The Tech Blog Writer Podcast - Inspired Tech Startup Stories & Interviews With Tech Leaders, Entrepreneurs And Innovators

I recently discovered a company called Nykcel that develops an ML platform that allows anyone to develop and integrate ML functionality into their application quickly. So I invited Oscar Beijbom onto the podcast to learn more. He shares his story and some incredibly cool use cases that should give everyone listening to a little food for thought on the value this tech can offer. Oscar is the co-founder and ML lead at Nyckel. He has 20 years of experience shipping ML products for a wide range of products including self-driving cars, airbag bicycle helmets, coral reef monitoring, and microscopy. His academic work on deep learning has been cited over 5000 times and includes topics on object detection, domain transfer learning, and fine-grained visual categorization. We discuss how machine learning differs from artificial intelligence and how entrepreneurs can use machine learning to accelerate the growth of their companies. He also shares tips on how developers can improve the accuracy of their machine learning m

Many teams have been thrust into collaborating using video tools as hybrid working becomes the norm. But in a world of Zoom fatigue, how can you present yourself on video, and radiate energy, to garner the right attention? How can you create or host memorable live, virtual, or hybrid events? And what is the secret to building an emotional connection with your audience? Ronny Leber joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his insights and expertise. Ronny Leber is a world-renowned keynote speaker, TV host, stadium host, and legacy coach who has entertained millions of people, live, and worldwide at major sporting events, corporate events, and seminars. He loves to motivate his listeners, fill them with momentum, and provide magic moments that enhance team-building skills and peak performance. Ronny specializes in working with high-level individuals to create their legacy and multiply their impact by helping them build an emotional bridge to their audience and create raving fans. "The reason why I do, what I do is

Whether supporting new remote workforces, overhauling legacy systems and applications, or combatting ransomware and other cyberattacks, IT organizations face new and evolving challenges to their business and their data. Corporate data has never been more valuable or vulnerable, and data security and management is a C-level business problem, not just an IT problem. Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT) is on a mission to liberate business and IT professionals to do amazing things with their data by ensuring the fundamental integrity of their business. For 25 years, more than 100,000 organizations have relied on Commvault, and today, Metallic is accelerating customer adoption to modernize their environments as they look to SaaS for the future. Today's guest is David Ngo, who has been with Commvault for 24 years--his whole career. He shares his career trajectory and how he has seen the company change, such as launching a SaaS venture, Metallic, of which he is now CTO). We discuss how Metallic's conversations with customers a

As crypto trading becomes increasingly prevalent, so too does the opportunity to maximize returns using various technology-driven tactics. One such tactic is the concept of yield farming, the process of using decentralized finance (DeFi) to maximize returns. Brad Yasar is the CEO, and Co-Founder of EQIFI, a decentralized finance (DeFi) investment platform powered by a regulated bank. Brad joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share how he and his team have created the EQIFI Yield Aggregator, harnessing the power of DeFi to generate steady returns across a range of digital asset classes. EQIFI's Yield Aggregator optimizes users' returns across multiple protocols by automatically identifying the most attractive yields based on risk tolerance levels and investment criteria. As a result, EQIFI's Yield aggregator has achieved 70% APY, trumping alternative DeFi platforms like Nexo, which generates 12% APY for its users. Brad demystifies the technology and potential profitability associated with yield farming and why cry

Trusted by over 15 million users worldwide, Jotform's forms and a suite of no-code tools are flexible enough for small businesses and robust enough for enterprises. Jotform helps organizations go from busywork to less work with forms that use conditional logic, accept payments, generate reports, automate workflows, and more. Jotform's products make it easy for any team to streamline its processes with 10,000 templates, hundreds of integrations, and almost 400 widgets. Jotform's Steve Hartert joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to explore how business owners can take advantage of no-code/low-code tech to grow their businesses and customer base. As a SaaS, cloud software, and B2B enterprise products and services expert, Steve discusses how no-code and low-code tech is democratizing access to software and results that weren't possible for small- and medium-sized businesses before. Steve also shares how this type of tech can empower small business owners to embrace digital transformation and take their busi

Brett Galloway, CEO of AttackIQ, joins me on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss how security leaders can build a comprehensive defense-in-depth strategy to confidently report to their boards, auditors, and leadership teams the strength of their security posture. I ask why CISOs keep investing in more and more security controls when 82% of enterprise breaches that existing controls should have stopped weren't. Finally, we discuss why buying more silver bullet tools to combat evolving threats doesn't solve the underlying problem: how to be indeed confident in your defenses against adversaries. Brett expands on his belief that the only way to do so is by gaining data-driven visibility into what's working across your whole system, people, processes, and technologies by continuously validating them. Then, organizations can build a comprehensive defense-in-depth strategy to stop intruders from breaching their applications, networks, and clouds by automating adversarial emulation.

