Competitive Mobile Gaming with Andrew Paradise, CEO and Founder of Skillz

The Future of Genome Editing with Professor David Liu

The Terra Blockchain with Do Kwon

The ostensible premise behind social media platforms is to enable people to connect online, but this gets jeopardized by their attention economy architecture and paid advertising algorithms. Today’s guests are Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Jared Geller and they join us to speak about their platform, HitRecord, an online community built around creative collaboration. HitRecord offers artists of all kinds a platform to share their artwork or idea, and open it up to the input of other artists, thereby producing a trail that records the work’s progression much like GitHub does with code. In our conversation with Joseph and Jared, we hear about HitRecord’s journey from its early days as a production company to its current state as a tech company, offering decentralized access and editing capabilities to creative projects around the world. Our guests talk about some of the functionality on HitRecord and weigh in on some of the limitations of social media. We also explore the future of the movie industry, the blurring lines between creativity and technology, and what kinds of creative and community-driven art forms could grow out of quarantine and the pandemic. Make sure to check out their latest project “Create Together #WithMe”, a new Youtube series about making art and community out of uncertain times. “HitRecord is a community built around creative collaboration. HitRecord, it’s less about, ‘Look at what I made,’ and it’s more about, ‘What can we make together?” Key Points From This Episode: Introducing HitRecord, an online community built around creative collaboration Collaboration versus likes: connecting online differently to what social media allows Open-source culture: drawing from GitHub and Lawrence Lessig’s Remix for HitRecord Similarities between a software developer and an artist mindset The rules around attribution on HitRecord How the scope of projects made on HitRecord has grown and thoughts for its future The role technology played in making HitRecord’s contribution process more decentralized The value to be found by seeing and experiencing the process behind creative works Taking YouTube’s enablement of getting seen further by foregrounding the creative process Problem-solving using data versus emotion: the merge between tech and creative mindsets Hollywood’s heyday in the 1930s and the evolution of the movie industry The increased use of HitRecord in the pandemic TikTok’s genesis story and the pros and cons of the platform: music versus monetization The double-edged sword of new tech that become invisible but indispensable Lesser-known Joseph Gordon-Levitt films to watch during the quarantine

Today on the show, we welcome Austin Petersmith, Founder and CEO of Capiche. Capiche is a startup that aims to bring transparency and trusted reviews to the world of enterprise software. The SaaS industry has blossomed in recent years with dozens of tools being used across productivity, communication, databases and DevOps. In this episode, Austin gives an overview of how the modern software as a service (SaaS) industry was born and what’s coming down the pike. We hear the gap in the enterprise software customer experience that Capiche aims to fulfill and what the benefits are of having a communal space that fosters a mentality of users-helping-users. We also discuss the range of software available to us today and how the traditional top-down decision-making power within these structures is stretching across all employees into the hands of the individual. With more and more people settling into remote work during the coronavirus lockdowns, we explore the importance of having trust within organizations and why this is the most important leadership quality that needs to be practiced, right now. “There has been a power shift. People up and down an organization have a new voice Key Points from This Episode: Discover how Austin got interested in enterprise software and how Capiche began. The frustration with most software review sites when trying to find the right tools to use. The core differences between a personal peer-review and vendor-controlled review sites. Discover what Capiche is, how it works, and the gap it fills in the software community. The value of building a community around more honest and insightful conversations. Users helping users: Find out more about the discussions taking place on Capiche. Learn more about the mechanism Capiche uses to acquire users and get them to engage. The state of software for productivity today and the bottom-up adoption of software. Find out more about the SaaS trend and the consumerization of enterprise software. Using a well-known, established product versus using a new startup product. Is it really that easy for companies to chop and change software products today? Discover the general reception of Microsoft Teams among the Capiche community. Who is going to be the next Slack? Promising products to look out for on the horizon. Why trust is the most important thing when working remotely during the coronavirus.

