Projectworks founder Matthew Hayter and new CEO and Silicon Valley veteran Mark Orttung dive into the details on what’s happening with the $100 million company's international push. Plus, Ben and Peter discuss Bluesky’s sudden rise in popularity as people leave Elon Musk’s X by the millions. Ben's Bluesky Peter's Bluesky Reading list See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Nov 27, 2024•47 min•Season 2Ep. 78
Peter was in California for the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket, carrying more satellites to support One NZ's satellite to mobile connectivity. We dig into the details of that deal, including whether competitors can possibly keep up. Then, our featured guest is Alex Kendall, one of NZ's most successful tech expats in recent years. Alex Kendall is the founder of Wayve, an autonomous vehicles company that raised US$1 billion earlier this year. He talks about his journey from being raised on a farm in ...
Nov 20, 2024•57 min•Season 2Ep. 77
Last year, we prematurely dubbed 2023 the year of AI but how could we have know what 2024 would bring. Generative AI has solidified it's position in the pantheon of disruptive technologies as hype settled into pragmatism and tech talent across the world put it to work. We've assembled three AI experts from across NZ's industry to talk about the year in AI that was, and look ahead at what to expect in the year to come. Our panel consists of Callaghan Innovation chief executive Stefan Korn, Simply...
Nov 13, 2024•56 min•Season 2Ep. 76
\We're diving into data with Snowflake's New Zealand country manager Tony Shaw. Shaw shares how any size of organisation can benefit from data analytics and AI, emphasising the importance of having high-quality, consolidated information to drive business outcomes. He also talks generative AI and the role that good data practice has in realising its potential and mitigating risks. Plus, tech under Trump: the influence of tech billionaires in the recent election, what it might mean for tech polici...
Nov 07, 2024•53 min•Season 2Ep. 75
New Zealand's big bet on fibre has paid off in spades, according to a new report by Deloitte that found the $5.5 billion that government and private companies invested into the super fast internet infrastructure has delivered $31b in value due to productivity gains. Two economists from Deloitte Access Economics, Liza Van Der Merwe and Mayuresh Prasad, walk us through the findings from that report, and what the future may hold for fibre in NZ. Plus, the first part of a new segment where Garth Bra...
Oct 30, 2024•54 min•Season 2Ep. 74
It's an age of reckoning for the monopolistic tendencies of Big Tech and this week veteran journalist Paul McIntyre helps us gain an understanding of the antitrust trials facing Google. With years of experience covering the advertising industry, McIntyre sheds light on Google's online advertising dominance, how it manipulated an industry to get there, and the regulatory challenges it's now facing as a result. He's just returned from Virginia, where he covered one of the major antitrust cases aga...
Oct 23, 2024•48 min•Season 2Ep. 73
WNT Ventures has reached ten years of taking the crunchy stuff we call deep tech and helping turn it into companies and financial returns. With successes like Foundry Lab, Mint Innovation and Carbon Crop in its portfolio, WNT Ventures has made an indelible mark on the country's deep tech scene. The firm's managing partner, Carl Jones, joins the podcast to look back on an industry that has grown at a rapid pace and forward at where it might head next. Plus, rocket catching, moon diving, and Peter...
Oct 16, 2024•53 min•Season 2Ep. 72
This week's guest, venture capitalist, founder of PhaseOne and former early employee of Canva Mahesh Muralidhar, shares invaluable insights into the necessity for New Zealand's software startups to expand into the lucrative US market. He discusses the unique benefits of Kiwi founders on the global stage and some of the cultural things that might be holding them back. Plus, the Auckland teen caught smishing with specialised hardware and how China exploited backdoors that US telcos were made to le...
Oct 09, 2024•53 min•Season 2Ep. 71
Can AI ever be truly trustworthy when the stakes are high? That's what machine learning and artificial intelligence researcher Jessica Zosa Forde hopes to achieve with her studies at Brown University. She joins us to discuss her work on ensuring less common languages don't get forgotten - and how efforts with te reo Māori are leading the way. She also highlights the importance of transparency and accountability in these technologies as they become more pervasive in our lives. Plus, an interview ...
Oct 02, 2024•57 min•Season 2Ep. 70
In this sponsored episode, 2degrees chief technology and information officer Stephen Kurzeja talks about the intricate process of merging the systems of two large telecommunications companies: 2degrees and Vocus. Kurzeja shares the thought process behind choosing what to keep and what to retire, where to add new products, and where to reign it in. He discusses company culture, AI and maintaining a laser focus on customer experience during such massive transitions. Plus, ComCom's call for better ...
