Tech Talks Daily

Erik Fogg is the co-Founder, and Chief Operating Officer at ProdPerfect joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share his startup stories and discuss how AI in testing is changing software development. Software development, especially testing, is terrible at using data. It relies too heavily on "human smarts." We can do better. Our own mindsets can explore the art of the possible, what's been done before, and what we have to accept, hold us back from being able to improve the business processes we're responsible for (and ourselves) Corporations are, unfortunately, the best systems we have right now to help humans flourish (the education system is too calcified and slow to adapt). However, by crafting deliberate cultures around learning and growth, we can turn corporations into little utopias where our people thrive. Machine Learning is coming for parts of all of our jobs. We should embrace it and accelerate its adoption to help humans spend their time doing what they're great at and what they love. Erik shares how ProdPerfect has been successful because they were first-time founders and very stubborn. He shares how they broke a lot of rules that they didn't even know they were breaking. Erik also expands on why he believes founders need to have nerves of steel to hold the line and do the right thing. About Erik Fogg Erik Fogg is the co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at ProdPerfect, fixing E2E software testing with Machine Learning and good operational design. In addition, ProdPerfect automatically builds and maintains E2E test automation by analyzing user journeys on web applications. Erik graduated from MIT with a bachelors and master's of science in Mechanical Engineering, and prior to ProdPerfect fixed and led operations in factories, mines, refineries, and hardware startups.

In a market expected to grow to $17 billion by 2023, Everlaw is an AI-powered e-discovery platform that helps teams uncover the needle-in-a-haystack pieces of information that can make or break a case. As the digital universe expands rapidly, litigators and internal investigators are tasked with mining through mountains of data and documents, most of which end up being irrelevant. Everlaw can process up to 500K documents per hour and is 5x faster than the nearest cloud competitor, with its largest case reaching 68M documents. Both data stored and the number of cases on the platform has more than doubled YoY. AJ Shankar, CEO, and Founder of legal tech company Everlaw joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. AJ offers an overview state of technology in the legal industry in the US and the complexities of investigations and discovery in the digital age, where unimaginable amounts of data are created each day. I learn how Everlaw is helping law firms, corporate legal departments, government agencies, and journalists to transform the way they handle the troves of data to uncover the truth in their investigations and cases. AJ also shares what the future holds for the legal industry for cloud-based e-discovery solutions.

Omnitracs helps drive the transportation and distribution industries through innovative software and SaaS fleet management solutions. Companies of all sizes trust them to improve visibility into real-time action for back-office and dispatch teams. Their tech creates a more efficient driver experience through intuitive workflow and compliance tools that enable streamlined communications. I wanted to explore how tech is helping leadership teams make improved business decisions through actionable insights into fleet data. Ashim Bose, Chief Data and AI Officer at Omnitracs joins me in a conversation about transportation intelligence and the growing need for accelerated delivery services in a post-pandemic world. We also discuss insights gained from the Omnitracs Delivering on Demand: Consumer 2021 Insights Survey. Consumer preferences and needs have shifted during the pandemic, putting more pressure on fleets to deliver on these promises. With consumers becoming more dependent on delivery services during lockdowns, stay-in-place orders, and times when leaving home was simply not safe, trucking (and the drivers behind the wheel) became their lifeline. We discuss how the survey found patterns in the growing usage of—and dedication to—deliveries as a primary mode of receiving goods (vs. in-store experiences) and, subsequently, consumers' wants moving forward.

Danish game developer Bright Star Studios was founded in 2018 by games-industry veterans. Their goal is to reinvent the usual pay-to-win mechanics and loot boxes common to free-to-play games and instead develop a player-driven economy that allows gamers to earn rewards through in-game activities, including creating unique, tradable NFT items. Through the blockchain, gamers from across the world can build their own world and create tangible income from the game. The company also recently announced that videogame veteran Randy Breen has joined the Ember Sword development team as an advisor. With over 18 years of industry experience at Electronic Arts and LucasArts, Breen will help the Bright Star Studios team deliver on its vision of creating an immersive MMORPG with a true play-to-earn economy. Breen has an illustrious career in the games industry. His career began at Electronic Arts, where he grew from Assistant Producer to Executive Producer and Creative Director before becoming the head VP of Development at LucasArts. During his time there, he guided many beloved Star Wars games to PC and console, including Star Wars Battlefront, MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies, and BAFTA award-winning RPG Knights of the Old Republic. Bright Star Studios will harness this wealth of experience and expertise to help bring Ember Sword to life. Bright Star Studios recently announced that it secured over $2 million in funding from multiple investors to help deliver on its vision for Ember Sword. Last week also saw the successful completion of the game's first land sale that sold out in just six hours, with all of the regular plots being purchased in under an hour. The sale of 12,000 in-game plots of virtual Solarwood land generated a total of over $1.5M. Bright Star Studios intends to use these funds to further the title's development, enabling the team to create a high-quality and immersive player-first gaming experience supported by an innovative play-to-earn economy powered by the blockchain.

Today's guest is Callum Adamson. Despite growing up in the shadow of a rockstar father Big country musician Stuart Adamson), Callum was actually raised in a household with little money. After dropping out of an Aeronautical Engineering degree, he worked unpaid at a friend's startup and slept on his floor. During this period, Callum considered the broken tech talent model. Businesses big and small now need to change at such speed that they cannot find the skilled workers to do this quickly enough without paying extortionate fixed costs for large consultancies. To address this issue, Callum founded Distributed using profits from Bitcoin investing. From a London HQ, Distributed uses its AI-enabled platform to project manage a global community of on-demand, highly skilled software developers. This connects skilled tech workers with customers such as Capita and the Ministry of Justice. They can tap into the community and use as much or as little resource as they like at any one time – for simple or complex projects – offering the time and cost flexibility of freelancers with the capacity and quality assurance of consultancies. As a result of these trends and efforts, Distributed just completed a Series A funding round and continues to grow rapidly, expand its freelance community and deliver projects for more businesses. We discuss why the tech skills gap is an illusion and how the world is full of undervalued and poorly organized resources. We also talk about why freelancing will become the preferred profession. With the advent of remote workforces and increased flexibility, people will realize they can work for multiple clients and get paid more than traditional employment. I learn how Distributed aims to provide its community with perks and career development you wouldn't usually get as a freelancer.