Ram Palaniappan, Chief Technology Officer, TEKsystems, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss its recent State of Digital Transformation report. The report found that leaders who strategically applied technology to enable business transformation thrived and further increased the gap between themselves and digital laggards. We discuss highlights from the report such as why 2 out of 5 organizations note that digital transformation initiatives fail to deliver the identified outcomes. As leaders continue to invest in all aspects of digital transformation, we also talk about how their expected return-on-investment is more immediate, with leaders expecting ROI in one to three years, compared to the laggards at three to five years. TEKsystems recognizes that each organization's road to transformation is rarely a straight line and collectively works with partners to map out attainable wins to identify a path to long-term success in total business transformation. 9 out of 10 organizations indicated that t

Blake Hall is a former Army ranger who turned his vision of helping veterans into ID.me, the leading digital identity verification company. Blake has grown his company from 21 employees into a $1.5 billion entity. I invited him on Tech Talks Daily to share his tech startup story and learn more about the innovative technology changing how Americans identify themselves online by: We discuss how they are eliminating identity fraud and the $56 billion consumers lost to it in 2020. We also discuss reducing bias and opening access to online services for Americans in underserved communities. Finally, Blake shares how he built ID.me into a unicorn from his initial VC pitch to passing the $1billion valuation mark and how his military background helped him navigate the business world.

Wi‑SUN Alliance® is a global industry association devoted to seamless connectivity. They seek to promote certified standards that coordinate various wireless systems and standardize power levels, data rates, modulations, and frequency bands, among other variables. Through technology development, market building, and regulatory programs, Wi-SUN Alliance supports the worldwide development of Wireless Communications Networks for Utilities, Smart Cities, and IoT. Phil Beecher, President and CEO of Wi-SUN Alliance, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story and mission to accelerate the implementation of smart cities, smart utilities, smart grids and other large-scale outdoor Internet of Things (IoT) applications by enabling the global adoption of interoperable solutions based on open standards. Since 1997, Phil has played a key role in developing communications standards, including Bluetooth, WiFi, and IEEE, and the specification of test plans for many Smart Utilities Network standards. We discuss how IoT is

When it comes to hybrid work, debates continue to rage about who should decide where employees work on any given day and how many days they should be in the office. But, the notion of a fully hybrid workforce has been accepted across those industries that can support it. However, the implementation details of a hybrid work model aren't as important as a result: there will be employees working from home and from the office every day of the week. Hybrid work is the new default. And this promises to have a profound impact on the future of access strategies. F5 application services ensure that applications are secure and perform the way they should—in any environment and on any device. But in today's episode, Lori MacVittie from F5 joins me in a conversation about how hybrid work is driving a shift to identity-centric security. Lori MacVittie is a Principal Technical Evangelist at the Office of the CTO at F5. She has extensive development and technical architecture experience in both high-tech and enterprise org

Giancarlo Hirsch from Phaidon International's Glocomms brand joins me in a conversation around securing business-critical talent in technology. We discuss the intricacies of recruiting in the tech space right now, including the most lucrative positions and insights from both the candidates and companies on what they are looking for. We also talk about bringing humanity back into recruiting and why it's more than just a numbers game while also busting a few myths and misconceptions of recruiting in the tech industry.

Seamlessly monitoring people's temperatures in real time was essential during the height of the pandemic, so Jau Huang took his award-winning photo editing AI tools and adapted them into a COVID health monitoring solution deployed in hotels, malls, and workplaces across the US. Jau Huang is the Founder and CEO of CyberLink, a company that's grown from a small startup into an international powerhouse for multimedia products and facial recognition tools for private businesses. Originally, Huang developed a popular virtual makeup applicator called YouCam, and then transformed it into a facial recognition software called FaceMe that could pair with temperature cameras for accurate identification and health monitoring of subjects, even when masked. The solution consistently ranks as one of the most accurate in the world. On the podcast, Jau shares his journey to adapting his tech for health monitoring and discusses how AI is transforming industries including banking, retail, and employee management.

Peter Wang is a veteran software developer turned co-founder and CEO of Anaconda, which brought the programming language Python to the mainstream for business data analysis. Anaconda's open-source data science solution helps organizations mitigate bias, deploy deep learning models using neural networks, and predict numerous current business challenges, such as customer churn, consumer demand levels, stock prices, maintenance needs and outage probabilities. Anaconda also partners with some of the world's largest tech organizations, including IBM, Red Hat, Snowflake, AWS, and Intel. Peter shares his story on Tech Talks Daily and discusses why bias in data, AI and ML should be an enterprise priority right now. I also learn how Anaconda and the open-source community is responding to the Russian-Ukraine crisis and the importance of mentorship in an ever-changing field like data science.

Ivan Ostojic was recently named Chief Business Officer of Infobip, the Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) which, in 2020, became the first Croatian company to reach unicorn status. In the past 12 months alone, over 5 billion people have used Infobip solutions and services. Ivan joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company. We discuss the new Adobe partnership and how the company introduced SMS and WhatsApp messaging for Adobe Commerce customers. This means customers can get real-time alerts via texts or WhatsApp with information related to stock levels, personalized special offers, and order tracking, adding value to the Adobe Commerce experience. We also discuss how Infobip recently secured funding of $500m, advised by Morgan Stanley and led by funds managed by the Credit Group of Ares Management Corporation and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. We also explore several macro trends in the API market, the rise of CPaaS, the unicorn effect, and more.

