Tech Talks Daily

MuleSoft is a trusted integration and API platform provider that can empower any company to quickly unlock and integrate their apps and data to create connected experiences faster. Paul Crerand joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss the IT and Business Alignment Barometer report findings.

Highlights from the report include:

Significant hurdles preventing automation: Security and data governance issues, along with data siloes, are hindering automation initiatives for more than 70 percent of organisations

Security concerns slow the pace of innovation: the majority (87 percent) of IT and business leaders say that security and governance concerns are slowing down the pace of innovation

Seeing eye-to-eye? Almost nine in ten (87 percent) reported that IT and business alignment has improved over the past 12 months, suggesting there are opportunities to overcome security and governance challenges and enable faster innovation

Disparate systems remain a key challenge: almost three quarters (73 percent) of organisations say the integration of disparate systems has increased their concerns around data security and governance – 34 percent say it had 'significantly' increased concerns

Empowering non-technical users key to creating connected experiences: The vast majority (86%) of organisations agree business outcomes would improve if business users were able to use low or no code to securely connect apps and data on their own to create connected experiences

We discuss the technological and operational challenges organizations face in achieving their business priorities. We also talk about what is behind these results and what businesses should take away from them.

Valeria Kogan, founder of the agritech startup Fermata built a scientific career in bioinformatics and worked as a hired employee in Gero (a Singapore-based longevity biotech company) for more than five years before founding her agrotech startup Fermata. The next-generation farming tool uses AI-based technology to provide farmers with precise monitoring of their greenhouses, preventing 30% of the harvest loss and reducing the monitoring time by 50%.

Valeria Kogan joins me on the podcast to talk about how crop and livestock monitoring applications will hold a significant market share from 2020 to 2025. Fermata offers an integration within weather data, irrigation, nutrient, and other systems to improve resources used and boost output by more accurately identifying deficiencies.

We discuss enhancing data quality in the ecosystem, and the potential use case for data in agriculture. Massive data volumes of mapping, variable rate seeding, soil testing, crop monitoring, and crop rotation must be stored and managed correctly as successful farming relies entirely on it for assessing the conditions and improving regular operations. At the same time, it is pretty hard for farmers to develop and fulfill data storage from scratch: that's where intelligent technologies are needed!

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the importance of timely, detailed, and comprehensive data to the forefront. To help curb or prevent the next pandemic, many leading institutions are actively discussing how global data-sharing could be established and governed to detect the risk of future pandemics and disease outbreaks more quickly.

One company at the forefront of this new, collaborative approach is HSR.health. The health tech firm has successfully adapted its 'Health Risk Index' to improve pandemic emergency response efforts with hyper-focused risk indices that nations and public health agencies have adopted worldwide.

Ajay Gupta, CEO of HSR.health, reveals the many benefits of health-focused geospatial analytics in aiding pandemic response and mitigating future risk.

The world of consumer goods is changing for the better – and technology is at the forefront of this transformation to answer demands for a more sustainable and ethical supply chain.

CEO of Farmer connect® Michael Chrisment has already helped secure $9 million in a Series A investment round for the platform that uses blockchain to track the lifecycle of coffee and chocolate. He now continues his mission to transform the agriculture supply chains by cleverly connecting farmers to consumers and everyone in between.

Michael joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the importance of traceability. He also shares his insights on the company's vision and the future of the industry. We recorded the episode on World Coffee day. So, we also discuss the importance of supply chain traceability and why coffee/cocoa companies should be transparent in their product journey

farmer connect® is a platform that allows consumers, farmers, and retailers to have insight into the complete supply chain of the coffee and chocolate products, using blockchain-based on IBM technology, self-sovereign identity, and artificial intelligence. It connects the user to farmers, traders, roasters, and brands. Its rapidly growing roster of clients and industry partnerships already includes some of the world's biggest coffee brands, such as UCC coffee, HEMA, and Massimo Zanetti Beverage.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the fastest-growing part of the AI industry. But it's is often overlooked by the media and misunderstood by the general public. RPA allows businesses to automate necessary processes, whether invoicing or data entry, without investing in lengthy and costly IT systems.

While businesses and organizations like the NHS are already using RPA, many still view RPA simply as a threat to their jobs. The reality is that RPA is transforming how businesses function and the workforce of the future will be hybrid with human employees managing extensive team of digital workers.

Blue Prism pioneered the concept of RPA, and Eric Tyree, their Head of AI, explains how RPA is already transforming how businesses work and what the workforce of the future will look like together. Eric also discusses how accessible AI and RPA are becoming, as systems are increasingly designed to be understood and used by everyone – not just IT or tech professionals.

Eric Tyree biography Eric Tyree is the head of AI at Blue Prism and is an expert in the commercial application of AI and advanced analytics with over 20 years' experience in related product and technology leadership roles. Eric has led the development of a wide range of data driven products and services in travel, consumer analytics, HR, pensions & insurance, portfolio management, algorithmic trading, retail banking and equity exchanges. Eric is experienced in building and leading high-performance organizations and has worked with a wide range of companies ranging from some of the largest corporate institutions in the world to start-ups developing from the ground up. Before joining Blue Prism, Eric was CTO and chief data scientist for the data division of CWT where he was responsible for data products, personalization and data driven revenue management. Prior to that Eric was chief data scientist at Capita Plc responsible for new data products and services. Eric has also founded and/or advised a number of startups while serving in a range of senior AI/data science, product and technical roles. About Blue Prism Blue Prism has operations globally and is currently listed on London's AIM stock market. It has grown fast from around £50m when it listed in 2016. They have a great long-term perspective on the industry and its evolution, with a global client base – including EY, Jaguar Land Rover, Siemens and Google.

