The ITPro Podcast

It’s been over a year since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and for those in the tech sector cyber warfare has defined the conflict. Ukrainian organisations, both public and private, have been subject to attacks including wiper malware, spear phishing, and data breaches.National cyber security agencies, as well as teams of security experts from throughout the field, remain on high alert for heightened Russian cyber activity. Understanding the strategies of these hackers, as well as their individual motivations, has been key to retaining the integrity of targeted systems.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Daniel Thanos, head of Arctic Wolf Labs, to discuss the current state-sponsored threat group landscape, and how the terms of the conflict have shifted over time.For more information, read the show notes here.

Metaverse tech has already attracted billions of pounds in investment, and despite its detractors looks set to play a major role in the future of communications and productivity tech. It was also one of the main themes at this year’s Mobile World Congress, where the concept of a CMO - that’s ‘chief metaverse officer’ - was discussed in detail.Companies like Journey, Nike, and Telefónica already have individuals with metaverse in their titles, but there is still a lot to be proved about the longevity of these roles. With metaverse tech still lacking definition in the minds of businesses and consumers alike, the impact that this new concept of a CMO will have on the industry as a whole.In this special episode, IT Pro reviews editor Bobby Hellard presents a report from MWC, covering the definition and responsibilities of a chief metaverse officer, and whether or not the role could have a vital role to play in the C-suite of the future.For more information, read the show notes here.

Open source software can be found in a huge number of businesses' stacks. Whether it’s to save on expensive software, to fix a problem that a devoted hobbyist has a solution for, or because of its lively developer community, open source solutions run throughout the tech sector.However, in recent years security concerns have damaged the perception of open source software and vulnerabilities like Log4Shell left some IT leaders with headaches they aren’t keen to repeat. As the market expands, some open source developers find themselves under more pressure than ever before and questions have been raised around the duty of larger firms to help support the community they rely on.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Keumars Afifi-Sabet, features editor at IT Pro and our specialist covering open source, to discuss the challenges facing the open source community and ask whether it will survive in its current form.For more information, read the show notes here.

The conversation around UK connectivity is often dominated by the rollout of 5G, or the race for widespread gigabit broadband. But many rural communities and businesses struggle with a lack of even basic connectivity such as reliable cellular service. This has severe consequences for rural businesses, holding back their growth while accelerating brain drain as younger people gravitate towards urban areas for education and employment.Some groups have taken measures into their own hands to ensure they receive the connectivity they need. In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Dave Happy, collaboration lead at 5GRuralDorset, to discuss the connection difficulties facing rural businesses and what is being done to help.For more information, read the show notes here.

Throughout the pandemic, companies across the world rushed to establish cloud services that could prop up the need for remote working. But in recent months, word of a “cloud slowdown” has been building, with some of the biggest vendors experiencing a drop in the growth of their cloud sales.In the third quarter of 2022, AWS reported the slowest growth in its history, while Google’s growth was down almost 10% on the previous year.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Ross Kelly, IT Pro’s cloud specialist and staff writer to discuss what’s behind the cloud slowdown – and whether it’s even happening.For more information, read the show notes here.

Old technology stacks can be found throughout the sector, especially in companies that have been around for more than a few years. While most firms have undergone digital transformation of some kind, shedding legacy tech is no easy job and can lead people to take the path of least resistance, using a mix of old and new tech across their IT estate.This can lead to big issues down the line. A recent example is the outage that led to thousands of flights being cancelled and delayed across the United States, which the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) blamed on accidental file deletion while updating a database. The authority is heavily-reliant on old systems, and has said it will take until 2029 to phase them out.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Ravi Mayuram, SVP of engineering and CTO at cloud database platform Couchbase, to discuss the challenges presented by legacy infrastructure, and why enterprises need to take the opportunity to upgrade before problems become entrenched.For more information, read the show notes here.

IT departments, which have long faced difficulties trying to recruit skilled talent, are now facing an additional challenge as many businesses put a freeze on hiring in the face of economic instability and look to use existing resources as efficiently as possible. With this goal in mind, it’s important to enable employees to be productive, while not leaving them overworked.Improperly organised work stacks, insufficient collaboration and a failure to adapt to changing work environments are all factors that can negatively impact productivity, and must be tackled from the planning stage to allow workplaces to thrive.In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Christian Lund, co-founder at productivity tech firm Templafy, to unpack concerns around productivity in the current landscape and how automation and AI can help to solve these problems.For more information, read the show notes here.

