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 12, 2021 · 29 min
1811: Conversational AI for the Restaurant, Retail and Service Industries.
Rob Carpenter is the CEO and Founder of Valyant AI, the first Artificially Intelligent "Digital Employee" to work directly alongside employees in customer-facing roles. For example, Valyant's AI "Holly" works in fast food restaurants to greet customers at the drive-thru post, answer questions and take food orders. The revolutionary nature of this technology is that it pulls AI from being a hidden back-office tool to something that feels like a real staff member, which humanizes a brand's personality and brings the AI experience front and center to a physical location. The major technological innovation of Holly is her Conversational AI. It allows her to speak with a human-sounding voice, to understand context, nuance and to be able to manage a free-form and wide-ranging conversation within the context of food ordering. After five years of development Valyant AI now has paying customers, can deliver up to 20% average order increase and has begun rolling out with two restaurant chains that have a combined 5,000 locations. Much like self-driving cars, Conversational AI has had a long and bumpy road to deployment, but the technology is maturing, and Valyant is at the vanguard of this new era of customer service automation for physical locations. Rob joins me in a conversation about the future of AI-human relations and its impact on the labor market - both positive and negative. We also discuss the developments in robotics and the commercialization of space travel.
Dec 11, 2021 · 21 min
1810: The Rise of Personalized Phishing Attacks
At the end of 2020 Troy Gill, Senior Manager of Threat Intelligence at Zix, predicted in the 2020 Global Security Report that we would see attackers further personalizing and customizing their attacks this year. Over the last 8 months, it has come true over and over again. One such attack lived up to this prediction. The phishing attempt was posing as certificate errors for the recipient's website. What made it unique was it pulled their real certificate data and DNS (Domain Name System) A-record to tailor the phishing message to their domain. The payload URL also led to a credential harvesting site customized for their specific web platform admin page. While testing, we observed the generic WordPress admin login page and Shopify login pages (depending on the target). Troy Gill joins me on the podcast to discuss the rise of personalized phishing attacks and what businesses can to do protect themselves.
Dec 10, 2021 · 27 min
1809: Transaction Network Services - TNS Secure SD-WAN
Transaction Network Services (TNS) is a leading global provider of data communications and interoperability solutions. Its global network and innovative services enable transactions and the exchange of information to many of the world's leading retailers, banks, payment processors, financial institutions, and telecommunication firms. Founded in 1990 in the United States, TNS has grown steadily and now provides services to customers in over 60 countries across the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. Its reach extends to many more. TNS has designed and implemented a global data network that supports various widely accepted communications protocols and is designed to be scalable and accessible by multiple methods. John Tait joins me in discussing the important role SD-WAN will play in enabling the next generation of connected payments and what it means for merchants and consumers. First, I learn more about how SD-WAN enables a retailers to securely connect a wide range of devices to their POS system. This can be anything from ordering a delivery of milk directly from your refrigerator, to ordering new ink cartridges directly from your printer, to paying for parking, gas, or a car wash directly from your vehicle. You can read more about the benefits of SD-WAN here: https://tnsi.com/infographics/tns-secure-sd-wan-the-benefits-of-mission-critical-payment-capability/
Dec 9, 2021 · 22 min
1808: REPL Group, Part of Accenture
The digital workplace brings the potential for numerous world-beating solutions, but many businesses don't have the resources to find the perfect solution. That's where REPL comes in, drawing on years of experience in the technology sector to provide a solution that gets results for businesses. Cerys Johnson took on the CEO role in 2017, after six years working for the company, firstly as Chief Financial Officer and later as Chief Operating Officer. Her in-depth knowledge of how the firm works have given her an unpreceded insight into how to guide the path of the company's growth globally. Her tenure as CEO thus far has seen REPL double in size, with a reported increase in revenue of 40% year over year. With over twenty-five years of experience in strategic and digital transformation roles, she knows how to ensure that companies make the most of what they have. With her unique perspective driving the strategy and execution that spans all the aspects of REPL's business model, there has been a chance to impact product development, IT, marketing, and sales. When REPL opened its doors in 2007, the aim was to enhance the capacity of businesses of all sorts. No one deserved to be left before in the technological age. This demanded an innovative approach that could scale easily and adapt effectively to suit the needs of different markets and industries. We discuss how this feels even more relevant today than 14 years ago, When it comes to the technology sector, it's easy to get lost in the hardware that goes into making a success. Cerys also shares how they have achieved your success through working closely with people.
