MWC 2016

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.


TTC #231 Bringing IoT Functionality to Retailers

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


TTC #230 Grow Your Own Food at Home

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.

TTC #229 e-Residency in Estonia

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.


TTC #228 When Will Our Smartphone Become Smarter Than Us?

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.


TTC #233 mSchools #edu_Hack. Re-educating Teachers in Technology

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.


TTC #234 How is AdBlocking Affecting Advertisers

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


TTC #232 3D Interactive “SimCity” Maps Technology for Smart Cities

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.


TTC #235 Using Ultrasound Software Technology to Recognise Gestures

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


TTC #236 How Secure Are Your Smart Devices in the IoT World?

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


TTC #237 Affordable Mobile Roaming With Your Own SIM Card

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.


TTC #238 Aiming to Connect Every Device and Customer

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


TTC #239 Connecting Different Mobile Payments

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


TTC #240 How Ford Views Smart Cars, Connectivity and User Experience

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.

TTC #241 Growing Fast in a Competitive IoT Market by Differentiating

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


TTC #242 Everything Can Have A Unique Address With 3 Simple Words

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


TTC #243 Developing The Biggest Database Of Brains

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


TTC #244 Seizing Opportunities From Your Data

Combining organic chemistry, physics and electricity, StoreDot has created a chemical compound which, along with a complete redesign of the battery, allows it to charge very very fast (1 minute for a mobile). Doron Myersdorf, CEO & Founder and Erez Lober, SVP of Electric Vehicles at StoreDot -an Israeli startup that has raised 66 million in funding from Samsung Ventures- goes beyond mobiles and batteries to talk about how they’ve launched the Electric Vehicle sector, which they believe will be the most promising market for the future. We believe this is a startup that you should be keeping an eye out for in the future. We sure will. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.


TTC #245 Charging Your Mobile Phone in 1 Minute

Vkansee produces miniaturized high resolution fingerprint sensors with a resolution of 2000 ppi which is 4 times higher than what is being used today -in our mobile phones that use fingerprint recognition- enabling higher security. Jason Chaikin, President at Vkansee, talks about how the company is focusing on commercial markets that require biometric security, mainly mobiles and IoT, while he does mention key generators for mobile payments and cross border authentication systems. Although still in development stage they have spoken with all main mobile manufacturers and they will be announcing new collaborations within the year. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.


TTC #246 Higher Resolution Biometric Security

Helen Keegan, organiser of Swedish Beers and Mobile Advertising Expert, Troy Norcross, Startup Adviser and Digital Strategy Expert, Ilicco Elia, Head of Mobile at DigitasLBi and Rafe Blandford, Mobile Strategist at DigitasLBi discuss with us all about mobile trends and what they expect to see anew, at this year’s Mobile World Congress. In a beautiful down-town Barcelona apartment we got together on a Sunday morning, just before MWC16 hit off, and talked about mobile advertising, adblocking, educating users, virtual reality and much more. On the microphone for Tech Talks Central is Vicki Kolovou, while the rest of the TTC team Sakis Triantafyllakis, Yannis Rizopoulos and Venetia Kyritsi made sure to capture the whole conversation on image and tweet about it.


TTC #247 Choons ‘n Chat Podcast w/ Heroes of the Mobile Fringe, 2016

The Tech Talks Central web radio covers all the hot topics and trends in the connected world and features interactive interviews with thought leaders, as well as movers and shakers of the tech industry.
It’s a joint venture between entrepreneurs working in the mobile and technology field and people who love the radio waves!