Tech Talks Daily

A global leader in EdTech, D2L is the creator of Brightspace, the world's first integrated learning platform. The company partners with thought-leading organizations to improve learning through data-driven technology that helps deliver a personalized experience to every learner, regardless of geography or ability.

D2L's open and extensible platform is used by more than 1000 clients and almost 15 million users in higher education, K–12, healthcare, government, and the enterprise sector—including Fortune 1000 companies. The company has operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Brazil, and Singapore.

D2L's Chief Strategy Officer Jeremy Auger discusses how technology is shaping education driven by COVID. Auger explores the current and future role of technology in education, closing the education tech gap, opportunities for edtech/municipality collaboration to push advancement forward, and the future of learning.

As Chief Strategy Officer, Jeremy is directly responsible for corporate strategy development, intellectual property strategy, mergers and acquisitions, and government relations at D2L. With a strong commitment to client success and a desire to constantly evolve the state-of-the-art, Jeremy joined the D2L team when the company was founded and continues to take a leadership role in driving the organization's success within the online education industry.

Prior to joining D2L, Jeremy came from a strong technical and business background involving work with numerous high-tech companies throughout North America. Specifically, he has been actively involved with eLearning and technology companies for over fifteen years.

While talk in 2020 has focused on interpreting the new normal, this discussion has been altogether shortsighted. Instead, we should be thinking about what a better normal looks like beyond the pandemic.

The research in this year's 2020 Legal Trends Report from Clio aims to further our vision for what this better normal could look like, based on what they have seen so far.

The Legal Trends Report uses aggregated and anonymized data from tens of thousands of legal professionals in the United States. This year, the company has adapted and expanded their analysis to provide more up-to-date data on law firms to better identify the challenges faced during the global pandemic in 2020. George Psiharis, COO, Clio joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share insights from their Legal Trends Report.

George Psiharis is the Chief Operating Officer at Clio, the leader in cloud-based legal technology. Specializing in customer success, business development, and data operations, George has worked extensively with law schools, bar associations, and other legal professionals to help make information on cloud computing and law firm economics increasingly accessible.

Clio is powering the future of legal services for lawyers and their clients through a suite of cloud-based solutions, including legal practice management, client intake and CRM, online payments, and client-attorney communication and collaboration software. Clio has been transforming the industry for over a decade with 150,000 customers spanning 100 countries, and the approval of 66 bar associations and law societies globally.

Clio continues to lead the industry with initiatives like the Legal Trends Report, the Clio Cloud Conference, and the Clio Academic Access Program. Clio has been recognized as a Deloitte Fast 50 and Fast 500 company and a market leader by G2 Crowd.

François Cazor is the Co-Founder & CEO of the fast-growing technology company Kpler. François shares his inspiring tech startup story, which began after a chance meeting in New York in 2009. At the height of the financial crisis, they noticed that financial organizations began to jump into CO2 trading. Realizing that there was little transparency to this, in 2009, Cazor and Maynier set about building the first real-time intelligence platform for this market, eCO2Market.

Despite being a successful, expanding company, almost overnight, the rules on CO2 trading changed due to the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol beginning in 2012 - eCO2Market was effectively finished. To keep the company alive in some form, Cazor and Maynier consulted and also paid interns with their household savings while searching for another idea.

Kpler became an instant success. Much like the CO2 market, until Kpler, there had been little to no transparency of the commodity market. Within the first quarter of its foundation in 2014, the company was already cashflow positive.

Like flight radar, the Kpler terminal tells you precisely what's going on in commodity markets in real-time. This helps commodity professionals (traders, analysts, charterers, etc.) better understand the market and make well-informed business decisions, maximizing business opportunities while reducing risk.

Using advanced technology (AI, machine learning, satellite imagery interpretation), the platform has the ability to crunch over 10 million data points from over 500+ different sources each day to provide real-time, global intelligence about the physical flows of crude oil, refined products, LNG, dry bulk, and more (25+ commodities in total).

By refining such volumes of raw data into real-time information, Kpler has disrupted intelligence in traditionally opaque commodity markets - thanks to Kpler these markets are much more transparent today. It works with over 600+ companies and has over 5,500+ users for the Kpler terminal and in H1 of 2020, the company went over $30 million+ in bookings.

What does Epson mean to you? I suspect you might immediately think of printers. But after learning about their Moverio smart glasses and a focus on sustainability, I wanted to learn more about how the pandemic challenged Epson to examine the sustainability of all its technologies.

