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  • Dr. Lonnie Johnson is a literal rocket scientist who also happens to be the mastermind behind the legendary Super Soaker water gun. He’s also racked up over 250 patents and landed a spot in the National Toy Hall of Fame. Inventor, aerospace engineer, and entrepreneur, Dr. Johnson joins this week’s episode of Before IT Happened to talk about growing up during the civil rights movement, helping build stealth bombers and rockets for NASA, and making the the idea for the Super Soaker a reality.

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (03:10) - Growing up in Alabama during the civil rights movement - “I was obviously very in tune to what was going on in the environment because during that time segregation was legal and discrimination was legal, and so there were certain things that I knew I couldn't do.”

    (08:17) - Developing a passion for mechanical and nuclear engineering - “The Junior Engineer Technical Society sponsored a competition at the University of Alabama. Linox won 1st place in 1968 and we were the only black kids represented. That was a huge, huge moral victory for me personally.”

    (16:29) - Working on the Stealth Bomber and NASA's Galileo mission - “It was just fascinating as hell. Going to the cockpit, it reminded me of being on the USS Enterprise Star Trek.”

    (22:36) - The error that changed everything - “I was working on a heat pump that would use water instead of freon. So I made some nozzles and I had these small nozzles hooked up to the bathroom sink, and I shot this stream of water across the bathroom, and I thought, ‘Geez, a high-performance water gun would be a lot of fun.’”

    (26:16) -   Becoming the ‘King of Toy Guns’ - “Nerf dart guns were already on the market, but I started designing guns that were much better than what Hasbro had.” 

    (32:42) - Inspiring the next generation of inventors - “Get involved in technology and engineering and enjoy it before it becomes something that you're afraid of.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Learn more about Dr. Lonnie Johnson and follow him on Twitter

    Watch CBS Sunday Morning’s Mo Rocca interview Dr. Lonnie Johnson

    Watch Dr. Lonnie Johnson’s TEDx Talk: Revolutionary designs for energy alternatives

    Read Popular Mechanics: Super Soaker Inventor Aims to Cut Solar Costs in Half

    Learn more about the all-solid-state batteries Dr. Johnson is developing at Johnson Energy Storage

    Learn more about the Thermo-Electrochemical Converter that Dr. Johnson is developing at JTEC Energy

    Thank you for listening! Follow Before IT Happened on

  • Millions of people have been affected by data breaches and leaks in recent years. But what if there was a better way to keep our digital identities secure? In this week's episode of Before IT Happened, Locke Brown talks about how his company NuID is working to both simplify and strengthen online security by rethinking the traditional password-based approach to authentication in favor of a decentralized, user-controlled solution. 

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, or a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (03:40) - Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s - “We had a family computer in the kitchen and the internet was kind of the wild west. People couldn't imagine putting credit card information online, and now we literally go online and ask a stranger to come to pick us up and get in their car.”

    (07:55) - Getting started in Silicon Valley - “I actually went straight to Silicon Valley from Mongolia to start my internship at Google.”

    (14:18) - Meeting his NuID cofounder - “Lord knows what conversations we got into, but you know, all sorts of tech. And he was in the distributed systems and the guy's mind, you know, was so sharp and we just hit it off on all sorts of fun little tangential thoughts and things.”

    (19:32) - How easily passwords and login info can be compromised - “Some admin that has a responsibility and is in control of securing some database of user login data, they get compromised somewhere along the line, whether that's social hacking or maybe they use the same password that they use on their, say, LinkedIn account, right?” 

    (27:42) - How NuID is using blockchain technology - “We're going to eliminate the need for you to ever see, store and therefore be liable in having to secure any user login data. That database of login information that we've talked about, that's gone. There's none of that. You never actually have to touch this stuff.”

    (35:49) -  The future of cybersecurity and what’s next for NuID and Locke - “NuID could disappear and our protocol and the credentials that are registered through it for users would persist because they are stored outside of us.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES:

    Connect with Locke Brown on LinkedIn 

    Follow NuID on Twitter

    Learn more about NuID and their utility token

    Read NuID’s White Paper

    Thank you for listening! Follow Before IT Happened on Instagram and Twitter, and don’t forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts! 

    Before IT Happened is produced by Donna Loughlin and

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  • Vlad Panchenko, a lifelong gamer and technologist, is on course to one day build a massive metaverse community and exchange by connecting video gamers on mega gaming platforms. Vlad started his career in Ukraine at the age of 16, where he was paid by the kilobyte to translate pirated video games from English into Russian and Ukrainian. Byte by byte, Panchenko gained the experience that would lead him to create powerful gaming platforms. In this episode, Vlad talks about his latest creation, DMarket, a giant social gaming marketplace where all manner of virtual goods are traded. Join us as we take a step into the brave new world of the future where virtual worlds are a reality.

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:44) - Translating pirated video games after school in Ukraine - “They needed somebody to translate from English to Ukrainian and Russian and that was me, and that was my first job.”

    (07:35) - How Vlad’s entrepreneurial journey began - “I knew from the very beginning that I'm pretty much ambitious and that I'm going to build, one-by-one, bigger and bigger companies.”

    (16:35) - Gamers and unlocking the real metaverse - “I am a hundred percent sure that the people and the community who will actually unlock the real metaverse will be the video game developers.” 

    (23:17) - DMarket and the technology behind it - “The marketplace that we provide, it's the best in the world. It's like the blood of all the Web 3.0 and Metaverse, but still, it couldn't fly without the creativity. So the game and the creative part comes first.”

