Peggy Smedley Show

New IoT Drives Women Peggy Smedley is joined by Cami Zimmer, executive vice president of business development and marketing for Glympse, who talks about the changes that have happened in the IoT space and how it impacts those in tech—as well as others in other industries. She says she is inspired by the fact that nothing stays the same—what happens today might not be the solution for today—and tha...

Peggy chats with Scott Moody, CEO, K4Connect, who says that we all want to live that independent, happy, and healthy life. He explains that his company helps people who are getting older to live the same way as when they were younger. He does this with three basic foundational ideas: simpler, healthier, and happier. A simpler life includes integrating home automation technologies such as home repa...

Peggy kicks off the episode, saying cyber-security is a big issue in healthcare and it seems to be getting worse. Today, cybercriminals continue to prove they are clever. She explains the most common problems are still user practice issues and outdated software. She continues that threats are preventable and we need to make sure end users are educated on how to protect themselves.

Show regular Robin Raskin, founder and president, Living In Digital Times, says products need a women's touch in order to survive, and we are seeing that all over the place. She explains that some of the older generation are uncomfortable with technology and they need a lot of features built in for comfort, which includes robots. Alexa is one example that is doing well with an aging population bec...

Peggy speaks with Dr. Jennifer Schneider, chief medical officer, Livongo, who says she is very blessed with an incredible family and she grew up with an older brother and younger brother and it never occurred to her that girls were any different from boys. She explains that technology is a way to propel is us forward, almost without knowing that it is working behind the scenes. Also, technology is...

Peggy says there is a culture around the futuristic robotic movies and television, showing the impact of AI (artificial intelligence). She explains that AI could open the door for more accessible healthcare that relies on relevant accessible data. Going forward, technology can help reinvent the healthcare industry by helping humans automate repetitive tasks, which will also improve patient outcome...

Show regular Josh Peschel, assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, Iowa State University, talks with Peggy about inspiring the next generation of workers by informing them of the opportunities that might be available to them. He says we need to prepare people at a young age, and educate them well in college. After we educate somebody well, we also need to create opportuniti...

Peggy is joined by Colleen Egan, director of people, culture, and endless possibilities for Clarity Partners, explains how she started as a nurse, and soon became involved in administration, but was discouraged by the lack of technology adoption in healthcare. She always knew that people were the most important part of companies. She discusses how women make up 57% of the workforce, but only 20% o...

Peggy says connected devices can collect data about a person's health and monitor a person's activities, connecting older adults to other people. She explains that smart-home systems can make it easier for adults to age in place and are making home care possible. She continues that devices can keep an eye on vitals, which are life changing and we will see a shift in the next 12 months of what the...

Peggy talks with author of The Leader Habit and CEO of Pinsight, Martin Lanik, who says he chose the word habit because most of our daily behavior is influenced by habit. He asks: What if leadership was a habit and how can you develop positive habits as a leader? He explains that microbehaviors turn into habits, and leadership should become as natural of making your bed in the morning or brushing...

Peggy chats with Amy Tabb, research agriculture engineer, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Services Laboratory, about creating automation in the tree fruit industry. Tabb explains that fruit trees produce more flowers than they need to produce a full crop and to have larger fruit, you have to thin. Sometimes this is done with chemicals and other times it is done manually. She says...

Peggy says agriculture and healthcare have some things in common—including the fact they both have a direct impact on global health. Peggy says accuracy is important in both, as medical errors can cost human life. She also explains that technology is being used to improve accuracy and reduce errors, and data analytics are also important in both fields.

Peggy talks with John Pletz, senior reporter, Crain's Chicago Business, who says agriculture in Illinois is going more high-tech—from the startups to the big players. He explains that it is undergoing quite a transformation and identifies some of the key players in agriculture, talking about sensors and the IoT (Internet of Things) on farming equipment. He adds that agriculture is a huge part of r...

Peggy chats with James Schnable, assistant professor, Dept. of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who says the way he would measure anything about plants in the past would be to send students to the field. Now, this can be done in an automated fashion, which is a lot better than sending grad students out there, he explains. Having historical data from drones is going to be...

Peggy says blockchain is a continuously growing list of linked, secured records called blocks that contain transactional data, and it can benefit agriculture in several ways including traceability and supply-chain visibility. She talks about the first agricultural commodity trade using a blockchain platform, explaining it was used to execute a soybean shipment transaction and that the blockchain p...

Peggy recaps today's show and talk about how technology has come a long way and how it will allow the next-generation to make decisions, reduce labor, increase margins, and improve implementation of all vertical markets, helping the global economy.

Peggy chats with Karen Panetta, IEEE fellow and dean of graduate engineering education, Tufts University, who says IoT technology is instrumental in the agriculture field throughout the entire lifecycle. Technology such as machine learning and AI makes farmers smarter and gives them insight they have not had access to in the past. Karen also talks about women in the STEM program and her NerdGirls...

Peggy says that as a society we need to find a way to produce more food. IoT (Internet of Things) technology is playing a huge role in farming and will help us meet the current challenge of food production. She talks about AI (artificial intelligence) growth in the agriculture space, how machine learning is being used to improve crop yield and quality, and how robots can perform tasks that farmers...

Peggy shares the story of Felix Musau, who decided to combine the accessibility of mobile phones and the power of the cloud to develop Agin. Peggy explains it helps rural farmers collect data around their farms with mobile phones. She says Felix isn't just creating a solution to help solve business problems—he is creating a solution that is going to help solve hunger and poverty. She encourages ot...

Peggy says achieving an increase in food production is challenging for a number of reasons including receding water levels, climate change, and a shrinking amount of land. She explains that in general data-driven techniques can help boost agriculture productivity by increasing yields, reducing losses, and cutting down input costs. However, these techniques have seen low adoption because of the hig...

Peggy says Microsoft has a unique focus on precision agriculture and edge intelligence solutions—and it also has a commitment to sustainability. She explains that there is a current challenge of water scarcity, with ag using 70% of the world's available fresh water. She points to the example of a farmer in New Zealand who uses an industrial IoT solution to monitor and manage his farm's irrigation...

Peggy chats with Joshua Peschel, assistant professor of agriculture and biosystems engineering, Iowa State University, who says digital agriculture is the injection of tools and technologies that will optimize and advance actual on-farm production and the decision making behind that. With that, cows and corn are no longer the only commodities that come off the farm—data also comes off the farm. He...

Peggy welcomes Sam Eathington, chief science officer of Monsanto and The Climate Corp., to the show. He says today farming is all about data and how you take that data and turn it into an actionable insight. Having grown up on a farm, he says there is lots of different data, but it is hard to use that data. One of the challenges growing up on the farm is every field is different. He explains that...

Peggy says tech investment in agriculture isn't new, but there are still adoption hurdles that need to be ironed out. During the last few years in particular, discussions about climate change have really put pressure on the agriculture space to find ways to better monitor their use of resources. She talks about sensors, remote monitoring, and irrigation systems and points to an example of how sens...

Peggy chats with Phil Renaud, executive director, The Risk Institute, Ohio State University, who says 90% of drivers in the 19-24-year-old bracket agree they have sped, run a red light, or texted while driving. He adds that how roads are designed can have a significant dent here. For instance, towns in Ohio are putting more roundabouts that move traffic around and slows traffic down to make people...