RVA Tech Talks

Join Zak this week as he talks with Brett and Collin about differentiating data-centric roles in organizations at various stages of data maturity!Guests:Collin McCarter, Data Scientist and Brett Truelove, Analytic Engineer from Northwestern Mutual

In this weeks episode, I'll be talking with Jules Damji, Lead Developer Advocate on the Ray team at Anyscale, about the ever evolving landscape of enterprise grade distributed computing. From Hadoop to Spark and now to Ray, we talk all things compute, and where the landscape may be headed in the future!

Your new rvatech/Talks host Zak Brown kicks off season 3 by talking with Alex Miller, founder and organizer of the Strange Loop conference. Join us as we discuss what it takes to build out a truly "Strange"  tech community that can withstand the test of time.

ICYMI - ProductFest RVA sold out for the first year, so catch the lunchtime roundtable episode hosted LIVE on the stage with Richmond's Product Gurus: Devin Smith - Experience Principal at Active Digital, Isaiah Harvin - Senior Product Manager at Disney Streaming, and Amy O'Callaghan - Head of Product at Vangst

Subash is an energetic and inspiring individual who can make anybody a believer in how valuable their data is. They see value in data when others just see it as a thing to retain and archive. When Subash hears of a company using an application to run their business and doesn't use any of it, they get pumped because that indicates there is a ton of valuable data.Misspellings (for search purposes): Subash, Sabash, habash, habas, datagoodness, r-coder, python, senior analyst, seeking data science roles, data scientist contractor, data science work, analytical contractors, data strategist, statistical programmer, data dealer)

Panelists Include: Ford Prior, Principal Cloud Engineer – CarMax (Moderator & Podcast Host)Marcus Thornton, Deputy Chief Data Officer – Virginia Office of Data Governance and AnalyticsSouj Narasimhacharya, Senior Vice President of Engineering – Koalafi

Panelists include: Host Ford Prior at CarMax Subhash Jaini at KeiterJerome Dixon at CANA Advisors Sam Portillo at Ippon 

Todd is the Chief Information Officer at Estes Express Lines, which is North America's largest, privately owned freight carrier. He's responsible for directing and developing Estes' IT management functions to not only deliver outstanding results for the company's business, but also to drive its culture — and the vision for Estes' IT road map. Before joining Estes in 2020, Todd was Vice President at Celerity, responsible for leading their Enterprise Agility Service offerings and driving transformation at some of Celerity's largest clients.

With hosts Ford Prior & Julia Barnhart at CarMax and Guests Susan Stavitski & Amy O'Callaghan at CarMax, Travis Bjorklund at Capital One, and Jennifer Atkins at Cix Health 

Ankit has over 20 years of experience in software engineering and product development. In 2010, he built one of the first Health Information Exchanges (HIE) in the State of Virginia to connect physicians, hospitals, and federal agencies through one HIE platform.In 2016, Ankit co-founded Roundtrip, a digital healthcare transportation marketplace working with leading healthcare organizations across the country to remove transportation as a barrier to care. As CTO and CPO, he led both Product and Engineering initiatives building and scaling a team and product from idea to product-market fit. Ankit received his Executive MBA in 2012 and Executive Masters in IT Management in 2013 from Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2019, he was recognized as Richmond's Founder of the Year and received recognition as Top 40 Under 40 in 2020.When he's not being customer-focused and helping grow revenues, you can find him hanging out with his two dogs, hiking, cooking, and making delicious cocktails.

With a passion for the ways in which technologists build solutions for people, Chris helps Terazo's clients find strategic success with their digital initiatives.Having worked in the IT industry for 20+ years, he recently helped launch the first public API platform for a North American bank and previously built a digital agency that provided API integration & data services for its Fortune 500 clients.

Mahwish has over 13 years of experience in leading and delivering large, complex technical and business programs for Accenture's commercial and federal clients. Her goal is to help their clients pivot to the New by implementing emerging technologies such as autonomous vehicles, Internet of Things (IoT), Fintech, robotic process automation (RPA), blockchain, analytics, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). In addition, she leads several Inclusion & Diversity initiatives within the firm and the recipient of 2019 Washington DC Women in Technology Leadership Award.Mahwish is a mother of two young children and enjoys the opportunity to discuss how to achieve work/life balance. 

In this episode, our Co-Hosts, Julia Barnhart and Ford Prior, sat down with three technologists in the Richmond area to discuss the current trends in technology. This panel includes Andrea Goulet, Scott Ford, and Greg Patrick. 

Martin “Marty” Rodgers is Accenture's market unit lead for the US South as well as the office managing director for the Washington, D.C. Metro Area, the company's largest office in North America. Leading more than 17,000 people in the South Market Unit spanning 15 states, he is responsible for clients, offices, community involvement, and financial performance for the market unit. He is also a member of Accenture's Global Management Committee and the North America Leadership Team. 

Brandon is an Enterprise Architect at CarMax, focusing on their software platforms that drive innovation. He is passionate about helping teams create amazing customer experiences through cloud architecture, lean software development, and product discovery. He specializes in the principles and practices that make for continuous delivery, and his team builds the tools, APIs, patterns, practices, training, and frameworks to help other teams get there. He loves helping teams achieve speed, quality, and a better culture through living out DevOps principles.

Andrew is a data-driven marketer, speaker, and problem solver. He co-founded Workshop Digital in 2015 and as the VP of Strategy he devotes his time to developing new tools and strategies to help Workshop Digital's teams and clients achieve their goals. Andrew regularly speaks to marketing and professional audiences with an authentic, passionate message to raise their collective marketing intelligence.Andrew collects hobbies and devotes his time to his family, competing in triathlons, amateur gardening, and mentoring Richmond youth as a member of the Junior Achievement of Central Virginia board of directors.

Ryan leads the North America practice for Accenture Security. He is responsible for nurturing the talented teams that bring transformative solutions to better defend and protect our clients. He is also accountable for delivering on our commitment to clients for high-quality, innovative delivery to address their most critical issues.Throughout his entrepreneurial career at Accenture, he has excelled at identifying new areas of opportunity, growth and under-penetrated markets and then driving technology innovation and brand awareness to help our business and our clients reap the benefits. His outcomes have been a result of being able to contribute to and collaborate with many discrete parts of the business – from orchestrating complex sales and framing marketing campaigns to identifying early high value partners and driving joint value propositions to building and leading a high caliber team to outsized results.Innovative: Since 2010, Ryan has been responsible for Accenture's research and development efforts in Security. He has led the Lab to outsized results including opening new doors in banking, energy and defense & intelligence, partnering with our most strategic clients to substantially grow our account penetration while harvesting critical intellectual property and building strategic relationships with vendor partners.Results Driven: Since 2006, Ryan has consistently contributed knowledge, skills, capabilities and credentials to key wins at strategic clients – with a 5 year track record of over $5M/year in personal sales and over $20M in supported sales.Market Relevant: The thought leadership and research results Ryan has managed drive the core messaging that Accenture's global security practice, CTO and CEO take to market when weighing in on where we are placing our bets in security. Ryan also works closely with Accenture's marketing, media relations and analyst relations teams to increase and improve Accenture's role as a security innovator. 

Tom Illmensee is a product strategist, user experience designer and researcher, startup coach, entrepreneur, music-maker, improviser, truth-seeker, and community organizer based in Richmond, Virginia. Tom is a Principal Product Strategist at Philosophie, a digital innovation studio. Tom is also co-founder and CEO of Orbital Music Park, an inclusive community and creative space for music-makers. 

Omar Ansari is a Senior Software Engineer at SVT Robotics, a startup dedicated to developing a rapid deployment platform for industrial robotics and software. Previously Omar worked as a Lead Software Engineer at CarMax. After working with robots all day he likes to hang out with with his wife, Emma, and two cats, Kisses 1 & Kisses 2. If you want to talk to him, you'll probably find him at Mekong in Richmond, VA (post-pandemic, of course!).

