Technori Podcast With Scott Kitun

The future of work, says Marshall Sied, co-founder of intelligent automation consulting firm Ashling Partners, will focus on “removing tasks that humans don't want to be doing anyway.” For him, “it's about taking robots out of human work, not having robots replace human work.” In fact, when clients introduce automation technology like Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and machine learning to their organization’s people, processes and current technology landscape, they act “like an x-ray on everything that's inefficient,” Marshall says. “We re-engineer that process with automation and the customer experience in mind upfront. It’s a total shift.” The x-ray metaphor is apt, especially considering that “Ashling” is the phonetic pronunciation of the Gaelic word for “vision.” Marshall came on the podcast to share his views on the automation revolution, Ashling Partners’ place in it, and why we should cancel the concept of “failing fast.”

For consumers, Uber is known for changing the simple act of getting a taxi and ordering food. For the past two years, the company has been moving into the B-to-B market with Uber Freight. “We've built an app for independent owner-operators and small fleets, where they can log on and see the freight available to them,” explains Sagar Shah, Uber Freight’s Director of Carrier Operations. “They don't have to call in and negotiate over rates. It's full transparency.” In September, Uber Freight announced that it would establish its headquarters in Chicago and invest more than $200 million annually in the region. Sagar says that Uber Freight’s growing success comes down to a combination of Uber’s well-tested experience in logistics and input from freight experts. Listen to him discuss how Uber views the overlooked opportunities in freight, and how he feels about internal competition.

Hiring is a major challenge for employers. On the flip side of the coin, socioeconomic and other barriers can prevent certain job seekers from identifying opportunities. The aptly named Solve offers a solution. Led by CEO and founder Matt Strauss, the software platform helps companies find and hire talented people in underserved communities. It also connects prospective employees with nonprofits that can help them tackle the barriers preventing them from getting jobs.

The robots are coming. Actually, they’re already here. But they’re not what you think, says Karen Leavitt, Chief Marketing Officer of Locus Robotics. The Wilmington, Massachusetts-based company, founded in 2014, makes robots that enable e-commerce and B2B companies to maximize efficiency in their warehouses enabling them to compete in the dynamic world of e-commerce. The world of robotics has changed so much in the last 20 or so years, spurred on by forward-thinking innovators like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who have done more for automation than sci-fi pop culture ever imagined. “This is not Rosie the Robot from the Jetsons,” says Karen. “Think of a self-driving car. These robots are a bit like that, but they don’t look like a car that you or I would get into and drive. They’re designed to operate indoors, in the densely populated world of warehouses.” Ready to embrace our robot overlords? Karen gives us a view into the real world of automation –– and what takes place in between “add to cart” and your doorste

The struggle to get from work to the gym is real. Arnav Dalmia realized that all but the most dedicated gym-goers find it challenging to fit in regular exercise. So he originally founded Cubii to make it easier to be active while at work. The company’s mission has evolved from there. He first pitched the under-desk mini elliptical machines to the Technori Showcase in 2015, when the company was known as Fitness Cubed. After launching with the intent of helping cooped-up office workers, Cubii quickly gained popularity with another demographic — one often ignored by the fitness industry. “I started to get these phone calls from customers talking about how Cubii had changed their life, and they were not using Cubii at their desk, they were using Cubii for rehab,” Arnav says. “We changed the mission of the company. Initially, it was workout while you work, now it is fitness for all ages, abilities and lifestyles.”

Managing food allergies requires a lot of time and effort — and information isn’t always available when and where you need it. As the mom of a daughter with life-threatening food allergies, Susie Hultquist knew this problem all too well. But it wasn’t until she struggled to identify whether her daughter could safely eat Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies that business inspiration struck. In 2015, Susie founded Spokin. Think Instagram meets Yelp meets WebMD, specifically built for people with allergies. Users review products and restaurants all around the world based on their allergens, and their contributions appear on a newsfeed alongside Spokin’s product guides, recipes and other original content. The app automatically filters out products containing your personal allergens, thanks to their detailed signup process, and there’s also a search option for when you’re looking for restaurants in a particular city, or for the ingredients of a particular item.

“In the senior living market, the old image is nursing home: the new image is active communities for older adults who can simplify their lives and spend their free time really enjoying themselves, their family, their friends,” says Nancy Koenig, CEO of Caremerge, which provides technology solutions for the senior living market. Like previous guests Jay Klauminzer and Elizabeth Harz, Nancy’s story is an interesting study in how to lead a company you didn’t start. She became the CEO in October 2017, taking the reigns from co-founder and chairman Asif Khan. Nancy explains her approach to taking on someone else’s vision (hint: focus on the metrics) and the triumphs that come with creating technology for a demographic that has long been ignored by the tech world.

VillageMD aims to improve the quality of care by easing the burden on primary care doctors. VillageMD Co-founder and CEO Tim Barry explains that focusing on the most costly chronically ill patients helps reduce pressure on the entire healthcare system. Founded in 2013, the company announced its $100 million Series B round in September. Here Tim explains the history and the mission of his company — and how VillageMD is leveraging tech with a human touch to offer better care.

The rising number of luxury apartment buildings is putting property managers under increasing pressure to entice new tenants — and to convince current ones to stay when their lease is up. When round-the-clock doormen, a state-of-the-art fitness center and a residential lounge are seen as standard, how can property managers set their building apart? Jude Chiy founded resident engagement platform Flamingo to offer a solution. Not only can residents use it to do useful things like pay rent and make maintenance requests, Flamingo also allows property managers to easily offer concierge-style services like dog-walking, cleaning and personal training sessions.

Do you ever wish you’d had the opportunity to invest in a company like Netflix or Facebook when they were just a fledgling startup? In the most simple terms, investment platform Republic was created to just that. The platform democratizes fundraising so that anyone can access investment opportunities in the startup ecosystem. The company has quickly built a name for itself — even though it is not even five years old. Republic co-founder and CEO Ken Nguyen started the company after the SEC enacted legislation in May 2016 enabling non-accredited investors to put some cash into early-stage companies. Since then, Republic has taken the lead in the equity crowdfunding space, making it easy for almost anyone to invest as little as $10 in a business. The good news — especially for unseasoned investors — is that they heavily vet startups before promoting them on the platform. They say that fewer than 3 percent of companies that apply pass their due diligence. Even though Ken started the company to meet a contemporary

It’s as true for tech as it is for war and football: sometimes the best defense is a good offense. But that requires everyone within an organization to understand the threat and how to counter it. Scott Kannry and Brendan Fitzpatrick, Axio’s CEO and VP of Cyber Risk Engineering respectively, understand this challenge. Axio’s goal is to help organizations neutralize cybersecurity threats through a combination of services and products. The company prides itself on removing the jargon and insider talk to make cybersecurity more accessible to the entire organization.

Moving to the cloud can be intimidating for people accustomed to storing all their data on hardware. Enter Mitch Greenwald and his company Cloudbakers, which helps small to medium-sized businesses translate the vision of cloud-based storage into reality. As a Google Premier Partner for more than eight years, Cloudbakers has worked with financial services, technology, healthcare and other businesses to make the switch to Google products. What’s neat about Cloudbakers is that they don’t just introduce you to the apps and run: they plan your transition process carefully and help your team navigate the shift with the goal of keeping everyone on the same virtual page.

According to the American Hospital Association, 3.6 million people miss appointments with healthcare providers every year because they can’t make it to the clinic or the office. In some cases, it’s due to a lack of public transportation options or an inability to afford a taxi. Regardless of the reason, Mindi Knebel, Founder and CEO of Kaizen Health, is tackling the issue head-on. Kaizen’s goal is to improve healthcare access by offering a cost-efficient logistics hub for both providers and patients. Through their white-label platform, providers can create an appropriate transportation plan right when a patient books an appointment or at the time of discharge.