    (28:53) - Vlad’s advice to future game developers - “Keep in mind this is the technology. First comes the story, then the narrative and then the actual entertainment.”

    (34:22) - What we can learn from the gaming community and how the invasion of Ukraine affected him - “On February 24th, I was at a conference in Las Vegas, and I couldn't believe that it happened. Because in my humble opinion, this is such a stupid thing to do in 2022. You build Web 3.0, you build AI, you build like ‘The Calling of Mars’, you can do so many things, and you still come back to doing something people have been doing hundred years ago. Why? It makes no sense for me.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Vlad Panchenko on LinkedIn and Instagram

    Learn more about DMarket

    Watch CNN’s Tech CEO raises millions in crypto and evacuates employees from Ukraine

    Read USA Today’s: 'Hits on many facets of our activities': How the tech industry is impacted by the war in Ukraine

    Read Axios’s: Tech CEO flies workers out of Ukraine as fear of invasion looms

    Thank you for listening! Follow

  • Feras Bashnak is a serial entrepreneur who knows first-hand the high cost of opening a business. Want to launch a brick-and-mortar restaurant? Half a million. How about a food truck? $100,000. Either way, you’re sinking a lot of cash into a huge commitment that you have yet to prototype ­– risks few young entrepreneurs are willing to take. In this week’s episode of Before IT Happened, Feras talks about the “aha” moment that led him to founding Ferla Bikes, an e-bike-powered food and retail bicycle and push cart manufacturing company. Listen now to hear more about Feras’s journey. 

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:51) - Growing up in an immigrant household - “My dad used to tell me, ‘You can’t expect to get what you want, you have to build it.’ And I think it just came to me naturally, seeing him building his life and our family from the ground up with zero connections.” 

    (13:09) - A passion for entrepreneurship - “I knew I’d have to build my own dream, and during staying in the United States that would lead me to seeing so much potential you have here. Everything is possible.” 

    (15:09)  - Building buy-in for Ferla Bikes - “When it comes to our idea, it was crazy in a way to start something like this. People didn't believe in us at the beginning. They we like, ‘What is this? I should buy a food truck, or I should buy a concession trailer? Like how do I pedal this?’ And it was really hard to prove the concept.” 

    (21:55) - Responding to customer feedback - “Our customers became our engineers. We always listened to them and we always produced and developed what they're looking for.”

    (28:30) - New opportunities during the pandemic - “Fortunately, we helped many businesses to save their name. They shut down the restaurant, but they had always an opportunity to come to us and just do a slightly different way of serving their product.”

    (30:14) - Building a more inclusive, conscious, and greener society - “I believe we have power and responsibility to make society more inclusive for everyone. And what I mean by that, our main mission for the cargo bikes, it's helped different able communities dramatically.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Feras on Instagram and LinkedIn.

    Learn more about Ferla Bikes

    Read Chicago Tribune’s Sweet Mary’s offers ice cream on the go from a bicycle

    Thank you for listening! Follow Before IT Happened on Instagram and Twitter, and don’t forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts! 

    Before IT

  • Maurice Carrubba—also known as the Warren Buffett of restaurateurs—has a knack for finding classic restaurants with great bones and transforming them into go-to dining experiences. Born and raised in Sicily, Maurice moved to Silicon Valley in 1989 where he now runs a restaurant group and a catering company and employs over 150 people. Maurice also runs a nearby farm that sustains two of his restaurants, and he is working to reduce his carbon footprint and foster a culture of respecting and taking care of the earth to younger generations. Tune in to hear all about how Maurice is revolutionizing the food industry. 

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (03:17) - From Sicily to Silicon Valley - “My father, who was an artist with masonry and stonework, they seeked him out, found him all the way in Sicily, flew him out. He looked at the job, he says, ‘Yeah, I can do this.’ They were like, ‘Well, 12 other people have told us you you couldn’t do it. Are you sure you can do it?’”

    (09:26) - Opening the first family-run restaurant - “My father said, ‘Look, how about we put a little coffee shop here? Would you mind? You know, I'd love to do that. I want to do something with my kids.’ He knew I loved food at a very young age and I said, ‘Dad, I'd love the opportunity.’”

    (11:30) - Dishes that define family and taste like tradition - “We love to eat. There's so many different dishes, but I guess it depends on the time of year.”

    (15:45) - The Warren Buffett of restaurants - “I purchased some companies that were very good companies, but unfortunately had challenges and operations issues. I was able to take those companies and take those customers and build those companies back up from there.”

    (18:31) - The GrandView and growing the restaurant group - “When we purchased the property, we knew it was going to be a huge undertaking. There was a lot of work that needed to be done structurally.”

    (28:07) - Grandview Farms and the philosophy behind it - “We don't use any pesticides. We dry farm when we can. The property is all on solar. We compost our scraps from our restaurants.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Maurice on Linkedin and Twitter

    Learn more about Grandview Farms

    Visit Maurice’s restaurants and venues Caffe Riace, The GrandView,  La Foret, Osteria Toscana Palo Alto and San Benito House

    Thank you for listening! Follow Before IT Happened on

  • Modern life can be isolating. We’re wrapped up in our social media feeds, rushing to log into the next Zoom meeting, hurtling down the road in our metal capsules, or holed up in our houses. Being cut off from the natural world often leaves us feeling disconnected from ourselves and others. Enter this week’s guest on Before IT Happened, Joe Patitucci, who’s spent the last decade developing devices that connect us to nature by converting the biorhythms of plants into real-time music, or what he calls, “a sonic window into the secret life of plants.” Tune in now to hear how it all came together for Joe, from growing up in a family of piano teachers and electrical engineers to starting a music label and ultimately creating plant music for audiences all over the world.

