The Irish Tech News Podcast

We chat with Corentin Simon, master gin distiller about his journey from the French spirits industry to moving to Cape Clear island during lockdown and his work creating and developing a completely new type of aged gin at the Cape Clear Distillery.  More about the distillery -> Cape Clear is a Gaeltacht (Irish speaking) island eight miles off the southwest coast of County Cork; it’s a stunningly beautiful place. Though our island continues to experience a decline in its population, there is hope. We’ve produced a gin that has proven capable of winning awards at the most prestigious and competitive events in the world. We’ve been granted planning permission for a state-of-the-art whiskey distillery building. The tide is rising; please join us on our journey. THE PERFECT LOCATION FOR IRELAND’S ONLY ISLAND DISTILLERY Our island is one of doers; we don’t just dream of ideas, but work hard to realize our goals. It’s Ireland’s southernmost inhabited island and is proudly Gaeltacht (designated Irish speaking). It’s also an island that, like all Irish offshore islands, has experienced population decline over the years due to a lack of employment opportunities. Cape Clear Island has 130 full-time residents and our school has seven students. Several years ago, some islanders got together to discuss the idea of building a distillery. One that would provide employment to islanders, that could one day provide opportunity to the children in the island’s school, and most importantly, that would one day produce some of the finest Irish spirits available. We received planning permission for this state-of-the-art facility in 2016 and have been working toward that goal since.

Dan Simerman is Head of Financial Relations at the IOTA Foundation, where he helps to support the ability of financial institutions and institutional investors to leverage IOTA’s technology and native currency.  He has a history of building software for Fortune 50 financial institutions, multinational media companies and strategic consulting firms. Dan has been a vocal advocate and supporter of IOTA since 2017. As a member of the IOTA Evangelist Network, he has worked to engage with local partners to expand awareness of our technology in North America. As co-organizer of IOTA NYC, he has contributed to one of the largest IOTA meetups in the world by developing content to support the IOTA ecosystem. 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.

Being a travel writer is a job that many people dream of; but COVID-19 has made things considerably harder for those in the profession. Rachel spoke to Nina Karnikowski about the impact of COVID-19 in Australia and how it has forced her to change the way she works, discovering places closer to home. Nina discusses the impact of the pandemic on foreign travel and how she thinks the industry will be changed once people can travel more freely. She also discusses the impact of long-haul travel on the environment and how to make sure travel dollars are given back to communities who need it the most. Nina has worked as a travel writer for the past decade, and is also the author of Go Lightly, How to Travel Without Hurting the Planet and Make a Living Living, Be Successful Doing What You Love. Rachel is a Journalism student at Coventry University, currently interning with Irish Tech News – which marks the start of a partnership between the two institutions. Rachel’s main interests are politics and conflict, human rights, animal welfare and the environment.

Jamil interviews Chirag Jetani Chirag heads the operations at Diamante Blockchain LLC. He owns an Engineering degree from RV College of Engineering, India and further advanced his technical skills by holding a Masters from FAU, Germany. Being an Executive Managing director of a prestigious Diamond company, Chirag has technical, administrative and authoritative experience working within the Diamond Industry. Being a crypto and blockchain enthusiast from the rise of cryptocurrencies he has broad understanding about the crypto market and holds solid convictions about its utility and its application to the Diamond Industry. www.diamanteblockchain.com 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.

Businesses are using technology in various ways to improve how they work. One such technology is machine learning but how can businesses use machine learning to improve customer experience and consequently boost ROI ? Ronan talks to Paul McBride, Managing Director and Co-founder of the Mayo based start-up Peroptyx about this and more. Paul talks about his background, what Peroptyx does, helping improve recommendation engines, real world problems being solved, machine learning, data on apps not being compromised. Paul also talks about data vandalism, voice assistants, chatbots, the progress of technology, where Paul sees machine learning heading and the future plans of Peroptyx. More about Paul McBride: Following some formative years on the Windows development team at Microsoft, Paul spent two decades serving the world's data driven brands in their mission to improve the local relevance and global reach of their online products and services In 2018, Paul McBride and Maeve Bleahene, founded Peroptyx a machine learning start-up. Peroptyx helps businesses to rapidly adapt their machine learning models and reflect what is happening in the real world.

