Our guest today is Michael P Morris, co-founder and CEO of Torc, a company that offers a marketplace connecting enterprises and freelance tech talent from around the world. In this episode, Mike talks about how companies are increasingly tapping talent wherever they find it. He also talks about Torc’s plan to expand its operations in India.

Notes:

(00:39) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:51) Our guest today — Michael Morris, co-founder and CEO, Torc

(01:40) A snapshot of what Torc is — a marketplace for freelancers and enterprises

(03:11) On the choice of the name Torc

(04:26) Mike’s experience looking at finding tech talent up close for several years

(06:45) Getting Recognize fund as an investor

(08:36) Problems with the way historically companies have gone about hiring people and more specifically hiring technology talent

(12:50) Using Torc to identify talent that might have been ignored in conventional processes

(17:44) How Torc has become more relevant in the post-Covid workplace

(21:28) How Torc works in practice

(26:02) Comments on early adoption of Torc

(30:05) Impact of the war in Ukraine on access to the tech talent in the region

(32:07) Torc’s expansion in India

More about Torc and Mike Morris

https://www.opentorc.com/about-us/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Kritika Oberoi, co-founder and CEO at Looppanel, a young startup that wants to ensure that user experience researchers never miss a single piece of important feedback that could go into making their products better. Kritika is also among the first cohort of women founders in Sequoia Capital’s Spark programme. In this episode, she talks about how her own experience led to Looppanel, some early success, and plans ahead.

(00:39) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:53) Our guest today — Kritika Oberoi, co-founder and CEO, Looppanel

(01:36) What Looppanel the product is about, the idea came about

(06:17) A snapshot of the company

(07:46) Where Looppanel is on its product development journey

(08:56) How Looppanel makes a difference — takes away the drudgery of an excel sheet

(11:18) Features that make Looppanel stand out

(15:11) The target users for Looppanel

(16:48) Early mapping of who the users should be to the actual experience today — a fairly good correlation emerging

(18:07) How the majority of the features that are built into software products are rarely used

(23:44) What Looppanel is doing about ensuring that its customers take full advantage of all the features it offers

(26:08) Early customer feedback for Looppanel

(28:54) How Kritika dove into being a startup founder

(33:19) Being part of Sequoia Spark

(34:58) Plans ahead over the next 12-18 months

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guests today are Ken Murphy, CEO of Tesco, the UK’s biggest grocer and one of the world’s biggest retailers, and Sumit Mitra, CEO of Tesco Business Services and Tesco Bengaluru. Murphy is visiting Tesco India for the first time since taking over as chief executive of the group about 18 months ago. In this conversation, he and Mitra talk about the role of the CEO in managing multiple stakeholders, the growing role of technology, and experiments at Tesco for reducing the retail giant’s carbon footprint.

Notes:

(00:38) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation — The Big Picture episodes

(00:50) Our guests today — Ken Murphy, CEO of Tesco and Sumit Mitra, CEO of Tesco Business Services and Tesco Bengaluru

(02:15) A snapshot of Tesco, UK’s top groceries retailer

(03:38) Thoughts on some of the biggest changes in the grocery retail industry

(05:43) More on ‘quick commerce’ at Tesco

(07:36) Important changes initiated by Ken since he took over as CEO about 18 months ago

(09:30) A shift in Tesco’s definition of its purpose

(10:49) The big picture, from Ken’s vantage point

(13:15) More on doing the right thing — what it entails in practice

(17:38) Some broad strokes on Tesco’s tech strategy, including data analytics to anticipate consumers’ needs

(21:28) On Tesco’s net-zero initiatives, in the UK and at the Bangalore centre

(27:00) Automation — the tension between job losses and the ability to free up people to do more creative work

(32:04) More on the Tesco Bengaluru centre — moving from backend support to becoming more critical to the company’s global operations

(35:51) Tesco’s engagements with startups in India

(38:06) On Ken being named as CEO of Tesco, and his decision to take on this role

(40:37) How Ken cuts through the noise to focus on what’s important

(42:53) On the future — worries and optimism

(44:27) A couple of additional points — including how Tesco Bangalore is retaining its top talent

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

Our guest today is Krishnakumar ‘KK’ Natarajan, co-founder of Mindtree and managing partner at Mela Ventures, an early-stage VC firm in Bengaluru that KK has started with fellow Mindtree co-founder Parthasarathy NS. Mela Ventures recently announced its inaugural fund of Rs. 320 crore. In this episode, KK talks about the rare chance at a third innings in his career, in which he wants to spotlight and support the next generation of B2B tech startups in India.

(00:39) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

Our guest today is Umesh Sachdev, co-founder and CEO of Uniphore, conversational automation and AI platform provider to some of the biggest companies in the world. In this episode, Umesh talks about the ambition to become the go-to AI layer in any conversation, and the roadmap ahead as an India-born Silicon Valley unicorn with the ambition of hitting a billion dollars in revenue as well.