Shane Neman, the founder of Neman Ventures, joins me in a conversation about PropTech. We also discuss how COVID has pushed more investment into property technology. Shane also shares what emerging technologies he's excited about. Shane Neman has always been a problem solver and a consummate optimist, which are traits that have been significant advantages in his life as a serial entrepreneur. His experience and expertise in business span many industries, from technology and telecommunications to real estate and hospitality. After earning a computer science degree from NYU, he started three tech startups (two of them – EZ Texting and JoonBug – were acquired) with hundreds of employees and tens of thousands of customers. He's a prolific backer of startups including Impossible Foods, Convoy, Prose, and Universal Standard, Apostrophe, MeetMindful, MapAnything, VinePair, Smylen, Hyperice,, Teamflow HQ, ResiDesk, Symmetry Systems and more. He's also a real estate investor and developer with more than two dozen large-scale properties across the US ranging from commercial shopping and industrial centers to residential buildings.

Rackspace Technology CTO, Jeff DeVerter joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss the changing face of digital transformation. In previous years - digital transformation was relegated to a corner or department of an organization. This is largely fueled by a few key factors: · The changing/expanding IT buyers within an organization. · The rising digital fluency of businesses. · The adoption of RPA and low-code / no-code solutions. · The transformation to cloud-native development techniques within organizations. These four trends are driving a dramatic amount of transformation within organizations which are resulting in greater agility, productivity, revenue, and profits for those who are willing to embrace change. Now for those who aren't, they are actively being left behind. Each of these results is occurring in every industry - in every geography today.

While there will be an estimated 40 billion connected devices by 2025, a big limitation to fulfilling this technology's potential is that 90% of the world's surface doesn't have access to cellular service or WiFi. While existing satellite data services like Iridium and Starlink are rapidly growing, these services are prohibitively expensive for IoT device users and manufacturers who don't require high-speed, high-cost connectivity. A new Silicon Valley satellite technology startup, Swarm, is addressing these issues by developing a low bandwidth, low-cost service that commercially launched in February. The service is ideal for a wide range of IoT use cases in industries ranging from agriculture to logistics to maritime to transportation. Founded in 2016, Swarm is committed to making data and communications accessible to anywhere on the planet for just $5/month. Swarm's combination of uniquely small satellites (think the size of a grilled cheese sandwich) and user hardware deliver low bandwidth (think 90's modem speed) data services at the industry's lowest cost (1/10th the cost of traditional data services) and highest value to customers. Ben Lomgmeir, co-founder and CTO of Swarm, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the potential impact the company's data services could have on the IoT market.

YouGov and Auth0 recently published their new global research, 'The Login Experience Customers Want', revealed that most organizations fail to meet consumer expectations around login technology. Steven Rees-Pullman, SVP International at Auth0 joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share more insights from the research. Auth0 and YouGov's study consisted of two surveys, questioning more than 8,000 consumers and 1,200 IT and marketing decision-makers who work for businesses that offer an app/online service to customers (excluding sole-traders) across six global markets: the UK, France, Germany, Australia, Singapore, and Japan. The study found that consumers around the world want greater choice in login technologies, and actively seek them out. However, many businesses are still falling short on consumer expectations and risk frustrating their users, losing sales, increasing churn and opening themselves up to credential stuffing attacks as a result. As an example, the statistics show that consumers are more likely to sign up to an app/online service if they can use MFA (47%), biometric logins (48%) and passwordless (30%) login technologies. Yet only 27% of UK businesses currently offer MFA, biometric logins (14%) and passwordless (13%). The research goes on to explore a widening gap in expectations – with consumers wanting to use digital services but prepared to take their business elsewhere if the login process is clunky or frustrating. Steven discusses the report's findings in more detail and shares what it means for the identity management landscape and how the desire for ease and security is driving consumers to seek out modern identity solutions for a better UX.

Technology and language are eerily similar, and if you learned how to code then you've also learned a language. When Megan Miller was living in Madrid, her host mom would always tell her to aprovechar la experiencia: to take advantage of her time there. Now, she wants to help people take advantage of the tech tools available to learn and incorporate Spanish into their daily lives, without needing to invest thousands on expensive immersion trips abroad. Megan shares her story and tech background and how it led her back to her "roots" of Spanish. I learn more about how it has allowed a series of shifts in perspective; whether it's a right-brain, left-brain thing, or just plain worldly experience. One of the most inspiring aspects of this conversation is how she didn't fit into the typical IT stereotype and didn't fit in with the huge educational conglomerates: so she created her own bubble. Megan now offers professional and certified IT and business translation services from Spanish to American English. Using her CSM and PMP certifications, she manages the scope, timeline, and translation using agile methodologies to make sure the words, tone, and intent translate to a professional technology-based audience

Ash Finnegan, digital transformation officer at Conga, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily to share insights from the company's latest study regarding the current state of digital transformation across EMEA. Drawing upon over 20 years of experience in the digital space, Ash argues that companies need to rethink how they transformation their teams, processes, and technology to ensure they maximize revenue yield, align teams and truly connect the customer experience Often initiatives are rushed or short-sighted, and COVID-19 has only accelerated this issue. According to Conga's latest research, only 36 percent of all projects relating to the transformation of commercial operations are considered somewhat successful, with 95 percent of leaders citing that their organization needs to improve its revenue operations. On the podcast, Ash discusses how companies should approach transformation initiatives as they begin their post-COVID recovery plans. Drawing upon Conga's recent study, we explore: Conga's Digital Maturity Model: how Ash approaches a customer's transformation programme, establishing clear objectives. The state of DX: why COVID-19 has proven commercial transformation is critical, but not necessarily easy to implement. Future of work: streamlining workflows and enabling further collaboration will be the key drivers to the post-COVID economy and hybrid workforce

Erich Joachimsthaler, founder and CEO of Vivaldi, as well as a renowned strategy consultant and author of The Interaction Field, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. His consulting firm has helped companies such as American Express, Samsung, and Coca-Cola transform their customer and marketing strategies to enhance their business models. The firm frequently achieves $1.2BN in revenue growth in 6 months for one client. In his book discusses his take on the future of business, culture, and tech. In the pages, he addresses hard-hitting questions such as: how do you create a culture of innovation? How did Sony miss what Apple captured? Today, Erich shares his insights on why today's companies fall into three categories and why. We talk about what it takes to become an "interaction field" company and why it's imperative and discuss the future of business in a pandemic era and what big tech companies should look to drive innovation. Erich also shares how John Deere, Alibaba, Amazon, and other tech companies are getting it right… or wrong. Finally, we explore the fundamental change in mindset that all business leaders need to embrace for success

Peter Jackson, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Exasol, believes that data teams have room for all sorts of people, from the technical masterminds to the data storytellers. In today's episode, Peter shares how the best data scientist he ever had in one of his teams had a philosophy degree from Warwick University; he was creative, curious, and could turn insights into compelling arguments. We discuss how if we concentrate too much on STEM, then we'll have people who understand the numbers and stats. But, still, they won't necessarily have the skills to articulate the meaning of that data and turn them into actionable insights for the business. Bringing information to life and allowing everyone to see the business value hidden inside company data is critical. We talk about why business leaders should recruit people with an arts background so teams can create narratives from data to aid storytelling. Combining a mixture of people and their different skills and abilities will make the translation of data more powerful.