Dec 8, 2021 · 26 min
1807: Harvard Professor Discusses Quantum Technologies
A divisive topic for techies is quantum computing. Although still in its infancy, many wonder if it can ever live up to its hype. We can expect these debates to intensify after IBM revealed its 127-qubit quantum computer, double the size of comparable machines made by Google and the University of Science and Technology of China. I wanted to explore this topic further and found the perfect guest. Her name is Prineha Narang. She is the assistant professor of computational materials science at Harvard. She heads up NarangLab, where she and her team work on many of the most promising quantum computing technologies. We discuss why quantum technologies and what it holds for consumers, engineers, developers in the future. We also talk about how to think about quantum technologies and their impact on a spectrum of applications/industries. Finally, we explore the limitations and benefits of quantum tech across computing, networking, and sensing.
Dec 7, 2021 · 26 min
1806: Algolia: Site Search & Discovery powered by AI
We have all searched on a website, search engine, or even a podcast app to find this episode. But when that search function does not deliver, it can be nearly as frustrating as slow wifi. Algolia solves this problem with an API-first approach that allows developers and business teams to surface relevant content when wanted. I wanted to learn more about how this tech satisfies the demand for instant gratification while also building and optimizing online experiences that enhance online engagement, increase conversion rates, and enrich lifetime value to generate profitable growth. More than 10,000 companies, including Lacoste, Birchbox, Stripe, Slack, Medium, and Zendesk, rely on Algolia to manage over 1.5 trillion search queries a year – that's six times more than Microsoft Bing, 16 times more than Yahoo, and 50 times more than DuckDuckGo (four times more than Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Baidu and Yandex combined). Bernadette Nixon is an entrepreneurial & driven CEO with a strong track record of growing and scaling global businesses and is focused on doing that at Algolia. Most recently, she led the company in a new funding round that resulted in the company closing $150 Million in funding and a new valuation of $2.25 Billion – almost QUADRUPLE the company's previous valuation.
Dec 6, 2021 · 29 min
1805: The Tech Helping Brands Adopt an Omnichannel Approach to Retail
We are currently right in the eye of the storm of the holiday season, and I find myself fascinated by how technology is raising our expectations from retailers. Everything from smart changing rooms, smart mirrors, and the evolution of virtual shopping via 3D, AR, and virtual try-on's highlights how much the industry has changed. Zakeke is empowering brands and retailers to offer their customers live product personalization and 3D / AR View. Zakeke also integrates Visual Commerce Solutions online and offline to engage their customers with a rich and interactive "design-your-own" experience. People are different and have unique tastes. As customers, they want to play a primary role in designing the products they use, configuring them according to their needs and preferences. Merchants are discovering the value of letting their customers create their own unique products and taking personalization a big step into mass customization. Lou Leporace joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how Zakeke enables merchants to meet the increasing demand for customized products.
Dec 5, 2021 · 28 min
1804: Digital Maturity and Customer Experience With Optimizely CEO Alex Atzberger
With Google's plan to delay killing third-party cookies until 2023, many businesses are breathing a sigh of relief that they no longer have to scramble to plan out their consumer data collection practices. However, as the world moves toward increased consumer data privacy measures backed by legislation like the GDPR and at the local state levels in Colorado and California, the death of third-party data is inevitable and businesses need to get ahead to succeed. Alex Atzberger, CEO of Optimizely, shares why companies need to personalize based on the behaviors behind content consumption, even if the visitors are unknown. He also reveals how to build trust brands should do the following: Offer loyalty programs, as seen recently by McDonald's and Chipotle, where customers can receive points for purchases that translate into freebies later on Track the content your customers are engaging with to see what's resonating, even if the customer is anonymous Glean customer feedback on their preferred channels and ensure you're engaging with them, on ones they favor We also discuss how Gen Z and Millennials start their shopping journeys on social media apps, but most leave the apps to purchase on 3rd party sites like Amazon.
Dec 4, 2021 · 34 min
1803: How Technology is Improving Healthcare Outcomes
As you all know by now, I am fascinated by how we have gone from a reactive approach to healthcare to a proactive approach where we record calories, steps, sleep, and heart rate to monitor our health. HGS AxisPoint Health is a technology-enabled care management services company focused on applying whole-person interventions to improve healthcare outcomes, reduce costs, and increase satisfaction. Michele Kratz and SV Krishnan from HGS AxisPoint Health join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how health plans and providers are beginning to use a predictive analytics model known as "impactability" to more effectively address the multifaceted aspects of an individual's health.
Dec 3, 2021 · 28 min
1802: Advancing Women in Technology (AWIT)
There is a visibility problem within the tech industry as there is a large absence of female leaders and role models. The diversity gap among tech leadership roles is wider today than it was in 1984. A 2021 report found that 50% of women abandon tech careers by 35 and are leaving at a 45% higher rate than men. AWIT was founded to address this representation gap in tech leadership roles by giving underrepresented individuals the resources they need to exceed, including mentoring, skills-based training, and advocacy. Nancy Wang shares the story behind AWIT. In addition to being CEO and Founder of AWIT, Nancy pulls double duty. She is the GM of Data Protection Services at Amazon Web Services (AWS) — understanding first-hand what it means to climb to be a female leader within the tech industry. We discuss all of these reasons represent the need for mentorship and continuing education for women and underrepresented individuals to have the right support to accelerate their careers to the next level. I learn how AWIT has recently created the industry's first 1:1 executive mentorship program for MongoDB and teamed up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to release two online certification programs for Coursera.
Dec 2, 2021 · 25 min
1801: Rewind - We've Got Your Back(up)
Mike Potter is the CEO and Founder of Rewind, a leading provider of cloud backups for SaaS applications that help businesses easily back up and restore their cloud data. While Mike and Rewind have experienced tremendous growth and success, supporting over 80,000 organizations across the globe, this wasn't always the case. Mike weathered the failure of two companies to get to where he is today. Mike knows the path to success isn't always glamorous. Over the years, he has learned to embrace the discomfort of pivoting or persisting. This point in growing a business is essential to its success and a founder's sanity. Mike shares his story on Tech Talks Daily. We also discuss how to balance life and work while creating a company that people love, Tips for overcoming agency challenges and what it takes to build a $100M startup.
Dec 1, 2021 · 29 min
1800: Remote Patient Monitoring Technology With Biotricity
A new study reveals the remote patient monitoring industry (RPM) is expected to grow by 12.5% in the next ten years. And another study shows that almost half of healthcare providers believe that remote patient monitoring will be as prevalent as in-person monitoring within the next five years. All this comes at a time when Apple also recently announced new heart and health monitoring features for their latest smartwatch. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, CEO and founder of Biotricity, discusses how RPM will continue to improve patient outcomes and why RPM tech is poised for rapid growth. Waqaas shares his insights on whether wearable devices such as the Apple Watch can replace other devices for patients with heart conditions. We also explore what the future holds for remote patient monitoring technology. About Biotricity Biotricity is a medical technology company committed to improving healthcare by developing solutions that aid chronic disease prevention and management. Biotricity's premier product is Bioflux, an ECG monitoring system that will be prescribed by physicians to diagnose and remotely monitor cardiac patients. Biotricity is expanding medical-grade monitoring into the consumer market via its Biolife solution, which empowers users to self-manage chronic conditions. Biolife helps users make lifestyle changes by combining medically relevant ECG data with social media interactivity and a lifestyle log. Biotricity's R&D continues to focus on the preventative healthcare market, with a vision of putting health management into the hands of the individual. The company aims to support the self-management of critical and chronic conditions with the use of innovative solutions to ease the growing burden on the healthcare system.
Nov 30, 2021 · 22 min
1799: Cyngn and the Autonomous Technology for Industrial Vehicles
There is a lot of talk around autonomous vehicles and electric cars right now, and I wanted to demystify this world. This path led me to Cyngn, a developer of innovative autonomous driving solutions for industrial and commercial enterprises that recently announced its partnership with Columbia Vehicle Group. Lior Tal shares the story behind the company, the road to the partnership with Columbia, and current trends shaping the market. I also learn more about how Cyngn's autonomous vehicle capabilities are powered by DriveMod, an end-to-end solution that can be integrated with Columbia vehicles – or any vehicle. DriveMod enables vehicles to switch easily between manual, remotely-controlled, and fully autonomous modes. Autonomous vehicle technology brings various benefits to industrial organizations by increasing efficiency, continuity and making it easier for workers to stay focused on their most mission-critical tasks. The pairing of Cyngn's DriveMod with Columbia's fleet of electric utility vehicles means material handling organizations can begin to implement autonomy today.
Nov 29, 2021 · 16 min
1798: Dr. Chase Cunningham, CSO of Ericom Software
Dr. Chase Cunningham, CSO of Ericom Software released a techno-thriller book during Cyber Awareness Month titled "C:\>_gAbrIel." This book draws on Chase's real-world experience as a technologist and how cyber warfare, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence (AI) can be leveraged by bad actors. Although fiction, the information in this book offers a glimpse at what can potentially happen in the future if these technologies remain unchecked. Chase's background includes interacting with national security and intelligence communities, countering cybercriminal actions, and building and deploying secure systems to counter malicious cyber threats. About Chase Dr. Chase Cunningham primarily guides client initiatives related to security operations center (SOC) planning and optimization, counter-threat operations, encryption, network security, and strategic concepts and implementation. In addition, he helps senior technology executives with their plans to leverage comprehensive security controls and the use of a variety of standards, frameworks, and tools to enable secure business operations. Chase has served as a director of cyber threat intelligence operations at Armor. He was the computer network exploitation lead for Telecommunication Systems and the chief of cyber analytics for Decisive Analytics. Dr. Cunningham is also a retired U.S. Navy Chief with more than 20 years' experience in cyber forensic and cyber analytic operations. He has past operations experience, stemming from time spent in work centers within the NSA, CIA, FBI, and other government agencies.
Nov 28, 2021 · 28 min
1797: Casting off the Legacy Technology Shackles With Couchbase
Chris Harris from Couchbase joins me in a conversation about the challenges that businesses continue to face with legacy technology. Using the database industry as a case in point, we discuss how business' legacy arrangements hinder their chances of being competitive in the post-COVID, digital-first world. Chris argues that reliance on legacy database technology such as Oracle is holding them back from achieving their digital goals. We also talk about cloud and IoT to AI, and even 5G calls for a much higher level of data agility than legacy databases can provide. In Chris' view, one of the key reasons businesses struggle to move away from legacy tech is skills; often and companies lack the resources to adopt more modern alternatives that are better suited to meeting digital transformation requirements. Finally, Chris offers his thoughts on where he sees the database industry moving next, looking at emerging technologies that businesses increasingly demand, such as edge computing or real-time analytics, and explaining how the database industry is evolving to support them. At Couchbase, they believe data is at the heart of the enterprise. They empower developers and architects to build, deploy, and run their mission-critical applications. Many of the world's largest enterprises rely on Couchbase to power the core applications their businesses depend on.
Nov 27, 2021 · 21 min
1796: Exploring the Benefits, and Pitfalls, of APIs With Imperva
Could the API revolution and the digital transformation be exposing everyone to security risks? An API is the connective tissue that binds together cloud-native architecture and enables us to enjoy digital services. While these are fundamental for the way we work and live, they're exposing organizations to a new domain of security risk. Peter Klimek, Director of Technology, Office of the CTO at Imperva joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast in a conversation about the benefits, and pitfalls, of APIs. Imperva is a cybersecurity leader with a mission to protect data and all paths to it. They protect the data of over 6,000 global customers from cyberattacks through all stages of their digital transformation. Their products are informed by the Imperva Research Lab, an international threat intelligence community that feeds the latest security and compliance expertise into our solutions.
