The Irish Tech News Podcast

As we move back to indoor dining for next Monday, what can we do to it make it safer in poorly ventilated areas?. Well, a recent UCD study has found that air purifiers have four-fold increase in the removal of aerosols in poorly ventilated spaces. Ronan talks to Paul Flanagan, Managing Director of Camfil Ireland and Dr. Kevin Nolan of the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at UCD who were involved in the study. Paul Flanagan and Dr. Kevin Nolan talk to Ronan about the study, the camel device they used, the filters used in air cleaners, HEPA filters, why we should be copying what the healthcare industry is doing, and the governments official document on HEPA filters. Paul Flanagan and Dr. Kevin Nolan also talk about why schools can’t just rely on open windows, computational fluid dynamics, mask wearing, LiDAR technologies, using smartphones to detect things, how efficient filters are, how technology can be a safety net, and be aware of your own personal health. More about the study: The study by Ireland's largest air filtration provider, Camfil in conjunction with University College Dublin (UCD) and the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital (MMUH) found that Camfil's City M air purifiers remove aerosols from poorly ventilated rooms at four times the normal rate. Experiments conducted by leading UCD researcher and lecturer, Dr. Kevin Nolan of the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, on the presence of aerosol in poorly ventilated spaces, used Camfil’s City M air purifiers to rapidly clean a room of aerosol. Camfil is a leading solutions provider that has over 50 year’s experience in clean air.

In todays podcast I chat with Tom McCarthy who gives us a birds eye view of the issue of space junk/debris that has until quite recently managed to stay under the public radar.  As a space robotics expert Tom McCarthy reminds us about how the unpredictable reentry of the Chinese Long March booster rocket that brought the problem of space junk to the forefront, and how advanced near-space robotics will play a crucial role in solving this problem?  Motiv Space Systems was founded in 2014 by three experienced robotics engineers, Chris Thayer, Brett Lindenfeld and Tom McCarthy. The  company’s founders believed that they could develop and build  space-based robotic systems more efficiently and with a higher level of  quality and capability than their competitors in the market. They  were quickly proved right, earning and successfully executing NASA contracts for a range of missions, including most recently the robotic  arm on the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover. In 2020, Motiv launched their groundbreaking xLink Robotic Arm System,  a space-rated modular robotic arm that sets a new standard for  capability and affordability, and brings robotic arm capabilities in  reach of a whole new class of missions. Mr. McCarthy is VP of Development at Motiv Space Systems; the firm designs robotics and advanced components for space exploration, most recently the arm and camera on the Perseverance rover. Twitter

As the saying goes, “I have not failed 1,000 times, I have successfully found 1,000 ways that will not make a light bulb.” This — or some version of it — is often credited to Thomas Edison, on his quest to come up with an efficient incandescent lamp. As we look back at past innovations, and marvel at the ingenuity and perseverance of scientists and entrepreneurs, what inspires you? And how do our lived experiences influence the paths that we choose to follow and what values we hold dear? In this episode of One Vision, Theo and Bradley chat with Emeka Nwonu about his past, present, and future — from Nigeria, UK, and beyond.

Stefan Rust, ex CEO of Bitcoin.com, and now co founder and CEO of Sonic Capital believes we can save the planet and make money. Being green is an opportunity not a cost. Listen to him talking about his early days in mobile and how he worked with Roger Ver, the abuse he received for listing the HEX coin, how another coin was formed out of that discussion - Spite - and yet how it has been very succesful. Then to matters green, institutional money, CBDCs and stablecoins - the interview can be summed up in one word - CHOICE. Your host is Jillian Godsil, award winning journalist, broadcaster and author. Her latest book is available at https://persons-of-interest.io/

Payslip is used by dozens of multinational companies throughout various industries, and customers include LogMeIn, Get Your Guide, Cloudera and Airbus. It helps their payroll teams support. They help multinationals standardise their global payroll process, centrally manage their payroll with visibility & control and scale into new countries easily. So how did their business grow significantly during the current COVID-19 era with remote working? Ronan talks to Fidelma McGuirk CEO of Payslip about this and more. Fidelma talks about her background, what Payslip does, why she moved to Westport, how Payslip found remote working, the new jobs available in Payslip, and how Payslip has coped during the pandemic. More about Fidelma: Fidelma is the founder and CEO of Payslip, a global platform that automates the management of international payroll. Payslip enables HR Directors to consolidate global payrolls, achieve centralised reporting compliance and data protection and deliver useful insights and real control to the business. Prior to Payslip, Fidelma spent over 18 years in HR and senior leadership roles with Eir and Taxback.com where as Head of Operations and CEO she scaled the company from 30 staff to over 800, servicing over 300k customers per year across 21 countries.

Aidan Donnelly is Director of Technology Platform at Personio in Dublin. Personio is an all-in-one HR Platform for small and medium businesses and Personio have hired over 100 people in Dublin in the past year. As customers have joined Personio Aidan's teams are tasked with scaling their technology and engineering team.  Aidan joins us to talk about his background, the problems his teams are solving, and what makes a good engineer. Great conversation with Aidan Donnelly from Personio, we cover the growth of the engineering sector as we emerge from the pandemic Aidan discusses the exponential growth of tech companies and software over the past decade, and how despite facing challenges during the pandemic, people’s increasing reliance on technology in their daily lives has meant that software development skills have remained in demand How this means that software engineering is a resilient and expanding sector – meaning we need to drive recruitment in the sector and seize all valuable talent And how are we going to drive this growth in tech companies? By hiring skilled engineers Employers need to find the right candidate, and run an effective engineering department Employees need to Find the right company to work for Know when to stay in a company/ when to leave Know what to ask at interview See more about Personio here https://www.personio.com

We chat with Rachel Robinson who recently interned for Irish Tech News to hear her insights on what makes for a positive internship. Rachel Robinson is a Journalism student at Coventry University, going into her third year in September. Rachel enjoys producing hard-hitting news stories for print, online, audio and video platforms. Rachel's main interests are national/international politics and conflict, animal welfare and the environment, and she likes to try to raise awareness of humanitarian injustices through journalism and campaigning. Follow her on Twitter here https://twitter.com/RachelR16736934 Irish Tech News is an award-winning online publication aimed at keeping you informed of all the latest news from the world of Technology. With the main focus on Irish based news, we cover a wide range of topics from social media and smartphones to start-ups and SMEs. Now ten strong, we have assembled a talented team of writers, each experts in their own fields, helping us to cover as diverse a range as possible without losing focus or quality.

When you meet new people, do you always give your phone number, email address, residential address, and credit card details during the first meeting? Nope. Why? Because you don't know them well and have no idea if they will harm you. The same situation should be with companies, but it is different. They ask you for data to use their services or buy their products. You leave your data without knowing what will happen. Businesses can get hacked, or they can share or sell this information on shadow markets and invisible to you. As a result, your data can be used for scams, spam, robocalls, heavy profiling etc. This problem is huge nowadays, and many current solutions are not effective. So what can we do to stop our data being abused? Ronan talks to Maciek D the Founder and CEO of no.ID about this and more. Maciek talks about his background, what No.ID does, cookies, their holistic approach to privacy, data brokers, their new AI module, and how the pandemic has impacted on what they do. More about no.ID: no.ID is a start-up in the cybersecurity industry that helps people have safe communication & relationships with companies.  no.ID helps keep your real data private on the internet by producing a set of fully functional email, password, phone number, debit card, and even residential address unique for each service you register in. As a result, businesses see you as different personas, there is no link between them, and none of these identities leads to your real one. At the same time, our solution secures businesses from fake and malicious accounts without giving up on your anonymity. Everything is built upon zero-knowledge architecture in a trust-less paradigm. no.ID know nothing about you, your personas, and you can manage your identities without having to trust no.ID.

Let’s talk about debt. Not financial debt. Not technical debt. But human debt — “the equivalent to Technical Debt but for people”, according to Duena Blomstrom, author of the latest book, “People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age”. As the saying goes, people are your greatest asset. For any digital transformation projects to succeed, beyond the tech stack, merely having smart people on the team isn’t sufficient; we also need to take care of them. They need to feel motivated, valued, and respected. In this episode of One Vision, Theo and Bradley chat with Duena about her latest book and the importance of doing the people work.

Siwon Kim is a South Korean born, raised everywhere entrepreneur. He is launching the first IDO launchpad for Kusama, the sister chain of PolkaDot. This is a very throughtful launchpad called KSM Starter that will operate more as an incubator, community led launchpad than other examples. IT has just closed its private sale and will do its own IDO on ... KSM starter of course. Your host is Jillian Godsil, award winning journalist, broadcaster and author. Her latest book can be found at https://persons-of-interest.io/