Shows
Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Part 2 of Tackling Teacher Shortages with Mallory Dwinal-Palisch of Reach University & Craft Education SystemsThis is part 2 of our great discussion with Mallory Dwinal Palisch. If you've not yet listened to part 1, please do so before listening to this second half. In this part of the conversation about Reach University and Craft Education System we discuss student-centered technologies, professional capital, labor mobility of teachers, remote learning, teacher credentialing, data aggregation, teachers unions, teacher wages, and more. AND Mallory shows off her econ skills, talking about monopsonies and non-pecuniary incentives,Enjoy part 2 of the episode and Thanks for Being Curious!
2023-01-1933 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Tackling Teacher Shortages with Mallory Dwinal-Palisch of Reach University & Craft Education Systems (part 1)There is arguably nothing more important to our future economy than the quality of our education system, and there is nothing more important to that than the quality and availability of teachers. But as anyone who's followed the news in the last couple of years knows, we are currently facing something of a crisis in the availability of qualified teachers.Here are some stats to put that crisis into perspective. According to EdWeek, there are over 3.1 million full-time equivalent teachers in public schools in the fall of 2022. But the National Education Association estimates that there i...
2023-01-0321 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Can AI make the mortgage market easier for lenders and borrowers? Matt Sanchez of Cognitive Scale explains how..With interest rates rising and the economy slowing, the world of credit is getting a lot harder for both lenders and borrowers — and that’s especially painful in the mortgage market, given how high house prices are. Matt Sanchez, Founder and CTO of CognitiveScale thinks that Artificial Intelligence can help: it can help loan officers identify potential borrowers ahead of time, and it can help borrowers get access to the right mortgage offers. Can it also help make the lending process more fair? Matt , an IBM veteran and a board member of the Responsible AI Institute, believes it ca...
2022-12-0822 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Renewable Heat as one solution to Europe's Energy Crisis: KraftBlock's Martin SchichtelDeveloping Clean Energy Solutions With KraftBlock’s Martin SchichtelAcross the world, a huge amount of energy is wasted in the form of heat. In industries like glass and steel, manufacturing processes require extremely high temperatures, and those processes generate a lot of wasted heat. That heat is usually blown directly into the atmosphere.But what if there was a way to capture, store, and reuse that heat, effectively transforming it into a climate-neutral energy source?That’s exactly what Martin Schichtel set out to do. A chemist by training, Martin beli...
2022-10-2813 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)We're baaaackMiss us?M4Edge is coming back soon, with a new format.Stay tuned! Stay curious!
2022-10-1802 min
Mentally Healthy Nation7: Judges and Psychiatrists Decriminalizing Mental Illness TogetherOn this episode, we are joined by Dr. Michael Champion and Judge Steven Leifman to talk about how judges and psychiatrists can work together to combat the over-incarceration of community members with mental illness. Resources: People with Mental Illness in the Criminal Justice System Judges and Psychiatrists Leadership Initiative Mental Health Professionals' Guide to Their Role in the Criminal Justice System Just and Well: Rethinking How States Approach Competency to Stand Trial For a transcript of this episode, visit: https://apafdn.org/news-events/mentally-healthy-nation-podcast/judges-and-psychiatrists-decriminalizing-mental-il
2022-02-1057 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Bonus: The Future According to M4Edge GuestsIn the 3+ years that M4Edge has been around, we've aired over 50 episodes and, as listeners know, we usually ask our guests to give us their view of the future 20 years hence. Sometimes the answers are somewhat expected, sometimes they're a little humorous, and sometimes they're deeply thought provoking. As a holiday present, this episode offers a compilation of some of our favorites. We won't go so far as to say that this is a "best of" set, since we left out some great ones. But we've reached across the catalog, from our very first to our most recent...
2021-12-0818 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Alex Rodrigues of Embark Trucks on his driven journey and our driverless futureThis is the final M4Edge episode of 2021 an we are finishing this year with a bang, Our guest is Alex Rodrigues, founder and CEO of Embark Trucks; he is a Forbes 30 under 30, and more importantly, at the tender age of 26 he has just brought Embark public through a SPAC deal valuing the company at over 5 billion dollars.Embark is right up the M4Edge alley, where we look at technologies that change the way the economy works: Embark develops software for self-driving trucks. Alex Rodrigues has a long-standing interest in automation: his passion for robots started...
2021-11-1152 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Dror Tamir of Hargol FoodTech explains why eating grasshoppers is better for you, better for the planet, and how he gets you to get by the "yuck" factor.After a long absence, we’ve returned with a very fun episode and right in line with the M4Edge theme. The startup we focus on today is really micro, in the weeds, you might say, with some very macro aims, and it’s about as edgy as can be.You probably know that we’ve done several episodes on ESG or impact investing, and we’ve also done quite a few food-tech and ag-tech episodes. This episode is part of that series, but with some cool twists .We interview Dror Tamir, the CEO of Hargol Food Tech. Dr...
