Tech Talks Daily

Neil C. Hughes

If every company is now a tech company and digital transformation is a journey rather than a destination, how do you keep up with the relentless pace of technological change?

Every day, Tech Talks Daily brings you insights from the brightest minds in tech, business, and innovation, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways.

Hosted by Neil C. Hughes, Tech Talks Daily explores how emerging technologies such as AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, fintech, quantum computing, Web3, and more are shaping industries and solving real-world challenges in modern businesses.

Through candid conversations with industry leaders, CEOs, Fortune 500 executives, startup founders, and even the occasional celebrity, Tech Talks Daily uncovers the trends driving digital transformation and the strategies behind successful tech adoption. But this isn't just about buzzwords.

We go beyond the hype to demystify the biggest tech trends and determine their real-world impact. From cybersecurity and blockchain to AI sovereignty, robotics, and post-quantum cryptography, we explore the measurable difference these innovations can make.

Whether improving security, enhancing customer experiences, or driving business growth, we also investigate the ROI of cutting-edge tech projects, asking the tough questions about what works, what doesn't, and how businesses can maximize their investments.

Whether you're a business leader, IT professional, or simply curious about technology's role in our lives, you'll find engaging discussions that challenge perspectives, share diverse viewpoints, and spark new ideas.

New episodes are released daily, 365 days a year, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways around technology and the future of business.

