Today's episode is a special "Black History Month" Simply Tech LIVE interview, produced this time, by my co-host, Ali Mazaheri, and featuring our guests, Sonya Weaver-Johnson: Director of Sales for Healthcare and Life Sciences at Microsoft, and Celeste Alleyne, Director of Executive Engagements for Content Operations & Corporate Events. 

We visit topics across the episode ranging from the very idea of Technology for Good and what that means, to the power of community and culture transformation in large organizations, to how to build communities - however that may need to come about, whether in organization or in your local community. Both Sonya and Celeste really bring an incredible energy that you'll feel in the discussion, I'm proud to be connected to these two women, and so happy that we can share some of their perspective with you today.

62 | Technology for Good: Leadership, Community, and Culture Transformation

Welcome to the Data Binge Podcast, hosted by Derek Russell, a digital strategist in big tech helping enterprise businesses become empowered through data. This podcast focuses on providing perspectives on how Microsoft is positioning its cloud, AI, machine learning, and other data driven tech, across various industry verticals.

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Rikin Shah, is the CEO of Slower, a major disruptor in the monolithic consulting services industry. Slower drives value for its customers and partners by investing in new and future stack technology companies well ahead of the curve to help create competitive differentiation through technology. In addition to being a broad-scale technology systems integrator with over 6000 employees and 225 customers, Slower uses its reach and impact to accelerate its customers digital transformation through repeatable and highly scalable services offerings.

78 | Data Democratization - The Future of Data Driven Organizations

Just 6 months ago, who would have known that words like "NFT", "metaverse", and "web 3.0" would be high interest topics of discussion amongst friends, text threads and corporate brand strategies.

At an estimated $23B market size, NFT's could change the world as we know it this year...YES, in 2022.

Heather Parady and Rich Cardona, are joining this LIVE "The Data Binge Podcast" discussion to talk to us about NFT's.

Heather and Rich are Hosts of "NFT's for Newbies", a podcast ALL ABOUT NFT's, focused on their combined journeys of navigating the world of the NFT from a beginners perspective. "NFT's for Newbies" surpassed 200,000 downloads as of December of 2021, in less than 4 months from the start of the podcast. With the light and educational approach that Heather and Rich take in their discovery of this fascinating new world, there are take-aways for anyone willing to have fun and learn all about NFT's.

77 | Net New to NFT’s | Learning & Leading in a New Digital World

As the technology industry continues to hasten its evolution through continually changing global macro events, accelerating technical advances, and changes in the social constructs of how and why we work, building successful partnerships has never been so important.

Vince Menzione has spent the last 25 years of his career thinking about how to create successful partnerships and joins this LIVE episode of The Data Binge Podcast to highlight a winning framework for how to get partnerships right. As a former Microsoft General Manager of Partner Strategy, host of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering podcast, and founder of the tech consulting firm Ultimate Partnerships, Vince brings an aptitude and energy for partnerships that can drive change in any tech organization.

This discussion will include the following topics:

1.	The 8 principles of partnership success: understanding the very idea of what partnership between organizations means and why it’s increasing in importance
2.	Evolutions in the partner landscape, and the impact of hyper evolving global trends on partner strategy across the tech domain
3.	The power of thought leadership: the learnings from creating a 5-year passion project, “The Ultimate Guide to Partnering”, and lessons of culture, leadership, and the obligation to lead with diverse and inclusive values that reach beyond our typical fields of impact

76 | The Ultimate Guide to Partnering | Principles that Help Tech Businesses Thrive

How can gaming, benefit our communities? 
 
Albert Dankwa III, content developer on the Microsoft Xbox team, joins this  LIVE  episode of The Data Binge Podcast to talk about how gaming, and the tangible benefits of immersive and creative worlds, will change the social constructs of communities impacted by limited access to internet and technology.
 
Additional re-frames on gaming that we will discuss: 
 
 Albert's experience growing up in South Bronx, and how gaming impacted his life: from gaming, to fashion and photography, to technology.
 
 How gaming can create exposure to rich dialogues and experiences, that can change the perception of the world, while helping audiences develop hard skills from story-telling, to coding. 
 
 Why gaming WILL close the digital divide, and how it will impact people on levels that we cannot imagine.

75 | GAMING | Re-imagining Social Accessibility & Closing the Digital Divide

ANGEL AID is a non-profit that provides mental health and wellness services for mothers of children with rare diseases. A rare disease is defined as one that affects fewer than 200,000 people. Even amongst accelerating scientific advancement, over 7000 rare diseases are still without cure, and only 5% have treatments. There are 350M people globally with rare diseases - around half are children. Mothers of children with rare diseases, or Rare Mothers, are the primary caregiver 82% of the time. 
 
Today's  conversation is a Simply Tech LIVE interview recorded Wednesday, October 27th, featuring my co-host Ali Mazaheri, and our special guests Cristol Barrett O'Loughlin and Smriti Bhattacharya.

October is ANGEL AID’s month of giving, Wellfest 21, an opportunity to help create visibility and energy around the bold vision of providing relief and inspiration to these communities, by connecting 3.5 million rare mothers by 2025.

Cristol Barrett O’Loughlin, Founder and CEO of ANGEL AID, discusses the organizations mission, the experience of care takers in the rare disease community, and the role of technology and digitization in creating community and impact for non-profits.

Smriti Bhattacharya, a senior software engineer at Microsoft and a Rare Mother, also graces this conversation with her presence so that we can hear her story, gain a little more proximity to ANGEL AID’s mission, and learn more about how we can support these incredible caretakers around the world.

62 | Technology for Good: Leadership, Community, and Culture Transformation

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