The Irish Tech News Podcast

We check in with Sean O’Sullivan, once of Kinsale, Cork, and now US based inventor, innovator and major driving force in an explosion of Climate Tech based exciting, environmentally positive solutions. This interview is a little longer than usual, but covers some really interesting insights and positive solutions for our shared future. Sean O’Sullivan is managing partner of SOSV, a venture capital firm which specializes in accelerator programs for very early stage companies and is one of the most active venture investors in the world.  SOSV runs the world’s most active accelerators in hardware (HAX), life sciences (IndieBio), and Asia cross-border startups (Chinaccelerator/MOX) and blockchain (dlab). O’Sullivan’s first company, MapInfo, grew to a $200 million revenue public company with over 1,000 employees, and popularized street mapping on computers. His first internet company, NetCentric, developed many concepts in internet computing, and he is credited as the co-creator of the term “cloud computing”. O’Sullivan received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a MFA in Film Production from USC.  O’Sullivan is on the board of Khan Academy, Sun Genomics, the Tyndall Institute, the Autism Impact Fund and a number of private companies. SOSV is a venture capital and investment management firm that provides seed, venture and growth stage funding to startup companies in the technology sector. The company's focus is on accelerating startups via their market specific seed accelerator programs located in Europe, Asia and the USA. Wikipedia Check out the Climate Tech 100 also -> SOSV has always been keen on technology and startups that promise better human and planetary health. In recent years, climate tech has been an especially big priority at our IndieBio (biotech) and HAX (hardware) accelerator programs, and a steady emphasis at MOX (global mobile consumer) and Chinaccelerator (enterprise Asia). The SOSV Climate Tech 100 marks the first time we’ve analyzed our 1,000 company portfolio to present our top climate tech investments. We are pleased to report that as of April 2021 the SOSV Climate Tech 100 have raised $1.85 billion from investors and have a market cap of $5.65 billion. The average company is four years old. SOSV has invested $89 million in these companies and was in most cases the first investor, though we continued investing through early rounds. Not all the companies on the list contribute in the same way to climate tech, so we grouped them in three broad tiers. The core (71) are companies that aim to disrupt incumbent, carbon-intensive technologies. The adjacent (25) are companies that have an indirect impact on climate change, for example by re-using waste or power consumption. And marketplaces (4) typically provide consumers with more cost and carbon efficient solutions. Here are a few data points to help navigate The SOSV Tech Climate 100. We divided the companies into five industry categories: Food (50), Manufacturing(28), Transport (9), Energy (7) and Building Systems (6). There are 14 countries represented, with the US (65), Canada (9), Singapore (6), and the UK (6) topping the list. 40 percent of the companies have at least one female founder. And a final note: SOSV has invested in more than 40 additional climate tech companies that we also love but didn’t make the cut this year!

Jamil catches up with Ori Shimony to learn more about the latest developments from the cutting edge crypto US state of Wyoming Ori works on operations and R&D at dOrg, a crypto development collective and the first legally registered DAO in the US. He’s been involved in the crypto space for 7 years, specializing in DAO law, token economics, and software architecture. https://dorg.tech https://twitter.com/dOrg_tech https://twitter.com/orishim https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-pursuit-for-legislative-legitimacy%3A-crypto-corporations-and-wyomings-blockchain-bill https://www.coindesk.com/dorg-founders-have-created-the-first-limited-liability-dao Jamil Hasan is a Generation X Author and experienced data intelligence technology builder with two decades of experience leading data-based teams at Fortune 100 companies, including AIG, Prudential Financial, and Ingersoll Rand. Jamil believes that skill and experience, not just age, is the most important factor required to build and lead corporate organizations. His unique story, as someone on the ground floor of the 2008 financial crisis and his role to help repay the $180 billion AIG bailout, enabled him to come face-to-face with many of the societal ills facing Generation X today and their causes. As the result of his experience, Jamil has developed a path forward for his fellow Gen Xers to restore his generation’s financial standing in society today and to rebuild the American Dream for Generation X.

