Colorado Techcast

Episode 27: Grant Flaharty – Aleph Objects Grant Flaharty is President of Aleph Objects.  New to Aleph Objects, but not new to the industry, Grantis is bringing over 20 years of Executive Leadership driving Sales, Operations, Product Management and Finance to assist in taking the company to new levels of success through the expansion of products, improved market messaging and awareness, along with the attention to detail internally to maintain the quality of product in our customers hands. Grant talks about the history of Aleph Objects, growth through open source machines, and his vision for the future of additive manufacturing. Links to things we talk about: Grant Flaharty on LinkedIn Aleph Objects Dog with 3D-printed skull gives researchers hope for helping human patients IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR, PLEASE: Subscribe to our list Connect with us on Twitter Email us and tell us what you think! Colorado TechCast brings you interviews with entrepreneurs, thought leaders and technology pioneers from around t

Episode 26: Tracy Rue - Skywriter MD Tracy Rue is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Skywriter MD. Skywriter MD is a HIPAA-compliant virtual medical scribe service focused on helping healthcare providers to become more efficient and improve productivity. Tracy shares his story of how a conversation with a tired and frustrated doctor in the Grand Junction airport sparked the idea for Skywriter and how to streamline the collection of health records. Skywriter MD addresses the 5 major challenges that come with traditional medical scribes: Cost, Intrusiveness, Speed, Scalability, and People Management. Tracy talks about the strategy that has enabled Skywriter supply a scalable workforce in an environment where turnover happens regularly at the same time each year, how he built a technical product without a technical background, and how he pushes decision making to the edge to enable his teams to be successful. Links to things we talk about: Tracy Rue on LinkedIn Skywriter MD Tuesdays with Morrie IF YOU

David Secunda is the founder and CEO of WorkBright, an HR tech startup that serves employers with large contingent workforces. The company was founded in 2014 and has over 350 customers. David is also the founder and Visionary of Avid4 Adventure, an outdoor education company that serves kids from age 3 up. The company was founded in 2003, has 600 seasonal and 25 full time employees, served 14,000 campers this summer, and is #25 on Outside’s Best Places to Work in the US. David has lead numerous organizations including the Outdoor Education Program at CU, PlanetOutdoors, and the Outdoor Industry Association. He also worked as an entrepreneur in residence at Mobius Venture Capital and Sequel Venture Partners. He is an active mentor in the business community at Techstars, MergeLane, and the CU Leeds School of Business, and has served on the boards of Entrepreneur’s Organization Colorado, RMC Health, the Department of Human Services Licensing Advisory Committee, the American Camp Association and was a founding bo

Episode 24: Cody Cornell – Swimlane A respected authority on cybersecurity, Cody Cornell is responsible for the strategic direction of Swimlane and the development of its security automation and orchestration and response (SOAR) solution. His passion for open exchange of security information and deep vendor integration drives him to pursue opportunities to maximize the value his customers receive from their investments in security operations. Collaborating with industry-leading technology vendors, Cody works to identify opportunities to streamline and automate security activities that speed cyber response and enable security orchestration. Links to things we talk about: Cody Cornell on LinkedIn Swimlane SecOps Hub | A security operations community Secure Set Colorado Cloud Security Alliance Denver ISSA Denver ISACA IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR, PLEASE: Subscribe to our list Connect with us on Twitter Email us and tell us what you think! Colorado TechCast brings you interviews with entrepreneurs, thought lead

Jeff Swaim is the founder and CEO of Influence Technologies — developers of a of a kick-ass Digital Experience Platform (DXP) called iVX®. Influence Technologies believe the entire next generation of digital content will be hyper-personalized, immersive, responsive, and transactional interactive experiences — so they created a platform that can create, distribute, and track these interactive experiences at massive scale. As a five-year Colorado startup — Influence Technologies has now hit growth phase, having attracted blue chip brands to their platform like Starbucks, Ford, Microsoft, Camping World, and Arizona State University—and are currently in the process of raising growth capital and attacking vertical markets with iVX-powered solutions. Links to things we talk about: Jeff Swaim on LinkedIn Influence Technologies Tribes by Seth Godin Start with Why TED Talk by Simon Sinek Membership Economy by Robbie Kellman Baxter   IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR, PLEASE: Subscribe to our list Connect with us on Twitt