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (01:57) - Joe on growing up outside of NYC - “I had this really cool interaction between living in nature and then being kind of in the cultural mecca of New York and the East Village and music and jazz and all these things.”

    (11:14) - TEDx Philly - “I was invited to be music director for TEDx Philly. That actually was a huge watershed moment for me because that was the first time I worked with a really big team on something that was a passion project.”

    (13:21) - Data Garden and Joe’s next set of milestones - “Records were starting to become cool again and everybody would always ask me like, ‘You should release a record.’ And I would just think, ‘I don't feel like producing a piece of material plastic that could outlive me on this planet.’”

    (19:34) - From Data Garden to PlantWave - “What if we took the sensory input of a plant and used the wave form of a plant and actually translated that into pitch and then had that play instruments.”

    (27:53) - Turning plant biorhythms into music - “We’re measuring how much connection there is between two points in the plant. That connection between those two points is varying over time based on the plant moving water around through its system as it is photosynthesizing.”

    (32:56) - The benefits of plant music - “What PlantWave does is it really helps to connect people more to a moment and helps people be more present. And that's associated in a lot of studies with things like stress reduction, just like better relating with people.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Learn more about PlantWave and follow on Instagram

    Listen to a live stream of plant music at Plants.fm

    Learn more about Joe Patitucci and follow him on Instagram, Twitter and Spotify

    Watch tutorials and more on how PlantWave works on their YouTube channel

    Listen to

  • Silicon Valley is home to some of the world’s most innovative products and companies. Mighty among them are the design firms that help build and shape those products. In this episode of Before IT Happened, Tark Abed, founder and CEO of the product design consultancy Mighty Studios, talks to host Donna Loughlin about how he became an industrial designer, what his first years in the industry were like just down the street from Stanford’s Institute of Design a.k.a. the d.school in Palo Alto, and how he eventually founded his own design studio. Tune in to hear all about Tark’s career building cutting-edge products and to hear what role Tark says design has to play in our future.  

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:33) -Tark Abed, a kid with limitless vision - “We started visualizing and conceiving things like spaceships and lots of sci-fi stuff. And as we got exposed to more and more of those movies, that became sort of a passion of ours.”

    (04:51) - Skating his way through life - “Skateboarding, failing, getting back up again, doing it differently, learning and moving forward, it’s sort of a metaphor for life, but it’s also a pretty powerful metaphor for the design process.”

    (07:45) - Turning his passion into a career in industrial design - “Fundamentally there was formality behind what I had been doing my entire life. There was a discipline there and there was a process too, which was also fascinating.”

    (18:14) - Deciding which design projects to develop - “The kind of work we do echoes what's happening in Silicon Valley, right? So, in the early years, it was sort of IoT smart devices. Then it was sort of wearable technology devices, wrist-worn, rings. Robotics, now, is trending. Drones were trending for a little while.”

    (22:02) - Connecting people remotely pre-Zoom - “We worked with these amazing acoustics engineers, video engineers. We even worked with a Hollywood movie director on the best type of lighting to create in this environment.”

    (24:49) - Designing to solve - “If we’re designing a technology that is wearable for seniors, we’ll go to assisted living facilities or people that are aging in place and learn about their habits and behaviors and their pain points and so forth. It’s only after you do that, and you compile that data that you start to see patterns emerge, and that's a really exciting part of the process.”

    (31:07) The future of industrial design - “What I'm interested to see unfold over the next few years is like—as technologies get more miniaturized, more dense—where they end up, right? Are we going to have smart clothing? Now we have smart jewelry and smart watches, but what else could that be? And what are the consumer behaviors that are responding to that. And what are the needs?”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Tark Abed on Linkedin

    Learn more about Mighty Studios and follow them on Instagram

    Read Content Magazine’s profile on Mighty Studios

    Thank you for listening!...

  • Carbon-heavy agriculture is responsible for 11% of greenhouse gases worldwide. That’s where Mark Schwager and his team at Monarch Tractor roll in, with the world’s first electric, autonomous smart tractor. Monarch sees its tractor as the future of sustainable agriculture, allowing growers to apply precision farming while cutting their diesel costs to virtually zero. Co-Founder and President of Monarch Tractor, Mark Schawager talks with host Donna Loughlin about the need for more automation and EV in agriculture in this week’s episode. Schwager has an impressive engineering and factory line pedigree. He previously served as head of the Tesla Gigafactory, leading the project from concept to construction. Now he’s applying his deep engineering and production background to the farm. Join us as we explore the future of cleaner and more efficient farming!

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (03:27) - From performing arts to business and technology - “I think life is an evolution, and I think that was my passion at that time and by the time I started learning things like high school calculus and physics, I kind of started gravitating more towards it, even though I went to a special high school for performing arts.”

    (05:25) - Mark’s calling to the EV sector - “While I was here on the West Coast, I was staying with a friend’s parents and they handed me a newspaper clipping about a tiny little company trying to make electric cars called Tesla, and I was like, ‘Okay, that's for me.’”

    (09:42) - Building Tesla’s Gigafactory - “So basically, Elon said let's ramp it up as fast as possible, and so all of the areas of the supply chain were basically able to accommodate a doubling of production, but not battery cells. And so that essentially was the inception of getting cell manufacturing under Tesla's control.” 

     

    (16:55) - Mark’s light bulb moment - “Having worked around automated processes basically for my entire career in manufacturing, looking back even further than that, I mean, factories have been getting automated since the 80s, but none of that was really there in the farming space.”

     

    (23:10) - Mark’s philosophy at Monarch Tractor - “We don't see ourselves as an electric, autonomous tractor company. We see ourselves as folks who are automating farm operations. And from that standpoint, we’re actually very focused on the quality of the operations and our ability to serve the farmers' needs much more than the vehicle.”

    (27:18) - The Foxconn and Monarch Tractor partnership - “We believe that we can drive our competitive advantage from working with Foxconn and industrializing our vehicles with them. We can't do it on our own, but the pooled resources across that factory give us the chance to do that.”

    (29:00) - The continued need to scale farming up - “​​There’s going to be like 10 billion people by the middle of the century on the planet. How are we going to feed them? The only way is by making our farmland more productive.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Mark Schwager on LinkedIn

    Learn more about Monarch Tractor

    Read Forbes’

  • There’s never been a better time to get on the electric bandwagon, or should we say highway? Alan Dowdell, CEO of REVO Powertrains, joins our host Donna Loughlin on this episode of Before IT Happened to talk about the $400 billion global environmental problem he and his company are working to tackle, converting existing, gas-powered trucks and buses to electric. Alan and his team are meeting this enormous challenge head-on with an integrated platform that retrofits large vehicles with electric systems. Join us and discover how a powertrain kit could be the key to taking our vehicles into the future.

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:09) - Alan Dowdell, the engineer who left Louisiana to experience the world - “One of the things is raising your hand to go places and do things that are hard, and if they might be interesting, even better! So that sort of led me to the idea of joining the military out of university and joining the submarine force.”

    (06:29) - What turned Alan on to EV - “The MIT group here in the Bay Area was holding lectures, and I saw my first presentation around connected and autonomous and electric vehicles, and I said, ‘Hey! That's interesting. That's going to be something.’ This was around 2016 and I started looking at Tesla and looking at some of the other startups in the area.

     

    (10:42) - On REVO Powertrains - “REVO is all about building zero-emission, fully-battery electric kits, powertrain kits, that can go into existing vehicles to repower them from dirty vehicles and upscale them, recycle them, to fully-battery electric.”

    (11:28) - Why it’s important to convert gas-powered trucks to EVs - “They represent about 4% of the vehicles on the road, but they burn about 25% of our fuel, mostly diesel, which makes up about 25% of emissions."

    (15:52) -An added benefit of converting to electric - “Depending on where you live and what you're paying for kilowatt hours, you can cut your fuel costs down to a quarter of what you're paying, or a third of what you're paying.”

    (19:09) - On California and other states pushing for electric conversion - “They are going to find a lot of advocates being very active in the cities and they need a budget. They need support, and they need city councils and state legislation to help with some of the incentives and advantages that they can give to the fleets to electrify faster.”

    (23:19) - One REVO powertrain kit to fit them all - “There are the six-liter engines, eight-liter engines, nine-liter engines. And that's there to create the torque. One of the great things about our powertrain kit is it applies the same kit to six, seven and eight.”

    (26:52) The relationship between electric and autonomous vehicles - "It would be ridiculous to have an autonomous vehicle pull up to a gas pump and have a person put gas or diesel in it. So I think they coexist together.”

    (31:08) Thinking differently about electric charging - “Almost all of the trips that you make on a daily basis are way under the range of the vehicle, so, I think the mental block is part of the big problem, not necessarily the physics of the problem.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Alan Dowdell on LinkedIn 

    Learn more about REVO Powertrains

    See the numbers in Mordor Intellegence’s

  • The motorcycle industry is constantly evolving and Amber Spencer, a triple threat as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing at Damon Motorcycles, as well as a racer and bodybuilder, is now playing an active role in that transformation. As a minority in the motorcycle industry (women make up only 20% of the rider demographic, and women racers are nearly non-existent), Spencer is ready to confront the barriers to diversifying the sport. Ultimately, she sees a future where instead of being adapted for smaller bodies, motorcycles might be built from scratch, for all shapes, sizes and abilities. Hop on this ride with us now to hear how Amber is blazing the trail for women in this traditionally male-dominated industry. 

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:33) - Amber Spencer, the girl who grew up among trucks and motorcycles - “My dad was a big influence on me. He was really into cars. He really liked motorsports. We watched F1 racing. And my parents owned a transportation business.”

     

    (05:08) - Amber's first motorcycle ride - “Just the feeling of the freedom, of not having anything around you and the environment is just right there. The road is just right there. It's just so unique, so different than being inside of a car because you're just outside in the elements and everything is just much more visceral.”

     

    (10:24) - Moving to Canada - “When I was out on a motorcycle ride I met Damon’s CEO who had literally just started Damon, so that's how my career kind of took a shift from the marketing and tech side, and then I kind of started to combine that background with my motorcycling experience.”

    (12:49) - CES 2020, a crucial event for Damon and motorcycling - “We introduced the HyperSport to the world. It was the smartest, safest, most high-performance electric motorcycle that anybody had ever seen.”

    (14:55) - At Damon, Amber is committed to creating a more sustainable future - "The HyperSport is electric, but is also high tech. You also get a mobile app. You also get incredible performance. You get CoPilot. You get SHIFT.”

    (16:25) - On riding Damon’s all-electric HyperSport bike - “You don't feel like you're on a different machine that you've never felt before. It feels very similar, but when you ride an engine, there is a certain amount of interference you get that you don't notice until you ride an electric motorcycle, and it just makes you feel like you are more one with the machine.”

