What's Up with Tech?

Interested in being a guest? Email us at [email protected] if every meter in a city became a tiny base station? That simple shift unlocks coverage where towers fail, slashes operating costs, and floods the grid with the data it needs to stay resilient under the weight of electrification. We sit down with Wirepas CEO Teppo Hemiä to unpack how a fully decentralized mesh lets devices make local decisions on channel, power, and routing—no single point of failure, no shouting across long distances, and no fragile tuning from a central controller.We trace the journey from early cellular breakthroughs to an edge-first architecture built for smart grids, smart metering, and industrial IoT at massive scale. Tippo explains why electrification flips the data problem on its head: rooftop solar, EV charging, and dynamic tariffs demand millions of reliable data points and two-way control. Real-world case studies from Oslo’s million-node deployment to India’s 300-million-meter landscape show how the mesh holds up in basements, metal cabinets, slums with extreme density, and even container ships where multipath overwhelms conventional radios. By embedding backhaul into a fraction of meters, deployments get simpler, cheaper, and faster—devices self-form the network and keep it healthy.We dig into economics and standards too. With NR+ aligning the technology to the 5G family, utilities avoid lock-in while gaining a path to sub-second reads and grid-grade reliability. A new low-power milestone—mesh routers sipping around 20 microamps on Nordic’s latest silicon—opens the door to battery-powered routing and multi-year autonomy. The takeaway is clear: decentralization, spectrum efficiency, and autonomy are the keystones for a resilient, data-rich energy future. Subscribe, share with a colleague building smart energy systems, and leave a review with your biggest question about scaling IoT for the grid.Support the showMore at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

Interested in being a guest? Email us at [email protected] is about to flood every feed with AI demos and wall-sized screens, but the real breakthroughs are quieter: teams turning bold ideas into measurable results. We sat down to unpack how the We Love Tech Awards celebrate that kind of progress—transparent judging, practical innovation, and stories you can actually learn from.We revisit standout winners who proved utility at scale: TD’s immersive learning programs that used VR and AR to deliver real training outcomes, a playful banking experiment on Roblox that still respected user value, and enterprise CX leaders who applied generative AI to increase satisfaction while cutting handle time. Along the way, we talk about why recognition programs matter when news cycles skew negative, and how celebrating builders can lift morale, validate products, and sharpen a brand’s narrative.You’ll also get a behind-the-scenes look at our judging model. Thousands of volunteer experts—engineers, PMs, and operators—score entries and share actionable feedback, turning a trophy into a roadmap. We dig into categories spanning AI, cloud, cybersecurity, SaaS, IoT, and leadership, then outline how to craft a winning nomination: define the problem, show the implementation, quantify outcomes, and include the lessons learned. With CES days away and nominations due by late March, there’s time to gather the right metrics and stories that prove your work scales.Before we sign off, we share a few gear picks for creators tackling noisy events and remote workflows—from minimalist e-ink dashboards that cut phone time to compact wireless mics that make a phone feel like a pocket studio. Ready to spotlight tech that works? Subscribe, share this with a teammate, and leave a review with the one metric you’re proudest of from the past year.Support the showMore at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

Interested in being a guest? Email us at [email protected] calls shouldn’t feel like theater. We sat down with People got ai’s new CEO Jason Ambrose to unpack how turning raw activity—emails, meetings, call transcripts—into crisp answers can transform forecasting, end CRM fatigue, and give leaders the clarity they actually need. Instead of forcing reps to feed fields, the platform reads what is already happening and returns guidance you can use right now: which deals are at risk, which stakeholders are missing, and where to act to hit the number.We trace People ai’s path from early activity capture to training models on billions of interactions across years of market shocks. That history pays off when patterns shift; the system sees signals static dashboards miss. Jason explains why most forecasting rituals only assign accountability, not risk, and how a risk-first approach reframes the conversation: timing, probability, engagement, and next best actions. The result is a plan you can execute, not a spreadsheet you defend.We also dig into the CRM reality. Systems of record still matter, but the monolithic UI is giving way to flexible experiences, agents, and chat surfaces that pull answers into the tools your teams already use. Executives want to ask open questions—what’s happening in Japan, where a product stands—and get a directionally correct answer in minutes, not days. Agents are set to automate internal churn like account plans, win wires, and pricing checks, so sellers spend more time with customers and less time in tabs. Jason’s vision is simple and ambitious: make accurate, actionable answers available anywhere, integrate with the stack you have, and scale from pilot wins to trusted operations.If you’re ready to replace hunches with clarity, tune in, share with a teammate, and leave a review so we can keep bringing you conversations that cut through the noise.Support the showMore at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

