstances; the minimal equipment required to do a good-quality audio interview on the move, and what are the available podcast media hosts and distribution channels. We pondered on the optimal podcast duration, how to disseminate and finally what kind of innovation can we expect in podcasting for the future.
Markos, our sound engineer was kind enough to prepare a post with a list on audio equipment, we at TTC, either use or suggest derived from our experience on doing interviews on the move and broadcasting live from events. https://medium.com/tech-talks-central/podcasting-equipment-for-various-budgets-c9f0f2774010#.p85lv65tw
TTC people on the TTCvoice#4 podcast were Vagelis Antoniadis, Nikos Spanoudakis, Markos Voutsinos and Vicki Kolovou.
RadioJar is a platform of tools for setting up your own Internet Radio Show and TTC uses their services for their live broadcasts from within events. Check them out here www.radiojar.com
Having an interview with a London-based VC was pretty exciting as for the European startup ecosystem London is the closest thing to Silicon Valley. Axel Wehr who is Partner at Firestartr and previously an Associate in Bain Capital’s private equity group introduced us to Firestartr and to which verticals and regions they focus in. He mentions some factors of their investment strategy and why they believe that there is room for European unicorns. Apart from the capital, a VC should help and support its startups and Axel explains how they do that. Compared to the US startup ecosystem, Europe is showing progress but lacks of experienced capital, meaning teams and people that have successfully done that before. Closing he talks about some promising startups that are funded and supported by Firestartr. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Their “love story” started back in the 90s, when Angelos Vourlidas went to the States initially to study black holes - he chose the Sun, instead, fascinated by the only source of heat and light for our planet. Angelos talks about his job and explains the grave consequences of solar activity and “winds” in our daily life; he asserts that the Sun hides a lot of secrets from us and never stops changing. He says that there is still a long way for the prediction of solar weather and shares with us the news that, in about two years from now, a special spacecraft will be sent for the first time inside the atmosphere of the Sun to record and send back valuable data. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
When he was only 12, Dimitri Chatzis built his own large 3D printer that he consequently used to build, two years later, a big humanoid and highly sophisticated talking robot. “Troopy” is one of the only six similar robots -based on the InMoov ecosystem- in the world. Dimitri is from the northern Greek town of Kavala and still a freshman in High School. He travelled to Athens, along with his robot “Troopy”, in order to take part in the Athens Science Festival during 2016 and found the time to talk to us about his passion for robotics, his love for research and his plans for the future. We’re pleased to say that “Troopy” contributed to the interview with a few words of his own. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Michail Bletsas, Research Scientist & the Director of Computing at MIT’s Media Lab was one of the founding members of the ‘One Laptop Per Child’ initiative, in 2005. He is a strong proponent of Connectivity, as he considers it is as necessary as our water supply; it provides the basis for communication, which he firmly believes distinguishes us humans from other complex species on this planet; it acted as the primary catalyst to help us “invent” social networking, law, religion, democracy and currency. He talks about the emerging, telephony and mobile, convergence; the EU and USA research environments versus that of China’s, and how the latter’s lack of institutions may prove critical in the failure or success equation. Finally, he discusses the OLPC legacy, as the result of an elaborate demo, conducted by MIT, ever. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
As a Lord of the Rings fan... Netbeast fits the“One platform to control them all” description, meaning that Netbeast will be able to control all your smart and connected devices through one app. Co-founders Jon Senra Dearle, CEO & Jesus Dario Rivera, CTO at Netbeast share their story and the startup’s journey up to now. You will listen to what IoT challenges they are tackling and a brief concern about privacy and security. One of the highlights of the interview is when they explain how one can actually create an ideal wake up morning call thanks to Netbeast and smart devices. They discuss the similarities, the differences and the progress of the startup ecosystems in Spain and Germany. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Ronni Solomon, Executive Vice President and General Counsel for the ECRI Institute, a non profit organisation, dedicated to improving healthcare through discovering and educating on best medical procedures, devices, drugs etc. explains how the institute works and why they are considered highly credible, when it comes to their findings. The ECRI Institute and Ronni Solomon are very concerned with HealthIT and its associated safety issues. She gives us examples of hazards they have discovered in medical devices and software, numbering them to over 3.5 million in their 50 years of working on the subject. We couldn’t avoid asking her about the ‘ransomware’ cyber attacks happening right now on US hospitals and how the issue must be handled. She gives an interesting possible solution. Ronni Solomon will be speaking at the eHealth Week organised by HIMSS Europe, coming June in Amsterdam. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
PhotOral is the first intra-oral blue light wellness device, suitable for controlling your mouth’s microbiome. Stamatis Astra, CEO at PhotOral, life science startup based in Boston, explains how the product stemmed from biomedical research conducted within the Forsyth Institute; and how they plan to have it in the market by the end of 2016. He also talks about product development costs, investor backup, dental studies and what led them in the development of a new product, this time for pet hygiene. Pantelis Angelidis, founder and president of Vidavo, an mHealth company based in Greece, explains their incentives behind their investment in PhotOral and how they’re contributing to the company’s growth with expertise knowledge derived from their own specialisation in the eHealth domain. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Christopher J. James, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at University of Warwick and Senior member of IEEE explains how patient care is now changing from treating incidents at hospitals -where the patient was just a participant and the clinician was the ‘king’- to maintaining wellness through technology and monitoring at home. He emphasizes on the need for a common platform that will monitor and record continuous data in the home, which will change how we cure illness, by acting on activity patterns. Dr. James explains why bringing wearable technology into the system can add longer periods of activity monitoring, really attached to the end user, which would produce enormously valuable datasets. Activity data that can refer to patient behaviour. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
If you’re into digital marketing and Google Adwords, then this is an interview you should be listening to. RocketROI is a marketing automation tool, for small or medium enterprises, that need an efficient way to plan their advertising with Google Adwords while raising their ROI. Ignacio Rodes, CEO & founder of RocketROI, decided to make his own tool when he couldn’t find one to do the job for him. He gained expertise by actually preaching what he believed in; that using robots, for marketing analysis of ads, was more efficient than using humans. In the online travel agency, where he used to work, he managed to triple sales and cut advertising expenditure to half. The startup has already raised 500K euros from one of the largest buyers of advertising channels, on Facebook and Instagram, for Southern Europe and Latin America. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
Slock.it was the winner of the IoT competition at 4YFN, for 2016. Their system allows anyone to rent, sell or share anything without the use of a middleman. They have set up an ethereum-based locking system -based on blockchain technology- that can be opened with money. Stephan Tual, Founder & COO at Slock.it, gives an example of its use, explaining how someone could rent their house, without having to put it on a platform like AirBnb; which might not be available in every country and in the end takes a commission. What they would be renting out is the actual door of the apartment -an autonomous object connected to the Internet- using a decentralised database of sort, allowing the users both types of access; to rent and use. Everything can be done through a phone and obviously the prospects are enormous and, may we dare say, quite democratic. Took a lot of imagination to realise the potential of considering every object autonomous, thus transferable, but the guys seem to be onto something. A startup worth keeping an eye on. Start by listening to the interview Sakis Triantafyllakis conducted for Tech Talks Central.
Jordi Boza, CEO at Remote Eye, explains how his 3rd startup focuses on remote technical assistance to enterprises, saving them money and time. By using their B2B software solution a company can use a smartphone, tablet or smart glasses to provide technical service or any type of assistance, remotely, without having to bare the cost of shipping someone physically. With the introduction of augmented reality they’re even able to physically show, the person on the ground, where he has to put his own hand or tool in order to solve the problem. Remote Eye participated at 4YFN during MWC16 and they’ve already accumulated several awards, including one from Google for developing for Google Glasses. Jordi explains the difference between augmented and virtual reality and how they’re looking into developing telepresence solutions for health applications. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
Our 3rd TTCvoice podcast was recorded and broadcast live from Mobile World Congress 2016, in Barcelona. The biggest mobile technology event along with an amazing city, became the suitable backdrop for us to meet the people behind Barcinno, the online collaborative platform that shares news, knowledge & events of Barcelona’s startup, tech and innovation communities. It will be an understatement to say we weren’t thrilled meeting them; these guys excited us with all their knowledge and inside information. Join us and listen to the Barcinno team, Scott Mackin, Hector Manzano Diaz, Lina Maria Ruiz and Sindre Hopland talk startups, local ecosystem and why Barcelona is the Mobile World Capital. Playing hosts for Tech Talks Central: Vicki Kolovou, Sakis Triantafyllakis and Yannis Rizopoulos.
"Are we thereeeee yet?" Grownups no longer will you suffer the ear piercing drama of children on long, or short, car trips. Igor Ponikarchik, CMO-Head of Mobile Unit Bamboo Group, talks to us about how ŠKODA LITTLE DRIVER will keep your kids happy and engaged while actually introducing them to the concept of driver safety. Igor lets us play with their new connected car app, designed as an interactive game, to teach kids driving basics and main traffic rules. The app simulates every component in real time, by using the data generated by the vehicle while on route. So when mom or dad uses the blinkers, so can the child driving through the app. Kids get points for simulating the correct/safe action and also can teach a thing or two to grownups who may or may not be choosing the safest action. Igor shows us how their development team integrated the ŠKODA API, creating an app fully compatible with the infotainment system of the car. Using the SmartGate system, ŠKODA Little Driver can analyse the vehicle parameters and all the driver’s actions. The vehicle data is displayed on the screen of user's device in real-time. The player can monitor driving variables (e.g. speed, fuel level, brake status or the throttle position) and repeat driver’s actions. The best part is kids earn points which they can redeem by "trickin" up their car, changing color, rims, etc. When not actually in the car, kids can play at home and learn safety facts about driving. Igor also talked to us about e-School, the company's educational application that redefines the e-learning process for schools, parents and students through mobile technology. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Talkitt was designed to help people who have been speech impaired after a stroke, Parkinson's, Cerebral Palsy or other diseases and afflictions that may cause speech impairment. Stephanie Anais Cohen, Strategic Advisor for Voiceitt, explains how Talkitt adapts to intelligible speech by considering it a form of language accent, evolving with the user to essentially almost think and interpret the context of what they are trying to say with voice. The vocabulary -dictionary of terms- they have created for the application and the system, learns as it goes and adapts to the user achieving higher recognition in a shorter calibration time. The technology is working to understand what you want to say and "the person does not need to practice and practice," says Stephanie. The company is working on collaborations with Apple and IBM with the goal to have the application available around the world. Voiceitt encourages anyone who is experiencing speech impairment to go to their website and join up, record their voice and contribute to the expansion of the vocabulary database they are creating. Recording is free and anyone who can, and wants to, is welcome to try and record their voice. The system requires a minimal ability to speak even in intelligible sounds. The program is in beta testing and is expected to be launched for public use soon. Stephanie also told us Voiceitt is thinking of working on a medical device to expand on the usefulness of Talkitt. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Alain Falys and Michael Rolph are two of the Co-founders of yoyowallet, a mobile wallet that enables brands and retailers to answer the big three questions: Who are my customers; how do I engage with them in a more personal way; and how to sell more. Alain reveals how they have increased their users and developed their community by focusing in large closed environments. Michael highlights what is their key differentiator to other competitors and how they focus to providing one solution with the best user experience. They both believe that the data and insights they have, from all those transactions, enables them to better understand their users’ behaviour and how they will be scaling their business. A really insightful interview regarding mobile payments from a startup that has raised 24 million dollars up to now. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Who hasn't thought of creating a game at one stage of his or her life?! Peter Symons, Managing Director at OJOO, wants to gamify the world with ‘the Wordpress for mobile experiences’. He explains how easy it is for non-technical people to design, create a game and instantly an iOS and Android App. They have discovered that gamification can be applied to many different industries and they are now focusing on partnerships in order to scale their business and grow. As a serial entrepreneur he talks about his experience and lessons learned from the past. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
We caught up with Tim Carter, Health Innovation Technologist at Equinix, after his presentation and panel discussion at ECHAlliance Digital Health & Wellness Summit hosted by Mobile World Congress. Tim talked about the new wave of eHealth being IoT or Io-Everything as they prefer it at Equinix. He predicts how devices connect to each other is where healthcare is going, quickly transforming the industry and taking people by surprise. Tim talks about the rapidly growing healthcare economy and explains the real question is not health digitization but rather health and healthcare outcomes. He explains Equinix's part in "connecting the dots" for fragmented ecosystems and how part of the ECHAlliance summit was answering: how do you connect the dots and how can you help others connect the dots in a better more efficient way that is going to work for better healthcare outcomes. We talk about the phenomenal amount of innovation and ideas and how regardless of the various stages of funding, companies in this industry are conquering the world. While discussing the questions posed during the summit around privacy, electronic health records, personal data, Tim explained how the eHealth sector is developing so fast it will take the market by storm. He says a lot of people still don't "get it" and haven't invested in research, "these things are going crazy, everyone is predicting that if you take the EHR and the privacy issues and the naysayers and the pro camp, actually, in 5-10 years they're just going to be laughing at us, calling us dinosaurs", he says, "they'll forget we were even having these conversations." Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Online freedom means protecting your privacy and security and at the same time enjoying a free and open internet. That’s what Keezel is all about according to Friso Schmid, Co-Founder & COO of keezel. Their initial funding target on Indiegogo -August 2015- was 60.000US dollars and up to now they have raised more than 700.000! They are working on developing their product and shipping their first 3.000 devices, by June. Friso points out where their focus is right now; where they’re looking for partnerships; and what their plans are for the future. Last but not least, he mentions some privacy and security threats happening as we speak and how their device can offer cyber security in a very user-friendly way and with no technical skills. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
Have you ever tried to verify your identification through the internet, in order to do business? A nightmare in some cases. Forget all about it, as Authenteq is an automatic Identity Verification service for online marketplaces and it only takes 60 seconds. Yeah just 60 seconds by comparing a photo of yours and your passport. Kari Thor Runarsson, CEO & Co-founder at Authenteq, discusses with us about their proprietary and patent pending technology; the Authenteq’s team expertise; their plans, and how their service can benefit customers and users. He also highlights how important security and data privacy are for their company; mentions some of their achievements and where they will focus, geographically, in the upcoming months. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
Pepe Borrell, Managing Director at CrowdCube Spain, a subsidiary of CrowdCube UK explains how their crowdfunding service works and how the opportunity, for a department in Spain, appeared. He mentions the platform tools available for investors and what kind of startups have access to their service. He does mention investment figures and specific amounts, to give us an indication how crowdfunding investors receive the same deal as large VCs. Interviewed just a few days after the end of Mobile World Congress 2016 by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Ever dreamed of looking through walls or your own skin with the use of supervision? Well it’s here and very soon the technology can be incorporated in every mobile device. Raviv Melamed, CEO and co-founder of Vayyar discusses with us their breakthrough technology, that involves several intellectual patents and has attracted serious funding. While he did show us on the spot how a mobile device can look through a wall and see the pipes going through it, he emphasized on more serious applications, like checking for breast cancer. Vayyar’s technology is a low cost alternative, to the expensive and large mammograms, meaning that cash-strapped clinics or hospitals in remote areas of India or Africa will be able to offer a basic type of examination for all women. In the future examining our own breasts with our mobiles suddenly doesn’t seem so utopic. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Chris Wright, VP Chief Technologist at RedHat explains how the Internet of Things is being built on an infrastructure with core source components based on open source software, the main domain expertise of RedHat. He mentions several IoT components that fit well with their technology, part of the middleware stack, and goes on to respond several more questions on of which is on security issues that will arise with the expanding use of connected devices. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Helen Keegan, organiser of Swedish Beers and Mobile Advertising Expert, Troy Norcross, Startup Adviser and Digital Strategy Expert, Ilicco Elia, Head of Mobile at DigitasLBi and Rafe Blandford, Mobile Strategist at DigitasLBi discuss with us all about mobile trends and what they expect to see anew, at this year’s Mobile World Congress. In a beautiful down-town Barcelona apartment we got together on a Sunday morning, just before MWC16 hit off, and talked about mobile advertising, adblocking, educating users, virtual reality and much more. On the microphone for Tech Talks Central is Vicki Kolovou, while the rest of the TTC team Sakis Triantafyllakis, Yannis Rizopoulos and Venetia Kyritsi made sure to capture the whole conversation on image and tweet about it.
