Tech Talks Central

Michael and Craig of AnchorFree tell us about their company and its more than 300 million customers that increase by 200.000 per day! They also talk about their vision, that is to sell everybody the ability to be private and secure in WiFi environments, by utilizing encryption, regardless of the device and the network being used. They’re interested in selling their WiFi security application to big carriers, who will then distribute it to their subscriber base to making them happier - and this is one of the cases where what is good for the people, is also good for the carrier… Finally, they strongly believe that privacy enables innovation - you can only innovate when you have some privacy. So, in order to elongate innovation, privacy is a necessary component, a necessary element which, as they say, their products allow the users to have.

A different approach to location-based services is being presented by Stevie Ooi, who is chief locationist at W-locate. While most other services are based on GPS signals (with all the relative problems of this solution, in the absence of signal, for eg. within buildings) their product is based on the SIM card itself, which pinpoints the position of the mobile phone and its owner. He tells us about the first rollout of their special network and device agnostic SIM card in Singapore and Thailand, their plans to pass from a B2B to a B2C selling model and their vision of the oncoming IoT era, where their SIM card will provide a valuable element -location- as an extra dimension in the analytical process of big data. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

Professor Ramon Reig Bolaño describes the new Master’s degree on Mobile Apps & Games that runs for the second year at Vic University, in Barcelona, and gives us useful information about the courses themselves, the goals of this innovative program and the different ways someone can enrol. He also talks about the latest trends in the gaming industry, including the recent turn to serious, health and education games, and, finally, he explains why the capital of Catalunya is an ideal place to nurture your innovative ideas and get your start-up going. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

Joe Killen of Tunstall Group talks about the technology and services his 60-year-old company is offering to elders or people with chronic diseases, still living in their homes. He tells us a lot about the quite new (about 5-years-old) and innovative tele-health monitoring schemes, which are gaining ground, all over the world. Joe points out the need for standards, now that we have an abundance of biometric data concerning millions of people, as European population is getting older, and proposes the creation of a common international framework for that purpose. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

RefME is a free tool to generate citations, reference lists and bibliographies in just a click. It allows students to scan book and journal barcodes very quickly. It saves and syncs in the cloud meaning they can manage work across multiple devices from anywhere at any time. With over 7000 formats from university specific styles to choose from, RefME is a one-click free and super easy referencing tool that has been taking campuses by storm, attracting over 500,000. Tom Hatton and Ian Forshew the Co-Founders of RefME share insights of the research and education market. RefME is one of ten TOP UK tech startups, adding 5-30k new users every day and they are about to close one of the largest pre-revenue seed round funding in Europe. They also believe that the UK tech scene is a really cool place to be as the state has given incentives and encouraged people to place money in the startup scene. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

Privacy and security are important in the digital and data world and especially after Snowdens’ revelations. Phil Zimmermann, the creator of PGP and Zfone and currently the Co-Founder of Silent Circle is the most suitable person to talk about the privacy and security issues we face. How enterprises and their employees can protect their data including an average user. Social media and various devices make it really easy for people to reveal important information about their lives, without them realising it. As we are now entering the IoT era, security and privacy will be even more important as more devices will generate even more sensitive data. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

Connectivity and Internet of things will be changing our lives. Rami Avidan the M2M Director of Tele2 Group mentions some really interesting case studies that Tele2 has been involved in. We will see new business models implemented as companies will try to offer better and personalised services. How can customers protect their data, is another topic Rami Avidan talks about, focusing on how important it is for the buyer to know where his data is shared and for what reasons. He also foresees new technologies in connectivity, moving from products to services and that the largest vertical with the most connected devices and data will be Healthcare. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

Jennifer Ernst, Chief Strategy Officer for Thinfilm explains how Near Field Communication(NFC) labels and new technologies can revolutionize personalisation and create dynamic marketing content. Thinfilm has partnered with Diageo to produce Smart Bottles and offer their customers a unique, premium brand, experience. These type of technologies like OpenSense have already been applied to cosmetics, medicine distribution and industries where counterfeiting is a serious issue. The label also permits the addition of temperature thresholds making it very suitable for the supply chain industry. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

Internet of Things, wearables, new devices and NFV are some of the new technologies that David Chalmers Chief Technologist, VP EMEA at Hewlett-Packard talks about. How technology will impact society from driverless cars, to sensors in everything we will own. He also talks about the opportunity for enterprises to personalise their services improving customer experience based on preferences and location. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

PayPal is one of the largest players in online and mobile payment systems. They have many programs supporting startups and developers like BattleHack, Blueprint, Start Tank and have partnered with many top incubators, accelerators and VCs like 500 startups, Techstars, Google Ventures, Seedcamp, Startupbootcamp and much more. Corrado discusses with us how mobile payments will lead to cashless societies and some interesting fintech startups that will drive the innovation in the industry. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

