The Irish Tech News Podcast

From acting as a silent back office partner to being an enabler of banking services and new business models, technology has transformed not only the partnership between the CIO, CTO, and lines of business, but also the customer experience. What is the next big opportunity when it comes to the future of banking? What role will technology such as artificial intelligence play?

In this episode of One Vision — FinTech Fuse! Theo chat with Vanja Tokic, expert retail strategy transformation manager at Raiffeisen Bank International AG on digitalizing the financial world and preserving the human touch. How will banking services being a commodity impact the future of financial services and banking business models? What role should banks play in society and an increasingly connected world, and how can we meet customers where they are? Tune in to find out! 

The NIS 2 Directive is due to come into effect later this year, and while we await full clarity on what the Directive will entail, what can we do to prepare for it?

Two people who can answer that are Paul Casey, and Fergal Meehan from the cybersecurity service provider Paradyn. Paul is Paradyn’s Chief Operations Officer  and Fergal is Paradyn’s Chief Commercial Officer and Ronan recently caught up with them. 

Paul and Fergal talk about their backgrounds, what Paradyn does, the NIS 2 Directive, attack surface areas, AI and more.

More about Paradyn:

Paradyn provide their customers with managed connectivity right through to desktop support. They build, pro-actively monitor, support and maintain their entire infrastructure.

They also build, monitor and support their internet connectivity and wide area network; as well as supplying, supporting and maintain their firewalls, network switches, servers and desktops. All of this under one managed service contract with one single supplier, something they can’t get from any other Managed Service Provider in Ireland.

Just as the pandemic has accelerated the acceptance of digital payments in retail for consumers, it has sped up similar changes in the financial operations of organizations, enabling improved compliance and spending controls while reducing complexities.

In this episode of One Vision, Theo chats with Chris Juneau, SVP, Head of SAP Concur Product Marketing, on the future of payments and expense reporting, powered by AI and mobile connectivity. We cannot create more time, but we can streamline processes so that we can spend more time focusing on what matters — at moments that matter. 

Ireland is a tech hub because it is an English-speaking beacon in the EU. But others are not so fortunate: only one billionth of the content created worldwide gets translated  leaving millions of people out in the linguistic cold. With 87% of site visitors preferring their own language when surfing the web, companies should prioritise localised content or face disastrous consequences.

One person who knows this all too well is Bryan Murphy, the CEO of Smartling, a cloud-based translation technology and language services company headquartered in New York. Ronan recently caught up with Bryan Murphy.

Bryan talks about his background, what Smartling does, Gen AI, translation localisation, existing and new tech stacks, quantum computing and more.

More about Bryan Murphy:

As the CEO of Smartling, Bryan leads a team of passionate and innovative professionals who are transforming the way content is created, managed, and delivered across the world. With over 20 years of experience in e-commerce and SaaS, he has a proven track record of building and scaling successful businesses that leverage cutting-edge technology and customer-centric solutions.

Prior to joining Smartling, Bryan held various leadership roles at eBay, where he was responsible for driving growth and profitability for key verticals in North America. He also co-founded and led WHI Solutions, the largest automotive e-commerce platform in North America, which was acquired by eBay in 2012. Bryan has received several awards and recognitions, including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the Technology Fast 500 Award, and the a16z Marketplace 100. His mission is to empower businesses to reach new markets and audiences with Smartling's LanguageAI Platform, the #1 rated translation management system by users on G2.

While AI is not new, the excitement has skyrocketed in the past 2 years. As organizations embark on the AI journey, what do they need to keep in mind? What does responsible AI really mean? Are we being overly critical when we are biased and imperfect human beings? And how do we even stay ahead in the rapidly evolving field of AI and risk management?

In this episode of One Vision — FinTech Fuse! Theo chat with the brilliant Nicole Königstein, Chief AI Officer and Head of AI & Quant Research at Quantmate, on the current AI hype cycle and what the future holds. And don’t forget to check out Nicole’s latest book: Transformers: The Definitive Guide.

As AI gets more advanced, one of the AI startups to watch out for is Qlindex, the company behind jarvic.ai. 

Ronan talks to Iman Zolanvari, the CEO and founder of Qlindex.

Iman talks about his background, Gen AI and the concerns around it, where it’s going, mitigating risks in AI, AI Cold War, small language models, RAG systems, Jarvic and more.

More about Jarvic:

Jarvic are considered one the Ireland's top AI companies and are part of a Microsoft incubator programme. Jarvic functions as an AI-powered assistant helping to conquer complex business challenges such as managing and analysing vast text data.

Homeownership is normally looked upon as a part of the American Dream. Unfortunately, reality often squeezes out many of those who don’t have access.

In this episode of One Vision — FinTech Fuse! Theo chats with Brendan Kennealey, Founder/CEO at NESTER, and part of the first cohort for CAFE (Center for Accelerating Financial Equity), on his quest to take some of the guesswork and stress out of the home buying and selling experience. Imagine a world where technology can be used to create a positive impact for the LMI communities and uplift those who are underserved. 

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About One Vision: One Vision podcast, hosted by Theodora Lau, brings purposeful innovation to spotlight. It is where impact meets innovation. One Vision is a convergence of minds that dream of a sustainable world for future generations galvanized by innovation. The new season, Fintech Fuse! features the powerful trio of women in fintech: Barb McLean, Stephanie Foster, and Theodora Lau. 

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► NESTER: https://nester.app/⁠ 

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NUVIEW is a cutting-edge space tech start-up that offers a captivating perspective on the intersection of science and innovation in our rapidly evolving world. Ronan recently spoke to Clint Graumann, the Co-Founder and CEO of NUVIEW

Clint talks about his background, what NUVIEW does, space tech, getting Leonardo DiCaprio the Oscar winning actor and environmentalist on board and more.

More about NUVIEW:

NUVIEW is revolutionising Earth observation and geospatial technology with its groundbreaking work on the world’s first commercial LiDAR satellite constellation.

This achievement recently earned the company the prestigious Geospatial Innovator Award at the Geospatial World Leadership Award 2024. This accolade underscores their unwavering commitment to pushing the boundaries of scientific exploration and technological innovation. 

Generative AI in 2023 was a bit of an enterprise parlor trick: something that fascinated and amused workers-maybe helped them create an image or revise a blog post — but didn't provide substantial value to the broader organization. That's changing. In 2024, adoption is ramping up, and we're starting to see how generative AI will actually reshape the future of work.

In this episode of One Vision — The FinTech Fuse! Theo chats with Chris Juneau, SVP, Head of SAP Concur Product Marketing, on how we can adapt to a changing world of finance with AI.

AI is everywhere these days and the Intersection of AI and Crypto is one of the latest topical AI issues. One person who knows all about this is John Randles the CEO of Siren, and he recently attended a Chainalysis panel session in New York discussing the role Siren can play in this topical issue. Ronan recently spoke to John.

John talks about his background, what Siren does, his thoughts on the intersection of AI and Crypto and more.

More about Siren:

Siren is an all-in-one investigation platform used by organisations to safeguard people, assets and networks. Using AI, automation and advanced search, Siren links data from open source, vendors and classified sources allowing investigators to analyze risks, threats and crimes for the national security, public safety, fraud and compliance, and cyber threat communities. Siren’s patented technology is uniquely search based providing the analyst with easy-to-use search, analytics, visualization and reporting capabilities for investigations at enterprise scale and volume.

In November 2023, Siren achieved 9th position in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and won the award in the "Scale-Up" category. Siren received €12 million in funding in 2023 and was named as a Gartner Cool Vendor. For more information, visit www.siren.io