Shows
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerNetworking the quantum internet, featuring Noel Goddard of QunnectUnder New York City lies a patchwork of long-dormant dark fibers that are now illuminating with entangled rubidium atoms.In our conversation with Noel Goddard, CEO of Qunnect, we learn about the tough tech testbed named GothamQ. Qunnect is pioneering the future of the telecom industry by transforming existing fiber optics into quantum networks, providing a robust, secure communication channel for the next evolution of the digital age.Qunnect’s rubidium-based networking devices promise to safeguard communications against eavesdropping by ensuring that any attempts at interception destroy the transmitted message. This makes digital communications that ar...2024-08-3051 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerCultivating billion-dollar narwhals, featuring Adam de Sola PoolWhere is the money in oceanographic research? Fundamental understanding of the watery parts of our planet (i.e. most of it) is woefully under pursued. However, just as it seems some ocean systems are almost falling apart – coral bleaching, rising tides, species extinctions – we are beginning to see more attention paid to exploring the depths. "There will be unicorns of the ocean, very successful companies which we call ‘narwhals’,” Adam de Sala Pool told us. A Special Advisor to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, de Sala Pool has seen a similar situation before: he was an early i...2024-05-0743 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerReimagining coastal transportation, featuring Billy Thalheimer of REGENT CraftIt’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… technically a flying boat! When challenged to imagine how to electrify aviation, Billy Thalheimer, CEO and co-founder of REGENT Craft, and his team set to work looking at what has been done with hydroplanes before – and what emerging technologies are available today that change the equation for what is possible and economically achievable.“Building with atoms is harder than building with bits. You can’t just revert to your last code push,” Mr. Thalheimer told us. “Early on, it was really just finding those investors that ‘got’ tough tech.” And...2024-03-1430 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerDeploying undersea explorers, featuring Jeff Smith of SaabThe blue parts of our planet are beautiful yet stunningly punishing for even our toughest of technologies.Dark, crushing, unexplored, and unknown – the depths of the seas are where an explorer like Jeff Smith has devoted his career to understanding. As the Vice President and General Manager of Autonomous and Undersea Systems at Saab, Inc., Smith has experience developing submersibles of nearly every shape and size, including some of the most advanced systems for remotely-operated and autonomous research vessels. A distinguished figure in the undersea robotics realm, Smith brings a wealth of experience fro...2024-02-1354 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerFusing atoms with lasers, featuring Thomas Forner and Pravesh Patel of Focused EnergyIf this company perfectly combines lasers and atoms, the reaction could be worth trillions of dollars.Focused Energy’s Thomas Forner, CEO, and Pravesh Patel, CTO, join us to talk about making lasers. Lots and lots of lasers. But for what aim? They are pointing hundreds of directed beams at a tiny target: a millimeter-sized plastic capsule of deuterium and tritium, about the size of a peppercorn. These experiments may reveal a commercial pathway to grid-scale fusion energy. In contrast to other pursuits for nearly limitless clean energy such as stellarators and tokamaks, our third installment of th...2023-12-1250 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerThe Star Machine: How Proxima Fusion is Powering the Sustainable Grid! Featuring Francesco SciortinoHow do we harness the power of the stars to deliver clean energy on Earth?It has been a collective goal – and, perhaps, an impending imperative – for human civilization to secure renewable energy sources for its present and future needs. The team at Proxima Fusion (https://www.proximafusion.com/about), led by co-founder and CEO Francesco Sciortino (https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesco-sciortino-aa340180/), is focused on one approach to build a fusion power plant. Their use of a “stellarator”, a wildly complex machine that until recently has been literally impossible to build, could prove the econ...2023-10-1059 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerMastering Billion-Dollar Tech Investments & Galactic Defense 💸🛰️👾 featuring Preston DunlapStanding up a space force within the world’s largest bureaucracy is not for the faint of heart.Preston Dunlap – former (and first) Chief Architect / Chief Technology Officer of the United States Air Force and Space Force and present CEO of Arkenstone Ventures – has developed a privileged view into the government machinations necessary to design, develop, and buy the right mix of tough tech capabilities. Mission-focused and multidisciplinary, Dunlap and the organizations in which he engaged at the most senior levels have commanded hundreds of billions of dollars in defense acquisitions.A curious combination of comput...2023-09-1258 min