Tech Talks Daily

Synergis, a globally focused technology venture capital firm whose existing investments include SMIC, WuXi AppTec, eSign, etc., launched its flagship Venture Fund I earlier this year. In addition to sectors such as SaaS, Biotech, and Consumer, the fund also has a dedicated Crypto/Blockchain strategy that has already allocated to six seed-stage funds and made one direct investment. Synergis is set to launch Shanghai-based "Synergis LaunchPad" to assist portfolio GPs and companies in expanding founder-sourcing and community-building capabilities throughout Asia. Jerry Shi is also a crypto evangelist and investor based in Toronto and New York. He institutionalized Synergis Capital with a strong team based on his differentiated model and track record with family assets and managed SPVs. I invited him on the podcast to learn more about his story.

The UK government recently launched data reforms to boost innovation, economic growth and protect the public, a year on from the creation of the National Data Strategy and a key step in its 10 Tech Priorities, which include unlocking the power of data. The proposed reforms aim to empower the ICO and businesses using data in innovative and responsible ways to benefit people's lives, in areas from healthcare to financial services. However, a new report from data analytics leader, Qlik, into the UK's FS industry suggests that while AI and predictive analytics has huge potential in FS organisations, low trust and regulatory fears are still holding back their widespread adoption in the industry. In fact, Only half (50%) of IT leaders FS organisations trust decisions made by predictive analytics solutions are without bias, 46% of IT leaders believe the regulatory burden outweighs the benefit that predictive analytics solutions could offer. Richard Spiegal, BI Centre of Excellence Leader at Nationwide, and Adam Mayer, Senior Manager at Qlik join me in a conversation on the state of regulation and trust around data in the financial services (FS) sector. We discuss how to tackle the issues laid out in Qlik's report, particularly around trust and regulation issues and the power of data analytics to help organisations build a data pipeline and democratise data in a safe, secure way with customers interests at heart. I also learn how Nationwide is exploring analytics use cases across anti-money laundering, financial crime, risk management, and supporting human decisions, for example, by triaging and helping to prioritise staff caseloads. A big thank you to the team at Feedspot for featuring Tech Talk Daily on their Best 40 UK Tech Podcasts list.

I recently discovered a Belgian company called Soda who focuses on data quality monitoring and testing. Think of it a bit like application or software monitoring which is now ubiquitous. Soda scans for issues caused by human error, firmware upgrades, schema changes, cross-platform integration snafus, bought data, or transformation bugs. The aim is to automate, verify, and validate the flow of data from various sources and encourage collaboration between software/data engineers and downstream business decision-makers. The big idea here is to eliminate so-called 'silent data issues.' These are the issues that bubble up (hence the name Soda!) further downstream having gone undetected in datasets. In an era when most companies are moving towards being entirely data-driven, ensuring data is of the optimum quality is critical. I invited Soda CEO and founder Maarten Masschelein on the Tech Talks Daily to learn more. Maarten discusses why data quality monitoring is becoming a hot topic and provides examples of where bad data has caused serious problems. I also learn how Soda was listed as a data management Cool Vendor by Gartner.

It has been remarkable to witness the enterprise transition to the cloud in just a few short years -- but what is next? Multi-cloud networking is the new way for enterprises to manage applications worldwide for dispersed and remote users. Managing applications in the cloud - and through multiple cloud service providers (CSPs) -- can mean a host of benefits, including reduced latency, more affordable transit costs, and heightened security. However, we are not there yet. Most organizations are still struggling with the complex networking infrastructures needed to achieve "a multi-cloud networking Nirvana." Ramesh Prabagaran, co-founder and CEO of Prosimo, recognized the opportunity for a newer type of infrastructure -- one that would provide enterprises a better way to network to multiple CSPs - a safer, less complex, and more affordable way. As the former co-founder of Viptela, acquired by Cisco for $610 million in 2017, Ramesh is one of the pioneers in the SD Wan field - and is no stranger to overcoming serious networking challenges. Ramesh and his team at Prosimo have developed a single, vertically integrated infrastructure stack to deliver an application experience that balances performance, security, and costs across multi-cloud environments. Just months out of stealth, the team has had early success with several enterprise customers, including Flexport, announced partnerships with Google Cloud, AWS, and Verizon, and was recently included in the 2021 Gartner Market Guide for Cloud Networking Software. Multi-cloud networking is complex and not easy to do or even understand. Still, in today's episode, Ramesh breaks it down and explains it all in a language everyone can understand. He also shares his own story, which involves a series of successes and innovations.

The way we authenticate online is fundamentally broken. Technology has evolved significantly since the advent of the internet, yet we still rely primarily on passwords for authentication. Passwords pose significant security and user experience issues, negatively impacting both consumers and businesses. In addition, passwords are also responsible for the vast majority of data breaches each year. According to Verizon's 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report, 81% of all breaches involve weak or stolen passwords. In addition to being insecure, passwords also introduce significant consumer frustration. According to a recent Google study, ~75% of users report feeling overwhelmed trying to keep track of their passwords. So it's no surprise that users often re-use the same password across sites to make this process easier, but it introduces its own risks. Julianna Lamb, co-founder, and CTO of Stytch, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to explore this topic in more detail. Stytch is the first company that's built a platform for passwordless authentication so that any application or website can embed passwordless sign-up and login flows. I learn more about the story behind Stytch. We also discuss how thousands of companies have used Stytch's software to eliminate password-based authentication's security and user experience shortcomings.