     (23:55) - Connecting body building and motorcycling - “If you're doing a bodybuilding competition, you have to eat a certain way. You have to cut some certain foods out. You have to make sure you get to the gym X number of times a week. And it's the same for any any competition or any big goal that you wanna achieve.”

    (25:05) Amber's name symbolizes confidence and security; she reflects this in the way she drives: Usually, my approach is to focus on one thing at a time when I'm riding. So maybe that's my body position or maybe, it's like, maybe breaking a little later and turning in like at a different point. And, so, really focusing on my skills.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Follow Amber Spencer on Instagram & Twitter

    Learn more about

  • Fast fashion has created mountains of unwanted clothing that are rotting in landfills and even washing up on beaches. In this episode of Before IT Happened, host Donna Loughlin talks with Pawan Gupta, CEO and co-founder of the manufacturing platform Fashinza. The son of a factory manager in a small town in India, Pawan Gupta saw small factory owners, textile and fashion designers, and assembly line workers who couldn’t access larger suppliers and control how their products were made. Enter Fashinza, Gupta’s new platform that enables independent producers to innovate and automate smart factories with a mobile app and smartphone camera. Workers digitize their processes, capture production data, and quantify output, inventory, and quality control – increasing the efficiency and speed of their businesses. 

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:27) - Pawan on broadening his vision and ambition - “That's when I thought that I am no less. I have cracked some of the toughest exams in college. If I can’t do it, then who else can?”

    (08:13) - On Pawan’s first venture Curofy, a global platform for doctors - “In a couple of years, we had created a community of almost 30% of India's doctors who were discussing almost 1,000-2,000 cases every day on the platform.”

    (14:58) - The problem with fast fashion - “The entire past few decades, we were all about building up volumes, just manufacturing huge quantities of products, and then shoving them down a consumer's throat by giving 70% discounts, 80% discounts. This is something we realized is a very, very bad practice.” 

    (20:06) - Fashinza’s sustainability goals - “One of the biggest impacts that we feel we can have is making a recyclable—or a more sustainable—product as cheap as the unsustainable one. If we can achieve that, then there's no reason for any brand or any customer to purchase the unsustainable one.”

    (27:00) - How Fashinza is helping women in India - “We need to provide them more work, better work, and actually provide them safe working conditions to actually attract more and more women into the workforce there.” 

    (30:26) How the Fashinza platform works - “It improves the efficiency of the factories. It makes them as efficient as the large factories out there, makes them more reliable and hence positions them to be able to work with the best brands and retailers across the world.”

    (36:01) The future of manufacturing as Pawan sees it - “I believe that a lot of manufacturing is going to become more on-demand, rather than just manufacturing products meaninglessly in bulk.”

    (37:37) Sustainability is more in demand than ever - “[Generation Z] are much more aware than we were when we were growing up. They have internet, they are connected, and they're a lot more conscious as well.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Pawan on LinkedIn and Twitter

    Learn more about Fashinza and read their blog

    Read

  • If robots are coming to take our jobs, let’s give them a really dangerous one: window washing. Ross Blum, president and COO at Skyline Robotics, joins host Donna Loughlin to talk about his company’s window washing robot, Ozmo. And cleaning is just the start. If Skyline Robotics achieves its vision, inspections, polishing, masonry, repairs, and testing, “all work at height” will be automated. 

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (03:12) - Ross Blum, the boy who grew up among skyscrapers: “Not every kid gets to go to the natural history museum every time they want to go to the Natural History Museum, or go to Central Park.”

    (07:28) - Living the Monopoly life right our of school: “I had a legal background and he asked me if I could go sell the company. And so being 26 years old and having no experience doing that, I looked at him in the eyes and told him, ‘Of course I could get this done for you!’” 

    (10:41) - The world of window washing: “In Skyline Robotics “We want to automate the field of facade access and make it not just more efficient, but safer. It's an incredibly dangerous and grueling job to be on the side of buildings each and every day.”

    (16:14) - The origins of Ozmo, the robot that cleans windows: “When Avi [Abadi] was sort of envisioning these sort of like dull, dangerous and dirty fields that maybe he could create a technology to help support it, candidly seemed like no one was focused on this industry and that no one was really trying to focus their technology to help real estate assets.”

    (18:10) - What it is like to work with Ozmo: “Currently we still have an operator [in New York], really just a human in the basket who isn’t doing anything, but is monitoring, making sure that everything is operating safely and can report back that everything is safe. But in a market like our home market in Tel Aviv and Israel, we don’t have anybody in the basket because the technology doesn’t require it.”

     (23:38) - Not a year-round business: “We are still confined by weather. When it is below freezing we shouldn't be operating Ozmo the same way that a traditional window cleaning operation would not operate either.”

    (28:16) - On cost versus safety: “While we have great safety regulations in the United States and mostly in Western Europe as well, there are many other parts of the world where safety incidents unfortunately do happen every single day.”

    (29:32) - Data Analytics and future applications: “We want them to be able to sign into a dashboard and understand exactly what work has been done today. What cracks and caulking or aluminum or HVAC leakages have been noticed. Help them build preventative maintenance plans, help them build different building operational strategies.”

    (32:39) - The future is bright for Ozmo and Skyline Robotics: “I don't see an actual real slowdown in new construction and new development. So what that is telling me is there are still going to be more and more windows to clean. In cities there is major construction happening, not just on a regional basis in the U.S., but really on a global scale as well.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Ross on LinkedIn

    See Ozmo at work in Tel Aviv

    Learn more about

  • Humans have been exploiting the planet's natural resources since the dawn of civilization. This week’s guest on Before IT Happened, Troy Carter, would argue that even the term ‘natural resources’ is exploitative in and of itself. Co-founder and CEO of Earthshot Labs, a venture-funded non-profit backed by the National Science Foundation, Troy Carter joins host Donna Loughlin on the show to talk about his work repairing the planet through nature restoration, forest protection, and the conservation of ecosystems.

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:22) - Troy Carter, a man of nature - “My relationship with nature has always been a really strong part of my life.” 

    (07:19) - Troy's mission at Earthshot Labs - "We do nature restoration projects all over the world. And we work with tribes, community groups, governments, and NGOs that are doing nature restoration projects."

    (14:15) - Humans, science, and Artificial Intelligence come together to save the earth and "understand the past and understand the current ecological state, and then predict the future under different interventions, different climate scenarios and understand the risks of what's going to happen."

    (17:29) - Nature restoration’s impact on other areas of development - "If we can heal the relationship with the whole and each person feels connected, feels belonging on the planet, that will change everything about the way humanity develops in the coming centuries."

    (24:10) - Nature’s independent right to exist - "That is the deeper motivation for why we're building an organization to restore nature: to address climate change, to restore human livelihoods, to restore indigenous land agency."

    (28:11) - Hope for the future - “Resilience is a word that’s thrown around a lot. And what it means is that human lives and humans can thrive, and ecosystems can thrive independent of macro factors. So let's build resilient systems.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Troy Carter on LinkedIn and Twitter

    Learn more about Eartshot Labs

    Follow Earthshot Labs on Twitter

    Learn more about Earthshot Institute

    Get Paul Hawken’s book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming

    Watch the trailer for Reviving Rivers, with Dr Rajendra Singh the Waterman of India

    Thank you for listening! Follow Before IT Happened on Instagram and Twitter, and don’t forget to subscribe, rate and

  • Technology is transforming our world in a myriad of ways. Witnessing some of those changes from the frontlines is artist and documentarian Agnieszka Pilat whose subjects range from aging machinery to emerging technology. In this episode of Before IT Happened, Pilat joins host Donna Loughlin to talk about growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Poland, her fascination with robotics, NFTs, and her newest posting as artist-in-residence at Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (04:45) - Discovering art in the Soviet Union - "We grew up with a lot of art around us. A lot of it was Soviet, a very specific kind of public art. The glory of the working man, glory of the army. So, it was very specific, but technically wonderful."

    (09:28) - Agnieszka's first steps into the professional world of art - "I wanted to tell the story of my love for this country from the perspective of someone who grew up in Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain. I thought that art was the language to do it."

    (17:08) - Robotics and Boston Dynamics - "It occurs to me that future intelligent AI machines may look at these portraits and think, ‘These are my cultural ancestors."

    (22:48) - Working at SpaceX - "When I think of these machines and technologies, going back to the concept of portraiture, I think of space technology as the superhero."

    (26:35) - On the metaverse and augmented reality - "I think the real world is going to the lake with your family and friends and having a glass of wine together,  so I'm cautious about the metaverse and the optimism around it."

    (31:22) - NFTs - "If money was my main value, I wouldn't be an artist. So, I think to change it like that and start valuing art for what it can sell for, that bothers me."

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Learn more about Agnieszka's work

    Connect with Agnieszka on Twitter and Instagram

    Read New York Magazine’s See Spot Paint. Agnieszka Pilat has become the Silicon Valley elite’s favorite artist. Even The Matrix’s Neo owns her work.

    Read The First News’ Artist raises USD 40,000 for Ukrainian refugees with painting co-created by a robotic dog called Spot

    Read Cultbytes’ Agnieszka Pilat: The Artist that Became the Darling of SF’s Tech Elite by Humanizing Machines

    See Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2)

    Read the Nerdist’s The DALL-E AI Program Draws Anything You Ask It To

    Listen to Before IT Happened’s:

  • Autonomous trucking will soon transform not just our freeways but the entire global supply chain. Still, serious concerns remain about safety, workforce changes, and policy. In this episode of Before IT Happened, our host Donna Loughlin talks with Paula Bejarano, Director of Business Development for Navistar. Paula started as a reliability engineer at the European Space Agency, inspecting mechanical systems in space shuttles. She also worked on oil drilling rigs at Shell, and interned at Tesla while authoring Autonomousity: Autonomous Vehicles and Emerging Business Models. Today, she’s merging her engineering and business sense in her leadership role at Navistar, a global company that is working to make trucks, buses, and engines more connected, electric and even autonomous. In this episode, she talks to Donna about her leap from space to the world of business and e-vehicles and explains how big cities could work in the future. 

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (06:32) - A limitless education - "Not having those differentiations, I think it completely erased from my mind that barrier that, ‘My God, I'm going to be the only girl there.’"

    (11:33) - From working in Space to building a more sustainable planet - "In terms of sustainability—the long-term impact for the world, for the planet—I had a bit of an epiphany."

    (14:12) - A third career path at TESLA - "I think overall it opened doors for me and opened my mind to new opportunities."

    (15:30) - The challenges facing autonomous technology - "I think the ultimate goal of autonomous transportation is to democratize transportation for everyone, to make it accessible in remote areas."

    (23:52) - The future of autonomous transportation - "On one hand you have to get it out there to validate it and get people comfortable with the technology. On the other hand, people are going to misuse it, and that happens with everything."

    (27:19) - How Paula views her work - "Nobody's done this before, and we don't know what's going to happen five years from now."

    (35:51) - How to breakdown stereotypical gender roles in the workforce - "Exposing people to knowledge and giving them that connection to mentors who have accomplished things, I think is super important."

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Paula Bejarano on Twitter.

    Read Paula’s book: Autonomousity: Autonomous Vehicles and Emerging Business Models

    Learn more about what Navistar is doing to bring the transportation industry into the future

    Read:

  • Among the qualities that make a good entrepreneur, we rarely hear about humbleness, empathy or curiosity. Anne Cocquyt sees that as a problem. Cocquyt is the founder and CEO of the GUILD, a community centered around connecting female entrepreneurs, investors and thought leaders. She is also the author of Dare to Launch, which breaks down how to launch a startup successfully, touching on everything from building confidence to working with the right investors. In this episode, Anne joins our host Donna Loughlin to discuss how she’s working to share and scale her experience and passion in order to help more female entrepreneurs find their place in Silicon Valley and beyond!

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:28) - Growing up in a strict household - “It felt a little bit restricting, so for me, it was really important at some point to escape and get out of Germany and as far away as possible to discover other values and also other ways of life, if you will.”  

    (10:05) - Coming to Silicon Valley -  “It's a very welcoming community and there's so many opportunities to connect. You can just show up and it's all open. And then slowly, because everybody is kind of this newcomer, you get invited and you work your way into this network.”

    (16:12) - Anne’s Before IT Happened moment - “We should try to do more educational content and somehow bottle the secret sauce of Silicon Valley and the amazing people here and bring that to other people all around the world.”

    (18:36) - Anne’s North Star - “My north star is really driven by curiosity and by trying different things and by getting involved in different topics and by trying to really understand other people and their issues, and then being a part of the solution for whatever they wanna solve.”

    (21:48) - How to break the glass ceiling on entrepreneurship - “We have to flex these muscles. We have to teach women how to build wealth and not just have the cash under the mattress. And we have to also change how we define leadership.”

    (31:55) - From Silicon Valley to a blueberry farm - “I saw this blueberry farm and I had these visions of what it could be and potentially could also be used to build community and bring people here and have animals and have space.”

    (36:15) - A successful future in entrepreneurship relies on collaboration - “You gotta connect and learn from each other. And sometimes there's a lot of entitlement in that generation, where people feel they're entitled to certain things. And I think we should just learn from each other.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Anne Cocquyt on LinkedIn and Twitter.

    Get Anne’s book Dare to Launch

    Learn more about the GUILD and their 8-week GUILD ACADEMY

    Listen to Before IT Happened’s: Unleashing a

  • Commercial and industrial buildings waste around $200 billion worth of energy every year, and that is just in the US. Mark Chung is the Co-founder of Verdigris, a breakthrough AI-based sensor technology that helps companies monitor and reduce their energy usage. In this episode, Mark joins our host Donna Loughlin to discuss his mission to cut down on energy waste for the good of future generations, talking about how he identified an issue that went unnoticed for years and how he has since built a game-changing company that is truly making a difference.

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:58) - Growing up in Texas as a first-generation Asian American - “I recall when I was really young having one of the first IBM PCs that was available for consumer purchase. My dad got one and he taught me how to program tic-tac-toe on it. He was kind of a programmer. I was around computers and technology ever since I was a little kid.”

    (08:35) Mark’s Before IT Happened moment - “I couldn’t be just a bystander watching climate change erode when I have the ability to develop technology that could change the trajectory.”

    (14:00) The desire to tackle the $200 billion energy waste problem for future generations - “We sort of came to this realization that all of these devices were actually speaking a language that AI could understand, we just needed to figure out what it was saying.”

    (22:39) A problem no one had tried to solve before - “It was just surprising that even in the highest performing building with an unlimited budget to try and solve this challenge, there was no tech there. Nobody has tried to solve the problem before!”

    (26:33) - The benefits of energy savings for private enterprises and the government - “In the last two years those kinds of policies, the compliance and the company emphasis on it, has really elevated the conversation of energy management.”

    (34:05) - Mark’s North Star - “Everything in the world is interconnected and we have a responsibility as part of that interconnection to measure what we’re doing, and how does it impact everything else. You can’t just take a bunch of coal out of the ground, burn it up and make it someone else's problem.” 

    EPISODE RESOURCES:

    Connect with Mark Chung on Twitter and LinkedIn

    Learn more about Verdigris

    Listen to Before IT Happened’s: In the Pursuit of a Cleaner Farming, Making Great Wine and Chasing Monarch Butterflies with Carlo Mondavi

    Thank you for listening! Follow Before IT Happened on Instagram and Twitter, and don’t forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever you listen to...

  • We’ve talked a lot about electrification and sustainable energy and transformational technologies shaping the ways we move through the world on Before IT Happened. In this episode, award-winning industrial designer and co-founder of Untitled Motorcycles Hugo Eccles joins the show to talk about his creative process driven by a passion for both riding and design, talking about his family’s deep connection with automobiles all the way to his current challenges designing e-bikes and trying to attract new groups of riders through innovation and conscious development.

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:11) - Hugo’s family legacy with mechanics - “My great-grandfather was one of the founders of the Royal Automobile Club and played a big part in electrifying Britain. In fact, there's a story that he got punched by Queen Victoria. He got into a disagreement with the queen when he was installing electric lighting in Buckingham Palace.”

    (05:11) - Working with the design firm IDEO in the 90s - “I worked on everything from office furniture systems to mobile phones to children's toys, car interiors, medical products, you name it.”

    (09:57) - Establishing a booming design career - “We're not engineers. We're very ignorant about things, which I think is good in a way. We're really well-positioned to be the kind of advocate for the consumer—for the user—because they're not engineers either.”

