The Georgian Impact Podcast | AI, ML & More

Not all that long ago, bounty hunters were burly guys who apprehended fugitives using brute force in exchange for a reward or "bounty." And while those types of bounty hunters still exist, these days the vast majority of them are hackers looking for bugs. In this episode of the Impact Podcast, Jon Prial talks with Katie Moussouris, a highly regarded computer security researcher who's best known fo...

In 2007, a cyber attack rocked Estonia, affecting parliament, banks, and media outlets. It was an event that cast a spotlight on cyber security and that also gave rise to a number of new businesses. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Lee Cocking, the SVP Products at Guardtime, an industrial blockchain platform that’s being used to power digital transformation. In a fascinating discussion, they...

Every once in a while, a trend comes along that changes everything. That's certainly true in technology. Just look at cloud, mobile, and big data. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Justin LaFayette, the co-founder of Georgian Partners, about four foundational trends that are poised to have a major impact on every software company: applied analytics, applied artificial intelligence, messaging f...

AI-powered chatbots are becoming increasingly pervasive. As they become more and more sophisticated, they’re starting to provide real value by making our lives easier. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Erik Kalviainen, the co-founder of Meya, a company that helps businesses build and host bots. Find out more about the tremendous opportunity that bots represent and learn some of the tricks to g...

Security first cuts across all areas of software companies, including development, technology, human resources, culture, marketing, hiring and the C-Suite. It's not about building a bigger security wall, but rather fundamentally changing the way your business operates. In this episode, Ben Wilde interviews Yevgeniy Vahlis, Georgian Partners' new Director Security First. Together they do a deep div...

Conversational interfaces, chatbots and natural language processing are all integral parts of what we like to call messaging for business. In this episode, Ben Wilde interviews Georgian Partners' Jason Brenier, a new member of the firm's Impact Team with deep expertise in instant messaging and conversational agents. You'll hear about: -What’s driving the adoption of conversational interfaces (1:12...

At Georgian Partners, we usually talk about tech trends that impact the software industry. But in many cases, those trends are also having a major impact elsewhere. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Kyle McNamara, EVP and co-head of Technology at Scotiabank, along with Dubie Cunningham, the VP of Innovation. Together, they discuss some of the major trends impacting the financial services indus...

The costs of data breaches are rising quickly. Just look at the recently disclosed 2014 data breach at Yahoo that's now threatening to derail Verizon's acquisition of the internet company. There's no doubt security is hard, but many organizations overlook the basics of getting security right. One of those is the importance of culture in leading an organisation toward better security. At Georgian P...

At Georgian Partners’ recent annual portfolio conference, Jason Brenier hosted a panel discussion with a variety of experts representing the full range of the conversational business stack. In this episode, Jon Prial brings you highlights from that discussion. You’ll hear from Andy Mauro, the CEO of chatbot building platform Automat; from Joe Rideout, Product Manager of Expression at messaging pla...

Have you every said "please" or "thank you" to a bot, even when you knew there wasn't a person at the other end? In this episode, Jon Prial interviews Dennis R. Mortensen, the CEO of x.ai, a company that has used artificial intelligence to develop Amy and Andrew, two AI-powered bots that will manage your calendar for you. The thing is that they're so good at it, and so completely convincing, that...

Machine learning is everywhere. It’s a basic foundation for artificial intelligence, it’s driving a fundamental change in the way that programmers approach their work, and it’s so ubiquitous and good, that we often don’t even know when it’s around. In this episode, we share a presentation from Inmar Givoni, director of machine learning at Kindred.ai, in which she shares her insights on the future...

Did you know that more people use and interact with messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Snapchat than they do with social media apps? The question is why are messaging apps so important and how did they get that way? And what opportunities do they present? In this episode of the Impact Podcast, Joe Rideout, product manager at Kik, a messaging app with over 300 million users, answers those questi...