Consumers seem to begin their holiday shopping earlier each year. This year, it's likely that shoppers will start buying even earlier as supply chain shortages impact everything from popular toys to footwear and even coffee. So, how should retailers prepare for this shopping season? For e-commerce retailers, website crashes or slow sites are all too common during holiday shopping, leading to frustrations for customers and potentially costing companies millions during downtimes on top of ongoing shortages. As a result, IT teams can become overwhelmed trying to ensure there are no disruptions for shoppers, but there is only so much they can do. However, automating certain processes throughout the e-commerce workflow can help mitigate these issues and ensure customers don't feel any impact. And while automation is effective, many teams don't know what to automate to be most successful. Ritu Dubey from Digitate discusses how retailers should automate workflows to relieve IT teams so that they can rest easy this holiday season, knowing that their customers are having a good experience.

Fernando Lucini, Global Data Science & Machine Learning Engineering Lead at Accenture, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss synthetic data. We explore how privacy concerns and process issues are still holding businesses back from developing advanced analytics initiatives – and how synthetic data (artificially generated by an AI algorithm) might be able to help. We discuss how the technology has potential across a range of industries. Synthetic data's most obvious benefit is that it eliminates the risk of exposing critical data and compromising the privacy and security of companies and customers. With synthetic data, a company can quickly train machine learning models on large data sets, accelerating the processes of training, testing, and deploying an AI solution. While the benefits of synthetic data are compelling, realizing them can be difficult. Generating synthetic data is a highly complex process, and to do it right, an organization needs to do more than plug in an AI tool to analyze its data sets. We discuss how the task requires people with specialized skills and truly advanced knowledge of AI.

Dan Greenberg, president of Sharethrough, one of the world's largest omnichannel exchanges, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Dan has his pulse on how businesses can ensure their ads get as many eyeballs as possible. In particular, Dan has thoughts on how our desire to read through feed-based visuals will inform how we interact with advertising in the future, particularly when it comes to TV. Dan believes that the current, catalogue-style home page that most streaming services have adopted will become obsolete and that adapting to the way we consume other media through personalized feeds on channels like social will become the norm. In addition, with streaming giants such as Netflix reporting slowing subscriber growth, streamers need to find new ways to breathe life into their UX. About Dan Dan is the President of Sharethrough, overseeing market development and customer strategy. As the founding CEO of Sharethrough, Dan is a recognized leader in the industry and the Silicon Valley tech ecosystem. Coming from a research background at Stanford in Behavior Design, Dan has been at the cutting edge of digital advertising since 2005, bringing together unique expertise in persuasive technology and native monetization. Dan is the founding chair of the IAB Native Advertising Committee and has spearheaded the native advertising movement since its inception in 2011. Dan has been recognized as an AdAge "Media Maven," Forbes "30 Under 30," Inc "35 Under 35″, and AdAge "40 Under 40." He is a regular speaker at advertising and technology conferences and contributing author for Forbes, AdAge, TechCrunch, and other industry publications.

White Shark Media is a digital marketing agency with more than ten years of experience managing pay-per-click campaigns with Google, Microsoft, and Facebook Ads. We provide custom PPC solutions and white label services to businesses, agencies, and organizations. At White Shark Media, Daniel Alvarado helps organizations use technology to create meaningful experiences, simplify complex tasks and generate value for their clients. Daniel joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the best digital marketing strategies to implement in 2022. We discuss why automating marketing allows for better personalization in your marketing content while also being time-efficient. By obtaining data and segmenting your audience, you have a better chance at engaging your product or service with customers to convert them faster. We also discuss how making bids automatic instead of manual gives personnel more time to dedicate to other marketing efforts, and keeping business information up to date is critical as it can allow your business to achieve higher client acquisition rates.

Amira Learning CEO Mark Angel joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share how they are building a first-of-its-kind voice AI-based reading tutor for kids. With previous experience working at Nuance, which MSFT recently acquired for $19B, Mark's goal in developing Amira is to make every child a motivated and masterful reader. I learn how they have raised $11 million to scale up with a new app and growing customer base. We also talk about how 'Amira & the StoryCraft' has been named one of TIME's 100 Best Inventions of 2021. Only one of three inventions honored in the Education category. The list features 100 products and services that change how we live, play, work, and think about the future. Amira's Dyslexia Screener identifies students at risk of Dyslexia and other disorders. In longitudinal testing conducted by the University of Houston, the Screener missed only 1% of at-risk students. Finally, we talk about how Amira uses AI to generate the right reading intervention at the right time when an unproductive struggle helps create motivated and masterful readers.

Rob Carpenter is the CEO and Founder of Valyant AI, the first Artificially Intelligent "Digital Employee" to work directly alongside employees in customer-facing roles. For example, Valyant's AI "Holly" works in fast food restaurants to greet customers at the drive-thru post, answer questions and take food orders. The revolutionary nature of this technology is that it pulls AI from being a hidden back-office tool to something that feels like a real staff member, which humanizes a brand's personality and brings the AI experience front and center to a physical location. The major technological innovation of Holly is her Conversational AI. It allows her to speak with a human-sounding voice, to understand context, nuance and to be able to manage a free-form and wide-ranging conversation within the context of food ordering. After five years of development Valyant AI now has paying customers, can deliver up to 20% average order increase and has begun rolling out with two restaurant chains that have a combined 5,000 locations. Much like self-driving cars, Conversational AI has had a long and bumpy road to deployment, but the technology is maturing, and Valyant is at the vanguard of this new era of customer service automation for physical locations. Rob joins me in a conversation about the future of AI-human relations and its impact on the labor market - both positive and negative. We also discuss the developments in robotics and the commercialization of space travel.

At the end of 2020 Troy Gill, Senior Manager of Threat Intelligence at Zix, predicted in the 2020 Global Security Report that we would see attackers further personalizing and customizing their attacks this year. Over the last 8 months, it has come true over and over again. One such attack lived up to this prediction. The phishing attempt was posing as certificate errors for the recipient's website. What made it unique was it pulled their real certificate data and DNS (Domain Name System) A-record to tailor the phishing message to their domain. The payload URL also led to a credential harvesting site customized for their specific web platform admin page. While testing, we observed the generic WordPress admin login page and Shopify login pages (depending on the target). Troy Gill joins me on the podcast to discuss the rise of personalized phishing attacks and what businesses can to do protect themselves.

Transaction Network Services (TNS) is a leading global provider of data communications and interoperability solutions. Its global network and innovative services enable transactions and the exchange of information to many of the world's leading retailers, banks, payment processors, financial institutions, and telecommunication firms. Founded in 1990 in the United States, TNS has grown steadily and now provides services to customers in over 60 countries across the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. Its reach extends to many more. TNS has designed and implemented a global data network that supports various widely accepted communications protocols and is designed to be scalable and accessible by multiple methods. John Tait joins me in discussing the important role SD-WAN will play in enabling the next generation of connected payments and what it means for merchants and consumers. First, I learn more about how SD-WAN enables a retailers to securely connect a wide range of devices to their POS system. This can be anything from ordering a delivery of milk directly from your refrigerator, to ordering new ink cartridges directly from your printer, to paying for parking, gas, or a car wash directly from your vehicle. You can read more about the benefits of SD-WAN here: https://tnsi.com/infographics/tns-secure-sd-wan-the-benefits-of-mission-critical-payment-capability/

The digital workplace brings the potential for numerous world-beating solutions, but many businesses don't have the resources to find the perfect solution. That's where REPL comes in, drawing on years of experience in the technology sector to provide a solution that gets results for businesses. Cerys Johnson took on the CEO role in 2017, after six years working for the company, firstly as Chief Financial Officer and later as Chief Operating Officer. Her in-depth knowledge of how the firm works have given her an unpreceded insight into how to guide the path of the company's growth globally. Her tenure as CEO thus far has seen REPL double in size, with a reported increase in revenue of 40% year over year. With over twenty-five years of experience in strategic and digital transformation roles, she knows how to ensure that companies make the most of what they have. With her unique perspective driving the strategy and execution that spans all the aspects of REPL's business model, there has been a chance to impact product development, IT, marketing, and sales. When REPL opened its doors in 2007, the aim was to enhance the capacity of businesses of all sorts. No one deserved to be left before in the technological age. This demanded an innovative approach that could scale easily and adapt effectively to suit the needs of different markets and industries. We discuss how this feels even more relevant today than 14 years ago, When it comes to the technology sector, it's easy to get lost in the hardware that goes into making a success. Cerys also shares how they have achieved your success through working closely with people.

A divisive topic for techies is quantum computing. Although still in its infancy, many wonder if it can ever live up to its hype. We can expect these debates to intensify after IBM revealed its 127-qubit quantum computer, double the size of comparable machines made by Google and the University of Science and Technology of China. I wanted to explore this topic further and found the perfect guest. Her name is Prineha Narang. She is the assistant professor of computational materials science at Harvard. She heads up NarangLab, where she and her team work on many of the most promising quantum computing technologies. We discuss why quantum technologies and what it holds for consumers, engineers, developers in the future. We also talk about how to think about quantum technologies and their impact on a spectrum of applications/industries. Finally, we explore the limitations and benefits of quantum tech across computing, networking, and sensing.

We have all searched on a website, search engine, or even a podcast app to find this episode. But when that search function does not deliver, it can be nearly as frustrating as slow wifi. Algolia solves this problem with an API-first approach that allows developers and business teams to surface relevant content when wanted. I wanted to learn more about how this tech satisfies the demand for instant gratification while also building and optimizing online experiences that enhance online engagement, increase conversion rates, and enrich lifetime value to generate profitable growth. More than 10,000 companies, including Lacoste, Birchbox, Stripe, Slack, Medium, and Zendesk, rely on Algolia to manage over 1.5 trillion search queries a year – that's six times more than Microsoft Bing, 16 times more than Yahoo, and 50 times more than DuckDuckGo (four times more than Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Baidu and Yandex combined). Bernadette Nixon is an entrepreneurial & driven CEO with a strong track record of growing and scaling global businesses and is focused on doing that at Algolia. Most recently, she led the company in a new funding round that resulted in the company closing $150 Million in funding and a new valuation of $2.25 Billion – almost QUADRUPLE the company's previous valuation.

We are currently right in the eye of the storm of the holiday season, and I find myself fascinated by how technology is raising our expectations from retailers. Everything from smart changing rooms, smart mirrors, and the evolution of virtual shopping via 3D, AR, and virtual try-on's highlights how much the industry has changed. Zakeke is empowering brands and retailers to offer their customers live product personalization and 3D / AR View. Zakeke also integrates Visual Commerce Solutions online and offline to engage their customers with a rich and interactive "design-your-own"​ experience. People are different and have unique tastes. As customers, they want to play a primary role in designing the products they use, configuring them according to their needs and preferences. Merchants are discovering the value of letting their customers create their own unique products and taking personalization a big step into mass customization. Lou Leporace joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how Zakeke enables merchants to meet the increasing demand for customized products.

With Google's plan to delay killing third-party cookies until 2023, many businesses are breathing a sigh of relief that they no longer have to scramble to plan out their consumer data collection practices. However, as the world moves toward increased consumer data privacy measures backed by legislation like the GDPR and at the local state levels in Colorado and California, the death of third-party data is inevitable and businesses need to get ahead to succeed. Alex Atzberger, CEO of Optimizely, shares why companies need to personalize based on the behaviors behind content consumption, even if the visitors are unknown. He also reveals how to build trust brands should do the following: Offer loyalty programs, as seen recently by McDonald's and Chipotle, where customers can receive points for purchases that translate into freebies later on Track the content your customers are engaging with to see what's resonating, even if the customer is anonymous Glean customer feedback on their preferred channels and ensure you're engaging with them, on ones they favor We also discuss how Gen Z and Millennials start their shopping journeys on social media apps, but most leave the apps to purchase on 3rd party sites like Amazon.

As you all know by now, I am fascinated by how we have gone from a reactive approach to healthcare to a proactive approach where we record calories, steps, sleep, and heart rate to monitor our health. HGS AxisPoint Health is a technology-enabled care management services company focused on applying whole-person interventions to improve healthcare outcomes, reduce costs, and increase satisfaction. Michele Kratz and SV Krishnan from HGS AxisPoint Health join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how health plans and providers are beginning to use a predictive analytics model known as "impactability" to more effectively address the multifaceted aspects of an individual's health.

There is a visibility problem within the tech industry as there is a large absence of female leaders and role models. The diversity gap among tech leadership roles is wider today than it was in 1984. A 2021 report found that 50% of women abandon tech careers by 35 and are leaving at a 45% higher rate than men. AWIT was founded to address this representation gap in tech leadership roles by giving underrepresented individuals the resources they need to exceed, including mentoring, skills-based training, and advocacy. Nancy Wang shares the story behind AWIT. In addition to being CEO and Founder of AWIT, Nancy pulls double duty. She is the GM of Data Protection Services at Amazon Web Services (AWS) — understanding first-hand what it means to climb to be a female leader within the tech industry. We discuss all of these reasons represent the need for mentorship and continuing education for women and underrepresented individuals to have the right support to accelerate their careers to the next level. I learn how AWIT has recently created the industry's first 1:1 executive mentorship program for MongoDB and teamed up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to release two online certification programs for Coursera.

Mike Potter is the CEO and Founder of Rewind, a leading provider of cloud backups for SaaS applications that help businesses easily back up and restore their cloud data. While Mike and Rewind have experienced tremendous growth and success, supporting over 80,000 organizations across the globe, this wasn't always the case. Mike weathered the failure of two companies to get to where he is today. Mike knows the path to success isn't always glamorous. Over the years, he has learned to embrace the discomfort of pivoting or persisting. This point in growing a business is essential to its success and a founder's sanity. Mike shares his story on Tech Talks Daily. We also discuss how to balance life and work while creating a company that people love, Tips for overcoming agency challenges and what it takes to build a $100M startup.

A new study reveals the remote patient monitoring industry (RPM) is expected to grow by 12.5% in the next ten years. And another study shows that almost half of healthcare providers believe that remote patient monitoring will be as prevalent as in-person monitoring within the next five years. All this comes at a time when Apple also recently announced new heart and health monitoring features for their latest smartwatch. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, CEO and founder of Biotricity, discusses how RPM will continue to improve patient outcomes and why RPM tech is poised for rapid growth. Waqaas shares his insights on whether wearable devices such as the Apple Watch can replace other devices for patients with heart conditions. We also explore what the future holds for remote patient monitoring technology. About Biotricity Biotricity is a medical technology company committed to improving healthcare by developing solutions that aid chronic disease prevention and management. Biotricity's premier product is Bioflux, an ECG monitoring system that will be prescribed by physicians to diagnose and remotely monitor cardiac patients. Biotricity is expanding medical-grade monitoring into the consumer market via its Biolife solution, which empowers users to self-manage chronic conditions. Biolife helps users make lifestyle changes by combining medically relevant ECG data with social media interactivity and a lifestyle log. Biotricity's R&D continues to focus on the preventative healthcare market, with a vision of putting health management into the hands of the individual. The company aims to support the self-management of critical and chronic conditions with the use of innovative solutions to ease the growing burden on the healthcare system.

There is a lot of talk around autonomous vehicles and electric cars right now, and I wanted to demystify this world. This path led me to Cyngn, a developer of innovative autonomous driving solutions for industrial and commercial enterprises that recently announced its partnership with Columbia Vehicle Group. Lior Tal shares the story behind the company, the road to the partnership with Columbia, and current trends shaping the market. I also learn more about how Cyngn's autonomous vehicle capabilities are powered by DriveMod, an end-to-end solution that can be integrated with Columbia vehicles – or any vehicle. DriveMod enables vehicles to switch easily between manual, remotely-controlled, and fully autonomous modes. Autonomous vehicle technology brings various benefits to industrial organizations by increasing efficiency, continuity and making it easier for workers to stay focused on their most mission-critical tasks. The pairing of Cyngn's DriveMod with Columbia's fleet of electric utility vehicles means material handling organizations can begin to implement autonomy today.

Dr. Chase Cunningham, CSO of Ericom Software released a techno-thriller book during Cyber Awareness Month titled "C:\>_gAbrIel." This book draws on Chase's real-world experience as a technologist and how cyber warfare, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence (AI) can be leveraged by bad actors. Although fiction, the information in this book offers a glimpse at what can potentially happen in the future if these technologies remain unchecked. Chase's background includes interacting with national security and intelligence communities, countering cybercriminal actions, and building and deploying secure systems to counter malicious cyber threats. About Chase Dr. Chase Cunningham primarily guides client initiatives related to security operations center (SOC) planning and optimization, counter-threat operations, encryption, network security, and strategic concepts and implementation. In addition, he helps senior technology executives with their plans to leverage comprehensive security controls and the use of a variety of standards, frameworks, and tools to enable secure business operations. Chase has served as a director of cyber threat intelligence operations at Armor. He was the computer network exploitation lead for Telecommunication Systems and the chief of cyber analytics for Decisive Analytics. Dr. Cunningham is also a retired U.S. Navy Chief with more than 20 years' experience in cyber forensic and cyber analytic operations. He has past operations experience, stemming from time spent in work centers within the NSA, CIA, FBI, and other government agencies.

Chris Harris from Couchbase joins me in a conversation about the challenges that businesses continue to face with legacy technology. Using the database industry as a case in point, we discuss how business' legacy arrangements hinder their chances of being competitive in the post-COVID, digital-first world. Chris argues that reliance on legacy database technology such as Oracle is holding them back from achieving their digital goals. We also talk about cloud and IoT to AI, and even 5G calls for a much higher level of data agility than legacy databases can provide. In Chris' view, one of the key reasons businesses struggle to move away from legacy tech is skills; often and companies lack the resources to adopt more modern alternatives that are better suited to meeting digital transformation requirements. Finally, Chris offers his thoughts on where he sees the database industry moving next, looking at emerging technologies that businesses increasingly demand, such as edge computing or real-time analytics, and explaining how the database industry is evolving to support them. At Couchbase, they believe data is at the heart of the enterprise. They empower developers and architects to build, deploy, and run their mission-critical applications. Many of the world's largest enterprises rely on Couchbase to power the core applications their businesses depend on.

Could the API revolution and the digital transformation be exposing everyone to security risks? An API is the connective tissue that binds together cloud-native architecture and enables us to enjoy digital services. While these are fundamental for the way we work and live, they're exposing organizations to a new domain of security risk. Peter Klimek, Director of Technology, Office of the CTO at Imperva joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast in a conversation about the benefits, and pitfalls, of APIs. Imperva is a cybersecurity leader with a mission to protect data and all paths to it. They protect the data of over 6,000 global customers from cyberattacks through all stages of their digital transformation. Their products are informed by the Imperva Research Lab, an international threat intelligence community that feeds the latest security and compliance expertise into our solutions.

Terra Virtua is the world's first fully immersive social digital collectables platform. Given your expertise in this area, I invited Jawad Ashraf, CTO, and Co-Founder of the company, onto the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Launched in 2016, Terra Virtua is on a mission to turbo-charge fandom - from art to sports, music to movies, games to comics - with the world's first fully immersive platform for buying, sharing, trading, exhibiting, and interacting with digital collectibles. As the world has started shifting the digital realm – from working to shopping, entertaining, and connecting with friends and family Terra Virtua is at the start of using the internet as a virtual world. NFTs isn't an evolution of traditional collecting; it's a whole new form of entertainment. I learn how Terra Virtua is revolutionizing the way people experience digital tokens, and it's the only place where fans can buy and own 2D, 3D, or animated collectibles. We also discuss how Terra Virtua ensures that the environment doesn't pay a heavy price for this game-changing technology and has just switched to Polygon – a new, energy-efficient, scaled blockchain solution. Since launching, Terra Virtua has collaborated with numerous industry leaders, such as Paramount Pictures and Legendary Entertainment, to bring the best NFT content and collaborations to their platforms. The brand has big plans for growth and creating a whole new form of entertainment for its fans.

Firdosh Sheikh is the Co-founder and CEO of DRIFE, a decentralized Ride-hailing platform powered by blockchain to empower both the drivers and the riders without any existence of a central entity. Firdosh shares her powerful origin story that she calls 'the ride that changed my life.' I learn why ride-hailing is crying out for innovation. Despite being a huge global market, drivers, riders, and ride-hailing platforms are all struggling. Uber still is not making profits. So one of the original big disruptive industries is crying out for disruption itself. We discuss how DRIFE is breaking the vicious cycle of centralised ride-hailing platforms like Uber and the high commissions leaving drivers trapped with little to no profits.

Khaled Naim is Co-Founder & CEO of Onfleet a provider of last-mile delivery management software. Since its launch in 2015, Onfleet has grown to power millions of deliveries per month for thousands of businesses around the world. Clients include Gap, Total Wine & More, Capsule, Imperfect Foods, and United Supermarkets. Onfleet's software provides advanced route optimization, dispatching, real-time driver tracking, proof of delivery, analytics and customer communications. Onfleet was ranked #124 on the Inc 5000 list of America's fastest-growing companies in 2019 and #13 in San Francisco Business Times' Fast100 list of the Bay Area's 100 fastest growing companies. Khaled joins me on Tech Talks Daily and shares his story and how Onfleet's technology helps businesses streamline this onerous undertaking by efficiently connecting businesses, dispatchers, drivers, and deliveries to happy customers.

Scale is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital investment firm with $1.9B under management. They were early investors in SaaS pioneers like Bill.com (NYSE:BILL), DocuSign (NASDAQ:DOCU), HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS), JFrog (NASDAQ: FROG) and Root (NASDAQ: ROOT). Today they are focused on the next generation of enterprise software companies building Cognitive Applications like: Comet.ml, Observe.ai, Techsee and Viz.ai. Eric Anderson is a Partner at Scale Venture Partners, where he focuses on cloud infrastructure and security investments. He is a Board member at Scale portfolio companies Datastax and Upsolver and a Board observer at Matillion, BigID, Expel, Honeycomb, Tetrate, and AppOmni. Before Scale, Eric led early Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services product teams. At Google, he was a Product Manager in the Data Analytics and Machine Learning group. He led the team that launched Cloud Dataprep and critical components of Cloud Dataflow. Previously, Eric built aircraft engines in General Electric's Operation Management Leadership Program. Eric is a go-to resource on open source (he also moonlights as the host of the Contributor podcast) and has deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and app development and contributed to the deal teams for Matillion and BigID and more recent deals like AppOmni, Comet, and Upsolver. I learn more about the early-stage VC investor that is focused on intelligent business software, and we discuss the trends he is seeing in the industry.

Blue Wireless was founded in Singapore in 2015 to solve what was missing in the market – a flexible connectivity solution and a provider able to guide enterprise customers and simplify their connectivity journey to focus on their business. Since then, it has grown its presence with offices across APAC, Europe, and the US. They serve 80 countries with LTE/5G connectivity and have doubled their customer base in the last year. I wanted to hear about the story behind the company, and how they are transforming the way Global Enterprises use LTE/5G services, so I invited Ivan LandenFounder and CEO of Blue Wireless, to find out more. I learn how founders come from a telco world. Hence, they know the faults and limitations of customer service, flexibility, and even connectivity (wired vs. wireless). Finally, we discuss the 5G boom and how enterprises are looking for alternatives to telcos and their challenges when it comes to connectivity.

In a recent viral video on TikTok, a Starbucks customer was waiting in a field for her Starbucks order to be delivered by drone. The video quickly garnered over 2.2 million views. (Video here https://bit.ly/30GQMCn). So I tracked down the company and invited their CEO onto the podcast to learn more. Yariv Bash, CEO, and Co-founder of Flytrex, a leading on-demand drone delivery service in the food and retail space, shares his take on the future of drone delivery. Drawing from his experience operating an on-demand drone delivery system since August 2017 and witnessing advancements in the space since Yariv discusses how technology and regulation have come together in recent years to create a viable framework for safe and secure drone innovation across applications. Flytrex expects to gain airworthiness certification from the FAA in the not-so-distant future -- once that happens, the sky's the limit. I learn more about Flytrex and its role in bringing about a future where drone delivery is the rule, not the exception.

Until recently, 90% of enterprise data was sent to the cloud. However, this number is dropping to only 25% over the next three years. By 2025, 75% of enterprise data is expected to be created and processed at the edge. With edge adoption increasing in adoption, bringing in the power of 5G should also be considered for improving energy efficiency. 5G has a positive impact on edge operations as it allows for the installation of lower power but faster computational power, making it a more sustainable option. Furthermore, by integrating 5G and edge computing, enterprises can harness meaningful data to drive better business decisions around sustainability and reduce carbon emissions. Chris Penrose, COO at FogHorn, a developer of edge AI software and solutions, discusses how 5G and edge capabilities drive sustainability, ultimately helping enterprises and communities achieve net zero emissions?

Rahul Singh from HCL Technologies discusses how covid has accelerated digital change in the financial services industry. Banks had to adjust in 2020, as the use of cash dropped off a cliff and mobile banking grew by 13%, while branches were forced to close overnight rapidly. As lockdowns were imposed without warning, some of the world's oldest, most cautious organizations were suddenly forced to change – do nothing, and they would surely see a mass customer exodus. HCL manages IT for Deutsche Bank, ING, and Metro Bank, so I asked Rahul to share his unique insight into the industry challenges faced during the pandemic. He also explores the three significant digital shifts that have occurred within the financial services industry: 1. An explosion in remote working. With existing ways of working, and the obvious privacy and security concerns, banking has been slow to adopt remote working compared to other industries. However, the pandemic made it a necessity – banks had to find a way to enable people to work remotely without damaging customer experience. Rahul talks about the key areas they had to address: removing entrenched rule-based processes to accommodate remote workers and providing the required collaborative tools for employees to complete the necessary functions. He also discusses how recent announcements from HSBC and JP Morgan indicate this isn't a temporary shift but a permanent change. 2. Pushing mobile payments to the top of the agenda. Paying through your phone was once a nice to have, but that all changed when the pandemic meant we had to avoid unnecessary physical contact – so chip and pin card machine use dropped. This meant banks had to speed up mobile payment roll-out and ensure mobile apps were reliable – they couldn't risk letting customers down at the crucial moment. Imagine queuing for half an hour to enter a supermarket, loading your trolley with essentials, and then finding payment doesn't go through when you arrive at the checkout… Rahul says this meant banks' contactless and phone payment options had to mature quicker than initially planned. IT projects had to be re-prioritized, with future-facing alternative payment projects now pushed front and center. The sudden introduction of new rules and directives, such as the FCA's decision to increase the single transaction contactless payment limit to £100, also means banks must be prepared to quickly update payment systems based on directives at short notice. 3. Adopting public cloud computing at breakneck speed. Financial services have been one of the slowest industries to adopt the public cloud, with regulations and restrictions keeping FS out of the fast lane. However, banks had to dramatically speed things up when they suddenly had large remote workforces to support, requiring computing beyond the current capabilities of many existing on-premise or private cloud systems. This led to many flexing their financial muscles to make a move and play catch-up. Rahul can explain how this move unfolded, with critical workloads shifting to the likes of Amazon and Google. He says that every bank around the world will emerge from the pandemic with a public cloud strategy, meaning it will become increasingly prevalent across the industry.

Companies are investing millions of dollars to digitally transform their entire operations. This involves deploying hundreds or thousands of applications. So if there's a business problem like in sales or HR, there's an app for it. Enterprises will spend half a trillion dollars on software this year alone— and they'll spend nearly three-quarters of a trillion in 3 years (by 2024). While software vendors are constantly delivering new features and improvements that enterprises continue to deploy, nobody focuses on software adoption. These actual people need to use the software for the digital transformation to be successful. That is why 90% of all digital transformation projects fail. Dan Adika is the co-founder and CEO of WalkMe, a software company that recently went public on NASDAQ, explains that's where WalkMe comes in. The company's Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) enables organizations to measure, drive and act to maximize the impact of their digital transformation to improve productivity, humanize technology and drive more effective use of all of the software. We discuss how WalkMe drives users to action as they use software or websites, providing step-by-step guidance without requiring the user to leave the screen, watch video tutorials, or read tedious manuals or FAQ pages.

DXC Technology and Qualtrics recently announced a new collaboration to make the Qualtrics' EmployeeXM™ experience management platform a part of DXC's Modern Workplace service solution. Blended with DXC's Modern Workplace operational data, DXC will capture and integrate experience data from Qualtrics–how employees feel about their technology experience at work–to provide valuable, real-time employee sentiment to drive greater engagement and collaboration, and productivity. Qualtrics research also found that employees' technology experience plays a larger role in the overall employee experience, particularly as the digital workplace continues to evolve. Over 90% of CIOs believe the IT experience is essential when it comes to attracting and retaining talent and building corporate culture. I invited Mike McDaniel back on to the podcast to talk about all this and also learn more about how DXC will be the first to use the Modern Workplace solution internally to transform the digital experiences for its more than 130,000 employees.

