The Next Wave Podcast

In this episode, we're joined by Oxford PhD, Dr. Merritt Moore, a quantum physicist, professional ballerina, future astronaut-in-training, who is currently doing groundbreaking research in AI and robotics. 

Dr. Merritt graduated Magna Cum Laude in Physics from Harvard and holds a PhD in Atomic and Laser Physics from the University of Oxford. She also has a second career in professional ballet, previously with the Zurich Ballet, Boston Ballet, English National Ballet, and Norwegian National Ballet. She was awarded Forbes 30 under 30 in 2018, and she was one of the 12 selected candidates to undergo rigorous astronaut selection on BBC Two "Astronauts: Do you have what it takes?"

Dr. Moore's background in ballet, physics, and aerospace has led her to programming and dancing with robots. Her motivation is to gain expertise in robotics and AI., which will be the future in space and here on earth. Invited as artist-in-residence at Harvard Art Lab, Merritt began exploring movement between human dancer and industrial robotic arm right. During the pandemic, she created many dances with robots, featured in TIME, Financial Times (F.T.), Vogue, BBC Click, and more. 

Merritt has been invited to be the featured speaker at the Forbes Women's Summit in N.Y., Princeton Physics Department, panelist for the U.S. Embassy' Women in STEM' Panel in London. She is also featured in the bestseller "Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls."

Follow Dr. Merritt Moore  on Twitter, Instagram and check out her website physicsonpointe.

This week we have a slightly delayed news update covering various topics: SpaceX helps Tonga restore internet after a massive volcano eruption; various Meta Updates including the official end of its Libra/Diem crypto project, threats to shutter EU ops; Trouble in Cryptoland as $3.6B of Bitcoin was seized by the DoJ related to the Bitfinex hack,  a $320M cross-chain hack between Ethereum and Solana, and the launch of OpenCBDC; Cyber Warfare and the NSO Group; California Net Neutrality laws upheld on appeal, and much more!

Stay tuned for Episode 59 next week when we're joined by Oxford PhD, Dr. Merritt Moore, a quantum physicist, professional ballerina, future astronaut-in-training, who is currently doing groundbreaking research in AI and robotics - catch a sneak peak on YouTube. 

And Episode 60 the following week with our first return guest: Fatema Hamdani from Episode 6, Co-Founder & CEO of Kraus Hamdani Aerospace, which is a finalist for an Edison Award this coming April for their K1000ULE Unmanned Aerial System, a zero emissions drone that flies longer than any other electric aircraft in its size and weight category.

This week we're talking about the #1 Internet Technology of 2021: WebAssembly (According to The New Stack) and the organization building its future: Bytecode Alliance.

We are joined by the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Bytecode Alliance: Till Schneidereit (Principal Software Engineer, WebAssembly @ Fastly and Former Sr. Engineering Manager at Mozilla) and Ralph Squillace (Principal Program Manager, Azure Core Upstream, Microsoft), two leaders in the continued development of WebAssembly.

The Bytecode Alliance is an industry partnership created to forge WebAssembly’s outside-the-browser future by collaborating on implementing standards and proposing new ones. The founding members are Mozilla, Fastly, Intel, and Red Hat, with Microsoft, arm, Google, Shopify, Siemens and others joining in 2021 including EDJX. More recently, Amazon Prime Video also joined the alliance.

Other sites mentioned:
https://www.fastly.com/blog/edge
https://deislabs.io
https://webassembly.org/

This week we're talking about big deals and big tech and big stuff as Farmville's Zynga was acquired for 11 billion and NFT marketplace OpenSea raises $300 million at a scorching $13 billion valuation. Big tech staff movements are on the rise, people are moving all over the place, including Meta's head of PR resigning and Signal's CEO is stepping down. And our reports of 70 departures from Microsoft's HoloLens team to companies like Facebook Meta and other stories, including the successful assembly of NASA's big Webb telescope.

This week we’re covering the news and 2022 predictions (a few weeks behind due to COVID in the production studio). Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos was convicted of fraud, we discuss both her first HBO special as well as the film in production starring Jennifer Lawrence;  2022 Predictions, America’s Team Telecom is back Big Tech Cables for Google and M*** to China; we discuss the future of social media and alternatives like Mastodon, Discourse and more after Joe Rogan’s COVID Misinformation episode with Dr. Robert Maloney; issues with the “M”verse and some optimistic brainstorming; as well as China’s newest Coal-powered energy plant.

Facebook vs Meta on face recognition and other intrusive tech. Biden's broadband plan. Bitcoin tax. NSO Group. Ransomware. Google gets into trading. Apple looking at Crypto. 

This week we have as our guest Matt Johnson, CEO and Co-founder of QC Ware. QC Ware focuses on Enterprise Software and Services for Quantum Computing with offices in Palo Alto and Paris, and soon, Tokyo. With one of the largest teams of quantum algorithm experts QC Ware strives to make quantum computing easily accessible by classically-trained data scientists and to offer performance speed-ups on near term hardware. Enterprise customers include Airbus, BMW Group, Goldman Sachs, Roche, and Total. Partners include AWS, D-Wave, IBM Quantum Computing, IonQ, Microsoft, and Rigetti. 

Matt as CEO of QC Ware also started and hosts annually the industry conference for Quantum Computing, Q2B, which happens every December, and each year includes the top industry and academic speakers and companies, including theoretical computer scientist Scott Aarronson, based at UT Austin, and John Preskill, Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology, who coined the term Quantum Supremacy. 

Register here for the Q2B conference, happening in-person at the Santa Clara Convention Center December 7-9, 2021: https://q2b.qcware.com/

Matt is extremely impressive with a very diverse background - he was formerly a partner at Apollo Management based in London and prior to that a managing director at Credit Suisse. Matt holds a BS from the US Air Force Academy and an MBA from Wharton. He also completed a solo crossing of the English Channel and remains an avid swimmer. 

This week our guest Dave Perrill, CEO and Co-founder of Compute North. A 25-year veteran of IT and InfoSec, Dave has been keenly immersed in the cryptocurrency mining industry and blockchain technology since its formative days. 

He founded and subsequently sold two technology companies, including SecureConnect, an ISP which morphed into a Managed Security Provider, and was ultimately was acquired by Trustwave Holdings in 2012. He also served as CEO of Wand Corporation, a leading point-of-sale and Digital Menu board provider to the Quick Service Restaurant industry. 

Dave has extensive experience in networking, data center engineering, scaling large IT systems, and security. He holds a BS in Management Information Systems and an MBA in Finance from the University of Minnesota. Dave has been a member of YPO (Young Presidents Organization) since 2015 as part of the Twin Cities chapter in Minneapolis.

Our guest this week is Kristen Buchanan, the CEO and Founder of Edify, an AI platform that enables engineers to be high performing. Edify’s first product, Eddy, is slack-native solution that helps developers and product managers build technical onboarding plans for their new hires. She received $2M of seed funding in Dec. 2020 right before being accepted into the TechStars Seattle 2021 Cohort. Prior to founding Edify, she consulted for various large organizations implementing onboarding and learning plans for engineering and product teams including AWS Elemental, OpenSky Alibaba, Puppet.and many others.

Our guest this week is Eddie Schutter, the Chief Technology Officer for Switch. He has over 25 years of experience and leadership in the data center and information technology industry for organizations including eBay, AT&T, DCF Technologies, The Green Grid, Data Center Pulse, and other various advisory boards. He is a Director on the iMasons BOD, Executive advisor of the Technical Curriculum Advisory Board for CNET Training, and Engineering Advisory Board for SMU Lyle School of Engineering.

Eddie is a Navy veteran and he studied Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University. He resides in Dallas with his wife of 28 years and their eleven children.