Tech Talks Daily

Here in 2021, Figma is a web-based design platform used by Uber, Deliveroo, and Bulb that's challenging the likes of Adobe and Sketch. Forget Unicorn status after Figma has received significant VC investment and also has a heavy-weight $10BN valuation. But what is the story behind Figma?

Pierre Berlin shares the story and Figma's ambitions for growth in the UK and beyond, including expansion plans, hiring plans and new tools on the horizon, and the critical milestones made in the region to date. We also discuss reinventing remote collaboration and empowering diversity in design.

I learn more about the new business model of design, how it's accelerated during the pandemic, and why design differentiates brands across every sector. We also discuss the USP of web-based tools which are enabling true remote collaboration across all locations, operating systems, and platforms – and why diversity is so important.

Jay Kulkarni founded Theorem in 2002. Over the last 12 years, Kulkarni has been the driving force behind the company's extraordinary expansion.

Theorem works with top brands and publishers, including Tory Burch, Pandora, Roku, News Corp, Hearst, and the New York Times, to operate as a true extension to their in-house teams and support their overall business goals and marketing strategies.

The company recently announced plans to challenge traditional working models by creating a flexible, full-service marketing solution offering. In addition, the company consolidated all its deep strategic talent into one Consultancy team while also expanding its six global operations teams to focus more on client servicing and delivery.

Jay expands on the idea of the "flexible" working model, how the business ecosystem is evolving, and unpack what it means for the future of business. We also discuss how today's publishers, brand marketers, and advertisers can better leverage the marketing cloud and programmatic tech to rise to the next level.

Mongolia, a country of untapped mineral wealth, has become a target for the most advanced mining technology, but it does little for indigenous people. At erxes, they are working hard to prove that Mongolia can do better than trying to dig its way out. They believe in the untapped brilliant minds of young people who can start leading the way in the IT Industry on a global scale.

It can be daunting to live in a world where everything is shifting, especially how we communicate. With apps like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, WeChat, and Instagram, consumers are communicating daily and on the go more than ever. This means that businesses need to keep up. But it doesn't have to be so hard.

erxes Inc is the second generation of tech entrepreneurs in Mongolia. With over eight years of experience, they are proud to be a part of the pioneer movement to bring forth their country on the global stage.

Nauren Batjargal, co-founder and COO of Erxes, shares the story behind the fully open-source growth marketing platform. We also discuss open-source vs. closed and proprietary.

Once the pandemic hit, stores became vulnerable, and retail headquarters began sending out 3X the amount of information to stores. Hy-Vee, L.L.Bean, Fjällräven, Sephora, and American Eagle Outfitters became customers during the pandemic, among others.

People in the retail trenches created zipline. They have been there and know the execution struggle inside and out. This is not technology for the sake of technology. This solution was designed to truly help people (brands, operators, communicators, and stores) achieve their goals by a team that truly knows the grind, barriers, and struggle of achieving them.

Their goal is to enable all customers to be the best version of themselves: every day, in every location. Melissa Wong, CEO & Co-Founder of Zipline, shares the inspirational tech startup story behind the company. She shares how they are helping a c-store be speedy, efficient, and contact-less.

Jason Illian, Managing Director of Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), the venture and investing arm of Koch Industries, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Artificial intelligence, blockchain and crypto, bio IT and genomics, and industrial robotics are just a few segments being explored by KDT.

Since 2003, Koch has invested $133 billion in growth and improvements and has spent $30 billion on technology investments and acquisitions in the last six years. I learn how Koch's "Creative Destruction" philosophy guides the company's bets on transformative technologies that will bring long-term success to itself and its partners.

Jason shares real-world examples of technologies that KDT has invested in and how Koch has learned from and empowered different technologies. We explore how KDT's role is to partner with entrepreneurs who are creating a "could-be" world, which includes investing in technology companies that disrupt and transform Koch's core businesses and expand into new platforms and capabilities.

As organizations begin to envision what the return to the office will look like – or in some cases, have put their plans into action – they have the unique opportunity to reimagine the layout and feel of their space. While the nature of on-site work has changed significantly since the start of the pandemic, the office still represents a prime forum to inform, engage and entertain employees and visitors. After spending so much time working remotely and away from their colleagues, workers want to feel more involved and connected with their counterparts and employers than ever before. While there are many ways to go about this, we're seeing more businesses turn to technology to create experiences employees and visitors will remember and take pride in.