In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I want to explore three of the most common questions that I am asked on this show. How do I launch a podcast without the hassle of editing audio files and submitting them to all the podcast platforms? How do I get high-quality guests on my new podcast? And if you are a business leader, how can I get invited onto more podcasts as a thought leader in 2022? Ryan Estes from Kitcaster joins me on the podcast to talk about all this and much more. He also discusses how to leverage podcast interviews to generate leads, validate new products, create new opportunities, and build brand awareness through personal connections. About Kitcaster Kitcaster books podcast interviews for funded start-up founders, entrepreneurs with exits, and C-suit execs. Get on-demand podcast placements scheduled for you by professionals. All growing businesses run into the same fundamental marketing problems. Automated bots, fake news, rampant amateurism. The good news? kitcaster™ solves them. Podcasts cut through the gobbledygook and make fundamentally authentic connections. Podcasts make business better. Where are you in your entrepreneur journey? Validation? Launch? Traction? Scale? Wherever you are, podcasts will take you further. They book you on top podcasts that speak directly to your ideal audience. These are your peeps – this is your influence. Podcasts are good for business and good for people.

Precisely is the global leader in data integrity software, providing accuracy, consistency, and the context in data for 12,000 customers in more than 100 countries, including 97 percent of the Fortune 100. Precisely's data integration, data quality, data governance, location intelligence, and data enrichment products power better business decisions to create better outcomes A Survey of 300 chief data officers revealed that worldwide adoption of digital initiatives continues to accelerate despite significant data quality, integration, and enrichment challenges. Precisely and Corinium Global Intelligence ran the independent study of more than 300 C-level data executives in the U.S., Europe, and the Asia Pacific. One of the biggest takeaways was 82% of Chief Data Officers have data quality concerns. Dan Adams, SVP Data and Operations at Precisely joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast and shares why businesses must rethink the path to trusted data as a foundation for digital transformation and business growth. Useful Links https://www.precisely.com/resource-center/analystreports/data-integrity-trends https://www.linkedin.com/company/preciselydata/

Dan Wallace-Brewster, Senior Vice President Marketing at Scalefast, joins me in a conversation on the state of the retail industry as we continue to navigate more waves of COVID and face the upcoming holiday season. Dan leads the content and lead generation engines for Scalefast as it accelerates an already-exponential growth curve. He has mechanized custom content throughput by enabling internal and external creative teams and focused messaging on defined ICPs and products in collaboration with sales leaders. Under his leadership, a new marketing technology stack has been deployed to ensure multi-touch attribution, maximum funnel velocity, and accountability for every B2B marketing investment. About Scalefast Scalefast is on a mission to change the way brands do direct-to-consumer eCommerce by empowering them to regain the control and simplicity they need to create an exceptional shopping experience directly from their online storefront. By joining forces through the Scalefast Commerce Cloud, brands can deliver localized and personalized direct-to-consumer shopping experiences while leveraging the volume and data of an entire brand ecosystem. Scalefast's modern approach to eCommerce has generated award-winning success for their clients and has allowed them to become the fastest-growing eCommerce platform in the U.S. Its full-stack enterprise solution brings together a cloud-based eCommerce platform, global business services and an international footprint of logistics, payment, tax and business partners

The Smart Cube is a global provider of research and analytics solutions focused on CPG, retail, and life sciences. Nitin Aggarwal, Vice President of Data Analytics, discusses how to use data analytics to drive growth, including featured case studies/examples in retail and CPG. About The Smart Cube The company researches, analyses and addresses the needs of businesses in today's intelligence age with tailored sector-specific solutions and Amplifi – their organisational platform, rich with knowledge, cutting edge tools, and advanced analytics – delivered by talented minds. Primarily serving the CPG, Energy & Chemicals, Financial Services, Industrials, Life Sciences, and Retail sectors, they work with a third of companies in the Fortune 100, helping them make smarter decisions, accelerate value and gain a competitive edge.

Gridware was founded by Tim Barat, a former lineman, who developed the company out of frustration with the immense shortage of information available to the people responsible for providing reliable electricity to our society. Tim believes that this data shortage leaves grid operators forced to operate a fragile electricity grid to fail to identify problems. While the symptoms of this problem present themselves in many different ways across the globe, he believes the most chronic symptom is the increased risk of wildfire ignition occurring throughout the west. The company specializes in feeding real-time utility line tracking information to commercial and public utility companies to prevent wildfires and environmental damages due to powerline abnormalities. Gridware combines a cloud-based system with several different sensors connected to utility poles to provide consistent updates of environmental, mechanical, and temperature-related statuses. The device runs on solar power and uses patented wireless and satellite technology to provide a detailed account of the powerline's health 24/7 to the grid operator in milliseconds. Tim shares his inspirational story of going from an actual lineman to entrepreneur, trying to prevent issues and wildfires caused by utilities, and looking out for the safety of linemen with technology.

Free TON is a community-driven blockchain cultivating an open and free internet. I invited Alexander Filatov, Co-Founder, and Chief Executive Officer at TON Labs on Tech Talks Daily, to share how he oversees the development of Free TON, a community-driven blockchain underpinning an open and free internet. In this role, he leverages his extensive corporate and VC experience towards fostering meaningful partnerships and communities to build a decentralized 'WebFree' platform. Prior to co-founding TON Labs in 2018, Alexander held several Executive positions, heading three multibillion-dollar manufacturing corporations in the automotive, construction equipment, and oil & gas equipment industries. After more than 20 years in the corporate industry, Alexander turned to the world of private equity and venture capital, in 2018 co-founding Industry 4.0, a diversified venture fund focused on exponential technologies, including blockchain.

