We talk IoT – The Internet of Things Business Podcast

The latest buzzword in IoT is “conversational AI”, and it seems to be everywhere nowadays. Talking machines are weather forecasters, travel agents, financial advisors. Known collectively as “bots”, they’re taking over customer service in a big way. Today, we’re joined by Michael Baldauf, Ambassador Financial Services EMEA at Pegasystems, a leading provider of software solutions for sales, marketing and services, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to talk with us about the spread of bots.

Digitization and networking are penetrating ever deeper into classical production environments. But the boundaries between OT and IT, between operational technology and good old-fashioned information technology, are becoming blurred, and that creates new challenges in defending against cyberattacks. Sebastian Ganshow is Director of Cybersecurity Solutions at NTT Ltd., a member of the Japanese conglomerate that started out in 1870 as the operator of Japan’s first telegraph system and is today one of the five top global technology and business solutions providers in the world. Gartner recently positioned NTT Ltd. as a Leader in their Magic Quadrant for Global Network Services.

Electric vehicles or EVs are cool, but there are still twists in the road to market maturity. From accessibility and standardization issues to a lack of convenient and secure payment methods at charging stations, these could still throw a spoke in the wheel of electromobility. We are joined by Thomas Wagner of in-tech, a pioneer smart charging company based in Leipzig, and Thomas Foj, Director Vertical Market EMEA at Avnet Silica, to talk about the future of EV Charging.

IoT continues to shape our lives in a world that is transforming – often in some pretty confusing and unexpected ways. So it’s comforting to know that somebody, at least, knows which direction we’re heading and what steps to take. One of them is Pete Bernard of Microsoft. His official title is “Senior Director, Silicon and Telecom, Azure Edge Devices, Platform & Services”. Also in this episode, Kenta Yasukawa, founder of Soracom, a Japanese technology innovator, talks about the future of IoT connectivity.

Rob Tiffany, Head of IoT Strategy at Ericsson, the Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company, joins us to share his experience on the IoT connectivity landscape and the future of connectivity for IoT. Also: Candid Wuest, VP of Cyber Protection Research at Acronis, a Swiss software company and a global leader in backup and disaster recovery on new threat trends and comprehensive protection methods.

Plume was founded in 2014 with the premise that a device is only as intelligent as the network it’s connected to. CMO Todd Grantham on self-optimizing WiFi solutions and the future of connectivity. Also: Didier Lesteven, COO of Wallix, a French provider of state-of-the-art data protection and access management solutions, whose motto is “cybersecurity simplified”.

Gerd Leonhard is Europe’s foremost futurist, as well as a bestselling author (“Technology vs. Humanity”) and a regular columnist for our parent magazine, Smart Industry – the IoT Business Magazine. In this month’s podcast, Gerd talks with his longtime friend, Tim Cole, editor-in-chief of Smart Industry, about ways for companies to future-proof their business, as well as his blueprint for “The Good Future”.

Eddy Solutions, an award-winning North American manufacturer of smart water metering products, recently teamed up with MachineQ, a Comcast Company that specializes in long-range, low-power IoT solutions at scale that fill various business needs. For this’s podcast we welcome two guests: Shyka Ghanbarian, Vice President of Sales and Business Development, Eddy Solutions, and Bryan Witkowski, Executive Director, Head of Strategic Planning, MachineQ.

FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) are semiconductor chips that can be reconfigured again and again to fit new needs. We talked with Chetan Khona, Director Industrial, Vision, Healthcare & Sciences at Xilinx, the company that literally invented the FPGA, about what they mean for IoT. Also featured: Raz Roditti of Razor Labs, an Israeli startup, on how to turn clunky heavy industrial machinery into state-of-the-art smart machines.

What does it feel like to be the victim of a highly sophisticated cyberattack? Thomas Pilz, CEO of Pilz Industries, a global leader in industrial automation, talks about his experience and what others can learn from it in this no-holds-barred interview.
He is followed by Roy Dagan, co-founder and CEO of SecuriThings, a company based in Tel Aviv that claims to offer the first IoTOps solution designed to help organizations maximize their devices’ operational efficiency and security.