This is part 2 of our great discussion with Mallory Dwinal Palisch. If you've not yet listened to part 1, please do so before listening to this second half. In this part of the conversation about Reach University and Craft Education System we discuss student-centered technologies, professional capital, labor mobility of teachers, remote learning, t…

There is arguably nothing more important to our future economy than the quality of our education system, and there is nothing more important to that than the quality and availability of teachers. But as anyone who's followed the news in the last couple of years knows, we are currently facing something of a crisis in the availability of qualified te…

With interest rates rising and the economy slowing, the world of credit is getting a lot harder for both lenders and borrowers — and that’s especially painful in the mortgage market, given how high house prices are. Matt Sanchez, Founder and CTO of CognitiveScale thinks that Artificial Intelligence can help: it can help loan officers identify poten…

Developing Clean Energy Solutions With KraftBlock’s Martin Schichtel Across the world, a huge amount of energy is wasted in the form of heat. In industries like glass and steel, manufacturing processes require extremely high temperatures, and those processes generate a lot of wasted heat. That heat is usually blown directly into the atmosphere. But…

Miss us? M4Edge is coming back soon, with a new format. Stay tuned! Stay curious!By Marco Annunziata and Michael Leifman

In the 3+ years that M4Edge has been around, we've aired over 50 episodes and, as listeners know, we usually ask our guests to give us their view of the future 20 years hence. Sometimes the answers are somewhat expected, sometimes they're a little humorous, and sometimes they're deeply thought provoking. As a holiday present, this episode offers a …

This is the final M4Edge episode of 2021 an we are finishing this year with a bang, Our guest is Alex Rodrigues, founder and CEO of Embark Trucks; he is a Forbes 30 under 30, and more importantly, at the tender age of 26 he has just brought Embark public through a SPAC deal valuing the company at over 5 billion dollars. Embark is right up the M4Edg…

After a long absence, we’ve returned with a very fun episode and right in line with the M4Edge theme. The startup we focus on today is really micro, in the weeds, you might say, with some very macro aims, and it’s about as edgy as can be. You probably know that we’ve done several episodes on ESG or impact investing, and we’ve also done quite a few …

It’s not often that a small startup has ties to Google and Bill Gates. Our guest today, Michael Sachse, the CEO of Dandelion Energy inhabits that rarefied atmosphere. Dandelion Energy was originally part of Google X, Alphabet’s so-called moonshot factory. And very recently, Dandelion received substantial series B funding from Breakthrough Energy Ve…

We seem drawn to Agtech and impact investing. And good-tasting fruit. We kicked off our 2021 season with a discussion on impact investing or socially responsible investing, including with a startup (EcoRobotix) that produces solar-power farming equipment for AI-based precision application of herbicide. We've done a few episodes in the Agtech space,…

We kick off this season with a deeper look at the meaning of our phrase “changing how the economy functions,” specifically examining what you may have heard of as “social entrepreneurship,” which is the idea that entrepreneurial ventures should measure themselves not just by revenue but also by metrics that capture their broader impact on the socia…

We are joined again by our friend and former colleague Ricky Buch. We’ve had Ricky on the show several times as small segments we called Ricky’s Reports from the Edge or sometimes full episodes we called Ricky’s Startup Reality. Ricky started a clean tech company - now the term of art is climate tech – called Loctricity. It was a great idea started…

In this episode, the third in our series on startup strategy, Marco and I interview Guy Levy-Yurista , the chief strategy officer of Sisense. Sisense is an unusual business analytics or business intelligence (BI) startup, and Guy is an unusual, well, guy. Before becoming a CSO, Guy’s career included being a CTO, VP of Product, a PhD in physics, a s…

Our miniseries on startups strategy continues today with Ron Carucci. Ron is a renowned strategy consultant with three decades of experience in large and small companies, and currently he is the owner and managing partner of his own strategy consulting outfit, Navalent. Ron is also a Harvard Business Review contributor, and a TED speaker. Through t…

Today we kick off a new, special miniseries on strategy. We’ll unpack the different aspects of business strategy that a startup needs to develop, discuss how strategy evolves through time as a start-up goes to market and starts to grow, and talk about how strategy for a startup differs from strategy for a large corporation. We wanted to go well bey…

Our guest today is Sandeep Ahuja, co-founder and CEO of Cove Tool. Sandeep has been named to the Forbes’ prestigious “Thirty Under Thirty” list; the recognition has given her a great boost in exposure and credibility, but it can prove to be a mixed blessing in the construction industry, as you will hear. Sandeep founded Cove Tool to help fight clim…

M4Edge is about startups with technologies that can change how the economy functions. There’s very little that is as central to a functioning economy as energy, and that’s one reason why climate change is such a deep societal problem. There are also very few industries that are as important to a growing economy as the construction industry. And so …