Hydra Energy is the world's first Hydrogen-as-a-Service (HaaSTM) provider for commercial fleets looking to reduce costs and emissions today with limited risk and no up-front investment. The company's innovative approach sources green hydrogen from leading chemical partners and provides clean fuel to fleets at below-diesel prices, enabling a rapid and economic transition to cleaner trucking. In exchange for long-term, discounted fuel contracts, Hydra quickly converts semi-truck fleets to a proprietary hydrogen injection system helping operators optimize truck performance, fuel efficiency, and emissions reduction regardless of payload and weather. With Hydra Energy's retrofit technology, hydrogen tanks and gas handling components are installed behind the truck cab. This is where the hydrogen is stored. Each truck has 30kg of hydrogen on it. A hydrogen injection manifold is installed in line with the air intake, blends hydrogen and air before entering the engine block. This is how hydrogen is injected. A dedicated, secondary controller is installed behind the truck dashboard, which controls hydrogen flow. When the driver presses the pedal, it signals the master OEM computer, which the secondary Hydra controller intercepts. It then injects the required hydrogen needed to produce 40% of the required power demand directly into the air intake, eliminating the need to modify the engine block. By using existing semi-trucks, and Hydra's Hydrogen-as-a-Service infrastructure, you can have hydrogen today. There's no need to wait for entirely new vehicles and fueling infrastructure to be designed and built at some point in the future. With as high as 40% diesel displacement, Hydra trucks can run up to 1,000 km/a day burning 24 kilos of hydrogen, even with the heaviest payloads and in the heart of winter. There's no need to worry about range either, as Hydra trucks can seamlessly switch to just running on diesel if the hydrogen runs out. Hydrogen technology for large internal combustion engines enables seamless switchover without losing fuel efficiency, range, power, torque, and payload capacity. I invited Jessica Verhagen to share the story behind the company and how they plan to propel low-carbon hydrogen trucking solutions.

Ben Waber is the president and co-founder of Humanyze, a workplace analytics company based out of Boston. Born out of the MIT Media Lab, the company's goal is to help business leaders improve organizational effectiveness. The company analyzes workplace interactions (over 20 billion interactions, to be exact) to see company-wide trends around how work gets done in order to inform and improve management decisions that positively impact financial performance and the employee experience. Specifically, one of the core focuses of their analysis is the impact of working from home on the workplace, HR, and digital transformation initiatives and how those affect organizational health. Ben discusses the impact of remote work on organizations across the globe, best practices, and thoughts to consider when returning to work, and the power of data to inform business decisions. About Humanyze Founded in 2011, Humanyze is a world leader in understanding team dynamics and work patterns. With over 10 years of research into organization network analysis and behavioral science, led by leaders in the world of social physics and graduates of the MIT Media Lab, they help companies understand how work gets done. Humanyze counts with a global presence spanning the US, Europe, and Asia, and are on a mission to improve the future of work.

Helena Murphy is the Founder and Managing Director of Raising Partners, the investment firm that guides startups through each step of their fundraising process. Helena started a sustainable clothing e-commerce business straight out of St Andrews University in her native Scotland. She was unprepared for how rocky and opaque the fundraising process would be, and experienced first hand the pitfalls of seeking investment. Helena was left with £100,000 of personal debt after being forced to fold her business, a process that left her feeling defeated and caused her to lose her hair due to stress-related alopecia. As a result of this traumatic experience, Helena then worked as an in-house consultant for several years in order to help other businesses raise capital and avoid the mistakes she made. In that time, she developed an extensive network of connections, from investors, to accountants, entrepreneurs to lawyers, and became an expert in early-stage investment. Raising Partners is the company she wished had existed when she was going through her own investment process. Helena and her team are determined to level the investment playing field, demystify the fundraising process, and help deserving businesses flourish. Founded in 2017, Raising Partners has helped over 110 companies - including the likes of Thread, Celtic Renewables, ARQ, Equipsme, Poppy's Picnic, Penfold, and Ilumoni - raise over £30 million, through pre-seed to Series B rounds. After an initial consultation, Raising Partners assesses the individual funding requirements of a startup, before creating a comprehensive, tailored investment strategy and proposal. Raising Partners also provides end-to-end crowdfunding support, introducing new investors to the campaign, creating critical crowdfunding-specific assets, such as campaign videos, investor decks, testimonials, and pitch pages, and assisting with investor communications.

Cultural marketing agency Culture Group and storytelling platform Wattpad have collaborated to produce a whitepaper positioning Gen Zs as "the Creation Generation" because of their love for creating stories and sharing them with the world. Gen Zs grew up with the Internet, which has democratized creation in a way never seen before by allowing everyone to express their thoughts. It is clear that Gen Zs care more about issues and are more willing to express themselves. Michael Patent, Founder and President of Culture Group, discusses Gen Zs' defining characteristics and how advertisers can tap into Gen Z's uniqueness to produce more compelling narratives. We also talk about how Gen Zs' defining traits change over time, and how this will lead to different behavior, hobbies, likes and dislikes, etc. About Culture Group Culture Group is a brand advisory and integrated marketing agency delivering transformative cultural ideas across Asia. They are cultural provocateurs, makers, and thinkers who collaborate with brands to disrupt the norm, shaping consumer moments into brand movements. The company builds unique partnerships between brands and entertainment properties, articulating its vision and executing a strategic approach across all consumer touchpoints. Our client list includes some of the most recognized and well-respected brands in Asia.