Application programming interfaces, or APIs, have become an integral part of maintaining an online business, and are often indispensable for cross-functionality and user experience.However, the increased use of APIs has led to a rise in attacks against them. This can in turn cause breaches of company data or even full account takeovers. Improperly-managed APIs are a key attack surface and firms would do well to treat this seriously as threat actors step up their efforts at exploitation.Today, we spoke to Yaniv Balmas, VP of security research at Salt Security, to discuss the risks that come with using APIs and how to mitigate against them.For more information, read the show notes here.

As we enter what is set to be a long recession businesses are looking to manage and reduce costs, and IT departments will be forced to budget where possible. More than ever, IT leaders are evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of serverless architecture, the best payment models for their business, and the risks associated with vendor lock-in amidst uncertain financial conditions.This week, we spoke to Tom Fairbairn, distinguished engineer at event broker Solace, to explore when serverless and low-code solutions might be right for a business, and how the recession could be an opportunity for meaningful digital transformation.For more information, read the show notes here.

Large companies are relying on online learning more and more, to improve the career goals of their employees, and upskilling can be an important way of retaining staff while adding to existing expertise.But the public sector has lagged behind the private sector on this front, and is currently experiencing record churn and vacancies. 410,000 staff quit social care in 2021, and care roles around the country are now short of approximately 165,000 staff.This week, we spoke to Hadi Moussa, general manager and managing director for EMEA at one of the largest online learning platforms, Coursera, to unpack how virtual upskilling courses can help improve staff retention in social care, as well as the prospects of roles within the sector.For more information, read the show notes here.

Passwords can be tricky at the best of times. Proper password hygiene is one of the most important factors in endpoint security, as it keeps sensitive data secure and prevents threat actors from getting into important systems. Despite the risks, the use of weak or recycled passwords continues to be a problem even amongst IT professionals and remembering too many unique passwords is a strain. While systems such as multi-factor authentication have been used as an extra layer of security, groups like the FIDO Alliance and World Wide Web Consortium have been working to make passwords a thing of the past, in favour of more secure methods.This week, we spoke to Richard Meeus, EMEA director of security & technology strategy for Akamai Technologies, to explore the solutions driving secure sign ons, and how the sector can adapt to this change.For more information, read the show notes here.

In today's festive edition of the podcast, Jane and Rory discuss a few key trends happening right now that could influence 2023. With Twitter undergoing constant change, and other firms such as Meta and TikTok facing regulatory battles, current conversations around the upheaval of social media could play a major role in the coming year. Together with the recession into which the UK has fallen, and the rise of generative AI like ChatGPT, these emerging trends from 2022 will continue to dominate headlines and drive discussion among IT professionals in the new year and beyond.For more information, read the show notes here.

In today's festive edition of the podcast, Jane and Rory discuss three things that were predicted to happen during the course of 2022, but never did.The metaverse making sense, Russian threat actors winning against Ukraine and other nations, and the 'bonfire' of EU regulations were all promised or anticipated, but none came to pass. We ask what has happened instead, and question why things turned out the way they did.For more information, read the show notes here.

In a sector of changing priorities, cyber security remains at the top of the list in any boardroom. With the threat landscape presenting challenges old and new, and the increasing risk of entities such as state-sponsored hacking, it is essential that businesses carefully craft their cyber security strategy to keep ahead of the next big attack.The speed that threats evolve now demands real-time action from companies, who must maintain oversight of their assets and maintain as many assets as possible against vulnerabilities such as Log4Shell.This week, we spoke to Bernard Montel, technical director EMEA at exposure management firm Tenable, to discuss how businesses can tackle their threat surface area, and the biggest risks.For more information, read the show notes here.

Hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure has become such an important aspect of digital transformation, but it brings its own potential risks. It’s important that businesses maintain a macro view of their environment, with centralised dashboards proposed as an option to provide adequate observability to security teams.With the increasing pressures of data sovereignty, and concerns surrounding lateral security, it’s more important than ever that siloed teams are brought together under clear security strategies in order to keep infrastructure safe.This week, we spoke to Stanimir Markov, CEO and co-founder of risk remediation and mitigation provider Runecast, about the state of cloud security, some of the biggest challenges right now, and what’s next for the sector.For more information, read the show notes here.

5G holds major potential for businesses, from improved speeds and the technology it enables such as the Internet of Things. But to unlock its true potential, and lay the groundwork for 6G, a number of new technologies have to be tapped. To grasp opportunities like open RAN, network slicing, and private network environments, radical overhaul is necessary, to drive both innovation and revenue growth. Networking has never been more important across every aspect of life, and telcos hold a unique opportunity to win tomorrow with the right infrastructure investments today.This week, we spoke to Manish Vyas, President, Communications, Media & Entertainment and CEO, Network Services at Tech Mahindra, to outline the future of the telecommunications industry, 5G/6G, and the opportunities provided by leading edge methodology.For more information, read the show notes here.

Ten years ago, identity fraud typically meant people manually forging, but today’s threat actors work with purely-digital fakes with an increasingly-advanced toolset including ‘deepfakes’ that work even on live video feeds. At the same time, Twitter advertisers have seen billions wiped off their market caps as the platform struggles with its ID verification. On top of the growing scale of digital fraudsters, a surprising amount of businesses are willing to let a small amount of fraud occur. Companies need to carefully plan how to avoid fraud, but more importantly learn from the experience of falling victim to scams.This week, we spoke to Mike Tuchen, CEO of identity tech firm Onfido, to discuss the current threat landscape, how the tech sector can match threatening tech with detection systems, and best practice going forward.For more information, read the show notes here.

Metaverse technology: although it still hasn’t found its feet, it’s the headline-grabbing area of development that has seen massive investment in just the past few years. Meta has spent over $15 billion on the tech through its Reality Labs division, and Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, and more have all begun development using variations on metaverse tech.But like any new technology, metaverse tech will also usher in new security risks, from innovative threat actors and existing vulnerabilities inherited by building this new frontier on legacy architecture.This week, we spoke to Rick McElroy, Principal Cyber Security Strategist at VMware, about the opportunities and challenges metaverse tech, and what we can do while it’s still in its infancy.For more information, read the show notes here.

Automation has been widely adopted across the sector, and firms have repeatedly applied it to laborious tasks such as document handling. Using machine learning and AI, a great number of documents can be processed, and decisions made without the need for painstaking human input. But automation in the legal space requires careful thought, as contracts can be very complex and often require a human touch — here, a hybrid approach is needed.This week, we spoke to Rich Somerfield, CTO at Summize, to explore the opportunity of automated workflows, and the demands of the legal sector when it comes to implementing tech of this kind.For more information, read the show notes here.

Procurement has long been treated as a ticketing problem, with check boxes to fill and suppliers to onboard according to regulation. But with increasingly sophisticated automation systems, and a growing need for exact partner agreements amidst global supply chain issues, companies could do well to rethink their linear approach to procurement.This week we talked to Sudhir Bhojwani and Lalitha Rajagopalan, co-founders of supplier engagement platform ORO Labs, about its ‘smart’ procurement strategy, and the place that automation has within the procurement workflow.For more information, visit:https://www.itpro.com/business-operations/logistics/369462/the-it-pro-podcast-how-can-we-make-procurement-smart

Facing the triple threat of supply issues, tough economic headwinds, and the climate crisis it’s vital that the supply chain can run at low cost, and with as little carbon footprint as possible. Implementation of smart ports using the internet of things and 5G could hold the answer.Using fast local networks, smart port tech can track crane movement, metrics such as operational speed and maintenance needs, and the location of resources in near real-time to provide valuable operational data. This week, we’re joined by Andrew Quinton, Senior Manager/Principal Architect of 5G solutions at BT to discuss all things smart ports and expand on the benefits already demonstrated in active port environments.For more information, visit:https://www.itpro.com/network-internet/internet-of-things-iot/369425/the-it-pro-podcast-the-power-of-smart-ports

Spurred on by the pandemic, digital transformation has become a core business aim for many companies both in and out of the tech sector. When it comes to handling data on a massive scale, especially when such data is sensitive, compliance is key. The insights from data analysis can be priceless for business growth, but require careful strategy in order to be properly implemented.This week, we talk to Nicola Wadham, Chief Information Officer at the Financial Ombudsman Service, about the specific digital transformation work she’s been leading, and the importance of properly streamlining data flow.For more information, visit:https://www.itpro.com/business/business-strategy/369364/the-it-pro-podcast-accelerating-digital-transformation