Melissa Risteff is the CEO & Co-Founder of Couragion, a social enterprise generously supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), AT&T Aspire, and the Colorado Office of Economic Development. Their mission is to inspire underrepresented students to pursue STEM pathways and fuel educator confidence to succeed in the classroom. Melissa shares the mission of Couragion, the moment she decided to strike out on her own, and the positive impacts they are having on students across Colorado. Links to things we talk about: Melissa Risteff on LinkedIn Couragion Couragion Awarded National Science Foundation Grant IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR, PLEASE: Subscribe to our list Connect with us on Twitter Email us and tell us what you think! Colorado TechCast brings you interviews with entrepreneurs, thought leaders and technology pioneers from around the state. We provide a behind the scenes look at who’s doing what, why, and how you can get involved. Join us each episode to hear the exciting stories of technol

Episode 21: Alex Capecelatro – Josh.ai Alex Capecelatro is the founder and CEO of Josh.ai, a voice-controlled home automation system with a focus on artificial intelligence. Josh.ai utilizes a proprietary natural language understanding (NLU) engine with state of the art home control integrations for a powerful smart home experience. Alex started his career as a research scientist for NASA, the Naval Research Lab, and later Sandia National Laboratory. He then ventured into consumer technology first with electric car manufacturer Fisker Automotive, then through founding two social software products “At The Pool” and “Yeti” with members in more than 120 countries. Alex’s focus is at the intersection of elegant design, cutting-edge software, and purposeful hardware to offer transformational experiences. Alex received his engineering degree from UCLA and currently splits his time between LA and Denver. Links to things we talk about: Alex Capecelatro on LinkedIn Josh.ai Josh AI on Instagram AVC - Fred Wilson's Blo

Yoav Lurie is the CEO and Founder of Simple Energy, the leading provider of marketplaces, instant rebates, and customer engagement software for electric and gas utilities. Simple Energy’s software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) offerings drive energy savings, facilitate the sale of energy-saving products and services, and serve as the customer energy action platform for the utility of the future. Before founding Simple Energy, Yoav helped build a Washington, DC-based technology services firm, served as a Managing Director for Teach For America, and acted as national president for a network of free residential summer camps for the children of cancer patients. He has been named one of Inc. Magazine’s top “30 Under 30” Entrepreneurs and an EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife and two adorable children. Links to things we talk about: Yoav Lurie on LinkedIn Simple Energy Xcel Energy Store Inc. Magazine 30 Under 30 IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR, PLEASE: Subscribe to our list Conn

Episode 19: Phil Elsasser – MARKET Protocol Phil Elsasser is the CTO and Co-Founder of MARKET Protocol. Phil has spent the last 7 years as the lead developer on an algorithmic trading desk. Phil has led teams of developers focused on creating trading infrastructure, user interfaces, execution platforms and quantitative trading analytics. The founding members of MARKET Protocol have been managing a 24-hour algorithmic trading group since 2014. Based on the experiences and over 30 cumulative years, the team realized how immature the crypto exchanges were. This created an opportunity for conceptualization and development of MARKET Protocol which provided a blank slate to address issues with both the crypto and traditional exchange models. Links to things we talk about: Phil Elsasser on LinkedIn MARKET Protocol Boulder Blockchain Meetup IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR, PLEASE: Subscribe to our list Connect with us on Twitter Email us and tell us what you think! Colorado TechCast brings you interviews with entrepre

Episode 18: Chris Magyar - Techtonic Group Techtonic Group a software development organization that services start-ups and the Fortune 1000, and has called Boulder home since 2008. In 2014 sensing an opportunity to do more, CEO and co-Founder Heather Terenzio launched Techtonic Academy. Techtonic Academy is a Department of Labor (DOL) approved paid Apprenticeship program that recruits people who have the desire, ambition and skill set to be a great software developer – regardless of their background or academic training. Techtonic Academy is currently the only IT Apprenticeship in the State of Colorado approved and registered by the U.S. Department of Labor. Techtonic Group has the first and only IT Apprenticeship Program in the State of Colorado approved and registered by the U.S. Department of Labor. Applicants accepted into Techtonic Group paid 6-month Apprenticeship program begin their paid Apprenticeship with 10 weeks of instructor lead classroom training. Apprentices continue to receive technical and s