Maurice Mortell, Managing Director of Ireland, Equinix – the world's digital infrastructure company joins me on Tech Talks Daily. With over 20 years of experience in the data centre sector, Maurice has been a key figure in the rise of the data center industry in Ireland. Maurice also holds the 2012 ICT Excellence' Person of the Year' honour, awarded based on his invaluable contribution to the ICT sector in Ireland. Equinix is a global data center and interconnection platform with 229 data centers across 29 countries. The company's objectives are to help enterprise customers mitigate operational risk, significantly reduce exposure to cybercrime, and ultimately safeguard data. Global trends around digital transformation and regulatory compliance have propelled Equinix's growth trajectory, as more and more top-tier enterprises and providers routinely harness Equinix's trusted global platform to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure that fuels their success. The company recently commissioned an independent study of 127 senior IT decision-makers in Ireland, illustrating the prevailing sentiments pertaining to the security challenges linked to remote working for businesses nationwide. The survey found that two-thirds of IT decision-makers in Ireland feel more susceptible to data breaches due to the IT strain associated with pandemic-driven remote working. In today's episode, Maurice shares his story and reveals insights around the significant macro trends driving today's transformation challenges.

Libby Adams, Co-Founder and Chief Advocacy Officer at US publicly listed data analytics firm Alteryx joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. Alteryx is a publicly listed $8bn technology giant that generated over $400m in revenue in 2019 and achieved revenue growth of 25% in Q3 2020. Over 7,000 global customers use the company's data analytics software, more than 38% of the Global 2,000, and they have use cases in 90+ countries. In the UK specifically, Alteryx's platform is used by the likes of Sainsbury's, Gymshark, Anthony Nolan, and ITV to help improve the digital skills of their respective workforces and create an entirely new generation of data scientists in the process. For example, Gymshark, one of the UK's fastest-growing sportswear brands, turned to Alteryx's software to help it survive and easily pivot during the pandemic. In May, the company hosted its annual Inspire conference. During the three-day event, Libby hosted a panel on Women in Data Science (WiDS), which is part of the annual WiDS Worldwide conference organised by Stanford University and broadcast to an estimated 150+ locations worldwide. In today's episode, we discuss why up-skilling will be the biggest challenge for organizations in the next 12 months. We also talk about the importance of human diversity for inclusivity in data science and artificial intelligence. Libby shares what needs to happen in primary education to build awareness of data science skills at an early stage amongst young women.

Jeff Wald, best-selling author of two books, including The End of Jobs: The Rise of On-Demand Workers and Agile Corporations. Jeff is also the Founder of WorkMarket (purchased by ADP in 2018 for $135 million), and several other technology companies, including Spinback, a social sharing platform (eventually purchased by Salesforce.com), an angel investor and startup advisor, and serves on numerous public and private Boards of Directors. Based on hundreds of formal interviews with CEOs, HR executives, and political leaders, The End of Jobs: The Rise of On-Demand Workers and Agile Corporations guides readers through the history of work to understand how companies and workers reacted to the last three industrial revolutions. Jeff asks what lessons we can learn from these revolutions and the current state of the labor market and in order for workers, companies, and societies to prepare for the Rise of the Robots. Included in the book is the $10 million Future of Work Prize. Jeff challenged twenty leading thinkers of the future of work on their vision for the workforce in 2040. Jeff shares his story and lessons he learned building four companies, investing in and advising hundreds of others. We discuss why new technologies like autonomous vehicles seldom lead to the job losses people expect.

YL Ventures funds and supports brilliant Israeli tech entrepreneurs from seed to lead. With headquarters in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, YL Ventures manages $260 million and specializes in cybersecurity. It accelerates the evolution of portfolio companies via strategic advice and U.S.-based operational execution, leveraging a powerful network of CISOs and global industry leaders. Andy Ellis was recently named operating partner at YL Ventures, has been inducted into IDG's CSO Hall of Fame. The former CSO at Akamai Technologies will now be supporting YL Ventures' portfolio companies post-investment with product development, go-to-market strategies, and customer engagements. In today's episode, Andy shares his story and insights from his career. We discuss why VC firms and investing in Israeli cybersecurity startups and why more CISOs are taking advisor/investor roles. I also learn what brings him to Israeli cybersecurity companies.

Jim Archetto of Gaumard Scientific joins me in a conversation about medical training simulations and how they are leveraging HoloLens 2 headsets. Gaumard Scientific specialize in creating simulators for medical training that are in use at major teaching hospitals, nursing schools, medical military trainings and emergency medical services. The company recently launched Obstetric MR™, a mixed reality labor and delivery simulation experience that synchronizes holograms with the physical world. Obstetric MR™ is comprised of a HoloLens 2 headset preloaded with software designed to help learners observe the dynamic physiology underlying childbirth. In addition, it brings, for the first time, digital learning content into the physical simulation exercise, allowing participants to link knowledge and skill through an entirely new hands-on tactile training experience.

Sophia Matveeva is the founder of Tech For Non-Techies, a learning community and media company. Sophia has contributed to the Financial Times, The Guardian, and Forbes on entrepreneurship and technology and hosts the top-rated Tech for Non-Techies podcast. She has also guest lectured at Chicago Booth and London Business School, and led the Blackstone x Techstars accelerator at the University of Texas at El Paso. As a non-technical founder, she has co-created apps and algorithms that have been used by thousands, won App of the Day by Mashable, and were featured by Inc, the BBC and more. Sophia loves helping entrepreneurs and has advised Chicago Booth's New Venture Challenge and Microsoft x London College of Fashion incubator. She also holds an MBA from Chicago Booth, and a BSc (Hons) in Politics from Bristol. She speaks English, Russian and French. Sophia Matveeva shares her startup story. Then, we talk about why investors are turning towards non-technical founders and what this means for the industry. Sophie shares advice on how non-technical professionals can transition into a career in tech for non-technical professionals.

Stijn "Stan" Christiaens has a new title at Collibra - Chief Data Citizen. He joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how Collibra is getting data and policies ready for a cloud-native world, ensuring the company complies with growing privacy regulations, protecting data assets, and more. We also discuss why the most critical priority for this year is increasing and maintaining data quality. Over the past transformative year, Collibra has spent many resources in getting the business to be digital-first. And he knows that data products are garbage in, garbage out, so the outcomes of the product, the user experience, and the smart features all depend on the quality of the data that feeds them. I also learn why he's changed his title and what it means. Collibra is putting smart data quality controls at various places and how he plans to organizational data priorities for the rest. We also talk about the EU's recent announcement to take control around AI and how the proposed legislation will strengthen AI update, investment, and innovation across the EU.

Rohan Pasari is the co-founder and CEO of Cialfo, an AI-driven platform that brings together people, software, and data to simplify college and career counseling workflows. He co-founded Cialfo with the vision to make education accessible for 100 million students globally. Rohan joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to discuss how EdTech can make higher ed more accessible, how data analytics is transforming the college recruiting process and shares insights into the shift to virtual search and recruitment channels for higher education.

