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

Spiceworks and Ziff Davis B2B joined forces to offer customers unparalleled access to the world's most active and influential technology buyers. Robin Peto, Managing Director at Spiceworks Ziff Davis, joins me on today's Tech Talks Daily episode. Robin is responsible for directing the organization's research strategy, as well as leading a team of subject matter experts and talented researchers to help inform clients' mission-critical priorities. She offers insights grounded in her 20+ year career in the B2B tech sector. IT departments everywhere have rapidly deployed technologies to maintain business continuity during the rapid rush to remote work in the global health crisis. The massive move to work-from-home policies spurred shifts in hardware, software and services spend and will continue to make waves as many companies stick to flexible working arrangements permanently. To gain perspective on how this great shift will influence IT in the coming years, SWZD surveyed more than 1,000 technology buyers in com

Regular listeners will know that I have featured HCL many times on this podcast. We have discussed the digital transformation of Man Utd, Cyber Security Fusion Centers and even spoke to them from the show floor at the Adobe Summit in Vegas. Today, Kalyan Kumar, CVP & CTO, IT Services, HCL Technologies, joins me on the podcast. Drawing on his experience of working with more than 200 customers across Europe, including the likes of Deutsche Bank, Asda, and Anglo American amongst many others, Kalyan discusses how COVID-19 disruption has led to greater demand for AI solutions amongst global enterprises, but also why he urges businesses to remember there is no 'plug and play' options – careful planning is crucial. We explore the topic of AI and sustainability: and how the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted a gap in businesses' bottom-up approach to sustainability, leading many to turn to AI. He can give you the low-down on specific use cases – from helping chefs cut food waste in half through 'smart bins', to maki

Brendan Kavanagh, CEO of Olive Group. The Irish-founded EdTech company joins me on today's episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. We talk about how they are leveraging technology and their strategic five-year partnership with the UK's National Open College Network (NOCN) Group. As part of the strategic partnership, they'll be launching a new best-in-class virtual learning platform, 'vLearn,' which will bring virtual learning services to over 2000 training providers and colleges globally, including the UK and international markets. vLearn launched this year with market-leading virtual support materials for apprentices across some of the most popular Apprenticeship Standards. The platform will then be rolled out to the wider NOCN Group as part of a 12-month project to deliver unrivalled digital support to customers. The platform's key features will include digital materials to support the delivery of qualifications, virtual classrooms, and one-to-many online exam proctoring. The NOCN Group educational charit

LivePerson makes life easier for people and brands everywhere through trusted Conversational AI. Its conversational cloud platform empowers consumers to stop wasting time on hold or crawling through websites and message their favorite brands instead, just as they do with friends and family. The company has 18,000 customers, including leading brands like HSBC, Orange, GM Financial, and The Home Depot. They use their conversational solutions to orchestrate humans and AI at scale and create a convenient, deeply personal relationship — a conversational relationship — with their millions of consumers. LivePerson was also named to Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies list in 2020 and is a founding member of EqualAI. Alex Spinelli joins me in a conversation about all things AI. We discuss the potential AI backlash, and people will respond as we move into and past the through of disillusionment part of the hype cycle. I also learn more about how AI made it possible to get to this critical moment of the fi

Digital Remedy is proof that success can be found with the right combination of people and technology. The digital media solutions company is leading the tech-enabled marketing space. But it was co-founded by Mike Seiman while still a college student at Hofstra University in the early 2000s. The company has grown quickly and is now a major player within the crowded digital advertising landscape. Mike Seiman is now the CEO and Chairman and joins me on the podcast to share his startup story. I also learn more about FLIP, a proprietary OTT and CTV platform that allows users to track statistics like app installs, site visits, checkout amounts, and store visits. 60% of advertisers planned to shift their ad dollars from linear TV to either CTV or OTT in 2021 – and among this group, 81% cited targeting and efficiency as a reason. Mike discusses the growth of programmatic CTV video ad growth and how it is impacting their client's ad spend toward this space. We also talk about how the pandemic has changed the availabi

