3 Techies Banter #3TB

The year is 2050. Sheetal, Nilesh and Samiran are reminiscing about that amazing episode they recorded in April 2023 about life in 2050. The crystal gazing they got right, and the predictions that did not go as expected. They did feel a sense of satisfaction that they had made such bold predictions and had lived to see them come true. No one on Earth was chasing them on the streets with brickbats. But that was also because they were sipping Expresso Martinis on the Moon 😉. Nothing more about the future can be revealed here - time travel, changing the future, back to the future and all that hogwash. Catch this episode of 3 Techies Banter for a peek into that world.

Predictions. As expected 😉, two main theories provide conflicting explanations. The first claims that we are more likely to perceive what we expect because it is more likely to be there. The second proposes that we are more likely to perceive what we do not expect because it provides more information. That was predictable👻👻👻. The EU-funded ConflictedPrediction project hopes to address this paradox through cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research. It will test a new hypothesis using electroencephalography (EEG), magneto electroencephalography (MEG), and 7 Tesla (7T) MRI to explain how learning could render veridical and informative perceptions. WOW!!!. If nothing else, it will definitely take your minds off predictions. Since these findings will only be available in 2026, we thought we should just go ahead with unbloxing trends 2023 without their wisdom. We hope you enjoy this episode.

When we think immersive, we think about Disney theme parks, Avatar, the movie, ABBA and Van Gogh experiences and more. The more evolved also talk about  29 Rooms and Secret Cinema.  But what are immersive experiences really about? At its heart, it is about making the world a better place through empathy, feeling what the other person is going through, seeing what they are seeing, and being in their shoes. Would the Russian people support the invasion of Ukraine if they could experience what the Ukrainians are going through? How about an immersive experience as a punishment for the rapist instead of the death penalty - what would be worse? If you have anything interesting to share, write to us at 3TB@unblox.com.

Gloom, Doom and yet - a 1000 flowers Bloomed in 2022. 2022 was about the long tail of the pandemic, inflation, multiple humanitarian crises, worldwide climate change, and war in Europe. Wherever you turned, it was hard to escape the sense that things were falling apart. 2022 was also a year of human rights and conservation victories, significant milestones in global health and development, and a welcome boost to clean energy. After all the countless collective hours spent focused on everything MSD (mad, sad and dying) in 2022 (bet you thought we meant Dhoni 🤣😎😉); perhaps it is worth spending half an hour talking about what humanity DID achieve. And if you don't believe us, ask the beavers. If you have anything interesting to share, do write to us at 3TB@unblox.com

Natwarlal (not the Amitabh Bachan type) is best known for selling the Taj Mahal, The Red Fort and the Rashtrapati Bhavan.  Frank Abagnale (Catch Me If You Can fame) impersonated a doctor, a lawyer, and a pilot. He even logged 2 million miles of flying and cleared the bar exam.  Are these cases for better crime detection? Or just the correct use cases for verifiable credentials?  Join us as we talk with our favourite guest, Pramod Varma and unravel the complexities behind this new need of the digital era. If you have anything interesting to share, do write in to us at 3TB@unblox.com

Who is Santa Claus? Is he the source of unending joy and happiness for children worldwide that we have all been led to believe?  Or could he be the first MCU hero with superpowers like super speed, super insight and a super cool ride.  Or, as we, at 3TB, suspect, he is a tech geek who loves playing around with quantum mechanics with the right splattering of AI, digital cloning, warp-speed mobility and other alien tech.  OMG - could Santa be an alien? Find out in the 3TB Christmas special. Look forward to your feedback at 3TB@unblox.com.

Have you ever wanted to be on stage with Pink Floyd or experience Avatar like the Na'vi?  The 3 Techies did something close - we went through a few fantastic tech immersions during our travels to the UK and Ireland and thought it only right to share our insights in this episode. All you need to do is name the three immersive experiences we covered in this episode. (yes, you must listen to the full episode for that). A few lucky comments might experience a surprise coming their way soon! DM us your responses on Insta or write to us at 3TB@unblox.com.

3 Techies Banter operates at the top of the Maslow Hierarchy. Why do we claim that? Well. Who else laughs at their own jokes without a care in the world. And believe us when we say tech jokes are tough to come by 😂. We are very high on self-esteem and love our show. Stands to reason, really. If we don't like our podcast, how can we expect others to? We have had loads of fun making this season 🤪. And since listenership has grown, we can hazard a guess that you have too. Write in your suggestion for an even more fun-filled Season 3 at 3TB@unblox.com. And now for the season finale paradox. Consider a situation where Pinocchio says, "My nose grows now". What happens next?  The nose grows. That means he's speaking the truth, so his nose shouldn't grow. But,  his nose grows only when he lies.  The nose doesn't grow. That means he's lying, and his nose should grow, but it doesn't. That should keep you guys intrigued till we are back. SOON.

