Selected - The Sesamers Podcast

Highlights From Bus Driver to Blogger: A Unique Career Path Liam's journey into the tech world is nothing short of fascinating. Starting in LA as a bus driver to pay for college tuition, he ventured into the world of startups after moving to France and starting a blog about the local startup scene. His journey began in 2011, and as he recalls, "I started a blog as a creative outlet," choosing the...

Highlights Unexpected Beginnings The first of its kind: a social platform taking NSFW content to a whole new level, was originally conceived in entirely humble beginnings. Cindy shares how she didn't initially set out to create a business like MakeLoveNotPorn (MLNP). As a woman who dates younger men, over time she began to realize a common theme: people find it difficult to talk openly about sex a...

Highlights From Artists to Activists: The Birth of Unio Back in 2002, in a time before MySpace was consumed by Facebook and the ensuing social media revolution, Martin and his co-founder started an online community for professional artists. The platform was intended to connect artists not only among themselves, but also with the outer world. Over the years, there was an organic growth in the commu...

Highlights SaaStock: The Upcoming Event That's Making Waves SaaStock, the crown jewel of SaaS conferences, takes center stage in this episode. Alex Theuma sheds light on this year's event, taking place October 16th to 18th in Dublin. With the event's history dating back seven years, SaaStock has since established itself as one of Europe's premiere conferences for SaaS founders and their teams. It'...

Highlights The Birth of Probabl: FDDay Unveiling FDDay served as the grand stage for Yann to unveil his brainchild, Probabl, along with a number of undisclosed cofounders. As co-founding CEO, he's embarking on a journey to tackle the daunting challenge of machine learning at scale. But what sets Probabl apart is its commitment to open-source solutions. It's not just about building AI; it's about m...

Highlights: Weathering the Storm: Navigating Event Challenges in 2020 and Beyond One of the standout aspects of our conversation was how TechBBQ successfully navigated the turbulent waters of 2020, a year that saw the event industry severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sam's insights into this journey were enlightening. TechBBQ, despite the odds, managed to not only survive but thrive durin...

Highlights: Innovation in Experimentation: The birth of Notpla The concept was born out of a challenge that Pierre and his business partner, Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, encountered during their Masters studies in Innovation Design Engineering at Imperial College London. The innovation was discovered by chance, through trying to create a man-made fruit. The result was a revolutionary idea - a startup...

Now in his role at the helm of Agua de Sol , we had the opportunity to catch up with him during VivaTech 2023.  Highlights 1. Pursuing impact through startups In our talk, Luc confronts the reality of a future in which we face the dreaded day-zero: a world of water scarcity. After understanding the potential of Agua de Sol's technology in preventing such a dystopian future, he decided to join the...

Highlights: 1. The birth of Bioharmonize Elizabeth opens up about the personal health journey that led her to co-found Bioharmonize , an invite-only community of global leaders, cross-pollinating novel emerging technologies in health, art and music. She shares how her experience of a health crisis, undiagnosed by traditional medical approaches, inspired her to find new ways of understanding and ad...

As a former NASA Deputy Administrator, Dava Newman has extensive expertise in aerospace biomedical engineering, particularly in areas such as human performance in different gravity environments, spacesuit design, and navigation aids for astronauts during spacewalks. These days, as director of the MIT Media Lab , she finds herself in an entirely different domain: a melting-pot with a multi-inter-tr...

Main takeaways: 1. The Genesis of Neobe Therapeutics: Pedro co-founded Neobe Therapeutics with the aim of addressing a significant issue in the pharmaceutical industry: drug resistance in cancer treatment. Approximately 20% of cancer patients don't respond to immunotherapies, which are drugs that activate an immune response against cancer. And that is the problem Pedro & his team are trying to sol...

Main takeaways: 1. The role of green hydrogen in combating climate change: Vaitea Cowan emphasized the importance of green hydrogen in the battle against climate change. Unlike grey hydrogen, green hydrogen is produced using renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power, resulting in fewer greenhouse gas emissions. This sustainable energy source has the potential to play a significant role...

Main takeaways: 1. Definition of deep tech: deep tech is characterized by high levels of research and development and unique intellectual property (IP). Arnaud explains that deep tech is not simply a mobile app connecting users but rather an advanced technology that requires significant time and effort to develop. These technologies can be digital, physical, or biological, and are often IP-intensi...