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most critical mega-trends in business in recent years. It streamlines transactions for higher productivity and automation of routine tasks such as production lines, banking, insurance companies, and so on. Founded in 2018, BeyondMinds has built the first enterprise AI solution that is universally applicable and easily adaptable. The company delivers hyper-customized, production-ready AI systems that enable companies to overcome the massive failure rate in AI adoption and rapidly implement ROI-positive transformations. The company has more than 70 employees, with the majority being AI technologists. They have offices in New York, Tel-Aviv and London. Clients include Fortune 1000 companies, including Microsoft, Samsung, KPMG, and numerous leading defense companies and financial institutions. Most recently, the company raised $15 million series A funding, co-led by leading Israeli venture capital fund Grove Ventures and private investor Marius Nacht. Rotem Alaluf is

Weka offers WekaFS, the modern file system that uniquely empowers organizations to solve the newest, biggest problems holding back innovation. Optimized for NVMe and the hybrid cloud, Weka handles the most demanding storage challenges in the most data-intensive technical computing environments, delivering truly epic performance at any scale. Its modern architecture unlocks the full capabilities of today's data center, allowing businesses to maximize the value of their high-powered IT investments. Weka helps industry leaders reach breakthrough innovations and solve previously unsolvable problems. Ken Grohe is the newly appointed President of Weka and CRO. He brings 30 years of B2B SaaS, sales, and data science experience to the table and joined Weka as they accomplished 600% growth in 2019. Ken joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to chat about how the critical role of storage in successful AI initiatives. We talk about the emerging high growth AI/ML markets and the emerging role of the CDO. We also discus

Chancellor Rishi Sunak recently published his 2020 Spending Review and kicked off the new £5bn UK Gigabit Broadband Programme. Even though the promise of full-fiber is great for 85% of the population by 2025, it's imperative it's delivered, so the whole country has access to it. To help accomplish that, Zen has focused on full-fibre for 2021 and upgraded its core network. Paul Stobart, CEO, Zen Internet, the UK's largest independent telecommunications and technology service provider, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Paul has been in the technology industry for over 20 years, 16 of those years being in CEO positions at Sage (business software), CPP (financial services), and Tunstall Healthcare (healthcare technology), and has developed a strong belief that having inspired people inside a business will deliver superior financial returns. We discuss why full-fibre is key to the growth of the UK in 2021 for businesses and what other tech investing in full-fibre enables for companies. Paul also shares how

Last year, I attended the Dynatrace Perform event in Las Vegas and interviewed their CEO John Van Siclen. This year Dynatrace has made several announcements aimed at helping organizations overcome existing challenges with IT complexity and transform faster to meet today's business needs. Steve Tack, SVP, Product Management, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to talk bout some of the big news coming out of the event. We talk about the Infrastructure monitoring enhancements, and by expanding its automatic and intelligent observability with native log support for Kubernetes and multicloud environments, Dynatrace is enabling teams to drive faster innovation. I learn more about the Dynatrace Software Intelligence Hub and how within just a few clicks, Dynatrace customers can access an ecosystem of 500+ technologies from leading providers including AWS, and Google, enabling them to build and manage customer Dynatrace extensions without additional code. We also discuss the extension of Session Replay and busin

Kevin Ruef co-founded 10-8 Systems after exceeding multiple companies' sales records (both domestically and internationally). With more than a decade in sales, his experience ranges from B2B, B2G, and B2C. Since the company's start in 2019, Kevin is responsible for business development, strategic partnerships, and business operations. Kevin Ruef, the co-founder of 10-8 Systems, shares the story behind launching 10-8 Systems on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast. 10-8 Systems is a cloud-based computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system for first responders, law enforcement, EMT, firefighters, and other government agencies. FEMA used the software in the Bahamas during Hurricane Dorian. With the help of their system, 500 people were rescued! They have since been contacted by organizations ranging from security to search-and-rescue across the world, such as in Africa, Australia, Canada, the European Union, and Caribbean countries. 10-8 Systems' computer-aided dispatch software leverages technology to provide public safety age