A lot of people question if one person wrote the Mahabharata. Maybe, Maybe Not. But the critical question is whether something so complex can ever be written in the modern era irrespective of the number of people used. For those amazed by the Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, remember that the Mahabharata is roughly 7X the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined and 15X the length of the Christian Bible. Amish conducted a pop quiz, asking us the number of Indian manuscripts in existence. We failed miserably. And the number is astounding, especially when we compare it with other ancient civilisations and realise that 95% of these manuscripts are waiting to be deciphered. Imagine the wealth of knowledge just waiting to be rediscovered. That could be the tech project of the century. Any takers? Send us your feedback at 3TB@unblox.com. 

The oldest known written melody is the Hurrian Hymn Number 6, from around 1400 BC. Closer home, Indian classical music is one of the oldest unbroken musical traditions in the world. Its origin can be traced to recitations of Vedic scriptures i.e. 6000 years ago. Similarly, the history of art extends from prehistoric cave paintings thru Byzantine, Baroque, Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism all the way to modern Pop art and Minimalism. The Indus Valley probably marks the recorded start of Indian Art. That is quite a mouthful 😅. Enter Tech. Quite simply, tech allows AUM to all - access, understand and monetise opportunities. And this is the driving engine of the much talked about creator economy. Hence the need for the episode - the mystery of its name is in the episode. And so is an interesting contest with some fun giveaways for our loyal listeners 😎. Those interested, please follow the instructions and write in to us at 3TB@unblox.com.

The illustration is indicative of the times. Even Lord Ganesha sometimes has to supplement the expertise of Mooshak with a more contemporary "mouse". If the gods can keep up with the times, so can you. And the best way is to listen to our podcast regularly. Do keep writing to us with your feedback (3TB@unblox.com). We have some exciting episodes planned for you in the next few weeks. Vakratunda Maha-Kaaya Surya-Kotti Samaprabha Nirvighnam Kuru Me Deva Sarva-Kaaryeshu Sarvadaa || Ganpati Bappa Morya

Did you know that the average human attention span is just 8.25 seconds? (Shorter than a goldfish). That is a 25% drop between 2000 and 2015. We are a hyper-distracted lot.  At the office, we check our email inbox 11 times an hour. We pick up our phone more than 1,500 times weekly, once every 5.5 mins. The average time we watch an internet video is 2.7 minutes. But OTT consumption is spiralling; we consume 38 hours of content every month (equal to a work week). The market is booming; the platforms are losing money - all 10,000. The reason for this is consumer nirvana. Too much choice, too much control and no lock-in, to name just a few. Did you get your daily recommendation of the "not to miss shows" on an OTT platform? Did you watch it or get overwhelmed by all the recommendations and spend that hour you had kept for watching just surfing on all the platforms? Well, the sticky bum syndrome of cinema does not hold you in place for OTT In this episode, we chat with Keertan Adyanthaya, ex-Disney, ex-Fox, ex-Star, ex-MTV, and X-Man (just kidding 😎) to get to the bottom of all this. Do listen to this episode. Record or write in with your feedback.

The Holy Grail of the modern enterprise is the Happy and Motivated Employee. Do you think employees would be more productive, collaborative, happier and super motivated if they had better tech tools? What if you allowed them to relocate whenever they wished to with their pianos and horses at company cost (read musical instruments and pets)? Has the pandemic changed our value systems and what we want in the workplace? How about how you handled emails while you were OOO (Out Of Office, silly)? Do you answer, read and respond to them all? ​Does some AI do it? ​Or delete them and start afresh. After all, someone else on cc would have taken care of it by now. And if it were urgent, they would find you anyhow; not wait for your response via email. Thought-provoking? We thought so too. Listen to this episode on office tech with the 3 Techies. Do record or write in with your feedback.

India is home to 105 unicorns with a total valuation of $ 338.50 B; 19 of these were added to date in 2022. In contrast, France created one unicorn in the last 2 years. Despite this euphoria, we do not fully understand or appreciate the far-reaching impact of the tech industry on India's development march. Apart from being a $200B industry ($178B exports), tech changed the fabric of the nation: Diversity and inclusion - 5M direct employees, 1.8M of whom are women Transparency - first to adopt GAAP reporting; setting corporate governance standards Inclusive Growth - beyond 11 metros to tier 2, 3 and 4 towns Public Digital Infrastructure - Aadhaar, UPI, Co-Win, ONDC, Passport Seva, GST Harish Mehta, one of the band of mavericks who built this industry, joins us in this episode to give us some fantastic insights. Do record or write in with your feedback.