Nov 26, 2021 · 36 min
1795: Terra Virtua, The Marketplace For Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)
Terra Virtua is the world's first fully immersive social digital collectables platform. Given your expertise in this area, I invited Jawad Ashraf, CTO, and Co-Founder of the company, onto the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Launched in 2016, Terra Virtua is on a mission to turbo-charge fandom - from art to sports, music to movies, games to comics - with the world's first fully immersive platform for buying, sharing, trading, exhibiting, and interacting with digital collectibles. As the world has started shifting the digital realm – from working to shopping, entertaining, and connecting with friends and family Terra Virtua is at the start of using the internet as a virtual world. NFTs isn't an evolution of traditional collecting; it's a whole new form of entertainment. I learn how Terra Virtua is revolutionizing the way people experience digital tokens, and it's the only place where fans can buy and own 2D, 3D, or animated collectibles. We also discuss how Terra Virtua ensures that the environment doesn't pay a heavy price for this game-changing technology and has just switched to Polygon – a new, energy-efficient, scaled blockchain solution. Since launching, Terra Virtua has collaborated with numerous industry leaders, such as Paramount Pictures and Legendary Entertainment, to bring the best NFT content and collaborations to their platforms. The brand has big plans for growth and creating a whole new form of entertainment for its fans.
Nov 25, 2021 · 24 min
1794: How Blockchain is Disrupting of Uber's Ride Hailing Model
Firdosh Sheikh is the Co-founder and CEO of DRIFE, a decentralized Ride-hailing platform powered by blockchain to empower both the drivers and the riders without any existence of a central entity. Firdosh shares her powerful origin story that she calls 'the ride that changed my life.' I learn why ride-hailing is crying out for innovation. Despite being a huge global market, drivers, riders, and ride-hailing platforms are all struggling. Uber still is not making profits. So one of the original big disruptive industries is crying out for disruption itself. We discuss how DRIFE is breaking the vicious cycle of centralised ride-hailing platforms like Uber and the high commissions leaving drivers trapped with little to no profits.
Nov 24, 2021 · 28 min
1793: The Tech Making it Easier to Manage Last Mile Deliveries
Khaled Naim is Co-Founder & CEO of Onfleet a provider of last-mile delivery management software. Since its launch in 2015, Onfleet has grown to power millions of deliveries per month for thousands of businesses around the world. Clients include Gap, Total Wine & More, Capsule, Imperfect Foods, and United Supermarkets. Onfleet's software provides advanced route optimization, dispatching, real-time driver tracking, proof of delivery, analytics and customer communications. Onfleet was ranked #124 on the Inc 5000 list of America's fastest-growing companies in 2019 and #13 in San Francisco Business Times' Fast100 list of the Bay Area's 100 fastest growing companies. Khaled joins me on Tech Talks Daily and shares his story and how Onfleet's technology helps businesses streamline this onerous undertaking by efficiently connecting businesses, dispatchers, drivers, and deliveries to happy customers.
Nov 23, 2021 · 19 min
1792: The Silicon Valley VC Firm With $1.9B Under Management
Scale is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital investment firm with $1.9B under management. They were early investors in SaaS pioneers like Bill.com (NYSE:BILL), DocuSign (NASDAQ:DOCU), HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS), JFrog (NASDAQ: FROG) and Root (NASDAQ: ROOT). Today they are focused on the next generation of enterprise software companies building Cognitive Applications like: Comet.ml, Observe.ai, Techsee and Viz.ai. Eric Anderson is a Partner at Scale Venture Partners, where he focuses on cloud infrastructure and security investments. He is a Board member at Scale portfolio companies Datastax and Upsolver and a Board observer at Matillion, BigID, Expel, Honeycomb, Tetrate, and AppOmni. Before Scale, Eric led early Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services product teams. At Google, he was a Product Manager in the Data Analytics and Machine Learning group. He led the team that launched Cloud Dataprep and critical components of Cloud Dataflow. Previously, Eric built aircraft engines in General Electric's Operation Management Leadership Program. Eric is a go-to resource on open source (he also moonlights as the host of the Contributor podcast) and has deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and app development and contributed to the deal teams for Matillion and BigID and more recent deals like AppOmni, Comet, and Upsolver. I learn more about the early-stage VC investor that is focused on intelligent business software, and we discuss the trends he is seeing in the industry.