The Big Tech Show

This week, Adrian looks at some of the nuts and bolts of starting a company with a couple of entrepreneurs who have succeeded and failed several times. From choosing a place to work to asking for money from friends and family, Adrian gets the insights from Voxgig and Nearform founder Richard Rodger and serial startup activist Dave Cunningham. For more from the Big Tech show you can visit the show...

This week on the Big Tech Show, Adrian Weckler looks at 5G not from the point of view of speed or connectivity but health. It’s been an issue bubbling under, in rural areas especially, as to whether mobile phone radiation is safe. The regulators say it is but there are some campaigners who don't believe that is so. Are they mere conspiracy theorists or is there more to it? To find out, Adrian spok...

This week, Adrian sits down with a specialist from St John Of Gods, Professor Colin O’Gara, who says he is seeing more and more people brought in for addiction to video games. Adrian asks Prof O’Gara about the scale and depth of the problem, its effects and how to diagnose it. The two also discuss possible treatments for the problem, including the kinds of medication prescribed. And Adrian asks Pr...

This week, Adrian tackles the thorny issue of mobile and broadband operators which advertise "unlimited" services that actually have hidden limits. He sits down with the head of the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI), Orla Twomey, to ask why that organisation allows such a misleading situation to exist. Orla tells Adrian that while the situation is being reviewed, there is a ration...

This week, Adrian sits down to find out what, if any, big ideas Dell Ireland's new country manager has. Mark Hopkins starts off defending some industry jargon before expanding into why he thinks tech will have a bigger impact on our education system. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Adrian sits down for a long, in-depth discussion with Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon on why she stopped the government from making its Public Services Card into a national identity card through the backdoor. After years of controversy, this week her office ruled that the PSC card cannot be used as a necessary form of identification for services outside the Department of Employ...

After October 31st, will pensioners still be able to travel on a free pass around Ireland? Will online shops based in the UK be able to process customer information from Irish shoppers? It’s in serious doubt, says the guest on this week’s podcast, Castlebridge’s Dr Katherine O’Keeffe, an expert on data privacy. Adrian and Katherine go deep on why a no-deal Brexit spells chaos for many ordinary act...

This week, Adrian sits down with Cillian Kieran, who recently scooped €3.8m in seed funding for his privacy-focused software startup called Ethyca. The two discuss possible solutions to today’s privacy problems. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Eir debate Eir's audacious €1bn proposal for an alternative National Broadband Plan stirred up a nest of debate and dissent in recent weeks. One of the senior political figures who backs Eir is Timmy Dooley, Fianna Fail spokesman on Communications, Climate Action and Environment. He sat down with Adrian to explain why he thinks it's worth taking a risk on an Eir proposal and what he would do a...

The fad of the week is FaceApp, which makes even the most cherubic youngster look like Gandalf. But we really helping ‘The Russians’ compile a giant facial database? Or is the current hysteria just this month’s instalment of the neverending moral panic around tech? Adrian Weckler and Fearghal O’Connor (deputy business editor for The Sunday Independent) discuss the issue from a political and techno...

Women in Tech is a new podcast series presented by Samantha McCaughren, Business Editor of the Sunday Independent. Samantha speaks to Irish women involved in tech who are dispelling myths and breaking down barriers. On this week's bonus episode, she meets Jennifer Cox, who is a CSM Associate Security Engineer with Tenable, an international cyber security company. With a background in theatre and m...

This week Adrian talks to Justin McLeod, the founder and chief executive of the dating app Hinge, which claims to be the fastest-growing such app in Ireland and the UK. As well as recounting his own dramatic love, McLeod talks about algorithms, safety, age verification and what works best for those using dating apps. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Women in Tech is a four-part series presented by Samantha McCaughren, Business Editor of the Sunday Independent. Samantha speaks to Irish women involved in tech who are dispelling myths and breaking down barriers. On this week's episode, she meets Iseult Ward, co-founder of Foodcloud, the food waste distribution platform, that in just seven years has already distributed 22,000 tonnes of food, movi...