Want to know what the million-dollar question is that everyone in tech is trying to answer right now? It’s how do you use artificial intelligence to solve actual business problems. We’ve brought together a panel of experts, including Urs Muller of NVIDIA, Mohamed Musbah, VP of Product at Maluuba, Laura Jackson, a data scientist at PrecisionLender, and our own Chief Analytics Officer, Chris Matys,...

When you think about artificial intelligence, you may not immediately think of banks. But a growing number of fintech companies are turning to AI to help them better serve their customers. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Carl Ryden, the CEO and Co-Founder of PrecisionLender, as well as with George Neal, the company’s Chief Analytics Officer. They discuss how the company created Andi, a power...

When it comes to security, we’re living in interesting times. Nation states are playing roles we’ve never seen before, or at least been privy to. And more and more large-scale ransomware attacks and breaches are taking place, while executives are losing their job because of cyber security issues. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Ed Amoroso, AT&T’s former chief security officer and a true...

Machine learning is being deployed everywhere, and it's fueling today's artificial intelligence revolution. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Parinaz Sobhani, Georgian Partners' new Director of Machine Learning. A Ph. D. candidate in artificial intelligence at the University of Ottawa, Parinaz explains machine learning and highlights some of the latest thinking about where this exciting techno...

Gary McGraw is the Vice President of Security Technology at Synopsys, the best-selling author of "Software Security" and 11 other books, and the man behind the Silver Bullet Security Podcast. In this episode, Ben Wilde interviews him about everything from the BSIMM and OWASP Top 10 to software security best practices and how to get companies to start thinking about security early and often. https:...

Face-to-face communication is increasingly being supplanted by messaging that's typically much shorter in nature and often happens without any context. For the machines given the task of trying to interpret those messages, this is often a lot easier said than done. In this episode of the Impact Podcast, Jon Prial talks with Saif Mohammed from the National Research Council in Canada about speech an...

When the US House of Representatives passed a controversial law about Internet privacy earlier this year, several news outlets published security advice suggesting that you should use the Tor network or a commercial virtual private network (VPN) to protect yourself. Both of those suggestions turned out to bad ideas. In this episode, Ben Wilde talks with Dan Guido, the founder of a New York-based s...

It's no secret that Asia is leading the world in messaging with platforms like WeChat and Line. Yet when it comes to security, it's a bit of a different story. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Cédric Jeannot, a cryptography and security expert, and the founder and CEO of APrivacy, a company that provides the banking industry with information security and tracking services.

Small businesses need to be able to communicate efficiently with their customers. Increasingly, however, those customers don't want to be called or emailed, and they certainly can't be bothered to download and use a custom app. The solution is to reach them where they already are through text messages and messaging platforms. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Doug Marinaro, the CEO of Riptide,...

We live in a digital world where companies like Facebook and Google have a lot of data about who you are and what you like. Meanwhile large enterprises such as banks, insurance companies and retailers also have their fair share of data about you. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Steve Irvine. Until recently, Steve was Facebook's Global Head of Partner Programs, but he has since gone on to fou...

Apple made headlines in 2016 when it started talking about differential privacy. But what exactly is it? And what opportunities can it create for your business to aggregate and share your customers' data to get better results without compromising their privacy? In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Yevgeniy Vahlis, Georgian Partners' Director of Security First, to get a primer on differential priv...

In this episode, Jon Prial continues his conversation about differential privacy with Yevgeniy Vahlis, Georgian Partners' Director of Security First. Find out more about how differential privacy works as Yevgeniy explains it using simple, every day examples. He then goes on to describe why differential privacy isn't just for the likes of Google and Apple, but rather something that most companies s...

People have been talking to each other for millennia. But we've only been talking to machines for a very short time. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Nandini Stocker, former Head of Conversational Design Advocacy and Partnerships at Google. Find out about voice user interfaces (VUIs) are evolving to help businesses create better experiences for their customers.