Bistrocast

In the newest episode of Orange Silicon Valley’s Bistrocast podcast, the conversation turns toward a new type of dialogue — the one between humans and machines. The talk features Sarah Luger, a research scientist in natural language processing (NLP) at OSV, who spoke about how artificial intelligence (AI) and NLP technologies are evolving, how they feed into each other, and what to expect from them in the future. Additionally, she offers insights on machine data, software innovation, and how AI stands to reshape human livelihoods and behavior.Sarah holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh in computer informatics. Her career spans work with AI, machine learning, and NLP at startups and other tech companies in the Bay Area. She is an expert in multilingual annotation strategies for machine learning algorithms in classification tasks and question-answering. Listen to our wide-ranging discussion with her in the embedded audio recording below.

Orange Silicon Valley’s podcast is back with a new episode focused on the state of Smart Cities technology. Will Barkis, who leads OSV’s Smart Cities program and works on projects related to public policy and B2B data-sharing, sat down with the Bistrocast to discuss the pilot projects that some cities are already working on, as well as where new opportunities exist to leverage technology and help cities to better serve their residents.Will comes from a science and policy background that includes neuroscience research at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as time spent at the National Science Foundation and Mozilla. His journey has since taken him here to OSV and work with the mayor’s office in San Francisco, which has helped to inform his perspective on connective tech in urban environments. You can hear Will’s insights, along with information about the upcoming research and policy event that he’s bringing to OSV on Sept. 13, with the embedded player below.

The first episode of the Bistrocast features a one-on-one talk with Mike Vladimer, the co-founder of Orange Silicon Valley’s IoT Studio. In this debut episode, Mike explains how he went from his previous role working on technology for missiles to his role at OSV, where he works with technology that enables connectivity for dog collars, bikes, and enterprise offices. In this episode, he discusses what people commonly misunderstand about IoT and what he sees successful IoT products doing correctly.

In this episode of Orange Silicon Valley’s Bistrocast podcast, our experts John Eisenman and George Livingston join us to discuss the intersection of blockchains with issues of trust and corporate responsibility. The conversation touches on discussions that will take place at our May 5 Hello Wednesday virtual event, “Building trust in business and society with blockchains,” and it should be very accessible to anyone wondering about how — and why — blockchain technology is currently being used in ways that extend beyond cryptocurrencies.The post What companies using blockchain solutions need to understand about trust appeared first on Orange Silicon Valley.

Looking ahead to Orange Silicon Valley’s Hello Wednesday event, “Data and the future of cities,” on April 7, Orange Silicon Valley Principal Will Barkis joined our Bistrocast podcast to discuss the municipal-level changes and evolving challenges he has seen over the past year. To set the stage for April 7, Will walked us through what has happened and what the implications are for decision-makers who fund new technology deployments in the years ahead.The post Cities face these crucial technology-related questions in 2021 appeared first on Orange Silicon Valley.

Orange Silicon Valley hosted project leaders from the United Nations World Food Programme’s Innovation Accelerator this week for a bootcamp that introduced participants to local mentors. The mentors offered up business and tech advice to help the WFP’s projects grow and scale — though each of the participating projects has already hit major milestones. One project, ShareTheMeal, has attracted more than a million community members and provided a means to share 45 million meals with people in need across the globe. Another, called Plus, has created a software solution to connect school lunch programs in Bhutan with supply chains based on cost and nutrition. They’re all trying to solve big problems with the potential to changes lives for the better, so we invited them to the Bistrocast to explain how they’re using technology, what they hope to achieve as they scale their growth, and why they came to here explore next steps.The post What UN World Food Programme projects want to learn from Silicon Valley appeared first on Orange Silicon Valley.

Orange Silicon Valley launched its San Francisco-based Women in Tech event series in 2018, and over the past year it has grown significantly. Guests have included founders, VCs, and other tech experts who are working to drive better outcomes for women working in the industry. With registration now open for the next Women in Tech event on Sept. 26, the Bistrocast invited OSV’s Julie Leclerq and Alice Brisset to discuss how they created this series, what they have learned so far, and what issues they want to explore at future events.The post How to improve tech for women (and everyone else) appeared first on Orange Silicon Valley.

As part of Orange Silicon Valley’s ongoing conversation about women working in tech, we invited FemTech Collective founder Nicole Dahlstrom and Bloomi CEO Rebecca Story to talk to the Bistrocast about the growth story they see happening right now in FemTech. We asked both of them about how they define the category, which is often applied to products and services in health that are designed with female users in mind. They shared their thoughts and discussed the reactions they’ve seen from investors, as well as how they have seen attitudes in the tech ecosystem change over time.The post The case for growth in FemTech appeared first on Orange Silicon Valley.

One of the most important conversations in tech right now centers around the roles and rules that will govern artificial intelligence. As capabilities improve dramatically for software and the machines that it powers, it is important to remember the humans that these technology breakthroughs are meant to help. The newest episode of the Bistrocast delves into the numerous questions raised by recent AI advancements. In this episode, we sit down with Mira Murati, the strategy lead at San Francisco-based OpenAI. OpenAI is an AI research company focused on safety in artificial general intelligence, and Murati has explored many facets of AI’s potential to empower people, shape user interfaces, and improve robotics.The post Envisioning safe, human-centered AI with OpenAI’s Mira Murati appeared first on Orange Silicon Valley.