The Think WTF Podcast

The world of media is changing faster than most realise. Brett and I see this in our work where we are experimenting with AI-driven marketing solutions. Its early days but initial experiments have exceeded all our expectations. This is why we wanted to chat with Amanda Bester at Leaderex. She founded and leads Pragmattica, an independent Digital Consultancy offering services in strategic business development. 

Your brand is the idea that people have of you. Great brands are built on a constant message, with a clear identity and a consensus about what that brand means. Just think Coca-Cola, MacDonalds, Apple and - well you get the idea. So how does AI help drive brand constancy? How do AI and branding bring together the old art of brand management with the new world of technology and algorithms?

We chat with Emilie Sydney-Smith, the CEO of ExO Works. Emilie helps companies excel at disruptive innovation. She works with many of the Fortune 500 corporations to build new business lines that could swiftly become more profitable than their core business. These ideas were first written about in Salim Ismail shares in his book, Exponential Organisation. Emilie is the force that turns these ideas into a reality and makes it happen. If you want to know anything about creating an exponential business – Emilie is the person you want to chat to.

How do people fundamentally make decisions and how do we trust these decisions? How do we build trust through an interaction system that we trust? How do we redesign the future social contract going forward? What role does philosophy, anthropology play alongside the technological, economic and legal development of Blockchain, if any? These are just some of the conversations that we had with JP Fabri at the Blockchain Africa Conference. Listen up - it was a fascinating chat ....

If you have any questions about whether or not you should be on the blockchain - Brian Behlendorf, Hyperledger's CEO, breaks down an approach and a framework on how you start looking at this. He shares some of the projects that they are working on to give us a practical example of how Hyperledger is solving real problems.

Regulation is often seen as a restriction to innovation. And in some cases, it certainly is, but in other cases, not so much. Perhaps what defines the difference is your attitude towards building innovation within the context of regulations. Charlene Chen, BitPesa’s COO, talks us through the challenge between innovation and regulation, and how you balance the conflicting energies and the management of different stakeholders.

Brett and I finish the year off with a few thoughts and how we will approach the podcast for next year. We have a few changes and tweaks coming up. This is a short one so enjoy!

We are talking AI with Brett Loubser - and bot was this a rabid hole of AI and music, the role of consciousness, our ability to adapt and whether we should be sacred or not.

  Nerushka Bowan is the summary of how the world has changed. As a trained laywer, she brings a fresh, practical experience to the world of emerging technology. She focuses on technology, law and a new way of doing things.            

The manipulation of data is a global issue right now. We are seeing crazy stuff happening - from fake news, to twitter bots all the way to the manipulation of the American elections. To get a better handle on this we spoke to Kelvin Jonck from YouKnow.

We had the opportunity to chat to John Vlismas at Leaderex and we were not turning that down. We were not to sure where the conversation would go but this was a really enjoyable chat. John is one of the hardest workers you would ever meet. His refreshingly honest perspective is a real antidote for all the bullshit that's flying around. 

Insurance. Disrupted. Nakedly. So says Alex Thompson of Naked Insurance. And after chatting to him - we agree. If you want to disrupt yourself then this podcast will give you an idea of what it takes. 

Josef Langerman is the Acting CTO for Standard Bank; DevOps and Agile Evangelist. We wanted to know what all this means in a large organisation like Standard bank. Here is some context why this was such a good chat. I Josef took me to task for asking him if they are a digital business. Quite rightly he asks what digital actually means. He feels that its about flow. Its about getting things to flow through the system without any bottlenecks and hiccups. And perhaps more importantly its about how you feel. It brings you alive and you are excited about being part of a team that built really good stuff. Its what Google calls uncomfortable excited.

Matsi Modise an entrepreneur and entrepreneurial activist. She has spirit and the can do attitude to change South Africa for the better.   She is the founder of Furaha Afrika Holding (Pty) Ltd, a Pan-African advisory company. They focus on enterprise and business development solutions.  

Employment is a big issue in South Africa - and there are many different approaches and solutions that technology offers. Anish is the co-founder of an job platform called Giraffe. Why Giraffe? Well its a memorable African name of animal that has grace, warmth and trust. It's a great brand name. Giraffe - The Permanent Employment Platform  The idea behind Giraffe is to be the intermediary between the employer and the employee. It's not about the freelancing or the gig economy solution. Rather the focus is on helping lower and medium skilled people find permanent work.