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Dec 31, 2021 · 31 min
1831: Nick Neuman, CEO of Bitcoin Self-Storage Startup Casa
Casa is a US-based provider of Bitcoin security services, which enables users to have total self-custody over their crypto holdings, without the risk of theft or hacks like those experienced by exchanges. Bitcoin can be purchased through Casa and deposited directly into a user's wallet on the service where they control the funds, without the company having custody over the holdings at any point. Nick Neuman, CEO of Bitcoin self-storage startup Casa shares his view that despite sovereignty being the biggest issue in the Bitcoin space, it's ultimately the one that's being addressed the least. It's not a technology problem or a process problem, but rather that the big challenge is how to make security technologies standard in an industry with an overall poor track record for keeping its customers' coins safe. Nick discusses the different Bitcoin safety solutions on the market that holders need to be aware of and why they should consider taking their coins off exchanges altogether. We also talk about why a wallet alone might not be enough and what questions investors should be asking of their Bitcoin partners to ensure they can always keep sovereignty of their coins.
Dec 30, 2021 · 16 min
1830: Analytics and Personalization Expert on MarTech Buzzwords
Joaquin Viramontes, Director of Personalization at digital experience agency R2i, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. The seasoned expert in analytics, personalization, and all things data shares insights on personalization and why it's much more than a buzzword for marketing professionals. R2i is a digital experience agency that creates digital solutions that connect and accelerate customer experiences to drive impact for brands. I learn more about their relentless focus on combining data, insights, and technology with creative design to drive engaging and high-impact digital experiences. Joaquin shares how businesses can go beyond making a case for personalization to implementing a long-term program that shows ROI. He also explains a marketer's ideal toolkit of analytics and optimization tools that can be used to identify wins and optimal ways to invest time and resources. Finally, we discuss how to establish a company culture of data-driven decisions and build excitement around the value that tech and data can bring to all decisions in every department.
Dec 29, 2021 · 25 min
1829: The MLC: $100M and Counting to Songwriters in 2021
In January 2021, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC)began administering blanket mechanical licenses to eligible streaming and download services (digital service providers or DSPs) in the United States. The MLC will then collect the royalties due under those licenses from the DSPs and pay songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers. The MLC has built a publicly accessible musical works database, as well as a portal that creators and music publishers can use to submit and maintain their musical works data. These tools will help ensure that creators and music publishers are paid properly. It is also striving to ensure songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers receive their mechanical royalties from streaming and download services in the U.S. accurately and on time. In order to pay these royalties, The MLC utilizes a portal where creators and music publishers submit their musical works data, which is then matched to the appropriate monies. Therefore, the importance of getting the word out to self-administered songwriters and collecting the necessary data is paramount in ensuring that creators are being compensated for their work. The MLC's CEO Kris Ahrend shares insights from its first full year of operations and how it has already distributed more than $106 million in royalties to songwriters.
Dec 28, 2021 · 19 min
1828: BlueOcean and the AI-Driven Brand Navigator
Grant McDougall is a marketing and advertising veteran who hit a tipping point in the agency space after working with brands like AT&T and Chevron. He started BlueOcean, an AI driven platform helping companies like Google and Microsoft track, measure, and compare their brand health to competitors using AI. The company also recently announced a $15M Series A funding. As we all know, branding is one of the most critical assets for a company. It can significantly impact customer loyalty, stock price, employee retention, and other key metrics of success. So I invited Grant on the podcast to explore how conventional marketing agencies are not capable of giving their clients relevant and actionable information to outpace their competition. The growing and future of consumer privacy compliance have allowed users to manage their data tracking, but this popular option has developed challenges for marketers across all platforms. We discuss how AI technology for data insight has become the core for services like BlueOcean who offer data input reports to help financial institutions.
Dec 27, 2021 · 51 min
1827: Ben Brook CEO of VC Backed Tech Start Up, Transcend
Ben Brook's story started when he set out to find out what companies had collected his personal information - and he realized his data was nearly impossible to track, control, or reclaim. Ben, who is now the founder and CEO of Transcend, raised 25M from Index Ventures and Accel, with participation from South Park Commons, Phil Venables (Board Member and former CISO, Goldman Sachs), and Dylan Field (CEO, Figma), just months after graduating from Harvard. Since launching, Ben's company has successfully tapped into the swelling interest in data rights, privacy, consumer rights by helping customers such as Paetron, Indiegogo, etc., encode privacy across their tech stack. Ben had a great idea - give people the rights to their data by making it easy for companies to deliver. With GDPR, CCPA, and 40 different state-level bills in the US pending, this is a major issue for businesses and almost feels like perfect timing. Ben shares his startup story on Tech Talks Daily.
Dec 26, 2021 · 22 min
1826: Content Creation and Repurpose Content Goals in 2022
Shiv Gupta, the founder of Incrementors Web Solutions, a Digital Marketing Agency, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. He shares his story, how he crafted his content marketing strategy, and how digital marketing, especially SEO, transformed his life. We discuss what types of content businesses should be creating for their industry and how to repurpose content in different ways to make it last longer. Shiv also shares tips for your content that sells your products naturally or in a way that comes across as not pushy to the customer.
Dec 25, 2021 · 7 min
1825: Neil's Alternative Christmas Speech
One of the traditions in the UK is to watch the Queens Christmas Speech on Christmas Day. I thought I would offer an alternative for tech fans where I look at where we are now and what the following year in tech will look like.
Dec 24, 2021 · 21 min
1824: What Sci-Fi Gets Wrong About Space Travel
Whether it's the concept of fold space in Dune, warp drive in Star Trek, or light speed in Star Wars, sci-fi creators and fans alike have always been intrigued by the idea of moving from one galaxy to another in the blink of an eye. Thanks to Hollywood, we associate the slow stretching of stars, streaks of particles drifting behind the exhaust pipes, and the silent rumble of engines with space ships - but what is the reality of space travel? Daniel Bock, CEO & Co-Founder at Morpheus Space, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to dig into precisely what Hollywood gets wrong, how far off commercial space travel is, and what the industry needs to do not only to make it viable but to keep ESG at the core of it. The space entrepreneur also shares his story and how he aims to enable a sustainable and safe future of our planet Earth by seeking new ventures and pushing boundaries. Morpheus Space is disrupting the NewSpace industry by introducing Agile Constellations, a fusion between advanced electric propulsion and Artificial Intelligence. The solution package enables satellite service providers to operate entire constellations as one entity. Furthermore, with the support of its groundbreaking spacecraft electric propulsion systems, each satellite can perform countless orbital maneuvers, allowing the possibility of "objective first" mission planning with an automated trade-off. All this provides the flexibility of satellite networks exploited by the A.I. to optimally morph the constellations to fulfill the user's objectives, ranging from revisiting frequencies to observing moving POIs.
Dec 23, 2021 · 22 min
1823: Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (EVTOL) Technology
Overair Inc. - Overair is positioned to be a global leader in advanced air mobility. In August 2021, they announced the design of their revolutionary Butterfly – an all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for advanced air mobility. Butterfly is designed to be the most robust, efficient, and quiet aircraft in its class – a mobility workhorse that produces zero carbon emissions in flight. Overair CEO Ben Tigner talks about Butterfly's technology and how they want to change the way we live, work, and travel.
Dec 22, 2021 · 22 min
1822: Fintech - Exploring the World of Embedded Finance Tech
Embedded finance looks set to radically transform digital businesses and create a new benchmark for customer experience across multiple industries. According to Juniper Research, the embedded finance market will be worth $138 billion by 2026. In the near future, embedded finance will enable digital businesses to serve SMEs and micro-entrepreneurs worldwide, helping them sell to their core offering and create diversified revenue streams by embedding payments, insurance, lending, and other financial services under the banner of their existing brand. Innovative businesses are also expected to adopt embedded finance to overcome perennial challenges around handling payments across geographies, currencies, and differing regulatory zones. As a result, they will be able to offer fintech as a service to help clients implement financial services into their own business models. Frederick Crosby - Chief Revenue Officer at NIUM, joins me in a conversation about the trend towards embedded fintech and how the Nium platform enables banks, payment providers, travel companies, and other businesses to collect and disburse funds in local currencies to over 100 countries. About Frederick Frederick is the Chief Revenue Officer at Nium, an advanced global payments platform redefining how consumers and businesses can send, spend, and receive funds around the world. Frederick leads the global Business Development, Marketing, and Communications teams that have helped inform and transform business models for banks, fintechs, and other platforms that needed new payment capabilities in this quickly evolving digital age, and that have made Nium one of the fastest-growing global fintechs in the payment space. Frederick is a veteran in the cross-border payments and e-commerce space and has catapulted huge global businesses and customer bases at start-ups and enterprise companies alike. In the early days of PayPal, Frederick unlocked the potential of cross-border e-commerce by aligning eBay/PayPal's massive supply/demand, and providing new functionality for global buyers and sellers to transact. At Western Union, he led a team that transformed digital remittances into the largest growth engine at the company to attain the #1 position in all their global markets. As CRO at Veem, Frederick joined a pioneering team bent on making global SMB bank payments into a five-minute affair. His sales and marketing teams built a network of over 170K SMBs around the world who could send and receive payments in a click, and the partnership team, in turn, brought the capability into the world's largest small business accounting and e-commerce platforms.
Dec 21, 2021 · 27 min
1821: Jerry Shi - Managing Partner - Synergis Capital
Synergis, a globally focused technology venture capital firm whose existing investments include SMIC, WuXi AppTec, eSign, etc., launched its flagship Venture Fund I earlier this year. In addition to sectors such as SaaS, Biotech, and Consumer, the fund also has a dedicated Crypto/Blockchain strategy that has already allocated to six seed-stage funds and made one direct investment. Synergis is set to launch Shanghai-based "Synergis LaunchPad" to assist portfolio GPs and companies in expanding founder-sourcing and community-building capabilities throughout Asia. Jerry Shi is also a crypto evangelist and investor based in Toronto and New York. He institutionalized Synergis Capital with a strong team based on his differentiated model and track record with family assets and managed SPVs. I invited him on the podcast to learn more about his story.
Dec 20, 2021 · 41 min
1820: Nationwide & Qlik on Regulation and Trust in Data in Financial Services
The UK government recently launched data reforms to boost innovation, economic growth and protect the public, a year on from the creation of the National Data Strategy and a key step in its 10 Tech Priorities, which include unlocking the power of data. The proposed reforms aim to empower the ICO and businesses using data in innovative and responsible ways to benefit people's lives, in areas from healthcare to financial services. However, a new report from data analytics leader, Qlik, into the UK's FS industry suggests that while AI and predictive analytics has huge potential in FS organisations, low trust and regulatory fears are still holding back their widespread adoption in the industry. In fact, Only half (50%) of IT leaders FS organisations trust decisions made by predictive analytics solutions are without bias, 46% of IT leaders believe the regulatory burden outweighs the benefit that predictive analytics solutions could offer. Richard Spiegal, BI Centre of Excellence Leader at Nationwide, and Adam Mayer, Senior Manager at Qlik join me in a conversation on the state of regulation and trust around data in the financial services (FS) sector. We discuss how to tackle the issues laid out in Qlik's report, particularly around trust and regulation issues and the power of data analytics to help organisations build a data pipeline and democratise data in a safe, secure way with customers interests at heart. I also learn how Nationwide is exploring analytics use cases across anti-money laundering, financial crime, risk management, and supporting human decisions, for example, by triaging and helping to prioritise staff caseloads. A big thank you to the team at Feedspot for featuring Tech Talk Daily on their Best 40 UK Tech Podcasts list.
Dec 19, 2021 · 27 min
1819: Data Observability: Monitor, Identify & Solve Silent Data Issues
I recently discovered a Belgian company called Soda who focuses on data quality monitoring and testing. Think of it a bit like application or software monitoring which is now ubiquitous. Soda scans for issues caused by human error, firmware upgrades, schema changes, cross-platform integration snafus, bought data, or transformation bugs. The aim is to automate, verify, and validate the flow of data from various sources and encourage collaboration between software/data engineers and downstream business decision-makers. The big idea here is to eliminate so-called 'silent data issues.' These are the issues that bubble up (hence the name Soda!) further downstream having gone undetected in datasets. In an era when most companies are moving towards being entirely data-driven, ensuring data is of the optimum quality is critical. I invited Soda CEO and founder Maarten Masschelein on the Tech Talks Daily to learn more. Maarten discusses why data quality monitoring is becoming a hot topic and provides examples of where bad data has caused serious problems. I also learn how Soda was listed as a data management Cool Vendor by Gartner.
Dec 18, 2021 · 33 min
1818: The Complex Journey to Multi-Cloud Networking is Getting a Boost
It has been remarkable to witness the enterprise transition to the cloud in just a few short years -- but what is next? Multi-cloud networking is the new way for enterprises to manage applications worldwide for dispersed and remote users. Managing applications in the cloud - and through multiple cloud service providers (CSPs) -- can mean a host of benefits, including reduced latency, more affordable transit costs, and heightened security. However, we are not there yet. Most organizations are still struggling with the complex networking infrastructures needed to achieve "a multi-cloud networking Nirvana." Ramesh Prabagaran, co-founder and CEO of Prosimo, recognized the opportunity for a newer type of infrastructure -- one that would provide enterprises a better way to network to multiple CSPs - a safer, less complex, and more affordable way. As the former co-founder of Viptela, acquired by Cisco for $610 million in 2017, Ramesh is one of the pioneers in the SD Wan field - and is no stranger to overcoming serious networking challenges. Ramesh and his team at Prosimo have developed a single, vertically integrated infrastructure stack to deliver an application experience that balances performance, security, and costs across multi-cloud environments. Just months out of stealth, the team has had early success with several enterprise customers, including Flexport, announced partnerships with Google Cloud, AWS, and Verizon, and was recently included in the 2021 Gartner Market Guide for Cloud Networking Software. Multi-cloud networking is complex and not easy to do or even understand. Still, in today's episode, Ramesh breaks it down and explains it all in a language everyone can understand. He also shares his own story, which involves a series of successes and innovations.
Dec 17, 2021 · 20 min
1817: Building a Future of Passwordless Authentication
The way we authenticate online is fundamentally broken. Technology has evolved significantly since the advent of the internet, yet we still rely primarily on passwords for authentication. Passwords pose significant security and user experience issues, negatively impacting both consumers and businesses. In addition, passwords are also responsible for the vast majority of data breaches each year. According to Verizon's 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report, 81% of all breaches involve weak or stolen passwords. In addition to being insecure, passwords also introduce significant consumer frustration. According to a recent Google study, ~75% of users report feeling overwhelmed trying to keep track of their passwords. So it's no surprise that users often re-use the same password across sites to make this process easier, but it introduces its own risks. Julianna Lamb, co-founder, and CTO of Stytch, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to explore this topic in more detail. Stytch is the first company that's built a platform for passwordless authentication so that any application or website can embed passwordless sign-up and login flows. I learn more about the story behind Stytch. We also discuss how thousands of companies have used Stytch's software to eliminate password-based authentication's security and user experience shortcomings.
