That Digital Show

This week, we hear from Soleh Ayubi, Chief Transformation Digital Officer at Bio Farma, one of Indonesia's largest biotechnology companies that has been responsible for the acquisition and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines in Indonesia during the pandemic. Bio Farma has played a critical role over the past few years, supporting the healthcare system with 459 million vaccines, of which 300 million doses were delivered in 2021 alone. Soleh talks about the challenges of managing a safe and effective vaccine distribution system, saying that collaboration, alongside digital technology, has been key to the brand's success. He shares how the company has enabled the delivery of quality, lifesaving vaccines to every corner of the country while ensuring that every piece is accounted for and traceable.  Bio Farma is also in the process of implementing AI and machine learning (ML) technology to determine the optimal harvesting period for viruses and bacteria, working with scientists to accelerate research and improve the yield of its Polio, Tetanus, and Covid-19 vaccines. AI and ML will also be used for demand forecasting, so that they can improve production and distribution of products. Looking into the future, Soleh talks about plans for Bio Farma to become the first company with an end-to-end healthcare system, consolidating its R&D centers, manufacturing and distribution companies with retail stores, clinics, even incorporating medical insurance into a single ecosystem. Tune in to listen to Soleh as he shares some first-hand insights.   Special Guest Soleh Ayubi, Chief Transformation Digital Officer 

No matter what the world has thrown at the retail industry, National Retail Federation (NRF) has been there to guide and provide breakthrough insights to anyone and everyone in the retail sector. As the leading voice for retail, The Big Show unites the whole community. A place where new technologies are showcased and retail leaders can get inspired and network with their peers.    As Google Cloud prepares for our presence at The Big Show, Chris Hood sits down with Jordan Speer, Research Director for IDC Retail Insights, to discuss what to expect at the show and areas of interest they believe will be especially important to the retail industry in 2023 and beyond.

Target has been one of the leading innovators in the retail industry and not surprisingly is also one of the early adopters of cloud FinOps discipline through its Efficiency Engineering team. As such, Target has been in the forefront on tackling the cloud financials management topics and here with us today is Kim Wier, Director of Engineering, will be sharing her journey in driving cloud FinOps discipline within her Efficiency Engineering team and the key lessons learned through the past few years.

In this episode, Theo speaks to Hendra Gunawan, Chief Technology Officer at My Republic, who talks us through MyRepublic's expansion across Indonesia, in its goal to become the second biggest fibre network provider in Indonesia.  Hendra speaks about how working with Google Cloud helps MyRepublic provide low latency, high speeds and high availability at a low price for their customers. He shares how through using the latest technology, MyRepublic is able to automate their systems and keep the business scalable, while ensuring a seamless and direct relationship between customers and technicians to help solve any issues. Listen in as Hendra Gunawan also discusses the challenges of obtaining special permits and handling outages, as well as MyRepublic's future goals of leveraging data to make more informed business decisions, and using AI to provide insights for personalization.

To deliver for its customers, Botify continues to reinvent how companies perform SEO. From those early days of the manual indexing of websites to the eras of keyword stuffing and anchor links, Botify is changing the landscape of optimization. In this extended conversation of The Transformation Debrief, Chris Hood, Digital Strategist at Google Cloud, hosts Pierre Couzy, Chief Technology Officer at Botify, and Robert Rothschild, Chief Marketing Officer at Botify, to discuss how they are helping drive more traffic and revenue with machine learning and artificial intelligence to reinvent how companies perform SEO.

To deliver for its customers, Botify continues to reinvent how companies perform SEO. From those early days of the manual indexing of websites to the eras of keyword stuffing and anchor links, Botify is changing the landscape of optimization. In this extended conversation of The Transformation Debrief, Chris Hood, Digital Strategist at Google Cloud, hosts Pierre Couzy, Chief Technology Officer at Botify, and Robert Rothschild, Chief Marketing Officer at Botify, to discuss how they are helping drive more traffic and revenue with machine learning and artificial intelligence to reinvent how companies perform SEO.

CNA has a 120-year history of providing property and casualty insurance for U.S. customers. It turned to Google Cloud to modernize its analytics, consolidate data management, and deliver better decision-making tools for agents and executives. In this episode of The Transformation Debrief, Chris Hood, host of Google Cloud's That Digital Show, talks with two CNA executives — Rich Wein, a vice president and actuary, and Santosh Bardwaj, senior vice president for data and analytics — about the company's journey to the cloud and the effects it is having on business operations and the CNA corporate culture.

CNA has a 120-year history of providing property and casualty insurance for U.S. customers. It turned to Google Cloud to modernize its analytics, consolidate data management, and deliver better decision-making tools for agents and executives. In this episode of The Transformation Debrief, Chris Hood, host of Google Cloud's That Digital Show, talks with two CNA executives — Rich Wein, a vice president and actuary, and Santosh Bardwaj, senior vice president for data and analytics — about the company's journey to the cloud and the effects it is having on business operations and the CNA corporate culture.

Baseball is a game that can be enjoyed in a variety of ways. Some fans, like season ticket holders, primarily engage by attending live games at the stadium. For others, the game is ubiquitous on their television, smartphone screens, or tablets throughout summer afternoons and evenings. Some people like getting deep into the massive world of advanced statistics, watching analysts on the web and TV, or reading sports reporters' daily stories. In this episode, Chris Hood is joined by Anil Jain, Managing Director for Media and Entertainment at Google Cloud, and Truman Boyes, Senior Vice President, Technology Infrastructure at Major League Baseball, to take a behind-the-plate look at how data is leveraged to create deeper insights to improve the game and help make baseball consumable by fans in exciting new ways.

