the talktank
Feb 8, 2022
Mehran Sahami - Rebooting Big Tech
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The Bits & Bytes Series - Mehran Sahami
Hosted by Sia Sha
Mehran is the James and Ellenor Chesebrough Professor in the School of Engineering and Associate Chair for Education in the Computer Science department at Stanford. 🖥🤓 He is on the advisory board of various startups and prior he was a full-time Senior Research Scientist at Google. He has recently published his book “System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot”, which has been praised by the CEO of Netflix and President of the Ford Foundation. 🙌
Check out Mehran's book!
Special thanks to Konrad Dabrowski for producing this episode! 🥳
More episodes from the talktank
4 days ago
Guglielmo Schenardi - building startups in school
The Bits & Bytes Series - Guglielmo Schenardi
Hosted by Jessica Ge
Whenever you use an app, access a website, or do anything in the virtual space, you create data. But do you actually know where your data is going? And who’s using it? ❓🤔
Today’s guest, Guglielmo Schenardi, along with his co-founder, created Rita Personal Data - an app with over 100,000 members and a 4.5-star rating from almost 2,000 reviews. Rita allows users to view, control, and earn rewards from their own data. And founded only 3 years ago, Rita has already secured €1 million in pre-seed funding. 💸
Alongside a successful startup, Guglielmo has also recently launched the first start-up program offering a double university Masters called Genoa Entrepreneurship School (GES). GES is a joint initiative between Georgetown and Genoa university so that you can build or work in a venture whilst attending a masters. 🏫🚀 This way, you don’t have to choose between pursuing a startup career or pursuing education, you can do both.
In this episode, we will focus on two key topics- the importance of data privacy in an increasingly data-driven world and how education and entrepreneurship can co-exist. ✌
Manage your personal data:
https://ritapersonaldata.com/
Build your next venture from school:
https://www.genoaes.com/
Timestamps:
2:05 - Who is Guglielmo Schenardi?
2:46 - The conception of Rita Personal Data
3:40 - Why should you use Rita?
4:50 - Trusting Rita with your data
6:01 - Building a tech product from a non-tech background
8:18 - How to raise €1 million in preseed funding
10:34 - You need an advisor!
12:20 - Guglielmo’s life-changing experience
14:04 - MTV’s documentary on Guglielmo’s daily life
16:43 - Creating a university startup program from scratch
20:20 - How to build the dream team
21:41 - Building a venture whilst pursuing two masters, how?!
28:15 - What’s one thing Guglielmo would change about society?
29:58 - Guglielmo’s unconventional truth that helped him achieve his success
31:46 - Reflect, reflect, reflect
34:14 - Guglielmo’s dream interview guest
Shoutout to Jessica Ge for self-producing this episode! 🕺
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Mar 19, 2023
Amai Ganjam - what's the buzz?!
The Bits & Bytes Series - Amai Ganjam
Hosted by Humzah Rahman
Join us on this episode as we dive into the story of Amai Ganjam, an LSE student who created a social networking app called Buzz during the pandemic. We'll learn about his journey as a student founder and how he navigated the challenges of being non-technical. Along the way, we'll also explore what venture capitalists look for in pitch decks, and how to break into the VC industry as a student. Plus, we'll get insights from Amai's experiences interning at True Altitude and his current role at Tomorrow Capital, a boutique VC firm investing in credit-led models across emerging markets. 📈
Don't miss out on this exciting episode filled with tips and inspiration for anyone interested in startups, VC, or entrepreneurship. 🎯🚀
🌃🕺 Explore and interact with London’s nightlife in a completely re-imagined way:
https://buzzsocialapp.com/
Timestamps
1:10 Why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself?
2:00 What’s the founding story behind Buzz?
4:35 How did you prove product market fit?
5:55 What type of person should use Buzz?
7:15 How does Buzz differ from the rest?
8:45 How did you push your product out to market?
10:25 Buzz’s national and international expansion
11:15 What’s your business model?
13:20 How do you build a tech product as a non-technical cofounder?
14:45 How did you vet your first few technical hires and were they successful?
16:55 Where do you want Buzz to be in the next five years?
18:25 What was your defining moment?
19:45 What do True Altitude and Tomorrow Capital specialise in?
22:10 What are some of your responsibilities at Tomorrow Capital?
23:40 How does Tomorrow Capital invest?
25:15 How did you go about finding work experience at a VC?
25:55 What advice would you give to a student trying to break into the VC industry?
28:00 What’s the key to writing good pitch decks?
29:15 What’s a common red flag you see in pitch decks?
30:00 If you could change one thing about society, what would it be?
31:49 If you could interview anyone, fictional, dead or alive, who would you interview?
Thank you Humzah Rahman for self-producing this ep! 😎
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Mar 12, 2023
María Clara - video games and mental health
The Beyond Profit Series
Hosted by Laura Calle
María Clara Mesa is a Colombian entrepreneur that fell in love with technology and healthcare. ❤
She is a partner of Alternova, a software development company focused on digital health, specialising in developing digital therapeutic video games and gaming-inspired digital products. 🎮👩⚕️
Alternova has become an essential player in the health tech industry, having clients such as Stanford, MIT, UCSF, Brain Balance Centers, Children National, DoD, and Takeda. They create digital therapeutics (which includes video games), patient monitor apps and platforms, and platforms to collect and process healthcare. 🏫
María Clara, besides having a full-time job in Alternova, is also a startup mentor to provide qualified autism innovators with the resources they need to scale their ideas. Besides this, she is a baby angel investor, a diversity and women in tech advocate and has recently been interested in using psychedelics for medicinal purposes. 💰🍄
María Clara has a high educational background as she is a lawyer, studied business administration and has a master’s in International Business and Business Analytics. 👏
Check out Alternova:
_https://www.alternova.co/_
Timestamps:
1:35 - Who is María Clara?
2:10 - Alternova’s transition from VR construction to healthcare and gaming
4:00 - Realising your company has no real purpose
4:59 - Finding your company’s purpose
5:48 - Shifting your employees into a completely different industry
7:35 - Feeling the impact
9:43 - Video games that help diagnose mental disabilities
11:20 - Why use video games in healthcare?
12:18 - How training athletes with cognitive VR helps them perform better and earn scholarships
12:32 - Games that help people with autism read
13:48 - A game that helps with ADHD, a possible replacement for focus drugs like Ritalin?
15:25 - Do you find visiting your GP fun? No, it’s probably sh*t.
17:40 - María’s vision for healthcare
18:43 - The intersection of psychedelics and tech
19:50 - Near-death family VR therapy, replacing your VR body with a ball of energy!
23:24 - What got María into neurodiversity work?
24:57 - María’s (and a lot of other entrepreneurs’) superpower: ADHD
26:54 - Women in science and tech
30:17 - Key to growth: forming relationships in key countries like the US
33:04 - How to maintain a work-life balance? Say no
35:18 - The power of music, meditation, and water
37:26 - María’s unconventional book recommendations
43:05 - María’s dream interview guest
Special shoutout to Jessica Ge for producing this episode! 😼
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