Tech Talks Central

Contiamo, a Berlin-based startup, present at this year’s 4YFN, has created a web-based Business Intelligence platform, that combines structured or unstructured data from many different sources into a single integration, offering useful data-driven results and a comprehensive approach to all members, of an affiliated organization. Michael Franzkowiak, founder and managing director of Contiamo, talks about his “incredibly powerful and flexible” platform and his vision to empower even traditional companies and organizations with the benefits that data-driven culture may bring to them. Deutsche Telekom is not only a supporting partner but also investor in the startup http://www.contiamo.com. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central

Paulo Rodrigues, CEO & Vesna Prchkovska, CSO & co-founders at MintLabs & Landon McKenna, COO/CFO at MintLabs MintLabs, a startup company that participated at 4YFN, has set a really aspiring goal: to create the biggest database of imaging data of the brain, in order to build models of healthy and diseased ones. Paulo Rodrigues, CEO at MintLabs and his multi-national team of experts talk to TTC about their vision, emphasizing on their social impact goals. Their already popular data visualization platform allows doctors to understand the true state of a patient’s brain comparing it to a diseased one. Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, have an objective reference to compare the impact of new drugs, before they enter the market. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central

Want to know the winners of the best British Startup at Mobile World Congress 2016? Giles Rhys Jones , Marketing Director of what3words talks about their product, how they came up with the idea and their strategic decisions that made them the company they are now. He also shares some mistakes they made during their startup rollercoaster and what are their next steps to grow their company bigger. Last but not least he points out what 4YFN and MWC offered to what3words and the benefits of participating. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central

Libelium CEO, Alicia Asin, despite her young of age is very knowledgeable when it comes to the Internet of Things hype and how she foresees her company growing within it. Dubbed as a baby unicorn by Silicon Valley, Libelium, is growing fast in the agricultural and smart city verticals of sensor and software infrastructure, for connected devices. She clearly defines their goals and main targets to become competitive in specific markets and to identify new ones, like water monitoring for irrigation and other purposes. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Ford is exhibiting at Mobile World Congress for the 5th consecutive year and Barb Samardzich, the Chief Operating Officer at Ford Europe, shared with us the new technologies and services Ford is offering. Learn what FordPass and SYNC3 technologies have to offer and what Ford’s R&D department is working on. She also highlights how important security and data privacy is and she talks about how sharing economy and Smart Cities can change the automotive industry. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central

A quite important benefit of the connected economy is electronic and -more specifically- mobile payments. Hiroyuki Sato, SEO at Docomo Digital, a subsidiary of the well-known Japanese carrier which is based in Europe, explains their new initiative that they hope will connect many different payment methods into one enabling platform which will offer global access to their customers via their mobile devices. Docomo Digital presence in MWC16 perfectly serves their purpose which is to start talking with many stakeholders in order to enable a mobile ecosystem, including regulators, financial institutions, operators. etc. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central

Jasper is a pioneering company in the Internet of Things era and they’re out to connect everything from devices, vending machines, bicycles, users, customers and about anything that can transmit data. Mark Thomas, Director of Connected Car Product Marketing at Jasper, explains the backend cloud solutions they offer their customers in order to provide the needed infrastructure for the development of IoT solutions. We ask Mark about how he sees the future of IoT and what he believes about future regulations and ethical questions that will arise from the monitoring of IoT devices. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Good news for travellers around the globe, which are now able to save some money on roaming for calls and data! Gregory Gundelfinger, Chief Executive Officer at KnowRoaming presented such a product at MWC16 offering uninterrupted and much cheaper service to frequent travellers. Their scheme is based on a special sticker placed upon the normal SIM card of the user, some kind of e-wallet and a lot of agreements with local operators, as KnowRoaming offers its services in more than 80 (popular) countries. Talking and texting prices differ a little from country to country, but the fixed price of $7.99/day for unlimited data seems really interesting. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis and Venetia Kyritsi for Tech Talks Central

Want to know more about Open source technology and security in the IoT era? Art Swift, President and Cesare Garlati, Chief Security Strategist at the prpl Foundation explain how they are creating an open community to drive new standards for the Internet Of Things. They highlight how critical security is for companies and where they mostly focus. They also refer to possible set of solutions that they have identified, and how security at a hardware level has room for a lot of improvement. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central

Haakon Bryhni, CTO at Elliptic Labs and Guenael Strutt, VP, Product Development, two researchers with a clearly technical background, talk about the team’s research in the lab and how it led to a software technology that utilises ultrasounds for gesture recognition. Their patented ultrasound software technology can be as simple as opening a light with a gesture, up to permitting the replacement of the optical proximity hardware, on our mobile phones, with software. Something that actually brought strong funding and big business for the firm. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

We met Jeremy Copp at the Scottish Development International booth where he talked about their 3d mapping and visualization platform. Jeremy is the Chief Commercial Officer of eeGeo and he explained how data can produce amazing insights through visualisation and how it could be combined with other applications to improve the whole experience and enter the Smart Cities era. He also shared some interesting real case studies and future applications. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central

Sean Huang, Global Head of Mobile at Quantcast and Amit Kotecha, Head of Mobile Marketing for Europe, discuss their findings from the survey they conducted in Europe, concerning mobile use. Amongst other trends they emphasize on how 64 per cent of consumers have been influenced to purchase by a mobile ad, a figure that rises to 80 per cent among millennials and how 76 per cent are more willing to accept relevant ads on their mobile device. Of course we did ask their thoughts on AdBlocking and what it means for advertisers. Listen to what they responded. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Albert Forn, Associate Director at Mobile World Capital and Renee Jimenez, Manager at Mobile World Capital GSMA explain the purpose of the edu_Hack workshop coordinated by mSchools, the joint initiative by Mobile World Capital Barcelona and GSMA. Conducted during the weekend preceding MWC16, at the Arena in Plaza Espanya, they managed to bring together over 400 teachers from private and public schools to collaborate and develop ideas for integrating technology into schools. Although the audio was recorded under difficult conditions, the whole experience, watching these tutors use the business model canvas, was amazing. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou & Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

Prof. Kevin Curran, IEEE senior member & lecturer at Ulster Uni., Carl Uminski, Co-founder & COO at Somo Global, James Tagg, CIO at Truephone and Helen Keegan, Mobile marketing consultant & Sweedish Beers organiser gathered at a VIP meeting room at Mobile World Congress 2016 and discussed with us... Artificial Intelligence and how it will impact our lives, health and growth through our devices, smartphones and cars. They talked about the need for education of users; how education will change itself; mobile addiction and how decisions will be our own, despite being influenced by technology. An interesting conversation by key players in mobile technology and artificial technology. Coordinated by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

Katre Kasmel, Head of Marketing & Communications e-Residency Team explains what the Esthonian e-Residency card entails, why they’re doing it and how developers can use their APIs to create software services. She talks about how entrepreneurs can open up their company in Esthonia, what the procedures are and emphasizes that by 2025 Esthonia wants to have 10 million e-residents. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

The CEO & Co-founder of CityCrop, Christos Raftogiannis, reveals what CityCrop is working on and how they make indoor farming automated. He highlights the value proposition of having a smart Internet of Things device for farming and what it can offer to every household. He goes on to explain why they attended 4YFN. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central

Kostas Sarafianos, Commercial Director at mPass explains how their new Internet of Things platform for retailers, Explor IT works. Although the concept is simple they hope to facilitate different retailers, who need something easy and manageable to enhance consumer experience. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF MWC Insider survival guide In less than 2 weeks from now, more than 90,000 people will be descending on Barcelona for Mobile World Congress aka MWC. TTC has been there & done that so @vicki-kolovou, @athanasios-triantafyllakis, @vagelis-antoniadis, @athanasios-triantafyllakis, and Yannis Rizopoulos wanted to share some inside info with you! So if this is your first time in MWC (or even if you are a seasoned attendee and you need some refreshing - especially this year, that there are some major changes, like the new metro line, for example), then this is definitely the only audio guide to listen. Learn all the tips and tricks to get the job done, meet people, avoid long queues and have such an amazing time that you can’t wait for next year’s MWC. Additional links & info: Prepare for MWC entrance: Good to Go https://www.mobileworldcongress.com/good-to-go/ If you are involved in any incident, whether onsite or out of it, in the entire city of Barcelona, you may call + 34 900 77 2016 /

After, close to 2 years and 226 interviews with scientists, researchers and technologists, the time has come to turn the table on us. The TTC team sits behind the microphone and reviews latest experiences, trends and social economic issues that have affected us and the technology scene at large. We start with eHealth and how our interviewees responded to the question on whether we need medical software certification; we talk about the social economic impact of robotics co-existing with humans; Phil Zimmermann’s interview on data security issues and privacy and the first pan-European cyber-security law to be enacted. So, do bare with our shortcomings and let us know your opinion and what we can improve. We will be travelling to different events in the coming months, interviewing stakeholders and hopefully reporting back, via our own podcast, on behind the scenes. W/ @vagelis-antoniadis, @athanasios-triantafyllakis, @vicki-kolovou, Yannis Rizopoulos

We discuss with Dr. Alexander Hoerbst, Head of the eHealth Research & Innovation Unit at the University of Health Sciences in Austria, interoperability needs on a European and national level; why he considers the EU framework a good base to start from and what organisations need to do in order to help companies comply with the European Interoperability Framework. He suggests actions for eHealth companies in order to compete in international markets and mentions the three basic outcomes from the STOA eHealth meeting held December 1st, 2015. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.