Tech Can't Save Us

Marie is a self-confessed “super nerd supreme” who started coding at just nine years old. She began her career as an engineer at AOL, then worked at Universal Studios and several tech firms before co-founding Data360 eight years ago. 

The first article we discuss is from Forbes. It tackles the intersection between AI and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and asks whether ChatGPT will make DEI communications from leaders inauthentic.

“It’s a matter of fairly sourcing data,” Marie tells us. She explains that sources that are widely regarded as authoritative tend to be biased, so there’s a need to use wider, more inclusive data sets to train AI.

The second article from IBM talks about the need to account for racial bias in machine learning models and the idea that data can carry implicit bias. We asked Marie what she thinks about how to remove racial bias from machine learning models.

“Who do you have on the team?” Marie asks, emphasizing the need for diversity among teams developing and training AI models. She then goes on to talk about how her background in anthropology influences how she thinks about AI, machine learning, and removing bias. 

“You need four approaches: qualitative, quantitative, latitudinal, longitudinal,” Marie explains, “What we mostly have now is a quantitative approach, but there isn’t necessarily always a qualitative approach.”

The third piece from Black Girl Nerds asks whether AI can improve Black women’s lives. “AI apps and software have definitely improved the quality of my life,” Marie says. “Our company also works with Black women through our online incubator, and I would say yes, it does improve their lives.”

Marie shares some of the challenges she faces as a Black woman in a leadership role at a tech company before we move on to Data360’s work helping small business owners automate their business operations and increase their data literacy.

Finally, into what Marie thinks the evillest tech app is and her predictions for the future of tech.

To learn more about Data360: https://www.data360.solutions/home 

We start by diving into how DeNora founded DoSomething.org after cultivating an interest in societal issues, civic life, inclusivity, and other important topics. This interest directly informed the specific campaigns her company has completed, such as “Make STEM 100%,” which mainly focuses on providing for high school students, especially from underrepresented communities. 

“What we know is that only 20 % of high school graduates are prepared for college-level coursework STEM,” DeNora says. “If they’re not getting [the necessary tools for learning], then they’re never going to be prepared.”

DeNora then talks about the significance of working in a non-profit organization. 

“What we’re seeing [is] an interest in partnering and learning how to work with the nonprofit sector and support the work happening here,” she explains. “And I think that has a significant impact on the nonprofit sector, which exists to be a bridge between what’s happening in the private sector and what’s happening in government.”’

DeNora adds that she hopes to evolve her company into recognition and be revered in the marketplace for future generations. 

Later in the conversation, DeNora also expresses her excitement about the impacts and changes young individuals are making today. She brings up ongoing and future projects that she plans to work on, such as climate change and STEM education. 

“It’s really exciting to see young people calling out the problem. [Young people] are the ones pushing us to do better or do more and feel the change that we all want to see happen.”

We head home after stressing the importance of tech and underlining the opportunity that young people can now utilize to connect with others and reach for support in important causes. 

As the episode continues to explore her experience of tech, young leadership, and corporate life, we also discover more about DeNora’s thoughts on tech: her dream tech product and her overall purpose with DoSomething.org.

• To learn more about DeNora and her work, check out:

Our conversation starts with Kiehl’s background at Riot company and Google before leading into how he decided to launch his own company. 

Josiash discusses the importance of achieving and standing out amongst the various companies in the gaming industry, underlining the idea that anyone can now create their own unique product. 

“I think this is a trend we’ve seen recently,” he observes. “As tools get better and better, it lowers the barrier to entry of creating anything.” 

Kiehl further adds that timeliness is more significant than being polished, because anyone can create their own game with the accessible tools that are available. 

“There are more people who would become game developers, which means we would get more perspectives in the industry. It’s not just people who have a programming background; just about anybody can load up some of these tools, the more accessible tools, and build a game.” This is far from a worrying development for Josiah; in fact, he feels hopeful about the industry.

We move on to a conversation on AI in gaming (of course we bring AI into this). Josiash expands on the ethical concerns that come into play with AI and gaming, but highlights the efforts that his team is taking to overcome these obstacles. 

We head home with a conversation on the ethics of gaming, including the endless debate on the positives and negatives of online game behavior.. We also chat about his dream Tech product and his vision for the future of gaming and Tech.

The conversation kicks off with an article about ChatGPT and whether it poses a cybersecurity risk. “It is exciting to see how fast this has taken off and how people are adopting an AI tool,” Tiffany says. “But it’s also being adopted by bad actors and cybercriminals. They’re using it to make their emails look real and personalize them at scale,” she tells us. “Others have learned to exploit ChatGPT to create malware, which is code that tries to gain access to data that it shouldn’t have.” 

Tiffany explains what polymorphic malware is and why we should be concerned about it — it’s malware that adapts, learns, and changes, making it harder to detect.

We discuss spear phishing — the process of sending hyper-personalized phishing emails that ChatGPT is facilitating — before moving on to the next article about the “zero trust” approach to cybersecurity. Tiffany explains that the real problem is not stopping phishing messages from coming in but stopping people from clicking on the links cybercriminals send. 

“We have to shift people away from always wanting to be helpful,” she says. “And the other thing we have to do is recognize that cybercriminals are going to try to exploit our needs. It’s all about not trusting the message or phone call that comes in.”

The final piece focuses on cybersecurity predictions for 2023. Tiffany explains that small and medium-sized businesses tend to be easier targets for cybercriminals as they usually have fewer security policies in place. We discuss tensions that this may cause between companies and their employees and the potential for state-sponsored cyber attacks.

Tiffany then tells us more about the inspiration that led her to found HacWare and the work they do before we move into the lightning round to discover what she thinks is the evillest Tech application and what her predictions are for the future of Tech.

• To learn more about HacWare: https://hacware.com

Winvesta is a cross-border neobank that provides a wide variety of products to developing markets, including global banking accounts, investment portfolios, and payment collections. The company was born out of Swastik’s desire to develop a product suite that would give investors in developing markets access to financial services in developed markets. 

India is the largest user base for some of the tech companies in the world, including Facebook. However, people were not able to invest in these companies; Swastik wanted to fix this.

We begin this episode by discussing this piece on the future of digital payments. “The promise of blockchain, which is a longer-term promise, remains, helping to drive trust and speed without necessarily being a currency itself,” Swastik points out. “Blockchain will continue aiding payments in various ways without necessarily aiding just the flow of crypto.” 

Throughout all this talk about bitcoin and payments, Swastik is particularly interested in how businesses will continue to foster trust in an industry such as fintech, where people will only use your products if they trust you.

Getting into the next piece on what’s hot and what’s not in the fintech space, Swastik continues to emphasize the need for trust, especially given that we’re in a recessionary period. He points out that people are becoming far more conservative with their money, and as this happens, they are becoming “less trusting of people they don’t know,” giving rise to the need for mitigating fraud and increasing trust in the system.

We delve into how the fintech ecosystem can benefit from transplanting use cases from emerging markets and how Winvesta has managed to increase speed, control, and transparency for both its retail and business customers. Our conversation also covers some predictions for the fintech space in 2023 and a new Tech product Swastik plans to build to automate task prioritization, complete with some self-adjustment capabilities.

Kieron is a jack of all trades with his interests in marketing and love of poetry so he built a creative consultancy on the power of words. His obsession with language and etymology drives him to inspire clients to build bridges with words. 

As a Performance Poet, Kieron shares his perspective on a piece questioning AIs ability to write Authentic Poetry and how “what it lacks is human experience to pick up the nuances” and “lacks the creative flair and creative soul.“

We discuss a piece on ChatGPT, the new AI tool marketers are going crazy about. where Kieron points out “it could help those that are neurodiverse or those who may struggle with language barriers and it could give them a better steer.”

Kieron thrills us with a live poetry performance with one of his own poems. Here’s a preview: “In blue flashing lights, I testify. I don't cry. I just write. Poetry provides comfort during troubling times.” 

No AI tool has brought us those goosebumps yet; take our word for it.

We continue to dive into the many inspiring projects Kieron has been part of as well as his current endeavour as Creative in Residence of the English National Opera. We also discover his dream Tech product, his least favourite use of Tech (hint: grocery stores), and finally, his big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year.

To follow Kieron's amazing work: https://www.kieronrennie.com

This week, we welcome Amy Carter-James and Ben Keene, Co-founders of Raaise, who share their mission to empower climate startups to create a better future for our planet. 