Baseball is a game that can be enjoyed in a variety of ways. Some fans, like season ticket holders, primarily engage by attending live games at the stadium. For others, the game is ubiquitous on their television, smartphone screens, or tablets throughout summer afternoons and evenings. Some people like getting deep into the massive world of advanced statistics, watching analysts on the web and TV, or reading sports reporters' daily stories. In this episode, Chris Hood is joined by Anil Jain, Managing Director for Media and Entertainment at Google Cloud, and Truman Boyes, Senior Vice President, Technology Infrastructure at Major League Baseball, to take a behind-the-plate look at how data is leveraged to create deeper insights to improve the game and help make baseball consumable by fans in exciting new ways.

Organizations are driving the complete transformation of their business by inventing new ways to accomplish their objectives using the cloud, from making core processes more efficient to improving how they reach and better serve their customers to achieving insights through data that fuel innovation. In today's continuously evolving digital world, it is increasingly critical to adapt to changing consumer demands and market trends as quickly as possible. Whatever your industry's challenge or use case, Google Cloud solutions can help improve efficiency and agility, reduce cost, participate in new business models, and capture new market opportunities. In this episode, Chris Hood sits with Umesh Vemuri, VP of Global Strategic Customers & Industries at Google, to discuss how customers can quickly implement cloud solutions to generate business value.

Organizations are driving the complete transformation of their business by inventing new ways to accomplish their objectives using the cloud, from making core processes more efficient to improving how they reach and better serve their customers to achieving insights through data that fuel innovation. In today's continuously evolving digital world, it is increasingly critical to adapt to changing consumer demands and market trends as quickly as possible. Whatever your industry's challenge or use case, Google Cloud solutions can help improve efficiency and agility, reduce cost, participate in new business models, and capture new market opportunities. In this episode, Chris Hood sits with Umesh Vemuri, VP of Global Strategic Customers & Industries at Google, to discuss how customers can quickly implement cloud solutions to generate business value.

Organizations are driving the complete transformation of their business by inventing new ways to accomplish their objectives using the cloud, from making core processes more efficient to improving how they reach and better serve their customers to achieving insights through data that fuel innovation. In today's continuously evolving digital world, it is increasingly critical to adapt to changing consumer demands and market trends as quickly as possible. Whatever your industry's challenge or use case, Google Cloud solutions can help improve efficiency and agility, reduce cost, participate in new business models, and capture new market opportunities. In this episode, Chris Hood sits with Umesh Vemuri, VP of Global Strategic Customers & Industries at Google, to discuss how customers can quickly implement cloud solutions to generate business value.

In this episode, we hear from Amit Zunjarwad, Chief Product Officer at ShareChat and Moj about India's home-grown, video-led social platform that has more than 1 million daily active users. The availability of affordable high-speed internet has encouraged the growth of video consumption in India. With that, ShareChat has positioned itself as a leading social media platform in the country that focuses on supporting video content creators and consumers. Along with short video app Moj, Amit talks about the creative economy and how content creators can drive social conversations and connect people across different parts of India, in 15 different languages. He also shares his strategy for growth, and plans that include turning Sharechat into a modern advertising platform through bite-sized content on the go. With concepts like virtual gifting where people can buy and send virtual gifts to content creators already in place, learn how the brand is boosting the Indian ecommerce industry while shaping the next generation of consumers.

The Covid-19 pandemic impacted many businesses, but the airline industry was perhaps one of the most affected. With travel bans that took place almost overnight, travel and transportation companies had to rethink and restrategize their business plans. In this episode, Theo chats with Kenneth Chang, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Korean Air, on how a business of 53 years had to pivot from its traditional ways to navigate the pandemic. Chang takes us through the challenges the airline faced, and how they leveraged technology to support quick decision-making that enabled the business to pivot quickly in turbulent times, taking advantage of the new opportunities presented to them during the pandemic. As a leader with foresight, Chang also shares how he instilled change management from an organizational viewpoint, building trust among employees. Keeping to the company's environmental values, we hear about the airline's green initiative, and how they are bringing in more fuel-efficient planes, steering away from the ‘bigger is better' mindset. But one of the most exciting things to look out for in the company's digital transformation journey is in the way they are looking to leverage the large pool of customer data, analyzing them to improve customer service. From building an app that gets employees their meals on time, to one that can help passengers track their luggage in transit, listen in to find out how the airline is innovating as it prepares for the future of travel in this post-pandemic season.

In this episode, we hear from Amit Zunjarwad, Chief Product Officer at ShareChat and Moj about India's home-grown, video-led social platform that has more than 1 million daily active users. The availability of affordable high-speed internet has encouraged the growth of video consumption in India. With that, ShareChat has positioned itself as a leading social media platform in the country that focuses on supporting video content creators and consumers. Along with short video app Moj, Amit talks about the creative economy and how content creators can drive social conversations and connect people across different parts of India, in 15 different languages. He also shares his strategy for growth, and plans that include turning ShareChat into a modern advertising platform through bite-sized content on the go. With concepts like virtual gifting where people can buy and send virtual gifts to content creators already in place, learn how the brand is boosting the Indian ecommerce industry while shaping the next generation of consumers.