Pascal Bornet talks to us about Intelligent Automation (IA) and the Promise Of A Better Life In 2018 alone, over $5 trillion (6% of global GDP) was lost due to fraud. The economic value of medical errors in the US is almost $1 trillion; 86% of those are administrative. A 2017 Medliminal Healthcare Solutions study found that 80% of US medical billings contain at least minor errors — creating unnecessary annual health care spending of $68 billion. An ILO report “estimates that the annual cost to the global economy from accidents and work-related diseases alone is a staggering $3 trillion.” Making it a total of $10 trillion. Assuming we can save half of that through the deployment of IA. It means: Global budgets allocated to education could more than double Global healthcare budgets could be increased by more than 70% Environmental investments could be multiplied almost twentyfold Need we say more!!! Do record or write in to tell us what you think of this episode.

Don't dig your grave with your own knife and fork says an old English proverb. COVID has made all of us very aware of our overall health and wellness needs. By 2025, India will need an additional 1.5M doctors and 2.2M nurses. Life expectancy at that time will be 70 years with about 90M diabetics. Unless we shift to a new way of looking at managing healthcare, we will be in a constant state of catch-up. Thanks to the 2k+ health tech startups (of which 350+ are funded and 4 are unicorns), we believe the DIY age of health is HERE. India will democratise its way to universal healthcare. Prevent rather than Treat is the new mantra. Have fun listening. Do record or write in to tell us what you think of this episode.

With this episode, we kick off a new theme - Everyday Tech and home automation is a natural choice for a first episode. The earliest reference to a smart home we found was a short story by Ray Bradbury in 1950 called “There Will Come Soft Rains”. It was about a smart house going about its daily routine in the year 2026. It wakes the family, cooks a perfect breakfast, cleans the tables, and so on. The story does have a morbid undertone - but more of that later. From fiction to nerdiness. Intended for residential networks only, UPnP is a set of networking protocols that allows devices to discover each other and work together without active manual configuration. Sounds a bit like the United Nations of networking 😉. We also dig into the psyche of burglars and their nemesis - modern alarm systems. Hope you enjoy the episode. Do record or write in to tell us what you think of this episode.

Yes - this is a long episode.  But so is every story worth listening to.  Imagine Frodo reaching Mordor in 30 min OR Bran Stark ascending the Iron Throne in an hour OR Thanos dying in a single movie Could the Wachowskis have made Matrix as a 30 min video or Francis Ford Coppola made Godfather as a short film? These are rhetorical questions really!  Some data snapshots of UPI UPI transactions are equal to all debit and credit card transactions in the country 40% of payments (by value) are digital now making India a $3 trillion digital payment market expected to be $10 trillion by 2026 Most important, 50% of transactions through UPI were below Rs 200. If you liked the previous episode, you will be super thrilled to listen to Pramod talk about his 1+ method to drive irreversible change, how UPI got its name and his take on jugaad. Do record or write in to tell us what you think of this episode.

Kicking off our "Been There, Done That" Series with the Chief Architect of the India Stack, Pramod Varma. In this multi-part tête-à-tête with him, we naturally begin with what started it all - Aadhaar. Rather than get into complex descriptions, we thought we will just leave you with some facts: Trust - 90% of people trust that their data are safe in the Aadhaar system and 61% of welfare beneficiaries trust that Aadhaar prevents others from accessing their benefits Inclusion - 49% of people used Aadhaar to access one or more services for the very first time (e.g., ration, MGNREGS, social pensions, SIM cards, and/or bank accounts). For 8% of people, Aadhaar was their first ID ever Service Delivery - 80% of beneficiaries feel Aadhaar has made PDS rations, MGNREGS and social pensions more reliable. Using Aadhaar, residents were 40% more likely to obtain a new SIM card within one day, compared to using other forms of ID e-KYC - The World Bank estimates that Aadhaar brought down the customer onboarding cost for an Indian bank from $23 to just $0.15 Just remember, 100 million people is considered to be a decent pilot in India 😉. Do record or write in to tell us what you think of this episode.

Roti, Kapda aur Makaan, The Three Musketeers, the 3 Little Pigs and 3 Idiots are just a few of the many good things that come in threes. And this phenomenon has been used to express some of history's most powerful ideas as well. “Veni, Vidi, Vici.” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) Julius Caesar. “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.“ (“Liberty. Equality. Fraternity.”) The national motto of France. “Citius, Altius, Fortius.” (Swifter, higher, stronger”) The Olympic motto Aristotle observed that people find it easiest to remember three things. The rule of three started with his writing, “The Rhetoric;” In fact, the use of the rule of three is also referred to as rhetoric. The India Stack is also made up of three major components: Aadhar, UPI and ONDC (the focus of this episode).  Many of the world’s most lasting jokes begin with three people walking into a bar (a priest, a reverend, and a rabbi or an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician).Given the popularity of the Rule of three, it should not come as any surprise that our podcast is called Three Techies Banter. We would love to hear back from you. Do record or write in to tell us what you think of the show.