Live from ICC 2025 in Sacramento, the Energy Tech Podcast sits down with Zach Scriven—longtime Ignition community leader and UNS evangelist—to talk Level Up, Ignition 8.3, the Prove It wave, and how to actually execute digital transformation (beyond buzzwords). We dig into Unified Namespace (UNS), MQTT/Sparkplug, agile delivery with integrators, and why a top-down digital strategy plus bottom-up execution wins in oil & gas and beyond.

What you’ll learn:

- Why “strategy first” is step zero for digital transformation

- UNS explained (real-time fabric) vs. historians (consumers/nodes)

- Ignition 8.3 momentum, MQTT modules, and scale without lock-in

- Agile, iterative delivery “turnkey” fantasies

- Where energy ops (O&G, RNG, landfill gas, battery/storage, data centers) can start

Guest: Zach Scriven — creator/leader in the Ignition community; producer behind early UNS storytelling, Firebrand-winning projects, and the Prove It ethos.

Zach Scriven (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/zackscriven/

Inductive Automation / ICC: https://inductiveautomation.com/

Energy Tech Podcast: https://opsiteenergy.com/all_podcast

Opsite Energy (presenting sponsor): https://opsiteenergy.com/

Chapters

00:00 Intro

00:10 Welcome & ICC 2025 vibe

01:25 Why Zach matters: UNS, Prove It, community leadership

02:27 “Level Up” at ICC: new venue, Ignition 8.3, Prove It flavor

04:55 Early UNS stories (Pioneer project, GAN → MQTT)

06:52 UNS ≠ historian; real-time fabric + nodes/consumers

08:58 Industry 3.0 → 4.0: practical paths (MQTT brokers, edge, cloud)

12:20 Digital transformation strategy: north star, align top-down, execute bottom-up

16:40 Agile delivery with internal teams + SIs; why turnkey fails

20:55 Personal “Zachisms”: content, brand, mission, values

23:00 AI, ML, MCP: leverage and why it widens the gap

25:04 What’s next for Zach: building a value-added reseller with real outcomes

27:35 Closing & where to follow

Uygar Duzgun “Fast Life” courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com