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

Andre Leibovici and Anil Kumar join me in a conversation where we explore the Citrix Security Stack and Citrix Ready Security Ecosystem.  The guests discuss how expensive it has become to recruit security professionals and how businesses can turn this challenge into an opportunity. They also talk about retiring legacy VPNs, Zero Trust, monitoring, and analytics to measure your security improvements. Useful Links Citrix Ready Workspace Security Ecosystem: https://citrixready.citrix.com/program/workspace-security-program.html Citrix Secure Access solutions: https://www.citrix.com/solutions/secure-access/

Mike Betzer, CEO of Hypergiant, joins me on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast to chat about how artificial intelligence is actively solving some of the world's biggest problems, both on earth and in space. From powering carbon sequestration machines with algae and fighting climate change to building out the infrastructure for an internet on Mars, artificial intelligence undoubtedly has the capacity to do good. As an enterprise AI company, Hypergiant is genuinely in the trenches developing these groundbreaking technologies – just ask companies like NASA, Boeing, and Apple, all of which are turning to Hypergiant for new and improved AI solutions. Hypergiant Industries is an enterprise AI company focused on developing world-changing technologies to solve the world's biggest problems in the areas of space, defense, and critical infrastructure. Hypergiant offers a suite of AI services, software, and solutions that support companies and governments in preparing for the future of AI. Mike discusses how artificial intell

Since 2014, RAKwireless has delivered simple but powerful tools that eliminate barriers in IoT connectivity and empower people to build a smart future. RAK's continuous development of these IoT solutions empowers innovators and commercial enterprises to build the right environment for their property. The brand has held partnerships with some of the world's leading tech players such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Microsoft. In addition, they regularly partner with academies, schools, and organizations supporting young people working to build a better, more innovative future through IoT devices. But after hearing how they recently secured $10M in Series A funding, I invited Jose Marcelino, Solutions Architect at RAKwireless, on the podcast to learn more. Despite global manufacturing and supply chain disruption, the renowned producer of IoT tools, hardware, miners, and software tools has seen tremendous growth. We talk about RAKwireless, the relationship with Helium, and how the miners work. We discuss the P

Killian Brackey is the CTO at Sezzle, a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) payments tool working with global brands like Discover, Target, Lamps Plus, GameStop, Barstool Sports and more. Over the last few years Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) has exploded in popularity, especially during the peak of the pandemic when online spending saw record levels. Now that stores have fully reopened across the country, consumers are looking to get a fix of the in-store shopping experiences. However, many still want to have the option to finance their purchases with BNPL payments platforms. Additionally, BNPL will only improve the touchless experience at the register, with tap-to-pay tools, improving the overall contactless experience. Killian discusses what Sezzle is doing to move the needle on that front with its own tap-to-pay technology, as well as Apple's move into buy now, pay later, whether big tech is set to take over the space (and why that may not be a good thing for innovation), and more.

People relied on the internet more than ever before throughout the pandemic, doing everything from ordering groceries to keeping up with critical health updates online. However, for millions of people with disabilities, only 2% of all websites are accessible, making navigating the internet nearly impossible. This is where accessiBe comes in, using proprietary technology to make websites usable for people in the disability community. As a web accessibility hub, accessiBe provides different AI-Powered solutions for testing and remediating web accessibility and various professional services to create an inclusive web and help businesses comply with web accessibility standards and regulations, i.e., WCAG and ADA. accessiBe's full suite of web accessibility solutions enables businesses of all sizes, from solopreneur to large corporations, to participate in global inclusion efforts and make their websites available to everybody, regardless of ability. accessiBe's founding team has deep domain expertise in the fiel

Proof-of-Stake (PoS) continues to dominate the blockchain landscape in 2021, with Ethereum moving closer to its 2.0 upgrade and PoS consensus, as well as other major protocol launches this year using the consensus mechanism.  Tushar Aggarwal, CEO, and Founder of Persistence, an ecosystem of next-generation financial services designed to stimulate global liquidity, has been a long-term advocate for PoS blockchains.  A former Podcast Host for Decrypt Asia and Venture Partner deal sourcing for blockchain and crypto startups for Outlier Ventures, Tushar has extensive expertise across operations, investment, and management consultancy in the financial technology and blockchain industry. Prior to founding Persistence in 2015, Tushar worked as a Principal at blockchain and cryptocurrency fund LuneX Ventures.  The experienced entrepreneur and investor, Tushar was awarded a place on the renowned Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list in 2021 for his work in finance and venture capital. As CEO of Persistence, Tushar is aiming to

The UK's plans to explore its own central bank digital currency (CBDC) is a testament to the increasingly mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies and the realization of its potential to truly revolutionize the way we move money around the world today.  Rishi's Sunak's recent announcement claimed that a Britcoin could tackle some of the challenges of popular cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin – i.e., from a regulatory and volatility point of view. However, Joe Baguley, VP, and CTO, EMEA at VMware believes the chancellor must also consider the sustainability cost of introducing Britcoin en-masse and how it could foil the government's green ambitions due to the unjustifiably high environmental burden of cryptocurrencies. Joe joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about the fundamental mistake the founders of bitcoin made by building the cryptocurrency on a proof-of-work blockchain which consumes an incredible amount of energy. We also discuss why we cannot unpick the environmental problems proof of work b

Now in its 18th year, Cybersecurity Awareness Month continues to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. So what will you be doing differently this year? Will it be switching to a password manager? or adding MFA to your email and social accounts? Alanna Gilson and Eric Due from Robust Network Solutions join me on today's episode of Tech Talks Daily in a discussion about how to improve your security hygiene. Robust Network Solutions is a premier IT consulting firm headquartered in San Mateo, CA, that specializes in providing proactive services to many professional firms in the San Francisco Bay Area. Specializing in Microsoft, VMware, Cisco, Citrix, HP, IBM/Lenovo, network buildouts, technology projects, mobile technology, remote access, enhanced security, disaster recovery, improved network performance, helpdesk support. About Eric Eric Due works as a Senior Engineer at Robust Network Solutions. He helps provide business planning and implementation to bring digital services that align with busi

Liftoff is a performance-based mobile app marketing and retargeting platform, using post-install user data to run true cost-per-action user acquisition and re-engagement campaigns. Traditionally, marketers pay for each click or app download when devising a mobile ad campaign, regardless of whether new customers spend money in the app. Liftoff changes this model by only requiring marketers to pay for advertising when a person completes an action or spends money in an app. Powered by machine learning and lookalike targeting, Liftoff's campaigns drive actions beyond the install, securing only the most engaged users for its customers. Mark Ellis, CEO, and co-founder of Liftoff joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Mark has made community and culture a core tenet of Liftoff's work, eschewing the toxicity that's rampant in fast-growing Silicon Valley businesses and aiming for impact beyond revenue alone. This approach has been integral to building Liftoff's global, high-performance mobile app marketing platform

Industries like insurance, finance, and media have all found impactful ways to apply symbolic AI and deep/machine learning to common pain points when taking unstructured language data from documents, social content, and emails. By extracting sentiment and the deeper meanings of words that only humans can do, language can be turned into data, and actionable insights for a wide range of use cases can be drawn from it. Walt Mayo, CEO of expert.ai, the natural language processing AI company trusted by The Associated Press, Dow Jones, Gannett, and other top brands, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast. We discuss how combining a symbolic approach to AI with machine learning can form an innovative hybrid model. Walt talks about the difference between symbolic AI and deep learning/machine learning and what kinds of use cases are typically applied together. We also discuss the strengths of each and what organizations can gain by combining them. Finally, we discuss how a hybrid approach addresses the "black box"

Dean Guida officially launched enterprise software company Infragistics in 1989 when his small start-up of 10 people went head to head against Microsoft for a $300k deal with Philadelphia Conrail—and won. Dean has since scaled the company to 250 employees across six countries, including a 75,000 square foot headquarters in New Jersey, without accepting outside funding. As a result, the company now boasts a client roster that includes 100% of the S&P 500, including Intuit, Exxon, and Morgan Stanley. And this year, Dean launched Infragistics' $50M Innovation Fund and Lab to encourage entrepreneurism within his own company. Dean joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share his entrepreneurial journey and how he has navigated Infragistics through its 30+ years in the tech space. Infragistics has thrived through major economic recessions, tech bubbles, and bursts. Dean reveals how the company survived – and saw success –during even the most challenging times. Dean also shares why he never accepted outside

Integral Ad Science (IAS) ensures ads are running exactly where, when, and how you want — no ifs, ands, or bots. They help protect brands and save their cusotmers from spending time and money on inappropriate content, markets, or fraudulent traffic. These insights are based on 100+ billion web transactions they process every day. Netflix, Apple TV, and consoles are becoming more popular advertising avenues than traditional linear TV. As a result, we're consuming more video than ever before, and I wanted to explore the challenges and opportunities with connected TVs and explore the latest shopping trends. I invited Tony Marlow, CMO, Integral Ad Science, to analyze these trends and understand the scale of the problem with fraud and the role that technology will play in the industry's future. Tony Marlow is the Chief Marketing Officer for Integral Ad Science, based in New York. He is an insights-driven executive and leads all aspects of corporate marketing strategy, brand development, and communications for the

Geotab is advancing security, connecting commercial vehicles to the internet and providing web-based analytics to help customers better manage their fleets. In addition, Geotab's open platform and Marketplace allow both small and large businesses to automate operations by integrating vehicle data with their other data assets. As an IoT hub, the in-vehicle device provides additional functionality through IOX Add-Ons. Processing billions of data points a day, Geotab leverages data analytics and machine learning to help customers improve productivity, optimize fleets by reducing fuel consumption, enhance driver safety, and achieve regulatory compliance. Since being established in 2000, Geotab Inc. has grown from a small family business to a global leader in fleet management and vehicle tracking solutions. They are now one of the largest telematics outfits globally and have become the first to surpass two million connected vehicles built on a single, open platform. David Savage, Associate Vice President, UK, and

The case for diversity in the workplace is straightforward: it's the right thing to do, and numerous studies suggest it can drive better business performance, too. For example, a 2018 report found that gender-diverse executive teams, which make the most important strategic and operational decisions, were correlated with profitable outcomes across geographies; and companies with the most ethnically/culturally diverse boards worldwide are 43% more likely to experience higher profits. However, an organization might consider its workforce "diverse," but that doesn't mean all employees feel valued or are given the same opportunities. Far too often, because of unconscious bias, inclusivity is left out of the equation. In the past, unconscious bias was often perceived as subjective or circumstantial versus a larger systemic issue. Now, rather than taking action against an individual, emerging technologies are empowering business leaders to analyze the different ways that diversity and inclusion are hindered at a fou

The pandemic's impact on the acceleration of digital means that just providing a personalized experience to customers is no longer good enough. In order to succeed and stay one step ahead of the competition, brands need to embrace a data-driven approach to optimize every digital experience based on outcomes. Justin Anovick, Chief Product Officer at digital experience company, Optimizely joins me on Tech Talks Daily. We talk about how businesses can unlock digital potential through a combination of personalization and experimentation. Justin also discusses why it's so important to look beyond just personalisation and the importance of combining this with experimentation in order to move away from guesswork and gut decisions to use data to a more scientific approach that will provide customers with the best digital experience possible. About Optimizely With its digital experience platform (DXP), thy equip teams with the tools and insights they need to create and optimize in new ways. Now, companies can operate

Octopus Energy Founder & CEO Greg Jackson joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Greg is inspired by giving customers the best experience at the cheapest price-point possible to drive the green energy revolution. We discuss how technology is reinventing the energy industry and tackling climate change. For years, the energy industry has been running on the software equivalent of floppy disks, but through the application of technology, Octopus Energy is bringing energy into the present day, innovating in the space through their tech platform - Kraken – to provide affordable and clean energy to millions across the globe with an unrivalled focus on the customer experience. Described as 'Amazon of energy' Octopus Energy are a global disrupter bringing energy towards a greener future. They currently serve 2.2 million customers with renewable, clean energy which their technology allows them to do cheaper and much more efficiently than anyone. They also license their technology to their competitors around the

Serial entrepreneur Tim Mendelssohn had an early entrepreneurial experience, starting his first company, Elephant Branded in university. Famously, it was featured in an episode of BBC's Be Your Own Boss. After that, he had a progressive career in technology and finance before becoming a CEO of Spark, including roles at Sony, Warner Brothers, BP, and Koch Supply and Trading. With no ability to code but passion for seeing how technology can fundamentally improve how the markets operate, Tim saw the flaws of markets and took on the challenge of using the technology to take on the competition of established companies with 50+ years in the industry. Spark Commodities was founded in 2019 with a mission to disrupt the trade in the commodity markets thanks to technology and data. Spark's key users are leading commodity market participants, exchanges and brokers focused on bringing value to customers suffering from expensive, unsophisticated legacy providers In February 2021, Spark beat legacy market players such as B

Serial entrepreneur, William West, has founded four startup companies; his most successful sold to a global outsourcing company. In addition, he's written two business books, was featured on CBS 60 Minutes and in FORBES, won twenty entrepreneurial awards, and made the Inc. 5000 list five times. Now, after twenty years building tech companies using VR, AR, and AI, West is building his piece-de resistance, a passionate endeavor merging his love for the sea with that of building companies. His most recent venture, Regatta VR, trained companies to tackle difficult HR issues and used cutting-edge VR technology to do it. Regatta Travel uses its technology to tackle more fun issues: planning the perfect vacation for you. If you want to shop, its app will send you to St. Bart's; if you want to hike the rain forest, to Dominica. And if you're a celebrity or a couple just wanting your privacy, Regatta's algorithm can handle that too. Regatta Travel Co. is built around its Waypoint app, which overcomes the Paradox of Ch

The Amsterdam-based scale-up StuDocu was founded in 2013 by four students, including CEO Marnix Broer, and StuDocu was born out of the need to share study resources more efficiently. Since launching, the company has expanded to markets like Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK, and the United States. It boasts more than 15 million monthly active users, helping the platform become the international leader in the document sharing space. Marnix shares his startup story and his belief that education is a resource that should be accessible to everyone and built the platform on that premise. In addition, Marnix feels strongly that education technology, particularly platforms like StuDocu, needs to complement teachers' and professors' work, creating ways for students to study for exams and learn the course material applicable in their careers in the future. Marnix also discusses the continued rise of EdTech over the past 18 months and how StuDocu recently received $50M in funding. I also learn why the solutions so des

Tom Gearing is the CEO of Cult Wines, the global leader in fine wine investment. But I wanted to learn more about how Cult Wines is leveraging technology to disrupt the fine wine investment industry. Traditionally, fine wine investing was targeted to the "snooty" high-net-worth investor, but Tom uses technology to bring more accessibility, transparency, safety, and credibility to the industry. Tom grew up with an investment banker father who took him all over the vineyards of Europe as a boy, and he learned and sampled wine and is more knowledgeable about fine wine than people twice is his age. But his love for technology has been instrumental in making Cult Wines a leader in innovation. They released the first NFT in their industry for auction on OpenSea, and they are continuing to utilize blockchain and other technologies to set Cult Wines apart from its competitors. Tom shares his tech story and how he appeared on BBC's Apprentice a decade ago. He has also overseen the growth of the business, receiving sev