That Tech Pod

Today on That Tech Pod, Laura and Kevin talk to Ian McConnell. Ian  is a recovering gifted child with a fear of disappointing people. A singer-songwriter by day,  goofy social media personality of moderate notoriety by (also) day, and sleepy-head by night, Ian has been referred to as “Kroger-brand Ed Sheeran,” “sexy Kermit The Frog,” and “a stupid piece of shit” by a vocal minority of his 600k+ Tiktok and 230k+ Instagram followers. Though Ian spent the last few years attempting to be a country musician – a hilarious undertaking (in hindsight) for a suburban-DC math/cello major with no rural life experience – he has now abandoned that endeavor (for reasons obvious to anyone who has read this sentence) in favor of a nebulous Taylor-Swift-meets-Bo-Burnham vibe (okay now I want the Taylor Swift-Bo Burnham collab album. I’ve always thought All Too Well could use more masturbation jokes) (wow this sentence sure does have a lot of parentheses!). His inability to delegate has led to Ian writing, producing, mixing, and mastering all his own music, which has been streamed over 23 million times across the platforms of our gargantuan corporate overlords. But numbers don’t matter! Listen to the music!https://www.youtube.com/@IanMcConnell

Today on That Tech Pod, Laura and Kevin speak with Kylie Uvodich. As a Head of Americas, Go-to-Market at SafetyCulture, Kylie oversees a committed team who support hundreds of businesses across the US to improve workplace operations, including JetBlue, Scotts Miracle-Gro, Air Canada, and Dollar General. With the power of innovative tech, her team helps to give workers a voice, leaders visibility, and unite teams to improve.

Today on That Tech Pod, Laura and Gabi chat with Haseeb Awan. Haseeb is the CEO of Efani, America's most secure and private cell phone service, which protects people against SIM Swaps, eavesdropping, and location tracking.Efani works like any other carrier, except Efani adds exceptional security to phone plans via an impressive security tech stack.Haseeb is also a co-founder of one of the first and largest bitcoin ATMs - Bitaccess - which has 8000+ locations in 15 countries. He is one of the earliest entrepreneurs in the blockchain space and has invested in 30+ companies. As one of the top 100 influential people in FinTech globally, Haseeb has been part of documentaries and even congressional hearings to speak on behalf of Bitcoin in its early days.

Today on That Tech Pod, Laura and Gabi speak with Thomas Helfrich about how AI is spearheading the New Normal Of Digital Marketing. Thomas “AI Nerd” Helfrich is a technology guru, business innovator, and CEO of Instantly Relevant, Inc. (instantlyrelevant.com). Using a combinCation of emerging AI technology and expert human insight, his company helps founders, entrepreneurs, and startups earn more traffic, tap into new revenue streams, and capture the attention of “relevant” audiences. Upending the old ways and opening future horizons to highly personalized, scalable, and effective online content. If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed Google's search algorithms are quickly leaving behind text for images, voice, and videos. This explains why Content - like infographics, memes, and reels - is now a must for any marketing campaign - generating three times as many leads as traditional marketing.  As a product of the Dot-Com Boom, Tech Entrepreneur and CEO, Thomas Helfrich, got a front row seat to watch as the rise of technology and human creativity combined forces to become the marketing juggernaut they are today. Sound Scary? Maybe a little intimidating? Thomas knows all-too-well the fears that accompany the thought of an AI Take Over. 

Today on That Tech Pod, Laura and Gabi talk with Ziad Lammam, Head of Product for HP Anyware. Ziad leads product management, strategy and planning for HP Anyware (previously Teradici CAS). Has over 20 years experience in the end-user computing industry spanning desktop virtualization, remote workstations and cloud PCs. Passionate about creating unique and delightful customers experiences. Holds Masters in Business Administration at Simon Fraser University and Bachelor of Applied Science in Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia. Outside of the hybrid office, find me outdoors (skiing, running, cycling, volleyball).

Today on That Tech Pod, Laura, Kevin, and Gabi speak with friend of the show, Cybersecurity expert, Naomi Buckwalter.  Naomi details how she is closing the demand gap in cyber with her new non profit, Cybersecurity Gate-breakers. Visit https://www.cybersecuritygatebreakers.org for more info!