    (13:17) - Hugo’s decision to focus on motorcycle design - “It just started with a really innocent question. My wife asked me ‘This might be a stupid question, but you love design and you love motorcycles. Have you ever thought about designing motorcycles?’ It was interesting. I think I was waiting for permission to do it.”

    (20:56) - Designing on trend - “I think the trouble with style is it's generally attached to fashion, and fashion is very temporary. If I had to choose function or style, I’d choose function because function never goes out of style.”

    (27:49) - Hugo’s on the future of e-mobility (and how to attract new non-male riders) - “ I really think comparing a gas bike to an electric bike's a bit like comparing a landline to an iPhone. They both make phone calls, but the implications of the two things are so very different.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES:

    Connect with Hugo on Instagram and Linkedin

    Learn more about Untitled Motorcycles

    Learn more about the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles

    Listen to Before IT Happened’s: Smart, Electric Motorcycles and Achieving Zero Fatalities Before 2030

    Listen to Before IT Happened’s:

  • With a simple tweak to an airplane’s wing design, the aviation industry's global carbon emissions can be minimized dramatically while also improving safety and operating costs. Jacob Klinginsmith is the president of Tamarack Aerospace Group and his company is working to do just that with their patented active winglet technology. Jacob joins this episode to share a little bit about the lifelong passion that he has found in flying and explain how Tamarack works to increase aircraft efficiency (as well as a plane’s lifetime). Tune in to discover how this airplane enthusiast is changing the conversation around safety and sustainability in the aviation industry!

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:19) - Born to be an aviator - “We did a big trip when I was about 15 or 16. We flew from Washington state to Missouri, so we got to see Mount Rushmore. We got to go to Leadville, Colorado, which is kind of a bucket list item for any pilot.”

    (08:24) - Increasing aircraft efficiency - “The defense community has reached out to us and said ‘Hey, we see what you're doing in the business jet community. Can you help us save fuel? Can you help us climb faster and provide safety for the missions?’”

    (15:52) - How Tamarack reduces fuel burn and increases a plane’s lifetime - “The winglets that are on commercial jets right now offer about 4-5% efficiency improvements. So if we can double that or triple that, that's really significant.”

    (21:00) - Wing surface upgrade, electric planes’ performance enhancement and other potential applications - “If you think about the wing wanting to bend up when you hit a bump, these surfaces are aerodynamically pushing the wing back down so that it's not getting overstressed.”

    (24:25) - Cost reductions and investment perks - “For an airline maybe that specializes in only having 737s, if they want to increase the number of airports they can serve by getting a little bit of more range out of those platforms, then that's a really different return on investment calculation.”

    (27:31) - On safety, regulation and sustainability - “As the industry develops technology that's ready for certification, the authorities need to figure out how it's going to be done. I think that's one of the biggest challenges that we have as far as new technology development.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES:

    Connect with Jacob on Linkedin and Twitter

    Learn more about Tamarack Aerospace Group and follow them on Instagram and Youtube

    Thank you for listening! Follow Before IT Happened on Instagram and Twitter, and don’t forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts! 

    Before IT Happened is produced by Donna Loughlin and

  • Advancements in technology that accelerate change also bring risk. In this episode, I have an enlightening conversation with Carlos Moreira, founder of WISeKey and co-author of the book The TransHuman Code.

    Carlos has worked to ensure that in our relationship with technology, humans come out ahead. We talk about how we can create a human-centric society where humans are in control, and where humans are protecting themselves. He shares his transformation path working with the UN since the 80s, connecting developing countries and coming up with new digital identity protocols. We also talk about Web3 and the metaverse where ownership of data and protection of our digital assets is more important than ever before.

    Before any world-changing innovation, there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. 

    JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

    (02:49) - Carlos Moreira on working for the UN - “I like to connect people. I like to connect computers. I like to connect processes and, at that time, I started to realize that if I find a way technically to connect developing countries to that huge amount of data, that would facilitate the transformation.”

    (09:24) - The urge for decentralization and human involvement in tech development - “We excluded six billion people—six billion minds that could have contributed to that discussion if they had the possibility and the tools to do so.”

    (14:05) - Carlos’ first steps as an entrepreneur, Web3 and a new approach to identity protection - “The web 2.0 was designed around converting humans into consumers. We are not only consuming. We are humans. We have human interaction. Let's not only judge by your capacity of consumption.”

    (18:19) - The seven pillars of the TransHuman code and how they fit into the Metaverse - “If I invent a new medicine and the FAA does not grant approval because they have to certify that that medicine is not dangerous for consumers, I will not be able to sell my medicine. That's not happening with technology.”

    (28:08) - The power of blockchain according to Carlos - “You cannot have a metaverse if you don't have a very strong blockchain strategy in your company. Companies that have announced a Metaverse connected to a centralized system, they’re just confusing the public. Because the metaverse will just accelerate the issues of centralizing data.”

    (32:32) - Why trust will be the main topic of the World Economic Forum at Davos - “If you make a lot of money, move away from converting humans into consumers. Maybe you're going to have your shares down for a while, but once humans learn that your company is protecting them, then they're going to invest in you.”

    (37:01) - How younger generations will approach the future’s challenges - “The young generation doesn't need to own things anymore. They don't mind showing things on the metaverse, and because they can prove that ownership in the same way you would prove ownership of a physical object, they are more sustainability oriented.”

    EPISODE RESOURCES: 

    Connect with Carlos on LinkedIn and Twitter

    Watch Carlos’ Crea Digital Day Talk in Geneva, Switzerland

    Learn more about the Transhuman Code and