Vkansee produces miniaturized high resolution fingerprint sensors with a resolution of 2000 ppi which is 4 times higher than what is being used today -in our mobile phones that use fingerprint recognition- enabling higher security. Jason Chaikin, President at Vkansee, talks about how the company is focusing on commercial markets that require biometric security, mainly mobiles and IoT, while he does mention key generators for mobile payments and cross border authentication systems. Although still in development stage they have spoken with all main mobile manufacturers and they will be announcing new collaborations within the year. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Combining organic chemistry, physics and electricity, StoreDot has created a chemical compound which, along with a complete redesign of the battery, allows it to charge very very fast (1 minute for a mobile). Doron Myersdorf, CEO & Founder and Erez Lober, SVP of Electric Vehicles at StoreDot -an Israeli startup that has raised 66 million in funding from Samsung Ventures- goes beyond mobiles and batteries to talk about how they’ve launched the Electric Vehicle sector, which they believe will be the most promising market for the future. We believe this is a startup that you should be keeping an eye out for in the future. We sure will. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Contiamo, a Berlin-based startup, present at this year’s 4YFN, has created a web-based Business Intelligence platform, that combines structured or unstructured data from many different sources into a single integration, offering useful data-driven results and a comprehensive approach to all members, of an affiliated organization. Michael Franzkowiak, founder and managing director of Contiamo, talks about his “incredibly powerful and flexible” platform and his vision to empower even traditional companies and organizations with the benefits that data-driven culture may bring to them. Deutsche Telekom is not only a supporting partner but also investor in the startup http://www.contiamo.com. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
Paulo Rodrigues, CEO & Vesna Prchkovska, CSO & co-founders at MintLabs & Landon McKenna, COO/CFO at MintLabs MintLabs, a startup company that participated at 4YFN, has set a really aspiring goal: to create the biggest database of imaging data of the brain, in order to build models of healthy and diseased ones. Paulo Rodrigues, CEO at MintLabs and his multi-national team of experts talk to TTC about their vision, emphasizing on their social impact goals. Their already popular data visualization platform allows doctors to understand the true state of a patient’s brain comparing it to a diseased one. Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, have an objective reference to compare the impact of new drugs, before they enter the market. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
Want to know the winners of the best British Startup at Mobile World Congress 2016? Giles Rhys Jones , Marketing Director of what3words talks about their product, how they came up with the idea and their strategic decisions that made them the company they are now. He also shares some mistakes they made during their startup rollercoaster and what are their next steps to grow their company bigger. Last but not least he points out what 4YFN and MWC offered to what3words and the benefits of participating. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
Libelium CEO, Alicia Asin, despite her young of age is very knowledgeable when it comes to the Internet of Things hype and how she foresees her company growing within it. Dubbed as a baby unicorn by Silicon Valley, Libelium, is growing fast in the agricultural and smart city verticals of sensor and software infrastructure, for connected devices. She clearly defines their goals and main targets to become competitive in specific markets and to identify new ones, like water monitoring for irrigation and other purposes. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Ford is exhibiting at Mobile World Congress for the 5th consecutive year and Barb Samardzich, the Chief Operating Officer at Ford Europe, shared with us the new technologies and services Ford is offering. Learn what FordPass and SYNC3 technologies have to offer and what Ford’s R&D department is working on. She also highlights how important security and data privacy is and she talks about how sharing economy and Smart Cities can change the automotive industry. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
A quite important benefit of the connected economy is electronic and -more specifically- mobile payments. Hiroyuki Sato, SEO at Docomo Digital, a subsidiary of the well-known Japanese carrier which is based in Europe, explains their new initiative that they hope will connect many different payment methods into one enabling platform which will offer global access to their customers via their mobile devices. Docomo Digital presence in MWC16 perfectly serves their purpose which is to start talking with many stakeholders in order to enable a mobile ecosystem, including regulators, financial institutions, operators. etc. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
Jasper is a pioneering company in the Internet of Things era and they’re out to connect everything from devices, vending machines, bicycles, users, customers and about anything that can transmit data. Mark Thomas, Director of Connected Car Product Marketing at Jasper, explains the backend cloud solutions they offer their customers in order to provide the needed infrastructure for the development of IoT solutions. We ask Mark about how he sees the future of IoT and what he believes about future regulations and ethical questions that will arise from the monitoring of IoT devices. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Good news for travellers around the globe, which are now able to save some money on roaming for calls and data! Gregory Gundelfinger, Chief Executive Officer at KnowRoaming presented such a product at MWC16 offering uninterrupted and much cheaper service to frequent travellers. Their scheme is based on a special sticker placed upon the normal SIM card of the user, some kind of e-wallet and a lot of agreements with local operators, as KnowRoaming offers its services in more than 80 (popular) countries. Talking and texting prices differ a little from country to country, but the fixed price of $7.99/day for unlimited data seems really interesting. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis and Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central
Want to know more about Open source technology and security in the IoT era? Art Swift, President and Cesare Garlati, Chief Security Strategist at the prpl Foundation explain how they are creating an open community to drive new standards for the Internet Of Things. They highlight how critical security is for companies and where they mostly focus. They also refer to possible set of solutions that they have identified, and how security at a hardware level has room for a lot of improvement. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
Haakon Bryhni, CTO at Elliptic Labs and Guenael Strutt, VP, Product Development, two researchers with a clearly technical background, talk about the team’s research in the lab and how it led to a software technology that utilises ultrasounds for gesture recognition. Their patented ultrasound software technology can be as simple as opening a light with a gesture, up to permitting the replacement of the optical proximity hardware, on our mobile phones, with software. Something that actually brought strong funding and big business for the firm. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
We met Jeremy Copp at the Scottish Development International booth where he talked about their 3d mapping and visualization platform. Jeremy is the Chief Commercial Officer of eeGeo and he explained how data can produce amazing insights through visualisation and how it could be combined with other applications to improve the whole experience and enter the Smart Cities era. He also shared some interesting real case studies and future applications. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
Sean Huang, Global Head of Mobile at Quantcast and Amit Kotecha, Head of Mobile Marketing for Europe, discuss their findings from the survey they conducted in Europe, concerning mobile use. Amongst other trends they emphasize on how 64 per cent of consumers have been influenced to purchase by a mobile ad, a figure that rises to 80 per cent among millennials and how 76 per cent are more willing to accept relevant ads on their mobile device. Of course we did ask their thoughts on AdBlocking and what it means for advertisers. Listen to what they responded. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Albert Forn, Associate Director at Mobile World Capital and Renee Jimenez, Manager at Mobile World Capital GSMA explain the purpose of the edu_Hack workshop coordinated by mSchools, the joint initiative by Mobile World Capital Barcelona and GSMA. Conducted during the weekend preceding MWC16, at the Arena in Plaza Espanya, they managed to bring together over 400 teachers from private and public schools to collaborate and develop ideas for integrating technology into schools. Although the audio was recorded under difficult conditions, the whole experience, watching these tutors use the business model canvas, was amazing. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou & Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Kostas Sarafianos, Commercial Director at mPass explains how their new Internet of Things platform for retailers, Explor IT works. Although the concept is simple they hope to facilitate different retailers, who need something easy and manageable to enhance consumer experience. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
The CEO & Co-founder of CityCrop, Christos Raftogiannis, reveals what CityCrop is working on and how they make indoor farming automated. He highlights the value proposition of having a smart Internet of Things device for farming and what it can offer to every household. He goes on to explain why they attended 4YFN. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central
Katre Kasmel, Head of Marketing & Communications e-Residency Team explains what the Esthonian e-Residency card entails, why they’re doing it and how developers can use their APIs to create software services. She talks about how entrepreneurs can open up their company in Esthonia, what the procedures are and emphasizes that by 2025 Esthonia wants to have 10 million e-residents. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Prof. Kevin Curran, IEEE senior member & lecturer at Ulster Uni., Carl Uminski, Co-founder & COO at Somo Global, James Tagg, CIO at Truephone and Helen Keegan, Mobile marketing consultant & Sweedish Beers organiser gathered at a VIP meeting room at Mobile World Congress 2016 and discussed with us... Artificial Intelligence and how it will impact our lives, health and growth through our devices, smartphones and cars. They talked about the need for education of users; how education will change itself; mobile addiction and how decisions will be our own, despite being influenced by technology. An interesting conversation by key players in mobile technology and artificial technology. Coordinated by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
GETTING THE MOST OUT OF MWC Insider survival guide
In less than 2 weeks from now, more than 90,000 people will be descending on Barcelona for Mobile World Congress aka MWC. TTC has been there & done that so @vicki-kolovou, @athanasios-triantafyllakis, @vagelis-antoniadis, @athanasios-triantafyllakis, and Yannis Rizopoulos wanted to share some inside info with you! So if this is your first time in MWC (or even if you are a seasoned attendee and you need some refreshing - especially this year, that there are some major changes, like the new metro line, for example), then this is definitely the only audio guide to listen. Learn all the tips and tricks to get the job done, meet people, avoid long queues and have such an amazing time that you can’t wait for next year’s MWC.
Additional links & info: Prepare for MWC entrance: Good to Go https://www.mobileworldcongress.com/good-to-go/
If you are involved in any incident, whether onsite or out of it, in the entire city of Barcelona, you may call + 34 900 77 2016 / this is a free 24-hour Security Service for all those in need. The organizers have teams on motorcycles available to come as soon as possible and offer you personal assistance.
Check this guide to the 2016 Mobile World Congress parties and events calendar by our friends at Barcinno. Don’t forget that the parties and networking events start on Sunday, 21st Feb. http://www.barcinno.com/the-2016-mobile-world-congress-parties-and-events-guide-mwc16-parties-barcelona/
After, close to 2 years and 226 interviews with scientists, researchers and technologists, the time has come to turn the table on us. The TTC team sits behind the microphone and reviews latest experiences, trends and social economic issues that have affected us and the technology scene at large. We start with eHealth and how our interviewees responded to the question on whether we need medical software certification; we talk about the social economic impact of robotics co-existing with humans; Phil Zimmermann’s interview on data security issues and privacy and the first pan-European cyber-security law to be enacted. So, do bare with our shortcomings and let us know your opinion and what we can improve. We will be travelling to different events in the coming months, interviewing stakeholders and hopefully reporting back, via our own podcast, on behind the scenes. W/ @vagelis-antoniadis, @athanasios-triantafyllakis, @vicki-kolovou, Yannis Rizopoulos
We discuss with Dr. Alexander Hoerbst, Head of the eHealth Research & Innovation Unit at the University of Health Sciences in Austria, interoperability needs on a European and national level; why he considers the EU framework a good base to start from and what organisations need to do in order to help companies comply with the European Interoperability Framework. He suggests actions for eHealth companies in order to compete in international markets and mentions the three basic outcomes from the STOA eHealth meeting held December 1st, 2015. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
We discuss with Dr. Philip Sotiriadis of Telematic Medical Applications and Telematic Global Medical Applications, about his companies' services providing home care and marine telemedicine applications. We talk about how the profound technological advances in health continue to depend on the human factor, whether it’s the medical personnel handling the technology or the patients willing to be treated remotely. Dr. Sotiriades talks to us about his future work partnering with NASA and Dr. Perichles Papadopoulos of Stanford to obtain patents for new wearable devices that read and measure vital signs, and his ongoing projects to use micro satellites to provide networks for distant and remote areas with no infrastructure. He explains his company's goal to provide access to help treat people who would otherwise have absolutely no medical access and also the importance of using technology to remotely provide the knowhow and assistance needed to help prevent the spreading of deadly contagions, like Ebola. Finally, we conclude on where the field stands in terms of legislation, government oversight and how ready patients really are to give up there facetime with a doctor and opt for remote consultation and treatment. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Lorenzo Pengo, Director for Healthcare Industry at Microsoft Central-Eastern Europe HQ presents MS’s idea for a healthier future for all of us; influenced by the power of two elements: mobility and cloud computing, that are already creating new and quite interesting scenarios, altering how the eHealth industry works. The three pillars supporting the new era are personalized computing; collaborative environment; and services in the cloud; supported by big data centers at a much lower cost towards the Health industry... which constantly tries to provide more with less. He concludes that Augmented Reality and 3D applications along with devices like Hololens, may bring radical changes to the health sector in the forthcoming years. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Claudio Saccavini, Technical Manager of Consorzio Arsenal.IT, describes the efforts of Veneto region (i.e.NE Italy) to implement an e-prescription project and act as a (very succesful, up to now) pilot for the whole country, scheduled for adoption in January 2016. He cites the three goals of this system (similar to the ones implemented in Greece, Spain and UK - only four countries in EU have a running e-prescription system) which are to ensure that the right drug is being prescribed; to reduce the waste of drugs; and -of course- to save money. He also invites Greece to join Italy in an initiative to open their systems to the millions of tourists visiting the two countries, every year. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Brian O’Connor, Chair ECHAlliance Catherine Chronaki, Secretary General at HL7 International Foundation George Crooks, Medical Director for NHS24 Alexander Berler, HL7 Chair for Greece
A recent Imperial College of London study showed that a number of NHS approved apps, while sending out data to associated services, 33% of them were doing so without encrypting their data. This is a security threat invoking identity theft plus privacy issues. Does the EU need a medical software certification strategy and if so, who should implement & enforce it?