Recent announcements from Facebook and Twitter are signaling growing support for security keys as a means of user protection. Stina Ehrensvärd from Yubico discusses why this is an essential step toward a genuinely passwordless future for all. Yubico has worked closely with both platforms to support two-factor authentication based on its physical security keys. So while Facebook users have been able to use the hardware to secure their accounts on desktops, the recent announcement sees iOS and Android users now able to do the same. This adds a critical security layer and prevents a password from being the last line of defense against phishing or other malicious attempts to compromise private information. Importantly, security keys also reduce friction and complexity for users compared to the repeated insertion of One Time Passcodes or similar security features. Yubico's mission has always been to make the internet a safer place for everyone – and over the years, it has partnered with tech giants such as FIDO Alliance, Google, and Microsoft to develop appropriate standards and realize this vision. In our interview, Stina discusses the collective impact of these recent announcements and how increased industry collaboration is delivering the highest level of security and convenience to more users online, regardless of device and platform. I learn more about how Yubico helps companies like Google secure 85,000+ of its employees against online fraud, platforms like Gov.UK to help protect gateways against cybercriminals, and within the UK government and defense departments to secure their security users.

With stakeholder capitalism and conscious capitalism entering the mainstream, we wanted to explore the future of work and how businesses are not just leveraging technology to help run their business but also transform the employee experience. Danijela Nandi, Senior Product Manager at Citrix Workspace, and Nancy Pautsch, Chief Evangelist of Stakeholder Value (President) of Envision IT talk about how hybrid working and how technology makes teams more productive and helping to build a more conscious culture where everyone has a sense of purpose. They also discuss the ROI of improving employee engagement and wellbeing. About Envision IT Envision IT is a soulful company whose business is technology optimization, ensuring that mainstream technologies in businesses today are an enabler to employee engagement and business success (versus being an obstacle). Nancy Pautsch is the Chief Evangelist of Stakeholder Value (President) of Envision IT, a group of curious and compassionate people growing a soulful company. Envision's mission is to enrich the lives of their stakeholders. Their business is technology consulting focused on optimization to ensure technology is an enabler to employee engagement and business success. Envision is the go-to technology partner for organizations across the U.S. Nancy has been in the technology industry for 20+ years. Keys to her leadership are a growth mindset and fostering collaborative cultures that breed a grounded sense of purpose while striving for excellence. As a thriving Firm of Endearment, Envision has been lauded locally for their contributions to the community and economy; recognized globally in the technology industry as 'best of the best' for engineering quality, innovation, and customer experience; and highlighted by the Conscious Capitalism movement as a model for stakeholder orientation.

Real Ice is a Wales-based company that has invented a revolutionary renewable energy-powered ice maker to replenish the polar ice caps that are melting as a result of global warming. The Real Ice machine, developed by recent Bangor University graduate Cian Sherwin, is a windpowered machine that pumps water from under the Ice to the surface, where it freezes rapidly and patches gaps in the sea ice. It also works to thicken the Ice, thus increasing the albedo effect, which is the ability to reflect the sun's energy back into space instead of being absorbed by the earth. Still in the prototype phase, the project plans to employ indigenous people of Arctic regions to own, maintain and operate the machines. At the same time, they earn carbon credits which can be sold to companies to offset their fossil fuel use. By combatting the effects of global warming and ice loss on traditional local communities, Real Ice also hopes to boost the development of Arctic regions experiencing the harsh negative effects of global warming.

Mansour Karam is the Co-Founder of data center network automation company Apstra, which was recently acquired by the networking giant Juniper Networks. With over a decade of experience in network automation and network solutions, Mansour currently works at Juniper as the VP of Products, helping clients deliver on their networking solutions and make the most out of their business with Juniper. Mansour discusses how automation is essential to minimizing costly mistakes and eliminating human error from mundane tasks in a hyperconnected data center. Mansour also elaborates on the two main areas where automation maximizes productivity in the data center. We talk about scaling capacity with output so that data center development is not inhibited and processing repetitive tasks, so developers have more time and bandwidth for crucial development. Mansour also explains how automation is essential to minimizing expensive mistakes and provides robust data sets for IT leaders to apply hyper-accurate insights in development. About Juniper Juniper Networks challenges the inherent complexity that comes with networking and security in the multicloud era. They do this with products, solutions and services that transform the way people connect, work and live. They simplify the process of transitioning to a secure and automated multicloud environment to enable secure, AI-driven networks that connect the world.

Curve Health is an elderly care telemedicine platform that is installed directly into nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). The company announced a $6m seed round in late 2020, and on May 6th, will announce national partnerships with facilities in Minnesota and California, bringing telemedicine access to the bedsides of hundreds of patients. The platform is peer-reviewed & proven by the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine to reduce unnecessary hospital transfers from skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) by up to 80%. About Tim Peck Tim Peck is the founder of Curve Health. Before founding Curve, Peck earned his MD from NYU, then held a faculty position at Harvard Medical School and was the Chief Resident in the Emergency Department at Beth Israel Deaconess (BIDC). From there, Peck cofounded Call9, a company that was the forebearer to Curve Health and was responsible for changing the landscape of care delivery to nursing homes.

Assaf Morag and Ehud Amiri from Aqua Security join me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss finding from Aqua's 2021 Security Report, which assesses cloud infrastructure risks. During 12 months, Aqua Security conducted an in-depth analysis of Aqua Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) usage data and found that 40% of users had at least one misconfigured Docker API. But, overall, 84% of users were able to detect and remediate misconfiguration issues using CSPM, which would otherwise have gone unnoticed without manual involvement. Although cloud-native applications have many benefits, such as allowing more agility by giving more people access to define the environment, it means that many organizations are moving away from a centralized approach to security. Where once there was only a small, highly skilled team of security practitioners making all configuration changes, we now have a modern, decentralized approach. Indeed, a recent IDC survey showed that almost 80% of respondents had at least one cloud security breach over the preceding 18 months. We talk about Aqua's 2021 Security Report findings, explore the complexity of cloud environments, and discuss some solutions to help mitigate these risks.