Fibre rollout appears to be going well, with the majority of UK homes and businesses able to access gigabit-capable broadband. But there is still much confusion around what exactly terms like ‘full fibre’ mean, and adoption still lags behind international partners even as businesses turn to greater bandwidths than ever before to undergo digital transformation.Moreover, many rural businesses aren’t being catered to by large network providers, and as they remain on copper lines, wonder if alternative providers might hold the keys to connectivity. This week, we talk to David Tomalin, Group Chief Technology Officer at CityFibre, to discuss the UK’s broadband infrastructure and what businesses can look to gain from the network in the near future.For more information, visit:https://www.itpro.com/infrastructure/network-internet/369324/the-it-pro-podcast-the-road-to-10gb-broadband

Businesses are rapidly having to contend with responding to the climate crisis, and the tech industry is set to become one of the biggest contributors to energy drain by the end of the decade. It is clear that sustainable software options are a goal, but many firms are reluctant to adopt lower-carbon systems out of concern for loss of power.Joining us this week is Behrad Babaee, Technology Evangelist at Aerospike, to talk about his proposals for a universal metric with which to measure the carbon output of software, and how it is possible to cut cost, latency and carbon emissions at the same time.Head to http://bit.ly/3rCN6Pn for more information.

Technology plays a vital role in helping government and public sector organisations respond to challenges and deliver services to the public, and in increased use of digital tools can unlock new capabilities and efficiencies. One somewhat unique example of this is the Welsh government, which must meet certain standards to ensure that the Welsh language is treated equally to English.As well as providing Welsh-language options in its apps and services, this also includes supporting Welsh speakers in meetings, and the Welsh government has been working with Microsoft on the ability to include live translation in Teams calls via human interpreters. Joining us this week to discuss the opportunities this provides for bilingual organisations, as well as how the Welsh government is using technology to enable its digital strategy, is Glyn Jones, Chief Digital Officer for the Welsh Government.Head to https://bit.ly/ITPP-bilingual for more information.

The technological arsenal available to cyber criminals is already enough to give any security professional nightmares, but there’s another emerging threat on the horizon that may keep them up at night: bio-augmented hackers. Implantable chips and other modifications are growing in capability and sophistication, and there are a variety of creative ways that attackers can use them to carry out both physical and device-based attacks - This is made all the more concerning by the fact that these implants are all but impossible to detect. This week, we’re joined by CyberArk technical evangelist, white hat hacker and self-described transhumanist Len Noe to find out what kind of augmentations cyber criminals currently have access to, how can they be used in intrusions, and why the industry needs to start preparing for their implementation now - as well as some of the positive uses that this technology can be put to.For more information on these topics, visit https://bit.ly/ITPP-cyborg.

The global energy market is currently experiencing some extreme turmoil, with low availability resulting in steep price increases. The turbulence is particularly pronounced in the UK, where spiralling power bills are raising concerns for both consumers and businesses alike over whether or not they’ll be able to afford them. The IT industry isn’t exempt from these challenges; in fact, thanks to the extreme power usage that data centre infrastructure requires, the risk of further price rises should be extremely worrying for cloud service providers, as well as the end customers that rely on those services. This week, we talk to Tiny Haynes, Senior Director of Research at Gartner, about what the current energy crisis could mean for the UK’s data centre ecosystem, the risk of potential outages, and how organisations can insulate themselves from some of the potential damage.Head over to https://bit.ly/ITPP-energy for more information on these topics.

Phishing remains one of the oldest and most persistent attack methods for hackers trying to break into an organisation, and potential targets continue to use simulated phishing attacks as one of the primary ways to ensure their staff are ready to defend against it. However, these spoof attacks aren’t always well-recieved, and employees can frequently feel unfairly trapped or caught out by these tests. Appearing on this week’s podcast to discuss why phishing simulations are often so poorly received, the value that they offer as part of a wider security strategy and how organisations can deploy them more effectively is Paul Watts, ex-CISO, former IT Pro Panellist, and distinguished analyst for the Information Security Forum.Check out https://bit.ly/3RKD0UB for more details.