(00:40) Intro to Forbes India’s The Daily Tech Conversation

Our guest today is Manish Dabkara, CMD and CEO of EKI Energy Services, a BSE SME listed company that shot to a billion dollars in market value within nine months of going public in April 2021. The company helps businesses make their projects more sustainable, and trade their carbon credits. In this conversation, Dabkara talks about the journey so far and opportunities ahead.

Today, our guest is Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner at Speciale Invest, a deep-tech focused early-stage VC firm in Chennai. Vishesh and his friend and VC partner Arjun Rao are among a handful of investors in India backing entrepreneurs who are attempting to bring to market really difficult science and engineering-based products, in areas ranging from space exploration to quantum computing and solutions addressing climate change.

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:52) Our guest today — Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner at Speciale Invest

(02:15) A snapshot of Speciale Invest’s story so far

(03:22) More on the philosophy at Speciale and what the founding partners wanted to do when the started the firm

(06:07) How backing science and engineering based startups at a very early stage is different from other startups like ecommerce or SaaS

(10:03) Some examples of startups and sectors that Speciale has invested in

(14:34) Second fund — first close last year and soon to announce final close

(15:11) Sectors that the VC firm will seek to invest in, in the coming months and quarters

(17:08) An outside-in look at Speciale’s investment strategy — one that hasn’t been proven in India yet

(17:59) A trip to Israel — a nation of survivors and entrepreneurial spirit

(20:54) More on what helps Israel’s startup ecosystem succeed

(22:02) Biggest lessons from Vishesh’s career so far

(23:42) On being optimistic about the prospects of Indian science and engineering startups to become big companies and global successes

(26:31) Some thoughts on the semiconductor sector

(28:52) The vision for Speciale Invest, three years from now

More about Speciale Invest

https://www.specialeinvest.com/about-us

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Pardeep Garg, cofounder of Uravu Labs, a Bangalore startup that has been developing a device to produce water from the air in a renewable manner. In this conversation, Pardeep talks about Uravu’s efforts to make the water they extract truly renewable; and the opportunity to bring renewable water to the trillion-dollar beverages industry.

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:53) Our guest today — Pardeep Garg, co-founder of Uravu Labs, a renewable water device maker

(01:31) A brief about how Uravu was started, and what the founders wanted to do

(03:13) What renewable water actually is

(06:56) Total dissolved salts, and drawbacks of reverse osmosis

(14:34) A walk through the process of Uravu’s device and its main components

(17:55) Current TRL of Uravu’s device

(20:38) Next big steps towards commercialisation

(29:25) How the pumping mechanism is also using renewable energy

(30:49) Six rupees and going lower — cost of a litre of renewable water

(31:52) Business models to sell renewable water — the device, and a subscription

(33:22) Next steps in developing the product to make it commercialisation ready

(34:22) Can Uravu sell to consumers as well, eventually

(35:39) Government support may also be forthcoming in India for renewable water technologies, soon

More about Uravu Labs

https://www.uravulabs.com/

Our guest today is Geetha Manjunath, founder and CEO of NIRAMAI Health Analytix, who has won multiple awards for her work in computer science and AI applied to healthcare. In this conversation, Geetha talks about plans to take NIRAMAI’s early-stage cancer detection technology to the advanced markets, starting with the UK. She also talks about how the day isn’t far when cancer detection will be possible using smartphones. 

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:53) Our guest today — Dr. Geetha Manjunath, founder and CEO, NIRAMAI Health Analytix

(01:52) A snapshot of NIRAMAI’s work and early cancer detection technology

(04:50) Examples of innovations patented by Manjunath

(10:49) Expansion into the UK

(13:08) Increasing accuracy of Thermalytix, NIRAMAI’s main product

(15:15) Portability of the device

(16:33) A device that is capable of detecting cancers as early as ‘stage zero’

(17:08) Challenges overcome in making NIRAMAI’s device both accurate and affordable

(22:22) Growing operations and expanding overseas

(24:38) Business models at NIRAMAI

(27:30) Using the cloud model to offer NIRAMAI’s AI analytics to anyone in the world

(29:01) How supportive is the Indian startup ecosystem of deep science and engineering based ventures

(33:17) Cancer detection on smartphones and beyond

More on Geetha Manjunath and NIRAMAI

https://www.niramai.com/team/geetha-manjunath/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Kausambi Manjita, co-founder and CEO of Mason, an award-winning startup that is making it easier for small retailers around the world to auto-run their online storefronts with its cloud-based no-code software. In today’s conversation, Kausambi talks about the role she envisions for Mason as the online retail space becomes ever more competitive for her customers; and Mason’s top priorities ahead as it begins to scale its solutions. 

(00:40) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:53) Our guest today — Kausambi Manjita, co-founder and CEO, Mason

(02:02) A snapshot of Mason’s tech and solutions

(04:11) More on Mason’s early thesis, and the work over the last 18 months

(13:07) Automation and product innovations at Mason

(20:23) On scaling Mason’s software engines for different features

(25:09) A technology shift underway and the direction in which Mason is evolving

(27:49) The role that Mason wants to play as the online retail space becomes hyper competitive for smaller retailers

More about Mason

https://getmason.io/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds