Tim Ventura Interviews

We’re joined by Kristin Smith, the executive director of the blockchain association, an industry coalition of cryptocurrency organizations working to transform America’s financial & digital services industries.

It’s been two years since the Bitcoin bubble burst, but crypto hasn’t gone away. Instead, key industry players are working together to gain legitimacy with federal regulators & legislators — and change is beginning to happen.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Kristin Smith is the Executive Director of the Blockchain Association, an industry coalition of cryptocurrency organizations working to help a strategic roadmap for public policy.

Kristin is an experienced policy professional, with senior-level experience in both House and Senate offices as well as private sector experience advocating for companies in the telecommunications, Internet, and other tech-focused industries.

Kristin holds an MBA in Finance from NYU’s Stern School of Business and a graduate degree from Georgetown University.

We’re joined by Dr. K.M. Abraham, an award-winning pioneer in lithium-ion battery research and the inventor of the lithium-air battery, who explains how a 40-year-old breakthrough in battery technology may lead to electric vehicles with a 1,000 mile range, smartphones that last for a week & drones that fly for hours.

Range anxiety is the #1 consumer concern for electric vehicles, but a new breed of ultra-high energy density batteries may change everything.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Kuzhikalail M. Abraham is the inventor of the lithium-air battery and a recognized expert on lithium-ion & lithium-sulfur batteries, with over 200 journal articles and fifteen patents on lithium and lithium-ion battery materials and performance, along with media contributions to news organizations such as Wired Magazine & the Wall Street Journal.

His 45-year career and pioneering work in battery technology has been recognized through numerous awards & honors, including the Electrochemical Society’s Battery Research Award, the International Battery Association’s Yeager Award, and fellowships at the Electrochemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry, and many others.

Dr. Abraham is the principal of E-KEM Sciences in Needham, Massachusetts and a Professor at the Northeastern University Center for Renewable Energy Technologies. Learn more at his NEU faculty page and Google Scholar.

Thirty years ago, Dr. Eugene Podkletnov developed a gravitational shield using high-speed rotating superconductors. Now he’s testing a new device that he claims will generate better results — and we’ve got the video he says proves it. We join him to learn more about the details of his experimental claims and learn how his latest design may produce a gravitational field capable of lifting heavy objects.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Eugene Podklnetov has a doctorate in materials science from Tampere University of Technology in Finland, and is a graduate of the University of Chemical Technology, Mendeleyev Institute in Moscow.

He has nearly two decades of experience at the Institute for High Temperatures in the Russian Academy of Sciences, and has authored a number of papers on experimental research on EM/gravitational coupling in superconductive materials.

We’re joined by Nick Eftimiades, the author of Chinese Intelligence Operations and a 34 year career veteran of the CIA, DIA & US Department of State to learn the goals & scope of modern PRC espionage, and the steps you can take to protect your organization’s intellectual property.

The FBI is investigating over 1,000 cases of Chinese espionage in the US, but that may be just the tip of the iceberg. In this interview we explore the strategy & scale involved with Chinese espionage operations, and how that may threaten Americans technological & defense infrastructure.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Nicholas Eftimiades is an American government official, author, and educator best known for his work Chinese Intelligence Operations (1994). Nick’s 34 year government career includes employment in the CIA as a Technical Operations Officer, a Special Agent in the US Department of State, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and as a Senior Intelligence Officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

Nick was also a Senior Research Fellow at King’s College War Studies Department, London UK. He has an M.S. in Strategic Intelligence, National Defense Intelligence College; and a B.A. East Asian Studies, George Washington University. He currently works as an assistant teaching professor in the Penn State Homeland Security Program.

We’re joined by Senior Fellow in Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council and former USAF Chief Futurist, Lt. Col. Peter Garretson (Ret.) to discuss the key political, technological & social trends driving future air & space power.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Peter Garretson is an independent strategy consultant focusing on space and defense. His accomplishments include a 33 year career with the Department of Defense, and service in a number of prestigious roles such as the Chief of Future Technology for USAF Strategic Planning in the Pentagon, the Director of the Space Horizons Task Force, and the Division Chief of Irregular Strategy, Plans and Policy, and as a strategic policy advisor to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

Peter has also served as an assistant professor of comparative military studies at the USAF Air Command and Staff College, as member of the National Space Society Board of Directors, and in his current role as Senior Fellow in Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council.

We’re joined by public key cryptography pioneer Dr. Ralph Merkle to learn how next-generation quantum-resistant cryptographic standards help blockchain encryption stay secure.

Cryptocurrency is poised to become the future of money, but that ambition is threatened by advances in quantum codebreaking.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Ralph Merkle has been a Distinguished Professor at Georgia Tech, and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, in addition to being a Chair Emeritus at Singularity University, a Director at Alcor, and Co-founder of the Nanofactory Collaboration.

He has also been honored to be a recipient of the 2010 IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal for outstanding achievement in information science, in addition to a 2011 Fellow at the Computer Science Museum for his work on public key cryptography.

We’re joined by Roman Shaykhutdinov, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan, to discuss how smart planning & bold government initiatives have transformed this member of the Russian Federation into an leader in information technology research & development.