Five years ago, the security world was rocked by one of the most sudden and widespread ransomware outbreaks in history. Even now, organisations are still recovering from the damage done by WannaCry, and its shadow still looms large over the industry.While ransomware has remained a major threat for organisations over the last half-decade, we haven’t seen anything as globally impactful as WannaCry since then - so what (if anything) has the industry learned from the incident, and are we likely to see anything on a similar scale again? IEEE senior member and professor of cybersecurity at Ulster University Kevin Curran joins us this week to talk about the legacy of WannaCry.Visit https://bit.ly/ITPP-wannacry for more information on this subject.

The tech industry has been forced to weather more than its fair share of storms over the past few years, but one of the most troublesome to navigate has been the ongoing issues in the semiconductor supply chain. The situation has resulted in delays, shortages and missed revenue targets for companies across a range of industries, and has prompted government intervention across the globe.There are a number of factors behind the disruptions to the chip supply chain, and although measures are being taken to mitigate their impact, the crunch is set to continue. We’re joined on this week’s podcast by Ondrej Burkacky, Senior Partner at McKinsey’s semiconductor practice, to explain some of the reasons behind the crisis, as well as what’s being done to resolve the situation.Check out https://bit.ly/ITPP-chips for more information on the subjects discussed in this episode.

There is a vast universe of threats facing modern businesses, from opportunistic lone hackers and organised criminal gangs, to state-backed intelligence units working for nations such as Russia and China. Attempting to divine which of these groups is behind a given cyber attack has almost become an industry in and of itself, with numerous tools being leveraged by analysts and researchers to assign blame.But is there any actual value for businesses in knowing exactly which individuals are responsible for cyber crimes targeting them? Outside of law enforcement organisations attempting to bring the perpetrators to justice, what do we gain from the process of cyber threat attribution? We’re joined this week by Don Smith, Vice President of SecureWorks' counter-threat intelligence unit, to learn more about the clues that can inform attribution, and whether or not CISOs and security professionals need to worry about it in the first place.Check out https://bit.ly/ITPP-attribution for more information on all the topics we've mentioned in this week's episode.

AI is increasingly working its way into organisations’ main IT environments, and as a cutting-edge field that relies heavily on technology infrastructure to run effectively, you might assume that IT would be enthusiastic supporters - but this isn’t always the case.In fact, far from being bosom buddies, in many instances IT and AI practitioners can find themselves locked in turf wars and disputes over support and resourcing. In this episode of the IT Pro Podcast, we sit down with Nvidia’s director of technical product marketing Luke Wignall, to discuss some of the root causes of these conflicts, and how the two groups can learn to play nicely together.For more information on everything discussed in this episode, head to https://bit.ly/ITPP-coexist.

Collaboration is a fundamental part of success in modern business, but while most (although not all) businesses are well-versed in the ways of collaborating within their teams, not all organisations are as confident when it comes to sharing knowledge and ideas with their peers in other organisations.One group that has absolutely nailed this, however, is developers and IT professionals. These workers have a long history of collective problem-solving and cooperation, enabled by tools like StackOverflow. In this week’s episode, we’re joined by StackOverflow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar to find out what exactly makes devs so open to working together - and what other areas of the business can learn from their example to improve their own collaboration practices.Head to https://bit.ly/ITPP-dev-collab to find out more about the topics discussed in this episode.

Five years can be a very long time in the world of technology, and looking back the changes to our hardware over that period can be stark. In this podcast, presented in association with Dell Technologies, we will compare new laptops to those we were using half a decade before, exploring the development in functionality, speed, battery life and more, and how those are supporting and enabling the way businesses operate today and tomorrow.

If you want to share your thoughts on how we can improve the IT Pro Podcast, please head over to https://bit.ly/ITPPsurvey to fill out our short survey form. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in a few weeks.

Singapore’s dominance in the data centre market, helped in no small part by the country’s keen investment in technology, is undeniable. But, for one of the smallest countries in the world, what are the ramifications of such a large investment and what can businesses learn from Singapore’s approach to tech?This week, Adam Shepherd is joined by IT Pro Staff Writer and our resident APAC specialist Zach Marzouk, who explains exactly why Singapore is such an interesting case study for national tech strategies and what’s next for the ambitious country.