2021-09-2456 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Michael Sachse of Dandelion Energy on Decarbonizing your Home with GeothermalIt’s not often that a small startup has ties to Google and Bill Gates. Our guest today, Michael Sachse, the CEO of Dandelion Energy inhabits that rarefied atmosphere.Dandelion Energy was originally part of Google X, Alphabet’s so-called moonshot factory. And very recently, Dandelion received substantial series B funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which is the VC arm of a Bill Gates – led organization whose mission is to help get the world to net zero carbon emissions.So what’s so special about Dandelion that it attracted this sort of attention? They are tackling...
2021-05-2054 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Nathaniel Jackson of TrueAlgae explains how he can help your strawberries taste better, last longer, while improving farmers profits and reducing GHGWe seem drawn to Agtech and impact investing. And good-tasting fruit.We kicked off our 2021 season with a discussion on impact investing or socially responsible investing, including with a startup (EcoRobotix) that produces solar-power farming equipment for AI-based precision application of herbicide. We've done a few episodes in the Agtech space, including with a startup (Strella Biotech) that uses sensors to determine optimal fruit ripening in storage, reduce food waste and make our avocados not crummy. In this episode we continue these trends, and learn from TrueAlgae CEO Nathaniel Jackson about how their product can improve crop yields w...
2021-03-2550 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Doing good and doing well: Impact Investing, Social Entrepreneurship & ESG, cohosted by Georgetown's Beeck CenterWe kick off this season with a deeper look at the meaning of our phrase “changing how the economy functions,” specifically examining what you may have heard of as “social entrepreneurship,” which is the idea that entrepreneurial ventures should measure themselves not just by revenue but also by metrics that capture their broader impact on the social and natural environment.Impact investing takes many forms. It can be venture firms seeking out so called “double bottom line“ or even “triple bottom line” returns, meaning financial & social returns or financial & social & environmental. In fact, there is a venture fir...
2021-01-191h 06Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Climate-Tech is really hard! And other lessons from Ricky Buch of Loctricity (Ricky's Startup Reality)We are joined again by our friend and former colleague Ricky Buch. We’ve had Ricky on the show several times as small segments we called Ricky’s Reports from the Edge or sometimes full episodes we called Ricky’s Startup Reality. Ricky started a clean tech company - now the term of art is climate tech – called Loctricity. It was a great idea started by a smart guy with skills, knowledge, industry connections, in the right place and in the right time. But Loctricity is now on pause, and in this episode you’ll hear why, and how Ricky is s...
2020-12-1845 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Guy Levy-Yurista of Sisense on being a CSO and what strategy means at startups. Strategy Miniseries Part 3In this episode, the third in our series on startup strategy, Marco and I interview Guy Levy-Yurista , the chief strategy officer of Sisense. Sisense is an unusual business analytics or business intelligence (BI) startup, and Guy is an unusual, well, guy. Before becoming a CSO, Guy’s career included being a CTO, VP of Product, a PhD in physics, a sommelier, and more. So he brings a wealth of expertise and perspective to his job and to this conversation. We talk about what strategy means and what it means for a startup; we talk about how startups take risks; we...
2020-11-051h 04Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Ron Carucci of Navalent on how Corporate Culture, Leadership and Cognitive Biases Affect Strategy. Strategy Miniseries Part 2Our miniseries on startups strategy continues today with Ron Carucci. Ron is a renowned strategy consultant with three decades of experience in large and small companies, and currently he is the owner and managing partner of his own strategy consulting outfit, Navalent. Ron is also a Harvard Business Review contributor, and a TED speaker.Through the lens of his extensive experience, Ron shares his views on the different strategic challenges that companies face, starting from some very basic questions: When and how does a company realize that its strategy no longer works and needs to b...
2020-10-0551 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Elma Beganovich of Amra and Elma on How Startups Identify and Reach Target Customers. Strategy Miniseries Part 1Today we kick off a new, special miniseries on strategy. We’ll unpack the different aspects of business strategy that a startup needs to develop, discuss how strategy evolves through time as a start-up goes to market and starts to grow, and talk about how strategy for a startup differs from strategy for a large corporation.We wanted to go well beyond our own strategy experience and expertise, and bring you a wide range of different viewpoints and fields of expertise. So we have assembled an incredibly diverse set of guests for this series.They in...