Sep 25, 2024•47 min•Season 2Ep. 69
We sit down with Dr. Will Reedy, who leads health for Accenture NZ, to discuss the transformative potential of AI in healthcare. Reedy explains how generative AI can enhance NZ’s health system, boosting both frontline and back-office operations and addressing workforce shortages. He also raises the ever-looming spectre of the need to truly aggregate resident's health data, a must-have if we want to realise the full potential of generative AI. Plus, an interview with Jack Pugh, the NZ winner of t...
Sep 18, 2024•54 min•Season 2Ep. 68
We're kicking off a series on AI in industries with a deep dive into AI in education. Hengjie Wang, co-founder of ed-tech company Kami, joins us to explore how AI is transforming the classroom. Wang explains how Kami currently uses AI to save teachers time and make education more accessible and engaging for students. He also considers whether generative AI could be the foundation for a future of widely accessible, AI-driven learning aids. Plus, Apple's latest products and upgrades. The Business ...
Sep 11, 2024•51 min•Season 2Ep. 67
We dive deep into the world of venture capital with Robbie Paul, managing director of Icehouse Ventures. Paul looks back at the last 14 years to reflect on startup successes and failures and how NZ's VC landscape has evolved. He also shares some killer lessons for entrepreneurs and investors, such as the value of people and the dangers of chasing trends. Plus, Beam's scooter scandal, what Elon Musk's volatile behaviour could mean for Starlink in NZ, and AWS's entry into the satellite broadband m...
Sep 04, 2024•47 min•Season 2Ep. 66
Hamish Rumbold, the recent winner of the CIO of the Year award, joins us to reflect on his five years at Kiwibank, where he oversaw the company through major challenges from hauling legacy systems into the digital age, to facing an ever-increasing cyber threat landscape. Rumbold is on the hunt for his next role, fuelled by the goal of adding $10 billion in value to the companies he works with. We also touch on the performance and future of Spark and Chorus, and discuss the arrest of Telegram CEO...
Aug 29, 2024•48 min•Season 2Ep. 65
It's been a banger of a year for Gentrack, joining the NZX50 and reaching a $1 billion market capitalisation. In this episode, we talk to Gentrack's chief technology officer Mark Rees, who joined the company early this year after a decade at Xero. Rees offers insight into how Gentrack's software is helping utility companies manage at a time of massive disruption for the energy generation market and explains how AI and hyper-personalisation could create an even more resilient and affordable energ...
Aug 21, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 64
Searching for information online has been more or less the same since Google dominated the industry more than two decades ago but now, new forms of artificial intelligence are poised to change everything. Search expert Ryan McMillan from SEO advisory Atlas Digital joins us to share his insights on what those changes mean for online advertising, and how businesses can be prepared for those changes. Plus, Auckland University of Technology associate professor of journalism Helen Sissons explains ho...
Aug 14, 2024•48 min•Season 2Ep. 63
Dr Michelle Dickinson, also known as Nanogirl, has been working on taking her passion for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to as many people as possible. During covid, Dickinson was a key part of a team getting the word out about how to keep as safe as possible and for her efforts, had her personal details published online and received threats. Undeterred, she has spent years building up her business demystifying tech for businesses, and promoting STEM as a career choice f...
Aug 07, 2024•53 min•Season 2Ep. 62
"The question is, who supports the bill? Well, honestly, basically everyone." That's what Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly said about the Customer and Product Data (CPD) Bill at its first reading, and sure enough, every other party representative followed with their support. The CPD Bill is the legislative force that mandates the sharing of customer data by organisations, starting with financial institutions - in other words, open banking. So what is it about the Bill that has...
Jul 31, 2024•54 min•Season 2Ep. 61
The tech world was knocked a little askew when the Commerce Commission blocked a huge exit for local DJ software company Serato. The ComCom said the acquisition by AlphaTheta would reduce competition in the space but many in the tech sector said the move could put fear into startup founders and venture capitalists thinking about targeting a lucrative niche. We're joined by tech entrepreneur Tim Warren and competition law expert Hayden Wilson, partner at Dentons Kensington Swan, who lay out the p...
Jul 24, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 60
The National Science Challenges, a decade-long experiment in funding mission-led science has ended and the research shows it was a resounding success. Emeritus professor Sally Davenport joins us to explain what was learned over that time and how we can keep the spirit of mission-led science alive. We also discuss the report out of the Treasury showing NZ lags in artificial intelligence adoption, and the Government Communications Security Bureau's statement that it needs a much better national cy...
