The Irish Tech News Podcast

Privacy is one of the most compelling conditions to attract our attention right now. An unalienable right, it has been nevertheless eroded in the digital age where, through a combination of feckless sharing and avaricious harvesting of data, there is a thin line between who we are and what we share. Flippant argument in the form of ‘what have you to hide?’ combined with a determination to ferret out real or imagined threats has created a world where democracy is fighting for its life. Without privacy we have no screen to protect our lives, our choices and our children. The stranger peering in the window of our world will make judgements big and small. The world is not made up of binary right or wrong, good or bad. And even if were, there is no one so boring that would not welcome the opportunity to close the bedroom door, the bathroom door. Just as we enter a world where personal financial freedoms are on the table, and there for the taking, so too is the magnifying glass of virtuous onlooker, poised to follow each transaction to its bitter end. Anish Mohammed, co founder of Panther Protocol and responsible for technology and architecture, takes about the challenge of implementing privacy and asserting it as a human right. He advocates for opening a portal where financial freedoms and security are provided through safe and concierge-led routes. Oh and it includes zero knowledge proofs. 

We caught up with Pia Stavrianos, who has just completed a 4 month marketing internship with Irish Tech News Pia is a 3rd year business in marketing student at MTU currently interning with Irish Tech News. She is interested in all things creative such as writing and graphic design. Working closely in building up social media platforms and putting her degree into practice has been the highlight of her college experience to date. Pia strives to do things outside of her comfort zone to gain as much experience as possible and pick up new skills along the way. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/piastavrianos/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StavrianosMarketing Twitter: https://twitter.com/PStavrianos

The European Parliament is bringing in new AI regulations that will be a world first and will also be passing ePrivacy regulations. But should we be worried about AI and how important will AI ethics be? Ronan talks to Enza Iannopollo a senior analyst in the Security & Risk team at Forrester, a global research and advisory firm Enza talks about her background, what Forrester does, the importance of AI ethics, why we should be careful about creating fake credibility in things that don’t have any, and trusting information that comes from family and friends. Enza also talks about why an opinion is not providing facts, the advice of value based consumers, the different mindsets we can have, social media and the balance of power, why transparency in technology and AI is so important, and how the EU is handling ethics. More about Enza: Enza is a senior analyst on the security and risk team and a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/E). Enza helps organisations worldwide embed privacy and ethics in their strategic initiatives through approaches that deliver business growth while protecting their customers’ and employees’ trust and their brand reputation. Her research focuses on compliance with data protection rules, privacy as a competitive differentiator, ethics, and risk management. Enza speaks regularly at national and international executive conferences, and her research is often quoted in the media, including The Wall Street Journal and Forbes.

Eoin Costello is the Digital Champion for Small Businesses at DigitalHQ clg. He is an expert trainer in digital marketing, social media and digital productivity tools delivering programmes for DLR LEO and Accelerate. As former CEO of Startup Ireland clg he rapidly built the new organisation’s impact through digital channels (Twitter followers from 0 to 22,000 followers, LinkedIn Group 0 to 13,500 members and Facebook Page to 5,000+ Likes). In this role he was national director of Ireland’s national startup week, the Startup Gathering. By leveraging digital the Startup Gathering saw 420 events take place in 22 counties. It was trending nationally over the 6 days with 5.4m impressions and achieved 400,000 views on YouTube. Eoin was also programme Manager TU Dublin Hothouse for 3 years where he managed the incubation centre and Ireland’s largest entrepreneur programme, the flagship New Frontiers Programme. He was SME Innovation Advocate to the Info2Innovate national programme for Enterprise Europe Network leading delivery of the EU funded action on SME innovation and productivity in 5 cities across Ireland in 2012. Our website - https://www.digitalhq.ie/ Our digital led strategy for the regeneration of Ireland’s towns and villages - https://www.weare.ie/a-digital-led-strategy-for-the-regeneration-of-irelands-towns-and-villages/ Our Digital Growth Hub model for activating the economic growth of localities - https://irishtechnews.ie/converting-vacant-buildings-to-digital-hubs/

Jamil catches up with  Leigh Cuen, to cover the launch of Des Femmes Magazine, which is an annual magazine for women who are thriving at the intersection of tech and finance. We discuss the need for more women to join crypto not just because of gender equality but because building a diverse workforce fosters innovation. The magazine project is led by Leigh, also Camila Russo and Rosalie Lessard. We also discuss Leigh’s role as an educator on crypto wallets at Bitcoin Magazine and the importance of building a resiliency skillset learning technology and sifting through misinformation and disinformation to navigate the crypto economy and build one’s career and wealth as a freelancer. Leigh Cuen is a reporter from California. Her work has been published by TechCrunch, Vice, Business Insider, CoinDesk, Newsweek, Teen Vogue, Al Jazeera English, The Jerusalem Post, and many others. Follow her on Instagram at @leighcuen and subscribe to her newsletter at leighcuen.substack.com. Leigh Cuen, @La__Cuen Twitter: @desfemmesmag 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.

Paul Green was born in Guildford, Surrey. The family moved to Somerset when he was 5. Paul has always been keen on all aspects of natural history, especially plants. He is a self-taught botanist. He currently lives in Co. Wexford, Ireland, where he moved to in 2006. He is currently working for the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (BSBI) as their BSBI Ireland Officer. Prior to this he worked as the BSBI Wales Officer from 2012 – 2015 and he surveyed rare plants all over Wales. Paul also works part-time as a botanical leader for Greentours Natural History Holidays since 2004. He led trips in Europe, Canada, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Morocco & Turkey. Paul has been a member of the BSBI for 37 years. He took an active role in the BSBI Monitoring Scheme in 1987/88 in Somerset, Waterford and Galway. He was appointed BSBI Vice-county recorder for Somerset in 1992. The Atlas Flora of Somerset, he published in 1997 with his brother, is a highly regarded county flora that won the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (BSBI) and Wildflower Society President’s prize for the best botanical work published that year. In the 1990s Paul was invited to come to Ireland to assist with the BSBI New Atlas project. He became the Vice County-recorder for both Co. Waterford and Co. Wexford. He stepped down as the Vice County-recorder for Waterford in 2019. In 2008, he published the Flora of County Waterford which was funded by the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin. In the same year, the National Biodiversity Data Centre, Waterford published his plant dataset through a GIS web version of the Flora of County Waterford. This was the first web flora for a county published in Ireland or Britain. Paul was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Recorder Award in 2009 by the National Biodiversity Data Centre which is an annual award to individuals or organisations that have made an outstanding contribution to the recording of Ireland’s biodiversity. He is currently working on a Flora of Co. Wexford, and hopes to publish in 2022. Ireland twitter account: https://twitter.com/BSBI_Ireland W: bsbi.org BSBI on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BSBIbotany BSBI on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BSBI2011 BSBI on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bsbibotany/ BSBI News & Views Blog: http://bsbipublicity.blogspot.co.uk/ Latest botanical news: http://bsbi.org/news Press releases/Media: http://bsbi.org/publicity

We caught up with Henry McDonald, Constructive Voices podcast cofounder to discuss ecological initiatives in the construction industry, the possible impact of artificial intelligence and wider trends in technology too. Henry McDonald is a critically acclaimed author & journalist with a career spanning over thirty-five years. He has been Ireland Correspondent for The Guardian and The Observer for 23 years.  In this time he covered the second IRA ceasefire and the road to the Good Friday Agreement co-writing the definitive story of how the historic peace deal was sealed in Easter 1998. Recently retired staff writer Guardian &Observer Now freelancing. Novelist with latest book set in Belfast 70s&80s “Two Souls”. Cliftonville&Everton supporter See more on his website here https://thepunkjourno.co.uk and also follow him on twitter here

In this podcast Melanie Boylan and Emer Keaveney discuss the new initiative that is monitoring the first real-time acoustic monitoring project of cetacean species (whales, dolphins and porpoise) that began last month off the South Coast of Ireland. Hear how windfarm strategy needs to be implemented and as we also seeing climate action lead to a rise in the construction of offshore wind farms. Ocean Research & Conservation Association Ireland  (ORCAIreland) is a non-governmental voluntary organisation that aims to enhance our scientific knowledge and understanding of marine megafauna in Irish waters through conservation, research and education. We aim to spread public awareness of the diverse variety of marine megafauna in Irish waters and the importance of their conservation for future generations. As the renowned Marine Biologist and Oceanographer, Sylvia Earle put it"No water, no life, no blue, no green". As top-predators, marine megafauna are ecosystem indicators of ocean health. In other words, if they are healthy, we are are healthy too and vice versa. Irish waters contain a great variety of marine megafaunal species from 71 species of elasmobranchs (sharks, skates and rays), 25 species of cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoise), to two species of pinnipeds (seals). These top predators play an important role in healthy ecosystem functioning and many species face threats like by-catch and entanglement in fishing gear, disturbance from boats, fishing and ecotourism, noise pollution from offshore industry, noise pollution from shipping and offshore oil and gas exploration, and pollution from plastics, heavy metals and PCB's. We aim to better understand and protect Irish marine resources and the wildlife that depends on our productive seas to help inform policy and decision makers and to promote sustainable living, through responsible ecotourism, to reducing our dependence on plastic, making conscious product purchases and working towards the protection of endangered, threatened and vulnerable marine species. Our research and education is facilitated and conducted through opportunistic boat-based surveys on board eco-tour vessels, land-based watches and our citizen science project and the Observers App. We collate both historic data and co-ordinate monitoring for collection of new data on marine megafauna in Irish waters.

CryptoYuna discovered ‘crypto art’ by accident. An established artist working in oils, she stumbled over a tweet with the same term and quickly fell down the rabbit hole. Already a convert to cryptocurrencies, she understood very quickly the concept of NFTs and crypto sites. Previously, she had painted in acrylics but wanted to create more realistic images and so she changed to oils. By now, a stay at home mum of three, the only option was to learn by herself which she did using Youtube as her tutor. She is no stranger to overcoming obstacles and soon was proving so adept in her new medium that she was regularly selling her art online and through her sister’s shop in Florida. CryptoYuna is based in rural Missouri and is four hours from St Louis. Her previous subjects have ranged from rural animals, ruminants and houses to the female body. She gets hooked on one type of subject, painting it exhaustively, and then flips onto another. She will tackle any challenge in art, at least once. “I tried sketching with coloured pencils. I made one drawing but I hated the process so much I gave the pencils to the kids.” Actually, the image she drew is pretty spectacular and is a testament to both her skill and determination. The fact that she will only ever have one coloured pencil art work is also down to the same stubborn nature which delivered the art in the first place. Moving to digital art was another learning curve but one from which she did not shy away. Armed with a new iPad and stylus she began to craft her own style, her own vision. “I learnt from what was around me and then I began to fashion my own images. I really like realistic art and that is where I am concentrating.” Her success online has greatly surpassed her original oil paintings. Her husband, a contractor, is joking that he will retire to look after the kids while she creates art full time. This is currently a joke between them, but it’s deadly serious. CryptoYuna has now listed her art on most platforms and is selling well. Her innate curiosity and friendly nature meant she has quickly gained new friends online. As she explains it – she’s the kind of woman that welcomes new families to the neighbourhood with cookies. Same online. As a result, she met Darren Cullen, of Graffiti King fame. Last month they organised a Graffiti Queens art show in a metaverse, next month she is organising an under 16s online art show. And today one of her piece of art is being used as a wild card in a drop on the WAX blockchain this evening at 8pm (GMT + 1) check out the collection at https://wax.atomichub.io/profile/graffitiking#listings and who knows you might get her card. Your host is Jillian Godsil, award winning journalist, broadcaster and author. Her latest book is at https://persons-of-interest.io/ and you might find one of her cards in the collection too.  8pm Saturday May 1, 2021 

In this episode Jamil Hasan  interviews Michael Dowling, who is a Professor of Finance in Dublin City University Business School. Before returning to Ireland in 2020, Michael established and managed the AI Business research centre in Rennes School of Business, France. The first artificial intelligence for business research centre in Europe. Building on that his research explores the intersection between financial behaviour and technology. He has published the first studies on non-fungible token (NFT) markets, including research on the rise of NFT metaverses. These metaverses, or virtual worlds based on the blockchain, evoke memories of classic sci-fi virtual worlds such as Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Michael tweets at @MichaelMDowling on twitter. His profile is available at: https://www.dcu.ie/researchsupport/research-profile?PERSON_ID=1590232 or LinkedIn: search - Michael Dowling DCU. 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.