Established companies often wonder what it takes to create true digital transformation — the kind that helps your customers and your bottom line. Hub Group is a great example. Founded in 1971 on the outskirts of Chicago, by Joyce and Phillip Yeager. The couple saw the potential of intermodal shipping, in which containers are transported from one place to another using multiple types of transportation — usually trains and trucks — without having to unload their contents. Hub Group is still thriving today, thanks in large part to Joyce and Phillip’s son David Yeager, the current CEO and Chairman.David made a stop at the WGN Studios to talk about the disaster that forced them to innovate and the careful process of developing new technology.

Eleven states (including Illinois) and D.C. are in various stages of legalizing recreational marijuana, and in 2018 the cannabis industry was estimated to be worth $10.4 billion — even though the drug is still restricted at the federal level. As the market becomes increasingly viable and appealing, ahem, budding cannabis entrepreneurs are faced with the challenge of moving an underground operation online. One of the biggest transition issues is navigating compliance laws. Aristotle Loumis and Chad Bronstein founded the marketing tech platform Fyllo earlier this year. The company offers to help brands meet compliance requirements at scale and ensure that ads are served to audiences in states where it’s legal. After closing a $16 million seed round, they raised an additional $2 million in September.

At its core, marketing is one person saying to another (or many others), ‘hey, check this out.’ And it’s that small but powerful sentiment that’s at the heart of PromoShare. The company teams up with clients looking to put on a live event. Their users find events they’re interested in and sell tickets to their friends using the PromoShare platform, which tracks how many people they’re bringing in and gives them rewards for hitting certain goals. The ambassadors, as PromoShare calls them, don’t need 700,000+ followers to be eligible for partnerships. As founder and CEO Ernesto Pedroza explains, they can be micro influencers with 1,000 to 100,000 followers, or nano influencers, with even fewer.

You’ve decided to run a race. Maybe it’s a 10K or maybe you’re one of those nuts who has signed up for the Chicago Marathon. Either way, congratulations! Now, how are you going to train and stay motivated? Tech helps us in so many areas of our lives — from watching movies to ordering takeout to answering emails — and it can help make you a better runner, too. Matthew Knippen, CEO and co-founder of Charge Running, knows that you have choices when it comes to running apps for improving your running. Charge Running sets itself apart by connecting you with a coach and other runners while you’re pounding the pavement (or the treadmill).

Melissa Hartwig Urban, co-founder and CEO of Whole30, was the first guinea pig for her diet. “I was eating pretty healthy whole foods, I was exercising a ton: but what the Whole30 showed me in that first self-experiment were all the ways that I was using food to comfort, reward and punish myself, and to self-soothe to relieve anxiety,” she said of the origins of her diet plan, which has become a movement. Melissa spoke to Technori on the sidelines of the recent G2 Reach conference, which was held September 11 in Chicago. For the uninitiated, the idea of Whole30 is to break the pattern of unhealthy diet habits by taking on a highly restrictive diet for 30 days: that includes cutting out dairy, sugar and grains, among other ingredients.

Even before the rest of us were blown away by the Maps app, David Mindell was working on delivering even more precise location information. In addition to his various appointments in aeronautics and robotics at MIT, David has been involved in dozens of underwater research explorations, including the search for the Titanic. It was the navigational challenges that come with being underwater — where GPS can’t reach you — that inspired him to find a better way to help everyone figure out exactly where we are at all times, by mapping every single section of space, down to the cubic millimeter. This isn’t just for humans: David and his company Humatics are focused on developing technology that will help robots better understand where they are, which can help make their movements more precise, and their interactions with other robots and humans more efficient and even safer.

Securing an insurance policy that covers your needs is one of the most important items for businesses at all stages, but it’s also one of the most arduous. That’s where CoverWallet comes in. Co-founders Rashmi Melgiri and Inaki Berenguer were looking for an industry that could benefit from moving online when they landed on insurance. Neither had worked in the industry before: both have MBAs from MIT, and Rashmi’s background is in consulting and advertising. But being the outsiders brought certain benefits. First, they could work with multiple insurance carriers to cover as many types of business insurance as possible. Second, instead of standing for the slow-rolling attitude of the established insurance carriers, they offered the instant gratification of on-demand online companies. Listen to Rashmi talk to Scott over the phone at WGN.