With nearly half of Americans currently working from home, and an additional 20% expected to remain that way in the future, the challenge of remote authentication has never been more important. Replacing passwords and updating software are no longer enough as lines blur between work/personal security posture and data subsequently becomes more at risk. Eric Brown, Senior Manager, Enterprise Identity & Access Management at SAIC, urges that with this change comes a need for organizations to recalibrate their approach to authentication. Eric shares his insights and advises how to secure identities while balancing a simplified user experience. He also discusses lessons learned with SAIC as the company transformed to a remote workforce – including key takeaways related to their multi-factor authentication platform for remote employees. About SAIC SAIC is a premier Fortune 500® technology integrator driving digital transformation. Their robust portfolio of offerings across the defense, space, civilian, and intelligence markets includes secure high-end solutions in engineering, IT modernization, and mission solutions. Using their expertise and understanding of existing and emerging technologies, they integrate the best components from their own portfolio and partner ecosystem to deliver innovative, effective, and efficient solutions critical to achieving their customers' missions. Saic consists of a team of 26,000 driven by mission, united purpose, and inspired by opportunity. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, SAIC has annual revenues of approximately $7.1 billion.

It's just over twenty years since the dot-com bubble burst, leaving economic chaos and unemployment in its wake. In the years following, a little-known project – Google Maps – was in its early stages intending to create more user-friendly maps. At the same time, Gidi Cohen, CEO of Skybox Security, had a similar vision, only for the cybersecurity space. "In the same way Google Maps allows users to understand their terrain, location and how to interpret traffic lights, we are helping security teams make sense of their IT network topology." Through a network model approach to security, Skybox has become a trusted partner to large enterprises like P&G, Vodafone and Estee Lauder. Skybox helps these organizations to connect the dots and get better visibility into the threats that lie within their fragmented networks, decentralized, inconsistent configurations and change management processes, unsafe cloud, and network configurations. Gidi joins me on the podcast and talks about why it's important to understand exposure vs. exploitability on vulnerabilities. We also attempt to demystify security complexity and talk about what is currently keeping CISO's awake at night. Gidi also shares his origin story and how he married his passions of math, analytics, technology, and cybersecurity to create Skybox. But even as founder and CEO, how he stills rolls up his sleeves to code.

AllianceBlock is building the first globally compliant decentralized capital market. The AllianceBlock Protocol is a decentralized, blockchain-agnostic layer 2 that automates the process of converting any digital or crypto asset into a bankable product. Incubated by three of Europe's most prestigious incubators: Station F, L39, and Kickstart Innovation in Zurich. It is led by a heavily experienced team of ex-JP Morgan, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs investment bankers, and quants, AllianceBlock is on the path to disrupt the $100 trillion securities market with its state-of-the-art and globally compliant decentralized capital market. The first globally compliant decentralized capital market, recently announced that it secured funding under the $100M accelerator fund set up to boost the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem, the latest in a series of announcements made in the past week. It's been a huge few weeks for the DeFi powerhouse, which continues to cement its position within the burgeoning DeFi industry. Rachid Ajaja, CEO and Co-founder of AllianceBlock, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share his grand vision for AllianceBlock.

Ransomware threats are snowballing. Time and again we have witnessed that a ransomware attack on a single endpoint brings down the enterprise infrastructure just in a few seconds. Despite the hype around cybersecurity, there aren't credible solutions available to addresses the most fundamental reasons behind the majority of the cyber breaches – shared VLANs; excessive access granted by traditional firewalls/ VPNs; and legacy protocols over unpatched systems. While there are many security companies trying to prevent ransomware from getting into your network, Airgap's "Zero Trust Isolation Platform" is protecting organizations even if their perimeter is breached or if they have unpatched vulnerable servers inside their data center. Airgap's "Ransomware Kill Switch" is a potent ransomware response for the IT organization. Airgap can be deployed in minutes without any agents, forklift upgrades, or design changes. Ritesh Agrawal, CEO, Airgap, returns to the Tech Talks Daily podcast to talk about Ransomware trends. We discuss how to protect against business disruption caused by ransomware attacks that often cripple organizations.

Liav Chen, CEO and Co-Founder of Humanz joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to talk about the AI-based influencer marketing platform with a twist. Over the years, advertising has migrated towards social media marketing, and today more than ever before, marketing tactics rely heavily on influencer endorsement and vise versa. Currently, this model suffers from influencer fatigue, and both marketers and influencers lack the ability to trust the data. There seems to be a river of 'dirty money' flowing from buying fake followers, having bots engaged with content, and more. Platforms like Humanz were created to make sure authenticity and real value are being measured and presented as part of any potential collaboration. Using Humanz's unique technology, based on two main sets of proprietary algorithms and big data analysis, influencer marketing's largest problems face a reckoning. It's a new level of targeting that taps micro-influencers, a vastly underutilized resource in the marketing sphere. Before co-founding Humanz, Liav spent five years serving in the highly esteemed Israeli Intelligence Unit 8200. This is where he gained extensive experience in DevOps, big data, and machine learning. Chen identified multiple shortcomings in influencer marketing and created the Humanz platform to fix what is broken. Chen built the platform to provide a total scope of data on a content creator's account and its following, allowing for better collaborations, better ads, and greater success with reaching an audience. Liav discusses how influencer marketing became the new billboard and how Humanz mediates existing flaws and uses AI and big data to do so.

Michael O'Hara, Group Managing Director of specialist IT distributor DataSolutions, joins me on the Tech Talks podcast. The company appeared on my radar when they recently announced that they are aiming to become the world's first carbon-neutral IT distributor by the end of 2022. As well as implementing measures to improve its own sustainability, the organization has also launched a "Techies Go Green" community to encourage and support partners and other businesses in doing the same. Michael discusses his ambitious growth plans for DataSolutions and talks about his decision to expand from Ireland into the UK market back in 2016 on the cusp of Brexit and how he has successfully built up the UK arm of the business over the last four years. In fact, the organization was recently awarded the title of Distributor of the Year at the Network Computing Awards 2020, showcasing its increasing influence and growth. Michael also provides insights into how the business has adapted throughout the pandemic and supports organisations in doing the same through its innovative mobility and security offerings, which have become vital for many companies over the last 12 months. 2020 research by DataSolutions revealed just how crucial such technologies are for both now and going forward, with a third of office workers admitting they would quit if home-working weren't supported.

CloudSphere helps organizations simplify cloud management by automating governance, minimizing security risks, and managing costs from a single platform. Keith Neilson, Technical Evangelist for the company, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. The IDC forecasts worldwide spending on cloud services will surpass $1 trillion in 2024. Keith shares why securing and governing multi-cloud environments is a top IT challenge facing enterprises as cloud adoption accelerates amid the pandemic. I learn how this challenge has driven demand for CloudSphere's solution, which helps organizations simplify cloud management/avoid costly breaches. We also discuss the immense cloud governance gaps enterprises experience that ultimately leaves sensitive data vulnerable to breaches. Keith shares how CloudSphere recently released research which found that 32% of enterprises experienced unauthorized access to cloud resources, and another 19% were unaware if unauthorized access occurred. Keith also discusses why having visibility into which users have access to data and resources is increasingly difficult due to the complex nature of cloud environments and best practices for enterprises to manage cloud access rights.