Running a small business has always been a demanding task, but recent circumstances - from the coronavirus pandemic to the advent of Brexit - have come together to make it more challenging than ever before. An increasing number of SMBs, however, are turning to technologies such as cloud and AI to help address these issues.This week, we’re joined by Aaron Harris, CTO for UK-based cloud financial software firm Sage, to talk about the state of the UK’s small-business market, the role technology plays in keeping it as resilient as possible, and how SMBs can make the most effective use of their IT.Head to https://bit.ly/ITPP-SMB for more information in the topics discussed in this episode.

Building an application from scratch isn’t exactly easy. Startups wishing to create a digital platform for their business will need to contend with technical recruitment, infrastructure choices and the numerous headaches inherent in the development process. However, even once your platform has been built, the struggle still isn’t over.As your business grows, your platform will need to scale too, and managing this process without reinventing your architecture from the ground up can be challenging. This week, we’re speaking to Avinash Gangadharan, CTO of car-sharing startup Turo, to find out more about the company’s approach to platform scaling, and how he addressed some of the challenges it presented.For more on these issues, head to https://bit.ly/ITPP-scale.

Technologies like IoT, AI and big data analytics have been forecast to have enormous impacts across a variety of sectors, and one industry that's particularly ripe for transformation is the manufacturing sector. With a huge amount of operational and IT complexity to manage, factories and supply chains can benefit from digitisation in a number of ways.The process of transforming a factory through digital technology is a complex one, with many moving parts, but the combination of modern cloud platforms and data-driven methodologies has enormous potential to enhance business efficiency. One organisation pursuing this efficiency is Apollo Tyres, and this week, we’re joined by Apollo’s chief digital officer Hizmy Hassen to discuss the company’s efforts, as well as the early results that it’s seen from the project.Check out https://bit.ly/ITPP-factory for more information on the topics discussed in this episode.

The spectre of so-called ‘planned obsolescence’ has been hovering around the tech industry for years, with quasi-conspiracy theories claiming that manufacturers intentionally cripple their own products after a certain period in order to coax customers into purchasing an upgrade. However, while the comparatively short lifespan of most tech products remains a bone of contention among users, this may be less sinister plot and more a natural result of the industry’s relentless pursuit of better specs and slimmer dimensions. This week, we’re looking at the factors affecting the lifespan of hardware, as well as what you can do to make your devices last that bit longer.Check out https://bit.ly/ITPP-Obsolescence for more information on the topics discussed in this episode.

The question of whether we need to go back to the office has a polarising one, and one of the main arguments for reopening traditional workspaces has been that some employees aren’t equipped for efficient or comfortable home working. Hybrid working isn’t going anywhere though, and just a few minor tweaks can make your home environment much more suitable for remote working.This week, we’re discussing our dream remote working setups, including our top tips for maximising the productivity of your space, essential items for working on the move, and whether employers should provide staff with additional equipment to enable home working.Head to https://bit.ly/ITPP-perfect for more information on the topics in this episode.

At this point, it should be clear that remote working is here to stay, but while we've all hopefully sorted out proper working spaces with all the laptops, keyboards, monitors and video conferencing equipment that we need to work effectively from home, one element that often gets overlooked is networking.With cloud and SaaS platforms becoming more vital than ever for modern business, a robust network infrastructure is now just as vital for the home as it is for the office. This week, we're talking to PC Pro associate editor and co-host of the PC Pro Podcast, Darien Graham-Smith, to find out how you can turbo-charge your home network connection, and why it's worth taking the time to audit your infrastructure. For more information on the topics covered in this week's episode, head to https://bit.ly/ITPP-supercharge

In the modern world, AI is everywhere, powering a variety of applications from enterprise business intelligence tools to sorting through photos of our pets. But as the technology becomes more and more widespread, concerns have been raised about the potential dangers that could be posed by unrestrained AI development. Calls have been intensifying from campaigners seeking guardrails on how AI systems are developed, and the kind of use-cases they’re applied to, with opponents arguing that legislation governing AI development would only stifle innovation. Joining us this week to discuss the feasibility of AI regulation, the need for AI codes of practice and the responsibility of organisations to ensure ethical development is Cindi Howson, chief data strategy officer for analytics software vendor ThoughtSpot.Head to https://bit.ly/ITPP-regs for more information on the topics covered in this week's episode.

Transforming a business isn’t an easy task at the best of times; organisational inertia, complicated project timelines and budgetary constraints are all among the obstacles that an incoming IT leader will have to deal with when trying to enact their vision. It’s even more challenging, however, when that business is still using technology that’s several decades out of date. This week, we’re talking to Rita Bullivant, director of IT and change for Melton Building Society, about her experiences with modernising a legacy organisation, the challenges involved in building a transformation programme from the ground up, and what to do with a business that still uses Lotus Notes.To find out more about the topics discussed in this episode, head to https://bit.ly/ITPP-ground.

The lucrative rewards of the tech industry are enticing a growing number of people into the industry, but while degrees in computer science and software engineering remain widely popular, there are many different ways to prove your credentials as a budding developer - and spending three to four years being taught the fundamentals in the classroom may not necessarily be the most effective.In fact, for those wanting to make a career for themselves as a developer, the best strategy may be to learn the basics and then get stuck in directly, either through an entry-level apprenticeship or by launching your own projects. We’re joined this week by Rob Zuber, CTO of DevOps provider CircleCI, to discuss the value of some of the less traditional routes into the industry, and the skills that set truly good developers apart.Head to https://bit.ly/ITPP-devs for more information.

MWC is back; after a few years in hibernation, the trade show has once again opened its doors to the mobile industry, with thousands of exhibitors and attendees flocking to Barcelona to check out the latest products and technologies. This year’s show saw everything from new laptops and smartphones, to developments in network infrastructure and wireless standards. Bobby Hellard and Sabina Weston join us this week to share some of the most interesting things they saw at the show, including Qualcomm’s first Wi-Fi 7 chip, a new all-in-one from Huawei, and a charger that can fill your phone up in just a few minutes.For more information on all the things we spoke about in this episode, check out https://bit.ly/ITPP-MWC22.

Climate change is one of the greatest threats that humanity faces, and it’s important for each of us to do what we can in fighting its impact. However, while pledging to use our cars less and turn off our appliances overnight is all very well, organisations and industries also need to enact policies to limit and manage their own carbon footprints.One of the biggest sources of energy consumption within the modern business world is data centres, estimated to contribute as much as the global air travel industry in terms of carbon emissions. Ongoing efforts are being made to reduce the environmental impact of data centres, though, and there are a number of ways in which organisations can ensure their data centres are as green as possible. We’re joined this week by Matt Pullen, executive vice president and managing director of data centre operator CyrusOne, to discuss some of these initiatives, as well as some top tips for reducing your data centre’s carbon footprint. For more information on these topics, head to https://bit.ly/ITPP-green.

When you’re working on a large-scale software development project - especially as part of a sizable enterprise business - it’s easy for the project’s original goals to become muddied over time. As the goalposts shift further and further from their starting point, timelines can slip and the efficiency of the project can be undermined. This kind of scope creep can be seriously damaging for organisations, but thankfully the software engineering community has been hard at work for years on strategies to help limit its spread within organisations. Returning to the podcast this week to discuss some of these strategies - as well as how scope creep can sometimes be beneficial - is Jess Cregg, developer advocate at LaunchDarkly.Check out https://bit.ly/ITPP-creep for more information.

It seems that in the world of modern IT, you can’t swing a cat-6 cable without hitting four or five cloud-based platforms that are trying to revolutionise business communication. Despite the rise of platforms like Slack, Teams, Zoom and more, however, emails remain by far the most widely-used method of professional communication.In this week’s episode, we take a look at why this comparatively ancient technology still persists so widely, as well as the advantages that it offers over newer platforms, and what inspiration they can take from it. For more details on everything we've spoken about in this episode, head over to https://bit.ly/ITPP-emails.

Ocado’s colourful delivery vans are a common sight on the streets of Britain, but what’s slightly less well-known is that the company’s deliveries are powered by some of the most cutting-edge technology in the retail and logistics sector, including advanced AI, robotics, and data analytics.Joining us for this week’s episode is James Donkin, CTO of Ocado Technology, to discuss how the company deploys microservices and cloud infrastructure to help its clients deliver faster and more accurate orders to their customers, as well as the impact that these technologies could have on the future of retail.Visit https://bit.ly/ITPP-market for more information on today's episode.