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

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

DXC Technology (NYSE: DXC) helps global companies run their mission-critical systems and operations while modernizing IT, optimizing data architectures, and ensuring security and scalability across public, private, and hybrid clouds. With decades of driving innovation, the world’s largest companies trust DXC to deploy the Enterprise Technology Stack to deliver new levels of performance, competitiveness, and customer experiences. Learn more about the DXC story and our focus on people, customers, and operational execution However, what put them on my radar was the recent news that DXC Technology and Microsoft are collaborating to power a more personalized, intelligent, secure, and modern workplace experience for global enterprises. I wanted to learn more about how DXC and Microsoft were joining forces to deliver a solution and suite of services called DXC MyWorkStyle™. Michael McDaniel shares how they enable employees to work, connect and collaborate — with a more consumer-like, end-to-end digital workplace exp

GSD&M are the agency behind work for brands that include the United States Air Force, Capital One, Southwest, the Great Chicken Sandwich War of 2019 - remember the chicken wars started by Popeyes - oh yeah, it was GSD&M that came up with it. They were recently tasked to launch the first-ever brand and recruitment campaign for SPACE FORCE. Maria D'Amato made a name for herself as a brilliant creative mind and smart technologist. A formative partner to clients like Southwest Airlines, Capital One, Pizza Hut, United States Air Force, and others, she has created or been integral in the creation of some of GSD&M's smartest work. For instance, this year's creation of an enormous virtual jigsaw puzzle, the 'Million Piece Mission'. It even made it made into the Guinness Book of World Records! Perhaps her biggest achievement at the agency so far is her leadership role in helping to establish experience design as a discipline. The formalization of the XD practice—now immersed across all work streams —has fu

Matthew O'Connor is the CEO and co-founder of AdQuick. This first online platform allows brands, agencies, and individuals to complete the entire process of planning, buying, executing, and measuring out-of-home (OOH) advertising campaigns anywhere in the world. Out-of-home advertising includes billboards, bus benches, transit stations, vehicle wraps, as well as spaces on cartops, rooftops, and bike-share kiosks, to name a few. In the past, OOH campaign planning has been a painfully tedious process, requiring dozens of phone calls, comparing prices and inventory, multiple copies of cumbersome spreadsheets and hundreds of back and forth emails, and the like. Technology changed all that. The out-of-home advertising industry has made significant advancements with technologies, particularly workflow automation, to eliminate up to 90% of the back and forth to execute a campaign. This saves B2B and B2C organizations significant time and money while making it easy to incorporate out-of-home ads into their overall ma

The ongoing trend toward Industry 4.0, coupled with the pressures of 2020’s climate have accelerated the urgency of AI. Industrial organizations lack AI expertise, but it’s become a matter of survival. This is driving the creation of a new category, “Industrial AI,” with startups like C3 and legacy industrial players like Aveva and AspenTech (NASDAQ: AZPN) racing to win. In Aug., Aveva acquired an AI company to get a leg up, and AspenTech launched an entirely new business unit, AIoT Hub, to pivot its business focus entirely toward Industrial AI. AspenTech took on the approach of operationalizing Industrial AI – including (un)supervised and reinforcement learning – for industrial customers. Their aim is to accelerate time to ROI by creating a centralized AI Hub to simplify data management and build a self-optimizing plant of the future without the traditionally needed AI technical skillset. It’s still early days for Industrial AI, and there’s much to be learned. Frédéric Bastien discusses the challenges of thi

Boson Protocol aims to change the world of commerce by enabling enterprises, organizations, and customers to bridge the divide between decentralized digital technologies and the transfer and trade of physical goods. Creating the de facto infrastructure to achieve this with minimized arbitration, cost, and trust, Boson Protocol is taking eCommerce to the next level with use cases including; loyalty and rewards, crypto exchanges, games, and tokenized networks, amongst others. Leading the charge at Boson Protocol is serial entrepreneur Justin Banon. Justin previously spearheaded the Travel Experiences Division of Collinson, where he managed a group of global loyalty rewards platforms, including LoungeKey, Mastercard Airport Experiences, and Priority Pass. The latter of which he scaled twenty-fold from $50m to $1bn per annum revenue during his tenure. Boson Protocol recently closed an oversubscribed SAFE fundraising round, which saw the investment of 8 Outlier Ventures partners, among other notable investors. Jus

The events of the year have proven that video as a business tool is a must-have. The global “safer at home” orders have sped its growth, with the power of video growing exponentially and putting traditional media in the catch-up phase. But what’s next for the category as we head into the unknowns of 2021? According to Brightcove, the global leader in video for business, video media usage has been up 40% year over year for the majority of 2020 - establishing that the future for all organizations, from entertainment and sports to retail, enterprise, media publishing and more, is rooted in video. Brightcove recently released its Global Video Index Year in Review, which showcases video data throughout 2020 and what this means for video in 2021. Brightcove CEO Jeff Ray talks about the evolving trends of video as a necessary medium for storytelling and how businesses need to utilize it in 2021 to remain competitive and profitable. Jeff also shares how he saw an opportunity to seize on an evolutionary moment in ti