Ken Fine is the new CEO of Heap, the leading analytics platform helping product, marketing, and customer success teams craft exceptional digital experiences that convert and retain users. Grabbing hold on a company that's outperformed on ARR expectations in the last year and raised $191.1M over nine funding rounds, he's fully prepared to propel Heap even further ahead. And, he's got some friends in high – and unconventional – places to thank. I wanted to learn more about Ken's story and how he was influenced by his time in the Navy as an engineer designing and constructing submarine propulsion systems. Here in 2021, Ken shares his vision for the future of Heap, building on his 20 years of experience leading growth-stage B2B SaaS companies. Ken discusses the crucial importance of companies investing in data systems – especially when looking to scale. He also shares more about the principles he lives by and how those will manifest in Heap's product offerings, in turn guiding him in cementing the company's position as the go-to analytics provider.

Rich Waldron is CEO and co-founder of Tray.io. He believes strongly in democratizing the use of software and data for anyone – not just for engineers. He helped create Tray.io to lead the low-code general automation movement so that any business user can have the power to integrate their tech stack and automate mission-critical business processes by themselves. About Tray.io The Tray.io General Automation Platform democratizes automation and integration so anyone can easily turn their unique business processes into repeatable and scalable workflows that evolve whenever business needs change. Unlike iPaaS solutions, which are expensive, complex, and code-intensive, Tray.io's flexible self-service platform makes it simple to build integrations using any API and connect enterprise applications at scale without incremental costs. Process innovation is today's competitive advantage since companies can no longer differentiate on their tech stack alone. The promise of SaaS led to an avalanche of siloed point solutions that require businesses to force their processes into rigid, predetermined schema. The Tray Platform removes these limitations, empowering both non-technical and technical users to create sophisticated workflow automations that streamline data movement and actions across multiple applications. Freed from tedious and repetitive tasks, citizen automators, product leaders, and IT are able to uplevel their skill set with automation to unlock their full potential and do things in a way that's right for their business. Teams at leading companies including FICO, New Relic, Segment, and Udemy bring the future of work to life using Tray.io's solutions. Their motto is simply, Love your work. Automate the rest.™

When watching the latest summer blockbuster movie, you might think that the industry is at the cutting edge of technology. But behind the curtain, Hollywood is actually clunky and slow to change, and nowhere is this more evident than in the IP acquisition process. Around 50% of all entertainment is based on existing IP (novels, articles, biographies, memoirs, etc.)—this number is closer to 80% in television. Yet, the process of finding and buying the rights is analog and outdated—a person would have to find the source, spend weeks or months identifying the various rights holders, then negotiating the option rights. With Every network launching a streaming service, there is a voracious appetite for new content. 700+ new shows launched last year. But did you know, in order to launch even one show, it typically takes 80+ story ideas at the top of the funnel? Cue Story Scout—an online marketplace that curates IP, pre-negotiates all the rights, and allows studios and independent producers to find and option ideas with the click of a button. StoryScout is an immediate marketplace. They do all the finding of cool stories, clear the rights, represent everything and negotiate the deal. Think of it as an Amazon for cool ideas. Current subscribers include Sony Television, New Line, and Range Media, with sights set on deals with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Warner Bros, NBC, Paramount, HBO, Fox, Sony Pictures, Snap, and CBS. Todd Hoffman, CEO of StoryScout, shares how this kind of tech is hyper-focused for Hollywood's needs. Hoffman and his colleagues all come from Hollywood and know what studios are looking for, from super-specific tagging (E.g., Stories set in "Latin America" that are "family-friendly" and "quirky" and are about "divorce") to film/TV-worthy stories. They're engineering machine learning tools to help them filter the most interesting, relevant ideas, too.

Daniel Gold is the co-founding partner of Future Energy Solutions. A serial entrepreneur obsessed with helping customers solve their pain points. He's transformed FES from a Florida lighting startup into an industry disrupter and global operation. FES has multi-billion dollar financial backing and has generated over $200M in energy savings for thousands of customers, including Hilton, Ford, Burger King, Taco Bell, Best Western, and Chevrolet. But where did it all begin? I sit down with Daniel in a relaxed conversation where he shares his inspiring startup story. I also learn how he created the "Gold Initiative" which offers businesses a complete LED Lighting Installation at no up-front cost, 15 years of free maintenance, no credit agreement, and no catch. Daniel shares how he knew business owners and managers are cash-strapped, and that's why he's endowed FES with the offer of a cost-free way for them to make major capital improvements, save money over time and become more sustainable. Here in 2021, FES is an international player in the LED lighting space. Daniel has been recognized by Forbes, Inc, and Fortune and honored by Florida Business Journal for 'Business of the Year.' But it's Daniel's inspiring story that will stay with you long after the end of this podcast episode.

Dr Mark van Rijmenam is the founder of Datafloq and Mavin. Datafloq is the one-stop source for emerging tech, offering C-level Executives information, insights, knowledge, and opportunities to drive innovation with data. The international keynote speaker is also the author of 3 best-selling management books. I wanted to learn more about his mission to educate people and organizations about how the future of work will revolve around data, decentralization, and automation. In doing so, they could gain a deep understanding of emerging technologies, including big data, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, and how they will change the future of work. We live in exponential times and simply having a digital strategy focused on continuous innovation is no longer enough to thrive in a constantly changing world. Van Rijmenam discusses how big data, blockchain, and AI will change collaboration and enable a networked society. The organization of tomorrow will look fundamentally different than today's organization. Those enterprises aware of the upcoming changes can best prepare and achieve competitive advantage in a data-driven society. Consequently, the future of work will require management and employees to take a different approach to create and deliver a product or service. The future of work will be defined by three concepts: data, decentralization, and automation that will radically change leadership, culture, privacy, and security. Van Rijmenam shares valuable insights around the future of work and how to build a competitive business.