Having worked at the World Economic Forum for fifteen years, John focused on creative communities of impact for young leaders and social entrepreneurs. Young Global Leaders , YGL, is a community of change-makers under forty and global shapers in their twenties from across a wide range of society. They range from CEOs to journalists, academics to entrepreneurs. The Schwab Foundation for entrepreneu...

Dragana was a finalist last year, in the annual digital Summit in Valencia. Beyond social media, it's extremely important to be physically present within the ecosystem at events like Slush . Fauna Smart Technologies is using different technologies in a smart way to empower fauna, biodiversity, and genetic diversity. Consisting of a team of 12 people, 8 of them having PHDs, they are focused on insp...

Towards the end of his studies, Lorrain worked first with MTV management, Unplugged Sessions , and the European Music Awards . Jägermeister decided to set up a CVC three years ago, now called Best Nights VC , and Lorrain has joined in the pursuit of focusing on investments and consumer tech that goes beyond just the product. A 6-person team based in Berlin, with open doors for open minds. We have...

Epidemic Sound is his 6th company as an adult with a red thread through his previous ventures of storytelling. There were issues with how musicians constantly lost the battle with royalties and creative rights and the issue with being able to use music in media without copyright or legal strikes. I don’t like being part of a discourse which idolizes launching many companies. It’s a badge of honor...

During Media day at Slush , Elena and other journalists were able to see innovative companies like Biotech startup Onego , and sustainability startup Spinnova . I am the CEO of Dataconomy but the Founder of the Data Natives conference. Dataconomy, a media platform focusing on data science, machine learning, and AI, has an interesting history because originally it was part of a company builder whic...

With a background in engineering, working for companies like General Motors and Bosch , Stephen moved to Helsinki to get his MBA at the Helsinki School of Economics . Why San Francisco ? Our CEO worked at Nokia in San Francisco and wanted to bring that spirit of communications back to Finland. Where marketing is getting what you say about yourself out there, PR is about getting other people to tal...

You don't sell, you create the environment for people to buy. When something very new comes along, you have to go through phases of a shock absorber, a bridge, and a springboard. We work with many French Founders like Nicolas Julia at Sorare , a company focused on NFT-backed football collector's cards. Look at Steve Jobs' keynote speech for the iPad here . There's so much to learn from that about...

We should stop there Everybody is busy Alexandre is going for the father of the year award No sleep 'till Paris Blisce The world has changed. How can you back the right entrepreneurs? We have been accepting the unacceptable We are voting every day. With our credit card Take my money, I'll go get the change jar Some guy named Milton 20% of profits are carried forward to Epic Epic Foundation What's...

A dream of Stewart's for 23 weeks Dataconomy A week-long event Berlin is opening up. With different rule changes every week Prince What the hell is the Badass Empire ? I like pretty pictures. Nice font Juicing When I'm gonna experience something, I experience "Beer is proof that God wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin Stewart's outlook on the state of events No feedback Who were the winners...

"America. Land of the free, home of the wtf?" Don't it make my brown eyes blue Fame is a choice "We don't do any edits here" Julia Vogl Emma learned French. And a bunch of other things I haven't charged these batteries in 18 months The Jackson 5 corp? Cut The Limitless 5G Duet A message from Mom Is there still a place in the world for creatives? Let's spar Universal Credit The 5Gs : Get it, Got it...

Your message aimed at a highly targeted audience. Let's talk. dan@selected.sesamers.com Topics Discussed: Q5 2020 26 years. THAT is impressive Hirsch Tailoring The Rave Cave Tenor sax. Because playing jazz is just cooler Net-zero Amadeus Captial Partners Part-time VC, I recommend it Deeptech focused? Under the table texting and I got a qubit here What is later stage investment? What is holding Eur...

Your message aimed at a highly targeted audience. Let's talk. dan@selected.sesamers.com Topics Discussed: Monty's boy is all grown up Monty's all backed up The MOST colourful opening we've ever had Sending the son an invoice Switzerland man, not Miami Breaking into Bollywood Where the demeanour comes from You look at the tree, of course Taught to speak in Punjabi The blooper reel Monty's advice on...