Today, I speak with the CEO who co-founded two successful startups before the age of 30, was responsible for growing the social gaming company Lolapps to 100 million users worldwide, and is now revolutionizing the way software bugs are detected and fixed for tech leaders like Twilio, Instacart and Adobe. Brian Rue founded his first tech company Lolapps while still a Stanford University student in 2008. He left school to dedicate himself full-time, ultimately leading Lolapps to acquire the social gaming company Roflplay. One of their most popular games, Ravenwood Fair, had more than 25 million players worldwide. While he was at Lolapps, Brian, along with his co-worker and eventual co-founder Cory Vivok, experienced a new reality that building software can be quick and painless. And, in doing so, it allowed for quicker release cycles, leading to shorter times between an idea to users enjoying them, and, overall, the ability to be more creative. In 2012, Brian was inspired to build something that would let ever

A team of scientists, engineers and technicians at Honeywell have built what is currently the highest performing quantum computer available. With a quantum volume of 64, the Honeywell quantum computer is twice as powerful as the next alternative in the industry. That means they are closer to industries leveraging our solutions to solve computational problems that are impractical to solve with traditional computers. “What makes our quantum computers so powerful is having the highest quality qubits, with the lowest error rates.  This is a combination of using identical, fully connected qubits and precision control,” said Tony Uttley, president of Honeywell Quantum Solutions. Brian Neyenhuis, commercial operations leader at Honeywell Quantum Solutions joins me on Tech Talks Daily. He shares Honeywell’s progress in quantum computing in 2020, where he sees it going in 2021, and the types of applications quantum computing can be used for.    

Jeff Schwartz, a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP, is the US leader for the Future of Work and author of Work Disrupted. Schwartz is an adviser to senior business leaders at global companies focusing on workforce and business transformation. He is also the global editor of the Deloitte “Global Human Capital Trends” report series, which he started in 2011. COVID-19 fundamentally changed the way humans work with technology. As organizations position themselves for 2021, Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends report points to “superteams” as a make-or-break factor for growth. Superteams are powerful combinations of people and technology, leveraging their complementary capabilities to enable greater innovation and productivity at a speed and scale not otherwise possible. Business leaders who are best positioned to thrive in 2021 know that technology is not a substitute for workers. Instead, artificial intelligence and automation technologies can augment the human capabilities of agility and resilience

Ed Boyajian, President and CEO of EDB, joins me on today's Tech Talks Daily episode. We talk about how open-source technology and principles are rebuilding global collaboration. We also discuss how tech companies will need to embrace diversity to accelerate innovation and why Postgres is the technology to watch, especially with hybrid cloud deployments on the rise. Finally, Ed shares his 2021 predictions for Postgres and the broader open source community. Ed drives the development and execution of EDB's strategic vision and growth strategy in the database industry. Ed joined EDB in 2008 after six years at Red Hat, where he rose to Vice President and General Manager of North America. He played a central leadership role in the development of the modern business model for bringing open source to enterprises. Before that, he was Vice President of Red Hat's global OEM business, responsible for all partnerships, including the early Linux adoption by HP, IBM, and Dell. As a 15+ year veteran of the open-source softwa

The global pandemic has forced Billions to change their behaviors — how they interact, how they manage their money, and how they make payments. In September 2020, in partnership with Propeller Insights, Marqeta surveyed 2,006 Americans to find out how this last year has impacted consumer buying habits and the payments landscape as a whole. Mobile wallets have been called the “next big thing” in payments since Apple Pay was introduced in 2014. Consumer and merchant adoption rates of digital wallets told a slightly different story, however, with adoption growing steadily but falling short of the hype. This all changed when the world changed in 2020. Mobile wallet adoption has surged in the last year, becoming one of the preferred consumer payment methods throughout the pandemic. I invited Vidya Peters from Marqeta onto the show to explore the report and learn more about how mobile wallets are now at the forefront of the evolution of payments. As the Marqeta Chief Marketing Officer, I also learn how Vidya was na

New data reveals the competing – and sometimes conflicting – challenges and priorities of IT leaders from 2020 that are shaping IT’s agenda for 2021 when it comes to managing risk. According to a new global survey, 72% of IT leaders and 52% of employees agreed that security is the biggest issue when it comes to unaccounted for and unmanaged technology. It seems that IT’s continuous efforts to reinforce security best practices may finally be paying off. But there is a lower level of awareness for additional issues, especially among employees, with 16% believing unaccounted for and unmanaged technologies do not cause any business problems whatsoever. Snow Software CIO Alastair Pooley joins me on Tech Talks Daily to dive deeper into the findings. On joining Snow, Alastair championed the idea of launching SaaS services and established both a hosting and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) function to support such growth. This provides the infrastructure and Support for over 200 customers who have adopted such se

