Tech Talks Daily

HITLAB is an AI-based music technology company partially owned by Akon servicing artists, brands and fans. The digital media and entertainment company is revolutionizing the way cultural content is discovered, produced, and consumed. I wanted to learn more about how they use technology to engage consumers and create strong interactions between consumers and brands. Michel Zgarka reveals more about the company's Digital Nuance Analysis (DNA) patented technology. I also learn more about its Digital Emerging Artist Showcase using DNA software. Finally, we discuss the important partnerships with digital platforms like TREND and Boomplay along with the company's current and future plans to become a major player in AI-music-specific developments. Michel Zgarka CEO, HITLAB is an experienced executive with a successful career of over 35 years in the productions, communications, marketing, financial engineering and business development fields. He is highly skilled in strategic and creative planning, marketing and personnel management for the media industry. Mr. Zgarka has produced, directed and distributed numerous film and television productions for the international marketplace, including "GUMMYBAR" which garnered over 6 billion views on YouTube. He has been a guest speaker at over 50 international entertainment industries events as well as the Delegate general of the Montreal Israeli Film Festival whose celebrating its 13th year anniversary in 2018.

Myoshia Boykin-Anderson shared her inspirational journey in tech and startup story. Myoshia truly represents the "American Dream." As a native Houstonian and a proud graduate of Jack Yates Senior High School, Myoshia saw some of life's most difficult times, but she didn't let that stop her from striving for a better future. In November 1998, with no savings and no college degree, Myoshia got her first taste of entrepreneurship by starting her first company. She was able grow it to a multi-six figure operation before closing it in 2007. After taking the lessons learned from that experience, she launched her second company in January 2009. Myoshia is now the award-winning founder and CEO of one of the leading IT Consulting companies in the country, AndTech Solutions, LLC. Over the past 11 years, under Myoshia's leadership, AndTech has grown into a multi seven-figure consulting firm providing custom application development and other technology services to some of the top U.S. companies and organizations. They've implemented health plans responsible for managing over 56 million members across 25 states and consulted with small businesses in creating custom application solutions to meet their technology challenges. What makes this even more impressive is that Myoshia has done this with grit and hard work as a self-made businesswoman with no formal higher education or college degree. Myoshia is proud to hold Women's Business Enterprise (WBE), Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) and Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) certifications and sits on the Executive Board of C-STEM, an organization whose mission is to inspire the next generation of innovators and thought leaders. Myoshia and her husband are parents to two adult children and are based in Houston, TX.

Businesses are struggling with mass employee burnout, turnover, and a mental and physical health crisis fueled by the state of the world. Many are turning to technologies to show employees they care. But tech without humans does little to support employees and further exacerbates these issues. Tech can deliver care at scale, bring culture to life in remote workspaces and reach employees wherever they are. But, tech can't provide true human interaction, continually outperform other apps and platforms, or be successful without reinforcement from leaders and managers in an organization. So how do business leaders find the sweet spot that helps them show their employees that their business cares while humans pick up where the tech leaves off? Henry Albrecht, CEO of Limeade (an employee experience company) discusses how his company that built a business on sounding the alarm on employee care has found a greater purpose catalyzed by the pandemic. Henry also compares EX technology's benefits and how to deliver care at scale, and its limitation. I learn more about how companies can develop an experience that best supports their employees.

Bob Romeo, CEO of Anaqua joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Anaqua is an IP management and innovation software company with a great story. Its software and services help corporations and law firms gain a true competitive advantage from their intellectual property. Over fifteen years ago IP leaders from Ford Motor Company and British American Tobacco identified an important gap within enterprise software solutions. Managing IP with patchworks of commercial and homegrown systems left them with unreliable data that increased their costs and exposed them to risk. They took matters into their own hands by collaborating on a new web-based, unified system for intellectual property – a comprehensive software platform capable of managing and automating the full IP lifecycle of patents, trademarks, designs, trade secrets and contracts. That collaboration was the beginning of Anaqua – the world's first web-based unified platform for intellectual property. From the start, our technology leadership and product innovation has been driven by our customers. Today, Anaqua's AQX software is used by nearly a million IP executives, attorneys, paralegals and administrators in corporations and law firms all over the world. Many of the best-known brands and most innovative products were conceptualized, evaluated, protected and monetized through the AQX software platform. In February 2021, Anaqua acquired global IP cost estimating software provider Quantify IP. On the heels of PATTSY WAVE, the acquisition continues the acceleration of Anaqua's law firm growth strategy and supports the company's commitment to delivering IP solutions that address the diversified and evolving needs of today's IP management market. I learn more about how Anaqua will continue to leverage technology to support innovators in an increasing number of ways, helping them improve lives across the world.