Whether it’s the Queen’s bank in the U.K., a neobank in Brazil, a challenger fintech in the U.S., or one of the mighty superapp platforms of Asia, there is nothing more central to that conversation than compliance, risk, and regulation. This is especially true as it relates to data, privacy, and the evolution of the financial services business model. Yet this trifecta of controls are often overlooked. In this episode of our #OneVision podcast, Theodora and Bradley talk to Victoria Martin, Head of Client Risk and Compliance at 10x Future Technologies. With leading roles in risk, compliance, and regulatory matters, and time spent at 11FS, ClearBank, Octopus, Tandem Money, and RBS among them, our conversation covered a lot of ground. Join us as we learn more about the differences in how startups and banks approach compliance, how open banking standards differ across geographies, and where Victoria thinks we are heading next when it comes to regulation.

Treedom is a tree planting company that has worked with 782,698 people, 5,800 companies and 118,209 farmers to plant a variety of trees all over the planet. So far, they have planted over 2 million trees. Rachel talks with Federico Garcea about how he came up with the idea for people to be able to buy trees and be able to track and monitor them from thousands of miles away. Federico discusses how Treedom was inspired by a game, the types of trees that are planted and the benefits of being able to learn about the ethics and principles of farming in various regions, such as Central and South America. Federico is the founder and CEO of Treedom. Federico was inspired to created Treedom in 2010 while working on a project in Cameroon, and witnessing the local economic, environmental and social disadvantages caused by deforestation. Rachel is a Journalism student at Coventry University, currently interning with Irish Tech News – which marks the start of a partnership between the two institutions. Rachel’s main interests are politics and conflict, human rights, animal welfare and the environment.

Ria talks with Andrew about how Aristo’s biggest aim is to 'Rid the world of Boring Speakers', and how the word presentation should be erased. He also speaks about where his initial interest in helping startups and entrepreneurs stemmed from and how that grew into a business. In addition to this Andrew elaborates on his experiences and how even when pitching a business idea, a good story will always sell. Andrew Keogh has been an entrepreneur & sales professional for the last 30 years. He started his first business in 1988 supplying specialist equipment and components to the Electronics and Aircraft Industry, primarily dealing with multinationals in Ireland and overseas. Aristo. ie was founded by Andrew 16 years ago with the specific intention of helping businesses to pitch and present to win sales and investment. A special niche for Andrew is coaching start-up companies & researchers to pitch to potential investors.  As a result, Andrew’s pitch coaching system has been honed as part of his involvement with the following Programmes. Ria McGuire is a DCU journalism studying for her final year of college and began a two-month internship with Irish Tech News at the beginning of May. Ria has written for TheJournal.ie, The Leinster Leader DCU’s The College View and HerCampus Online Magazine. She also has experience in audio Journalism as she hosted two DCUFm shows called ‘Awkward Encounters’ and ‘The Commuters’ over the course of her first and second year. She is excited to be a part of the Irish Tech News Podcast and have the opportunity to talk to a variety of different people.

Adam Bouktila is the CEO and co founder of dMerch, a concierge-style, hand holding service to onboard artists, musicians and enterprises into the new world of NFTS. In this interview he explains how it works, how he can help and highlights some of the artists he is working with. Your host is Jillian Godsil, award winning journalist, broadcaster and author, whose latest book can be found here https://persons-of-interest.io/

Futurism looks at events and trends of the future and the anticipation of what’s going to happen next. Futurists explore and analyse predictions about future trends in technology and how they’re going to come about. Rachel talks with Bronwyn Williams about what futurism means, how her career developed and what informs and inspires her to continue to research and work in this industry. Bronwyn discusses the idea of privacy and how generations regard it differently, whether privacy can be bought and sold, and how it’s important to remember that man made technology - not the other way round. Bronwyn is a futurist, economist and trend analyst. She is currently a Partner at Flux Trends, a boutique trend analysis and insight agency with clients across the world. She recently co-authored ‘The Future Starts Now’ with Theo Priestly. Rachel is a Journalism student at Coventry University, currently interning with Irish Tech News – which marks the start of a partnership between the two institutions. Rachel’s main interests are politics and conflict, human rights, animal welfare and the environment.