Barco designs and develops visualization and collaboration solutions for a variety of selected professional markets. Piet Vanhuyse, Barco's global segment marketing director for large video walls, shares his insights.

Are data privacy and compliance laws at risk of becoming speeding tickets for major enterprises? Progress from governing bodies like recent bipartisan data privacy bills in the US or the EU's new focus on unethical AI are all steps in the right direction. But recently levied fines and pushback against new regulations suggest compliance will not enforce protection so much as force companies to budget for its existence.

Talend's Talend's CISO, Anne Hardy, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about data compliance. Anne shares her belief that there is an opportunity for both big tech and government regulators to set a precedent for good compliance and regulation. We discuss how outdated attitudes towards personal consumer data collection can lead to compliance breaches.

We also talk about how international tech giants can turn compliance into teachable moments for smaller and burgeoning companies dealing in data and why compliance regulators need to focus on smaller companies and not just those offering major payouts.

Clark Lagemann is Co-CEO of Avidon Health, a platform for employers and healthcare providers to offer wellness and healthcare-related courses to help individuals improve health outcomes.

Clark joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss how technology can help employees who are struggling with substance abuse. According to a recent survey, the pandemic has exacerbated substance use for employees. Among workers struggling with addiction or substance abuse issues, more than one-third say it has affected their work more since the pandemic began. Unfortunately, many employees are afraid to say they need help.

They may end up leaving the workforce altogether or suffer in silence as their work deteriorates––and they may experience safety risks if their job entails driving or using heavy machinery. So what can employers and companies do to help if they don't know their employee is struggling?

Fortunately, technology can make a difference for individuals needing to make a change and Avidon Health takes a different approach to online coaching through a hybrid approach

Murali Palanisamy, chief solutions officer of AppViewX, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. He shares why machine identity management is critical for today's enterprises and share some of the latest findings from AppViewX and Vanson Bourne's The Next-Gen Machine Identity Management Report.

The report explores where the current machine identity market stands, the challenges and opportunities for organizations today, and what has been the true impact of sub-optimal digital identity management.

Some of the key findings:

• 61% of organizations don't hold full awareness of certificates and keys across their digital assets
• 67% believe managing certificates is too complex 66% lack of skill sets within IT/security teams to properly manage digital identities and certificates
• After implementing a machine identity management strategy, 51% of enterprises have strengthened security credentials and 41% have reduced outages due to certificate expiry or human error

About Murali Palanisamy

Murali is responsible for the overall product vision, development and technical direction of AppViewX. Prior to AppViewX, he was a Senior Vice President at Bank of America, where he was leading the e-commerce application delivery's architecture and engineering team. He also served as VP of Architecture and Product Engineering for Merrill Lynch, where he designed and developed automation and integration solutions for servers, application delivery controllers, IP services and networking.

Fyma was founded by Karen Burns and Taavi Tammiste. They have created an AI platform that easily plugs into most retail, city, urban, and CCTV cameras, transforming your standard camera feed into deep insights into objects, people, and bahaviours in real-time.

Use cases include The London LegacyDevelopment Corporation, using AI to keep building the Olympic park legacy; major retailers and shopping centres; the Dutch GranPrix; European city governments; urban planners and event spaces.

It's more ethical - the AI is trained to not recognise faces, ever, in the training and deployment stages of AI, so there's no risk of facial/racial profiling. And, Fyma does not store any camera feed data, only the metadata.

For businesses, it's good for unlocking data, getting new insights to create more tailored retail experiences, loyalty schemes, offers, etc., to improve in-store revenue. For venue owners and urban planners, it means getting the insights to adapt and create more accessible, inclusive, and efficient spaces.

For citizens and consumers, it's all about protecting privacy, avoiding data being misused, no racial or facial profiling. Fyma is pushing ahead with AI learning in new ways and focusing on other things (movements, weather, gender, age, etc.).

Taavi Tammiste, CTO and co-founder of Fyma joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to share the story behind the company.