In this virtual, remote, distant world we need to make sure that the technologies that support us can transfer information that is accurate, safe and trusted. For today’s episode, we had Dr. Alex Cahana join us to speak about the role Distributed Ledger Technologies will play in shaping business, health systems, and definitions of community in the post-pandemic world. Dr. Cahana is the Chief Medical Officer and Market Lead for ConsenSys Health. His experience is in military, healthcare and most recently, blockchain, and he believes that by ‘blockchainizing’ healthcare we can transform people from passive health service consumers into active, self-sovereign health and wealth producers. In today’s show, we discuss the importance of secure, trustworthy data to business and healthcare and how blockchain-based systems are ushering in a new era in this regard. Dr. Cahana tells listeners about what blockchain’s ability to remove ‘fakeness’ means for securing systems in health, law, news and more. Our conversation also covers the global pandemic and what it has emphasized, what we can learn from it, and how technologies that are being implemented now might be here to stay once things blow over. A key takeaway here is that surviving the pandemic should not come at the cost of our privacy. We discuss his efforts with “Failure Is Not an Option” (FINO) as far as their ventures toward reshaping business through blockchain, and the incentives blockchain could provide to people so that they can take a more active role in their own healthcare. Most importantly, Dr. Cahana’s message is that blockchain is a mindset. It represents a mentality where we realize that we have to work together and it enables a behavioral economy which makes things so secure that trust gets taken out of the picture. Tune in for Dr. Cahana’s big picture, cross-disciplinary insights. “Blockchain is a technology or software solution that solves the problem of ‘fake.’” Key Points From This Episode: An introduction to Dr. Cahana and his work in military, healthcare, and blockchain Blockchain, distributed networks, and public/private business partnerships in the last month The role that Distributed Ledger Technology can play in monitoring supply chains Blockchain’s ability to stop ‘fakeness’ and how this applies to medicine, news, law, etc Combining blockchain with other technologies to keep health data private in the crisis Business, contact tracking, privacy: how blockchain and AI could shape the new normal Weighing the severity of concerns between non-specialist doctors and practitioner trauma What blockchain can do to relieve the issue of health practitioner trauma What FINO is doing to create new business models: ‘trustless’ blockchain systems in a post-pandemic world The evolution of technology and whether we will learn from mistakes that caused COVID-19 Metrics to know whether our efforts to change are successful: a token economy The lasting effects that technological solutions will have; homeostasis vs allostasis Creativity, reflection, blockchain: three good things to come out of the crisis  

From manufacturing to universities, companies and institutions are in turmoil across the board. During the time of COVID-19, businesses are being forced to look for better, faster, or cheaper solutions to the problems that they’re facing. Increasingly new technologies can provide help. We take a look at how businesses, brands, organizations, public services, and institutions are having to make drastic shifts in order to survive and adopt new solutions such as drones, 3D printing, autonomous driving, and online education. As the world makes behavioral shifts to the “new normal,” we are seeing how people are beginning to move toward automation in multiple areas of their lives – be it food delivery, pursuing education, or catching a ride. The entire world is at a tipping point where we are being forced to embrace the move to automation… who will be left behind? “We don’t think that automation is going to remove jobs, we actually think it will add jobs, but it will displace people.” “The cost of delivery by a human is about $1.60 per mile. With an autonomous delivery robot, it could be as low as $0.06 per mile.” Key Points from This Episode: Learn more about customer responses to companies like Waymo, Meitwan, and Geely. The economic benefits of human-delivered goods versus robot-delivered goods. Discover how different companies are approaching electric automobility. COVID-19’s impact on ride hailing markets and companies like Tesla, Uber, and Lyft. How flying and ground drones are being employed for food delivery and medical check-ups. Learn more about the behavioral shifts towards using available technology platforms. Find out how 3D printing is serving the manufacturing process across a range of industries. Discover how more ventilators where built and used in Italy using 3D print technology. The surge in online education: How universities across the globe are adapting their courses.

The current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has saturated media across the globe. The information available to us is vast, expansive, and can be all-consuming. But a lot of this information is, understandably, geared heavily toward medical and social topics. In this episode, we explore the impact of covid-19 on fintech companies. We ask the question, what does this mean payment methods and the future of transactions across the globe? George Whitridge and Max Friedrich, FinTech analysts at ARK, talks about how various countries have responded to the push for contactless payment methods, the economic benefits we’re seeing in contactless payments, and how companies and brands such as Zillow, Cash App, and DocuSign are responding to the current crisis. We also take a look at the response to the pandemic by The Small Business Administration and US banks, and why startups who live in uncertainty, are more likely to master this crisis than older business models. We ‘round off with some fascinating stats about just how dirty your credit and debit cards really are. If germs were a currency, perhaps we’d all still be in business? Tune in. “Innovative companies that are used to uncertainty are likely to master this coronavirus challenge.” “It really pays off if you have the consumer at a digital touchpoint.” Key Points from This Episode: The impact of WHO urging consumers to use contactless payments instead of cash. How the USA, South Korea, Emirates, India, and Ghana have responded to WHO’s advice. Is the Corona Virus the global need contactless payments have been waiting for? How digital wallets and digital payments impacted India’s economy: A 2016 case study. Discover how the Corona Virus has increased transaction habits in Grocery e-commerce. Merchants and software services: The two eco-systems Square is currently operating in. Benefits of having the consumer at a digital touch point to influence, inform, and incentivize. What we are seeing on Twitch that we are not seeing from any other payments company. Discover how small business payment processor companies, like Square, are functioning. Find out how brands like Cash App are reinventing what the dollar sign really means. The creative ways companies like Zillow are serving their consumers in this time of crisis. Learn more about the response from The Small Business Administration and the banks. Why your debit and credit cards are dirtier than cash – according to scientific studies. What a McDonald’s door-handle, NYC bicycles, and your credit card all have in common.

This week we are joined by Chip Paucek, 2U’s Co-Founder and CEO. 2U is one of the leading online education software platforms. At ARK we often say disruptive innovation gains traction in tumultuous times. There’s perhaps no better example than in the education space. For six years 2U noted that one of the biggest challenges was fighting the stigma of online education, and then in the midst of COVID-19 nearly every school has been forced into an online only setting. Tune in to hear Chip walk us through 2U’s critical role in helping schools’ transition from the classrooms to online. We talk about the challenges of 2U, how online learning can create more engaging classes, and how 2U’s scale can help lower the cost of higher education. “High quality education online isn’t just about being in a live classroom via Zoom or Google Hangout.” “At one point we won’t call it online education anymore, we will just call it higher education.” Key Points From This Episode: 2U’s role in transitioning both itself and its partner schools online during the COVID-19. 2U’s founding principles and what makes it unique. The difference between a lecture on Zoom and a program specifically designed to be online. Professors’ reactions to teaching online for the first time. The history and potential future of online education. Looking at education as an elastic good and creating a sustainable business model. Comparing online education outcomes through 2U and Gallup’s first survey. Reasons enterprises are turning to short courses and bootcamps. The lasting power of university brands. 2U’s global expansion. Chip’s favorite brand, book, and the next short course he plans to take.

As the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to strengthen its grip across the globe, it’s natural to feel a sense of dread and despair. However, we believe that tumultuous times can be the best catalysts for innovation, and this pandemic is no exception. In this episode, Simon Barnett and Ali Urman, ARK’s genomics analysts, are here to discuss developments in genomics and biotech, underway in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Simon sheds light on the declining cost curve of DNA sequencing, which allowed scientists to sequence the virus in a handful of days—a stark contrast to the six months it took to sequence the SARS virus. We also discuss improvements in diagnostic tools like synthetic biology in the context of this pandemic. Ali zooms further in on some preventative medicine and vaccine developments. While traditional vaccines use the virus itself, companies like Moderna, Inovio, and Arcturus Therapeutics, among others, are working on a range of unconventional and potentially groundbreaking preventative measures. We also look at how existing anti-viral drugs are being repurposed for the treatment of COVID-19. Lastly, we take a look at auxiliary areas where we have seen an increase of innovations. Simon highlights how telemedicine, organ transplant, and blood safety measures have seen growth during the crisis. Many of the developments are breaking down FDA barriers. We hope that these developments galvanize innovative approaches to prevention, diagnoses, and treatments not only for COVID-19 but for other diseases as well. Be sure to tune in today! “This type of turmoil, we think, forces people to think differently, maybe take new strategies or new approaches to dealing with issues.” “We think that instances like this, these compressed, tumultuous time periods, where people are having to throw out how they’ve always done things and think about things in a new and different light, this is actually one of the best times for new and innovative technologies to ma Key Points From This Episode: The genomic and biotech companies who are doing innovative work. How the DNA sequencing timeframe for SARS and MERS compares with COVID-19. A look at other developments in DNA sequencing in light of the COVID-19 outbreak. Insights into some of the diagnostic tool developments such as synthetic biology. Find out about Moderna’s alternative development to the viral vaccine for COVID-19. Self-replicating RNA vaccine: How it works and who’s leading the development charge. Inovio’s DNA vaccine, how it works, and some the of benefits. How existing anti-viral therapies are being repurposed for the COVID-19 vaccine. Innovation is helping break down FDA barriers. The take-off of telemedicine. How the face of transplant care is changing in light of COVID-19. What usually happens with blood supply during an outbreak and the current innovations.