Tech Can't Save Us

In this week's episode, we're joined by Cynthia Fortlage, Founder of CAF Services, who lets us in on her insight into creating safe spaces where all marginalised people experience a sense of belonging.

We start off by diving into a piece on emphasising and empowering the T in LGBTQ for transgender people in tech. Cynthia points out, "when we talk about trans, it's imperative to understand for organisations that those are three very different identities." What are those three identities? We discuss them in the episode.

The next piece by Rolling Stone lets us unpack the now-popular phrase 'women in Tech. Cynthia astutely remarks, "when we talk about women in Tech, why do we want to use language that is exclusion based rather than inclusion based?"

As an award-winning gender consultant, we get to learn Cynthia’s valuable insights into the ever-present disparity in the Tech workforce. Only "23% of the leadership are female-identifying within these Tech companies", she points out, as we dive into a piece on the 'mass exodus' of women at work during the pandemic. 

Cynthia's philosophy at CAF services is "acceptance without understanding." Through this unique view, she strives to help organisations at the intersection of human rights, sexuality, gender, and privilege to create intentional cultures where people feel they belong.  

As the episode continues to explore Cynthia's experience of gender, leadership, and corporate life, we also discover her dream tech product and big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year. 

To find out more about Cynthia and her work, check out her LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/cfortlage, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cafservices/ and Website: Https://www.cynthiafortlage.com

This week, we welcome Robin Eriksson, CEO, and Co-founder of Cogo, who shares his passion for using technology and innovation to create sustainable change.

With his strong belief that creating sustainable cities is one of the most important issues we need to address, Robin co-founded Cogo, a platform that gathers shared rides for frictionless mobility and a better tomorrow.

We start the episode with Robin's perspective on a piece by Bloomberg on how it's time to treat e-bikes like vehicles, where he mentions how "If we look at on the environmental aspects, I think it's 1/5 of all emissions globally, every year comes from transport" so "biking is the most eco-friendly option out there."

"It's not top of mind yet; we've had cars for hundreds of years, and we've had buses and other vehicles for so long," he describes, "This is so new, and that takes time," Robin points out as we discuss a piece by The Atlantic about how e-bikes are still a scary unknown to the public. 

The Guardian's piece on moving things forward with building infrastructure for bikes introduced an interesting point from Robin on how "it all comes down to safety" and "if people on the bike feel safe, as it can be scary to be next to cars.”

While continuing to discover more about how Robin strives to achieve a more sustainable society, we also learn about his dream tech product and his big prediction about the tech for good space this year and beyond.

This week, we’re joined by Piotr Pisarz, Founder and CEO at Uncapped, who lets us in on his mission to empower founders who are changing the world.

As the economic downturn looms over us, we dive into one of Sifted pieces on what the recession means for European VC and how the trouble they might be facing is "mainly driven by a significant reduction in runway". "If you're a founder,” Piotr says, “you should really prepare to have a runway at least for the next 12 months."

We dive into the next piece on the common 'half-truths’ spoken in the startup ecosystem, such as exaggerating annual revenue. Piotr points out that "your job as a founder is to market your company and to position it in the best light possible, to appear bigger than you are and to scare off the competitors."

"I realised saying no is much more important than saying yes," Piotr admits as he shares his biggest takeaways as a founder/entrepreneur. “It's interesting because you want to help others, but it's very difficult to find time in a scalable way and you have to take care of yourself."

Piotr’s work at Uncapped is funding the next generation of entrepreneurs, driven by the resolve that they shouldn’t have to give away ownership of their company to support growth. Uncapped provide no-security and no-equity investments from £100k - £10 million.

The episode continues to explore Uncapped, a company born out of Piotr’s frustration with the less-than-ideal funding options currently available to entrepreneurs. We also find out his dream tech product and Uncapped’s big prediction for the Tech-for-good space this year. 

• To find out more Piotr’s work at Uncapped: http://bit.ly/3X9JTl6

In Today’s episode, we welcome Alan Grau, VP of Sales & Business Development at PQShield who shares his expertise on post quantum cryptography. 

We start the episode with a deep dive into ‘What Is the Future of Quantum-Proof Encryption?’. “Somewhere around the end of this decade,” Alan predicts, “quantum computers will be able to break RSA and ECC encryption.”

We then introduce a piece on the road to quantum-enabled cybersecurity and what it looks like. Alan points out that quantum cryptography is not a magic solution to security. “Security concerns that existed before will still exist in a post quantum world.”

We were keen to discuss how to achieve secure messaging in a post quantum world, Alan describing how its about “implementing the new post quantum encryption algorithms in a way that's provably secure”

PQShield deliver end-to-end solution design that is provably secure, crypto-agile and efficient while bridging the gaps between academic theory and commercial practice, between openness and security.

A big part of Alan's role at PQShield is helping guide users and this industry through the confusion of the post-quantum cryptography security and helping to navigate the post-quantum world.

This week, Kat Hamilton, Director of Partnerships and Programmes at Force of Nature, talks about their powerful mission of empowering young people to create real change and its vital part in the future of our climate.

We start by delving into an insightful piece on 'young people and eco-anxiety’. Kat points out that "eco-anxiety is an amassing of feelings across people of all generations, and we focus on young people because that's where our lived experience is."

They go on to share their perspective on climate anxiety disorder and its link to eco-anxiety. For both phenomena, they say we need to "allow ourselves to experience the depth of our feelings and see them as a pivotal part of resilience…so that we can step up rather than shut down."