The Covid-19 pandemic impacted many businesses, but the airline industry was perhaps one of the most affected. With travel bans that took place almost overnight, travel and transportation companies had to rethink and restrategize their business plans. In this episode, Theo chats with Kenneth Chang, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Korean Air, on how a business of 53 years had to pivot from its traditional ways to navigate the pandemic. Chang takes us through the challenges the airline faced, and how they leveraged technology to support quick decision-making that enabled the business to pivot quickly in turbulent times, taking advantage of the new opportunities presented to them during the pandemic. As a leader with foresight, Chang also shares how he instilled change management from an organizational viewpoint, building trust among employees. Keeping to the company's environmental values, we hear about the airline's green initiative, and how they are bringing in more fuel-efficient planes, steering away from the bigger is better mindset. But one of the most exciting things to look out for in the company's digital transformation journey is in the way they are looking to leverage the large pool of customer data, analyzing them to improve customer service. From building an app that gets employees their meals on time, to one that can help passengers track their luggage in transit, listen in to find out how the airline is innovating as it prepares for the future of travel in this post-pandemic season.

Ulta Beauty is now the largest beauty retailer in the United States, carrying more than 25,000 products from 500 established and emerging beauty brands, including Ulta Beauty's own private label. Despite many traditional retailers being faced with fierce competition, razor-thin margins, and declining sales, Ulta Beauty is still setting trends and producing fresh takes on what it means to be a beauty purveyor. Today, the company is trying on new digital offerings and cloud-enabled tools to deliver a vast array of personalized experiences and transform how shoppers buy and discover beauty yet again. On this episode, we continue our transformation series with Prama Bhatt, Ulta Beauty's chief digital officer, to discuss the work her team is doing, and how they think through different perspectives and lenses to drive innovation.

Ulta Beauty is now the largest beauty retailer in the United States, carrying more than 25,000 products from 500 established and emerging beauty brands, including Ulta Beauty's own private label. Despite many traditional retailers being faced with fierce competition, razor-thin margins, and declining sales, Ulta Beauty is still setting trends and producing fresh takes on what it means to be a beauty purveyor. Today, the company is trying on new digital offerings and cloud-enabled tools to deliver a vast array of personalized experiences and transform how shoppers buy and discover beauty yet again. On this episode, we continue our transformation series with Prama Bhatt, Ulta Beauty's chief digital officer, to discuss the work her team is doing, and how they think through different perspectives and lenses to drive innovation.

In this episode, Theo speaks with ex-Googler, Dr Jiang Hong, Head of TapTap Developer Services, and Founder of LeanCloud, which was acquired by gaming company Xin Dong. Dr Jiang shares his thoughts on the unique gaming market in China, and how Xin Dong, as the holding company of Asia's largest game marketplace TapTap, is looking to help build a better web developer community in the industry.  When it comes to the gaming community, understanding what players want in each market is key to growth, and Dr Jiang discusses what factors support the success of Asian games in overseas markets. He talks about Xin Dong TapTap's vision for global expansion, as well as the misconceptions and the opportunities that lie within the gaming world. Listen in to learn about his personal journey in the entrepreneurial world, the challenges that Xin Dong TapTap has overcome in its journey to success, and what he hopes for the future of web development and gaming.

In this episode, Theo and Paris speak with Professor Denpong Soodphakdee, VP of Khon Kaen University (KKU), on KKU's digital transformation journey.    Founded in 1964, KKU is an established university in northeastern Thailand with more than 40,000 students studying in 19 faculties. On a mission to prepare future global citizens to work in a fast evolving world, KKU also aims to be recognized both internationally and regionally as a leading university in research and technology.     Prof. Denpong shares the challenges KKU overcame in digitalization, such as implementing training for less technical staff and driving a mindset shift for better adoption. He also talks about the benefits of no-code platforms, and how to get people engaged and excited about developing their own apps.    Hear his first hand account about KKU's first hackathon, the results, and what it takes to help lead the organization towards being a “Smart University” that others in the sector can model.

In this episode, Theo speaks with ex-Googler, Dr. Jiang Hong, Head of TapTap Developer Services, and Founder of LeanCloud, which was acquired by gaming company Xin Dong. Dr. Jiang shares his thoughts on the unique gaming market in China, and how Xin Dong, as the holding company of Asia's largest game marketplace TapTap, is looking to help build a better web developer community in the industry. When it comes to the gaming community, understanding what players want in each market is key to growth, and Dr. Jiang discusses what factors support the success of Asian games in overseas markets. He talks about Xin Dong TapTap's vision for global expansion, as well as the misconceptions and the opportunities that lie within the gaming world. Listen in to learn about his personal journey in the entrepreneurial world, the challenges that Xin Dong TapTap has overcome in its journey to success, and what he hopes for the future of web development and gaming.

In this episode, Theo and Paris speak with Professor Denpong Soodphakdee, VP of Khon Kaen University (KKU), on KKU's digital transformation journey. Founded in 1964, KKU is an established university in northeastern Thailand with more than 40,000 students studying in 19 faculties. On a mission to prepare future global citizens to work in a fast evolving world, KKU also aims to be recognized both internationally and regionally as a leading university in research and technology. Prof. Denpong shares the challenges KKU overcame in digitalization, such as implementing training for less technical staff and driving a mindset shift for better adoption. He also talks about the benefits of no-code platforms, and how to get people engaged and excited about developing their own apps. Hear his first hand account about KKU's first hackathon, the results, and what it takes to help lead the organization towards being a “Smart University” that others in the sector can model.

In this episode, Theo chats with Ash Austin, Practice Lead for Platforms at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (Bendigo) on simplifying the banking experience for more than 1.9 million customers. As a community-focused bank, Ash shares what it means at Bendigo to put people first, and how Bendigo uses technology as an enabler to support the needs of their customers. He talks about the concept of a service-based model, where products, and skills, from dev-ops to project management, are developed based on the requirements of individual teams. This approach enables the bank to adopt a customer-first mindset. As people's needs change, particularly since the pandemic, the organization is now exploring the potential of APIs in supporting new business opportunities and building partnerships across different sectors. Tune in to hear about the frictionless experience that sets Bendigo and Adelaide bank apart, and exciting new projects like their mobile-only digital bank, Up, that is set to transform the way people think about banking.

If you're interested in the world of blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi), then this episode is definitely not one you want to miss. DeFi has experienced exponential growth over the past few years, capturing the attention of investors globally. But with new opportunities, come new complexities and risks. One of the biggest challenges is distinguishing quality crypto assets from pure hype, particularly for non-institutional Investors. In the hot seat for this episode is Alex Svanevik, the Co-founder and CEO of Nansen, a blockchain analytics platform that enriches on-chain data with millions of wallet labels. Nansen's mission is to be a driving force in offering crypto investors trusted, high quality data intelligence to enable them to make informed decisions, quickly. Crypto investors use Nansen to discover opportunities, perform due diligence and grow their portfolios with real-time dashboards and alerts. But he's not the only guest we have on the show. In the co-host seat with Theo is Paris Tran, Territory Account Manager, Digital Native of Google Cloud. Listen in as Alex shares the genesis of Nansen with Theo and Paris, as well as the inner workings of deploying AI algorithms to analyze petabytes of crypto trading data per day, and their vision for the future of DeFi.

If you're interested in the world of blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi), then this episode is definitely not one you want to miss. DeFi has experienced exponential growth over the past few years, capturing the attention of investors globally. But with new opportunities, come new complexities and risks. One of the biggest challenges is distinguishing quality crypto assets from pure hype, particularly for non-institutional Investors. In the hot seat for this episode is Alex Svanevik, the Co-founder and CEO of Nansen, a blockchain analytics platform that enriches on-chain data with millions of wallet labels. Nansen's mission is to be a driving force in offering crypto investors trusted, high quality data intelligence to enable them to make informed decisions, quickly. Crypto investors use Nansen to discover opportunities, perform due diligence and grow their portfolios with real-time dashboards and alerts. But he's not the only guest we have on the show. In the co-host seat with Theo is Paris Tran, Territory Account Manager, Digital Native of Google Cloud. Listen in as Alex shares the genesis of Nansen with Theo and Paris, as well as the inner workings of deploying AI algorithms to analyze petabytes of crypto trading data per day, and their vision for the future of DeFi.

This week, Theo speaks to Ashish Kumar Singh, CHRO of Meesho and our pioneer HR C-suite on the show. As India's fastest growing internet commerce platform, Meesho is democratizing e-commerce and bringing innovation online. With the Meesho marketplace supporting small businesses, individual entrepreneurs and everything in between, Ashish touches on their “users-first mantra,” which not only refers to customers, but also Meesho's own employees. When the pandemic hit, it not only affected demand on Meesho's platform, but also impacted ways of working. One main area of focus was brought to light - the challenge of achieving work-life balance. As CHRO, Ashish shares unique, first hand insights on how the company leverages technology such as MeeBOT for pulse collection, and to measure the employee experience, looking for areas of improvement. He also covers the importance of ensuring transparent communication and collaboration. From tips on enabling a remote workforce to leveraging tools like Google Meet, listen in as Ashish discusses future-of-work models, the implications of technology on our everyday lives and how Meesho has stayed at the forefront of reimagining new ways of work.

This week, Theo speaks to Ashish Kumar Singh, CHRO of Meesho and our pioneer HR C-suite on the show. As India's fastest growing internet commerce platform, Meesho is democratizing e-commerce and bringing innovation online. With the Meesho marketplace supporting small businesses, individual entrepreneurs and everything in between, Ashish touches on their “users-first mantra,” which not only refers to customers, but also Meesho's own employees. When the pandemic hit, it not only affected demand on Meesho's platform, but also impacted ways of working. One main area of focus was brought to light - the challenge of achieving work-life balance. As CHRO, Ashish shares unique, first hand insights on how the company leverages technology such as MeeBOT for pulse collection, and to measure the employee experience, looking for areas of improvement. He also covers the importance of ensuring transparent communication and collaboration. From tips on enabling a remote workforce to leveraging tools like Google Meet, listen in as Ashish discusses future-of-work models, the implications of technology on our everyday lives and how Meesho has stayed at the forefront of reimagining new ways of work.

David Lynch, Group CTO from bolttech, joins the show with Jay to talk about how insurtechs of today are emerging from the convergence of technology and insurance. As the world's largest technology-enabled ecosystem for protection insurance and the most international insurtech, bolttech operates in over 30 markets.  The business works collaboratively with 180+ insurance carriers on its platform that need access to technology, advocating the need for insurance companies that implement AI and machine learning, to augment their services to deliver better products and protection outcomes. David also discusses trends such as the shift towards usage-based insurance and the consequent need for the industry to invent new products, with insurtechs fuelling the acceleration of product innovation. At the same time, the fully digital insurance purchase journey is becoming a reality in the embedded insurance or microinsurance areas. He shares insights on finding a balance between supply and demand, as well as achieving growth in the marketplace.  From key factors that affect customer acquisition, to new revenue generation opportunities, tune in to find out more about bolttech's research on what is needed to build a successful, future-ready marketplace.

David Lynch, Group CTO from bolttech, joins the show with Jay to talk about how insurtechs of today are emerging from the convergence of technology and insurance. As the world's largest technology-enabled ecosystem for protection insurance and the most international insurtech, bolttech operates in over 30 markets. The business works collaboratively with 180+ insurance carriers on its platform that need access to technology, advocating the need for insurance companies that implement AI and machine learning, to augment their services to deliver better products and protection outcomes. David also discusses trends such as the shift towards usage-based insurance and the consequent need for the industry to invent new products, with insurtechs fuelling the acceleration of product innovation. At the same time, the fully digital insurance purchase journey is becoming a reality in the embedded insurance or microinsurance areas. He shares insights on finding a balance between supply and demand, as well as achieving growth in the marketplace. From key factors that affect customer acquisition, to new revenue generation opportunities, tune in to find out more about bolttech's research on what is needed to build a successful, future-ready marketplace.

Zebra Technologies is one of the largest suppliers of barcode printing and scanning devices globally. In 1991, Zebra introduced 2D barcode scanners followed by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking tags, rugged mobile computers, tablets, and wearable devices for increased inventory and asset visibility. Lately, it's been acquiring companies in software, robotics, AI, data capture, and real-time location systems, all to help it transform from a traditional hardware-centric company to a software solutions organization to realize a vision it calls enterprise asset intelligence (EAI) at the edge. Today, Zebra has customers in manufacturing, retail, healthcare, transportation, logistics, and the public sector, with over 10,000 partners across 100 countries. In today's episode, Chris Hood sits down with Janet Kennedy, Vice President, North America Regions at Google Cloud, and Tom Bianculli, SVP and CTO at Zebra Technologies, to go behind the scenes of this Transformation Debrief conversation to learn how Zebra Technologies has navigated these changes.

Zebra Technologies is one of the largest suppliers of barcode printing and scanning devices globally. In 1991, Zebra introduced 2D barcode scanners followed by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking tags, rugged mobile computers, tablets, and wearable devices for increased inventory and asset visibility. Lately, it's been acquiring companies in software, robotics, AI, data capture, and real-time location systems, all to help it transform from a traditional hardware-centric company to a software solutions organization to realize a vision it calls enterprise asset intelligence (EAI) at the edge. Today, Zebra has customers in manufacturing, retail, healthcare, transportation, logistics, and the public sector, with over 10,000 partners across 100 countries. In today's episode, Chris Hood sits down with Janet Kennedy, Vice President, North America Regions at Google Cloud, and Tom Bianculli, SVP and CTO at Zebra Technologies, to go behind the scenes of this Transformation Debrief conversation to learn how Zebra Technologies has navigated these changes.

In this episode, Theo speaks to Ronak Shah, Head of Data at apna.co. As one of the largest gig economies in the world, India is seeing rising numbers among younger people joining the ecosystem. Driven by digital adoption and new ways of working, Apna saw an opportunity to help bridge the gap between employers and potential candidates. Leveraging data and AI technology, Ronak shares how the company is able to level the playing field for those in the gig economy, and help millions of people achieve their goals. By focussing on what data reveals, Apna is able to apply the learnings to the marketplace, assist in upskilling people and build a community. With over 500 million users on the platform, Ronak also shares how Apna maintains safety and security not just in terms of data privacy, but also in creating a collaborative and inclusive space for all to learn from one another. Through quizzes and language aptitude tests, Apna helps recruiters identify skill sets easily, for a good match. Listen in as Ronak reveals Apna's global expansion plans to serve one billion users, and provide even more upskilling on the platform.

Theo is in the interviewer's chair for this episode as Frank Liu from Zilliz joins the show to talk about how AI and machine learning are making it possible for developers to understand and extract more value from unstructured data such as text, audio, images, video, and more. Traditional databases are great for handling structured data, such as information that can easily be captured and categorized in a table. For example, a book database would have columns for the title and author. This allows the data to be searched, sorted, and filtered according to those values. However, unstructured data isn't so easily managed. Frank explains how vector databases and AI can use algorithms and increased compute power to search unstructured data without relying on just tags and keywords. This has led to Zilliz being a major contributor to two open source projects - Milvus, which stores embedding vectors and feature maps from trained machine learning models, and Towhee, a machine learning platform built on top of Google's Tensorflow and the Pytorch open source machine learning framework. Tools like these could be used to do a reverse image search to find similar photos, or even music recommendations based on the rhythm or sound of the music instead of being restricted to artist and genre keywords. Frank shares some of the highly specific and interesting use cases Zilliz has seen in fields like network security and pharmaceutical molecular analysis, in their journey to being the one-stop-shop for anyone needing to understand human-generated unstructured data.

In this episode, Jay and Theo are joined by Pak Kusumo Martanto, CEO & Co-Founder of Blibli, who shares how the business is constantly adapting and staying agile to ensure excellent e-commerce experiences for millions in Indonesia. Pak Kusumo discusses how the pandemic was a wake-up call for many, with the needs of customers constantly changing. Keeping in mind that the digital economy saw a 50% increase globally over the past two years, and insights that are unique to Indonesia, for example being a gadget centric-culture, Blibli saw an opportunity for service fulfilment and helping partners with digital infrastructure. By leveraging technology and big data, Blibli was able to build a single customer view to guide their omni-channel strategy. In doing so, the business was able to introduce features that help improve the daily lives of people in Indonesia, swiftly and securely. From “Click-and-collect” at the closest store available, to their “Cinta Bumi” and “Buy-now-Pay-Later” programs, people and technology have been at the centre of every innovation, be it online or offline. Pak Kusumo also shares how Blibli places emphasis on digital security to ensure that customers' data remain safe from cyber threats. By having a deep understanding of customers and their motivations, Blibli is able to ensure a seamless end-to-end experience across the retail value chain, right up to last mile delivery.