Shane Nolan from IDA Ireland joins me in a discussion about how the use of AI has evolved over the years and the guest shares his predictions for how it will continue to revolutionize business. I also learn how Ireland is addressing the AI skills gap talk about overall tech talent in Ireland, government investment in AI and Ireland being the first to offer a master's degree in AI). We discuss the topic of AI as a Service (AIaaS) and how is it being utilised. We also talk about the potential benefits and risks AIaaS has to businesses along with who are the top players in AIaaS already and which industries are likely to adopt it. Finally, I learn more about what makes Ireland such a great base for these top tech/AI providers About Shane Nolan Shane has been with IDA Ireland for over 18 years and currently heads up both IDA Ireland's Technology and Emerging Business Divisions leading teams. These teams manage the relationships with the largest technology investors in Ireland and also work with fast-scaling technology and digital start-ups to help them leverage Ireland as part of their growth. Shane previously led the organisation's Digital & Consumer business and, before that, its business in AsiaPac and Emerging Markets. Shane was also based for a number of years in IDA's Silicon Valley office and has held other strategy and business development roles in his time with IDA. Prior to IDA, Shane worked for a number of start-ups in telecommunications and mobile software in technical and business development roles. About IDA Ireland Ireland continues to win international investments from global corporations because it is seen as a business location where the workforce, as well as being highly qualified, has a unique capacity to improve, to innovate and to initiate new ideas, new processes and new ways of working that can make business more dynamic, more efficient and ultimately more profitable. Ireland's inward Investment Promotion & Development agency, IDA Ireland (Investment Development Agency) is responsible for the attraction and development of foreign investment in Ireland. Today, Ireland is home to companies such as, Facebook, Sanofi, Intel, Yahoo, Adobe, Microsoft, SAP, Liebherr, HP, Apple, LinkedIn, Zalando, Deutsche Bank, Google and Amazon.com, to name just a few.

If you sell web-based software for a living and ship code that references an unregistered domain name, you are asking for trouble. But what about when the same mistake is made by a Fortune 500 company? That's the case for Fiserv, a $15 billion firm that provides online banking software and other technology solutions to thousands of financial institutions, which has been using an unclaimed domain. Ilia Kolochenko at ImmuniWeb joins me on the podcast to provide a different perspective on this news story, combining legal and tech. Based in Europe and having studied two Masters in legal studies in the US, Ilia has unique observations on the continuously evolving differences between European legislation, including GDPR compliance and the varying laws that each of the 50 US States follows. A cybersecurity expert and law school graduate, Ilia talks about the rise in cybersecurity issues from a legal and technical point of view - for individuals and businesses. We also discuss the innovations of attackers in response to businesses implementing different security tech and practices. About ImmuniWeb ImmuniWeb is a global application security company operating in over 50 countries, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Most of ImmuniWeb customers come from regulated industries, such as banking, healthcare, and e-commerce. ImmuniWeb® AI Platform leverages award-winning AI and Machine Learning technology for acceleration and intelligent automation of Attack Surface Management and Dark Web Monitoring. The data is later leveraged for a threat-aware and risk-based Application Penetration Testing for web, mobile, and API security testing.

Dr. Steven Shwartz began his AI career as a postdoctoral researcher in the Yale University Computer Science Dept. He has been a founder or co-founder of multiple companies. His Esperant product became one of the leading business intelligence products of the 1990s, and, more recently, he co-founded Device42, which has won many awards as a fast-growing tech company. He has also helped fund many startups as an investor, including Tangoe, which had one of the best-performing public offerings of 2011. His recent book Evil Robots, Killer Computers, and Other Myths: The Truth About AI and the Future of Humanity" expresses a refreshing perspective on AI. It explains why AI will not take over the world or take all our jobs, why self-driving vehicles won't dominate our roads for a long time, and other topics.

Sophie Chiche is a French American entrepreneur, optimistic and intuitive. She's fueled by the desire to share, stimulate, and inspire meaning. Her lifelong dedication to exploring the question of "why" has taken her all over the world, where she's presented speeches and connected with movers and shakers like Arianna Huffington and Nelson Mandela with the goal of advancing human consciousness. Technology was supposed to make us more productive, make our life easier, and give us more time to do the things we love. But we lost our way and neglected the art of daydreaming as we stare into a screen. What if we dared to combine technology with self-awareness, personal productivity, and freedom? Sophie speaks to those who are open to exploring new habits that fuel success as she imparts inspiration and encouragement. She'swritten for several renowned international publications, served as a coach for high-powered entrepreneurs and executives in large corporations, and helped craft businesses and social ventures of all shapes and sizes. She's earned masters degrees in business and journalism in her native city of Paris, France and added one in psychology soon after she moved to Los Angeles in 1993. She's given two successful TEDx talks and co-authored the well-received book, "The Power of Personal Accountability: Achieve what Matters to You." Her latest book, "closer to my bones," is expected to come out later this year. Do you feel that your brain keeps churning at the end of the day, and you find it challenging to make time for your priorities? Or do you think there is more to life, and now is your time? If this sounds familiar, sit down with Sophie and me as we discuss how we can make tech work for us, rather than the other way around.

Kevin D'Silva is one of the pioneers in intrapreneurship, the process of encouraging employees to drive impactful innovation from within enterprises. He created the blueprint for the modern intrapreneur by founding Nestlé's employee-driven innovation accelerator, inGenius. Across 108 countries, 63,000 Nestlé employees - nearly a quarter of the conglomerate's total headcount - have generated 6,575 new ideas and launched 70 cutting-edge solutions that address some of the world's biggest problems. Kevin is now CEO and founder of Ideateplus, an innovation consultancy that guides companies through the intrapreneurship journey, helping them to launch new products, increase staff engagement, boost revenues, improve customer service, and reduce costs and wastage. Here's an article Kevin recently wrote for City A.M. on how intrapraneurship can help to foster a culture of creativity and innovation - Kevin joins me on the podcast to discuss how some of the best examples of innovation have come from within - products invented by employees within large organisations include the Post-it Note, Sony PlayStation, and McDonald's Happy Meals. We also talk about why intrapreneurship can enable large companies to be more agile and launch new innovative products, and in turn fend off challenger startup competitors. I learn more about Ideateplus, including its Rapid Innovation Process and why, in the era of remote working, keeping staff engaged by encouraging them to contribute to internal innovation is more important than ever.

Meddling, the artist discovery platform for record labels, is unveiling a new version of its service built specifically for music publishers to discover songwriters. Meddling founder Travis Rosenblatt joins me in. conversation about how the music industry and world of technology are colliding. At the forefront of A&R, Meddling delivers indispensable data and tools to help subscribers turn knowledge into action. Meddling brings together real-time data on global music markets, cutting edge technology like deep learning metadata compilers, powerful analytics, communications tools, and tracking capabilities to ensure total digital A&R coverage. Travis Rosenblatt is a former major and indie label A&R turned self-taught software developer & entrepreneur. His first company, Meddling, has provided modern artist discovery services to the majority of major labels since 2015 and continues to expand to serve other companies with digital A&R coverage needs. Rosenblatt's third company, Signal, is attempting to drag royalty payment infrastructure into the 21st century. He absolutely adores music as well as the industry and will keep poking it with a stick. That's how he shows his love.