Tech Talks Daily

Can a Zebra change its stripes? Yes, if the rapid set of software acquisitions in the past few years by Zebra Technologies are anything to go by. It has catapulted Zebra firmly into the world of SaaS and injected some new 'magic' into their ubiquitous hardware portfolio, says David Lancefield, software solutions director at Zebra, who joined via the acquisition of AI-powered workforce management and planning company, Reflexis. Zebra's recent flurry of acquisitions include Adaptive Voice (machine vision software), Profitect (prescriptive analytics for retail), Reflexis (AI-powered workforce management and planning) and antuit.ai (AI demand forecast and inventory optimisation) – all aimed at complementing and enhancing their current software and hardware for frontline workers in retail, warehouse, manufacturing, and logistics, to name a few.

With brands like Dixons Carphone UK, McDonald's UK and Coop Switzerland under their belt, Zebra helps retailers improve their inventory visibility, optimise costs to streamline shipment completion times, identify fraud, and manage workers and tasks in real-time. With the pandemic in the UK feeling more behind us and labour shortages and supply chain pressures in front,

David Lancefield, software solutions director at Zebra, discusses why we're seeing the rise of vertical SaaS for specific industries like retail and logistics. We also explore how SaaS changes workplaces into ecosystems where people, inventory, hardware and software are connected.

Opera, the company behind the popular multi-platform web browser, has fully integrated the Polygon Network into its lauded Crypto Browser Project.

The integration will unlock unfiltered access to Polygon's vast array of more than 7,000 decentralized apps (dapps), including popular gaming dapps such as Decentraland, Sandbox, Aavegotchi, My Crypto Heroes and Atlantis World, and Decentral Games, among many others.

Critically, the direct integration bypasses the need for users to transfer assets from Ethereum to Polygon — increasing the environmental benefits of using Polygon's solution. Bridge contracts alone account for about 70% of Polygon PoS gas usage. By circumventing the need to bridge assets, Opera users can dramatically reduce their carbon footprint.

Susie Batt, Crypto Ecosystem lead at Opera, and Brian Trunzo, Metaverse Lead at Polygon Studios, join me in a discussion about accessing Web3 and crypto functionality technologies to create a trusted and unique way for everyday users to access the future web.

I learn more about the future for both Opera and Polygon in the growing Web3 industry and how these two companies are working together.

It goes without saying that security has not developed at an equal rate to software innovations in the last few decades. This has led to Cloud-Native organically evolving security to be coherent with how software is made today. In addition, creating disposable layers of protection on certain scales of attack has prevented security bottlenecking and allowed eager users to implement cloud-native.

Nevertheless, questions are being posed as to the consequences of relying on such solutions and whether they are reliable or adequate to deal with the risks in the current landscape. Thorsten Geissel from Tufin joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a discussion about Traditional vs Cloud Native applications and the biggest risks of relying on native cloud security solutions.

We also discuss whether cloud native tools are strong enough and how collaboration can be maintained and amplified to break free from silos.

Creaticles is the first custom NFT request platform connecting businesses and individuals with creators ready to fulfill any occasion of custom NFTs. It enables users to engage in various contest modes to ensure your NFT request, whether a meme, logo, game, or web asset, is fulfilled to your expectations at a price you can afford.

The platform allows anyone to source custom NFTs through 'Creaticles contests', using a Request for Proposal (RFP) model. Users submit an NFT idea request to the platform's roster of verified artists, who are remunerated for their work in ETH and other cryptocurrencies. Creaticles was also selected as one of eight of the most promising projects in CoinList's Seed batch for Fall 2021, out of a field of over 500 crypto projects, and recently announced a partnership with Fantom. Jonathan Chen joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company.

Andrew Yates is the co-founder and CEO of Promoted.ai, a tech startup that helps marketplaces maximize conversions through optimizing for better search results as well as real-time personalization for new and anonymous users. Promoted.ai was part of the Y Combinator 2021 batch.

Before starting Promoted.ai, Andrew worked at Pinterest and Facebook, where he led ads ranking, auction, and marketplace engineering and research teams. In today's episode Andrew shares how Promoted.ai plans to better match every buyer with a seller across all marketplaces on web or mobile. We also explore how ad engineering works behind the scenes and tips ad engineers can use to design great ad marketplaces.

Finally, Andrew shares his experiences of getting Promoted.ai into Y Combinator and what the experience has been like.

About Promoted

Promoted is the only company to unify search, feed, ads, and promotions for top marketplaces like Outschool, Hipcamp, Teachers Pay Teachers, Snackpass, and other e-commerce unicorns. Promoted works by measuring everything in the marketplace using its real-time streaming data infrastructure. Then, Promoted maximizes conversions in search and feed through machine learning. Backed by Y Combinator, the company was founded by former ad engineers from Pinterest, Facebook, and Google.

Rick Hammell, CEO, and founder at global HR Tech Firm Atlas, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Rick is the author of "Getting Sh*t Done!: The Millennial CEO," so his productivity and exponential growth of his company should come as no surprise.

We discuss the recent rebranding from elements Global Services and how they are helping to define the "work from anywhere" space. In today's conversation, we cover various topics from the labor shortage to tech employee retention and paying different salaries depending on where you live, for the same job. But at the heart of everything, we talk about the opportunities being unlocked by emerging technologies in the workplace.

Odun Eweniyi (COO & Co-Founder at PiggyVest) joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how she's revolutionizing the savings & investments culture amongst young Nigerians. She is also a Forbes Africa 30 under 30 Technology Pioneer awardee.

Based in Nigeria, PiggyVest is West Africa's first digital savings and micro-investment app with a focus on restoring trust and democratising financial services for Gen Zs & millennials. They've built a strong customer base of over 3.5 million users since launching in 2016 and in 2021 alone, the platform paid out over $582 million to its users. PiggyVest's growth is also especially impressive when you consider its last fundraise was a $1.1mn seed round in 2018.

Why do savings & investments in Nigeria need change? There are very few countries in the world where savings are more of a necessity than Nigeria. Due to the severe lack of credit options, Nigerians are well-accustomed to paying for goods and services upfront, forcing them to rely heavily on their savings. However, with excessive bank charges and poor interest rates further eroded by high inflation, they are heavily disincentivized to save with traditional financial institutions, which often leave them with less money than their original deposits.

Equally, the barriers to boosting wealth creation through investments are just as daunting. The average entry point to invest with formal financial institutions stands at 10,000 Naira, which is 8% of the average Nigerian's annual income. We discuss how technology is restoring trust and democratizing financial services for Gen Zs & millennials in Nigeria. I also learn more about how technology and innovation is sweeping across Africa.

We're beginning to see businesses return to normality – but it appears part of getting back to normal is ramping up the volume of irritating customer communications advises Andrew Stevens, Principal, Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance, Quadient.

"The number of complaints accelerated towards the end of 2020, but now we're in a worse position than before the pandemic. The sheer volume of spam calls and texts will take a toll on worried customers, who are already grappling with the energy crisis and soaring costs of living. So businesses need to pull the handbrake on annoying customer calls and texts, or they could hit record levels of complaints this year, which would hit revenues when customers decide to leave." With the cost-of-living crisis at the top of everyone's minds, consumers are more worried than ever about their finances. Banks must provide helpful and personalized communication to demonstrate they are on the customers' side. By bombarding customers with irrelevant content, banks are only exacerbating what is already a stressful time.

Instead, they don't need to be sent innumerable offers or reminders, instead functions like spending tracking tools and searchable statements. Communications that highlight these valuable functions and how to use them, or give other ways to reduce costs, will be much more welcome. These are just a few topics we explore in today's episode of Tech Talks Daily.

Lakeside Software is a leader in digital experience monitoring and a Citrix partner. The company recently released a report, "The Future of Digital Workplaces Bridging the critical 2021 digital experience divide between CEOs, IT leaders, and employees."

I invited Peter Collins from Lakeside and Allen Furmanski from Citrix onto the podcast to discuss insights from the report and talk about how they are working together to solve some of the biggest business challenges around digital experiences. We also discuss how this partnership enables them to provide the visibility IT teams need to design and support productive digital workplaces.

About Peter Peter Collins is a Senior Solution Architect with Lakeside Software, focusing on Digital Employee Experience. At Lakeside DEX is at the heart of what we do. SysTrack monitors 10,000 individual data points every 15 seconds, providing you with the richest insights into your employee experience. Peter has had the opportunity to work with some of the largest organizations, providing how to save money and make employees happier.

About Allen Allen Furmanski is a Principal Product Marketing Manager with Citrix focusing on virtual app and desktop offerings and hybrid cloud solutions. He is a passionate IT professional, Citrix evangelist, creative problem-solver, and public speaker. In his personal time, Allen enjoys traveling, outdoor activities, digital photography, and trying new cuisines.

Dan Goman is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ateliere, a tech company that solves many of the production and distribution challenges of legacy technology. It does this through its cloud-native digital media supply chain and distribution platforms.

Its solutions help companies focus their time, energy, and resources toward delivering the best audience experience possible. It works with leading production and streaming companies and aims to have the leading and only solution available on the market for the expected $932 billion streaming industry by 2028.

Born in Western Romania during the 1970s, Dan and his family lived under an oppressive communist regime, where his father was given a choice: conform or shut up. He did neither, so his parents were fired from their jobs. The family of eight kids struggled as they applied for political asylum to move to the U.S.— but once this was granted, they never looked back

Dan was an ambitious child and wanted to succeed in his new, unknown surroundings — he learned English from watching television shows and taught himself programming on an old IBM computer. He went on to graduate from the University of Maryland and began a career in software development.

This led to him start-up his own company, Ateliere (formerly named OWNZONES), in 2010. As streaming services started rising in popularity, Dan knew this was a valuable market, as these streaming platforms would need support with the consolidation of production and content

We discuss how he has become a successful start-up developer as an immigrant from a troubling background and the lessons he's learned that have facilitated Ateliere's significant success. We also explore how Ateliere is fuelling an evolution by helping streaming giants consolidate their media content and helping other platforms come together with merging businesses.

I also learn why the next generation of filmmakers and directors need to think cloud-first – upskilling the entertainment industry to incorporate new technology.