The Irish Tech News Podcast

Entrepreneurship is a stressful journey - and often, a lonely one; and oftentimes it might seem nearly impossible to balance the demands of the business and your own well-being. As an industry, we put a lot of emphasis on grit and celebrate sky high valuations and hockey stick growth, without pausing to think about the toll on the entrepreneurs. While the financial impact of startups in worldwide economies is widely reported, few focus on the impact on entrepreneurs’ mental health, an often taboo topic in our society and in boardrooms.  In this episode of One Vision, Theo and Bradley chat with Kent Vorland, CEO of SimplyPayMe, on payments, financial inclusion, the great divide between cultures, and the need to take care of the humans.

Chintai is a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive product suite that enables financial institutions to easily embrace the efficiency gains of blockchain technology for regulated assets such as securities, debt, and real estate. Chintai technology removes 50-70% of administrative overhead within the value chain of regulated assets. “It’s well known that distributed ledger technology (DLT) is going to dramatically disrupt the financial system. Established financial institutions want to future-proof their competitive advantage, while smaller firms see the technology as a way to access innovative new business lines and increase their margins. Our comprehensive platform makes it easy for anyone to embrace compliant DLT for their specific needs,” David Packham, CEO of Chintai said. Your host is Jillian Godsil, award winning journalist, broadcaster and Author. Her latest book can be found at https://persons-of-interest.io/

A mid-pandemic survey conducted by the Model Alliance found that over half of respondents (55%) said they were owed money by clients, and around half (49%) were owed money by their agencies. Andreas von Estorff, CEO and Founder of ModelManagement.com, a digital marketplace for models, talents, and influencers built on the principles of transparency, trust and safety, has a solution that will help. Andreas firmly believes that broad industry adoption of Smart Contracts would be a hugely positive development, helping to securely define project conditions and model image rights from the offset. These digitally signed contracts would copper fasten the scope of work before a project is initiated, and ensure models aren’t forced to endure undue delays before receiving payments.  Ronan talks to Andreas about this and more. Andreas talks about his background, what ModelManagement.com does, the worlds first ethical model agency, how they are using blockchain, how Covid brought in remote shooting, and the technology used. Andrea also talks about the two trends that are coming together, brand awareness, people working for likes, and influencer marketing. More about ModelManagement.com ModelManagement.com is a digital marketplace for models, talents, and influencers built on the principles of transparency, trust and safety, helping clients around the world source models and talents for their projects. The ModelManagement.com ecosystem is trusted by over 1 million models and influencers worldwide; 50,000 brands such as Nike, H&M & Garnier, agencies and photographers; and is home to over 10 million model images. ModelManagement.com is leading the digital transformation of the modelling world, while leveraging innovations in Artificial Intelligence and blockchain technology to help models and their clients manage their image rights and payments with absolute confidence and clarity. To help aspiring models entering the space navigate the inherent industry challenges and risks, the company launched the Model Academy — an online educational course for industry newcomers, led by seasoned models from the ModelManagement.com ecosystem. The company’s ‘More than Models’ podcast also provides in-depth interviews with models and influencers, charting their career trajectories and providing invaluable advice to prospective talents.

Right now during the Covid-19 pandemic our physical and mental health is so important. So how do we manage these safely? Well, Jim McWilliams might have come up with the answer with sports social media app Zporty. Jim talks about his background, how Zporty started, what Zporty does, what makes Zporty unique, and the sports bodies and teams that have come on board. Jim also talks about what sports are using Zporty ,how Invest Northern Ireland and IBM come on board, and the future plans for Zporty. More about Zporty: As Covid-19 continues to restrict our society, mental health problems are rising dramatically. Sport and physical activity has been proven to improve both physical and mental health. Using Zporty can enable safer participation in sports and physical activity. This is the only free Covid solution of its kind available for all sports.

When was the last time you actually spoke with a customer and asked how you could help them? No — we don't mean a survey or through a video chat, but actually meeting and talking to one of your customers. Even in the days of digital banking, there is always going to be a need for physical space and human interaction. We might still need a branch or two. Or even physical money.  In this episode of One Vision, Theo and Bradley chat with Jim Perry, Senior Strategist at Market Insights Inc., on why bankers need to get outside their bubble a bit more. Road trip anyone?

Stephen Meade – the Bulls Eye Guy “I’ve technically never had a job, but I am addicted to work.” So says Stephen Meade at the top of our conversation. The penny regarding the work addiction only dropped when he learnt about his real but separated dad. He only discovered a few years ago that this unknown parent had died of alcoholism – and he twigged to his own inherited addictive nature. This drive meant Stephen has a long list of successful business hits beginning at a young age. In college he sold watches, wrote three books, and presented the fourth ever infomercial on TV. At 22 he went to work for an insurance company but at night was selling mortgages. “In fact, I read 357 books in six and a half years and set up this training system called the BullsEyeGuy system. It’s a ten-step programme that really focuses on what you want – hence the name.” He has often been ahead of the pose – creating the world’s first ecommerce platform on the internet, even before websites had been invented. He created digital shopping carts before they became a thing. And he took his first company public at the tender age of 31. Find out more about the Bulls Eye Guy in this interview. Your host is Jillian Godsil

Data privacy has become a hot topic recently after Apple released their iOS 14.5 update. This update allowed you to opt out of data tracking by various apps and gave you more control of your data. However besides what Apple os doing, do you think you own your own data? In 2020 alone, the data on our behaviour and purchases was worth more than $382 billion in advertising revenue. Tiki a consumer data privacy app that allows people to see, control and monetise the data they share with companies online is determined to change how our data is accessed and used. Ronan talks to Mike Audi the Co-Founder and CEO of Tiki about this and more. Mike talks about what Tiki does, Apples privacy awareness campaign, location contexts in your apps, email filters, audio cues on tv shows, passwords, what the internet was built for, poor IT setups, and demanding privacy. Mile also talks about multi tiered distribution channels, more choice for the user is better, app stores, too many different Android phones, privacy and security is an afterthought, and why data is an asset and liability. More about Mike Audi: Mike graduated from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute with degrees in both Robotics Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering. Before starting TIKI, he was part of a research team developing the application of a modular BVO navigation system for NASA. He is also the Co-Founder & CTO of Bluestream Corporation, a platform offering unprecedented product visibility and connection with customers in the post-sale environment, for seven years. He has a long-term interest in data and coupled with the general public becoming hyper-aware of their (lack) of data privacy and control, creating the perfect market for TIKI. He wants TIKI to give consumers a seat at the table when it comes to how their data is being used. He believes through creating an open and transparent data market will lead to more “good” data practices.

When I was given the opportunity to chat with Chris, I wasn't going to pass up on it!  However, what to chat about was the tough part?  When you read his bio below - you'll understand this is one truly busy man, I had so many things to cover with him!  Listen in to hear about the programmes they are managing, how the teams work and a whole lot more.  I'll be talking more tech with Chris in a follow up podcast in the next couple of months. Chris Mattman Chris Mattmann is an experienced IT Executive, CTO and Division Manager of the AI, Analytics and Innovative Development Organization in the Information Technology and Solutions Directorate at NASA JPL. At JPL Mattmann is the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer and reports to the CIO and Director for IT, and manages advanced IT research and open source and technology evaluation and user infusion capabilities. Mattmann is JPL's first Principal Scientist in the area of Data Science. The designation of Principal is awarded to recognize sustained outstanding individual contributions in advancing scientific or technical knowledge, or advancing the implementation of technical and engineering practices on projects, programs, or the Institution. He has over 20 years of experience at JPL and has conceived, realized and delivered the architecture for the next generation of reusable science data processing systems for NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, NPP Sounder PEATE, and the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Earth science missions. Mattmann's work has been funded by NASA, DARPA, DHS, NSF, NIH, NLM and by private industry and commercial partnerships. He was the first Vice President (VP) of Apache OODT (Object Oriented Data Technology), the first NASA project at the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) and he led the project's transition from JPL to the ASF. He contributes to open source and was a member of the Board of Directors at the Apache Software Foundation (2013-18) where he was one of the initial contributors to Apache Nutch as a member of its project management committee, the predecessor to Apache Hadoop. Mattmann is the progenitor of the Apache Tika framework, the digital "babel fish" and de-facto content analysis and detection framework that exists. Today Mattmann contributes to TensorFlow, Google’s technology platform for all things machine learning and has recently finished a book on Machine Learning for TensorFlow, 2nd edition published by Manning Publications. Mattmann is the Director of the Information Retrieval & Data Science (IRDS) group at USC and Adjunct Research Professor. He teaches graduate courses in Content Detection & Analysis & in Search Engines & Information Retrieval. Mattmann has materially contributed to understanding of the Deep Web and Dark Web through the DARPA MEMEX project. Mattmann's work helped uncover the Panama Papers scandal which won the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism in 2017. Twitter

The recent consultation published by the Commission for Regulation Utilities (CRU) is another warning of the major impact data centres are having on the Irish electricity system. With mounting concerns that the nation could face rolling blackouts, the CRU says it’s clear that “measures must be implemented in order to encourage data centres to address some of these risks." . Ronan talks to Russ Barker Product and Service Sales Director, Vertiv Ireland. Russ talks about what Vertiv Ireland does, how data centres can pass energy back to the grid, moving to a renewable grid, the huge concentration of data centres in Dublin, data centres clusters, the CRU report, data migration into data centres, the data centres trend, and video streaming usage. More about the CRU report: The report recognises that the increasing drive to renewables is resulting in a less resilient and fault-tolerant grid, and that data centres consume vast amounts of electricity. The CRU is essentially looking to drive legislation to make sure demand side services – where you can load shed when necessary and provide frequency response – are in place. But while the current narrative is that data centres are placing a huge load on the existing electricity supply at a time when Ireland is trying to decarbonise, there are also data centres with advanced Uninterruptible Power Supply technologies can that actually support grid services and be part of helping Ireland meet its target of 70% renewables by 2030.

From payments and embedded finance to wealthtech and crypto, there is never a dull moment in the land of fintech. And there is no sign that the activity is waning.  According to CB Insights, Q2 FinTech startups picked up $30.8B, growing 30% quarter-to-quarter. Year-to-date funding exceeded 2020’s total by 24%. Southeast Asia and Latin America, in particular, have seen great momentum in recent months. In this episode of One Vision, Theo and Bradley chat with Jason Mikula on the wild wild west of fintech, what it feels like to live in the Netherlands, and the latest with his brilliant Fintech Business Weekly substack newsletter.