The Software Agents Podcast: Recent Episodes
CloudBees
The Software Agents is a new podcast series sponsored by CloudBees. Each week we bring you leaders from many fields applying software to reimagine them for the new world under construction.
Most of our Software Agents focus on remaking one field. Marina Harrell has made a career of creating software that empowers people on many fronts to build, deploy and maintain software solutions that once would have been out of reach. She also launched a nonprofit, Code Edge, that brings free coding classes to kids in underserved communities.
How do you take an entire conference or trade show online during a pandemic? How has the future of events been changed overnight? We interview two front-line veterans who work together—Ken Madden, VP of Digital Engagement at GPJ, the original innovator in auto shows, and John Sampogna, CEO of online brand builder Wondersauce.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is bringing modern software to the ever-growing task of watching for online hate speech. VP for Technology and Society Dave Sifry explains the open platform the ADL is building to apply machine learning to identify hate speech of all kinds across all social media networks.
GitHub is the go-to site for many of the software developers and supporters adapting to working without shared office space. VP Engineering Dana Lawson explains how GitHub itself is adapting to a distributed remote work world along with the company’s customers.
Redox provides an API to healthcare companies for the thousands of legacy systems on which healthcare records are stored and must be processed. The ongoing boom in telemedicine and at-home testing has spiked a new demand for Redox’s services. Their engineers must be dually proficient in both APIs and event queue management, both to ensure accuracy and meet HIPAA regulations on patient privacy.
The career landscape was already changing before the pandemic. Now, Quizlet is developing study guides for high-stakes certifications like EMT or CompTIA, while also supporting an explosion in home-learning content graded with the help of machine learning. Natalie Rothfels talks about Quizlet’s new prep packs, and recounts her journey from language nerd to software product lead.
Zippi gives gig workers in Brazil a way to make ends meet without being sucked into snowballing debt. One missed payment and they’re barred from the financial system. CTO Ludmila Pontremolez explains how software made it possible to provide working people with a stable financial base that the credit industry isn’t built to deliver.
Philanthropic foundations donate $75 billion per year to nonprofits on the front lines. Yet in this time of urgency, outdated systems for managing grants slow everyone down and miss potential connections. Fluxx CEO Madeline Duva explains how their software brings foundations and nonprofits together to get the right money into the right hands at the right time.
The ability to predict demand surges and slumps in demand in real time has gone from an efficiency-booster to a necessity in a pandemic world, for everything from Uber drivers to the food supply. PredictHQ founder Campbell Brown explains how timely data–from protests to paydays–can be crunched to forecast sudden shifts in demand.
Tech Matters CEO Jim Fruchterman is a serial Silicon Valley success. But he long ago learned that many life-changing technologies can’t build the billion-dollar companies that VCs must deliver. For 30 years now, Jim has devoted himself to bringing tech startup thinking and leading edge tech to nonprofit work. This year’s lockdowns have made some of these tech innovations life-and-death essential.
What if you could donate to a nonprofit whose boots are on the ground right where they’re most needed this week? You can, thanks to Tess Gadwa’s GivingMap.org, whose software visualizes the latest John Hopkins geographic data on the pandemic, and links to Charity Navigator to identify and donate to reputable organizations.
Karen Sun is CTO of two companies–Dwelo, which automates apartment management, and Selesy, developing an online K-12 platform for every student in Colombia. She’s the rare person who can do it, with a background that includes classical music at Julliard, data science at MIT, and high-speed trading on Wall Street. A don’t-miss interview.
A new remotely-piloted space plane will take off and land at regular airports, to carry global data sensors and experiments and eventually place satellites into orbit. Dawn Aerospace founder Stefan Powell and control systems engineer Koen Lucassen explain how CI/CD software techniques let them develop advanced flight systems, and refine space rockets into reliable everyday freight vehicles to monitor climate change and boost our post-pandemic communications needs.
Running race events worldwide were canceled overnight in March. RunSignup founder Bob Bickel explains how the company's DevOps DNA enabled them to survive the sudden shutdown of their core business and create new kinds of events that have kept the running community together and still running.
Shelter-in-place orders drove a rush of new signups for automated investment tool AgentRisk, as professional advisors proved suddenly unreachable, or unable to conduct transactions from home. Founder Jon Vlachogiannis, a Greek-born entrepreneur who went from teen coder to serial Silicon Valley startup founder, says many human advisors were discreetly using AgentRisk already. Jon explains how AI is transforming personal wealth management, and why he thinks Silicon Valley culture still matters to drive innovation.
Art museums are using software to maximize visitor access under new restrictions, and make their online experiences more like a visit to the building. Rich Cherry, a former Marine and IT professional, works with cultural institutions to leverage his 30+ years of experience in tech and operations as the pandemic changes the rules for museums and visitors. He has been an IT leader at major institutions including the Guggenheim in NY and the Albright-Knox Gallery, co-founded the Museums on the Web conference, and drove the development and launch of the high profile Broad in Los Angeles where he developed a software-enabled operating model that lets them do more for visitors with a smaller staff - incidentally, systems that are now crucial to safe museum reopenings worldwide. A lifelong tinkerer, Rich is a rare talent, adept at IT architecture, building construction, and operational models.
Our first guest this week is Will Hayes, CEO of Lucidworks. His company powers search for major retailers among others. Will tells us how in the months since lockdowns began, most brands’ online stores went from just one of many sales channels to their flagship presence. How does his company’s software let them bring their unique in-store experience and expertise to online customers? Will also talks a bit about his personal journey as one of the few Black CEOs in Silicon Valley.