The coronavirus pandemic is the kind of unpredictable, global catastrophe of staggering proportions that comes along not just every few years but perhaps once in a hundred years. What started out as health crisis, has quickly developed into an economic crisis spurring social unrest across the world. And yet, despite the widespread distress, the picture is more complex than it may seem. For some companies, the crisis has and continues to, provide opportunities for new growth. A timely book by a visionary business practitioner, Nitin Rakesh, CEO, Mphasis, and an award-winning academician, Jerry Wind, Lauder Professor Emeritus, Wharton bridges the worlds of industry and academia to bring you the knowledge that can help your business thrive in the new world. The book defines 8 key principles that form a highly adaptive framework, that gives businesses the tools to adapt and succeed in a new reality. When Nitin Rakesh and Jerry Wind started collaborating on the book prior to the 2020 pandemic, these 8 principles w

Nuvei, one of the world's largest payment technology providers, has partnered with companies all over the world to create seamless commerce experiences, specifically in the esports and online betting industries. Motie Bring, Chief Commercial Officer, Digital Payments, Nuvei, joins me on the podcast. We discuss how local marketplaces like Etsy are going global and how markets are shifting towards global eCommerce. We also talk about the rise in the esports and sports betting industries and how payment technology providers are creating seamless commerce experiences. I also learn more about how COVID-19 has accelerated the shift to eCommerce. Motie Bring has over 18 years of experience in payments, holding various management and leadership positions in related industries. He served the last seven years in senior management roles at WorldPay (acquired by FIS in 2019), most recently as General Manager EMEA, Global Enterprise eCommerce, while also heading up the global commercial gambling teams. Prior to this, he w

Deloitte's annual 2021 Tech Trends report examines how enterprises have adapted to fluctuations, accelerated digital transformation, and overall emerged resilient amidst a year of disruption. Although COVID-19 rendered even the best-laid of January 2020's plans useless, the crisis has driven change in an important and unexpected way and CIOs are already charting a promising path toward the future. The 12th annual Report discusses the opportunities, strategies, and technologies that will drive confidence in new planning and implementation during the next 18 to 24 months. The 9 trends fall under three categories: The Heart of the Enterprise: Strategy, Engineered; Core Revival; and Supply Unchained focus on the alignment of organizational and technology strategy. These components of the enterprise are complex, but imperative for success, and must work in concert to support each other. A Better Experience, Inside and Out: Bespoke for Billions: Digital Meets Physical and Rebooting the Digital Workplace explore

Despite holding up remarkably well during the pandemic, the early disruption to the supply chain has served as a wake-up call to the agriculture sector. Consequently, an industry that has typically been five-ten years behind the technology curve is (finally) coming to recognize the potential of AI as a catalyst for (arguably, much-needed) change. A recent survey by Proagrica, the world's largest data and tech business serving the ag sector, looked into attitudes towards AI across seven core sectors: government, healthcare, insurance, legal, science/medical, banking and agriculture. It found that AI has risen up the agenda in agriculture - here are some key findings: 87% of agricultural respondents believe that AI technologies played a role in slowing the spread of COVID-19.  76% of agricultural respondents say they've increased investment in AI in the last year against an average of 68% across other sectors 87% of agricultural respondents state that their company offers training on AI technologies, up from 8

The world order has changed overnight. The IT organization is under more pressure and scrutiny than ever before. In addition to ensuring security, there is a strong argument in favor of modernizing enterprise infrastructure. Trusted by leading managed service providers, Airgap's patent-pending enterprise-grade Agentless Zero Trust Isolation platform addresses some of the fundamental security and networking challenges faced by the IT organizations. Ritesh Agarwal, CEO, Airgap, joins me on Tech Talks Daily and shares Airgap's core capabilities, the roadmap, and their vision. I learn more about how Airgap's Zero Trust Isolation Platform offers defense against cyber-threat propagation. Airgap's patent-pending agentless solution works for any user and any device accessing business assets from any location and it can be installed in a few minutes without any forklift upgrades.