Marc Lange, Secretary General for EHTEL, the European Health Telematics Association talks about why we need interoperability in eHealth, why standards are important and whether we need medical software certification for apps. He also talks about what competitive advantages European eHealth companies have in order to compete in the global market. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
George Dafoulas, internal medicine resident at the University of Athens, talks about how they used data from one of the largest e-prescription databases to develop epidemiology outcomes, and correlations with other diseases, concerning three specific non-biased chronic diseases. With the use of a university grant they analysed the Greek e-prescription data, which includes over 98% of local residents, developing one of the first large epidemiology studies in Europe. He and his team plan to continue developing their algorithm and methodology, well into the future. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Jose Costa Teixeira, an expert in eHealth and EU projects explains what interoperability and standards mean in practical terms for health software and why they’re crucial. He talks about what are the competitive advantages of European eHealth companies; including multilingual environments and diverse health infrastructure systems, that can lead to new innovations. He analyses which apps should be considered medical devices and what kind of medical software certification we need. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Clemens Auer, policy maker and Director General of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health, talks about Austrias Health Strategy; the procedures they tackled in order to bring Austria to the forefront of eHealth in Europe, including the electronic health record and e-card. He mentions how they have complied with internationally recognised standards and how they learnt from other countries practices, implementing a comprehensive system. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Richard Bergström, Director General, of EFPIA explains why pharmaceuticals need data to analyse people’s habits and drug intake, in order to innovate and develop newer and better drugs. He talks about the effect of the economic crisis on pharmaceuticals and analyses how the global pharma canvas is set. Of course we didn’t lose the chance to ask his opinion on Shkreli / Daraprim and the Golden Ticket concept (priority review voucher), the FDA offers to stimulate rare disease drug research and whether it could be implemented in Europe. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Brian O’Connor, Chair ECHAlliance Dimitra Liveri, Network and Information Security Expert at ENISA, eHealth projects Catherine Chronaki, Secretary General at HL7 International Foundation How does compliance with the European Interoperability Framework(EIF) help a National health system’s sustainability? At what percentage would you say your country’s NIF is aligned w/ the EIF when it comes to eHealth? What are the obstacles? Does your country have a published eHealth Strategy and what are its core objectives? In what percentage is it being implemented?
Brian O’Connor, Chair ECHAlliance Catherine Chronaki, Secretary General at HL7 International Foundation George Crooks, Medical Director for NHS24
European eHealth companies have a huge potential to grow, by approaching an ever growing market inside and outside EU borders. Apart from the obvious innovation potentials in a broad number of health & patient care sectors, markets like that of the US, Latin America and China have come ‘closer’ due to international agreements. What kind of impediments will European eHealth companies have to overcome, in order to reach these markets effectively?
Gerald Cultot, Research Programme Officer at DG Connect responds to our questions on whether the European Interoperability Framework exists for eHealth and what is the level of compliance of Member States; what kind of barriers and impediments will European eHealth companies have to overcome, in order to reach and compete in these markets effectively; and last he mentions what actions are being taken, by the EU, to create a code of conduct for medical software certification.
Brian O’Connor, Chair ECHAlliance Catherine Chronaki, Secretary General at HL7 International Foundation
The Digital Single Market strategy has raised questions about its impact on U.S.-EU trade and investment, especially with respect to cross-border data flows, data protection, standards development, and competition. These questions arise as both the United States and the EU strive to negotiate the new Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Considering the EU has limited powers regarding the organisation of member states’ health systems and can only recommend actions; what immediate actions should willing states and/or companies take in order to be competitive?
George Crooks, Medical Director for NHS24 Karima Bourquard, Director of Interoperability at IHE-Europe, France Marcello Melgara Responsible for International eHealth Projects, Italy
The Digital Single Market strategy has raised questions about its impact on U.S.-EU trade and investment, especially with respect to cross-border data flows, data protection, standards development, and competition. These questions arise as both the United States and the EU strive to negotiate the new Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Considering the EU has limited powers regarding the organisation of member states’ health systems and can only recommend actions; what immediate actions should willing states and/or companies take in order to be competitive?
Catherine Chronaki, Secretary General at HL7 International Foundation responds to what interoperability means for us as patients; how communication between stakeholders can help in achieving it, and why standards are crucial in connecting health data from across platforms and mediums.
George Crooks, Medical Director for NHS24 and Director of the Scottish Centre for Tele-health and Telecare. President of the European Telematics Association (EHTEL) & leader of the Integrated Care Action Group of the European Innovation Partnership for active and healthy ageing for the European Commission
George Crooks responds to our questions on whether Scotland has a published eHealth Strategy and what are its core objectives. Also, how does compliance with the European Interoperability Framework(EIF) help a National health system’s sustainability?
Henrique Martins, President of the Board of SPMS - Shared Services of the Ministry of Health, Portugal Karima Bourquard, Director of Interoperability at IHE-Europe, France Alexander Berler, HL7 Chair for Greece
European eHealth companies have a huge potential to grow, by approaching an ever growing market inside and outside EU borders. Apart from the obvious innovation potentials in a broad number of health & patient care sectors, markets like that of the US, Latin America and China have come ‘closer’ due to international agreements. What kind of impediments will European eHealth companies have to overcome, in order to reach these markets effectively?
Henrique Martins, President of the Board of SPMS - Shared Services of the Ministry of Health, Portugal Alexander Berler, HL7 Hellas Chair, Greece
How does compliance with the European Interoperability Framework(EIF) help a National health system’s sustainability? At what percentage would you say your country’s NIF is aligned w/ the EIF when it comes to eHealth? What are the obstacles? Does your country have a published eHealth Strategy and what are its core objectives? In what percentage is it being implemented?
Henrique Martins, President of the Board of SPMS - Shared Services of the Ministry of Health, Portugal Alexander Berler, HL7 Hellas Chair, Greece Dimitra Liveri, Network and Information Security Expert at ENISA, eHealth projects
The Digital Single Market strategy has raised questions about its impact on U.S.-EU trade and investment, especially with respect to cross-border data flows, data protection, standards development, and competition. These questions arise as both the United States and the EU strive to negotiate the new Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Considering the EU has limited powers regarding the organisation of member states’ health systems and can only recommend actions; what immediate actions should willing states and/or companies take in order to be competitive?
Marcello Melgara Responsible for International eHealth Projects, Italy / Henrique Martins, President of the Board of SPMS - Shared Services of the Ministry of Health, Portugal / Karima Bourquard, IHE-Europe Director of Interoperability, France
A recent Imperial College of London study showed that a number of NHS approved apps, while sending out data to associated services, 33% of them were doing so without encrypting their data. This is a security threat invoking identity theft plus privacy issues. Does the EU need a medical software certification strategy and if so, who should implement & enforce it?
Dimitra Liveri, Network and Information Security Expert at ENISA / Marcello Melgara Responsible for International eHealth Projects
European eHealth companies have a huge potential to grow, by approaching an ever growing market inside and outside EU borders. Apart from the obvious innovation potentials in a broad number of health & patient care sectors, markets like that of the US, Latin America and China have come ‘closer’ due to international agreements. What kind of impediments will European eHealth companies have to overcome, in order to reach these markets effectively?
Dr. Polycarpos Falaras’ research focuses on using nanotechnology to convert solar energy to electricity; photocatalysis as an advanced oxidation process, to decompose pollutants; and carbon dioxide storage and conversion. He explains how within the photoinduced process they examine the interaction of matter -at the size of a nanometer- with light, for the creation of a new generation of photovoltaics... mentioning windows or walls that will produce electricity. He explains that although the world wide target of using solar energy as a mainstream energy source may be important it can only be realised if we reduce the final cost. In order to achieve this, Dr. Falaras points out the need for further funding when it comes to scaling up processes and materials outside the lab. He continues with his other stem of research interest, photocatalysis and how it can help in the decomposition of emerging pollutants. He analyses how they’re trying to shift from the ultraviolet spectrum (3-5% of solar light) to the broader visible light spectrum, in order to create new materials that will energise new photocatalysis reactors. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Helen Kaberi is a marine chemist and oceanographer and we talk about how humanity can stop the damage we’ve caused to our environment and more specifically about pollution in the marine environment. Some of the current research projects Dr. Kaberi is working on are those concerning marine litter and the marine strategy framework. She gives her point of view on how we can protect fisheries from invasive species; deal with changes and pollution in the marine ecosystem; and how should a good environmental framework be defined. Finally, she highlights the fact that vessel pollution in the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea is quite significant mentioning some insights and results from their relevant research. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Voula Giouli is a research associate and has been working at ILSP / R.C. "Athena" since 1998 conducting basic and applied research in Computational Linguistics, the focus being on the analysis and modeling of natural language and the development of electronic language resources. We talk about how computational linguistics and natural language processing applications can benefit humans and how we can use the information & audio data derived from these. As Voula Giouli mentions, the challenge is to spot the unstructured information in various channels and mediums and serve this to the right user at the right time. She talks about her recent work on the development of an M2M conceptual dictionary of modern greek. She also shares insights and various commercial applications that could benefit from NLP technologies like consumer ratings and recommendations, authoring autocomplete aid while writing and others. Interviewed by Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
There are numerous human-caused sources of air pollution. Dr. Vasiliki Assimakopoulou gives us an overview of the most important of them along with factors affecting outdoor pollution in big cities and how these manifest and affect indoor pollution. We discuss her current research activities which, between others, include the aggregation and analysis of pollution data and information from several official sources; on the field measurements and research; and providing recommendations on how to reduce pollution and improve the quality of life in cities. The Emission Inventory of Athens is one of the most important and notable recent deliverable of the research group. In the last part of the interview, we talk about the disconnect between state, decision makers and researchers which is impeding the translation of research results and recommendations into regulations. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
The Institute of Geodynamics at the National Observatory of Athens operates and maintains the national Accelerometric Network, a computerized Seismic Detection network of sensors capturing seismic activity by pulling data from more than 350 stations spread across the entire area of Greece. Dr. Nikolaos Melis discusses how this information is being used in or can be extended to practical applications from precaution and warning systems to construction and restoration projects. Having recently completed the unification of all national seismic data networks, the Institute now works in collaboration with European institutions in order to create a real-time unified pan-European infrastructure network to strengthen the estimation, correlation and prediction capabilities of both earthquakes and tsunamis. We talk about the legacy and history of the Institute of Geodynamics which was founded in 1893, combined with the unique location and strong seismic activity in Greece, making it one of the oldest establishments in the field and a leader in seismological research. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Space astrophysics mostly depend on ground based telescopes for observation. However the most important part has to do with observation from outer space using satellites and space-shuttles. By observing space from outside of earth’s atmosphere it is possible to gather much richer information by using techniques that would be ineffective from ground-level, such as measuring x-ray radiation. Dr. Ioannis Georgantopoulos gives us a glimpse into how x-rays allow scientists to have a much richer view of many uncharted territories of space which would otherwise be invisible. We also talk about the current and future space missions that the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing participates in and the expected outcomes. Finally we talk about the involvement and collaboration opportunities for small or medium software and hardware companies in Space programs, how easy is it to get funding and how a company can fill-in any competence gaps. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Paraskevi Karachle is a researcher in the field of Fishery Science, a broad field spanning topics such as fish biology, feeding ecology and ecomorphology. We talk about the implications of what do fish eat, why they eat it and how they adapt. Furthermore, Dr. Karachle’s research is related to the management of aquatic resources and fisheries, feeding ecology and diet, and how fish interact with each other and other aquatic organisms. The applications and the repercussions of the this research spans a wide area from ecosystem preservation and sustainability to commercial applications. We then talk about Maritime Spatial Planning, the regional/geological mapping and planning of the sea, an activity with huge impact on several applications which involve the use of sea ecosystem resources and capabilities - from touristic enterprises and fishing to offshore wind-farms. Finally we discuss Dr. Karachle’s work on stakeholder management and involvement in fishery science and specifically about the “Citizen Scientist” initiative - an activity aiming to outreach to and leverage the involvement of every non-scientist stakeholder in order to rapidly expand the knowledge- and information- base in the field. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
In this interview with Dr. Marina Sagnou we discussed the use of natural products, some of which are commonly known as superfoods, for the design and synthesis of new organic molecules for medicinal purposes. Dr Sagnou explains how natural products like Curcumin are strong candidates for applications such as the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, and the diagnosis and/or therapy of cancer, amongst others. We also talk about Demokritos’ unique expertise and positioning as a producer, banking and processing facility, and provider of Human Bone Allograft and the tremendous cost benefit both to clinicians and the Centre, as well as the development of innovative synthetic and natural allograft for dental and orthopedic applications which carry several physical, mechanical and cost benefits over organic bone tissue. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Our talk with Dr. Efstratios Stratikos begins with an overview of the research currently being performed within his research group focused around the study of protein biomolecules and specifically their predominant role in medical diagnosis and in the design of new drugs. Centered around the mechanics of the human immune system Dr Stratikos’ group research applies to the diagnosing, prognosis and curing of a very broad spectrum of diseases including cancer. The second part of our talk is about the difficulties and the challenges that the group is currently facing, despite that profound importance and impact of their work, in fund-raising highlighting amongst others the need for support mechanisms and infrastructure, both at state and private industry levels. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
“Love what you are doing and get paid for that!” That’s the aphorism that Dr. George Mousdis, a seasoned researcher of 30-plus years, kept for his interview with TTC, when asked to describe the greatest benefit of his job, followed by the declaration “which is not a job - it is more of a hobby you love!” That’s why young researchers-to-be must like it, first of all. Of course, he admits that everyday life for a researcher is not exactly rosy... Research is time consuming, which means limited personal life and less time for your family, as you are usually “married” to science. It is also rather difficult to get money for your research, especially if you live in Greece, during the crisis. Hence, he firmly believes that research must give back something to the society that pays for it by introducing practical or commercial value added results. This belief is depicted in his work, which is focused on low-dimensional materials used in organic electronics, sensors and photovoltaics, as well as applications like the highly accurate and fast virgin olive oil authenticator, crucial for the Greek national product. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
The close collaboration between the NCSR “Demokritos” and CERN is illustrated once more during our interview with Dr. Theodoros Geralis, Research Director at the Institute of Particle & Nuclear Physics of the historic institution in Athens, and also President of the 300-strong Hellenic Society for the Study of High-Energy Physics. Dr. Geralis gives us a first-hand account on their common activities, explaining the different kinds of NCSR participation in the famous CMS experiment which lead to the discovery of the Higgs particle, in 2012. He also describes the next steps towards a frame larger than the standard model, which will explain our world even better, solving perhaps the problem of dark matter. Finally, he points out the high level of the Greek researchers, demonstrated by the fact that they play a critical and quite disproportional to the size of their country, role at CERN. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
A senior researcher at the National Observatory of Athens, Dr. Demetra Founda focuses on the “hot” topics of climate change and global warming in the whole area of SE Europe and, most obviously, in Athens. She tells us about the importance of the more than 150 years old temperature records kept by NOA and alerts us about the significant change observed during the last decades. She warns us of the significant increase in air-temperature; approximately one degree Celsius per decade which amounts to at least three degrees, since the mid 70s! She characterizes this problem as very serious, asks for urgent measures from the State and warns that -based on models and assumptions- our region will certainly be much warmer and drier by the end of the century. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Sophia Kremydi describes the history of her discipline, Numismatics, the study or collection of coins, paper currency, and medals. She tells us all about its origin and its evolution from the private to the public collections we admire today; and explains that the reason we collect ancient coins is not only, out of curiosity, but because they’re an important primary source of historical information that we can’t find from other sources. She also compares the ancient economies to the modern ones (simpler and more complex, at the same time) and tells us about her own research on ancient Macedonian coins; her two books to be published soon; as well as the creation of online databases on the subject, which will be shared and updated by researchers all over the world. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
An associate researcher and member of the 35year-strong Institute of Marine Biological Resources & Inland Waters at Hellenic Centre of Marine Research, Dr. Stamati Zogaris focuses on biodiversity conservation and protected area planning. He has extensive experience on monitoring ecosystems (fish / birds / wild life/ aquatic etc), so he underlines the urgent need for strategies, priorities and measures to be taken in order to protect our natural heritage. He tells us about the Natura 2000 network, which spreads to more than 400 sites all over Greece; describes the significant benefits for the locals; calls for conservation education (in fact, his institute educates teachers, as a first step) and urges the State to invest in the restoration of ecological infrastructure, as it will definitely bring sustainable growth, even in times of crises. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Particle physicist and Research Director at NCSR “Demokritos”, Dr. George Fanourakis, talks about the scientific revolution that has improved our understanding of the Universe, during the last 15 years, as we try to decipher the mystery concerning dark matter and dark energy, and describes the important part the NCSR scientific team plays in the CAST experiment at CERN. He describes the special equipment they’ve developed to detect axions converted to x-rays, which are easier to study and talks about the new and upgraded detectors, like the MicroMegas. Finally, he gives a preview on the European Researchers’ Night 2015 program, where researchers and scientists from five research centers (at least in Attica) will show in a visitor-friendly way, what they are doing in their labs and how the results of their work apply to our daily life. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Vangelis Karkaletsis, the seasoned Research Director at NCSR “Demokritos”, dives into the quite significant educational activities at the historic Greek Research Center. He focuses on the ever increasing synergies it holds with American and European universities in joint PhD programs, the classic annual summer school for Greek students that this year turns 50 (!), as well as the successful biannual international school for young researchers. He also talks about the strengthening of international research co-operation in NCSR; he reveals a lot about their ambitious plans for the future and, sure enough, he doesn’t forget to speak about the main cause for this round of interviews, the European Researchers’ Night, that will take place in late September 2015. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Kontoyiannis is a physicist of the sea, a sea-going researcher who extracts valuable results based on the wealth of data obtained during his expeditions with the Hellenic Center of Marine Research. The main area of his vast experience has to do with sea currents, starting from the open seas (i.e. the Gulf Stream, which was the topic of his thesis) and reaching to a coastal ocean, like the Mediterranean, and more specifically the Aegean Sea. He talks about an interesting recent project he’s involved in - the measurements of Evoikos currents near his native Chalkis and the effort to examine its energy harvesting potential - and continues with the qualities (the “flame”, as he puts it) that young and aspiring students need to have, in order to become researchers and succeed in this demanding discipline. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Spyros Raptis has a degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering and a doctoral degree in computational intelligence. He talks about his main field of research and expertise which is speech and signal processing, and explains why sentiment analysis is significant, when it comes to building better interaction and communication processes in machines. To strengthen his point he presents the new HUBIC Lab: a state-of-the-art lab for studying human behaviour, interaction and communication by capturing different modalities such as speech, motion, body stance, facial expression, gaze… in different settings and contexts. This will help in capturing, analyzing, studying, modeling but also generating embodied behaviours aiming at more affective, life-like and socially aware virtual characters and robots. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech talks Central.