Faced with changing customer behaviors and demands, tightening margins, and increasing threat from digital competitors, financial services institutions (FSIs) will need to meet customers where they are, open up their services, and establish new ways to monetize their products. Doing so will also enable them to build a better profile of their customers, and deliver more personalized user experiences and fast, convenient banking and payment services. Cloud technology plays a big role in this shift toward digital FSIs. In Asia, bank branches now account for just 12% to 21% of monthly transactions in the region, with customers turning to digital channels for routine transactions such as peer-to-peer transfers and bill payments, according to McKinsey&Company. Overall customer engagement has climbed from an average 12.7 to 14.9 transactions a month in Asia's developed markets, and from 6 to 8.1 in emerging markets. In today's episode, Chris Hood chats with Paul Rohan and Aser Blanco to learn why embedding financial services into digital experiences can generate new revenue.

Enterprises across the globe are struggling to innovate because their data and applications are siloed, disconnected, and not easily accessible. Today, Google Cloud is announcing the general availability of Apigee Integration, a solution that helps enterprises easily connect their existing data and applications and surface them as easily accessible APIs that can power new experiences. Data and applications are enablers of digital experiences. However, for many enterprises across the world, data and applications are siloed, buried inside various on-premises and cloud servers, and cannot be easily accessed by internal developers or partners. This challenge slows down efforts of digital transformation by extending development timelines from weeks to months. Integration and API management solutions address this challenge by enabling developers to seamlessly connect their data and applications, and surface them as easily consumable APIs. In this episode, Chris Hood sits down with Scott Haaland and Andrew Pickelsimer to better understand how an API-first approach to integration can help deliver on consumer expectations and generate business value.

Enterprises across the globe are seeing surging demand for digital experiences from their customers, employees, and partners. For many of these enterprises, hundreds of business applications are hosted in private or public clouds that interact with their users (customers, partners, and employees) spread across geographies, channels (web, mobile, APIs, VPNs, and cloud services), and time zones. As a consequence of this surge in demand, enterprises are also experiencing increased pressure to fortify their technical infrastructure against cyber attacks. The number of reported cyber attacks on U.S. companies rose 69% in 2020 from the previous year, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Web and API attacks cannot be prevented but can be mitigated—a recent study showed that 55% of organizations experience a DDoS attack at least every month. While many enterprises are accelerating digital transformation to build omnichannel experiences, they need to keep security and privacy top of mind across all of these channels. This goal can only be supported by implementing a robust security architecture and organizational policy enforcement model that enables enterprises to prevent, detect, and react to newer threats, in near-real time. While it is easy to say, implementation of such a system can be extremely challenging. In this episode, Chris Hood is joined by Sai Saran Vaidyanathan and Sachin Kalra to break down the benefits and best practices for securing APIs for safer application development in the cloud.

FinTech is a fast growing and competitive industry. To stay ahead, companies need to innovate and release new features more quickly than the competition. In this episode, Theo chats with Giovanni Sakti (Gio) and Giri Kuncoro from Indonesian financial services platform GoTo Financial, which includes the popular e-payment service GoPay. Gio and Giri discuss their commitment to improving the developer experience (DX) and how that led to the creation of their new internal developer platform. Gio explains that GoTo grew rapidly in the beginning, releasing more features and hiring more people. But that velocity soon reached a plateau as developers began to work in silos, leading to fragmented decision-making. And because GoPay's systems need to be scalable and reliable, a lot of innovation is focused on cloud-native technologies such as microservices, containers, and service meshes. But as the infrastructure became increasingly more complex, developers found themselves spending more of their time fine-tuning infrastructure instead of delivering on features. Listen to the firsthand account of how Giri's team built their internal developer platform called GoPay.sh to improve the developer experience using not just the four pillars of good DX, but also how empathy played a major part in improving the experience and ensuring full adoption.

This week, Jay and Theo talk with Anny Huang, DVP & Head of Digital Business for Singaporean insurer Income (previously NTUC Income). Singapore's only insurance co-operative, Income is also one of the country's oldest and largest insurers. It is also one of the most forward-looking. Income is the only composite insurer to offer all of its products and services online and has ranked as the number one digital insurer in Singapore for the last two years. Anny describes the pressure to retain that title as more insurers and InsurTech players enter the market. Central to Income's success is its commitment to providing a fantastic digital experience. While Income has a digital transformation office, Anny believes true digital transformation starts with the BAU staff. She began by looking at marketing's core activities to identify ways that technology could improve tactics and increase returns. By adding a data person to her team, it became possible to analyze how marketing activities in various channels produced financial returns for the business. Once it became possible to identify the weak links or failure points in these connections, Anny built a MarTech team to find solutions and improve returns – supported by machine learning and the Google Cloud team. Anny sees a key part of her role as being on top of the latest technologies and digital trends – which requires her to be naturally and insatiably curious. Whether she's configuring her own smart home or checking out the latest apps her son has found, Anny never stops exploring, experimenting, and playing. Her formidable skills, experience, and passion for digital technologies of all kinds sees the discussion turn to gender biases in tech roles. According to McKinsey, the finance and insurance industry in Singapore is leading the way when it comes to gender parity – particularly at the executive level. But as certain roles in the industry continue to be dominated by males, Anny is proof, if proof were needed, that digital talent is defined by passion, not gender.