Director, IT Software Engineering at the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), reports to the Chief Technology Officer and has 4 Software Engineering Managers reporting to her with an additional 60+-member team. She is responsible for directing the activities associated with programming and engineering all changes within the UNetSM platform, Salesforce platform, application architecture, and software quality assurance. Ms. Wilson has been with UNOS in IT for 5 and years. Prior to this, she spent 20 years working in IT at Capital One. She held leadership positions in Operations, Information Security, Business Continuity, End-User Services and Business Support Services. She received her bachelor's degree in Information Systems from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Luke Rabin is co-founder and Product Lead of BLDR, a startup studio and product architecture firm focusing on creating new tech products from scratch. Luke is also a drummer, record producer, wood worker, and dad to his amazing little 3 year old daughter, Vera.

Ryan Shriver, Chief Technology Officer, specializes in solving complex technical problems and is a trusted partner to some of our biggest clients. Ryan is passionate about teaching and mentoring: in addition to leading our Cloud and DevOps team, Ryan teaches Problem Solving for Designers at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Arts.Chris Belyea is SingleStone's Cloud and DevOps Technical Director. Chris guides clients through Cloud and DevOps transformations, including cloud strategy, migrating workloads to the cloud, automating infrastructure deployment, creating CI/CD pipelines, and improving automated configuration management.

Greg is a Senior Computer Scientist with broad academic, technical, research, and leadership experience. His areas of expertise include Software Engineering and Systems, Parallel and Distributed Computing, Information Assurance, and Mobile Computing. He spent over 4 years as a Master Software Engineer with Capital One and is has now been with Terazo for over 2 years where he recently moved into the role of Market Technical Director. Greg has developed graduate and undergraduate programs, curricula, and courses (online and in-seat), and has taught a wide variety of courses to students at all levels. 

Julia is an innovative leader with a rich Interdisciplinary background blending vision, strategy, systems thinking, data science, and machine-learning engineering to drive innovation within organizations. She has the ability to lead cross-functional team development and delivery of data/algorithmic products and services, influence the adoption of new technologies and organizational work structures, and evangelize the long-term vision of an augmented algorithmic organization.She is currently leading and growing a team of very-talented and highly-engaged Data Engineers and ML Engineers with a diverse skill set in Azure cloud engineering, software development, machine learning, data lakes, data streaming, and distributed computing to support the development, productionisation, and operationalization of predictive models (algorithms) that enhance the iconic CarMax customer experience. Julia uses the Agile approach and DevOps practices to continually deliver enhancements and new features with direct, measurable business value.

David is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Forestry Machine Learning, which is a strategic partner for companies that seek to gain competitive advantage through data and artificial intelligence. Following the successful acquisition of his last startup and leading a consulting organization in Capital One's Center for Machine Learning, he wanted to get back to my passion as an entrepreneur. David is a former Director of Machine Learning at Capital One. His team, in the Center for Machine Learning, builds predictive solutions across lines of business including use cases in time series forecasting, anomaly detection, natural language and distributed model training. Prior to this role, he was a co-founder and chief operating officer of a boutique data agency called Notch which Capital One acquired in December of 2017.

Melanie is a full time Managing Vice President of IT at Capital One where she works with the technology team that helps keep the business running. In her “spare time”, she's volunteering for community and civic organizations. She serves as the Board Chair for Full Circle Grief Center, putting in countless hours and supporting families who have lost children, parents and loved ones. Melanie is also a member of the Westhampton Woman's Club where she helps support a wide range of charities. She finds at least one charity each month where she can do something to help and make a difference.

Beth is a cybersecurity and data privacy attorney at Woods Rogers who serves clients across Virginia. She uses her significant experience in technology to counsel clients on a broad range of issues.As chair of the Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Practice at Woods Rogers, Beth advises clients both on cybersecurity concerns and privacy regulatory compliance. Beth is a Certified Information Privacy Professional with both U.S. and Europe designations (CIPP/US & CIPP/E) from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).Beth's experience on the intersection of technology and the law is extensive. Her clients run the gamut of Fortune 200 companies to universities to municipalities, and span industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, banking, and energy. Beth also advises clients in high tech fields such as biotechnology and software development and has experience with clients pioneering new technologies such as blockchain and IoT devices.

Vida Williams, Data & Machine Learning Expert, Adjunct Professor, and Entrepreneur joins us again as she discusses Bias in Machine Learning as well as Antiracism and Inclusion in Technology Today. In the past few weeks, Vida has also become the Chief Diversity Officer at Singlestone and she shares how to create a diverse and inclusive work environment. 

John is an experienced Chief Operations Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Skilled in PHP, Computer Science, Distributed Databases, Databases, and Mobile Applications. He is a strong professional with a BS focused in Computer Engineering, Engineering Management from Vanderbilt University. 

Romain is an executive with over 15 years experience in Information Technology and General Management. He is passionate about engaging diverse minds to build strong solutions for complex problems. He is currently the Managing Director at Ippon Technologies, a global consulting firm specializing in Digital, Data, and Cloud solutions. In his free time, he is an avid runner and marathoner, lapsed triathlete, and unrepentant Geek; maker of a mean beef burgundy. 

Susan is an experienced Product Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the software industry. Skilled in Product Management, Product Marketing, Ecommerce, Advertising, and many more. She spent over 7 years at Snag and, most recently, was a Senior Product Manager of On-Demand Staffing. At the beginning of this year, became the Director of Product at Hatch, a software company that combines two-way text. e-mail, and phone with automation in one collaborative workspace to help you increase close rates, shorten sales cycles, and boost 5-star reviews. 

As an innovative and practiced thought-leader in data management, Lewis has more than 20 years of experience successfully designing, managing, implementing and leading global data management and information technology solutions. His successful track record is marked by strong leadership coupled with a passion for driving data and technology solutions from a clear business-value proposition. Lewis joined Impact Makers in 2016 as the Data Services Practice Lead and also served as Chief Operating Officer prior to becoming CEO.

Vida is an innovation advocate who is determined that innovation cannot leave humanity behind, Vida utilizes her experience as a data scientist to drive social and economic change in communities. A promising start as a tech writer spurred a nearly 20 year career with data, technology, and innovation, spanning several industries including energy, healthcare and education. In 2013, she co-founded a small social enterprise consulting firm, Axis Partners, Inc. where they serve mission-driven organizations in the areas of data architecture, process engineering and data sciences. Recently her endeavors as an adjunct professor at VCU's da Vinci center has led her to be named as the school's first ever “Innovator in Residence”. She is also currently at Singlestone as a Data & Machine Learning Solution Lead. Vida remains active in her community through board memberships with Code VA, Podium and Virginia Union University's (VUU) Center for Undergraduate Research. 

Andrew Clark is a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of a machine learning assurance company called Monitaur. Monitaur is a Machine Learning Assurance platform addressing the needs of companies using models to make decisions in regulated industries. Andrew received a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting, Summa Cum Laude, from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, an M.S. in Data Science from Southern Methodist University, and is a Ph.D. student in Economics at the University of Reading. He also holds the Certified Analytics Professional, American Statistical Association Graduate Statistician, and AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate certifications. An avid conference speaker, Andrew has appeared as a speaker at numerous conferences presenting on open source audit analytics, machine learning, and emerging technologies. 

Scott is an experienced Executive with a demonstrated performance history in enabling clients to overcome management and technology challenges. Proven partnerships with clients in driving transformative change include outsourcing, globalization, large implementations and migrations (including Cloud and DevOps). He is currently the President of LeapIT, a consulting organization that takes an unconventional approach to cloud workforce development, connecting under-resourced companies with overlooked talent. https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4E03AQH0Jfh3fn2Vzw/profile-displayphoto-shrink_800_800/0?e=1594252800&v=beta&t=kIFFZSB8Djhg3OIsVkcoHi96JD37MtuXPpuZRHydcfo