The Big Tech Show

Some Irish tech firms prosper, some go bust and a great many simply run as a going concern.But there is a small number of Irish companies that still get talked about as ones with ‘potential’, even when they’re ten years old and bringing in millions.

Ding, the Dublin-based firm that lets people top up their mobile phone credfit, may fall into this category.

The company, founded by Mark Roden, has done pretty well to date. It has annual revenue of €38m based on over €500m of phone top-ups through its system. These come via deals with over 500 mobile operators and availability through 600,000 retail outlets.

But talk to anyone in the Irish tech industry and it’s still discussed as something yet to see its finest day. Roden himself sets this tone, saying it hasn’t quite fulfilled its ambition. 

This week, Adrian sits down with Roden to talk about what he thinks the company should do next.

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Almost two in five Irish people are leaving themselves open to a likely data breach by not updating their passwords.

This week, Adrian sits down with Brad Brooks, CEO of OneLogin. The two talk about online security and why one in five Irish adults haven’t updated their passwords in over two years.

One factor in understanding the lack of security hygiene over passwords in Ireland may be a professed level of annoyance that Irish people say they feel at online security measures.

Almost a third of us get frustrated by the familiar Captcha random image and number generator system, while nearly one in five get irked by one-time passcodes via text or email.

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How do you cope when your startup fails?
The issue of mental health among founders isn’t widely discussed.
This week, Adrian talks to Eamon Leonard, the popular Irish startup founder who found it tough going after one of his companies failed.
Eamon talks candidly and honestly about the difficulties he had when things didn’t work out.

He also talks about the new company he has co-founded, Boundless, and recounts the eye-opening tale of how he was ripped off by fraudsters when trying to buy equipment for a side-business making whiskey.

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While the world tries to decide whether political advertising should be allowed on Facebook, the company has quietly chosen Ireland to try out a new privacy feature over almost all ads.

‘Off Facebook Activity’ will let you cut off advertisers from your Facebook identity, either individually or in total.

The idea is to address a problem that came into sharp focus in the Cambridge Analytica scandal -- what happens to your personal data outside your Facebook sessions?

The new Off Facebook Activity tool will show you the apps and websites that connect to your Facebook profile, usually for the purposes of advertising, and will let you wipe that slate clean. You can then choose not to let Facebook use your general browsing activity to show you personalised ads.

Will people use this tool, or just ignore it as they do for many of the privacy settings that services such as Facebook introduce?

That’s a question that Adrian puts to David Baser, a senior product director at Facebook responsible for the new Off Facebook Activity tool.

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This week, Adrian sits down with the world’s most famous PR man and CEO of Edelman Public Relations, Richard Edelman.

The Chicago-born executive, whose firm takes in €800m a year in revenue and has an expanding Irish office, gives Adrian his take on the state of the world.

This includes the advice he would give to Mark Zuckerberg, why newspapers have to change their business model and the circumstances under which company bosses should speak openly about contemporary issues.

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Thought food delivery by drone was a distant tech promise?Think again.Irish entrepreneur Bobby Healy says his first Manna Aero drone flights with burgers and chips will start in January.

The former Cartrawler CTO says he has clearance from Ireland’s regulators to do it and will start with an area servicing 30,000 people.In the near future, he says, he hopes to scale to 50,000 delivery drones for the Irish and UK markets.Is this really about to happen?

Adrian sat down with Bobby at the Web Summit in Lisbon to talk about how Manna Aero will work, the challenges facing it and Healy’s future ambition for the company.

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In what he says will be his last wide-ranging Irish interview “for two years”, Paddy Cosgrave speaks at length and in-depth about his business, his politics and his thoughts about the future.

The Web Summit is still growing and is quite profitable, while sister events Collision and Rise are also expanding.

Paddy reveals some of the background as to why he has campaigned against tax lawyers and an “unjust” economic system in Ireland. He also answers the allegation that he is adopting a double standard with regard to some of his stances, in relation to what he does with his own companies.

This is a must-listen interview for anyone interested in the Web Summit founder.

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This week, Adrian and Buzz.ie digital editor Mark Kavanagh look in depth at the pros and cons of Google’s latest flagship smartphone, the Pixel 4 XL.

Adrian is disappointed with the phone’s battery life and lack of an ultrawide camera, while Mark loves the phone’s 90Hz refresh rate. Both admire Google’s Assistant and Android 10.

The two journalists also compare and contrast the new Pixel with the other top phones on the market, while Adrian lists his three favourite smartphones of 2019.

Adrian and Mark also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of signing up to Eir’s budget mobile operator, GoMo. Adrian thinks it’s a no-brainer, even if Eir goes back on its word and doesn’t keep the price at €10 per month for 80GB of data.

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This week, Adrian invites a couple of guests on to ask about whether we’re anywhere close to realising aspirations of making Dublin into a ‘smart city’.

What is a smart city, anyway? Is it just some public wifi? A few sensor-stacked bins? Or does Dublin have a plan for drones and autonomous vehicles?

And should we avoid the example of Songdo, the South Korean city that spent €40bn creating a new smart citadel but where hardly anyone wants to live?

Adrian talks to Jamie Cudden, Dublin City Council’s Smart City programme manager, and Dr Zohreh Pourzolfaghar from DCU’s School of Computing.

For more from the Big Tech show you can visit the show page at:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-big-tech-show/

The Big Tech show is in association with Magnet Networks.

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Clothes manufacturers are starting to build voice technology into their garments, while Amazon’s new doorbell tech allows it to have autonomous conversations with whoever’s at the door.

This week, Adrian Weckler goes through some of the latest developments in voice technology from companies like Google, Amazon and Nuance.

He’s joined by Bret Kinsella, founder of Voicebot.ai and commentator of the year on voice technology as defined by the Alexa Conference.

For more from the Big Tech show you can visit the show page at:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-big-tech-show/

The Big Tech show is in association with Magnet Networks.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.