2020-09-0149 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Construction Decarbonization Techs #2. Sandeep Ahuja of Cove Tool on How to Choose Lower Carbon in ALL elements of ConstructionOur guest today is Sandeep Ahuja, co-founder and CEO of Cove Tool. Sandeep has been named to the Forbes’ prestigious “Thirty Under Thirty” list; the recognition has given her a great boost in exposure and credibility, but it can prove to be a mixed blessing in the construction industry, as you will hear. Sandeep founded Cove Tool to help fight climate change, and here are the two numbers she wants you to focus on: worldwide, buildings account for about 40% of energy consumption and carbon emissions, and yet about 50% of buildings are designed without even thinking of energy efficiency. Why? Mainly...
2020-08-1154 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Construction Decarbonization Techs #1. Apoorv Sinha of Carbon Upcycling Technologies discusses storing carbon in commercial productsM4Edge is about startups with technologies that can change how the economy functions. There’s very little that is as central to a functioning economy as energy, and that’s one reason why climate change is such a deep societal problem. There are also very few industries that are as important to a growing economy as the construction industry. And so today’s episode is one of a two-part miniseries on technologies that are aimed at the greening of the construction industry. Interestingly, both of our guests were recently named to the prestigious Forbes 30 under 30 list, for energy. Today’...
2020-07-2459 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)The Future of ... So Much, You Decide, with Jay Rogers and Vikrant Aggarwal of Local MotorsOur episode today is about the future of ____. We left that last part blank because you can decide for yourself. We interview Jay Rogers and Vikrant Aggarwal who are, respectively, the CEO co-founder and president of Local Motors. I could tell you that Local Motors is an automotive manufacturing company, but that would be criminally uninformative. Local Motors makes vehicles that are unusual, and makes them in an unusual way. Their marquis product, Olli, is a fully autonomous, electric vehicle shuttle bus. Their manufacturing process relies on Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM), hybrid additive and subtractive manufacturing, and is designed...
2020-06-251h 02Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Untangling Uncertainty Around Coronavirus and the EconomyToday's bonus episode is about the multiple layers of uncertainty we are all facing right now. More specifically, the episode is meant to give you some insight into how M4 Strategy Garage can help your business untangle those uncertainties as you try to navigate the murky waters ahead. We have categorized the covid recovery uncertainty into five elements, and within each element have identified several variables we believe are important to monitor, in order to understand how the economy will respond to the pandemic over time. We've come up with three scenarios, which each comprising a combination of those...
2020-05-2228 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Using Big Data in Real-Time to fight pandemics, navigate traffic, analyze banking and more, with Paul Appleby of KineticaOn today's episode we speak with Paul Appleby, the CEO of Kinetica. Paul has held leadership roles in some very prominent tech companies, including SAP, SalesForce and C3, and he's now at the helm a big data startup, so he’s definitely been at the center of our changing economy, and has a lot to reflect upon. We recorded our interview with Paul in early March of 2020 and we’ve delayed the release a bit because we wanted to give room for some of our M4 Corona Combatants mini-episodes to get some airtime and some of your minds...
2020-05-111h 00Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)M4 Corona Combatants #3: 3DHubs and Sorcero use their platforms in the fightThis episode is number 3 in our Corona Combatants series. In this series we’re trying to amplify the efforts of our guests and their companies who are using the tools at their disposal to help fight the sprawling battle against Corona. If you’ve not heard the other episodes in this series, please check them out – they include distance learning resources from Legends of Learning, accelerated lending and distance lending from Boss insights, and a Maker based effort to produced PPE by CU Denver and Make4Covid. In this episode, we highlight the work of two companies - 3DHubs - we'l...
2020-04-2107 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Robots in the Supermakets During a Pandemic, and After, with Brad Bogolea of Simbe RoboticsAs the coronavirus forced governments to shut down large parts of the economy, ordering workers to stay home, one of our first questions was: where are the robots when you need them? So we invited Brad Bogolea to come on M4Edge. Brad is the co-founder and CEO of Simbe Robotics and they produce…well…robots. Their most well-known robot is named Tally, and has already been widely deployed across major retail chains, especially grocery stores. Tally goes up and down the aisles and uses image recognition to take a real time inventory of the items on the s...
2020-04-1349 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Making lending faster, cheaper and better, with Keren Moynihan of Boss InsightsOur guest today is Keren Moynihan, founder and CEO of Boss Insights.Our conversation with Keren is especially timely, as we recorded this podcast on Monday, March 16th, 2020. Just the day before, Sunday March 15th , the US Federal Reserve held an emergency meeting and announced a set of monetary policy measures to support the economy during the #coronavirus crisis. The measures are strongly focused on the need to keep lending flowing to both businesses and individuals, to help them through what we all hope will be a temporary period of serious economic difficulty.This is where...
2020-03-271h 03Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)M4 Corona Combatants #2: InWorks at University of Colorado and Make4Covid. Makers coordinating against CovidThis is a very special edition of the M4Edge podcast, and a part of our Corona Combatants series: we speak with a team of people who are striving to leverage 3D printing resources to quickly supply hospitals and care centers with some of the equipment they need to handle the covid-19 emergency. Our guests are all affiliated with the University of Colorado Denver, and the Anschutz Medical Center through a novel project called Inworks, which as one of our guests says, is like a maker space on steroids. Inworks seeks to create innovative solutions to some...
2020-03-2537 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)M4 Corona Combatants #1: Our guests' companies' efforts to help out.M4Edge is about startups with technology that can change how the economy functions, and nothing has quite as potentially dramatic an effect on the economy as a Pandemic plus a possible recession. But some of our guests’ companies can help. In times like these, it’s very easy to despair, but it’s important to find as many ways as we can to find reasons to be hopeful, and more importantly, to create reasons for hope. We realized recently that some of our guests – these awesome entrepreneurs - are creating reasons for hope, and we wanted to ampli...
2020-03-2306 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Food Waste and The Secret Lives of Fruits, with Katherine Sizov of Strella BiotechOur guest today is Katherine Sizov, Founder of Strella Biotechnology. This is our third Ag-tech show in our young 2nd season. We opened with Allison Kopf of Artemis, and this episode follow Hunter McDaniel of UbiQD. There will be more; it's one of our themes this season, and is increasingly important in the age of Corona-driven changes and challenges to our economy and supply chains.The first thing you should know is that Katherine is fresh out of college, and she founded Strella Biotechnology while she was still a student at the University of Pennsylvania, where she...
2020-03-2055 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Hunter McDaniel of UbiQD on engineering the tiniest particles to have an enormous impact on lighting, agriculture, solar power and moreToday's guest is Hunter McDaniel of the company UbiQD. As in ubiquitous, but the "QD" stands for quantum dots. Today's episode is one of those wide ranging talks that has become a hallmark of some of our best M4Edge discussions. We cover not just what a quantum dot is and what UbiQD does, but the Department of Energy's National Laboratory system and the importance of basic science in the innovation process. We talk about solar power generation from your tinted windows, and we even talk about cannabis. UbiQD makes quantum dots, which are so small they're kind of...
2020-02-2759 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Sam Kimzey of Chaac Technologies looks to the skies for the solution to twin problemsOur guest today is Sam Kimzey, co-founder of Chaac Technologies. That’s a pretty unusual name for a tech company – Sam will explain where the name comes from and why it is so relevant to Chaac’s mission.Chaac’s technologies has developed an innovative solution to address simultaneously two of the biggest sustainability challenges the world faces today: access to clean water and access to clean energy. In places like the US and Europe we tend to take access to water for granted, but it is a major challenge in many parts of the world, a challenge...
2020-02-0446 min
Building the Future: Freedom, Prosperity, and Foreign Policy with Dan RundeLeveraging New Technologies for Global DevelopmentIn this episode, Dan is joined by Michael Leifman and Marco Annunziata, cohosts of M4Edge, a podcast that analyzes how technology impacts global economies. Dan and his guests discuss the ways that new technologies are going to evolve in developing countries, and how governments can support these efforts. The speakers highlight which technologies they think offer the most potential for economic growth and lifting people out of poverty. They also observe how many countries are unable to introduce new technologies because they do not have the regulatory policies in place to support technologies such as driverless cars. Lastly...
2020-01-2227 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Allison Kopf, Artemis and the Future of AgricultureWe decided to kick off the new year, the new decade and our new season with the basics: food. Our guest Allison Kopf, founder of Artemis, set out to tackle a fundamental challenge -how to make sure the world can feed its rapidly growing population in a sustainable way. But Artemis approaches this grand problem in a very nuts-and-bolts way, namely by digitizing the agriculture supply chain so as to eliminate inefficiencies and reduce costs.Moreover, Artemis’ software enables traceability across the supply chain, which means greater security. If something goes wrong, someone gets sick, Artemis’ software will enab...
2020-01-161h 01Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Year End Bonus #1! Greg Mulholland of Citrine Informatics checks in after a year.We’re closing out our first season with three bonus episodes. In each of these bonus episodes, we check-in with our first three guests on the show, Greg Mulholland of Citrine Informatics, Dipanwita Das of Sorcero and Randy Altschuler of Xometry. Innovation is moving faster than ever, so we want to keep the pulse of the market and see how much progress our guests are making. It’s been a year since we first interviewed these companies, and each has had a banner year. In this update episode we catch up with our very first guest, Greg Mulho...