Hailo was a roaring success. Then, two years ago, it became MyTaxi. Since that happened, the company has had its struggles. Now, it’s rebranding yet again in a €3m move – to ‘Free Now’. Adrian Weckler has a candid chat with the company’s general manager, Alan Fox, about why the name change was necessary and whether technology can improve some of the issues the firm has faced. They also talk about...

Women in Tech is a four-part series presented by Samantha McCaughren, Business Editor of the Sunday Independent. Samantha speaks to Irish women involved in tech who are dispelling myths and breaking down barriers. On this week's episode, she meets Ingrid Devin, Director of Dell's Women's Entrepreneur Network which creates a forum for global women founders and CEOs to share best practices, build bu...

Women in Tech is a four-part series presented by Samantha McCaughren, Business Editor of the Sunday Independent. Samantha speaks to Irish women involved in tech who are dispelling myths and breaking down barriers. On this week's episode, she meets Vanessa Tierney, founder and CEO of Abodoo, the remote working platform that is seeking to empower and enable more remote working for people in Ireland...

Is AIB considering facial recognition for when you walk into a branch? Adrian sits down for a wide-ranging chat with the CIO of Ireland’s biggest bank about its imminent plans. Tim Hynes also assesses the risk from ‘challenger’ banks such as Revolut, while asserting that AIB’s 200 physical branches still “wash their face”, even in an era where so many payments are going cashless. And the two talk...

This week, Adrian’s guest is Fianna Fail’s spokesman for science, technology and research, Kildare North TD James Lawless. In a wide-ranging discussion, Adrian challenges James over Irish politicians’ apparent disconnection from tech issues which, at times, veers into illiteracy. From demanding passports for Facebook access to dithering over broadband rollouts, Adrian goes over some of the reasons...

Women in Tech is a new four-part series presented by Samantha McCaughren, Business Editor of the Sunday Independent. In the series, Samantha speaks to Irish women involved in tech who are dispelling myths and breaking down barriers. On this first episode, Samantha is joined by Regina Moran, Enterprise Director with Vodafone Ireland, who, as an engineer by background, has always been involved in th...

Adrian spent a week in China getting a look under the hood of Huawei, the world’s most controversial tech company. He discusses his experience here with two INM acolytes, Sunday Independent deputy business editor Fearghal O’Connor and Sunday Independent business correspondent Michael Cogley. He recounts how: - He ended up singing with a band in a Chinese bar only to discover the guitarist was a se...

This week Adrian is joined by Independent News & Media (INM) head of product (and business columnist) Steve Dempsey and INM chief commercial development officer Mark Coan. The subject matter is the current and future prospects of the Irish media. 2019 has so far seen multiple Irish media companies announce layoffs. What does the future hold? Can paywall subscriptions turn traditional titles’ fortu...

This week, Adrian is joined by data privacy expert Daragh O’Brien and child protection campaigner Alex Cooney of CyberSafeIreland. The three discuss the reappointment of Helen Dixon as Ireland’s data protection commissioner to a second five-year term. They also look at why, a year after the digital age of consent was raised from 13 to 16, it is no harder for children to access social media service...

Zander Lurie is the boss of the world’s biggest online survey company. The Nasdaq-listed firm has over 17m users and is expanding all over the world. Lurie reflects on the process by which he became SurveyMonkey CEO after the tragic passing in 2015 of his friend Dave Goldberg, husband of Sheryl Sandberg and former chief executive of SurveyMonkey. “The hairs still stand on the back of my neck, thin...

This week, Adrian sits down with Richard Bruton, the government Communications minister at the centre of the state’s €5bn plan to run subsidised fibre broadband to every one of 540,000 rural homes and businesses in the country. He establishes for the first time that the value of the finished rural broadband network will only be a fraction of the €3bn the state is subsidising. Diving deep into some...

While attention rests on the National Broadband Plan, eir still holds the keys to many of Ireland’s biggest telecoms problems. This week, Adrian sits down with company chief executive Carolan Lennon to ask some of the key questions. On the National Broadband Plan, Adrian asks whether Lennon whether knowing that eir would collect close to €1bn from rental of its poles to the National Broadband Plan...