In this episode, Associate Professor Sarah Kummerfeld, Head of Data Science for the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, joins Jay and Theo to discuss the vital role cloud computing plays in genomic sequencing. Genomic sequencing has been contributing to medical research to improve the understanding and diagnosis of rare diseases for many years. However, sequencing a single genome produces approximately 100GB of data in its raw format, which then needs to be converted into a format that can be analyzed and shared with researchers. This process can take as much as 600 CPU hours per genome. The Garvan Institute knew that processing vast amounts of genomes was far beyond the capabilities of on-prem infrastructure. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, genomic sequencing took on even more importance. Sarah's team realized that moving to the public cloud was the only way, embarking on a pilot program to process 14,000 genomes. Listen in as Sarah reveals how the team at Garvan Institute reduced the time it took to sequence the virus from a PCR test from two days to about four hours – dramatically speeding up contact tracing and reducing the spread of COVID-19 in the community. She talks through how the team uses a system called Terra, and how it became easier to manage the privacy and security of genomic data in Google Cloud, and the vast capacity required for this data in the region. In fact, Sarah's team discovered that with Google Cloud, there was enough capacity available within Australia to run a pilot program three times as big. As biology increasingly becomes a data science, generating enormous pools of data, Sarah shares how the Garvan Institute is embracing the huge opportunity machine learning presents to help build and improve the vital genomic infrastructure for Australia.

In this episode, we are joined by Paul Thanaarmates Arriyavat, Head of Venture Builders at Kasikorn X, to discuss how Kasikorn X is making blockchain technologies, NFTs, and decentralized finance more accessible to people. Kasikorn X has long been committed to building the future of digital banking through its Business–Technology Group (KBTG). In 2021, KBTG launched Kasikorn X, focused on the rapidly evolving world of decentralized finance (DeFi). In partnership with Google Cloud, Kasikorn X develops projects that make the benefits of DeFi, the blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs accessible to most people. With the DeFi space growing so rapidly, any new startup needs to move fast to avoid missed opportunities. As a result, Kasikorn X operates separately from the bank and the KBTG, with its own operating model and culture. To date, Kasikorn X has already launched Kubix, the first ICO portal from a Thai financial institution, and Coral, a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) empowering Thai and Asian artists to sell their artworks globally. Pauls gives a firsthand account of how the bank is looking to simplify the buying and selling of NFTs with the Coral platform, as most people lack the knowledge or understanding necessary to navigate this space. Coral aims to solve pain points by focusing on three key areas for both the artist and collector community - security, payments and reach. He ends by sharing how Kasikorn X intends to stay competitive by consistently innovating, and creating products that people love because they're simple and easy to use. At the heart of the business is the same spirit of innovation that continues to drive rapid developments in blockchain, NFTs, and decentralized finance, while the culture is one of learning fast by trying everything.

In this episode, Marcus Lopez, Senior EVP of Digital, Data and Technology for Cathay Financial Holdings, joins Jay and Theo to discuss the organization's approach to innovation as it rethinks its services and customer journeys. As the largest financial holding company in Taiwan with about 14 million customers, Cathay operates in China and most countries in Southeast Asia. Marcus explains how a joint venture with Alibaba six years ago prompted the Cathay team into reconsidering their approach to acquiring customers, product innovation, and the technology stack. Since then, the organization has undergone a mobile-first, data driven digital transformation with the help of Google Cloud, which he believes has allowed Cathay to become a market leader in Taiwan. Marcus breaks it down for us into three pillars with Cathay's transformation. First, improving the customer journey and experience with new products and innovations. Second, looking at long term infrastructure investment to ensure the business has the capabilities it needs three to five years from now. And third, helping people adapt to more tech- and data-driven ways of working. Cathay is also looking beyond its own operations to find ways to embed its products and services within the customer journeys of its strategic partners with an API-driven strategy, as Cathay as a Service (CaaS). Cathay has been able to scale up this ecosystem of financial services and analyst capabilities to partners by using the Google Cloud and the Apigee API Platform. Learn what were some of the challenges faced, and about Cathay's future expansion plans through Southeast Asia, where they treat each operation as a fresh start, redesigning everything from the ground up with a cloud native, mobile first approach.

In this episode, Jay and Theo are joined by Herman Widjaja, CTO at leading marketplace platform Tokopedia, to learn more about its culture of customer-focused innovation. Tokopedia's recent merger with Southeast Asia's leading mobile on-demand services and payments platform Gojek to form the GoTo group, made headlines as Indonesia's largest business deal. 13 years ago, Tokopedia's two founders set out to solve the problem of transparent pricing for Indonesians, regardless which of the 17,000 islands they may live on, while also helping merchants to be successful without relocating to Jakarta. Today, 12+ million merchants use the platform to sell 638+ million products. Herman outlines six priorities for Tokopedia's technology team over the next two years. These include strengthening the platform, increasing security and privacy, focussing on consumer technology innovation, AI-first and data driven transformation, financially optimized execution, and ultimately, building a world-class technology organization. Platform stability, reliability and quality are of maximum importance for Tokopedia. While five minutes of downtime might only shave a tiny fraction of a percent off the platform's uptime record, every second has an impact on the lives of customers and the income of merchants. Tokopedia is also keen on expanding their use of AI and ML to solve problems and provide more powerful data-driven features for customers and merchants. Central to Tokopedia's vision is customer empathy. Every new feature or build is guided by the question 'What's in it for the customer?' Herman talks about how this has led to a cultural shift within the technology team that doesn't seek to simply deliver on a PRD or BRD. By talking to customers and understanding their pain points, the team reveals new opportunities for innovation that solve genuine problems.

