Shine is a self-care app for millennial women - the largest growing share of the workforce. Shine operates in the wellness space in over 165 countries. Leveraging the power of text to reach people with a 98% open rate, Naomi and March found a way to recreate the feeling of a hand on your shoulder every morning. 

“Align yourself with marketing efforts that can be repeated and if you see something that's working, press that button as fast as possible.”

In a world of access not ownership, Nisha co-founded a Classpass for co-working spaces in NYC to empower users to work from anywhere. Born out of frustration with nowhere to work on ideas at the weekends, teaching herself to code and tired of overpriced pastries - this startup story is the modern day version of Friends. Croissant now has over 200 spaces signed up across 10 cities and has been through the 500 Startups school.

“The feeling of being a migrant is a universal one” explains Mohsin Hamid, the award-winning novelist of Exit West and The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

With the rise of technology, globalisation and fake news, we’re living in an absurd present and uncertain future. In this episode, we journey through stories from Mohsin’s books and his writing form to explore the concept of migration being a fundamental human right. The interview provides a fresh and diverse voice on the state of international politics today, the global immigrant crisis and highlights the role of fiction as the human species evolves from storytelling around campfires to glowing screens.

“I know the power of finding a book that changes someone’s life.”

Tired of having to justify his seat at the table, Nikesh Shukla wrote a book curating 21 essays from upcoming writers from diverse backgrounds. They unravel British culture, explore self-identity and question the legacy of imperialism to provide an open space to discuss race. Against the backdrop of increased hostility to immigrants at a global scale, it sold 50k copies and accidentally became a reference pillar in the post Brexit debate. Crowdfunded by Unbound.

“Artificial intelligence will move software from being passive to active, the software will be expected to make decisions on our behalf.”

Dennis counted he had scheduled 1,019 meetings in a year! With big data startups under his belt, he deployed artificial intelligence techniques to create Amy, a virtual assistant and is on a mission to harness the power of AI to increase human potential. Hundreds of thousands of meetings have been scheduled automatically and it’s raised of $40m of Venture Capital investment. In this episode, he divulges the technology underpinning Amy,  jobs of the future, and the the morals and ethics behind bots - from bad behaviour, empathy to personalities.

“For one client, we improved the prediction power from 23%, worse than chance, to 86% confidence on what people were going to eat for dinner.”

With a bout of microfinance experience in India, a PhD and a client trying to invent a new tea flavour, Tugce founded Streetbees to give consumers a voice when brands design new products. Today, Streetbees is a UK startup disrupting the $45bn market research industry by providing grassroot insights for global clients with access to over a million ‘bees’ on the platform in over 80 countries.

Against the backdrop of Airbnb, citizenM has come to the fore as a boutique hotel for the modern mobile citizen. Born out of the frustration of the fashion traveller, this startup hotel deploys user centered design to solve for modern luxury. 12 hotels later, 40% repeat business and artwork such as Andy Warhol casually placed around the sites, citizenM is a fresh burst in the hotel industry.

“With education, the people you learn from aren’t just your teachers, it’s your peers as well.”

Refusing to lose the magic of his Harvard business school network after graduating, Beri embarked on creating a social university for adults. It facilitates lifelong learning with access to the leading minds of our time with events across the globe.

Firing off an irreverent note to attract non-techies to an event, Sam Parr had never envisaged he would resurrect email to start a media company - The Hustle - a daily email newsletter. A young gun set to be the next media mogul uncovers bumping into Tim Ferriss walking his dog and writing amazon romance novels to journey through The Hustle’s own hustle. Today, The Hustle has over 0.5m subscribers, a cash positive balance fuelled by advertising and over $1m in funding.

Available as podcast in iTunes (Apple), Spotify and Stitcher (Android).

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Monzo is the latest challenger bank on the UK fintech scene, racking up half a million customers with half of them under 30 years old and raising £1m in under 96 seconds from its customers. With its seamless user experience, open dialogue with customers and friendly nudges - we hear how it’s got young adults excited about their personal finances.

The post #27 The challenger bank for the smartphone generation with Monzo, Tom Blomfield appeared first on Samira Stalks.

An insight into how the tech industry can be a disrupter for good to meet refugee needs.

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The post #26 The tech community response to refugee needs, Techfugees with Josephine Goube appeared first on Samira Stalks.