One of the big reasons I record this podcast every day is to try and feature as many voices and tech communities from around the world, NOT just silicon valley. So today, I am excited to take you on a trip to Bulgaria, where Hristo Borisov, Co-Founder & CEO of Payhawk, discusses how and why fragmentation in fintech is coming to an end.

Payhawk is an all-in-one integrated finance platform for businesses, combining credit cards, payments, expenses, cash management and pre-accounting into one platform to give businesses maximum control and visibility over their spending. The company is London founded and headquartered, with Bulgarian roots, and recently raised $20m from Klarna's investors QED. Its customers include the likes of Zenloop, Nexo, and Telus.

Due to Payhawk's technology, the average finance team saves 2-3 days of work each month and broadly speaking, a customer with approximately 100 expenses per month can save an extra $3,540 per month on average when switching from manual processes to Payhawk.

We discuss how Payhawk reimagines how payment works (by simplifying and automating processes and building an end-to-end experience). We also talk about how banks and fintechs could coexist in the future? (working together rather than against them).

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We now have employees recruited, onboarded, and working daily without ever meeting their teammates in person. So how do we bring everyone together and make them feel a valued part of a team well? In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, I explore how technology can help develop and train teams to innovate even when employees are working from home and the office.

When a team is stuck in its comfort zone, growth and innovation are dead in the water. But a tech company believes that nothing inspires a new mindset more than adventure. But most teams can't drop everything to climb a mountain.

At Vestigo, they are bringing the adventure to you: VR experiences that force employees to let go of fear and think differently, designed to help remote teams level up from fear to bravery, enabling radical innovation and adaptability. For example, Vestigo's AltspaceVR experience unites teams in an unforgettable Mt. Everest expedition.

Marshall Mosher is a world-record-holding action sport poly athlete, tech futurist, and host of the Inside the Adventure podcast. As the Founder and CEO of Vestigo, he's bringing his passion for adventure into the digital world by building the future of virtual reality adventure by digitally recreating the world's most inspiring and daunting adventure environments.

I learned how his recent VR team programs include work for enterprises and businesses like Microsoft and the CNN Emerging Product & Platform team. Marshall has tapped into something with his business as he evaluates how tech teams are tapping the power of virtual reality to harness their fearlessness to innovate and work together.

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In the wake of major breaches over the last few months, organizations across industries are re-evaluating their cybersecurity strategies, with many realigning priorities to ensure their security team and technology solutions can meet the needs of an evolving threat landscape.

Mark Logan, CEO of LogRhythm, talks about the importance of the CSO reporting directly to the CEO. Mark explains why this reporting structure demonstrates the value a company places on cybersecurity as an enabler of business performance at a time when cyber breach headlines are top of mind for the public and maintaining trust is crucial. Cybersecurity is now a board-level initiative for all companies, not just those in the software and security spaces. We talk about why enterprises that do not get on board with this shift in organizational structure that brings CSOs to the forefront could lose out on key talent.

Perhaps more concerningly, they also stand to see a weakening of consumer trust and business value, especially if the organization ultimately experiences a damaging breach because security was not prioritized. Mark discusses how this reporting structure fosters trust among consumers and future business partners that security and data privacy are taken seriously and given the highest priority within the company.

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AVID empowers media creators with innovative technology and collaborative tools to entertain, inform, educate and enlighten the world. For example, AvidPlay, Avid's subscription-based, independent music distribution service, now allows independent artists and labels to distribute their Dolby Atmos tracks directly to Apple Music's Spatial Audio.

Apple Music is the latest streaming service with the largest user base to receive Atmos tracks directly from AvidPlay. In addition, the distribution service has delivered immersive audio to Amazon Music and TIDAL since 2020.

Avid is the only provider of both music production tools and an independent distribution service where Dolby Atmos tracks can be made and delivered from the same setup. AvidPlay makes it extremely easy for artists and labels to distribute and monetize the music they're creating with Pro Tools, Avid's industry-leading,

Rob D'Amico joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his lifelong passion for audio and production informed his position and goals at Avid. I learn more about AvidPlay: what it is, who uses it, and details about the audio formats and quality it enables artists and producers to work with, as well as details about how compensation, splits, and fees work with other independent distribution services in the market.

Rob shares a few use cases to illustrate how AvidPlay works and a detailed description of the process from production suite to streaming services. We discuss why today's creators need AvidPlay; the opportunities it provides artists, labels, audio engineers, and how AvidLink fosters community amongst users by enabling feedback and questions.

We talk about how an artist can start using AvidPlay and make the most out of the service, along with how customer demands and feedback are informing future offerings.

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As "the Great Resignation" continues to rock companies across industries (recent surveys say 37% of workers are thinking of making a move) it's more important than ever to listen to employee feedback and take real action to improve employee retention. However, mining rich, actionable insights from thousands of employee comments has always proved a daunting and incredibly time-consuming task until now.

Samer Saab, the CEO of Explorance, shares his story and the path that led to him starting Explorance 18 years ago. He discusses the three foremost challenges facing the industry today – recruiting, retention and inclusion. We also talk about machine learning has proven beneficial in helping address these issues.

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