Viasat is a global communications company that believes everyone and everything can be connected. That's why they are building the ultimate communications network, to enable great, global connectivity to be brought to where it's needed and wanted most: to homes all over the world, to faraway communities, to warfighters on the battlefield, and to people in the air or at sea — to name a few. John Reeves, Managing Director of Viasat UK joins me on Tech Talks Daily. John discusses the need for better technology development using third parties within the public sector and connectivity. More specifically, we explore a fresh approach to technology development. With MI6 recently outlining plans to use technology developed by outside companies for the first time, John shares why the Government and bodies such as the MoD need to perform the same cultural shift. John also expands on how and why using commercial technology can, with the right approach and controls in place, offer more opportunities to innovate, adapt and

Anthony Hughes is the co-founder and CEO of Tech Elevator, a 14 to 30-weeks coding bootcamp that teaches students in-demand tech skills that can lead to meaningful careers in the tech industry. After reading that 2,300 students have graduated from Tech Elevator, with 90% of whom secured tech positions at companies within 6 months, I felt compelled to find out more about the story behind the company. Anthony has been nominated twice for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2020 and 2021). Before starting Tech Elevator, he was the President of the Software Craftsmanship Guild, another fast-paced program that teaches the skills required for a tech career which Learning House acquired in April 2015. In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Anthony shares his story. He discusses how Covid-19 has accelerated the need for a digital workforce and why anyone thinking of joining the tech industry should do it now as the career leap will be worth it. We also talk about how the modern-day coding bootcamps

Itxaso Del Palacio, Partner of VC fund Notion Capital joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Notion is a European VC fund in the B2B SaaS and Cloud space with more than $700m in assets under management. Having made 80+ investments to date, the Notion team founded, built, and exited two highly successful SaaS businesses – Star and MessageLabs – and today invests exclusively in exceptional founders with the ambition to build global category leaders. The fund's investments include Go-Cardless, Paddle, Currencycloud, and Tradeshift. Notion is also the founding fund of Included VC, the venture capital fellowship for individuals from diverse and overlooked communities from around the world. But I wanted to learn more about Itxaso's unconventional journey to the VC world, which includes a decade of classical ballet, working on the assembly line at DaimlerChrysler, a Masters in Engineering, and, ultimately, a PhD in Entrepreneurship. Once she turned her hand fully to VC investing, since 2010, she moved to London and has inve

Eversheds Sutherland is a global top 10 law practice that provides legal advice and solutions to an international client base that includes some of the world's largest multinationals. They have a reputation for helping their clients, people, and communities to thrive by providing quality, innovation, and consistency in legal service delivery around the globe from over 70 offices in more than 30 countries. The legal industry has been criticized for being slow to adapt to the digital world, but I wanted to determine if this is a myth that we can finally lay to rest. So I invited James Grice on the podcast to discuss how this law firm is being driven by legal technology and how it launched the hugely successful Techtober alongside its first Legal technology graduate scheme last year. James Grice is an experienced technology transformation professional, working directly with clients and lawyers to collaborate on new, innovative solutions. He is also the Head of Legal Service Design at Eversheds Sutherland LLP. Ha

Tshepo Mahloko heads up the Co-Innovation Lab for SAP. He leads a team dedicated to developing groundbreaking applications for software and technology. Yet, it's his inspiring journey to his career as a technologist that truly serves as a foundation for his current vision as a leader. Growing up in South Africa, he began to hone his skills as an innovator from a young age, experimenting with ways to pair technological prowess with an unwavering passion for social good. He ultimately found early success applying his abilities by leading grassroots initiatives that employed technology to help alleviate poverty within his community. These formative experiences helped mold his abilities as a problem solver while further reinforcing his ability to lead within a highly competitive field. So I invited him on the podcast to share his story, which began with the African way of innovation and how it led him to the global company lSAP. About Co-Innovation Lab for SAP Have you ever wondered how many liters of water it ta

Dave Grow is the CEO of Lucid – the leading provider of visual collaboration software. After raising more than $500 million in June 2021, the company is now valued at $3 billion and trusted by 99% of the Fortune 500 to connect candidates and employees and help them clarify complexity, collaborate visually, and progress opportunities to advance no matter where they're located. Looking back at the last two years of the pandemic, we can no longer underestimate the hit collaboration has taken in the shift to remote working – and how visual collaboration technology can help restore it. Great virtual meetings don't happen by accident. As offices open their doors again amid mass resignations, project managers are increasingly asking themselves, 'what could've gone better during the pandemic?' and 'what technology do I need' to redefine the next wave of working. For Dave Grow, businesses have still not cracked proper remote collaboration platforms. 75% of employees believe collaboration suffered most during the pande