Finding Genius Podcast

Samantha Monk, director of AI at Meltwater (meltwater.com), an online media monitoring company, leads an informative discussion on the power of media monitoring. From news to social media, Meltwater monitors nearly everything that is relevant for their 28,000 clients worldwide. Meltwater utilizes AI to search billions of documents in real time, tracking impact and sentiment analysis to give businesses greater insight into their competitors, and a deeper knowledge of their industry in general. For as Meltwater sees it, a broad understanding of competition within a specific industry can lift a company into an advantageous position. Of particular interest to Monk currently is Meltwater's newest product, Outside Insight. Outside Insight is an online resource created to assist executives and decision makers, business minds and investors as they reposition themselves into an emerging digital world. By using machine learning, Meltwater's data scientists can scour enormous data sets to spot trends and signals that could be extremely important for clients to be aware of and respond to. From tracking competitor growth, earnings reports, to potential supplier difficulties, their platform can help companies and businesses move forward while circumnavigating potential roadblocks and impediments to growth and success. The media expert details some of Meltwater's recent successes, such as their monitoring of the relationship between news and social media sentiments regarding cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency pricing. By using their internal models and studying investor outlook and various sources of media coverage, Monk states that Meltwater was able to calculate a 12-hour forecast of pricing, with only a very small margin of error. Monk expects to release these types of investor-oriented products for individuals and the banking and financial sector in the coming months and years. The AI director states that powerful insight and forecasting is possible due to a combination of three important aspects which are as follows: computing power is significantly greater and growing, AI is advancing, and the sheer volume of data that companies are leaving online is increasing. She details how the insightful information gathered can be pushed to clients via traditional reporting methods, apps, or dashboard tools, whatever works for a client's particular needs. And while the local mom and pop doughnut shop may not find the data useful, most businesses are dropping a significant amount of data online; thus many companies and businesses will certainly be able to put Meltwater's data to use, to help advance their growth and avoid potential problems. And by cross referencing external data with their own internal data and feedback, companies and businesses can more easily find their way, on a path to efficiency and success.

Gabe Batstone is the co-founder and CEO of contextere, a software company that solves industry-oriented problems by providing answers, improvement strategies, and optimization via AI powered solutions that focus on human performance. The multifold strategy underlying contextere's advances for business involves increasing value for industry through an escalation in productivity and improved safety, while subsequently reducing any equipment downtime. By integrating data analytics, machine learning, augmented reality, and wearable devices, contextere seeks to improve workflow and increase efficiency. Batstone holds a bachelor of applied arts specializing in geographic information systems from Ryerson University, Toronto and a masters in business administration from the University of Baltimore. Additionally he has completed postgraduate studies at the United Nations Institute for Training & Research, Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago. He has over twenty years experience in the field of emerging technology in a variety of areas. Batstone's company's innovation is vital to the industrial workforce involved with the installation, repair, and maintenance of complex equipment. From steel to aerospace, to oil and gas, and smart cities, etc., contextere seeks to make broad and sweeping improvements that will assist industry and aid its workers. As Batstone states, enabling human workers to have digital conversations with complex equipment will assist in their efficiency in the repair and maintenance process. Batstone hopes to see a shift in information delivery. As he discusses, technology tends to reside in the data centers, front offices, and corporate environments, but the intelligence and information from technological data needs to be integrated deeply into the areas where industrial workers are actually able to access it. The industry innovation CEO discusses the challenges with generational learning differences, for example, as baby boomers may choose to learn by actually reading manuals and textbooks, millennial workers tend to prefer augmented reality, digital, and visual-based learning approaches. Bridging the gaps in learning is often an important part of the equation for industry success. The contextere CEO explains their goal of providing personal agents to workers that will give them real-time insights as they conduct their daily tasks on the job. Through digital data and alerts, the AI can assist in offering maintenance solutions based on past successes and failures, safety alerts, and so forth, thus keeping the worker more informed and safer, while increasing overall efficiency exponentially. As Batstone explains, computers are excellent at providing information, but it is still humans that are far superior regarding judgment, in regard to making that assessment on what should be done and how. Batstone details how industry assistance solutions via AI are literally as simple as mobile texting the insightful information to workers to aid them in their tasks. While the future may bring augmented reality glasses and more science-fiction, futuristic looking environments, the current task is to deliver insights from the AI to the workers, to capitalize on efficiency, markedly improve safety, and improve job satisfaction as well. Through cultural transformation, Batstone's company works to advance business systems and processes as technology evolves.

NEM is the world's first Smart Asset blockchain. Built from the ground up for enterprise-grade performance, NEM's blockchain technology delivers a world-class platform for management of almost any kind of asset: currencies, supply chains, notarizations, ownership records, and more. And all that power is exposed through a simple and secure developer interface, so you can deploy your blockchain solution in record time. NEM's Smart Asset system allows anyone to totally customize how they use the NEM blockchain, with a powerful set of features including name-spacing and full on-blockchain Multi-sig control. Any application can access these features through NEM's simple API allowing easy integration within mobile apps, existing business infrastructure, or contract logic. The NEM public blockchain provides an open and self-scaling platform for developers, or they may make use of their own permissioned and high-speed private blockchain using the same NEM technology.

Reaction Commerce is the first open source, real-time platform to combine the flexibility developers and designers want with the stability and support businesses need. Their mission is to continuously rethink the commerce experience.

DNAtix is a cutting-edge genetics and blockchain company providing anonymous and encrypted genetic services including analysis, storage and transfer of digitized DNA sequences through a Direct-to-Consumer platform (D2C). Their Vision, create a genetic ecosystem that invites all players in the genetics field to cooperate together to advance Genetic applications and solutions. The company's proprietary and open source technology will be used by developers, as well as researchers and institutions, to further develop their inventions and services. With the DNAtix direct-to-consumer platform, users will be able to test, store, and transfer their data utilizing blockchain technology.

Dr. Sudhagar is a researcher working for the Department of Materials Engineering at Swansea University in the United Kingdom, whose work is currently focused on the application of quantum dots in the energy, environmental and healthcare sectors. So, what exactly is a quantum dot? Dr. Sudhagar explains that a quantum dot is an inorganic semiconductor material that ranges from one to 10 nanometers in diameter--which is 14,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Following quantum mechanical behavior, the quantum dot has many applications, including land harvesting, cancer nanomedicine, and solar energy. For example, placing a quantum dot in water and under sunlight causes the water to split into its component parts of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. In addition, it is significantly cheaper than similar, organic materials, such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Also discussed is one of the challenges presented by the existence of toxic cadmium sulfide in quantum dots. How do we go about garnering the uses of quantum dots while preventing the toxicity of cadmium sulfide? Dr. Sudhagar provides two solutions. Tune in to hear his answers to this question and many more.

Dong Lin, Ph.D., is a researcher at Kansas State University who's exploring new ways of creating graphene--one of the strongest materials in the known universe that's flexible, lightweight, cheap to make, and that carries a wide range of potential uses. By using a cold substrate and 3D printing technology, Lin and his team are creating a graphene aerogel that's almost as light as air, in fact, it's composed of 99.8% air, yet remains as strong as steel. Lin is partnering with a professor of chemistry at Kansas State to tackle what he sees as a major application of this graphene aerogel: energy in the form of higher-capacity, more efficient sodium ion batteries. This is important because improving battery performance could ultimately lead to lower energy consumption worldwide. To reach out with questions about Lin's ongoing research, feel free to send him an email at dongl@ksu.edu.

When you walk into the Square Roots Kitchen in Chicago, IL, you'll be in for a new type of dining experience: immediately greeted by a 32-inch touch screen panel, you'll have the ability to scroll through the main entrees, view a detailed list of the ingredients and macro-nutritional content in each, customize any item and receive real-time nutritional transparency, and filter the entire menu by dietary allergens. As an entrepreneur and the co-founder of Square Roots Kitchen, Derin Alemli noticed a gap in the market for a customizable, high-quality ingredient dining experience. He noticed that traditional methods of dining out and ordering food weren't reliable enough, with too much room for human error--something that can become more than just inconvenient for customers with dietary needs and restrictions. To find out more, visit squarerootskitchen.com, or to reach out with questions, email Derin at orders@squarerootsquestion.com

As a practicing attorney for over 20 years and the founder and chair of McLane Middleton Privacy and Information Security Group, Cameron Shilling has one primary focus these days: performing risk assessments for companies that are looking to come into compliance with US security law and the US or international privacy laws. With an increasing number of security breaches in recent years and the unavoidable regulatory audits, penalties, and fines that accompany them, companies are becoming more and more aware of the need to take preventative measures against the loss and theft of information, and to protect people's privacy. This is where Shilling comes in, stating, "When we work with clients we're not doing data security in line with just compliance...we're really looking to move them to a data security posture that makes them a less vulnerable entity." Among other topics, Shilling discusses the ways in which foreign laws--particularly in Europe and Canada--are having an impact on US-based companies, how his team is working toward developing an industry best practice policy for their clients, and the vital components of a thorough risk assessment. To learn more or take the steps toward getting a risk assessment for your business, contact Cameron Shilling by phone at 603-289-6806 or by email at cameron.shilling@mclane.com.

Freckle is a mobile first-party data company that helps brands, publisher's and intelligence firms solve business problems through deterministically validated customer data. Freckle IoT is the global leader in multi-touch, offline attribution. Our proprietary cross-device solution supports all advertising mediums including mobile, desktop, social, radio, search, TV and out of the home. Using opted-in, first-party data, Freckle IoT helps brands measure the effectiveness of their advertising by independently matching media spend to in-store visits while remaining media agnostic. Killi is the first consumer application built on top of the blockchain that allows consumers to take back control of their identity from those who have been using it without their consent. A by-product of this control allows consumers to enter into direct financial contracts with brands and agencies redistributing wealth back to the rightful owner - the consumer. Download now in iOS and/or Android and follow @Killi_io