Interested in being a guest? Email us at [email protected] bright pair of pink socks walked into HIMSS and walked out as a global symbol of connection. We sit down with Nick Adkins to unpack how a playful gesture turned into 300,000 gifts, a nonprofit rooted in kindness, and a book that invites all of us to love more and fear less.Nick takes us back to 2015, when he and cofounder Andrew Richards skipped the booth, packed a backpack with socks, and discovered the power of intentional gifting to break silos in healthcare. From viral photos and a TEDx talk to collaborations with hospitals, schools, and even astronauts, the Pink Socks movement shows how a small token can open big conversations. The new book, Pink Socks: How A Pair Of Socks Became A Symbol Of Love And Connection, weaves ten years of stories for three audiences: longtime community members, the Pink Socks-curious, and anyone craving a simple path back to empathy.We go inside the moment that changed everything: a raw, post-talk conversation at Stanford’s MedX with a lung transplant recipient whose story turned socks into a practice of holding space. Nick explains why connection, not just connectivity, heals teams and cultures, and how leaders can model empathy in ways that shift entire companies—sometimes starting with a poem. Practical ideas abound: put down the phone, introduce yourself to the person next to you, use a small, visible token to spark dialogue, and watch a tense room—say, a long post office line—soften into patience.If your heart is ready for a clear, human reset, this conversation offers a map. Explore pinksocks.life, discover how the nonprofit supports schools and community projects, and consider gifting the interactive hardcover with QR codes that bring stories to life. If this story resonates, share the episode with a friend, subscribe for more human-centered conversations, and leave a review to help others find us.Support the showMore at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

Interested in being a guest? Email us at [email protected] if the secret to scaling AI agents has nothing to do with better prompts and everything to do with smarter integration? We sit down with Rich Waldron Co-founder & CEO of Tray dot ai to unpack how an integration-first architecture turns agent hype into measurable business outcomes. From cloud-native orchestration to resilient API handling, Rich explains why the hardest part of agents isn’t connectivity—it’s everything behind it: concurrency, retries, governance, logging, and security.We dig into the real reasons enterprise pilots stall and the pattern he sees among programs that succeed: IT-led, department-partnered builds with clear ROI, tight scopes, and fast iteration cycles. Rich shares a standout customer story migrating hundreds of integrations off a legacy vendor while launching agentic workflows on a single governed platform—delivering 60% lower integration costs and three times faster builds. Along the way, we explore how engineering teams use AI coding tools to prototype faster and offload grunt work, freeing time for architecture and testing without threatening roles.If you’re choosing where to start, accelerators for ITSM, HR, support, and knowledge make time-to-value tangible and create a structure teams can adapt to proprietary data and processes. We also cover the growing priority of enterprise governance: controlling which tools agents can access, how data moves, and how identities map across systems. Rich outlines Tray’s Agent Gateway for MCP—adding authentication and permissioning and exposing Trey-built tools to other services in a controlled way—so CIOs can move quickly without giving away the keys to the kingdom.Ready to move from pilot to production with confidence? Follow, share, and leave a review to tell us where your organization is on the journey—and what’s blocking your next agent from going live.Support the showMore at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel