Tag Archives: Technology

Ali Ghafour

My next guest is a former Team Canada Taekwondo member who represented Canada at multiple international competitions worldwide. He is also a former Board member of Taekwondo Canada. Today, he is the founder and CEO of 20/20 Armor.

The vision of 20/20 Armor is:
– To be the standard scoring & training equipment for all martial arts.
– Be the foundation technology for and create a spectator friendly professional martial art league

20/20 Armor is backed by sports investors including LeAD (www.leadsports.com) a program founded by the grand children of Adi Dassler, the founder of Adidas.

Please welcome to the show, Ali Ghafour.

This is Episode #209 of the Welcome! podcast.

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Greg Nisbet – Welcome To The Music

The following episode was recorded as part of the new podcast, Welcome To The Music. Check out www.WelcomeToTheMusic.com for more great interviews!

Greg Nisbet is the founder of MEDIAZOIC, Canada’s artist-friendly music & technology company. Their flagship solution, RadioMogul, is a unique custom radio solution that allows businesses to connect with their customers within a fully-customized music and audio broadcasting space.

Greg is also the founder and partner in The Hogtown Hang, a recurring one-day hangout for extraordinary musicians, in one of Toronto’s coolest studios.

Pre-Show: John Epping is a world class curler and friend of the podcast. Check out his signature brew, Epping Ale at Radical Road Brewing Co. -> www.radicalroadbrew.com/eppic-ale

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The Impact of Technology and Media on the Upcoming Federal Election

The impact of technology and media on the upcoming federal election. This title may b fake news. At the very least it’s most likely misleading. In the end it’s 100% manipulated content. Or is it?

Here’s what you’ll actually learn: What you need to learn about how to inform yourself, your family and friends on the real issues in advance of the Canadian federal election.

This is Episode #161 of the Welcome! podcast.

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Gregg Tilston is a VP at Iron Gate Wine, speaker, investor and podcaster.

Ari Shapiro is a podcaster and digital publisher at AriShapiro.ca.

Dan Speerin is an original YouTuber, former host of Young Turks Network and political and media commentator.

Episode #117: Karim Sumar, InstaRyde

Karim Sumar is the co-founder and CEO of InstaRyde. We would call is a ride-sharing company. Mr Sumar calls InstaRyde a transportation and logistics company focused on the ride-sharing space.

Listen below:

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Recorded live at Girth Radio.
Music by Afraaz Mulji.

If you enjoyed this episode you’ll also like:

Ep15: Steve Hulford

ShareTheMeal App Links Monthly Givers to the Families they Support

BERLIN – Starting on International Women’s Day, ShareTheMeal, the app from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), will enable monthly givers to follow their donation and see exactly how it is helping families in need. Monthly givers will automatically join The Table – a new feature within the app –  which connects members with the family they are supporting through personalised updates and exclusive stories. Using data from WFP’s beneficiary data management platform, SCOPE, monthly givers will learn when a family has purchased food thanks to their donation.

The Table brings together vested givers and empowered recipients, who will be connected virtually through this new feature of ShareTheMeal. Each month, members of The Table will be connected to a different family to learn more about how their support is helping them. For example, givers will receive personalised in-app content on the impact of their donation, such as videos and stories. By fundraising for some of WFP’s most critical operations including Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Bangladesh, users will be directly helping the most vulnerable families.

Over the past decade, WFP  has increased the use of cash-based transfers alongside food deliveries to provide assistance to people in need. In 2017, WFP provided US$ 1.3 billion in cash transfers. Cash transfers allow WFP to reduce delivery costs, which means that for every dollar saved, is one additional dollar that can be spent helping the people it serves. Through The Table, monthly donors directly support families with cash assistance, so that they can purchase the food that best suits their family’s needs.

“The digital revolution is enabling WFP to create online platforms, such as SCOPE, which help us to enhance the use of digital identities for people in need, so that we can know and serve them better. Digital identities allow WFP to rapidly and effectively provide food and cash assistance, especially in emergency situations,” says Kenn Crossley, Global Coordinator of Cash Transfers at WFP. “With the launch of The Table, we are leveraging this data to show donors their tangible impact.”

Through The Table, WFP is able to respond to the desire of donors, especially millennials, to give to transparent and efficient charities. It is clear that this tech-savvy generation wants to follow their impact and be connected to those they are helping. Addressing this mindset, ShareTheMeal will provide personalized stories and video to donors, paving the way for long-term engagement in philanthropy and social good.

“We believe this generation is not only eager to change the world, but feels strongly about transparency and proven impact. By providing real-life data on the impact of a shared meal through The Table, we will demonstrate how – with a tap on the app – this generation can lead the way to a zero hunger future,” says Massimiliano Costa, Head of ShareTheMeal.

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Cybersecurity Trends 2018: The costs of connection

After a highly eventful 2017, when an increasing number of cybersecurity incidents grabbed headlines in the mainstream media, we’re now looking ahead to the coming year, which will no doubt generate further vibrant discussions about the threat landscape.