Plivo provides easy and affordable APIs for businesses to develop powerful voice and messaging applications. Applications built over Plivo seamlessly integrate across web and telephony, including Mobile, PSTN, VoIP, and Gtalk. But where did it all begin? Venky B shares the story behind Plivo and how they serve thousands of innovative businesses in more than 190 countries, such as IBM, GoDaddy, PagerDuty, Deckers Brand, etc., through SMS and Voice APIs. I learn more about how the company's founders all met over GitHub, and the team signed its first paying customers before they had a commercial offering. Venky recommends launching early, iterate with few anchor customers to build a product marketing fit, and charge as early as you can. For startup founders, Venky B offers the following advice. Debt Funding: This was a no-brainer for Plivo, and other companies should consider this route as there is no dilution and helps with short-term investments. Entrepreneurship: Venky has guided the company to hold out from taking money and being trapped. This route is less taken, and Venky shares the benefits that he has seen thus far from this strategy. Recruiting: In the early days of your company, find passionate early employees who thrive in an unstructured environment. Additionally, hire generalists early and then form more specialized teams as you scale. Growth: The first step is finding a product-market fit with repeatability, focusing on making a few customers happy, and keeping an eye on churn. Global Expansion: Whenever financially feasible, build a local go-to-market team and engage customer teams to create passionate customers.

Anker Innovations, a global leader in mobile charging and consumer electronics, recently announced two products under the AnkerWork product line, including the PowerConf C300, Smart AI-enabled HD webcam, and the PowerConf S500 Portable Conference Speaker. For many, working from home has been a dream come true, but it also brings its unique challenges; distracting pets, family, poor lighting, and power and cable management issues, to name a few. AnkerWork products have been designed to help address many of these issues, while providing portable solutions and can be easily used in the home, the office, and on the road. Adam Weissman joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss Anker's decision to enter the B2B tech space at this moment in time, along with his vision of how the future of work will center on flexibility and mobility. We also talk about where the hybrid work model is heading, how future AnkerWork product offerings will be equipped to address the future of work, and what AI technology can play a stronger role in the new age of work.

O2 and Virgin have almost 40 million customers between them, so it will be a huge challenge to bring their records into one platform. Of course M&As have become increasingly common in the telco industry in recent years, and tongues continue to wag about potential activity involving both BT and Nokia over the next few months. Data solutions provider Sagacity work with leading telcos, so I invited Harry Dougall, CFO and founding partner at on the podcast to discuss the typical challenges companies face when merging. We explore some of the mammoth data tasks that could make or break M&As, such as joining all the data together in a unified format. A merger of this scale often takes years, especially if customer information is spread across siloed departments. We talk about the importance of checking for accuracy and records that need to be merged (if somebody was a customer of both organizations). We also discuss how making decisions about which packages are appropriate for which type of customer, where they could be cross-selling services, and identify the most valuable customers to focus on retaining them.

Several years ago, Liberty Mutual developed a "Technology Manifesto," a six-page document that explained where they were going and what needed to change as part of their transformation journey. It laid out the tools needed to compete in the marketplace and a picture around the types of technology skills employees needed for roles in the future. Eric Drobisewski is the Senior Architect of Fortune 100, Liberty Mutual Insurance. Eric has more than 20 years of enterprise IT experience spanning many technology verticals, including Telecom, Network, and Cloud services. As a Senior Architect, he's responsible for more than 40,000 systems across the globe in a highly virtualized environment with a goal of modernizing a significant portion of those workloads for public cloud platforms. Over the past several years, Eric's focus has been on Liberty Mutual's enterprise cloud strategy, strategic enablement, DevSecOps and Infrastructure as Code practices, and driving containerization as the company's core compute fabric. With the mass shift to remote work, we talk about the technologies that enabled Liberty Mutual's 50,000 global employees to succeed and various areas of technology the company is continuing to expand to this year. I also learn how they are aiming to fully pivot to the cloud and reduce their three owned data centers to a single one, with aspirations to get to zero in the future.

Slater Victoroff is the Founder and CTO of Indico. An enterprise AI solution for unstructured content that emphasizes document understanding. Slater has been building machine learning solutions for startups, governments, and Fortune 100 companies for the past seven years and is a frequent speaker at AI conferences. Indico's framework requires 1000x less data than traditional machine learning techniques, and they regularly beat the likes of AWS, Google, Microsoft, and IBM in head-to-head bake-offs. Indico recently announced a $22 million Series B raise. Slater has been building AI, machine learning and deep learning solutions for the enterprise for the better part of the past decade, having worked with everyone from the federal government to two-person startups to the Fortune 100. He has also educated hundreds of business users on successfully implementing deep learning through a simple framework that helps executives rapidly accelerate the adoption of the technology in their businesses. We talk about The future of AI / Machine Learning, the effect of AI on automation processes, and making STEM more inclusive.

Calvin Brown is a tech founder with experience managing global teams and multi-million dollar software deliverables. His software architecture background, coding capabilities, and keen understanding of the entire process help inform his mindful but competitive approach. Calvin is fueled by his passion for understanding the nuances of the technical challenges businesses face across all industries. He considers himself a 'forever student,' eager to build on his hands-on technical foundation by architecting, building, and teaching others how to master the art of making complex technical issues solvable. Calvin has developed applications for some of the world's largest brands. What makes him unique is his dedication to educating entrepreneurs and other tech professionals on how to create the software that we all know and love. The tech group that he created for black coders, Black Men Code, has now grown to over 1,000 professionals. His many publications have aided him in his mission to spread knowledge, educate entrepreneurs and empower them to solve their own technical issues. Calvin shares how he helps businesses solve problems and run better by providing software-based solutions with an emphasis on innovation, creativity, and common-sense solutions. We discuss the importance of creating space for minorities within the tech industry, and Calvin shares his journey from a lower-middle-class Mississippi home to global tech success. We also talk about how to bring your application dream into reality and explore the future of tech.

Dinesh Malkani is Founder and CEO of Smarten Spaces. His company provides an AI-based technology platform/solutions to transition back to the workplace safely and securely. Smarten Spaces is working with Fortune 500 companies across 50+ cities globally. In today's episode, we talk about hybrid working, back-to-work technology, and the future of the workplace. About Smarten Spaces People spend a significant time inside buildings, and they thrive when these spaces are convenient and intuitive. At Smarten Spaces, their vision is to transform all spaces where people spend time, and they do so by designing technology that keeps human behavior and experience in mind. The company dreams of enabling future-ready spaces that help users optimize for the most value. Our tech solutions allow users to make informed financial decisions based on how their spaces are being utilized while also enhancing the experience of those that interact with the spaces. Better business, better experience. They believe that technology should be seamless. That's why their configurable solutions are designed for your convenience when planning for and interacting with the spaces of the future. With offerings across workplace management, space management, and tenant engagement, they are currently smartening 90 million square feet globally (and counting).