Technology, Passion & People
An overview of the second series of Emergence
Here at TFD, we’re incredibly fortunate to hear about cutting edge tech innovation and advances on a daily basis. The theme of our latest Emergence podcast series was inspired by the pivotal role and experiences of the technology professionals we collaborate with. With this second Emergence podcast series, we were able to speak to technology leaders from PWC to the Royal Opera House. We were also lucky enough to speak to the co-founder of the angel investor platform for women, Obu.
The incredible line-up of guests included:
- Simone Severini - Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Johan Jegerajan - PWC
- James Whitebread - Royal Opera House
- Rob Elkin - Rational Partners
- Steven Willson - Dubber
- Mike Tuchen - Onfido
- Carolin Cichosz - Voith Composites
- Sarah King - Obu
Our Founder and CEO, Stephanie Forrest, shares below some of the key themes covered in the Series:
The importance of passion and teamwork
Stephanie: It's really interesting that people and teams came up so much in conversation in terms of how important they are to driving successful innovation. Here are some of the comments that resonated with me over the course of the Series:
- Mike Tuchen commented that “people work for people”, they might come for the job perks but they’ll stay for the people they work with and the fact that there’s more flexibility is a positive thing.
- Johan Jegerajan discussed how the new generation of employees have a strong drive to do things more efficiently and they have an inherent passion for utilising tech and data to make a positive impact on sustainability and the business as a whole.
Democratisation of technology
Stephanie: Technology can sometimes get a bad rap for driving negative change but what came out of the interviews were some incredibly positive opportunities that tech innovation has enabled including:
- Sarah King, co-founder of angel investor platform for women, Obu, speaking candidly about how only 2% of investment within the UK goes into female-backed businesses and only 14% of angel investors are women and how Obu provides a bridge between women and investment, closing the gap of accessible investing.
- James Whitebread spoke of the Royal Opera House’s streaming service which they launched during the pandemic and how it makes their events more accessible.
- And Simone Severini discussed the launch of AWS’s “Amazon Braket” which makes quantum computing more accessible to companies so that they can test how quantum computing can potentially make a difference.
Challenges of technology
Stephanie: Finally, another important comment that kept coming up in all of my conversations was the constant pace of technology change and the challenge of staying abreast of technological developments. The adoption of digital tools is improving productivity, freeing up more time to focus on other potentially valuable activities such as keeping pace with technology change. To delve deeper and to listen to all of the conversations, you can access all of the episodes of the second series of Emergence here.