How to incentivize and verify a carbon-free future, with Evan Caron of Swytch.io

02/04/19 • 82 min

Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)

We all know we need to accelerate the transition to renewable sources of energy. But on a global scale we are doing it in a way that is haphazard and inefficient. Governments experiment with subsidy schemes for renewable energy, with various degrees of success. Countries discuss targets, negotiate commitments, fight about who should shoulder more of the cost. What if we were able to reliably record and measure every action that reduces the carbon footprint—and agree on which steps have the greatest impact?

Swytch.io wants to make this possible. In this episode, co-founder Evan Caron argues that it all starts (as always) with data: Swytch provides a device-agnostic platform that can collect data from a wind farm, a solar panel, a smart meter...pretty much any device in the energy ecosystem. It uses blockchain—and in the episode we debate whether blockchain is really needed here.

That’s only the first step. Swytch will then enable energy and climate experts to access the data and use it to assess with competing models the climate impact of different energy investments around the world. Once you know where the investment should go, how do you create the right incentives to direct where it will have the greatest impact? The models in the Swytch ecosystem will determine the value of different carbon-offsetting or carbon-displacing actions and ultimately, actions which have a greater positive impact on energy sustainability should be commensurately compensated. The hope is that the system could provide the basis to set the right incentives for a faster transition to GHG reductions. It’s a tall order, that makes for a very intense conversation.
One exciting note: About midway through the conversation with Evan, we'll break in for a surprise for our listeners, a new, regular segment called Ricky's Reports from the Edge, with our friend Ricky Buch. You have to listen to see what it's all about.
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Previous Episode

Graph Analytics in the Cloak & Dagger (and also humdrum) World, with Leo Meyerovich of Graphistry

We are inundated by data, in our professional and personal lives. How do we make sense of it, extract the insights we need? An image is worth a thousand words, but can you visualize a complex dataset with multiple variables and scores of datapoints? This is what Leo Meyerovich of Graphistry set out to do, building on his PhD research at Berkeley. Graphistry uses Artificial Intelligence to trace patterns and correlations, helping the analyst in her investigation of the data.

In some cases, we are in fact talking of true investigations, the stuff of cloak and dagger movies. In this episode you will hear about financial fraud, election influencing, drug and human trafficking. Leo describes how AI-driven data visualization helps uncover shady webs of unsavory communications and illegal money flows, even as the criminals carefully try to cover their tracks. The same techniques can help a company better understand the behavior of its customers and how to reach them and serve them more effectively. You will also hear how Graphistry can help capture the experience and tricks of senior analysts and make them available to younger recruits—an important feature as rapid staff turnover becomes a more pressing challenge for many organizations.

At the end of the episode, Michael and Marco discuss future potential applications and debate whether future data analysis will still have a ‘human in the loop’ or evolve towards a pure black box approach.
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Next Episode

Pitch Prfect with Tim Wikstrom of Presentr

We shouldn’t judge a book by the cover. But when we meet someone, that’s exactly what we do. Within the first few minutes, we form a strong impression based on how they speak and carry themselves. And when giving a presentation, the quality of the content won’t matter that much if you can’t present it effectively.

In this episode we talk to Tim Wikstrom, who has spent his entire career coaching people on effective presentation skills. With Presentr, Tim and his co-founder Tammy Palazzo leverage Artificial Intelligence to help you improve your presentation skills: the AI tracks and assesses your tone of voice, the rhythm of your delivery, your most frequently used words—and gives you instant feedback. Accessible on both laptops and mobile devices, Presentr can provide training at scale, and has already been adopted by a number of large organizations.

We discuss with Tim what constitutes an effective presentation style, to what extent it depends on the speaker and on the audience, and how cultural differences come into the equations. We debate how you can judge and measure the impact of Presentr’s training. We also reflect on the risks of being in a world where form can often trump substance, and on whether applications like Presentr will make the situation better or worse.

Watch out for references to A Fish Called Wanda, Michael’s NBC broadcaster impersonation, and Tim’s explanation of Bill Clinton’s “Pointing Thumb Thing”. Stick around for the post-interview segment, where we also discuss whether a bot would stick around for an entire State of the Union address.

P.S. Thank you to Tenderboy1 for the nice review on iTunes. PLEASE rate us on Apple/iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and write a review, to help others find us. We really appreciate it.