Dr. Ioannis Costas holds a doctoral degree in Chemistry and specialises in Catalysis and Organic Synthesis. His research, a palladium complex for the Suzuki reaction, is commercially available. He explains how Catalysis is a widely used process in chemistry & engineering with over 80% of all industrial processes involving it. Used in energy, food, industrial products, pharmaceuticals and many more fields, life as we know it, would be impossible without catalysis. Dr. Costas talks about his fields of practice including green chemistry and transition metal homogenous catalysis. Unfortunately, time was limited and the interviewer could not go deeper into the science but had to wrap it up with a question on how he would motivate young students to follow Chemistry. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central
Demetris and his team (Dimitrios Dessylas, Rox Kulliye and Spyridon Michelakis) chose to combine tourism with philanthropy in their proposition for BattleHack. Their idea is that visitors may use the PayPal platform to donate an amount of money in exchange for hearing and viewing a story about historical monuments of world heritage in Athens. Receivers of the donations will notify the donor about the progress of their cause via social media and SMS. Demetris, a PhD researcher from Ioannina University, talked a lot about his important startup experience abroad and also Rox came in to praise the high level of the Greek human capital in the field. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Pawel Sawicz is the API Developer and Developer Evangelist at JustGiving, a global social platform for giving, consisting of more than 24 million users. He talks about their participation in the Athens Battlehack 2015, which does have as main theme the creation of an app for social good. Since he was born and raised in Poland, is now working in the UK and travelling a lot, he lists the similarities and differences of the startup ecosystems. We also talk about social entrepreneurship and how companies can make an impact in our lives and our society. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sawiczpawel and read his blog on .NET technical issues at http://pawel.sawicz.eu/. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Robin Johnson shares with us some interesting facts about Sendgrid, their amazing services and APIs and why they’re taking part at the Athens Battlehack 2015. He talks about the hackathons he’s taken part in and what his role, as a Developer Evangelist, encloses. We ask him about the core skills a developer should possess and he reveals some nice insights from his own experience. Last but not least we talk about which programming languages and frameworks are now hot or will be in the next years. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/rbin. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Hamilton Chapman talks about Pusher, what services it offers through its APIs and why they’re taking part at the Athens Battlehack 2015. We ask him about real time web technologies, where we find them and what we can hope to see in the future. Will it be only notifications, chat and dashboards, as we’ve seen most apps use it up to now, or can we expect to see more interesting instances appearing in IoT, health and other fields that will start to really impact our lives. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/hamchapman. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Manolis Nikiforakis and his team (Dimitris Karagiannis and Thanasis Daglis) set out to create a multiplayer reactive game, using mostly Arduinos and Particle (Spark) Cores, where the losers’ money would automatically be donated to charity! Well, that was the main idea, but -unfortunately- time was not enough for them to fully implement it during the 24-hour duration of BattleHack. Nevertheless, Manolis (a seasoned researcher and developer with 12+ years of experience), confessed to us that he loves taking part in hackathons… just for the fun of it. And, surely enough, we also talked a lot about the opportunities arising all the time, as technology evolves, for example in the relatively new field of IoT. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
As the title suggests it’s all about taking care of the Developer Community, PayPal and Braintree have created, and Alberto Lopez Martin sure has the way to get everyone motivated. A very lively Spaniard, he himself is an experienced developer and understands the pains and gains. He talks about BattleHack, as a member of the team for the past year; what it strives to accomplish and which are the best apps he has seen being created up to now. He looks forward to joining the next BattleHack in Tokyo and honestly who wouldn’t be… Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/albertuslm. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Fotos Georgiadis and his team (Dimitris Zorbas, Giannis Hatziioannidis, Javie Gonel) tried to find a viable solution, during BattleHack 2015 in Athens, to a very big problem, nowadays in Europe, mainly in Greece and Spain, but in other countries as well: the soaring unemployment amongst young people. Yet, many of them play and excel in trivia games. What if there was a mobile app that could match their skills and interests to prospective employees and vacant positions? Their idea proved to be bright enough to secure the 2nd place in the competition for them! Not bad. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/gfotos. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
John Lunn, the main evangelist for the BattleHack series of events, has become a sort of legend. The great marketing efforts of Braintree_dev has contributed to this but also, his years of expertise in development and the genuine admiration of the developers that attend the event in every city. During the Athens event, held in May of 2015, John told us what BattleHack aims to achieve; whether PayPal is looking to hire developers through the event and whether it has been successful all these years. Of course we did ask him about PayPal spinning off eBay and what they’re planning with their public offering. He talks about mobile payments and developers disrupting the Banking system with all these new fintech startups. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech talks Central.
Dr. Aristotelis Chatziioannou, Electrical & Computer Engineer, Dr. Lefteris Pilalis, Biochemist and Dr. Ioannis Valavanis, Computer Engineer, all with a degree in Bioinformatics present http://e-nios.com, a spin-off they created from the National Hellenic Research Foundation. They talk about the solutions e-nios offers for analysing and interpreting data derived from modern high throughput Genomics technologies and the opportunities that open up for them in the future. They mention what it means to be a researcher and a startup founder; what kind of support they have received through mentoring and funding; whether they would prefer to be in some other country outside Greece and how they see their startup growing. They touch on the subject of data ethics and the future of medicine and patient care due to supporting technologies like theirs. Follow them on http://twitter.com/e_nios or sign up on their newsletter http://eepurl.com/bn1c8j. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Shock, happiness, ecstasy, pure adrenaline and tiredness – those were the feelings moments after the announcement of the coveted victory… Shai Mishali, the global winner of BattleHack Competition Finals (https://2014.battlehack.org) in November 2014 (along with Pavel Kaminsky, as representatives of vibrant start-up city Tel Aviv, where they had won in the local competition), remembers the hot atmosphere, the VIP treatment and the unique experience of holding the Axe of Victory at San Jose, CA. He insists that he will take part again in the competition and urges every serious developer to join. Find him on Twitter under twitter.com/freak4pc. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
One of the greatest problems that network operators face in a daily basis, is how to keep their customers satisfied, in order to minimize churn. So, any serious proposal and solution on how to succeed in this endless battle, via controlling, configuring and testing a network, deserves attention. Paul Carter, president and CEO of Global Wireless Solutions, a data collection company specializing on information and competitive benchmarking, describes what it takes for the networks to ensure that their customers can use their mobile phones wherever they live, regardless of the device used, and also insists that “the third Internet wave is a big change for all of us”. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Raphael Labaca Castro, Security Research at ESET & Chief Editor at WeLiveSecurity.com talked about some well known security threats, malware that could harm your devices, no matter your operating system, platform or technologies. Back in 2004 there was only malware that used bluetooth protocol; this has changed into new threats that encrypt the information of the android user to ask for ransom, to give back access to the data. Of course he mentions how a lot of people don’t really care about their data as they “don’t have nothing to hide or be afraid of” but they are all exposed to threats. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Michael and Craig of AnchorFree tell us about their company and its more than 300 million customers that increase by 200.000 per day! They also talk about their vision, that is to sell everybody the ability to be private and secure in WiFi environments, by utilizing encryption, regardless of the device and the network being used. They’re interested in selling their WiFi security application to big carriers, who will then distribute it to their subscriber base to making them happier - and this is one of the cases where what is good for the people, is also good for the carrier… Finally, they strongly believe that privacy enables innovation - you can only innovate when you have some privacy. So, in order to elongate innovation, privacy is a necessary component, a necessary element which, as they say, their products allow the users to have.
A different approach to location-based services is being presented by Stevie Ooi, who is chief locationist at W-locate. While most other services are based on GPS signals (with all the relative problems of this solution, in the absence of signal, for eg. within buildings) their product is based on the SIM card itself, which pinpoints the position of the mobile phone and its owner. He tells us about the first rollout of their special network and device agnostic SIM card in Singapore and Thailand, their plans to pass from a B2B to a B2C selling model and their vision of the oncoming IoT era, where their SIM card will provide a valuable element -location- as an extra dimension in the analytical process of big data. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Professor Ramon Reig Bolaño describes the new Master’s degree on Mobile Apps & Games that runs for the second year at Vic University, in Barcelona, and gives us useful information about the courses themselves, the goals of this innovative program and the different ways someone can enrol. He also talks about the latest trends in the gaming industry, including the recent turn to serious, health and education games, and, finally, he explains why the capital of Catalunya is an ideal place to nurture your innovative ideas and get your start-up going. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Joe Killen of Tunstall Group talks about the technology and services his 60-year-old company is offering to elders or people with chronic diseases, still living in their homes. He tells us a lot about the quite new (about 5-years-old) and innovative tele-health monitoring schemes, which are gaining ground, all over the world. Joe points out the need for standards, now that we have an abundance of biometric data concerning millions of people, as European population is getting older, and proposes the creation of a common international framework for that purpose. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
RefME is a free tool to generate citations, reference lists and bibliographies in just a click. It allows students to scan book and journal barcodes very quickly. It saves and syncs in the cloud meaning they can manage work across multiple devices from anywhere at any time. With over 7000 formats from university specific styles to choose from, RefME is a one-click free and super easy referencing tool that has been taking campuses by storm, attracting over 500,000. Tom Hatton and Ian Forshew the Co-Founders of RefME share insights of the research and education market. RefME is one of ten TOP UK tech startups, adding 5-30k new users every day and they are about to close one of the largest pre-revenue seed round funding in Europe. They also believe that the UK tech scene is a really cool place to be as the state has given incentives and encouraged people to place money in the startup scene. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Privacy and security are important in the digital and data world and especially after Snowdens’ revelations. Phil Zimmermann, the creator of PGP and Zfone and currently the Co-Founder of Silent Circle is the most suitable person to talk about the privacy and security issues we face. How enterprises and their employees can protect their data including an average user. Social media and various devices make it really easy for people to reveal important information about their lives, without them realising it. As we are now entering the IoT era, security and privacy will be even more important as more devices will generate even more sensitive data. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Connectivity and Internet of things will be changing our lives. Rami Avidan the M2M Director of Tele2 Group mentions some really interesting case studies that Tele2 has been involved in. We will see new business models implemented as companies will try to offer better and personalised services. How can customers protect their data, is another topic Rami Avidan talks about, focusing on how important it is for the buyer to know where his data is shared and for what reasons. He also foresees new technologies in connectivity, moving from products to services and that the largest vertical with the most connected devices and data will be Healthcare. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Jennifer Ernst, Chief Strategy Officer for Thinfilm explains how Near Field Communication(NFC) labels and new technologies can revolutionize personalisation and create dynamic marketing content. Thinfilm has partnered with Diageo to produce Smart Bottles and offer their customers a unique, premium brand, experience. These type of technologies like OpenSense have already been applied to cosmetics, medicine distribution and industries where counterfeiting is a serious issue. The label also permits the addition of temperature thresholds making it very suitable for the supply chain industry. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Internet of Things, wearables, new devices and NFV are some of the new technologies that David Chalmers Chief Technologist, VP EMEA at Hewlett-Packard talks about. How technology will impact society from driverless cars, to sensors in everything we will own. He also talks about the opportunity for enterprises to personalise their services improving customer experience based on preferences and location. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
PayPal is one of the largest players in online and mobile payment systems. They have many programs supporting startups and developers like BattleHack, Blueprint, Start Tank and have partnered with many top incubators, accelerators and VCs like 500 startups, Techstars, Google Ventures, Seedcamp, Startupbootcamp and much more. Corrado discusses with us how mobile payments will lead to cashless societies and some interesting fintech startups that will drive the innovation in the industry. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
The Fin-tech industry is booming and Alexandra Pontikis, Social Media and Marketing Manager explains what Invstr is and offers. With 50.000 downloads, invstr is a social network for finance that provides high quality information to users that was previously accessible only to certain elite groups. Alexandra talks about their business model, their plans for this year and their vision. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Just a few days, after being named CTO for the Year 2015 by Mobile Europe, due to his critical contribution to the successful LTE rollout by EE, Fotis Karonis talks to TTC Web Radio about this great honour and what it means for him. He talks about his company - EE, which boasts about its fastest and largest 4G network and subscriber base in Europe; recently acquired by British Telecom for 12,5 bn pounds - describing the challenges and the opportunities he faces in his job. Among them, the ever increasing stream of video and data, as well as the absolute need to be prepared for the Internet of Things tsunami. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Phil Twist, VP in Portfolio Marketing for NSN/Nokia talks about the goals of the re-invented and refreshed Nokia and its ambitions for the future... He tells us about Nokia Radio Cloud, the proposed migration route of the big telcos to the cloud that may increase their flexibility and capacity. He comments on the exponentially expanding market of the connected machines and things, that includes everything producing or crunching loads of data - from IoT to Smart TVs, connected cars and factory equipment, to home devices and even robotic surgery systems. He also explains all about the LTE-U (or Licensed Assisted Access) technology, which is a small-cell solution using WiFi unlicensed spectrum for additional LTE capacity, with the aim of offering improved network performance and superior customer experience. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Tomohiro Hagiwara from the Tokyo based Aquabit Spirals company talks about their new product Smart Plate, an IoT connected card which delivers digital content to smartphones, directly. The actual plates connect, through an application, to the mobile which means the user can change the content on the fly. He explains how retailers in Japan -where real estate is very expensive and inventories are costly- prefer to create product showrooms, with a visual display or a single number of the item for customers to touch and feel, use Smart Plates for consumers to scan and buy. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Tom Erik von Krogh-Martinsen, CEO and founder of CHECKD, a mobile software as a service application for the construction industry. CHECKD was launched in Nov.2013 by a small Oslo based team and Tom Erik explains how he came about the idea, from his vast personal experience in construction and the need to solve the issue of over 30% waste in all construction projects. Although there are many office solutions that can help you control production they wanted to move everything in the field, which meant going mobile. Tom Erik talks about their funding and support from the Norwegian State and their App Circus prize and participation in the MWC15 Mobile Premier Awards. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Leslie Cottenje, coFounder at the Belgian startup ‘Hello Customer’ talks about their B2B service which keeps things simple by asking one question Would you recommend such product or company to your friends or family? With their second open question they offer text and sentiment analysis, taking away the burden from their customers of surveying, analysing and storing of customer feedback. Leslie explains how she wants to help companies listen to their customers and how her own company is growing with partners from the retail and consulting sectors. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Jorge Fernandez Miranda, Global Health of Consumer Digital Health B2C at Telefonica talks about the number one Spanish multinational Telco and how they hope to transform healthcare through three basic areas, a. the digital hospital & transforming healthcare processes, b. population health management, changing the way healthcare is delivered (remote management & telemedicine) and c. consumer digital health services. He mentions that very few telcos are approaching the end-consumer market, while Telefonica has already launched in Latin America with over 2M subscribed users. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Trimaps converts any classic image map to an actual digital interactive map with geolocation. Jonathan Falon, founder at Trimaps, explains how the application works on mobiles and how it can be used for hotels, recreation parks, golf courses and many more. They have an API for website use and an SDK for developers. Jonathan talks about their monetization model, their team and how they utilized their initial seed funding. He goes on to explain the use of their other product, called Tricount, which enables a group of friends to organise their group expenses. Balancing or ‘going Dutch’ on travel expenses and with a good initial number of users in 3 countries. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Filip Maertens, Founder and Chief Product Officer of Sentiance a Belgian B2B startup that builds a rich contextual profile on the true behaviour of a user by using the built-in sensors of his/her mobile or wearables. As the company moto goes it makes Smart devices intelligent! Their product is a software development kit with revenues from daily active users. Filip mentions how they were surprised to find that the industry with the biggest interest in their product was the insurance companies since they want to know about our driving behaviour. He goes on to talk about their $2M funding, expanding to Asia and the US, the IPs involved in their product, data, artificial intelligence and the...singularity theory. One of the most interesting interviews to come out of MWC15. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks central.