We carry on the deep dive into Blockchain with Aatish Ramkaran. Aatish is the blockchain lead for Nedbank, co-founder of Blockchain Entrepreneurs Club South Africa and beard enthusiast! We dig into all sorts of things. We start with the ICO conversation. Aatish has a unique perspective on this as an ex JSE employee for 7 years. He shares the BECSA vision and why he feels that its important.

Tanya is the Managing Executive, Fractal Solutions. This is the Strate Innovation Lab that specialises in blockchain technology and cryptoassets. We wanted to catch up and see how the Strate Blockchain was progressing. We had previously chatted with Monica Singer, Strate’s ex CEO, who now works for ConsenSys. Tanya was the critical driver behind Strate’s Blockchain project. Given that Strate mangoes the JSE backend, it is the mother of all intermediaries. And his was the mother of all Blockchain projects. On a personal level, Tanya is really inspired about Blockchain and her passion for this is huge. She sees the potential for it to change the world., Enjoy

A Theory of Constraints (ToC) Series with Ashton Fourie

A Theory of Constraints (ToC) Series with Ashton Fourie

A Theory of Constraints (ToC) Series with Ashton Fourie

A Theory of Constraints (ToC) Series with Ashton Fourie

A Theory of Constraints (ToC) Series with Ashton Fourie

A Theory of Constraints (ToC) Series with Ashton Fourie

A Theory of Constraints (ToC) Series with Ashton Fourie

A Theory of Constraints (ToC) Series with Ashton Fourie

A Theory of Constraints (ToC) Series with Ashton Fourie

We chat with Joel Stransky about the role that AI has in the recruitment space and how it will disrupt the industry as we know it.

We spoke to Benjamin Schroderer about what it took to be the Digital Marketer of 2018

What do you do when you run a successful permanent staff recruitment that does not place freelancers? Well, you go digital and launch a Freelance Portal called Nomad Now. You connect your traditional customers with thousands of highly qualified freelancers.

Stefan Thomas is the CTO of Ripple. In this podcast we deep dive into what Ripple is, the pain that they are solving and their focus on the Internet of Value through Interledger.

Pelle is a Dane, living in Nicaragua, where he is heading up the Consensys office. He is busy working on building uPort a decentralized identity platform at ConsenSys.

The Blockchain Africa conference would not happen without the motivation and effort of Sonya Kuhnel! We chat to her about the inspiration behind #BAC18 and where to from here. _

Elizabeth Rossiello is the Founder and Ceo and BitPessa. She breaks down the hustle and what it took to get BitPesa off the ground. 

Marvin Coleby is building the first tokenized impact exchange. The idea is to democratize private investments in emerging market companies.

We chat to Tricia Martinez, the CEO/Founder of GetWala about Digital Currencies in Emerging Markets. 

A Chat with South Africa Bitcoin Wallet Builder! 

Nico Steyn, CEO of IoT.nxt joins us for a livecast that looks at IoT, the edge of computing and the challenges of interoperability

Marta Piekarska is the Director of Ecosystem at Hyperledger - and whats really cool about the Hyperledger Blockchain is that is an open source blockchain platform. She breaks all the details down. 

The Blockchain Will Disrupt Everything. The reason? It’s a distributed ledger and everything in capitalism is built on a ledger. As Peter Munnings explains Project Khokha is proof of how disruptive it can be.

What does it mean when a central bank builds a blockchain to manage its Fiat currency. The implications huge and can change how we live and work. In this What's The Future Podcast we chat with Consensys's Peter Munnings about a Central Bank Blockchain

Innovation is everything in a world of fast constant change. To get a better handle on this we sat down with Colin Iles, whose is a bit of a rockstar in the innovation space.

Justin Spratt and the Gig Economy

Blockchain will disrupt everything

No CTO/CIO has been fired for not implementing an IoT solution. That’s how new this technology and thinking really is. And it’s why we wanted to talk to Mark Allewell. He’s the founder and ceo of IoT business Sensor Networks.

A short and sweet introduction to a new podcast that is hosted by Brett St Clair and Michael Cowen.