Cool interview by Jamil with English graffiti legend Darren Cullen aka SER Graffiti Artist Darren Cullen aka SER from South London began his graffiti career way back in 1983 aged 10 years old, at the very birth of British graffiti. His path in graffiti started like many graffiti artists with the birth of hip-hop culture in the early 80s. Exploring every aspect of the graffiti-writing scene SER found himself emblazoning his name across the streets and walls of London. This led to a greater need to increase his presence to the public so began the systematic destruction of the train networks and rail infrastructure across the UK & the world. There then comes a point in every graffiti artist’s life when their illegal activity becomes of great interest to the Police and having a prison cell as a second home isn’t that appealing so SER needed to rethink. This spurred SER into forming the Graffiti Kings collective with some of the world’s best graffiti & street artists to go legit and take on the world. Darren Cullen aka SER - Graffiti Kings founder/head honcho/artist  The only Graffiti Artist approved by the British Government & official Graffiti Artist for the London2012 Games..... Just saying  Tel: 07877502506 / www.graffitikings.co.uk Jamil Hasan is a Generation X Author and experienced data intelligence technology builder with two decades of experience leading data-based teams at Fortune 100 companies, including AIG, Prudential Financial, and Ingersoll Rand. Jamil believes that skill and experience, not just age, is the most important factor required to build and lead corporate organizations. His unique story, as someone on the ground floor of the 2008 financial crisis and his role to help repay the $180 billion AIG bailout, enabled him to come face-to-face with many of the societal ills facing Generation X today and their causes. As the result of his experience, Jamil has developed a path forward for his fellow Gen Xers to restore his generation’s financial standing in society today and to rebuild the American Dream for Generation X.

Amir Najib interviews Elaine Hoey, who is a new media artist who bases her work around various technology such as, virtual reality and interactive art. She also teaches at the National College of Art and Design. Her work has been subject to many awards such as,  the R.C. Lewis-Crosby award in 2017 and the Taylor Art Award in 2016. In this interview, Elaine goes over how she got to where she is as a new media artist and why she initially became interested in things such as virtual reality and technologies such as that. She also speaks about the current project she is working on, as well as what she hopes to achieve from this webinar series that she is doing together with the National College of Art and Design and The Digital Hub. https://www.elainehoey.com/projects https://twitter.com/Elaine_Hoey_ The National College of Art and Design (NCAD), in partnership with The Digital Hub, has today launched a series of Digital Culture webinars which will be broadcast via YouTube over the next twelve weeks. The series will focus on the transformative nature of emerging technologies. The Digital Cultures webinar series is designed to bring together audiences from a range of perspectives, including academics and thinkers, students and alumni, the arts sector and the wider general public. The webinar series is convened by The Digital Hub artist in residence and NCAD Alumna, Elaine Hoey and NCAD Lecturer in Digital Cultures, Dr Rachel O’ Dwyer. With a focus on the transformative nature of emerging technologies, the webinar series will cover a range of topics including: data as art; the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI); digital economies; and digital algorithms. Free to attend, the webinars will be broadcast on YouTube. For those interested in attending one or more of the webinars, there is no registration required.

Jamil talks with Mike McGlone in a really interesting overview of the crypto space. Mike McGlone Bloomberg Intelligence - Senior Commodity Strategist Mike McGlone is a senior commodity strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence, a unique research platform that provides context on industries, companies, and government policy, available on the Bloomberg Professional service at BI <GO>. Mr. McGlone specializes in the broad investible commodity and crypto markets, authoring the monthly Bloomberg Commodity Outlook and Bloomberg Crypto Outlook. Mr. McGlone joined Bloomberg in 2016 with over 25 years of futures and commodity trading and investing experience, beginning at the Chicago Board of Trade. Prior to joining Bloomberg, he was a head of U.S. research at ETF Securities. Prior to ETF Securities, Mr. McGlone headed the commodity business at S&P Indices. His previous roles included head of futures research at ABN Amro and VP research, analyst, trader, sales at Aubrey G. Lanston / IBJ Futures. Mr. McGlone has an MBA from DePaul University in Chicago and bachelor’s of science and arts degrees from Illinois State University. He is a CFA Charter holder and has earned a Financial Risk Manager (FRM) designation.  Jamil Hasan is a Generation X Author and experienced data intelligence technology builder with two decades of experience leading data-based teams at Fortune 100 companies, including AIG, Prudential Financial, and Ingersoll Rand. Jamil believes that skill and experience, not just age, is the most important factor required to build and lead corporate organizations. His unique story, as someone on the ground floor of the 2008 financial crisis and his role to help repay the $180 billion AIG bailout, enabled him to come face-to-face with many of the societal ills facing Generation X today and their causes. As the result of his experience, Jamil has developed a path forward for his fellow Gen Xers to restore his generation’s financial standing in society today and to rebuild the American Dream for Generation X.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the way we work changing, as remote working is now the norm. This has also resulted in more cyber attacks and also deepfakes becoming more prevalent. So what are these cyber attacks and what are deep fakes? Sarah Hipkin head of technology consulting at Mazars talks about this and more. Sarah talks to Ronan about the increase in cyber attacks on organisations since the COVID-19 pandemic started, the impacts of these attacks on organisations, and what future cyber attacks will look like. Sarah also talks about what is a deepfake, how we can spot them, and what we can do to protect ourselves against them. More about Sarah: Sarah Hipkin leads the Mazars in Ireland Technology Consulting practice and she has over 20 years’ experience working in cyber security, technology and data governance in the USA, Asia, Australia and Europe. Before joining Mazars, Sarah was the Head of Cyber Governance for Woolworths Group, Australia, which has  200,000 employees. Sarah also worked for PwC Australia and was part of the CIO advisory services across many clients in various industries.

In 2020, U.S. VC firms deployed a vast amount of capital, but not only did the portion of funds to female founders dropped, so did the funding to female-led startups. As the impact of the COVID-19 continues to be felt, closing the global gender gap has also increased by a generation from 99.5 years to 135.6 years, according to the World Economic Forum. In this episode of One Vision, Theo and Bradley chat with Tracy Chadwell, Founding Partner of 1843 Capital, an early stage venture capital firm, on funding, diversity, and longevity tech.

In this interview Irish Tech News speaks to Stephen Brennan about the R&D Tax Credit, including what makes a project worth claiming and the nature of R&D. They also discuss current technology trends, including Deep Learning, the ethics of AI and how science and technology as we know it might change with the introduction of Quantum computing and the eventual arrival of the Singularity. Stephen Brennan is a Senior Scientific Consultant within the KPMG Tax Incentives Practice. He leverages past experience in the Silicon Design and Medical Device Industries to advise clients on how to claim the R&D Tax Credit. Stephen has extensive experience working within R&D teams and has had papers published at the Intel INTC conference and the Qualcomm GSOC Summit.  

We catch up with Aidan to discuss his new book Undisruptable, and what it means for our future work experiences and our journeys in life. Aidan McCullen is the author ‘Undisruptable’. Mental Agility Coach, Workshops & Public Speaker on Change, Innovation, Mindset. Host Innovation Show. Lecture Trinity College. Board of National Broadband Ireland. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen/ Aidan McCullen (born 5 January 1977) is a businessman and retired Ireland national rugby union team player. He played as a back rower, principally at blindside flanker but also as an openside, no.8 and occasionally in the second row. He played for the Ireland national rugby sevens team in a number of competitions, including Hong Kong Sevensand the 2001 Rugby World Cup Sevens. Follow him on twitter here https://twitter.com/AidanMcCullen

We catch up with Scott Taylor to learn more about his data whispering skills and insights. More about Scott via his Linkedin page -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottmztaylor/ Let me help you TELL YOUR DATA STORY I can be your voice for Data Management Partnering with Enterprises and innovative Data Brands that want to change the nature of data management - and help them tell their story! Too Much Tech Talk?  (A puppet service announcement) Connecting Data Management to the Essence of Your Business https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIf7k6D68HU  Buy the book Here - Telling Your Data Story  - Data Storytelling for Data Management 20% off with code: DATAWHISPERER Scott was brought to you by Simon Cocking Irish Tech News.com in collaboration with DAMA Ireland.  DAMA (International Data Management Association) is the premier international organisation for data management professionals.  A new DAMA Ireland team led by Carl Kane is mobilising at the moment and are affiliating with DAMA International and its Certified Data Management Professionals wing.   DAMA Ireland will aim to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data and information as key enterprise assets to support organisations and personal development.  Look out for more news and a relaunch of DAMA Ireland in H2 2021. Follow @CarlSugarKane and @DAMAIreland for updates. http://damaireland.org/