Mike Hess is the Founder and Executive Director of the Blind Institute of Technology. The Blind Institute of Technology is a team of staff, volunteers and board members passionate about addressing an attitude shift for blind professionals and educating companies on how to hire and cultivate success for the visually impaired. As the token blind guy in private Fortune 500 companies, Mike experienced just what it takes to build organizations through people, processes, and tools. Mike managed multimillion dollar projects throughout his career, and states it is because of his blindness, not despite his blindness, that he became a 6-figure engineer. Even though Mike had great success in his corporate career, he always had the notion of serving the greater good and following his calling. In 2013 Mike left Level3 Communications (Now CentryLink) to launch the Blind Institute of Technology. After 4 years of challenges and successes, he has created partnerships with Davita, Uber, OppenheimerFunds and many other organiza

Episode 16: Kris Bennett - Aenea, LLC. Kris Bennett is passionate about decentralized architecture. He is a Blockchain educator in Denver and is an active advocate for all things Blockchain. Chris is a frequest speaker and writes about the massive transformative change that's coming our way, and what it all means for business, culture, government, art, and personal relationships. Kris shares the nearly prehistoric history of Blockchain and some modern day applications for it, outside of cryptocurrency. Links to things we talk about: Kris Bennett on LinkedIn The Blockchain Beard Guy Videos Aenea, LLC IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR, PLEASE: Subscribe to our list Connect with us on twitter Email us and tell us what you think! Colorado TechCast brings you interviews with entrepreneurs, thought leaders and technology pioneers from around the state. We provide a behind the scenes look at who’s doing what, why, and how you can get involved. Join us each episode to hear the exciting stories of technology happenings in

Episode 15: Reyn Aubrey - PocketChange I believe that entrepreneurs solve problems but traditionally, we’ve been using entrepreneurship to solve pain points not problems. Reyn Aubrey is the founder and CEO of PocketChange. PocketChange is a technology that targets the moment when someone is really genuinely motivated to take action and remove all the barriers to that action. PocketChange helps people support causes on social media in a whole new way. What Reyn and team are creating is a button that sits on Facebook right next to like, comment, and share that lights up whenever users see a post about a cause. It could be literally anything from an article in the New York Times about poverty, a picture posted about someones house that was destroyed in a hurricane, a video about climate change - whatever it is, their technology analyzes the post content and determines what specific cause that post is talking about, then instantly matches the user with the single most impactful charity tackling that problem.

Episode #8 - Dave DuPont As one of our people said to me, and this is someone who is top of her class at Stanford Business School, "Society tells me now that I can either work for you or work for Starbucks" The combination of remote work and flexible hours has enabled us to become very active in hiring people returning to the workforce after taking time off to raise kids. It has been a benefit to us and also a positive societal good. Welcome to Episode 8 of Colorado TechCast. In this episode I interview Dave DuPont, CEO of TeamSnap. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Boulder, TeamSnap has taken the organization of youth, recreational and competitive sports into the 21st century for 20 million coaches, administrators, players and families. Dave has more than 20 years of experience in technology leadership positions. He was previously CEO of SANRAD, a venture-funded storage networking company.  He also helped found LeftHand Networks, a Boulder-based company now owned by Hewlett Packard. Dave shares his insi

Episode #14 – Fluid Market lets users list items they have but aren’t using, giving people in their neighborhood the opportunity to borrow them in exchange for a fee. James Eberhard is the founder and CEO of Fluid Market, a truck sharing application that allows people to easily and securely list, discover, and rent trucks to and from one another. People are making real money renting out vehicles by the hour, day, or month, using assets that would otherwise go unused. And Fluid Market isn’t only for vehicles alone. You can find everything from power tools to household items for rent on the site. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to buy something you will use for a one time project. And chances are your neighbors likely have what you need, but you don’t know they have it, and they don’t know you would pay to use it. Fluid Market closes that gap. Prior to founding Fluid Market, James was the founder and CEO of 9 Squared and Mobile Accord. James is regarded as an expert on global wireless markets and has extens

