The Irish Tech News Podcast

We recently reviewed the book Bringing Back the Beaver, published by Chelsea Green, written by Derek Gow, an excellent read about the trials and travails to reintroduce beavers to the UK. We were therefore delighted to have him on the podcast to explain more about his experiences. More about Derek, and see more on his website here. Derek Gow is the Managing Director of a specialist wildlife consultancy - The Derek Gow Consultancy Ltd - which is principally focused on water vole mitigation and restoration projects. Derek was a consultant for the captive breeding and development chapters of the Water Vole Conservation Handbook - second and third editions, 2006/11 published by Wildlife Conservation and Research Unit of Oxford University (Wild-CRU) and was a co-author of the Water Vole Mitigation Guidelines published by the Mammal Society in 2016. Derek is the lead training provider of bi-annual courses for water vole mitigation/conservation for the IEEM. Derek is a member of the European Beaver Working group.  He has travelled to view beaver project sites in Holland, Bavaria, Russia, Croatia, Lithuania, Denmark, Poland, Norway, France, Romania and Oregon. Since 1996 he has organized the import and quarantine of over 60 Eurasian beavers into the UK for zoological collections, private landowners and the SBT Knapdale trial.

In this podcast Melanie Boylan spoke with Antonion Grasso, Founder & CEO of Digital Business Innovation Srl.  Antonio is regarded as one of the top Digital Transformation influencers on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, digital transformation, the Internet of Things, and blockchain.  He is an advisor, and  enterprise and public sector consultant and mentor to numerous startups.  He is currently collaborating with Siemens, Intel, The European  Commission, Atos, Cisco, Ericsson, IBM, Talend, Huawei, Automation  Anywhere, Oracle, Splunk, HPE, ASG tech, Ant Financial, Almawave, SAS  Institute, Adobe and many others as Content Advisor, B2B Influencer,  Author and Software Innovator. He is a Global Juror for the United Nations' SDGs - Global Entreps Award,  Antonio is an Accredited and Qualified Global Mentor for Startups and Scaleups by the World Business Angels Investment Forum.  His ethical vision regarding digital transformation has seen him active on numerous social channels, all dedicated to spreading knowledge, most  notably to developing countries. Antonio aims to help spread the concept of digital transformation. He actively engages on social media to bring  the latest content on new, emerging technologies and their uses to secure a better future.  Antonio Grasso has over 37 years of experience handling numerous projects in information technology for both enterprise and public sectors. He believes that digital transformation  is a digital evolution process that involves many aspects, and technology is only a component of the puzzle. The biggest hurdle is a  cultural change, and a strategic approach to face this epochal change is paramount. His business, Digital Business Innovation Srl is a digital business transformation consulting firm. Striving in the three pillars: #Strategy #Technology #Influence# About Disintermediation, briefly simplified: It is the attitude of people to trust other people against trusting organizations, institutions or classic media.

In today's podcast Melanie Boylan spoke with Raghu Kilambi, CEO of PowerTap and Technology Entrepreneur and Investor.  Raghu discussed what steps were needed to transform the huge Carbon Footprint that current trucks are creating using diesel.  Hear about the plans of PowerTap to increase awareness and build a network that will make it easier to make this endeavour possible. Raghu Kilambi is an experienced investor and entrepreneur with over 25 years of global business experience in public and private investments, building businesses and creating shareholder value. He has raised over $1 billion of equity and debt capital for private and public companies and been involved in many M&A acquisitions and exits. Raghu’s experience includes operational management, financial  reporting, corporate governance corporate finance, public offerings, strategic acquisitions and investments, international business  development, merchant banking and corporate restructuring in sectors  including technology, telecom and mobile. Most recently, Raghu was Vice Chairman & CFO of California-based ConversionPoint (e-Commerce software/services) which was sold in 2  M&A exits in late 2019 and early 2020 after filing a Nasdaq IPO prospectus for an Oppenheimer-led IPO in 2019. In addition, Raghu was previously the Co-Founder, CFO and Chief Strategy Officer of a leading VC-backed first generation application hosting  company that grew from startup to $140 million in annual revenues and a peak Nasdaq market capitalization of over US $2 billion. Raghu has also been an investor in companies that were acquired by Yahoo,  eBay and CGI. He graduated with Great Distinction with a Bachelor of  Commerce and a Graduate Diploma in Public Accounting from McGill University, and qualified as a Canadian Chartered Accountant (inactive) PowerTap is leading the charge to build out cost-effective hydrogen fueling infrastructure through its environmentally friendly intellectual  property, product design for the modularized and lowest tier production cost of hydrogen and launch plan. PowerTap technology-based hydrogen fueling stations are located in private enterprises and public stations (near LAX airport) in California, Texas, Massachusetts, and Maryland.  Additional information about PowerTap may be found at its website at http://www.powertapfuels.com.

