On the tech horizon

Speaker 1:

Ready to explore the extraordinary world of tech? Welcome to the XTech podcast, where we connect you with the sharpest minds and the leading voices in the global tech community. Join us as we cut through the complexity to give you a clear picture of the ideas, innovations, and insight that are shaping our future.

Debbie Forster:

Hello, and welcome to the XTech Podcast by Fox Agency. I’m your host, Debbie Forster MBE. I’m the CEO at the Tech Talent Charter, and an advocate and campaigner for diversity, inclusion, and innovation in the tech industry.

Today I’m delighted to be joined by Chelsea Larson-Andrews and Beverley Eve, the co-founders of the amazing TechMode. Thanks so much for joining me, ladies.

Chelsea Larson-Andrews:

Thanks for having us, Debbie.

Beverley Eve:

Thanks for having us, Debbie.

Debbie Forster:

Fantastic. Okay, so for our listeners, while we really want to hear and we love hearing about what you do at TechMode, it’s also quite interesting for us to understand how you got into tech. Some people are a very straight line, some have a few twists and turns before they got there. Tell me, how did you get started in tech, Bev?

Beverley Eve:

Well, I definitely fall into the latter category there. So I’m a twist and turns kind of person. I actually studied acting and directing and worked in that industry for several years. And then as life takes you on these twists and turns, I had the opportunity to join a rally that was sailing around the world. So I took a big chunk of time out, and 16 months I sailed around the world. I had a lot of time to think there and a lot of perspective. And I came back certain that I wanted to run my own company.

Also, this was back in sort of 2010, and in these times it was very early days for smartphone technology, communications, but obviously communications on the boat was essential to us. And I actually studied to get my single sideband radio license to go on the boat. So I had this early interest in communications. We had a very expensive satellite phone on the boat, but we wouldn’t use it apart from emergencies, for which we did. But that’s a whole other podcast.

So I took this breather and I came back with just a new direction in my life and I started working for a startup that was called VoteMyLink. But I put my hands up now and say we made every mistake in the book. So it was one of those learning curves startups, but we did have some successes. We launched inside the European Parliament. We were trying to help MEPs back then directly communicate with their constituents in the UK, and considering this was pre Brexit, that was a worthy cause. But we learnt from the mistakes and that opened doors for me, not just into the tech world, but also into the policy and tech overlap.

I went on from there to work for a trade association called the App Developers Alliance. Now this had sprung up out of Washington DC to cater to the exploding community of app developers that arrived on the scene with smartphones. At this organization, as fate would have it, I met Chelsea, now my co-founder at TechMode. We had the pleasure of working together there. We were hosting hundreds of events across the US and Europe, and we were working a lot with tech companies and at the meeting point between them and app developers. We were also sort of growing our personal brands and channels. So it felt like a very natural thing to then spin off our own agency, which we did. And TechMode, as it was, was born.

Debbie Forster:

And Beverley, I have to say, you’re probably my first guest who sailed around the world to find tech. So that was exciting. So Chelsea, I take it you weren’t on board with Beverley, so how did you get there if you weren’t on the boat with Beverley?

Chelsea Larson-Andrews:

No. Yeah, I was born into the tech industry. So my father was a director of marketing at Apple when I was born, and he was launching the Apple Iic. I did not really want to follow in his footsteps, so I kind of meandered in my own way into having a career in tech. I got my bachelors degree in applied design and got invited back by a professor to get a masters in women’s studies. So I took those opportunities as they came, always thinking that I might be a teacher or work in a nonprofit.

However, a week after I graduated, I started getting my student loan bills in the mail and realized I need to really latch onto a career quickly so that I can keep pace with all these incoming bills in adulting. And one of my dear friends was working for a fast-casual restaurant chain in the marketing department, and she really needed help with their marketing. This was in 2008. And so Facebook was just starting to pop up, having web presence for restaurants started to become more interesting and a necessary item. So they needed to relaunch the whole brand digitally. And so I came on board to help do that.

What I found was that I really loved marketing. I really loved social media, loved email marketing, building websites. So I really started to embrace marketing and really enjoy it. And meanwhile, my father had started a new startup where they were doing video tutorials on how to create video games. So this was before Unity came on the scene and they were their official training partner. So I was working with them at nights, doing their marketing, during the day at the restaurant chain, doing that marketing. I was working two jobs basically, and eventually came full-time onto the game development training company. This was called design3. Worked there for a few years and then we were introduced to the Application Developers Alliance, which then actually acquired the design3. So I by acquisition became part of the Application Developers Alliance, which is where I met Beverley.

Just stemming off what she said, we had made good relationships with the board members at the Alliance, and these were companies like Google, Twilio, Ericsson, Facebook. Through those relationships, really seeing that they needed a lot more support to reach developers, which was what Beverley and I were doing for the Alliance. Of course, that organization, it did have a very strong policy arm and the board members were continually asking for more and more marketing support. So it really was a beautiful time to spin off and leverage those relationships.

A lot of those companies were Beverley and I’s first clients at TechMode and a lot of them we still work with today, and it’s really provided a springboard for us to jump off and really immerse ourselves in the tech industry, build our own expertise in the process, and work with companies on content creation, which is what we do at TechMode.

Debbie Forster:

Fantastic. So it really is, I think… There’s a similar journey, I’m hearing, to a lot of people. It’s not even that you found your way to tech, but tech sort of sprung up around you as this [inaudible 00:07:21]. Wake up one morning and realize you’re surrounded by tech and are women in tech before you’d even realized it.

Okay. So given that your whole reason for being is, your job is looking across these horizons, that your job is looking across to find out what’s going on. What is grabbing your eye? What should we as being in tech be looking at, at the moment?

Beverley Eve:

Well, that’s a broad question, obviously, but I think I’ll draw upon my recent experience at Mobile World Congress. It’s one of my favorite conferences. I really missed it hugely during the pandemic. And I got to go back this year after a few years away. Chelsea and I, at TechMode, we work with a number of clients that are based in the telecommunication space. So we’ve followed the 5G narrative from the very beginning, and it’s an area that fascinates me personally, and I think it’s going to continue to play a pivotal role in all of our lives as the infrastructure, really, of our connectivity in many ways.

Debbie Forster:

Agreed.

Beverley Eve:

So the key theme this year at Mobile Congress was velocity, and with acceleration of 5G was really kind of at the center of that. So we’re at a stage now where you can say 5G is maturing. We’ve talked about it a lot, but there’s now, the last time we read, 230 commercial networks live in the world. I think we’ve either approaching or approached a hundred billion users. So the shift of focus now is moving heavily towards monetization models. So you have these providers that are saying, “Okay, how are we going to make money from it?” And also, what are the differing roles that companies are playing and will continue to play in the ecosystem?

Debbie Forster:

So if I look at that, because I think you’re absolutely right. 5G is grown up and being a proper grownup. It’s got its grownup shoes on and having to figure out how to do that. It is something that actually wherever you are in tech, 5G is going to be a part of that. So if I’m looking across what is happening in the current world on 5G, what are the topics or issues that you think are most interesting that we should be keeping our eyes on?

Beverley Eve:

Yeah. Well there was a great talk by Vicki Brady. She’s the CEO of Telstra, Australian mobile telco. And she was talking to all her fellow operators essentially and talking about where the opportunity lies for them, where the industry’s going. And I love the way she put it. She said, “We need to become ecosystem builders, that we need to bring together 5G, AI, automation, edge, and an explosion of applications.” And this is where the excitement’s happening right now.