Our episode today is about the future of ____. We left that last part blank because you can decide for yourself. We interview Jay Rogers and Vikrant Aggarwal who are, respectively, the CEO co-founder and president of Local Motors. I could tell you that Local Motors is an automotive manufacturing company, but that would be criminally uninformative. …

Today's bonus episode is about the multiple layers of uncertainty we are all facing right now. More specifically, the episode is meant to give you some insight into how M4 Strategy Garage can help your business untangle those uncertainties as you try to navigate the murky waters ahead. We have categorized the covid recovery uncertainty into five el…

On today's episode we speak with Paul Appleby, the CEO of Kinetica. Paul has held leadership roles in some very prominent tech companies, including SAP, SalesForce and C3, and he's now at the helm a big data startup, so he’s definitely been at the center of our changing economy, and has a lot to reflect upon. We recorded our interview with Paul in …

This episode is number 3 in our Corona Combatants series. In this series we’re trying to amplify the efforts of our guests and their companies who are using the tools at their disposal to help fight the sprawling battle against Corona. If you’ve not heard the other episodes in this series, please check them out – they include distance learning reso…

As the coronavirus forced governments to shut down large parts of the economy, ordering workers to stay home, one of our first questions was: where are the robots when you need them? So we invited Brad Bogolea to come on M4Edge. Brad is the co-founder and CEO of Simbe Robotics and they produce…well…robots. Their most well-known robot is named Tally…

Our guest today is Keren Moynihan, founder and CEO of Boss Insights. Our conversation with Keren is especially timely, as we recorded this podcast on Monday, March 16th, 2020. Just the day before, Sunday March 15th , the US Federal Reserve held an emergency meeting and announced a set of monetary policy measures to support the economy during the #c…

This is a very special edition of the M4Edge podcast, and a part of our Corona Combatants series: we speak with a team of people who are striving to leverage 3D printing resources to quickly supply hospitals and care centers with some of the equipment they need to handle the covid-19 emergency. Our guests are all affiliated with the University of C…

M4Edge is about startups with technology that can change how the economy functions, and nothing has quite as potentially dramatic an effect on the economy as a Pandemic plus a possible recession. But some of our guests’ companies can help. In times like these, it’s very easy to despair, but it’s important to find as many ways as we can to find reas…

Our guest today is Katherine Sizov, Founder of Strella Biotechnology. This is our third Ag-tech show in our young 2nd season. We opened with Allison Kopf of Artemis, and this episode follow Hunter McDaniel of UbiQD. There will be more; it's one of our themes this season, and is increasingly important in the age of Corona-driven changes and challeng…

Today's guest is Hunter McDaniel of the company UbiQD. As in ubiquitous, but the "QD" stands for quantum dots. Today's episode is one of those wide ranging talks that has become a hallmark of some of our best M4Edge discussions. We cover not just what a quantum dot is and what UbiQD does, but the Department of Energy's National Laboratory system an…

Our guest today is Sam Kimzey, co-founder of Chaac Technologies. That’s a pretty unusual name for a tech company – Sam will explain where the name comes from and why it is so relevant to Chaac’s mission. Chaac’s technologies has developed an innovative solution to address simultaneously two of the biggest sustainability challenges the world faces t…

We decided to kick off the new year, the new decade and our new season with the basics: food. Our guest Allison Kopf, founder of Artemis, set out to tackle a fundamental challenge -how to make sure the world can feed its rapidly growing population in a sustainable way. But Artemis approaches this grand problem in a very nuts-and-bolts way, namely b…

We’re closing out our first season with three bonus episodes. In each of these bonus episodes, we check-in with our first three guests on the show, Greg Mulholland of Citrine Informatics, Dipanwita Das of Sorcero and Randy Altschuler of Xometry. Innovation is moving faster than ever, so we want to keep the pulse of the market and see how much progr…

We’re closing out our first season with three bonus episodes. In each of these bonus episodes, we check-in with our first three guests on the show, Greg Mulholland of Citrine Informatics, Dipanwita Das of Sorcero and Randy Altschuler of Xometry. Innovation is moving faster than ever, so we want to keep the pulse of the market and see how much progr…

We’re closing out our first season with three bonus episodes. In each of these bonus episodes, we check-in with our first three guests on the show, Greg Mulholland of Citrine Informatics, Dipanwita Das of Sorcero and Randy Altschuler of Xometry. Innovation is moving faster than ever, so we want to keep the pulse of the market and see how much progr…

It's been a bit over a year since we launched M4Edge, and we've had the opportunity to speak with many startup CEOs and CTOs and VCs. We've also had the opportunity to reflect on what we've learned, and we've come up with a theory for how technology is changing and shaping the economy. We are calling the new economy the RAPID economy. R is for Remo…

We're trying to make the "Ricky's Startup Reality" segments into micro-episodes. That was difficult for us - especially Michael, who had many questions he forced himself to not ask. This is a small episode with big news for Ricky! And, since this is so short, you have plenty of time to write us a review on Apple Podcasts... If you've not listened t…

Our guest on today’s show is Andy Maggio of D6VR. That’s VR as in virtual reality. The D6 stands for 6 dimensions, and Andy will explain what that means. We’ve all heard the term virtual reality for years, but usually in science fiction, or more recently for serious gamers who want immersive experiences. But VR is maturing and is now being used for…

Our guest today is Anson Kung, former CTO and co-founder of A&K Robotics. (See below for "late breaking news" on Anson's role at A&K.) Today’s episode has our most thoughtful discussion so far of the impact that the robot revolution is likely to have on our lives. Anson is a first class roboticist, and has a deep insight in how quickly robots are i…

Ricky's Reports from the Edge has a new name: the running series featuring Ricky Buch and his nascent startup Loctricity is now Ricky's Startup Reality. This episode is a great one for a name change, because the news Ricky shares may also prove to be a watershed for his business. Some unusual macro conditions may provide just the right opportunity …

Our guest is David Yang and he is the founder of a company called YVA, which is the subject of today’s show, but he’s no novice in startup world. David has founded TWELVE companies, starting in 4th grade, and including ABBYY which you may not have heard of but is actually pretty huge; it has offices in 11 countries and more than thousands of enterp…

The World Bank was gracious enough to host us for our 2nd live audience show. Along with the World Bank Global lead for Energy Access, Dana Rysankova, and Jon Exel, the Global Lead for Mini-grids, we interviewed Bill Lenihan, the CEO of Zola Electric. We discuss the challenge of electrification: close to 900 million people still have no access to e…

Today’s episode is a return to Ricky's Reports from the Edge, where we check back in with Ricky Buch and his startup Loctricity. Ricky shares some of the frustrations of just trying to get meetings when you’re pitching an idea, and also shares with us some of the latest evolution in his thinking for what Loctricity’s value proposition is. Please sh…

We cap our mobility mini-series from a different perspective: that of Mike Granoff, Managing Partner of Maniv Mobility, a venture capital firm that specializes in...mobility and the future of transportation. As an investor, Mike has to look at the entire mobility landscape, and his success and reputation are not... 'riding' on a single solution. We…

Our guest today is Sampo Hietanen, the CEO of a Finnish company called MAAS Global. MaaS stands for Mobility as a Service, and they are the makers of Whim, an app-based platform for MaaS. Whim provides a single way to access all forms of mobility - everything from cars to trains, scooters, bikes and buses, through a subscription. Sampo's influence …

Ricky Buch is back from Ghana and Ricky's Report is back for another M4Edge episode. We discuss the viability of minigrids as a solution to energy poverty, Ricky introduces an idea to help minigrids scale, and Marco complains about ordering water with his cheeseburger.By Marco Annunziata and Michael Leifman/ Ricky Buch

With today’s episode we continue our exploration of the Future of Mobility: how technology is starting to impact—hopefully for the better-- the way we move around our cities and beyond. Today we talk to Shai Suzan, Cofounder and CIO of WayCare Technologies. When we think of mobility, we think first and foremost about speed and safety. We want to ge…

With today’s episode, we kick off a miniseries on “mobility.” In today’s tech parlance and in city planning parlance, mobility includes a bunch of different issues, but they have one thing in common: they shape the quality of our everyday lives. How we get to work, to school or to our friends’ house can make the difference between a pleasant daily …

Did you know that using video games as a teaching aid improves students’ engagement, helps them learn faster, boosts their test performance and stimulates their critical thinking? These are just some of the results of a study carried out by Vanderbilt University in partnership with Legends of Learning. In this episode, Legends of Learning Co-founde…

Growing up, Jessica Trybus, Founder and Chief Games Officer of Simcoach Games knew she was going to be a CEO. But she also wanted to be an actress, so she studied acting, majored in theatre and went into the film industry. Then she moved to Silicon Valley, and then back to Pennsylvania, to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. With this kind of…

And now, for something completely different… Our show today was recorded live at American University, with Professor Jeff Sosland and the students in his International Business—Global Entrepreneurship class. And our guests today come from another side of the tech world: the Venture Capital on which entrepreneurs rely to turn their ideas into a succ…

Our show today is part 2 of our interview with Ben Redwood of 3DHubs. Ben is bookend-ing our miniseries on Additive Manufacturing, otherwise known as 3D Printing. In part 1 of our interview with Ben, we spent most of our time discussing many of the different additive manufacturing techniques, which was a great intro to the next set of episodes. Ben…

Where else will you find a podcast on 3D printing that references cassette tapes and cowboy hats??? In this new episode of our 3D Printing series, we talk with Blake Teipel, CEO and cofounder of Essentium. Blake is perhaps the best person to explain how the success of 3D printing relies on the synergy of machines, software and materials. He started…