Costis Papadimitrakopoulos, CEO of Globo presents GLOBO, an international leader and technology innovator delivering multi-platform enterprise mobility management and telecom software solutions. He talks about the significance of security in the era of IoT and how his company is evolving it’s product architecture to offer security of data and better management of devices. He also adds that their future plans are to provide their software as open source in order to create a larger ecosystem. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Valerie Riffaud Cangelosi, New Market Development Manager for Epson Europe starts by explaining why Epson is not only about printers and projectors. Her own main focus is the sensing technologies and wearables Epson is developing, like the Android based smart glasses or wrist watch that monitors heart pulse. She mentions health projects they’re collaborating on with hospitals from Lombardia and how they’re trying to provide solutions. Valerie talks, also, about how education and the students themselves are integrating technology. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Peter Margaris, Head of Service Provider Product Marketing at F5 Networks talks about his company & the infrastructure solutions they provide to service providers to optimize their application performance, traffic and signal management including security solutions and NFE infrastructure. Collaborating already with 9 out of 10 of the largest global operators and many smaller ones they already foresee the impact the data created by IoT will put on service provider networks, surpassing that of wireless or smartphones. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Kari Kohtamaki, Account Manager for Wellness & Healthcare Technologies at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, explains how VTT is a multi disciplined applied research institute owned by the Finnish Government, employing over 2600 research scientists. He talks about the ECHAlliance and how it’s popularity within Europe can help research institutes collaborate with stakeholders. Kari goes on to describe the development in the eHealth sector within the Scandinavian countries, the opportunities and the challenges that need to be addressed; how easy it is to collaborate with countries in the South of Europe and how the new market of China offers a new test bed for research. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Zac Jacobs co-director of the multi-award winning company Millipede and creator of Dumb Ways to Die 2, the no.1 game in 81 countries, with over 45M downloads, talks about his company, the team and what it takes to be so successful. He talks about the thought process that goes in game development; what game developers should search for and why it is almost impossible to find women game programmers although female players are the significant proportion (65%) of game users. He goes on to talk about investing in startups, trends he sees in the future and what it means to grow as a startup in Australia. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
James Tagg, author of the book ‘Are the Androids Dreaming Yet?’ presented in front of an audience his own beliefs on the Singularity issue. He started out by answering his own question ‘Can a Machine think Creatively?’ and argued mathematically on how much artificial intelligence has progressed, which are the crucial parity point dates and why he doesn’t believe that machines can surpass the creativity of humans. The speech was conducted during a Heroes of Mobile event organised by its founder Helen Keegan, on the 2nd of March at the Talent Garden(TAG).
Helen and friends of Heroes of the Mobile Fringe organised the Choons ‘n chat conversation in parallel with the Fringe activities and Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona; Helen Keegan, Mobile Strategist & founder at Heroes of the Mobile Fringe; Rosa Aguilar, Fitbit; Carlo Longino, WIP.org; Rafe Blandford, Mobile Strategist at DigitasLBi, Kirsta Styles, Tech Journalist at TechCityNews and a few more friends got together in Barcelona during the MWC15 and talked about the future of mobile, needs, potential fields of development, applications and how it all needs to reach the ordinary people. The podcast was moderated by Vicki Kolovou and Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central. Yannis Rizopoulos, host for Tech Talks Central made sure everything was recorded on video.
Ian Parness and Brad Folkens explain how the difficulty of searching on the mobile led to the creation of Camfind; a mobile application that returns results for anything you snap an image of, ranging from a lady’s handbag to a living animal. Ian mentions the interest they have received from companies to integrate their product into their own platforms, mainly retail for product matching, price comparison, but also stock photography vendors or even applications for the visually impaired. Brad explains how valuable their app is with over 11 patents filed; how it always returns results (successful image recognition 100% to a varying degree of detail); what their revenue model is and how their $5M funding will help the product develop. The third founder, Dominik Mazur, was mentioned but not present at the interview. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Mark Dunson, President of Emerson Climate and Mobeen Khan, AVP of Industrial IoT Solutions at AT&T come together in this interview to explain how Emerson Climate is currently leveraging AT&T’s IoT services for their vision of the connected kitchen. Mark talks about their big expertise in the air condition & refrigeration sectors and how they are using AT&T’s knowledge and infrastructure to serve their large clientele in the connected kitchen focusing on maintenance costs, food integrity and labor costs. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Philip Verschueren, founder at iCapps talks about their new application, MoveBattle, fueled by wearables and the Apple Health Kit. Their moto is Move as a team and beat the others! An application with a gamification process that he hopes will make fitness and basic training fun and a collective process, that will motivate everyone on the team to participate and in general meet their fitness goals. He hopes to engage employees in companies to exercise more and eventually implement a hosting platform for everyone’s data to be served there. He explains why the company is looking for funding and what they hoped to achieve through their presence at 4YFN. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Ben Bickford talks about his work as a consultant combining technology flavours and organisational goals. His interest in big data or ‘big insights’ as he says, customer behaviour and how the companies can use the information to grow. He describes how he follows the entrepreneurial spirit and how he believes that the future is the combination of existing technologies bringing them together in a novel way and how mobile is part of the whole value chain. Ben suggests developers look into opportunities within the corporate sector and how they can solve problems by creating B2B solutions. He goes on to talk more about his extraordinary life, how he started trading from highschool, what he learned and how he never took the easy path to expansion. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
David O’Neill describes how Seattle based APImetrics offers the industry’s first and only intelligent, analytics-driven API performance solution built specifically for the enterprise. He explains what the current problems are with APIs are and how companies need to monitor their APIs with analytics, receive alerts and take action in order to meet service level agreements(SLAs) and customer expectations. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Guy Martin, Senior Strategist at Samsung Open Source Group and Head of Digital Marketing at Open Interconnect Consortium explains how OIC intends to connect the next 50 billion devices that will make up the Internet of Things. What the need was and how some of the members like Samsung, Intel, Cisco, HP, GE Software have realised that there is not much differentiation in intellectual property but mostly infrastructure. Which means building the Standards and specifications through OIC and the open source code and reference implementation of the standard within the Iotivity project, which is hosted at the Linux Foundation; OIC funds the project. Guy predicts which verticals will be the next big thing in IoT, including smarthome and industry and he answers on a personal level what his opinion is on data protection. Kimberley Lewis, Marketing Program Manager for Standards and Advanced Technologies at Intel was present during the interview and fully aligned with Guy’s responses, judging from her nodding of the head. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Brian O’Connor picks up the thread from the eHealth Forum in Athens and the legacy that was created there leading to an expansion of new country members and stakeholders. They have created over 25 ecosystems that include governments and industry members with over 15000 organisations involved, and more than 100 meetings, yearly. He explains how ECHAlliance came about to helping in the creation of the China Connected Health Alliance upon the request of the Chinese Health Minister and what the Great Leap Forward is all about. He analyses what it takes to do business in health within China and where ECHAlliance is aiming for in the future. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Peter Chau, Chief Executive for the newly formed China Connected Health Alliance talks about the need behind the formation of the new alliance and how their European counterpart will be able to pass on their experience and provide access to its existing members. He goes on to describe the Chinese health status and how the government is taking actions and policies for change; the opportunities available for foreign companies within this broad market and amongst the 600 million Chinese users of smartphones. He finishes off with some good advice on how to go about doing business in China. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Norbert Sagnard a man of many hats talks about the Northern Ireland pavillion at MWC, what kind of startups they were hosting ie. security; what it takes to succeed in Northern Ireland and how the state is helping startups get off their feet with grants, schemes and accelerators. He goes on to talk about his own investment interests and the opportunities he sees in the mobile and technology fields. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Large scale and long running projects need a dedicated and well experienced partner in order to succeed. That’s the inner meaning of what Charalabos Kiorpelidis, Systems & IT Manager of Aegean Motorways, says as he describes the infrastructure built and managed by his team with Cisco’s help, for this key motorway to run smoothly… Unified access, voice/ telephony/video systems, automation and many toll stations, as well as supporting operations like ERP, CRM, etc. the combination is not easy to manage. Moreover, IoE is now entering the (motor)way, too. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central
Oren Seliger is a lucky guy, as he and his team are the first to lay hands on and evaluate, every new piece of infrastructure used today by the company - the same infrastructure that Cisco proposes to its customers, as well as its Intelligent Autonomous Cloud, the new generation network with lots of extra benefits offered today. He gives us an insider look to all and even more... Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central
In the ICT World (and not only…) market intelligence firms tend to provide a much better overview of a sector, than bits and pieces of information collected from the companies themselves. Emir Halilovic, Program Manager for Networks & Infrastructure at IDC, gives us precious information about Software Defined Network and the benefits it brings to data centres managers and users. He agrees that the market hasn’t taken off yet, but he reminds us that we are still in a transformation period. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central
In the ever-changing world of ICT, cloud computing seems to be the winner (for the time being) and that means enterprises, organizations and even single users have to adapt themselves to this fact and make the necessary changes in their plans. Panagiotis Golemis, Consulting Systems Engineer at Cisco, talks about Application as a Service platform and describes the benefits of the Application Centric Infrastructure model his company is preaching for. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central
Security has always been a very “hot” issue in ICT and Nikos Mourtzinos, Security Account Manager, for Cisco Greece, Cyprus & Malta, tells us how Cisco ASA, a next generation firewall, protects its users much better against the ever increasing threats. He also talks about the security issues we are (and will be) facing in the era of Internet of Everything and suggests possible ways and solutions to most effectively overcome them. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central
Internet of Things will bring new modes of interaction between devices and people. As intelligent electronics get embedded to items which are used outside offices and living rooms, there is a growing need to move beyond keyboards, screens and touch interfaces. Alexandros Christopoulos, Business Lead for Human Electric and Constantinos Tsolakidis, Tech Lead for Human Electric talk about their vision to build new user experiences for activities that cannot rely on traditional interfaces starting by their passion: cycling. A first prototype uses a combination of hardware; a jacket laden with indicators, tactile feedback mechanisms and connectivity with mobile phone and an accompanying mobile app to seamlessly augment the cycling experience with navigation, social and security features. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
The new e-learning, video- and tele- conferencing technologies have been disrupting the education industry for the last few years. We talk with Emmanouil Zouraris, Video, Collaboration and e-Learning Technologies Manager, Networking & Communications Centre, University of Crete (UoC), about their large scale deployment of Cisco conferencing and telepresence technologies at the multi-site UoC network; the integration with the existing IP telephony infrastructure, the interoperability and maintenance benefits and some of the use-cases. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central
The blueprint of corporate IT has changed dramatically during the last few years due to the advent of technologies like the cloud, virtualization and Software as a Service. Jacint Juhasz, Systems Engineer, South Eastern Europe mentions the Storage Virtualization technologies that have been co-created by NetApp and Cisco and the FlexPod, the core product of the line, the key benefits and how storage virtualization affects the modern complicated corporate IT infrastructure. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Corporate networks become more intelligent but also more complicated driving increasingly demanding business needs. We talk with Nikos Botinis, Cisco Regional Sales Manager for Greece, Cyprus and Malta, about Cisco FastIT; the new App-centric IT operating model which considerably reduces complexity and cost through a simpler, smarter and more secure IT infrastructure. Having Internet of Everything at its core, Fast IT provides a unifying framework to integrate major technology transitions - cloud, mobility, SDN, security and data analytics. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central
Projections of more than 50 billion connected devices and a market of at least 19 trillion dollars by 2020 are not regarded as hype, by Antonis Tsiboukis, General Manager of Cisco for Greece, Cyprus and Malta. On the contrary, he points out that Internet of Everything has already considerable presence even in Greece, citing examples from the health and transportation sectors. He says that #IoE may also create a large number of new jobs (many more than those lost) and adds that cities have to be “smart” in order to survive and Cisco along with its partners can help them in order to reach that goal. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central
Video is the next (if not the current...) big thing in the Web; nobody can deny that! Antony Blake, Cisco Video Acceleration Lead in the EMEAR region, tells us why, as his role is to deal with “technologies that bring video to life”. He also explains why we have to proceed with the humanization of video, he shares with us his joy for the Red Dot award, Cisco was recently honoured with, and finally he describes the all new Project in the Cloud platform that, in essence, is a meeting and collaboration room, up there... Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central
Natassa Mastellou, although very young in age, seems very passionate and knowledgeable in the truly ‘dark’ field of data analytics. Starting out as to how she landed in SAP Hellas and what an important opportunity the SAP graduate program was for her professional life; she continues to explain what solutions SAP offers for Big Data and how the different layers it offers, can help a business grow and make meaningful sense out of the data it collects. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central
Cloud processing, storage and distribution is driving many core operations, services and applications in the IT infrastructures of modern organizations. As a result, public and private cloud deployments are an essential and critical piece of the IT puzzle. We talk with Enrico Mercadante, Cloud and Technical Operation Leader, Cisco South Europe, about Intercloud Fabric: the worldwide network of interconnected clouds. Driven by Cisco and a growing number of partners, Intercloud enables the standardization of hybrid clouds which seamlessly combine public and private cloud deployments. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Data is changing healthcare. Health information systems deal with the entire pipeline of health related data from data capture/acquisition, information extraction, Data analytics and interpretation, presentation and decision support. We had the opportunity to talk with a distinguished guest Dr May D. Wang, Associate Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. In the first part Dr Wang gives an overview of the role of data in healthcare and some of the key challenges in adopting and exploiting the benefits of new information systems in healthcare. We talk about the increasing role of personal and personalized healthcare solutions, the stakeholder landscape and the importance of managing change in legacy healthcare environments and ecosystems. At the last part of this interview Dr. Wang talks about the extensive educational and training activities that are currently in progress: from online Master-level courses in bio-medical data analytics for young scientists to patient training and hospitals/physicians decision support systems. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.
