The Tesoro AI Podcast

Whether we are talking investing or sports, pattern recognition reigns supreme as the key characteristic enabling top performing professionals to rise above the competition.  For the industrial manufacturing industry, pattern recognition in IoT data (as well as video and image data) have opened an opportunity to drive operational efficiencies and greater profit margins.  Artificial intelligence has emerged as thee solution to innovate in manufacturing.  Falkonry is a bootstrapped startup that is attempting to revolutions manufacturing operations.   In this episode, I sit with the Founder and CEO of Falkonry, Nikunj Mehta.  We discuss the genesis of Falkonry, opportunities to drive operational efficiencies in manufacturing, data acquisition, why real-time prediction is critical to proving ROI, early hiring, and much much more.   If your company is looking to scale it’s AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com) – experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, and AI product development.

With ‘computer vision’ we give machines the ability to see the world around us.  Computer vision is enabling the use of game changing technology such as self-driving vehicles, medical image analysis, and facial recognition.  Historically, computer vision was only accessible to deeply technical AI experts.  Today, innovative companies like Roboflow are reducing its complexity, enabling both technical and non-technical enthusiasts to build and deploy vision applications.   In this episode, I sit with Joseph Nelson (Co-Founder and CEO of Roboflow).  We discuss his experience as a serial entrepreneur, building and selling his first AI startup, Roboflow’s major pivot/evolution, a walkthrough of the ML pipeline, leveraging content strategy to attract customers, and much much more.   If your company is looking to scale it’s AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com) – experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, and AI product development.

The demand for healthier food and the fear of food shortages have had farmers scrambling for answers for years.  Vertical farming has emerged as a solution, but its not scalable enough to feed a growing global population.  Thus, farmers have had to rely on chemicals – until now.  Innovative minds at Biome Makers have come up with a better solution, utilizing AI to understand the biological makeup of the soil, how microbes are interconnected, and how farmers can leverage this knowledge to grow via biological improvements vs chemical treatments.   In this episode, I sit with Adrian Ferrero (Co-Founder and CEO of Biome Makers).  We discuss his team’s transition from Spain to the US, applying AI to soil analysis, supporting farmers’ efforts to produce quality food at scale, methods of delivering insights to farmers, organizing data needed to train AI models, and much more.   If your company is looking to scale it’s AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com) – experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, and AI product development.

You get an email regarding a package being delivered.  It says you should log into your account. Seems legit, but you never ordered a package!  Fraudsters are trying every trick in the book to fool you into sharing sensitive information.  This activity is especially difficult to catch when you, specifically, are the target – which is the case with spearfishing email.  For most of us, there isn’t enough time in the day to stay up to date on the latest Phishing strategies. Fortunately, AI has arrived to keep us safe and in-the-know.   In this episode, I sit with Tiffany Ricks, who founded HacWare to provide easily digestible content to educate those individuals in an organization who are vulnerable to phishing.  We discuss her lifetime love for entrepreneurship, why starting as a services business is a great first step for product companies, how AI is combatting cybersecurity challenges on the job, data strategy to train AI models, and much much more.   If your company is looking to scale it’s AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com) – experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, and AI product development.

The manufacturing industry contributed to one of history’s greatest productivity revolutions.  However, today the industry has been left behind by the technological revolution.  Despite attempts at automation in manufacturing, the industry remains known for its tough and mundane manual labor which leads to safety risk and high employee turnover.  Technologists are rethinking manufacturing with artificial intelligence as their primary tool.   In this episode, I sit with Brian Mathews (Chief Technology Officer) and Abhishek Pandi (Chief Product Officer) of Bright Machines.  We discuss the process of automating automation, redesigning manufacturing with a primary focus on software, why traditional automation approaches can’t deliver ROI, the process for training on synthetic data, go-to-market strategy, and much much more.   If your company is looking to scale it’s AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com) – experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, and AI product development.

In crime shows, you often see a sleep deprived security guard snoozing in front of his monitor at the very moment suspicious activity occurs.  This may or may not be a Hollywood creation, but what is real is the challenge of vigilantly monitoring a camera feed 24/7.  Interestingly, most criminal and suspicious activity occur in front of a camera, but timely recognition and reporting create the greatest barriers to response from law enforcement.   In this episode, I sit with Micheal Bingham (Founder and CEO of xIris) to discuss how his team is leveraging artificial intelligence to improve public security.  We discuss his beginnings in small town Mississippi and the move to the Big Apple, launching a product built for law enforcement, collecting and training data to detect criminal activity, benefits to joining an accelerator, and much much more.   If your company is looking to scale it’s AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com) – experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, and AI product development.

Have you created a burner account to research your competitors?  No judgement here! Sales is a competitive space and knowing how you stack up against the competition is an asset that can set your sales team apart.  With so much data, AI should be able to serve up relevant details to help win deals, right?  This is the challenge that Klue has taken head on.   In this episode, I sit with Jason Smith (Co-Founder & CEO of Klue) to discuss: getting early funding, how to win more deals utilizing competitor information, data collection strategy, hiring early employees on the AI team (on a limited budget), sticking with lean principles of building a business, and much much more.   If your company is looking to scale it’s AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com) – experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, and AI product development.

Powerpoint is a thing of the past.  Organizations and individuals with valuable data want a way to build dynamic dashboards and data driven apps, without having to acquire front-end experience.  Enter Amanda Kelly (Co-Founder and COO of Streamlit).  Amanda leads a quickly growing startup focused on turning data scripts into shareable web apps in minutes. In this episode we discuss: how Amanda leveraged her experience in business operations to add value to AI organizations, AI-hype and the real users of cognitive solutions, strategy for selecting the first few hires, the role of a COO in a startup, and much more. If your company is looking to scale it’s AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com) – experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, and AI product development.

Some things are difficult to truly appreciate until they aren’t available – clean water is one of those things.  Our guest, Elango Thevar (Founder and CEO of Neer.ai), grew up in India in an area where clean, drinkable water was a privilege.  Elango explains that anywhere between 30% of clean water coming from water management facilities is wasted in its commute to US citizens.  Artificial intelligence has emerged as a tool to solve this issue. In this episode we discuss the unseen issues facing water management, how Elango’s passion for efficient clean water delivery led him to AI, working with government organizations to organize data, launching a startup in the Midwest, and much much more. If your company is looking to scale it’s AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com) – experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, data labeling, and AI product development.

A 2-minute scroll through any social media platform and you can see that advertising has exploded.  Performance marketers, who make creative decision on ad display, struggle to understand what works, what doesn’t work – and why.  Leveraging artificial intelligence, Viralspace has come to the rescue, allowing performance marketers to stop guessing and start making data-driven decisions on ad optimization. In this episode, I sit with Apoorva Dornadula (Co-Founder & CTO of Viralspace), who was recently named to Forbes 30 Under 30 for Marketing and Advertising.  We discuss her perspective on ethics in AI, how Viralspace approaches the collection and organization of data, finding talent, acquiring the first few customers, and much more. If your company is looking to scale it’s AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com) – experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, and AI product development