Jul 17, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 59
150 New Zealand executives were given Spark-funded scholarships for a four-week course all about learning how to use modern AI tools to boost business productivity. We talked to two of them, NZME's Matt Martel and the NZ Institute of Directors' Kristen 'KP' Patterson, who explained what they learned from the course and how it shaped their thinking about AI. They outline the business cases they developed during the course and how they have started implementing them within their organisations. Plu...
Jul 10, 2024•53 min•Season 2Ep. 58
When you've had one of the most successful careers in business in New Zealand, what do you do next? For Xero founder Rod Drury the answer is to spend days mountain biking around Queenstown, wing foiling when he gets the chance, and meeting with government and business leaders to get national improvement initiatives moving. He's pushed for the separation of energy generation and retailing, campaigned for more water storage across the country, worked to get an autonomous public transport system se...
Jul 03, 2024•46 min•Season 2Ep. 57
It's the fifth year for 2degrees' Shaping Business report that covers the state of business across New Zealand. Once again, we're bringing you a deep dive into the report with a panel of eminent business figures. This year, the panel includes 2degrees' chief executive Mark Callander, Deloitte partner Anna Fitzgibbon and Auckland Business Chambers chief executive Simon Bridges. They cover business confidence, hybrid working, skills shortages, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and more. Subsc...
Jun 27, 2024•46 min•Season 2Ep. 56
There are a lot of great things about NZ; our relatively small population is one of them. But if we want to be a major player in the global software industry, we need to be where the people are: the US. That's according to Nick Lissette, founder and chief executive of NZX-listed Blackpearl Group, who features this week in an interview about thinking big and bringing the export dollars home. Plus, Peter jetted over to Sydney to check out the latest line-up of Windows Surface laptops and find out ...
Jun 19, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 55
News of the news media has been pretty grim throughout 2024, with cutbacks and closures dominating the headlines. To many, this is a sign that the writing is on the wall for an industry that's been struggling since the heady paper-based days of the 1990s. But Xavier English says those people are just looking in the wrong places. English joins us to talk about five Kiwi companies he says are redefining what 'news media' means in 2024. We also give our takes on Apple's big AI news and how it might...
Jun 12, 2024•48 min•Season 2Ep. 54
As budget anxiety spreads across the nation, we're spending this week looking back at the good news in the tech industry in the last couple of weeks. We're joined by David Downs - NZ's own tech industry cheerleader, relentless optimist and genetically modified organism - to discuss the NZ Hi-Tech Awards, NZ Story's See Tomorrow First initiative, and the potential for NZ as a base for CAR T-cell cancer therapy development. We also hear from 2024 Hi-Tech Award winners Novolabs, ENVICO, Joshua Pars...
Jun 05, 2024•50 min•Season 2Ep. 53
The ministry of foreign affairs and trade (Mfat) mishandled millions of dollars in an attempt to shift its IT systems to the cloud and roll out Microsoft Office. BusinessDesk's Dileepa Fonseka, who broke the story, walks us through what he learned in his reporting. Then, there's huge potential for digital twins in Aotearoa New Zealand but our approach has been siloed and slow. We learn what it will take to get started from Keri Niven, the digital practice lead at Aurecon and leader of the Smart ...
May 29, 2024•48 min•Season 2Ep. 52
Mark Callander, CEO of our flagship sponsor 2degrees and Kiwi telco stalwart, joins us to talk all things telco. He shares where 2degrees is up to in the Great Brand Merge, rolling out satellite to mobile connectivity, integrating AI into its business, challenging the electricity market, and more. We also talk about the generative AI madness announced by Google and OpenAI this month. Reading list See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
May 22, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 51
After spending time in Ireland, Simon Walker was amazed at how Ireland, especially Dublin, had pulled itself out of the doldrums of the 80s to become a world-class tech hub. The CEO and founder of tech-focused marketing company Proposition brought those thoughts back to Aotearoa with him and, although there are many differences between us, he saw enough similarities that we could learn a thing or two. Walker explains his vision for NZ's tech-based economy and the lessons he learned in Ireland th...
May 14, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 50
While the number of women in tech is increasing, senior technical roles are still too often locked away behind a glass ceiling. On her way to becoming a senior platform engineer, Meena Satishkumar faced an array of challenges that almost drove her off the path she wanted to follow. In response, she founded Tech Beyond Gender, an advocacy organisation that recently published research with some concerning findings. Satishkumar talks us through some of that research, her experience, and what can be...
May 08, 2024•45 min•Season 2Ep. 49
