Sam Talks Technology

SPEAKER SUMMARY

Katz Kiely’s is the CEO and founder of Beep, a behavioural empowerment platform. She’s also responsible to kickstarting and bootstrapping a marvellous initiative called Frontline.Live.

Frontline.Live is the first national open data rapid response platform - designed to get health care workers the PPE they need when they need it. It collects, aggregates and visualises live data so suppliers can respond to their needs quickly.

How to help with Frontline.Live

1. - For health care workers

Tweet a selfie with the three hashtags: #frontlinemap #workpostcode #PPEneed and they’ll be put on the map.

2. - For suppliers

Suppliers of PPE sign up by completing the PPE suppliers’ form at frontline.live.

Hopin is a virtual and hybrid events platform, which scaled from 8 to +300 fully-remote team members in 2020 and reached double-unicorn status.

Franz is currently based in London, working on strategic partnerships at Hopin.

Give Back Box® was founded in 2012 by Monika Wiela, who at the time was running an online shoe store. The idea was inspired by a homeless man she encountered in Chicago, who was holding up a sign saying he needed a pair of shoes. Wiela returned later that day with shoes for him, but he was gone. She spent that night thinking about what she could do with all the empty boxes in her warehouse and also help people like that man, and a new social enterprise was born.

As Wiela researched further, she learned that, an estimated 11 million tons of clothing, footwear, towels, bedding, drapery, and other textiles end up in U.S. landfills every year. In addition, online shopping is now the preferred method for much of the buying public. Corrugated boxes are the dominant packaging method for e-commerce. With this knowledge, Wiela’s mission crystallized. If online retailers would use Give Back Box, shipping boxes and other items could be used a second time prior to being recycled. The impact would be remarkable.

Give Back Box® has also teamed up with some of the biggest retailers in the U.S., including Overstock, Amazon, Loft, REI, Levi’s, Asics, Ann Taylor, LEGO, Nordstrom, Viva Terra, Ecru, Bonobos, Scrubs & Beyond, eBags, Lou & Grey and many others.

The Give Back Box platform is open for any retailer who joins as a partner. Give Back Box has truly created a new method of waste diversion for retailers because, in addition to creating a secondary use for the shipping box and guaranteeing that it will be recycled, it helps clear closets, create jobs and offer more companies and their customers an opportunity to recycle.

There is a need for a new kind of leadership; one that bleeds personality and rings true to employees and customers alike who crave authenticity. You Lead argues that business leaders deliver superior results, communities of engagement both inside and outside of the company and true values-driven success when they are themselves and come across as genuine.

Bestselling author, Minter Dial, shows readers how embracing your whole self at work encourages people to also be themselves, seek true fulfilment at work and merge the personal and professional to become true examples of what you stand for. You Lead is a call to arms to leaders to stop pretending to be who they are not, and play on their uniqueness and strengths, to allow people to do the same and develop a culture of authenticity and purpose.

With practical advice, real-life stories and a simple framework, this book shows you how you can:

- Be yourself, lead by example and merge the professional and personal

- Stand for something and allow people to develop true purpose at work

- Allow a community to flourish through the right kind of governance model

- Radiate your purpose through employees and customers alike for long-term performance

Bhushan Sethi is the joint global leader of PwC’s People & Organization practice, where he shapes and drives the firm’s global network strategy across 11000+ practitioners in 150+ countries delivering standalone and integrated solutions across strategy, management, technology and tax consulting disciplines.

Bhushan is an award winning thought leader, public speaker, media spokesperson and influencer on "future of work”, risk culture, workforce strategy, employee experience and diversity & inclusion. He has featured in WSJ, Bloomberg, CNBC, Forbes, Yahoo Finance, World Economic Forum, American Banker, HR Digest, Human Capital Institute and spoken at G20/T20 summits, UNDP, Wharton, MIT and multiple industry conferences, webinars and podcasts.

He is recognized as one of HRO 2019 superstar and part of 'most inclusive HR influencer list"

He is a current member of T20 “Future of work task force” where he works with leading global think tanks, business and academic leaders to influence G20 public policy and current member of World Economic Forum Council on Skills and Education, having previously served on WEF Equality & Inclusion Council.

He currently lives in New York City and has lived and worked in Europe, Asia and UK.

Charlie Cadbury is the Chief Executive Officer of Say It Now, the award-winning voice technology company, who have teamed up with digital advertising exchange DAX to enable people to respond directly to radio advertisements using their smart speaker and only voice commands to donate to their chosen charity.

Faisal Galaria is the Chief Executive Officer of Blippar. Faisal has successfully led and grown some of the world’s most successful global technology brands including Spotify, Skype and Kayak.

Recognised as a scale-up and turnaround leader, Faisal has a track record of growing some of the world’s most successful technology brands including Spotify, Skype and Kayak globally.

As Senior Vice President at Spotify, Faisal launched the digital music service in seven countries and was responsible for the Platform Music Agreement with Facebook. He was also the International MD of Kayak.com prior to its IPO and an early member of the Skype team where he led the European business.

Faisal joins from Go Compare where, as Chief Strategy & Investments Officer, he helped lead its IPO on the London Stock Exchange and managed several acquisitions. Prior to Gocompare, he was a Senior Partner at Alvarez & Marsal, the world’s largest turnaround and restructuring company and led the European Digital & Media practices.

He will be responsible for driving Blippar’s commercial growth and development as the company continues to expand its proprietary AR creation and publishing platform post-administration, and will work closely with Blippar’s Founder Ambarish Mitra, and Preet Prasannan, the new Chief Technology Officer.

Blippar was bought out of administration earlier this year when existing shareholder Candy Ventures acquired the intellectual property assets of Blippar and its various brands.

The company’s new product offering focuses primarily on its innovative AR creation and publishing platform “Blippbuilder”, enabling brands, educators and individuals to create and publish their own augmented reality experiences.

Mukul Devichand is the BBC senior editor of Voice + AI at the BBC. He is creating and shaping the world’s first public service AI Assistant ( “Beeb”).

He was recently asked by BBC bosses to respond to the emergence of Voice AI assistants such as Alexa or Google Assistant, widely seen as the next chapter in the amazing and fractious story of the internet.

Mukul now sets the creative and editorial direction for the whole BBC, globally and for the UK, in Voice AI. This meant dreaming up, birthing and shaping a new AI assistant technology, “Beeb,” designed to be a public service media interface into Artificial Intelligence platforms.

Martin Steers has a real passion for the Radio, Media, PR and Communications, with tutoring schools and colleges in radio at his business Schools Radio Network, as well as his on-going involvement with the Scout Radio Team.

Nigel Eccles is a serial entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of the sports group chat app Flick. He previously co-founded Hubdub and FanDuel wuth his wife.