Episode #13 – Writing good OKRs is hard; OKRs require thought and iteration. A well written OKR, however, will align resources and empower contributors to make good decisions that support the business’ needs Robert Kluin is an experienced technology executive and entrepreneur. He is passionate about helping companies develop engineering organizations that reliably deliver business value. At Workiva, Robert lead the operations engineering, infrastructure engineering, reliability engineering and support engineering groups to ensure 24×7 operations and ensure systems meet product engineering needs. He has brought that same commitment to excellence to his new practice at Real Kinetic. Links to things we talk about: Robert on LinkedIn [Here] Real Kinetic Blog [Here] Robert’s Book Recommendations: Waltzing with Bears [Here] Team of Teams [Here] Objectives and Key Results [Here] Site Reliability Engineering Book: How Google Runs Production Systems [Here] Cheat Sheet on the SRE book [Here] IF YOU LIKE WHAT Y

Episode #12 - CTO Connection is a community for Engineering Leaders where they can connect with and learn from their peers   Peter Bell is a former CTO who started organizing CTO summits in 2014 to learn from and connect with other experienced engineering leaders. He also co-founded the New York CTO School to help the next generation of engineering leaders to build their skills and also organizes a number of other CTO Schools around the world. If you're technical and manage software developers (or want to learn how to), CTO Connection is for you. You don't have to be a hardcore developer or manage a large team, but if you can submit and review a pull request and are responsible for directing, leading or managing other software developers (or would like to learn how), they can help. Links to things we talk about: Peter Bell @ LinkedIn [Here] CTO Connection [Here] CTO Connection @ Twitter [Here] IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR, PLEASE: Subscribe to our list Connect with us on twitter Email us and tell us what

Episode #11 – The analogy that I’ve been using is that blockchain could do the financial and insurance industries what the information revolution did to our media or what Napster did to record companies. WARNING: Some of this stuff is pretty complex. I spent a while on Wikipedia reading up on the things Kevin talks about just to write this post. Kevin Owocki is a leader in the Boulder tech community and helps run Boulder Startup Week and leads the Boulder Blockchain Meetup group.  He is also a co-host of the StartupCTO podcast. Kevin’s most recent project blends his passion for building Open Source software and his interest in Blockchain as an industry disruptor. Kevin recently launched Gitcoin, a platform that for allows for an Open Source repo owner to create a bounty, or smart contract, using the Blockchain for someone to work on their project. What this means is Developers can choose which Open Source projects to work on and get paid in the cryptocurrency Etherium. A little background on what some of

Episode #10 – I really emphasize networking. It’s kind of a dirty word for a lot of computer science people like myself who don’t see that it’s a positive thing or just equate networking as standing around awkwardly at a party holding a beer. And what I’ve done is help people understand that it doesn’t have to be like that. Miles Matthias joins us for episode 10. Miles is Chief Technical Officer InKind Capital, Boulder Startup Week Organizer, and co-host of StartupCTO Podcast. Miles talks about How InKind Capital Helps fund new restaurants by building a loyal customer base before they even open A random visit to a coffee shop that lead to an introduction to the Techstars network, springboarding his career in the Boulder startup ecosystem The importance of choosing the appropriate communication channel when working with remote teams Miles also shares his thoughts on technology leadership, and the importance of giving back to the community – the Boulder ethos. Links to things we talk about: Mile’s

Episode #9 - Once we got to the point where we really understood and believed in our brand and the effect we wanted to have on people it changed everything, from what we said on our website to what we said when we were speaking in front of a crowd to what we said on a sales call. It really pervaded all aspects of our communication   In this episode I interview John Williamson, a serial entrepreneur who has found success in bringing technology to business that are traditionally low tech. His first startup utilized mapping technology to streamline the delivery of physical goods in a city.   After this he moved into the Qualitative Research field and founded Qualvu. Qualvu developed and delivered video-based qualitative research services. Qualvu led the offline to online migration in qualitative research.  Qualvu also developed TruePanel.com, an online consumer recruiting, screening, management and fulfillment platform to power online research projects. Next, using many of the lessons learned with Qualvu,