Dr. Kayyali explains the benefits of CANadvice, an Android mobile application tested in 2014 in UK and used by patients receiving oral chemotherapy at home, in order to alert their doctors about possible quite painful side-effects, while undergoing treatment. She also speaks about Welcome, a European project which is in essence a monitoring system for pulmonary diseased patients, based in the cloud. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Nikos Petrellis talks to us about his work in developing electronic circuits to convert sensor outputs from analog to high resolution digital data. He explains the importance of portable, low cost, and diverse modules that can be applied to existing, perhaps older technology, systems. We talk about healthcare applications of converting and correcting analog data derived from existing wearable sensors in real time without the need of costly upgrades to hospital equipment. Dr. Petrellis presents his future projects including developing an easy to use interface and sensors for elderly person assistance. This will monitor vitals and detect an emergency, or simply aid healthcare professionals in diagnosis. Interviewed by Venetia I. Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Prof. Thomas Pieber talks about the EU funded REACTION project; a decision support system for the remote accessibility to diabetes management & therapy in operational healthcare networks. Patients are monitored with wearable non invasive and minimally invasive continuous Glucose Monitoring sensors(CGM) based on novel technologies. Starting from his own task of trying to improve the quality of control from the medical side, he poses an interesting question on whether ‘Hospitals are aware of the Problem?’ and how qualified hospitals, medical staff, doctors are ready for glycemic control. We ask him if Europe has anything to envy from the US when it comes to eHealth innovation, considering ideas, research and investments. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
What if you could see what calms you down or increases your stress as you go through your day? What if you could see clearly what is causing these changes for your child or another loved one? Javier Hernandez is currently working towards his Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab investigating Affective Computing: the field of using sensors and computers in order to interpret feeling and emotion. Starting from the current experiments at MIT Media Lab using off-the-shelf Google Glasses as the human-computer interface, we are talking about the importance of being able to provide immediate/real-time feedback to the user and the repercussions in diagnostic, motivational/gamified experiences. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.
Evika Karamagioli starts out with why data should be open and what their value is when combined with public policies. We ask her who will analyse efficiently this data and what the challenges are in collecting this data; who profits from it and what kind of scientists should be responsible to analyse it. She insists on citizen participation and how they should be trained to understand and access the data whether it be their own or society’s in general. She explains what the Ideatopos 2015 conference is about and how its purpose is to link technological excellence with social innovation by creating meaningful services for citizens and opening up a dialogue about citizens, policies and ICT. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Denmark’s first professor in Welfare Design, Dr. Andrea Corradini, explains the groundbreaking five year collaboration between Kolding School of Design and Lillebaelt Hospital in Denmark. His work to realize the ‘social ‘experiment’ focuses on how calculated applications of design (eg. adjustable lighting at the nurses station) and not across the board spending cuts, actually save money, increase productivity, quality of services, patient care, and efficiency. The professor tells us the project originates from the perception of ‘welfare’ as a predominant social goal in Denmark, in direct contradiction to other western societies. Dr. Corradini mentions successes thus far and future obstacles he anticipates. He highlights ‘human factor’ as the determining element for this project to succeed or fail. He explains the need to develop a feasible approach to facilitate healthcare professionals to shift perspectives and adjust to an alternative, sometimes radical, point of view. Interviewed by Venetia I. Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Georgia Chalvatzaki tells us about MOBOT; an ambitious European FP7 project still in evaluation stage, that uses an intelligent robotic walker to assist elderly or reduced mobility people get up from a chair and walk around, during their daily life. It is an easy to use, yet highly sophisticated and self-learning system that gradually recognizes the habits of its user and helps him (or her) overcome most difficulties. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Mr. Ioannis Tamposis is a healthcare IT expert working for OraSys that offers innovative healthcare services. They have developed a platform for managing medical imaging workflows in an enterprise level which can be integrated among all radiology equipment and applications. OraSys is also involved in the HPV Guard Project, a decision support system based on advanced clinical theranostics protocols for the cost-effective, personalised management of HPV related disease. Interviewed by Venetia I. Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
Professors Anton Amman and Agapios Agapiou speak about their effort to use breath and sweat of humans as an innovative tool for targeted clinical diagnostics – kind of an odour-CSI...Their ambitious goal is to develop a personalized mobile telemedicine application that could recognise, using special and elaborate sensors, volatiles (which is quite a feat, as we may easily pinpoint only a handful of them) and alert people if something is not as it should be... Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
The field of non-invasive Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) is gaining massive momentum as startups, companies and researchers are pushing hard. The race on BCI research is on improvement of the efficiency and the accuracy of the systems, while some of the first commercial efforts are testing the waters with several affordable devices already available to consumers. Professor Bin He, a pioneer in the field of Biomedical Engineering, talks about the ground-breaking research currently being done at the University of Minnesota in decoding brainwaves more accurately and reliably using non-invasive interfaces. We discuss the already impressive results of a brain-controlled helicopter experiment, some of the present challenges and the upcoming breakthroughs in the field of Brain Computer Interfaces. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.
Dr. Kunal Mankodiya explains his focus on creating “a wearable platform” to collect contextual data (rather than continuously record information) in real time, combining wearable sensors and smart devices. He talks about creating intelligent algorithms to process and store only relevant data. Dr. Kunal Mankodiya presents his SPARK- wearable sensor and smartwatch project currently in clinical trials with Parkinson’s patients. He also introduces us to parallel projects and his collaboration with Dr.Neil Ryan psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh, to develop a neuroelectronic system that leverages functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) a noninvasive cerebral oximetry monitor to map brain activity. His goal is to diagnose patterns of emotions and ultimately the understanding of mental illness. Dr. Mankodiya contemplates the possibilities of intervention in neurodegenerative diseases through wearable sensors. Spoiler Alert: he also hints at developing inertia sensors in women’s high heel shoes, to create a balancing effect, counteract and alleviate pain. Interviewed by Venetia I. Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central.
The highlight of Prof. Baras’ interview is that “if the 20th century was the century of ICT, then the 21st century surely is the century of Medicine”! Being a technology- Renaissance man himself, he believes that the next frontier is disease modelling (like diabetes or Alzheimer); he and his team give answers on a broad spectrum of applied technology issues focusing on revolutionary micro-energy harvesters that exploit the value-added of human body movements to power sensors and many other mobile devices, in the future. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Veteran Program Officer, Dr. Lymberis, explains the many ways European Commission employs to support enterprises and SMEs in particular, that focus on nano- microelectronics and smart systems/apps, used mainly in the healthcare sector. Through new programs that are innovative and greatly adapted to their special needs, niche players may now submit proposals and get support for the design and development of prototypes; responding to competitors and narrowing the gap with USA or Far East countries. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
There are many consumer- and healthcare- grade solutions aiming to improve the quality of life for the elderly, however ease-of-use and intrusiveness are two of the most common factors hindering effectiveness and wide adoption. Dr. Panagiotis Bamidis, Assistant Professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki talks about the current research in Affective and Physiological computing aiming to improve the cognitive and physical condition of elderly people using gamified experiences through a number of consumer devices such as mobile phones, smart TVs etc. Dr. Bamidis then talks about current work in another research area which aims to help young kids with Hyperactivity or Attention Deficit Disorders by providing a far more effective mobile-based activity monitoring framework than existing practices. Finally we talk about some early stage research in Body Machine Interfaces. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.
Dr. Themos Kallos, Vice President and Chief Science Officer of MediWiSe, describes two important projects his company is working on, which are based on RF properties. The first one uses special antennas for microwave tomography on cancer patients while the second uses V-band waveguides for glucose sensing, in a non-invasive way thus avoiding the painful needles. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Venet Osmani gives us a frank insight into bipolar disorder, a serious and in most cases deadly mental disorder of unknown cause, and proposes an “early warning system” based on a mobile application. Early stage patients have to report their status and answer the app questionnaires, while results are being considered by doctors and specialized staff in an effort to further explore this grave disease. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
In this interview we talk with Dr. Benny Lo, Lecturer at the Hamlyn Centre, Imperial College London, about the current research in the field of Body Sensor Networks. The focus is on using small sensors, often in the form of pervasive wearable devices, for continuous monitoring of patients. The research is concerned with the entire end-to-end system from sensor hardware, operating system, analytics all the way to the actual clinical trials. At the second half of the interview we discuss a few of the big trends in healthcare innovation as these are shaped by some of the major and, to some extent, diverse commercial and non-commercial driving forces. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.
Prof. Guang-Zhong Yang talks about The Hamlyn Centre and their research focus on sensing, imaging and robotics and how they’re interested in developing technology that is safe and effective for all medical devices, whilst having a strong kinetical value, making technology accessible. He talks about the body sensor network and their pervasive use; starting from wearables up to implanted sensors; how they catch signs that help distinguish possible health issues or how they can implant sensors after surgeries in order to monitor the status of the area ie. inflammation, infections etc. and prevent further deterioration. He goes on to explain how their research in imaging, sensing and robotics is creating smart medical tools with sensors and how they’re all linked with the ultimate goal of minimal invasive surgery, intervening early and preventing problems before they become irreversible. Dr. Yang adds his prediction for the future of predictive, personalised and participative health. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Professor Gianlucca Lazzi opens the conversation with the renowned ‘bionic eye’, an artificial retina to restore vision to the blind. With over 20 years experience in biolelectromagnetics for implantable devices he mentions his research in hippocampus implants and neurostimulators in general; the role they play in health and how these can affect human lives in the future. In an effort to simplify advancements in sensor technology he explains what liquid metal sensors are and their possible advantages. He goes on to foresee the future in implantable devices and restoring senses to patients. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks central.
Michael Dillhyon, President of Vital Connect Europe, is a professional with an outstanding track record in leading, founding and advising businesses in the fields of life sciences, biosciences, eHealth. We talk about recent advances in health-patches - tiny self-powered adhesive devices that can be placed directly on the patient’s body for non-invasive, continuous, remote monitoring of several vital signs and metrics. In the second part of our discussion we talk about the tidal wave of change on our every-day perception of health, fitness and health - a change powered by the convergence of several disciplines and underlined by what we call Human Analytics. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.
Current healthcare practices and technologies are limited what it comes to offering a treatment that is personalized and optimized for the individual patient. The reasons are not only due to current technology limitations of legacy systems but also due to operational practices and economics. Dr. Andreas Triantafyllidis, a PostDoc Research Scientist at the Institute of Biomedical Enginnering at the University of Oxford, talks about the ongoing research in using pervasive systems to achieve better, personalized patient monitoring and treatment. Using pervasive systems, combining remote monitoring, mobile technologies and focusing on optimizing user-interaction and user-experience with the system the aim of the research is to remove barriers and to drive adoption and retention by both patients and health-care professionals. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.
Antennas are at the very heart of our wirelessly connected world. Technology advances have completely miniaturized and concealed them to the point that people tend to forget that they exist! Antenna research is hotter than ever with applications like wearable and embroidered antennas which give birth to terms like “functional fashion”, more efficient energy harvesting which enables inductive powering in more situations and the study and analysis of specific absorption rates (SAR) which are directly related to the effect of wireless devices on our health. Dr Will Whittow, Senior Lecturer in Electronic Materials Integration at Loughborough University, talks about the current challenges being addressed and some of the ground breaking research that takes place in the field of antenna technologies. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.
Mrs. Salehi gives a thorough description of the smart training pants that DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence) has designed and already produced as a working prototype. A most characteristic example of real “wearables”, these pants contain an array of sensors that send continuously via Bluetooth information to a designated mobile device about the vital statistics of the user ie. that could be an athlete, soldier or patient. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Mr. Veinoglou talks about loyalty schemes and gamification – a hot issue in health, as it can be used in many sectors and in different ways; how he motivates organizations and enterprises in Greece, as well as abroad, to use the techniques. As every case has its own needs and requirements, the platform solution (or, rather the framework) proposed by Icon Platforms is a modular one, that may be shaped and transformed in the most suitable way. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Prof. Athanasios Kakarountas combines his deep knowledge of informatics & computing with marketing techniques in order to design and produce marketable products, useful for everyday assisted living. Starting from his commercialised projects, including a pillow with sensors and an insulin injecting automated system, he talks about his new project which aims to assist elderly by making slight design changes to known household devices that can bring technology to their life in a non-invasive way. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Prof. Karakitsos explains how HPV Guard, a smart and innovative system to define individual risk for cervical cancer development, works. This brand new platform, supported by an EU Grant, Greek State money and private investments, compiles -using established know-how of Big Data mining- laboratory and clinical data that feed a dedicated scoring system, with specialist doctors analyzing the results. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Health is changing. From traditional healthcare provision, lifestyle habits and medicinal tech to the available tools, systems, devices and software. The terms eHealth or mHealth will soon be obsolete as advances in patient management, personal healthcare records, analytics, quantified self, data mining, big data and the self-managed paradigm gradually replace legacy systems, processes and businesses. Professor Dimitris Koutsouris, an accomplished authority in Biomedical Engineering, talks about the disrupting driving forces that are making this massive shift happen, the enablers, the opportunities and the challenges. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.
