Innovation Heroes

Co-founded in 2009, Nanoramic Laboratories developed the groundbreaking Neocarbonix electrode technology that is transforming the future of li-ion energy storage. Ed sits down with Nanoramic’s co-founder and Chief of Products, John Cooley, to find out how he and his team are creating more efficient and more powerful li-ion batteries to help solve today’s most pressing challenges related to energy...

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Commodore 64 – an 8-bit home computer released in 1982 that sold close to 17 million units by the time it was discontinued in 1994. The history of the Commodore 64 is intrinsically linked to the developers of this technology who helped to revolutionize the gaming industry. Ed sits down with Professor of Digital Media Heritage, Melanie Swalwell, to discus...

Knightscope Inc. is a global leader in developing autonomous security capabilities – and they’re right on track to disrupt the $500 billion security industry. Ed meets with Knightscope’s chairman and CEO, William Santana Li, to find out how his company plans on fighting crime and keeping citizens safe 365 days of the year with AI-powered robots.     Featuring guest William Santana Li, Chairman and...

There is not a single person or business who hasn’t been impacted by the supply chain crisis. And while the pandemic may have exacerbated it, questions remain: what are some of the root causes of supply chain issues? And how we can begin to solve them? Ed meets with Sunny Han, founder and CEO of ERP platform Fulcrum, to get the ins and outs of how the supply chain works, and how Sunny’s business i...

A champion for helping brands to thrive in the 21st century – and in the wake of a global pandemic that saw thousands of brick-and-mortar retailers shut down for months – Grant Barth helps brands to develop the creative strategies and solutions needed to create engagement, build brand equity and increase shareholder value.  Ed meets with Grant to discuss his groundbreaking “theatre methodology” an...

It’s hard work out there for the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) – but someone has to do it. For Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Ed invites back Michael Wilcox, Vice President of the Office of the CISO at Stratscale, to learn about the benefits and barriers to hiring a top-level security leader. Together, they unpack why it’s so hard to find and keep a good CISO, outline solutions to enha...

Welcome back to season four of Innovation Heroes! In this episode, Ed unpacks the challenges posed by a growing labor shortage with one of his all-time favorite guests, Stacey Shulman, Intel’s Vice President of Health, Education and Consumer Industries. Stacey explains how transformational businesses need to start leveraging technology to hyperautomate the repetitive tasks that get in the way of m...

We're back! Ed McNamara returns to host the fourth season of Innovation Heroes – a chart-topping podcast brought to you by SHI, one of the world’s biggest technology solutions providers. Starting October 6, 2022, we'll introduce you to 10 more unsung heroes radically changing the way we live and work. From C-Suite executives to startup visionaries, our guests will give you the advice and inspirati...

Blockchain is generating lots of hype as the future of enterprise technology. But, like the dot-com boom before it, the promise is so extravagant that some of us are feeling skeptical – and maybe just a tad confused. Medha Parlikar, CTO and Co-Founder at CasperLabs, takes us beyond the buzz to explore the true potential of blockchain in the enterprise, and the real, practical concerns facing busin...

It’s easy to forget that most of us have amazing technology at our fingertips at nearly all times: our smartphones. Whether you use your phone to listen to this very podcast, to stay connected, or for entertainment, there’s huge potential that still stands to be unlocked in these devices. For instance, with the right motivation driving us forward, we can use them to start fixing our broken, out-of...

The future of creative innovation is changing – rapidly. In our new hybrid world, we need to be thinking about how to integrate digital and physical experiences effectively, as well as what customers actually want today, and in the future, too. These are some of the big questions that AREA 15 is trying to solve – and judging from the rave reviews they’ve been getting, it’s safe to say that they’re...

It's a new year, but we’re still facing a lot of our old 2021 problems: the global climate is changing fast, we continue to run low on chips thanks to supply chain shortages, and the population of the planet continues to boom, making for more hungry mouths to feed. It might just be time to look to the stars for some solutions – and by the stars, we mean low-cost, on-demand, designed-to-fly-daily r...

The Internet can be a hotbed for some of the worst aspects of digital society, but there’s lessons to be learned from the data we create in these unsavoury interactions. Network Visualization is an advanced analytic technique that can be used to turn the vast, intimidating mountain of our social data into stunning pictures of online communities. This kind of analysis can help us do a better job of...

