Future of Tech

Jim Jackson, a passionate marketing leader, unveils many of his strategies behind effective marketing powered by data and told through story. On this episode, he discusses his journey in the field, what is exciting about marketing today, and gives advice to aspiring young marketers based on his 23 years of experience. Excelling in the competitive world of marketing requires advanced data and analy...

Lots of kids look to the stars and think to themselves that someday they’d like to be among them. When asked about their dream career, many enthusiastically offer up, “I want to be an astronaut.” But few actually pursue this path and even less get close to achieving it. Then for those that nearly reach that goal as adults but don’t end up as astronauts, it’s more rare for those few to take that pa...

Many of us have probably caught ourselves talking to the computer; perhaps, sometimes, even yelling at it. Now the computer can talk back. At first, that may seem daunting or even worrisome. But overall, it’s a good thing because it’s going to make our lives easier. Conversational A.I. has made great strides over the last ten years. As proof, look no further than the applications in commerce where...

Establishing trust between people and institutions is extremely important. But there are pitfalls to the current methods we all use to establish trust. Many people lack trust in huge centralized systems given their size, subsequent power, and lack of transparency. On the other hand, decentralized systems with democratizing ideas intended to build trust are often difficult to execute at scale, espe...

Alex Howland is not a software developer, he’s not particularly interested in gaming, and his background in tech is, well, nonexistent. So how then did Alex find himself co-founding Virbela and working on the cutting edge of virtual reality? On this episode of Future of Tech we’ll find out as Alex takes us through his journey from organizational psychologist into the tech world, and he’ll let us i...

You may have noticed that you’re hearing more about cybersecurity in the news than you have in the past. That’s because cyberattacks are growing in scope and frequency, and organizations large and small are beginning to understand exactly what is at risk when you have a vulnerable system.  Christian Espinosa has been aware of these risks for years, and he has been sounding the alarm to anyone who...

A childhood inspiration doesn’t always lead to an adult dream-come-true. But for James Gwertzman , an early fascination about the technology behind the art of games and movies was what led him on the path to a career in tech. And where he wound up in his career would probably make a younger James do a double-take. Today, James is the General Manager for Gaming Cloud at Microsoft, where he builds t...

Very few things have accelerated the need for digital transformation within business as much as the adoption of the public cloud. With so much happening in the public cloud or in hybrid clouds, and considering the innovation and applications that are being built specifically for cloud, it would be foolish for a business to ignore that movement or not optimize its processes to work in a cloud envir...

Tendayi Viki likes to say that innovation is just about management, but it’s a different kind of management than business leaders are probably used to, which is why many of them need help with the process. That’s why they call Tendayi, an Associate Partner at Strategyzer and the author of the book Pirates In The Navy, The Corporate Startup and The Lean Product Lifecycle and his specialty is helpin...

Data is like gold in today’s world, and for James Phillips, the President of Business Applications at Microsoft, data is the one true north he will follow until the end. At Microsoft, James leads a global team of thousands of developers who are using data to build all of Microsoft’s business operations and then operate the infrastructure underneath them. And the applications that the Microsoft tea...

In today’s professional world, longevity is rare. Switching from one company to another, or even one industry or skillset to a new one is commonplace. So hearing that Joe Atkinson has been with PwC for nearly 30 years should give you pause. He’s a unicorn in his own right, and through almost three decades with one company, he has seen how digital disruption happens, what innovation means, and how...

If you want to know about Kubernetes, you should probably talk to the guy who built, pitched and then implemented K8 at Google. So that’s who we called for this episode of Future of Tech.  Joe Beda is one of the fathers of Kubernetes and on this episode he takes us behind the scenes of developing K8, including why they decided to open-source the technology to level the playing field of app deploym...

Not long ago, telephone companies had a monopoly on all forms of voice communication. But, just as it has done to most aspects of daily life, the internet changed everything. Thanks to the internet, people could connect over IP from all corners of the world. And now that the technology has improved, the connections have become stronger and the systems have been built to support high-speed connecti...

On the last episode of Future of Tech, we introduced you to Dr. David Passig, a renowned futurist, who explained that future studies is less about predicting the future, and more about understanding the present in order to avoid negative outcomes and enhance positive ones. Today, in Part 2 of our discussion with Dr. Passig, we continue the conversation about how technology will continue to shape t...

Those who do future studies know that there are an infinite number of possible futures. With infinity as a baseline, how does one prepare for what’s to come or predict what will come next? On this two-part episode of Future of Tech, Dr. David Passig, a renowned futurist, explains that future studies is less about predicting the future, and more about understanding the present in order to avoid neg...

Like it or not, the younger generation is an important demographic for every industry to pay attention to. Millennials and Gen Z currently have buying power and influence, and the decisions they make now, and the tech and brands they become loyal to today will impact the winners and losers of the future. So the question becomes, how do you get the attention of these young people and engage with th...

To say that Yariv Bash has always aimed high would be a little bit too on the nose. Yariv is currently the co-founder and CEO of Flytrex Aviation, but he was also the first CEO of SpaceIL, a $100M Israeli non-profit organization that attempted to land the first private interplanetary robotic mission on the moon.   On this episode of Future of Tech, Yariv tells the story of the many obstacles he fa...

Many people believe that RPA, or Robotic Process Automation, is one of the fastest-growing categories in enterprise software at the moment. But what exactly is RPA and how is it going to change the way we work? On this episode of Future of Tech, we invited Guy Kirkwood , the Chief Evangelist at UiPath to give us the inside scoop. As it turns out, the widespread fear that robots will eliminate jobs...

Last week we welcomed Ronen Nir to the podcast for Part 1 of a deep dive into the world of venture capital. On this second and final part of the conversation, Ronen, a General Partner at Viola Ventures, picks up the discussion by explaining how profit and loss statements are looked at in SaaS-model companies. And later in the episode, he details the way the VC world was up-ended due to COVID-19, a...

Start-ups and entrepreneurs have been around since the beginning of time. But it was only in the last several decades that venture capitalists became key players in the world of business and investing. Ronen Nir is a General Partner at Viola Ventures, and on this special two-part episode of Future of Tech, he lets us in on what it really means to be a VC today. On Part 1, Ronen gives an overview o...

Even though Josh Bressers says that security itself is meant to be boring, there are no dull moments when discussing the evolution of the world of cybersecurity, especially because security is truly a never-ending journey.  Josh leads the Product Security Group at Elastic , and in his previous role at Red Hat he was a Cybersecurity Strategist & Product Manager, leading the security strategy in Red...

In technology, everything is getting faster, and the pace of change is more blistering than ever. As a result, technologists are in a constant state of optimization and trying to find the best ways to make their websites, apps, and backend systems work 24/7. One of the ways they are doing that is through the use of low-code.  Gone are the days of complicated legacy systems and custom code througho...

JJ Caffey believes that work is fundamentally broken. People are spending more of their waking hours working than ever before, many of them spent alone and behind a screen. According to JJ, the way the average person works is no longer productive, and, in fact, our work habits are leaving many of us more burnt out and lonely than ever before.  When it comes to millennials and Gen Z, who represent...

When Eoghan McCabe started frequenting one specific coffee shop, he noticed something. Not the quality of the coffee, rather, he became friendly with the owner of the shop, and saw that this man was truly engaged with all of his customers. He knew their names, their preferences, he and that familiarity kept customers coming back, even if he wasn’t offering the best deal in the neighborhood. Eoghan...

Rick Rioboli says that when you are trying to transform a platform or product space, sometimes you have to forget everything you know and start from nothing to build something truly innovative. And as someone who did in fact transform an entire platform and product category, Rick would know that from experience. Rick is the Senior Vice President & CIO at Comcast and during his time with the compan...