Jillian Godsil interviews Raj Kapoor, founder of the India Blockchain Alliance.  He gives a great overview of where India is placed with regard to adopting new techologies.  Despite initial resistence, Raj believes India is at an inflection point for two key reasons. “Blockchain adoption is becoming mainstream in a way that was not apparent even two years ago. In 2021 we are seeing a lot of projects taking off; the proof of concept stage is over. I am personally working with between 30 and 40 corporates and helping them identify ways in which blockchain can revolutionise their business.” Raj points out the first big game changer was the think tank set up by the Indian government in January 2020. A white paper resulted entitled the National Blockchain Roadmap strategy. “This was a major advancement. There is a second paper due but COVID has slowed that, however what is important is that the think tank said the government needs to adopt blockchain.” As a result, Raj can point to some 90 projects initiated across the different states. “What we have to bear in mind, though is that India is a vast country with 28 states and union territories – all of which tend to operate as sovereign entities. “Each of the blocks are working on different blockchain projects, many of them looking at land registry issues. E-voting is also interesting with the Indian Election Commission recently proposing to put voting on the blockchain.” Complementing India’s move towards blockchain adoption is the entrants of many international companies looking to base blockchain projects in India. “And then there is the educational side. This is a key focus of mine and through my STEM and related projects, we are building centres of excellence around blockchain in the main universities.” To find out more about the India Blockchain Alliance, visit indiablockchainalliance.org, to contac Raj visit his linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/indblock/ Jillian Godsil is an award winning journalist, broadcaster and author. Her latest book can be found here https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08NS1LXG8

Ronan talks to Aled Miles the CEO of San Francisco based Sauce Labs. Aled hosted the keynote event at the Welsh Emerging Tech Fest and also sourced the other guests. Aled talks about his background which is wide and varied, his role as Welsh Envoy to the United States, what Sauce Labs and how they raised just over €190 million over the past 3 years, building a sustainable business during the dot com decline and a pandemic and placing technology in the hands of everyone in a simple easy more efficient way. More on Aled: Aled is the President, CEO and board member of Sauce Labs. In September 2020 he was appointed as the Welsh Government Envoy to the United States. Before he joined Sauce Labs he was CEO and member of the board of TeleSign Corporation, and he had been a Senior Vice President at the global security firm, Symantec. He is a graduate of St Mary’s University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Enjoyable interview with the highly impressive Steve Davis. Steve Davis is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He serves as co-chair of the World Health Organization’s Digital Health Technical Advisory Group and is a member of numerous boards and advisory committees. He is the former president & CEO of PATH, a leading global health innovation organization; former Director of Social Innovation at McKinsey & Company, a global consultancy; and former CEO of Corbis, a digital media pioneer. With degrees from Princeton University, University of Washington and Columbia Law School, he speaks and writes regularly about the intersection of innovation, technology and social impact. He is the author of the forthcoming book Undercurrents: Channeling Outrage to Spark Practical Activism. He lives with his family in Seattle, Washington. See more about his book here https://www.undercurrentsbook.com/

Talent is equally distributed. Opportunities are not. According to the latest Money Tree Report, startups in the top three states in the U.S. (California, Massachusetts, and New York) raised 74% of funding in 2020. This begs the question, how will entrepreneurs in other states get the necessary funding and support when the pie is not equal? How does the imbalance in turn impact local businesses and economies? And will the momentum behind remote work prompt necessary changes to turn the tide? In this episode of One Vision, Theo and Bradley chat with Wayne Miller, Executive Director of the Venture Center, on their efforts to drive corporate innovation and startup ecosystem development in Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.

We catch up with Nigel Walsh to discuss his most recent annual review of Insurtech trends and his own self assessment of his own predictions too, how many did he get right in 2020? As a Partner in Deloitte Digital, Nigel leads on a number of areas for the firm including Global Future of Insurance to InsurTech. He has contributed to a number of books on insurance and technology including The InsurTech Book and the AI Books published by Wiley.  He also co-authored a report on the Sharing Economy – ‘Squaring risks in the sharing age’ with Lloyds of London.  He has a background in end to end technology transformation from core systems through to digital transformation initiatives including helping clients to identify and launch new products to market and establish new businesses from scratch, for insurers and more recently non insurers. You can find Nigel talking about Insurance online here LinkedIN, giving out about escooters on twitter here, or as a co-host of InsurTech Insiders here.

We talk with Steve Allin who is a sustainable Hemp consultant. See more about Steve on his website here. Teacher, Writer and Activist. Steve has enthusiastically pioneered and promoted the use of Hemp as a building material since 1997 when he first used it on his own home which he was in the process of constructing. He furthered his involvement when he wrote the first book on the subject “ Building with Hemp”in 2005 after being deluged with requests for information. He has subsequently gone on the form the international Hemp Building Association in 2009 and has worked as a consultant focussing on establishing hemp production and use as a building material in many parts of the world including, Costa Rica, Baltic States, Scandinavia, Haiti, Nepal, the USA and from his home in Ireland. The is often a speaker at conferences and is currently working on a new book featuring Hemp Building projects. Steve Allin has enthusiastically pioneered the use of hemp in building in Ireland and internationally since 1997 & is the author of the pre-eminent book “Building with Hemp” (2006) 2nd Edition, 2012. He provides an online consultation service, wherever you are located in the world, to discuss design options and other issues relating to your proposed project, new build, residential extension or refurbishment. He also has extensive expertise in building process and material development. He offers a special advisory option to students with an international focus.

5G usage increased in Ireland last year and 2021 is set to be the year of 5G.  Ronan talks to Russell Keating head of IM Sales at Samsung Ireland about this, the role of technology throughout the COVID pandemic, the latest camera phone technology, and how Samsung's ecosystem of devices is enabling more remote working. More about Russell, he has spent the last 17 years in the consumer electronics sector. Before he joined Samsung, he spent 10 years with Sony and his passion for new technologies and bringing them to market shows..