The team running Rutgers University’s supercomputer cluster has been busier than ever since the start of the pandemic. Today, they’re supporting the advanced computing needs for over 350 projects for hundreds of users all around the globe. From Dentistry to Astronomy, the work they support is truly changing the world – and sheds light on the real potential of today’s most powerful computing machin...

It’s American Thanksgiving tomorrow... a time to reflect on everything that’s happened in the last year. For the Innovation Heroes podcast team, that means thinking about the semiconductor shortage that’s been generating headlines – and with good reason. These little chips are in pretty much every electronic device you can think of, and there’s just not enough of them to go around. But COVID-19 is...

Hitchhiking robots were just the beginning. Ed meets with Dr. Frauke Zeller and Lauren Dwyer, two leading social robotics scientists at X University in Toronto. Together, they go over the inspiring and viral story of hitchBot and all the amazing work Dr. Zeller and her team have been up to ever since. They discuss the latest and near-term use cases of robots in society and uncover a series of fasc...

Intel’s Stacey Shulman returns to talk about the one thing every innovation hero needs right now: More passion! After more than a year of the pandemic blues, Stacey talks with Ed about the projects she’s working on and explores the power of making tech more fun, meaningful, and human. From healthcare to retail, not only will it lead to better outcomes for the people you work with – it actually cre...

It’s the spookiest time of the year – Cybersecurity Awareness Month! For the Season 3 premier, host Ed McNamara explores the rising threat of ransomware supply chain attacks, the future of security and what conversations you need to be having, right now, to avoid being the next target. Featuring resident security expert, Michael Wilcox, the field Chief Information Security Officer at Stratascale. ...

SHI's Innovation Heroes is back for a third season of exploring the people and businesses giving us hope in a drastically disrupted world. With new host Ed McNamara at the helm, we’re breaking ground - and stories - in even more unprecedented ways. In the last year of the show, we’ve explored huge innovations that are helping us to stay afloat and start down the road to recovery: technology to tra...

Peter is joined by Costa Kladianos. Costa is the Vice President, Innovation and Technology at Canlan Sports and an expert on NFTs (Non-fungible tokens). NFTs have been causing a buzz in mainstream media recently. Peter and Costa discuss how they are fundamentally transforming the Internet in terms of creative ownership and distribution, from art to baseball cards and music. Are NFTs just for the a...

On this episode of Innovation Heroes, Peter is joined by Omar Elawi of Tiny Mile Robotics, a company in Canada that is making robots mainstream with what they dub “Canada’s cutest delivery robot”, Geoffrey. They discuss real life use cases of robotics, both in present day and looking to the future. Plus, we go on a journey exploring the wide and wonderful world of robots across industries and use...

The concept of AI we are fed through pop culture makes it out to be something far more mystical than reality — but that’s not to say there isn’t lots of magic going on. In this episode, Peter sits down with Sr. Director, Global Head of Developer Programs at NVIDIA Will Ramey to debunk some of the myths surrounding AI and deep learning technologies, and explore the current and future applications o...

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated workplace modernization. Unfortunately, it has also left businesses exposed to more cybersecurity risk than ever. During the first three months of the pandemic, the FBI reported cyber attacks had quadrupled. On today’s episode, Peter sits down with Michael Wilcox, Stratascale’s Field Chief Information Security Officer. They discuss the increased importance of good...

In today’s episode, Peter is joined by Sonny Hudson, Collaboration Specialist of Partners at Cisco to discuss the ground-breaking work being done on the new Cisco Webex and how it’s changing the way we interact with each other and our work. Plus, Peter meets up with two linguistics professors from Rutgers University to find out how artificial intelligence is being used to help machines “talk” — an...

Peter is joined by Microsoft's Director of Mixed Reality Strategic Partnerships, Eric Kamont, one of the first people Microsoft hired to run business development on the HoloLens headset and platform six years ago. Since then, mixed reality has advanced leaps and bounds and today there is no shortage of powerful new use cases as we grapple with the pandemic. Discover how MR is becoming a key tool a...