Tangible Computing

Short conversation between Andrew and Gareth about the highlights of Season 1 (first 20 episodes) and the rational for the second season.

In this episode, we talk with Benno Broer, CCO of PASQAL, about what types of problems Quantum Computing will help solve.  We also dive deeper into what it takes to develop algorithms for quantum computers, what are the constraints, and how one can build a company around this.

Vincent Warmerdam is a research advocate at Rasa – we discuss some of the challenges of making good chatbots, such as different languages and mistaken intents. We also touch on the career path to a research advocate and the importance of labeling datasets for machine learning. 

Roos Rooijakkers and Geert Jongen are data scientists at Pipple. We discuss some of the different roles in data science and data engineering, what makes a problem a good fit for data science and how to fit data science into a company's processes.   

In this episode, Cor Datema co-founder and managing director of Dynaxion Security shares how by using neutrons, analyzing the resulting gamma rays with artificial intelligence we can have a deeper understanding of what elements are in packets and luggage that goes through security checks, and as a result make the world a safer place. We also learn from him how to balance building top-class product, minimizing the cost, and at the same time increasing throughput.He also shares some of his trajector and insights as a co-founder for more than one company and some of the main characteristics needed to succeed in creating your own company.

 Nina Hoff CEO and co-founder of byFlow shares her insights into what is needed to make 3D food printing a reality, from technical design of the printers, to the logistics of cleaning, designing, and selling these machines across the world. There is much more to 3D food printing than just a machine, as Nina explains and opens our horizon towards the life of chefs. The episode also shares how our family influenced her to get started and where 3D food printing is going. 

In this episode, Paul from IBM shares his experience in explaining Quantum Computing to artists and how they used Quantum Computing to make art.  He explains his personal journey and how got a job at IBM. Paul also reveals some possible applications enabled with this technology as well as a sneak preview of what is to come.Here are some of the resources that are mentioned in the episode:Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum, bookIntroduction to Quantum Computing, interactive bookQiskit Global Summer School 2021: Quantum Machine Learning, lecture series Web app to program IBM quantum computers

Albert Maas is the CEO of Avular, they make drones and robots, but more importantly the building blocks and platforms to help others put them together quickly.  Albert talks about some of the key insights the company is built on - separating the roles of embedded software engineering and controls engineering and using graphical programming tools to accelerate development. 

Koen Vossen in this episode shares what inspired him to create his company called TeamTV which focuses on Sports Analytics. We discuss the challenges in capturing data and video for different sports with the goal to provide insights for coaches and players. Koen shares some best practices on how sports analytics can help develop coaches and players in a wide variety of sports. We also take a deep dive into understanding the technology stack used at TeamTV. We also discover that Koen also maintains a python package kloppy for standardizing event data for sports analytics. Koen also maintains PySport.

Dennis Ramondt shares his views on how his company Sensorfact uses AI to help reduce energy bills for large factories. He talks about the amount of data, the infrastructure used at Sensorfact to manage and derive valuable insights for their customers. We also discuss the skills needed to work as a data scientist and discover his personal story of becoming the head of a Data Science team. In this episode, Dennis shares how important it is to formulate the business problem well in order to build the right technology.

Daniel Rohr discusses helping trucks predict fuel efficiency and produce less CO2 with data science at Tracks.  He talks about how much data is available from telematics, how to use random forests and Natural Intelligence to create insights and his career journey from quantum chemistry to data science.

This episode we interview Iris Soute, an entrepreneur in the Netherlands who founded Picoo which creates toys for children to play outside, empowered with technology. Picoo faces unique challenges in creating engaging outdoor games for groups of children on their handheld device, such as packing powerful electronics into a device that fits in small hands, and bringing it to market. We dive deep into her entrepreneurship journey and hear how she interacted with hundreds of children to come up with and code the games. 

Wouter Kuijpers a former team captain of Tech United one of the most successful teams in the RoboCup (Middle Size League) explains the motivation for having a team of robots playing football autonomously. In addition, we learn how the RoboCup Federation organizes multiple leagues and how each league has different objectives and how constantly changing the rules helps accelerate research and development to get to the ultimate goal - 2050 team of robots be able to play 11 a side football against world cup winners. Check out the Tech United YouTube Channel to see some of their past games.

Giel Van den Broeck, co-founder of Direct Energy Partners is building software to help design and simulate DC microgrids. We also discuss value of DC compared to AC distribution,  programming in Julia and React and some of our favorite books on economics.

Christopher Bailey , @digiglean is the host of the Real Python podcast, which helps people around the world learn, and master python. He talks about his experiences starting from recording engineering, to SQL programming then hosting a podcast and some hobby projects where he is building guitar pedals programmed in Python.  Christopher has interviewed many of the people behind python and we discuss where the language is evolving and how forks like circuit python play a role in taking it to the embedded space. 

Bartosz Górecki, CEO of QuickerSim shares some real examples of running CFD simulations to help predict battery degradation, discusses some of the challenges and tradeoffs of doing simulations and talks about scaling up a technology company. 

Joost Brilman is an electronics expert in Eindhoven who runs Studio String Art (https://www.studiostringart.nl/tc) Joost creates personalized art using a robot to wrap a single string, sometimes kilometers long, between a circle of nails around a canvas growing from a single line, to a fully formed image as the machine threads the wire. Join us to hear about how he mathematically transforms images into machine instructions then into a unique artistic canvas. We'll talk about how his curiosity got him into electrical engineering and how that led him to this unique art form. 

Luís Oliveira shares his motivational story from doing volunteer work to explaining how his company, Aircision, helps people stay connected using free space optics instead of putting down expensive fiber optics. In addition, he shares some insights on how companies are evaluated in the start up ecosystem.Luis Oliveira is Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Aircision. He holds a BSc in Economics and a MSc in Finance from University of Porto, Portugal.He is a former Financial Advisor from Deloitte Portugal, where he worked in M&A and financial consulting projects within the Telecom, Media, Manufacturing and Financial Services industries, among others, in Portugal and Angola. Prior to joining Aircision, Luis was a Ventures Acceleration Manager and Portfolio Analyst at HighTechXL, where he directly supported high-tech entrepreneurs building and strengthen their business cases.

Rudei Verweij the CEO of Incooling, shares his passion for cooling servers with 2 Phase technology which allows the same silicon to do more computing; and how simulation helps to design it better. Incooling is a startup from the HighTechXL accelerator in Eindhoven. Listen to how he turned a passion for gaming and game design into making computers faster with better cooling and scaling up a company. Learn how simulation, whether a thought experiment in brain, or augmented with a simulation tool helps iterate faster, try different ideas, and come to better designs faster. 

Gareth Thomas is the co-founder of  VersionBay (https://www.versionbay.com) and is one of the co-hosts of Tangible Computing. In this episode, you will about his company and his views on the Technical and Scientific computing landscape. We will also drill down into how he got hooked on using MATLAB at University and hear how and where people learn about Technical Computing and Scientific Computing.

Interview with Andrew Rutgers, CEO of ChargeSim (and Tangible Computing co-host) about how simulation helps plan EV Charging Infrastructure. Andrew started working on electric vehicles racing solar powered cars at university, and now helps electric vehicle fleets plan their charging infrastructure using simulation and analysis tools to help them find the right mix of chargers and how much electricity they will use. 

Andrew Rutgers (CEO of ChargeSim) and Gareth Thomas (Co-Founder VersionBay) share their motivation for starting the Tangible Computing podcast and what to expect from this in the future. During this episode, Andrew shares a simple formula for how to minimize the impact on the world by using technology. Gareth uses the example of Expresso machines to illustrate how Tangible Computing is in everything around us and points out how we take so many things for granted.