2019-12-2528 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Year End Bonus #2! Dipanwita Das of Sorcero checks in after a year.We’re closing out our first season with three bonus episodes. In each of these bonus episodes, we check-in with our first three guests on the show, Greg Mulholland of Citrine Informatics, Dipanwita Das of Sorcero and Randy Altschuler of Xometry. Innovation is moving faster than ever, so we want to keep the pulse of the market and see how much progress our guests are making. It’s been a year since we first interviewed these companies, and each has had a banner year. In this episode, we catch up with Dipanwita Das of Sorcero. You might remem...
2019-12-2532 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Year End Bonus #3! Randy Altschuler of Xometry checks in after a year.We’re closing out our first season with three bonus episodes. In each of these bonus episodes, we check-in with our first three guests on the show, Greg Mulholland of Citrine Informatics, Dipanwita Das of Sorcero and Randy Altschuler of Xometry. Innovation is moving faster than ever, so we want to keep the pulse of the market and see how much progress our guests are making. It’s been a year since we first interviewed these companies, and each has had a banner year. In this episode, we catch up with Randy Altschuler of Xometry, a Manufacturing-as-a-Service platf...
2019-12-2529 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)The RAPID Economy. Our new theory for how technology will shape the economy.It's been a bit over a year since we launched M4Edge, and we've had the opportunity to speak with many startup CEOs and CTOs and VCs. We've also had the opportunity to reflect on what we've learned, and we've come up with a theory for how technology is changing and shaping the economy. We are calling the new economy the RAPID economy.R is for RemoteA for AutomationP is for Productivity and PervasiveI is for Individualized and Individuated, but may also stand for InequalityD is for Digitized, but...
2019-12-1755 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Ricky's Startup Reality. Ricky Inks a deal!We're trying to make the "Ricky's Startup Reality" segments into micro-episodes. That was difficult for us - especially Michael, who had many questions he forced himself to not ask. This is a small episode with big news for Ricky!And, since this is so short, you have plenty of time to write us a review on Apple Podcasts...If you've not listened to previous episodes of Ricky's Startup Reality, or Ricky's Reports from the Edge, as it was called until recently, you may need to go back and listen to a few, just to get...
2019-12-0905 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Andy Maggio of D6VR explains that virtual reality is getting real. Only one mention of Ready Player One....Our guest on today’s show is Andy Maggio of D6VR. That’s VR as in virtual reality. The D6 stands for 6 dimensions, and Andy will explain what that means. We’ve all heard the term virtual reality for years, but usually in science fiction, or more recently for serious gamers who want immersive experiences. But VR is maturing and is now being used for serious commercial purposes too. D6VR’s product is actually intended for data analysis, a far cry from the world flying or dinosaur fighting or roller-coaster riding you may otherwise associate with VR. Andy exp...
2019-11-2749 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Anson Kung of A&K Robotics chats about robots, AI, goats and soccer.Our guest today is Anson Kung, former CTO and co-founder of A&K Robotics. (See below for "late breaking news" on Anson's role at A&K.) Today’s episode has our most thoughtful discussion so far of the impact that the robot revolution is likely to have on our lives. Anson is a first class roboticist, and has a deep insight in how quickly robots are improving, and which tasks they will likely take over in the near future. Michael, as you know by now, has a very pessimistic perspective—he is a true “robo-phobe”. I (Marco) have a m...
2019-11-0858 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Ricky's Startup Reality. Is this a turning point for Ricky's business?Ricky's Reports from the Edge has a new name: the running series featuring Ricky Buch and his nascent startup Loctricity is now Ricky's Startup Reality. This episode is a great one for a name change, because the news Ricky shares may also prove to be a watershed for his business. Some unusual macro conditions may provide just the right opportunity for Ricky to go from idea to launch customer.
2019-10-2717 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)AI in the workplace: efficiency versus privacy, with David Yang of YVAOur guest is David Yang and he is the founder of a company called YVA, which is the subject of today’s show, but he’s no novice in startup world. David has founded TWELVE companies, starting in 4th grade, and including ABBYY which you may not have heard of but is actually pretty huge; it has offices in 11 countries and more than thousands of enterprise customers in 200 countries , so you can be sure that David thinks YVA has some serious potential. The World Economic Forum named him as one of the top 100 World Technology Pioneers. David’s resume and st...
2019-10-1758 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)A 2 Billion person market: electricity access with Bill Lenihan of Zola Electric, live at the World BankThe World Bank was gracious enough to host us for our 2nd live audience show. Along with the World Bank Global lead for Energy Access, Dana Rysankova, and Jon Exel, the Global Lead for Mini-grids, we interviewed Bill Lenihan, the CEO of Zola Electric.We discuss the challenge of electrification: close to 900 million people still have no access to electricity at all, and over 2 billion don't have reliable power. Bill explains how Zola has brought power to 1 million people (and counting) in 5 countries. We discuss the trade-offs of extending the grid versus providing off-grid solutions, we discuss...
2019-09-301h 17Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Ricky's Reports - old frustrations and new idea explorations. DREC, not dreck.Today’s episode is a return to Ricky's Reports from the Edge, where we check back in with Ricky Buch and his startup Loctricity. Ricky shares some of the frustrations of just trying to get meetings when you’re pitching an idea, and also shares with us some of the latest evolution in his thinking for what Loctricity’s value proposition is.Please share the show with friends on social media, and please rate us on iTunes!
2019-09-2321 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Mobility Miniseries part4: Mike Granoff of Maniv Mobility Ventures, rounds out our miniseriesWe cap our mobility mini-series from a different perspective: that of Mike Granoff, Managing Partner of Maniv Mobility, a venture capital firm that specializes in...mobility and the future of transportation. As an investor, Mike has to look at the entire mobility landscape, and his success and reputation are not... 'riding' on a single solution.We kick off the podcast with our trademark "why on earth are you doing this?", and the answer will surprise you. It will also explain why Mike takes a very broad and strategic view of the disruption to mobility and transportation. The...
2019-09-1242 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Mobility Miniseries part3: Sampo Hietanen of MaaS Global, makers of the Whim App, on Dreaming Big about the Future of MobilityOur guest today is Sampo Hietanen, the CEO of a Finnish company called MAAS Global. MaaS stands for Mobility as a Service, and they are the makers of Whim, an app-based platform for MaaS. Whim provides a single way to access all forms of mobility - everything from cars to trains, scooters, bikes and buses, through a subscription. Sampo's influence extends way beyond Finland, in fact he is widely viewed as the ideological father of mobility as a service. As you’ll see from the conversation, Sampo has big dreams for how we might get from place A to...
2019-08-221h 03Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Ricky's Reports - electricity, almonds, and a not-for-profit complement or complicating factor for LoctricityRicky Buch is back from Ghana and Ricky's Report is back for another M4Edge episode. We discuss the viability of minigrids as a solution to energy poverty, Ricky introduces an idea to help minigrids scale, and Marco complains about ordering water with his cheeseburger.
2019-08-0831 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Mobility Miniseries part 2: Shai Suzan of WayCare, and how to optimize traffic flow using LOTS of dataWith today’s episode we continue our exploration of the Future of Mobility: how technology is starting to impact—hopefully for the better-- the way we move around our cities and beyond.Today we talk to Shai Suzan, Cofounder and CIO of WayCare Technologies. When we think of mobility, we think first and foremost about speed and safety. We want to get from point A to point B quickly, without getting stuck in interminable traffic jams; and we want to get there safely. Waycare Tech uses Artificial Intelligence to deliver exactly this. It has al...
2019-07-2558 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Mobility Miniseries part 1: Israel Duanis of FleetonomyWith today’s episode, we kick off a miniseries on “mobility.” In today’s tech parlance and in city planning parlance, mobility includes a bunch of different issues, but they have one thing in common: they shape the quality of our everyday lives. How we get to work, to school or to our friends’ house can make the difference between a pleasant daily city experience and a barely tolerable one. And one way or another, it’s going to change because of technology. So the “Mobility” umbrella covers lots of things, including autonomous vehicles (AVs), but actually we're not covering those di...
2019-07-0450 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Gamification for Better Learning with Sandy Roskes of Legends of LearningDid you know that using video games as a teaching aid improves students’ engagement, helps them learn faster, boosts their test performance and stimulates their critical thinking? These are just some of the results of a study carried out by Vanderbilt University in partnership with Legends of Learning.In this episode, Legends of Learning Co-founder Sandy Roskes explains why games can be a powerful learning tool in a school environment. Legends of Learning has developed a marketplace for learning games, a Netflix-style platform that leverages the creativity of an extensive network of game developers. Legends of Learning cu...
2019-06-141h 40Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Gamification for Workforce Training with Jessica Trybus of Simcoach GamesGrowing up, Jessica Trybus, Founder and Chief Games Officer of Simcoach Games knew she was going to be a CEO. But she also wanted to be an actress, so she studied acting, majored in theatre and went into the film industry. Then she moved to Silicon Valley, and then back to Pennsylvania, to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. With this kind of background, she was bound to come up with something unusual and out of the box. Doing a Master’s in Entertainment Technology at CMU, Jessica realized that the principles of good games design mirrored those of...
2019-05-251h 18Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Revolution, Live. Anna Mason and David Hall of Revolution's Rise of the Rest fund - from American UniversityAnd now, for something completely different… Our show today was recorded live at American University, with Professor Jeff Sosland and the students in his International Business—Global Entrepreneurship class. And our guests today come from another side of the tech world: the Venture Capital on which entrepreneurs rely to turn their ideas into a successful business. We talk to Anna Mason and David Hall, partners at Revolution Ventures’ Rise of the Rest Fund.We talk about strategy, and what VCs look for as they try to identify the nex...
2019-05-081h 18Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)The Shape of Things to Come with Ben Redwood of 3DHubs (part2)Our show today is part 2 of our interview with Ben Redwood of 3DHubs. Ben is bookend-ing our miniseries on Additive Manufacturing, otherwise known as 3D Printing. In part 1 of our interview with Ben, we spent most of our time discussing many of the different additive manufacturing techniques, which was a great intro to the next set of episodes. Ben has also written a book about 3D Printing, and M4Edge listeners can get part of that book for free by going to https://www.3dhubs.com/podcast/m4edge/ . Also on the 3DHubs site, you can check out their re...
2019-04-2732 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Scaling 3D Printing and Making Manufacturing Fun Again, with Blake Teipel of EssentiumWhere else will you find a podcast on 3D printing that references cassette tapes and cowboy hats???In this new episode of our 3D Printing series, we talk with Blake Teipel, CEO and cofounder of Essentium. Blake is perhaps the best person to explain how the success of 3D printing relies on the synergy of machines, software and materials. He started as a design engineer, went back to school for a PhD in materials science, and then set out to create 3D printing solutions that can better solve the hard design problems faced by engineers. B...
2019-04-131h 04Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Nanci Hardwick of MELD Manufacturing describes the Most Disruptive New Technology: her ownOur journey into the world of 3D Printing continues today with Nanci Hardwick, CEO of MELD Manufacturing Corporation—Last year, MELD was voted the Most Disruptive New Technology Award at the R&D 100 awards.3D Printing includes a variety of techniques and processes, each with their own advantages and each best suited for a different use. (You can learn about several of these technologies in the first episode of this miniseries, with 3DHub's Ben Redwood.) So what makes MELD unique, and what is it best suited for? Nanci argues that MELD offers two key advantages: its ability to...
2019-04-0551 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Technological change and psychological lock-in with Bob Swartz of Impossible ObjectsToday’s episode is a conversation with Bob Swartz, the founder and chairman of Impossible Objects. Although that title does a disservice to his resume. He literally grew up in in the manufacturing business, watching his father figure out how to design and build things; he’s been a consultant to the MIT Media lab, he’s got several patents, which he’s licensed to major corporations … through his own patent licensing company; he’s founded and operated software companies, advertising companies, telephony companies; he is a true polymath. He’s also something of a philosopher, which makes for a wonderful con...
2019-03-3054 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Breaking technology barriers with Greg Mark of MarkforgedFor the second episode in our miniseries on Additive Manufacturing, we interview Greg Mark, founder and CEO of Markforged (along with their Director of Communications Trak Lord).Deloitte recently ranked Markforged 10th in their 2018 North America Technology Fast 500 Rankings. Forbes put them on a list of next billion dollar startups. But the company's success isn’t the only thing that makes this interview interesting. Business economists should listen closely to what Greg says about, for example, the increased economies of scale. And investors should pay attention when he talks about massive consolidation that inevitably will hit the...
2019-03-2355 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)What is 3D Printing, with Ben Redwood of 3DHubsIn our view, 3D Printing - also known as Additive Manufacturing - ranks up there with Artificial Intelligence as one of "those technologies," meaning one of those that truly holds potential for fundamental changes in how the economy functions. To say that 3D Printing represents a new way of building things is like saying that commercial aviation represented a new way of getting places. 3D Printing will change the who, what, where and how of manufacturing. The “when” is starting now.Our interview with Ben Redwood of 3DHubs is split into...
2019-03-171h 09Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Next up: 3D Printing3D Printing is coming. To a factory near you. And a garage. And a desktop. And to the M4Edge podcast. Next up: interviews with 5 companies in the space.
2019-03-1505 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Ricky's Reports #3: Chasing UnicornsThis week's M4Edge is solely a Ricky's Reports episode. Ricky talks about how his idea continues to evolve, and we discuss whether forcing startups to chase the $Billion dollar idea is a barrier to entry.Stay tuned: Marco and I are preparing a mini series on Additive Manufacturing, also known as 3D Printing. We have a great line up for you, including guests from Essentium, Impossible Objects, MELD Manufacturing and MarkForged, as well as 3DHubs, a Manufacturing as a Service company based in Europe.
2019-03-0215 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Pitch Prfect with Tim Wikstrom of PresentrWe shouldn’t judge a book by the cover. But when we meet someone, that’s exactly what we do. Within the first few minutes, we form a strong impression based on how they speak and carry themselves. And when giving a presentation, the quality of the content won’t matter that much if you can’t present it effectively.In this episode we talk to Tim Wikstrom, who has spent his entire career coaching people on effective presentation skills. With Presentr, Tim and his co-founder Tammy Palazzo leverage Artificial Intelligence to help you improve your presentation skills...
2019-02-181h 34Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)How to incentivize and verify a carbon-free future, with Evan Caron of Swytch.ioWe all know we need to accelerate the transition to renewable sources of energy. But on a global scale we are doing it in a way that is haphazard and inefficient. Governments experiment with subsidy schemes for renewable energy, with various degrees of success. Countries discuss targets, negotiate commitments, fight about who should shoulder more of the cost. What if we were able to reliably record and measure every action that reduces the carbon footprint—and agree on which steps have the greatest impact?Swytch.io wants to make this possible. In this episode, co-founder Evan Caron ar...
2019-02-041h 22Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Graph Analytics in the Cloak & Dagger (and also humdrum) World, with Leo Meyerovich of GraphistryWe are inundated by data, in our professional and personal lives. How do we make sense of it, extract the insights we need? An image is worth a thousand words, but can you visualize a complex dataset with multiple variables and scores of datapoints? This is what Leo Meyerovich of Graphistry set out to do, building on his PhD research at Berkeley. Graphistry uses Artificial Intelligence to trace patterns and correlations, helping the analyst in her investigation of the data.In some cases, we are in fact talking of true investigations, the stuff of cloak and dagger...
2019-01-211h 31Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Building the Future of Healthcare IT, with Kevin Desai of Tafi.ioWe all know the beautiful vision of our healthcare future: wearable tech tracking our heart rate, glucose levels, cholesterol and so forth; doctors and nurses who ask the right questions while our answers are input easily into a smart and safe database; powerful machine learning algorithms that can not only diagnose our conditions, but predict when we'll contract our next illness, and offer suggestions for avoidance; seamless transition between and communication among different healthcare providers and insurers; all leading to better quality of care and better health. We also all know the current state of affairs in the healthcare...
2019-01-071h 12Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)The Future of Manufacturing, with Randy Altschuler of XometryIn our third episode, we dive deep into the core of the manufacturing ecosystem with Randy Altschuler of Xometry. Randy observed a fundamental inefficiency in manufacturing, which he instantly recognized as an opportunity: On the one hand, a number of small and large producers who often find their productive capacity stretched to the limit, unable to meet the need for additional parts. On the other hand, producers whose machines occasionally sit idle.It sounds easy, but there is a lot more to connecting the dots, establishing trust, ensuring timeliness, reliability and quality. Matching the right production technology...
2018-12-211h 08Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Workplace Learning with Dipanwita Das of SorceroOur second podcast is a conversation with Dipanwita Das of Sorcero—an innovative company that brings the power of AI to workforce learning. As the Future of Work unfolds, we change jobs more often and need to bring ourselves quickly up to speed. Companies, in turn, need better ways to share knowledge across a faster-changing workforce. Sorcero uses AI to make knowledge-sharing within an organization a lot faster and more efficient, to get workers quick access to the right answers.Sorcero also has a bigger long-term vision: to help us acquire new skills and build up our hu...
2018-12-071h 10Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)M4Edge Season 1 TrailerM4Edge is a new podcast about macro trends viewed through the micro lens of startups. We discuss how these new technologies will change the way we work and reshape entire sectors of our economies. We try to understand who will be the winners and losers–among both companies and countries. We look at which jobs will likely be lost to automation, and which new jobs will arise. We show you how hard it can be to implement and scale these innovations–but also how profound their impact will be.
2018-11-1803 minMacro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)Greg Mulholland of Citrine InformaticsIn our inaugural episode we talk with Greg Mulholland, CEO of Citrine Informatics. Citrine uses Artificial Intelligence to accelerate the discovery and development of new materials–from years to days! Inventing new materials has always been key to humanity’s progress, allowing us to build computers, space rockets, and more.
2018-11-0241 min
Viewpoints - CHDS/EdTreating the Severely Mentally Ill, a Homeland Security Wicked ProblemIn this Viewpoints, CHDS master’s degree alumnus Michael Biasotti interviews Florida 11th Judicial District Judge Steve Leifman on how severe mental illness affects homeland security. … Treating the Severely Mentally Ill, a Homeland Security Wicked Problem MoreThe post Treating the Severely Mentally Ill, a Homeland Security Wicked Problem appeared first on CHDS/Ed.
2017-06-2800 min