Introducing: Speed to Modern Tech

All throughout this first season of Speed to Modern Tech, we’ve been exploring the high stakes problems many businesses are facing and how technology is being applied to help solve them. In this final episode, host Tori Weldon sat down with three leading thinkers from KPMG who oversaw the projects featured in past episodes — Todd Lohr, Swami Chandrasekaran and Cliff Justice  — to talk about how these challenges will evolve and the impact of future technologies.   

Speed to Modern Technology is an original podcast from KPMG. For more details on this episode, including transcripts, links and speaker bios, go to: listen.kpmg.us/techpodcastFutureForward.

Ransomware is one of the biggest forms of cybercrime that businesses face today. And the threat is only growing – in 2021, businesses suffered 50% more cyberattack attempts per week than in 2020.  Hundreds of US companies, big and small, are targeted by cyber criminals who breach their system, steal data and hold it for ransom. What can businesses do to recover from or prevent such an attack? In this episode, host Tori Weldon explores how ransomware attacks take place and what businesses can do to fight back. 

You’ll hear from Alban Brooke, head of marketing at Buzzsprout, a podcast hosting company that faced a ransomware attack in 2021, and Allan Liska, a ransomware researcher and a cyber security expert, who has decades of experience tracking and fighting ransomware attacks. You’ll also hear from the technologists at KPMG, Marcus Brakewood and Jason Haward-Grau, who are on the front lines of helping companies who face ransomware attacks.

Speed to Modern Technology is an original podcast from KPMG. For more details on this episode, including transcripts, links and speaker bios, go to: listen.kpmg.us/techpodcastRansomware. 

For millions of low-income Americans, Medicaid is a lifeline to accessing care. Yet many struggle to find healthcare providers who will accept this form of public insurance. Providers say the software Medicaid uses is complex and outdated, making processing claims too time-consuming and expensive. In this episode, host Tori Weldon explores the human cost of this technology lapse, and the renewed effort to modernize Medicaid systems. 

You’ll hear from Dr. Sumit Agarwal, a primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a health policy researcher as part of the Harvard Medical School, and Débora Magalhães, owner and clinic director at Kids in Motion Therapy, one of the few Boston-area clinics that accepts patients with Medicaid. You’ll also hear from the technologists at KPMG, Swami Chandrasekaran and Debarshi Datta, who have developed a new and improved Medicaid management platform for states.

Speed to Modern Technology is an original podcast from KPMG. For more details on this episode, including transcripts, links and speaker bios, go to listen.kpmg.us/TechPodcastModernizingMedicaid. 

If you’ve applied for credit recently, it’s likely an AI system provided the approval. But how is the algorithm reaching its conclusion? And in a world where thousands of data points are being fed into AI models, how can businesses ensure their AI systems are making fair decisions — free from bias? In this episode, host Tori Weldon explores how AI bias can perpetuate racism and “redlining”, and how adopting better AI governance and oversight can help build more responsible AI. 

You’ll hear from Crystal Marie McDaniels, a first-time home buyer looking for answers about why her mortgage application was initially rejected, and Allison Bethel, Director of the Fair Housing Legal Clinic and Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law, who represents clients who face discriminatory bias. You’ll also hear from the technologists at KPMG, Swami Chandrasekaran and Kelly Combs, who developed a framework and governance approach to ensure AI is used responsibly. 

Speed to Modern Technology is an original podcast from KPMG. For more details on this episode, including transcripts, links and speaker bios, go to listen.kpmg.us/TechPodcastAIinControl

It’s a common refrain on customer care lines. “Press one for billing”. But if the question doesn’t fit the phone tree, it can mean long waits on hold for help. In the healthcare industry, these interactions can be frustrating at best and life threatening at worst. 

In this episode host Tori Weldon explores the challenges many patients face in accessing health information, and how conversational AI-technology and natural language processing are being used to answer complex questions accurately, without ever having to wait on hold.

You’ll hear from Wesley Hawkins, a cystic fibrosis patient and advocate, and Caitlin Donovan, Senior Director at the National Patient Advocate Foundation, about the frustrations patients face in navigating complicated health insurance and administration systems. You’ll also hear from the technologists at KPMG, Carl Marrelli and Arthur Franke, who helped develop an AI-powered automated voice response system (AVR) that is able to match human speed and accuracy in responding to patient calls. 

Speed to Modern Technology is an original podcast from KPMG. For more details on this episode, including transcripts, links and speaker bios, go to listen.kpmg.us/TechPodcastPatientCalls.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many American colleges and universities were forced to close their campuses. The road to reopening relied on the ability to track symptoms and test results for thousands of students and staff - all in real time. So technologists worked around the clock to create a solution that could scale. In this episode, host Tori Weldon dives into the problem of safely reopening campus and how a progressive web application helped bring back in person learning. 

You’ll hear from Dr. Donna Souder Hodge, Vice President of Operations and Advancement at Colorado State University Pueblo, about how she and her colleagues worked to safely reopening the campus, and Anita Barkin, co-chair of the American College Health Association COVID-19 task force, who helped create the guidelines used by hundreds of colleges to manage COVID.  You’ll also hear from the technologists at KPMG, Ellen Pelletier and Werner Vanzyl, who had just six weeks to develop a progressive web application to track thousands of students and staff.

Speed to Modern Technology is an original podcast from KPMG. For more details on this episode, including transcripts, links and speaker bios, go to https://listen.kpmg.us/TechPodcastSchool.

Counterfeit products are everywhere these days. From designer sneakers to children’s toys to batteries, the rise of e-commerce has made it easy to sell knock-offs, and difficult to track the source. The cost to business is massive. In 2020 alone, US customs and border protection agents seized counterfeit goods with a value of nearly $1.3 billion. In this episode, host Tori Weldon looks at the problem of identifying counterfeit product listings, and how AI technologies like natural language processing and machine learning are being adopted to help find the fakes.  

You’ll hear from Aaron Muderick, founder of Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty and Board Chair for The Toy Association, about how he discovered his putty was being counterfeited, and from lawyer David Lipkus, who specializes in counterfeiting and has represented countless large and small companies in their pursuit to enforce their IP rights.  You’ll also hear from the technologists at KPMG who have been working to develop a way to identify potential counterfeit products, through AI and other technologies, including Swami Chandrasekaran, Managing Director and Head of Solution Architecture & Global Cloud CoE, and Kelly Combs, a Director in Emerging Technology Risk.

Speed to Modern Technology is an original podcast from KPMG. For more details on this episode, including transcripts, links and speaker bios, go to https://listen.kpmg.us/TechPodcastCounterfeit.