Raaise is a SaaS platform powering bold, game-changing climate startups to prepare for and execute a funding round with as little friction as possible so they can create climate solutions for a better, greener future. 

We start the episode with a piece from Verge on COP27. "It brings the world together around this conversation of how we solve the problem of climate change," Ben optimistically admits, "but from a marketplace perspective of scaling bold, bright ideas, it feels like we can't rely on COP and the Governments of the world."

Raaise was born from the devastation of one of the worst climate disasters to hit the southern hemisphere. It destroyed Ben and Amy's home, along with hundreds of others in Mozambique. They were forced to take action and started their journey by finding mission-driven founders with powerful ideas and helping them scale.

As we dive into our next piece by PR Week on ESG in businesses, Amy is quick to point out that "it's ridiculous that it's 2022, and ESG isn't hard coded into every corporation around the world It’s frustrating that people even consider cutting ESG when we are living in this climate era." 

Our conversation continues to explore how Ben and Amy showcase and support these amazing startups. We also find out what they think is the evilest application of Tech and big predictions about the Tech for Good space this year and beyond.

This week, we welcome Christian Hendriksen, Co-Founder and CEO at Rensair, who walks us through his pursuit to protect and enhance lives through proven clean air technology.

Christian is passionate about clean air as a human right. He creates new technologies with Rensair that help people around the world reduce their exposure to air pollution and tackle airborne diseases.

"There is a direct correlation, undoubtedly, between particulate matter levels in the air and your ability to concentrate," Christian explains, as we explore a piece on the importance of air purification.

We segue into the next piece by Vox that describes the concept of sick building syndrome and describes how the ventilation of our buildings causes illnesses. Christian emphasises that indoor ventilation "needs to be addressed, and we need to foster new building principles."

In the context of the Coronavirus pandemic, air purification has never been more important. Christian points out how "we focus on outdoor air quality so much but considering we spend the vast majority of our lives indoors, that's the area we need to focus on now." 
Our discussion continues to explore Christian's mission to provide clean air for every space: from hospitals and schools to restaurants and retail outlets. We also discovered his dream Tech product and big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year. 

In this week's episode, we welcome Reva McPollom, Founder & CEO of Lessonbee who shares her mission to transform K-12 health education and social emotional learning.

Reva’s innovation at Lessonbee provides culturally relevant health education that promotes mental and emotional well-being that serves as a catalyst to a healthier world for everyone.

"One of the issues historically with the SEL curriculum is that it doesn't include or represent the multi-dimensionality of diverse learners," Reva highlights as we explore a piece by Edweek on the difficulty to weave social emotional learning into academics.

We move on a piece by Edsurge that talks of demystifying social emotional learning. “SEL points to broader societal context and where we are as a society in our relationship with the truth,” Reva adds thoughtfully.

As someone who has navigated the US educational system in multiple ways, Reva describes it as a “system that has always just celebrated assimilation and performance, but hasn’t validated and affirmed my culture, my identity, my wants, my needs, and my struggles.”

Our conversation progresses into more insights into how Lessonbee is empowering and  activating the innate power of kids and teens. We also discover Reva’s dream Tech product and big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year. 

What better month to talk about the future? This week, we welcome Rohit Talwar, Founder and CEO of Fast Future, to discuss his passion: harnessing new ideas and driving innovation to future-proof society. 

Rohit's work at Fast Future specialises in the fields of future and foresight, delivering critical insights to help clients navigate disruption and understand the emerging landscape, so they can shape a better tomorrow.

"We're seeing in all sorts of fields of science that AI is far outstripping our ability to do anything with it,” Rohit observes, as we dive into a piece from Nature on how AI and robotics help us expand our predictive capacities.

We move on to a piece by Bloomberg on the lack of transparency in algorithms affecting AI, and Rohit points out that "we have to push back on all capitalist thinking at the moment if we want true transparency and true participation in society." 

Keen to gain his perspective on the constant and staggering advancement of Tech, we ask Rohit about a piece describing the opportunities this 'Exponential Age' has to create real change. Why haven’t we fully realized the potential of current Tech? "The reason has nothing to do with the Tech; it has to do with choices we've made as a society,” Rohit responds.

The conversation finally moves into a more human space, as we learn about Rohit's interest in creating a human future by putting people at the centre of his agenda. We also find out the evilest application of Tech he's seen and his big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year and beyond.