I think it’s partly because in the last iteration of the last G, the operators felt they missed out on the monetization opportunities. With this increased usage of the networks, what was built on top of the Netflixes and whatnot took advantage. So there’s a big push now for them to partner to collaborate with other tech companies. I suppose hand in hand in that, we really see this shift to an ecosystem mindset, which is exciting. And also what we talk about is the opening up of the mobile networks. So there was a lot of conversations around what we call Open RAN or the disaggregation of networks.

Debbie Forster:

Beverly, unpack a little more for me about Open RAN because that’s a new thing for some people in our audience.

Beverley Eve:

Yeah, absolutely. So in layman’s terms, RAN, it’s the Radio Access Network really. It’s how our mobile devices are connecting to the mobile network. So Open RAN is really just the separation or this disaggregation of the hardware and the software within the RAN. So this is a shift from traditional networks because typically you’d have proprietary equipment and software from one vendor, but now Open RAN’s based on open standard interfaces, that it allows integration of equipment and software from multiple vendors.

There’s lots of benefits obviously to this. The key benefit’s really flexibility and agility, but also innovation. So there’s cost savings, you can avoid vendor lock-in. And in terms of the innovation, there was a big announcement that came out of Mobile World Congress ’23, and this was the launch of the GSMA Open Gateway. So you might be hearing more about this. It’s basically a framework of common network APIs that provides universal access to operating networks for developers. So this could produce a real paradigm shift in terms of innovation around developers starting to innovate at the RAN level.

Debbie Forster:

And it is exciting, isn’t it, when we see technologies and sectors doing that disaggregation of throwing open the tool chest, as it were, for everyone to play with. And then, as you say, keeping those ecosystems going on. So Chelsea, when I hear that and I get very excited, is there anything else I need to bring into my thinking before I run off on a tangent?

Chelsea Larson-Andrews:

Absolutely. So the one thing that I would suggest companies become aware with and familiarize themselves with, with this disaggregation is just the more complexity that it brings. If you’re working with different vendors, different layers, then that opens up more increased security risks and opportunities for breaches and all of that that goes with it. So I would advise companies to really aim to have their ducks in a row before they go down the path of disaggregation and really thinking first about test and assurance.

One of our clients, Spirent, they’re a leader in test and assurance, and they optimize on active assurance, a concept which is proactively monitoring and testing so that you can find issues before the public does, before a end user experiences any kind of snags or issues, that you can really be proactive in that testing approach and smooth things out before it even reaches the end user. So I think with the design creation, automated testing is going to be absolutely crucial and key and something that needs to be thought of at the forefront of any decision to go down a path of disaggregation.

Debbie Forster:

Absolutely. Because that’s something, if you want to do it well, it’s baked in from the start. It’s not [inaudible 00:13:21]

Chelsea Larson-Andrews:

Exactly, exactly.

Debbie Forster:

And I think the days when people could try to fit that in on the automated testing at the end, God help the company that’s going to go at it through that route. This is something you’ve got to be thinking of before you even begin on that journey. Super.

Okay. So is there anything else, Beverley? In terms of when we were looking across Mobile World Congress, was there anything else that were those big aha moments or developments that you came away that you’re still thinking about?

Beverley Eve:

Yeah, a term that was used a lot was the cloudification of networks. So this is something. Cloudification has already really taken place in the core network. So we talked about the RAN network, but the core. Obviously this is a key component of 5G. If we step back a little bit and remind ourselves of what 5G was out to accomplish, essentially there’s three pillars. So you have speed, which was very much in the 4G pillar, but there’s also latency and capacity which are really important. I think this cloudification is helping to deliver on these things, is essentially bringing the benefits that the IT world has enjoyed to the mobile network. So you can have faster deployment of new services, meaning that the operators can make money faster and auto-scaling, so elements can be scaled up and down to a allow for traffic volume.

Debbie Forster:

And that auto-scaling is quite powerful, isn’t it? That’s something that you’re seeing companies starting to understand the real potential in being able to think about auto-scaling in a way that you haven’t before.

Beverley Eve:

Exactly. It’s cost-effective. So it’s these efficiencies which companies are loving. Another concept that I love is this concept of network slicing. So if you haven’t come across that, it’s the technology that allows the operator to provide different slices of the network depending on what’s required. Because again, 5G has so many requirements of it, if you think about it. For example, you might need to provide a really high bandwidth and low latency for things like autonomous vehicles, robotics, remote operations, AR, VR. But at the same time, you might need to provide much lower bandwidth for utility metering and IoT use cases.

So this is kind of a win-win because the customer gets and pays for the specifics they require, and meanwhile, the service provider can price accordingly. And overall it’s obviously a more efficient network. So network slicing is also something that’s definitely really exciting for me.

Debbie Forster:

Now again, I need you to help me Chelsea. So if I’m getting all excited by what Beverley said, what do I need to think about before I go galloping off to my manager to talk about this?

Chelsea Larson-Andrews:

Well, yeah, I think the optimization of networks, one thing that I like to think about in that we were talking to a lot of people at Mobile World Congress about to is making sure that these services reach everybody. So bridging the digital divide and bringing 5G connectivity to under-served areas, to rural communities, and using the networks to do that.

One of our clients that we worked with and filmed a lot of content with that I learned a lot from was Ribbon at Mobile World Congress, and they have some services, one where operators can run RAN core and voice core on the same core. What this means is that the legacy spectrums with the 2Gs, the 3Gs, 4G can be used as a foundation for 5G. So it really provides the opportunity to scale up in spectrums while providing those core services. And the benefits of this can’t be understated. So it’s really going to be important as we move forward from an equity standpoint to make sure that this is accessible.

Debbie Forster:

I think that’s huge if we’re thinking about even somewhere as small as the UK, when we talk about 5G, that is a reality for some people and a bitter envy for others. And so thinking about how we solve that problem and not assuming that’s going to happen automatically, that gives us some interesting stepping stones to think about it in that respect.

Good. Okay. So is there anything else? I hear a lot around sustainability. Is that something that is occupying your mind? Did you hear things around that we should be aware of?

Beverley Eve:

Absolutely. Sustainability is a very important topic for both Chelsea and I. I think coming back to the Mobile Congress this year, it really was everywhere. And it was just great to see that companies know now that they have to be talking about it, really, and implementing it. I spent a lot of time at the Ericsson booth, another client that we work with a lot, and they’re a telco vendor. I had the opportunity to chat to one of their VPs, Head of Marketing, Cecilia Atterwall, and they had just won this award for overall sustainability leader in a study that was conducted, I think it was ABI Research, evaluating the capabilities of telecom vendors to reduce energy and waste across the industry.

What’s so important, obviously Ericsson’s the vendor, so then that filters through to their customer, the telco, which filters through to the end customer. So you could see the chain. But also it was a lot of fun to see, I geek out on all this stuff, but Ericsson has a famous hardware wall where they have all of their big radios, and they are really making an effort to make things more and more lightweight, more energy efficient. So one of their radios I was able to now pick up with one hand, which is, I think, 60% lighter in terms of the aluminum used and they’re cutting the energy use by up to 40%.

So you can see these wins. The other thing that I thought was inspiring is they’re walking the walk themselves. So they’ve got some very ambitious net zero emission targets themselves. And that’s just one example, but we visited many different companies, whilst we were there. And it is good to see that it’s firmly on the agenda. We need to do a lot more, but I think it’s at least moving in the right direction.

Debbie Forster:

But I think it’s important for companies to think through because I am hearing some people saying, “As the economy gets tighter, as things are…” Is that what falls off? But it’s not going away, is it? And I think what’s interesting is not just governments, but consumers are getting smarter about greenwashing, that the game playing is not going to work in the medium term. It’s going to come back to bike companies, isn’t it?

Beverley Eve:

Exactly.

Debbie Forster:

Brilliant. Okay. Beyond Mobile World Congress, we also like to think more widely. So I like to hear from guests of not just what’s in our world right now, but looking to the horizon. And we start with the dark side, we go with the half empty of what’s worrying you or niggling you about what’s on the horizon for tech. And then we’ll go on to what’s exciting. If I throw out to, then either of you can jump in first, what’s on the horizon for tech that is worrying or annoying you?

Chelsea Larson-Andrews:

I would say going back to, I kind of mentioned this earlier, was just the threat of cybersecurity. I think in all of these topics we’re talking about, disaggregation, qualification, sustainability, IoT, all of it has a common concern, which is risk in cyber attacks. One of the clients we work with is Trend Micro, and they recently released a study that said 71% of organizations say they’re likely to experience a data breach of customer records within the next year. To me, when I heard this, was a bit staggering. Maybe I was a little bit naive before diving into this report and learning more about this, but it really is not even a question of if companies will be breached, it’s when.

So one of my concerns is just that baking in of cybersecurity as a core fundamental building block of every single infrastructure to prevent these horrific cyber attacks that we can see are only going to be increasing over time. So that’s one thing that’s of concern to me.

Debbie Forster:

I couldn’t agree more. And this is also something that we’ve got to understand needs to be… This is about safety, and safe and secure by design. This is not for banking later, and this is not another department’s responsibility. This is looking at every aspect of us of our work within tech to think about… Because I agree with you. It is not whether you’re going to get hit as an organization. It is when, and what are you going to do to prevent, to recover, to move on, to learn. Good. Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. What about you, Beverley? Is there anything that’s worrying or annoying you on the horizon?

Beverley Eve:

Yeah, it’s a very hot topic right now, but I guess I’ll add my voice to the rapid increase of AI. And I’m excited about the potential of AI. It ties into many of the conversations we’ve had today in how it’s helping to make networks more sustainable, for example. But I do feel I share this concern, the pace at which we’re going, and I think with all large tech iterations, we need to go into them with our eyes fully open. And one of the challenges obviously we have is there’s always going to be bad actors and regulation is essential, but regulation, as we know, doesn’t move as fast as the technology. So I think this challenge is to overcome there, and obviously a lot of potential as well. But yeah, I think I’d put that there.

Debbie Forster:

I agree and I think the positive voices coming out of this are, it is not for tech to wait for governments to catch up and regulate. This is for tech to lean in and begin trying to be part of that regulatory framework, to call out bad players, to think in that sort of way. Because bluntly, this is such an enormous breakthrough. No one’s going to come and rescue us from this. This is something that we need to build in. To echo what you were saying before, Chelsea, this is not whether we are going to look at generative AI. It is how we do it and how quickly we do it.

This is not necessarily the era to talk about move quickly and break things. I think we’ve got a lot more glass in the room, there’s a lot more glass in the room. So let’s maybe think what we’re going to do before we start breaking things, because there’s a lot more at stake in that respect.

Okay, so that was the darker side of that. What are you excited about? What’s happening for you that gets you up and makes you excited about happening in tech?

Beverley Eve:

Yeah, well for me, there’s lots. Technology, it’s a huge concept and a huge enabler in so many ways. But I think there was one story that really caught my eye recently, and I don’t know if you came across it. The BBC covered it. There’s a mini data center that is being used to heat a public swimming pool in Devon. And I just love this. It’s a startup called Deep Green and the founder, Mark Bjornsgaard… If you follow the news, obviously there’s energy crisis, cost of living crisis. I read somewhere that 65 swimming pools have had to close since 2019.

From the other side, one of the largest costs for data centers is obviously cooling the data center. So this data center is being provided to this council-run center for free.

Debbie Forster:

Fantastic.

Beverley Eve:

Because they can obviously charge their clients who need to use the data center. Meanwhile, the swimming pool’s benefited. So I think this kind of circular economy way of thinking, it ticks so many boxes and I just think we need more of it, essentially.

Debbie Forster:

It’s that sheer creativity of the solution, isn’t it? It is why we need ecosystems. It is why we need everyone involved because you need all of us to come out of our silo and look around to make those really exciting…. I hadn’t seen that. I’m going to look it up afterwards. But I love that because it is just a win, win, win, win, win, isn’t it? And a simple elegance to it that you know wouldn’t see coming. How about you Chelsea? What has you excited?

Chelsea Larson-Andrews:

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more with what Beverley said about the tech for good and that ecosystem play and really kind of involving everyone in it. And I think, Debbie, you just hit the nail in the head when you said stepping out of the silo. I feel like there’s so much opportunity with removing ourselves from the tech for a minute and really being intentional about how we’re using things.

This is a very basic example, but my daughter, she’s nine and she took it upon herself with a group of friends at school to create a green team club where they meet every recess and pick up trash around school. And they’re growing the group and they’re just so motivated and energized to do good things in the community. I think at the rate of speed with which technology is moving, I think leveraging that creativity and that drive in younger people to really make the right choices and move through the world with intentionality, and when they’re old enough to connect and meet with that tech intersection when she’s older and maybe developing her own applications and working within tech structures, that they maintain that fire and drive to do good things with it.

So I would say what excites me is taking that step back and really leveraging the tech in a way and applying it in a way that is more positive.

Debbie Forster:

And it’s why it is so important. I hear again and again from guests how they’re talking about how they’re engaging their users, how they’re trying to get more diversity on their teams, et cetera. It’s because we need as many brains and as many fresh brains that come at it from different directions to get the kind of creative solutions that drive the next set of technology that will be coming out of things.

All right, well then in the spirit of that wider cross-pollinization and thinking about things, our audience love to get the shopping list of other podcasts, other events, things that inspire us. Do you have some ideas that I can add to my to-do list of what’s inspiring you at the moment?

Beverley Eve:

Well, I can throw in a few podcasts into the mix. Following the 5G theme, there’s a great podcast called Voice of 5G with Janina and Paul. They just do a really great job of breaking things down and explaining all the nuts and bolts and how things are going to and where are things at. Also, Chelsea and I, obviously in our capacity running TechMode, we work with some of the top tech thought leaders that are out there. They all have great podcasts. Just to name a couple, Tech Uncorked is a lot of fun by Sarah and Dean Gratton, and Tomorrow’s Tech Today by Professor Sally Eaves, a couple of examples as well.

Debbie Forster:

Lovely.

Beverley Eve:

[inaudible 00:27:56].

Chelsea Larson-Andrews:

Our friend Evan Kirstel also does a lot of live streaming, so I would definitely check out his channel as well. He’s @evankirstel. And then in terms of podcasts, following my theme of today, and maybe it’s why it’s so fresh for me, is I’ve been really listening to this podcast a lot called Offline by Jon Favreau and Crooked Media. And that really is talking all about getting offline and thinking through things on a bigger picture and not moving too fast in our decision making, which I think is very valuable for companies to have that time to unplug, to really think through things. So I would recommend checking out that podcast as well.

Debbie Forster:

That’s super, and I do find it positive as well as highly amusing how often we’re hearing from people in tech telling us how important it is to log off, click off, get away from that screen to get out into the real world, just for our own sanity, but then to make us better at what we do.

All right, well listen, Chelsea, Beverley, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of XTech. I appreciate you taking… I know how busy your schedules are, so thank you so much for joining us today.

Chelsea Larson-Andrews:

It was a lot of fun. Thanks, Debbie.

Beverley Eve:

Thank you for having us, Debbie.

Debbie Forster:

It’s been a pleasure.

Thank you for listening. If you’re a tech innovator and would like to appear as a guest on the show, email us now at xtech@fox.agency. And finally thank you to the team of experts at Fox Agency who make this podcast happen. I’m Debbie Forster and you’ve been listening to the XTech podcast.

Speaker 1:

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