Strategic investments by the Russian republic in infrastructure and education position it for a pivotal role in global IT development.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Roman Shaykhutdinov is the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan and is responsible for overseeing the planning, development & operations of the Innopolis project as a special economic zone & associated university.

Mr. Shaykhutdinov is a graduate of Kazan State University with undergraduate & postgraduate degrees in Jurisprudence. He also has Advanced Management credentials through the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, and Strategic Management credentials through the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO and Kazan Federal University joint program.

In 2018 he passed professional retraining in the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration as an Executive Master in Public Management.

Nick Cook is the former aviation editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly & author of the best-selling “The Hunt for Zero Point“. In this interview, he updates us on the Nazi Bell Project & SS General Hans Kammler, which he introduced in HZP, and also offers thoughts and commentary on the recently released “Tic Tac” Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) encounter with the USS Nimitz & Theodore Roosevelt battle group back in 2004.

The latest speculation asserts that the most reasonable explanation for the Nazi Bell Project was as a type of centrifuge used in the Nazi nuclear program during WWII, not as a type of antigravity propulsion system. Nonetheless, this story of secret wartime research programs continues to captivate the imagination of audiences around the globe looking for answers.

One of those answers comes in the form of tracing Hans Kammler’s path after the end of WWII, which Nick Cook participated in with along with group of investigators, ultimately leading to the story told in “The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America’s Deal with the Devil” by authors Dean Reuter, Colm Lowery, and Keith Chester.

Per Wikipedia, “In 2004, F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter pilots and sensor instrumentation associated with the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group reported instrument detection of unknown aerial objects… These detections, along with pilot observations, were later reported in the mainstream media.[5][6] Some of the involved pilots subsequently gave interviews about their experiences.

The resulting three videos, termed ‘GIMBAL.wmv,’ ‘GOFAST.wmv,’ and ‘FLIR.mp4,’ purporting to show encounters by jets from Nimitz and Theodore Roosevelt with unusually shaped, fast-moving aircraft, became subject to “fevered speculation by UFO investigators.

The videos, featuring cockpit display data and infrared imagery, were initially provided to the press by Luis Elizondo, a former employee of the Department of Defense working with To the Stars on UFO-related matters. The videos were later declassified and publicly released in 2020 by the Pentagon. A Pentagon spokeswoman confirmed that the released videos were made by naval aviators and that they are ‘part of a larger issue of an increased number of training range incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena in recent years.’

The US Navy confirmed that, in response to inquiries, congressional hearings presented by aviators and senior naval intelligence officials have been provided to members of Congress.”

NATO was built for the cold-war, but a focus on innovation & interoperability is helping it adapt to new challenges in the 21st century. We’re joined today by Rob Murray, the Head of Innovation at NATO, to discuss his role addressing challenges across the NATO Alliance using creative organizational ideas, innovative policy formulation, and leveraging emerging technologies.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Rob Murray is NATO’s Head of Innovation on the Secretary General’s International staff in Brussels. He is responsible for crafting policy associated to Emerging and Disruptive Technologies and innovation writ large.

Rob holds an MA in International Policy and Diplomacy, an MSc in Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Management and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Before joining NATO, Rob was a British Army Officer.

We’re joined today by Dr. Namrata Goswami, an independent scholar on International Relations and subject matter expert with the Futures Laboratory.

The Hong Kong national security law demonstrates the PRC’s willingness to take draconian measures to reunify China. Are increasing tensions in the strait an indicator that Taiwan is next?

Namrata is working on a new book focused on China’s grand strategy and territorial ambitions, and joins us to discuss the state of China’s relations with Taiwan.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Namrata Goswami is an independent strategic analyst, author and consultant on Great Power Politics, Space Policy, Alternate Futures, and Frameworks of Conflict Negotiation and Resolution. After earning a Ph.D. in international relations, she served for nearly a decade as Research Fellow at India’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) sponsored think tank, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi, working on ethnic conflicts in India’s Northeast, counter-terrorism and China-India border conflict. Her research and expertise generated opportunities for collaborations abroad, and she accepted visiting fellowships at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Norway; the La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia; and the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

In 2012, she was selected to serve as a Jennings-Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Washington D.C. where she studied India-China border issues, and was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Fellowship that same year. Shortly after establishing her own strategy and policy consultancy in 2016 after relocating to the U.S., she won the prestigious MINERVA grant awarded by the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense (OSD) to study great power competition in the grey zone of outer space. In 2017, she was awarded a contract with Joint Special Forces University (JSOU) to write a monograph on ISIS in Asia, in which one of her field of study was Indonesia.

With expertise in international relations, ethnic conflicts, counter insurgency, wargaming, scenario building, and conflict resolution, she has been asked to consult for audiences across the globe, from academia to policy-makers. She was the first representative from South Asia chosen to participate in the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies NATO Partnership for Peace Consortium (PfPC) ‘Emerging Security Challenges Working Group.’ She also received the Executive Leadership Certificate sponsored by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, National Defense University (NDU), and the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS). Currently, she is working on a book project on “Ethnic Conflicts” with Oxford University Press, and another one on ‘Great Power Ambitions in Outer-Space” to be published by Lexington Press, an imprint of Rowman and Littlefield.