Today on That Tech Pod, Laura and Kevin talk with Andrea Giannangelo. Andrea founded Iubenda back in 2011, when privacy wasn’t really a thing, based on the intuition that the status quo was going to change. Many years later, Iubenda has 90,000 paying clients and is used by hundreds of thousands of websites and apps as a key tool to stay compliant. In addition, Andrea is one of the main writers of Transparency and Consent Framework (or TCF), US Privacy Framework and Global Privacy Platform, all initiatives by iab that constitute the backbone used by the online advertising industry to share privacy-related signals.

Today on That Tech Pod, Laura and Gabi speak with Amit Modi. Amit is the CTO and CISO at Movius MultiLine, a trustworthy company heading mobile, voice, text, and WhatsApp communications within businesses and their customers worldwide. Amit is an entrepreneur, leader, a visionary, and technology executive who has successfully patented and commercialized innovation in security, mobility, conversational AI, large scale cloud infrastructure, and B2B & B2C SaaS platforms in highly regulated industries.

Today on That Tech Pod, Laura and Kevin talk to Katie Boeck. Katie is a singer, songwriter and actor  originally from California where she earned a BA in Theater at UCLA.  She played the Voice of Wendla in the critically acclaimed broadway revival of Spring Awakening garnering a Tony -nomination and a feature on The Nightly News with Lester Holt.  Her rendition of Ave Maria was featured on HBO's The Newsroom and her cover of The Sign was recently featured on the hit reality show Love Island. She just completed work on her upcoming full-length album "Calico" and is workshopping a new collaborative theatrical piece called "Motherhood". She lives in Nashville, TN with her 5 year old son. 

Today on this bonus episode of That Tech Pod, Laura and Gabi speak to EY's Joe Pochron and Lou Bladel.  Joe Pochron is the west region's digital forensic and insider threat lead for EY’s Forensic & Integrity Service Practice, based in San Francisco, CA. Joe’s expertise is in digital forensics, insider threats, and helping EY clients on complex cyber investigations and cyber incidents response needs.Joe has over 20 years of combined experience in digital forensics, cybercrime investigations, eDiscovery, and cyber incident response. During that time, he has investigated or managed thousands of cases involving the collection and analysis of computer, mobile device, network, and cloud-based data. Joe has testified numerous times in local, state, and federal legal matters as a digital forensic expert. Additionally, he frequently provides expert affidavits, or expert forensic reports for clients in support of digital forensic analysis or cyber investigative needs. Joe routinely consults with clients regarding digital forensics, insider threats, data privacy, incident response and electronic discovery matters. He has managed the preservation, analysis, and review of electronically stored information in a wide range of matters including investigations, independent litigation, regulatory compliance and internal inquiries. Joe is a frequent speaker at technical or legal conferences. Additionally, he has been an educator for many industry professionals, serving as an adjunct professor at the university level for many years, teaching courses on digital forensics and cybercrime.Lou is a managing director in the Forensic & Integrity Services practice. He is the Practice Leader for Intellectual Property Theft Services, which assists clients in responding to, investigating and remediating insider threat, intellectual property, trade secret theft and third party risk management. Lou and his team develop and implement comprehensive data integrity and security services. Lou consults with US federal law enforcement agency directors, government regulators and key executives of Fortune 100 companies, Fortune 500 C-suite officials and boards of directors from across industry on matters of economic espionage and insider threats. Lou has over 26 years of federal law enforcement experience serving in the U.S. Marshals Service, Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), retiring from the FBI in 2016. The majority of Lou’s law enforcement career involved leading and investigating counterintelligence matters. Lou has held numerous leadership positions within the FBI, including Special Agent in Charge of the New York office of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division where he led the recent espionage/insider threat arrest and successful plea negotiation of an FBI employee. As Chief of the FBI’s Counterespionage Section, he led the espionage investigations of David Petraeus and Edward Snowden. He also led the production of The Company Man, an award-winning training film that educated private sector companies on the dangers of economic espionage. The film won an Emmy (2016), the CINE Golden Eagle Award (2014) and five gold and bronze Peer Awards. In 2013, he successfully testified before the U.S. Sentencing Commission to enhance the criminal penalties for theft of proprietary information. He managed the DuPont economic espionage investigation, which resulted in the FBI’s first-ever jury trial conviction for economic espionage. The case won the 2014 FBI Director’s Award for Counterintelligence Excellence. He was featured on NBC Nightly News promoting awareness of the FBI’s economic espionage program. Lou also won the National Counterintelligence Executive Award for Community Excellence in Leadership for his role in the FBI operation that led Lou frequently speaks at high-profile public and private sector forums.