Dec 17, 2021 · 25 min
1816: How e-commerce Retailers Can Leverage Technology
Consumers seem to begin their holiday shopping earlier each year. This year, it's likely that shoppers will start buying even earlier as supply chain shortages impact everything from popular toys to footwear and even coffee. So, how should retailers prepare for this shopping season? For e-commerce retailers, website crashes or slow sites are all too common during holiday shopping, leading to frustrations for customers and potentially costing companies millions during downtimes on top of ongoing shortages. As a result, IT teams can become overwhelmed trying to ensure there are no disruptions for shoppers, but there is only so much they can do. However, automating certain processes throughout the e-commerce workflow can help mitigate these issues and ensure customers don't feel any impact. And while automation is effective, many teams don't know what to automate to be most successful. Ritu Dubey from Digitate discusses how retailers should automate workflows to relieve IT teams so that they can rest easy this holiday season, knowing that their customers are having a good experience.
Dec 16, 2021 · 27 min
1815: Discussing Synthetic Data With Accenture
Fernando Lucini, Global Data Science & Machine Learning Engineering Lead at Accenture, joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss synthetic data. We explore how privacy concerns and process issues are still holding businesses back from developing advanced analytics initiatives – and how synthetic data (artificially generated by an AI algorithm) might be able to help. We discuss how the technology has potential across a range of industries. Synthetic data's most obvious benefit is that it eliminates the risk of exposing critical data and compromising the privacy and security of companies and customers. With synthetic data, a company can quickly train machine learning models on large data sets, accelerating the processes of training, testing, and deploying an AI solution. While the benefits of synthetic data are compelling, realizing them can be difficult. Generating synthetic data is a highly complex process, and to do it right, an organization needs to do more than plug in an AI tool to analyze its data sets. We discuss how the task requires people with specialized skills and truly advanced knowledge of AI.
Dec 15, 2021 · 40 min
1814: Sharethrough and The Future of Feed-Based Consumption
Dan Greenberg, president of Sharethrough, one of the world's largest omnichannel exchanges, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Dan has his pulse on how businesses can ensure their ads get as many eyeballs as possible. In particular, Dan has thoughts on how our desire to read through feed-based visuals will inform how we interact with advertising in the future, particularly when it comes to TV. Dan believes that the current, catalogue-style home page that most streaming services have adopted will become obsolete and that adapting to the way we consume other media through personalized feeds on channels like social will become the norm. In addition, with streaming giants such as Netflix reporting slowing subscriber growth, streamers need to find new ways to breathe life into their UX. About Dan Dan is the President of Sharethrough, overseeing market development and customer strategy. As the founding CEO of Sharethrough, Dan is a recognized leader in the industry and the Silicon Valley tech ecosystem. Coming from a research background at Stanford in Behavior Design, Dan has been at the cutting edge of digital advertising since 2005, bringing together unique expertise in persuasive technology and native monetization. Dan is the founding chair of the IAB Native Advertising Committee and has spearheaded the native advertising movement since its inception in 2011. Dan has been recognized as an AdAge "Media Maven," Forbes "30 Under 30," Inc "35 Under 35″, and AdAge "40 Under 40." He is a regular speaker at advertising and technology conferences and contributing author for Forbes, AdAge, TechCrunch, and other industry publications.
Dec 14, 2021 · 28 min
1813: The Best Digital Marketing Strategies to Implement in 2022
White Shark Media is a digital marketing agency with more than ten years of experience managing pay-per-click campaigns with Google, Microsoft, and Facebook Ads. We provide custom PPC solutions and white label services to businesses, agencies, and organizations. At White Shark Media, Daniel Alvarado helps organizations use technology to create meaningful experiences, simplify complex tasks and generate value for their clients. Daniel joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the best digital marketing strategies to implement in 2022. We discuss why automating marketing allows for better personalization in your marketing content while also being time-efficient. By obtaining data and segmenting your audience, you have a better chance at engaging your product or service with customers to convert them faster. We also discuss how making bids automatic instead of manual gives personnel more time to dedicate to other marketing efforts, and keeping business information up to date is critical as it can allow your business to achieve higher client acquisition rates.
Dec 13, 2021 · 24 min
1812: Amira Learning - When Reading Science Meets AI
Amira Learning CEO Mark Angel joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share how they are building a first-of-its-kind voice AI-based reading tutor for kids. With previous experience working at Nuance, which MSFT recently acquired for $19B, Mark's goal in developing Amira is to make every child a motivated and masterful reader. I learn how they have raised $11 million to scale up with a new app and growing customer base. We also talk about how 'Amira & the StoryCraft' has been named one of TIME's 100 Best Inventions of 2021. Only one of three inventions honored in the Education category. The list features 100 products and services that change how we live, play, work, and think about the future. Amira's Dyslexia Screener identifies students at risk of Dyslexia and other disorders. In longitudinal testing conducted by the University of Houston, the Screener missed only 1% of at-risk students. Finally, we talk about how Amira uses AI to generate the right reading intervention at the right time when an unproductive struggle helps create motivated and masterful readers.