Dr. Akram Alomainy explains what cognitive radio is, how it senses and learns from environment and why it’s important for the most effective results. He talks about ink-jet printed antennas, antenna flexibility and how they can be part of textiles. His research focuses on creating very small and flexible antennas without losing efficiency and how their application in health services can help patients and personnel in linking everything for medical assessment. Dr. Akram Alomainy is a very passionate and eloquent speaker with a very clear image of his research and the future. He mentions his research on the light spectrum, specifically on bending light and why he wants to research more on cognitive antennas by creating a device that will do everything in one. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Sayrafian talks about the next big thing in our lives, wearable and implantable sensors, used mainly in mobile health. He explains how we can power them with energy from microharvesters that exploit the natural movement of our body, producing energy proportional to their size, and reveals a user-centric and quite challenging vision for health future: patients and seniors living better at home and away from the hospital, yet better monitored and cared of. Thanks to modern health services that follow them everywhere. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Dimou tells us about her research in sign and 3D languages, describing the impact of facial expressions, body posture and gestures to the understanding of meanings. The target of her research team is to use these results for the deaf and hard of hearing people, as well as for experimentation in advanced projects, like MOBOT (MObile roBOT) and other applications, that promote independent living for elderly people or persons with reduced mobility and other kinds of disabilities. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Angeliki Chroni, Sr. Researcher at the Institute of Biosciences & Applications at Demokritos National Center for Scientific Research, converses with Tina about the root causes of atherosclerosis, how it is diagnosed and treated. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Kandyla, from the National Hellenic Research Foundation, describes how she and her team use laser radiation as a nanotechnology tool for developing nanostructured materials and devices with advanced functionalities, which may be used in many ways - two of them (perhaps, the most commercially viable) are the development of thin film solar cells and chemical sensors which are useful for monitoring toxic and dangerous gases employed in industrial and domestic applications as well as trace gases contained in the human breath, for early and (most important) non-invasive early detection of diseases. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
In this interview, Maria Sachpazi, Research Director & Acting Director of the Institute of Geodynamics of the National Observatory of Athens, chats with Tina about the European Researcher's Night, what inspired her to pursue science and research, and whether seismologists today have the ability to predict the next "big" earthquake. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. George Kordas, Research Director at NCSR Demokritos, describes the very important project his research team is working on, during the last six years: delivering drugs for personalized chemotherapy to cancer patients. He talks about what inspired him to make this project the scope of his life, as well as the prospects of his life-saving method for the future. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Dimitris Niarchos, researcher and former director and president of NCSR Demokritos has a rich publication history and a dual set of activities under his belt. As a researcher in Materials science, magnetism and superconductivity, nanotechnology, meta-materials, hydrogen history and high frequency magnetodielectrics he explains the 3 directions his team’s research is moving in and how close it is to industrial production. As a former administrator he gives us his insights on the research sector in Greece and what needs to be done for the field to thrive. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Amiridis a Senior Researcher at National Observatory of Athens talks about BEYOND: a Centre of Excellence for Earth Observation based monitoring. BEYOND is a monitoring, aggregation, storage and analysis point for data related to natural phenomena. Data is collected from a variety of probes (satellites, seismic activity probes etc.) in collaboration with leading institutions. The vision of BEYOND is to become the central hub for natural phenomena in the region and provide services to businesses and the public sector spanning a wide range of applications, from real-time notification to task-force deployment strategy, recovery planning and forecasting. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central
Christos Riziotis, Associate Researcher of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF) discusses about his research project on photonic sensors and offers his advice to students who want to pursue science as a career path. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Maria Koutsobogera, a Researcher at the Institute for Language and Speech Processing (ILSP), talks about the state-of-the-art research in Multimodal Communication, Information Processing and Retrieval. Research in Multimodal communication designs and optimizes models in order to create a more natural experience in agent-based communications. Recent studies on those models investigate applications beyond the improvement of context awareness and conversation flow, moving into sociological and psychological analysis of user groups. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Constantinos Potamitis is a PostDoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Biology, Medicinal Chemistry and Biotechnology, National Hellenic Research Foundation. In his interview, he talks about Virtual Screening, a computer simulation technique used as the first step in the medicinal drugs discovery process. Virtual Screening reduces the need for the costly and resource-intensive manual lab experiments which determine the effects of linking/combining molecules and proteins. Current research done in the Lab of Molecular Analysis, focuses on how to improve the accuracy of existing models. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Garyfallia Drossopoulou explains in simple terms what neural stem cell development from the human olfactory mucosa(in the nose) means for patients with spine injuries and other related health problems. She dwells into the purpose of cultivating such cells in order to get concentrated populations but also capable of multiplying & self-renewing. She explains the ‘olfactory’ term and the solution it entails to finding the right tissue without ethical boundaries. Ending, she gives us her own insights on whether young students should follow her footsteps in medical research and what they should expect from the science. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
The main problem in the field of neutrino astronomy is the unambiguous detection and reconstruction of the neutrino induced signal. The KM3NeT collaboration with participants from Greece, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Ireland, and Romania have been designing a deep-sea neutrino telescope to be built in the Mediterranean. Dr. Christos Markou, Director of Research at NCSR Demokritos, is talking about their research on multi-messenger neutrino astronomy and what they expect to find out in the next years. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Smart devices are getting smaller and smaller but the main problem is the high power consumption of these devices. Novel materials like graphene, silicene, semiconductors and topological insulators might help us solve this energy efficiency problem. Dr Athanasios Dimoulas, Research Director in the field of Materials for Nanoelectronics at NCSR Demokritos, explains us what those materials can really do and how the nanoelectronics industry can benefit from them. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Evangelos Gogolides, holder of 8 patents and author of many publications, talks about his team’s research on nanostructured surfaces. He explains in simple terms what nanotexturing is -a term they coined- and how the method chemically modifies surfaces using plasma processing; thus creating water, oil, ice & microorganism repellent surfaces useful, for different applications, from 100-fold sensitive protein microarrays to self cleaning clothes. He goes on to compare research in Greece and abroad and talks about the opportunities in Greece for local researchers. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Vangelis Gerasopoulos, Research Director of Institute for Environmental Research & Sustainable Development and an expert on atmospheric physics, talks about how he got started with science and the impact of the economic crisis on atmospheric pollution, in Greece. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
Dr. Maria Christina Chatziioannou takes us into a unique field, that of social and economic history research, with a more specialised interest in the history of trade and entrepreneurs. She explains the term ‘The biography of the Entrepreneur’ and what it entails knowing the story of significant people who impacted our lives in the past. She explains how we can learn from history and how significant it is to base your research on archives and tools. Last, she answers our question on whether we can learn from entrepreneurs of the past. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central
Dr. Christos Tsambaris, Nuclear Physicist & Oceanographer of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, talks about nuclear physics, environmental protection, and advancements in marine technology such as the Katerina system he helped develop suitable for detecting radioactivity in polluted waters. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
Air pollution remains a major environmental issue, with many implications in several aspects of our life and the environment we live in. Dr. Evangelia Diapouli talks about the efforts of her team, at the Environmental Radioactivity Lab in the Institute of Nuclear & Radiological Sciences & Technology, Energy & Safety at NCSR Demokritos, the measurements they take daily at their research station in Athens (another one is being built at Mt. Chelmos, of the Peloponnese) and the impact of the results in our lives. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Valerie Westerduin, HR Recruiter from Booking.com join us at Tech Talks Central to discuss the skillsets that developers should possess, how booking.com helps employees evolve professionally, and share insights on what it’s like to work for booking.com. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
A fireside talk with Paul Papadimitriou reveals how he sees trends and announcements at Mobile World Congress 2014. As an unstoppable force he covers the race to the next billion (Facebook), low cost phones, platforms, mobile payments, ecosystems, apps, IoT, education, developers and everything new in the emerging markets. Not to be missed. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Muki Kulhan talks about Jiggster, a Zap Venture, which is an online free video console game trading marketplace. A mobile app that allows mass gamers or just fans to trade for free with close proximity users or ever broader out, their old games. Muki talks about expansion and monetization. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
Maria Papadopouli is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at University of Crete with global distinctions by companies including IBM (Faculty Awards in 2004 and 2005) and Google (Faculty Award 2013). Maria is leading a team of researchers at the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH) developing CoRLAB & u-map, a portfolio of sophisticated solutions for multi-modal collection and intelligent, actionable, business-driven analytics of mobile network user experience. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Maria Argyti, International Business Development Manager for SoftOne talks about enterprise resource planning, the Soft1 mobility platform, and when to choose a hosted vs. on premise solution. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
Jordi Bacaria, counselor-at-law at Global Legal Data, dives into consumer privacy and the guidelines mobile developers should follow to embed privacy practices in mobile app development. cInterviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
We chat with Magnus Ekenheim and Anna Aleryd from Sony Mobile about the opportunities Internet of Things (IoT) presents for application developers, the Sony Smart Eyeglasses and Smart Watch, and how they see IoT affecting consumers in the future. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
We talk with Scott Apeland at Mobile World Congress 2014 about Intel's developer program for Internet of Things (IoT), the challenges that developers face, what the Galileo board offers for developers, Intel's Code for Good program, and his take on how IoT, big data and cloud will converge in the future. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
We talk with Opera Software and Sergey Lossev, head of products for Opera Max as he discusses the launch of Opera Max at Mobile World Congress 2014, a free app which promises data savings by compressing data across applications on your mobile device - including video, text, and images - so you can get the most out of your data plan and more control over your data usage. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
Thomas Gronbach from Keynote Systems talks about the key differences that make integrating mobile into existing Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) a challenge; how companies and QA testers can get a true sense of the user experience; when to test using emulators versus real devices; the difference between manual testing and automated testing; and tips for those who do not yet have a viable mobile strategy in place. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
Priya Prakash is a passionate entrepreneur that believes in making services and products with a true purpose. She has been deeply affected by what she has seen in communities of people in less economically fortunate countries and along with her experience in designing products like the Nokia Asha smartphone, she combines her strengths for lasting social impact. Here she explains to us where Changify is heading to. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
We talk with Tim Messerschmidt, Developer Advocate for PayPal at Mobile World Congress 2014 about what beacons are, how PayPal is leveraging this technology to pilot cashless transactions in retail stores, his take on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoins, and much more.
Sakis Triantafyllakis, Co-Founder and CEO of PanelSensor (previously SpeakerZen), gets into the shoes of presenters and speakers and talks about getting reliable and objective feedback from the audiences in the quest for the wow-factor zen. He also gives the early stage startup perspective of MWC: what are the expectations and what the opportunities. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
John Lunn, Lean Evangelist for EMEA PayPal, covers their major Mobile World Congress 2014 announcements; the Samsung Galaxy S5 which will allow payments with your fingerprint and the collaboration on the Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 Watch. How PayPal is more interested in making our lives more convenient and not only secure. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
We chat with Sami Pippuri, Nokia’s Lumia Product Marketing Director about Nokia’s Imaging SDK and the spaceselfie app which was developed to showcase its capabilities while providing users a fun and out of this world experience. The interview took place at WIPJam, Mobile World Congress 2014.
Pantelis Angelidis, founder of Vidavo, talks about the state of mhealth and how innovations in mobile technology bring citizens and medical professionals together to better manage healthcare and wellness. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
Nextexpo is making the most out of the business opportunities offered by industry expos; for organizers, exhibitors and visitors. Creating the missing link for a healthy ecosystem. A mobile app directory with over 12K exhibitions, featuring info, profiles, calendars for a targeted audience, professionals and event management pros. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.
George Markatatos, CEO of Regate, a spinoff company that specialises in outdoor enterprise mobility, talks about solutions their company offers and dives into use cases that help companies make the most out of their mobile workforce. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
We talk with Fotis Paraskevopoulos, cofounder of Peekintoo, a service that allows you to upload short video moments, anonymously, just because you felt it was worth mentioning or responding to a demand. With presence in over 50 countries and plenty of hype generated during #mwc14 he joins us to talk about their service, their plans and possible funding opportunities. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.
Evi Varsou of ATC talks about their new venture, News Asset, a media newscasting platform. Their product is an end to end solution for media organisations, including aggregation, editorial workflow, asset management, cross publishing and distribution. Evi talks about the vast changes in traditional media, information aggregation, trends and analysis of mass incoming data and how their product provides solutions. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Dominique Hazael-Massieux, lead of all things mobile at W3C, explains the work the organisation does with keeping most web technologies available to all under royalty free schemes. He talks about HTML5 and how the time for its standardization has finally come; the inevitable fragmentation periods; cross-platforms and more. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
We chat with Daniel Marischka, CEO of Flatout Technologies about the connected home, and ways for people to save energy and feel more secure by giving owners the ability to control their homes from anywhere, at anytime. Interviewed by Tina Miteko of Tech Talks Central.
Pollfish provides consumers insights through their mobile survey tool. Giannis Zaoudis, founder at Pollfish explains how their SDK gives developers an additional monetization path, the included gamification process, the metrics and how they incentivize users to participate in their surveys. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Ioanna Ioannidou talks about the 22 year old company AllWeb, their own products and why they are the outsource solution for many foreign companies. Starting out themselves from a small town they responded to a local need for cost effective solutions developing a cloud loyalty platform that serves consumers and retailers. Interviewed by Tina Miteko for Tech Talks Central.
Aimilios Chalamandaris from Innoetics explains how their text to speech technology is used for accessibility enhancement tools, education, GPS, mobile and much more. Whether emotion & expression can be included in artificial speech and how users can interact with their mobile phones in a more human way. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Andreas Constantinou, Director & Founder of VisionMobile, gives an in depth analysis of some of the key trends in the connected industries and the announcements of the Mobile World Congress 2014: Big data, APIs, IoT/the connected everything, the Nokia Android (X) phone and why a Microsoft company would be moving in this direction. Is an Android phone, a calculated Microsoft strategy? Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
The two co-founders of Contests4Causes, Nick Tsoniotis and Alexandros Binopoulos talk about their presence at Mobile World Congress 2014 and how they plan to get their application known to the world. They explain that Contest4Causes is a platform combining people who like participating in contests and those who want to help good causes; a twist to the Κickstarter model in microfinancing for a social need. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for TechTalksCentral.