We all have a role to play in building a better future. For Epson, being a sustainable company means being mindful of every aspect of their organisation – from the smallest lightbulb to the largest factory. It fuels their innovation, drives growth, motivates their workforce and, ultimately, to contribute to society. It is also an essential part of how they work with our partners across the supply chain.

Daniel Quelch, Sustainability Manager at Epson, joins me on the podcast to discuss how the societal shift in where and how we work has created new opportunities for companies to focus on more sustainable tech. I also learn how smart glasses can provide remote technical assistance to printers capable of printing labels for restaurants that have pivoted to takeaway-only.

I also learn why sustainability is an important part of Epson's Japanese heritage, and it's ingrained throughout the company.

The ability to make informed decisions based on data and insights is the future of decision-making. Business intelligence has been making waves throughout organizations because it provides useful information and data that allows executives to make decisions for the good of their business.

Organizations are increasingly using new generation decision intelligence tools to get a more accurate and efficient view of their growing volumes of data. However, the implementation of decision intelligence can further bolster these insights, leading to more context (from both customers and operations) and overall better decision-making by executives.

With all this in mind, I have invited Imam Hoque, Chief Product Officer at Quantexa, on the podcast today to discuss the value that decision intelligence can provide and why relevant and timely context is essential to business success.

More than a decade ago, Quantexa founders pioneered network analytics. Now, they've combined the same innovative approach with the latest data and analytics technology to help organizations identify and connect the relationships that matter the most to empower better operational decisions.

Imam has more than 31 years' experience in the IT industry and pioneered Quantexa's network analytics, saving billions of pounds in fraud and financial crime across government, banking, and insurance. He led Quantexa through two rounds of funding and is responsible for driving Quantexa's strategy to expand into new sectors and propositions, including business development and credit risk.

As an expert in AI, Imam empowers organizations to drive decision intelligence using new technologies.

SetSchedule is the technology innovator revolutionizing the real-estate business and data services. The company's multi-patented agnostic leads marketplace and SAAS products suite leverage AI-powered predictive data, trend insights, and automated marketing software tools to deliver better business efficiency to agents, teams, brokers, and other vertical markets.

Roy Dekel is CEO and Co-Founder of SetSchedule. Preceding SetSchedule, Roy sold billions in financial products and prior to trends, institutionalized the buy and hold residential lifestyle model, managing a lofty residential portfolio. Before moving to California, Roy grew up in Israel, a child of Romanian refugees. He served as a first lieutenant in the Israeli Defense Forces of the Navy Seals.

We talk about the new patented software and developments at SetSchedule. I learn how artificial intelligence and machine learning software in real estate will affect the industry moving forward. Roy shares his experience creating a company to use innovative technology and cutting-edge tools to disrupt the real estate industry and maximize efficiency for both real estate agents and home shoppers.

MuleSoft is a SalesForce company famous for its integration and API platform. It makes it easy to connect data from any system to create connected experiences faster. It also enables insurance companies to modernize legacy systems, bring new products to market faster, and extend distribution channels. I wanted to learn more about how MuleSoft drives digital engagement and transforms the policyholder experience.

Jerome Bugnet Senior Manager, Digital Transformation Solutions at MuleSoft. I invited him on the podcast to explore the world of InsurTech and how the rising expectations from consumers are changing the industry. We talk about re-imagining the insurance ecosystem and what the future of insurance might look like.

Global lockdowns have forced consumers online, and the result is a much more digital-savvy market. As a consequence, consumers have come to expect a much-improved digital experience from their providers. For insurers, this requires urgent investment in the technologies and capabilities that power digital customer journeys, such as analytical tools that can crunch vast sets of customer data to provide a more personalized experience.

Jerome argues that we're at the start of a fundamental shift in the way insurance services are provided. Instead of owning customer relationships, insurers will increasingly offer their services in concert with those from other industries, such as banking and retail. The result is a single, unified experience from the customer's perspective, in which they don't interact with individual providers at all. We already see insurance services bundled in with products such as internet-enabled home security devices: in Jerome's view, this is just the start.

In Jerome's view, the main obstacle to achieving this new business model is that many insurers' IT systems are arranged in departmental silos with compartmentalized processes, limiting their ability to innovate quickly or partner with others.

With Twitter recently hitting the headlines for silencing President Trump, many have questioned if tech giants now possess more power than governments. With increased polarization in society, many also blame tech and social media for division rather than uniting the global community.

How did we get here? And how do we stop a tech lash from building and get back to leveraging technology to bring us together? Dentons is the world's largest law firm, and I wanted to learn more about their experiences with legal policies in technology. Victor Boyajian and his colleague Michael Drobac from Dentons share their insights on legal challenges they see in technology. We also discuss what excites them about tech's future in society and Legal Tech.

Victor Boyajian heads Dentons' Global Venture Technology practice. A recognized leader in his field, Victor focuses on representing emerging growth technology companies and Fortune 500 companies in a broad array of venture capital, private equity, securities and strategic transactions from Silicon Valley to Boston to New York and around the globe.

He counsels senior executives, boards of directors and venture firm principals on a wide range of issues, including business strategy, finance, mergers and acquisitions, executive compensation, board governance, intellectual property and litigation strategy, and he has been recognized for his deep network among venture firms and investment banks.

Victor has been recognized by Chambers USA as one of the leading practitioners in the sector. Under his leadership, Dentons has been ranked among the top 10 nationally in venture capital deals, as reported in Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst. He has also been selected as one of AlwaysOn's Power Players New York City.

Drawing from deep experience in the private and public sector, Michael Drobac's practice straddles the intersection of technology and public policy. He helps clients from the tech and telecommunications sectors develop messaging to define and execute outreach strategies, while advocating before Congress and federal agencies in support of policy objectives.

Michael's experience working in the private sector — which gave him an understanding of key public policy issues facing the global Internet industry — combined with insights on legislative processes acquired during his years on Capitol Hill, afford him an ability to provide advice informed by both perspectives. He was recognized by The Hill as one of the top lobbyists of 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, and was named a Government Relations Trailblazer by the National Law Journal in 2019.

He previously worked as head of government affairs for digital streaming giant Netflix. There Michael established, and served as the first director of, Netflix's Washington, DC, office, where he identified and developed the first official set of short- and long-term policy goals for the company on federal, state and international policy issues. He also advocated before Congress and other federal agencies in support of policy objectives including net neutrality, interconnection access, privacy, accessibility rules, taxation and copyright issues, and represented the company in market expansion in Canada and Latin America.

Employees can now work anywhere and everywhere thanks to a long list of remote working tools and productivity apps. But remembering which app you saved your document, message, presentation, report, video, project plan, or a task list can be frustrating.

Onna is an eDiscovery startup that raised $27M during the lockdown. The latest funding round was led by Dawn Capital, with participation from Dropbox, the Slack Fund, and existing early investor Nauta Capital. Onna also works with Slack, Dropbox, Fitbit, EA and Lyft.

Salim Elkhou shares the story behind Onna and how it uses machine learning to help consolidate knowledge and discover information across multiple connected apps. I learn how it helps companies find information that would have otherwise been scattered across multiple remote work applications (i.e. Gmail, Slack, etc).

Throughout his career, Salim Elkhou recognized a gap with the rise in popularity of cloud-based and hosted enterprise apps. He started a successful eDiscovery business, eStet, a service provider acquired by EY, that created custom technology solutions to enhance the litigation strategy of corporations, AmLaw 100 firms, and boutique law firms. In 2015, he realized that a technology-based solution was needed to address the growing discovery problem at scale and founded Onna.

He saw that knowledge can become quickly fragmented, making search between applications manual and time-consuming, and slowing down overall performance and productivity. Risk and compliance issues get tougher too, especially given the fact that many governments are strengthening regulations. So, Salim started Onna with a mission to make the totality of people and organizations' proprietary knowledge accessible, useful and secure.

Point Health is a digital healthcare startup on a mission to make healthcare easy to find, easy to understand, and easier to afford for members of insurance plans and healthcare sharing organizations. The company recently announced the intent to acquire The Karis Group, an Austin-based company with 25 years of experience in healthcare billing negotiation and patient advocacy. Member retention and loyalty are big problems with insurance companies losing an estimated 33% of members each year. Point Health intends to help solve part of this problem through a new technology platform for payors. Matthew Dale joins me on the podcast to discuss the issue of healthcare accessibility in the US; why is transparent pricing so critical? and how technology can solve this problem.

I also learn how healthcare billing is such an incredibly complex system in the US but how technology is changing tech change that. Matt shares how technology is helping families navigate thousands of dollars in healthcare bills each year.

Matt's career with healthcare began in 2000 when Karis was in financial constraints and his father asked him to come work (for no pay) as a patient advocate right when Matt was graduating from college. He took on the challenge. After a year, The Karis Group was profitable and he was the second-largest shareholder.

From there, Matt worked for Karis for nearly a decade before leaving to found a series of successful startups which he grew to the point of acquisition. His ultimate mission, making accessible and quality healthcare a human right for all, brought him back to The Karis Group in 2017 to take responsibility as Vice President of Strategic Planning. In 2020 he became CEO and oversaw the acquisition of The Karis Group by Point Health. Matt now serves as CEO of Point Health.