At Moderne, they automatically identify and patch security holes in your code, freeing you to create, build, and make exciting new things. Olga Kundzich and Jonathan Schneider join me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss the downsides of cloud-native application development and maintaining modern applications. It has become clear that modern cloud-native applications require a tremendous amount of maintenance to keep up with the constant changes to all of the components used to build them. This includes managing thousands of APIs and open source components. It is an enormous challenge for any size company, taking up to 30% of the development team's time, which acts as a tremendous drag on innovation and software quality. I learn how Moderne was founded to tackle this enormous problem. Moderne's technology is based on OpenRewrite, a large-scale tool for code maintenance that Moderne co-founder Jonathan Schneider developed while working at Netflix. Moderne has picked up OpenRewrite and expanded its scope.

Jed Corenthal, the CMO of Phenix (real-time streaming technology platform) returns to the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss their unique OTT technology infrastructure. I learn how it allows for streaming video as close to real-time as possible without sacrificing broadcast quality and scale. We discuss their Syncwatch™ technology and how it ensures every user consumes the content simultaneously, regardless of location or connection. Trusted by Verizon, Racecourse Media Group, and many more, this technology helps avoid the 'Spoiler Alert' moment from a game lagging behind other streams/broadcasts. We also talk about how this technology allows for the 21st-century sports viewing experience through gamification and interactivity, such as offering 'Watch Together' features, in-game trivia, etc. Finally, Jed shares examples of interactive fan experiences and accurate game-day streams.

Here in 2021, Figma is a web-based design platform used by Uber, Deliveroo, and Bulb that's challenging the likes of Adobe and Sketch. Forget Unicorn status after Figma has received significant VC investment and also has a heavy-weight $10BN valuation. But what is the story behind Figma? Pierre Berlin shares the story and Figma's ambitions for growth in the UK and beyond, including expansion plans, hiring plans and new tools on the horizon, and the critical milestones made in the region to date. We also discuss reinventing remote collaboration and empowering diversity in design. I learn more about the new business model of design, how it's accelerated during the pandemic, and why design differentiates brands across every sector. We also discuss the USP of web-based tools which are enabling true remote collaboration across all locations, operating systems, and platforms – and why diversity is so important.

Jay Kulkarni founded Theorem in 2002. Over the last 12 years, Kulkarni has been the driving force behind the company's extraordinary expansion. Theorem works with top brands and publishers, including Tory Burch, Pandora, Roku, News Corp, Hearst, and the New York Times, to operate as a true extension to their in-house teams and support their overall business goals and marketing strategies. The company recently announced plans to challenge traditional working models by creating a flexible, full-service marketing solution offering. In addition, the company consolidated all its deep strategic talent into one Consultancy team while also expanding its six global operations teams to focus more on client servicing and delivery. Jay expands on the idea of the "flexible" working model, how the business ecosystem is evolving, and unpack what it means for the future of business. We also discuss how today's publishers, brand marketers, and advertisers can better leverage the marketing cloud and programmatic tech to rise to the next level.

Mongolia, a country of untapped mineral wealth, has become a target for the most advanced mining technology, but it does little for indigenous people. At erxes, they are working hard to prove that Mongolia can do better than trying to dig its way out. They believe in the untapped brilliant minds of young people who can start leading the way in the IT Industry on a global scale. It can be daunting to live in a world where everything is shifting, especially how we communicate. With apps like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, WeChat, and Instagram, consumers are communicating daily and on the go more than ever. This means that businesses need to keep up. But it doesn't have to be so hard. erxes Inc is the second generation of tech entrepreneurs in Mongolia. With over eight years of experience, they are proud to be a part of the pioneer movement to bring forth their country on the global stage. Nauren Batjargal, co-founder and COO of Erxes, shares the story behind the fully open-source growth marketing platform. We also discuss open-source vs. closed and proprietary.

Once the pandemic hit, stores became vulnerable, and retail headquarters began sending out 3X the amount of information to stores. Hy-Vee, L.L.Bean, Fjällräven, Sephora, and American Eagle Outfitters became customers during the pandemic, among others. People in the retail trenches created zipline. They have been there and know the execution struggle inside and out. This is not technology for the sake of technology. This solution was designed to truly help people (brands, operators, communicators, and stores) achieve their goals by a team that truly knows the grind, barriers, and struggle of achieving them. Their goal is to enable all customers to be the best version of themselves: every day, in every location. Melissa Wong, CEO & Co-Founder of Zipline, shares the inspirational tech startup story behind the company. She shares how they are helping a c-store be speedy, efficient, and contact-less.

Jason Illian, Managing Director of Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), the venture and investing arm of Koch Industries, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Artificial intelligence, blockchain and crypto, bio IT and genomics, and industrial robotics are just a few segments being explored by KDT. Since 2003, Koch has invested $133 billion in growth and improvements and has spent $30 billion on technology investments and acquisitions in the last six years. I learn how Koch's "Creative Destruction" philosophy guides the company's bets on transformative technologies that will bring long-term success to itself and its partners. Jason shares real-world examples of technologies that KDT has invested in and how Koch has learned from and empowered different technologies. We explore how KDT's role is to partner with entrepreneurs who are creating a "could-be" world, which includes investing in technology companies that disrupt and transform Koch's core businesses and expand into new platforms and capabilities.

As organizations begin to envision what the return to the office will look like – or in some cases, have put their plans into action – they have the unique opportunity to reimagine the layout and feel of their space. While the nature of on-site work has changed significantly since the start of the pandemic, the office still represents a prime forum to inform, engage and entertain employees and visitors. After spending so much time working remotely and away from their colleagues, workers want to feel more involved and connected with their counterparts and employers than ever before. While there are many ways to go about this, we're seeing more businesses turn to technology to create experiences employees and visitors will remember and take pride in. Barco designs and develops visualization and collaboration solutions for a variety of selected professional markets. Piet Vanhuyse, Barco's global segment marketing director for large video walls, shares his insights.