In this episode, Jay and Theo chat with Arjun Gupta, Senior Software Engineer at Josh Talks, to learn about the company's mission to empower the youth of India, with relatable role models and e-learning. The media platform targets young people in smaller towns across India with content in ten vernacular languages. Arjun likens Josh Talks to an elder brother, guiding users through critical life decisions and mentoring them to improve their lives. Josh Talk's ten YouTube channels currently have 14 million subscribers, with videos garnering about 70 million views each month. The success of Josh Talks led to the launch of an e-learning application, Josh Skills, to upskill young people and better-equip them to find employment. The flagship course is Spoken English, as this remains a common reason employers reject job applicants. A popular feature of Josh Skills is P2P, a peer to peer service allowing users to click a button to talk to friends within the Josh community, practicing their spoken English skills. To improve completion rates, Arjun shares how his team is currently working on ways to gamify the learning process, with subscribers competing in trivia contests to climb the leaderboard. But interactive features like this don't come without technical challenges, which is where Google Cloud can help. To make game play within the app as real-time as possible, Josh Talks will scale its servers to handle the increased load with minimum latency. Josh Talks long-term vision is to support subscribers from school age (14-15) until they are settled into their careers (30-35), which is why Josh Talks is building an infrastructure capable of supporting multiple tools and products so it can grow alongside them.

In this episode, Jay and Theo are joined by Manav Doshi, GM of Technology Solutions and Keith Junius, Enterprise Architect, both of Equifax Australia, to talk about the organization's ambitious cloud transformation. As a global credit bureau and data analytics company, Equifax is helping financial institutions, companies, and government agencies make critical financial decisions. In 2017, a critical event triggered a complete rethink of its security in all 24 locations. Equifax Australia embarked on a AUD2 billion journey with Google Cloud to migrate 100% of its key platforms and credit bureaus into the cloud. Manav shares how, prior to 2017, Equifax AU had previously believed its data was safer in private data centers. However, maintaining a high level of security requires a lot of investment. Equifax AU realized that the maturity of cloud platforms, particularly Google Cloud, has progressed beyond what it could achieve on prem. The cloud allows Equifax AU to respond far more nimbly to critical security events, with much of the security work taken care of by the platform. Meanwhile, by adopting a CI/CD methodology the company can roll out security changes and new features quickly and iteratively with push-button deployment. Improvements to a product can now be made and deployed within minutes. Keith ends with how Equifax AU is treating the move as a global business transformation, pairing technology with the right human skills. Equifax wants its people to be curious enough to seek out and play with new things, focussing on a growth mindset and a passion to learn, along with a willingness to collaborate.

In this episode, we speak to Pak Kaspar, CEO of Bank Raya, and Pak Gibbon, EVP of Technology System Information, Bank Raya, who share in more detail how Bank Raya is disrupting themselves first internally, to meet the challenges of tomorrow. As one of the largest and most distributed banks in Southeast Asia, Bank Raya (previously known as Bank Rakyat Indonesia) has been on a digital and cultural transformation journey since 2016. Working closely with Google Cloud, the bank has managed to modernize their infrastructure to increase security and scalability, helping them enable the capabilities to build out a digital bank. Pak Kaspar talks about 'Super Raya' and how the bank has two main goals - the first is to capture new types of customers, and the second is to create tailored products for specific problem solving. It is looking to push innovation forwards within their product development, with eyes on the metaverse future. Bank Raya has been investing in their people for many years, ensuring that they have the right talent in place to help scale up at speed. By putting people and security first, with the best practices in place, they stay true to their PPT core - people, process and technology. With strong foundations already in place, Bank Raya is able to customise parts of the business with new applications and offerings, to meet the changing demands of customers.

Singtel is a household name in Singapore as the leading telecommunications company. But did you know it serves more than 744 million customers across 21 countries, including Australia, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines? This 143-year-old established telco doesn't look any bit its age, as over the years, it has continuously evolved and reinvented the way it does business to keep up with changing times. Google Cloud accelerates every organization's ability to transform through data-powered innovation with the best infrastructure, platform, industry solutions, and expertise for digital transformation. In today's episode, we are joined by Manoj Prasanna Kumar, the Head of Technology leading 5G and Internet of Things innovations at Singtel, to discuss Singtel's rich history, the drive for reliable connectivity, and their continuous focus on innovating for the future.

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Google Cloud recently announced a new strategic partnership to accelerate digital transformation across consumer and enterprise segments in Indonesia. Part of their efforts includes digitally transforming Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison's operations ‒ To continue on its path to innovation and build a cloud-first organization, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison will modernize its infrastructure and applications on Google Cloud. In particular, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Google Cloud will define a clear roadmap for advanced data analytics modernization and AI/ML adoption that will not only enable the telecommunications leader to improve its core operations, costs, and customer experiences, but also help the company advance its position in the telecommunications ecosystem and enable it to identify and maximize new business model opportunities in future. In this episode, we continue our conversation with Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, featuring Bayu Hanantasena, Chief Business Officer, to dive deeper into their innovation and transformation journey and how they are building a cloud-first organization to improve their core operations.

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Google Cloud recently announced a new strategic partnership to accelerate digital transformation across consumer and enterprise segments in Indonesia. Strongly aligned to the Indonesian government's digital economy development program goals, the multi-faceted partnership will serve Indonesia's SMBs as a priority target segment and spans many areas that are core to the capabilities of both organizations. The pillars of the strategic partnership will see the two organizations working jointly to; Digitally transform Indonesia's SMBs across their business lifecycles, Digitally transform enterprises and communities with the power of 5G, and Digitally transform Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison's own operations. In this episode, we are joined by Vikram Sinha, President Direct and CEO at Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Rob Enslin, President, Cloud Sales at Google to dive into the strategic partnershp and learn more about the three pillars of digital transformation and the impact they will have on Indonesia.