COVID-19 forced many industries to rethink their use of technology. Many of which you wouldn't automatically associate with tech. As teaching went from the classroom to remote learning, I wanted to learn more about how Citrix and its partners were working together to work beyond their traditional IT infrastructure and embrace new equipment that is transforming education. After learning more about how Citrix and Wacom were working together to ensure this transition was much easier, I felt compelled to share that story with you all. Todd Smith from Citrix and Mindy Thielges from Wacom join me in a conversation about transforming our students, teachers, and parents' approach to education through technology. Mindy Thielges is a Senior Sales Specialist at Wacom. Mindy is an evangelist for digital pen and ink technologies in education – and is a key player in Wacom's growing education initiatives across K-12 and higher education. Before joining Wacom, Mindy spent 15+ years focused on education technology as a sales

As the world continues to cope and battle with COVID-19, the Internet has become a lifeline for billions of people to work, learn, access critical information, and stay connected with friends and family. According to United Nations estimates, only 53.6% of the global population has Internet access. Some reports indicate that nearly 42 million Americans still lack broadband internet in rural areas. As a result of the pandemic, countries worldwide are compelled to reckon with the repercussions of a digital divide within their borders, and many are accelerating efforts to connect the unconnected. However, the digital divide is a complicated issue, and it is essential to distinguish the lack of land-based connectivity from there being no internet connectivity available at all. With growing innovations and a lot of buzz around space recently, satellite technology prevails as the only fast, affordable, and sustainable solution that can address the glaring connectivity deficit the pandemic has illuminated. Mark Wy

Gary S. Chan is an information security management consultant focused on helping businesses stay secure and meet compliance obligations. Companies hire Gary to help them build or improve their cybersecurity programs. Today, he joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how companies can build information security that makes pragmatic sense. We discuss the current and future state of cybersecurity and why small companies need to think about cybersecurity, and how to do it within budget. We also discuss how large enterprises can build effective and efficient cybersecurity programs and talks about security innovation. Gary has 16 years of experience, four security certifications, and an electrical engineering and computer science degree from MIT. Having worked in over a dozen countries, Gary has deployed security solutions to multiple state agencies, built the information security program for large-cap companies, mentored cybersecurity start-ups, and given seminars on cybersecurity.

Competition is on the rise, advertising costs are going up, and target market buying habits are changing. For you to evolve and adapt quickly, you need to be testing. You need to test fast, and you need to test often to grow and scale effectively. Your website might look great, but is it optimized and delivering results? Increasing your online sales isn't a matter of closing your eyes, throwing a dart, and hoping you hit the bullseye. There's a proven, methodical, and scientific process for creating an online sales engine that predictably and continually increases your profits, month after month and year after year. But I wanted to learn more about the technology that makes it all possible. Today's guest is Justin Christianson. He is a self-proclaimed numbers junkie and a digital marketing veteran. Not to mention a Father, Husband, and #1 Bestselling author of "Conversion Fanatic: How to double your customers, sales and profits with A/B testing". Justin is also the co-founder and President of Conversion Fa

Dronamics, the world's leading middle-mile cargo drone developer and operator, recently unveiled the first five airports in its European network of cargo droneports. The Dronamics European Droneport Network is the world's first cargo droneport network. It includes private airports and airport groups operating more than 35 airports in 11 European countries, connecting 300 million people with low-cost same-day cargo service. The company will operate same-day flights within the network using its proprietary "Black Swan" large cargo drones, each with a capacity of 350 kg and range of up to 2,500 km, reducing time, cost and emissions by up to 80% compared to traditional air cargo. Svilen Rangelov, Co-Founder and CEO of Dronamics, shares his mission to enable same-day air deliveries for every single person on the planet at a cost that everyone everywhere can afford. I learn more about how this Bulgarian startup wants to reinvent e-commerce with its cargo drone and how drone technologies can help supply chains beco

When something goes wrong, tech teams don't have the luxury of logging a support ticket. When I heard about Peritus, an AI recommendation for technical support, I felt compelled to find out more. Robin Purohit is the co-founder and CEO of Peritus.ai, a Bay area startup that is tackling technical support for developers and engineers. He was previously a senior executive at BMC and HP Software, where he led multi-billion dollar business units for IT management, application delivery, and security. AI chatbots for customer support are getting significant attention and investment in industries ranging from retail to financial services to employee help desks. However, an important area neglected is support for engineers and developers who are driving IT innovation. These technical users have little patience for pre-wired chatbots without industry context and view opening a support ticket as the last resort. Instead, they look for insights from trusted experts on Community Forums, such as Stack Overflow or vendor-sp