What's Up with Tech?

Interested in being a guest? Email us at [email protected]
How do you protect teenagers online without turning every app into an ID checkpoint?

That's the question governments, platforms, and parents are all wrestling with right now — and most of the answers so far have been blunt, binary, and broken.

We sat down with our guest from TELUS Digital to go beyond the headlines and into the actual design challenge: what age verification gets right, what it gets dangerously wrong, and how to build systems that protect young people without making privacy feel like a casualty.

Here's what we unpacked:

The smartest approach isn't one-size-fits-all. It's layered and proportionate:

→ **Low-risk spaces** (forums, general content) can rely on self-declaration and behavioral signals
→ **Medium-risk spaces** use facial age estimation — a quick confidence range, image deleted immediately, no data stored
→ **High-risk spaces** (adult content, dating, gambling) justify stronger verification with human-in-the-loop review

The architecture matters as much as the intent. Poor design is how safety becomes surveillance.

Transparency is the trust engine.Us ers need to know *why* their data is requested, *how* it's processed, and *what* they can do when the system gets it wrong. Appeals aren't a nice-to-have — they're the difference between a system people accept and one they route around.

We also got into the real trade-offs nobody talks about enough: accuracy, privacy, inclusion, and the very real risk that blanket bans — like those emerging in Australia, Spain, and across the EU — backfire without safer defaults, stronger parental tools, and genuine digital literacy investment.

Our guest walks through how TELUS Digital supports clients across the full stack: content moderation, fraud prevention, bias testing, account security, age estimation models, and verification systems built to correct mistakes at scale.

And we close on where this is all heading — zero-knowledge proofs, privacy-preserving credentials, and portable age attestations that raise protections while *reducing* data exposure. The technology is ahead of the policy. The question is whether platforms will lead or wait to be forced.

If you're building products that touch teenagers, this conversation is for you.

PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
Support the show
More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

Interested in being a guest? Email us at [email protected]
Your IT Asset Inventory Is Lying to You

Asset sprawl isn't coming. It's already inside your organization, quietly growing through every new SaaS subscription, remote device, and shadow tool your team adopted without a ticket.

Most IT leaders know this. Few want to say it out loud.

In a recent conversation with Peter from NinjaOne, we got into the real reason IT asset management is back on everyone's radar -- and it's not because the category got flashier. It's because the pressure finally got undeniable. Hybrid work exploded device counts. SaaS spending spiraled. Compliance auditors stopped accepting "we think we have about 400 endpoints" as an answer. Spreadsheets, once a perfectly acceptable stopgap, became a liability.

That pressure is what pushed NinjaOne beyond endpoint management into a full ITAM strategy. And the conversation that followed is one worth sharing with any IT director who still runs discovery through manual walk-throughs and outdated files.

From Guesswork to Ground Truth

The practical core of unified ITAM starts with continuous discovery -- pulling data from Active Directory, Intune, SNMP, network scans -- and pairing it with lifecycle context: who owns this device, what's its status, when does the warranty expire? Software license reconciliation becomes a living process instead of a once-a-year scramble. Asset records stay current. Clean data syncs automatically into CMDBs like ServiceNow and into the ERP systems finance and procurement actually use.

Peter told a story most IT leaders will recognize immediately: the pre-audit ritual of hunting down the most recent spreadsheet, calling facilities, walking floors, and still not being confident in the numbers. Automation doesn't just save time. It removes the guesswork entirely.

The Business Case Is Hiding in Your Asset Data

Here's what changes when hardware and software inventory finally live in one place: you get leverage. Teams can spot noisy OEM vendors, stretch refresh cycles, kill redundant purchases, and surface shadow devices that are quietly sitting outside your security perimeter. Real-time visibility tightens both security posture and compliance footing. Ops teams get cleaner root-cause analysis because they can actually map relationships between network gear, servers, and peripherals.

Peter outlined a ROI model worth borrowing for your next exec conversation: measurable cost control, quantified risk reduction, and audit readiness backed by actual numbers rather than estimates and optimism.

Where the Category Goes Next

The shift underway isn't just better asset tracking. It's toward a unified IT operations control plane -- broader coverage, deeper integrations, and tools explicitly designed to collapse sprawl rather than add another layer to it. Fewer tabs. Fewer systems of record. One place where asset data, security context, and lifecycle history actually connect.

For teams still chasing asset data across tickets, procurement emails, and disconnected portals, this conversation is a practical starting point -- not a vision deck. It's about centralization, automation, and building the kind of business case that gets budget approved.

If this hits close to home, follow the show, share it with your team, and drop a quick review. It helps more people find the conversation.

Support the show
More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

Interested in being a guest? Email us at [email protected]
Think gamers are just kids with consoles? We pull back the curtain with Zynga to show how mobile gaming has become mass-market entertainment—and a must-buy channel for brands. From FarmVille roots to a powerhouse inside Take-Two Interactive, Zynga sits where free-to-play design, rewarded ads, and deep engagement meet real business outcomes.

We start with the core shift: only a small fraction of players pay, so advertising powers the experience for everyone else. That’s where rewarded ads shine. When players choose to watch a spot to earn an extra life or perk, brands become part of the game’s momentum instead of an interruption. It’s native, opt-in, and it builds goodwill that lasts longer than a passing impression. We also bust stereotypes about who plays. Mobile skews female, with millennial and Gen X women—often the chief decision-makers at home and at work—driving a massive share of purchasing. If you care about the female economy, you care about mobile gaming.

Gabriella walks through how Zynga maps brand KPIs to the right titles across 150 games, from word and match-three to sports and invest-and-express. We talk creative formats that invite two-way interaction, why gaming is the perfect companion to TV on the couch, and how mid-funnel metrics—preference, favorability, and consideration—quietly win the day. Categories seeing standout results include retail, CPG, entertainment, insurance, pharma, and QSR, all benefiting from time spent that ranks among the highest in mobile.

Looking forward, we hit the measurement problem and the fix on the horizon. Traditional media mix models undercount gaming, but AI-driven MMM promises a clearer read across retail media, CTV, social, creator, audio, and mobile apps. Add new devices, foldables, and AR into the mix and the canvas for brand experiences only gets bigger. If you’re planning budgets, building creative, or just curious how games became the heartbeat of digital attention, this conversation is a field guide to what works now and what’s next.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a teammate, and leave a quick review—what part of the gaming-media shift surprised you most?
Support the show
More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

Interested in being a guest? Email us at [email protected]
What if your best trainer is the person who’s retiring next month—and an AI that turns their brain dump into accurate, engaging lessons overnight? We unpack how a scrappy chat-with-PDF experiment grew into an enterprise-grade course creation engine that slashes time, cost, and confusion while boosting trust and adoption.

Ro shares the early product choices that mattered: attacking hallucinations head-on, grounding content in source material, and designing guided workflows that mirror real instructional design standards. We dive into the moment enterprise demand hit—when a major manufacturer needed to capture critical know-how from a retiring workforce—and how AI made it possible to transform raw voice notes and messy documents into structured training with assessments, examples, and clear outcomes. The conversation widens beyond linear courses to the realities of learning at work: microlearning, deep search across knowledge bases, and just-in-time guidance that supports real performance.

Then comes the power move—joining LearnUpon. By pairing Courso’s AI-driven content generation with LearnUpon’s LMS strengths in skills mapping, role-based delivery, and gap analysis, creation finally meets distribution. Think on-the-fly lessons triggered by skill needs, rapid updates that keep content fresh, and spaced repetition that helps learners remember what matters. Ro’s philosophy grounds it all: AI should be invisible, human-guided, and relentlessly practical. It’s not a thinker; it’s a multiplier for experts, a backstage crew that helps knowledge scale beyond silos and survive turnover.

If you care about L&D strategy, instructional design, LMS integration, knowledge capture, and personalization that actually helps people learn faster, this story-rich deep dive brings clarity and a real blueprint for action. Subscribe, share with your learning team, and leave a review with one course you’d automate first—we’d love to feature your ideas next.
Support the show
More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

Interested in being a guest? Email us at [email protected]
We sit down with Swiss Tech campaign manager to crack open the machine. This isn't luck—it's a surgical combination of world-class universities, patient capital, and a public-private alliance that treats every spinout like a potential Rolex.

From AI and robotics to medtech, biotech, and precision manufacturing, Switzerland weaponizes its obsession with quality. The ecosystem doesn't just fund research; it drags it kicking and screaming into the market, then flies it around the world to prove it works.

**Enter the Swiss Tech Pavilion: startup diplomacy on steroids.**

CES. VivaTech. MWC Barcelona. SusHi Tech Tokyo. Web Summit Vancouver. These aren't just booths—they're engineered collision zones where founders lock down investor meetings, corporate partnerships, and media hits in seventy-two hours. Patricia walks us through the formula: Swissnex handles the intel, Switzerland Global Enterprise opens corporate doors, and Innosuisse bankrolls the ambition. The right platform. The right rooms. The right moment.

Then there's the Global Deep Tech Battle—a gladiator arena for founders. International teams compete in front of investors and journalists who double as judges. It's not about participation trophies. It's about forcing Swiss startups to measure up against global killers and come out sharper.

**The pipeline starts in the lab.**

ETH Zurich and EPFL aren't just top-ranked universities—they're idea factories with built-in incubators and accelerators that turn research into revenue. Clinical trials. Industrial pilots. Product-market validation. But Patricia doesn't sugarcoat the gaps: early-stage support is world-class, but late-stage capital for hardware-heavy or regulated plays? That's where things get tight. Stability and quality of life keep teams grinding, but cross-border expansion, corporate venture checks, and Series B+ rounds remain the final boss.

If you're obsessed with how AI, robotics, and life sciences jump from whiteboards to the real world, this is your blueprint. From the hidden champions supplying Apple and Tesla to the festivals that turn unknown founders into marquee names—this is how Switzerland plays the long game and wins.

Support the show
More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel