The Tech For Good Podcast

Enterprise software giant SAP is working on a way to help its corporate clients embed sustainability accounting into the hearts of their businesses. The key is the Sustainability Data Exchange (SDX) - a tool that aims to provide visibility on emissions right across an organisation's value chain. A partner in the project as been telco giant BT. In this episode, Tech For Good is joined by SAP's Stephen Jamieson, Global Head of Circular Economy Solutions, and BT's Global Head of Digital Sustainability, Sarwar Khan.

In 2019, Canon Medical Systems, one of the world's most important makers of medical diagnostic systems, decided to bring its technology to the people. A pandemic-era project resulted in not just a community-level medical diagnostics facility for the people of Sheffield, UK, but a home for the city's fast-growing population of professional basketball fans, too. Tech For Good checks in with Canon Medical Systems Managing Director Mark Hitchman to find out how its innovative project is shaping up since it was completed in late 2023.

What does it take to incubate a cutting-edge technology startup within a company as large and established as De Beers? After several years in development, Tracr is using blockchain technology to achieve its mission to create an immutable record of every natural diamond mined around the globe. An innovation that could transform transparency and accountability in one of the world's most ancient industries, the journey has been both a technical and a cultural challenge. Host Romily Broad is joined on the Tech For Good podcast by Tracr CEO Wes Tucker and CTO Caroline Glassberg, alongside Accenture’s Vinod Nair and Hilary Allen. Read more: https://www.techforgood.net/

The public sector is often built on old technology procured through even older processes. Even when the technology is new, the glacial pace of bureaucracy can make it old by the time it arrives. Andrea Danes, global human services leader at EY, discusses how we might break the paradigm and unburden the public sector's "innovative instigators" to deliver cutting-edge technology faster and deliver better public services for all. Read more:

Young Italian entrepreneurs at startup Novis Games, supported by Microsoft’s Entrepreneurship for Positive Impact programme, are using generative AI to revolutionise how video games can be made more accessible for the visually impaired. Founder and CEO Arianna Ortelli gives us insight into the company's origin story, how she came to attract the attention of Microsoft, and her goals for a better, AI-driven future for visually impaired gamers. Find out about Novis Games: https://www.novisgames.com/ Find out more about Microsoft Entrepreneurship for Positive Impact: https://www.microsoft.com/socialentre... Read more:

Chloe Tartan, one-time inventor of invisiblitiy cloaks for microbes, is these days a leader within global consulting giant Accenture in the area of ESG and sustainability. She's also a storied Blockchain expert and has turned her thoughts to how the technology can be leveraged to revolutionise how we govern public services and ensure digital inclusivity. Blockchain is much more, she says, than a mechanism to conjure digital currencies. As she says in one LinkedIn post: "In my view, the only way to justify the amount of energy the [blockchain] network consumes is by demonstrating that this technology can actually solve a critical problem in society to make the world a better place."

At the turn of the millennium, the UN launched its Global Compact, an ambitious endeavour to encourage companies around the world to adopt socially and environmentally sustainable policies. One of the first names on the team sheet was technology giant Lenovo. Ever since, as the company has ballooned in size, it has released a comprehensive annual Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report to hold itself publicly accountable against its sustainability targets. Mary Jacques leads the company's efforts in this area as Executive Director, Global ESG and Regulatory Compliance. Her career with Lenovo stretches almost as far back as that original compact, and in every role her focus has been sustainabilty and the environment. It was the same in roles at MIT and IBM before that, and in academia where she studied environmental science. In this episode we discuss Lenovo's progress to date, the challenges that remain, and the lessons we can all learn to continue to advance the sustainabilty cause.

Cancer Research UK, the world’s largest independent cancer research organisation, has digitally transformed. At the forefront of the world’s battle against cancer for the last 120 years, the charity has embraced agility and fast innovation in the Cloud in partnership with AWS.

Amref Health Africa has been working for more than 60 years to advance access to quality healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa. They partner with communities in 35 countries to sustainably strengthen health systems and improve access to vital care and services.  Tech for Good sits down with leaders from Amref, its long-standing backer GSK, and Cognizant, to discuss a remarkable collaboration, spawned in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, that is set to create a lasting digital advantage for Amref as it seeks to transform healthcare on the continent.

Estonia has become renowned as one of the most digitally advanced nations on the planet. Its latest innovation in its mission to connect citizens with government is Bürokratt, an AI-driven virtual assistant that puts access to public services in the hands of the people via any device they choose.In this episode, Romily Broad talks to government Chief Data Offier, Ott Velsberg, to uncover the history of Estonia’s remarkable ability to innovate digital public services at scale.We also hear about Estonia’s call to developers and data scientists around the world to join a €5 million procurement exercise to surge the development of Bürokratt even further. Built on open-source technologies, Estonia's vision is not just to enhance delivery of public services in its own lands, but to build a platform that can serve the entire world.Individuals and companies of any size are invited to submit proposals via https://e-estonia.com

Through exclusive interviews with business leaders, The Tech For Good Podcast explores technology’s growing role in solving humanity’s biggest issues.In this episode, Ben Mouncer speaks to Daniel Di Giusto about Tech To The Rescue connects technology companies with social impact organisations.

Through exclusive interviews with business leaders, The Tech For Good Podcast explores technology’s growing role in solving humanity’s biggest issues.In this episode, Ben Mouncer speaks to Olivia Gambelin about her company’s mission to help organisations build ethical technology with “ethics-as-a-service”.

Through exclusive interviews with business leaders, The Tech For Good Podcast explores technology’s growing role in solving humanity’s biggest issues.In this episode, Ben Mouncer speaks to Healx’s Tim Guilliams about how machine learning is helping in the discovery of treatments for rare diseases.

Through exclusive interviews with business leaders, The Tech For Good Podcast explores technology’s growing role in solving humanity’s biggest issues.In this episode, Ben Mouncer speaks to Semtech’s Alistair Fulton about how LoRa can play a role in combating climate change.

Through exclusive interviews with business leaders, The Tech For Good Podcast explores technology’s growing role in solving humanity’s biggest issues.In this episode, Ben Mouncer speaks to Smart Reporting’s Chief Commercial & Operations Officer Peter Vanovertveld about why structured data can help drive new standards in patient care.

Through exclusive interviews with business leaders, The Tech For Good Podcast explores technology’s growing role in solving humanity’s biggest issues.In this episode, Ben Mouncer speaks to Degreed’s Chief People Officer Janice Burns about why businesses must strive to upskill their employees - and the tools they can use.

Through exclusive interviews with business leaders, The Tech For Good Podcast explores technology’s growing role in solving humanity’s biggest issues.In this episode, Ben Mouncer speaks to Normative’s CEO and co-founder Kristian Rönn about carbon accounting and the need to drive out involuntary greenwashing.

Through exclusive interviews with business leaders, The Tech For Good Podcast explores technology’s growing role in solving humanity’s biggest issues.In this episode, Ben Mouncer speaks to Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise’s Cloud Communications Business EVP Moussa Zaghdoud about using its technology to tackle challenges in education, healthcare and transportation.

Through exclusive interviews with business leaders, The Tech For Good Podcast explores technology’s growing role in solving humanity’s biggest issues.In this episode, Ben Mouncer speaks to former US Federal CIO Suzette Kent about her experiences as a technologist at the highest level of government.

Through exclusive interviews with business leaders, The Tech For Good Podcast explores technology’s growing role in solving humanity’s biggest issues.In this episode, Ben Mouncer speaks to EY’s Andrea Danes about the company’s work to support vulnerable populations.