The Irish Tech News Podcast

Hacking the FutureIn this week's TF episode we get into the world where venture capital and futurism collide, with hacker, inventor and technology futurist Pablos Holman. Whether it's working on early crypto, 3D printing tech, spaceships with Blue Origin, or early Tesla engineering, Pablos has been involved in putting together some of the most leading edge technology deals on the planet. This week he joins BK and Miss Metaverse to talk how VCs and investors view emerging tech in AI, Climate and Genetics to name a few. Buckle up! Pablos is a hacker, inventor and technology futurist with a unique ability to distill complex technology into practical tools. Always building the future, his projects include cryptocurrency in the 1990s; AI for stock market trading; building spaceships at Blue Origin for Jeff Bezos; the world’s smallest PC and 3D printers at Makerbot. Pablos helped start the Intellectual Ventures Lab for Nathan Myhrvold to support a wide range of invention projects, including a brain surgery tool; a machine to suppress hurricanes; a nuclear reactor powered by nuclear waste; and a machine that can shoot mosquitoes out of the sky with lasers - part of an impact invention effort to eradicate malaria with Bill Gates. A member of the most prolific team of inventors in the United States, Pablos has over 70 patents. A world-renowned expert in 3D Printing, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Robotics, Automated Manufacturing, & Cryptocurrency, Pablos has contributed to visions for the future of urban transportation, entertainment, education, energy, manufacturing, health care, food delivery, sensor networks, payment systems & cloud computing. With a unique ability to articulate practical solutions and visions for the future of technology, Pablos is often invited to speak at conferences about innovation, invention, hacking, technology & cyber security. He has spoken at Stanford, the United Nations, the World Economic Forum at Davos, the Microsoft CEO Summit, The FORTUNE CEO Summit, the CIA, Google Zeitgeist, The Milken Global Conference, and to many of the top tech companies and conferences in the world. His TED Talks have over 30 million views. Currently, Pablos is a venture capitalist at Deep Future backing mad scientists, rogue inventors, crazy hackers & maverick entrepreneurs who are implementing science fiction, solving big problems and helping our species become better ancestors.

In this episode, host Efi Pylarinou interviews Dr. Peter Evans, Chief Strategy Officer of McFadyen Digital, about the rise of a new innovative business model in the digital economy – The Circular Platform model. Dr. Evans recently spoke at the annual Digital Economy Conference of the research academy that Alibaba founded 5 yrs ago. Listen to his fresh insights around the potential of SuperApps to lead this emerging Circular Platform model, but also our discussion about which other players could grab this opportunity. Dr. Evans emphasises the importance of collaboration between various stakeholders, including banks, fintechs, and big tech companies, to create scalable and efficient Circular marketplaces. Mentions: The Luohan Academy https://www.luohanacademy.com/ Event attachment 1 out of 1 in total Dr. Peter C. Evans https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-c-evans-phd-217b8/ is Chief Strategy Officer at McFadyen Digital. Peter been at the forefront of identifying and articulating significant new trends, including the rise of experience platforms. He is the co-chair of the MIT Platform Strategy Summit and the NTWRK Summit in Barcelona, Spain. He is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served on the board of the National Association for Business Economics.  He is the Lead Instructor at Caltech Executive Education, a visiting instructor teaching platform strategy for three years at Dartmouth College, and a Faculty at the Fast Future Executive Program.  

LLMs (Large Language Models) are currently the most important and hottest research direction in the field of Natural Language Processing inspired by ChatGPT.  One person with a special interest in LLM’s is Chenyang Lyu a PhD student in AI at DCU. Ronan talks to Chenyang about his background, his research on LLM’s, the positive attention he has received on Github and Twitter, ChatGPT and more.   More about Chenyang’s research: We have developed a novel multi-modal LLMs model that seamlessly integrates multiple modalities including text, image, video, audio into LLMs.  This project has attracted significant attention on Github with over 1000 stars. We have also received more than 200000 views and discussions on Twitter within the NLP community. Our project is a joint effort between myself and Longyue Wang, a DCU graduate, at Tencent AI Lab.

Not a day goes by when we don’t hear something about artificial intelligence (AI). From deploying generative AI in the newsroom to using AI to help improve sustainability, there is no shortage of energy and buzz around the emerging technology. When we come to think of it, AI is, and has been, all around us. From the moment we pick up our smartphone and authenticate via thumbprint or facial recognition, check our emails and news feeds, to navigating traffic and boarding, our day-to-day experience is already greatly shaped by AI. In this episode of One Vision, Theo chats with Tim Lebel, VP and Head of Spend Products at SAP Concur, on how organizations can drive towards a data-driven and intelligent future in spend management with AI.

Online payment is one of the latest activities to be transformed by smartphone technology, as more and more consumers opt for the convenience of their mobile device to complete transactions. According to a Statista survey from December 2021, 33 percent of respondents said they purchased via the mobile channel every day or week. Donal McGuinnes CEO Prommt believes that smartphone technology still has a greater role to play in business transactions, particularly where risky over-the-phone solutions are being employed.  Ronan talks to Donal about Revolut, how smartphones have changed the way we think about payment, payments over the phone, open banking and more. More about Donal McGuiness: Serial entrepreneur Donal McGuinness is CEO of Prommt. He studied Computer Science at DCU and Telecommunications Engineering at DIT and spent the early years of his career in the telecommunications industry. His experience in mobile payments dates to 1999 when he founded his first mobile payments company, ItsMobile. Donal was also a Non-Executive Director of the Irish Internet Association from 2009 to 2011 and a movie distribution business from 2002 to 2020. In 2016 Donal joined a silicon valley startup in the identity verification space called Danal inc, where he set up and grew the global business outside of the USA as General Manager of EMEA until 2019 when the business was acquired by Boku Inc for $112 million USD. Donal joined Prommt as CEO in 2019. He is an innovator and is passionate about payment innovation.

This Thursday the 17th of August, Patch, the youth accelerator supported by Stripe, NDRC, and Dogpatch Labs has its latest demo day. To find out more about this Ronan recently sat down with Jack O'Regan Kenny, the Managing Director of Patch. Jack talks about his background, what Patch does, the current Patch program, AI, Patch demo day and more. More about Patch: Patch is a 7-week summer accelerator programme for 16-21-year-olds. The non-profit programme is supported by Stripe, NDRC, and Dogpatch Labs, and is dedicated to providing an environment that nurtures innovation, social entrepreneurship, and creativity for Ireland’s brightest young adults. It also provides them with the guidance and leadership required to take their ideas to the next level.

Recently Ronan got to chat with Kunal Anand the CISO/ CTO at Imperva, a leading provider of data and application security solutions with Database Security, Web Application Firewall, DDoS Protection, Bot Protection. Kunal talks about his background, innovation, short term disruption, AI, empathy, transhumanism and more.  More about Kunal Anand: Kunal Anand is the is the CISO/ CTO at Imperva and also the co-founder and CTO of Prevoty, a next-generation web application security platform. Prior to that, he was the Director of Technology at the BBC Worldwide, overseeing engineering and operations across the company’s global Digital Entertainment and Gaming initiatives.  Kunal also has several years of experience leading security, data and engineering at Gravity, MySpace and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His work has been featured in Wired Magazine and Fast Company. He continues to develop the patented security technologies that power Prevoty’s core products.

This week on The Futurists we get to engage with one of the world's foremost experts in hydrology, the study of Water, and the relationship of water to emerging climate change. Gleick is considered one of the world's foremost experts in the arena, and while things look bleak in the medium term, we get solidly into the long future of water and the tools at our disposal for water mitigation and geo-engineering. We also check out Peter's latest book the Three Ages of WaterBIO - https://www.gleick.com/#about 

In this episode Melanie Boylan chats with Dr Andrew Woods, Founder and CEO of Catagen. They chat about his passion of decarbonisation. His team has found several successful ways to manipulate various methods of technology to reduce carbon. Listen in for his innovative approach. Point of note, Andrew Woods has recently been selected as one of 24 finalists for this year’s EY Entrepreneur Of The Year awards. Andrew founded CATAGEN in 2010, successfully spinning it out of Queen’s University Belfast with Professor Roy Douglas CTO.  He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Automotive Catalysis.   Andrew has built an award winning team whose purpose is to clean and decarbonise the air.  From initially providing world-class emissions testing to the automotive sector, the company is now developing advanced testing for heavy duty diesel and industrial catalysts.    This expertise in emissions data and simulation, the development of energy efficient chemical reactor technologies, IP and knowledge has given CATAGEN a vantage point for new net zero technologies.  This has led to the development of ClimaHtech – an acceleration system towards decarbonisation using advanced climate technologies.  In 2022, CATAGEN successfully received five funding awards from the UK’s Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to develop new technologies in renewable hydrogen production (not electrolysis), e-fuels, carbon capture and compression technologies.  www.catagen.com/climahtech

As we move from one tech cycle to another, so much has changed — yet so much has not. We are still faced with many of the same challenges especially when it comes to caregiving and true inclusion. How do we separate hype from reality — and how do we know what is real and what isn’t? What is the best path forward to ensure companies innovate responsibly and what is the government’s role in a free market economy? In this new episode of One Vision, Theo chat with Mia Shah-Dand (and her ‘research assistant cat’ Han Solo) — CEO of Lighthouse3 and Founder of Women in AI Ethics on her journey from Silicon Valley to the Big Apple, and her mission on bringing new voices from outside the tech bubble to make the invisible visible. Let’s work together to empower more users with the resources necessary to bridge the knowledge divide, so that they too can make the right decisions for themselves. Let’s keep pushing for change: There is power in solidarity.