Tech Talks Central

Ben Bickford talks about his work as a consultant combining technology flavours and organisational goals. His interest in big data or ‘big insights’ as he says, customer behaviour and how the companies can use the information to grow. He describes how he follows the entrepreneurial spirit and how he believes that the future is the combination of existing technologies bringing them together in a novel way and how mobile is part of the whole value chain. Ben suggests developers look into opportunities within the corporate sector and how they can solve problems by creating B2B solutions. He goes on to talk more about his extraordinary life, how he started trading from highschool, what he learned and how he never took the easy path to expansion. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

David O’Neill describes how Seattle based APImetrics offers the industry’s first and only intelligent, analytics-driven API performance solution built specifically for the enterprise. He explains what the current problems are with APIs are and how companies need to monitor their APIs with analytics, receive alerts and take action in order to meet service level agreements(SLAs) and customer expectations. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Guy Martin, Senior Strategist at Samsung Open Source Group and Head of Digital Marketing at Open Interconnect Consortium explains how OIC intends to connect the next 50 billion devices that will make up the Internet of Things. What the need was and how some of the members like Samsung, Intel, Cisco, HP, GE Software have realised that there is not much differentiation in intellectual property but mostly infrastructure. Which means building the Standards and specifications through OIC and the open source code and reference implementation of the standard within the Iotivity project, which is hosted at the Linux Foundation; OIC funds the project. Guy predicts which verticals will be the next big thing in IoT, including smarthome and industry and he answers on a personal level what his opinion is on data protection. Kimberley Lewis, Marketing Program Manager for Standards and Advanced Technologies at Intel was present during the interview and fully aligned with Guy’s responses, judging from her nodding of the head. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Brian O’Connor picks up the thread from the eHealth Forum in Athens and the legacy that was created there leading to an expansion of new country members and stakeholders. They have created over 25 ecosystems that include governments and industry members with over 15000 organisations involved, and more than 100 meetings, yearly. He explains how ECHAlliance came about to helping in the creation of the China Connected Health Alliance upon the request of the Chinese Health Minister and what the Great Leap Forward is all about. He analyses what it takes to do business in health within China and where ECHAlliance is aiming for in the future. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Peter Chau, Chief Executive for the newly formed China Connected Health Alliance talks about the need behind the formation of the new alliance and how their European counterpart will be able to pass on their experience and provide access to its existing members. He goes on to describe the Chinese health status and how the government is taking actions and policies for change; the opportunities available for foreign companies within this broad market and amongst the 600 million Chinese users of smartphones. He finishes off with some good advice on how to go about doing business in China. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Norbert Sagnard a man of many hats talks about the Northern Ireland pavillion at MWC, what kind of startups they were hosting ie. security; what it takes to succeed in Northern Ireland and how the state is helping startups get off their feet with grants, schemes and accelerators. He goes on to talk about his own investment interests and the opportunities he sees in the mobile and technology fields. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Large scale and long running projects need a dedicated and well experienced partner in order to succeed. That’s the inner meaning of what Charalabos Kiorpelidis, Systems & IT Manager of Aegean Motorways, says as he describes the infrastructure built and managed by his team with Cisco’s help, for this key motorway to run smoothly… Unified access, voice/ telephony/video systems, automation and many toll stations, as well as supporting operations like ERP, CRM, etc. the combination is not easy to manage. Moreover, IoE is now entering the (motor)way, too. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central

Oren Seliger is a lucky guy, as he and his team are the first to lay hands on and evaluate, every new piece of infrastructure used today by the company - the same infrastructure that Cisco proposes to its customers, as well as its Intelligent Autonomous Cloud, the new generation network with lots of extra benefits offered today. He gives us an insider look to all and even more... Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central

Corporate networks become more intelligent but also more complicated driving increasingly demanding business needs. We talk with Nikos Botinis, Cisco Regional Sales Manager for Greece, Cyprus and Malta, about Cisco FastIT; the new App-centric IT operating model which considerably reduces complexity and cost through a simpler, smarter and more secure IT infrastructure. Having Internet of Everything at its core, Fast IT provides a unifying framework to integrate major technology transitions - cloud, mobility, SDN, security and data analytics. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks Central

Video is the next (if not the current...) big thing in the Web; nobody can deny that! Antony Blake, Cisco Video Acceleration Lead in the EMEAR region, tells us why, as his role is to deal with “technologies that bring video to life”. He also explains why we have to proceed with the humanization of video, he shares with us his joy for the Red Dot award, Cisco was recently honoured with, and finally he describes the all new Project in the Cloud platform that, in essence, is a meeting and collaboration room, up there... Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central