The Fin-tech industry is booming and Alexandra Pontikis, Social Media and Marketing Manager explains what Invstr is and offers. With 50.000 downloads, invstr is a social network for finance that provides high quality information to users that was previously accessible only to certain elite groups. Alexandra talks about their business model, their plans for this year and their vision. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

Just a few days, after being named CTO for the Year 2015 by Mobile Europe, due to his critical contribution to the successful LTE rollout by EE, Fotis Karonis talks to TTC Web Radio about this great honour and what it means for him. He talks about his company - EE, which boasts about its fastest and largest 4G network and subscriber base in Europe; recently acquired by British Telecom for 12,5 bn pounds - describing the challenges and the opportunities he faces in his job. Among them, the ever increasing stream of video and data, as well as the absolute need to be prepared for the Internet of Things tsunami. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

Phil Twist, VP in Portfolio Marketing for NSN/Nokia talks about the goals of the re-invented and refreshed Nokia and its ambitions for the future... He tells us about Nokia Radio Cloud, the proposed migration route of the big telcos to the cloud that may increase their flexibility and capacity. He comments on the exponentially expanding market of the connected machines and things, that includes everything producing or crunching loads of data - from IoT to Smart TVs, connected cars and factory equipment, to home devices and even robotic surgery systems. He also explains all about the LTE-U (or Licensed Assisted Access) technology, which is a small-cell solution using WiFi unlicensed spectrum for additional LTE capacity, with the aim of offering improved network performance and superior customer experience. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

Tomohiro Hagiwara from the Tokyo based Aquabit Spirals company talks about their new product Smart Plate, an IoT connected card which delivers digital content to smartphones, directly. The actual plates connect, through an application, to the mobile which means the user can change the content on the fly. He explains how retailers in Japan -where real estate is very expensive and inventories are costly- prefer to create product showrooms, with a visual display or a single number of the item for customers to touch and feel, use Smart Plates for consumers to scan and buy. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Tom Erik von Krogh-Martinsen, CEO and founder of CHECKD, a mobile software as a service application for the construction industry. CHECKD was launched in Nov.2013 by a small Oslo based team and Tom Erik explains how he came about the idea, from his vast personal experience in construction and the need to solve the issue of over 30% waste in all construction projects. Although there are many office solutions that can help you control production they wanted to move everything in the field, which meant going mobile. Tom Erik talks about their funding and support from the Norwegian State and their App Circus prize and participation in the MWC15 Mobile Premier Awards. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Leslie Cottenje, coFounder at the Belgian startup ‘Hello Customer’ talks about their B2B service which keeps things simple by asking one question Would you recommend such product or company to your friends or family? With their second open question they offer text and sentiment analysis, taking away the burden from their customers of surveying, analysing and storing of customer feedback. Leslie explains how she wants to help companies listen to their customers and how her own company is growing with partners from the retail and consulting sectors. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Jorge Fernandez Miranda, Global Health of Consumer Digital Health B2C at Telefonica talks about the number one Spanish multinational Telco and how they hope to transform healthcare through three basic areas, a. the digital hospital & transforming healthcare processes, b. population health management, changing the way healthcare is delivered (remote management & telemedicine) and c. consumer digital health services. He mentions that very few telcos are approaching the end-consumer market, while Telefonica has already launched in Latin America with over 2M subscribed users. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Trimaps converts any classic image map to an actual digital interactive map with geolocation. Jonathan Falon, founder at Trimaps, explains how the application works on mobiles and how it can be used for hotels, recreation parks, golf courses and many more. They have an API for website use and an SDK for developers. Jonathan talks about their monetization model, their team and how they utilized their initial seed funding. He goes on to explain the use of their other product, called Tricount, which enables a group of friends to organise their group expenses. Balancing or ‘going Dutch’ on travel expenses and with a good initial number of users in 3 countries. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Filip Maertens, Founder and Chief Product Officer of Sentiance a Belgian B2B startup that builds a rich contextual profile on the true behaviour of a user by using the built-in sensors of his/her mobile or wearables. As the company moto goes it makes Smart devices intelligent! Their product is a software development kit with revenues from daily active users. Filip mentions how they were surprised to find that the industry with the biggest interest in their product was the insurance companies since they want to know about our driving behaviour. He goes on to talk about their $2M funding, expanding to Asia and the US, the IPs involved in their product, data, artificial intelligence and the...singularity theory. One of the most interesting interviews to come out of MWC15. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks central.

Costis Papadimitrakopoulos, CEO of Globo presents GLOBO, an international leader and technology innovator delivering multi-platform enterprise mobility management and telecom software solutions. He talks about the significance of security in the era of IoT and how his company is evolving it’s product architecture to offer security of data and better management of devices. He also adds that their future plans are to provide their software as open source in order to create a larger ecosystem. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.