We talk about integrating climate solutions into the learning process in schools and universities. A piece on putting climate solutions at the heart of tech education and beyond illustrates Kat’s insightful perspective: "the model of education that allows students to problem solve and critically think is the most important model of education we can have." 

Kat's work at Force of Nature embodies a belief in humanity and human emotions as catalysts for change, while mobilising mindsets for climate action and skillfully harnessing eco-anxiety with the right mix of community support and empowering stories.

As we continue to explore Kat's role in helping shape the next generation of climate activists, we also find out their dream tech product and their big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year. 

• To follow Force of Nature on their climate change journey, here are their social channels: https://www.instagram.com/forceofnature.xyz/, https://twitter.com/fon_xyz and https://www.linkedin.com/company/forceofnature/

In this week's episode, we're joined by Alexandre Crépault, Sales & Operations Lead at Climate X, who lets us in on how he's helping to build a better future for our planet.

We start the episode off with a piece on 'How Clean and Climate Tech Became a Good Investment,' where he describes how the current global challenges are impacting the markets, changing the priorities of investors and banks broadly.

Alexandre points out how "the structure of climate tech differs a lot from traditional tech investing" as we dive into this next piece on where climate tech meets global venture capital.  

"The simplest way to answer it is that AI alone is definitely not going to solve the climate crisis, and it shouldn't," Alexandre explains as we discuss how AI can fight climate change and its limitations. 

Climate X is helping organisations become more resilient to the impacts of climate change, unlocking the power of climate data to assess the probability and severity of weather events decades before they even happen.

The conversation leads us to find out what Alexandre believes to be the evilest application of tech and his big prediction for the tech for good space this year and beyond.

This week, we welcome Mandana Ahmadi, Co-Founder and CEO at Alena, to discuss her forward-thinking approach with mental health, using Tech to help people be their best selves. 

"Personalisation is key. At the end of the day, what matters is what's happening to me, my body, my brain, my life; therefore, it has to be specific to me," Mandana explains as we discuss a piece on Tech in mental health and its future.

We move on to another piece by Wired that examines the problem with mental health bots. In Mandana’s words, “too much credit is given to these bots, and they do more damage than good." 

As someone who is radically changing the way we approach and understand mental health, Mandana also gives us her valuable insights on this piece: therapy for people who won't go to therapy. That ties in with what Alena does—enable you to become your own therapist.  

Alena combines evidence-based therapy with cutting-edge neuroscience to overcome the limitations of mainstream therapy, delivering tailored mental health solutions. It empowers the people who use it to heal from past experiences that hold them back, and regain emotional freedom.

We go on to reveal what one problem Mandana thinks Tech can't solve, and what her dream Tech product would be. 

In this week's episode, we welcome Danielle Clarke, Brand Designer & Marketing Consultant at Danielle Clarke Creative, where she shares her love of using design for good as well as helping businesses build stellar brands.

In this episode, we switch it up and welcome our Creative Director Anabelle Pang and Senior Designer Oliva Messer to get a well-rounded perspective on the future of design.

We start the episode by exploring a piece from Forbes on the wild new world of text-to-image AI where Danielle emphasises how "it's changing design and changing the landscape." 

"I'd like to see brands show up in the world in the way that I'd envisioned them," Danielle mentions as we question this next piece on whether offering clients "creative freedom" by sharing proprietary design software disempowers designers. 

As a lecturer at Birmingham City University, Danielle is helping to shape and influence the next generation of designers and creative thinkers.

Danielle's agency grew from her frustration of not having control over her own career and being pigeonholed as a woman of colour, so she built her agency with a mission to help people build better brands to create happier, healthier lives for themselves and the people around them.

In this week's episode, we welcome Imriel Morgan, CEO and founder of Content is Queen, who shares her passionate perspective on the up-and-coming podcast scene.

We start the episode by delving into a piece by Wired on how tech industry layoffs will potentially undo workforce diversity gains, where Imriel describes how "the diversity element of the workforce tends to come much later for a lot of big organisations and companies; it's an afterthought."

As an expert in the podcast industry, Imriel gives her insight on corporate takeovers which are changing podcasting and mentions how "It goes against what podcasting started out to be, which was a place where we can tell our stories and on our own terms and create our own niches."

Content is Queen is a podcast agency created to represent "an inclusive and safe space for people to create" and built around Imriel's founding principle that inclusion is a process rather than an outcome and your participation is essential.

Imriel shares how she produced the UK's first and only women's podcast festival that unites the global community of female innovators and leaders in podcasting, providing an inclusive and inviting space for women to connect and build long-lasting communities. 

Our conversation leads us to find out more about how Imriel has revolutionised the podcast industry, her prediction for the tech for good space, and what she thinks is the evilest application of tech. 

In this week's episode, we're joined by Trenton Moss, founder and lead coach of Team Sterka and the author of the bestselling book Human Powered, where he shares his focus on supercharging digital product teams with emotional intelligence.

Trenton describes how embedding emotional intelligence into your teams will "increase everyone's well-being, it will improve individual performance, it will improve team performance, and it will improve business outcomes."

His work at Team Sterka helps transform how people work in teams, alleviates toxic work environments rife with grievances and petty disputes, and builds healthy mindsets that foster productive company cultures.

We discuss the challenges of building a culture of emotional intelligence within teams, such as "people in positions of leadership struggling to move towards a more kind of empowering leadership style."

As a leadership coach, Trenton understands the detrimental effect a leader's stubborn and outdated attitude can have on their employees and, in turn, their company. He mentions that 85% of job success comes from people skills, an essential skill set for a company to thrive. 

Listen on to find out Trenton's big prediction for the tech for good space and what he thinks is the evilest application of tech.