Banks, retailers, and healthcare institutions have been some of the biggest targets for hackers for years. With large networks, hackers can breach platforms and access financial institutions' data, retailers' customer payment information, and patient files. With this looming threat continually growing in complexity, cybersecurity organizations need to share threat information to develop a roadmap to defeat malicious actors. This is best done through Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), where cybersecurity professionals can anonymously share these details about threat vectors for others to be on the prowl for. So why are organizations so hesitant to do so? Neal Dennis, Threat Intelligence Specialist at Cyware, discusses why it's imperative for the cybersecurity industry to share threat information (hackers do it, so shouldn't we?) and how this could help prevent the next Capital One Marriott breach. He also debunks the misconceptions of threat sharing and ISACs that many organizations may have. Cy

Paul Palmieri is the Co-Founder & CEO of Tradeswell, the first real-time trading platform for e-commerce brands that helps them sell more successfully across digital platforms. Paul helped define the mobile advertising industry and led Millennial Media to IPO. He's now taking a similar approach to help brands scale and take advantage of a $3T e-commerce opportunity. As CEO of Tradeswell, Paul now works with brands like McCormick's Spices, Frank's Red Hot, and Rare Beauty Brands, using AI to improve sales and margins and empowering them with valuable customer insights to grow their business. Paul recently launched the company with backing from leading venture capital firms like SignalFire, and he shares his journey, from entrepreneur to investor, where he saw hundreds of DTC companies and passed on investing in them because margins were too thin, and some of the early results he's seeing from brands using the platform. I learn how they help bridge the gap between humans and machines, giving them the insig

Next Pathway is the automated cloud migration company that the Globe and Mail recently named one of the hottest cloud start-ups. Today I am joined by Chetan Mathur and Clara Angotti in a conversation about the importance of cloud migration and how the cloud can provide a competitive advantage. We also discuss why companies with the agility of the cloud will be set up for long term success and how businesses are using the cloud to reduce cost and increase operational efficiency. Chetan Mathur is the Chief Executive Officer of Next Pathway Inc., the Automated Cloud Migration company, named Canada's hottest cloud start-up by the Globe and Mail in 2019. Mr. Mathur is responsible for providing senior leadership and counsel to ensure the company is at the forefront of the ever-changing technology landscape. In addition to Next Pathway, Mr. Mathur has established and grown two other information technology firms. He founded Sage Information Consultants in 1992, an international technology integrator that specialized

Railsbank is the pioneer and innovator in the global Banking as a Platform (BaaP) sector, enabling banks, businesses, and brands to define the future of consumer and SME finance. Currently, Railsbank is live and enabling customers in the UK, Europe, SE Asia, and the US. The Railsbank platform enables marketers, product managers, developers to take their financial product vision and rapidly prototype, launch and scale their vision using its open finance platform, financial operations, regulatory licensing, and rich set of APIs. Dov Marmor joins me on the podcast to talk about banking as a service and its next frontier, credit as a service. We discuss the difficulties of building credit cards for fintechs and new use cases that credit card as a service could unlock. We also talk about why building on a platform is a faster way to test ideas, get market feedback, and build a unique value proposition using a standardized set of tools. Dov Marmor has led two of the top FinTech platform businesses in banking and in

Viasat is a global communications company that believes everyone and everything in the world can be connected. For more than 30 years, Viasat has helped shape how consumers, businesses, governments, and militaries around the world communicate. Today, the Company is developing the ultimate global communications network to power high-quality, secure, affordable, fast connections to impact people's lives anywhere they are—on the ground, in the air, or at sea. Viasat recently expanded its operations in Europe and setting a foundation for its upcoming ViaSat-3 satellites by purchasing the remaining 51% share of Euro Broadband Infrastructure (EBI), the wholesale broadband services business created as part of Viasat's former partnering arrangement with Eutelsat Communications. In today's episode, Rick Baldridge shares Viasat's plans for KA-SAT, as well as Viasat's broader commitment to Europe and its road-map to ensuring ViaSat-3 his supporting a full suite of offerings to consumers and businesses. I also learn how