One refrain is likely to be heard time and time again. Cyberthreats and attacks are here to stay. Indeed, they will continue to expand in scope and volume next year. They may evolve and diversify, but a common underlying thread will persist – an effective cybersecurity posture pivots on knowledge of the value of information, coupled with insight into and an understanding of the threatscape. In a way, when all is said and done, plus ça change.

Arming ourselves with facts and experience, better enables us to control the criminal hive mind swarming online. To help the reader navigate through the maze of such threats, ESET’s thought leaders have zeroed in on several areas that top the priority list in our exercise in looking forward.

Criminals following the money

With data being the most valuable asset (so much so that many have called data ‘the new oil‘), ransomware is poised to remain in great demand among cybercriminals. With an eye to slashing the risk that your data may end up mangled, we offer take-home lessons and observations gleaned from the recent evolution of ransomware.

Cautiously, we extrapolate from recent trends to the foreseeable future. We note the largely indiscriminate nature of ransomware campaigns and highlight the perils of paying up in exchange for (by no means guaranteed) restoration of access to data held ransom. Organizations seen as willing to pay up in lieu of hardening their defenses may run the risk of finding themselves a target of choice, yet with no certainty of getting their data back.

In a world of smartphones and other mobile devices, attackers are more focused on denying the use of devices themselves than on data stored therein.

The generally perilous state of affairs in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) arena presents a host of challenges of its own, as the dramatic increase in the number of smart devices shows no signs of stopping. By contrast, the addressing of security concerns is often an afterthought.

Where cyber meets physical

“Arming ourselves with facts and experience, better enables us to control the criminal hive mind swarming online”

On a different note, we cannot help echoing our past – and prescient – sentiment that attacks aimed at critical infrastructure are set to continue to generate headlines. Worryingly, industrial equipment targeted by malware known as Industroyer – the biggest threat to industrial control systems (ICS) since Stuxnet – is in wide use, while much equipment in ICS was not designed with internet connectivity in mind.

Making things worse, prompt upgrades, though important in striving for a secure environment, are not always a panacea: the drive towards a cheap generic architecture for industrial devices may introduce additional weaknesses into the supply chain, ultimately endangering our physical safety.

Democracy in peril?

Electronic voting systems – another obvious area where security is playing catch-up with technological advancements – are grappling with vulnerabilities of their own. The preponderance of evidence that such systems can be manipulated highlights the risks of over-reliance on technology for something as significant for our societies as elections.

This brings us to the overarching question: can a cyberattack rig the results of a nation’s election and, thereby, subvert democracy? We note the use of social media for undermining election campaigns by spreading faux news reports or launching ad hominem attacks.

Admittedly, such attacks may not signal doomsday for democracy, yet technological interference poses critical challenges in opposition to the need to ensure the legitimacy of future elections. To this end, all aspects of an electoral system must be regarded as part of every country’s critical infrastructure, and be safeguarded accordingly.

Privacy and data bonanza

“In a world of smartphones and other mobile devices, attackers are more focused on denying the use of devices themselves than on data stored therein”

The apparent appetite among some trusted security vendors for the monetization of user data in exchange for free antimalware software is set to persist into the next year. This will add to risks associated with data privacy, which is already under fierce attack given the endless trail of digital exhaust left behind by a plethora of (notably IoT) devices.

Such digital breadcrumbs can be collected to tell a story about us and, coupled with machine learning and artificial intelligence, that story could be used as a basis for manipulating our thoughts and actions. The data detritus should raise concerns of users as to what ‘free’ products or services actually entail and how the data being slurped are used.

While we hope for greater user awareness, we suspect that the stockpiles of data will expand dramatically next year with little awareness on the user’s part. We may not be able to put the toothpaste back in the tube, but we need to make informed decisions and choices lest our privacy be eroded further.

Safer for all

This year has seen ESET’s malware analysts continue to help law enforcement crack down on malicious campaigns and, by extension, the criminals spewing them. We are confident that 2018 will bring further successful investigations as we will continue to lend a hand to authorities so that, ultimately, the internet can become a safer place for everyone – except cybercriminals.

We also believe that the increasing general awareness of cyberthreats and our preparedness to cooperate in tackling any and all manner of felonious wares served up by attackers will accrue to our shared benefit, particularly as technology is now woven through the entire fabric of our societies and we face a host of internet-borne threats.

The collected reflections of our experts are available in Cybersecurity trends 2018: The cost of our connected world.

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Tech Talks – Episode #5: Jordan Sheridan

Earlier this month I spoke with Jordan Sheridan who is the General Manager for Modern Workplace at Microsoft Canada.

Recently, Microsoft and Ipsos released a report that showed if leaders want to drive growth and innovation, they must foster a workplace culture that unleashes their employees’ creative approach to problem solving and desire to collaborate in order to generate fresh ideas.

Jordan Sheridan shares his thoughts on this new research and discusses with Karim Kanji how companies and businesses need to adapt to this new workplace reality.

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