Handy Games is going beyond mobile, getting their games on other devices, bigger screens, to users in their living room. Chris Kassulke talks about Nokia, Tizen, mobile trends and whether he believes second screen experience will catch up. Of course, as a renowned game developer we couldn’t miss asking him about Flappy Bird. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
George Saslis, Solution Designer of Cytech, the b2b software solutions company for the mobile sector, explains why SMS is not dead but on the contrary is the one communication medium that connects everyone. He goes on to identify other enterprise solutions that are showcased at MWC14 and predicts the future for NFC, iBeacons, mobile app development and more. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Jonathan Nightingale, VP of Firefox, talks about its new Firefox OS phones and why they’re focusing on emerging markets and the next 2 billion smartphone users/clients of low end devices; the deal with Spreadtrum and how he sees Nokia and the rest of the competition, the price pressure downwards, the platform wars and who will win, finally. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Noveltech has created a useful tool targeted to tourists and locals that allows someone to identify personal needs and interests; getting them around the city/town efficiently. Manolis Marazakis talks about how their app brands an area, creating awareness by sharing smart and useful information for visitors, curated by local municipalities and businesses. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Mathew Valvis, Marketing communication rep for Jupitee gives us a brief description of how their platform allows you to build a native mobile application in a few minutes. Quite intuitive and straight forward it allows you to set it up in less than 2 hours. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Nikos Avaritsiotis, responsible for new business development at Hotech, talks on the potentials of NFC whether it be ticketing, loyalty schemes, event management, identity, control, data collection and more. They’ve already expanded in the Middle East and were eager to find more partners through MWC14. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Nikolas Kokkotas talks about M-STAT, the bulk sms provider and mobile app development company. They target medium & larger companies that are in the need of reselling sms services without further technical knowledge. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Panos Tsakos, Marketing Director presents their large variety of online payment services included on Viva Wallet, a product of their initial platform of Viva Payments; the first licenced mobile payments solution from the European Central Bank, already expanding to many countries. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Rick Spencer, VP of Ubuntu at Canonical Ltd. talks about their announcements concerning Ubuntu Touch on Meizu and BQ smartphones and what the linux dominance on cloud, servers, devices etc. will mean for the company and their mobile community. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central.
Vivi Ntrigkogia, Marketing Director & Research Associate of CERTH, the state funded Center for Research in Thessaloniki, Greece, talks about Social Sensor, an EU funded project, that collects, processes and aggregates big streams of data. The platform leverages intelligent techniques to deliver personalised content to its users, while responding to the need for real-time social intelligence and responsiveness. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.
Angelina Kouroubali talks about FORTH’s Computer Science and Health research centre outcomes, ‘From Research to Αffective Ιmpact on Ηealth’ sharing 30 years of experience on eHealth, big data and creating actual products for the Greek market. Professor Karantanas takes us on a quick journey over their advanced medical imaging research and the possible opportunities in the market. He continues, deepening on the causes of public health care dysfunctionality, analyzing the disconnection between applied science and policy makers; wrong investments decisions; availability of funds and steps that need to be taken to turn the tide, in Greece. Interviewed by TTC’s George Voulgaris.
Professor Nora Kearney dives into a 10 year journey into the eSmart project mostly designed for cancer patient monitoring and relief. She analyzes the technical side; the risk algorithms and the triggers that alert health professionals, real time. A purely patient driven project, that doesn’t neglect clinical finds, it focuses on patient perspective developing prototypes for long term conditions and multiple chronic disease manifestations. Interviewed by TTC’s George Voulgaris.
We had the pleasure and honor to talk with Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission and leader for the Digital Agenda. Unfortunately - due to a last-minute rescheduling issue the Vice President only had time for two brief comments on the eHealth share within the 2020 Horizon framework and EU’s position in the prospect of a growing Sharing Economy. Interviewed by TTC’s Yannis Rizopoulos & George Voulgaris.
Leo Lewis, Senior Fellow at the International Foundation for Integrated Care, gives an overview of Integrated Care and the collective of services and organizations it comprises. Leo then gives some insights in the benefits and the implementation aspects of Integrated Care. We also talk about Change Management, one of the key challenges in executing large scale deployments of Integrated Care services. Interviewed by TTC’s George Voulgaris.
Pantelis Aggelidis, founder & CEO of Vidavo, dives into some of the practical issues of realizing large scale Integrated Care services. Pantelis talks about the central role of eHealth in any Integrated Care implementation, the impact of Integrated Care on Health Care processes and actions such as the integrated prescriptions and treatments, as well as the social and cost benefits. We then talk about IC impact on different patient groups and some ongoing implementations in Europe. Interviewed by TTC’s George Voulgaris.
Dr. Leo Anthony Celi, clinical research director for the Laboratory of Computational Physiology at MIT, gives an overview of the challenges faced and insights gained through the eHealth for resource-limited settings project. Dr. Celi then explains how the shortage of health data prevents the improvement of care in developing countries with limited resources. Our talk then moves into how technology is been leveraged in a research project led by Dr. Celo at the MIT in order to collect health data, create actionable metrics and ultimately improve and optimize healthcare. We finally discuss some of the key issue such as privacy and the benefits of using open source software during the project. Interviewed by TTC’s George Voulgaris.
Swedish ICT strategist, Helene Richardsson, talks about the benefits and improvements ICT brings to the healthcare sector and the cooperation needed from all involved parties, as we are faced not only with an ageing society but also with limited resources due to the economic crisis. Interviewed by TTC’s Yannis Rizopoulos.
An aspect we usually ignore, when talking about healthcare for the most serious and sometimes terminal illnesses, is that of the patient. Kathi Apostolidis, a fiery blogger on healthcare and president of ECPC, talks about the ethical and practical issues arising, as well as the measures to be taken in national and international level. Interviewed by TTC’s Yannis Rizopoulos.
Yannis Rizopoulos talks with the co-founder of Micrel Medical Devices, Alexander Tsoukalis, about medical pumps, the story and the efforts behind it, about innovation and prospects for the future. He talks about his vision vs. reality and offers some advice for start-upers.
Nafsika Zevgoli, head of Corporate Responsibility at Vodafone Greece, explains the reasons that the company’s Telemedicine Program has been an overwhelming success story during the last nine years, covering with basic medical examinations more than 500.000 people living in remote mountainous areas or islands in Greece. Interviewed by TTC’s Yannis Rizopoulos.
Michael Strubin from Continua, a well known Health Alliance umbrella with more than 200 member companies, talks about the urgent need for interoperability, regarding the numerous devices used today in Healthcare, and he ensures us that more and more people want to be involved in their own wellness. Interviewed by TTC’s Yannis Rizopoulos.
An experienced Strategic Technology Manager in eHealth issues, Bridget Moorman, talks about protocols and standards; safety in home health monitoring; privacy and security; interface problems and the many challenges we face today or will soon face in these fields in our everyday lives. Interviewed by TTC’s Yannis Rizopoulos.
The general secretary of HL7 Foundation, Catherine Chronaki, explains what is the Trillium Bridge Project and why it is so important for travellers and especially mobile workers. She confirms that the dialog between EU and US on interoperability of patient summaries is gaining momentum, but says that we’ll need more of it. Interviewed by TTC’s Yannis Rizopoulos.
The Greek three-year-old project on e-prescription has been characterized as a best practice on a European level, as it combines innovation with results. Professor George Pagkalos, president of IDIKA (e-Government Centre for Social Security), the main implementer of the project, explains the problems they faced, the solutions they found and the steps still needed to reach their next targets. Interviewed by TTC’s Yannis Rizopoulos.
USEFIL, an EU ICT FP7 project with significant stakeholders from different EU countries, proposes solutions for elder people in the context of a “smart home”; where various high-tech gadgets and applications help them lead a much easier and respectable life. Homer Papadopoulos from Demokritos NCSR and Detlef Ruschin from Fraunhofer give us the inside story. Interviewed by TTC’s Yannis Rizopoulos.
We talk with Health Team leader for the Greek ICT company Singular Logic, Petros Papachristou, about the three big contemporary issues (digital – filmless – cloud) in the Health sector and the export of Greek know-how in neighbouring countries. We also take a look on the “burning” issue of what’s next for patients’ records. Interviewed by TTC’s Yannis Rizopoulos.
Coming from Aveiro, Portugal, Isabel Alexandra Cruz – CEO of iUZ, a company that specializes on eHealth issues- talks about their innovative solutions regarding Electronic Data Capture and eHealth interoperability, as well as the overall lifecycle of information systems delivery. Listen in to her novel proposal she makes on dental care... Interviewed by TTC’s Yannis Rizopoulos.
We talked with Karina Marcus, Director at Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) Joint Programme, about the ageing population of continents with developed economies like US & Europe and the market gap for services and products for the 60+ age group. We then discussed about AAL, an EC co-funded programme which is aiming to fill this gap by supporting solutions tailored for the elderly, both by improving the quality of their life and by providing ways to be more productive. Interviewed by TTC’s George Voulgaris.
Yiannis Soldatos, Advisor in Business Development of the BIONIAN cluster and professor at Athens Information Technology, and Alexandros Antoniadis, Head of Marketing at BIONIAN cluster, gave us an overview of the purpose, activities and vision of the new Health Sciences Cluster. Beyond the all-round support to businesses, universities, hospitals, research institutes and the academia, we talk about the cluster's innovation activities which are focusing on Clinical Investigation (CI), a high-growth area for the region, and Environmental Health Sciences (EHS). Interviewed by TTC’s George Voulgaris.
Bleddyn Rees, Non-Executive Director of the European Connected Health Alliance, and a Commercial lawyer with huge experience, talks about the practical aspects and benefits of the Digital Personal Health Record (PHR) along with some of the key bottlenecks in the quest to achieve wide adoption in healthcare. Our conversation then moves beyond PHR and into the technology and business model disruptions currently happening in healthcare. At the last part of the discussion, we talk about Social Impact bonds, a new alternative for financing projects with quantifiable social impact and the (fallacies in) public perception on privacy in health data. Interviewed by TTC’s George Voulgaris.
Charles Parisot is in charge of standardization and IT architecture coordinating overall GE Healthcare products. In this interview Charles talks about interoperability in eHealth. Charles gives some insights on why system interoperability, both at commercial and country level, actual does matter for the average person/patient/tax-payer. He then expands on the current EC-backed efforts driving interoperability across Europe and beyond, and on using the "hackathon" model to boost participation and creativity in specific activities. In the last part of our discussion, Charles gives a healthcare-expert perspective on the wave of lifestyle/wellness devices and apps that are getting closer to an overlap with services provided by the traditional healthcare sector. Interviewed by TTC’s George Voulgaris.
Dr Robert A. Stegwee, a Principal Consultant for IT in Healthcare with Capgemini Consulting, explains what we mean by digital Personal Health Record (PHR) and how it extends far beyond hospitals and traditional healthcare services. We also talk about the current status of PHR implementations, adoption, and use cases such as telemedicine; highlighting the central and critical role of PHR in the evolution and realization of eHealth in general. Interviewed by TTC’s George Voulgaris
Tina Miteko interviews Fredrik Linden, project coordinator of epSOS on the details behind this important European eHealth project and its attempt to offer cross-border care for European citizens. Fredrik talks about the infrastructure that enables secure access to patient summaries and health records from different European systems and shares his personal experience testing the effectiveness of the ePrescription process while traveling from one European country to another.
Tina Miteko interviews Marc Lange, Secretary General of the European Health Telematics Association (EHTEL) about the purpose that EHTEL serves; key activities and European projects that the association is supporting such as United4Health; and his thoughts on how to make the healthcare system more sustainable.
Panos Stafylas, MD, Medical Coordinator of European Projects on combining his cardiology background with technology to drive change both in Greece and across Europe. He shares some of the results of a project in Municipality of Trikala in Greece which helped reduce hospitalization rates by 30% in patients with heart failure, and also talks about large-scale European pilot projects which are aiming to create cost efficiency, improve quality care for patients with diabetes, COPD, and cardiovascular diseases. Interviewed by TTC’s Tina Miteko.
Tina Miteko talks with Matic Meglic, Head of Healthcare Informatics Center at the National Institute of Public Health in Slovenia about his experience in eHealth and public health; policy actions that impact digital health; his involvement on European initiatives such as epSOS and PARENT; and the role that gamification and social media play in managing chronic care and promoting wellness.
Marcello Melgara, responsible for the epSOS project in Lombardy region in Italy talks about the challenges in healthcare, the objectives and initial results of epSOS. He shares his insights on other European projects such as the Trillium Bridge project, which is aiming to create an exchange of clinical data and patient summaries between the European Union and the United States to benefit the citizens of both regions. Interviewed by TTC’s Tina Miteko.
Tina Miteko chats with George Dafoulas, eHealth Services Coordinator for Municipality of Trikala, proclaimed as the “First Digital City in Greece”, about e-Trikala S.A., a company which is focused on developing innovative technology solutions to improve citizens’ life; the growing need for telehealth services for European citizens; and the company’s participation on European projects such as SmartCare and United4Health.
Tina Miteko discusses with Benoit Abeloos, Research Program Officer, eHealth for the European Commission about the progress in eHealth that has been made so far in Europe; the obstacles that need to be surpassed; EU data protection policies; and initiatives which foster entrepreneurship and job growth.
Tina Miteko interviews John Quinn, HL7 CTO and a Managing Director at Accenture about the problems that digital technology can help solve within healthcare; the impact of big data and what needs to be done for the industry to capture its value.
Tina Miteko and Liz Mestheneos, past president of AGE Platform Europe talk about the problems and the opportunities that come with population ageing; the role that the 50+ Hellas organization plays; what AGE Platform Europe is; and current projects that are focusing on leveraging feedback from older persons and policymakers in order to provide accessible technologies.
Tina Miteko talks with John Crawford, IBM’s Healthcare Industry Leader Europe, about major problems and inefficiencies within healthcare, the types of problems big data can help solve, IBM’s Watson technology and its impact on healthcare.
Tina Miteko chats with John Hoyt, Executive Vice President, HiMSS Analytics about health IT and its role in improving patient care; interoperability initiatives which are aimed to address the fragmented healthcare market; and ways to measure adoption and successful implementation of health IT.
Tina Miteko chats with Alexander Berler, Chair of HL7 Hellas and Director at Gnomon Informatics about the interoperability challenges that exist today in healthcare; innovative initiatives such as the Greek ePrescription system; and how European-wide pilot projects such as epSOS are helping to reach cross-border interoperability between health record systems in Europe.
Tina Miteko interviews Paul Timmers, Director of of the Sustainable and Secure Society Directorate in DG Connect, European Commission conversing about the role that the European Commission plays to facilitate information exchange among European countries; the European priorities in eHealth; policy issues on mHealth; steps that are being taken to ensure data security and privacy; the transatlantic collaboration and MoU between EU and US; and his take on how the healthcare industry is going to look like within the next decade.
In this insightful interview Brian O’Connor, Chairman of the European Connected Health Alliance (ECHAlliance) about the role of digital health as a contributor to reforming healthcare; examples of innovative healthcare solutions; and what the future of digital health holds. Interviewed by TTC’s Tina Miteko.
Tina Miteko chats with Helen Figge, VP of Clinical Integration for Alere ACS about the role that health IT plays in improving patient care and efficiency; data security and privacy; and how big data can impact the healthcare sector.
We chat with Zac Bowling from Apportable about the challenges that developers of mobile games are facing today; what Apportable is doing in the mobile gaming space; and his take on how mobile gaming is going to evolve. Interviewed by Tina Miteko of Tech Talks Central.